13

Ray made sure to rob the bodies of their mana seeds before leaving the scene— it was a habit at this point.

The fruits of his labor were starting to come to light since he could feel the mana gathering inside his core. He felt he already collected a third of the mana seeds he needed, which wasn't surprising after slaughtering an entire village and numerous bandits.

In his eyes, the challenge wasn't collecting mana seeds but getting the core of a real mage. Mana seeds were common since he could always slaughter a few villages and get everything he needed. With his power and lack of basic morals, getting mana seeds was as easy as harvesting crops from a farm. Killing a true mage, on the other hand, was not something he was so confident in.

Just finding a mage was proving to be difficult on its own; Ray knew they existed, but he had no clue where they were! Not to mention their power was something he was unfamiliar with: it was a real possibility they could overpower him with their spells since he had almost zero knowledge of them. The memory of a fireball the size of a house from the technique, Singularity was still fresh in his mind.

Once Ray finished with the mana seeds, he quickly fled the scene.

His goal was to kill the leader of the mountain and investigate the abnormal ki density in the mountain; he didn't have the time to waste on low-level bandits.

He jogged through the gate and stared up the elevation.

'Massive'

He was inspecting it to see the bandits since his ki perception couldn't reach over the entire mountain, but taking a close look at the mountain's sheer size threw him off guard. The mountain surpassed the clouds floating through the air, the peak piercing the sky as if it was peering into the heavens.

If he had to estimate its height, it would be around 20 miles high— it was easily the biggest thing he had seen so far.

He snapped out of his trance and focused back on the bandits encompassing the mountain.

It was hard to make out the details on the mountain even with his enhanced eyesight due to the size of the mountain, but he could make out a rough sketch in his mind.

At the base of the mountain, there were buildings scattered around, most of them clumped up into make-shift villages.

The groups of buildings had roads uniting them, and they even had walls for protection. It was tough to make out, but he could vaguely sense the movement of hundreds or even thousands of bandits along the mountain. If he didn't know it was a bandit colony before looking at the mountain he would have thought it was a normal peak blooming with life.

As his eyes moved up the mountain he noticed fewer and fewer buildings, and the snow which was non-existent at the base of the mountain became increasingly common.

About halfway up the mountain, the bunches of buildings disappeared completely; any traces of human activity beyond that point was too small and far away for Ray to see.

Originally he came for the bandit leader, but his goal shifted to the cause of the ki density.

Rather than searching for the leader, he planned to climb the mountain until he reached the peak where he was sure the cause of the phenomenon was located. He had no clue what it was, but even if he didn't end up finding what was creating the dense ki, the intense environment alone would be worth it.

Since the mountain was so large, the base of the mountain was equally ridiculous in size, so he had to sprint 20-30 miles just to get away from the human traces. Although it wasn't that hard to get away from the bandits since only a small strip of land going up the mountain was taken over, the rest was untouched.

Because he was the first person to climb that specific part of the mountain in a long time, there was no trail or path to follow. The majority of the mountain was also pure rocks, which would have made climbing it incredibly difficult for your average human being.

Of course, both these challenges posed no threat to Ray.

He had the power to make his path, and the rocks that made up the mountain were a joke to him. If he ever needed to climb a cliff, for example, he could simply jab his hand into the rock and boost himself up using his power and grip: the rocks were simply too soft compared to Ray's body.

Using his more than capable mountain-climbing body, Ray quickly made his way up the mountain.

In only half an hour, he was a quarter of the way to the peak, although it was also when he noticed some peculiarities.

At around a quarter of the mountain was when the ki density in the air started to increase at a visibly faster rate than before.

While this wouldn't mean anything by itself since it was what he expected, he simultaneously noticed an increase in beasts roaming the area.

They didn't pose a threat to him since they were only at the first stage, but they became exceedingly common as he went further up the mountain. Just a quarter of the way up and the number of beasts he saw was in the hundreds; compared to the 10 beasts he saw while traveling through the forest, the difference was like night and day.

Ray left them alone unless they got in his way since they didn't have anything of use on them; beasts didn't have mana cores, so they couldn't give him the mana seeds he needed.

He planned on continuing the mindset of leaving the beasts alone, which he did do, at least until he reached three-quarters up the mountain.

Once he reached the mid-way point, the ki was denser than before, but the number of beasts he saw started dropping in quantity but increasing in quality. Near the bottom of the mountain, he saw hundreds of low stage-1 beasts, but at the midpoint, there were only tens of peak stage-1 beasts. It also marked the point where the bandits stopped expanding, which Ray guessed was because of the increased monster strength,

Nonetheless, he continued pushing forward without giving any attention to the beasts; they were still useless after all.

Once he had a quarter left till he reached the peak, the dynamic between Ray and the beasts would change, quickly.

He couldn't say exactly when, but at some point around the three-quarter mark the beasts were able to attack him once or twice before he escaped from their range. This was unlike before when he could breeze by the monsters with no issue whatsoever.

He still wasn't worried about being overwhelmed by beasts since there were only a couple miles left to the peak of the mountain. The final cliff, which separated the rest of the mountain from the peak was also in his sight, so although there were 2 miles left, it was only 1 mile since the uninhabitable cliff leading to the peak was a mile long.