In order to improve his mood, Ethan walked through the forest all night, but it made little difference. He was still vexed, not with the trio but with himself.

He was disappointed in them, which meant he had expectations that didn’t meet. This revealed that he broke the most important principle of what he sought; he conditioned himself from the start while looking for unconditional relationships.

He gave his trust to the strangers and in exchange, demanded something of equal value, like a mere investment. This even blinded his judgment. The signs were always there, but he refused to see them.

Alice was eying him all the time; he assumed it was because he knew their secret and refused to see the scheming eyes of the girl. Nuvian was calling Oliver brother and fooling him at the same time; he assumed that perhaps it was because of cultural differences. And Oliver was a clueless idiot who acted before thinking. He never anticipated that the guy could be manipulated that easily.

Eventually, he reached the top of a small hill with a tree and a rock underneath. He sat on the rock and examined the lone tree. It’s the 3 months of isolation that made me soft. To finally have some people after a few life and death experiences made me lower my guard, he thought with cold eyes.

A rustling sound came from behind, and a white wolf revealed itself, observing him predatorily. The beast was shy of tier-3, a gorgeous creature, six feet tall and twice as long.

‘’Fuck off!’’ he growled.

The wolf looked hesitant but ultimately turned back to leave.

‘Ding! You have learned [Mana Aura].’

Ethan gave a mirthless chuckle, ‘Thanks, Ani. What’s that anyway?’

‘Mana Aura: Mix your killing intent with Mana Sense to suppress the living beings in your domain.-Currently 30 yards-’

An intimidation skill? Somewhat useful, I guess. There were many mana skills, according to the late trio. Some of them were discovered spontaneously, often in deadly battles. Others, you learned them with enough mana and experience. Like [Mana Sense] at tier 1 or [Mana Flight] at tier 5. But no matter which rank you improved them, they were worthless for advancing after tier-3. One needed comprehension of the elements, and mana didn’t seem to count as one.

During their time together, it was undeniable that Ethan learned many things. Not a complete waste of investment, I suppose, he thought with a wry smile.

The moonlight was quite bright that night. There were two moons on Elisium. When they were separated from each other, it was almost like the illumination of the sun. That happened usually before sunrise but not every day.

Ethan took over Alice’s spatial pouch to fetch some wine. The space inside of the pouch was smaller than a quarter of his rings’. There were many beast parts along with cores, clothes, low-quality potions, coins, and a few bottles of wine.

He slowly sipped the wine while debating whether to sell the pouch or keep it as an extra space. Although without going to the market of the town, it was pointless to even consider such things, he still needed something to make himself occupied. It was a few hours later he dozed off to sleep.

When the sun was high up, he woke up to the sound of low growling. Opening one eye, he saw an adorable wolf cub making cute noises to him.

‘’Hey buddy,’’ he called with a friendly voice. The cub got startled and turned to run. But there was no way Ethan would leave it alone. He followed it for two hundred yards until it came to a small cave with another white wolf cub playing with a turtle shell. After making sure they were alone, he took out a piece of meat from his stock and called for them.

This time the little wolves didn’t hesitate and dug in. Even when Ethan tried to pet them, they didn’t mind and focused on the food.

An hour later, Ethan was sitting on the ground, one of the cubs was trying to climb his shoulder, and another was biting and pulling his cloak. When the turtle shell slowly grew legs, they both turned to make threatening sounds, and the legs were gone.

‘’Dust, Snow, that’s rude. You can’t bully others like that,’’ he chided in amusement. ‘’Come now, the first one to sit gets this. Sit!’’ he said, taking out a bone from his ring. They both perked their ears, but the bone was gone before they jumped for it.

‘’No freebies, you gotta work for it.’’ He showed them how to sit, helping with his hands a few times. Snow was the first to understand, while Dust didn’t seem to care. In the end, they both got a bone each, which made it even harder for Snow to listen.

After two hours of playing around, their mother returned. It was the same wolf Ethan saw last night. She was full of injuries but still attacked him at the sight of him playing with the cubs.

He blinked to dodge and unleash the [Mana Aura] before raising his hands to the air, ‘’Relax, girl, I’m not the enemy.’’

The cubs were frightened, but their mother didn’t care about the mana aura this time. With no choice, Ethan gave her some kicks and punches. Even in that terrible condition, she managed to bite his arm and didn’t let go even when she collapsed from exhaustion. He drained a health and stamina potion to her throat, which visibly helped her injuries, but she still stayed unconscious for another hour.

Ethan was grilling meat on a small fire while the cubs were with their mother, licking her and making noises. Waking up, the mother immediately got into a defensive position. But he was already prepared; getting a slice of raw meat and a bowl of water, he approached the wolf. He left them close to her and turned back to his own food.

Ethan smiled as he saw she was going for the water. ‘’Think of me as a guest, I’ll stay for a few days, and then I’ll leave, promise.’’

She raised her head threateningly, not toward Ethan though, to the other side of the fire. There, Beet was watching them sinisterly. After disappearing for three days, he came back as a full-fledged tier-2 and even a few inches taller.

‘’Just how the hell are you finding me every time?’’ Ethan asked curiously but didn’t get any response. Shaking his head, he took out some spice for the food, canin leaf specifically, before adding it to the meal as he continued to his task.

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And so started his vacation with the wolves. The mother got the name Crack. He was keeping the name ‘Coke’ for the father, but there was only a mother in the picture.

For one week, they hunted together, played together, and howled together. It was the perfect distraction for him after the incident with Oliver’s team.

On the seventh day, they took care of the wolf pack that injured Crack, and Ethan reached level 22. As a celebration, they watched the sunset at the place they first met, where he was the only drunk speaker and the others… well, wolves and a mantis.

‘’Hahaha, I even lectured the guy with my vast experiences!’’ Ethan told Crack with giggles. He was sitting on the ground with his back against the rock with Crack lying close to him. His left hand was holding a wine bottle, and the right one was giving a belly rub to Dust. Meanwhile, Beet was riding Snow like a royal mount.

‘’It wasn’t even related! My relationship with that girl was totally casual, while Oliver and Alice were childhood sweethearts. And Oliver was clearly in love with her.’’ He took another sip and gave a deep sigh. ‘’I guess I had to blow off the steam somehow. It was really close, you know? I probably wouldn’t see the arrow if I didn't evade that thunderbolt. Not to mention the ogre up on my ass,’’ he said with eyes turning cold, ‘’Though, once I was in the clear, their fates were sealed.’’

He wasn’t being arrogant because Ethan already had a grasp of their fighting styles after the first day. In his head, he fought with them more than once and came on top every time. That didn’t mean he didn’t trust them, though. He did.

It was a habit of years, looking for openings all the time. As an assassin who usually worked alone, he paid attention to every small detail. Finding weaknesses to exploit had become second nature to him.

His eyes turned gentle once again as he looked at the scene where Dust bled his hand while playing and immediately started to lick it with concern. ‘’Anyway, you guys are a great company, but I have to leave tomorrow. Taking you with me would be very irresponsible as even I don’t know where I’m going. But in the future, I plan to venture deeper to the Ivory Woodland, so perhaps we’ll see each other again.’’

The next morning when it was time to leave, he gave goodbye gifts to his hosts.

‘’Sit!’’ he commanded.

Both Snow and Dust sat.

‘’Lie down!’’

Only Snow lay down. Dust was looking for his mother.

‘’Roll!’’

Snow rolled while Dust spun around itself.

‘’Come!’’

They both ran toward him, wiggling their tails.

Ethan laughed, ‘’Good wolves!’’ he petted them for a while before giving them tier-3 cave lion bones. He gave the rest of his meat stock to Crack and even managed to pet her afterward.

‘’Alright, crackheads, take care!’’

With that, he resumed his journey to Ehrendil. There were many beasts on the way, but he didn’t want to delay too much. He only hunted the ones at tier-3 or the ones close to it.

Two months after he left the wolves, he was already 15 miles away from the signals of the biochips. He didn’t want to go to the city as a mess, so he looked for water to get a quick bath. Climbing to the highest trees once in a while, he found a small lake not long after.

He got undressed and jumped to it right away. If there was anything dangerous in it, he could always blink back. And lately, the closer he got to the city, the lower were the tiers of the beasts.

As he got rid of all the blood, sweat, and grime, he couldn’t help but moan. Even superhumans were helpless against the satisfaction of a cold bath after so long. The weather got cold recently, and the water was even colder. But it didn’t bother him too much. The work of vitality and endurance, probably. I bet after tier-5, people don’t even feel too cold or too hot, he thought idly and checked his status.

Tier 2 - Level 25

Health: 700/700

Mana: 852/1000

Stamina: 550/600

Vitality: 70

Strength: 62

Endurance: 60

Agility: 100

Intellect: 100

Perception: 30

*Available stats: 0

Skills(Rank 1): [Blink], [Fabric Tear], [Void Wrap], [Mana Sense], [Mana Aura]

Killing beasts only at peak tier-2 and higher was the right call. Even though he mainly focused on swift travel, he managed to reach level 25. As long as he got a rank 2 skill, he could advance to tier-3 in a month or three, depending on a good hunting area.

The skills were still his weakness, though. He tried everything but couldn’t find a way to change them. He didn’t even have a clue about how he was able to use them, let alone improve them. On a fundamental level, he kind of understood the [Void Wrap], coating himself entirely in void aspect mana to make him invisible to anyone. But when he thought about making himself transparent enough to pass the objects? Or reducing the ridiculous mana consumption? He had no idea. [Blink] and [Fabric Tear] were even more incomprehensible to him.

Whatever, I’ll find a solution in the city, he thought and started to swim in the lake, enjoying himself. At worst, I’ll buy different skills. Nuvian said, ‘everyone has different talents for different elements.’ I could check what’s best for me in those skill shops.

The ten minutes of bath became thirty minutes of swimming. Once he was done with it, he cleaned the leather armor he got from Nuvian. After a good scrub with sand, the ash color armor looked quite fashionable. The quality was just so-so, and it had some damage, but at least it looked good.

Looking at his reflection on the lake, Ethan gave a satisfied nod and continued his journey. After a few miles, he found a little elf girl collecting herbs in a basket. She was wearing a yellow dress and doing her task absentmindedly as her long brown hair waved in the wind.

‘’Hey there! Are you from Ehrendil, little one?’’ he asked with a smile.

The girl jumped back, ‘’Oh! You startled me. Of course, I’m from Ehrendil. Where else should I be from?’’ she asked back.

‘’Hehe, sorry. Silly question. I’m not from around here. I was wondering if I’m close to the city. I’m Ethan. What’s your name?’’ he said, walking toward her slowly.

‘’Renna,’’ the girl said, who looked about 12 years old or so, pointing with her hand, ‘’The city is not far, a few hours if you run that way,’’ she said and added, ''Considering your long legs.''

‘’Okay, thank you. Are you gathering herbs? I have some with me, but I don’t know if they are useful or not. Can you check them for me?’’

Renna got energetic all of a sudden. Gone with the snarky girl, she straightened her back and approached in a professional manner. ‘’I can, but you have to pay me. There are not many herbs that I don’t know about in the Emerald Forest.’’

‘’Very well, how much?’’ Ethan asked, amused.

‘’Ten percent of the market price of your herbs. I can also bring you to the alchemist street if you wanna sell them.’’

Although the little herb identifier was being a little greedy, Ethan didn't mind, ‘’Deal! Come now, help me to separate the legendary ones from the heavenly ones!’’ he said and called his herb horde in grandeur.

Looking speechless at the herb hill as tall as her, ‘’Why did you collect so much garbage?’’ Renna asked, stupefied.

Ethan coughed in his fist, ‘’We’ll talk about that after the separation. Come, start with the most precious ones,’’ he urged.

After an hour of work, Renna was standing with three different herbs in her hands. ‘’Blue lotus and Gondar flower should sell for 5 silver, but you’ve damaged the roots of Tianna mushroom, you’ll get a silver at best,’’ she said with a pout. ‘’6 copper for me, better than nothing, I guess.’’

‘’And you are absolutely sure there are no immortal grade ones?’’ Ethan probed.

‘’There is no such grade!’’ she retorted, annoyed. ‘’You are the worst herb gatherer I know.’’

‘’How would I know?’’ he snorted, turning his head from the small mountain of garbage to look into her eyes, ‘’You can’t win the lottery if you don’t play.’’

They walked back to the city together, bickering with each other along the way. When they finally arrived, a broad smile appeared on Ethan’s face. At long last, Ehrendil!