First monster hunt

"..."

Viria sat down cross-legged, closing his eyes and preparing for meditation.

Even without summoning his soul artifact, he could already tell that the flow of the spiritual energy through his body sped up at least ten times.

His soul weapon jumped a single grade and the difference was already that much – that observation only made Viria realize how unfair the world of the cultivators really is.

Those with trash grade soul artifacts can't even properly train, every resource used on them turns into literal trash as the spiritual energy they intake dissipates before it can properly circulate and merge with their bodies.

That was Viria's reality up until that point...

"I need to get my hands on monster cores."

Although the prison dungeon might have seemed like safe heaven to some, Viria wasn't going to allow himself to waste the opportunity given to him.

From the memories of his previous life, he knew that what he experienced with his soul artifact was called a lucky break – and he would rather get beaten by the court guards every day than miss this opportunity.

With that in mind, the young man closed his eyes and focused.

With a soft light, a feeble bone shiv appeared in his hand, feeling slightly unfamiliar.

Trash or not, Viria was using the tin version for so long that it could have as well been a part of his body but with the change that occurred, the dimensions of the artifact changed slightly too.

"The mole-rabbits that we ate are the same that spawn on this floor, right... If I remember correctly, for the low-low grade monster like mole-rabbit, the chance of monster core forming is one in ten. Pretty good... Must be why they hunt it in abundance."

Viria said to himself, moving his hand even higher and admiring the whitish blade in the stray ray of the flickering light of a lantern passing through the holes in the walls of his shack.

It probably wasn't necessary to say, but the young man could not fall asleep at all, not that he was trying very hard.

In the first place, he was waiting to make sure that wherever Bossac was going afterward, he would be far enough to not see him sneak out.

There was nothing mentioned about a curfew, but Viria didn't like the idea of explaining why he suddenly felt the need to test out his changed soul artifact after he said that it was still trash grade...

...which it obviously wasn't anymore...

Without having a reliable way to count time, Viria simply waited for the lights passing through his walls to die out before getting up, sliding the door open, and walking out after carefully looking around for other people.

Walking back up the street wasn't so bad – it allowed Viria's eyes to adjust to the darkness, which was far more intense than the night in the outside world.

Thankfully, the high ceiling did have some luminescent ores o maybe small non-threatening monsters crawling on it because something akin to starlight was saving the place from being pitch black.

After some time of careful sneaking out and about, the young man found himself near the center of the floor, by the administration center.

"Those five routes are all living quarters... sixth and seventh are workshops, so this one should lead to the spawning ground."

Viria muttered to himself, turning around to confirm the way he came from before moving in another direction.

He did remember things correctly as after half the time it took him to move from his shack to the floor center, he encountered a reasonably sturdy construction with two lamps illuminating the large board with the words – Second Barrier, usually safe, check the monster window before entering- written on it, together with an arrow pointing down diagonally.

Viria looked in that direction and indeed saw a small hatch that looked easy enough to open.

As he did exactly that, he saw a small hole in the main door, barred up with iron bars, and the road continued forward with no monsters in sight.

With the small hatch doing its job, Viria closed it and opened the large door after struggling with a beam blocking it.

Then he spent some more time until he encountered a second construction that was just like the first one had two lamps illuminating a bard with writings on it.

-First barrier, dangerous, always check the monster window before entering. Remember to block the gate from the other side.-

This one had an additional set of instructions that Viria read and squinted his eyes at the door, wondering whether this one required a key or not.

Still, just like the instructions told, he leaned down towards the small hatch in the door and opened it to see the metal bars and...

"SCWEEEEE!"

The second that Viria thought it was safe to open, a hungry mole-rabbit pushed its snout through the bars, clapping its jaws with a bloodcurdling screech, with clear intentions of biting off the fingers of anyone unlucky enough to not pay attention or have the bad reflex.

"So the monsters in the dungeons really do behave as if they were rabid..."

Viria stepped to the side summoning his soul artifact and holding the prison shive securely in his hand.

"SCWEEEEEE!"

The small monster screeched, clawing at the door with its short but sturdy front claws.

*SHING* *THUNK*

Without wasting time to prepare or think about strategy, Viria concentrated on the snout peeking from in between the bars and activated the soul artifact ability for the first time.

"SCWEEeehhhhhhhhgh..."

The rabbit strike boosted his speed so much that he could barely control it – and the moment that the tip of the shiv met the mole-rabbit skull, it pierced through it with a hollow sound and the monster let out its final screech a few seconds later.

It either was very lucky or had a really small brain that even managed to let out a sound, but that was not one of Viria's concerns at the moment.

"Holy shit... Holy shit...!"

The young man gasped with excitement, standing up and holding the numb hand.

Because he aimed the strike so precisely, his hand was pressed against the door, causing the skin on his hand to be torn open – but that was of little concern to the young man.

He just hunted a monster – a real monster.

It was a beast that usually never grew above low-low grades, but still... Viria was living his life thinking that even a monster like that would be the end of him.