The foothills

They were currently three hunting grounds near Avrion city that were safe enough for the second-year students to hunt in: the forest, the foothills and the swamp. Although there were more hunting grounds than this, like the caves right next to the city, they were far more dangerous. After what had happened with the red door incident, I wanted to play it safe for a while.

The forest was full of bugs. Although they were weak, they travelled in groups. I currently had no attacks that affected more than one target so a group of intermediate beasts might be hard to deal with. The swamp had a larger variety of creatures but was hard to utilize Noir's speed. That left us with the foothills. The foothills were a bunch of small hills that lead to a mountain top. This area was rumoured to contain the strongest of creatures out of the three.

With the destination decided, we set off into the direction of the foothills. Noir's speed was amazing. What would take an hour to travel by foot would take ten minutes for Noir. I felt like I had made the right decision in Noir's evolutionary process. I couldn't wait to see Noir's growth potential in the future.

As if she was agreeing with my thoughts, Noir barked slightly.

I had never needed to give Noir commands. As soon as I thought of something, Noir did it. It was as if Noir could read my mind. I then felt sorry for the beast. It had quite a high level of intelligence but I rarely got to take it out.

"In the future when I don't need to hide things anymore, I promise I'll take you out more."

Noir barked again in response. She seemed happy.

Finally, the view of a huge mountain piercing the clouds came into sight. The mountain was covered in white snow but just below were several mounds with trees and caves were the beasts dwelled. As we reached the first hill, I unmounted from Noir and we both decided to walk at a slow pace.

There was no need for me to bring a light crystal out with me as it would only attract attention from the magical beasts. Noir's eyesight was good in the dark and I had my dragon eyes skill. As I used my dragon eyes skill, I could see several red life forces, but one of them worried me the most. At the top of the mountain past the clouds, perhaps at the peak of the mountain, there was an incredibly strong life force. The strongest I had sensed so far, perhaps even stronger than the minotaur.

Students were taken here several times to hunt, so the beast at the top of the mountain most likely didn't bother with humans. It seemed I would be safe as long as I didn't enter its section of the mountain.

The foothills were covered in snow as well making it hard to move. I wouldn't be able to use most of my black sash knight skills that required footwork so would have to rely on brute strength.

Currently, I was heading towards a cave on top of the hills. On the way there, we met several beasts called a Qiqrin. This beast was the same size as a dog but was bold all over apart from its feat ears and snout. It was odd-looking. They were fast but Noir made quick work of them taking them out in one bite.

The system seemed to no longer notify me of about obtaining basic tier crystals. Perhaps it was because I had already maxed out on basic tier points. I still carved the crystal cores out as I could still sell them.

Finally, we reached the top of one of the hills. I saw a cave a few hundred feet out in the distance and what looked like a white bear standing in front of it. The bear itself was slightly bigger than Noir. As soon as the bear had spotted us, it began running towards us.

"Noir, don't do anything. I want to see how strong I've gotten."

I looked at the bear which was now around ten feet away from me.

"If you hadn't attacked me first, I would have given you a painless death since I am the intruder."

The bear then went up on its back two legs and pounced at me. I smashed my two fists together and grabbed both of the bear's paws. The bear then suddenly realised that my strength was far greater than its. The bear attempted to pull away, but my gauntlets' black fingertips had sunk into the bear's hands.

I let go of one of the bear's paws and with my now free hand punched the bear in the stomach causing a hole to form. The bear then fell to the ground.

I smiled; I was happy. Intermediate beasts used to be a struggle for me to fight but now I had defeated one without getting a single scratch. Although I was happy with my improvement so far, I was still behind others like Sir K and the minotaur.

<Intermediate beast crystal obtained (1)>

The system finally had given me a message. It looked like my luck was about to change.

We carried on hunting around the foothills meeting two more bears. I let Noir face one of the bears on her own. The bear's attacks were slow, but Noir also couldn't do any fatal damage. After around ten minutes of fighting, I finally stepped in and dealt with the bear myself. Noir looked a bit upset by this but I explained to her we didn't have the time.

It was an expected result. Noir was an intermediate beast like the bear, and she hadn't absorbed any more crystals after evolving, so she was just like every other magical beast.

After that, the hunt was complete. We now had a total of 16 basic tier crystals and 3 intermediate tier crystals. Two of these crystals were obtained via the system and one had been carved out.

I let Noir absorb the first one bringing his points up to 8, while mine went up to 6. We started to head back to the academy before my roommates would become suspicious of my absence.