Mel knew with every step that he was choosing the wrong path, but instead of turning back and changing his clothes, he decided to press on and test his limits.
"It worked in the cave, so why isn't it working now?"
Truth be told, there was another matter troubling his mind. Even though he was surrounded by trees and a sea of green as far as the eye could see, he could not siphon a single drop of energy from any of them.
These plants were not docile like the ones inside the cave; every time he attempted to commune with them, a sharp pain spiked straight through his mind.
"Why do you have to be so stubborn? I don't want to hurt you; I just want to get stronger!"
Encountering the very first obstacle on his path, Mel began to shout in the midst of the quiet forest. Most of the birds resting in the branches took flight in a panic, but that was not the response he was hoping for.
The birds were not the only ones taking notice of him; a pair of crimson eyes spotted him through the trees. It began to trail him, keeping a set distance to conceal its presence while shadowing the endless circles the boy walked.
"This isn't going to work. I need to calm down and take it one step at a time!"
After half a day of trekking, Mel resigned himself to the bitter reality that the ancient plane trees would not even acknowledge his existence. He decided to enter a meditative state and try his luck with the younger saplings.
Leaning his back against a massive tree, he closed his eyes. The energy within him slowly crept outward, searching for roots willing to accept him.
Quietly bypassing the massive roots that seemed far beyond his current realm for now, he reached out to the young saplings just like him. The initial reaction from the flora, fighting their own battles for survival in the wild, was outright rejection.
Mel did not retreat. Pushing through the agonizing pain crushing his mind, he persisted until he finally made contact with a root even weaker than himself.
"I did it! Something actually connected with me!"
He was trembling with exhilaration, utilizing his own meager energy—which he could barely control to begin with—to bend another living entity to his will. His heart hammered so fiercely it made his shirt ripple; he wished to drain the energy from the sapling he had connected with as swiftly as possible.
"Do not kill anyone who has not entered the Killing Cycle!"
Mel, consumed by the euphoria, shivered violently as if he had been plunged into a frozen lake. Those words, the cornerstone of the legacy his grandfather had left behind, forced his greed-blinded eyes wide open.
A fraction of a second later, he realized that the sudden chill was not merely due to his grandfather's words—it was also because of a massive claw hurtling straight toward his face.
"You sneaky beast!"
He threw himself to the side, and the trunk of the tree right where he had just been standing was immediately marred by deep gouges left by razor-sharp claws.
This was the handiwork of the pair of eyes that had been stalking him for a long time. The wild beast, panting heavily on all fours, had its ears perked up and its gaze locked dead upon Mel.
His worst nightmare had returned in the flesh; one of the beasts that had tried to tear him apart the night his village was slaughtered stood right before him, flashing razor-sharp fangs from its wide-open jaws.
"Since you tried to ambush me from the shadows, you must be hunting alone. Otherwise, your pack would have surrounded me long ago!"
Inheriting his grandfather's legacy had triggered a profound leap in his cognitive processing. Quickly assessing both his own condition and his enemy's, Mel drew his conclusions in a flash and assumed his stance accordingly.
In these early days of his new life, he would not flee in cowardice as he used to; he wanted to teach this beast, which had willingly stepped into the Killing Cycle, a lesson it would never forget.
Were all those grueling sessions with the training dummies for nothing? He was not about to squander the opportunity to test his gains and everything he had learned in a true, life-or-death struggle.
Besides, it did not appear his enemy would simply let him walk away. The beast, crouching low on its front legs, ended the standoff by launching itself forward like a harpoon.
At the exact same moment, Mel charged right back at it. Beneath the frantic flapping of birds returning to their branches, the first clash occurred.
The metallic tang of blood hung heavy in the quiet forest as crimson drops splattered across the dense underbrush. It was glaringly obvious that one of the combatants had suffered a grievous disadvantage right at the start of the brawl.
"It's so fast... nothing like those training dummies that just stand there waiting to get hit!"
Glancing at the bloody gash running down his back, Mel whispered through gritted teeth, desperately trying to steel his resolve. The sheer agility of the wolf, its gray fur standing on end, placed the frail boy at a severe disadvantage against his very first living opponent.
"Isn't this part of the training too? If I act like a coward right at the start, how will I ever look Grandpa in the eye?"
One of the traits that separated humans from other species was their ability to draw power from their internal drive. If the wolf had been the one bleeding from the first strike, it would have undoubtedly considered fleeing. But Mel, determined to do justice to his title as Heir, locked his gaze dead onto his opponent.
Holding the upper hand, the beast did not relent. Riding the momentum of drawing first blood, it committed fully to the assault, eager to gorge itself upon fresh flesh.
When it lunged at Mel with an agile leap, this time it failed to strike its mark. Realizing he was outmatched in terms of agility, the young boy threw himself to the side, evading the blow.
When it came to striking power, he possessed confidence in himself; but regarding mobility, he was left looking like a helpless training dummy facing a moving target.
The wild beast grasped the situation. Leveraging its speed and agility, it relentlessly piled on the pressure with back-to-back attacks, not giving Mel even a second to recover his footing.
The struggle had essentially devolved into a battle of endurance, which was exactly what the wolf desired. Its primal instincts were the foundation of its every move.
While it was an undeniable truth that Mel's state of consciousness had elevated after receiving the legacy, physically, his progress remained negligible. With every passing second, his reactions grew sluggish, and the number of lacerations slicing across his skin continued to multiply.
The inevitable end screamed its arrival. While trying to dodge an attack, he stumbled and dropped to his knees—the fatal misstep that sealed his doom.
The beast lunged forward to exploit the massive opening. With the tender neck of the child it had been tailing for half a day presented right before it, it moved in for the kill.
Just as Mel twisted around to defend himself with everything he had left, something entirely unexpected occurred. From the dense underbrush, a branch shot out like a whip, snapping tightly around the leg of the wolf mid-pounce.
Losing its momentum, the beast stumbled and let out an agonizing howl that pierced the sky. As it squeezed one eye shut in pain, a three-striped dragon claw mark was seared into the side of its other eye.
Mel had unleashed the very strike his grandfather used to wipe the entire village from existence and cleave the massive mountain behind it. Even though it was realms apart from dealing that kind of catastrophic damage, he had actually succeeded.
This victory was the very first triumph he had secured utilizing his grandfather's legacy. From the initial warning that prompted him to open his eyes and parry the incoming blow, all the way to landing the finishing strike with the aid of the plant he had bonded with—it was all thanks to the man who constantly watched over him.
"Grandpa, you're still protecting me! I swear, I'll never do anything to bring shame to your legacy!"
Compared to youths his own age, Mel was average; between his build, slow processing speed, lack of resolve, and overly docile nature, surviving in this savage world should have been next to impossible. But no one could ever question his loyalty.
The words he just spoke, drawn straight from the depths of his heart, were sworn in the name of the grandfather whose path he would never stray from, no matter the cost.
"I have to get out of here right now. If the pack regroups, I'm dead!"
Collapsed upon the ground from the intense physical and emotional toll, when Mel finally managed to scrape himself back together a long while later, a sudden realization struck him with horrifying clarity.
It was the very last action his opponent took before it died—the wolf had howled. The second it realized it faced certain death, it summoned its pack to the exact spot it drew its last breath to avenge its demise.
The frail boy scrambled to his feet in a panic, dragging the heavy carcass behind him as he fled toward his only safe haven—the cave where he had earned the title of Heir.