The forest slowly settled into an uneasy quiet after the fall of the Divine Wrath Vine.
Broken vines lay scattered across the forest floor like lifeless ropes. Some were still twitching faintly, their movements weak and meaningless now that their controller had been destroyed. The thick stem that had once been the heart of the creature lay uprooted beside Jade, its many eyes now dull and lifeless.
Jade stood there breathing slowly.
His chest rose and fell as he tried to recover from the intense battle. His body still felt weak from the blood he had lost earlier, but something inside him was changing.
The system suddenly spoke again inside his mind.
"Consume the shard to improve body."
Jade blinked in confusion.
"What shard?" he asked aloud.
For a moment he waited for an explanation.
But the system gave no reply.
The forest remained silent.
Jade frowned slightly.
"So you're just going to say that and leave?" he muttered.
But the system remained silent.
Jade stood there thinking for a moment.
Then suddenly, he remembered something.
Something his mother had once explained to him a long time ago.
When people killed certain creatures during trials or hunts, sometimes the creature's body would contain shards.
Fragments of condensed energy.
Different creatures produced different shards, and those shards could strengthen the human body in various ways.
His mother had once told him that powerful warriors often grew stronger by consuming these fragments.
Jade looked down at the corpse of the vine controller.
"If the system mentioned a shard… then it must be inside this thing."
The body of the plant creature was still large, even after being uprooted. Its thick stem had cracked in several places from Jade's final attack, and its tangled roots were spread across the dirt like a nest of twisted snakes.
Jade carefully stepped closer.
He crouched down beside the corpse and began searching through the broken parts of its roots.
The smell of the plant was strange.
It smelled like damp earth mixed with something slightly metallic, almost like blood.
Jade pushed aside some of the cracked root segments.
Then he saw them.
Two small glowing objects were lodged inside a hollow part of the root cluster.
They looked like tiny crystals.
Each one was roughly the size of a marble.
One of them glowed faintly with a dark red color.
The other had a dull brown glow.
Jade carefully picked them up.
"So these are the shards," he murmured.
They felt surprisingly warm in his hand.
For a moment he examined them closely.
They looked fragile, but somehow he could feel energy coming from them.
Then Jade remembered something else his mother had said.
"Most shards dissolve when consumed."
That meant there was only one way to use them.
Jade raised the first shard—the red one—to his mouth.
"Well… here goes."
He placed it on his tongue.
The moment it touched his mouth, the shard dissolved instantly.
It melted like sugar.
A warm sensation spread through his throat and chest.
Then the system spoke again.
"You have received five blood fragments."
"Blood fragments: 5 / 50."
Jade blinked.
"Blood fragments?"
He didn't fully understand what that meant yet, but the warmth spreading through his body felt incredible.
It moved through his veins like flowing heat.
The cold weakness from earlier began fading slightly.
His body absorbed the energy quickly.
Jade looked at the second shard.
The brown one.
"I wonder what this one does," he muttered.
He placed it in his mouth as well.
Just like the first one, it dissolved instantly.
This time the warmth felt slightly different.
Instead of flowing through his veins like liquid, it spread deeper into his body.
Into his muscles.
Into his bones.
The system spoke again.
"You have received five earth fragments."
"Earth fragments: 5 / 50."
Jade raised an eyebrow.
"So there are different fragments."
He stood there quietly as the energy continued flowing through his body.
The effects were subtle at first.
But then he felt something remarkable.
The wound in his back began to heal slightly.
The pain that had been lingering there faded slowly.
His skin tightened as the damaged flesh repaired itself.
It didn't heal completely, but it improved significantly.
Jade rolled his shoulders slowly.
He could feel his body changing.
His muscles felt stronger.
Denser.
Even his bones felt heavier and more solid.
It was like his entire body had been reinforced.
His skin still felt soft, but beneath that softness was a growing firmness.
Jade clenched his fist.
The strength inside his arm felt different now.
More stable.
More powerful.
A grin slowly appeared on his face.
"This feels amazing," he said quietly.
All his life he had imagined what it would feel like to become stronger.
To surpass the limits of his ordinary body.
And now he was finally experiencing it.
This was only the beginning.
He was still inside the trial.
But already he could feel himself changing.
"I wonder how strong I'll become once I pass this trial," he thought.
The idea filled him with excitement.
Meanwhile, the observers who had watched his fight with the vine controller were still standing nearby.
They had witnessed everything.
From the moment Jade had been stabbed…
To the moment he had uprooted the creature.
Many of them were still stunned.
One man scratched his head in disbelief.
"That kid… actually killed it."
Another person nodded slowly.
"And he did it alone."
A woman nearby crossed her arms thoughtfully.
"For a beginner… that was impressive."
Another spectator spoke quietly.
"His reflexes were good."
"And he kept his composure even when he was losing blood."
Someone else added,
"Not many new participants could do that."
Several of them watched Jade carefully as he consumed the shards.
One older man narrowed his eyes slightly.
"That kid has talent."
Another person nodded.
"He might actually survive this trial."
But their conversation suddenly stopped.
Because something in the forest had changed.
A distant roar echoed through the trees.
Then another.
Then several more.
The ground trembled faintly.
Jade felt it immediately.
His head turned toward the deeper parts of the forest.
The spectators also looked in the same direction.
Something was approaching.
And it wasn't just one creature.
Multiple large shapes began moving through the trees.
Branches snapped.
Heavy footsteps shook the forest floor.
Then the monsters appeared.
Several large creatures emerged from the shadows of the forest.
Their eyes glowed hungrily as they looked at the battlefield.
The smell of blood had attracted them.
Some of the human fighters who had been battling earlier were already injured.
And the monsters had come to feed.
One of the spectators cursed under his breath.
"Damn it."
Another fighter immediately grabbed his weapon.
"They're coming for the wounded."
A monstrous creature lunged toward one of the injured humans nearby.
Its massive jaws opened wide.
The battlefield that had briefly grown quiet was about to descend into chaos again.
Jade slowly tightened his fists.
The warmth from the shards still flowed through his body.
And now… more monsters were arriving.