Hiro didn't stop practicing until he went out of food. He kept insisting on trying to control all his mana, but kept failing. Still, he kept trying. When his food ran out, he had to go hunt for a beast every two days.
Having to fight the beasts with his magic, his casting was getting faster. His aim was also improving. While the savage beasts were stronger overall than the magic beasts, it was still easy to dispatch them at this level. Magic was practically bullying to low level cultivators. They could only take it with their body or try to evade, but that already kept them on the defensive, so it was hard for them to get close enough to attack.
However those were only the weakest of the savage beasts. Their cultivations was merely at Foundation Building. Their body was absolutely stronger than humans of the same level, but they hadn't learned how to wield Qi at a distance.
With that said, Hiro didn't run into many problems while hunting for food. He only attacked strays and did his best to sneak around unnoticed by more than one beast at a time.
That, of course, meant that something was bound to eventually happen. And it did, when his fight made too much noise and alerted a pack of Horned Wolves nearby. Soon enough, he was surrounded by the pack of around a dozen beasts.
Immediately, Hiro went serious and started casting a few alteration spells to make his skin tougher than steel. The wolves jumped at him, surrounded and virtually helpless, Hiro dashed to meet one of them before they reached him. For the first time in a good while drawing his sword. A quick alteration spell made the rapier sword to extend. Another one made it unbendable, and as the wolf roared and prepared to bite him, he thrusted right into his mouth. With the extended thin sword being also unbendable or inflexible, it went straight trough his insides and could be seen going out of his upper back. The wolf was as good as dead already, so he quickly dispersed the mana in the alreation spells and the sword went back to normal. Taking it out, he ran in the direction of the dead wolf, the only side where there wasn't a wolf anymore.
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However, the wolves were fast. Obviously faster than him. The only way he knew to get out of this was to overpower a particular spell that never seemed to work with him. An Expert level spell, Chain Lightning. It's a spell that bounces between all enemies, extremely good for going against multiple enemies.
He started concentrating, controlling all the five he could into making the spell simultaneously, while he was also running with all his might, the spell was starting to condense in his hands. But he wasn't fast enough, the wolves reached him and started to attack, but thankfully, his skin wasn't being penetrated by their claws or teeth, his spell was holding on, leaving only scratches.
Hiro knew that this wouldn't last for long, so he used all his concentration to ignore the wolves and focus on charging the spell. When it was completed was also when his skin went back to normal. A wolf still managed to get a bite on his arm while he launched the spell to a random wolf.
This, in turn, made a chain reaction happen. Chain lightning is basically a lot of condensed electricity that seeked all nearest possible conductors while ignoring the caster. It was a powerful spell by itself, but by being overpowered, it wasn't surprising to say that it was a lot of electricity. And when it reached the wolf that was still attached to his arm, Hiro was electrocuted as well.
While he didn't get the full power of the spell back at him, he still couldn't keep awake with this shock. All the wolves around him went down, dead. Hiro would also be dead if it wasn't his own mana, so it immediately stopped attacking when it went into his body. But it wasn't fast enough, and his consciousness faded to black.
"What an interesting kid." A voice that sounded ominous and amused was echoed through the place.