I started the day with breakfast. It was warm and nice. A cool breeze was moving leaves slightly on the crown of trees a few meters from me. It made a bit of noise, which had a calming influence on me. It was a really nice morning.
While eating I went thru plan in my head. What I wanted to do, was go to the middle of wolves' territory, and make them rush at me. But instead of facing multiple animals at a time, I wanted to position myself so I would face only one, quickly kill it, and move to another. With sharp pudao and my strength, I needed only one hit. It didn't matter if after a couple of seconds another one was to attack me. I had enough stamina to keep fighting for a long time. The problem was, to not get wounded, which with them throwing themselves at me was very hard. I was also afraid that they will group up, and my plan will be ruined even before I manage to execute it once.
In the end, I was only clouding my mind with those thoughts, and when I finally realized that pushing them aside was not that hard. I could speculate all day, but there was only one way to find out, so I grabbed the handles of the cart and started to head inside the woods.
After getting deep enough to the forest I parked my cart and picked up one of the pudaos. The hunt officially began. I started with a slow jog and didn't stop until the howling started. Then I headed to the closes wolf I could hear. It was already running at me but stopped midway seeing how fearless I was charging at it. Then instinct overtook, and the wolf decided to attack. I could already hear others incoming. The first one died while trying to jump at my throat, then I turned around and headed to the next closest.
It was a bloodbath. But since I only moved to a more or less limited area, I was not scared of losing crystals, and also my energy wasn't declining too fast. It was still not ideal, but manageable. Obviously, there were few close calls when wolves started to group up, but even then I managed to cut them down. Having a proper weapon and superhuman strength helped a lot. By the end of the day, I gathered 56 crystals. I killed more wolves but just was unable to find those damn stones in the forest litter and grass. The next day was pretty similar, but the day after I was actually able to find more stones, and it progressed with each day. Simply because there was more of them laying on the ground.
I spend the whole seven days hunting. The last ones were the worst. I was very exhausted and made multiple mistakes leading to a few bites and scratches. Nothing life-threatening though. On a positive note, I managed to collect 498 more crystals for a nice total number of 554.
I probably wouldn't do such a thing If not for Aisha's sake. I actually had problems returning because my legs were just giving up. It took me a whole night to return. I just kept promising myself that I will get rid of the exhaustion the very moment I'll use the device. It helped a bit, but there was still a need for many breaks.
Upon arrival actually, Hatta, who was again on the watch, helped me to pull the cart. I wanted to pay my tax, but he said I'm exempted from it for now, so I just proceeded with selling. I got a nice number of 138 500 points.
Day ended with 19 255 points on my account.