Yi Qiang soon began changing his routine of hunting the diseased animals to better train him, making the most use of his time. He had long disposed of the weights that he had used in the gym to increase the difficulty and thus growth, but when the sun fell, Yi Qiang planned to go back into the village and ask if there were a blacksmith or something he could use as body weights, in order to both increase his Sneak skill(not creating a sound was far harder when one was 50 pounds heavier, and the weight came from an unfamiliar source) and his stats. Yi Qiang also changed the way he hunted animals, placing his very will into every Arrow Pierce, feeling it slices through the air, like a flying, deadly spear, as opposed to his previous method of just shooting until the thing died. He did the same with Mark, trying to focus on the core of the target and trying to brand their very soul.

Unsurprisingly, this did wonders for both skills, and they leveled up far faster. The only drawback, at least for most, was that this was rather draining on mental stamina; but Yi Qiang was someone who had experienced hell and returned stronger - the pool of his mental energy was instead a limitless ocean.

But Yi Qiang wasn't done there - his goal was for all of his physical stats to get to 300 before he began allocating stats into them. That would take a while - the difficulty of gaining a new stat increased exponentially every increase of 10, so by 250 in a stat or so, it would take a day to gain a single stat through normal training methods.

But once he got there, Yi Qiang's stats would be fully let loose, and he could finally use the power of his levels, dumping free stat points into Strength, Agility, and Constitution.

The fact remained that he wasn't there yet, though.

So, Yi Qiang continued on, improving at incredible speeds.

When the night fell, Yi Qiang also discovered where he was sleeping.

This is disappointing, but at least I should still be able to get a good night's rest with my Vitality.

Inside the shabby hut where he was sleeping, Yi Qiang stood in front of a mat on the floor. It was woven from numerous grasses and other wildlife, and while skillfully made, the materials used in the process were just too basic. It seemed Yi Qiang was doomed to a few months of uncomfortable rest.

He quickly began to ignore it, falling asleep for the first time in a long while.

It was morning when he woke up. Good, at least I wake up at good times despite not sleeping for several days in a row.

As silently as he could(Yi Qiang didn't know whether any of the tribesmen would still be sleeping), he got up and headed into the forest. Thankfully, the weights he had asked for were laid outside the door, proof of the lizardmen's productivity, and he quickly strapped them on.

This cycle continued - Yi Qiang slaughtered vast quantities of plague beasts every day, thinning out the huge herds, before heading back every three days, sleeping and returning. It was his tenth day when Yi Qiang, who had already noticed a significantly reduced density of plague beasts, decided to head further in. So, that day, he rested as well as possible, prepared to have to go long nights without sleeping - who knew whether, as wary as Yi Qiang was, he would be snuck up on in his rest?

Advancing further, at the beginning, didn't seem to have much of an effect. Though Yi Qiang pictured the horde of plague beasts as waves of disaster emanating from a single point in the forest somewhere, and was quite sure of the accuracy of his interpretation, he didn't notice much of a change even when he, supposely, advanced closer to the source. Then again, it was entirely possible that while he was heading deeper into the forest, he was actually pointed away from the source of the plague beasts; this was especially possible given the vastness of the forest. Some changes to his strategy were in order.

With an eerie, intimidating silence, Yi Qiang fell from the trees onto the dirt, crouching just enough and at just the right speed so that the force was transmitted in the way that wouldn't cause any sound. My skills really have increased. I guess I didn't get much training like this on Earth - there were more important things to focus on, I'm sure. He landed in front of the corpse of an infected tiger, measuring up its size before looking around it.

If he wanted to get closer to the source, he'd have to trace the path of what it spat out.

Quickly, the woodsman found tracks. It's surprising how much my education is worth here. I only got a month's worth of tracking teaching on Earth, but that seems to be enough. I guess Ascend is also supposed to be somewhat possible for those without real-life experience, too. Just as he was about to head out, following them, he looked back at the tiger, his mind suddenly and strangely bringing up the image of the arrows sprouting from its neck. He still needed two shots to kill a plague beast, despite the growth of his skills, but the margin of his overkill had drastically increased.

Looking back at the ammunition, Yi Qiang was suddenly struck with a thought. Didn't the Grand Elder say that any warrior of the lizardmen who came into contact with the diseased animals or who was touched with the infection in an open wound would soon die, painfully and quickly? So, if I stored the arrows that were contaminated in my quiver, and fired them at an ordinary target, would the disease spread to them, killing them eventually? Seems like a potent weapon... Maybe this could explain why the corpses of the plague beasts didn't disappear when I killed them, like anything else that was fully looted - I didn't 'loot' their poison.

Confirming this hypothesis, the corpse quickly turned to dust when Yi Qiang removed the two arrows, the parts of which had entered the beast now covered with a sheen of a color reminiscent of bile. It worked! He shoved the infected arrows into his quiver, hoping the game rules would subvert logic and real-world laws enough to allow the ammunition to retain its infection.

Another potent and, in this case, somewhat shady weapon added to Yi Qiang's repertoire, the marksman continued, following the imprints of the tiger's paws in the dirt.

Though the trail created by the beast was haphazard at best - not much more could be expected from an animal with a far more potent version of the equivalent of Earth's rabies - it was serviceable, and without taking into account the widly ineffiecient routes Yi Qiang was forced to slowly follow, got him to his goal far faster than his previous method of randomly leaping through tree tops.

Unfortunately, it did mean he couldn't get the drop on plague beasts that easily - the infection didn't hamper an animal's natural sense of smell, unfortunately - but he still managed, on the whole, to stop them in their tracks with a few well-placed arrows.

And so his progress continued. Now, Yi Qiang was seeing results: a far higher concentration of plague beasts, slightly contaminated plantlife(that was sad to see, especially for Yi Qiang, who, on top of all the other players, hailed from a land filled with such pollution), and more vigorous plague beasts.

The last one, Yi Qiang reasoned, was likely because while the infection strengthened the animals, it sapped their health, resulting in dramatically shorter lifespans and gradual weakening. Since the animals closer to the source were more recently infected, and hadn't had time to wander out far yet(based on the tracks Yi Qiang had to follow, that took a long time), they received the same benefits to overall combat power without having the opportunity to be weakened and harmed by the disease as much. This increased rather slowly, but every ten minutes or so, the average level increased by 1.

Hopefully, this wouldn't add up until Level 100, since that would mean a) that the source of the infectionw as strong enough to create Level 100 beasts and b) that he would have to fight against Level 100 beasts who had 0 survival instinct and could likely shrug off his arrows just like the Red Mountain Goliath did(Yi Qiang also had no intention of using Desperation Arrow with every single plague beast - the reasons for that were obvious).

It took about two days for the average level of a Plague Beast to reach Level 50, by which point Yi Qiang's trained stats had increased dramatically and he was over Level 50 as well - it turned out continuously slaughtering beasts that kept up with his level rather well was useful in that respect. Unfortunately, no stat had reached 300 yet, so Yi Qiang was in no way affected by the rapid leveling speed, and instead just saved up more and more points. It was rather frustrating, really, especially as the plague beasts' strength seemed to increase at a far faster pace than his, which meant that the mobs previously felled easily by two shots now took five or six, by which point, the faster beasts had already reached him, and Yi Qiang was working his bow in close range.

This was annoying, because his growth speed would outpace that of the plague beasts if he was allowed(by himself, but that's not important) to use the bulk of stat points he had acquired, but no. He had to look out for his future potential. Annoying.

That's enough venting, I think. Vent on the animals.

The increased capacity of each beast for arrows did mean that he collected more and more infected arrows, but soon enough, that meant that every single arrow of his was converted into one filled with disease. He had put off using those as long as possible, since he didn't know the effects of using the source of the plague beast's battle power as a weapon against them, but soon enough, he had no choice.

I really have to find myself a way to get infinite arrows. It's really annoying having to worry about wasting them. Oh, I can hear Master Wo now - 'A good marksman never wastes ammunition', 'treat every arrow, every bullet, as another life - for all intents and purposes, it is', 'shut up, or I'll hit you agai-

Yi Qiang's slowly derailing thoughts were knocked back on course by the explosion of the tree in front of him. Yes, explosion. The more worrying part, though, was the fact that the cause of it was rushing at him right now.