At this moment, Nio was walking leisurely through a cave system, the same one he had discovered on his first trip to the forest.
After many years, he was finally going back.
This time, he was a cultivator and therefore much, much stronger. The various sparring sessions he had with his colleagues in Squad 9 were not enough for him to properly discern his true strength, and he needed a real challenge.
Besides, he needed to find a way to step into the Martial Beginner Realm. According to the teachings they had received that was only possible after receiving enlightenment.
This could be achieved after great hours of meditation or surviving a dangerous encounter. But Nio believed there was more to that. He had learned that a lot of what the western continent knew of cultivation had been filtered and/or altered by the people of the eastern continent.
For example, the western cultivator believed that the movements in Martial Arts had specific effects that allowed the qi in their body to flow in a specific pattern that reinforced their body. And that was wrong, you could reinforce your body whenever, just by controlling the qi in the body.
If not for the fact that he was used to controlling various energies inside his body he might have thought that was just a rule of cultivation, after all, unless he used the info of the system there was no way for him to know.
Anyway, today he was going to find that rabbit and kill it.
He was pretty confident. The Horned Rabbit was a creature of the Mind Tempering stage, just with cultivation alone, Nio was stronger, and adding his own strength with cursed energy, chakra, and the physical boost of [Itadori Yuji's Physique] and his own bloodline.
'I don't think I would lose.'
Just like before, he was using chakra strings to scout the area ahead in the dark.
(Genuine Question from the Author: Can the Sharingan see in the dark?)
He was not far away from the cave entrance close to the area the panther used to live in.
As for how he would find the rabbit? He was planning to go to the lake where he had found it and then search the area with the use of the chakra strings and the sharingan.
He was not in a hurry anyway, if didn't find the rabbit today, he could find it on another .
For as long as he could find it and kill it before his "graduation" and started his services as a member of the Stygian clan, he would be fine.
As he was thinking, he finally reached the surface.
He looked around at what was once the battlefield that had changed his new life.
Ever since that day he had felt severely lighter like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Nio smiled slightly, thinking back, even if he had been in quite the dangerous fight, it was quite fun, wasn't it?
"I should get going, there is still a good walk before reaching the lake."
So he started walking once again in the direction he remembered.
Several creatures tried to attack him. They were no longer as dangerous as they once had been, he didn't even need to reinforce his body to deal with them.
He had grown stupidly stronger than before.
It didn't take long for him to reach the lake, and it looked exactly as he remembered it.
He looked around for a while before deciding to simply walk around the lake, enjoying the scenery as well.
The moon illuminated the area, giving it an almost ethereal feeling. Nio couldn't remember any instance of his past life where he was able to witness such a view.
Even if he didn't find the damned rabbit, perhaps the trip was not a complete waste of time.
Alas, this trip wouldn't be a peacefull one.
Rustle Rustle
A certain sound could be heard from the bushes nearby, hidden in the shadows of the trees.
Nio sensed the changes around him and turned towards the sound.
A single-horned rabbit jumped out of the bushes and stared at him. Unlike the stare he had felt years ago, this one felt oddly curious. Like he was pondering why he was there.
In his past life, he heard that some animals had a look that reminded people of humans. A certain look that seemed to tell that they possessed as much awareness of the world as a human did.
Looking at this rabbit, that feeling was unsettlingly easy to perceive. All of his senses and instincts told him that what was looking at him was not a rabbit but something human.
Nio frowned. Was it always like this, and only after acquiring more strength had he noticed? Or did something change?
For a while, both beast and man looked at each other.
The rabbit suddenly rushed forward at great speeds.
Nio reacted quickly, entering into a stance and reinforcing his body with chakra and cursed energy. As soon as the beast approached him, he was quick to act.
He punched forward with great strength.
And the beast...
Splash
... exploded into bits.
And as soon as it did, several rustles were heard from the forest.
From there, several dozens of rabbits rushed towards Nio.
He was already aware of the existence of more than one rabbit, and they somehow were deeply connected.
But this...
"This is too much."
All the rabbits were of the mind-tempering stages. By themselves, they were nothing.
Even in great numbers, Nio could deal with them easily enough.
However, there was still a question to be answered. Just how many of them were there?
Although his END stat that regulated his stamina was well off, could he say that he wouldn't burn out before there were no rabbits left?
'At that point I would just jinx myself.'
From his fingertips, several chakra threads shot forth. They wrapped around several rabbits and trees in order to prepare a trap.
As Nio willed it, a lot of the rabbits were pulled towards the center of the web of chakra threads as he forced the trees to fall towards them, smashing some of them into pieces.
Without pause he kept attacking, smashing several of the creatures into pieces in true gory fashion. Eyes, teeth, brains, hearts, and intestines flew with each attack, staining the ground in red.
Slowly, Nio began to feel slightly overwhelmed. His performance was not dropping, nor was he feeling tired, however, he soon realized that he was stuck in that situation, and sincerely it was annoying him.
Without hesitation he jumped back towards the lake, using his chakra to be able to stand in the water.
The rabbits stared in surprise at what their opponent had done. None of them tried to reach him.
Of course Nio knew why. In the deepest parts of the lake, there was something that pulled whatever it could towards the depths.
In the past, he was lucky enough to successfully survive that encounter and end up in that cave where he awakened his own bloodline.
That meant that he was also in danger at the moment, but he was not planning to stand in the water for that long.
Using his physique's capability to sense changes around him, he stayed alert to any approaching tentacles or whatever it was used to pull things to the depths while he prepared his strike.
A smile appeared on his face. Up until now the fight was too boring for his taste, so he decided to spice it up a bit by using a very flashy move.
He quickly formed a rasengan made out of both chakra and cursed energy, both energies spinning in different directions.
Each second he fed the rasengan more and more chakra and cursed energy, and bit by bit it began to increase in size.
Sensing a change below him, Nio understood that something big was approaching from the deep.
He swiftly jumped high in the direction of the massive crowd of horned rabbits that were staring at him, with a giant rasengan in his hands.
Safe to say, the targets for it were obviously the poor beasts.
BOOOOOM