A path to ascention. Soul lords trials.

Rex remaining path home was uninterupted, with only a slight breeze passing by him, rustling countless leaves in the process. He inhaled deeply, apreciating the calm and quiet surroundings. Dont take it the wrong way, he was more than happy with the harem of pretty ladies he had amassed during his outings as either blood mage Rex, or the warrior Neo, but there was something to being all on your own, unleashed upon the world to go as you see fit, without a single worry about people close to you, who could be implicated by your actions. Still, he was rather sure that living an entire life, without the gentle and affectionate touch of a woman would be impossible. Still, he decided to be much more selective this time around, limiting himself to trully get to know the other person before going wild and rowdy. If worst comes to pass, there were always fair ladies willing to help out, for a fair compensation or a helpfull hand. Still, that was a problem that tommorow's Rex would have to deal with, and so he would dea l with it then it came to pass, Right now he would enjoy the life of a single man to its fullest.

As he sat in front of his shack, the days catch slowly roasting over a fire he had lit recently, he considered the next few steps he would have to take. First, he would have to figure out the aproach he should take to growing stronger. The good old grinding would not be nearly as helpfull here as it used to be, and trying to grow stronger through countless harsh battles alone would be dangerous and quite tedius, especially after the life he had led before this. Thankfully, this was where his new memories of a live once lived, came into play.

As a rather well established expert in the way of cultivation, with countless manuals and arts memorized, the sword savage Ren Lui was considered quite the terror among both righteous and demonic sects. An eternal traveler who would slay man and beast alike who dared crosss his path, which happened more often than one would expect, all due to his tendency to never wear the same face for long, causing too arrogant young master or vicious demonic expert to kick an iron plate. Beggars and vagabonds were always quite easy to bully or unload ones anger on to. A practice that quickly lost its appeal, when one could never know if the possible target of his frustrations could actually end your exsistance with a smiple swing of any random branch.

While Ren Lui was a true master in the way of the sword, having walked said Dao to a rather high level of comprehension, his mastery over other weapons was quite impressive as well, though obviously nowhere near close to the sword. A sharp mind needs a strong and disciplined body, as much as the latter needs the former, thus Ren Lui had studied countless body strenghtening manuals, delving deep into the theories behind the art, developing numerous different techniques on his own as well. Rex reasoned that it was precisely these techniques that he could employ, to speed up his growth. Though it would still be nowhere near the speed he could achieve with the original drain. Still, the place, and possibly the world seemed of a lower power level, if the memory of this body was anything to go by, so maybee he did not need to achieve quite the same level of power as he had before creating the soul sparks. Nevertheless, it was always better to overprepeare than to fall short, especially when the opportunity was right in front of you.

With 'drain' working passively upon each of his kills, as well as drawing in the mana from his surroundings, he had a rather free controll over mana, even if it was much more unrully than he was used to. Add to that his rather lacking mana pool at the moment, and any proper large scale spells were out of the question, at least ones that would affect the world outside of his body. So, aproximately hour later, once he had cooked and devoured the fish he had caught during the day, he retired to the inside of his shoddy shack, something he sshould solve rather soon, he reasoned.

Sitting near the poor excuse of a bed that he had, he concentrated on his own mana pool, willing it to stirr, and putting it to work. Slowly, but steadily he moved his mana along his veins, inscribing miniscule runes along the way, wincing every now and then from the pain each rune caused. It was nothing gut wrenching, but since this body was not yet trained to shrug off most pain, it still caused quite a bit of discomfort. Thanks to the enourmous amounts of mana his body could siphon from the enviroment, he needed only a couple of hours to finish with the inscription of his veins, prepearing his body for enchancement. Now all he had to do was to allow his body to absorb mana from either his own reserves or feast on the enviroment. Still this growth would be rather slow, leaving Rex plenty of time to delve into other avenues of interest, one of which were the weapon mastery he had attained with the surfacing of his murim world memories.

Once done, rather tired from the days events, he lied down to sleep, desiring to wake early and enjoy the life of adventures that awaited him. With the runes in place, no longer needing to focus and sit still like most cultivators would, he was free to do with his life what he desired, clearly being drawn to an idea of traveling with a group of companions and getting in all manner of sitations, and while not overly much different from his first go around, he was sure he could have much more fun than before, not chained by desires of the darker nature, nor bound to any code of honor or such. Nor hunted purely because of his peculiar eyes, that he did not have this go around. And while somewhat sad at the lost abilities said unique traits provided him with, he was more than ready to enjoy the advantages of the loss just as much, if not more.

"Who knows, maybee I could become and adventurer this time around? A proper one." he murmured as he drifted off to sleep.

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He woke up early in the morning, a habit he had always practiced, and one that seemed to thankfully follow him along this time as well. Finding some last scraps of jerky in what he supposed was his pantry, he quickly consumed them, just barely calming his growling stomach, though it was obvious that he would need much more to actually have his fill. A side effect of the runic engravings that now permeated his body. While he was free to move around and not think of absorbing the mana all around him, it required him to consume quite a bit more calories in return. Both strenghtening his muscles and facilitating the growth of more would need a lot of energy, protein and other building blocks, all aquired through copious amounts off food.

Unfortunately, the two copper he would earn for the goblin ears would not help much either, barely covering a half loaf of bread in a rather poor condition, leaving him with not much of a choice but to head out and spend hours on fishing, or attempt to get some game from the surrounding forests. Fishing was the more reliable of the two. Rex could use what little mana pool he had to use the sonar he was so accustomed, figuring out the places with the largest schools of fish, making his efforts muc hmore reliable and while he could theoretically try the same in the forrest to find game, the small mana pool made it nearly impossible to do so in a large enough area neccessary for such an attempt. Unlike the forest, with the lake he could focus in a single dirrection, since lake would only be in front of him, covering a notably larger area. On the other hand, should his hail mary in the forest succeed, he could aquire quite the amount of food.

'Right, that reminds me. Gotta work that space affinity I have grinded to create a storage space. That too seems to be a rather lacking area around here.' He mused as he grabbed his fishing rod, supplies and the spear he had used yesterday. He had decided to use his advantages to their fullest, filling up with fish today and then attempt some hunting tommorow. It was simply much safer to go with the reliable option now that he was perfectly aware, no longer working on an auto pilot. Once he has secured a starting capital, he could then turn to the high risk, high reward options.

As he left his shack, he noticed that the village was still mostly quiet, most of the villagers still enjoying their well earned rest after yet another day of hard work. 'How nice, not having a bunch of bloodthirsty and zealous bastard considering you the spawn of hell in the near vicinity.' Rex thought as he headed out towards the lake. Sure, him being an orphan did not do him much favours, but it only counted when the elder folk of the village complained about one thing or another, though the same treatment was reserved for any other kid in the village, Old folk being old, was all it was, leaving Rex mostly indifferent towards their occasional grumblings, at least as far as he could remember from the memories of this body.

The only person Rex encountered was an aged hunter who was just returning from his morning hunt, a couple of chicken sized birds strapped to his side.

"Off for your breakfast Rat?" the hunter asked with a smlight smile on his face, apreciating the self sufficiency of the younger man before him.

"Hmr" Rex grumbled in agreement, something his autopilot sould had done most of the time. Short, one word responses, or a simple nod with a grunt was used most of the time when possible, if not just as short few word responses. This had made an impression on most of the villagers that Rex was somewhat of a musclehead, or a few screws short, nothing that would endanger anyone around him of course, but there were none that expected him to become a scholar, or learn to read for that matter. Still, everyone knew their numbers- cant have some fancy adventurer passing by cheat you out of your hard earned money, now can you. Or so the elders would say when they teached the youngsters.

"Spend more time on it kid, the great hunt is aproaching, and fro mwhat I remember, its your time too. have you thought of some names you would aim for?"

Rex just shrugged his shoulders at the question. In this village, upon the age of five each child recieved an animal, or rodent, or whatever else wildlife animals name came to the elders, or ones parents minds, with orphans often recieving the less stellar names. To eanr a name for yourself, said children had to take part in the great hunt, a ceremony held every five years, where only the kids past age of sixteen took part. Depending on what the youngster hunted during said hunt, they could pick their new names freely, recieving more scrutiny from the elders should their prey was not impressive enough for the heroic name they desired. Rex had been too young for the last hunt, but had to join this one.

"Heh, thought so. Well, off you go boy." the hunter said as he too turned past Rex and walked off into the village, preoccupied with his own thoughts.

Rex, no longer bothered by the aged hunter, too went on his own way, more interested in catching himself some food instead of the advice of the older man. Sure, it was a sound advice, were Rex the dim witted youngster he was believed to be, but to the current him it was pointless. Still, it served no purpose to suddenly act much different than 'Rat' had up untill now, only changing it all after the great hunt when he would join one of the trips to the nearest town, where he would start his adventuring days.

Luckaly for him, and the goblins, none of their kind happened upon Rex path towards the lake, allowing him to reach his 'hunting grounds' unimpeded., where he wasted no time and utilised the mana sonar he was so used to, though projected in a single dirrection and at a heavily lowered range. Nothing he could do there, but it still served its purpose, giving him quite the understanding of the waters in front of him. With said knowledge at hand, he chose the better positions to cast his line, catching quite a few fishes in the coming few hours. He would occasionally switch places when he felt that the school was either mostly depleted or had moved off to some other location. He would once again use mana sonar, and relocate accordingly, continiuing his success.

By the time some other would be fishers started to appear near the lake, his bucket was quite loaded with fish, and not desiring to attract too much attention, he quickly collected his stuff, covered the bucket with a rather ragged piece of cloth and returned home, where he proceeded to set up a small campfire outside of his shack, quickly gutted the fish before stabbing them on wooden spikes and placing them near the fire to cook. being over the age of sixteen, he was all on his own, thus he could not afford spices like salt and pepper, something only proper adventurers that sometimes passed the village, merchants or village chief could afford regularily. Not like he needed any of the stuff for the moment, even if he was well aware just how bland normal food tasted. Good thing this body had not experienced the taste of a proper heaven grade meat for prolonged periods, else the fish would taste worse than dirt. He supposed that was yet another blessing in disguise. He could once again enjoy the food of the places he would visit.

By the time he was done with his breakfast and set up the remaining fishes to dry over the coals, sun was already in the zenith, high above his head, shining right down on top of his head. With his dinner already secured, as well as his stomach satiated for the time being, Rex decided that it was time to venture into the forest to try more riskier ways. He hoped either for some game or, if he was lucky, a small goblin party returning from a successfull hunt of their own. And while most goblins encountered near vilages were the feral ones, lost to the instincts and with no sanity to speak off, the larger groups could function similarily to humans, though in a much more savage and cruel way. The chielftain would find and beat the shit out of his would be followers, who would then execute his orders, either hunting and setting simplistic, yet effective traps for the local animals, or perform raids on small and remote villages, or traveling merchants of the lesser stature. Baseline bandits, but with a few even more detestable practices than the human scum who shared the proffession.

And while Rex did not have a bow, his skills as both an experienced mage, as well as now a weapon master, his mana pool was just large enough to reliably trow his spear with incredible precision, just as how an arrow would fly, providing him with a reliable way to off any game of doe size, perhaps bigger, should he aim properly. Armed with said spear and a knife, after wrapping the cooked fish and stashing it away in his shack, he set out towards the woods once more.

He spent a couple of hours in the forest, carefully tracking his own pace and dirrections he moved in, always ensuring he would find a way back home, unfortunately, he had yet to encouner anything worth his time. He had seen more than enough birds that could have been a solid prey to take down, shoule he be equiped with a bow. Quite a few squirels also appeared in his sights, but similarily as with the birds, the small rodents were jus not worth attempting to spear them. Should he succeed in striking one, what would be left of the poor creature to eat?

Estimating the time to be around four of five in the afternoon, Rex turned back towards home, having calculated his return time to be similar to time spent coming out, returning home before any of the night predators start their prowl through the woods. And while he could probably take them down, it was simply too risky to do so at the given time. thus, not desiring to tempt fate, he slowly and just as carefully headed home, paying close attention to any odd sound he heard during his return.

On his way back he did get somewhat lucky, running into a group of four goblins, though from their looks and reactions upon noticing him, he quickly deduced them to be the feral variant, as they snarled and charged towards him the moment they also noticed him. Using the size difference, as well as the cover of the trees, he succesfully split the little green shits appart, precisely stabbing the closest one to him in the heart with a quick thrust, then smashing the next one on the side with the spear shaft and sending it flying. By the time theremaining three reached around teh rather thick tree, the two friends of theirs where laying on the ground, bleeding and dead. In a similar fashion Rex took care of the remaining trio, ending the astest with a quick stab, then sidestepping the other two, delivering a powerfull blow to the next one, causing it to slump to the gound, properly knocked out for at least a few seconds, enough time to end the last one, leaving Rex with plenty of time to then deliver a stab to the now slowly coming to goblin, ending the life of the group. Quickly cutting off the ears needed for reward, he got on his way once more, hoping no other interruptions would cross his path back home.