Rohan and Elane set off from their makeshift camp after the sun rose the next day. Since they were already well into the night when they decided to take a break, they decided that they may as well extend it by an hour or two for dawn and get a couple more hours of cultivation in.

"Is it right around here that E rank beasts should start to appear more often?" Elane asked with intrigue.

The reason she asked this were the clearly man made signs posted up on trees every 15 minutes or so that warned F ranked Awakened to turn back at this point.

But knowing that the territory of the E rank beasts gets pushed farther and farther away from the city each year, she was unsure if this was the current limit, or a previous one that had been left behind from a previous time.

"You really need to ask...? But it beats me. All we can do is continue onwards until we find some beasts, that’s the best way we’ll get an answer to our question." Rohan replied.

***

They travelled for another thirty kilometres before they stopped.

Both Rohan and Elane had kept their eye out for any signs of activity in the areas they travelled through, but hadn’t noticed anything thus far.

Their bags were still quite full even after absorbing a good amount of Origin Crystals during their break, with Rohan even maxing out his Evolution Gene’s capacity just to rid themselves of even more baggage.

Right now, his status was too good not to admire:

[Name: Rohan Roy]

[Rank: F]

[Talent: Evolution Gene (Normal(F) - 100%, Elite(F) - 100%, Normal(E) - 9%, Elite(E) - 17%)] 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

[Genes: Molten-stone Skin (E rank - Elite)]

[Genetic Armaments: Horned Rabbit Spear (F rank - Commander)]

’This is the most my Evolution Gene has ever been charged! I can evolve two things at any moment I like right now, and I’ve even made steady progress with E rank energy as well.’

Things were going well on Rohan’s end, and his positive energy seemed to have transferred to Elane as well, as she was also all smiles.

"What’s with the grin?" Rohan asked. He didn’t remember anything particularly exciting happening for her since the E rank Camouflage gene had been dropped.

Elane’s smile widened a little at his question, though there was some nerves buried beneath.

"I don’t know... I just feel like things are finally going our way for once."

Rohan gave her a sideways look.

’She’s right, I guess.’

Over the past few weeks since getting to know each other, the two of them had gone through some very absurd situations for Awakened of their calibre.

By all accounts, they should have been dead several times over.

Yet here they were, trekking deeper into the forest hunting E rank beasts while neither of them had even stepped foot into that rank themselves.

"Saying that out loud is a flag." Rohan laugh-snorted.

The two of them continued on through the forest at a steady pace, deftly making their way through the dense jungle-like environment.

This far away from civilisation, Rohan had expected to encounter something worth his time fairly quickly. Even if not an E rank beast, then at least a few stronger F rank Elite tiers to add a few more Elite Origin Crystals to his stockpile.

But the forest remained stubbornly quiet.

At first, the two of them took it as a good sign, but after another thirty kilometres passed without a singly sighting, it gradually grew irritating.

The sun had climbed far enough overhead by now that the forest light had changed from a soft, morning brightness into the heavier hue of midday.

Shafts of sunlight pierced through the gaps of the canopies above, shining rays of light down on the floor below, but even in such prime time for beast activity, they hadn’t achieved a single kill yet today.

By the time noon had properly rolled around, Rohan’s mood soured.

"Haaa..." He let out a long breath, then rubbed at the side of his neck. "This is getting ridiculous."

Elane didn’t argue against that — she felt the same.

Spending half the day walking and watching but having nothing to show for it was quite a frustrating thing to experience.

"Even if the E rank territory got pushed back further than usual, there should still be something here," Elane said, furrowing her brows. "It doesn’t make sense."

They knew that they were long in E rank territory by now, as any signage warning F ranks from entering any deeper had disappeared dozens of kilometres back.

"I told you, you jinxed us earlier!" Rohan joked to lighten the mood.

"Anyway, let’s keep pushing," he said. "If we find nothing even after crossing even deeper, then either something about this place is wrong, or the information at Erenhot was wrong."

Elane agreed, and so they carried on.

And to their relief, the forest did begin to show some signs after that.

Several ferns were crushed in a straight line, a tree trunk had bark peeled away, looking like a beast had used it as a scratching post, and there were broken branches scattered all over the place.

Elane was the first to notice it with her senses, and she was immediately invested. She crouched beside a patched of the flattened brush and examined it lightly.

"This wasn’t done by a single beast, but by a whole pack!" She exclaimed, full of excitement.

After all, a whole pack of beasts was the best kind of find they could ask for, the only thing that could top it would be a beast nest.

Their earlier frustration eased at once.

If they could find this pack and take them all down, then it would make up for all the lost time they’d spend in the first half of the day finding fuck-all.

However, as the trudged further and splintered off, following the trail this beast pack had left behind, they were startled to stumble upon something that very clearly didn’t belong in this place.

"Does that look like a man-made trail to you?" Rohan asked, hardly believing what he was seeing.