With the onset of night, Davis felt a quantitative change in his body. Even without mana, his muscles felt stronger, his endurance higher, and his senses sharper. It was a nearly full moon, and the Jungle was still yet from the day’s thunderstorm.

He hunted the beasts every 15 minutes, the knowledge discovered painless. In reality, he gave himself 5 minutes to find something to kill, so he really only had 10 minutes of rest, or in this case, progress.

It was slow, but he was slowly getting there. Slaughtering was much better than losing bits of his lifespan and vitality with each unsheathing of Amaterasu.

Although, whenever he couldn’t find something within those 15 minutes, he used the saved Aetherite crystals to buy some extra time.

Each Aetherite crystal bought a single minute, and he had fed most of his Aetherite to Masamune, leaving little for himself.

Davis sliced through some more Jungle shrubbery, making his way past a thicket of thorny roots.

‘Show me my progress’ He commanded the scrolls.

Davis continued, hacking through some more thickets.

“Hungry… Feed…”

Davis sighed as he heard a familiar voice inside his head. It was feeding time again.

A movement in the edges of his peripheral vision alerted him, as he dashed forward and sent out a blade of condensed mana, slicing into whatever that was hiding with a sickening crunch. Because the blade was made from Mana and not the strange Mana-blood hybrid material, it did not contain the properties of Masamune, so it only inflicted a wound on the monster.

It squealed in pain, and Davis followed up with a quick slash downwards, ending the poor monster. He gutted the beast, a familiar Lilliac, and took out 5 Aetherite crystals. In a small portion of his mind, he couldn’t believe how easy it was to kill these White/Black ranked monsters.

Only a month ago, he had trouble dealing with Red Ranked monsters, and now, he was dealing with White/Black ranked monsters like battling slightly more dangerous tomatoes. Even Lord-ranked monsters, something he wouldn't dare touch before, were nothing more than a slightly more difficult obstacle.

He stuffed the 5 into his bag and continued on his journey. The moon, partially covered by the thick black canopy, peeked through. He still had a long way to go until daytime.

His legs will hurt at the end of this…

…

“Should I visit my hometown in the Kingdom of Arden?” Davis asked himself. Having no one else but himself to talk to would make anyone a little crazy. Combined with the constant vigilance and killing, it was a wonder how Davis hadn’t gone insane yet.

“Hmm… maybe I should visit some sightseeing places first. The North sounds like a pleasant place…” He pondered, dropping a few more Aetherite Crystals on Masamune.

“Don’t you know? It's a big world out there. Lots of things to see. Lots of things to do.” He murmured, half to himself, half to Masamune. He didn’t even know if she was fully sentient yet, but the Scrolls had changed prompts to ‘A wisp of Consciousness grows’.

That was progress! Maybe he could even get someone to talk to after the Blood Moon.

Davis wondered if Amaterasu could even hear him, though he didn’t want to unsheathe her to test.

Ah well, no matter. The Jungle around him had noticeably thinned, with the lush greenery not as vast and thick as before, making travel much easier. Plus, the number of White/Black ranked monsters had also dropped, with lower-tiered Red filling the gaps.

As a result, the Aetherite thinned as well.

Davis began whistling a tune he remembered hearing at a tavern back in the east. It was catchy and easy to sing, but unfortunately, Davis was terrible at singing.

So the once beautiful melody was now nothing but a hoarse song filled with voice cracks.

He sliced through another monster, a Red Ranked Vinereaper, its sharp thorns falling listlessly onto the mushy ground. Stopping for a quick break and to gut the Vinereaper, he continued on after a few minutes, 3 Aetherite crystals in hand.

Just like that, 2 days passed. Every day, he watched with increasing anxiety as the moon got fuller and fuller, with tinges of crimson flashing at the edges of the moon.

In just 1 day, he would have to fight to the death against ungodly amounts of enemies. In just 1 day, it was entirely up to his skill for whether or not he would survive.

Every night was a sleepless one, fueled by only his curse, and the innate desire to survive. The jungle around him was much thinner now, instead transitioning into a forest, with dryer land, fewer amounts of greenery and shrubbery, and thicker trees.

The monsters here had changed too. Though Davis was confused as to why there were White/Black ranked monsters again, especially after not finding them for a solid day during the thinner parts of the Jungle.

He had passed a few Lord-ranked creatures, but Davis decided that they were simply not worth the trouble to kill. He had to make it out of the Devil’s Valley before the Blood moon, and every minute spent not walking is a minute wasted.

The sun was now beginning to set, with the last tinges of orange grasping at the horizon, long, dark shadows shrouding the forest in darkness. Soft blue lights floated aimlessly around the forest, ethereal, and untouchable by Davis’s hand.

Davis grit his teeth. The forest seemed to go on forever, each step bringing him forward, but the scenery was unchanging.

He had only hours left.

Hours until the Blood Moon rose.

Davis began to run, fueling mana into his legs. He had wanted to save as much mana as possible for the Blood Moon, but now, seeing that the forest was still stretching endlessly in front of him, he had no choice.

Dry leaf litter crunched underneath his feet, Davis zipping past trees that were older than entire kingdoms. Finally, as the last light of day died, Davis broke through a barrier of thick greenery and tumbled out into a vast green flatland, dotted with short, sloping hills and covered in little white daisies and dandelions.

A faint silhouette of a city could be seen in the very distance, and Davis estimated that he could reach it in roughly an hour by running.

But he did not have an hour, as he could not even catch his breath as the dark, omnipresent shroud of the night quickly receded as an eerie crimson glow dyed everything the color of blood.

The Blood Moon has risen.