A week passed in the blink of an eye for Damian who had been very active that entire week, but that didn't mean that it was unproductive.

In a single week, just like he had planned previously, he had been able to complete all the missions that he accepted from the academy and in his bag, he held many valuable and powerful beast cores that he was planning to sell to the academy.

With the contribution points, he was planning to buy more medicine to help temper his body that had already been strengthened quite massively over the past week of training and fighting against beasts.

The amount of beast meat that Damian had eaten in that week was enough to feed an ordinary person for an entire year and the Monkey Beast ate many times more than that, with its unusual body that seemed to have a black hole as a stomach.

The telepathic and emotional connection that Damian and the Monkey Beast shared made it so their combat was completely in sync and each other knew and understood what the other's intentions were during combat.

Damian would sometimes retreat and act as support using his body and Earth Manipulation Ability, while most of the time would end up teaming up with the Monkey Beast in close combat to overwhelm the enemy with raw power and speed.

His proficiency in the use of the Earth Manipulation Ability and the Earth Element, in general, had increased massively and using it in combat had forced him to become faster and more efficient during its use.

Damian estimated that if he spent another week in the beast woods, he would be able to reach rank 5 both externally and internally, which was needed for him to become an Inner Academy Student and would greatly enhance his power.

When both his cultivation types reach rank 5, his power would be unrivalled within the Outer Academy and within the Inner Academy, he could jump straight into facing rank 6 and rank 7 cultivators, that although would be at a higher cultivation level than him, would struggle to face him.

Everything was going well and were on track with his expectations.

Despite that, Damian had no plans of slowing down as he rested in a tree with the Monkey Beast laying in his right arm and his bag in the other.

Each night, 4 hours of rest was enough for Damian to function enough and would give him more time to hunt and train, but he knew it was an unhealthy way to live, even as a cultivator, so after leaving the beast woods, he would focus on recovering to his peak state and increasing his skills, control and mastery.

He was satisfied with reaching rank 5 externally and internally and didn't want his cultivation and power to overshadow his skill and control, which were very important for Damian.

So, he was planning to delve deeper into the use of the Shadow, Fire and Earth Elements to increase his control and understanding of energy.

In the process, he was going to get out as much as he could from the Shadow Step Skill Book, which was the movement skill inheritance of the Dark Shadow Kin, along with the Golden Flame Inheritance.

As long as he was progressing in one way or another and was surpassing his peers and predecessors, Damian was satisfied as he continued hunting and training in the Inner Part of the Beast Woods.

The beast woods were closer to Aria City, so he was planning to train there and he would be able to get back to the academy from the village he had previously gone through on the way into the beast woods.

There were many carriages leaving and entering Aria City and hitching a ride shouldn't be a big issue, so Damian had nothing to worry about.

He made sure not to head too deep into the Inner Part of the Beast Woods and also made sure that he was ready to battle and knew his surroundings before entering a battle against a powerful beast.

However with Kong on his side along with his current power and skill in combat, especially against wild beasts who had very obvious attacks that were quite easy to read and predict, Damian was confident in himself.

"Kong, you wanna spar? This area should be empty for a while, after we took down the beast that was owned this territory. I wanna see how capable you are, and you can also learn some fighting techniques from me" offered Damian.

Kong nodded its head with an excited expression as it changed into its larger and stronger adult form, from the smaller, cuter and faster form that he would be in most of the time.

Damian was unsure which form was Kong's original form and when he asked his beast companion about it, it also didn't seem to know, which was interesting and also weird.

However, since Kong's smaller form was cuter, more convenient and also suited its immature and playful nature, it ended up becoming the form it was in most of the time when it was with Damian.

Damian started off with activating the Earth Manipulation Innate Ability that he had become very accustomed to over the past week and since there was some distance between himself and Kong, was planning to use it to his advantage.

After a few rock spikes that were dodged by Kong, Damian changed his strategy since Kong was too flexible, fast and formed a large pillar of rock beneath his feet that was a few metres tall.

It used quite a large amount of energy to do so, but now he had the high ground and since Kong didn't have any ranged attacks, from what he knew, Damian believed that with that strategy, it would be very difficult for Kong to win the spar.

"You dodged the rock spikes, but lets see how many of my arrows you can dodge" said Damian as he began firing many arrows one after another.