Luke leaned his back against the trunk of a giant tree. In the depths of the forest all the trees were a giants, and if he tio advance even further he could even find some trees that had ehe path of evolution. In this world, pnts could also cultivate spiritual energy. Iy, every living being absorbs the spiritual energy of the universe unsciously, but the time it takes for this passively absorbed energy to have visible effects on the anism is extremely long. Only after a few thousand years of abs energy could these trees mutate. How long would it take for a person who wao do the same? It was impossible. That's iritual cultivation teiques were for, created to speed up the absorption process.

  Luke looked at the wound on his left arm, it wasn't that deep, but it was bleeding quite a bit. He pressed the wound with his right hand and a white light covered his wound. It was a basic healing spell. In his previous life he had studied the branedial sorcery exhaustively, however with his current mana level he could only use a few basic spells to disihe wound. There was no other option, he had been so busy cultivating his spiritual power and training his body that he had not had time to cultivate the mana, which was necessary to perform more powerful spells. Right now he was using the i mana of any living being. If his sorcery level was listed on his status panel, it would be zero.

  After using the spell he took out a bandage from his backpad pressed it tightly around his wound.

  “I k wasn’t going to be easy to plete this mission, but the beasts in this forest are even strohan I expected. I guess there’s a reason it’s cssified as one of the forbidden areas of the ti.”

  Luke rested for a while drinking water aing some smoked meat he had prepared the night before.

  He looked at the progress of the hunting quest: 1,014/100,000

  “It took me a day to plete 1%.”He felt mixed emotions as he thought about his progress. He was certainly advang quickly sidering his current level, but he still felt like he was going too slowly. Perhaps he hadn’t mentally gotteo the fact that he was no lohe almighty Luke from his past life, but just a teeaking his first steps in the world.

  “It doesn’t matter, I just have to focus on hunting and not think about anything else.”

  He took out the map and looked at his current position. He was about to enter one of the territories marked as dangerous. On the map he had bought, there were several areas marked with a symbol indig dahese areas were the knowories of powerful beasts.

  “So far I have been fag solitary low-level beasts, but if I tinue on I will probably enter packs of beasts. After all, I don't think that high-level solitary beasts are in this area where the spiritual energy is not so dense.”

  In the forest, the beast territories were formed around the amount of spiritual energy. For example, Lunaria, the city of the Lunaris, had a rge amount of spiritual energy, and as one moves away from the city, the energy bees less dehroughout the forest, the spiritual energy was not uniform, there were epiters where the energy was very high, and an area of ??decrease as one moved away from the epiter. The beast territories were formed in the same way. In the ter where the energy was de, there was usually a single beast, which was the owner of the territory, and then in the subsequent yers, the lower-level beasts were arranged. If these territories were seen on a map, they would look like rge circles that overp each other like a Venn diagram.Luke's map didn't have the beast territories marked iail, but it did have a mark indig the dangerous areas, which were those close to the epiter.

  “Anyway, let's see what I find. I also have to keep a for a mounts, although anything worthwhile would have to be at least the ruler of a territory.”

  Luke set off again.

  “This hybrid that his majesty asked us to protect is quite brave, with his cultivation level he dares to ehe territory of the elemental monkeys.”

  “With the level of bat he has shown so far he shouldn't have any problems unless he faces the primordial pack. After all, the Monkey Patriarch is the most powerful beast in this territory, if we exclude the sn who lives in the epiter, of course.”

  “In any case, we have to be vigint. Even if we 't see them, that damn group of Shadows must be lurking nearby waiting for an opportunity to act.”

  The group of elite royal guards followed Luke from a safe distance. A little further away, the group of Shadows advanced silently, blending into the ndscape in an infallible camoufge.

  After advang a few miles, Luke finally sehe ge in the density of spiritual energy. He climbed onto a tree brand observed his surroundings. Some on animals and low-level beasts were living their usual lives. Despite being the territory of high-level beasts, there was a plete ecosystem, the food simply had one more step.

  In the distance, he spotted his prey.

  *Elemental Monkey (Fire):Level 3 Spiritual Beast- Health: 55- Build: 65- Strength: 87- Agility: 75- Mana: 120*

  These level 3 monkeys should be the most powerful beasts outside the epiter. The cultivation of beasts was different from that of humans. Beasts did not use cultivation teiques, but were able to absorb spiritual energy using their bloodlihe stroheir bloodlihe faster they could absorb energy. In theory, the cultivation teiques used by humans had been designed from these primal teiques used by beasts in aimes.The cultivation levels of humans as, despite cultivating through differehods, maintained a sisten terms of the amount of power they could exert.In other words, a level 3 beast was roughly equivalent to a human with a level 3 cultivation.

  Luke noticed that the monkey was not alone. o it were three other monkeys, two more of fire and one of wind. The wind elemental monkey had much mility thahers, exceeding 100 points.

  “It’s a species that moves in packs, if they are small groups like this I shouldn’t have a problem getting rid of them” Luke said calg his moves.

  Without much hesitation he went into a.He took out his bow and fired four arrows in succession. Each arrow was imbued with wind elemental energy, whicreased its power and speed.One of the arrows hit one of the fire monkeys in the chest, but it only peed the skin and did not cause a fatal wound, the other arrows met the same fate.The monkeys, seeing themselves suddenly attacked, were first surprised sihey were used to being at the top of the food and then immediately entered a state of frenzy driven by anger. Beasts with cultivation levels have a bit of wisdom and are not simple beasts without thought. They could experiene plex emotions such as pride. And Luke’s attack had hurt that pride.

  The monkeys quickly located Luke in the distand immediately uhemselves at him. Luke fired a couple more arrows but they were destroyed in mid-flight by the monkeys, they didn't eveo use their elemental powers to do so, they just had to shake their arms disdainfully to destroy them.Luke sighed. It was at these moments that the importance of having good equipment was seen. If he had arrows made of a good material, he could have caused great damage with the first shots, and even killed them.

  Luke pulled out his short sword and used his movement teique. He immediately disappeared from where he was standing. The monkeys stopped in surprise, not expeg the human to suddenly disappear. The movement teique Luke was using was one he himself had developed in his previous life, from other teiques provided by the system. It was not a on teique, if it weren't for Luke's current body not being able to exert its full power, the elemental monkeys would not have the ce to see even Luke's shadow again before falling dead. But there aren't that many "what ifs" in the world.

  Luke appeared behind the wind elemental monkey and with a decisive attack he cut its throat. Taken by surprise, the monkey could do nothing but grab its ne agony and die relutly.

  "Well, at least I was able to get rid of the most troublesome ohat speed could have been annoying if the fight drags on" Luke said as he shook the sword, wiping the blood off the bde.

  The other three monkeys, seeing their panion die, entered a state of mania and began to spit fireballs at high speed. Luke dodged them as best he could using his normal speed, his movement teique put too much stress on his body.

  However, one of the fireballs hit him directly in the chest leaving a bck mark on the armor that had also been reinforced with magic.

  "Their attacks are strohan I expected. I 't let them hit me anymore or the armor will be ruined" He tihinking out loud, reasoning the battle. It was a bad habit he had picked up at the magic academy in his previous life.

  He pulled out a dagger and threw it at high speed at one of the monkeys, at the same time he ran towards it with his sword in hand. The monkey dodged the dagger but couldn't avoid the sword ssh that decapitated him on the spot.

  “One down”

  Luke threw his ger again, but this time the monkey didn't dodge it, fearing he wouldn't be able to ter his attack. Luke smiled slightly, and with a movement of his hand, the dagger ged dire and embedded itself in the monkey's throat, taking its life.Luke pulled the invisible wires in his hands and both daggers returo him.

  “Well, there's still o”

  Seeing all of his panions dead, the remaining elemental monkey felt afraid of the human in front of him for the first time. He turned around trying to run away.Luke watched him without moving.

  “Mmm, let me try something for a moment. Since you're not going to tinue fighting, you might as well be the perfect test subject.”

  He raised his sword to the sky, then swung it down violently.A visible energy wave emanated from the sword's bde and headed at high speed towards the fleeing monkey. In an instant, the ierced the monkey, splitting it in half. Both halves of the monkey fell to the ground in the distance, a bloody se.

  Luke exhaled a breath.

  “Ugh, it's still difficult to use in bat. But it could serve as a surprise card. However, it es a lot of energy, if I fail to finish off the oppo I will be vulnerable. For now, it's best to leave it as a st resort.”

  Luke looked at the hunting mission score: 1378

  “These four level three monkeys gave me 364 points. It's less than a hundred points each, but it's still quite a lot. It took me more than a day to accumute a thousand points, but in just a few minutes I was able to get more than a third of that.”

  However, Luke khat although it seemed like he had elimihe four monkeys with ease, he had actually ed a great deal of power. If there had been one or two more monkeys, he might have had to fight tooth and nail, and would have ended up with injuries. In addition, he could not tiag tinuously since he had to rest and recover the spiritual energy he had ed.

  Luke looked deep into the forest, thinking that there was still a lot of work ahead of him. He took the stones from the foreheads of the elemental monkeys, checked his equipment, and tinued advang. Out of the er of his eye, he observed the forest behind him and thought, “Those who are following me, waiting to attack me, will have to recalcute my bat power, right? Perhaps that will make them even more cautious.”

  Luke was always alert. Although he could not discover their location, he khat there were people following him. However, he was not worried. If it came to it, he had a few aces up his sleeve to get out of it, although he preferred not to use them if it wasn't necessary, his body wasn't prepared to withstand most of his teiques.

  “Now I uand why his majesty asked us to protect this hybrid…”

  “Yes, I would never have expected that being so young he could master the sword to that level, he even gee sword energy!”

  “He is certainly a genius. If he is given time to grow, he will surely reach the top of the ti”

  “But then, if we take into at the i of the purity level of his bloodline, do you think his majesty is pnning-”

  “Silence! Say no more. His majesty gave the explicit order that no one could speak about it. As for whatever pns his majesty may have, it doesn't us. All we have to do is do our job well”

  The group fell silent. They tio follow the young boy who was advang deeper and deeper into the territory of the elemental monkeys. But in their hearts they kept thinking, “It’s not possible… Right?”

  ....................................................................................................................................................................................

  In a vilge oskirts of the Austral Kingdom's territory, b the great forest cssified as forbiddeory for humanity, a young nobleman dressed iiful and ostentatious armor stood with his arms crossed, looking at the se before him with a sly smile.In front of him, one of the soldiers under his and was holding a battered-looking old woman by the neck. The old woman was hanging in the air, one of her arms broken and hanging limply at the side of her body. She slowly felt herself running out of air, and her despair was growing. She kicked out trying to hit the robust man who stood like a mountain in front of her, while with her good arm she beat the man's arms with resignation.

  The nobleman who was enjoying the se finally spoke.

  "A futile resistance. And I'm not just referring to this moment. From the beginning, from when they decided to escape and hide, everything was nothing but a futile resistance. In the first pce, there is o escape. Or do you think we would let such dangerous enemies free?”

  The old woman obviously couldn’t answer. But the young nobleman didn’t care and tinued speaking.

  “The Lyriksen lineage must e to an end, only then we take all their nds without fear of future problems.”

  The old woman began to urinate as she lost trol over her muscles.The young man showed a gesture of disgust and made a sign to his subordihe breaking sound ehe life of the old woman, who fell to the ground colpsed like a doll after the soldier released her.The young nobleman tinued speaking as if nothing had happened.

  “To begin with, we have already eliminated all of their loyal servants, all of the close and distant family has beeroyed, the heir that they mao save with so much effort must be right now iomach of a beast or executed by the Lunaris. And the three remaining children. Well, we could let them follow the same fate as their older brother, but it is always better to be safe, right?”

  The young nobleman turned his gaze towards the nearby forest, where three children had fled. He turned around and began walking towards his carriage that was nearby. Meanwhile he gave his orders to the soldiers.

  “Track dowhree survivors, I want you t me their heads, and if not, at least firm their death.”

  “Yes! Your Majesty Firis!”

  The soldiers responded and immediately headed towards the forest.But just at that moment, a whistle rang out in the ears of everyone present.Firis turned around and saw an old man with a mangy appearance, who looked like a vagabond, ing out of the forest, walking with his arms behind his bad whistling a tune.

  Firis frowned. He didn't know why, but the old man ing out of the forest made him feel aversion.He was used to ag haughty, and to his will being the w.That is why he gave another order without hesitation.“Kill that filthy old man,” he said without hiding his displeasure towards the man.

  The soldiers responded affirmatively. The same soldier who had finished off the old woman moments before approached the old man to carry out his young master’s orders. However, wheried to raise his arm, he realized with perplexity that he had no arm to raise. He wao scream, but before he could make a sound everythi bck, forever drowning out any possible a.

  Firis saw it all from a distance. First, his subordinate’s arms appeared in the old man’s hands. His subordinate was standing there like a statue, without arms. And almost immediately, his subordinate’s body turned into ashes that floated away with the wind.

  Firis began to tremble, terrified, at the events that unfolded before his eyes.The old man, without stopping his ace, and without stopping whistling, tinued walking without paying attention to the soldiers.The soldiers present began to dissolve into ash oer another. In a matter of seds only the old man and Firis were left present.

  Now it was Firis' turn to urinate on himself. The terror he felt at this moment was indescribable.The old man walked past him, pletely ign him, and tinued walking while whistling the cheerful tune.

  Just when Firis thought that the old man was going to pletely ignore him, he heard his raspy voice.

  “Hey, shit. Do me a favor, when you see the universal sve, tell him that I will be waiting for him at the magic academy.”

  Firis felt every hair on his body stand up. He struggled to speak.

  “S-Sve? Who is it?”

  “The person who is going to kill you. Just remember to give him my message before you die. Don’t fet, I’m telling you for your own good, you little shit.”

  Firis stood frozen, not knowing what to answer. But the old man tinued walking, moving further and further away. The wind brought him a few st words, but they weren’t directed at him.

  “Mmm where should I go now? I guess I should go see the Lord of Chaos, I don’t want him to bother the Universal Sve until his system levels up a bit. Mmm, but I don’t want to see him, it’s so hard to deal with lunatics.”

  The old man’s muttering tinued, but Firis couldn’t hear him anymore.