On the fifteenth day, after successfully hunting a particularly tough Armoured Boar, Rhys was resting by a stream, cleaning his dagger.
’Clang.’
His head snapped towards the west, from where the clash of metal drifted through the trees. It was distant, but his enhanced senses picked it up clearly.
"Which fool is fighting so brazenly in the woods?" he muttered, face-palming, already sensing movements in the surroundings being directed towards that position.
Sure, they were in the outer rings of the Whisperwood. The outer ring didn’t have monsters above Stage 1, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t come here after hearing the commotion.
That’s why despite knowing his Spark Fist could easily kill a Shadowcat in one strike, Rhys chose to fight with his dagger skill.
Unless he reached a high stage in the Body Tempering realm, he wasn’t going to risk attracting a Stage 2 monster.
Curiosity piqued, he stored his gear and moved towards the sound. Finding a tall tree in the vicinity, he climbed it.
It gave him a perfect vantage point over a small clearing below. What he saw made him pause.
A group of three young cultivators, no older than himself, were locked in a desperate battle with a single, scrawny-looking Shadowcat.
It was one of the few that must have escaped his earlier, thorough cleansing of the area.
Two of the youths were male, dressed in dark, practical leather armour with the emblem of the Thorne family.
Rhys always believed it was foolish to flaunt your family name in the woods, as in the deepest corners of the darkness, there could be someone waiting to prey on them.
It was like coating themselves with gold chains to attract an unwanted thief.
[Is that a self-mention, Host?]
Rhys nearly fell out of the tree. Clutching his chest with exaggerated drama, he spoke in his mind,
"Not only did they call me a phantom thief—now you too?!"
[".."]
The youths of the Thorne family wielded heavy swords, which made their movements powerful but clumsy as they struggled to land a hit on the agile beast.
Rhys again marvelled at his own constitution. The perfect mastery of basic stealth became so lethal because of it.
He was sure any other cultivator with perfected mastery in basic stealth would struggle against this monster. His eyes then landed on the third person.
A young woman. Beautiful, with long silver hair tied back in a practical braid.
’Jade beauty.’
She wore the elegant, rune-stitched robes of the Sterling family and held a staff, occasionally launching small bolts of light to support the two boys.
"Clumsy oafs!" she shouted, her voice a mixture of frustration and fear as the Shadowcat narrowly dodged another wild swing from one of the Thorne disciples.
"I told you not to damage the pelt! And for the love of the ancestors, don’t shatter the beast core!"
’Jade bitch will be more suitable.’
[Agreed!]
"It’s easy for you to say, Lady Luna!" one of the boys grunted, parrying a swipe from the beast’s claws. "This thing is fast!"
"We need that core intact!" she insisted. "The ’Scentless’ potion requires a pristine Shadowcat core. How are we supposed to mask our presence in the northern territories if you two destroy the key ingredient?
And where in the blazes are all the other Shadowcats? We’ve been searching for three days and this is the only one we’ve found!"
She couldn’t be blamed. This area was notorious for constant attacks by Shadowcats against merchant caravans. Rhys inwardly recoiled.
’Don’t tell me I made them extinct,’ he thought to himself. ’No way, right? Monsters respawn after a cooldown.’
[There are no respawns in this world. And no cooldowns, Host.]
’Okay, okay! I know,’ he rolled his eyes while shrugging. So that’s why there were no Shadowcats in this area anymore.
It seemed his diligent hunting had inadvertently caused a supply shortage for the great families. The irony was delicious. An amused smile spread across his face.
He felt a flicker of contempt as he watched them struggle.
Three descendants from the main branches of two powerful families, even when equipped with good gear, were being held at bay by the weakest type of spiritual beast in this forest.
The safe training inside their family grounds seemed useless in the woods. Their technique was sloppy and their teamwork nonexistent.
Their strikes had the intent of training, not killing. He shook his head.
If all the younger descendants of major families were like them, he was sure the Azure Province would fall to a beast tide in the future.
He would have left if he wasn’t intrigued by their conversation.
’What did they mean by going to the northern territories?’ he furrowed his brows.
The northern Whisperwood was far more dangerous than the inner rings. That wasn’t because the monsters there were of a high level; it was because of the natural disasters that had been plaguing that area for decades.
The valley of the Dragon Tooth Mountain Range was once a small settlement that housed ten thousand people.
However, one day a landslide took all of them. The landslide was so big, it was rumoured that hundreds of miles of the surrounding area became a swamp.
The more peculiar thing was that despite this, the mountain range seemed untouched, as if someone had just hollowed out the earth beneath its surface and thrown the mud and stones out.
Wait...
’This isn’t marked in any history books. How do I know it then?’
[Well, you are unconsciously burning your lifespan to decipher truths no one knew, or rather, someone wanted no one to know.]
Rhys rubbed his chin.
’A hollowed-out mountain range... isn’t that a clear indication of a possible labyrinth?’ An excited glint appeared in his eyes.
A wealth of philosophical details regarding these phenomena flooded his brain, which Rhys gleefully accepted as the disciples below continued their fight.
"Just focus!" the second Thorne disciple yelled. "The sooner we get this core, the sooner we can meet up with the main party. Lord Tiberius will not be pleased if we are late."
"And Lady Anya expects us to have the potion ingredients ready," Luna added, a note of anxiety in her voice.
"With all the other families sending their disciples into the woods, the competition for resources is already fierce. This whole trial is becoming more chaotic by the day."
’A trial?’ Rhys tilted his head.
So that’s it.
The major families found out about this labyrinth, and it appeared they had no intention of sharing it with anyone else.
No wonder only the younger generation came here to collect resources. They didn’t want to alert other cultivators.
But... why didn’t the strongest of the five families just go to the labyrinth and clear it?
His eyes widened as realisation struck him.
’The labyrinth has a level restriction!’