- Such a close call...

Lorian was still fearful of what happened. If not for his wits and timely action, he would have already been possessed by a ghost.

He had his suspicions, hence once again entered the depths of the cave.

As expected, the sealed box was broken. The ghost should have been awakened by his presence and somehow broke the seals, trying to possess him.

Luckily, he came prepared with holy water. However, his purpose of bringing it was for healing. Now, the most of it was wasted with only 1/10th remaining.

Lorian deeply sighed at this loss. He had gained a significant amount of exp and 2nd floor of instances was also constructed as a result, but it's not like he could challenge it for now.

Though instances realm shouldn't be real, if he spent his remaining holy water in there to clear the 2nd floor, the holy water would be gone in real life too. Consumables expanded in instances weren't restored after exiting it.

Instances had another restriction. The enemies inside would turn into dust after death, disallowing gathering of raw materials from the corpses. This was why Lorian's task to gather snow wolf pelts, was still incomplete.

Exp gained from instances was also lower than IRL, while there was only a single attempt to be used in a day, making rapid improvements impossible.

Counting in the life and death experiences one had to go through and possibly experience multiple deaths, instances realm wasn't really a pleasant place to train in.

However, there was no actual threat to his life and since he could acquire power this way much quicker than others, Lorian had little to complain about. There is no free meal in this world.

In fact, others would be endlessly jealous to have such way to quickly grow. Growing at a fast pace by experiencing life and death battles and killing was simply preposterous. True, some people would have their potential pushed to limits and immensely benefit from such experiences, but the benefits were limited and mostly one wouldn't really profit from disasters, but suffer from it.

Obviously, Lorian wasn't exempted from such things too. If he chose the wrong opponent, being disabled was already a good outcome, while death would be the worst one. However, if he overcame such an opponent, his profits would also be greater than any other in his situation.

Lorian approached the broken box and exclaimed in shock as he stared at content inside.

Yin Pearl

Remark: The result of the accumulation of negative miasma, generated by a ghostly entity. Contains deep resentment and chilling coldness.

The item looked like a white pearl. It was cold to the touch and being close to it would cause one to become uncomfortable due to the creepy aura that seeped from it.

Wearing the wolf mask, Lorian's senses were enchanted, which allowed him to sense this ethereal feeling more clearly.

Lorian sighed as he kept the item in inventory. It was already generous of the system to add the remark, but it simply didn't state its uses, so he could only keep it for now.

Afterward, he went outside to collect some snow, next placed it in a container and melted it under bonfire. After refilling his water reserves, he munched on the tasteless, preserved meat and fell asleep, tired.

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When he woke up, the sun was shining brightly. Pure snow glittered under its illumination.

- Good, snowstorm's finally over.

Lorian smiled and proceeded to prepare to go out for hunting.

This time, he came across 3 gray wolves.

The gray wolves were weaker than snow wolves but bolder in their assault.

Lorian was confident in handling these guys, so he didn't panic this time. Instead, he was a bit excited.

- Awooo~

- Grrr!!!

Gray wolf Mortal (220/10,000) Skills: Lunge, Bite

...

The beasts didn't think much and ran in his direction.

Lorian was surprised by how natural his movements had become. He easily dodged their mindless charge with simple side-steps, then followed up with a swift and decisive slash, beheading the wolf.

Lorian felt, that these beasts were barely better than rabid dogs. They only knew how to bully some herbivores like deer, wild chicken, and bunnies with their numbers. They loved hunting for livestock in the villages and didn't actively hunt humans, but winter was different. There was a lack of food in this cold season. Only those, who had the capability to hunt for food would live to see the following spring.

After playing around with them, Lorian killed another one and choked the last one to death with bare hands. It felt unusually satisfying.

A human could rarely use their body's true capability to the maximum. The deterring factors when facing beasts would be intimidation and fear. Lorian was glad to have gotten over this stage.

Standing while wearing white wolf mask, facing the sun, surrounded by dead wolves and snow painted red, he felt an unusual feeling of satisfaction well inside him. He wanted to roar to the heavens but didn't as it might attract some unwanted things.

Even in the outer area of Undying forest, gray wolves were at the bottom of the food chain. It wouldn't be wise to feel invincible because of beating some dogs and alert something formidable.

+34 Battle Exp

+37 Battle Exp

+35 Battle Exp

New instances realm floor didn't unlock. Lorian guessed these guys didn't meet the requirements of 3rd floor as they were weaker than previous 2 floors residents.

After collecting their fangs, Lorian rolled around in the snow to clean himself of blood and went back to his cave.

Wolf meat didn't taste good, he's heard from adventurers, so he didn't bother to bring their corpses with him. Its pelt had some uses but wasn't really worth space in his inventory. However, he wanted to practice his dismantling skills and skinned one before leaving the place.

By the end of finishing the dismantling, his clumsy skills grew somewhat acceptable and he decided to bring this one pelt back as a trophy. If nothing, it could be used to warm himself up.

Lorian spent his days this way. He went out to hunt occasionally while farming experiences in instances.

Once, he managed to kill a wild boar and had a great feast over it. Only, he felt it was a waste that he had no companions to share his meat with.

Now he was only a month away from set time requirement.

There were some changes in his status. The more his warrior progression bar grew, more he experienced an overall improvement in his physical abilities. There was no way to actually quantify them, but he felt his stamina was improved a little, he could jump higher, lasted longer in his exercises and performed them better. He could also run faster and act swifter. If one had to absolutely calculate it, his overall performance grew by about 10-15%

It didn't feel like getting much stronger but more of a feeling of being more complete.

There was no change in spirit attribute. There was no change in the anti-poison body's level. There was no title that he gained, but his basic sword mastery broke through 2nd level. Now he felt more familiar with it and was no longer awkward or uncomfortable when using it. There was no longer that feeling of alienation.

Another change would be, that he was initiated in basic dagger mastery. Getting some sort of skill would require training in it, but there was no way to measure when one would acquire said skill. It was dependent on lack and talent.

As a result of another 2 weeks of hunting in the wilderness, his status showed massive improvement.

Lorian Ellins Warrior (Level 0) (1356/10,000) General Exp: 0 Battle Exp: 0 Titles: - Innate trait: Anti-poison body (Level 0)

Skills: Basic sword mastery (Level 2) (4109/15,000)

Basic dagger mastery (Level 1) (789/10,000)

Attributes:

Spirit: 1.1