His panting was loud. Far too loud in the complete silence of the surroundings. Almost irritating, to be honest. Surprisingly, he had wandered deep enough for his upgraded Stamina to run out of steam on the return.

The Sky Hares had stopped chasing him some time ago. William wasn’t sure what those strange things were thinking, but he had a good guess. With the way they fell into a rather familiar frenzy, he suspected some of them were trampled to death, and the rest were rushing to eat the remains.

William couldn’t imagine how a species so strange came to be. As for why they still existed, he had to guess it was because of their weakness. While the Sky Hares made William flee for his life, their low level would make them harmless to any cultivator that came by them.

Of course, that now also applied to William. If the Sky Hares gave him more than one experience point per kill, he would have gleefully returned to the fray to start massacring the little shits.

William laughed as he thought about what he had brought on the Sky Hares. Especially the crunch of bones that was repeatedly felt and heard as he killed more and more rabbits. His laugh turned strained as he looked at himself and saw the blood and pieces of flesh that caked his legs and covered most of his hands.

William dry heaved in disgust and made the mistake of covering his mouth with his hand. He pulled it away as fast as he could, but he could already feel the disgusting filth on his lips.

He doubled over, gasping for air and tasting what was on his lips before he felt a surge of bile rise up his throat. Before he could think, he leaned forward and retched violently onto the ground.

William discovered something even more irritating than the loud panting he had been doing. Vomiting uncontrollably until nothing was left in his stomach.

“Fuck me,” William groaned and went to wipe his mouth when he remembered that his hands were disgusting. Noticing a nice, clean patch of grass a few steps away, he practically threw himself on it, rubbing his face and hands into it to try and get the mess off him.

It wasn’t perfect, but more than enough until he found a way to clean himself.

William shuddered and pushed himself to his feet. He should have figured that was coming. In fact, he wasn’t sure why it didn’t happen immediately after crushing a poor bunny’s head the first time. It made him wonder if he had been that crazed to get to level ten.

He moved to get under the shade of a tree and grimaced at the sour taste in his mouth. He opened his blood-free pouch and stared at one of the Divine Resilience Fruits. Eating one of those would probably rid him of the horrible taste while fixing his Stamina problem without using his stat points.

As he was running away, he thought of how to use the points he had saved up. With the abundant spirit plants around him, the thing that made the most sense was to dump everything into Luck. With this being a cultivation world, Luck would likely play a significant role in the opportunities he would get in the future.

William had that idea in the back of his mind from the start, but the RNG landing on a bad number always stopped him. That was no longer an issue. Still, he wanted to get his Stamina and Agility to twenty before assigning points.

… Speaking of which. He tried to add a point to his Strength.

[Max Strength Reached]

William nodded to himself after confirming that twenty was still the max.

He fumbled a little with the pouch and tried to eat a Divine Resilience Fruit without touching it too much. It was challenging, but the rush of sweet juice crashing the foul taste lining his mouth made it worth the hassle.

William hummed as he enjoyed the well-deserved treat and quickly finished it. He resisted the urge to lick his lips, not wanting to have any part of a Sky Hare inside him. It would take a good amount of time before he would stop despising the thought of them… or maybe he should be grateful for how much help they were.

[+4 Stamina]

[Trait Added | Impurity Poisoning (Stage 1) - XP Gain Decreased (10%)]

William forgot about his distaste for the Sky Hares as he stared at the blue text in disbelief. It was one thing after another. Just when he got rid of that ridiculous RNG effect, another headache was added.

At the very least, it wasn’t that bad. He knew that binging on these spirit plants would be bad news, and if this was the extent of it, he could accept it.

William sighed as he secured the pouch around his shoulders before jumping up and down, grinning when he no longer felt like two-hundred-pound weights were attached to his feet.

However, that smile left when he noticed that the green grass was becoming slightly pinkish. He grimaced and muttered, “Next order of business, go to that camp and get a change of clothes… Hm?”

William thought he noticed something white streaking in the sky, making him narrow his eyes to try and see the blue text over it. However, before he knew it, he found himself flying back with an almost caved-in chest from a brutal kick.

[-400 HP]

He lay sprawled on the grass, luckily missing the many trees he could have been smashed into, and moaned in pain as he tried to gather his senses. When William heard guttural snarls that seemed inches away from him, even he surprised himself by how quickly he accepted the pain and tried to pick himself back up.

[Species: Sky Hare | Level: 16]

William stumbled back in fear from seeing the massive, demonic-looking rabbit snapping its razor-sharp teeth at him. The most significant difference from the bunny-like mob that chased him, other than the size, was the wings sprouting from its back. It suddenly made sense why it had the word ’Sky’ in its Species name.

He knew he should be dead by now, especially with how enraged the Sky Hare seemed to be at him. He assumed the boss found out how many underlings were killed until he noticed the wounds on its body.

The Sky Hare seemed bitten, stomped on, and barely escaped a tough fight. Something that William had found familiar with all the lower-level Sky Hares that had been mobbing him.

It suddenly made sense why those little shits ate each other. It was a winner-take-all for them, and this was the result.

William warily watched the snarling Sky Hare as he scrambled backward on the ground to put more distance between them. He wasn’t sure why it hadn’t ended his life yet, but it definitely wished to do so.

[+9 Agility]

[Max Agility Reached]

William sprinted back to his grove as fast as possible, hoping his attribute reduction wouldn’t screw him over. And that the assumption of the animals not being able to follow him into that area was true.

If it wasn’t, he was deader than dead.

William kept looking back to see if the Sky Hare followed him. Even though he never saw anything, it didn’t stop him from feeling like his life was on the line, and it basically was. When he finally reached his grove, he slumped against a familiar tree and frantically looked for a white streak of death flying after him.

With him no longer focusing on running as fast as he could, more details of the monstrous Sky Hare started to get picked up in his mind. After giving him the kick that wiped out more than half his remaining health points, the Sky Hare seemed rooted to its spot as it raged at him.

It could move side-to-side but never came closer to William, even though he was helplessly on the ground for a good few seconds as he tried to get over the pain of getting kicked hard enough to be launched back like a cannonball.

William immediately understood that he had discovered the limits of where the animals could travel. If that wasn’t so, he currently wouldn’t be alive to realize it.

He slid down the tree’s trunk and sat on the ground, groaning in a combination of relief and pain as he let himself feel things other than the panic of his life being in danger.

The worst part was that, unlike in RPGs, sleep did not heal him. Even the punch he threw against a tree to test his Strength all those days ago, making him lose one health point, didn’t recover.

That meant William would have to live with all the pain he was currently in until Lan Yin picked him up in a few weeks. On the bright side, this could be useful in training himself to be a masochist.

If he wanted to be effective in fights in the future, it would be essential to learn to ignore any pain to stop it from being a distraction.

… Even better would be to love the pain, but William didn’t know if he was willing to go that far.