Chapter 2

Kusan looked at the sky and walked passed civilians who came to watch disciples training, meeting with family members who are a part of the Dojo, buying tickets for the ‘Dragon Selection’ tournament tomorrow etc.

Even so, there is one thing in common every civilian did. They avoided Kusan like a plague, afraid they might catch his deformed face disease and other such nonsense that is breed from ignorance. So wherever he walked, they parted ways for him without question.

Kusan didn’t care, considering he was used to such treatment.

After a time of walking, greeting fellow disciples with a grunt whenever one acknowledged his existence. He finally made it outside the vast Dojo area and into the wilderness located at the back of the Dojo.

The size of the Dojo is about 800 kilometres in circumference, since they need massive amounts of space for training. Each technique that the Dojo teaches, if not given enough space could unintentionally injure a fellow disciple, so for that reason they expanded beyond their previous 300 kilometres to 800 kilometres.

It may have been built too much for so little amount of disciples that could barely fit even 1/10th of the whole field. So it took a while for Kusan to get out of the Dojo.

When he saw the looming forest that is reputed to be the most dangerous forest in the continent, Kusan couldn’t help but inhale a large amount of fresh air. He always felt at ease whenever he entered the forest, it was as if though the forest was his home compared to the stuffy safe place of a Dojo.

The tree swayed, with rustling sounds reverberating through the forest in response to a strong gust today. Monsters roars would occasionally appear, either from territorial fights with other monsters or against intelligent beings such as humans, elves etc.

Without a word, he dropped down from the steep hill that acted as a natural barrier against low level monsters, into the forest.

He withdrew a katana and rolled in mid-air, he sent energy through his leg. He made the energy converge onto the sole of his feet, before his spin went beyond his control; he extended his legs like the thrust of spears. The moment his feet touched the side of the cliff, a large quiet explosion boomed with the feet being the source.

With the after-effect of the explosion, it shot Kusan’s body zooming through the air without resisting the sudden explosion since that was his aim in the first place. He compressed fire magic into his feet, so that when he released the overfilled magical feet, it created an explosion effect upon touching something.

Similar to how when someone pops a balloon, the balloon with its compressed air would fly away.

That is the effect Kusan is currently under, however unlike the balloon with no control resulting in it flying everywhere. Kusan controlled his flight by making small adjustment.

After a minute, his flight slowed down to the point he was free-falling to the ground. Even so, he didn’t flinch or panic, instead jumping from tree to tree. Just like a frog jumping from a leaf to another leaf in the river.

Having been using the forest for 10 years, he has found various ways to quickly bypass the weaker monsters without having to fight them considering that they aren’t worth his time.

After all, killing 3rd rank monsters and below is insulting for someone of his strength, a newly made 7th rank warrior. If he wants to get stronger, to find the killers of his mother and to find his origin, then he needs to advance to Saint level.

An unreachable and powerful existence that is above the level of mortals, because once one becomes a Saint, one can live for more than 500 years. So for Kusan to dream of attaining this level is already such an near impossible goal, however he isn’t one to give up as he has staked all he has to attain the level.

He knows that if he wants to find out about his mother’s killer, only being at the Saint level would that be possible considering that since he is a grown man. He can see more from his dream, the fact that both his mother and her killers were flying in the sky is testament to his mother’s killers’ powers.

As for his origin, he has no idea how to find his family but if his mother is of Saint Level, then surely finding a Saint family that he belongs to would naturally be easier once he is in the same level.

So with that in mind, he didn’t dare relax his guard or slack off. Considering, he has gone through countless life and death situation that tempered the man that Kusan is now. With his trusted blade and renewed vigour, he quickly made his way to the area teeming with formidable monsters of the 7th rank.

In this world, every single person is ranked according to their strength in the warrior path. Those who are 1st ranked to 5th ranked are considered average warriors, 6-7th ranked warriors is considered prominent figures, 8th ranked warriors were considered an almost invincible existence and for 9th ranked warriors; they are the most invincible existence under heaven in the mortal world.

Saints aren’t included since they are practically immortal.

Monsters too are also ranked to same way; however, monsters naturally possess more power and strength than intelligent life forms. Therefore, monsters are regarded to be a rank stronger than a life form of the same rank.

That is a normal estimate, even so which is not including special racial traits that the various life forms possess, such as the elves high affinity towards water, the dwarfs’ affinity with earth and so forth.

But Kusan isn’t a normal person, nor does he want to be. Unlike others who would normally cower before a monster of the same unless they were two ranks higher than the monster itself, Kusan would actually battle the monsters of the same rank.

Because fighting against battle of a monster of similar rank or at least higher would greatly help Kusan as he accumulate more and more experience in regards to the behaviour of the monster and their special quirks.

After two hours of jumping, Kusan stopped a top a tree and stared down at a snake. He noticed a slight green magic streak into the trees, the trees upon touching the mysterious energy withered into dead white trees. Curious, he saw a snake that shot green magic at the trees, he recognised the snake, and it was the famed ‘Nature Snake’.

The name may sound harmless, but the reason for the word ‘Nature’ in their name is their ability to absorb nature essence into them, converting the magic into life force. For this reason, they are considered formidable unless one kills it in one strike or fighting it in a formation that will stop nature’s magic to enter through. However, formations are expensive and even then, Kusan wouldn’t consider it as he views them to be for the weak.

“Looks like I have found a training partner for today.”

Unlike most people, Kusan doesn’t kill the monster but merely fights them until he is used to their racial patterns. Then when finished with their fights, he will move on and not bother killing them. He doesn’t care about the valuable monster core that a monster will drop after death since they are worth valuable money.

According to the books regarding monsters and magical beasts he had read. These books had discussed the monster or magical core that monsters and magical beast had within them.

The monsters or magical cores will condense from the energies accumulated in the bodies of beasts of the third rank and higher. But for beasts which have not reached the sixth rank, the value of the cores is not high. However, the higher rank the cores are, the more valuable they are.

Monsters and magical beast are two different existences. Monsters are natural beast that relied mainly on external strength whereas magical beast mainly uses magic as their attack methods.

If one looked at the beasts and make a comparison with humans, then Monsters are the equivalent human warriors while Magical Beast is the equivalent of a human mage.

Each beast’s cores are only valuable to their respective counterparts. Monsters cores are valuable to warriors as they can improve their weapon’s strength, defences and in some cases, give them abilities that can contribute to a warrior’s overall strength.

Magical cores are valuables only to mages, however unlike the Monster cores that can be given to anyone. The Magical core has restrictions as it can only improve whatever element the Magical Beast is most proficient in. For example, someone obtain a water Magical core, which means it is only valuable to water mages and not anyone else as it is useless.

But despite the restriction, the magical core can cut down depending on the grade of the core, a great percentage of magical consumption for spells. If someone wanted to use a spell that required the mage to expend 90% of their magic, then with the magical core established and by the mage’s side, it would cut down the percentage down by 40%.

Every magic amount counts for a mage as their magical reserve is their very lifeline.

Knowing the nature of the beast to be a magical beast, Kusan smirked as he looked forward to how formidable a ‘Nature Snake’ really is.

Magical Beasts, by standard are harder to deal with than Monsters since they tend to keep their distance and if battle isn’t going their way, with the distance between themselves and their enemy, they could escape.

He readied himself, putting a hand on his katana but didn’t immediately take action or withdraw the weapon, since he bided his time watching every little detail the snake displayed. Although he knows some information about the snake, that is only secondary information or in worst case scenario, the tip of the iceberg in regards to the information of snake.

30 minutes later, the snake stopped shooting out green magic. Despite that, the surrounding trees around the large lake were all gone, creating a 100 metre distance of barren plain to the lake. The lake itself is 500 metres in diameter.

At first, Kusan was confused about the snake’s bizarre action but now he realised why it did so.

The reason for the action is most likely related to the fact that the snake doesn’t want to be caught off-guard. So for that reason, it destroyed all trees within a certain area of the lake so that it can spot enemies before they arrive in the lake, negating the ambush tactics that people sometime uses against high ranked magical beast as they tend to run before a large group of hunters, adventurers and so forth.

During the snake devouring the trees with the unique ability of theirs, Kusan had to constantly jump backward tree after tree until it stopped since he was watching it from 30 metres before. Luckily he was skilful enough to not be caught by the snake when doing so.

‘What a clever snake, looks like the snake won’t be so easy after all.

Just what I wanted.’

He withdrew the katana, aroused the dormant magic and energy inside himself. With preparation complete, he didn’t bother dashing forward and jumped down from the tree. With a graceful land that didn’t affected in the slightest the grass pointing up towards the sky with Kusan standing atop the grasses.

He walked with such lightness skill that when walking across the grass, the grass didn’t react or get squashed as it normally would under normal circumstances. The skill Kusan using is exclusive assassin’s skills called ‘Nothingness’ that he acquired after having encountered an assassin during his time in the forest.

He was lucky that the assassin had the skill book on him, considering that this skill has helped him countless times to escape, kill or at least injure other powerful adventurers, robbers etc. However, it wasn’t easy killing an assassin, he had almost died back then but the rewards were worth it.

It allows him to reach a quiet state when traversing long distance without alerting whoever he wants to sneak up on while on the outside, he looks like he is walking normal but trying to hear him walking, no one would be able to hear it.

He wanted to get closer to the snake that was lazily swimming around before it armed itself, the closer the better. Since the distance will determine how the fight will go, if he was too far when the snake spots him, the snake would bombard him with magic while maintaining distance.

That is something he doesn’t want to happen since he won’t obtain battle experience that way, so if he gets close enough before the snake can dodge. He can then force the snake into close combat, because the moment the snakes tries to escape is the moment the snake will die since it will expose its back like that.

Kusan stopped at 30 metres from the lake, who stopped swimming and just floated on the water as it slept. He took a deep breath and leaned forward, rapidly falling towards the ground. Before his face touched the ground, the energy in his foot which erupted. The sudden burst of energy created a small ripple in the grass.

The force pushed Kusan and along with his natural speed, accelerated him twice as fast as his normal dashing abilities as he rushed towards the snake.

This is the same move that Kusan did when he burst of the Cliffside, except it’s on a smaller scale so that he can conserve more energy.

He closed the 30 metres gap to the lake in a second and entered the lake. Before he landed on the lake, Kusan changed the nature of power in his feet from energy to water magic. With water magic encasing his feet and his lightness skill, it was easy for him to run on water. Although he can run on water without water magic, even so it would create ripples and that is where the water magic comes into play.

The lake will have no reaction to small amounts of water magic touching them since small amount would not disturb the natural balance of elements in water. Similar to how, filling a half filled jug with water would not create much effect besides a small ripple before it disappears. Therefore, it negated the effect of the water ripples which could alert the snake sooner than Kusan liked.

Kusan saw no movement from the snake; he eyed the snake without a hint of emotion. He was calm and serene as he saw the distance between him and the snake get closer by the second.

200 metres

150 metres

100 metres

80 metres

Instantly the dormant snake opened its eyes, immediately the eyes radiated a cold and cruel aura, as if angry that someone has the audacity to wake him up. It lifted its head as it turned around, facing towards the direction from where Kusan was.

By the time Kusan the snake initiated the action, Kusan was already 20 metres away from him.

It wasn’t that the snake’s action was slow, but that Kusan speed was abnormal to the point that he closed 60 metres gap in two seconds. Such speed is the combination of Kusan’s hard intensive training and the lucky lightness skill.

The snake, seeing how close Kusan was, got shocked but it didn’t last long. It reacted to Kusan’s insane speed by shooting out a barrage of green magic from its mouth. The green magic gleamed with deep malice, as if a touch could instantly obliterate whoever is foolish enough to get hit by it.

Kusan, seeing the different trajectory of each magic as it shot towards him and the dangerously close gaps between both of them. He inhaled deeply and twisted while diving forward.

He narrowly avoided all 9 magic spits, with the only damage to him being a few slight cuts on his clothes and a small strand of hair cut off. With only two metres distance between them, the snake didn’t back away like a normal magical beast but instead thrust its head towards Kusan who was in mid-air.

The action of the snake was a sound one, unfortunately Kusan wasn’t any normal warrior. He stabbed his sword into the water, the moment it did, the katana suddenly got stuck on the water because Kusan channelled water magic at the tip of the katana. So that when it touches the water, it would connect them together, therefore the mid-air flight of Kusan abruptly stopped.

He didn’t stop there as he pulled the katana back, making Kusan entire body push downwards towards the water. This action made Kusan agilely avoid a death collision with the snake’s mouth. He thrust his left palm forward, smacking against the water.

Kusan willed the glued katana away, making him withdrew it from the water. So with the propelling force made by Kusan’s left palm and the loose katana sword, he twirled around while he went back into the air as he swung his katana towards the underpart of the snake that he assumed is the neck.

When the snake missed Kusan as it tried to eat him, this forced the snake to overextend his suppose limit and exposed the neck of the snake to Kusan. Kusan without looking knew this would happen, that is why without hesitation he went back to his previous spot in the air that is now occupied by the snake and greet it with his katana.

The snake, having been through countless battle, had a vague idea of what the human would do; in response it immediately retracted its neck back to its body. The speed at it retracting its neck went at an astonishing speed. However, it didn’t fully escape the death slice from Kusan as Kusan managed to nick a scale on the face of the snake before the snake escaped.

The speed of the snake retracting was two times faster than when it shot out. It was only possible because the snake used its body weight that was mainly coiled around atop the water, to pull its neck back faster than Kusan’s attack.

Having his katana meets thin air, Kusan didn’t stop his momentum and when his twirl made him face the water, he immediately bent his legs forward and kicked the water. This made Kusan fly backwards creating some distance between him and the snake while holding his katana in front of himself in case the snake counter-attacks.

Sure enough, the snake didn’t stop at retracting its neck and immediately shot its head again with the speed of a bullet and banged its two deep fangs against the katana. The impact brought a powerful power behind the attack and so forced Kusan to take 3 steps backward while his good arm shuddered for a second before it disappeared.

‘This human isn’t normal.

With speed comparable to me, a snake famed for their speed.

Strength enough to withstand my full biting coupled along with my acceleration force generated from my speed.

He must be one of them rumoured seasoned warriors that father told me to look out for, although rare, if met it could spell my death unless I give it my all.’

The magic inside the snake was already aroused, so he woke up his dormant energies to further increase his chance because he knew this battle with the human is a life and death battle. Although he never met someone who was willing to fight in a life and death situation, from his father immense wisdom in the forest, he knew better than to ignore his father’s teaching.

He knew it was a life and death battle because the way the human put himself in battle, techniques he used to close the gaps and being alone. Coupled with all three, it would be idiotic for a normal person, only the insane battle crazed lovers who loved to see the sight of blood and adrenaline of the battle or the hardened warriors that wish to advance the way of their weapon.

Since the snake knew how fast Kusan was, he didn’t dare try and escape to use magic in a distance battle. Considering that he cannot control his magic in mid-air since Kusan speed is faster than his magic speed when released, unless one had a deep understanding of the magic fundamentals to do so, normally only 7th rank + mages can only do so. Geniuses are not included since each genius talent various from one and to another.

Even so, the snake wasn’t one of them despite being a 7th rank snake. One could see that the snake talent was below average and that is why the snake was alone. Having below average talent was an insult to his family’s honour and since he couldn’t bear the humiliation. He took the easiest way out, escape.

That is the reason for the snake bizarre action that Kusan saw, since the snake just now found and established his territory.

Kusan subtly crouched down while staring at the snake. In response, the snake slowly unravelled its curled up body.

Now that Kusan was close enough and without interference, he could finally see what the snake looked like.

The snake had the width of a human and the length of its body stretched to 20 metres. The scales gleamed with a lustre that only powerful armours could possess. Dark green scales like nature that occasionally flickered under the combination of the water and the sun.

‘This snake strength isn’t just for show and his reaction speed is no slower than his actual speed.’

Kusan smirked, the one opponent he has most difficulty against, are the speed types, he himself falls under that category. Considering that his greatest weapon is speed, he wants to better understand his greatest strength being contested in an equal fight. So that he may etch more experience into his mind, in case he comes across someone who can outmatch his speed, thereby nullifying his greatest strength.

Kusan stopped crouching further when he reached his optimal position; he inhaled deeply and exploded forth. The water wasn’t affect in anyway when Kusan dashed forward, however, for the snake that dashed forward in response was a different story.

When the snake dashed out, it created a giant torpedo ripple that followed behind 3 seconds after the trajectory of the snake when he shot forward.

Kusan’s katana collided with the snake’s powerful two fangs; the collision force created a loud sonic boom which made both opponents shudder for a moment before it dissipated. The force also made the water under them caved in while behind them it exploded, the water reaching a height of 100 metres.

The two opponents who were too absorbed in the battle, having full concentration directed only on their enemy didn’t notice the water wave they made, or the water droplets that rained down on them.

Having reached a deadlock in a tug of strength battle both had no choice but to pour more energy into their arms or mouths to increase their winning chance.

5 seconds passed and the result still didn’t change, it may seem like a short amount of time but for two opponents to be contesting in strength where their very lives are at stakes, it would make them feel like 100 years has passed without any clear victor.

Kusan who was pushed to his limits, with veins snaking all around his entire body, this showed just how much exertion he was pouring in. Without a clear result in the tug of strength, with only endurance being the outcome. He couldn’t let that happen considering monsters and beasts naturally have more endurance than most civilized life forms.

Since he doesn’t know the endurance level of the snake compared to himself, he couldn’t take that chance and started to think up a plan. Albeit slower than normal thinking, because most of his concentration needed for thinking is into the tug of war with the snake.

‘What could break this stalemate with the snake?

Can’t believe the opening of this battle is a tug of strength, I don’t dislike it but this isn’t what I am after when I entered combat.

Think Kusan, what would I normally do in this situation?’

Suddenly an idea struck into Kusan’s mind.