Fleeing away

----Meng's past memories----

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, ALEX?! If you are planning to continue this slow pace even on the field, you might as well catch one bullet from me right now so you can have it over with sooner!!!"

"I will increase my speed at once, Sir!" Alex shouted back at his superior who was observing him running on the track.

"You better do, you are no longer at home! You can treat this place as your home only once you show some results! Until then, you are at the enemy's territory so don't you dare put your guard down!"

"YES!" Alex shouted back while doing his best to catch his breath, he already had a hard time but his shouting only worsened it. He was aware that this was intentional, however, he knew that they weren't discriminating against him, it was just how it has always been.

.

.

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"Hey, Alex, are you going with us?" A group of men approached Alex who was patrolling the camp at night.

"...You are going to fool around with the women again, aren't you?" Alex asked with a tired look in his eyes.

"HAHA, you know us too well. So? How about it? We will let you have the best-looking one." The leader winked at him.

"If the Sergeant gets the wind of it, you will be in big trouble. I will pass once again, I will also act as if I have never seen you around here, so you can go ahead and have your fun, I still have a job to do." Alex shook his head with a calm expression.

"Come on...don't be like that! All that professionalism is going to grow old on you!"

"Yeah, you will die a virgin if it continues like this."

"This is my final decision, please don't force me. I will try to cover for you but I won't risk anything dangerous, I don't want to get into trouble." Alex still shook his head with a composed expression, as if their words didn't mean anything to him.

"*sigh* Fine, if you really don't want to, we won't force you. Anyway, thanks for always covering for us despite you trying to uphold that professionalism."

----End of the memories----

Meng suddenly opened his eyes and quickly jumped out of the bed.

'...This was done almost out of reflex. Anyway, looks like I can recover my old memories much easier during my sleep in form of dreams.' Meng who was covered in sweat calmed down his rapid breathing

[Time remaining: 6 days 23 hours, 54 minutes, 6 seconds]

"Well, let's first prepare for the journey before I do anything else." Meng muttered before he thought of having all the herbs stored in his inventory laid right in front of him.

With just mere thought, all herbs instantly appeared in front of him and he quickly took the ones that were needed for the Weak Ephemeral powder. He was asked by Vista if he wants to create it automatically or manually so he chose to do it manually since he had no idea if the other way won't cost him his skill points, but he also believed that if he creates it with his own hands, he will get more progress towards Elementary Alchemy Lv. 3.

.

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After 30 minutes passed...

[ |Gather enough herbs and materials from dead monsters to fulfill the Xia clan's order in time.| (18/50) (24/30)]

[+ 30 skill points for your first production of Weak Ephemeral powder]

[+ 6 skill points for manual production of Weak Ephemeral powder]

[Skill points: 236]

'I only used 4 herbs and I was able to create enough of Weak Ephemeral powder for 10 uses as long as I only use a handful of the powder each use. I will sharpen my sword for the last time and I will be ready...'

After Meng finished his preparations, he set off for the deeper parts of the forest.

He started picking up all kinds of herbs on his way even when they didn't look much valuable or rare since he might find a use for them. He was also picking up all kinds of mushrooms, although, with his old memories, he wouldn't be able to recognize even a single of those mushrooms. Thankfully, he recovered a large portion of very useful memories from the old owner of this body.

'This guy used to do this all the time, no wonder I can so easily distinguish herbs and edible mushrooms from the poisonous ones. I also have to pay extra care when harvesting those herbs since I can damage them and their life force would leak-?!' Meng thought while picking up one of the rarer herbs, however, when he looked up, he noticed a beast similar to a wolf glaring at him.

'This "wolf" is certainly much bigger than usual wolves, however, it shouldn't be above the second stage of the Elementary Profound Realm. Its defenses should be possible to penetrate with my current strength.

Meng just stood there still with a sword in his hand while calmly staring at the beast, waiting for it to approach first.

As two of them started to stare at each other, the beast released a quite loud growl.

"Fuck this!" Meng's expression changed to a panicked one, he quickly turned around and tried to run away but once his back was exposed, the beast took its chance and pounced on him.

"Heh" Meng released a faint sadistic smile before he turned around and threw a handful of the Weak Ephemeral powder at the beast's eyes before quickly jumping to the side to dodge its long claws.

The beast closed its eyes and growled in pain and anger however Meng didn't let it recover and thrust his sword right through its eye, reaching most likely its brain in one thrust. He didn't dare to try its hide's defensive properties since it could have recovered from the shock and use smell to discover his location.

*Thud*

The beast's body just dropped on the ground without moving.

'How does it feel to be defeated by a mortal who has no experience in fighting with the sword? Well, I should be thankful to you for underestimating me.' Meng thought with his foot on top of the beast's body while resting his sword still covered in blood on his shoulder.

[+ 50 skill points for your first defeated Profound Beast]

He was in quite a cheery mood since this was his first victim ever since coming to this world and also because he now knew that he can easily complete the quest.

"?!" That is before he felt a life-threatening danger from behind him. He twisted his body around as fast as possible while putting his sword forward to block the incoming attack.

Obviously, his body was quite weak so the attack sent him flying but at least he blocked the claws from ripping his flesh apart.

*Cough* 'This one looks much bigger and more intimidating...It's probably even above the third stage of the Elementary Profound Realm. Shit, I took quite a lot of damage just from this attack, I have to flee for now.

Meng started running towards the beast and the beast followed his exemplar, fully confident that it founded its snack. However before, the two could collide, Meng once again used the powder to blind the beast but this time, he used much more than just a handful of the powder just to be sure. He quickly dodged to the side but even though the beast in front of him lost the sense of sight, it still blindly slashed its claws, thankfully the claws only tore Meng's clothes.

'Shit! This one didn't hesitate even for a split second despite losing the sense of sight! I have to quickly run away and come back later.' Meng thought but before he started running away, he quickly stored the entire body of the dead beast into his inventory.

The beast tried to follow after him upon hearing his footsteps but it was quite a hard feat in such a dense forest so, in the end, Meng was able to safely run back to his house.

[ |Gather enough herbs and materials from dead monsters to fulfill the Xia clan's order in time.| (39/50) (26/30)

[Skill points: 321]

*Thud* Meng's legs felt weak when he got in front of his house where he had to kneel while supporting his body with his hands.

'This is bad, there is no visible injury but I can tell I have internal bleeding...quickly need to find a right herb.' Meng quickly searched his inventory and memories to find the right herb to help him stop the bleeding before he quickly found it. He had no time to process it whatsoever so he just ate it whole and prayed for a good outcome.

[The host was doing all right the entire time, however, I think the host ventured too deep inside the forest. The host mustn't be lured by the rarer herbs and the host should also pay more attention to his surroundings.] Vista finally spoke out in his mind.

'I know...I dropped my guard just because it was my first kill in this world and also quite an easy one, I definitely didn't expect another, even stronger beast to lurk around that area.' Meng replied while clutching his hands into fists with all his might. He was frustrated that he let himself be caught off guard like that.

'I need to remember more of my memories from that era, those memories also slightly affect my personality. I doubt the same thing would have happened if it were the old me.'