Last time, on the same way, Ursa's group needed only half an hour to reach the forest. However, this time it took more than 2 hours. Ulf deliberately slowed down, in consideration of any unknown threats. After the unhurried approach, the forest came into view. After surveying the surroundings, Ulf darted across the field and jumped into the sea of trees. Even if it was around afternoon and the sun was reigning on the outer surface, its light had a very hard timing of reaching inside the dense forest.
Seeing how poorly lit this place was, Ulf felt his group was lucky that they didn't have to fight against the pack of wolfs in the nighttime. At that time using any natural light source was a pipe dream. Following the centuries of cultivation, hunters had polished their five senses up to the point that even in that utter darkness they can more or less briefly inspect short the area around them, still were at a huge disadvantage in opposition to the creatures, which spent their whole life here. That was why the hunters always remained in the defence posture all over the nighttime in the wild.
The humans would need at least to have a spiritual power to shorten the distance with the forest's creatures. Nevertheless, Ulf was clever enough to make his life a priority and not play the selfless hero in the Hadda tribe, who wasn't even accounted as a middle-level cultivator. Maybe including his real power, he was barely there and was equal to the beginner or at most middle leader rank hunter. But what use of it inside the village, where lived much more than a hundred leader rank powerhouses and was even observed by the unknown being - 'Guardian'.
Ulf started exploring the outer parts of the southern forest. Ulf was springing on the tree branches and searching for the meal material. Looking around for several minutes bore its fruit and the sight of the target appeared but watching it made Ulf realize that it would be a very annoying animal to take care of.
The Squirrel was eating seeds on the big tree dozens of meters away. It was a 25-30 cm (10-12 inch) long animal with a slender body, very long very bushy tails and large eyes. Even if it was pleasantly eating, the squirrel was always on high alert. This creature held a big upper hand in the forest and had an excellent sense of vision. The squirrels were the masters of tree climbing. In this world, they could even jump from one plant to another and cover dozens of meters in distance.
This time Ulf intended to use the bow and arrows. Outrunning and catching this squirrel in the open space with the max speed of the leader rank hunter wouldn't be an unsolvable problem, but here it would be like playing on oneself's nerves.
Ulf nocked the arrow, pulled the bowstring back to him and aimed at the squirrel's head. Ulf didn't know much about this animal, but by aiming at the head he wanted to avoid other lower parts, which may cause a decrease in the quality of meat. The use of the enhancement on the eyes was important too. The first shoot would be most crucial. After missing it, the target would use its almost perfect ability to conceal itself in this dense forest and make it much harder to be noticed again.
Ulf was waiting for a good chance for one shot kill. When the squirrel had shown its back and couldn't see his position well, he thought it was time.
'NOW!'
The arrow flew astonishingly fast, covered the distance in milliseconds and hit the squirrel very accurately. It pierced the head and even deeply went into the tree. The creature didn't even have the luxury of seeing the approaching missile-like arrow. Ulf went to his prey. The bows and arrows were very useful weapons for him. They had the farthest-reaching range and had also a chance to accelerate at a speed almost equal to the bullet. However, the speed of the arrow depended on the power of the user and the quality of the tool.
For example, Ulf's full power could match the Leader, but the low-quality bow wasn't enough to withstand the demonstration of his entire strength. Higher-grade bows and arrows were rarer than any other weapons. This is one of the reasons why Ulf didn't choose the leader-grade bow and arrows. It was clear that his request wouldn't get approved.
Ulf took out the deeply stacked arrow from the tree. Now it was time to check the corpse of the squirrel. Then it was time to practice the skinning skill. This time fortune was on his side. Unfortunately, it was just the fur of the little animal and wasn't worth much in the village.
'It's better than the wolf's skin with the almost ten a#shole size of hollows!' Ulf painfully recalled his today failure.
He was taught which parts of the squirrel were more edible. More or less everything could be thrown in the stomach.
After resting and eating the raw meat for some time, Ulf continued marching inside the forest. On the exploration, he discovered many beings, normal-sized and giant deer, large bisons and a few predators, including the long-fur hyenas. large sized groups with the possibilities of the beasts inside them weren't Ulf's target. Even if he wanted to test the prowess of the beasts, when they were in the group, fighting them was a hopeless wish for him. Confronting several animal stages wolfs together, made Ulf realize that a huge amount of experiences were needed to accumulate in order to challenge strong groups in the forest.
The wound was almost healed too. However, Ulf still needed to avoid a few hours from the intense fights. For the rest of the day, He preferred to inspect the area around him. This territory was on the border of the outer and middle parts of the forest. The most perilous and biggest inner part was still very far away, but negligence wasn't In Ulf's dictionary. After being assured that no potential dangers were around, finding a place to rest became a new priority.
Soon Ulf found the most typical place for the night-resting, he was the hole inside the gigantic beech tree. The tree was one of the highest in the surrounding place and proudly looked down on his unmovable brothers next to it. The majesty of every living or non-living being in this world always mesmerized Ulf and perhaps would capture his attention again after touring more wanders.
Ulf checked the hole and as saw that it was safe, went inside. It seemed that this place had been used for resting and living by several kinds of birds and creatures. The sun was already setting and vibes getting from the forest became more threatening.
Naturally, sleeping for the whole night was out of the question. However, Ulf didn't intend to do it from the beginning. His schedule over the night was meditating. The mind would be not fully concentrated on the risks from the outside, but Ulf wouldn't be entirely careless and his spiritual energy would be there to warn him in time.
First of all, Ulf scattered the spiritual energy in separate parts of the body. This method served for checking the condition of his inner version of the limbs and organs. The spiritual energy with a higher quantity and purity would bore a better result. Ulf had been able to drastically improve quantity over the past eleven years of mind cultivation. It would be helpful to reach deeper sections of the body and strengthen them more effectively. However, purity of spiritual energy had an advantage that couldn't be gained with just an extended amount.
For the first few years, Ulf could venture farther and farther inside his body. But the picture of his innate parts, printed in his mind through the spiritual energy was vague and very unclear. That was why his knowledge from the past life's education turned out to be crucially needed.
Because of that, Ulf felt like he was a scientist with the lowest level of education in biology and the poorest microscope from modern earth. Not a positive combination, but still at least a legendary grade cheat in this ancient, undeveloped world.
More and more spiritual energy was required forcefully to direct a larger amount of inner qi toward the chosen spot, although the hazy images hadn't been changed for a long time. The fateful breakthrough happened five years ago when he was seven years old. It was the moment when Ulf had sensed for the first time in this life the fullness of spiritual energy during mind cultivation.
It was apparent that an imaginary wall was reached in his mind cultivation. Even so, Ulf didn't stop there and earnestly sought the new advancement. The process brought huge pressure on his brain and maintaining the meditation was a difficult task. Nevertheless, a few hours of hard work showed the perfect outcome.
After overcoming the mental barrier, that was a hindrance to his cultivation, Ulf felt great spiritual and less physical relief. It was like the consciousness reached another realm. His spiritual energy started gathering faster, it got easier access to controlling inner qi and sent more detailed pictures to his mind.
After five years of cultivating, Ulf understood that it was the first major improvement for his spiritual energy. At that point, spiritual energy didn't enlarge any longer but continued to slowly get stronger and stronger. It was a tricky situation, but accumulating more info became profitable and Ulf had a theory that energy produced in his mind began strengthening itself. To say more correctly, it was getting purer.
At present, the spiritual energy was much tougher and Ulf's conjecture was proved to be correct. As he found out the answer, it was time to choose the names for these stages of mind cultivation. Ulf chose simple names, the first stage was called 'spirit expansion' and the second current stage - 'spirit purification'.
The entire night was spent meditating and then resting for a little time. As the sun started rising It was time for the second day of the exploration in the southern forest.