Unable to shake off the ominous feeling, Jash reflexively backstepped.
As if to confirm his suspicions, he heard a raging howl, seemingly angry at him for not entering.
—Grrr! Awoooooooo!
His body shivered instinctively. Following his instincts, he didn't linger, quickly backtracking to the diversion.
Something just seemed wrong.
"Haa... Haa... Haa... Haa..." Jash panted for breath, clutching his chest as he felt all the breath in his lungs escape.
The feeling was dizzying and excruciating as his heart thumped loudly in his chest, serving as a backdrop to the harrowing silence.
Glistening sweat dripped from his face as he looked at the cave he returned from with an anxious expression.
"Strange," he muttered, feeling no fear despite the ominous situation he faced.
Still, he shook his head and chose to take the less traveled path despite the frustration building up within him.
'No... I am already here... I am not leaving without finding the cause of the anomaly, and if it was merely a coincidence or not.'
Thinking so, Jash cautiously crept deeper into the narrow cave, his face bearing a solemn expression and focused on the slightest detail.
The towering walls seemed to close in on him, and the eerie silence was only interrupted by the soft sound of his footsteps on the dry mud floor.
Suddenly, a low rumble filled the air, and Jash's grip on his sword tightened as he prepared for the inevitable confrontation.
'What's this?' he wondered, focusing on the darkness, trying to pierce through its falsities and find the origin of his discomfort.
In the distance, he saw a massive silhouette, its blue glowing eyes pierced the darkness like beacons of hope to the unwise.
To the wise, however, they appeared beacons of doom.
'It doesn't matter what it is. I can deal with it,' Jash motivated himself as he drew closer to the unknown.
After his fifth step, the full terror of the situation became clear—
In the center of the cavernous area—different from the narrow path—sat an 8-foot tall monster.
Just one glance at it and Jash froze in his spot, unable to even formulate a coherent thought, forget about his ability to move.
Its gray fur bristling, its sharp claws hanging by its side, lying in grooves formed on the ground.
The unknown monster peacefully devoured the sparkling mana gems, its huge mouth ravenously gulping them down.
It licked its lips and finally turned to see Jash, as if only registering his presence after feeling satisfied.
Without another second wasted, it swiped its claws from its still position.
Unfortunately, all Jash saw and felt was the claws swiping him away, leaving deep gouges on his chest and throwing him away.
Blood spurted from his mouth and nose as he remained unresponsive.
—Boom!
His back collided against a wall, giving rise to dust clouds around him.
"Hmph!" The monster snorted and waved its hand. The dust cloud immediately dispersed after its paltry movement.
Throughout the scene, it had moved not even a millimeter from its spot, but a look of surprise appeared on its huge head soon.
Its blue eyes scanned the area it had thrown Jash in, only to find nothing there except a blood trail.
Uninterested in the human, it continued to devour mana gems greedily.
However, its seemingly simple action of injuring Jash wasn't without consequences.
Its expression scrunched up as it looked up before looking at the remaining mana gems and chose to just devour them.
Unaware, Jash remained lying on the floor with bloody gashes on his chest, huge amounts of blood leaking out.
"Haa... Thank god... it didn't follow..." he stuttered his gratitude for his lucky stars and took out some healing potions from his storage ring.
Uncorking them, he poured three vials on the gashes and drank another two.
Even though healing potions were nothing short of miracles, they couldn't regenerate blood out of nowhere, they just hastened the body's natural regeneration speed.
Of course, the mana countered the problem where a cell could only divide a number of times before reaching its limit and dying, decreasing lifespan.
If that were the case, they would be used for torture instead of hospitals and as healing agents.
That's not to say no one used them for torturing, they were used for interrogation and other purposes.
And currently what Jash felt was nothing short of torture.
"Argh," he grunted, his face scrunching from the stinging pain.
"Damn! Why did I go there!?" he cursed himself before shifting his focus on making a better plan.
'There's an unknown tall monster that can insta-kill me and there's something that's giving me dangerous vibes.'
He contemplated over the possible options he had as he fought off the excruciating pain and also got some rest to heal as well as recover his mana.
If not for instinctively using all of his mana at once to protect himself, that casual slash would've finished him off way before the academy.
'This way, I might not even survive until my supposed death!' he raced his thoughts, trying to come up with a solution.
"Do I have no choice but to use them?" he mumbled with a complicated expression, but he didn't delay it any longer.
Despite his narrow brush with death, Jash didn't feel the least bit fearful of it. On the contrary, he focused on his next steps instead.
Fiddling with the storage ring on his finger, activating it and bringing out a sheenless set of gray armor.
It was a set of full armor made for a knight, encompassing every part of the wearer.
From head to toe, one would be covered in a seamlessly bizarre armor, giving one the highest protections among similar armors.
Jash gritted his teeth reluctantly and willed some of his mana to interact with the armor.
The gray armor immediately enveloped his body before shrinking to fit his size, making it an advanced type of armor.
It was terribly hard for others to find such armor and if not for it having his family crest, he would've loved to wear it all the time.
"It doesn't impede my movements at all, rather makes them even more fluid," Jash mumbled, surprised at its capabilities once again.
He had tried it once, but this would be the first time he would actually equip it to fight.
"Well, an A-Rank artifact is a bit of an overkill, but who cares?"
Jash shrugged his shoulders as he mused, 'This darned dungeon has way too many anomalies. Better be safe.'
In the next second, he put away all his weapons except his sword and then altered his mana circulation method slightly.
'Hmm. This feels better,' he noted before moving back into the first path.
With each step, he left deep indentations on the slightly dry, dusty ground before reaching the boss room quite quickly.
He didn't hesitate, just pushed his focus full throttle before entering the boss room, putting the thought of that unknown monster to the back of his mind.
'I just hope it's not the same one,' Jash prayed inwardly as he entered the boss room.
His vision got blinded for a moment due to the sudden change in environment.
The boss room was full of luminescent moss lighting up the entirety of its insides with nothing but a single wolf inside.
Despite trying to run away from the boss room he found himself inexorably drawn back to the path he tried so hard to avoid.