Chapter 6: Assassination

Following the distinctive marks that faintly guided him through the jungle, 20 minutes passed.

There were only [2H:30M] remaining on his potions effect and he still had to find his way back out of the jungle.

Fortunately, he had a decent memory and would find the path he sliced open without much difficulty.

Right now, Shane looked down into a valley with large soul-onyx trees secluding it from the outside world.

Shane could see a wide river dividing the valley into two sections, while both sides were littered with a black, radiant color.

He was still unable to sense the mana in his surroundings because he hadn't absorbed his first mana particle yet, which was impossible to do without a mana gathering technique, however, thanks to the Nightsight-potion, he could see inside the darkness.

Looking at the bottom of the valley, Shane's eyes glimmered in joy and a trace of greed.

'Nightshade flowers… YES…. and so many!!!' He shouted in his mind and both sides of the valley were completely filled with blossomed Nightshade flowers that could only be seen during nighttime.

Nightshade flowers were used to brew many kinds of potions but the most important potion was the Nightsight-potion he was using right now.

It was a Mortal grade herb with a trash or common quality in most cases and its selling price ranged from 4 to 8 silver coins inside human proximity because they were rare to procure and once found it was at most a bunch of them.

The System would only purchase the Nightshade flowers for 4 silver at most and that only if the quality was close to [Uncommon]. Because of that, it was better to sell them inside the shelter or on Igra.

He was about to search for a path downwards when he remembered that magical ingredients and herbs were always sought out by beasts in order to hasten up their own cultivation because Nightshade-flower radiated faint mana transmuted by the darkness affinity.

Seeing so many Nightshade flowers at once Shane was sure that some beasts had to be nearby.

But he couldn't see any, even after 30 minutes passed and he didn't have much time left with[2H] remaining.

As such Shane began to create his own path down the valley, with his guard up, as he looked around carefully.

Even though his tiny speck of cultivation was concealed, Shane could still be discovered by beasts around him.

On his way down, he found a few separated bunches of Nightshade flowers which caused Shane to smile happily.

It was the perfect moment for him to test the knowledge he had accumulated over the last few strenuous years.

And from the vast number of books he read one particular information was stuck in his mind that helped countless Cultivators during their journey through the Primordial Dimensions.

Once herbs were plucked, they would release a certain fragrance that attracted other beasts.

As such it could be considered extremely dangerous for someone to stay at the same place after plucking a herb.

When he was young he was scared that something like that might happen to him in the future, but from another book, he found out that this could be prevented if one was extremely fast and in the possession of a [Spatial Ring].

After plucking a herb there was a short timespan until it would release the fragrance that attracted the surrounding beasts

If someone was able to store away the particular herb or in Shane's case the Nightshade flower, one could prevent the fragrance from being released because a common spatial ring sealed everything from within, including the smell!

Furthermore, inside a spatial ring, the effect of herbs wouldn't decrease by much even over a longer period of time and humanity was still unsure how Spatial rings and so on really worked.

With that in mind, he tried to remember the way to pluck the Nightshade flower without damaging its facile roots and Shane knelt down in front of it, preparing himself to pluck the first flower.

He had to control his hands because they were jittering slightly and half a minute passed before Shane plucked the first Nightshade flower while interacting with his Spatial ring at the same time.

There was not a single moment wasted and the fragrance wasn't released, which caused Shane to shout out inwardly.

With a bright smile, he began to pick up the other Nightshade flowers one after another and once he had finished his first bunch, Shane noticed that he already collected 11 Nightshade flowers.

To scan them Shane would have to take them out which would release their fragrance, which was not possible at the moment.

As such, their quality was still unknown.

But before Shane could continue his way down to the valley, his ears jerked and he instinctively threw himself back, as he saw something black gushing out of the loosened soil where he previously plucked the Nightshade flowers.

Unsheathing his dagger with a smooth movement, Shane stood opposite a 50-centimeter long black-scaled snake.

The Black scaled snake hissed at him and it released some kind of black hue merging slightly within the darkness.

'F**k' Shane thought as he was barely able to evade the surprise attack.

It was a Shadow-Snake which was a low/mid-Wild beast with a darkness affinity, allowing it to merge with the darkness.

Fortunately, the effect was only minuscule and Shane could barely perceive the Shadow snake before it was able to bite him.

A bite from a Shadow snake wasn't poisonous but enveloped in darkness transmuted mana that would cause dizziness and other symptoms with the low dose injected into the prey.

From the length of the snake, Shane estimated that it was at the peak of the low-Wild stage which was roughly equivalent to a peak-3rd Mortal stage.

The shadow snake's strength was to sneak up on its prey and surprise attacks but Shane was able to evade it, which brought him an advantage because the most dangerous threat was eliminated.

Nevertheless, this didn't mean Shane could let his guard down as Shadow snakes normally lived in small packs due to their adoration for darkness transmuted mana, which brought them together.

A sudden premonition was built in Shane's mind and he frowned before turning his attention back to the Shadow snake in front of him.

'One step after another!' He told himself calmly as he went into the combat stance he learned from a martial arts expert.

This technique didn't use up any mana at all, which was extremely beneficial, even if it didn't increase his strength in any way.

By the System's standard, this technique Shane used was probably only a [Mortal-(Bronze) ] technique, however, adding his high proficiency with this technique it could be considered lethal to all kinds of wild beasts.

[Hunter's Mind] was passively supporting Shane's mind and he went slowly closer to the Shadow-snake that was roughly 2 meters away from him.

Seeing that Shane wasn't about to step back, the shadow-snake didn't think anything at all, because it couldn't sense any mana radiating from him, considering him as a pushover.

As such the snake glared at him and slithered towards Shane without caring about the razor-sharp dagger in his hand.

Because the distance between both opponents was already extremely close, the first one to surprise the other by a sudden increase of speed would normally win the life or death battle inside the jungle.

As such the Shadow-snake which was slowly slithering towards Shane shot upwards with a sudden increase of speed, once it crossed the distance of one meter between both of them.

With its wide-open maw, it shot towards Shane, who was calmly looking at the snake with his black eyes, before pulling the sholite dagger upwards, severing the Shadow snake with a clean cut.

Dark red blood spurted out of the severed body parts like a fountain before the organs spilled out of it while Shane´s gaze turned towards the bottom of the valley with a bad premonition.