The following weeks after separating from Lidya were nothing but grinding cores as Zaro wanted to become even stronger. Fortunately, the most common types of animal found in the grasslands were deers, caribou and occasionally large ground birds.

Since Zaro had an amazing camouflaging ability, hunting was never a problem and he was able to get extremely close to his prey. However, it just wasn't enough and Zaro felt like he needed something bigger and challenging.

Looking around, other than the endless grassland, Zaro fixed his eyes on a mountain range that had the potential of containing stronger creatures.

The mountains were not too far away in Zaro's mind because of his incredible speed after eating all of those 'speed-focused creatures' so, he managed to reach there in record breaking time.

Once he arrived at the foot of the mountain range, he was faced before a giant forest which suited him even more. Higher up, the trees eventually couldn't grow and since the mountain was a little crumbled it wasn't too hard to climb it.

Zaro spent some more time inspecting the mountains and chose his route, he would firstly hunt inside the forest before continuing upward towards a few caves that he saw.

With his focus now fixed, he traveled inside and immediately sensed a humongous variety of creatures creeping underground and above. After consuming the essence cores his sense of smell had become powerful as well.

Hence, when he continued inside the forest he instantly detected a hole not too far from him, the hole had a lot of movement and an unfamiliar smell lingered inside.

Any creature inside a hole was immediately a death trap that they had dug themselves, unless there was a back entrance or a tunnel, there was no escaping Zaro.

The hole of course, was extremely well covered but Zaro could smell a scent coming out of it... to put it simply in his eyes the hole was like a covered kettle with steam rising out from a small opening on top.

He cleared the entrance and slid his rather large body through the hole and continued inside. The area was quite large which startled him as he wondered the reason for this large cleared out area underground.

It was dark inside and there was only a single light source coming from further in the cave but along with it... voices?!

Zaro put on his camouflage before approaching the odd source of life, however, before he could reach it, he noticed a few traps littered before the entrance.

These traps had to be man-made, Zaro inspected each one while becoming more cautious as these traps were designed to kill intruders. Of course, Zaro would manage to leave lightly wounded but it was the thought that counted the most.

Once he crossed the traps, he was amazed to see seven more humanoid-figures, these ones resembled the nomads that he had seen previously.

Four of them were sitting down speaking to one another while two others danced around the campfire in the center of the room.

The last nomad was sitting in a corner meditating, he looked quite intimidating with scars covering his whole body which was incredibly muscular. The nomad was a true veteran when fighting creatures, while the others gave the impression of newbies that relied on him.

Suddenly, the man opened his eyes and startled everyone including Zaro as they all watched him with their eyes fixed on his.

"There is something extremely powerful close to us..."

"Tauren, check the traps-"

"There is no need, it is already inside with us... seems like it managed to avoid all of the traps..." the man interrupted calmly.

"Creature... tell us what you have come here for..." the other nomads stared at the veteran in fear while looking around themselves constantly.

Zaro was quite surprised, although his ability allowed him to become invisible, it didn't allow him to conceal anything else so as long one could detect 'a presence' then he would be spotted.

He understood that this man was not some one simple, he dropped his camouflage causing the other nomads to almost faint in fear as they lunged for their weapons.

"Ah! It's a f*cking wolf! Get away from here you monster!"

Zaro ignored the panicked screams from the other nomads and sat down while looking eagerly at the man that had remained calm the whole time.

"Do you understand me?" Zaro asked curiously.

"I do, but you must speak slowly for me to understand," the man said which was very relieving.

"My name, is, Zaro."

"I'm not that bad, you can speak a little faster... my name is Yizar, what have you come here for?"

"I sensed something unfamiliar and decided to investigate," he had nothing to lie about and he also felt that if he lied the man would have sensed it, "What stage have you achieved?"

The man leaned back and smiled before replying, "Amber Essence, third stage, Essence Refinement Stage, I assume you don't understand this as you must have alternate stages with a beast core..." he chuckled.

"That means I don't know how powerful you truly are? My main goal is consuming cores... other than you... there are six of them here." Zaro wasn't lying, the cores from humanoid creatures were a lot better in terms of quality like the Orcs.

"Please... do not touch my companions..." the man's expression changed while the others were staring at the man in shock.

"What?!"

"Don't let it kill us!"

"Yizar! Don't joke around like that!"

The other nomads were incredibly annoying, screaming in fear constantly and pointing their spears at Zaro as if it was going to help them in anyway, "I demand an offer in return, I will not do anything to them if you give me something of equal value." Zaro stated.

"That... I don't think I have much choice..." Yizar reached behind him and pulled out a necklace with a gem shining on it which piqued Zaro's interest.

"Yizar... you can't give that away!"

The others were staring at him in shock and were constantly looking back at Zaro as if he were to pounce at them at any moment, "It's either this or your lives... you choose."

Yizar threw the necklace in front of Zaro as he stared at it curiously, "what is it?"

"A pill of extreme quality made by our shaman which died a few years back... we have kept it as a priceless treasure and refused to use or trade it unless it we were in immediate danger." Yizar was evidently not happy with parting with the treasure.

Zaro was absolutely delighted to obtain something like this but tried blackmailing them for more items, "This... will save only half of your companions..."

Yizar cursed and reached for another item which looked like an oddly colored root and placed it before Zaro.

"Yizar?! Our lives are not worth this much-"

"Silence!" Yizar snapped, however, he didn't know how strong Zaro was either and had no choice but to give in to his demands.

When Zaro inspected the root, he noticed that it was quite special... the root was lightly pink and contained a different type of essence than what Zaro had already consumed.

With a nod of approval, Zaro looked at the man, "Logically, you must have more valuable items? If I were to kill you all here it would benefit me greatly..." Yizar was now trembling, although his face remained expressionless his body was quivering.

"I will let you all go... leave this cave... if I see you again, there will not be a single treasure that will save you." Zaro growled causing the nomads to almost faint.

"Squad, we are leaving... he has shown us some mercy." Yizar said while sighing with relief.

The group grabbed their things and left the place without looking back while Zaro remained and was about to start extracting the essence.