Aaron got to the bottom of the foothills and for the first time he realized how big the grass of the grassland really was. It was around two meters tall on average and it stood in thick tangles like bushes. There were a few solitary stalks here and there, but they were in the minority. As soon as Aaron stepped into the Savanna properly, he was in the shade more than he was in the open. His line of sight was basically 0, since the grass moved slightly in the wind and so there was no way to see more than a few feet. Hiding in this grass was absolutely an option for prey and predators alike.

But to Aaron this was not an obstacle he could not overcome. He had used his other senses besides his sight on the fourth floor and this floor would be no different. He paused. There was another way to deal with the grassland, if it worked. Aaron jumped up with a Wind Steps empowered jump and landed slowly on the top of a stalk of grass and pushed himself off again. To his surprise it worked just fine. The stalk in question bent under his weight, but it was enough to find purchase to propel himself upwards. For a few minutes Aaron trained running on the grass, jumping precisely to stalks he wanted to hit and he found that he was once again terrible at it. The grass was thick and yet there was plenty of space in between. So more than once he dipped to the ground before coming back up. Which to be fair was not a problem if he expected it. But it was far less tactically useful and it felt like falling on his face and looking a fool. Not that looking good was a priority to Aaron, no, the real reason was that he could use his eyes when he stayed up above the grass. If he dipped to the ground his line of sight would be cut and he might lose track of something he was following.

In the end he came to the conclusion that he did not have the proficiency required to stay up on the grass permanently and that he just had to get used to landing on the ground sometimes until he could train and master this.

With that important question out of the way he started to search for the next best magical beast. He had gone straight into the grassland from his new temporary camp and was to the left side of the floor. Broodmother territory. Aaron's plan was to study the magical beasts, find out their strengths and weaknesses, figure out where they had their beastcores so he would have an easier time harvesting those. Last but not least he would try to harvest the egg gland of one of the broodmothers once he defeated one of the giants. But first he needed to get the lay of the land and figure out how strong the beasts on the fifth floor really were.

Aaron scented the air and listened carefully until he had a mental map of the surrounding savanna filled with smells and sounds. There had been a small group of lizards going to his left, or maybe a big group? He did not know, the smells mixed together and fused to an unidentifiable mass. He followed the scent trail and found no big footsteps by a broodmother, so this was what? A lizard detachment? A hunting party? Aaron followed the trail, his ears allowing him to be warned of any creatures lurking in the tall grass. He could hear them breathing before they could even scent him. It sounded like a group of lizards. Alien, hissing and with small claws hitting the ground or grass.

Slowly he crept towards the group of lizards and established their numbers without actually seeing them. There were around 100 heartbeats or more. Nothing truly big, but some bigger lizards from the sounds they made. Aaron bent his knees and then jumped up into the air to get a good look at the group of lizards he was tracking.

There were, as he had expected, more than a hundred lizards and they were all clustered around a lizard ten times their size. From up close, floating above them in the air, Aaron could see that the smallest lizards were house cat sized and their size increased up to one that was longer than a 20 foot alligator. The hulking reptilian raised its head and its beady eyes stared at Aaron, before it hissed. The placid lizards suddenly became agitated, they started to move frantically, their legs churning up the surrounding grassland, their eyes glaring, their mouths open as they scented the air. Some looked up at Aaron and hissed as well, which made the whole group only more agitated. In the end it looked like a school of piranhas were scurrying around underneath him and Aaron could see the lizards many razor sharp teeth.

He landed in a crash, his boots crushing two lizards underneath his heels and then the lizards jumped him. Their stubby little legs hid some strength in them as they shot at Aaron from all sides, their wide mouths opened, their teeth bared. Aaron's palms shot out and diverted the first few lizards. He moved, slapping the reptiles out of the air and narrowly evaded the first assault. But to his surprise the lizards did not stop coming after him. It was a bit like fighting the ants, just that these reptiles were far more resilient and instinctively knew how to surround and swarm a target. But individually they were weak. Aaron got used to the lizards speed, moved aside and kept on the move while he started to lash out with small compact punches that shattered the offending lizards skulls. They could take some damage to his surprise, their scales were tough, their bones hard and they had a frenzy to them that made them forget any pain or potential danger to themselves.

But alone these small lizards would not have been a real challenge, the bigger lizards were. One of the bigger ones, alligator sized, charged at Aaron, moving faster than seemed possible, its maw opened. Their snouts opened up wide and showed rows of sharp teeth. But at least the big versions did not jump. Aaron leapt into the air dodging the big lizard and stomped on the back of its head, almost getting bit in return. These lizards were tough and there was just too many of them. Aaron spent 90% of the time just defending or moving out of the way of attacks. But at least against the smaller lizards, his fists were more than enough to kill them. The smell of blood was strong in the air and it took a while to thin out the herd while evading charges and angry snaps at his feet when Aaron jumped away. But when Aaron had made a visible dent in the lizards surrounding him he attacked the bigger lizard.

While they lost to their smaller cousins or offspring in speed, the bigger versions made it more than up in toughness and sheer physical strength. Their claws were sharp and the lizard used them and its giant maw to devastating effect, using the claws to guide Aaron to dodge into its waiting maw. Aaron shot backwards as he moved back into the defensive. With being pressured by the giant lizard coming for him he was put on the back foot until he got used to the ferocious assault in close quarters. Just running away from it was very different than charging into range of its maw. But he quickly realized that there was a pattern to the giant Lizards attacks and the claws were not as quick as they initially felt like. They had limited range and the size of the lizard forced it to only use one of the claws at a time or it would probably crash to the ground.

Aaron capitalized quickly on those insights. The maw of the lizard snapped at his head and he dodged, pushed the maw away, only to almost get scratched by a giant claw. But this was a calculated move. After the claw had swiped to the left, the lizard had to bring it back to the ground or lose its balance. Aaron moved around the big lizard in that small window, evading other lizards that jumped at him, slapped the giant lizards head into the ground and then punched its abdomen. He broke its ribs with two hard punches and the lizard hissed loudly in pain. More of the bigger lizards came over, their slower speed had still allowed them to surround him. But Aaron was fast enough to deliver the finishing blow before they could interfere. A Qi reinforced punch to the side of the head ended the lizard and turned its head into a bloody mass.

Aaron turned around to face the other bigger lizards and the gigantic one that had held back so far. But the biggest lizard took one look at Aaron and the dead lizards surrounding him, big and small and hissed. On that command the whole group of lizards scampered away, their quick feet carrying them away from Aaron and the battlefield in a rapid retreat that made Aaron blink in surprise. The bigger lizards lingered, covering their smaller cousins retreat and then stomped off far quicker than Aaron had expected.

"Huh." Aaron said surprised again. These beasts were smarter than he had expected them to be. They had seen that he could kill one of their bigger members even while surrounded and so they had decided to flee instead of continue to fight. Aaron could not remember, but was this the first time a monster had fled from him in the Tower? He thought it might be. This made the lizards much smarter than he had initially expected them to be and as such a much more dangerous foe. If they came back with more lizards to overwhelm him or if they brought a behemoth to support them...But he would see if they were that smart. Aaron could always flee himself if things got too dangerous.

Aaron frowned at the battlefield, trampled grass surrounded him and the shattered, battered and broken bodies of dozens of smaller lizards. The big lizard in front of him towered over the other lizards by a lot and Aaron studied the remains. As he had suspected the smaller lizards did not have any beastcores. Their bodies were too small to even form one of these he guessed. But the bigger lizard had one. It was located under thick plates of bone at its neck, directly behind its brain. Aaron found it while he tried to remove the head of the beast. He had planned to meticulously search for it, but the plates had made him curious and he had been right. Aaron tore a small nail sized beastcore out of the dead lizard.

It was too small for a proper beastcore and Aaron frowned when he studied it. It was like a protocore. A core still growing into its form and Aaron's frown deepened. If he was unlucky none of the smaller lizards had any real beastcores and only the fully grown behemoths had a fully formed core. Which would be incredibly inconvenient. Then again he would hunt them sooner or later for ingredients, so it wasn't too bad. Curiously how giant Lizard would taste he cut out some choice cuts from the big lizard. He returned with them to his camp and put them on the line to dry. Then he went back out into the grassland. The track between his camp and the open savanna was really short and only took a dozen or so jumps with wind steps.

Aaron had gotten a pretty good look at the lizards in general. They were tougher than most things he had encountered on the fourth floor, were numerous and smart. Their numbers were made to overwhelm and he guessed if there were thousands of them that it would be a problem. But he could always extradite himself out of any dangerous situations with wind steps, so it was not too bad at all. Next thing he had to do was kill a behemoth. Once he had established the threat level of them he could turn the lizards into a training aid. But only after he had clearly mapped out the dangers.

Aaron spotted one of the giant lizards that was a bit isolated from any of the other house sized giants and jumped towards it with huge leaping bounds. The closer he got, the bigger the behemoths became until Aaron paused and stared upwards. These lizards really were house sized. This was not even funny anymore. How could he kill something like that?

The physiology of the Lizards changed with their size. The bone like plates covering their necks to protect the protocores grew and started to cover the entire beast like living armor. This made their necks look shorter than they actually were and closer to the behemoth he could see that it was really armored from head to toe. Their four giant legs had increased in size to hold the bulk of the giant lizard and Aaron could hear it breathe through multiple openings all over its body. Aaron would not have been surprised if it had multiple lungs. Its head was massive, bony ridges covering it, but it could move its head up to ground level to eat. It did not need to squat down or anything like that. In short it was a giant heavy set piece of bone and muscle. It moved ponderously and slowly, but if the explosive power from the smaller lizards was similar, if muted by this behemoth. It would be capable of a fair bit of speed and crushing enemies underneath its bulk. The solution to that was simple. Never be underneath it.

From what he could see the underside of the lizard was just as armored if not more than the whole lizard, it even had spike like protrusions on his belly, probably to crush and maim creatures it sat on.

Aaron hesitated when he saw the truly massive army of lizards surrounding the behemoths. None of the lizards were as big as the one he had seen with its own group, but a fair few, around 50 were slowly getting to that size. The smaller lizards numbered in the thousands. They were a gray mass of shimmering scales moving through the grassland like a plague. But if he was honest the bigger versions were his least problem Aaron guessed.

He stopped hesitating and leapt up into the air with a full range jump, leaping towards the behemoth in a huge arc. But he was still too far out to reach it in one bound, so he crashed into the sea of lizards, stepped on top of a giant lizard and pushed himself off, leaping towards the giant thing. The hisses started all around him in alarm and soon the smaller lizards started to churn and run and swarm. Aaron was still in the air and he narrowly got to the behemoth. Up close it was so tall, Aaron was reminded of a dinosaur. He grabbed hold of an armored plate on its giant leg and then propelled himself upwards on top of the thing.

The big lizard oozed magic up close. To his mana sense it felt like the whole thing was a solid mass of magic. It halted its step and then hissed in a deep roar that made Aaron's hair stand on end and his ears hurt from the sheer volume of it. There were no spikes on the top of the lizard, just bony ridges and bone plates as tough as concrete, or tougher. Aaron frowned and infused his shoulder and hand with Qi, reinforcing himself, before punching into a gap in between the armor plates. It felt like hitting a massive boulder, not a living creature and there was no feedback of damage at all. He repeated the punch, trying out different spots, but there was not an inch on the giant's back that was not as solidly armored as a fortified bunker or a tank.

Maybe Aaron might have found a weakspot if he had been given time, but he was soon not alone anymore. The smaller lizards climbed up the behemoth with the agility of geckos and soon a wave of them crashed over Aaron from all sides. There were hundreds of the things coming for him. Aaron had to pause and defend himself. He sent a bunch of lizards flying off the behemoth and killed a few when he got an opportunity. But the mass of lizards was never ending.

Aaron leapt into the sky, getting a better overview and frowned when he saw the whole behemoth covered in smaller lizards who churned and scrambled around to find him. Aaron was mostly scentless and the lizards were not trailing him that way. They just covered everything in the vicinity through sheer numbers. But in the end this was exactly what he wanted. To learn about the lizards behavior and find solutions for them. So he experimented.

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His first thought was that the neck that extended from the lizard had to be weaker than the rest of the giant thing because it had to be more maneuverable. So he landed on the back of its head and found impressive armor there as well. But the narrower space compared to its back meant he could defend himself easier and so he was able to test out the different spots on the giant lizards neck even while defending himself. The behemoth did not like that at all. It hissed and retracted its head into its body like a turtle before looking around with its giant lizard eyes for Aaron. Aaron had jumped off the receding neck and floated in the air. The Lizard spotted him and then its neck shot forward, its giant car sized maw snapping at him with the speed and mass of a freight train.

Aaron halted his fall and the lizard missed, before Aaron fell downwards and punched its eye with full force. To his surprise the eyes were covered in a see through membrane that was tough and flexible, so the eye did not pop, like he had expected it to. It just made the behemoth angrier. Aaron climbed down the side of the lizard, fending off the smaller versions with one hand until he hung underneath its maw. The lizard started to shake its head in anger, trying to shake him off, but Aaron held on and started to test the underside of its throat. This was definitively a weak spot as there were no armor plates, just leathery skin with thick scales. Aaron punched and splintered the scales, hammering into the beast, bloodying it rather quickly as he broke the skin.

The giant reptile retracted its neck again, much like a turtle would and Aaron was slammed against its chest armor. He bounced off and dove back up, making the giant maw miss him again while he did so. For all its weight and power, it was not fast enough to give Aaron problems. He crashed back into the same spot on its throat and got a bloody harvest. It was awkward though. He could barely leverage enough strength to hurt the thing seriously like this. But on the other hand he was almost entirely safe in the air, none of the lizards could harm him effectively while he bounced around and hit the giant things throat over and over.

The behemoth retracted its head again, covering its neck and balefully stared at Aaron. He felt it before it happened. Magic deep inside of the beast began churning and building up to a discharge. Aaron frowned and quickly activated the shield ring on his finger. He felt the magic signature catch and then a bubble of magic formed around him in an instant. The lizard opened its maw and then Aaron could hear electric discharges and pops as the whole lizard's outside bone plates became electrified. Aaron stared at the behemoth as it shocked many of the smaller lizards, who fell of its flanks. Then a bolt of lightning shot out of its maw as it aligned it with Aaron's position.

But Aaron did not just hang around mid air. He dove down to dodge and a bolt of blue lightning two feet wide passed over him moments later, arcing towards the ground, sizzling on his shield as the two magics met each other. The arc of lightning was massive, but because of the shield protecting him, the worst was the booming sound it was accompanied by. The lightning arced out into the air and then grounded itself in many smaller lightning bolts towards the ground. Aaron bounced of an electrified lizard as he hit the ground and shot back up. Magic lightning throwing lizards had not been on his menu, but that did not mean it was a real threat to him. If the lightning arc had hit him directly without shield it might have been a problem. But he doubted it. His body was tough and the arc would have grounded itself through his body to the ground. It might have incapacitated him from the sheer pain though.

Still this made the lizard much more dangerous. There had been plenty of friendly fire though. To Aaron's surprise the lizards that had been electrocuted stood back up quickly, probably used to or hardened against electric shocks. Aaron used the time in between the horde getting back up to leap back into the air directly at the lizards head. The Lizard seemed slightly stunned by the discharge and Aaron hit its eye with full force, breaking the membrane and making the lizard roar. The roar shook Aaron and he winced, giving the Lizard time to close its eyes with giant bony lids.

Aaron smirked and started to work over its face until it moved its head and snapped at him, exposing its throat again. Aaron used the chance and did more damage to its throat. He deactivated the shield around him while he was at it. It was awkward as there was some repellent force when the shield hit anything and while his fists could move out of shield range, he still bounced back whenever he touched the magical beast with his feet.

This started a cat and mouse game between the giant behemoth and Aaron, who was like a wasp floating around it and stinging it repeatedly. The lizard had to take time to discharge the lightning bolt and Aaron could sense it beforehand, so he was always prepared. After twenty minutes Aaron had ruptured one eye of the giant lizard and its throat was bleeding profusely. The Lizard huffed and breathed hard, clearly tired after having unsuccessfully discharged the lightning twice more.

It was a strange aerial battle. The smaller lizards had not the range or leverage to do more but be annoying when they leapt at Aaron when he got close to any of the behemoths limbs. The bigger more land bound ones had no purpose at all and they just roamed around looking for enemies they could kill and tracked Aaron's movement with sharp hisses. But Aaron was never in any real danger from anything but the behemoth itself. The sheer force behind its maw was considerable and Aaron had no doubt he would be bitten in half if it got him. But it was too slow to ever get close and Aaron could maneuver around it without much trouble.

In the end the fight ended when the behemoth collapsed on the ground. Its shaking legs had not been able to hold up its full weight any longer. Aaron guessed the behemoth had been weakened by blood loss the most. Aaron's persistent attacks had kept the bleeding going and with only one eye still functional Aaron had piled on the damage from its new blind spot. It was an extremely slow way to kill anything, but Aaron had no choice. The behemoths bones were harder than he had expected and the bone plates protecting its body were just as durable. Aaron suspected they were magically reinforced, because otherwise this made no sense at all.

With the behemoth out of the fight and slowly dying, the rest of the lizards swarmed the prone mountain of bone and flesh. Aaron kept thinning their numbers, worrying he had to kill all of the lizards to get to the behemoths core and egg gland. But luckily it did not come to that. When the behemoth's heart stopped Aaron felt the magic in its body change. Instead of a nexus of roiling magical force in its body all of the magic started to focus in one spot. Afraid the lizard would blow up, Aaron leapt away from it and waited in a more safe distance until the magic had settled down. From what he could tell it had focused behind its head and as such there was probably its beastcore.

Aaron frowned and leapt back towards the now dead behemoth and was welcomed by hissing and scattering lizards. Groups of the still massive army split up and left, lead by one of the bigger landbound lizards. Aaron even spotted some posturing of rivaling lizards and then most of the lizards had left, forming their own little warbands.

Apparently the behemoth had kept this group together and there were some social dynamics or herd dynamics to be more precise of the lizards that took effect when the leading force was removed. Aaron landed on top of the lizard and soon was alone with the corpse after he had to fight a group for it. He spotted some lizards taking tentative bites out of the dead behemoth, so they were clearly cannibalistic as well.

After scattering all of the lizards Aaron went to work with his enchanted dagger to cut out the core. It was hard, bloody work as he had to cut out an armored plate painstakingly and then he dug deeper into its flesh until he finally saw a shimmer of light. Aaron dug out the beastcore and it was massive. The size of two fists combined and glittering with blue gray light. He got a small electric shock when he touched the core and he marveled at the beauty of it. Despite this being the only beastcore he could harvest from a giant mass of lizards, this was most likely a higher quality beast core and as such more valuable and hopefully also more useful. He had to see when he tried absorbing it. Aaron deposited the beastcore into his bag of holding and then went on the even bloodier work to find the egg gland.

When he was finally done it had taken him almost an hour to find it. He had started at the right side, the back side and had cut himself into the mountain of flesh. The egg glands were gigantic and there was a dozen of them. They must be part of its reproductive cycle somehow, but they were clearly magical. He could sense it and that had been the only reason he had actually found them. Aaron's butchery had attracted other groups of lizards though and after defending his kill he cut out the egg glands, put them in a little sack he had prepared for them and let them vanish in his bag of holding. Then he got out of there.

His ears told him that three giant behemoths and their entourage were on the way to the bloody kill and from a distance Aaron observed the three groups clashing. There was some conflict, some hisses and then the behemoths eyed each other. They postured, roared and then sent out electric arcs of lightning as a warning shot. Well, two of them did. The third was a darker color along with all of its lizards and it spewed out a fountain of fire that turned the late evening into mid day it was that bright. Aaron could feel the heat from his position at the edge of the foothills. It was no surprise that fire spewing lizard claimed the prize and started to feast on its fallen brethren.

It was good to know that there were different versions of the lizards and also terrifying. That fire lance could have been really, really bad for Aaron. He had no idea how any group of vessels or mages was supposed to kill these giants. Even if they slowly whittled it down like he had, the army of smaller lizards would overwhelm any group that was not massive itself. The standard groups of 5 to 10 would be totally outnumbered and outgunned. No wonder nobody seemed to chose this side of the floor to pass.

Aaron caught himself an antelope, basically just picking it up and killing it on the way. They were absolutely everywhere and Aaron felt quite hungry after his hour long engagement. He was not physically tired, but he was mentally drained.

Back at his camp he butchered the antelope, let it bleed out as he strung it up and removed any bloody offal by dumping them into the grassland, where he had no doubt the lizards would make short work of it. Then he took a long bath, scrubbing his skin clean from the coppery smell of blood and washing his clothes thoroughly with the alchemical solution.

Only after he had changed clothes and was clean he felt like a person again. He grabbed some of the pieces of lizard he had hung up earlier and fired up the manastone burner and a pan to make himself dinner. The stove was marvelous. A knob allowed it to regulate the heat as it slowly burned through manastones in a very efficient manner. Aaron tried the lizard meat without anything first, just perfectly cooked and seasoned with a bit of salt, while he sat in his camp, letting his mind calm down and his body relax.

Lizard tasted unsurprisingly like stringy chicken. It was not entirely equivalent, but close enough that it made Aaron chuckle. He then made a spicy marinade for the rest of the lizard meat he had harvested and feasted upon a spicy lizard stir fry. He made himself some flatbreads too and he ate himself through the entire meat supply in short fashion. He even tried the antelope, by cutting of a leg and roasting it over the manastone burner directly. Only after eating almost his body weight in meat and flatbreads he felt satisfied.

He would need to go hunting for two antelopes at least every day to not go hungry. Next he planned to make a nice stew in the morning and have it simmer over a very low flame for the whole day until he was back from his next foray into the grasslands.

Night had fallen during his feast and yet the grassland was still noisy. He was not sure when the creatures slept, but he would find out one of these days, just not today. Aaron leaned back and pulled out the beastcore he had harvested. He studied it while he thought about the lizards and their threat level.

The problem with the lizards was that the behemoth and the many small lizards complemented each other perfectly. It would be difficult to train on a behemoth group. The swarm of smaller lizard which would be ideal for unceasing palm training, but because of the behemoths magical attacks and their bites that were absolutely deadly, it would be a bad idea to train the palm kata with them around. The behemoths were too heavily armored and Aaron guessed he would be incapable of really hunting them until he mastered a new technique. The third Heavenly kata came to mind. The Piercing Finger it was called? Maybe that would have a solution for this problem for him. But he was weary to use up Qi for no reason and delay his rush to the foundation realm.

There was nothing to train on the behemoths themselves because they were too dangerous. If he focused on the fight and did everything right. If he stayed defensive and just focused on making these giants bleed out, it would be successful in the end, but there was nothing he could learn, nothing he could train. Precise movements with Wind Steps would help, but focusing on them while he was fighting the behemoths would be suicide. He needed all his concentration to do that, so really the lizards were out as a training ground for now, except smaller groups he could use to hone the Unceasing Palm kata.

Aaron sighed and stood up. He stretched and went into his evening routine. The stretches became Mei's variation and then he transitioned into the Heavenly Kata. The rejuvenating effect of the fist kata was almost nonexistent as he had used most of it up during his fights. Mostly unconsciously. It was one of the reasons he did not get tired. While fighting he refreshed his muscles and with the fiend-god arts inexhaustible energy supply he could basically fight all day if he wanted to. The only negative was that the fiend-god art turned any exhaustion into hunger. So the more energy he used up, the hungrier he got, instead of tired.

When he was done with his routine Aaron settled down to meditative and cultivate. He calmed his mind, sitting in the darkness as he slowly let the sounds and smells of the distant savanna fade. The sound of the nearby stream followed until even his own breath faded and he arrived in a place of tranquility and serenity. Where all that was left was his Qi inside of his dantian and pulsing through his body. He got out the giant beastcore he had harvested from the behemoth and held it in his right hand.

He could feel the energy inside of the core. Could feel the power and through his meridian that was opened and touched the core directly he could almost taste the energy. While he concentrated on the energy within the core his own Qi seemed to reach out and then without much resistance the beastcores energy flowed into Aaron. It was like there was a pull from Aaron on the surrounding energy, be it magical or not. But beastcores were not filled with magic. There were different. Magic had mixed with something more, had become something else entirely and it was close to Qi, not really Qi, but almost there. When his body absorbed the energy it became Qi in a heartbeat.

Aaron let the slow stream of energy from the core in his hand saturate his body for a moment while he analyzed the energy. It was like a weak, watered down version of Qi, more than magic, but not quite there and it felt like electricity. Which was not a surprise considering who the core had belonged to. The beasts energy flowed into Aaron's cultivation cycle as he took control of it and soon he was cycling the energy while the world ceased to matter. He was just focused on directing the energy, of pulling the steady stream of power into his cycling pattern and then feed it into his dantian.

The power of the behemoth was massive, but it was a steady supply as he absorbed it bit by bit´. The amount he got was limited by the one Meridian that touched the core. The energy he got was so much more potent than manastones it was barely a comparison. It was magnitudes better than manastones, but also magnitudes worse than absorbing a vessel's spirit.

It took Aaron more than 3 hours to absorb the beastcore entirely but Aaron did not reach any absorption limit like he did with manastones, which made him excited. This meant he could absorb beastcores as much as he wanted, he just needed to get them. He was finally done in the early hours of the morning and sighed contentedly. The beastcore in his hand had first shrunk then crumbled into dust. Nothing was left but a bit of residue he blew of his hand. This beast core had filled almost 10% of his dantian. Which was a really really good result. But considering how long it took to kill the behemoths it might not be the most efficient use of his time.

Aaron crawled into his tent and yawned when he got under the covers of his sleeping bag. This was the height of luxury for camping in the wilderness. He was safe here in the foothills and so this was a very comfortable spot for him to train. Tomorrow he would check out the central spot and the hyenas. Maybe they would prove to be better training partners than the behemoths.

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