Its been a week since the monkey incident and I have grown much stronger during this time. I am currently fighting four badgers that I have been practicing with four the past three days.
I would fight them for as long as I can each day before retreating to find some prey to heal my wounds and increase my strength.
There hides and claws are so tough that that even my sword doesn't did into it very deep. Here we are day four while I am fighting against them once again.
Clang, shing, ding, ding, shing, clang.
My battle with them is going much better than the previous days. Badger 1 comes at me from the front, its right claw coming at me. Blocking it its left claw comes up below for an uppercut pardon the joke. Moving the bottom of the grip I block it when I feel the earth moving below me.
My senses have been improved very much from all the essence I have absorbed. I lock its arms and jump, then spikes shoot u from the ground right into the badger's chest. Not much damage done because of its tough hide, but it becomes angry from it, hissing at Badger 3. Badger 2 coming at me from the back with stone stakes shooting at me on my left.
Jumping to the right I know it was a trap and I see Badger 3 smack the ground with a howl as both as all around me an earth wall shoots up to around me covering me in a stone dome blocking off all sunlight. I cover myself in my second gift, my barrier. Spikes shoot out from all sides trying to skewer me.
My barrier holds only for a few seconds but that was long enough for me to summon a light beam to cut a hole through the dome and get out of the death trap. Badger 3 is panting and sluggish from using too much manna. I rush within a second in front and bring down my sword. I block with both its claws.
I need ten minutes for my barrier to be able to activate again now, guess it's time to throw some fire magic around.
I smile and shoot a ball of fire bigger than the candle flame a week ago. Catching fire to it, I dodge the swipe at my back and more stakes flying at me, the now flaming badger covers itself with dirt and compresses it on the fire choking it into going out and then I retreat from battle running away.
I used a lot of manna in the fight though with the attacks and barrier so I need to go rest for a while to grow back some.
After an hour of fighting them and I am not hurt anywhere, my improvement is good I might be able to graduate from practicing the basic great sword arts and start on the intermediate one. I start climbing up another tree making it to the canopy to start searching for more prey when I instinctively activate my barrier as two green scythes came down cracking it.
Large amounts of wind came slashing at me next breaking what's left of my barrier and giving me some nasty gashes. I have knocked off the canopy, with a green praying mantis barreling right at me I am in the air still so I release flames from my hands, propelling myself to the side dodging the follow-up attack, and landing on the ground.
I am low on manna, and very hurt, I take out an essence orb I keep with me for emergencies that I saved from a rabbit I killed yesterday and saved, to heal myself and prepare for a tough battle.
The Mantis flashes in front of me once again and unleashes a flurry of attacks, I block and parry as many as I can. Those I miss my I used my barrier to block, thank you I waited until my barrier is back before moving around, but it won't hold up for long once again.
Dragging out the battle makes the mantis impatient even though it has only been a few minutes. The bug is not built for long battles it seems, so it summons a large number of cyclones and shoots them at me. From my view, these massive tunnels of wind are barreling toward me.
I put up my sword and barrier but upon contact, they didn't last long bursting through I am pushed back creating small gullies in the ground until I hit a tree, I hold strong, but my arms are shaking to much, and can barely even be raised up.
The mantis is running to me to finish me off and my mind racing to think of something to save myself. I didn't have long to think as its scythes are only a few feet away from me. I shoot bright light from my eyes into it.
Rearing back and screaming, waving its scythes all around it I take this chance to raise my arm up as much as I can and light it up. Emptying all my manna and spreading the fire to catch different parts on fire. I slowly regained its sight while it tries to put out all the fire.
Two patches are put using its higher leveled wind magic, but the rest wasn't put out in time before it quickly spread. It died within a few minutes giving me as much essence as that spider from a week ago.
I put 1/3 into body and the second third into manna, the rest went into healing my arms and helping me with the immense exhaustion. Blocking that attack did some severe damage to my arms.
"That was definitely a three star rank predator" I come to this conclusion looking at the battle again and how strong it was.
Star ranks are the reason why training manuals are so important for your manna and body, following manual lets you not only grow your manna and body quicker, but also transform your manna and body into a higher level.
Take for example the wind mantis and earth badgers. The earth badgers are only 2 star and I fought four of them evenly, while a three start mantis I only won because of my surprise attack with the very rare light element talent blinding it and my also S ranked fire talent that is very hard to put out even when its not 1 start yet.
Manuals are also divided into different stars and level. Those mercenaries from the slavers only probably got 1 star low level manuals to train. The better ones are all monopolized by the rich families and noble houses and clans.
No one knows how these ferocious beasts are able to raise there rank without the ability to make training manuals, there is a theory its carried in there bloodline but I will never know.
"A months time I will start putting some essence into raising my physique grade to B that will give me a good boost with my bodies strength since I don't have a manual to use yet."
Though when getting out in six months I know just the place to steal some of the best manuals in the kingdom. Smiling from the thought and how my wonderful family would react when there precious manuals disappeared.
I start dragging myself to the stone platform and barely make it, I pass out during the teleportation.
Waking up I am back in my leaf bed, Scratchy probably dragged me hear after finding me, turning to see my buddy sleeping next to me I smile and hug its fat body while falling back to sleep since i was still exhausted.
Another week goes by as I train and grow in power, when something happens thought put me close to death more so than ever before and woke me up from my comfort and reminded me once again that this forest no matter where, will never be safe.