High above the sky, an orange-yellow fireball hung high overhead.
Mount Fujikasane returned to its usual dead silence.
From the hidden trails, swordsmen emerged one after another. Feeling the warmth of the sunlight, they narrowed their eyes and looked up at the sun.
Their expressions ranged from relief at surviving a disaster to lingering dissatisfaction.
Waiting to greet them were smiling members of the Kakushi.
Before long, the people from Mount Sagiri had gathered together at their residence.
"Has anyone seen Senior Disciple?"
"Where is Senior Disciple?"
"I don't know. Makomo and I only saw Senior Disciple once."
To their astonishment, the people of Mount Sagiri realized that their Senior Disciple had not come out of Mount Fujikasane.
Sabito's face was filled with worry. "Could Senior Disciple have run into some trouble in the mountains?"
He did not say it outright, but the meaning was obvious.
The examination had ended. Any normal swordsman had no desire to remain on Mount Fujikasane any longer, and nearly all of them had already left.
Only some who had failed the examination had been buried in the bellies of the demons of Mount Fujikasane, never to emerge again.
"That won't happen. We all made it out, so how could anything happen to Senior Disciple?" Hanada Shizuka shook her head, showing complete faith in Kurozawa's strength.
After all, she had personally witnessed how Kurozawa dealt with demons.
"Don't worry. Your Senior Disciple will be fine."
A pleasant voice rang out.
Hanada Shizuka looked over and saw Kocho Shinobu, the girl she had met a few days ago.
"I saw him rushing after a demon at the end."
"He probably stayed on Mount Fujikasane to kill demons and simply hasn't come out yet."
Whenever Kocho Shinobu recalled the overwhelming pressure Kurozawa had exuded when he stepped from the shadows that night, she still felt slightly suffocated.
How could someone like that possibly die on a small mountain like Mount Fujikasane?
Still, Kocho Shinobu found one thing strange. When they had first met, Kurozawa had not given her such intense pressure. Was it because he had become bald? After hearing Kocho Shinobu out, Hanada Shizuka nodded like a pecking chick. "Right. When Senior Disciple was traveling with me, he was constantly searching for demons. He probably really likes hunting demons."
"But no matter how late he is, Senior Disciple should show up by tomorrow, the deadline for selecting ore."
The sky gradually darkened, yet Kurozawa still had not appeared.
The swordsmen of Mount Sagiri could only temporarily believe Hanada Shizuka's words and wait for tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Kurozawa was confronting a demon.
This demon was rather peculiar. Wrapped in tree branches and vines, it revealed only a pair of blood-red eyes.
An Ability Demon that had mastered a Blood Demon Art, it looked somewhat like a tree.
Just as Hanada Shizuka had said, Kurozawa had not immediately left after the examination ended.
To him, Mount Fujikasane, packed with demons, was a treasure trove.
Once he left Mount Fujikasane, where else could he find weak demons gathered in such dense numbers?
He might even have the bad luck of encountering an Upper Rank.
For now, slaughtering low-level demons on a large scale was the most efficient way to gain Potential Points. Kurozawa would not give up this opportunity.
Over the course of the day, Kurozawa had hunted more than ten demons, restoring his Potential Points to over a hundred.
The demon before him was an Ability Demon no weaker than the Hand Demon.
Kurozawa did not know that of the three powerful demons hidden on Mount Fujikasane for so long, he had already dealt with two. The one before him was the last remaining one.
It had disguised itself as a tree in an attempt to ambush Kurozawa, but his visual perception had detected it. Instead, Kurozawa caught it off guard and punched through its stomach.
However, everything had happened too suddenly, and Kurozawa had not had time to use Pitch-Black Aura, so he had not inflicted any real damage.
Blood Demon Art: Green Vine Serpent Shadow!
The ancient trees that had remained silent around them suddenly began to rustle.
Branches rapidly stretched out, growing spikes as they coiled toward Kurozawa.
The ground trembled slightly as well. Soil turned over, and vines hidden beneath the earth writhed as they tried to entangle Kurozawa's legs.
These branches and vines were incredibly fast. Kurozawa had enough strength, but his agility was somewhat lacking, leaving him unable to break through the tree demon's encirclement of Blood Demon Art attacks.
The tree demon was grim and silent, doing nothing but continuously attacking Kurozawa with its Blood Demon Art.
Bang! The ground split apart. Kurozawa dodged the underground vines, grabbed an extending branch from a tree, and swung toward the tree demon like he was on a swing.
The wooden spikes on those branches could not pierce the skin of his palms, so they were nothing to worry about.
But the vines on the ground were not weak. If they all wrapped around him, even Kurozawa would have trouble enduring it.
Crack!
The branch Kurozawa was holding suddenly snapped, and he fell to the ground.
Clearly, it was the tree demon's doing.
"There are still plenty of wonderful Potential Points waiting for me. I can't waste time on this guy."
Looking around at the layers of snake-like vines, Kurozawa lowered his head and glanced at his legs.
After a long battle, most of his pants had been torn apart, exposing much of his calves.
The muscles on his calves bulged in overlapping blocks, not particularly pleasing to the eye.
Agility +0.2. Strength and constitution both increased slightly as well.
More than one hundred and fifty Potential Points vanished in an instant, leaving only single digits behind.
Waves of numb, comfortable sensations flooded into Kurozawa's mind.
His body changed once more.
The muscles that had bulged across his body and the veins that had stood out began to compress heavily. The veins receded considerably, while his two-meter frame slowly shrank, returning to Kurozawa's usual height, perhaps even slightly shorter.
Looking down again, the muscles on his legs had become exquisitely streamlined. When he moved, dense strands of muscle stretched and shifted beneath the skin. His bare upper body had also changed from the heavy build of a muscle monster back into a lean, powerful physique, with faintly visible muscles embedded beneath his skin.
Every proportion of Kurozawa's body now looked excellent. Only his hair had yet to grow back.
His Charm Stat obligingly rose along with it.
It seemed that when strength and agility were balanced, his body would look relatively perfect. If strength increased too much, he would turn into some demonic muscle man. As for abnormally high agility, that was still unclear.
Pitch-Black Aura erupted with a roar. Kurozawa stomped the ground apart, his figure becoming a black bolt of lightning that even dragged afterimages behind it.
His movements were agile, without a single ounce of wasted force, perfectly measured.
The sudden burst of speed prevented the tree demon from reacting before Kurozawa broke through the vine blockade it had laid down.
By the time the tree demon realized something was wrong, Kurozawa had already arrived before it. His right palm became a blade as it slashed horizontally.
"Hell Burial Hand Blade!"
Since no one was nearby—and there should have been no one on Mount Fujikasane—Kurozawa shouted directly. His resonant voice echoed through Mount Fujikasane.
Then, Kurozawa's body passed the tree demon and came to a stop. He lightly blew on his palm, and the Pitch-Black Aura vanished.
That was pretty cringey, but it did feel good. Recalling the moment he had shouted the technique's name, Kurozawa's old face reddened slightly.
Crack! Behind him, the tree demon's head split directly down the middle. Its body fell to the ground and turned to ash.
Potential Points +50, Power of Despair from the Undying Man-Eating Demon +6
Without looking back, Kurozawa strode away from the spot.
Demons of Mount Fujikasane, stay put and don't go anywhere!
Before you continue