Elder Gui smiled widely again, to Naath this smile was quickly becoming something to be feared in the deepest part of his soul. Elder Gui grabbed Naath’s shoulder once again and Naath’s vision faded again. When it returned they were above a forest Naath couldn't see the ends of at all. Elder Gui said “okay brat this forest is a bit special, it’s thousands of miles in any direction, the further out towards the edge you go the stronger the magical beasts. The lowest level beasts are around the level of a human cultivator at stage two bone hardening.

The stronger ones are around the muscle strengthening stage three, your training this time will be staying here until you can exit the forest. Once you can exit this forest I will fully accept you as my own disciple, if you survive you will be able to easily overpower your peers at the same cultivation level. Even crossing a small realm to do battle is possible. Well, good luck brat.” With that elder Gui disappeared leaving Naath alone, Naath dropped from midair about 100 feet down to the ground landing on his feet with a thud.

In Naath’s soul sea his rune was thinking to itself, ‘ha a minor realm? Once this kid reaches bone hardening stage 9 he will be able to do battle across a major realm! His compression level would even startle those in the larger worlds!’ Because Naath landed so heavily it made a large noise and startled some of the nearby magical beasts. At almost the same time three magical beasts, there was a winged python, a flame bull, and an earth scorpion. They all converged at the place where Naath was however, Naath knew this would happen and was already hiding up in a tree.

He thought to himself ‘if just that noise alerted three of them then what will happen when I start fighting just one?!’ A shudder went down Naath’s spine as he thought of this. Naath looked down and saw the three beasts largely ignore each other and go back to what they were doing when they found no sign of the source of the noise. He immediately began trying to think of ways to silently kill his prey. However just as Naath was trying to think of a solution he heard elder Gui’s booming voice as he yelled over the forest. He yelled out loud enough for everything in a mile to hear him saying “right, brat I almost forgot, take your pet dog with you, this will be good for him as well. You two can also use this opportunity to work on teamwork.”

After that Brutus landed in the same spot Naath was just in, Naath immediately jumped down and grabbed Brutus lifting him into the tree, and then began to run along the treetops at maximum speed. He cursed in his heart ‘that heartless old bastard! He could have just told me quietly there was no way he didn't know where I was! I swear one day I will get even for all of this bullshit!’ Naath ran silently along the tree carrying a large silver white wolf almost as large as himself. After Naath had brought them a few miles away he finally stopped and let out a breath of relief.

Naath set Brutus down and they made eye contact and Naath could tell he was thinking the exact same thing. The two nodded at each other simultaneously. Brutus sat upright and closed his eyes as natural energy gathered towards him. Naath sat down cross-legged and began to circulate the true void art. However right when he started the rune in his soul sea spoke up “Hey hey brat did you forget your promise to me? You said you would work on soul exercise for the next month!”

Naath directed himself into his soul sea and said “Senior, surely you can see the situation I'm in! This is clearly a special case!” The rune ignored it saying “a promise is a promise brat, do it!” Naath grumbled and grit his teeth thinking to himself ‘sorry Brutus I'll have to depend on you for a while’ With that Naath began to stretch his perception as far as he possibly could seeing everything within a foot of him and pushing it to expand slowly but surely. Naath and Brutus remained like this for a full 24 hours before Naath opened his eyes and his stomach started to grumble.

Naath looked down and thought ‘shit food, right.’ Suddenly Naath remembered the prepared meat from the earth monkey! Naath took some of it out and went to use his martial energy to roast it however,he realised he'd never absorbed fire type energy before and had no idea how to reproduce it. He almost swore out loud, this meant he had to start a fire to cook it which would draw the attention of surrounding creatures anyway! Naath almost wanted to cry out in frustration.

Reluctantly Naath made his way back to the forest floor and started a small fire to cook the meat on. Due to his practice in building his abode back at the raging river sect he could cut the meat like a trained chef with a knife back on earth. In fact it was even more adept because of the energies flexibility. Naath soon had nicely even cut slabs of meat and placed them on a rock near the fire letting them cook on it like a basic stove. After a few minutes the smell of the cooking meat began to spread and so did the sound of crackling fire and sizzling juices from the meat. It didn't take long after that for nearby magical beasts to begin poking their heads out and looking for the source of all of this.

This time Naath got lucky and only a single beast was bothered enough to take note of any of this. It was an iron skinned hyena. Its cultivation level was around the mid-second level of bone hardening. When Naath saw it he swore under his breath but refused to simply abandon his food. Naath got up and prepared to fight it, he let his aura leak out and before the hyena could even react he threw out a punch containing all of his power. It hit the hyena with a *ting* sound and the hyena went skidding back a few feet.

Naath felt like he had just hit a block of solid steel however and was waving his hand to get rid of the numb sensation. Naath didn't hesitate and was running towards it again while waving his hand and then let out a kick with all his force onto the hyena’s head. The back of Naath’s heel connected with the top of its skull and the impact from it was just enough to knock the hyena unconscious. Naath let out a breath of relief and turned back to his food. The slabs of meat were just now ready to be flipped and Naath wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry with how long this was taking.

After Naath flipped the meat to the other side he heard rustling in the nearby greenery and looked over. It was a beast at the early second level of bone hardening, Naath let out a breath of relief seeing as it was just a giant centipede. Within a matter of minutes the centipede was killed and Naath turned back to his food still on high alert with his soul perception stretched as far as he could manage at all times. It now had a range of a foot and a half. After the centipede was dealt with Naath didn't forget about the iron skinned hyena by any means.

Now that he had an opportunity he went over to it and began to repeatedly hit it on the head with full force desperately trying to finish it off. After a few minutes of effort Naath’s knuckles were red and swollen and a trickle of blood was flowing down his hands. Naath was out of breath from the exercise of it however he did have results. The hyena’s breathing had stopped and was completely dead. Naath made absolutely sure by absorbing it into his infinity gourd. The rune in his soul sea whispered almost inaudibly “idiot it’s an infinity gourd not a spatial ring, it can store living things. Good thing it’s already dead.”

Naath thought instantly about carrying Brutus in it so he could cultivate inside. However the rune said, “no it only stores living things in stasis, there is no time inside the infinity gourd everything is still.” Naath swore under his breath and then went back to the roasting meat on the fire. Finally the meat was done and Naath gently nudged Brutus out of his cultivation and the two of them ate their food. After this Naath went back to training his soul force on top of the tree. Like this a month went by quickly and by the end, Naath’s soul perception was at around 20 feet in any direction simultaneously around him