Liam looked at the system window, in a bit of a daze. He could only kill creatures of 'sufficient' intelligence. What did that mean? Some exclamation seemed necessary so he said aloud, "What the fuck!" Some creatures nearby seemed a little scared by the sudden noise and he could hear them scattering. Sufficient intelligence, did that mean that only creatures that the system deemed intelligent would be killed? That had to be it right? Because otherwise, ants could take him down. If he couldn't kill them, that might become a problem. There weren't many humans but there should be in the quintillions, if not more, ants. "Stop spiraling Liam!" he told himself. Although it helped, he kept spiraling for a couple more minutes...
After his mini-panic attack was over he realized that sitting under this tree wouldn't be doing anything for him anymore. He couldn't gain anymore power, his talent wouldn't grow... wait. He could still gain power, right? Since gaining power relied solely upon the movements that he was doing earlier... he should be able to, right? Liam made as if to do the movements again, but before he could, he stopped. He could faintly hear something crashing through the bushes towards him. He directed his attention to it, he could hear it coming closer really quickly!
"There's only one thing to do here at my power level right?" he said to himself in a meek whisper. Liam turned tail and ran the opposite direction as fast as he could. And fast might have been an understatement. Liam was absolutely flying! He couldn't even feel the sticks or pointy rocks through his bare foot pads anymore. It was a completely different experience to just hours before! Liam burst through bush after bush, nearly running into several large trees. He was trying to pay attention to sounds behind him, to see if the creature was still chasing him, but he was unable to hear anything more than the sounds of himself crashing through foliage. At least the bush branches didn't hurt. A couple branches did catch on his baggy sweats, tearing through them a little bit, but Liam didn't mind all too much.
A few minutes later Liam stopped. He listened carefully for the thing that was behind him but heard nothing. Maybe he was clear? He really hoped it wasn't an Unseen. But according to his memories, the Unseen hadn't been spotted around this city in something like 15 years. His predecessor hadn't ever been in the presence of one, or he would've died. But around 15 years ago there was a massive battle outside the city due to an Unseen being reported, for some reason only a B rank was sent. B ranks are only able to detect Unseen, but they can't fight against them directly. The B rank discovered a C rank monster nest and levelled the whole thing. To this day, there's a massive pit to the north of the city.
Liam focused back in on his surroundings because in the distance he could hear the faint crashing sound once more. It sounded even faster than before! Liam was panicking. He didn't know how to fight. He'd transmigrated into this world just hours before! It was still the same day! Liam quickly came to a decision, he would continue to run. This thing couldn't chase him forever, right?
Liam ran for about 30 more minutes before stopping. Something that he noticed about being F rank vs. being a Normie is that his stamina was significantly better. It was nearly incomparable. Each jump in rank brought a qualitative difference in power, and each jump in talent brought a quantitative difference in how quickly one could gather power and, as Liam would later figure out, it also gave one access to a different type of power.
Liam didn't stop because he was tired, he stopped because he wanted to listen for the creature, and also because he had a plan if it kept chasing him. His plan was simple, grow powerful enough that it wouldn't matter what was chasing him. He quickly began the Tai Chi movements from before, not long after he was able to feel his core spinning up, he could feel the warmth as it quickly spread through his body, and he could feel an additional sensation in his fingertips, a tingling. Continuing his wavy or flowy motions around his body, drawing his arms around his core and feeling the energy follow, Liam began to picture the energy moving throughout his body. The more he pictured it in his head, the more he felt like he could actually see the ebb and flow of the energy. He opened his eyes, shocked to find that he wasn't being silly or dreaming, but that he could actually see wisps of energy surrounding him and being sucked in periodically. After about five minutes of cultivation he heard that same popping sound again.
Had he just broken through again in five minutes?? He could've sworn that his stats window said that it would take 1 billion power for him to break through to E rank. He thought that would've at least taken him 30 minutes. But the unmistakable surge of power dashed those thoughts, he could feel his body transforming this time. He could feel his skin cells evolving, his muscles becoming stronger, more flexible, his bones becoming sturdier, his brain becoming less foggy. The wind from before was much more powerful this time around, creating a minor cyclone around him and about 5 meters above him. The trees were swaying and shaking from the sheer power that he exuded. He raised his hand, his fingertips nearly glowing with the power that seemed to be leaking out of them. He decided to open his status window and see what changed.
<6,338,811/1,000,000,000,000 Power>
Suddenly, he heard a crash directly behind him. He was so focused on breaking through to E rank that he momentarily forgot about the creature. He contemplated running but he felt it was time to dissuade this creature from following him anymore. No killing... but some friendly pushback should help out. He turned to face the direction the creature was coming from and came face to face with... a tree?