Moon stroked its white coat appreciatively. He had picked the right mount.

When they encountered a beast blocking the path ahead, Moon gently pulled on the reins, accompanied by a subtle shift in posture.

The horse stopped immediately; it was well-trained and responsive.

Moon dismounted smoothly and assessed the creature before him.

[Wild Slother]

[Level: 17]

[Details: A powerful beast with incredible agility despite its sloth-like appearance. Its body is packed with dense muscle beneath its fur, and its claws can cut through rocks.]

Looking at the one-and-a-half-meter-tall creature, Moon decided to engage it in close combat rather than simply blasting it from range.

The hunting ground was only about two miles away. Once inside that denser territory, training in close combat skills would become difficult amid constant encounters with multiple beasts. Moon concluded that it was better to practice now while he has controlled conditions.

Moon took out his staff and struck the ground forcefully, initiating the confrontation. The sound echoed through the forest. It was a clear challenge to the beast standing before him.

The Slother responded immediately, charging forward with surprising speed that made Moon's eyebrows rise.

Bam!

Moon met the charge with a powerful horizontal swing of his staff. The powerful staff connected solidly with the Slother's torso, and the impact sent the beast skidding backward several meters. Blood poured from its mouth where internal damage had occurred.

The Slother was enraged. Its aura intensified, its muscles bulging visibly beneath its fur as it charged again with even greater ferocity towards Moon.

Hiss!

This time Moon planted his feet and prepared to block the incoming attack.

"Show me what you got."

The Slother's claw strike came fast, Moon raised his staff horizontally, catching the attack. The force drove him backward several feet, his boots carving furrows through dirt and leaves.

Moon's eyes widened in shock as the Slother demonstrated the terrifying agility mentioned in its description. The creature used the momentum from the blocked attack to pivot, its body blurring as it flanked Moon with impossible speed.

Claws raked across Moon's back before he could fully react.

His face grimaced upon contact. Thankfully, Silver Skin absorbed much of the damage, preventing deep lacerations, but the strike still hurt. Pain flared across his back where claws had torn through his cloak and scored flesh.

Moon spun immediately, converting the pain into action. His staff came around in a devastating arc that caught the Slother across the head with his full strength behind it.

Crack!

The sound of bone breaking was like music to his ears. The Slother crashed to the forest floor, dazed and disoriented from the powerful blow.

Moon didn't give it time to recover. He followed up with a rapid combination.

He struck its ribs, then its exposed throat, then a final overhead blow that crushed the creature's skull.

[You have slain a level 17 Wild Slother.]

[You have gained 85 Lives.]

Moon straightened, breathing slightly harder than usual. The fight had been brief but intense.

The Slother's agility had caught him off-guard despite the warning in its description. Reading about speed and experiencing it firsthand were different things entirely.

He reached back gingerly, feeling the wounds on his back. It was not deep, thanks to Silver Skin, but they'd require attention. He pulled out one of his newly purchased health potions and drank it down.

The effects manifested within seconds. The torn tissue began knitting back together, bleeding stopped, inflammation reduced. Within a minute, the wounds had closed to shallow scratches that would heal naturally.

"If I'm going to get into close range altercations to train, I need to remember to take off my equipment. I just damaged my cloak for no reason," Moon sighed but he wasn't entirely disheartened.

Thankfully, the cloak deserved its price at $220,000. It came with the self-reparing function that used his ambient mana when he was not in combat.

Moon stored the Slother's corpse in his spatial ring, the materials would sell decently, then remounted his horse once again.

The encounter had been educational. His close combat skills needed more refinement, particularly his reaction speed to high agility beasts that could pull off unexpected flanking manoeuvres.

The staff provided reach and blocking capability, but against truly agile opponents, he needed better awareness.

That was something to work on. Moon knew that time was a crucial factor in improving as a fighter. Unlike others, he was able to completely transform his capabilities, not just refine. He had the ability to learn from all classes in existence, and close the loopholes in his fighting style until he eventually developed his unique fighting style.

Moon couldn't rely on being a mage forever, that was limiting his options and taking the advantage he had away.

So Moon would build his foundations now, so that when he evolved to become a second sanctuary fighter, things wouldn't get more difficult.

Moon continued toward the hunting grounds, his mind already analyzing the fight and identifying areas for improvement.

It didn't take long for Moon to arrive at his destination with his mount, which he had decided to call Mirage.

The name felt appropriate. The white coat reminded him of desert mirages he'd read about, and the horse's smooth movements through difficult terrain made the name more fitting.

Moon dismounted as he approached the hunting ground's boundary. He began walking with Mirage by his side, keeping the reins loose but ready. While he didn't want to bring the horse into battle due to its relative weakness, he couldn't leave it tied up somewhere behind him either.

It was safer for Mirage to stay close rather than remain alone in this wilderness where any passing predator might view an undefended horse as an easy meal.

The hunting ground sprawled before him. It was an interesting area filled with various species of unusual plants. Carnivorous flowers with tooth-lined petals, vines that pulsed with what looked like circulatory systems wound between branches.

Although they appeared dangerous, these plants usually only ate whatever insects or weak beings approached them.

To someone like Moon, they were nothing of significance. They couldn't hurt him, even if they wanted to.

Moon remained alert for any movement, his senses heightened. Death in this zone cost two hundred lives according to the notification he had received and based on the mal most of the beasts ranged from level twenty to twenty-two.

These creatures were classified as First Order B-rank beasts at baseline. If they resonated with an element or possessed special abilities, that ranking could shoot up to A-rank or even S-rank like the Winter Beast he'd faced in the hidden realm.

Although he remained cautious, Moon wasn't overly concerned. He'd just entered the hunting ground's outer perimeter. The strongest threats he'd likely face would be A-rank at most if he was lucky to encounter one.

While A-rank beasts were powerful, with his current amount of lives and skill set, Moon believed he could handle them without serious issues. His Epic-rank Five Element Affinity gave him versatility most awakeners lacked, and Silver Skin provided defensive capabilities that could weaken dangerous attacks.

Only S-rank beasts could truly threaten him at his current power. They possessed the intelligence and capability to camp his revival point, killing him repeatedly until his lives ran dry. That kind of elimination was the real danger to him.

'There's no way an S-rank beast is in the vicinity,' Moon thought. 'They're too rare to encounter randomly, and based on the information I received about this area, even A-rank beasts are difficult to spot due to their scarcity.'

Whoosh!

Moon's staff came up instinctively, blocking an attack that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. All Moon registered was a blur of black motion, impossibly fast.

Clack!

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