25 Storming the Central forest Part 1

['Swift steps' has reached lv.3]

A lush green scenery engulfed my surroundings, unlike the other two parts of the forest, this place was the only part that looked like a true jungle.

Vines falling from around the trees, insects buzzing around, howls of beasts roaring through the wind and such were everywhere.

However, my reason for coming here wasn't to admire the scenery, it was to finish achieving all my objectives in this part of the forest with the lowest amount of time possible.

As such, to make stuff as clean as possible I decided to go scouting around this part and surprisingly all it took was one week, such was only possible due to 'Mental Map'.

['Mental Map' has reached lv.2]

Although this part of the forest was about 2~3 times larger than the swamp sector, it only took me the same amount of time to finish this task.

'Mental Map' was like a unit with data saving RAM, all I had to do was to was check a part once to make a part of the map accordingly, and while this was possible using my photographic memory, I had to check several places to make sure I won't make a simple error to achieve an almost perfect map.

The unexpected part was the slow growth of 'Swift Steps', as it took me the whole week to barely reach lv.3.

Nonetheless, I was able to collect all the information that I required from this part.

The hierarchy in the central forest was quite simple.

At the very top of the food chain was a true monster called the 'Thunder Lion' while a small population of lightning tigers and leopards.

The next on the ladder were wind wolves and battle apes, the battle apes' fighting ability was slightly lower than the wind wolves but in exchange they had larger numbers.

All that was left of my quests were quests that asked to collect wolf pelt so normally I would avoid fighting apes and directly target the wolves.

But, I had personal objectives as well, while the wolves were also more powerful than I might be able to take on, especially that they travel in packs most of the times.

All of these beasts' information were found in the beast encyclopedia that I found on my house, which was to be expected as my parents were supposedly hunters.

As such I decided to hunt the minimum of 100 battle apes before targeting the wolves entirely to prepare and strengthen myself as much as possible.

There were roughly 300~400 apes in this jungle, so hunting 100 of them should satisfy the criteria of the first quest, no?

>>>>

In my new home, which was simply a huge tree which had an opening inside, I had widened it and camouflaged the opening to appear as natural as possible.

I put on a new suit of armor, as my first suit of leather armor had grown tattered and full of unguarded places.

Thankfully, I had brought a spare suit of armor, but I decided to fortify it somehow yesterday before I slept.

I had added light croc scales in the vital parts that needed extra protection to add another layer of safety.

As my battle plan this time had a new variable. Although I had the [Lightning Cloud] sword which had enough sharpness to penetrate through the apes' tough muscles, as they were a bit too huge to go down with one or two hits.

So, I had to use a new style of battle to achieve the extreme amount of damage I would be able to.

The answer to that was to use a 'Dual wielding technique', the only similar skill I could acquire was 'Dual Swordsmanship'.

Luckily, I had brought a spare sword with me and thanks to my improved stats I was able to use [Lightning Cloud] more easily.

However, although I had already maxed my only sword skill, fighting with a new style was bound to be dangerous especially against monsters who were 'lv.20' at the very least.

Thus a fortified armor was a must in this dangerous venture…..