After enough rest, Asher cleaned up himself to avoid getting spotted by a group of black beasts, since their main sense of perception was smell.
While he was searching for shelter, he came across a pair of black beasts, but he didn't engage in a battle with them and carefully avoided them using his item.
[Name: Veil of Scent
Number: 9987
Ability: Shroud - Completely shrouds the scent of a person during activation]
Using the shroud ability of his Numbered 9987 item, Asher avoided them successfully.
His main purpose right now is to find shelter and then to find a way to reduce the effects of his curse or if there's a way to remove it completely.
Engaging in a meaningless battle with those mindless beasts will only consume more of his mental energy. Also, every single battle against those beasts was a life-and-death battle for him, who just Awakened and didn't even have time to properly master his abilities.
The only reason he could kill those beasts was because of the help of his spear—which is also a Numbered item.
Numbered items, as the name implies, are items with special abilities ranked in numerical order.
His Veil of Scent was at the bottom of the ranking and its only ability was to camouflage the user's presence by consuming their energy.
The higher ranking items would have more uses and abilities and could be even used as potential lifesavers.
While carefully avoiding the pair of black beasts, Asher almost stumbled without noticing the small pothole, "How am I going to survive a month here in this condition?" He yelled lightly in frustration and thought about the content of the trial.
[Survive in the Abandoned World for 30 days]
It was the trial given by the Celestial Mind to him, the administrator of the trial.
After barely surviving half a day in the Abandoned World, mental fatigue already threatened to overwhelm Asher, affecting his normal course of action.
Due to the effects of the curse, Asher hadn't slept for two days, leaving dark circles under his eyes and causing his concentration to waver in battles.
At this rate, Asher doubted whether he'd survive for five days, let alone thirty days.
Before coming here, Asher thought about increasing his Rank from Awakened to Ascendant with the help of trial, since he heard a lot of participants earning a huge amount of cores.
The Awakened Rank humans are not that strong, they are the same as the unawakened ones. The only difference between them is that the Awakened one has their Trait and their physical capabilities are also slightly enhanced.
But the next Rank—Ascendant isn't like that. They are similar to superhumans, capable of doing things beyond human limitations. So, Asher was planning to increase his Rank and delay the effects of curse as much as possible.
But nothing went according to his plan after he arrived in this Abandoned World. Just after he arrived, he actively searched for monsters to take their cores after killing them, but he only found the faceless black beast.
After killing the first one, he eagerly searched for its core, but didn't find it. Without minding or thinking that this particular black beast should be a newborn, which usually doesn't have a core, he searched for other monsters.
Then he hunted the Second, Third, Fourth one…
Despite killing over ten black beasts, Asher didn't even find a single core inside them.
Asher was confused and devastated to discover that the black beasts had no cores. The black beasts were an anomaly that Asher didn't understand.
'Is absorbing the energy in the atmosphere my only chance?' Asher muttered with a sigh.
Another way to increase his Rank was to absorb energy from the surroundings, but that method was outdated and time-consuming.
It takes Asher about 24 hours of full-concentration meditation to absorb the energy equivalent to a single core from an Awakened Rank creature
Asher didn't have the luxury of time; he had to solve the curse's problem quickly, or he would die in the Abandoned World without achieving his goal.
Thinking that the only way to increase his chances of survival was to find other types of beasts to obtain their core, Asher passed another pair of black beasts without any conflict.
***
After an hour of journey, Asher didn't find any suitable shelter, but at least he had a positive result.
It was a huge tree that seemed to be about a hundred meters. Asher went near the tree and inspected it with awe. When seen from close, it seems to touch the gloomy red skies, and Asher felt like a child in front of its size and grandeur.
At least in the hope of finding a way to escape from this place, Asher decided to climb the tree.
'It should be tough, but I need to endure this much to pass the trial.' With determination, Asher removed his shirt.
Tying the spear behind his back using his shirt, he began to climb the tree bare-chested.
Since the branches were withered, Asher didn't dare to step on them due to fear of breaking and he could climb up using only his hands and feet.
'This is much more harder than I thought'
After reaching the top with great effort, Asher didn't have the luxury to catch his breath or look for a shelter, because the first thing that entered his field of vision was a huge black mountain.
As soon as he saw this, Asher jumped down towards the nearest branch without caring whether it would break or not.
He knew, he saw nothing before climbing up, and there was no way that he would miss such an important detail with his cautious mentality.
Luckily, the branch didn't break when he landed, and Asher began to descend even more hastily like a monkey.
Just above three meters from the ground, the branch beneath Asher snapped, sending him plummeting.
Asher was caught off guard and directly crashed to the ground.
When he turned around, he saw the black mountain was also looking at him, but it wasn't a black mountain, it was proper to call it the bigger version of the black beast that he hunted before.
This one too had a hideous face, revealing its razor-sharp teeth and pointy tongue, but the surprising part was it had eyes too.
It was looking Asher like an easy prey and rolled its tongue in hunger.
Asher's face turned pale, and his heart shrunk. Icy fear's grip paralyzed him, as his eyes fixed on the behemoth.
His thoughts momentarily shuddered and he stood there like a statue.
Asher's chest heaved, his breathing was quick and shallow, even though the beast was far away from him.
Asher came back to his senses when the beast made a move, and then without even thinking of fighting back, he ran away towards the opposite direction.
The huge behemoth spotted him and uprooted a withered tree from its root, holding it like a playing stick.
After checking its durability by shaking it a few times, it threw the tree toward Asher.
The tree flew towards Asher, tearing through the air like a sharp spear.