I thanked Hasegawa again and made for the "Academy Summer Store." Surprisingly, just one Sabrefang Jaguar Fang of the 4th Rank traded in for 10,000 Academy Credits, more than any other monster part I'd obtained. The Sabrefang class of magical beasts was a rare one, and their fangs could rip into beasts a rank above theirs, which meant they could be used to craft a 5th Earth Rank tool or dagger. I'd already planned on keeping the other one for exactly that, but I held off since it would be expensive and take time. I walked away with the single Rank 4 Earth Absorbing Pill, and 7,500 Credits left over from everything.
I thought about saying hello to Shokoya and Jong, the two among the Top 10 who I was the most sociable with other than Jue Zhu. Not just their ranks, but the fact that they were former Dive Gamers like me helped open me up too. Shokoya was a low-level careerist like me, and he'd taken twice as long to save up the quarter million as I had. Kunlun Jong, though, was one of the pros—formerly known as Burning Thunder. He could have joined a resort PVE sooner or later, but he chose the Cultivation world because he wanted excitement.
I thought better of it, though. I wanted to know how they were progressing with the required wilderness lessons, but they'd want to know why I was back, and I wanted to avoid awkward situations like them asking to sit in on my absorbing the Gazer's core. So, I left and camped in the field again before finally going through with it. The Academy shop staff had advised me to cultivate with the core as soon as possible after taking the pill.
The torrent of Qi from the core was stronger this time, but at the same time it felt oddly muted. I had difficulty compared to the last core, and even with the muted feeling, my control slipped a few times. When I was done, though, very little of the potential was lost, and the moment the flow ceased, I felt the sensation of a breakthrough.
I smiled. The Gazers would be a lot easier to deal with now, with the difference I felt in my strength—the Stage 4 ones, at least. I couldn't wait to get back to the canyon and start the grind in earnest.
When I got back to the canyon, I wasn't able to go very deep, nor was I able to camp inside at first since the Stage 5 Gazers patrolled all over during the day, and the Giant Bats were too numerous at night. After a few days, I decided to at least attempt to clear one of the Giant Bat caves to secure it as a campsite.
Even though they were asleep, sneaking up on them turned out to be impossible. Apparently they somehow echolocated passively in their sleep. Still, as I'd both researched myself and it had been covered in one of the Academy lessons, shooting them through the wings left them all but helpless, and I'd made sure to pick a cave with an entrance narrow enough to form a bottleneck.
Unfortunately, I couldn't use the bottleneck indefinitely. By the time I brought down a dozen Stage 3 to 4 bats, I'd been backed up close enough to the cave mouth that I started attracting the attention of Gazers. I'd already thinned their ranks other than the patrols quite a bit, so for now only three Stage 4 and twice as many Stage 3 ones were heading over. That was still way too many to deal with at once, though, so the only choice was to press back into the cave and hope the Gazers' behavior of staying away from the Giant Bat caves wasn't overcome by a human being in one. If they ventured in, I planned to use the totem. When I stopped retreating and started advancing, though, the Stage 3 bats who had been pressing me withdrew to the deeper, wider part of the passage before I'd finished off more than three of them. They drew back in good order, advancing on me again if I tried to stop and rest for even a few seconds.
I brought down two more by the time the passage was wide enough for the Giant Bats to flank me. By then the light was dim, but I could still make out all ten remaining monsters, half of them Stage 3, half Stage 4.
I shot to ground one of the Stage 4 bats before quickly maneuvering to prevent them from combining their sonic shrieks to make them stronger. The battle became a slugfest of attrition. I brought down the Stage 4s as fast as I could, but I was getting disoriented. I had no choice but to start backing off once again, and this time, the remaining bats didn't pursue.
As the cave mouth came into view, I saw that a single Gazer, a runt, had stayed behind. It noticed me in the same moment I noticed it. Because I was so dazed, I had to take my time lining up to shoot it. It went down, and I stumbled out of the cave. I picked up the pace as soon as I could, though. It had plenty of time to get its mind attack going on me, but it didn't. That had to mean it had alerted its fellows instead.
Leaving the valley for now was the only option. I rested as well as I could during the rest of the day. Fortunately, I had struck pretty early in the morning. I was only recovered a bit more 2/3rds according to my health points by the time the sun began to set, but I was no longer feeling dazed, and if I waited until tomorrow, those last 5 Stage 4 bats might be able to recover enough to fight.
When I got back to the point in the tunnel I'd shot them down though, they were nowhere to be found. Part of me worried that somehow they'd been healed, but I knew a much more morbid outcome was more likely. After all, there was no such thing as a magical beast that wasn't hungry. I'd figured they were more likely to go back to sleep instead, but clearly I'd underestimated their hunger drive.