Energy Core

A group of people walk leisurely in the forest. Their laughter and sweet murmurs made the gloomy atmosphere turned lighter. There were five females and four males in the group. Dressed in white robes that flutter in the wind, the contrast of white robes and dark background made it as if the group were spirits wandering in the human realm.

One of the female in the group gracefully wave her hands and a Double pincer gray scorpion the size of a head burst in black liquid.

"Senior sister Frideswida should let us do this dirty work. There is no need for you to even move" a male with a short sword in hand swing his sword. A light burst out and few branches in the ground were cut. Nothing seemed to happened but if you check, there were carcasses that were split in many pieces laying around. From this it can be seen how sharp his swordmanship was.

Frideswida who the man called did not show emotions of awe in her face. She continued to walk. Waving her hands, water blades cut through the area. The unfortunate creatures died before they can even attempt their attacks.

Seeing the man with the short sword being displeased with Frideswida's action, one of the ladies in the group explained.

"Finding it with the fastest speed is our goal. Senior sister Frideswida just wanted us not to spend more time in the Dark Woods"

"Senior sister Anna is right. I definitely hate this wet and damp feeling"

Anna looked at the lady with a stern expression. The other ladies in the group blushed and bowed their heads, not wanting the males to see their faces.

The males were clearly stunned but they did try to hide the lust that appeared on their faces.

Frideswida looked at her friends and glared at the males. She continued on her path, which the others followed rigt away.

These group of people came from Floating Mist Sect. Their white clothes is embroidered with a cloud mist covering a towering peak. Floating Mist Sect is on the same level of Waves Country, having at least a peak Fire Fighter Stage at its helm. Most of the unregistered minor and major cities in the area of Waves Country had their descendants entered this sect, stopping the four major cities of Waves Country from forcefully invading their cities.

The groups journey continued. They were clearly looking for something specific. However while they are entering the core regions of the Dark Woods, Bolemo who is not to far from them did not know that a batch of people are came near to him. Whether they are friends or foe, Bolemo did not know. He walked to the carcass of the White Skinny Ape and dug out its energy core.

"I should leave" murmuring to himself, Bolemo carried the carcass of the Ape into the pond and cleanse it. Dark Woods is not a safe area. He needed to leave as soon as he can, else he get find out by stronger beasts.

Dark Woods is a place where almost everything is dark. The canopies of the hundreds of feet tall trees blotted the suns rays. The leaves made it hard for even a tiny ray of sunlight to penetrate the damp earth.

With this, swamps and places with yin energy make the whole of Dark Woods ecosystem. Anything poisonous, from plants to animals big and small live in these woods.

Mosquitos the size of a finger nail, leech that look likes stone can really be deadly. All the beasts in these area are vicious, to themselves and their enemy. These small creatures with the dark environment are what made Dark Woods famous. None below Earth Shaper stage can withstood the attacks of these monstrosity. Hence many had died but still many tried to enter Dark Woods.

Dark Woods is an unchartered place. It is said to be few miles wide. Its size can even rival two major cities combined in size. Hence one can imagine the untold treasures and resources that can be found inside. Their is indeed danger, but big risk means big rewards too!

The outer range of Dark Woods are composed of dry lands and a number of small swamps. This is inhabited by mostly lower level magical beasts. The first few kilometers mostly have Grade 3 vicious beasts as overlords.

The middle area are where the dark starts to cover everything. Kahoy Trees that spans few meters to hundreds of meters cover the skies. Here, a variety of what is a night market in human society exists. Creatures that are normally asleep in the morning can be seen. The sheer amount of monsters will surely overwhelm anyone that enters. There are few locations though that sunlight shines through, like the pond where Bolemo killed the White Skinny Ape. One can find magical beasts as strong as Grade 6 here. And this is the area Bolemo is located. With Kiring at his side, he bulldozed his way to the middle, catching preys and cultivating.

Bolemo warily looked in the area while washing the dead body of the ape. Grade 5 magical beasts meat are a rare tonic to any culativators. The energy it contains may just be one third of its energy core, but eating beast meat will little by little upgrade your body constitution.

Now that Kiring had been unsummoned, he would have to fend foe himself. Bolemo still didn't know how Kiring did it. If he wanted to interrogate Kiring, he needed spiritual energy and send it to the beast for it to manifest.

Removing the few hairs on the apes body, Bolemo hurled half of the meat on his shoulders and retreated right away. Tracing the dark forest, he came to a wall of a mountain with a big stone plastered on it few kilometers from rhe pond.

Moving the stone sideways, he gave his utmost and move it little by little. Sweat started to drop on his forehead but he persisted.The howling and roars of the beasts sounded crazy from where he came from. It was a good decision that he left half of the beast carcass, else they would have followed him.

Dragging the stone wall, Bolemo slid inside once a half meter crack showed and cover the place up. The cave was dark, but Bolemo walked inside like he knew the path. He took turns left and right and stop at a junction. With a knowing look, he rustle the stone on the left tunnel and went inside the right.

Checking to make sure his marks were clean Bolemo enter deeper inside the right tunnel and came upon a small space. The space was only twenty square meters wide. There was a bed at the left side of the room. A small table at the side of the bed and a dusty illuminating crystal can be seen at the wall where the small table is.

Bolemo found this cave after fighting with a Star scaled green snake. It was a three metered long snaked with green and black scales. Its forehead were dotted with star shaped scales near its eyes and a three pointed tongue with green colors, gaining its name. The snake was just a young Grade 2 beast. But because its venom was potent enough and its ability to swallow prey twice its size, it became a ferocious beast that other creatures tried not to offend.

It only died when they stumbled onto the cave. The snake tried to eat Kiring. With Kiring's arrogance, the snake was fried inside and out. There were still some scorched mark left where they fought, causing some intelligent beast not to invade the place.

Sitting at the bed, Bolemo started to cultivate. He absorb spiritual energy from the air and circulated it through his body. He is not using any cultivation methods as he is only a Leaf Warrior. Leaf Warriors trained the body. Only when one step to pinnacle 4-Leaf Warrior would they need a Cultivation method to advance the stage.

Leaf Warriors are considered mortal cultivators. They are cultivators but at the same time they're not. A lifespan of a mortal is 100 years old. By cultivating the body and reaching pinnacle Leaf Warrior, one can have a force powerful than normal and can have at least 150 years of life. None would want a short life. Living longer means more opportunity. And opportunity means power.

When Bolemo learned of this, he was shocked. A normal person on Earth with no vices and lives healthy can at most live up to 90 years old. Some reaches 100 years old, but that can be counted in one hand. Now, living up to 80 years old is already very good, and living up to 75 years can already be called a blessing. This ignited Bolemo's resolve to train harder.

Leaf Warrior typically trains the body by martial exercise, however Bolemo is different. By absorbing spiritual energy, it trains and forge his body from the inside. The pain he felt before is not that painful anymore when he achieve a breakbthrough to 1-Leaf. However breaking through the second leaf doubled the pain he was in. The first leaf is muscle stregthening, he entered it and reach the pinnacle after entering the Dark Woods. Once entered it was easy for him to accumulate more spiritual energy to temper his muscles. The time he spent inside the woods were not as easy going as it sounded to be. He had to cultivate slowly instead of resting.

Second leaf is skin forging. Third leaf is bone cleansing and fourth leaf is organ tempering. Others that he knew practices internal martial arts to temper their body. They burn their potential so they can go to the next stage. There was no other way. Die of old age or die trying. However there is always a silver lining to everything. Reaching a higher stage means additional 50 years of life span. And reaching Nirvanic Rebirth means a life of a thousand years. There was even rumors than becoming an Ascending Immortal stage expert will grant you immortality hence, people cultivate. To soar and to become immortals in the vast sky.

Bolemo wiped the drool on his mouth. After regulating his breathing for a few more minutes, he opened his cloth bag and take out a greenish crystal with some brown coloration in it. This is the energy core of the White Skinny Ape. Being a low level Grade 4 savage beast, the ape already touch some earth concepts making the greenish energy core have some brown spots. Looking at the crystal, Bolemo could not help but swallow his saliva. He had been cultivating with spritual energy these past weeks that he almost got tired of it. He already tasted the feeling of cultivating using energy core. The Grade 3 Star scaled green snake gifted it to him after it died. The energy was enormous that he felt bloated when he absorbed it. He didn't know where it went but because the energy disperse to some part of his body, he fortunately avoided being blasted to smithereens due to greediness.

Energy core. Magical beasts Grade 3 and above contains their own energy core. It is located mostly at their heads. Cores are the accumulation of beasts cultivation. Their colors ranges from green, brown, blue, white red, rainbow and gold. These colors represents the stages of elements the beast comprehended. For every color, a variation may appear if they cultivated or understood another level of the elements.

Beast has energy core and humans have human core. It is located on their stomach area where a hollow just beneath the rib cage can be found. Humans core have the same color stages depending on the level they're at. Wood Carver is green, Earth Shaper is brown and so on. Most human cores though can have a lot more variation. Due to difference in cultivation techniques, human cores can sometimes be not judge with coloration itself. The energy in their cores are sometimes destructive and hard to digest. Unlike human core, energy core or beast cores are more suited for cultivation. Beasts mainly practice what is suited to them, hence the spiritual energy in thwir cores are more pure and easy to digest.

Huuman core on the other hand offers more insights when magical beasts absorbs them. Due to variations and humans creative mind, they have more and in depth understanding of the elements, making it a great resources beasts love the most. Because of this humans and beast are always at war. War for resources and supremacy. Humans wanted to raise beast as livestock and beast wanted humans as means of evolving.

Looking at the beast core in his hand, Bolemo released all distracting thoughts in his mind. No matter where the place is, may it be his Earth or Perlas Planet, everything is interconnected. None would survive by themselves. But that is not his to think about. He wanted power to go back. Though having a bottomline, he knew it is either kill or be killed in this world.