The surge of power left Evan buzzing with energy, and he needed somewhere to put it.
And what better way than hunting more prey?
He wanted to test his new strength, see how much stronger he'd actually become, and at the same time get used to it, learn how to use it properly in a fight. The only way to do that was through combat. So once the clone had absorbed and settled into its new power, it set off in search of more targets nearby.
That said, stronger or not, Evan hadn't let it go to his head. He stayed cautious, keeping to the forest's outskirts and looking for other weak enemies like the beetle or even the anaconda from earlier.
It took a while, but little by little, targets started showing up.
[Ding! Your clone has killed an Unawakened (Mid-Stage) Iron-Tusk Boar!]
[You gained +7 ESS]
[Ding! Your clone has killed an Unawakened (Early-Stage) Shadowfang Wolf!]
[You gained +3 ESS]
[Ding! Your clone has killed an Unawakened (Advanced-Stage) Wild Bear!]
[You gained +17 ESS]
Evan spent the entire night like this. Finding prey that matched his current level was a challenge, but he didn't stop, he took whatever he could find, even if it was weaker than him. As long as they weren't fully awakened beasts, he would kill them.
He kept at it for hours, until morning came.
---
[Name: Evan]
[Age: 14]
[Rank: F]
[ESS: 17.4%]
[Bloodline: None]
[Divine Clone]
> Clones: 1
[Skills]
[Storage]
---
Seeing his progress percentage already that high after a single night of hunting filled Evan with a kind of satisfaction he hadn't felt in a long time.
He had spent hours hunting any prey he could, and although he spent much of the time just wandering here and there, in the end, he had managed to kill 13 beasts, all Unawakened, at various stages of awakening.
He had to admit that he encountered more Advanced-Stage beasts than the other two stages, which was to be expected; after all, at night, the weaker beasts tended to hide, and only the stronger ones went hunting.
This applied even to Unawakened creatures, though overall they were still weak compared to what actually lurked deeper in the Graystone Forest.
At this point, he could already be considered an Early-stage F-Rank awakener, on the right path toward the peak of his current stage, while his clone had already reached it, with a solid 33.7% progress.
Percival had been awakened for two years now, and despite putting in the bare minimum in terms of training and hunting, he'd still managed to reach Mid-Stage E-Rank. Not a slow rate of progress, but not particularly impressive either, pretty average, all things considered.
The fact that he had reached that level only thanks to the cores provided by his family didn't make it any better, since he consumed them but didn't fully digest all the strength they had cultivated in his body.
Evan was convinced that if Percival ever went up against someone of the same rank but with more practical experience, he'd lose.
Strength without experience wouldn't take anyone very far, and he had understood this a long time ago. Which was why, even while his own body stayed confined to the manor, he kept using the clone to fight whenever he could.
Anyway, the gains didn't stop there. While he hadn't been able to extract mana cores from most of the beasts he'd killed, since Unawakened beasts didn't have fully formed cores yet, there was something else he could take.
Their corpses. And that's where another useful feature of his system came into play.
---
[Storage]:
> [Iron-Tusk Boar Corpse] ×3
> [Shadowfang Wolf Corpse] ×5
> [Forest Anaconda Corpse] ×1
---
He had indeed collected the corpses of all the beasts he had killed.
For now, the corpses were useless to him, but that wouldn't be the case in the future.
Inevitably, once he fled, he would need resources for food and everything else, and the corpses would come in handy then. They contained useful parts that could be sold, and meat that could be eaten.
He had already experimented a bit with the Storage, and although the dimensions of what he could store inside were limited, the quantity was not, and most importantly, everything that went in retained its state, without decomposing or losing warmth.
It was as if time itself had frozen for them.
He had in fact, over time, stored small things like bread or various tools, in case they would be useful in the future.
He hadn't yet had the chance to get his hands on weapons, apart from broken ones, but now that he had his clone, it didn't matter much.
'At this rate, it won't be long before I'm strong enough to neutralize the Slave mark.'
Escaping this hellhole was his main goal, but he wasn't going to stop there. He had no intention of letting Percival and everyone else who had wronged him over the years just walk away.
They'd all pay, in due time.
***
With the sun rising, the manor's usual morning routine kicked in. The servants were up before their masters, as always, getting a head start on their duties.
Evan, much as he hated waking up this early, had long since made his peace with it. He got up and got straight to work.
His morning duties consisted of cleaning part of the manor's corridors, as well as some of the bathrooms, both for the servants and those used by the Langhton family.
Only after finishing could he allow himself to eat a little, and then it was time for the afternoon chores, where he had to take care of the family's animal stables, housing horses and other animals.
Needless to say, Percival had made sure to give him the worst of everything. And the punishments for being late or doing a poor job were no small matter either, mostly physical, but also food deprivation and worse.
So, as much as he hated doing all these things, for now he could only grit his teeth and get to work.
Evan grabbed his bucket and rag and headed toward the corridor assigned to him that morning. It was still early, with most of the other servants just barely starting their own duties, but he was used to moving fast.
The sooner he finished, the sooner he could eat.
He had already noticed that today he strangely wasn't very hungry, perhaps another effect of being awakened?
He arrived at his assigned corridor, everything in hand, ready to get started, but just as he turned the corner, he stopped.
Scattered across the floor in front of him were dozens of ceramic fragments.
A decorative vase, probably one of the expensive ones placed at various points around the manor, this corridor included, lay shattered on the ground.
And beside the remains of the vase stood another servant.
Seeing this, Evan felt his day couldn't have gotten off to a worse start.
'Haa… can't even get one normal morning for once.'