Chapter 8: Continuous Itinerary

"Could this be what they refer to as cultivation?"

Allen Stryka wondered as he tried to imitate the rats once again. The principle behind what they were doing was to first gather the elemental energy and then allow it to circulate around their body continuously.

The young man had read enough novels before to suspect that this was indeed what the rats were doing. He then wondered if these creatures had read novels too at some point.

Well kidding aside, perhaps this was the reason why the beasts had benefited more when the Sun mutated. Cultivation had come to them instinctively while humans had to learn such concept from scratch.

After a few hours, daybreak was on the horizon. This had prompted the rats to move out. Then when the morning came, they began to attack the young man once again. Allen hypothesized that perhaps the rats were trying to train him or something. As to why, he had yet to figure out.

What he was sure though was that the rats were quite serious on his combat lessons. This was because he tried to feign losing his consciousness once.

But they seemed to have figured out his ruse and he was beaten up for real.

This made him wake up later than usual. He then noticed that only one rat was left to watch over him. The other two was probably away hunting for prey. He usually followed them when conducting this task. But the remaining rat stayed still even when it noticed that he regained his consciousness. Perhaps this was its way of saying that they should just wait for the others.

Allen could probably be able to escape in this kind of situation. But he chose not to. First, he was quite sure that he could not handle a single mutated rat for now. Although it was alone, once it donned that Earthen armor, it could easily mow him down mercilessly. Second, following the rats for now had enabled him to learn a few things that he could not even think of on his own.

The third reason was because he was hungry. Why would he run away when free food was on its way?

Having no other thing to do, Allen decided to try the cultivation technique he just learned from the rats. However something strange happened when he did so.

He felt overwhelmed by a terrifying foreign energy. The foreign energy then entered his body and clashed with his own energy. The conflicting forces had caused his internal organs to taka damage. He then spat out some blood.

"W-what exactly happened?"

Allen was perplexed. When the remaining rat noticed what had happened it grew mad. The young man was beaten up and was unable to participate on the meal. So much for waiting for the food.

Evening arrived and the rats began gathering their element once again. Allen was now wary to use the technique. However since he was more wary of being beaten up, he had no other choice but to follow suit.

He was then surprised to notice that he was able to gather his element without any complications. This confused him and he began to wonder what actually went wrong.

"I can only cultivate during the night?"

Allen made a guess. He then grew confident that his assumption was correct. But if that was the case, what could have been the reason for such thing to happen?

"The Sun! That terrifying foreign energy was definitely from the sun!"

Allen concluded. He looked up in the sky and narrowed his eyes. He was aware that his was jumping on conclusions here. And he probably needed to gather more proof to verify his claim.

But deep inside him, he was quite sure that it was indeed the answer.

"Fine by me! That's one more reason to destroy you!"

He clenched his fist and smiled defiantly. He looked up to the sky once again as to ascertain his ultimate goal.

One of the mutated rats then noticed his expression and it began making some agitated noises. The young man fixed his posture and resumed cultivating.

Days passed and Allen was getting used to the routine of the mutated rats. Travel, fight, sleep, hunt, eat, cultivate then travel again. Their daily itinerary consisted of these tasks and the mutated rats never skipped any of them even once.

They continued this cycle for a month.

During that time Allen was confident that he had gotten stronger. He used to struggle during the attack patterns of the three mutated rats. But now he could somewhat keep up. The flaws in his defenses had slowly been fixed.

When he battled against Mayor Nark, he became aware of the weaknesses on his guarding stance. But he was not yet able to apply any revisions before he departed. Thanks to the constant morning sparring though, he was able to improve his blocking and parrying skills.

He could even evade the tackles now from time to time. And then he had even forced the rats to use their element on one of their morning bouts.

With regards to cooking, the young man grew somewhat tired of eating roasted meat every day. He once tried applying some herbs on the hunted meat that he found during one of their travels. This had surprisingly been accepted by the rats happily.

The next day, the creatures seemed to have added the task of searching for natural spices during their hunting activities. They seemed to have developed quite a taste pallet.

In exchange, Allen was allowed to hunt on his own. When he was successful on his endeavor, the rats had even let him keep his prey to himself.

One thing that was noticeable though was that the mutated rats seemed to be avoiding any paths that would lead to any human settlement. They always traveled away from the paved roads. They had opted to remain on the wilderness or the open fields.

Allen could now manifest his flames around his body more efficiently than when he first tried to do so. Although he does admit that he needed further improvements on this one. Nonetheless the continuous practice had enabled him to cauterize his injuries more effectively which had sped up his recovery.

He also began to name the three rats as Boss Eni, Boss Mayni, and Boss Mo. Boss Eni was the best in manipulating the Earth element amongst the three. Boss Mayni on the other hand moved the fastest. While Boss Mo seemed to be the leader of their group. It always takes the center of their formation and it had the strongest tackle.

When Boss Mo noticed his improvements, it began to signal its comrades. They began to travel at a fixed direction during daybreak. After three days, they reached the bank of a river where a white tiger-like monster was curled-up.

The ears of the tiger perked up. It had probably detected the approaching creatures. It then began to stretch its body similar to what a housecat does upon waking up.

Was this really a tiger? No, it was definitely a tiger. It had to be.

Meow!

"So it was a cat!"

Allen could not believe on what he was seeing. He felt dejected. Why was he even surprised? The rats had specifically headed towards this direction as if they wanted to settle something. And what species would the rats share such animosity with aside from cats?

Screech!

Nonetheless Boss Mo replied in defiance. It ordered his pals to rush forward. This even included the young man.

Boss Mayni was the first one to reach the left side of the oversized cat. The former donned its Earthen armor and tackled the target.

Meow!

The mutated cat snarled angrily. It then covered itself with a certain element. The earthen tackle was about to make contact. The mowing force would surely damage the stationary cat.

However,

"The Wind element!"

Allen exclaimed. He was surprised when he saw how the cat remained unscathed after receiving the tackle from Boss Mayni.

The wind element covering the cat seemed to have boosted the movability of the creature. It was capable to move in an instant. The one that the Earthen tackle hit was only the afterimage. Which meant that the cat had completely avoided the attack.

Boss Eni was the next to arrive on the right of the target. The former was able to modify the shape of its armor to enable better movability. When the white cat was able to dodge the tackle, Boss Eni was able to change directions and follow the target.

However, the mutated cat had increased its speed and was able to dodge the redirected attack. It was even able to land a counter with its wind-covered tail.

Boss Eni was pushed back by the counter. Fortunately Boss Mayni was there to support its comrade from falling down.

And then Boss Mo had finally completed its preparation. The other two rats understood what it meant and tried to flank the mutated cat from both sides. They then began using their Earthen armor to block escape path of the target.

Screech!

Boss Mo unleashed a powerful tackle.

MEOW!

The cat seemed to have replied in disdain. The wind element covering its body began to intensify.

The tackle made contact. And with the help of the other two armors, the cat could no longer dodge this one!

However,

Swoosh!

A whirlwind began to whip up in field. The center of this phenomenon was the three mutated rats.

The whirlwind ended and the cat emerged unscathed. The three armored rats remained unmoving as their earthen armor began to shed. The rats were riddled with scratches.

"Wind element can penetrate Earth?"

Allen exclaimed. He could not believe that earth would actually be at a disadvantage with the wind!

Basing on the cat, the wind element offered more mobility to its user. This could enable wind-users to kite through the earth-users who were typically slower. But the added defense of the latter should have been able to mitigate such a scenario.

However one must remember that earthen materials actually had a characteristic called porosity. This is a term which refers to the spaces between the particles of a substance wherein other matter could pass through. And the one commonly used to pass through these samples was air. Or in other words, the wind!

Even if the earth could compact its particles to effectively reduce its porosity, a compacted substance would result to lesser surface area. This would then enable the wind element to search through the reshaped armor and pass through its weak points.

Allen finally understood why the mutated rats had kept on training him. It was because they were at a disadvantage against the mutated cat!

But he then realized something. His participation on this battle could actually affect the outcome! The only question is which side was he going to support?

He could also ignore this battle completely and just opt to escape.

Allen clenched his fist. He had to decide which option he had to choose. A few seconds passed and he finally made a move.

[Fire Fist]!