"Tch! So it isn't gonna be that easy huh?"
Shye muttered to himself after being wounded on the left side of his body.
However, this is what he was looking for, fighting creatures that could threaten his life so he could improve because if he only kept fighting the apex predators inside the beginner adventurer zone, then he would stagnate.
Finally, after a few minutes of intense combat, some of his skills became available again and he was able to slay one armored hyena while the other one ran away with its tail tucked between its legs.
"Haaahh…Haaahh…"
Shye fell on his butt after a quick but hard-fought match.
The teamwork of the hyenas was indeed impeccable and there were a few times when they almost had him but fortunately, due to the skill [Enhanced Reaction Time Lv.1], he was able to narrowly dodge the hyenas' killing blows.
After resting for a few minutes, Shye butchered the carcasses of the hyenas in a hurry. It was almost night time and he still had to look for a safe place to rest for the night.
Once he was done butchering the hyenas, Shye headed for a safe spot marked on the map.
However, he remained vigilant because the information on the map might be outdated, and just because it was marked as a safe spot doesn't mean that there was no chance of being attacked at all.
Just to be sure, Shye only ate dried rations for the night and applied scent-altering perfumes to decrease the chances of a nocturnal creature attacking him while he was sleeping.
In addition to this, he slept on a branch of a tall tree after thoroughly checking if there were any poisonous creatures living in it.
Fortunately for Shye, his first night alone in the intermediate adventurer zone went without a hitch and in fact, he even managed to have a good rest.
*YAWN*
Shye woke up as rays of sunlight made contact with his eyelids. He felt that he had quite a nice rest so he took the time to roast the meat of an armored hyena.
It wasn't the brightest of ideas though because although the meat tasted fine, it was quite pungent.
Shye vowed to never roast hyena meat ever again.
After eating a not-so-pleasant breakfast, Shye headed towards a location that might have ember tigers roaming around.
Sure enough, after only half an hour of searching, he managed to find an ember tiger.
He used the same efficient method he did when fighting an ember tiger inside the beginner adventurer zone and in only a few minutes, he managed to behead the ember tiger and complete two out of the three quest requirements.
Fortunately, he had experience fighting ember tigers before and knew that they were arrogant creatures.
In addition to this, he knew that the tigers were built for long battles so beheading them in exchange for tanking one attack with the help of [Stoic Lv.1] skill was the best course of action.
Shye was happy, he thought that he would need three days to complete the quests but it turns out that he might be able to finish his quest today without needing to stay another night inside.
It seems that these E ranked creatures were still fairly easy to defeat for him. Although their attack power was way higher compared to the E- ranked creatures, their bodies weren't that much tougher.
What made it easy for him to defeat E ranked creatures quickly was the skill [Stoic Lv.1] because it allowed him to endure the enemy's attack while the enemy couldn't take one full power strike from his [Power Slash Lv.2] skill.
After butchering the ember tiger's carcass, he decided to have a quick break.
Shye ate a few rations, drank some potions, and applied bandages on the wounded parts of his body before heading towards a specific location inside the intermediate adventurer zone, the blackwood forest where the blackwood boars reside.
"Ahhh shit…When will I arrive?!"
Shye couldn't help but complain, he has already been walking continuously for six hours now and he still hadn't arrived in the blackwood forest.
He threw away all of his daydreams that he would be able to return to the academy today after experiencing how huge the intermediate adventurer zone was.
The blackwood forest was considered to be a location that was quite near the entrance of the intermediate adventurer zone and the shocking part is, it's true.
There were many locations farther away compared to this one and some locations would even take days of walking before an adventurer could reach those locations.
Shye realized that it was truly naive of him to think that he could finish his quests and return in two days. If he didn't have [Stoic Lv.1] skill then he would need an even longer time to accomplish the quest.
After a few more minutes of walking, Shye finally arrived at the entrance of the blackwood forest.
Upon entering the blackwood forest, he didn't even need to look.
In front of him, there was a blackwood boar in the middle of the pathway feasting on the dead carcass of what seemed to be a doe.