Since that day, all Illyan did was to forage herbs and hunt game to build stock for his journey. He also used them to replenish all kinds of nutrients for his body that he was deficient in. Every time he collected enough, he made a small basic oven in the pit he dug, filled with embers, and dried everything.

While there was no immediate danger of it spoiling as the cold kept it edible, he still needed to make it smaller and lighter to carry more. Herbs also weren’t exactly happy from being collected in a warm environment and then being plunged into harsh cold.

After doing so several times in the span of weeks, he had a big bag of food, medicines, and seeds. If he wanted, he could travel to the south and leave this cursed place.

‘Even though I don’t know how long it would take…’

From what he knew from Kaoran, this forest was quite big.

Not to mention, the approximate length of his stay in the wendigo’s stomach was around three years, which meant it took that long to get from the south edge of the forest to the northern edge of the forest.

‘Maybe they didn’t just go straight and were wandering around for food?’ This idea popped into his head but was immediately thrown away.

‘No way those maniacs would allow it to rampage in their territory.’

Those guys would hunt them at all costs. But that created a question. How did the wendigos travel to Frozen Valas Tundra?

‘Traveling through the west coastline? But that would be unfeasible. Not to mention that the village of Thearas Clan should be far more on the east side… East… Maybe the eastern mountains?’

Eastern mountains are a long range of mountains that come from the southernmost part of the Vanaras Kingdom up to Frozen Valas Tundra. However, the safety of coming through that path was questionable. The fact that the tribe would rather travel through the frozen sea rather than these mountains said a lot.

Illyan was also aware that there were western mountains too that spanned across the entire Vanaras Kingdom from the left side. But they didn’t continue further, making the left side of the Blood Crow Forest open. That’s where Illyan landed a few weeks ago.

And this all makes access to Vanaras Kingdom extremely hard, making it quite a poor nation.

The only way to get into it was through this forest from the north or from the southern path that was also difficult to cross.

‘Whatever, I need to stay in this forest to keep collecting Firestorm herbs, anyway. Without it, I won’t be able to use the technique.’

While the technique could be later used without it, you would need to be skilled at controlling your body and using the technique at that point. Yet it would be skill inferior as to when you use the herb as a catalyst for the technique.

Since he already had enough things, he chose to find some safe place to begin with the technique.

Fortunately, this forest was perfect for hiding. The trees were not so tall as in the north and had many branches even at the bottom. Jumping through these would be difficult for normal people, but for someone who grew up climbing trees with Degres, this was paradise.

Not to mention that the ground was not covered in too deep snow since it couldn’t get through the crowns of the trees, which made it even easier for him to run around.

It didn’t take long before he found one tree that was splitting into three parts full of branches. He climbed on top, sat at the junction of those branches, and leaned on one of them while he hung his bag on another.

“Huuh.. I hope it is effective…” He really didn’t want to look for another solution when this one was at hand.

Then he took out the pill made out of the Firestorm herb. It was quite difficult to make without any proper tools, regardless of efficiency, he did the job. At first, he pondered whether to make a gel out of it to spread it on the skin, but he wasn’t sure about its efficiency. The records about the technique that Kaoran gave him didn’t say in what form they used the Firestorm herbs.

But Illyan wasn’t surprised. While the technique was protected, if it was to be used by the general people of the clans, it would still be vulnerable in front of other greedy tribes. However, collecting and making the herb usable was probably even more protected, as only a few people, mainly shamans, could make those. And without it, it was probably impossible to use the technique…

Fortunately, Illyan didn’t study for years for naught. While probably not as good and effective as the recipe of those shamans, he believed that it was good enough. He also used some tips that Kaoran wrote about it that helped immensely.

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Before swallowing it, he started to meditate to clear his mind and after an hour, he started.

Gulp

Without hesitation, he swallowed the pill and waited with closed eyes.

At the beginning, nothing changed.

But after a few minutes, his stomach started rumbling and a hot feeling started to spread out. When he noticed this, he proceeded with rhythmic breathing. This caused the hot feeling to spread even faster.

Soon, the hot feeling changed into a searing feeling, and the pain intensified tenfold in seconds.

However, while the pain was becoming unbearable, there was no mistake that Illyan also felt extremely comfortable. The pain was nothing new for him and so he could ignore it.

What he was excited about was that the piercing chill that was deep inside of his body was giving a feeling of thawing. He felt his heart pumping harder and quicker than ever before and felt every body organ heating up.

At last, the muscle and fat tissues he managed to regain after weeks of hunting after his sea accident started to give a burning sensation as his skin started to redden.

The broken hair that he had on his head also started to thaw as it became normal once again, and a large amount of sweat was pouring from his body trying to alleviate the heat only to evaporate.

This stage was taking almost a day, but Illyan lost track of time as he focused only on his insides.

The energy stored inside of his muscles and fat were being slowly but surely refined into a kind of flesh energy and then with the help of rhythmic breathing guided into his bloodstream.

At first, it almost blocked the blood and made him collapse, but as time passed, his blood accepted it and later on fused with the energy. Unfortunately, there was a big loss of efficiency as the technique wasn’t perfect and Illyan didn’t have the right proficiency in it.

But since his purpose wasn’t ‘feeding the blood,’ he was pretty satisfied when he opened his eyes.

“Oof… Ah, this is great. I feel like I can breathe much better than before…”

Illyan murmured to himself as he stretched his limbs that were numb because of the lack of blood circulation.

Not only could he breathe better, he also felt that the chill in his body was much milder than before and that his body was a little more flexible. He also felt that his stagnant regeneration now had much less of a burden on itself and worked a little faster. This made the stump on his left shoulder itch as the long-awaited regeneration of that part began. It didn’t have the power to fully regrow it back, but it didn’t have this power even at its peak. But the charm of his gift wasn’t the present but the future, so he wasn’t worried. Even if it didn’t regrow in the end, so what? He survived in the end and that’s what mattered the most.

On the other hand, he didn’t feel much difference in his strength, which was the main reason why this technique existed. But Illyan didn’t mind that and instead wondered how his blood changed.

He bit his finger on his and looked at his blood and then tasted it.

‘Hmm… I’m not sure if I feel something. It may be just a delusion since the change is so small for now. Well… I will check on it after every session. As for now…’

He looked down at his bare chest that had visible most of its bones as his chest cavity made him look like a dead man.

‘Back to eating I guess.’ He, of course, wouldn’t touch the food he dried for so long and went to hunt other animals.

Of course, he didn’t plan to run off immediately. The rest after this physically demanding procedure was needed so he planned to take a nap. With his proficiency in meditation, he could effectively cut down the time needed to sleep a little, but now he didn’t even think about that as he was too tired.

But before that…

‘I need to wash myself.’

His face showed disgust as he smelled the sweat on his body. It is not like he couldn’t live without washing up, but he recently felt highly uncomfortable.

At first, the wendigo’s stomach where he was literally drowning in the gastric acid and rotten meat he felt he had the innate disgust towards many things like the smell of vomit and rot. But the most important thing was the feeling of being unclean. It was unbearable. Fortunately, he managed to overcome it to some degree only for it to reappear again.

In what manner?

It was very simple. After being closed in that place for so long he had to answer the call of nature and relieve himself. And that’s where the problem began. Because of the closed-up space he had a very small amount of space to maneuver. Fortunately for him, the coldness made the smell mild inside, and in the end, it froze everything up.

But the disgust remained. Especially since he had to eat once in a while to not starve to death, so he couldn’t just stop.

When he remembered those times he shuddered and quickly ran to find the nearest source of water, taking with himself only the bone spear.

Splash

After finding a small lake he jumped into it without care and started to scrub off his body. The extreme coldness was permeating his body again but for the sake of being clean, he didn’t care one bit. After a while, he also touched his hair that was half of what it had been and noticed that they started to slowly regenerate.

While long hair were in most situations bother he grew to like them as he wore them ever since he remembered.

When he finally felt that he was devoid of sweat he relaxed and laid down on the surface of the water as he closed his eyes.

He just laid down there and let his body float as he listened to the sounds of nature. It didn’t take long before he fell asleep. But he wasn’t worried about being drowned. If his body turned abruptly he would immediately wake up.

And that wasn’t the only thing that could wake him up.

After several hours of deep sleep…

Crack

When he heard a distant sound his eyes suddenly opened up. He didn’t waste time and swam directly to shore and took the spear he had prepared for these situations and listened.

His eyes narrowed when he heard the rhythm of walking.

‘Three men. They were quick to find me. Or more like I was unlucky. Now, what should I do with them?’

While his body was recovering, he was still far from his peak. Fighting head-on was not an option.

Fortunately for Illyan, he had other ways to take care of them. This place was perfect for him to ambush them.

‘Well then. It’s time for revenge, I suppose. I was wondering whether I should just let it be and go to Vanaras Kingdom right away, but since it is like that, then I will take care of you guys…’

With that, he disappeared into the crowns of trees like a ghost, ready to reap some debts of blood…