"Yawn"

Thiago had just woken up after a wonderfully relaxing sleep in which he had slept as sound as a rock.

"I think I will never miss the feeling of sleeping; it is so much better than mediating," Thiago murmured as he slowly opened his eyes and pushed the blanket aside to get out of bed.

As it just so happened that Faye had also woken up in her room at that moment, so the two of them opened their door and stepped out into the hallway at almost the same time, which was quite a coincidence.

"Good morning"

"Good morning"

Both of them greeted each other as soon as they saw each other, even Faye, who had got used to sleeping in the villa after several nights and had picked up Thiago's way of greeting in the morning.

After that, Thiago transferred them from his inner world to the outside world, where they had breakfast, which consisted of some lean food like steamed buns and porridge, nothing too fancy, as it was really not necessary for breakfast.

While they were eating Thiago suddenly spoke of his plans, which he had thought of regarding his trip to the human city in order to inform Faye of them.

"I thought about it a bit and came to the conclusion that I would like to leave today, since there is basically no reason against it. Besides, I do not have much more to do in this forest now that I have become the strongest in it, and I think it is time to explore new things, which is also why I have decided to leave today. Well, of course I will only go if you have nothing against it, and if you have something against it, I can still wait".

"I myself, this veritable tigress, have no problem with that, as I am actually quite eager to explore things outside of this forest, and it makes little difference if we go today or a few days later, to be honest," Faye replied immediately, presumably she really was quite eager to explore new things as well, although she knew very well that she would have to stay in Thiago's inner world for an unknown amount of time if they came close to humans.

"Alright, good, then it is settled. We will leave later, if you have something to do in this forest then do it soon, because it remains open for the future if or when we will return to this forest," Thiago reminded Faye in case she had something important to do in this forest.

"Yes, I understand, I will be back in a little while," Faye replied, indicating that she did indeed have something important in this forest that she wanted to say goodbye to, or something like that.

After that Faye quickly left somewhere into the forest, and Thiago did not worry much about her since they were on the outskirts of the forest anyway at the moment so there should be basically no danger for her with her current strength.

While Thiago waited there on the spot where Faye had set off from, Faye had actually walked to the cave where they had stayed in before all the time. It seemed that Faye really attached some kind of emotional importance to that exact cave.

It was actually quite reasonable, since she could remember every moment since she had been saved by Thiago from the wolves and then successively was brought to that cave by him, and since then her life had taken a major turn. Basically everything, well, not everything but most of it had started in that cave in which she had lived with Thiago for some time now.

After a few minutes she left, apparently having achieved what she wanted, whatever that may have been.

A short time she was already back at Thiago's side, since the cave was not that far away, and it did not take her much time at all to cross that distance.

"Well, then let's go, it will take some time to reach the city anyway, so we don't have to hurry and can enjoy the journey, right?" Thiago explained to which Faye nodded in agreement, as she had also thought about taking it slowly and enjoying the journey, as they had no pressure anyway.

With this, Thiago's journey in this world began its second step, with him leaving the starting point where he had first appeared in this new world, which was the forest he was now saying goodbye to.

Thiago was actually quite excited, unlike his current indifferent expression, which was only possible because he was in his human form, as he had actually longed to see some humans in this world, except for those hunters he had encountered earlier some time ago.

The reason for this is simply that he has been a human before, and humans are animals that normally like to be in an environment with many other humans, as they are social animals. Even though Thiago is not particularly social, he would still like to learn more about the people of this world and how they might be different from those on Earth.

Now, just as they were about to leave, it suddenly occurred to Thiago that he didn't know the exact location of the city, only that it was about two hundred kilometres away, which could literally be in any direction if you took the forest as the centre of a circle and two hundred kilometres as the radius, so thinking about it, Thiago had an immediate solution to that and just asked the system for the information, which was simply the simplest solution to any problem.

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[System Shop] -- [Advanced search engine: Information]

When this small panel appeared in front of his vision, he thought of wanting to buy the information about the location of the city 'Half Moon' and promptly there was only one search result, which was to be expected since the location of a certain city was an almost unchangeable fact and therefore only the exact position had to be imparted to the mind, which excluded that he would get several search results.

The price was also really cheap, since it was not a secret or valuable information, and therefore the price was only two hundred system points, which was nothing for the current him with almost two million system points, if you rounded up.

Just then he was asked if he was sure whether he wished to buy the information which he obviously clicked 'Yes' in response subsequently to which he felt a short tingling sensation in his mind that almost immediately disappeared again.

After that, he felt he had some additional information, as well as a freely accessible, real-time updating map in his head, which showed a black cross somewhere on it with the words 'Half-Moon City' underlined, and then, relatively far away, a blue dot representing his current location, which was actually quite handy. He could not even make a wrong turn and end up somewhere else.

'Alright, this map should perfectly suffice to find the city´, though Thiago as he had scanned through the information and the map just now and was pleasantly surprised.

So now the time has come for the journey to really begin, for real this time, at least that was Thiago's opinion.

Fortunately, there was nothing else in the way, and twenty minutes later Thiago and Faye had completely left the edge of the forest behind them, with a vast expanse of relatively sparse vegetation stretching out before them, which seemed to be the transition between the forest and the other type of environment.

The ground beneath their feet was no longer soft and cushioned by a layer of various tree parts, herbs and other plants and tree needles, but firm and dusty, with patches of rock jutting out at irregular intervals.

As they emerged from the edge of the forest, Thiago and Faye were struck by the sheer scale of the landscape before them. The horizon seemed impossibly distant, and they could barely make out the shapes of towering mountains in the distance.

The land was rolling and undulating, with long, shallow valleys separating ridges of hills. The sparse vegetation that covered the ground was mostly low shrubs, dry grasses and hardy bushes, with the occasional twisted, gnarled tree providing some shade and relief from the hot sun.

It seemed as if there was a completely different climate outside the forest, a huge contrast to the rather humid and mild forest climate.

The air was dry and dusty, and a hot wind whipped through the landscape, kicking up clouds of dust and sand around them. Thiago could feel the sand between his teeth and taste the dryness of the air in his throat.

Despite the harshness of the environment, there was a certain beauty to the landscape, the colours of the earth ranging from deep russet to pale ochre, and the occasional flash of bright wildflowers providing a contrast to the arid backdrop.

Faye looked out over the expanse, her eyes tracing the rolling hills and distant peaks. "It's beautiful, and so completely different from the forest" she said, her voice soft with awe.

Thiago nodded in agreement. "It's like nothing I've ever seen before," he replied, his eyes fixed on the distant mountains. "We still have a long way to go," he added, pointing to the horizon in the direction of the half-moon city he had seen on the map in his mind. "But since we are not in the least bit in a hurry, it will surely be quite great, haha."

In fact, Thiago was absolutely shell shocked by how much the environment had suddenly changed since they left the forest, it was as if they had stepped into another world, such drastic changes were apparent.

He was sure that this phenomenon of basically 'changing maps' was completely unscientific, and could not be explained by logic, and could only be explained by the fact that he was in a cultivation world, so he did not care too much about it, but he was still quite shocked.

'Well, that is the world of cultivation,' Thiago thought to himself afterwards.

Then he cleared his mind and continued walking forward, albeit in his tiger form since he had thought that it would be more comfortable to march in his beastly from than in his human from although it probably did not make a difference at all.

Well, it did not matter anyway.

Thiago and Faye made their way across the open plains, taking in the sights and sounds of the barren landscape around them. The air was dry and hot, and they could feel the sun beating down on their backs. Occasionally Thiago would break the silence to ask Faye a question or point out something of interest that caught his eye.

As they continued their journey, they were both lost in thought, taking in the vastness of the world around them. The rolling hills stretched as far as the eye could see, the occasional bush or patch of grass providing a splash of green against the dusty earth. The stillness of the landscape was broken only by the soft murmur of the wind and the occasional chirp of a bird in the distance.

It was in this quiet moment that they suddenly heard a loud rustling in the nearby bushes. Thiago's ears perked up and he quickly turned towards the sound, his senses on high alert. As the rustling grew louder, he realised that something was coming towards them - something big and fast.

Faye quickly followed Thiago's lead, preparing for whatever came. And then, in a blur of movement, a massive creature burst from the foliage and charged straight for them. Thiago and Faye sprang into action, their instincts taking over as they prepared to face the unknown threat.

In fact, that had been a mistake on both Faye and Thiago's part, as they had completely shut off their senses and walked leisurely across the plain, not even scanning for danger, which could have been fatal.

However, when Thiago had been alerted by the sound of the beast, he had immediately activated his senses and scanned his surroundings, quickly spotting the creature and also realising that its realm was only at the sixth level of the Student Realm.

It had probably attacked because it had sensed Faye, who had only cultivated to the third level of the student realm, and naturally considered her an easy prey.

Of course, this was a huge mistake, as it had not taken into account Thiago's cultivation level, as he had been using his Abyss Turtle Breathing Art all the time since he got it, since it did not use much of his mana anyway, and his mana recovery was even faster than the technique's consumption, which was actually crazy. Thus, no one with at least two major realms higher than him was able to perceive Thiago's realm at the moment.

Now that Thiago had realised that the attacking creature was no threat to them, he wanted to take a closer look at what kind of creature it was after quickly killing it...

...