[Impurity Reduced]

[Trait Removed | Impurity Poisoning]

William was sitting cross-legged on the same branch that he had been dropped on by the snake. In fact, he hadn’t moved an inch since he had become fully immersed in cultivating instead of simply using it to gain experience.

He slowly opened his eyes, with his breaths still deep and steady, just like when he had repeatedly circulated his Qi through his pathways. It was a state that would become very familiar to him in the future.

William had been diligently cultivating without a break for over seventeen hours, which revealed to him how effective it had been in substituting sleep and even warding off hunger. That wasn’t normal. While cultivating was known to lessen mortal needs, it wasn’t to this extent in the Qi Gathering realm. In the end, he put the blame on the dimension he was in, or rather, the ‘shard,’ as the snake called it.

William glanced at the alert logs to see the number of experience points he had gained from cultivation.

[Cultivate in Qi-dense environment: +68 XP]

[Trait Activated | -7 XP]

That didn’t sound like much, and it certainly wasn’t enough for him to seclude himself like a hermit and cultivate in solitude. Still, if it was possible to replace sleep with this, it would be fantastic.

Experience: 1748/2500

It would take over a week of constant cultivation to get enough experience points to level up.

William tilted his head in thought as he actually considered it. If he really wanted to keep himself safe, it would be best to take this route. There were more than enough spirit fruits to sustain him for weeks, and he felt the spirit beasts wouldn't come near him with the snake above him.

… Then again, that same snake did want William to bring back something interesting as tribute. Perhaps it would be safer not to stay here.

He stood up while patting off his robes, wondering what to do next. Without that bear to screw with his thoughts from overwhelming fear, William recognized something that should be true.

With how freely that spirit beast was moving about the forest and how carelessly it made noise, it suggested that it had nothing to fear, as if it was the apex predator. Unless that was simply William’s hopeful wishes.

Assuming that was true, walking the forest floor wouldn’t be a complete disaster as long as he paid attention to that beast. Or he could leap from one branch to another like a monkey, hopefully without overshooting and falling to his death.

William didn’t take long before deciding not to do something he had never tried. He could already see the inglorious death by tripping if he tried to jump around with attributes he wasn’t used to.

Unfortunately, he would likely have to leave the Dragonheart Plum behind. While it was beyond precious, there wasn’t much use he could get from it since the attributes it could affect were all maxed out. The most it could do was act as sustenance, which would be disastrous to his Impurity levels, so that was out of the question.

He thought of storing it in his spatial stone, no matter the degradation that would occur, but the chance of the snake still watching stopped that plan from going further. It might get angry that he was once again wasting the Plum.

After some hesitation, William said, “Senior, I won’t be able to carry the Dragonheart Plum with me. You seem to have enj-”

He cut himself off when the Plum floated toward the leaf ceiling above before disappearing through it. With a mental pat on the back for not making a rushed mistake, he nodded at where he thought the snake was and walked to the edge of the wide branch.

Nothing seemed to be waiting for a delicious meal to fall from the sky, so that was a positive. William moved closer to the tree trunk to make the jumps to the branches below more predictable. The distance between each branch had to be around fifteen feet, but he made quick work of them.

After thirty or so jumps, William landed softly on the forest floor, looking around warily to ensure the beast wouldn’t pop out of a nearby bush. It was impossible, of course, mainly since the spirit beast was far too massive to hide anywhere, but better to be foolishly paranoid than cluelessly killed.

Besides figuring out if anything was hiding nearby, William recognized how bare this forest was regarding anything valuable. While most spirit fruits would be useless to him, not all were so sensitive that they weren’t storable in his spatial stone. That had been his plan, but he didn’t expect it to fail before he could even try.

Then again, it made sense on second thought. If the paradise he somehow wandered into was the personal garden of the owner of this dimension, these trees were the primary source of what was being grown. Why would any nutrients be left on the forest floor for anything else to grow?

William sighed in resignation at the thought of not being able to gain any free stat points in the form of spirit plants. Since that probably wouldn’t be possible, it was time to hunt. Not that beast that could swallow him in one bite, but something that was more his style.

Perhaps a lovely little Sky Hare would reappear, offering itself as a sacrifice. William would be glad to go on another killing spree if he could find them again, especially since he now knew that none could be left alive for his own safety. Of course, he wouldn’t be lucky enough to find the bunny-shaped experience points, so he would settle for some deer or a sloth, and if not those, perhaps some friendly sheep.

Those were nice hopes to have as William trekked through the seemingly endless forest. He kept an ear out for possible dangers, but after hours of walking endlessly through the similar sights of spaced-out trees and sparse bushes in between, it got to a point where he almost wished for something exciting to happen.

Moreover, William started worrying that this entire dimension was simply this bland forest. It wasn’t enough to leave the depths of his mind to become something he focused on, mainly since the snake did imply that it was possible to find something that could impress it down here.

He sighed and picked up his running speed, but not enough to deplete his Stamina. He wondered if there was a status for how much stamina he was consuming since he was currently going by an approximation of how his body felt.

William darted past a few trees with the barest hint of his focus on the system, expecting to hear an alert of the new information added, just like it did with Spiritual Energy, but unfortunately, he was destined to be disappointed when nothing happened.

He put that aside and continued to run as fast as he could without being careless before stopping when he finally felt his Stamina deplete faster than it recovered. While William wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had tried to run his way out of the forest, he knew countless miles had been covered since the start.

But it seemed to William like he had made no progress. For the life of him, he couldn’t tell if he was in a different spot since everything looked the same. The trees, the bushes, the endless forest as far as the eye could see, it was all as if he was running in circles.

William’s breath hitched in realization at the last thought.

He had seen arrays in use and knew it was versatile beyond imagination. So it wouldn’t be too much of a shock if he actually was running around in circles.

Maybe he had fallen into one the moment he landed on the forest floor? That possibility made William’s heart chill. If this was an illusion he was stuck in, he was basically a sitting duck for anything wanting to snack on him.

… It might also be why it seemed like the forest was utterly dead. While William didn’t expect the situation with the scarcity of spirit plants to change, he certainly expected some encounters with spirit beasts.

The issue now was that William had zero clue of how to get himself out of this mess… if his assumption of being stuck in an array was true in the first place.