A path to ascention. Soul lords trials.

Rex life took on a bit of a routine for the next week, where he would go to the lake for his morning fishing spree, catching quite the haul and then returning to prepeare it all while having his breakfast. Then, around midday, he would stash away whatever he had left over, prepeared for the evening and he set off into the forest, looking for a different kind of prey. And while he did not encounter any proper game during this time, he met more than a single group of feral goblins, a sight that was rather normal around these parts. And while said encounters signified that there was a rather large goblin tribe in the region, it was also clearly obvious that said tribe was quite a distance away, since the people hunting in the forest had reported nothing but feral groups. Only when one starts to encounter proper hunting, or scouting for that matter, parties, consisting of goblins capable of rudimentary tactics, as well the ability to retreat in the face of overwhelming opposition force, should one be trully worried about the presence of a tribe.

With practised ease he dispatched the little green bastards, collecting their ears as proof and keeping on his way. The highlight of his week was an encounter with a lone wolf that had been snacking on the remains of a goblin. The beast, upon noticing a much tastier looking target, quickly abbandoned chewing on the goblin and pressed itself closer to the ground, apparently hoping that Rex had not noticed it before. Though when it understood that its prey was looking at him rather intensly, it abbandoned the stealth aproach, rose up and walked in Rex's dirrection, its two yellow eyes glued on Rex.

'Well. well. well. It seems I am not the only hunter prowling these lands today.' Rex though as he gripped his spear tighter at his side. The wolf was on the rarger side, aproximately the height of a pony, making it quite the specimen among ordinary wolves. And yet, Rex was and collected. His spear, while quite old and seen better days, was still sharp and tough enough to skewer the beast should it go for the charge and leap for his throat. It was also quite obvious that said wolf was a loner, why else would it be feasting on goblin flesh. Were it a part of a pack, there should be no problem in hunting proper prey. Since the wolf was here, it also explained why he could not find much of game anywhere near this area, with them all avoiding the predator as much as possible.

'I will hold you accountable for the lack of game around these parts. Thus, you are guilty of hindering my growth. Unfortunately, the only penalty for such an offense is death.' Rex thought while a rather amused smirk sneaked on his face, as the wolf was nearing more and more to his position. Closing the distance to around twenty or so meters, the wolf dashed towards Rex, lunging at him once in range. Of course Rex did not just stand still, allowing to be pounced on. He slightly bent his knees, prepearing himself for the inevitable collision and once the beast was in its motion of the leap, he placed the spear in front of him, with one end of said spear firmly planted into the gound.

No longer able to change its trajectory, the wolf could do nothing while in air, watching helplessly as it landed on the spear, its flesh being impaled and torn, alongside the organs that were hidden just below the impaled location. A high pitched yelp escaped the wolfs muzzle, clearly in quite the pain to to the puncture, but Rex did not sit still during said time. He quickly unsheated his dagger, with one arm grabbed the fur near wolfs neck and then, suing the grip he had just tightened, he swung around to the wolfs back, using the momentum generated, as well as a bit of his mana to give his other arm a bit more 'umpf' as he drove the dagger into the other side of the wolfs neck, penetrating deep into the creatures flesh, causing yet anotehr yelp and quite a large spurt of blood from the freshly created wounds, both on its chest and neck. yanking the blade towards the dirrection of its blade, Rex enlarged the already deadly wound, causing yet more yelps from the wolf strugging with the spear imbedded in its chest.

In just a few more moments, the wolf drew its last breath, bloody foam coming from its mouth, a clear indicator that the spear had punctured creatures lung. Due to the massive blood loss, it could not even struggle properly, its head too heavy and pain wracking its mind. The next hour or so, Rex was skinning the beast, all the while often wwatching around. It was at moments like these that he would have apreciated either a much larger mana pool, allowing him to actually use said mana to skinn the beast much faster, creating numerous mana constructs for said task, or a groupd of hunters, or adventurers, who could assist him with either the skinning itself or watching the surroundings. No one wanted to be sneak upon and ambused during the colection of their spoils.

Since the wolf meat was notoriously bad, so much so that some grizzled and seasoned men would compare them wityh goblin meat, and it was better not to know just the kind of shit sad men had gone through to have to consume gobline meat to survive. What was important though was the comparison they had made, easily moving volves to the list of absolutely unedible creatures. Its pelts however, now that was quite the gain, easiliy fetching quite a few silver coins, should it have as little punctures and damage as possible. And with only the two that Rex had created, this pelt would be of a superior quality, thus securing him a rather respectable profit, allowing him to buy some solid and nourishing food.

Luckaly, he did not encounter nuisances during skinning the beast and once he was done, he rolled the skin up into a some sort of a bedroll, tied it up with some roles he had in the small pouch on his back, a standart equipment that hunters would carry, besides a bow and a quiver, filled with arrows, one that Rex did not have at the moment. And with the pelt, secured on hsi back, he quickly turned back home, wanting to offload the gains as soon as possible. The money he would earn fomr his could free up a day or two for him, giving him the time to start working on the rather important problem of a space storage, something he could solve as a master of sorts of the space element.

His way home was also mostly uninterrupted, some small predators or vultures drawn to the smell of fresh blood coming from the skin he was carrying, though none approached Rex due to his large size, when compared to said creatures anyway. Once back in the village, he wasted no time whatsoever, quickly reaching the local tanner, and displaying the wolfs hide to him. With no unnecessary banter, or comments tanner unfurled the skin on one of his tables, inspecting it for a moment, then delivering his verdict.

"Damn Rat, that is one fine piece of wolf skin you got here, and with barely any holes whatsoever. I can give you five silvers. You will not find a better offer from the merchants, so, deal?"

Rex nodded his head to the man, grunting in aproval, causing the tanner to smile for a short moment and then dissapear into his house for a moment, shortly after reappearing with the promissed money in hand.

"Here you go, five silver, as agreed." he stretched out his hand, a gesture that Rex repeated, his own hand placed under the tanners, with his palm open. As he had done so, the tanner opened his palm, five silver coins falling into Rex's palm, making a rather pleasant sound as they clincked when hitting one another.

"Good doing business with you boy. If you get your hands on more good stuff like this, you know where to find me. I will give ya a good price."

With another grunt of aproval, he turned around and left the tanner to his own devices, making his way towards chiefs house. Knocking on the door, he heard a muffled 'coming' as hewaited, only a few moments later the door opened, revealing a rather aged face to him.

"Goblin ears again Rat?"

"Hm." a grunt of aproval and a nod of head the only response.

"Feral ones?"

"Hm." yet anothergrunt and a nod in response.

"Not good, more of those have been caught around lately. Might have to report it to the local lord soon." the chief muttered as he thought of the current situation.

"Well, dont just stand there you big oaf, hand them over." the chief spoke irritatedly, seeing Rex stand before him as if waiting on something.

In response Rex did exactly that, handing over a rather small pouch he had on his side.

"Five. Wait here." the old chief spoke, and similarily to the tanner before, dissapeared from Rex's sight for a moment before shortly returning and handing over five copper coins, one for each ear. Rex did not wait much longer, turned around and left the house, his next destination- the small market square in the middle of thevillage, where a couple of merchants were always selling something. They would change every few days, the new one staying for a night or two, selling and buying stuff from the locals, and moving on to the next place, repeating the same thing. if the rumors were true, it was quite lucrative, if just as dangerous profession. one could always hire guards, but that would cut into ones profits, and everybody knew just how greedy and unscrupulous the merchants could be, resulting in quite a few deaths of the would be merchant lords on the long and unprotected roads between the vilages that littered the nations on the continent. Of course there were alos tales, often shared by the same merchnts of those that struck gold, risking their lives and quickly earning enough capital to start their own trading companies, sending their own expeditions int o the wild and unexplored savage lands, or organizing raids into dungeons.

Rex spent most of his recently earned coin to purchase jerky and other food that could be preserved for quite the time, as well as some filling food to consume now, prepearing to use the freed time to start working on that storage space of his. Once he had eaten the fresh. but quick to spoil meal, he cleaned up after himself and sat down in his shack, out of the eyesight of the villagers. Then, he focused on a miniscule region in the center of his palm, the size of said location was no larger that a grain of rise. Then, he used his pitifull amount of mana, as well as the excess mana around him, that his body was greedily devouring with the depletion of his own reserves, to inscribe a set of runes around said imagined grain of rise, once again whincing every now and then.

It took him a couple of hours to finish the process, leaving him quite tired and drenched in sweat at the end of it all. But he had managed to achieve the innitial success of the space storage, even if the space within it was no more than a grain of rise at the moment. What he would have to do now, whenever he was back home and did not plan of any other activities for the day, was to slowly, bust surely fold the inner walls of said space, one grain at a time, at least for the time being, to slowly expand the the space within. Eventually, he would have to do the same innitial procedure once more, to create another such storage. The simple explanation to it was that he could not do the expanding if there were items within said storage, making it incredibly cumbersome and annoying to have to withdraw everything thats stored inside only to spend an hour or two, barely expanding its size, only to then have to stash it all back in. With two, one could be used for storage, while the other would be developed in the meantime. Still, that would come much later, once he had at least a cube of storage. The only good thing about such storages, and their expansion was that the rate at which he could expand them would increase with the size of the space already aviable, otherwise such a method would be pointless. How long it would take to make a small room worth of space if one could only grow it by a single grain of rise per session?

There was another great thing to the process that Rex had just started. The constant depletion and refilling of his mana tank to exaustion would slowly increase his reserves as well. And while in theory, he could use his runes engraved on his body to do so whenever, it came with too many risks when he was outside of the village. Constant mana exaustion would make him inattentive, sluggish and overall much weaker, increasing the danger he could face should he attempt it in the forest, during his hunts, thus only during evenings while within safety, such as the village, could he work on both expanding his space storage, as well as his rather lacking mana pool.

Rex could enjoy the fruits of his labor for only a day, before the next great event came knocking on his door, just as it did with each and every other youth of the age. It was early morning, Rex was just finishing eating the food he had prepeard for breakfast, when he heard a knock on his door, followed by a rather gruff voice.

"Rise and shine liite Rat, its time for the HUNT. Dont make me.."

Before the voice on the other side could finish his supposed threat, or warning, depends on who would be retelling the events transpiring, the sad excuse of a door opened, revealing a fully dressed Rex, his mouth still chewing the last few bites of his breakfast, his knife tucked behind his belt and the old and worn out spear in his hand. Followed by a rather expected short grunt, and a nod of his head towards the central square of the village. The man suddenly frowned, clearly unhappy with the apparently relaxed youth, who had already eaten and seemed entirely ready for whatever they had prepeared.

"Come on then." he grumbled, turned around and walked towards aforementioned square. Rex noticed a few more youths along the way, who were following their own seasoned guide, though most of the ones he saw looked still half asleep. The few that looked more or less prepeared seemed to be ratehr nervous, but besides that decently ready. The ones who seemed to have been dragged out of their beds however- not so much. Rex also noticed that the ones who seemed in a ratehr pitty state were the orphans, where as the youngsters with still living parents, or slightly more wealthier parents were all prepeared.

"Huh? Who warned Rat?" Rex heard a rather confused question, from one of the prepeared kids, who quickly got a slap on the head by the hunter who was his guide.

"Shush you fool. Mind your tongue."

As he walked into the square, he noticed the older hunter that had ran into him a week ago, when he had just started his early excursions to lake to catch himself some food. The hunter, noticing Rex, who was fully prepeared, smiled and waved at his guide.

"I see Rat here was already up and about?"

"Yea, you know something about it?"

"Not much, saw the kid heading out fishing around this time a week or so ago. Thought it was an exception, though it seems to be something of a habbit. Heh, early bird gets the worn. What say you, rat?"

Rex just grunted in response what he believed sounded like 'Meh, think what you will'.

"Whatever" annoyedly spoke Rex's guide. "Just wait here, once everybody has been gathered we will set out."

With his instructions clear, he found an unoccupied wall and sat near it, pressing his back towards it and closing his eyes, doing something that would remind one of the cultivators sitting and absorbing world energy as he cultivated in hopes to reach a higher realm. Though in truth, he simply relaxed his body, expecting some sort of a tedious ritual like ceremony as they left the village. And aproximately twenty minutes later, once the last of the youngsters eligible for the ceremony arrived, totaling thirtheen participants, his suspicions turned out to be true, with the village chief coming out in a rather ridiculuous half chicken outfit, thou Rex supposed it was meant to represent a phoenix or something, and ones rebirth through a challenge.

Another twenty minutes passed as the chief performed some sort of play, for a lack of a better description, giving some sort of a drink to the non orphaned kids, while leaving the rest alone. Rex supposed it was a blessing from the parents, most likely some herbal concoction to help the kids out, clearly having cost a pretty penny. Not that he cared much for whatever advantage his supposed peers were recieving. He himself, as nerfed as he was in comparison to his soul dragon body, was a walking cheat machine. His attainment in soul, and blood in extension, as well as space and now sword law too made him an unreasonable existance, even if he could not draw upon even a tenth of said attainments potential, both his soul spark and body simply not strong enough for it yet. But that less than tenth was more than enough, especially when combined with the knowledge and understanding that came along with the raw power said laws could provide.

What he was quite happy about though, was that each and every participant recieved a bow and a set of ten arrows to use during the hunt, as well as a choice weapon from a small armory of sorts, that was only revealed during this event. Obviously, the participants would have to return the weapons, with the right to keep an arrow for each quarry they slew. And while most of the youngsters chose spears, clearly the better weapon for a hunt and inexperienced hunters to be, Rex went with a meter and a half long double edged sword. He already had a spear, and with just a small spark of mana, he could draw upon a measly portion of the sword laws, making his sword sharp enough to cut through leather like a hot knife through butter. He could, in theory, achieve similar result with steel too, but he was not stronge enough for such feats just yet.

With the participants armed, and quite a few still somewhat hungry, having been almost pulled out of their beds, the hunters who brought each of them here signalled to their 'wards' to follow. The great hunt had begun.