I checked my map after putting some good distance between me and the beast's location.

I noticed that my pursuers had stopped tracking me, and in fact, had been split up and one was quickly running in the opposite direction of me.

It seemed my traps and my plan to drive them into the King Red Wolverines Beasts territory had worked.

I let out a breath of relief, that had been a close one; I wasn’t very confident in being able to take on 4 Rankers at the same time.

Especially since I didn’t know anything about their skills, abilities, or powers.

-

I had been having this odd feeling as of late, I had been feeling like my rank as D Ranker wasn’t true.

I felt like my skills and abilities at present didn’t reflect the average skills and abilities of a D Rank.

I felt like a sham like I had only gotten such a ranking through sheer luck.

I knew those weren’t good feelings to have but the reality was the Rankers that were targeting me could all have been F Rank and I still would’ve feared for my life.

They had chosen me for a reason, I must’ve looked weak in their eyes.

If I had come off as a strong individual I could’ve avoided this whole situation.

The feeling I felt wasn’t just all in my head, the truth was I still had a long road ahead of me.

Never before in my life did I feel such pressure and uncertainty about whether I could survive until the next day.

And at this moment all the negative emotions I had been bottling up or trying to fight against were manifesting at their strongest.

I felt exhausted, I just wanted to hide in a hole.

I had been so naive before and had had no idea what life as a Ranker meant and truly entailed, this was my new life, a life of murder, danger, and death around every corner.

After some time I finally got a hold of myself, all that was left for me was to do my best to get stronger.

Regardless of how I felt I was a D Rank Ranker and nobody could deny that fact.

All I could do was stay alive and find ways to act the part.

Whether it was by luck or not this was still my achievement, an achievement many could never dream of.

After getting some rest I reconfirmed my destination as Will City on the Map so that it could give me the best and safest route.

I could’ve taken the main road from Martial Citadel while I was staying there, and gotten there in a matter of a couple hours, but the Ranker event although close to Martial Citadel, was in the opposite direction of the main road, and was located way out into the wilderness.

This whole inconvenient setback had made me stray further away from my set destination.

As of right now, I was at least a day’s travel from the City, and it was already getting late, so I decided to set camp for the night.

I chose to tackle the feeling of lacking strength from the get-go.

I took out one strength cheese and the stamina and endurance yogurt juice and decided to consume them for dinner.

I was very excited about what results I would get from these products but I was also worried.

I had spent most of my platinum savings on these items, what if they sucked?

I decided not to think about it anymore and after setting up camp I prepared to consume them both.

Suddenly I had a flash of inspiration, I had forgotten that the map had a function that recorded the data on my Biomarkers.

I decided to pull it up and save that information for comparison.

I was starting to get the hang of how to use the maps functions to my benefit.

After today’s ordeal, I had grown a new appreciation for its usefulness, it quite literally saved my but.

After appreciating the extent I had improved from when I first got this map, until now, I proceeded by saving the information on my current physiological state after which I consumed my special and expensive foods.

The cheese was actually not that bad; it had a bit of an aftertaste but it was quite good.

The fermented yogurt drink on the other hand was extremely sour, not pleasant at all to drink.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

After finishing the food and taking some time to rest I didn’t notice any difference within myself at all, at least nothing dramatic.

My stomach did feel quite light and I had an odd feeling of satisfaction after consuming them, different from eating regular food I also did indeed feel more energetic as I had been quite spent after my escape.

That at least gave me the satisfaction that the yogurt drink wasn’t a complete waste of money, it did its job in that regard.

I decided to pull up the Guider again and check the state of my body now that I had consumed the special foods.

And wonderfully once I checked the Guider the information did slightly change.

My original POF capability average was 400 pounds.

After all my training and experience and life and death battles my POF had gone up to 800 pounds.

After that I felt like it had been harder to get stronger, I figured that was my limit.

It had now increased to 802 after eating the food I didn’t know how to feel.

It was an increase, in fact, in the commoner's world this kind of food with only a minimal increase of power like this, would be a treasure and an expensive delicacy.

But for some reason my standards had changed as a Ranker I now knew that power increases like these were practically useless.

Some of the normal stand foods some of the vendors in the Ranker event were selling claimed they would increase your strength by several factors.

Some gave examples of feats of strength such as being able to bend iron or carrying hundreds of pounds in weight.

None of the foods I saw were mind-boggling but the increase in power was noticeable whether it was temporary or not.

The foods I just ate gave me an increase in strength that was negligible and I didn’t even know if my stamina and endurance went up.

I was starting to get quite frustrated but then I remembered what the clerk told me.

The drink helped to cultivate the microbes, whatever those were, in my stomach that promoted strength rise, that is where the real value of the food lies not in its immediate effect.

I figured I would have to wait and see whether what the clerk said was true or not.

I comforted myself by the fact that at least I did experience an improvement in strength, however small it may have been, so my investment wasn’t a total waste.

I decided against chugging and eating all the foods at once to stack on their buffs, since they didn’t seem to function like elixirs or the like, and therefore conventional practices would probably be a bad idea.

I decided to eat one of each once per day along with my regular meals and track my improvement.

I would also practice some of the martial arts manuals I had gotten my hands on in Martial Citadel and continue training my body to break its limits.

It was probably also best to further improve on my inner energy control although I felt I had hit a bottleneck in that as well.

The goal was to focus on these things simultaneously to see if they had a positive effect on each other’s results.

I also decided I would contemplate and meditate on the battles I had experienced so far each day before I went to sleep.

Something I had perfected long ago even before I joined the military was a disciplined work and training schedule; I knew that if I was lazy, a less-than-average man like me had no chance in this world.

At this point in my life that mindset had paid dividends.

After a good night's rest, I set forth on trek to Will City.

It took me a couple of hours to reach the main road again, but once I did my travel speed increased by a lot.

It was only just about to hit dawn when I saw the outline of the City.

Even from a distance, it looked magnificent Martial Citadel was nothing in comparison.

This place was huge, traffic from all over congested its Borders.

This was the point of convergence for all major power players in Volunterra, and I had finally reached it.