Ch 27:- Route-06

The night sky was beautiful, with various stars illuminating the sky. It was a new moon day, in other words, the moon was not visible that night. As for Rayne, he was currently sitting on a tree meditating.

Rayne sat perched on a thick branch, his eyes closed in deep concentration. Suddenly, he opened his eyes, and they were now ablaze with an orange glow. His perception of the world around him changed drastically. He could see every beat of the wing of a fly. As he moved his hand to grab it, he saw how his hand was moving at a slow pace. Suddenly, the world around him once again changed. He could now see the life energy of every being around him, more like the aura of every being around him, with each having a distinctive color. For example, the tree that he is now sitting on has a green aura, and the bandits that are about a kilometer away have a red aura, which could signify many things.

"Wait a minute, bandits!" As soon as he got distracted, his eyes returned to their normal state once again, and he felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him. But he didn't let it overtake him. Instead, he looked in the direction that he saw them and started to jump from one branch to another in their direction while strengthening his leg with both soul force and qi.

While, he goes in their direction let's have a recap of what happened after he exited the dungeon.

~Flashback starts~

Few days ago

After exiting the dungeon, Rayne came to a realization that he had finally saturated his soul core, and right now, he could freely use it without the tension of damaging his foundation.

As Rayne ran aimlessly through the forest, he suddenly came to a stop in front of a large tree. He made a cut in his hand and controlled his blood to exit his body and form numerous disk around the tree, as if forming a staircase. He then immediately let his soul force flow to the sole of his feet. His plan was simple: he would run at high speed while releasing a small amount of soul force to momentarily harden the blood disk, giving him enough time to leap onto the next one.

Rayne took a few steps backwards before breaking into a dash. As his feet touched the first disc, it hardened for only a second before he leapt to the next one. Like that, he kept on running until he reached the final disc, on which he released the maximum amount of soul force and jumped high, catching a branch. He then willed his blood to return to him before storing it in one of the empty flask. He then began to climb the tree with the help of the branches.

A head broke through the foliage of the tree and looked around, observing his surroundings. Everywhere he looked, he could only see lush greenery and nothing else. As he turned back, he noticed mountain ranges several kilometers away. He had probably traveled from beneath the mountains using the dungeon-like cave system.

"Now that I think about how much time did it spent in that dungeon."

[You had spend 3 day 16 hours 12 minutes and 30 seconds.]

"Oh! That was a whole lot of time. It only felt like I was there for one day. Does that mean I didn't sleep for three days straight?"

[Yes, you are right]

After having a quick conversation with his system, Rayne began to climb down the tree. He then decided to traverse the forest via the trees. After reaching an appropriate branch, Rayne readied himself before leaping forward to another branch. As he landed, he became a bit off-balance but quickly regained his footing before leaping to yet another branch. Like that, Rayne began to traverse the forest.

As it started to become dark, Rayne decided to rest for a little bit. After finding an appropriate branch and surveying the area for any danger, he lay down on it before starting to talk with his system.

"Sigh, I never got to ask you about the spell that you asked me to perform in front of all the wendigos."

[About that it was a spell I found in the journal that you have picked up earlier.]

"Journal? as in the journal that we found in the spatial ring."

[Yes]

Feeling intrigued Rayne summoned the diary/journal from the ring that he had been wearing.

As began to read he became engrossed in it and like that an hour passed in the sky above him hung a waning creasant moon along with numerous stars illuminating the night sky.

"Yawn. Whoever this journal belonged to, that guy was super diligent in his note-taking. He wrote several recipes for pills along with his theory on how magic works, as well as some basic spells. For example, the spell 'Helios' that I performed earlier was to ward off evil spirits and illuminate the area with the same intensity as the sun. This guy sure knows how to write a descriptive note. And then there is the map that I have been using in order to exit the dungeon." as Rayne kept on talking he finally fell asleep while asking his system to alert him if it senses any danger near him.

The next day, Rayne woke up and continued on his journey. During the night, he started reading the newly added book, which was titled "Magic Theory: How Spell Casting Works". It described how different wand movements can help in molding soul force, along with how different incantations produce different results. From reading this book, it seemed that the whole concept of magic was actually discovered by some eccentric old dude, and the reason behind it remains completely unknown.

Just like that, Rayne kept on with his journey during the day while occasionally coming down and sharpening his fighting style by using the trees as training dummies. He had noticed that the number of beasts was scarce in the forest, and all the animals that he spotted were normal ones. Again, during the night, he would read newly added books, including those he had recently requested related to Qi, Chakra, life energy, and books on the meridian system.

After seven days of researching internal energy, his efforts finally paid off one night when he acquired an ocular ability that allowed him to spot human life - a group of bandits.

~Flashback end~

Present time

Rayne was now perched on top of a branch, stalking his prey that is the bandits who, to his surprise, turned out to be slave traders. He was able to discern this fact because of his sensitive hearing, and they were currently transporting an super expensive merchandise. Without a second thought, he brought out his blood flask and let the blood float and form an orb. He then willed it to form five respective bullets. He activated his ocular ability, making his eyes once again ablaze in an orange glow. The world once again slowed down, allowing him to see all things in greater detail. He then positioned each bullet accordingly and immediately commanded it to shoot, killing all four of them. However, the last one was able to dodge his blood bullet.

"Who is there? Come in front and reveal yourself," the last remaining man said wearily.

Rayne didn't answer. Instead, he summoned his gun and shot a blood bullet, aiming for a headshot. Once again, the man dodged it without much problem.

"Ah! Found you. Now, come in front, whoever you are," the man said.

Seeing that the man was looking in his direction, Rayne immediately jumped down from the tree and landed perfectly on the ground, while sighing.

"Well, I thought they would have sent a trained assassin and not some teenager," the man said.

Hearing what he said, Rayne immediately took a Taekwondo L stance. He wanted to see how much he had improved in his skills, and the man in front of him was the perfect opponent, as his qi was the highest among all four of them. Seeing this, the man raised an eyebrow. "Well, it seems like you are a fighter. Let's fight," the man advanced forward with his fist to strike at him. But for Rayne, it was all in slow motion. He was able to predict what the man would do because of the aura. He dodged and then delivered a sidekick towards the man's rib. However, it didn't break. Instead, Rayne felt like he had just kicked something made of metal. Rayne immediately retreated back and looked at the man. It looked like he was wearing some kind of golden energy armor.

'So, that's why I felt such a high concentration of qi around him. But what is that technique, and how is he using qi? Don't tell me, just like how I discovered the people of this world also discovered it like that. That has to be it,' Rayne thought to himself.

'Let's do this,' Rayne vanished from his spot and immediately appeared in front of the man with his fist clenched and threw it at his stomach causing his golden armour to crack while producing nine echos. Rayne then delivered two consecutive knee attack to his stomach immediately {Renewal Baekdu ×2}, before flipping him on his back and then delivering an elbow attack with both his elbow on the spinal column {Renewal Fang} completely shattering the armour. Seeing the opportunity, Rayne immediately grabbed hold of the man's head and brought his neck to his mouth before biting into the flesh and drinking his blood. After finishing off the blood, he threw the husk aside and turned with his eyes still glowing to see a girl peeking from the carriage, shivering out of fear. But that was not what caught his attention. What caught his attention was the golden aura around her, signifying that she had been in contact with a god at some point in her life.

Rayne immediately deactivated his eyes and started to slowly walk towards the girl so as not to scare her and also to recover his lost energy.

As he reached her, he could hear that her heart was racing. He knew that hypnotism was one of the various abilities of a vampire, so he decided to try it. He once again activated his ocular ability and looked directly at her eyes, lacing his voice with some soul force as he said, "You will forget whatever you saw right now and fall asleep." As if obeying his command, the girl's eyes started to become heavy before she fell asleep.

'Now that the problem is solved, let's search for what I attacked them for, the map and their goodies. We can also take one of their horses as it will be helpful,' Rayne thought to himself.

'Let's start with this guy he should have the armour technique manual,' Rayne thought while searching for valuable items.

As he searched the guy's body he found one book, a map, compass and a pouch of 5 golden sycee.

As soon as he touched the map it once again disintegrated and the map of his system got updated.

'Ah, so I need to take Route-06 to reach Vanilla Town,' Rayne thought to himself.

**************

For those who are wandering when did he learned Renewal Taekwondo it was when he was practicing it with those tree at that time his system provided him a book on it and he learned it a little bit.