A holy lady_,

Once he acquired all that he needed, Dex closed his eyes and started training his magic with the help of the system. In this world, magic was abundant and the mana could be felt all round. It was like fuel that mages drew upon to cast their spells and increase their magic. Nobody where the natural energy came from but there was a theory that if it ever dried up, mages would be done for. 

For centuries, mages had been searching for alternative energy sources outside of the mana provided by the heavens. 

Once he started to cultivate, Dex could feel the energy all around, and he guided the elements of space into his magic core. He gobbled it up so greedily like a demon of greed itself. 

Eventually, he was forced to stop when his core started feeling unusually hot, something that he had not incurred in his last life. But just because he stopped, did not mean that the energy in his body had stopped. 

It became hotter, like the inside of a fire, and Dex started to sweat, buckets of sweat trickled down his body. 

Some of the sweat fell on a mage that was supposed to be keeping guard but instead he was dozing off under the tree. He looked up to the dark sky and thought, is it going to rain?

"Alert the water mages, it might rain tonight." he shouted to the others. 

Above in the tree, protected under the cover of the thick branches and leaves, Dex endured with gritted teeth, unwilling to fail yet another endurance test. 

If I had known, I would assigned more points to endurance, he thought. 

He stayed motionless, sweating and in pain for three hours and he opened his eyes just when the day was beginning to break. 

Ding! congratulations, you are finally a level one space mage. Keep working hard host.

"Thank you." he responded sarcastically. Did the system think he was unaware of how hard he had to work?

Ding! Major hunting mission detected, three brown earth snakes detected approaching the red carriage. Time to hunt host. 

1 Hunt one snake and get ten points and a body refinement pill.

2 Hunt two snakes and get a water spell scroll.

3 Hunt three snakes and three hundred points.

Before that second ding came, Dex had been thinking about his stomach, and how hungry he was. It was day two of running around on an empty stomach. 

Will the host go hunting? the system asked. 

Dex recited the teleportation spell and vanished from the tree. It was easy for him to manipulate space once he leveled up and the skills provided by the system came to him instantly. He only needed to practice to perfect and grow them.

The virtual screen provided a real time map and images of the snakes which made it easy for Dex to find them. 

"Are they magical or mythical?" he asked the system. 

Mythical beasts were higher on the poll compared to magical beasts. Mythical beasts could change their shape, taking on a human form while magical beasts could not. 

It was easier to take on a magical beast than it was a mythical one. 

Magical, level two. the system said. 

That means they are more powerful than I am, Dex thought. Brown earth snakes could camouflage themselves in the brown dirt of the ground, making it hard to hunt them if you could not detect them. 

They were like pythons, engulfing the bodies of their prey and swallowing them whole. 

The red carriage was surrounded by mages more powerful than he was, how had none of them detected the snakes?

"Here goes nothing, I choose three, I need the points."

His only weapon was the bow and arrow, his advantage over them was his teleportation. As long as the mages stayed still, he could hide and shoot accurately. He was not new to using arrows, he had done it many times in his past life. 

Patience is a virtue, the system said. 

"Shut up." Dex responded. Of course he knew about patience, hunting was all about patience, strategizing and striking at the best moment. 

He stayed perfectly still and calm, from where he was, he could hear the movements of the snakes and watched them climb to the top of the carriage. They were younger than he assumed, and smaller, it was no wonder that they had not been detected.

He readied his arrow, and pulled, with ease. Three arrows at the same time, for three targets. He was not sure if he was still skilled enough to pull it off, but he trusted his instinct. 

While, the sound of the slithering snakes had not alerted the mages, the visibility of the three arrows did. 

The closest mage, to the carriage chanted a wind spell but Dex saw him and threw a stone at him. It distracted him, breaking the chant and this allowed the arrows to reach their final destination. 

"We are under attack." someone yelled. 

All the mages and guards rapidly abandoned what they were ding and surrounded the carriage. Some mages had weapons while others had artifacts through which they channeled their magic out. 

It was quite apparent that they would die to protect the woman sitting inside of the carriage. 

A loud booming voice then said, "Show yourself, don't be a coward. This carriage is carrying the holy lady of the Tingxun sect. I will only warn you once."

Tingxun sect, Dex sneered, it was a third class sect in the city of Renia. What was their holy lady doing all the way out here? He had been to Tingxun once, when he left Ragor academy, figuring out that a sect would be better for him than an academy. They called him talentless and rejected him.

He did not have any animosity with them but, he had to get his snakes.

"And what will you do after the warning?" he asked. 

Everyone looked around, wondering where the responder was hiding. 

"So you are using a cloaking device." another mage said. 

"Eh, guess again." Dex said. 

He appeared suddenly on the roof of the carriage, allowing them take a physical look at him. 

"I just saved the life of your holy lady." he proclaimed and lifted up the snakes. "I wonder how much her life is worth, well, hers and yours. I mean, if she had died at the hands of three brown earth snakes your Tingxun holy lord would have killed you all." 

He was still explaining when a ball of flames was sent his way. 

Dex disappeared again, and suddenly appeared next to the mage who was using fire and chanting rapidly. 

"Bad move." he said and he stabbed one of his arrows through the hand of that mage.

While that mage screamed, a water mage made a move, sending a long frozen spear of ice, aiming for Dex's heart. 

Again, he vanished, and everyone aimed their weapons in the direction of the water mage. It was what he did before, he would appear there surely. 

"Guess again, that's not where I am." he said. 

They heard a crunch, a loud wail and the fire mage whose arm had been stabbed fell down to the ground.