Three weeks have been passed since the start of his hunting journey. In the beginning every sound
made him tense , every shadow felt like a predator prepairing for ambush, and every fight ended with
him barely breathing. Now his steps are firm , his body is tempered with life threatening battles , His
senses become sharper then he ever belived possible for him. The wilderness that once threatened to
kill him had become something he could navigate with growing confidence.
He hadn't only just survived this brutal ordeal ―he had outgrown several folds.
Through constant training, his muscles had hardenend, giving his frame a sharper more refined look.
The endless movement drills , breathing cycles, and near-death fights replaced away softness in his libs
with lean strength. Althought he still looked petite.
Even his face had shifted subtly.
The exhaustion was still there in his eyes but beneath it , a faint fiery-orange hue had begun to appear
―an unnatural shade that hadn't existed before ,The color was slight—barely noticeable unless the light
hit just right—but it pulsed faintly after he practiced his flame or completed a monster kill, a quiet signal
of his draconic blood simmering in his veins.
Which Azreath noticed immediately.
"that tint in your eyes is the flame seed bleeding into your dragon blood " he commented once. "If your
bloodline stabilize properly , your vision will strenthen next. For now, consider it as a warnng that your
old life is gone."
Kael wasn't sure whether to feel proud or uneasy. But he couldn't deny that he felt different—not just
stronger, but sharper, more aware of the world around him. His draconic bloodline was stirring, piece by
piece.
In these three weeks, he had grown close to the threshold of a second-rank monster's core strength. His
mother's scrolls helped him develop the first step of mana cultivation, and his breathing techniques had
finally stabilized the chaotic trio inside him: mana, monster core , and the flame seed.
But stability didn't equal mastery.
His flame control remained his greatest weakness. Every attempt to summon even a tiny spark ended in
flickers, sputters, or small explosions. After too many burned fingertips and ruined attempts, Azreath
finally lost his patience.
"Enough. Stop fumbling with raw flame with control of a drunk toddler.You will not learn precision by
brute force. You will practice alchemy."
After a week of frustrating failures, Azreath finally pushed him toward alchemy.
You don't learn precision by punching trees. You learn it by maintaining heat, adjusting flame levels, and
not burning ingredients that cost effort to gather. If you can make a simple extract without destroying it,
your flame might listen to you."
So Kael learned to feed flame into herbs, control heat, adjust temperature, and resist the urge to push
too much energy into everything. He destroyed half the ingredients he found, but after days of stubborn
attempts, he created his first functioning extract. It wasn't powerful, but it was deliberate—and that was
what Azreath wanted.
Meanwhile, the forest hunts continued. Over twenty days, Kael had successfully brought down nine
Rank-One beasts, each kill smoother than the last. Three were flame-aspected creatures whose cores
strengthened his flame seed slightly, while the remaining cores—though valuable—didn't help his flame
much.
But when Kael attempted to absorb them, Azreath immediately stopped him.
"You cannot have a break through to the next stage at this moment. Your nature is unbalanced. If you
tried to Breakthrough now, It will rupture your core—or worse."
Kael didn't argue. His memory of collapsing during the first awakening was still too vivid to forget.
Kael listened. He remembered the pain from the Nightfang, the struggle with the Woodland Strider, the
instability inside his ribs when the flame awakened. He wasn't eager to repeat that.
But even with the caution, even with the steady improvement, he still carried a quiet confidence. Nine
Rank-One kills. Improved stamina. Better movement. Sharper instincts. It was easy to think he had
become someone hard to threaten.
The real turning point arrived when he faced his first Rank-Two monster.
His confidence broke the moment real fight started.
A Lightning Armored Alligator—thick plates, crackling currents of electricity, and jaws strong enough to
crush stone. Kael had spotted it near a riverbank while tracking a smaller beast. Fresh from several
victories and feeling confident, he thought he could take on a Rank-Two if he was careful.
He learned otherwise within seconds.
His dagger barely scratched its armored hide. His footwork couldn't match its sudden lightning bursts. A
single tail whip cracked one of his left ribs. Another lunge nearly tore open his shoulder. Every exchange
widened the gap between what he thought he was and what he truly was.
Azreath didn't mock him this time.
"You are not ready to face rank 2 moster. Retreat."
So he made a run for his dear life.
He escaped only because the creature lost interest. The moment he found cover behind a rock, his legs
gave way. His hands shook. His breath came fast and uneven. Pride collapsed under fear, stripped clean.
The truth was simple and cruel:
He was far from invincible.
He was far from ready for Rank-Two enemies.
He needed preparation.
Worse still—when he checked his supplies, he realized he had almost nothing useful left. Only a few torn
herbs, one half-usable extract, and some simple monster materials. No proper healing pills. No
stabilizing powder. No antidote. And the high-grade ingredients in his mother's ring were too advanced to
use safely.
Azreath was blunt.
"Have you understood now, strength isn't always measured by the bodies fell by your sword. It is also
measured by whether you can walk away from a higher theat alive."
Kael nodded weakly, ribs aching with every breath.
The injuries brought another problem. He hadn't prepared enough healing items. His small stash of
herbs was already used up. He had no proper healing pills, no stabilizing paste, no antidotes for venom.
His attempts at low-grade alchemy weren't enough to treat serious wounds. And though his mother's ring
contained valuable materials, they were far beyond his current level to use safely.
He needed supplies. He needed tools. He needed knowledge.
Kael didn't want to admit it at first. He had grown used to living alone, hunting alone, training alone. The
forest was harsh, but it made sense. People… people were something he hadn't faced since everything
burned.
But reality was clearer than comfort.
His body was accumulating wounds that even his draconic vitality couldn't fully erase. His mind was
getting exhausted from constant vigilance. He had no way to resupply and no chance of progressing
further without tools, ingredients, and knowledge.
"You must head toward a city or at least a proper town. Buy a cauldron. Gather low-tier ingredients in bulk. Learn real alchemical methods. And collect information. You know nothing of the world beyond your valley. You need maps, And information about the kingdom. The world is moving while you hide in trees."
Kael breathed slowly, feeling the weight of every word.
He had nine Rank-One kills, but he needed ten Rank-Two kills for the Codex Awakening. Without the
Codex, he couldn't break through safely. Without it, he couldn't stabilize his heritage. Without it, he risked
burning from the inside out.
He couldn't stay in the forest forever.
He looked toward the distant treeline—the direction where trade routes, towns, and people existed.
"I need to go," he whispered.
"Yes," Azreath replied. "It is time to step out of your cradle of trees and see the world your mother died to
protect you from."
Kael packed his supplies—cores, herbs, whatever extracts he had managed to make, and the tools his
mother stored in the ring. He tightened the straps, adjusted his dagger, and took one long breath.
The fiery tint in his eyes pulsed faintly.
He stepped forward.
For the first time since the night everything was taken from him, he wasn't running.
He was moving toward something.
And the world was waiting.