The sun was setting and it would soon turn dark. Max had spent one unlucky day. Even after roaming throughout the forest, he couldn't find any useful resources to carve even a small knife. All he met were beasts.

His body had been riddled with claw and bite marks and blood continued to seep out of those wounds as Max dragged his body back towards the river area.

The only good thing which happened today was Max confirming his theory. Battle was another way of sensing flow. But Max felt that it was more like going against the natural order.

…..

Max finally reached his safe heaven….the river. He felt that it was the presence of the Ancient Cemetery which drove the beasts away and in one month, there won't be any safe place left.

Max took out his clothes and got into the water to wash his wounds.

"Damn, those beasts really did a number on me!! Only if I had a weapon. It would be better to have a long-range weapon when fighting against numbers.", Max murmured as he moved towards the deeper end of the river.

"Hmmm!!"

Max suddenly felt something smooth beneath his foot.

This river only had rocks underneath. But this didn't feel like it.

Max put his head underwater and transformed to give a boost to his sight and what he saw, sent a bolt of joy through his body.

Iron clay!!

' I can't believe I found it here. Its a 3★ ore, strong and flexible at the same time makes it even more expensive than some 5★ ores. If used correctly, can be transformed into a strong flexible equipment.'

Max turned his head around and found quite a few chunks of Iron clay around. It couldn't have been better. One by one, he lifted up the blocks of Iron clay and dumped them into his spirit world.

" It's time to craft."

….

After Max finished washing. He brought out the first aid kid before clumsily wrapping himself in bandages. He didn't need to worry about it much. The wounds weren't serious and with his regeneration ability, they should be pretty much healed within a day or two.

"All ready."

Max got up and walked towards the forest before throwing a punch at a nearby tree.

"Bang!"

The tree shook and the leaves fell on Max's head.

" I really have weakened. I could have definitely taken it down with one punch earlier.", Max murmured before throwing another four punches and the tree finally fell.

Max then tried to pull the tree into his spirit world and to his surprise, it didn't work.

"Is there a size limit?"

Max broke one of the branches before sending it to the spirit world and it worked. It looks like he was right.

"Fine, I will do it outside.",

Max took down another three trees before stopping. He then moved on to the next step of preparing an earth furnace.

Max tried to control the earth element. But he could only slightly move them. In the end, he had to pull up his sleeves and use his hands and his little ability to construct a furnace.

…..

After two hours of hard work, Max had finally made a horrible looking furnace.

He already knew how it would end up. This is the reason he took those many trees down. Since he was using such a crude method, he was bound to lose much heat in the process. He needed these trees to make the fire last long.

Max took out a chunk of Iron clay and threw it in the furnace. He then proceeded to dump the wood and light out a fire using his meager ability.

" It's going to take a long time."

Max shook his head feeling the heat from the furnace. He left the furnace and moved towards a rock and entered meditation.

Max continued to sit for a while before he finally felt the flow and energy and began revolving it following the method of the First Layer of Ancient Manual.

….

Time slowly passed and Max felt the connection getting weaker and weaker. When he had finally exhausted himself, Max took a break and went out to check the furnace.

The heat had reached quite a level. But it was still far from melting the ore. Max dumped in another patch of firewood and fanned the flames before going back to the rock and this time, he took out the Beast cores.

Max concentrated and soon the spirit energy emerged out of Max's temple region. Max used the unknown circulation method to direct the spirit energy and slowly felt his tiredness drifting away.

'This really feels nice.'

Max mumbled inwardly as he picked one of the cores.

…..

After Max finished refining all the cores, he couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed. Even though the cores belonged to low level mana beasts, there should have been a considerable increase after all he absorbed so many. But alas, it was too little.

"It looks like any core below the peak of Ferocious level beast won't do much at this point."

Max got up and went to have a look at the furnace.

"F*ck!"

The ore still hadn't melted yet. It has only started to turn orange now.

Max dumped two batches of firewood in the furnace in anger.

"Huff! It should take another hour or two."

Max decided to enter the spirit world and spent some time teaching Sera and try to figure out her powers.

….

After two hours, Max got out of his spirit world.

"She fell asleep. I can't blame her. It is about time for children to sleep."

"Let's see if it's done or not."

Max went up to the furnace and this time, he could clearly see the silver red liquid in it.

Suddenly, a smile formed on Max's face and he took out the mold made from earth which he had prepared earlier. It was very simple and looked like a 5 feet 11 inches staff.

"I will use it to breakthrough every hurdle in this month."