“Did I.. absorb the core??”

After this crazy thought went through Daniel’s mind, the first thing he did was to check his body.

His skin was no different than it was before. His thin arms and legs were still pale and frail looking, but after touching them, he realized that his skin was as tough as leather.

A series of mixed feelings grew within Daniel. He remembered this feeling from when his father used to pick him up, or when they arm-wrestled.

While he was still feeling the changes of his body, it didn’t take long for Daniel to fall into depression. He had found a way out of his debt, only to see it disappear the next moment.

After getting his bearings, and finding the direction towards the city, his eyes fell upon the Shadow Tracker. A sudden realization thundered in his mind.

“The other core!!!” Shouted Daniel excitedly, before dashing towards the panther’s corpse. What Daniel was unaware of, unfortunately, was his newly acquired strength. The dash made him lose control of his body, which crashed on the ground.

“Of course.. stupid” Cursed Daniel at himself, as he remembered his father’s words.

In his mind, the memory of his father answering his many questions played out clearly once again “Us cultivators of the Martial way, can only control our bodies after we reach the fourth rank. If we stay at the third rank, we will have a strong body, but we will also be unable to fully use our strength.”

His father’s words were correct. A spiritual cultivator would avoid developing his body to the third rank, as they would be stuck with a physical strength which they wouldn’t be able to fully control.

On the other hand, martial cultivators avoided nurturing their soul to the third rank, because once reached the fourth rank of the martial path, the soul would still be caged by their powerful bodies, therefore becoming useless to them, and making its development a waste of time and resources.

“My muscles have become stronger, but didn’t increase in mass…” Daniel thought while inspecting his body once more. “My bones were hard enough to resist the impact, when I hit the ground, and my skin is as through as leather.. I should be at the rank 2 of the martial cultivation, like dad was.. but.. how?”

After minutes of pondering about everything that happened to him recently, unable to find an answer that could satisfy him, he momentarily decided to give up on finding one. Daniel didn’t know the first thing about absorbing beast cores, so for all he knew, touching the core barehanded, might have been the right way to absorb it.

Daniel rapidly approached the body of the panther. He remembered the mess of brains and blood that covered the previous beast core, so he guessed that ranked beasts would have their beast cores hidden inside their heads.

His guess was sorth of right, as both of these beasts had their cores in their heads, but various kinds of beast develop their cores in different parts of their bodies.

After picking up a stone and bashing it heavily against the head of the Shadow Tracker, he noticed the now familiar dim shine of the beast core. He had no intention of absorbing this core as well, so he grabbed a few sticks, and poked around the beast’s brains until the core fell out of its skull.

Once the core stopped rolling on the ground, Daniel ripped off one of his sleeves from the shoulder. He then made the core slip inside the sleeve about halfway through, twisted the ends of the sleeve, making it look like an oversized candy, and finally, he tied it around his waist, like a belt.

Daniel also thought of opening the stomach of the Yellow-striped Caiman, but he gave up on that thought, as the core of the Bloody-eyed Hare should have been digested fully by now.

After making sure about the direction, Daniel took off in the direction of the city walls.

———–

Third gate, eastern wall. 01:15

In a tower made of orderly laid stones, four heavily armored guards were playing cards. One of them was considerably happier than the others, as most of the copper coins in the table, were on his side.

At the corner of the room, sat another guard. This last guard’s armor was similar to the former four, the difference was that while the other four guards had hounds carved on their chestplate, this guard had an eagle.

The guard with the eagle carved on his armor was reviewing some documents, while listening to the other soldiers playing cards.

Suddenly, a man with an armor identical to that of the four playing guards, entered the room. “Sergeant, there is someone approaching the gate.” Says the man.

The Sergeant put the documents down on the nearby table, and got up from his chair. He then followed while asking the previous guard “How many?..”

“Sir, just one person. He appears young.. a teenager.” Said the guard nervously..

The Sergeant’s brows furrowed while looking at the guard “You didn’t just call me for a young man that snuck out the city walls at night, did you?” He then asked with a hint of anger.

“Err.. No sir.. he.. he seems to be covered in blood” responded the guard almost in a state of panic.

His look turned from one of anger, to an inquisitive one, and then into a curious one “Alright, show me.”

Outside of the tower’s entrance, on the right, stood a massive gate. The gate had several different smaller gates within, which could be opened based on the space required for the incoming party to pass through. Parallel to it, stood a large grid of thick iron bars.

Inbetween the grid and the gate, two guards stood still at the far ends. One right outside of the tower’s door, while the other stood in front of a massive wheel-like lever halfway buried into the wall on the opposite side.

When the Sergeant came out of the tower, he walked right in the middle of the grid and looked through. What he saw, was a young man. His height did not exceed 1 meter and 70 centimeters. His clothes were in tatters, one of his sleeves was missing, and he was covered in dry blood.

The Sergeant looked at the young man for a few seconds, then said “You better have a good reason for showing yourself at my gate.. covered in blood moreover! What’s your name?”

“Dan Hiel..” Answered Daniel immediately, while feigning tiredness.

The guard that was on watch duty and followed silently behind, asked to Daniel “What happened to you?”

Daniel looked at the guard, still pretending like he could fall unconscious at any minute, and said “I was hired by a herbalist to find herbs in the forest nearby.. when a beast attacked me.. I was lucky to have been given a sickle to do the job, or I wouldn’t have any other means to defend myself.”

This story had been prepared by Daniel on the way back. He would never openly admit to have survived the pursuit of a rank 3 beast, nor would he say that he was carrying a beast core of such level.

The Sergeant’s furrowed brows softened slightly, he then looked at the guard on duty and ordered “Let him through.”

The guard which was spoken to by the Sergeant nodded, and then looked at the one on duty near the big lever. “Lift the grid!” he said.

The grid was slowly lifted by the guard until it came to a stop ten meters above the ground. The Sergeant looked at the young man moving closer and said “If a herbalist instructed you to harvest herbs, you should have been near the edges of the forest. Why did you come back so late?”

Daniel froze for a moment

“Sir, I tried to run away from the beast when I first saw it.. but I was too foolish to pay attention in which direction I was running to.. so I got lost. I’ve only managed to find my way and leave the forest minutes ago..” Responded Daniel nervously.

The Sergeant said nothing. He simply turned around and went back inside the tower.

The guard on watch duty grabbed the keyring that hung at the side of his waist, and picked the smaller key from it. He then moved towards the lock, and after a mechanical sound, a door frame appeared in the massive wall like gate.

This door frame was just 3 meters tall and 3 meters wide, enough for three two people to pass through next to each other, so it was the door that the watch opened for small groups of people to enter the city.

Daniel didn’t feel safe when passing through the gates.. He had been chased by guards right outside of the second gate of the eastern wall, if any of those guards recognized him, he would be done for.

His steps when he entered through the gate, were fast to say the least. He was eager to go back home, see his sister, and clean himself up.

The city of Phyrri wasn’t the largest of the kingdom of Karalis, but it wasn’t small by any means. Inside its inner walls, millions of people lived divided into different districts.

These districts, which were based on social status were, from lower to higher, the working, the merchant and the learned district.

The Working district was the largest amongst the three districts. About three quarters of the entirety of Phyrri’s population lived in the working district. To the northeastern side, there was the Industrial sector. Hundreds of plants and factories had been built in the industrial sector, around which the workers, along with their families, lived. In the southern side, the main garrison and training grounds, of which surroundings were house to most of the guards, low ranking soldiers, and their families. In the western side of the working district, were the slums, house to the poorest of citizens. Lastly, inbetween these three sections were most of the working district’s houses, shops, restaurants and hotels. It was called the commoner’s section.

The Merchant district was the second largest district of Phyrri, and it housed most of the medium-high sized shops, markets of rareware, auction houses, schools and small sects. It was mostly inhabited by well-off people, wealthy shop owners and moderately rich, yet small families. Members of the working district that managed to accumulate enough wealth, were allowed to move into the merchant district after passing a credit check.

The division of the merchant district was similar to the working district. To the northwestern side, the owners of the factories and industries lived, the southern side contained military offices, and was house to most high ranking officers of the army and city guards, while in the southeastern side, most auction houses and high-end shops resided. The area separating these sections was called the prosperous section, which, similarly to what the commoner’s section was for the working district, it contained most houses, hotels, shops, marketplaces, and residences owned by small families.

The third and last district, was the Learned district. By far the smallest of the three districts, it contained schools of martial arts, sects, tribunals and government offices. The Learned district also housed the highest ranking officers of the military, large families, high level government officers and the richest amongst merchants and citizens.

Each district was divided by a wall.

Daniel and his sister used to live close to the main garrison, but after their father’s death, they had been evicted. Afterwards, their mother had asked for help to the hotel owner, which presented himself like a rich friend of her late husband, offering her enough money to move into the merchant district, where they would have had an easier life.

What she didn’t know, was that the hotel owner had his aims on her family. A young man could have been sold to the mines as a slave for 5 gold coins, where he would have worked to his death, while a young girl as pretty as her daughter was, could have been sold as a slave for 50 gold coins.

As time passed, and their request to move into the merchant’s district was still pending, her debt grew larger due to interests, while the loaned money also had been used to ensure their survival.

One year after presenting the request, and they already didn’t have enough money to move to the merchant district.. three years later, she overworked herself to death.