Clarence stood up and stored his gun along with the two monkey carcasses into his spatial bracelet and dusted himself off.
Walking in the direction of the first monkey's death, he found the monkey's body lying motionless on the ground and the level two dagger lodged in a tree trunk a few meters away.
After storing them in his spatial bracelet, he went around looking for a cave to rest and calm himself down.
Soon after resuming his stroll, he discovered a cave and entered it, then went directly to sleep without setting down his mattress or cooling array after placing his usual security measures as he was too exhausted to even consider anything.
Clarence slept for so long that when he awoke, he felt completely rejuvenated, the gloominess of the previous battle having faded away. He was taken aback when he realized he had slept for fifteen hours.
He went out for a terrific workout right after waking up and subsequently took a swim in a nearby lake. After changing his clothes, he went back to the same cave and sat down to reflect on his previous battles.
'Yea, I remember now that I forgot to use the new dagger techniques because the situation had suddenly become so grave that it had completely slipped my mind.
I began to use daggers in the manner that I was most comfortable with. In such a risky situation, it was probably my subconscious reaction to not try anything new.
I didn't learn any spells either, despite being a rank one. Yes, I can't cast many spells anyway, but it can definitely give me an edge during crucial split seconds of a battle.
I've also recently entered rank one; I should try to increase the amount of mana during this period of days.
If I detect rank two beasts in a group the next time, I will definitely run until I am out of sight.
And if I happen to come across an alone one, I'll do my best to implement all of my new strategies.'
After a bit of thinking, Clarence mentally called out "system"
He mentally clicked on the shop/exchange after seeing the main tab in his head and exchanged the three monkey corpses for sets of hidden weapons such as darts, five-bladed shurikens, and threads. Of course, all of them were rank two.
After feeling them around for a bit, he sewed several pockets on his clothes to hide the weapons and put a few in his spatial bracelet.
He then took his rank four daggers and began practicing his dagger technique. He made sure to drill the dagger technique into his bones this time so he wouldn't "forget" it in a precarious situation.
The practise went on for three days, during which he also fine tuned the dagger technique to suit himself after using several rank one beasts as sparring partners.
On the third day, when his practice came to an end. He sat down to meditate and soon he could view his mindspace. Clarence wanted to know what that golden blue orb of energy does or can be expended for, its actual use.
Although it can grant him an increase in speed, strength and other aspects for skills and techniques. He felt like this shouldn't be all, so he tried to move the golden blue energy.
The energy easily started flowing through his body, granting him an increase in strength and sense of range.
He tried moving it out of the body and, as easily as mana; it emerged from his body in the shape of a golden blue hazy body of smoke with an irregular shape.
He attempted to use this energy to touch various objects in the cave to no avail; it behaved exactly like mana.
A few seconds later, when he touched a small plant growing at the base of a cave wall with this energy, the plant, which appeared to be out of energy and withering, turned from a withered state to an extremely vibrant state almost instantly.
Clarence was taken aback by this sight; while mana could achieve the same effects as the golden blue energy, the mana would have to be thick in density and more in quantity.
And even then, its effect would probably be still lesser than what the golden blue energy had on the plant.
Clarence had a sneaky suspicion that this golden blue energy had something to do with living things. Does this imply that it would have the same effect on animals? If yes, he was almost certain it would require a significant amount of this energy.
He checked his mindspace and noticed that the amount of golden blue energy had decreased slightly.
Going outside of the cave, he tried using the golden blue energy on a nearby plant, which obviously looked bigger and looked healthier than the one inside the cave.
He increased the output of the golden blue energy, but was startled to notice that the energy had begun to spiral out of control, making it difficult to release more.
'Ah, this energy will be difficult to master, unlike mana. It started spiraling out of control so quickly, even initially it was irregular in shape. It's also so hard to increase the output amount.
I suppose that I'll have to work on this as well. I'll make sure to leave nothing behind since I am already going all out to strengthen myself.'
Clarence made do with what he had and touched the plant with. He was ecstatic to discover that the plant had taken on an almost different vibe, looking more vibrant than before and swaying a little as if to show happiness.
Clarence was surprised when he saw this, causing his face to light up. After realizing there was only a quarter of the golden energy left in the orb when he looked up in his mindspace, he took back his energy due to feeling exhausted
He went back to his cave after discovering this and sat down to meditate. Reciting the true demon sutra, he tried to see if he could recover the golden blue energy.
It surprised him that the orb started spinning, but the rotational speed didn't speed up even after a while, showing that although true demon sutra can be used to replenish the energy, it undoubtedly does so at a very slow pace.
He started thinking of ways in which he can use this new property he just discovered while meditating. Only after around six hours, when his legs started feeling stiff from sitting, did he stand up, exiting his meditative state.
Looking up in his mindspace, he could see that there was still a quarter of space left in the orb. He took a deep breath after seeing that and called out to the system.
He then took out his remaining level two dagger of the initial pair and exchanged it for a rank 1 spell.