Seph faced off against the two wolves, who got to him the fastest.

One of them was too excited and lunged for Seph’s stomach. Seph wouldn’t dodge in time. So he made a fast decision to try something that he had been thinking about. He infused energy into his Gourd, willing it to move to his front.

The wolf slammed into it, face first and whined in pain.

Seph followed by a palm strike that killed it. Cutting the wolf’s whines short.

While busy with this wolf, the other one had sneaked up on Seph and jumped for his neck to end him.

Seph moved a couple of inches at the last second, making the wolf bite him on the shoulder instead.

Screaming in pain, he tried to palm strike it with the other hand in its stomach.

It got the wolf off his shoulder, even though the attack was weaker because it came from an awkward position. He followed with a proper palm strike, killing it.

As for Sun, he was facing the third wolf, circling it, putting his small staff in front of it.

The Wolf seemed confused by the staff, and tried to bite it.

Each time, Sun retracted the staff and hit it in the face instead, and repeated the same pose.

The wolf then tried to avoid it to bite Sun. But he would dodge fast and hit it in the face again.

They kept dancing around like this while the boss was about to face off against Seph.

Who was looking over at the two wolves, which he hit with the lumps of death at the beginning.

Seph found a scene most horrifying. The wolves’ hair had fallen off their bodies.

Dotted were their skin all over in black, and they just sat there in their last breath, whining from whatever horrors these lumps did to their bodies.

Having watched most of his pack die at the hands of Seph, the boss closed in at an alarming speed to face off against him.

Seph noticed the big difference between them, as at five feet tall, this wolf was twice as tall and massive compared to the other wolves.

image [https://imgur.com/fYdNEWr.jpg]

Its color was gray with white streaks, and it had a white crescent moon on its forehead.

Seph didn’t think he could win this fight if he got his shoulder bitten clean off by this wolf.

So he threw two of the Phantom Wolf bones, and once they touched the ground.

Two see-through Phantom wolves the color of ghostly blue ran towards the boss from two sides.

They confused the boss, who retreated a few steps, but that didn’t dissuade them from trying to reach him.

The boss tried to bite one of them, but his teeth just passed through it like it wasn’t even there.

The two wolves attacked him from both flanks, biting into his sides, disappearing right after.

Their power was used after only one attack. Seph was making mental notes of his new skill the entire time.

The boss howled from the pain, but it was still functional and moved towards Seph, who already had gotten two lumps out from his Gourd, and threw them both at it.

The boss, maddened by the attacks, ran fast towards Seph and tried to bite his upper body clean off. Seph dodged at the last second, his body off balance, but still landed a palm strike to the neck of the boss while falling.

Something cracked inside the boss’s neck, but he could still move, so he went after Seph again.

Seph was no match for this boss’s physical abilities at all, so he pulled off a new trick, willing his gourd to his front side, before hurling it at the wolf.

The boss stopped to expect the gourd, but Seph was running behind it, once the boss shoved it away with a head-butt. Seph was in his face, attacking him with four palm strikes back to back that crunched something inside his head. The wolf slumped to the ground immediately, ending the fight.

Sun was dodging and hitting his wolf all this time, and after the boss went down, the final wolf turned tail and ran away, leaving a screaming Sun, dancing in victory behind.

Afterward, Seph siphoned most of the wolves with the Gourd of Phantom Death, after extracting their hearts. He got an idea to cut out the fur of the boss, since it looked good and was tough, so he skinned him removing the parts that were already darkening, and used his eye skill on the skin.

Appraising... Name: King Moon Wolf Skin. Type: Crafting Material. Rarity: Rare. Durability: 80% Location: You can find Moon Wolves mainly in caves. They venture out on full moon nights. Follow the howls.

“Well, this is a great Fur. I can probably get someone to craft some good armor from this.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Seph siphoned the Moon Wolf King and then tried to siphon the two wolves that died from decomposing, but the Gourd didn’t accept them the same as the other decomposed one. Seph realized the Gourd wouldn’t accept decomposed opponents.

Finally, with the way clear, Seph entered the big gray cave, to find it empty but for a stone, held on top of a natural stone protrusion, coming out of the ground.

The stone looked like a gem of sorts, a full round stone that gave off a faint glow like the blue of the moonlight.

Seph used the eye on it before picking it up.

Appraising... Name: Moon Stone. Type: Crafting Material/Evolution Material. Rarity: Rare. Believed to be a piece of the moon, coveted and stored by moon wolves, who get hunted just for this valuable stone.

Seph lifted the stone, looking at it in wonderment.

His irises growing wider, like he was in a trance.

Only to be brought out of his reverie by Sun, who was voicing his interest in the stone. Seph nodded in acknowledgment and gave it to him.

Sun took the stone, put it down in the middle of the cave, and sat on top of it to meditate.

Not wanting to interrupt him, Seph started training while reciting his mantras.

No new mantras showed in his manual yet, but the more he trained the mantras, the more ideas he got to use his palm strikes in a fight while pondering his style.

*****

image [https://imgur.com/XfBSXXC.jpg]

The training went on for five days, where Seph was meditating to move his energy through his body at a faster rate, and training his martial arts trying to imagine himself in different situations so he could use his palm strikes more effectively in a fight.

All the while Sun was just sitting there atop the moonstone, meditating, visible moonlight glowing-energy flowing around him.

At the end of the five days Sun’s body became bigger, he became 2 feet tall, also his body filled out more than before, about 20% bigger than his old size.

“Look at you Monkey Man! You are way bigger now. That will surely make the size difference issue you had while fighting that wolf become less of a problem now!”

Sun, having not lost his patented white-toothed grin, had it plastered all over his face, nodding his head, while rubbing the back of it with one hand in shyness, as usual.

“But your staff is still so short! We need to get you a longer staff, probably might even find a staff that can adjust its size to you one day. Will you get any bigger? Do you know?!”

Sun put one arm across his chest, with the other arm on top of it, rubbing his chin while thinking, tabbing the ground with one foot, then gave up after exactly five seconds and shrugged both his shoulders.

“Well, Sun, whatever help you will ever need, whatever equipment you will ever need. I will always be there for you. I will always buy them for you, till you are as strong as me, or even stronger. You are the only friend I have in this world now. After what happened, I bet I’ll have no chance of making friends now, as I hoped I would when I climbed out of poverty and became a scholar.”

They shared a hug for the first time, and then Sun jumped on Seph’s back and patted him on the back, and pointed forward with a strict face as usual, like he was ordering Seph to move forward, which earned him a chuckle from Seph.

They got out of the big gray room in the cave that made them feel like they were in another cave, and went back to the rest of the cave that had all the brown walls, and went towards the exit.

Luckily, there were no more wolves in their way at this time, and they got out into the next challenge room of the labyrinth.

*****

image [https://imgur.com/XfBSXXC.jpg]

The tunnel this time was a glaring white light that forced both Seph and Sun to close their eyes.

After opening them, they found themselves in a sizable garden filled with trees of fruit. Sun went bananas!

And jumped from Seph’s shoulder to the nearest tree, plucking an apple and biting into it.

Seph’s smile widened so much at seeing Sun so excited by all the food.

“You did well so far, Seph.”

The disembodied voice of Scorn said in Seph’s ears.

“Thanks, it was rough, but with the healing powers of being a yin cultivator, I beat all those tough fights even though I had no experience.”

“I am proud of you. I think your chances in this challenge increased significantly by finding the Gourd of Phantom Death because now you have a ranged attack, but your healing powers are not really what they seem. While we Yin cultivators restore our health by consuming people we kill, we don’t do it as fast as you.”

“Then what could be the source of my fast healing power?”

“It could be a bloodline, but to make sure you would need a decent level revealer to reveal your skills and bloodline, or a status skill to know your powers, in this case, you wouldn’t even need it to be high level.”

Seph pondered Scorn’s words while looking at a happy Sun eating a peach with an absolute look of ecstasy on his face. He smiled happily and made a mental note to always have fruit for Sun when he spends his money.

“I saw part of your memories. I felt so helpless seeing what happened to you…”

“This trial is as much to teach you of our goals and dreams as Yin cultivators, as it is to strengthen you, Everyone who was a part of this massacre that I could reach paid, and everyone I couldn’t reach in my lifetime, one day one of you, will take up my cause, and try to make it a reality.”

“It will be hard to make your fight our fight. Most will do it out of greed. If there is not a sufficient cause, they will do it because they want more of your legacy.”

“I understand, but this is much larger and more significant than you can comprehend. Once you grasp the overall situation and understand the purpose behind my cause, you will realize its fairness. You will understand it might be the only way to fix the flawed system that humans’ greed has created, which is causing suffering for everyone.”

Seph nodded in acknowledgment and said, “I guess you can’t tell me how many rooms are in this place?”

“No, it’s all part of the challenge, the mind factor of how long this will take, your resiliency to finish all these challenges, your prowess, and finesse to finish these fights, your wisdom to know when to rest and when to train. Your intelligence to outsmart your opponents or the challenges, just keep at it, and it will be done.”

“Thanks. Your words are helpful enough that I feel as if you have answered my question.”

“I will talk to you soon.”

At that, Seph nodded, and Scorn’s voice was gone.

Seph got up and started collecting fruits and putting them in his spatial sack, not asking Sun for help to let him enjoy his long-awaited meal for a while.

After getting done with the first tree, Sun started helping him and they got done faster and went through the door to the next challenge.