Campsite

It took a while for Kane to recover. He sat up when he was feeling slightly better. He turned to the side and looked at the deer he just killed.

It was only now that he realized how hard the fight was. The deer had lost its antlers. It had five arrows in its neck and four more in its torso. His combat knife which was sticking out of the deer's neck almost decapitated it.

There was blood everywhere. He took his knife and cut open the deer's chest to extract its core. The knife was rated at the peak of the grunt realm so it was not too difficult to cut open the deer.

After extracting its core, he swam over to the other side of the lake to retrieve the baby deer's body. He didn't cut it open yet but brought it back to his side of the lake because he was afraid he might get ambushed while he was busy.

When he cut open the baby deer's body, he was mildly disappointed because it had not even condensed its core. At least he got a tier 5 grunt realm core.

It took him 2 hours to cut up the deer meat into small pieces and washed them in the lake before putting them into his waist pack.

He quickly dig a hole in the ground and buried the remains as he thought the smell of blood would attract other beasts if left out in the open.

When he was about to leave, he took out some empty cans and filled them with water from the lake. He was not going to drink it just yet and only collected it as a last resort.

He knew that the water was not safe to drink and he was also not afraid of contracting something nasty, it was just that he was disgusted by the thought of drinking stagnant water which was also used by the beasts local to the area.

He went back to the clearing he was at that morning. He decided to make this his campsite because beasts were active in areas on the other side of the lake.

He made a fire and began grilling the meat after he seasoned it with some salt and other spices.

He took out his hunter association identity card and noticed a change in three entries

Class: Grunt realm, tier 5

Status: Novice (300,300 contribution points)

Contribution points: 194,000

It seemed like he gained a total of 300 contribution points after killing the two deer. He quickly bought a recurve bow which was rated at tier 9 grunt realm and thirty of its corresponding arrows. The total cost amounted to 69,000 contribution points. He was left with 125,000 contribution points.

The bow and arrows were teleported over in front of him. He placed the arrows in his quiver and picked up the bow. He tried to pull the bowstring and noticed that he could not fully extend it even when he pulled with all his might.

He was pleased with his purchase. If he used this bow in his fight with the deer, he was sure that it would not be able to dodge his first shot.

With every preparation made, he finally brought out the core he got from the deer. It was only a tier 5 grunt realm core so he was not afraid of being knocked out from the pain from his body adjusting to excess energy.

He quickly crushed the core and poured the powder into a glass tube before adding water and mixing the contents.

He did not even wait to steel his resolve before tipping the mixture into his mouth and swallowing in one gulp. The mixture left a cold sensation along its path toward Kane's stomach.

Kane sat still for a while as he felt the painful changes occurring in every part of his body. After a while, every blood vessel in his body became visible and was emitting a faint blue light.

…

Back at the lake, on the side where Kane killed the baby deer. A gray wolf that was three feet tall slowly walked out from a cluster of trees. It approached a patch of blood-stained soil and sniffed it.

After a while, it raised its head and looked at the opposite bank of the lake. It quickly dashed into the lake and swam to the other side. When it got out of the water, it ran to the spot where Kane killed the deer. After investigating the ground which was previously soaked in blood and was not properly concealed by Kane, it also visited the place where the remains of the deer were buried.

A few moments later, it raised its head and looked in the direction where Kane set up camp.

…

After about two hours later Kane opened his eyes and let out a sigh. He had successfully advanced into tier 6 of the grunt realm.

Previously, after using five tier 9 grunt realm cores, he only advanced into the peak of tier 5 of the grunt realm. This was because, instead of directly dying due to energy overload like normal people, his body tried many ways to adapt to the sudden surge of energy that flowed into him. One of those methods also included expelling much of the energy which he could not absorb.

Now that he had adapted to the high influx of energy into his core, his efficiency of absorbing energy from cores undoubtedly improved. If his master was not in a hurry to improve his strength, he would have used low leveled cores first before using the tier 9 cores.

Kane brought out his bow and drew the bowstring. He confirmed that his strength had improved once again as he could now draw the bowstring further back than he did the previous time.

He sent his bow back into his wait pack as he began training according to the instructions in his strength tempering manual. He had to get used to his body before he gets into another fight.

Nightfall quickly came. After eating dinner grilled meat, he made a campfire as he was quite sure that there were no beasts in this part of the forest.

He suddenly shivered a little as he noticed that something was off.