The fight with the bear had shown Zane another one of his plenthora of weaknesses.
"I don't know how to fight" he discovered. His fighting style or rather fighting method was derived from watching the wildlife for the past few years.
Zane has never been taught how to fight in close combat. His father was an expert with the bow and pretty good with a sword, but he also didn't fight physically.
Zane worried that he might never learn how to fight. That was because this world used magic to fight. A flame ball was obviously way more powerful than a punch or a kick.
Zane still remembered action movies from his previous life, however he couldn't possibly learn enough from those distant memories.
Zane put those thoughts on the back of his head as he climbed up his favorite tree to sleep. He had killed a wild goat after the bear fight so he had enough mana to heal himself before bed.
Speaking of healing, Zane noticed that he was really hurt, however the injuries where only on his skin. The bear's claws could easily tear his skin, but couldn't even scratch his muscles. It was like he had a suit of armor under his skin.
"So during this 'Body Cultivation' thing my muscles really where compressed." Zane spoke to himself.
"Which means I can workout more and compress them again....and again" Zane said with a smile.
He was really looking forward to becoming stronger and now he had an idea of how to achieve that. Even though it wasn't how he wanted grow stronger. After a few minutes of thinking about his future, Zane fell asleep.
The next morning, a team of three hunters was seen entering the forest from Willow city.
The group consisted of two men and a woman. One of these men was David and they where all clad in leather armor. None of them had any visible weapons, only the woman had a small shield on her back.
"What are we looking for again" the woman asked. They had been walking around the forest for a couple of minutes now.
"I told you Clara, any mana beast in the animal zone" David answered.
"So...we don't know exactly what we are looking for huh" Clara sighed as they continued their search.
Zane had just woke up and was on his way to the river for his morning bath.
After his bath, Zane decided that it was time to start thinking of going into the city. He could stay in the forest and train his body, but that wouldn't get him anywhere. He would become stronger but not actually know how to fight. Basically he would become a beast.
"I need something new to wear" Zane glanced at his 'clothes'.
His white robes had long been destroyed so Zane had made some makeshift clothes out of vines and large tree leaves. He couldn't possibly go into the city looking like that!.
"HAHAHAHA!" Zane laughed out loud as he remembered his white suit with golden trims. How far had he fallen.
Suddenly Zane saw something about a hundred meters away. That really shocked him as the object was obviously far from his range.
He then slowly made his way to the object and could finally make out it's shape. Zane had even stopped releasing his mana dust in order to see what these things where.
There where three of these objects, all circular in shape and had about the same size as a man's fist. At first Zane thought it was a spell, however the energy he was seeing felt different.
With normal spells like a fireball for example, the mana would be wild and out of control, barely maintaining the shape of the spell.
There where other spells where the energy wouldn't be wild like earth spells. However Zane could tell this wasn't any of those as well, the energy was just too dense.
Zane decided to follow this strange phenomena from a safe distance away but slowly closing in on it. Then when he was close enough he could hear voices!. Zane was sure these voices came from the three floating mana.....things.
Zane had long deduced that the three objects where mana. After all the only thing he could see was mana so it was quite obvious.
It seemed the mana things where whispering so zane moved closer until he was 50 meters away. That's when he could hear what the voices where saying.
"We were walking the entire night David, I don't think we will find anything" A female voice said. The owner of the voice sounded really tired.
"Clara is right David. Can we at least go back to the city and regroup?"Said a male voice.
Zane grew very intrigued and threw a sight grenade at each of the floating mana bells, which he now knew were people. As soon as the sight grenades hit. The balls stopped moving.
Zane furrowed his brows in slight confusion. 'They can feel my mana ?' he thought.
"Did you guys feel that ?" One of the men said. Zane guessed this was the one called David.
"Yes it was slight but i felt the mana in the air fluctuate for a brief second"
The group stopped for a few seconds in thought but then continued on their way.
Meanwhile, because Zane could now see the three people he could guess what those objects truly where. They where located around the human's intestines and Zane knew what that meant.
'Mana cores' Zane thought. However he was surprised at exactly why he now could see these mana cores when he couldn't before.
Like when he was learning from his teacher William or when he was being robbed. He didn't see the mana cores of humans back then, so why now?.
Zane discovered that the only thing which had changed since then was his body becoming stronger. Did it have something to do with that? he didn't know.
Zane followed the people, who he now identified as hunters, for about two hours.
'I wonder what they are looking for' Zane thought as he jumped from tree to tree.
In order to be safe he decided to follow them from a hundred meters away to decrease the chances of him being caught. He didn't even have to worry about losing them since they kinda lit up in his eyes.
However Zane had gotten bored of following them, buy now they had gone around the whole city while staying inside the animal zone. Eventually they gave up their search and entered the city.
Zane went back to his house....or tree and just sat on the branch....really bored.
"Okay that's it, I need to get into the city, but I need clothes" he said.
"I also need to shave " he discovered as he ran his hand over his beard. Since Zane didn't have a shaving machine, he found a sharp rock and tried to use that.
Obviously he cut himself multiple times but he could heal himself anyway so he wasn't worried. Zane couldn't do anything about the clothes issue so he just had to wing it when he gets to the city.
Instead of moving directly towards the city, Zane decided to go to the main road first. He didn't want the guards to think he was some crazy person who lived in the forest.....as if his outfit didn't already say that.
However Zane found a pleasant surprise when he was moving to the main road.
"Well well well what do we have here ?" he said with a sadistic smile on his face.