Alfred lay with his head resting on the crossed front legs and hind legs wide, a fully relaxed posture for him.
John sat with his head resting against Alfred's neck, with all the fluff feeling like the best cushion ever.
But his eyes were closed, and he was in focus, observing Alfred deep within. Thanks to their solid bond, John could easily peek inside Alfred's source space, where a magical crystal floated with soul energy whirling within it.
Soul Crystal: 158/500.
'This...' John suddenly noticed something within the source space. It was a faint image of Alfred, an avatar.
'Zoom out!'
'Damn!'
Alfred's source space actually looked like Alfred himself, a big wolf in a hazy avatar, and in the middle was this Soul Crystal.
He couldn't see it at first since he was focused on Soul Crystal, and even now, the avatar was hazy, but the more he focused, the clearer it became.
'Woof!'
Suddenly, a little avatar of Alfred appeared with his tongue out as he barked at John while smiling.
It was a sublime experience. His soul touched Alfred's soul, and he could clearly feel it.
Moreover, as this source space became clearer, mysterious linings and patterns were highlighted throughout the massive avatar, all intricately connected and sourcing towards the Soul Crystal.
'What is this? None of the books mentioned anything like this.'
After several minutes of observation, John looked at his own source space. It was vastly different.
He had a soul space in which miniature forms of Alfred and Pymon floated, like statues, or more like imprints. They would appear here when he retrieved them into his soul space.
Another thing was that his Soul Crystal looked just like Alfred's physical appearance, with a minor difference.
However, he couldn't see the avatar, nor could he form a mini-avatar as Alfred did.
John couldn't help but feel that was very important and tied to the mystery of why Pet Monsters become smaller and weaker after extracting their soul cores.
And he had a gut feeling that studying this mystery was how they created Monster Geno Arts.
"Awoo!"
John suddenly got Alfred's thoughts that a group of Monsters was approaching them and that they were the Windfury Monkeys, numbering over fifteen.
John laughed as he opened his eyes and got up. "Looks like they are here for revenge because I captured their leader."
"Let's teach them a lesson by extracting their cores and continuing our hunt."
"Woof!"
...
John was out until four o'clock in the afternoon before he returned.
Having gathered 1007 Xhal Drops, John would've bought the chest and opened it to take a look at Monster Geno Arts, but he wasn't so sure anymore.
There were watchful eyes over the students, and he didn't want to make himself suspicious in any way.
As such, John just decided to continue gathering Xhal Drops every day while surviving and displaying good performance.
Upon returning, he tested the Windfury Ape leader's immunity, and it was gone.
'So it's twenty-four hours.'
"Alright, you can go now."
John released the Windfury Ape from the prison. After staring at John for two seconds, the ape jumped with a gust of wind from its legs using a skill and left.
Yuna had woken up and was bathing in the crude bathroom while Rayray brought buckets of water for her.
After Yuna freshened up, she went out with Rayray and Doku to train and also gather ingredients and some meat in her storage ring.
John would've used his storage space before, but he didn't do that anymore to store random things. He didn't have a ring, or it would be suspicious if he put things away into his Rune of New Beginning's storage.
However, the wristband was going to get the storage function unlocked once the clock hit 12 at midnight, so that would make things handy for him.
Although the storage wasn't big enough to put their whole camp inside since John had made it quite big, he could dismantle most of it and put 80% of it in his storage and Yuna's two storage spaces—one ring and one wristband.
With nothing else to do but stay in the camp, John began training with Alfred and Pymon.
Learning combat with wild monsters with human intelligence was like kung fu, and John wanted to become better at fighting and hone himself.
...
"It's twelve o'clock soon," Yuna said as both of them sat around the campfire, eating a second time.
John didn't plan to sleep tonight. Instead, he and Yuna planned to move immediately during the night.
They also wanted to encounter some rare monsters, as both of them had broken through to Silver rank.
Yuna's Sun Fox grew three more tails after reaching Silver rank, becoming a Six-tailed Sun Fox. Although the fox didn't evolve, her skills evolved as her Genetic Potential reached full unleash after ranking up.
She also gained a Quirk like Alfred—Fire Mastery level 1.
"So what's our next destination?" John asked. "I have a few options."
"Hmmm, we'll go to the Scorched Grove and cross it over to either the Black Mist Woods area or the Moonveil Fen area."
"I had the same options," John smiled. "Those two areas are at the edge of the event area, and the deeper forest extends from there. There are bound to be rare and better Monsters there."
"Yep. I want to capture a Luminis Fairy," Yuna's eyes sparkled. "It's very rare, though, and appears only in the Moonveil Fen area or deeper in the forest."
"Luminis Fairy?" John raised his eyebrows. "Aren't these monsters directly born as Gold-rank?"
Yuna chuckled, "There's a variant version of them. Sometimes, Luminis Fairy births Luminis Nightveil Fairy, and they are born as Silver-rank but have higher potential than regular Luminis Fairy. This is not in the books."
John wryly smiled. "Well then, we'll stalk in Moonveil Fen to get one."
Suddenly, all the students in the forest felt vibrations in their wrists as a message rang from their wristbands.
Day 5 of the survival event officially begins. You can now store things inside a spatial storage accessible through the wristband using your soul energy.
[Good luck and all the best.]