The Wolf Pack

Midnight.

Dotted starlight spilled down, a gentle breeze swept past, and amidst swaying tree shadows, a blurred human figure appeared faint and indistinct.

A strong gust of wind blew, scattering the branches and leaves that obscured the figure. Beneath the dense leaves, a person leaned back against a tree trunk, sitting cross-legged. Though the posture could not be called entirely proper, one could still sense his focus at that moment.

If one did not know in advance, nobody would ever guess that someone would be meditating here among the tree trunks deep within this forest.

The surrounding quiet environment gradually grew noisy. Listening closely, one could even hear a sort of chewing sound. Amidst this noise, the figure's expression slowly worsened.

At this time, Rhode, who was in the middle of meditation, was not having a good time. His mind, which had already grown peaceful, was once again disturbed for some unknown reason.

The effects of meditation grew increasingly poor, replaced by a sense of irritability. No matter how hard Rhode tried, the thoughts in his heart simply refused to settle. Realizing that his current state was no longer suited for meditation, Rhode opened his eyes.

The moment he opened his eyes, the perception that had previously been blocked by meditation assaulted Rhode. Rhode's gaze condensed, and he looked toward the direction where his perception was warning him.

In the darkness, pairs of hungry eyes radiated an eerie green light. Rhode looked closely and saw that down below was actually a pack of wolves.

As it turned out, during Rhode's meditation, the bloody stench emitted by the walking corpse and the apprentice's corpse had attracted the hunters of the forest—precisely this wolf pack before him.

Rhode looked down. At this moment, the Wolf Pack was ravenous, gnawing on the remains of the walking corpse. Logically speaking, wolves rarely chose to eat carrion, and only under conditions of extreme hunger would they choose to feed on the cold, stiff walking corpse.

During his observation, Rhode discovered an anomaly. Compared to the rotting walking corpse, the apprentice's corpse, whose flesh was far more appetizing, had only a single wolf beside it. The rest of the wolves might fight among themselves for a piece of rotten meat from the walking corpse, yet they did not dare to encroach upon this particular wolf before them in the slightest.

As his observation deepened, Rhode also discovered the unusual traits of this wolf. While the other wolves devoured the rotten flesh of the walking corpse in huge gulps without caring about their surroundings at all, only this wolf constantly scanned its left and right while eating, never forgetting to be vigilant of its surroundings. Not only that, but this wolf was also much larger in size.

Rhode knew that this wolf was the Wolf King among this pack.

Rhode, observing from above, counted. The number of wolves in this pack was around ten. Considering his own strength, Rhode frowned.

Unlike undead creatures, undead creatures had relatively high health pools but poor skills and speed, making them countered by Rhode's swordsmanship. The Wolf Pack, however, was different. The Wolf Pack was much better at swarming enemies, especially when ganging up on a single target. Although wolves could not compare to the previous undead creatures in terms of physical constitution, they were much faster, and this caused Rhode some trouble.

Once surrounded by a coordinated Wolf Pack, he would fall into an extremely passive predicament. The moment a single wolf rushed to his side and bit down on his leg, he would lose a certain degree of mobility, and the other wolves could rapidly follow up to tear and bite together, compounded by that Wolf King on the edge...

Rhode knew that for beast-type creatures like these, once they broke through their original tier, they would possess a certain ability to use magic. Compared to these ordinary wolves, the greater threat was this Wolf King.

Should he assassinate it the same way he assassinated the apprentice? Rhode hesitated.

Recalling the scene when he assassinated the apprentice, Rhode decisively shook his head.

When he leaped out to assassinate the apprentice, the apprentice clearly noticed him and turned his head back, but due to poor physical fitness and a lack of close-combat skills, the apprentice failed to dodge in time.

The Wolf King was different. A beast's instinct for perceiving danger allowed it to detect him the very moment he made a move, and its formidable physical stats also allowed it to quickly evade.

There was no way to assassinate the Wolf King. If he were to fight the Wolf Pack head-on in a straight-up brawl, the outcome remained hard to predict. Even if he ultimately won, it would only be a hard-fought, near-fatal victory that exhausted all his attribute points and skill points.

Gazing at the pack of wolves before him, Rhode had no good methods for the moment.

Carefully recalling all the situations he had experienced thus far, suddenly, as if realizing something, a sharp glint flashed in Rhode's eyes. He had found the method to secure victory.

To execute this method, Rhode still needed some preparation.

Rhode stood up, moved upward along the tree trunk to a spot where moonlight could shine directly down, and then checked the system log.

"..."

"Meditation ended."

"Based on your performance during the meditation process, your maximum mana has increased by 8 points. Current mana 14/14."

"Shallow meditation yields no special feedback."

His mana was enough.

Realizing this, Rhode swiftly poured mana into the Space Ring on his hand.

In the attribute panel, his mana slowly decreased. When the mana dropped to 10/14, the Space Ring stopped absorbing mana.

At the same time, Rhode also sensed that a subtle connection had formed between the Space Ring in his hand and himself. With merely a thought from him, his consciousness could probe inside and retrieve the items within.

Rhode let his consciousness enter the Space Ring. The ring contained a space of two to three cubic meters. Entering Rhode's perception first was a massive pile of gold coins resembling a sand dune, roughly estimated at around two thousand pieces.

Stacked above the gold coins were two books and several scrolls, next to which sat two iron swords and an iron shield, no different from the ones previously used by the skeleton warrior. In the corner were placed dry rations and a waterskin, alongside some clothing, with an emblem resting on top of the clothes.

Having spotted the items he needed, Rhode took out both the books and the scrolls, beginning to check them with the aid of the moonlight.

The cover of one book bore the title Basic Pathfinding, while the cover of the other book had no text at all, featuring only some profound and meaningless patterns. Rhode identified the patterns drawn on the scrolls: one was a Lightning Strike, one was a Magic Arrow, and two were Healing.

Upon seeing the latter book, Rhode put the remaining items back into the Space Ring, keeping only that book in his hand.

When putting the scrolls back, following a habit cultivated in his past life, Rhode deliberately placed the scrolls separately so that he could retrieve the scroll he needed from the Space Ring at a moment's notice. Afterward, Rhode began to read that unnamed book.

He quickly flipped through the book in his hand. After browsing a few pages, Rhode confirmed it: just as he thought, this book was Alot's spellbook.

A spellbook was an important tool for mages when learning spells. Because human memory was not very sturdy, with the passage of time and the increase of learned knowledge, the possibility of errors in memory grew greater, thus requiring a spellbook to assist with recording.

A spellbook allowed a mage to record the key knowledge they had learned. At the same time, in order to accurately cast spells, a mage also needed to copy spells into their spellbook.

Because mages would spend the majority of their gold coins on learning knowledge and spells, a spellbook that recorded all the knowledge a mage had learned would be treated as extremely precious by the mage, far surpassing ordinary treasures.

While flipping through the spellbook, Rhode spent 1 skill point to learn Basic Wisdom Spell.

(Basic Wisdom Spell: Through studying spell-related knowledge, your erudition has increased. At the same time, your thinking has expanded. Various formulas emerge in your mind, and you begin to slightly understand the principles contained within spells. You can learn tier-1 spells.)