The large bag he bought at the general store after becoming a porter in Kat Town was definitely handy after his inventory became limited. But Axel Blaze couldn't ignore the discomfort he felt while carrying a bag on his back all the time so he threw it away after leaving Kat Town.

"...Haah, seems like I have to buy another bag to carry potions and stuff till I can do something about this inventory."

While murmuring his complaints he picked the item cards he wanted to trade and put them inside his pocket before entering the Commercial Guild building of Karma City.

He acted to press buttons in air while ordering Ruby to unlock the item cards one by one.

...

The receptionist lady was shocked with the sheer amount of materials this porter laid out.

She frowned with suspicion, "Sir, which party did you work with? They allowed you to take all these items? Do you have any proof?"

Axel Blaze smiled, "I didn't work with any party, these are all materials I got from dismantling corpses hunted by others."

"Oh, that was also a way. My apologies."

"No worries Miss, can you please calculate the price now, I am in a bit of a hurry."

"Ok, please wait a minute."

As their conversation was over, Axel Blaze heard a snort of contempt from the adjacent counter.

"Fucking leech!"

A young man in his 20s cussed Axel Blaze. He is also a porter here to sell some items and collect Reputation Points.

Axel Blaze doesn't care, let others think what they want, he only cares about earning money.

...

Just before the night has fallen, the materials were all sold at a good price before Axel Blaze left the Commercial Guild building with a kind advice from the receptionist—

"Please avoid stealing other people's loot as much as possible. Even though there are no rules preventing it, we cannot help you if you get into trouble because of this. There have been cases where people have been murdered for stealing and the assailants didn't get any Wanted Tags."

...

After spending the night again at a slum building, Axel Blaze left for the forest to increase his level before buying a small bag and filling it with all sorts of potions.

During his one day one night stay in Karma City, Axel Blaze also did some searching for the three Murderer Guild members. He couldn't find any traces of them. Either they left for something else or they are still trailing the man Axel Blaze hooked them with.

...

"Run!"

"Move!"

"Die!"

"Over there!"

"Watch out!"

The deeper part of the three kilometers pathway is too chaotic with people constantly engaged in combat with high level monsters. There's not even time to steal other's prey as danger is looming behind every tree and bush. Even the hired porters are engaged in combat.

The number of monsters here is no joke. This is only one kilometer away from Karma City.

The three kilometers wide pathway is said to be 20 kilometers long.

Just what level of monsters are waiting at further depth if Axel Blaze have already come across level 25 monsters at one kilometer mark?

...

There is no need to hide the Card Binder here as no one is free enough to investigate him.

Card after card of Common Skills were used and after two hours of battle, Axel Blaze hunted his first level 25 prey, Moss Bear.

The Moss Bear is three times the size of a normal bear and is lazy as a Sloth, but the bastard has massively large claws which shoot razor sharp wind cutters. Moss Bear also has a regeneration ability which makes it extremely tough to kill. Fighting against a Moss Bear always tends to be a drawn out battle.

Axel Blaze felt extremely tired but rather than sitting down on the ground he tried his best to stay standing. He was quite lucky that he didn't get attacked by other monsters while he was fighting the Moss Bear, the monsters must be following the hierarchy rules of the jungle. Also, the deeper you go into the path, the less the number of monsters become, as they all are gathering to the frontlines, in front of Kat Town.

Ruby scans the surroundings and as expected, the level of monsters are somewhat high and their numbers are manageable, they all are individually weaker than the Moss Bear and hence are hiding nearby ready to pounce as a group as soon as Axel Blaze shows any weakness.

…

"Phew... That was tiresome. Using Common Rank skills is really inefficient to hunt high level monsters. The skills the Moss Bear was using were all Uncommon and Rare Rank ones."

Axel Blaze chugged down a Stamina Recovery Potion to recover his END stat.

"Hey Ruby, how does the END recovery work? VIT, MP and DP have their own Recovery Rate Stats, but END doesn't."

The Stamina Recovery Potion Master drank just now is actually a mixture of VIT Recovery Potion and Mana Recovery Potion. As the recipes are different for each, people don't realize the true nature of Stamina Recovery Potion. The potion does not recover END but a hidden stat, Stamina. Life Energy from VIT Recovery Potion and Spirit Energy from Mana Recovery Potion reinvigorates your body and soul and hence helps your body to recover from exhaustion. You may have felt similar effects when you level up because leveling up recovers your VIT, though as it doesn't recover your mana, your stamina couldn't recover completely. That's why, you still feel a bit tired after leveling up.

Everyone has 100% Stamina and it drops as you work your body which affects your body's endurance level and so the END stat drops. It is a mechanism to stop you from using Skills as using Skills with a tired body may cause the vessel to break.

"I see. Also, one more question. This Stamina Recovery Potion should recover 100 END but it only recovered 75. I also noticed a similar drop of effectiveness in VIT Recovery Potion and Mana Recovery Potion recently, they only recover 75 points as well. Why?"

That's because the Master's body has grown stronger with level. The stronger a body is the tougher it is to do any damage to it, but it also makes it harder to heal. Just like an expensive purse needs expensive materials to repair, a strong body also needs similarly powerful healing agents.

"Now I understand why potions get expensive as their grade rises. By the way, what are my Experience Points now? How much more to level up?"

That Moss Bear gave 8,400 Experience Points. Your current Experience Points are 412,500/435,000. Three more Moss Bears will take you to level 30.

"That's nice but I don't wanna kill any more Moss Bears, it's too much of a hassle. Let's find some easy prey."

As Axel Blaze moved the bushes nearby also showed some movements.

Some monsters ran away.

"Must be low level ones who saw me defeat the Moss Bear."

Yes Master, there are still many hiding nearby though.

Axel Blaze nodded, "Let's leave this place for now, I don't want to fight numbers."

...

While Axel Blaze roamed through the forest, avoiding clusters of monsters and groups of people, he came across a party of 10, fighting two level 37 Armored Bears and a level 40 Armored Bear, 50 meters away from him.

Both the bears are giants. The tallest individual in the party only reaches to the kneecap of the bear.

Both the bears are flailing their sharp and heavy claws, slashing rocks and stones to bits. Hurling their large, heavy and stony bodies to crush their opponents.

…

"Oh, my best friends!"

Axel Blaze exclaimed from afar.

The party is so busy handling the bears that no one heard him.

Master's best friends? Wow! Who? Which one? I thought the Master doesn't have any friends or relatives but this came as a surprise.

"Surprise indeed. I am more surprised than you are."

"Let's help them."

Axel Blaze took out his sword and slowly crept towards the battle zone. But only 10 meters away from the crowd, Axel Blaze slowly merged into a thick bush.

Master?

"Shhh..."

...

"Veronica, cast a fireball now!"

"Harth, there is an opening on the left of the level 40 Armored Bear."

"Zed from the Willows Party, how many times can you use the Epic Rank healing skill?"

"Zed here. I can only use it one more time. It consumes too much mana for my level."

"Any other healing skills you have?"

"I can cast Rare Rank Heal 4 more times but one more of them and I cannot use the Epic Rank healing skill."

"Ok, then save your mana for the Epic Rank skill, it's an area skill right?"

"Yes, it's Area Heal skill."

"Good, just wait for my signal— Rest of you, focus your attacks on the two level 37 Armored Bears, we have to take them out within 15 minutes."

...

Seems like the Silver Wolf Party is cooperating with the Willows Party to hunt monsters and the main leader is surprisingly one of Axel Blaze's best friends, Luke!

As Luke commanded, all the combat oriented members showered their skills on the two level 37 Armored Bears while Veronica and Harth distracted the level 40 Armored Bear.

It took 40 minutes rather than 15 minutes.

You have to understand why Armored Bear is called Armored Bear. Its defense is no joke.

...

Ruby, what are their levels?

All are between level 25 and 32.

What are the levels of Luke, Veronica and Harth?

Are they the best friends you mentioned? They are 32, 30 and 30 respectively. Why?

Axel Blaze breathed out, mumbling—

"Tough…"

The party is still going at the Armored Bears and it seems no one noticed themselves being Inspected by Ruby. You can tell that two Armored Bears are tough opponents even for high level and skilled adventurers.

...

An hour was expended to hunt the level 40 Armored Bear and the whole party was tired to the extreme. Everyone reached for the potions.

Luke was doing the same but—

Bam! Pew! Pew! Wooosh... Boom!

Suddenly a plethora of skills were launched towards Luke, Veronica, Harth and their hired porter as soon as the level 40 Armored Bear died.

Luke shouted, "Horden, what is the meaning of this?"

"Hehe, you are asking me? Really? You? You think we don't know what kind of party the Silver Wolf Party is? You should have seen this coming!"

"You..."

"Shut the fuck up and empty your inventory if you guys don't want to die."

"You wish." Luke took out several vials of potions and so did Veronica and Harth. But before their hand reached their mouths, the vials were broken by the Willows Party members.

Horden scoffed, "Are you an idiot? Do you really think we will let you recover? What a joke, haha."

All the Willows Party members broke into laughter, mocking the three Silver Wolf Party members.

The porter hired by the Silver Wolf Party is also quite brave. As soon as he saw the situation get unfavorable to him he rushed to the Willows Party side and emptied all his inventory and handed over the large bag filled with the loot of Silver Wolf Party.

Though he received murderous glares from the Silver Wolf Party, he at least saved his sorry life.

...

Veronica gritted her teeth, "Do you think you guys can get away with this? Go on kill us but I am not letting go of my belongings."

Horden clicked his tongue in amusement—

"Aha, what do we have here? A brave beauty? How about you join our Willows Party? If you serve the brothers well, I promise you will live a more lavish life compared to your stay in the Silver Wolf Party. How?"

Veronica spat with disgust, "Bastard! Ask your sister to serve your brothers, humph!"

Horden smirked, "Oooh... Spicy! I am like you more and more."

Luke interrupted, "Stop your bullshit. Horden, what do you want?"

"Are you deaf? Didn't I already tell you what I want?"

Luke shook his head, "You know yourself that you are being unreasonable. If it's money and some items then it's fine. But if you take everything from our inventory then it's the same as asking us to die. We have risked our whole life as adventurers to seek treasures, how do you expect us to hand over our very reason for living?"

Horden snorted, "I would have sympathized if it was someone else but you guys from Silver Wolf Party are not worth a sliver of my sympathy."

He took a deep breath as his expression saddened, "Do you remember Gote? The one you guys left dying in one of your quests? He was a friend from the same town."

"I guess, this reason is enough to explain why I am doing this— I want you guys to leave everything you have here and die by the hands of monsters, just like my friend died."

Luke frowned, "What are you talking about? I don't know any Gote." He looked at Veronica and Harth, "Do you guys know any Gote?"

Both shrugged and shook their heads in denial.

"Humph, so my friend wasn't even worth remembering?"

Luke flustered as his poor acting had the opposite effect, "No I—"

Horden raised his hand, "No need to make excuses. We have already done our research on you guys. We were waiting for months for an opportunity like this to come. With the current situation of Border City Karma, no one will care about the deaths of a few Veteran Rank Adventurers."

He crossed his arms in front of his chest—

"The choice is yours, either we torture you to the brink of death before letting the monsters finish you or you guys empty your inventories and earn a slight chance of making it out of this forest with your lives."

...

Master, your friends don't seem to be good people.

Axel Blaze rolled his eyes, thinking—

You idiot, you were born a few days later after I got bullied by those three and left Kat Town, else you would have known how much of a best friend they are to me.

...

What goes around comes around. The Silver Wolf Party has bullied and hurt many innocent adventures, they had this fate coming.

The three Silver Wolf Party members obediently emptied their inventories and after showing their inventories to Horden, they left quietly.

"Huh, scumbags!" Horden snorted before the Willows Party collected their loot and left the location.

Axel Blaze slowly walked out of the bush and followed behind the Silver Wolf Party.