The sun rose in the sky like a torch, illuminating the dark forest. A groan escaped his lips as he woke up.

"Uggh, this must be why my father told me not to drink alcohol." Zhao Fan slowly opened his eyelids and stared at the cracked ceiling while holding his throbbing head with his hands. Controlling his strength this time, he patted his head lightly, finding some dried blood but no serious damage except the pestering headache.

"Now that I think about it, how did I even survive?" Zhao Fan clearly recalled the cool and mysterious feeling which brought him back from the edge of death.

"That feeling seemed to have come from my dantian, but clearly it wasn't anything I did that saved me. Could it be that I have some heavenly constitution that I have read about in my childhood?" Mulling over the crazy situation, Zhao Fan decided that even if he possessed some godly constitution he would never try to trigger it ever again. Not only did he not know anything about the trigger conditions, but it might not even be a constitution and he might instead suicide by trying to awaken something he doesn't have in the first place.

Who would want to experience something like one's body tearing apart?

After his short contemplation, Zhao Fan successfully got up but he still had trouble controlling his strength while walking and doing basic things.

"Time to test my strength" Zhao Fan excitedly began to head for the cave exit.

Rumble

Just as he was about to step out he heard a loud sound come from his stomach. Even with the mysterious power, reshaping and healing the body drastically, coupled by the lapse of an entire day, he had naturally used up a lot of fuel. Zhao Fan looked at his food supply and only found the wolf meat from earlier and some cheap rice sacks, his brows started tightening.

"How regrettable, I have so much meat, yet I’m still unsure if I can eat it because of what I just experienced. I guess I can only store it in some of my rice sacks. Maybe they can be good bait as I hunt." Zhao Fan spent a lot of money he had secretly stashed on buying the rice sacks causing him to be very apprehensive with its usage.

Before leaving, Zhao Fan carefully cut and stored a piece of the wolf meat in his jacket in case of an emergency and the rest he wrapped up along with some carefully distributed salt in order to better preserve it.

Following that, he cleaned up the dried blood on the ground where he was violently thrashing before and tidied up his belongings in the small cave. Having done all the miscellaneous tasks he finally set out.

Before doing anything else, Zhao Fan exited his cave and found a spacious spot nearby to get used to his power, afterall what would happen if he falls flat on his face during an intense fight? He then started doing jumps and short dashes to get used to his new agility. What surprised him was that he was about two times as fast and jumped much higher than before. It seems that he did not go through that torture for nothing.

After Zhao Fan more or less adjusted with his movements, he took out his sword and started swinging in the air. His swings created small gusts and the tree he used for practice was soon filled with countless deep cuts. Feeling satisfied he sheathed his blade and entered the forest.

He decided to hunt down some rabbits and cook them before setting out to go deeper and his plan worked very well. Zhao Fan's vastly increased agility allowed him to instantly kill rabbits with a clean cut to the neck and even hunt some birds which were unfortunate enough to get in his way. After cooking and eating all the game he finally decided to set out.

A few hours passed and he was already in the deeper parts of the forest, around where he got ambushed last time. This time however, Zhao Fan carefully hid himself in some bushes and watched for any approaching beasts.

Seconds turned into minutes, which turned into hours. Eventually he was on the verge of falling asleep, however each time he was about to leave out of impatience, he stilled himself and remembered the wolf's ambush. Waiting like this might be tiring, but at least he has the privilege of choosing who to fight.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Eventually, a white furred deer came into Zhao Fan's view causing him to instantly sober up. He was camped out close to a river which provided good visibility for him and a source of water for the beasts. As the deer lowered its head to drink some water, Zhao Fan was preparing to charge out and instantly kill it.

After waiting for so long, seeing such a low-tier beast which looked frail and weak, his mouth salivated. Since he couldn't handle the wolf meat, eating lower-tier beasts will probably be a much smarter idea in order to strengthen himself. The experience of doubling his power overnight clearly caused him to be deeply amazed.

Swoosh

While he was thinking about his nutritious dinner, a wolf which looked similar to the one Zhao Fan killed had jumped out of the bushes close to the river and charged towards the deer.

"This f*cker dares to steal my prey?!" Zhao Fan was evidently agitated from sitting in one place for a few hours only to wear a green hat. His muscles tensed up and his qi wildly circulated towards his legs as Zhao Fan put every effort to ready himself to intercept the wolf mid jump. With his boost in strength, he was confident in facing it and gaining an advantage.

Bang

The frail white deer who was still drinking water slightly shifted his shiny white antlers causing the wolf to be ripped apart horizontally. Not even sparing the wolf's bisected flying corpse a glance, the deer looked in the direction of the bushes where Zhao Fan was hiding and scoffed. Zhao Fan, on the other hand, pivoted and did a 180 the most he saw the scene, rushing backwards instead of forwards.

"How can I not even find a suitable prey after looking for half a day?" His back drenched in cold sweat, a dejected Zhao Fan decided to go back to his cave. It seemed like he was truly too unlucky, the first time he went into the forest he almost got killed by a strong enemy, and the second time he entered when he was much stronger someone even more dangerous and unfathomable appeared.

Considering that he woke up at around noon and then practiced and after that stayed in bushes for a few hours, by the time he arrived at his cave the sky was already turning dark. Upon some contemplation, Zhao Fan decided to sleep early and wake up early so he would have more time to hunt.

Another night passed and the morning soon arrived.

Once more, Zhao Fan walked into the deeper parts of the forest and camped out at the same spot. Time slowly passed by and two hours later it was still fruitless.

"Wait a second if that white deer lives here doesn't that mean that I'm in its territory?" Just then Zhao Fan realized the reason why he couldn't find any prey for nearly two days. Facing this realization, he suddenly felt like an idiot for wasting so much time. To confirm his theory, he walked far away from that spot and hid himself in the bushes again.

About 30 minutes passed and a beast came into view near where Zhao Fan was hiding. It was another wolf! The wolf had pitch black fur just like the one from before. Last time he faced it, it nearly spelled his death but this time Zhao Fan was ecstatic. With no hesitation he rushed out from the bushes with his movement technique already active. Like a phantom his body quickly neared the wolf.

Zing!

Condensing all of his strength, his sword created a loud sound as it was instantly unsheathed and shining blue. In a blink of an eye a slash blinked across the forest and reached the wolf before it could even react.

"This wolf was hiding its strengthx?" Zhao Fan's eyebrows tightened as his sword seemingly passed through air. Not leaving an opening, he turned the sword, placing it in a defensive pose as he jumped back. It was at that moment that he looked at where he previously slashed before and saw a bloody head falling to the ground.

Zhao Fan immediately stopped and was shocked. Evidently it was not the wolf hiding its strength but he himself who was too strong. The situation he faced yesterday where he could barely kill the wolf was flipped on its head. Apparently the meat he ate was a true treasure! Coupled with his increase in cultivation, it wasn't a surprise that it was so easy.

Smiling, he arrived before the wolf and started to remove its insides. After he finished, he slung the meat over his shoulder and went back to his cave.

Zhao Fan looked at the large body of the wolf and contemplated. The last time Zhao Fan ate the wolf meat until he was full causing him to almost die. However, now looking at his strength he was a lot stronger and maybe if he ate just a little the effects wouldn't be bad.

The longer he stared at it the more he wanted to eat, throwing caution to the wind he decided to go along with his idea. The strength gain was too addicting!

In his humble abode, Zhao Fan quickly placed the carcass down and started a fire. Cutting a bit of raw meat off, Zhao Fan decided to cook it as it would probably become less nutritious and soon a pleasant aroma diffused. Not wasting a breath, he gobbled up the cooked meat.

Suddenly his expression tightened and he felt a searing pain which caused him to spit out the piece of meat.

"AAFGHH!" Screaming with his mouth full, Zhao Fan sounded like a pig being slaughtered. As his body started to fail him, Zhao Fan took off at his quickest speed to the river by the cave. With lightning quick speed, he downed a bowl's worth of cold water and the burning sensation in his mouth alleviated, although his sense of taste would likely be affected for the foreseeable future. His fear made him cook the meat very thoroughly causing it to lose a lot of moisture resulting in it being extremely tough, however the reason behind his violent expression was that it was too hot!

Zhao Fan felt that if anyone saw the scene of a cultivator being in this position due to hot food then they would die of laughter. His face took on a red color as he looked up from the water and saw a deer on the other side looking straight at him.

"What are you looking at???!" Enraged, Zhao Fan was about to dash over but the deer quickly ran away. If he chased after it, Zhao Fan would be even more embarrassed so he just returned to his cave. A delicious aroma filled the cave yet again as he cooked another piece of meat. This time, he decided to blow on it a bit before biting down. Zhao Fan felt a warm feeling in his stomach but this time it did not devolve into the nightmare from last time. Still Zhao Fan took no risks and circulated the energy from the meat at a fast rate. Surprisingly, another familiar force spread through his body as the meat slowly digested however it was much weaker than before. Not only that, it wasn't painful at all but felt natural instead.

"Weird, other than the spiritual energy there is also some form of red essence refining my body" Upon thinking this far, Zhao Fan realized that this was probably the reason his body almost exploded the day before. This time however, the energy was much calmer and slowly strengthened his body. Soon however, the stream of spiritual energy was completely absorbed and only the red essence continued being released as the meat was digested.