The night had just settled in while countless of stars started to appear and shine brightly across the vast beautiful sky. The people of the Dawnfire World didn't dwell in much research regarding the celestial bodies in the sky because they profoundly believed that they were created by the Ancient Void Crystal that was located deep within the center of the world…
…
A couple hours had passed and Noctis finally showed signs of waking up, as he felt that the overall state of his body was recovering at a slow and noticeable rate. He opened his eyes and steadily lifted his head from the ground, but his vision was still blurry and wasn't able to clearly see his surroundings. His brain was at least still functioning because he was able to tell that night had descended and that it was extremely dark all around him.
Noctis lowered his head against the cold ground, but felt pain and fatigue run through his body, which made him arrive at a simple conclusion within his mind: that he had survived and was still alive!
"Damn, kid! It hasn't even been that long since we left the damn cave from the mountain and even then, you nearly died from accepting the Old Great One's inheritance! But now, you're laying here all bruised up everywhere after going through yet another life and death struggle… I gotta say kid, you have a natural knack for this type of stuff! Hahahaha…" |
Noctis had gathered the natural energy of the world to cleanse his mind and was able to hear what Spirit Ster had said… He gave a slight wry smile because this situation that he was in was truly unfortunate and completely out of his expectations. He couldn't help but think that this definitely wouldn't be the last time he would go through something like this…
The major thing to note was that in this scenario, there were no outside factors that came in or anything of the sort, so Noctis would have no one else to blame besides himself because he had actually greatly underestimated the Silver Dire Wolf's vitality. He took a very dangerous risk to deal a killing blow and was successful, but had miscalculated upon realizing that the Silver Dire Wolf wasn't immediately blown away or hadn't fallen to the ground.
This mistake had almost costed him his life!
Noctis closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief… he reviewed over his fight with the Silver Dire Wolf through his memories and understood where he went wrong. From this, he would be able to learn and improve upon himself, which made him firmly decide that he would not make the same mistake again… especially to another Silver Dire Wolf!
Noctis was still in the middle of recovering himself, but he became instantly alerted after noticing a bright light within the corner of his eye. He relaxed himself shortly after because he realized that the source of this bright light was actually from Spirit Magi's black scales as it was floating above him.
["It's good that you are awake… I did you a favor and had kept the beasts around this area away from you while you had lost consciousness this entire time. Before you ask, the Silver Dire Wolf near you is dead without a shadow of a doubt, but once you recover, you should take the body with you and inspect it because there's something that you might find interesting about it…"]
"Something interesting about it?" Noctis casually thought to himself and had taken a note of what Spirit Magi had said. He then looked away as he decided to lift up his arm that was cruelly bit by the Silver Dire Wolf, and had brought it within his line of sight before widening his eyes in complete shock.
This was because what he had seen was a gruesome sight that would send shivers down anyone's spine... his arm was actually horribly mutilated!
Parts of his flesh in his forearm was barely hanging on to the side, whereas the center of his forearm had its bone exposed to the core. The nerves in his arm was greatly damaged and one could even see the indentations and tooth marks that were from the Silver Dire Wolf's sharp teeth. He wasn't able to feel his arm at all because it had become entirely numb, but at least he noticed that it was actually slowly recovering thanks to Spirit Ster's ability!
Noctis calmed himself down and dropped his arm to the ground in way that the exposed part of his forearm wasn't against the ground. He wasn't worried at all about it getting infected since it seemed like his arm would be healed in a few hours, but he was still somewhat wary for it since he had never received a terrible injury like this before.
…
An hour or so had passed, and Noctis was finally able to move again due to recovering enough energy. He noticed that his bad arm was healed enough to a point that he could freely move it, but decided that he was still going to be carefully considerate about it by using his other arm instead. Noctis turned his body around so his chest was against the ground, and then used his dominant arm to push himself up.
He was finally standing and Spirit Magi 'attached' to him again by casually floating next to him, as it served as a light source for Noctis. He walked a few steps and noticed the Silver Dire Wolf's dead body, but before he was able to stand right beside it, Spirit Magi had spoken to him,
["There is a small river stream and an alcove against a rocky wall a few meters away from here… you should probably drag the Silver Dire Wolf's body to there and use it as a safe spot for now. You can then inspect its body and also enter into the Insight World again. The Insight World is an extremely resourceful tool for you, so enter it whenever you can!"]
Noctis faintly smiled and spoke in a casual manner, "Not only will I inspect the Silver Dire Wolf's body as you have said, but I need to cook some of its meat and eat it as well! Before I enter the Insight World, I need to get rid of my hunger and thirst in order to refill my energy… I'm only still in the Mortal Blood realm after all!"
It was widely known that only when a cultivator reaches the Profound Formation realm would one didn't need to eat, drink, or sleep. This is because in that realm, one could have a greater manipulation of the natural energy of the world to replenish one's needs regarding hunger, thirst, or rest.
But it wasn't as if a cultivator would completely stop just because they can survive without it, rather it was still common especially consuming food and drinks. High quality food and drinks, such as certain meat and alcohol, were like a real luxury and people would still derive great pleasure from it!
Noctis was merely at the Second Level of the Mortal Blood realm, so obviously he needed to eat and drink since he still felt hunger and thirst. There was still a big difference between cultivators in Mortal Blood realm and mortals regarding this, and that mortals needed to eat and drink or else they would quickly die. The cultivators in the Mortal Blood realm can survive a lot longer if they didn't eat or drink, but it would greatly affect their strength. But even at this point, Mortal Blood cultivators would still have enough strength to easily kill mortals…
This was the great difference between the world of cultivators and the world of mortals!
Noctis circulated his qi essence towards his upper chest and dominant arm as he began to grab the Silver Dire Wolf's body. He was able to regenerate enough qi essence while he had been unconscious because this was a standard ability to those who had comprehended the 'Qi Essence' insight. This practically enabled him to passively regenerate qi essence into his energy supply even if he was completely unconscious!
With a lot of effort, Noctis was eventually able to wrap his arm around the body of the dead Silver Dire Wolf and got a good grip. He slowly moved as Spirit Magi guided the way to the alcove that was near a river stream. A couple of minutes later, he reached the desired location and dropped off the Silver Dire Wolf's body onto the ground.
He didn't stand around for too long because he still needed to do some work, which is to mainly build a campfire and to inspect the content within the dead Silver Dire Wolf!
Noctis walked to the nearby river stream and drank from it to get rid of his thirst before returning back and collecting rocks, branches, twigs, and leaves along the way for the campfire. As a child, Noctis was taught by his adoptive father about basic survival skills, so building a campfire and skinning an animal was natural to him since they were the most essential skills! Luckily, he was in an alcove within a large rocky wall, so the flames from the campfire would be protected against the wind.
Noctis skillfully built the campfire and then felt the flames bring warmth throughout his entire body as he lightly smiled. He didn't enjoy this feeling for too long before he turned away and looked at the dead Silver Dire Wolf's body.
It was finally time for him to inspect it and find out what Spirit Magi meant earlier about it being interesting!
Noctis first removed the sharp tree branch that was still stuck in its eye back when he had stabbed the large beast before they fell of the cliff. He placed his palm against the Silver Dire Wolf's chest and began to focus his mind.
Not only could one do this to oneself to check the overall state of one's body, but it could also be done to another person or creature if they were willing… or if they were dead.
Noctis closed his eyes and fully concentrated as he scanned the entire state of the dead Silver Dire Wolf… he mostly discovered nothing since the energies throughout its body had dissipated, but after spending more time and diving deeper through the complex energy arrays, he was able to discover something!
Noctis was able to find a small condensed source of energy that had a special innate aura to it… which actually belonged to an 'Echo Core' that had a natural infused supply of natural energy!
Noctis was quite surprised and was about to mention it towards Spirit Magi, but before he was able to, he heard Spirit Ster's voice in a rather informative tone,
"Kid, do you have any idea what this is!? Your damn luck is showings itself again! But don't be too excited since this is just a normal-sized echo core that had formed deep within this dead wolf! You could trade it in for some decent money in a marketplace or it can be used as an ingredient to form a higher-quality item… it can even be dissolved into its essence and be fused into a weapon as a form of upgrade! This thing you found honestly ain't too bad hahahaha…" |
Noctis didn't refute or interrupt any of Spirit Ster's words because it was right… he could indeed do all the things that the spirit had mentioned!
Not every beast or creature could form an echo core within them because it was largely dependent on the density of the natural energy where the creature had lived. There was also the luck factor, which played the major role for low-level creatures. Generally, low-level creatures lived in areas where the density of the natural energy was thin, therefore it was not likely at all for an echo core to form within one of them. This was vastly different for high-level creatures as there was a greater amount of echo cores forming amongst them.
The Silver Dire Wolf that Noctis had killed was a creature that was neither a low-level or high-level creature, but rather it was somewhere in the middle. That is to say, both the luck and density factor played out in the end!
Noctis didn't think about it any further before he decided to extract the echo core from inside the Silver Dire Wolf's body.