Legends: The Emerald World

"Who are you?" Ase gasped, looking at Shin who stood before her, his eyes slowly turning toward her. "Shin, you should be able to tell my scent. We're finally in a safe spot brimming with life, that damned prison had nothing but dead stones."

To cultivate, Shin needs to absorb life force from living things like plants, animals, monsters, or even other humans, it doesn't matter as long as they are alive. In his past life, he had shared this knowledge with other cultivators, who ended up sucking the world tree dry.

In this life, this power should be his and his alone.

"But…" Ase looked at him with a puzzled face. Her nose said it was Shin, but her eyes said otherwise. He looked so vastly different that she might've mistaken him for another person had he used perfume. "Humans don't change this fast."

"I do. You must rest now, I'll go look for food and water. I suspect we're still far away from any city." He looked around, "Even if we got to a city, we've got no money to spend."

"Bluemoon kingdom should give us refuge and some funds. We're its citizen who got robbed of their land." This whole forest had once belonged to the Bluemoon kingdom, but now the empire had colonized it. The war between the two is still raging so they should be fine as long as they cross the border to their kingdom.

Shin nodded as Char dangled down from the tree with her thread, landing on his shoulder. "I'll be back." He ran off into the forest, quickly disappearing in the middle of the thick foliage.

'That voice I've heard before, it said an unfinished quest. What is it?' He thought while running, looking for any small animal that he could hunt.

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{Skills/ Quests/ Classes/ Stats}

{Main Quest: Escape the Death Asylum of Blackwood and seek asylum with the kingdom of Bluemoon}

{Side Quest: Breaking The Wall}

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The system's page appeared floating before Shin's face, causing him to trip and hit a tree. Even though it was transparent, having it pop out of nowhere like that was enough to distract Shin long enough to trip.

"The hell?" Shin growled, blood dripping from his nose as he shook the dirt off his already dirty clothes. "Those quests…" He looked at the stupid page.

"The main quest is still there even though we escaped that fort…I see, it doesn't matter if we die in the fort or the forest, it'll be all meaningless if we don't reach Bluemoon. And that side quest must refer to the breakthrough of my core to reach the second stage of the mortal core." He scratched his head, combing the dirt from his hair.

'The requirement for a breakthrough can differ from one person to another and from one stage to another. It's just as linked to the body and what it lacks as it is linked to the soul'

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! The rumbling of his stomach interrupted his thoughts, making him smile, 'Indeed, I'm not breaking through anything on an empty stomach. I should think about finding food and shelter to survive instead of getting stronger now.'

Breaking through to the second stage has to wait until they reach the safety of a city. When a cultivator tries to break through and raise his core stage, making sure he's at his peak is of utmost importance. Lack of sleep, hunger, sickness, injury, and even his mood might affect the result.

Just like how some cultivators managed to break through at the grasp of death, riddled with wounds, some failed to break through for centuries simply because they weren't sitting right or had some worries muddling their minds.

One of Shin's students couldn't break through for two decades because his daughter was at the age of getting married and that messed with his temper a bit.

As Shin kept looking around, he managed to catch a glimpse of something moving between the trees. It was big, brown, and wide, he knew immediately that it was their dinner. He burst running after the shadow, dodging the trees with masterful steps.

'Char, I've got stronger, you can use more of my power.' He grabbed Char in his palm and she cried.

"Wait! What are you doing?" Terrified and confused, poor little Char felt Shin's fingers gently engulf her as he swung his arm back like a pitcher.

With a powerful swing, Shin threw the spider as fast as he could, aiming at the shadow running away from him. The spider cried, tears rushing out of her eight eyes as the trees zoomed around in the blink of an eye.

In the next fraction of a second, she was flying above a deer's back, but she was already slowing down. The power of Shin's throw won't accelerate her forever and she must act quickly.

Char thought quickly, throwing a silk thread at the deer's back and latching onto it, pulling herself on the animal's back. "Sorry, master's orders." She lifted one of her little arms, and swung it at the deer's side, punching it with the might of a human fist.

The deer gasped, feeling the sudden impact on his chest. The deer stumbled, his legs almost giving up as the hit came while it was breathing.

"Not willing to stop?" Char growled, lifting her tiny arm, "Then I'll keep pummeling you down." She started punching the deer's chest over and over, each hit followed in the same spot as the one before, and with all of that power being concentrated on a small spot, it didn't Char long to break one of the deer's rips, knocking it to the ground.

Like a hungry tiger pouncing on his prey, Shin emerged from the bushes, leaping on the deer's back and wrapping his arms around its neck.

The deer tried to stand up but Shin forced him back to the ground, keeping a tight chokehold around the neck as he did his best to avoid the sharp antlers.

The peak of stage one of the mortal core, this level is as powerful as a regular, healthy human with no significant strength or speed. Can Shin wrestle a deer with a broken rib and win? He doesn't even have a sharp weapon to kill it.

The deer managed to overpower Shin and stood, trying to hit him on the ground to stomp him.

Unlike most men, this wasn't Shin's first time wrestling a wild animal. This was a common occurrence when hunting beasts and demons, hand-to-hand combat with non-humanoid creatures was something that he had mastered.

Shin twisted his torso, releasing his arms from around the deer's neck and wrapping his legs around it instead, using the powerful muscles of his thighs to pull the deer's head back down and knock him to the ground.

With his arms free for a bit, Shin ate a few kicks from the deer's legs to touch its chest and reach toward the core. Just as he could absorb lifeforce from trees and how did he manage to snuff Ase and Char's aura and cores, he could do the same to the deer since it was injured.

The deer struggled for a few seconds, feeling its chest clenching down as Shin stuffed his core. Char stared at the deer with a passive face, saluting him for his sacrifices.

Back at the tree, Ase woke up as she smelled blood, "Who's there?" She growled, but quickly saw Shin walk out of the thick trees, dragging the deer on his back with an exhausted face, "Come help me, it's heavy."