Havok woke up after a decent nap.
The claw marks covering his body were still open, but they had stopped bleeding. He went over to the fox's body and inserted his fist in the opening where its head used to be. He felt around and figured that the core was in its stomach just like it is for humans. However, he still had to be sure, so he had to dig through the beast's body just to make sure that if it wasn't that he didn't miss it.
Blood was flowing down his arm by the time he finally located a small sphere in the fox's stomach. He pulled his hand back and saw a red core, he flung the blood off of his arm and sat down to absorb the mana from the beast core.
Even though his teacher told him that mana beasts with affinities would take a while to develop, he was sure that the fox had the wind affinity due to its speed. However, he was proven wrong. The fox did not have an affinity, it just seemed that its race was very quick.
As he began to absorb the mana, his mana core felt like a land that had been in a drought and had finally gotten some much needed rain. This might be the best he had felt in his entire life, even better than when he ate the elk. He figured that it must be due to the amount of mana the core had. The beast cores mana was first absorbed by his mana core and the rest went to heal his injuries and nourish his body.
He had a question about where the mana from cores he absorbed went. He wanted to know if it always went to the core and then to injuries then the body. Or was it just because his core was so low on mana that it went there first. He had many questions like this about how mana and affinities worked, but that was all they were right now. He knew that he would not be getting answers right now, so he just filed them away to be answered when he got strong enough.
"This is great, now I am full of energy and mana. The sun should be going down in just a few minutes, so I need to get a fire started before it becomes pitch black in this cave. I can see in the dark, but the fire will keep away any animals that might be lurking and it will also keep me warm. I am not sure how cold it will get in here at night. I need to roast this fox meat too. I hope it is as good as the elk." Havok said, as his mouth began to water just thinking about eating mana beast meat again.
Havok got excited about the fox meat, and he got busy making a fire pit. Lucky for him the fox smashed into the ground and the rocks created from the impact were perfect for a fire pit. He set up the pit in the middle of the cave and walked over the entrance and picked up the bundle of sticks and tinder he gathered earlier. It took him a while as he knocked two of the rocks together creating sparks and the kindling finally caught fire.
Now that the fire was started, he had to find a way to break down the meat after thinking for a while Havok could not find any way to slice up the fox. "Tch. If that dickhead had just let me have that piece of the antler I could be feasting on this delicious looking fox. The clothing made from the elk has cuts all over it and I was planning on using the foxes pelt to replace it. Now I can't even use the fox because I have nothing to cut with. He's lucky I am not strong enough or I would whoop his ass! Damn him!" Havok was vented for a brief moment. He took some deep breaths and tried to calm down. He knew that being too loud would draw animals here. Now he just wanted to lay down and sleep, which was his original plan in the first place.
Now that the sun went down the temperature in the cave. He could hear the wind blowing through the entrance. It dropped enough that it was not fairly cold in the cave. The fire would only keep him, but so warm. He debated if he should go back outside and gather some of those giant leaves to cover up with. However, when he thought about the possibility of running into another mana beast, he decided that it was better to just suffer through the cold.
He laid down close to the wall that was facing the cave's entrance. He would wake up every so often during the night adding wood to the fire to make sure that it didn't go out. Besides that, the night went by smoothly. He woke up feeling refreshed and looking forward to training his techniques and improving his control of his affinity. Also, he needed real life or death fighting experience to enhance his fighting skills. As well as his killing intent, which would come naturally as he killed his way through this enormous forest.
"I wonder how long this fox meat can stay here before it spoils. I need to find a mana beast today that has something I can use to carve up meat. I also want to know how the 'hidden presence' technique works and how much mana it uses. If possible, I would like to keep it activated anytime I am in the forest."
"The old man said we wouldn't be speaking for a while, so there is no rush right now. First thing I need to do is to learn about my surroundings. I need to know when the stronger or alpha mana beasts are, what type of mana beast they are and where the weaker mana beasts live. Making a map is priority one." Havok said as he sat on the ground.
Havok materialized his darkness and coated himself with it, then he said, "Hidden Presence," it felt weird. It was comfortable, as if he was one with the darkness. For the first time in his life, he felt safe and comforted. He just stood there with his eyes closed and basked in the unfamiliar feeling.
After a few minutes of that, he finally checked his mana core and noticed that it had barely even lowered, so he tried sprinting then throwing punches and kicking trying to see if he used more if he was moving and fighting. However, to his surprise it was still minimal when compared to when he used 'Darkness Dash'. Next, he wanted to see what would happen if he materialized his darkness. That started to drain his mana at a rapid pace, so he quickly stopped.
He headed towards the exit of the cave while activating 'Hidden Presence', today was for scouting not fighting and he wanted to go unnoticed. He headed west first he saw several mana beasts in the area, he made a mental note of their types. Racoons, rabbits, squirrels were all bigger than before, but they were still relatively small when compared to the other mana beasts. He watched them fighting and eating the berries that were growing on the surrounding bushes.
He knew this would be a good hunting ground for weaker mana beasts. Before he left the area, he grabbed a few bundles of berries and placed them in his homemade backpack. It was something with some of the fallen big leaves from the massive trees tried together with twigs and sticks. He made it just in case he needed somewhere to store things because he was not sure what he would find, and it was better than carrying things in his hands.
He continued to look around searching for where the alpha lived. He looked for clues. He knew that it would be a suspiciously empty area that the other mana beasts seemed to purposely avoid. It took a few minutes, but he finally found it. There was a cave, and he could feel that the area was rich with mana, and it was much better than his cave.
He knew that the strongest mana beasts would occupy the best spots. As he got closer, he saw that the entrance was covered in spider webs. The webs seemed to be coated in a green liquid. He didn't know what that liquid was, but he just assumed that he should avoid it. He couldn't enter the cave because there wasn't enough room between the webs, so he just stuck his head in and looked around to spot the mana beast. He stopped moving as he finally saw it, a black widow spider hanging upside down from the ceiling. It seemed to be sleeping. It was 3 feet tall and 4 feet wide, the normal red mark on its stomach was now green as were the tips of its legs.
He saw multiple bones on the ground and several cocoons hanging from the ceiling. Now that he got what he needed he left as fast and quietly as possible.
He headed to the northern region. On the way he noticed more that the roots of several large trees were covered with ripe acorns, hazelnuts and pecans that had fallen from the tree. There were other types of nuts, but he couldn't identify them. He grabbed several handfuls and stuffed them into his backpack and continued. He was wondering where all the mana beasts were because it has been a few minutes since he entered the northern region and he still had not seen one since he left the Black Widows' territory.
He kept walking and he heard the sound of mana beasts fighting.
Roar! Boom! Boom! Roar! Bang!
He ran over to see what was happening and several beasts fighting and killing each other next to a river. Now it made sense that he had yet to see any mana beasts until now, they were all drinking the river water and fighting for it. The water in that part of the river had a slight glow to it, it was clear that this water was different from the water around it. He scanned around and saw a small pond that was connected to the river that was glowing much brighter than the river. It seemed like the water in the river was just runoff from the pond. He knew that they didn't need to drink water because like humans any humans that have a core, they only need mana to survive, so he figured that there must be something special about it. The way it was glowing and the fact that the beasts were fighting over just the runoff instead of the main source of the water made him interested in what was in the water.
He climbed up one of the smaller trees that was no more than twenty feet so that he could watch the fight. When he got up there, he looked around the area the fight was taking place and saw the bodies of multiple beasts on the ground and blood was everywhere. The body of a lynx came flying towards his direction as blood sprayed out in a beautiful looking red arch. It hit the ground at a tremendous speed and its body blasted apart spreading blood and guts all over the area.
There was a pack of wolves. The four of them were fighting against a fox that looked just like the one he killed and a boar with gray fur on its head and upper body that faded to dark gray as it got closer to its rear end. It was 4 feet tall and 4 feet long with a big stomach. Its canines were just slightly peeking out of its mouth. A mouth that currently had the head of one of the wolves in it. The boar chomped down on it, killing it instantly. Blood squirted out both sides of the boar's mouth as it continued too much on the head of the now dead wolf.
The last remaining beast fighting the wolves was a grizzly bear. It was the same height as Havok, and it was the largest out of the group currently fighting. Its brown fur was covered in claw and teeth marks. Although it was probably the strongest physically, it was slow compared the wolves. It was also fighting 2 wolves at the same time, so it was taking a lot of damage.