Entering the cave

Next, he set up the tent close to the campfire, he sat down next to it as he took out foods from his space ring. Foods in this world didn't taste as good as he had imagined; its tasted bland, hard to chew on, and a bit hard to swallow.

Ren Ying stared at the burning campfire while crunching on his tasteless foods. People who made foods in this world rarely paid any attention to its flavor, but it doesn't matter even if they did focus on its taste, since he wouldn't be able to pay as much as those higher-realm cultivators.

This reminded Ren Ying of how delicious and affordable foods were back on his planet, as people focused on improving its taste, healthiness, and affordability, unlike in the cultivation world. He sighed loudly as he wished he could eat all those foods one last time.

But soon, he shook his head and stopped himself from being nostalgic. Ren Ying knew it was close to impossible to go back to his planet; it was better to forget his past life and focus on surviving and reaching a higher height in this new wonderful world.

He went inside his tent, lied down as he glanced at the pointy ceiling, reflecting on his carefulness improvement after coming to this world.

When he reached the cave entrance, Ren Ying peered into the cave but saw nothing except darkness. Seeing this, he decided to postpone his exploration of the cave to tomorrow morning for better visibility.

Caves in a cultivation world were mostly dangerous to enter, because of the creatures living in those unforeseeable places. Those creatures were evolved to adapt to a cave-like environment, increasing their survival ability and the danger it could give off; thus, Ren Ying could only helplessly enter at morning, when advantages were on his side.

Beside Ren Ying doesn't know whether something would happen to him unexpectedly on this trip or not, because nothing was absolute, including the future. So, he wanted to spend this time to recover both his stamina and spiritual Qi that he had used during his first battle.

This choice allowed Ren Ying to take the rest that he needed, not only physically but mentally too, since he had gotten his hands dirty for the first time in this world.

During the first hour of having his eyes closed, he couldn't fall asleep. The scene of him taking Liang Chen's life kept on repeating again and again inside his mind, trying to haunt him. But after watching the scene nonstop for an hour, Ren Ying gradually got less emotional when he saw that moment replaying inside his mind.

Without knowing it, his eyelids that were slowly turning heavy were finally fully closed, and along with the relaxation of his entire muscles, Ren Ying had ultimately fallen asleep into the world of dreams.

...

When Ren Ying woke up, he noticed a small shadow moving up and down continuously outside his tent. He used Thunder Trace nervously and appeared far away from his tent while his eyes were looking around it.

Upon seeing it, Ren Ying froze up but turned to smirk awkwardly as he laughed lightly at himself. The thing that made him tense up was unexpectedly the small Spiky Rabbit.

The spiky rabbit looked at him confusedly; it wondered why this human had acted out this way.

"Ah... you little guy, you scared me for a second." Ren Ying spoke with a touch of annoyance as he rolled his eyes.

Knowing that he had misunderstood the situation, Ren Ying no longer paid it any attention.

He turned his head up to observe the rising sun, which indicated that the time hadn't passed evening yet.

"Its good that I didn't overslept." Ren Ying said while yawning as he stretched his whole body.

After he stopped yawning, Ren Ying placed his tent on the space ring along with other things that could be reused later on.

"Good bye, little guy." He smiled happily and said jokingly to the spiky rabbit.

Today would be the day that he entered the cave; inside that cave would be the opportunity that was suitable for him. Though there could be some danger, it still didn't ruin his mood much.

He knew that dangers and opportunities were like one coin. So if you sought opportunities, you had to be prepared for the dangers that came with them.

Ren Ying, who hadn't rushed into the cave directly, instead took his time recovering, was now full of energies that he would use to face all those dangers and claimed the opportunities as his own.

He cleaned up his trace of staying here overnight, then he headed to the entrance of the cave.

Soon he arrived at the entry point of it. Last night he couldn't take a look at it clearly due to the lack of lights. Now that its morning, he could see its appearance and size accurately.

Judging by the entrance of the cave, people would often judge it as a normal cave without much space inside, allowing the opportunity in the cave to stay hidden after all this time.

He saw nothing off about it and decided to stop paying it any attention. Then he brought out a torch, lit it up by using the steel and flint from last night.

This time, Ren Ying unexpectedly lit the torch on fire without taking as long as last night, thanks to his experiences from before.

"Here I come." He lifted up the lit torch ahead of him and made his way into the cave.

Once inside, Ren Ying was instantly hit by a cold and chilly air, which was the opposite of the air outside. This sudden change made him a bit hesitate to move forward.

He ignored that thought and continued to survey the surrounding area.

The tunnel was so narrow that only one person could access it at a time, while the space was enclosed by the barely visible cave walls. The cave walls were rough and crooked, its corners and shapes were constantly flickering with the warm light released by the torch, casting their shadow onto the lower layer, giving off a creepy vibe.

All of this combined made it challenging for people who feared being in a small place and the unknown thing that they couldn't see with their own eyes. Ren Ying breathed in deeply at the thought of unknown things.

He could only see within the area close to the torch; beyond that was pure darkness full of unknown things that could perhaps place his life at risk. He couldn't tell how far or where this passage would take him, what creatures, or what harmful substance would await him.

Luckily, he didn't need to find the passage to the opportunity place by himself. If it were normal people, they would struggle to find their way out when exploring deeper into the cave, not to mention successfully finding the opportunity and exiting afterward.

Though it would still be impossible for them to encounter an opportunity, even if they could pinpoint and remember every passage in it, because every opportunity was meant to be in the hand of the fateful person, or a person like Ren Ying who could see and snatch their opportunities without them even knowing.

Ren Ying recalled the knowledge learnt through experience in his memory as he walked slowly deeper into the cave.

He navigated inside the cave purely based on what he saw using his innate pupil.

...

After an unknown amount of time being in the cave, he kept on going far down while remaining careful with every step he took.

Then, all of a sudden, a droplet of water dripped down from the pitch-black ceiling that the light emitted from the torch couldn't reach, hitting his face.

He paused his movement to check the liquid that slowly sank into his face. Ren Ying wiped away the water immediately and checked it. 

Seeing that it was nothing extraordinary, he continued walking, but just as he had taken one step forward.

The sound of wings flapping and echoing loudly throughout the dead quiet cave entered his ear. Ren Ying gripped tightly onto the sword that he took out after reaching a bigger cave space.

His muscles were tensed up as he blended his weapon in thunder.

With the help of his innate pupil, Ren Ying could know about the appearance of these creatures in advance; thus, he had already prepared his mentality to face off with them.

As the water droplet hit the ground, the bats finally entered within the torch range.

"Thunder Bat..." Ren Ying stared at it and its surroundings hardly, seemingly looking for something other than the single bat.

When he didn't hear other things from within the darkness far from his torch range, Ren Ying turned his attention to the single bat flying toward him.

He swung his recently obtained two-star weapon up blended with thunder toward the bat that flew slowly in his eye.

Zzzzzz

After the sword cuts the bat in half, its wings stop flapping as it falls down to the solid ground.

Ren Ying didn't spare this bat anymore seconds; he inserted his sword onto the rock beneath him and gazed far into the space of the unknown.

Just when he was about to yawn out of boredom, he heard countless sounds of wings flapping with the addition of some passive thunder roar from afar.

"After sending one of their own to death, the main troop finally makes its appearance to jump me over and take their revenge for its lost soldier—an eye for an eye, huh?" Ren Ying clicked his tongue as he could somehow recognize the pattern of it.