Chapter 24: Peripheral Gain
Ten hours later...
Uhtred finally arrived at the boundary of Zone 0. Calculating the entire ten-hour journey from his previous battle site to this location, he estimated the current time was right around eight or nine in the evening.
The sun had dipped below the horizon roughly three hours ago. And based on the fact that he knew this safe zone was a region directly on the equator where sunset consistently occurred around six in the evening, he logically deduced that he had originally arrived from the system integration space sometime around nine in the morning.
It was a minor, and perhaps entirely useless deduction, but it was exactly these kinds of small, analytical thoughts that kept Uhtredโs mind fully occupied during the long trek to this place.
Of course, Uhtred could have significantly shortened his overall journey time if he had simply chosen to jog or run. His enhanced body was durable enough that he could cover a massive amount of distance before ever needing to rest.
However, he had deliberately chosen an easy, measured walking pace instead, consciously using the time to fully take in the foreign sights and smells of the newly reconstructed Earth... And it was truly a sight to behold.
Along the way, his eyes had spotted things he had only ever seen or read about in science and history textbooks. There were extinct prehistoric creatures and little, low-leveled beasts that would do no harm to him whatsoever, but were exquisite and unique enough that his attention was instantly piqued.
Unfortunately, almost all of them ran away the moment they spotted him or sensed his approach, giving him very little time to observe them more carefully.
That reoccurring fact made him realize one major thing. Unfailingly, no matter which beast it was, whether it was a modern creature or an extinct prehistoric creature, and no matter how low-leveled it might be, the animals seemed to spot or sense him from incredibly far away.
Even the completely harmless level one beasts would suddenly bolt into the thick of the forest, dashing further into the foliage the moment he came downriver, acting exactly as if they were being hunted by a predator.
It drew his attention to a major, undeniable fact: his body was actively leaking essence or emanating some kind of energy signature that thoroughly spooked these creatures.
His mind went back to that brutal battle he had with the wolves, and thinking about it more carefully, he realized that this leakage was probably one of the main reasons why they had been able to spot him so easily in the first place.
A good example of a creature that was vastly better at hiding such an energy presence was the very first wolf that had attacked him, the one that had successfully snuck up on him from behind the tree.
There was no logical reason why Uhtred, with his massively enhanced senses, shouldnโt have been able to pick up the sound of a bear-sized beast coming toward him.
Even despite the fact that it was significantly higher-leveled than he was at the time, he still should have sensed something. He should have heard the faint rustle of the leaves or the heavy footfalls of the wolf at least. But it had been entirely silent. He hadnโt felt or heard a single anomaly until the absolute last moment when the creature violently swiped down its claws at him.
So, during the long journey to Zone 0, Uhtred took the time to try and understand exactly what was leaking from his body. And eventually, after conducting multiple different trials along the way, he finally realized that it wasnโt that anything was leaking from his body, but rather, his core was affecting the natural flow of cosmic essence in the surroundings.
Even without any active cultivation method, his Primordial-grade Formless core was naturally drawing in and absorbing cosmic essence from the surroundings passively. It was negligible, but still enough that it created a perceivable disturbance that these wild creatures could easily sense from a distance.
Of course, for the Epicyon wolves, even though their cores could do the same thing, their passive draw was strictly limited to just the metallic aspects of cosmic essence.
But even then, they were high-leveled enough that the disturbance caused by their metallic aspects alone should have been significant enough for Uhtred to sense something was off. Yet he hadnโt sensed anything from them until the ambush, which could only mean one thing:
They possessed a superior, special method of masking such an environmental disturbance.
And that was exactly what Uhtred tried to figure out and master along his journey to this place. He tried multiple different visualization methods, thinking of how he could draw in essence or exist in the forest without creating a wave of disturbance to the cosmic essence in the air.
But the fact that he had very little direct control over how greedy his Primordial grade core naturally was in regard to drawing in cosmic essence made the task much more difficult.
Although it was a frustrating process, in the end, he was finally able to figure out a viable way to mentally shut off his essence core from absorbing the cosmic essence in the air passively.
The moment he successfully locked his energy inside, it completely stopped the local beasts from sensing him from long distances, keeping him hidden even up until short distances depending on how quiet his physical movements were.
With how difficult the execution of this energy masking technique was, he had thought he would receive some sort of reward or a system title for it, but nothing of the sort had occurred.
Uhtred figured that this was either considered a completely basic essence manipulation skill by the System, or maybe someone else somewhere in the world had already done it first and grabbed the title ahead of him.
It was a bit disappointing, because in the end, the mental effort he had put into cracking it was not little at all. It had been a daunting, exhausting task that he had only managed to successfully pull off not long before arriving at this Zone 0 border.
However, now that he had finally reached the transparent blue wall, he stopped bothering himself about the lack of a title, because the view before him completely flabbergasted his mind.
