Axel was walking through the deep vegetation of the beast forest, taking each step as calmly as possible. His eyes were still hurting badly, and his vision, in a way, remained impaired. It’s been about 5 days since he had soloed the entirety of Section-A.
So, the backlash of using the ultimate abilities of the five most powerful runic weapons continued to affect him. He couldn’t see properly, his body felt far too weak, and every time he had to drink water, his body was becoming utterly numb. He could feel a voice of doubt speaking in his mind; it was like a silent deterrent that always broke his focus whenever he wanted to do something meaningful.
There’s also the fact that he could only use 50% of his killing intent, not to mention his runic eyes weren’t working well enough in this state of his as well. If so, why was he trenching through the beast forest of the academy, when he was specifically medically instructed to rest during this period until all the backlash on his body vanishes? One week isn’t that long of a time after all.
Despite that he was currently traversing through the second area of the beast forest, a place overflowing with powerful second-tier creatures, of course, even if he wasn’t weakened, it’s not a place that he could roam around without worries, let alone now when there is an actual possibility of him getting killed here. By all common sense, Axel should have remained in the first area of the forest where he would still be strong enough even in his current state.
But it’s precisely because he was in such a weakened state that he was taking the risk; his thought process was : who knew how many times in the future he could be in such a vulnerable state. In those times, there won’t be a safety net around him that would unconditionally protect him, so he would rather learn to face those life-threatening situations in advance, when things are still somewhat under his control to a large extent.
But that doesn’t mean he was going to throw himself in obvious danger and fight head-on with any 2nd tier beast on his path. No, he was moving as stealthily as possible, avoiding the territories of the creatures that lived in hordes or packs, or the ones that had troublesome abilities, creatures that were very strong for their level. So, he was trying to find a creature that he would be able to take on, even in this state, though the difficulty in general would remain.
He had been doing it for almost two days regularly, coming to the beast forest at the same time of the day, though many of the academy staff members wanted to stop him, but they were unable to. News reached the ears of others, but no one managed to dissuade him from it. Heinz wanted to come along with him. But Axel firmly refused that as well. His friend didn’t push him too much on that matter. Heinz understood his friend’s intentions, so he let him be.
After almost an hour of traversing through the large forest in careful steps, avoiding the hazardous creatures, he finally found one that he could hunt, a beast without any special abilities. A Morphine Tiger it was. As it was a beast, it used refined and enhanced mana from its core. So, no magical abilities of terrain control. It was also a solitary creature. But it didn’t mean it was weak, though; it was strong and fast physically.
The power of its bites had the same force as a weight of 2 tons; its sharp teeth and powerful jaws were its ace, which could break through almost anything. The strength and sharpness behind its sharp claws were also no joke. It definitely was a beast not to be taken lightly for sure. But it was predictable. That’s where its weakness lies. And because of its lack of versatility or any special abilities, this particular species was rare, almost extinct, even from what he read about this specific creature.
Hiding behind the bushes and making sure not an ounce of his killing intent leaked, he brought out an artifact, and it wasn’t even a runic sword, but rather something with a magic enhancement of increased strength and sharpness of the sword. Holding the sword in his hand, he showed a visibly disgusted expression at how disgustingly inefficient and pathetic it was compared to his own creation. But what could he do about it? He visibly sighed and turned his attention back to the creature.
It was feasting on another hunted creature with full delight, so this was the best chance as any to attack the damn thing. Ignoring the fact that he could now barely use 30% of his total mana reserves. He lunged forward with all of his might. But the beast had all of its senses activated; it immediately detected the incoming foreign existence in its area.
As the human lunged towards it, the creature growled menacingly and charged forward, its sharp claws outstretched to tear the human apart. Axel blocked its large, sharp claws with his sword. The tiger let out a mighty roar to intimidate him, but to no avail. So, it pushed forward with the two back legs and tried to bite off his head.
Axel slashed sideways with the sword and avoided the attack in time. He took a moment to recollect himself. His hands went slightly numb from the power of its impact. Seriously, only now did he understand why everyone was so crazy about his rune weapons. He never used any other types of tools or even tested them properly, so he didn’t know how incredibly inefficient the standard magical weapons were.
He slashed the giant Tiger again and again with all of his strength. He had a significant advantage, knowing its fighting patterns; many cuts had accumulated on the beast’s body, and it was bleeding in many places. Eventually, an awaited opportunity arose, and Axel had been moving in a specific direction as their fight progressed. A place where there were countless tree vines, and the tiger, while fighting out of desperation, got its legs tangled up with the vines because it was not careful.
It rolled on the ground a few times, and Axel seized the perfect opportunity to shove his sword right through its eye, to the depth of its brain. It struggled madly for its life in the last few seconds. Axel received many injuries in that small instant since he had to hold down the sword. But he remained victorious even when he was barely at 30% of his full strength.