The cycle of hunting, training, and sleeping continued. He spent a full week in the wilderness, slowly adapting to it and becoming stronger. The internal force in the animals he ate slowly built up in his own body, strengthening it as well.
With an additional week of training, his martial arts had become more refined and he had truly become a fighter. He was no longer an inexperienced newbie, as he had a few fights against beasts under his belt.
His hunting had led to other gains as well, mainly, system points. In that week, he had managed to hunt dozens of beasts, gaining him 210 points.
Yan Guang shouted, "Status!"
[Opening Status Screen]
[User: Yan Guang
Race: Human (homo sapien)
Talents: Inferior cultivation talent, inferior martial physique, inferior comprehension, semi-eidetic memory
Stage: Pseudo Martial Artist
STR: 2.8
VIT: 2.6
AGI: 2.6
INT: 1.41
SPR: 2.1
Attribute Points: 0]
"Hmm, well, I am a lot stronger than when I first arrived in this place. System, what're the average stats of a martial artist?", Yan Guang asked.
[The average stats of a novice martial artist are 5, excluding INT]
Yan Guang sighed, remarking that although he had come a long way, it seemed there was still quite a ways to go until he was truly powerful.
"System, open the shop.", he said.
[Opening shop tab]
[Sorting by price, lowest to highest]
[Random yellow-rank inferior-tier martial art: 25 points]
[Yellow-rank inferior-tier cultivation manual: 50 points]
[Yellow-rank inferior-tier body refining manual: 75 points]
[Yellow-rank inferior-tier loot box: 100 points]
[Random yellow-rank medium-tier martial art: 125 points]
[Yellow-rank medium-tier loot box: 200 points]
[Yellow-rank medium-tier cultivation manual: 250 points]
[Yellow-rank medium-tier body refining manual: 300 points]
[Total points: 210]
Considering his choices, he decided to get a cultivation manual and a body refining manual. He did need to eventually step foot on the path of cultivation, and the earlier the better.
He bought both of them and still had 85 points left over, which he decided to save for later.
In an instant, new knowledge sprung forth into his mind, and it felt like a new quadrant of his memories was unlocked. He now knew everything he needed to become a cultivator.
His cultivation manual was called the Qi Absorption manual. Very simple name, but it did exactly what it said. The body refining manual's name was a bit fancier: It was called the Tiger-Bear manual, supposedly because it gave one the abilities of a tiger and a bear.
According to his manual, the first step in cultivating was to acclimate the body to the Qi of Heaven and Earth.
So, Yan Guang closed his eyes and began to meditate. As more and more time passed, he slowly felt himself becoming more and more aware of the Qi all around him and began inhaling it into his body. Then came the final step, circulating it through all of his nerves and arteries to every inch of his body.
As he finished doing this, Yan Guang felt a very strange yet comfortable feeling permeate through him. He had taken a single step onto the path of cultivation now.
He could already feel he had become stronger by a significant amount. Immediately, he began his second cycle of cultivation, and he didn't stop there. What was 2 became 3, and eventually 4 before he finally stopped and realized that it had already been several hours and the sun had set. The feeling of slightly improving oneself constantly was incredibly addicting, but unfortunately, Yan Guang wasn't yet at the level where he could disregard hunger and thirst.
Yan Guang traveled to the river to find himself some water and possibly some prey, but right as he kneeled to cup some water, he noticed a pair of luminescent eyes staring at him from the darkness.
He immediately stood up and got into a fighting stance. He had some confidence now from his practice sessions, and he wasn't afraid of whatever this beast could be because he knew he could fight it off. Well, he thought he knew.
As the pair of eyes got closer to him and stepped into the moonlight, he recognized the beast. It was a gigantic wolf. Yan Guang had to admit, its stare was pretty intimidating, especially because the wolf was about the size of a car.
The wolf suddenly pounced straight at Yan Guang, who managed to dodge using his advanced footwork. If not for his Flowing River step, he would've died right there. Yan Guang then jumped into action, countering with his Raging Tiger Fist which had almost reached the level of small success.
Although he successfully hit the wolf, Yan Guang knew that it didn't do much real damage. The wolf's hide was more than tough enough to neutralize the attack. He needed to find a weak spot.
In a split instant, dozens of thoughts ran through Yan Guang's mind before he finally decided on a plan of attack right before the wolf pounced again.
Yan Guang was once again able to dodge it, only sustaining a minor cut. However, he had an opportunity. He threw out a jab with all of the strength he could muster right at the wolf's eye.
After a moment, he heard the wolf's shriek of pain. It had worked. Since the eyes were the only spot the fur didn't cover, all he had to do was focus on them to blind the wolf, leaving it completely defenseless.
Yan Guang utilized his footwork and agility to his advantage, skillfully dodging the wolf's attacks before punching one of its eyes over and over. Eventually, the wolf went completely blind in one eye, opening up a huge blindspot.
All he had to do now was land the finishing blow.
"Now we know, that in a fight between a tiger and a wolf, the tiger will win.", Yan Guang roared at the wolf as he punched straight through its bloodied eye and into its brain.
The wolf was dead, and Yan Guang was still alive, albeit injured. He had won.
Yan Guang hauled the wolf's body back to a little hut he had built out of some wood and leaves. It wasn't much compared to his home back on earth, but he was still proud of it.
He sat down on a log and considered his gains. The wolf's corpse was big enough to serve as food for weeks if he dried the meat, and its fur would make excellent clothing. Its claws and teeth were also valuable for making weapons and tools as they were quite sharp.
To put it simply, every part of the wolf was a treasure to Yan Guang. Not to mention, he'd gotten quite a few points after the kill. He now had 105 in total.
That was just enough to get one of the items he'd been looking forward to the most, the lootbox. As an otaku, how could he resist opening up a real lootbox?
Yan Guang commanded, "It's time! Shop, open!"
[Opening shop tab]
[Random yellow-rank inferior-tier martial art: 25 points]
[Yellow-rank inferior-tier cultivation manual: 50 points]
[Yellow-rank inferior-tier body refining manual: 75 points]
[Yellow-rank inferior-tier loot box: 100 points]
[Random yellow-rank medium-tier martial art: 125 points]
[Yellow-rank medium-tier loot box: 200 points]
[Yellow-rank medium-tier cultivation manual: 250 points]
[Yellow-rank medium-tier body refining manual: 300 points]
[Total points: 105]
Yan Guang excitedly pressed the inferior loot box button, looking forward to what he'd get.
[Opening lootbox...]
[Black-tier inferior quality item unboxed, Huang Kingdom Map]
Yan Guang was slightly bummed at the prospect of having gotten a map as his first lootbox item. Shouldn't the system have given him something overpowered right at the start, like a potion that unblocked his meridians, a divine martial art, or a powerful weapon?
Why'd he get a map? And how come it was a black-tier treasure? Black-tier treasures were still extremely rare in the Azure Spirit continent, and the loot box itself was yellow-rank. Perhaps it was because it was the first item obtained from a lootbox
While he was questioning what exactly his reward was, a scroll suddenly appeared at his feet. He didn't know exactly when or how it got there, but there it was.
Yan Guang picked up the scroll and unfurled it to reveal a grand and detailed map of this 'Huang Kingdom'. The map was incredibly detailed, containing everything from terrain to travel routes.
After a few seconds of perusing the map, he casually waved his hand across, which caused the map to completely change.
Wait a second. Yan Guang had realized something. A map wouldn't be a black-tier treasure if it didn't have some utility.
He tried using his hand to pinch the map, only for it to zoom in. He did the opposite, and it zoomed out. Although he tried zooming out as far as he could, Yan Guang was disappointed to realize that it only zoomed out to the extent of the 'Huang Kingdom'. Everything outside the region was covered in fog.
With the map fully zoomed out, he finally noticed something. There was a red cursor on the map. The realization struck him. So, he was in the wilderness of the Huang Kingdom.
He quickly zoomed in on the cursor and tried to find the closest human settlement to him.
Luckily, he found a town only about 30 kilometers away from him. He finally had a goal, to escape the wilderness and rejoin civilization.
For today, though, he was going to sleep. He was far too tired after fighting the wolf and had to get a good night's sleep.