I had a plan. My intent was to spread my bloodlust in a ring around myself, gradually tightening it to herd all the monsters I could into a single spot, where I would finish them off. But I quickly realized a problem: first-class monsters, which made up the vast majority, simply dropped dead from sheer terror upon sensing my bloodlust. And since I couldn’t sense or locate dead monsters, I was losing valuable cores. This, in turn, undermined the very reason I had come to the Misty Forest.


    — Damn it! — I scratched the back of my head after my second attempt. Ninety-five percent of the cores were lost in just these two tries.


    I needed a new plan immediately. I pulled out the map Heck had given me. It was made from a large piece of grayish-blue leather, with the borders of several duchies, kingdoms, and the Northern Empire burned into it with hot iron. Roads, rivers, lakes, forests, villages, and cities were also marked in great detail.


    “Smear a drop of blood on the top right corner, and the map will show your location.”


    That note, written in Mia’s handwriting, was pinned to the map. Hmm. I pricked my finger with a knife and pressed it to the designated corner. Instantly, a golden dot lit up at the bottom of the map, right on the border between the Duchy of Atun and the Misty Forest.


    Holy hell, this forest was almost the size of an entire duchy! And I planned to clear it within a month? That would take years!


    I ran through every possible idea in my head. Not that there were many… Well, I did have a movement technique I called Twenty-Seven Sequential Steps. Since becoming a Battle Master, I had only used it once—when fighting the guards in the ducal court. Maybe now, this technique would finally reveal its full potential.


    I pulled out my short spear, extended my senses to their maximum, locating every monster in the area, and calculated the most efficient route to reach them all.


    — First sequential step… — I whispered, barely moving my lips.


    And to any outside observer, I vanished.


    I stopped an hour later, having cleared the zone. Estimating the area I had covered compared to the total size of the forest, it was about half a percent. Not bad. At this pace, I’d need to work around eight hours a day to meet my deadline. As of now, I had enough strength left for another hour of work, but I decided not to rush and took a break.


    Inside my storage, I had over a thousand first-class cores, a few dozen second-class, and a single third-class core. A mere drop in the ocean, but as the saying goes, copper by copper makes gold.


    I set up a magic circle with runes to absorb the cores. Sitting in a lotus position, I sank into meditation. Mana flowed into me in gentle waves, spreading throughout my body. Though my strength hadn’t significantly increased, when I rose to my feet, I felt fully rested.


    — Round two! — I said, raising my spear.


    Many days passed in this manner. Thanks to my speed and knowledge from the Monster Encyclopedia, slaying them was easy—even third-class monsters couldn’t withstand a single hit from me since I knew their weak points. The only real trouble came from flying monsters, but the bows and arrows from Grace’s storage proved invaluable.


    I sat by a campfire, roasting a gatho thigh, as my supply packs from Heck had run dry.


    At that moment, I was holding a large bundle containing dozens of identical small glass jars. “Spices and Seasonings,” Mia had labeled it.


    — Oh, thanks a lot, you redheaded cat-girl. Was it really so hard to label each jar separately?


    After sniffing them one by one for several minutes, I could no longer feel my nose at all.


    — That damn woman! She did this on purpose, I swear! — I grabbed one of the jars I had sniffed early on and generously sprinkled its contents over the meat.


    Something felt off. Suddenly, I sensed something powerful approaching at lightning speed.


    A storm of earth and shattered trees flew toward me, followed by a blast like an explosion. Through the debris-filled air, I saw the epicenter— a man in battered armor, his wounds leaking red blood through torn metal.


    — Damn bastard! — he snarled, swallowing a pill.


    His wounds sealed instantly. He crouched, tensed his legs, and shot back in the direction he had come from, almost as fast as before.


    I glanced at my ruined meal, then at the wide swath of destruction his body had carved through the forest.


    — Son of a—! — I yelled after him.


    I had spent so much time cooking, and this idiot obliterated everything, not even bothering to apologize?!


    — Infuriating! — I shouted up at the sky.


    I searched for any trace of my dinner. Nothing. It was all completely destroyed, mixed with dirt and debris.


    Not far away, I could hear the sounds of battle. Whoever was fighting must have been strong—after all, that guy had been a Battle Ancestor, and someone had managed to beat him to a pulp?


    Was it a monster, or just humans fighting among themselves? I was curious, but I also knew that battles of this level were far beyond me. Even a single direct hit from someone at the Battle Ancestor level could kill me.


    But… no one said I couldn’t watch from a distance.


    So, I ran towards a battle.


    On a vast clearing that had recently been a forest, four figures clashed—three humans and a monster. One of them, the one who had so unexpectedly visited me, was indeed a Battle Ancestor—I could see that clearly now. The other two, an older man and a woman, were mages, though I couldn’t tell their circle.


    Together, they were trying to take down some monster. I looked at it more closely. A Shkrakh! A fifth-class monster! What was it doing here? Shkrakhs always lived high in the snow-covered mountains and were usually non-aggressive creatures, preferring to avoid fights rather than seek them out.


    There was only one thing that could drive a Shkrakh into a frenzy—someone had stolen its Snow Crystal, a rare and precious mineral that Shkrakhs found in the mountain snows and used to enhance their strength. Idiots.


    Although technically classified as fifth-class monsters with blue cores, their power often reached the sixth class. In addition to their physical strength, they wielded ice-element magic with great skill, making battles with them extremely dangerous.


    Shkrakhs were humanoid monsters with frog-like heads, large jaws filled with sharp blue fangs, and enormous leathery wings on their backs. These wings weren’t just for flight—they were weapons, lined with razor-sharp blue blades capable of slicing a Battle Master in half with a single strike.


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Right now, one of the Shkrakh’s wings was hanging limply, nearly severed by the Battle Ancestor’s axe. Ice blades flickered around it, blocking the warrior’s lightning-fast attacks. The Ancestor struck whenever he could, aiming for narrow gaps between the mana shields that the mage woman was using to try and restrain the monster’s movements.


    The old mage, who wielded the element of wood, repeatedly tried to ensnare the Shkrakh’s legs with long magical vines tipped with large red flowers. But both the woman’s mana shields and the monster’s ice blades interfered with his efforts.


    — Again! — the old mage shouted, thrusting his hands into the ground.


    Suddenly, fresh vines shot up beneath the Shkrakh’s feet, stabbing into its ankles and calves. Tiny buds pulsed along the monster’s veins, growing from within and splitting its skin open as they bloomed into large crimson flowers.


    The monster let out a piercing scream as the Battle Ancestor’s axe struck again. The fight seemed nearly over. But the Shkrakh had other plans.


    For a moment, its entire body was covered in frost. The flowers that had just bloomed blackened instantly and crumbled to ash.


    The old mage gasped, trying to pull his hands from the ground, but it was too late. A surge of deadly cold raced through the vines, spread beneath the earth, and in the blink of an eye, the mage’s body froze solid. He stood on all fours, motionless—a statue of ice.


    — Gas! — the female mage screamed in despair.


    That was her mistake. For just a moment, she lost focus. Her mana shields slowed.


    The Shkrakh’s eyes gleamed with fury, and several ice blades shot forward. One of them shattered the frozen mage’s body into countless icy fragments, which scattered across the clearing.


    More blades flew toward the female mage. In terror, she pulled her shields away from the monster to protect herself instead.


    The Battle Ancestor, who was closest to the Shkrakh, had to block several blades aimed directly at his head with his axe. It threw off his stance—and the Shkrakh took advantage.


    With a lightning-fast strike from its undamaged wing, it slammed the warrior in the stomach. His body flew through the air like a cannonball, crashing into the shields the mage had just raised, shattering them completely. Both of them tumbled across the ground.


    Now! The thought struck me. This was my one chance. The single moment when the Shkrakh would be utterly vulnerable.


    When their enemies were already down, Shkrakhs always launched one final, unavoidable attack—a strike so fast they couldn’t stop or alter its trajectory.


    I sprang into action, running in a wide arc to position the fallen mage and warrior directly between me and the monster. This was risky. I suppressed my aura, calming the bloodlust.


    — Just a target. It’s just a target, and I need to hit it perfectly. — I repeated to myself.


    Reaching my position, I drew my best bow and nocked my finest arrow. I poured nearly all my aura into it and took aim. Lower. When they execute this attack, they crouch—about thirty percent of their height. I waited.


    The Shkrakh crouched and froze in preparation for its strike, eyes locked solely on the mage and Battle Ancestor, oblivious to me.


    Its tail straightened, stretched taut.


    I released the arrow.


    The monster lunged.


    My arrow and the Shkrakh’s head met midair, halfway between the point of attack and its target.


    I don’t know if it saw death coming, but it had no time to react.


    The arrow buried itself in its eye, and its head exploded—splitting into an upper and lower half. Its body, still propelled forward by momentum, flew several more meters past the fallen fighters before crashing to the ground.


    I immediately stored the monster’s corpse in my spatial vault.


    I did it! I killed a fifth-class monster! Sure, it had already been badly wounded, and I had attacked from ambush—but still, damn it, a fifth-class!


    — Put it back! That’s ours!


    I turned to the female mage.


    — Lady, are you out of your mind? Instead of thanking me for saving your life, you want to take the kill I made myself? Is your head screwed on right?


    — Lady?! Out of my mind?! I’ll rip your head off, you little brat! Give me that corpse now!


    — Gods, you’re old and still this stupid? Be grateful I didn’t kill you both to take the Snow Crystal and just settled for the monster I personally finished off!


    — How do you know about the Snow Crystal? — Her tone suddenly changed to fearful.


    — What’s there to know? — I stepped closer. — You stole it from the Shkrakh, so it chased you from the mountains all the way here.


    I knelt beside her and tossed a pack of bandages.


    — So, what’s it going to be? Do we fight, and I gut you both like game birds to take the Snow Crystal, or do you help your partner—who got hurt because of your incompetence—and I walk away?


    The mage snatched up the bandages and crawled toward the Battle Ancestor.


    — Smart choice, lady. — I praised her.


    I stood and walked toward where the old mage had died. After a minute of searching, I found his storage ring on a severed, frozen finger.


    — I’m taking this too! — I called to the female mage, waving the ring.


    — Brat! If we meet again, you won’t escape alive!


    — Sure, sure! See you never, lady! — I shouted, sprinting into the forest.


    What a haul! I was exhilarated. A fifth-class monster’s corpse with a core, plus a mage’s storage vault, which surely held valuable items.


    I stopped a few kilometers away, sat on a fallen log, and retrieved the monster’s body. Though heavily damaged, it could still fetch a high price from the Artisans’ Guild—its wing blades, teeth, and bones were used to craft high-grade ice-attribute weapons.


    I took out my dagger and extracted the core. Blue, the size of my fist.


    — Beautiful… — I whispered, turning it in my hand.


    The temptation to absorb it was strong, but I was still too weak. The lesson I’d learned from devouring two fourth-class cores at once was still fresh in my mind.


    Maybe when I reached the peak of Battle Master, this core could help me ascend to Ancestor.


    With a sigh, I stored the core and checked the mage’s ring.


    I struck gold. Books on magic, magical artifacts, dozens of unknown pills in jade bottles, thousands of gold coins, magic scrolls, and hundreds of third- and fourth-class cores.


    I was rich! No scrap could compare to what lay in the old mage’s storage! This, damn it, was a real jackpot!


    I poured out all the third-class cores from the storage onto the ground, added several tens of thousands of first- and second-class cores that I had hunted myself, and created magical circles with runes. The time to advance had come.


    This time, I took it slow. Mana flowed into me gradually over several hours, filling me up at a leisurely pace and bringing changes to my body that I couldn’t yet understand. It wasn’t enough. The first-, second-, and third-class cores were depleted.


    I pulled out three fourth-class cores and began absorbing them slowly. A few more hours passed before waves of power started radiating from me in all directions. At first, they were weak and infrequent, only rustling the tips of the grass around me. But the intensity grew until waves crashed against the trees every second, making them creak under the pressure.


    Then, suddenly, a broad beam of light shot up from me, piercing the sky and instantly tearing the clouds apart. They dissolved into a gentle rain, falling to the ground. I stood up and dispersed the magic around me. One single advancement—and such a staggering difference in power.


    Now, I was as strong as Vyr, the prince’s bodyguard. Good thing I hadn’t fought him back then. The gap between advancement levels in the Warrior class and the Battle Master class was simply colossal.


    I looked at my hand and clenched it into a fist. A deep echo rolled through the surroundings. Absolutely incredible! Well then… I drew my spear and executed a few straight strikes through the air. Time to finish clearing the Misty Forest.


    Even with my newfound strength, the process dragged on for another week and a half. First, I wasn’t in much of a hurry, spending a lot of time studying the books from the mage’s storage. Second, the closer I got to the mountains, the stronger the monsters became.


    First-class ones were almost nonexistent now, while fourth-class monsters started appearing, each battle requiring careful preparation and time.


    The late mage’s books were no easy read either. These weren’t introductory magic textbooks—on the contrary, they tackled the complexities of the fourth, fifth, and even sixth magical circles, focusing primarily on wood-attribute magic.


    Still, I managed to grasp a few things. For example, the magical circles around a mage’s heart weren’t physical formations as I had assumed. Instead, they were intricate weaves of information, describing the magic a mage could use. They existed as self-contained magical formulas, constantly revolving around the mage’s heart.


    I tried several times to sense the mana in my surroundings, but to no avail. My internal mana, however—an entire ocean of it that I could always feel—refused to be shaped according to the formulas and magical circles described in the old mage’s books. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make it work.


    There was no reaction at all. It was frustrating, of course, but I didn’t lose hope. Sooner or later, I planned to enter the magical academy of the Kingdom of Lygote.


    Finally, the day arrived when, according to my map, I had cleared the last section of the Misty Forest of monsters. That day, I treated myself to a feast—at least by the standards of the past month—to mark the occasion.


    Well, I had met my deadline.


    After a good meal, I absorbed all the first- to third-class cores I had collected and climbed a small, barren hill that overlooked almost the entire Misty Forest.


    Kingdom of Lygote, here I come!


    — First sequential step…