Four days later, Kai and Brewan were starting to get used to their new routines. Hunt in the mornings, rest in the afternoon to recover mana, then spend the evening researching and exploring with Halia.

Kai gained another +2 mana from Halia’s research sessions, and it was once again claimed by her. Combined with Kai’s efforts in hunting, he was growing stronger at a rate that far surpassed his previous cultivation speed.

It wasn’t just his mana and strength that Kai was improving, though. Every day, before starting their hunt, he and Brewan took the opportunity to explore their surroundings more.

Neither of them were willing to test their luck on the other two stone buildings, fearing that there could possibly still be active defensive formations, but they did take peeks inside. The one closer to the classrooms appeared to be some sort of dormitory.

The further one raised a few questions, though. The duo could hardly see inside because of how little light was making it through the dusty old windows, but they could make out the general structure of the interior.

“Is it some sort of stable? Is beast taming popular here?”

Brewan frowned as he craned his head to try and get a better view inside.

“Not while I’ve been alive, you would have to be crazy to try that. I’ve read that some academies kept beasts, and even signed pacts with more powerful ones to form alliances. All of that fell apart at the start of the beast wave, though.”

After peeking through all of the windows on the building, they weren’t able to see anything else of value within it.

“We’ll have to ask Sydney if he knows anything else about this place once he wakes up. I’m pretty sure it’s been empty at least since the beast wave, but I’m confused why there’s only damage to the temple.”

Kai nodded his head in agreement. It was curious.

The town below the academy was a total wreck, and monsters wandered through it freely. Up the hill, on the academy ground, though, every beast the duo had run into had followed something else there.

The terror bird had been chasing the bear, and the deer was hunting the fluffy rabbit that Halia spotted.

Even the beasts she sensed now were on the very outskirts of the sect, leaving the main grounds relatively safe. The damages to buildings was just as good- all of the brick ones were in good condition, but the temple, which at face level appeared to be the most sturdy, was a total wreck.

“Hopefully Sydney will know what’s going on with this place. If we want to hear from him, though, we’ll have to get to work.”

[There are two beasts east of the temple, and one near the top of the hill. All of them should be under level ten.]

Kai gestured toward the storage buildings bordering the temple.

“Let’s take on those two first. If it goes well, let’s try to take down the one near the top of the hill, too.”

Brewan cast a spell, and the duo slowly approached the two mana signatures. They took a longer route, sneaking into the forest and creeping through the underbrush as they eyed their prey.

[Rage Boar- Level 7]

[Rage Boar- Level 4]

When they were only a couple meters away, Kai pointed toward the left boar, then motioned down toward his sword. After receiving a nod from Brewan, he crouched down, his muscles bunching up.

In one swift motion, Kai leapt out of the brush, swinging his sword down toward the boar’s neck. Caught completely by surprise, the beast could hardly even lift up a foot before the blade descended into its flesh.

[You killed Rage Boar- Level 4!]

It was a world of difference compared to the first boar Kai fought. It wasn’t just the immense increase in strength that led to his efficiency in taking down the boar. A week’s worth of experience hunting in the area was doing tons of work, too. Now, Kai could spot the weakest spot on his prey in an instant.

He wasn’t the only one who was improving at an impressive pace.

“Earth spike.”

The ashy dirt beneath the second boar churned like stormy water for a moment before a lackluster spike jumped up, stabbing toward the beast’s side. Its tip wasn’t nearly as sharp as Kai’s sword, but it still managed to punch a small hole in the boar’s shoulder while also pushing it off balance.

Kai dashed over to the second foe, thrusting his blade into its chest.

[You killed Sturdy Boar- Level 7!]

[You reached Level 9!]

[Mana +5!]

[Mana -4, Strength +4.]

“They’re both dead?”

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Brewan poked his head out of the brush, his eyes lingering on the felled boars for a few seconds. Even though he was one of the people hunting, he found it a bit hard to believe that they’d managed to kill two beasts in just as many seconds.

“Yea, that went a lot better than I expected it too. It was a great idea to use your dispersion spell to sneak up on them.”

Brewan ducked his head at the praise.

“I used it to sneak past beasts all of the time, so I figured it might be useful for this, too.”

[This fight went pretty good, but it looks like there’s still some work to be done on the earth spike spell. It’s still a lot weaker than I expected it to be. I’ll need to keep it on our research list.]

-

-

[Kai- Lvl 3 -> 9]

[Strength: 21 -> 45]

[Mana: 6 -> 14]

The last beast didn’t prove to be any more difficult to hunt than the first two boars, and the duo dispatched it quickly.

Kai was now strong enough that he didn’t need to worry even if they ran into a beast in the teens. He even suspected that if they were to run into a beast approaching tier two that they would probably be able to escape relatively unharmed.

According to Brewan, actual tier two beasts were still definitely out of their reach.

Luckily, despite them venturing all over the campus and the town below it, Halia never detected a beast over level fifteen. Wherever the terror bird had run off too after being injured wasn’t anywhere close.

“Let’s head back, I want to help Halia work on her current spell.”

Brewan shot Kai a weird look before stooping down to grab his flask of water from the bank of the stream. Somehow, Kai seemed to be looking forward to participating in Halia’s torture research.

The only saving grace for Brewan was Kai’s mana. After hunting and growing stronger, Halia had finally saved enough of Kai’s mana to start using spells herself. If she exerted everything Kai had, she could even make a fireball similar to the ones pitched by Brewan, but doing so would give Kai a splitting headache.

If that was all she was doing with magic, Kai wouldn’t be particularly motivated to help her out.

[I think I have a spell figured out to repair your robes. It’s a bit tough, since they were originally crafted with a Qi imbuing technique, but it’s definitely doable.]

After all of the battles he’d been through recently, the once-pristine, white robes now looked like rags that’d been used to clean a swamp. Along with Halia’s necklace and the ruby sword, they were all Kai had left of his original world…and of Enla.

Washing them in the stream barely helped at all; the water couldn’t do much for bloodstains or holes. If there was one person Kai trusted to find a way to repair them, though, it was Halia.

When they got back to the classrooms, Halia started muttering stuff for them to mark down on the whiteboards while Brewan started roasting more venison for lunch. Every available surface in their ‘cooking classroom’ was already covered in chalk, and the ‘sleeping classroom’ was almost completely used up, too.

[Hm, we might need to expand to the upper floors as well. We’re starting to run out of space down here.]

“There are three of us, four if you count Sydney. We already have the lower floor of an entire school.”

[I don’t have any paper like back in the sect. Do you remember how much stuff I had to write while I was researching for the other disciples?]

The image of a younger Halia sitting over a desk piled haphazardly with paper resurfaced in his mind. Her eyes had bags under them, and there had been a few dirty plates sitting off to the side. Back then, it was such an unclean sight that Kai had to clean up after her and help her organize everything.

If someone else’d seen her back then, it would’ve disgraced our sect. Hmph, and no matter how much I tried, she never learned how to take care of herself. I don’t know how she survived when I was away on sect missions.

The sudden rush of memories made Kai start pondering the past.

The other disciples were almost as bad as her. I couldn’t even keep track of the number of times Edwin wandered onto another sect’s land ‘because he saw a cool rock’. Every time I went to bring him back, he’d always be pestering random people with his annoying geology questions…

The wide smile that graced the green-robed second disciple’s face every time he talked about rocks or formations appeared in Kai’s mind.

At least the other two didn’t cause as much trouble on a regular basis. If they had, I really wouldn’t have been able to deal with it all.

An adventurous fellow who was overly enthusiastic about rocks was one thing, but if the Apparition of Death drew too much attention, it wouldn’t have been simple to get the surrounding sects to stay calm.

They better not be causing too much trouble here.

Kai was jolted out of his thoughts when Brewan nudged his side, then handed him a skewer of venison.

“Let’s go feed Sydney again, maybe he’ll finally wake up enough to tell us about this place.”

After grabbing two more skewers of meat, Brewan headed over to the sleeping room. As they walked in, Sydney sat up on his cushions and looked over.

“Hey.”

[Finally, this guy is awake, and he looks a lot steadier than before. I knew he would recover!]

After giving the prone man food and water, Sydney leaned back against the wall of the classroom.

“You said you’ve been here for five days, right? It’s probably been at least a month since I set out for here, then…”

Brewan nodded.

“Almost exactly a month, according to the academy’s logs. They told me that you were planning on coming here to train for two weeks.”

Sydney just nodded, then glanced up and the evening sunlight streaming in through the window above him.

“Sydney, what do you know about this place? We’ve explored a lot, and it looks like no one has been here since before the beast wave.”

Sydney nodded as he looked back toward Brewan.

“Yeah. This area was hit by one of the beast generals, there aren’t many settlements left anywhere nearby. I couldn’t even find any details about this place in our academy’s library. I only knew that there would be something here from a traveling merchant I spoke with.”

Sydney let out a sigh as he glanced down at what was left of his gear.

“I’m not even sure if the merchant was telling the truth. He claimed that there was a small branch of a large, old academy here. One of the ones that fell during the beast wave. This place is definitely unusual, but I’d think that there would be some information on it in the library if there actually used to be another large academy. I was hoping I could find some old artifacts here, regardless of what kind of an academy it was, but this place is barren.”

Kai took a few steps closer as he listened.

“Did the merchant say what academy this was?”

Sydney nodded.

“The Crescent Moon Academy.”