Infinite Realm

*Whistle*

A gale blew by as Sato walked across the rocky grounds of the canyon.

Maldora Canyon had a topography similar to most canyons. The ground was hard and covered in red brown rocks that held no water; only the sun's heat. The terrain was a lot similar to that of a desert and similarly, the ecological system of Maldora Canyon was almost the same as the latter. It wasn't that there's was no source of water but that there was only one. A river moved through the middle of the canyon providing wetness to the nearby area. However, apart from the region close to the river, the others all lacked a source of water and so, were mostly coveted in patched "tiles" and dry rocks.

Trees that looked a lot like Acacia trees and Yucca plants were scattered all over the place alongside a few grey coloured plants that were adapted to the environment's lack of water. Even the monsters here were based on similar creatures that wandered the desert.

'The monsters ....' Sato narrowed his eyes as he gazed in front.

"Kreeee!"

A high pitched noise rang out from the field ahead of Sato. 

The scene ahead was strange since it was something that naturally wouldn't be possible in reality.

A large rodent-like creature stood still as it screeched into the air while confronting a huge snake with hostility surrounding it. The gigantic snake was covered in sepia coloured scales that acted as a natural camouflage for it in this environment as well as form of defence against attacks from predators and retaliation from prey. If it wasn't for the large rodent's confronting stance as well as targeted hostility, Sato would have barely noticed it the snake

'I haven't even gone that deep and the danger is this high already.'

As the two creatures were having a showdown, both sides had voluntarily released their aura in a bid to scare the other away. Sato, who wasn't so far from either of them and had just walked less than 200 metres into the canyon, could sense that the two monsters were quite strong; at least stronger than any monster he had met so far. While their fighting skill might not be exactly high grade, they were still very strong based on their aura alone. When comparing them with the Kobold King, apart from the difference in Life order and battle techniques, Sato believed that the two monsters in front were almost the same as the Kobold King in terms of strength.

The two beasts remained motionless as the air around them froze due to the intense nature of their confrontation. The temperature of the spot began to rise to the point that a slight movement from one side could mark the start of a violent and bloody battle. 

Eventually, one side lowered its head to the other and departed but the result was shocking and unexpected.

It was the huge snake that had retreated, leaving the truck-sized rodent victorious. Normally, rodents would almost always lose to a snake in a fight so the result of this little showdown was outside of the norms of the food chain. However, it did relay one fact to Sato. 

As the monsters of IR survived based on the two most popular laws of the jungle -eat or be eaten and the strongest is king- Sato was able to confirm that based on fighting prowess alone, the rodent was most likely stronger than the snake, but not by an overwhelming margin. Either that or probably that the snake realised that taking down the rodent wouldn't be easy and it might incur heavy injuries on its body in the process. Being injured wasn't so bad but in a dangerous location such as here, it was too risky as it could suddenly suffer an ambush from another predator. Knowing this, the snake might have possibly retreated for that reason alone.

'The monsters here are tough but it does make for a good levelling spot.' Sato thought from his hiding place.

High level monster meant more experience points and this was even more so for Sato who was level 15. Finding monsters at his level was a difficult task to pull off in town, but in the regions surrounding the city, this was very easy as monsters of that level were all over the place.

'There's also the materials. Black Rock City is a heavenly place for fighter blacksmiths.'

One of the reasons why Sato had selected Maldora Canyon as his first choice was because there was an open mine there. Even without a Miner subclass, Sato would still be able to excavate a few amounts of materials from the spot.

'But first of all, I have to see how well I hold out against these fellows.'

The location of the open mine was a bit deeper into the map. There was no way Sato would be able to reach that spot without having to fight his way through it. But before he could do so, Sato would need to face off against the weaker monsters to get used their skills as well as their fighting style. Since a majority of the monsters here were Common ranked, their stats would roughly be the same in terms of skill counts especially of they were at the same level.

"*Squeak*"

The ears of the rodent twitched as it turned towards a certain direction due the responses its senses had sent it.

Sato didn't take a sneaky approach as he felt it was pointless considering that the monster was able to spot a camouflaged sanke without a hitch. Nonetheless, he still tried to attack from behind but was still caught by the highly sensitive ears of the monster.

The bulging eyes of the creature glanced at Sato with a confused expression plastered all over its face. It looked naive like a cute little kitten staring at a human for the first time. If Sato didn't know that this monster had just scared away a huge snake, he would have considered taking it with him as a pet.

"No matter how cute you look right now, you're still a monster that I have to kill." Sato summoned [Drakken] from his ring as he walked towards the monster with caution.

*Screech!!!*

An ear-piercing sound was released from the vocal cords of the monster.

Though it couldn't understand Sato's language, it did feel a hint of hostility from him particular right after Sato had held his sword.

Just after squaring up to a difficult opponent, another adversary had just walked up to it. It would be a lie to say that the creature wasn't offended. This was even more so since Sato was a lot smaller than it. 

A certain ideology generally existed in the jungle, which was that the bigger a creature the stronger it was. By this motion, the rodent monster could be said to be stronger than Sato and it believed exactly the same. Hence, it was annoyed that a little creature much "weaker" than it was had actually walked up to it with hostility.

At that moment, all the held-back frustration and anger from the last encounter was released at this moment.

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