After leaving his room, Xan crossed to the second area to go to the library, as before collecting the Pale Purple mushrooms, he needed to know how to recognize them.

Oh his way to the library, he met Gren, who was walking in the opposite direction.

"Hey, Xan. I haven't seen you in a few days. Is everything ok?" Gren asked when they were a few meters apart.

"Oh, yeah. You don't have to worry. I've been on a prolonged cultivation session." Xan replied, laughing.

"And how are you doing with cultivation? I've been practicing a bit and have almost cleaned my dantian already." Gren said casually.

Hearing that, Xan couldn't help but be shocked.

'How is it that you have been practicing "a bit" and have advanced almost at the same pace I got using resources? Is this guy a genius or what?' Xan thought, trying to hide the disbelief on his face.

Trying to stay calm, Xan gathered enough strength to reply without showing any emotion.

"I've already cleaned my dantian, and now I was planning to go to the nearby forest and gather some mushrooms for a mission I saw on Rantia," Xan replied.

"A mission on Rantia? I didn't expect you to be so interested in earning money." Gren said, surprised.

"Well, it is not just the money. Having to search across the forest would help me train my survival skills and put knowledge into testing." Xan said, holding his head high.

"Wow, that sounds great. I may copy your idea once I get my dantian ready." Gren said.

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"We can go together sometimes if you want. I'm sure there would be enough mushrooms for us." Xan replied.

"Sure, that would be great."

After making some plans, each one continued with his way.

Xan liked the idea of completing missions with Gren. He was big and strong and would only get stronger the more he cultivated, so being around him meant that Xan would be much safer than on his own, which was very important if they decided to explore more dangerous areas.

And not only that, but he also seemed like a good guy, so working with him would be easy.

After he arrived at the library, he soon found a book about the species that lived in the area and information about them. Realizing it would be helpful for his journey to the forest, he asked if he could take it with him.

After getting the book, Xan left the fortress while reading it, and in less than half an hour, he was at the forest's edge.

'Pale Purple mushrooms grow between the roots of dying trees, so the ideal would be to cross the forest while looking for that kind of tree and see what I can find.' Xan thought as he began to walk into the forest.

He took a drink from his mother's canteen, which now he could use thanks to his dantian, before putting it on his backpack again and taking out his knife.

He had yet to learn how to use his weapon, but he felt safer with it in his hand than without it. To get used to its feeling, Xan toyed with the knife as he walked.

From time to time, he would send some energy to it and see its reaction. Because of the material used to make it, the knife shined when it absorbed energy. It was not enough to create light, but it was a nice visual effect.

Xan knew that if he used more energy, he would be able to coat the weapon to increase its sharpness and toughness, but he didn't want to mindlessly empty his dantian when he had just entered the forest.

The forest was calm.

Xan could only hear the trees' leaves moving with the wind and the birds chirping. The vegetation wasn't very dense, so he had no problem keeping an eye on his surroundings.

After less than ten minutes, he found the first dying tree.

It looked like most others, with the main difference being that it had almost no leaves and holes in the remaining ones. Xan crouched down and dug to inspect the area around the trees' roots.

Once he did that, he found a cluster of three small purple mushrooms. Xan's eyes shined when he saw that, and he collected them using his knife before putting them in a bag.

If finding the remaining twenty-two was as easy as it had been this one, he might manage to get most of them before it got dark.