Unexpected Encounter

Seeing the Void Monkey in such a situation made everything around Jie Jun slow down to nanoseconds. The first nanosecond, his thought was what is that. The second nanosecond was when did he let down his guard? The third was the hand like scissors moving a tad closer. Then dread started to fill him. This soon became followed, by his body moving in slow motion like the hand-scissor to bend backward.

From an outsider's point of view, the Void Monkey was in a position that looked like he was holding Jie Jun up by the neck, yet Jie Jun's feet were still on the ground. Of course, its hand wasn't holding him, but that its height only reach a little pass half of Jie Jun's own height, and it had to reach up to aim at his neck.

The time around them quickly reverted back to normal and a sound as if two swords had clashed against each either echoed out in the small clearing. As for Jie Jun, his nose was only a millimeter away from the scissors-hand sharp edges. In a show of fast adaptability, the Void Monkey took its hand hovering over Jie Jun's face and swung downward.

No matter how fast Jie Jun was, he was still new at fighting opponents with superior speed to him. Up till now and in the past, not one beast he fought and killed had more speed than him.

After being smashed headfirst toward the ground, Jie Jun rolled over to avoid a snip from the beast monkey. Taking a jump back to widen the distance so he could regain his momentum, he looked toward the monkey, only to see nothing there.

"What? Impossible! Its presence only disappears, not its body." He uttered, having had one shock after the other.

Once again a dread feeling came to Jie Jun that made the spine tingle as he used Sprint at a level he could safely cope with, fearing the effects of a full powered G3-rank ability with his current stats. He moved forward and then used it to go back while using the Spear Thrust skill together. He did not check to see if the Void Monkey was there beforehand, instead, he chose to go by his senses which happen to be 2 times better than the average human.

The Void Monkey still showed its true agility of 12 stat points by stepping forward and pushing the spear's shaft up with its normal hand while using the scissor-hand to go for another snip. Jie Jun at this point could only use the spear rotating force when thrusting to try and redirect its scissor-hand with the shaft end.

After a second pause, both of them was knocked back. Jie Jun's back hit a tree, stopping his backward velocity. The beast monkey instead took 4 steps back before hopping next to a tree and then going around it. The moment it did, its body could no longer be seen or found.

Jie Jun's body was cover in sweat from the strain of trying to keep up with the beast monkey. Though the fight was tough and tiring, he didn't regret his chose to go all speed or coming here. When he was in his courtyard at home, he had wanted to go all physical resistance since a Void Monkey usually has 1 point in strength. Then use his Sprint skill for speed support. Later, he realized that the Strength stat wasn't the only stat that did damage, speed could too. So he stuck with his beginning plan of all speed.

Looking around again, though he didn't see or hear anything, he knew the Void Monkey wouldn't give up. For it to sneak attack him, meant that it thought of him as prey. Until it could kill him to prove its ability, it would not give up. However, the attack wouldn't be a direct one.

Taking one more look at the tree it disappeared at, his eyes grew cold. He then began walking around the clearing while moving closer to the tree as if he was looking around for something. Once he felt he was close enough, Jie Jun burst toward the tree with a Sprint and Spear Thrust. The next moment, the Void Monkey could be seen hanging from the end of his spear.

Panting with pain running through his legs, Jie Jun could help but be surprised. He didn't sense or see anything, but he still thought that it would be there. If he were in the same shoes, he would stay close, so his target couldn't run away. Moreover, the spot that was obvious to suspect, would also be the spot to least suspect.

What he did just now was a gamble to see if he was right.

Jie Jun used Identify to check if it had a death orb. Thankfully it did have an orb. Not wanting to wait, he used it right then and there.

Four hours later could be said to be a disappointment. He did not learn the talent from it. In fact, he was getting worried that he might not be able to learn the talent. The reason for this was, he didn't receive any information from the orb a moment ago. Not even scraps that were just useless jumbo. To receive nothing meant the death orb percentage was low. Thinking more about it, its percentage was extremely low, maybe being from 1% to 5% because it hadn't been refined.

As for the fight with the Void Monkey from earlier, he no longer felt as much pressure. Having experienced its speed and gained some understanding of facing an opponent faster than him, Jie Jun decided he would practice on some low-level beasts that were speed based. When the next time he saw a Void Monkey, he was sure he would be ready.

Hunting low-level Agility stat wild beast took him about 10 days because there were no signs of a Void Monkey. If he had crossed paths with one, then only it would know that.

The good news to this was that he managed to find many death orbs which he used, all on experience gain. This rose his exp points to gain another two level up. If he was to run into a Void Monkey now, he would easily kill it. Seeing that there was no more Void Monkeys in the outer edges, Jie Jun decided he would go in a little deeper. Once he got a chance to kill a few more and get its Void Status he would immediately leave the Wild Forest. It was still a dangerous place that had level 30 beasts after all.

As he moved in more deeper, he unexpectedly saw a dead Void Monkey with its death orb still in it. Deciding to not question it too much, he quickly took the orb and started to absorb it. Since he was trying to contain the information in it, it took him a little over 3 hours. Having just pushed the finish contained ball to his mind, he felt the new information rush into his mind.

The new information also let him know that because of the talent Status View and Void Status was really compatible, the 2 talents created something of a special ability that was passive. This passive ability was not on the status screen and it was also the same ability that would let him hide his status. The skill that came with the talent, however, called Conceal Presence. Sadly it seemed to be a skill targeted toward people only 5 body level higher than the user and lower.

Finishing to absorb the information, Jie Jun soon heard noises that sound like a group was fighting off another group, far in the distance.

If the noises he heard was real, then there were people in the Wild Forest besides himself and close by. He didn't think he would run into other people here. Not that he thought there would be nobody in the forest, but that the forest could be entered in plenty of different ways. Seeing other people was definitely a surprise since they were so close.

He traveled some distance before seeing five people being surrounded by wild beasts. So as it turned out, the battle was not between two groups of humans fighting but between wild beasts and humans fighting. In the group of five people, three were males and the other two were females.

As for the beasts, they seem to be a nest of some kind or a small pack that wanted nothing more than to kill the group of five. To chase them and act this way, could only mean this group of five people must of stubbled on some kind of treasure. Watching some more to get a better picture of things, Jie Jun did not rush out to help the group of five.

Even if he had, it was obvious that these people's levels were not lower than his. If he were to step out and help, not only would he not have that ability to provide help, he could also become misunderstood, about wanting their spoils, and then they might try to kill him to keep his silence. After all, in this place, there was currently only them, wild beasts, and himself. Nobody can get revenge if they don't know who to get it from. This forest was the perfect place, even if it was someone they couldn't afford to offend, nobody would know.

Slowly the numbers of the wild beasts begin to get lower as the group killed them over and over. Given their strengths, they seem to be about round level 8 to 10 with very good talents. Either way, Jie Jun did not use his Identify skill because after getting the Void Status talent, he realized that, the special passive ability hid a person's status and was a detector that let the person know somebody was doing a status check on them.

This would definitely be seen as rude and give his position away to them if any of them had it too if not all of them. This thought also made him consider this to be mostly true because they had simply disregarded the death orb in the Void Monkey's body. It also showed they must have a good background like from a sect, or big clan to waste a chance at any death orb. Even now when the outcome seemed to become obvious, nobody went to check the bodies or get death orbs.

All of a sudden, the forest area started to tremble. This made not only Jie Jun look to the side, but the group of five people as well, looked to the side to find out where the trembles and noises were coming from. Soon one beast broke through the tree lines, followed by another and another. Soon that forest side only had wild beasts running forward, toward where the group of five was located.

A beast tide! It could be said compared to the usually beast tides that were known to happen before in the past, this was on a very small scale. In fact, to be more accurate, this could only be called a beast stampede. The levels seemed to even just range from 1 to 10.

From a distance, Jie Jun climbed up to a high visional point as the group of five scattered and ran toward trees to get up high in time to avoid the running stampede. With the high view, Jie Jun could see what looked like a flaming ball speeding toward their direction in the distance. Soon once the wild beast came at a certain distance, Jie Jun felt his eyes widen because what he felt next.

"What?!" was mumbled in shock.