Rose isn't surprised as awakening usually brings new found energy.
'Obviously he doesn't want to stop after such a great achievement.'
"You can head back, I'm gonna find more beasts to train with." Ray says with a sly smile and goes darting off through the forest.
Rose busy dealing with the corpse of the chimpanzee nods saying. "I'll join you in a bit."
His new core comes with major enhancements and a new skill!
Now he's able to use mana to replenish the solar energy he expends and control it easier. He also gained a skill called [Sun eyes].
It allows Ray to see easier through the darkness.
Arthur guides him through the process of the basic channeling of his mana.
After resting and listening to him for a few minutes Ray is ready to go.
He let the solar energy coarse through his legs and takes off running his speed feels twice as fast as before.
He can see everything as bright as day even though the tree canopy hung over head blocking a majority of the light.
He starts his hunt!
After 2 minutes of searching, He runs into another flaming Chimpanzee. It quickly notices his rapid approach and throws a left punch covered in flames.
Ray sees this and feels the punch is just too much slower than the other Chimp. He focuses the solar energy in his body to his right fist. He returns the punch going through the fist and into the Chimp's chest.
He opens his hand and grabs onto the beast's core, pulling it out all in one swift motion.
The Chimp dies on the spot as the energy from his core is absorbed into Ray. His strength quickly broke through to the {advanced stage}. He smiles after finishing absorbing the energy in the core. It is a [rank-F]{advanced stage}
Right before he starts again he is interrupted with a tap on the shoulder. He turned around to see his sister Rose. She stared at him with an angry glare.
"Look how quick you took that one out are you trying to lose me." She teases with a pout.
"Wow I really didn't expect you to take so long. So here I waiting for you" Ray returns a cheeky smile.
"Oh you... Whatever continue on with your hunt. I'll collect the corpses of whatever you kill." She says ignoring his comment
"Fine, just keep up." Ray says as he turns and runs off again.
Ray continues to go around killing chimpanzee after chimpanzee.
After the fourth chimpanzee something suddenly appears out of nowhere.
A flaming fist appears on his left, barreling into him.
'WATCH OUT!' Arthur yells out in his mind a second too late.
Bang*
Ray gets sent flying into the ground and goes tumbling away. He recovers rathe fast using his hand to stop the momentum and regain his footing.
He looks towards what hit him and sees a large flaming gorilla!
It looks at him with a fiery hunger in its eyes. It beats on its chest sounding like loud bass drums.
Ray could sense the power in the beast, it is
RANK-E!
This didn't scare him though, in fact he is excited! Unlike fighting the guards this big ape wants him dead. It is that fear of death that brought him to life.
"Bring it on!" Ray gives a crazed smile to the gorilla. In return it huffs before jumping into the air.
The gorilla clenches his two giant fists together and slams them down with a flame propelling them down.
At the same time Ray gathers as much solar energy as he could onto his right fist and punches up toward the incoming attack.
"SHORYUKEN!" Ray shouts as they clash!
Flames and solar light collide! Cracks appear in the ground underneath Ray while the gorilla's clench fist break open as it's butt hits the ground.
This surprises the gorilla as it didn't expect it's attack to be match by the little being.
It quickly refocuses as Ray sends a boot kick to its chest. It punches the foot without getting up sending him sliding back just barely keeping his balance.
ROOOAAAARR*
The gorilla roars while quickly getting off it's butt.
"Glad to hear your not hurt yet." Ray remarks in response.
They go at it again with him dodging some attacks and blocking the others, however each block caused him great pain. Strength wise he is still completely outmatched.
He hits the gorilla with a well timed solar kick to the abdomen, which forces it back a few steps.
Rose watches with worry ready to jump in at any moment, but she didn't interfere right away because of the smile that never left Ray's face.
The gorilla charges towards Ray with it's arms in an X and fire gathering around it's body. It plans to bulldoze right through him.
In that moment Ray's mind freezes as if time went still.
This is Arthur using his mental strength to stretch the moment out.
'You have to stop this attack instead of dodge. I'll show you this technique called first palm solar light wall.' He then shows Ray the technique using mental imaging.
Time starts again.
Ray makes a circle with his hands in front of him. Left hand starting from the top middle and his right starting from bottom middle. Solar energy pours out from his hands as he did this, when they reached the opposite hand's starting position.
Then he imagines the solar energy inside him forming a star in the center of his palms and put it out stretched in front of him.
This all happens in the same two seconds it took the ape wreathed in flames to reach him. Ray plants his feet on the ground.
The gorilla crashed into his palms and it is like running into a thick metal wall. Ray is pushed back an inch but the flames of the gorilla break as it coughs blood and the X the gorilla forms with its arms split as well.
The time in Ray's mind stops again.
'It's time for the second and third palm called absorb sun and redirect sun respectively.' Arthur explains how to do it, then shows him once.
Time starts again.
He turns his palms sideways and the energy that was released from the gorilla is absorbed into his palm. The gorilla is extremely surprised seeing the fire the blazed on his body disappear.
Ray takes a step forward with a smile.
Then he takes another while turning his palms back vertical and pushing his hand forward.
A blast of light burst from his palm and as soon as he touched the gorilla's chest.
BOOM!*
It is blasted back like a cannonball, breaking through a tree behind it.
It crashes into the ground and went rolling. It's chest is caved in with a dual palm in the center.
It's breath ragged and slowly fading, still it gets up and roars with pain.
It's roars releases an explosion of flame around it. It's teeth are gritting in pain and anger. It tries to suck in as much of the surrounding flames as it could and before blowing out.
When it does all the flames rushed forward, it looks like a dragon breathing fire.
They engulfed Ray and burnt his clothes. He ignores this burning pain and pushes forward to the source of the fire.
He punches at the same spot on the gorilla's chest with his palm imprint and his fist goes through the beast and out of the other side with a beast core falling out.
The gorilla looks down then back up at Ray before falling back as Ray let his hand slide out of it's chest.
Rose's is extremely shocked. After everything that's happened today she wouldn't be surprised if it starts raining gold.
She had expected him to get defeated and humbled then she would run over and protect him.
She is extremely confused and angry and surprised and happy!
Confused for obvious reasons.
Angry that her plan fell through.
Surprised with her brothers good use of mana already.
And happy her brother is so strong.
'My brother just beat an rank-E while only just entering rank-F.' Rose couldn't believe her eyes.
Ray falls to his knees with his hands shaking, his breathing heavy and sweat coming from all over.
The gorilla's hide was not soft he could feel his knuckles and fingers crack with each hit he just manages to avoid breaking them.
Each attack he blocked caused his whole body to ache, especially the rush attack.
After a minute of rest he crawls up on the corpse of the gorilla and reaches his hand in. He pulls out the core which he promptly starts absorbing.
The energy he used in the last fight is replenished. Then as he continues to absorb more he quickly breaks through to the next stage and hits the bottleneck of rank-F.
He keeps absorbing energy greedily to break through and suddenly he feels a great pain in every single muscle.
It is as if fire flowed through his every nerve! black goo starts to leak from his ears, eyes, and mouth.
He fell to the ground in writhing in agony while still absorbing the energy.