s.h.i.+ra was happy. His bags full of potions, runic scroll, and other magical items that quite useful for his adventure to the mountain.

There’s a crowd at the foot of paving stones upward the Badril Mountain. Most of the people were waiting for village staff to check their ident.i.ty and ensure everyone under twenty have permissions from their respective family. That was mainly because, most of the youth would hunting and adventuring for days, even weeks.

Even if this was s.h.i.+ra’s first experience to climb the mountain for gains experiences, it seems he was quite expecting this. Early in the morning, he sneaked into his uncle office room, forging a permission with the family stamp, then left a long and detailed letter filled with lame excuses.

When it’s finally his turn to be checked, the village staff glances the youth with a curious gaze.

“Isn’t this the Young Master of Yashura Family? Do you want to climb the mountain, or hunting in the forest?” asked the staff.

“I want to explore the mountain for a few days,” s.h.i.+ra answered collectedly.

“Where’s your party then?”

“I don’t have any.”

“You should form a party with friends of the same age.”

“Also don’t have any.”

“You don’t have friends?” the staff gawked.

It was pitiful, but s.h.i.+ra can only honestly nods.

Well, he has one that he could consider as a friend. But he was a spirit. And he was quite old too.

In the end, the staff called someone to recommend s.h.i.+ra to a party.

A nineteen years old delinquent was the one who comes. The punk was nicknamed Bony, the Badril Village most promising young Knight. He was a Level 13 Knight at nineteen years old, so naturally, he would be a party leader every time he sets out adventuring.

“Is this s.h.i.+ra Yashura?” he asked with a smirk.

“Yes,” s.h.i.+ra faintly answered, as he still not forgets the bully who standing in the front of him.

Bony smiled, noticing the bag in s.h.i.+ra belt was packed.

“You seems weren’t in some party, so the staff stops you? Why not join my party, then?”

“Okay.”

The two of them walk away after Bony casually waving his hands toward the staffs.

Bony said in a whisper. “Little s.h.i.+t, you shouldn’t bring too much weight on your belt. I can carry them for you.”

s.h.i.+ra held his snort. “Kindly shut up for me please.”

“Do you wanna die, punk?”

s.h.i.+ra shrug at Bony threat. In his childhood, he suffers a lot under Bony and his boys bullying. But that was years ago. There’s no reason to afraid again. After all, there still a questionable spirit who looks after him now.

Bony really want to beat him like the old days. But the place is too crowded.

“Let see how you still playing cool in my party,” Bony threatened again. “The forest is dangerous, don’t you know?”

“I’m not going with you.”

“Alone? Do you really plan to die?”

“That’s not your business.”

There are nine people in Bony’s party, excluding s.h.i.+ra. Two of them were girls, Bhela Malikh and Lyla Blackwood.

“Don’t ring the bell now, Lyla. Ring it only if you encounter danger,” Bhela told her little friend for the eighth time.

“But it sounded cute… I wanna bring it home…” Lyla pouted, then suddenly, she notices two figure closing in. “Eh? Sis Bhela?”

“What is it?”

“That’s your fiancé!”

Bhela turned around, looks unhappy when she saw s.h.i.+ra Yashura.

“It seems we are in the same party with him,” Lyla said.

“Such a bother,” and Bhela sighed.

Bony told everyone in the party to start climbing up the mountain stairs. All party members were looking s.h.i.+ra like some sort of foreigner, as they never see the youth around here.

When they set off, Bony whispering something to two of his henchmen, Pilek and Polio. Three of them was looking back few times, grinning when they see the serious s.h.i.+ra walking at the party’s tail.

Half an hour later, s.h.i.+ra silently breaks off from the party, entering a hidden path into the wilderness of the mountain. It was Lyla Blackwood again who notices the Yashura youth walks out from the party. She silently tells her friend Bhela what’s happening.

“He tries to be cool. Don’t bother him. If he’s overestimated his ability then that was his fault. The mountain wilderness is a dangerous place, not someone backyard to play around, even I myself won’t dare to enter alone.”

Two party members also slowed down. They were Polio and Pilek. Both of them give Bony a confirming nod before following s.h.i.+ra into the wilderness.

s.h.i.+ra Yashura is a Level 3 Novice.

Logically, there’s no monsters or beasts he can challenge here. The weakest of them would take a bunch of Level 5 Novices to take down. It was no joke.

Take Level 4 wolf beast as an example. Its raw power, ferociousness, agility, or speed might on the same page with Level 5 human Novice. But beasts’ world was more brutal than the human world, a kill or be killed society. Thus, no human would take a same leveled monsters or beasts lightly.

s.h.i.+ra climbs the mountain knowing full well of how dangerous his adventure would be.

But he has some confidence. It was because he read a lot of stories and details of monsters and beasts of the Badril Mountain before, so he at least has some information and statistic about his enemies to prepare.

The second reason was that he knows skill manuals that Good-Natured handed to him over the past year were not ordinary skills. Especially the pa.s.sive skill ‘Water Flowing Style’, which increases his dodge rating tremendously since he starts learning it. He was sure he would be safe against normal opponents if he maximizes the potential of the pa.s.sive skill.

Besides, there are also three active skills that he needed to test against a real opponent:

‘Open Wound’, a silver-rank attack-type skill, which would stop enemy health regenerations and deals damage over time.

‘Mana Break’, another silver-rank attack-type skill, sent sliver of crippling mana energy to enemy’s vein, clogging their mana circulation from the inside, burning away a small portion of the target’s mana pool per attack and deals damage based on mana loss.

‘Stamina Drain’, a slightly inferior copper-rank attack-type skill, drains enemy stamina, very effective against a physical-relied opponent that moves and attacks fast.

Three of the active skills were an attack-type, so s.h.i.+ra can only use one of them each time he swings his sword.

He wanted really wanted to test each skill with suitable enemies. So he intentionally comes to this isolated area of Badril Mountain. No warriors from the youth generation were hunting and camping around here, and hunters usually avoid territories of Monster Elite, the most high-ranked monsters and beasts around the area who had the intelligence to talk and communicate with humans.

Someone can fuse two or more skills after he understanding the skills were reaching a certain degree. And of course, a high point of Wisdom is a must.

Because of that, masters of Fusion Skill were usually scholars.

“I had to perform a successful Fusion Skill. My high Wisdom would be useless if I can’t even fuse this kind of trash skills,” s.h.i.+ra said, thinking aloud.

After he said that, a complaining tone voice was heard in the background. “Brat! What the h.e.l.l did you say about my skills? You the trash one, alright, you little piece of s.h.i.+t!”

s.h.i.+ra turned around, but can’t catch a glimpse of the annoying spirit.

He notices two sneaky silhouettes which were following him though.

The first enemy s.h.i.+ra encounters was an adult wolf.

This fight was an easy one for s.h.i.+ra. Although the wolf was feral and dangerous enough even for high-level Novice, for s.h.i.+ra who utilized his ‘Water Flowing Style’ and ‘Stamina Drain’, the battle feels like a teen who looted candies from an enraged five years old child.

The wolf felt weak after s.h.i.+ra attacks him again and again with ‘Stamina Drain’. And its attacks weren’t even able to hit the human youth too. Hopeless, the beast starts to flee for its life.

But how could s.h.i.+ra let it go just like that? Wolf fangs and pelts can be traded as copper coins when he descends the mountain later.

At the last moment, s.h.i.+ra giving up dodging using his ‘Water Flowing Style’, and starts charging aggressively towards the wolf.

The wolf dead, and s.h.i.+ra takes the time to rest, drinking mana potions and digesting some energy snacks.

Later he skins the wolf and picks out the beast’s teeth. His loots reek with thick blood scents. He puts it all in an empty bag and decides to wash them if he found wellspring on the way.

An hour later, s.h.i.+ra fights with a huge venom-spitter snake.

It was a tricky battle, as s.h.i.+ra rarely have the chance to charge forward and attacks the slippery range enemy. And if he did, he decisively attacks it with his ‘Mana Burn’ skills, draining the snake’s reserves mana pool.

The snake was a cunning beast. But s.h.i.+ra intentionally using its cunningness to his advantages. After knowing its mana drained every time the human youth dealt a damage, the snake starts to spare its mana consumption, focusing on dodging the youth attacks. But that was only giving s.h.i.+ra more chances to attack, thus, after he was certain that the snakes getting more cautious, s.h.i.+ra starts to switch his attack-type skill to ‘Stamina Drain’.

The snake doesn’t know now its opponent targeting to drains its stamina point away. So as the time went by, its movement becomes sluggish.

In the end, its die under s.h.i.+ra’s blade. But the battle duration almost takes twice longer than s.h.i.+ra fights the previous wolf.

s.h.i.+ra Yashura then takes a long rest and makes his lunch by roasting the snake’s meat.

In some hidden bush, two figures were watching s.h.i.+ra’s battle with sullen expressions.

“Hey, Polio, those wolf and snake were at least Level 7 beast, weren’t they?”

“Yes….”

“Did you think you could beat them alone?”

“I’m not the type who seeks death.”

“…”

“…”

“Do you think its time for us to go back?”

“Ah, I think so. Let’s go back. We already proper adult teens and it’s not good for us adult to bully younger kids.”

“Yes, yes. It’s lame. We’re not into bullying anymore. Let’s back and meet Boss Bony then.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Eerr… Polio… did you remember the path for us to return?”

“No…”