Jomanji held his breath, pressing himself against the trunk of a massive bamboo tree, his facial features turning into a mask of lethal coldness.
The tiger's eyes were speckled like two glowing embers in the approaching darkness, scanning the surroundings with tireless vigilance.
Jomanji did not possess the strength to tame it, nor was he foolish enough to engage in a direct confrontation he knew he would certainly lose. Instead, he possessed something far more powerful: knowledge and planning.
His hand slowly extended, revealing a solid copper core resting on his palm. Then he followed it with a small piece of dry spiritual mushroom that ignited quickly—something he had prepared beforehand.
The mushroom was extremely small, pale purple in color.
His idea was as insane as it was brilliant. He would not break the core to harvest its energy. Instead, he would grind it and merge it with the mushroom, creating a mixture that mimicked the composition of something the tiger hated and feared for its poisonous nature.
This was the very method Mahinor would use when he came here in the future, once he understood the abilities of the wild leech. It was not truly Jomanji's own idea; he was merely following it.
After moving a short distance away, he began his plan.
With precise and silent strikes, using a piece of flint, he turned the core and the mushroom into a fine powder.
He had no time to start a traditional fire. Instead, he relied on the flow of his weak spiritual energy. He focused it at the tips of his fingers and began passing it through the powder, causing invisible atomic friction.
At first, a sharp carbon-like smell spread in the air. Then a thin thread of gray smoke began to rise.
With incredible speed, Jomanji pulled out a damp piece of cloth and wrapped it around the smoldering powder, trapping the smoke inside as it gathered and concentrated.
When he felt the cloth was on the verge of bursting, he approached the tiger lightly and threw the improvised bundle with force toward a rocky area several meters away from him—against the direction of the wind.
The moment it struck the rocks, the cloth tore apart, releasing a dense cloud of smoke that painted the air with a mysterious purple color.
It was not ordinary smoke. It was saturated with unstable ripples of copper energy, and the smell of poisonous mushroom made the deception even more convincing.
The tiger trembled in place. Its powerful muscles twitched, its ears shook violently, and its vision became hazy.
The smoke had paralyzed its spiritual senses. It could no longer distinguish the pure vibrations of the charred bamboo trees amid the overwhelming chaos of explosive energy surrounding it.
To the beast, it felt as though an invisible enemy had invaded its territory from another direction.
The tiger flew into a rage and released a roar that shook the forest before charging toward the source of the smoke, leaving behind the charred bamboo trees unguarded—if only for a few fleeting moments.
A sharp glint flashed in Jomanji's dark eyes. He had only seconds before the tiger realized the deception and the haze cleared from its sight.
Yet Jomanji did not rush toward the charred trees as anyone might expect. His true target was the spotted tiger itself.
Like a shadow fleeing from light, he shot forward like an arrow toward the beast that was still struggling within its blurred vision, exploiting those stolen moments of time before the predator regained its balance.
He knew his exhausted body could not afford mistakes. But Mahinor's memories that had settled inside his mind guided him with astonishing precision, turning Jomanji into a human dagger slipping into the heart of the chaos he had created.
The tiger reached the center of the trap Jomanji had set and stood alert for any strange movement with paralyzed vigilance. The purple smoke had not only blinded it—it had interfered with its entire sensory perception.
It could no longer distinguish between the presence of a body and the frenzy of energy in the air. Even if his enemy stood beneath the shadow of its fangs, it would not notice him.
Jomanji took advantage of this forced distraction and slipped behind it like a soundless ghost. He extended his hand, summoning the wild leech, which began burning with a strange hunger. Raising his palm swiftly, he struck toward the tiger's back, determined to end the matter quickly.
But fate was not so simple.
At that critical moment, the tiger swung its massive tail in a wild motion to secure its surroundings.
Jomanji tried to retreat within a fraction of a second, but it was too late. The tail, like a pillar of steel, slammed into the boy's abdomen, lifting him into the air like a straw caught in the wind before his exhausted body crashed violently against the ground, shaking his very being.
At that instant, the tiger realized that an intruder had dared to touch its domain. It let out a chilling snarl and pounced in fury toward the place where Jomanji had fallen.
With iron will, Jomanji forced himself to stand as blood spilled from his mouth. He leaped away just as the tiger's claws sank into his previous position, shattering rock and soil.
If Jomanji had been the same person before awakening his spiritual farm, he would now be nothing more than a lifeless corpse beneath this attack. His opponent was an eighth-grade spiritual beast. If not for the spiritual chaos filling the surroundings, even awakening his farm would not have saved him from certain death.
Holding his abdomen while stepping back heavily, Jomanji felt as if his internal tissues were tearing apart.
"An eighth-grade spiritual beast… fighting it head-on isn't just suicide, it's pure madness I cannot afford," he whispered as his vision wavered.
He knew with certainty that the scattered energy particles disrupting the beast's senses would soon fade. They would not last more than five minutes before the tiger regained full visual and spiritual dominance.
Enduring the pain, Jomanji decided to charge once more in a desperate attempt to plant the leech.
But the tiger's wild instincts were faster.
The moment he approached, the beast roared, shaking the boy's very soul, followed by a swift claw strike that tore through the air beside his chest.
Jomanji staggered backward until he crashed into the trunk of a charred bamboo tree, his rapid breathing ripping through his chest.
He tried again and again. With every dash, he faced a forest of claws and thunderous roars until his weak body exhausted every drop of spiritual energy.
With a trembling hand, he pulled out another copper core and crushed it violently, absorbing its essence in a final attempt to restore his strength.
"This is the last chance… If I fail now, all my planning will turn to dust, and I'll become nothing more than a corpse beneath this monster's feet if I remain here," he muttered, madness blazing in his eyes.
Jomanji rushed forward once again toward the tiger, which had begun regaining its sense of hearing. The beast turned with lethal precision toward the source of the panting footsteps.
There was no longer time to maneuver. The smoke cloud had cleared, and the truth was revealed.
The tiger roared, shaking the forest, and leaped into the air, extending a claw dripping with death.
At that moment, Jomanji planted his foot into the ground like an unmoving stake. Twisting his body in a suicidal acrobatic motion, he narrowly avoided the fatal strike while extending his hand—bearing all his pain—toward the beast's body.
"Shhh—"
Blood burst violently from Jomanji's shoulder as a deep tear was caused by the tip of the tiger's claw. The boy was thrown into the air once more before falling away weakly.
He crashed onto the ground with a terrifying impact, yet a faint, victorious laugh escaped his bloody lips.
He had done it.
The leech was no longer in his hand.
In that decisive moment, while his body was being torn apart, Jomanji had managed to plant the wild leech into the tiger's abdomen.
The creature clung to the tiger's body with astonishing ferocity, as if it had finally found the precious feast it had long awaited.
The moment the leech touched the beast's fur, it extended its needle-like roots, piercing through the skin as if drilling into it.
The tiger felt a strange coldness spreading inside its insides. For the first time in its life as an eighth-grade predator, it felt instinctive fear.
This leech was not merely a parasite.
It was its natural enemy.
The tiger roared violently, shaking the forest, and began running wildly in every direction, smashing its body against trees and rocks in a desperate attempt to tear that clinging entity away.
But it was useless.
The leech had found the treasure of its life and would not release it until it obtained what it sought.
Meanwhile, Jomanji used the tiger's existential struggle to his advantage. He crawled backward several meters before forcing himself to stand, his body drenched in blood.
With eyes blazing like sparks, he looked toward the charred trees piercing through the mist like the fingers of demons and muttered hoarsely:
"It's time to take this as well."
Under the cover of the tiger's terrifying roars, Jomanji approached the darkest and largest tree. He bent down and pushed his hand into a deep hollow within its hardened, charred trunk.
After a moment of exhausting searching, he pulled his hand out holding a shining gem—small, the size of a grape, with an ethereal gray color. Deep inside it, lightning danced in silent madness.
"A purified lightning essence…" Jomanji murmured as the gray glow reflected on his pale face.
This was no ordinary lightning remnant. It was the result of countless lightning strikes that had hit this tree over the years, refined through its charred wood. A treasure that could only be found in the heart of these mysterious trees.
Jomanji had no intention of staying long. His torn body desperately needed rest.
He left the area with heavy steps toward a safe hideout to treat his bleeding wounds and recover his stolen breath, leaving behind an existential struggle between the leech and the tiger tearing through the forest's silence.
He knew perfectly well that the leech's chance of success in this suicidal operation did not exceed fifty percent. The risk here bordered on madness.
There were only two possible outcomes to this inevitable clash.
Either the leech would win this battle of attrition and achieve a legendary evolution after feeding on the tiger.
Or the result would end in a catastrophe that destroyed both sides together—an outcome that was very possible. On this dark path of evolution, power is granted only to those who cross the bridges of destruction.
Jomanji remained in a distant cave for three days, a period that equaled nine days within the boundaries of his spiritual farm due to the accelerated flow of time inside it.
There, he devoted his time to repairing his exhausted body and restoring his energy reserves, focusing most of his attention on developing his spiritual farm.
Jomanji did not leave the tribe seeds he had seized unused. Instead, he planted them all in the soil. Even the spiritual eggs he had placed within the river's stream were about to hatch, soon turning into small schools of yellow fish.
As for the wheat seeds he had planted at the beginning of his journey, they had finally begun to emerge above the red soil. Yet their pale color and weak stems hinted at a poor harvest, reflecting the weakness of the spiritual elements that had nourished them during this stage.
Even so, gentle currents of energy brushed against Jomanji's face. The farm was no longer that abandoned barren land—it had begun to pulse with life despite the meager energy scattered within it.
The only thing that broke his solitude and forced him to open his eyes was a violent tremor that shook the foundations of his spiritual farm.
Without the "Farm's Embryo" — the leech — the spiritual structure had begun to falter. The farm could no longer endure and was on the verge of collapse and dispersion.
Jomanji sprang to his feet and rushed out of the cave like lightning, heading toward the place where he had left the clash between the tiger and the leech.
After a search that did not last long, he found the tiger lying on the ground—a lifeless corpse devoid of any trace of spiritual energy, as though life had been completely drained from it.
Even in death, the tiger looked imposing, radiating the lingering majesty of predators that did not fade easily.
Jomanji bent over the massive body and slowly turned it over, searching for any sign of the leech. Then he noticed a small hole in the abdomen area.
He pushed his hand deep into it and began searching eagerly. A foul stench rose, forcing him to cover his nose with difficulty.
Moments of deadly silence passed, and he found nothing.
Fear gripped him.
Had the leech disappeared?
Losing the leech at this critical moment would mean the collapse of his farm and the loss of all his efforts.
Without hesitation, Jomanji pulled out a sharp knife from his bag and plunged it into the small hole, then tore open the tiger's abdomen with brute force until entrails and filthy spiritual remnants spilled out.
He began searching through the remains with sharp focus until he noticed something strange clinging directly to the tiger's heart.
At that moment, Jomanji released a deep sigh of relief.
The leech was there.
But it was no longer the same entity he once knew. It had transformed into something entirely different, overflowing with mysterious power.
It had succeeded.
The evolution of the wild tiger had been born.
End of Chapter