New Experience

Once all the leaves surrounding him had changed colours while circling him he knew he was at the beginning sector of the Myriad Locked Forest. Since last time around he never even got any practice and was only sneak attacked from behind and then had to leave, he was going to try and face low strength Astral Beasts this time around again and not push himself to much even if he was an Awakened Stage now. After a couple fights with lower ones and gaining some confidence he could then try and take on a bigger hurdle if it was the right circumstances like unaware Awakened Astral Beasts

"I'm getting tired of getting snuck up on though so I hope that doesn't happen again seriously."

With that thought in mind he continued forward at a relatively normal pace. If he went to fast he might end up walking into different areas of the forest that were more dangerous by accident so in the long run even if he was impatient all he could do was fiddle his fingers and hope something of decent strength crosses his path.

5 minutes....

10 minutes....

After 20 minutes of looking and searching around the forest he had yet to spot anything suitable even the Astral Wolf type he'd fought weren't anywhere to be found all he could find were normal animals.

"Strange am I just unlucky or is it something else?"

Right after saying that he quickly halted his steps. A few meters in front of him a lizard like creature stood in front of his path and stared at him. Usually all the creatures he passed ignored him from the get go or ran from him after getting too close but this lizard acted differently from the norm. It was almost like it was telling him to stop or trying to keep him from moving forward by announcing its presence.

But he didn't sense any Astral Strength coming from its body so it was most likely a weak creature that posed no threat to him. That conclusion helped him calm down his fears of dangers a little but it still didn't change this weird situation.

But even with those thoughts and feelings running through him he and the lizard kept on staring at each other. Either side refusing to make a move like they'd lose if they did. After a couple minutes of this staring match continuing he finally opened his mouth to say something. Even if the lizard couldn't understand him it was better than keeping the status quo as it is. He didn't really have time to be blocked like this or stared at by a lizard for seemingly no reason.

"Haha, oi lizard do you perhaps want something from me or are you going to move out of the way?"

Letting out a slight laugh with his cold voice he asked the lizard in a sense a very dumb question that he knew wouldn't be answered. Sure enough the lizard blinked a couple of times after hearing him but it didn't reply and in fact didn't even move like he'd hoped at least.

"Are you playing games with me?"

This time around he put more emphasis in his tone but in reality he was all bark with no bite and it wasn't very hard to tell. After the lizard heard him it blinked a couple more times as if it could understand him and then slightly stuck its tongue out at him. After that it turned around and waved its butt at him then ran off.

Witnessing that truly caught him off guard and left him in a stupor. The thing that seemed as weak as a mouse just made fun of him then ran away. Watching that caused his left eye to twitch repeatedly but other then that he didn't do anything else about it. Instead he even laughed it off because truthfully that was a first for him to ever experience something like that even if it did slightly irk him. It wasn't like he'd never been made fun of before it was just every time it happened in the past it was always done with malicious intentions trying to hurt him. But when the lizard did it just now he didn't feel like it was trying to degrade him or anything of the like, it just felt like it was trying to tease him and that was something he hadn't had the pleasure of knowing until seemingly now.

"Hahaaaha"

With a surprisingly more gentle tone this time around he laughed and just waved it off and decided to continue his journey since the lizard was gone now.

Little did he know though that the lizard could fully understand him and had been watching him since he once again entered the forest. After his last visit and seeing how he was, she got more curious about him then anything before and this time around she was going to try to get close to him. But she wouldn't just approach him right off the bat. She wanted to learn more about him before doing so and even if she was way stronger then him and wouldn't be threatened by any of his attacks she still didn't want to get caught off guard and attacked or make him too wary of her from the get go.

That's why this time around she chose to keep a distance from him and see how he'd react and treat it. Doing so allowed her to get to know him a little more and figure out his character even if it wasn't a big amount of information or didn't result in getting closer to him she could achieve her goal still. Though she wasn't exactly sure how much times she had to do this because she never knew when the boy would stop showing up but seeing as how he came once again pretty fast was proof enough that he would be coming often and that would give her plenty of chances.

So when she saw how the boy acted when she stood in front of him she couldn't help but have an impulse to see how he would react to her making fun of him and after running away she quickly stayed in a dark corner of a shady tree and watched his reaction to what happened. When she saw him laughing happily she was slightly sulky as to why that was his reaction but thankful at the same time that his first thought wasn't to chase after her and attack.

With that test out of the way now though she could be more confident in what she was doing so she continued her stalking of him.

10 hours later.

After his run in with that lizard he finally found some beasts that were of Awakening strength and was able to test out fighting 20 different ones ranging from Astral Wolfs, Astral Flame Snakes or Astral Ice birds that he managed to find. The hardest amongst them were probably the Ice Birds because of their ability to fly but after 20 minutes of no progress fighting against it he finally thought of an idea to try and take it down. When it came down for another swoop attack against him he was able to release his Astral Energy in his body and force the bird onto the ground once it got close enough. After that it became even easier than hunting the other beasts.

To be fair it was a crude method but he didn't have many options at the moment seeing as how it was faster and more agile than him. In the future though that would hopefully change when more things opened up to him whether from advancing stages or obtaining different items or techniques.

After about 9 hours in, after all the fighting he finally had some confidence to fight an Awakened Beast and that's when he stumbled Across the Astral Fire Charger. It was similar to the ice bird in how it used speed and quicker attacks to defeat its enemies but had pitiful defenses in return.

It looked similar to a dog that grew wings except for the fact that most of its body was covered in flames and that it had a second head. its Primary method of attacking was flames. It would use one head to constantly store Fire Energy and have the second head constantly get close enough to distract and attack at you and when that was done it would quickly back off and launch a long ranged fire attack then it would repeat that pattern over and over again. Hence where it got its name Fire Charger, and this was most definitely the hardest thing he'd fought to date.