Raiyan crept through the forest, careful not to step on anything that would pierce his bare feet. Luck was on his side though as the ground was just loamy enough that he didn't have to worry much.

Adding to his luck, the planet thankfully only held a single sun, the sunlight soaking through the blanket of leaves and brightening up the day. 

If it were a world like Namek, he wouldn't have a clue on how to navigate during daytime.

Every so often there were the sounds of birds chirping, their unfamiliar cries adding to the feeling of being in a foreign world.

The further he walked away from the mountain that held his alcove, the more unsafe he felt. If Raiyan was anything, it was cautious.

Thus, he dared not stray too far away.

It couldn't be helped that the wilderness was dangerous. Even ignoring the random bouts of dark energy that infected an animal or two, he had to worry about the naturally scary parts of the wild. Unknown- possibly poisonous plants, weather, natural disasters, and perhaps the odd person if they existed just to name a few.

If his situation was different, he wouldn't hesitate to stay in his cave and train for a few years. Sadly, life didn't work that way.

Though, I'm not in too much of a rush. Even if my body starts to deteriorate, I have a few days to explore. As long as I'm covert, I should be able to find something soon. Raiyan nodded to himself, assured in his thoughts.

Careful not to make too much noise, Raiyan crept through the mountainous forest.

Gradually, hours passed as the sun rose from the horizon to its peak. 

Doubts crept into his mind as Raiyan failed to find a single applicable beast, only finding animals he could easily slay. However, those animals would only provide a single dull gray Petty Soul if he harvested them, something he wasn't sure had any use.

It wouldn't be too bad to explore the rest of the forest, right? Even running into people shouldn't be a problem as this place seems similar to Earth… He knew this was a simple rationalization, but he was still human even in his old age.

Plus, his thoughts weren't based on just conjecture. From his experience, a planet's strongest being tended to have a power level around 50 times the average. Fifty was the maximum of this statistic, as any higher was seen as an anomaly.

While this was false for Earth, it was only false because Earth had been invaded by naturally stronger beings. It would of course be an outlier with beings from other, much stronger planets arriving.

The chances of him being transported to a world that was unbelievably similar to Earth while also being undiscovered by the Time Patrol were so astronomically small it wasn't even funny.

With these thoughts as his reasoning, Raiyan changed his mind about not leaving the mountain.

Taking a deep breath, he focused his internal energy and forced it to expand, overlapping with the cells in every part of him. Power welled up in his core, spreading out like roots from a tree and impacting the confines of his body.

Letting that breath out, Raiyan began to leisurely jog at a speed that would surpass any normal athlete running full speed.

Without Ki Sense to guide him, he dared not sprint through the forest as he left the mountain area. His eyes were only able to pick up small details because he was holding back, using most of his Ki to enhance his vision.

Nearly half an hour passed like this, as he swiftly went miles and miles away from the mountains.

Halfway through his jog, a thought occurred. Wouldn't there be a higher chance to find people if he wasn't near a mountain? The chances of any intelligent species settling near mountains were low, as most civilizations tended to start in plains or near rivers.

But there was nothing he could do about this. It was the unfortunate consequence of life that one had to deal with others eventually.

"Hm," Suddenly, Raiyan locked onto a certain part of the ground, the indents in the ground unfamiliar to him. Coming to an abrupt stop, he disregarded the dust he kicked up in his wake and walked over to the point of interest. With how loamy the ground was, finding footprints was rather easy for his enhanced perception.

But while he'd seen plenty of tracks on his jog, these were uncharacteristically large, almost five times the size of the average boar.

"This could prove interesting…" With his interest piqued, Raiyan followed the animal's trail, getting even farther from the mountains.

As he'd already spent half the day searching, he was likely going to have to find another place to rest before nightfall. This would be the last thing he looked over before giving up for the day.

Animals fled here and there as he walked, focused solely on the tracks in front of him.

Noon morphed into the evening, the sun still firmly in the sky despite being close to setting. If he had to guess, it was around 6 pm.

Eventually, the traces became more evident, getting Raiyan's hopes up more and more as time went on. If he could obtain a Lesser Soul from this, even just one more MP per day would be enough to begin serious training.

This was the turning point; The beginning of the end.

Suddenly, he could hear it. The creature bellowed and moaned, clearly struggling with something. Perhaps it was only recently infected and was fighting it off? 

The thought only made Raiyan move quicker through the undergrowth.

"Oh? This…" As he split through bushes and crawled his way out, Raiyan couldn't help but pause as he saw the situation. Unexpectedly, he'd found what seemed to be a massively oversized moose.

One that had somehow found its way into a pit trap, its underside pierced by spikes of wood, bleeding profusely into the ground.

With how much blood was in the pit, the huge creature had been there for quite a while already, struggling and howling at the sky.

"Is it worth it to possibly offend someone…?" Raiyan asked himself with a blank face.

After thinking about it, he concluded that he wasn't going to steal the moose itself anyway. The only thing he'd come for was the soul, something none other than himself would care for.

With that thought, Raiyan pulled the Glass Sword from his inventory, losing his last MP in the process. 

-Squelch!-

The moose, unable to move, couldn't stop the frail sword from directly entering its eye and going straight through to the brain. 

The moose roared even louder, thrashing about with all of its little energy, until it slowly stopped moving. 

Raiyan stared at its slow death, waiting for the wisps of the soul to indicate the power of its soul. 

After a long time, the light in the moose's eyes faded as tendrils of energy emitted from its body, reaching into the evening sky. Combined with the rank coppery smell of its blood pooled on the ground, it made for a depressing atmosphere.

"And it's still only a Petty Soul…" Raiyan sighed, retrieving his sword from the moose's eye. Luckily, the moose hadn't thrashed around enough to break it.

Suddenly, he could hear voices coming from a distance.

If the Kai's weren't so lazy as to give every being with intellect the same language, he wouldn't have understood them.

"Are you positive this will work? What if they think it's insolent and just kill us on the spot? I'm too young to die, man!"

"Right! I mean, what could they give us that'd be worth risking our lives!?"

Contrasting the loud, anxious voices, the third one was gruff and quiet. "They'll kill us either way if you two idiots don't quiet down. And it's not like I'm forcing you to come with me, you can go home and stay a coward if you like."

A feminine voice giggled right after. "Yeah, guys. It's not like you two will ever amount to anything compared to my big bro Briar anyway."

"Come on, Dahlia, have a bit of heart."

"Yeah. Don't you think that's a bit too cruel?"

"Shut up," The gruff one suddenly hissed, his voice getting even quieter. "Someone's here."

Coming around the corner, the three men and one woman walked confidently, each one matching the stereotypical looks of a fantasy elf; White hair, green eyes, and pointed ear tips.

But while the other three looked like Raiyan would expect an elf to look, the leader of the group looked completely at odds with his race. It was as if someone took the head of a pretty boy and slapped it onto the neck of a bodybuilder, his muscles bulging with each slight movement.

If Raiyan had to estimate, the man was around the same height he was in his past life. Simply put, he was huge.

When his eyes locked onto Raiyan, bloody glass sword in hand, he scowled. "Whose bastard are you supposed to be? Actually, I don't care. Just make yourself scarce if you value your life!"

Raiyan stared back at him with an empty expression. Well then, this should be fun…