Indeed, an Iron-ranked beast is a little out of Shio’s league, but even though Shio had no battle experience, he wanted the challenge and he was confident in his ability to flee as long as he chooses the right target.

“What? I have no experience in fighting and I want to give it a try. Plus I know some magic.” Shio replied, lifting his hand to show a small ball of flame. The flame gave off a very soothing feeling and didn’t look dangerous at all for some reason.

Though the worry in Ronin’s eyes eased a little, he still continued to try and dissuade Shio. “How much magic could you know? And that little flame looks harmless to me.”

Shio shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He replied before walking away, back in the direction of the nearby forest.

Ronin watched Shio walked away before yelling, “You’re hopeless!” in an exasperated manner, forced to follow out of worry for Shio.

They walked for quite a while before Shio decided on a section of the forest to enter, which at most would have a 1 or 2 star iron-rank beast. Thanks to contribution of that mysterious place connected to his mind, Shio has been able to read quite a bit about where he lived, with relative accuracy.

As they got deeper into the forest and further away from the path they started noticing some bronze-ranked beasts, most of which scurried away. But after a little while, they found one braver than the others.

Shio looked at the beast ahead of him that was about two thirds his height with a golden shell and a long, pointy face, as it also intently looked back, arrogance in its eyes. “Golden-back Armadillo, 5 star bronze-rank. The stronger ones can even reach iron rank. They have a strong defense but their attacking capabilities are pretty weak. Its five star rank is based purely on its defense.” Shio said with a grin. “This should be a good start.”

Ronin didn’t say anything and just continued to look worried. He knew he couldn’t stop Shio when he was like this. If he’s set on something, it’s usually impossible to stop him.

As Shio had complete confidence, he didn’t even warn Ronin to stand back, and continued to run straight at the beast ahead, as the beast sneered and prepared to take the hit.

As Shio got closer, his fist raised to the side, the armadillo planned to defend the blow with its shell, but then it saw a gentle flame appear on Shio’s fist. The golden-back armadillo completely forgot the situation he was in and continued to stare at the soothing flame which comforted it.

A second later, it snapped out of this hypnosis as it felt a sense of urgency in the back of its mind, but it was already too late as the fist arrived on the tip of its nose with the sound of a hard impact.

The armadillo squealed out in pain then hurriedly scurried back into the depths of the forest.

Ronin couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the sight. “Hahaha!”

Shio also chuckled. “Those guys are usually arrogant because of their shells but if you hit them on the nose they instantly become cowards.”

“How come it just let you hit it?” Ronin asked curiously.

“Oh, the flame on my hand earlier doesn’t really have any damaging capabilities but its hypnotizing abilities are pretty good. I doubt it would work on an iron rank beast though.” Shio replied.

“Oh,” Ronin replied in slight awe. “Hey, Shio, how about you teach me some magic sometime? Consider it repaying your favour.” Ronin said in an eager manner.

“Sure, we’ll do that later though. First I need to find an iron-rank beast.” Shio responded casually before continuing to walk forward.

Along the way they met several copper-ranked beasts which Shio battled, testing out the various martial arts and magic that he learned in those 5 years. Unfortunately, martial arts’ effect without practicing a Body Essence Art was basically nothing. But luckily, some martial arts have some use with just basic body strength, and Shio has long ago been experimenting ways to fuse this with his magic. Only now can Shio finally put those skills to use.

To Shio’s delight, the affect was quite good, which supplemented his confidence in fighting against an iron rank beast along with his growing fighting experience. But just this much isn’t going to get him far, as these battles were relatively relaxing for Shio. He would need to push himself further.

Since when did this guy become so powerful? This guy really knows how to hide his skills. Ronin thought to himself as he continued forward. I wonder if he knows any magic suitable for me.

After a while the two started to see some iron-ranked beasts, but after identifying them Shio decided to avoid them. Some of these beasts traveled in groups, or were experts at escaping, which was too troublesome for Shio.

After some more searching Shio finally found what he was looking for. In the distance a beast was lying on the ground and you could tell that if it stood up it would be as tall as a fully grown man. Its fur had an earthy colour and it seemed hard as rock. The most terrifying thing was its huge white tusks, which looked to be half a meter long.

“Rockthrower Boar. 2 star iron rank. This is going to be tough.” Shio said with a grimace. Up till now, Shio has been having a quite a bit of fun with his first experiences in battle, but now it looked like that was about to end. He could definitely flee during the fight, but he only had about 25% confidence in beating it.

Shio sighed, slowly walking forward. “Ronin stay here. No matter what don’t enter that clearing.” Shio said as he approached the boar.

Ronin could see that Shio wasn’t confident, and his brows furrowed, but he didn’t say anything.

As Shio walked into the clearing the boar opened its eyes to look at Shio, before closing its eyes again, ignoring him.

Shio smiled when he saw this. Don’t blame me for underestimating your opponent! Shio thought before bolting forward, a hunting knife appearing in his hand.

The boar noticed this and seemed to grunt in contempt as it stood up. Before Shio was even halfway there, the boar stood up on its hind legs before dropping back down, carrying an immense force in its front legs as it stomped hard against ground. The earth suddenly started to shake, causing Shio to stumble and forcing him to leap backwards, out of the range of that small earthquake.

Before Shio could relax a little, pieces of the surrounding ground, about half a meter in size, started floating out of the ground and continuing to compress into round shaped balls half their original size.

Shio simply sighed as he prepared to face the oncoming barrage, a light breeze emanating from Shio’s body. Suddenly, those balls of compressed earth whizzed forward in Shio’s direction. Shio easily dodged the first wave as three earth balls swished past him, his speed becoming twice as fast.

The boar seemed to be surprised as the fur above its eye raised slightly. But it still grunted in disdain as four more balls of earth raised out of the ground and compressed, before once again heading to Shio as he ran ahead towards the boar.

Although the difficulty of dodging was raised even higher, it was still at a manageable pace for Shio, but as Shio closed in on the boar after passing the fourth earth ball, he saw that the boar was calm and didn’t do anything to hinder him, making Shio raise his senses to the max.

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Shio slightly turned his head just as an earth ball from behind was about to reach him, Shio urgently pushed his body, just barely dodging it. But before he could relax he saw four more compressed earth balls hurriedly coming his way. With some difficulty he dodged the first two, and jumped to dodge the third, but the fourth was coming his way, and Shio could only helplessly brace for impact in midair, raising his left arm to cover his body. Shio twisted his body in the air, facing his left shoulder towards the earth ball, then Shio’s left arm began to glow slightly, before becoming covered in a yellow rock like substance.

Then, suddenly… BANG!

Shio felt an immense impact as he was blown back to the side of the clearing, pain filling his left arm. Shio didn’t manage to land on his feet, rolling away a distance, his body dragging against the ground.

“Aagh.” Shio couldn’t help but exclaim. This was the most pain he’s ever felt in his life. Though his rock armor absorbed some of the impact before shattering, Shio still felt a lot of it.

Shio willed himself into his mind, in attempt to enter the portal so that he could heal, but was blown backwards. Shio tried again, but it resulted in the same thing.

Crap! Shio thought before looking up to see the boar had lowered its head, pointing its tusks towards Shio as it prepared to charge.

“Ughhh.” Shio exclaimed as he pushed himself onto his feet, his left arm limp at his side. I need to finish this quick, I’m running low on energy, Shio thought, a serious look in his eyes as he resolved to go all out. But before either Shio or the boar could take action, the boar felt a sharp pain as a rock was thrown at its eye.

“Huh?” Shio said in confusion as he looked to the edge of the clearing where he saw Ronin holding on to several rocks.

“Hey, stupid boar! You smell and your face is ugly!” Ronin yelled out loud, taunting the boar.

“Rooaaarr!!!” The boar suddenly charged in Ronin’s direction. Being hurt by kids injured its pride, causing immense anger.

Dammit! Shio pushed his speed to the max. “Ronin, run to your left!” Shio urgently yelled.

Hearing Shio’s instructions, Ronin immediately complied, running to his left, leading the boar closer to Shio. But the boar’s speed had exceeded Shio’s expectations as the boar had already practically closed in on Ronin while Shio was only a meter away.

Shio immediately pushed some mindforce into his knife, as his knife became flooded with green electric currents. As this occurred, Shio had already jumped and thrown the knife towards the boar.

The hunting knife pierced into the boar’s eye, and electric currents rushed out like a needle, further into the boar’s brain. The electric currents traveled at immense speed through the nerves, and into the brain, thoroughly frying the nerves and destroying parts of the brain.

The boar collapsed just as it reached Ronin. Shio immediately grabbed the knife as it drew the air around it into an extremely sharp wind energy which covered the edge of the knife and extended the blade.

Shio knew the boar was already, basically dead, but he still grimaced as he put all his strength into his right arm, twisted his body, and thrusted the sharp wind blade into the thick neck of the boar, killing for the first time in his life.

The Rockthrower Boar gave out a weak cry as the life drained from its eyes and its blood spilled on the ground until it was dead.

Shio knew he should get straight to work in collecting the blood draining from the boar’s neck, but he simply stood there, letting out a sigh. Simply because I needed some blood, did a life end this day.

Ronin saw the pained look in Shio’s eyes and simply remained silent by his side.

A moment later Ronin saw Shio put his hands together near his chest, as if in prayer, and mumbled some words in a language he couldn’t recognize. The language felt natural and free-flowing.

Then Shio knelt down and held his hand out, as it glowed with a white light. He touched the boar’s head, causing the boar’s eyes to magically close. A beam of light suddenly came down from the heavens, shining onto the boar. If one looked closely, one would see a yellowy wisp fly out of the boar’s head, integrating into the light as it flew to the heavens.

Feeling that supreme and gentle energy, Shio couldn’t help but feel relieved as he let out a heavy sigh, waiting for the light to disappear.

It was silent for a while, before Shio went about his work, collecting all the boar’s blood into two 4 litre jugs, even the blood that spilt into the ground, which he collected with magic.

As Shio went about skinning the boar, collecting its meat and bones into plastic bags, the stunned Ronin finally woke from his dazed state. “Shio, what did you just do?” Ronin asked, not knowing what to think.

Shio stopped for a moment, realizing what he just did. What did I do? There was no need, but I couldn’t stop myself.

Shio then turned to Ronin to explain. “When a beast dies its soul becomes weak and it will be left with some resentment, preventing it from passing on to the next life. But I sacrificed some of my life force as an offering to the boar in order to give its soul some peace and also the energy to move on. If a beast dies in this way, without resentment, it’s more likely to move on to a better place. Judging from the aura of that light, the place the boar’s soul went to must be heavenly.”

Ronin’s eyes grew wide. “What!? Why did you do that!? It was just an animal!”

Shio chuckled. “Relax, it was just a day’s worth of my life. As for why, I don’t know. I did it without thinking.”

Ronin just stared, not knowing what to think. This guy’s crazy.

“What did you say before?” Ronin couldn’t help but ask in curiosity.

“That was the language of the native Ancestor Elves of the northern plains. It translates to ‘Rest in peace, Brother Boar. May your death have meaning.’” Shio replied.

Ronin was silent for a moment before closing his eyes and repeating the prayer. “Rest in peace, Brother Boar. May your death have meaning.”

Shio simply smiled.

Ronin didn’t say anymore as he helped Shio collect the boar’s remains, a hint of respect in his eyes. So that’s why he’s collecting the whole body… Ronin thought as he looked at Shio.

After they finished, they left silently, carrying two big bags each. In this silent manner, they walked all the way back to the town.

Eventually they reached the front yard of Shio’s house. As it was already past lunchtime they split off here. Before Ronin left, Shio reminded him to come by after he ate to learn some magic and also to not tell anyone what happened. Ronin simply nodded; he could keep a secret.

Shio watched as Ronin’s figure left before bringing the boar’s remains and flowers into his mind-portal. Shio then went to eat lunch with his dad.