The Place Where Everything Begins

After ending the gnoll's short life, the notifications suddenly popped up in front of Jeremy...

...

[You have received 1,147 SP]

[You have received 5x★ for successfully killing the close aide of the great Ladias tribe's leader]

...

*Fwuuu...*

Jeremy let out a long and tired breath after seeing the hidden boss finally stop moving and also a transparent window of notifications projected in front of him.

When the notifications about his rewards disappeared, other notifications asking him to exchange one ★ for a ticket to leave the first stage of the tutorial popped up instead.

Obviously, Jeremy chose 'No' as his answer.

'So tired...' Jeremy thought heedlessly to himself.

The bloody fight earlier had been ongoing for more than 30 minutes with back and forth counterattacks, resulting in Jeremy's mana field projection being activated more than eight times, reducing his 'purest' mana by more than 4% as a result.

Consequently, his remaining mana now was approximately 80%.

'Still good so far... If I had used 0th and 1st tier spells, I would have lost even more mana to take it down.'

In fact, if it were not for the mana field projection protecting him time and time again from the physically stronger gnoll's deadly attacks, Jeremy's conditions would not be any different from the now-dead gnoll by any means.

Heck, one horizontal slash from the gnoll even managed to hit Jeremy's stomach area earlier, but luckily, he survived that unscratched.

To be honest, one's mana field projection wasn't omnipotent. If the power put behind an attack somehow surpassed a 'certain threshold', the said mana field would be broken into pieces, leading to... well, 'some' damages to the owner.

In this case, Jeremy was pretty fortunate to face the same low-ranked organism as his opponent. Furthermore, it also had a common bloodline, which had no active abilities within its arsenal yet.

When Jeremy finished his thoughts, he walked towards the gnoll's corpse, aiming to loot something of value from it.

'Let's see...'

At that time, when Jeremy defeated those four hobgoblin warriors and one dark dokkaebi, he received a skill parchment called Mana Affinity from the treasure box.

As of now, after Jeremy finally finished searching the entire body of the gnoll, he found...

Nothing...

Indeed, Jeremy found absolutely nothing at all from the hidden boss' corpse.

As a result, he could only stand up from the crouching position with a twitching face.

*Sigh*

'Really? Isn't this too unfair? I've fought the hardest fight ever since I came into this fucking tutorial, yet I received noth... wait... I've received five black stars earlier...'

Upon thinking up till here, Jeremy, who had almost cursed the damned cupid again, suddenly bogged down a bit.

Because Jeremy knew all too well about the true value of those stars...

'It's worth it then; no complaint.'

So, now Jeremy had a total of nine black stars, four from earlier and five just now.

Regarding the usage of those stars...

Well, it could be used to exchange 'precious' things with the 'System', which were not just mere common rank items as in the Crystal, that's for sure.

Even though they could only be used to exchange for things after he arrived at Ortus, Jeremy still couldn't deny those stars' value, for they were truly priceless...

The things, in this case, didn't only mean items, though. They could be many other things, but that was a topic for later.

That's also the reason why Jeremy felt that the life-and-death battle earlier was very worth it, as he had received more than five black stars from killing the die-hard gnoll.

So, after storing the dead gnoll's steel sword inside his glove, Jeremy walked away slowly from where the battle took place, leaving behind only the gnoll's lonely corpse and the once-again desolate, darkening winter forest...

...

Several minutes later...

Jeremy finally found an empty clearing to pitch the tent as he brought out the necessary equipment and the tent from the glove.

Shortly after, a black tent was seen to be pitched in the middle of this unknown winter forest again.

As Jeremy didn't want to set up the tent so close to the brick house for fear of another ambush from the Ladias tribe, he could only pitch it around a quarter-mile away from the said house.

Well, if the Ladias tribe even existed in the first place...

Jeremy wasn't sure whether the tribe was created randomly by the cupid or existed for real.

Nonetheless, rather be safe than sorry...

After pitching the tent, Jeremy went inside and brought out cooking-related stuff from his left glove's storage one by one.

'Alright, another sumptuous meal of meaty steaks...'

Then Jeremy brought out two big pieces of vacuum-sealed fresh beef from the glove. Afterward, he unsealed the packages by using a kitchen knife.

'Oh, I almost forgot...'

Having thought of something fairly important, Jeremy brought out two cans of non-diet carbonated drinks and put them under the thick snow outside the tent.

Like the previous time, delicate aromas from the cooking steaks breezed far and wide into the chilly night-wind of the darkened snowy forest.

'I hope those wolves come to ambush me again...'

Jeremy thought fleetingly while enjoying his sumptuous and palatable meal.

...

Four hours later...

Right about now, Jeremy and every other Earthling had been forcefully kidnapped from Earth for more than 41 hours already...

Time indeed passed by very quickly...

As the night sky was still dark with only a minimal light from the incoming dawn originated from an unknown source, Jeremy opened his eyes slowly.

Starting from the time Jeremy, who was originally a light sleeper, came in contact with meditation and mana had caused him to be even more of a lighter sleeper than before.

As a result, Jeremy only slept no more than four hours a day no matter how tired he was ever since he trod his first step on the magical path again.

*Yawnn...*

With the sky still dark, Jeremy finally yawned and woke up from his sweet dream about thrashing the damned cupid black and blue.

In the dream, Jeremy finally got a chance to take revenge as he used a space-lock spell to immobile the cupid, then he burned it slowly with a hellfire spell the same as grilling some pork.

'Tsk. It was only a dream, huh.'

But sadly, it was just a dream...

Having thought regretfully to himself, Jeremy started packing his things unhurriedly as he had as much time as he wanted to spare.

While packing his stuff lazily, Jeremy thought fleetingly to himself,

'By the way, the wolves didn't come to hunt me down like last time. Hmm... I wonder why...'

A little while later, Jeremy stood alone within the winter forest, under the dark-blue sky with some shades of dawn lights reflecting beautifully...

'Alright, before hunting the wolves, first of all... let's go to the toilet.'

It appeared that Jeremy had drunk too much Caco-Cola last night as he constantly 'felt' his bladder contracted, filled with at least a ton or two of water.

Shortly after, Jeremy's black-cloaked figure was seen to be walking in the direction of the brick house, albeit with his original upright body now looked somewhat... bent forward?