Mika had a lot on her mind after she left Little Yokutora. The fight between the gorilla and the tiger was inspiring, to say the least. Especially the way Little Yokutora used mana. It empowered its attacks, created a barrier, and increased its size all in one spell!

Witnessing such an amazing spell opened up a whole new world for Mika and made her realize just how crude and shitty her use of mana was. So far, she’s only used mana in two ways, for her [Volcanic Burst] technique or to cook food.

She was already satisfied with that as [Volcanic Burst] increased the volatility of her attacks by a lot, and creating a small flame to roast meat was very convenient, but now she realized how wrong she was.

‘I shouldn’t be satisfied with this level of power! Mana is capable of so much more than I can imagine. It’s just like the System has been telling me. Mana is capable of doing anything.’

However, therein lies the problem. Mana is too versatile, so much so that she doesn’t know where to start or how she should progress. This is why Mika has not begun raising her Mana Cultivation. There’s too much she doesn’t know about mana, and she’s not willing to risk ruining her foundation for short-term gains.

The only thing Mika knew with certainty about mana is that the way humans, beasts, and nature use mana is different. She didn’t know why, but she felt like this was an important distinction, something she should keep in mind for the future.

The way she uses mana is by enforcing her will upon it. This can happen instinctually with enough practice, but one thing is clear: Imagery is paramount. If she can’t picture a fireball in her mind, then a fireball won’t appear. But it’s not that simple, either. She needs to have a basic understanding of fire just to be able to create the fireball.

However, the way a beast uses mana isn’t like that. Or, at least, Mika didn’t think so. She didn’t have any evidence for this conjecture, but she was sure that the tiger wasn’t visualizing how it used mana. That spell was too stable, after all. It was almost like it had been preprogrammed in the tiger!

Then, there’s the way mana behaves in nature.

‘I don’t know how nature uses mana.’

That’s all she knew about that. The world was too vast and mysterious. She wasn’t arrogant enough to believe she knew anything about it.

‘I just need to reach a human city. I should be able to find most of my answers there!’

That’s right! She believed as long as she could find a city, her knowledge of mana, mana cultivation techniques, and how to use mana should vastly increase.

Therefore, Mika’s resolve to leave this jungle increased after leaving Little Yokutora. Her desire to learn and improve was ignited as her understanding of mana and Mana Cultivation plateaued.

She quickened the pace at which she ran through the jungle, hoping to leave this jungle and find the answers to her questions sooner.

After her fight with the apes, Mika learned her power is equivalent to a Stage 4 Black Core Realm Monkey. If push comes to shove and she is forced to risk her life, she can even take on a Stage 5, but it would be a hard battle.

This knowledge gave her a certain degree of confidence and allowed her to traverse the jungle more comfortably.

Of course, she was still careful not to provoke anything that could easily kill her, but she had the confidence that she could at least run if she came across a powerful enemy.

***

After a week of almost nonstop trekking, only stopping to sleep, Mika stopped running and frowned.

“Something doesn’t feel quite right,” She muttered.

She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something seemed different.

She looked around, but all the trees were the same. Looking up, she still couldn’t see the sky. It was still drizzling like usual. She stomped her feet, but the ground was still wet and muddy. Water droplets were still all over her body due to the humidity.

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What was so different now?

Mika reached down, massaged her legs, especially her calves, and frowned. While they didn’t hurt, her legs were a little sore. At first, she just thought it was because she had an extra 90 kilograms on her back, but now she was sure something had happened to the terrain.

‘Why does it feel like I’m going uphill?’

The incline wasn’t much, maybe a few degrees, but Mika could spot the difference.

‘I’ve never felt this before,’ She thought, but suddenly her frown turned upside down, ‘Change is good. It means I’m making progress. Also, I might be able to learn more about this jungle if I follow this incline.’

So, Mika continued walking up the incline, but her discoveries didn’t stop there.

A few hours later, Mika stood in front of a group of tree stumps, but there was no fallen tree next to them. Finding tree stumps wasn’t all that uncommon in the jungle, but finding so many of them was. Furthermore, the stumps had a smooth surface, unlike a naturally occurring stump, which would be jagged and rough.

“Someone was here…!” She yelped in surprise!

This wasn’t just a guess. No, she was positive that humans did this! S

‘I’ve lived in forests before in my previous life and saw how humans chopped down trees. The stumps they left behind looked almost exactly like these!’

With an expectant smile, she threw caution out the window and charged up the hill. The thought of people living in the jungle wanting to capture or kill her didn’t even cross her mind.

‘Why would they need to kill or capture me? If they are strong enough to survive, then there would be no reason to capture or kill me, and if they are too weak, stupid, or unlucky, they are already dead.’

However, the more she ran, the more skeptical she became that people were still living here. Glancing around on her way up, she noticed more and more patches of chopped trees, meaning that this was clearly the work of a group. Either that, or someone has been staying here for years, but that was unlikely.

After another two hours, Mika got her answer.

She walked up to a rotten wooden gate that only went up to her waist, but from the jagged edges, she could tell it was originally much taller.

She looked over the gate and saw numerous run-down and rotted wooden buildings.

Mika touched one of the wooden pikes making up the gate, but the wood crumbled into pieces at her touch.

“This place has been abandoned for a while,” She muttered, slightly disappointed, “Wood doesn’t crumble like that unless it’s been dead and rotten for many years. ”

She walked toward the buildings to see if there might be anything useful inside, but as she thought, there was nothing. Everything was rotten and destroyed. In fact, it was a wonder the buildings were still standing!

She walked over to one of the buildings and grasped the side of the building, but the wall disintegrated, causing the building to collapse.

Mika shook her head and continued her journey up the hill. Her goal was never to search for humans in this jungle anyways. This was just a side stop for her.

As she walked further, Mika could feel the incline underneath her feet rise and knew she was heading in the right direction.

On the way up, she spotted more signs of human activity, such as more buildings, but they were all rotten and destroyed as well.

It took her another 2 days of travel until Mika felt like she was finally approaching the top of the hill.

However, before she reached the supposed top, she was forced to halt in her tracks.

“What the hell?!” Mika gaped in surprise! Her mouth hung wide open, and she went into a daze.

A few meters in front of her was the biggest hole she had ever seen in both her lives! It was at least a kilometer in diameter and went straight down! It was like someone took a giant stake, a kilometer in diameter, and hollowed out the ground with it!

It took her a minute to snap out of her daze, and while she was still shocked, curiosity overcame her. She crouched to stay as low to the ground as possible and slowly approached the hole.

She walked so slowly that it took her a full minute to reach, but when she finally looked over the edge, she trembled.

A myriad of emotions hit her simultaneously: fear, shock, confusion, excitement, and amazement.

It was hard for her to describe her feelings right now as all she could do was blankly stare into the abyss below her.

The massive hole in the ground was both incredibly wide and deep, like a bottomless. All she saw was a black hole that seemed to want to consume everything, including her.

In fact, Mika felt something telling her that she should descend into the hole. She didn’t know whether it was her curiosity toward the hole, something instinctual, or if the abyss was actually calling for her, hoping to devour her.

Regardless, she felt an innate desire to descend the hole! It seemed she wasn’t the only one who thought this way either, as she noticed structures built into the side of the walls leading deeper into the hole like a spiral, straight into the darkness.

With her eyes, she traced the spiral to the top of the hole and realized the entrance was only a few hundred meters away.

In a trance-like state, Mika got up and began walking over to it.

*Rustle* *Rustle*

*Crack* *Crush*

“Stop! Don’t go down there!”

However, she immediately snapped out of it when she heard a squeaky voice yell at her from behind!