Eden spent the next few days in the forest hunting down the Earth Hogs. The Earth Hogs had become too easy of prey for Eden who had studied their movements and knew how to best strike them.
It was time to move deeper into the forest. Old Man Oak's plan for Eden was to get him ready to combat at minimum, evolved magical beasts. In the forest there were mostly Earth hogs present, hence travelers have given this remote forest the named Hog Forest.
Eden traversed the forest moving deeper and deeper as he wanted to collect as many cores as he could. There was no problem with over-gathering as the hog population was very rampant throughout the forest.
Eden reached a small opening in the forest which peered down into a small dirt pit connected to a cave. Eden could see several earth hogs fighting amongst each other. It was common for Earth Hogs to fight amongst each other to establish a sense of superiority.
Eden walked around the pit noticing the more tranquil Earth Hogs. Eden picked up a nearby pebble and hid behind a bush. He wanted to draw out a hog one by one to reduce the overall numbers. Eden threw the pebble with precision at one of the napping Earth Hogs.
Pah! Pah!
The Earth Hog abruptly got up and looked around. It did not see anything and it slowly went back to sleep.
Pah! Pah!
Eden threw another pebble at the Earth Hog. This time the Earth Hog woke up and immediately ran into the bush Eden was hiding at. The Earth Hog was subsequently caught by Eden's combo of entangle and the blinding spell moonlight reflection. These two spells were immediately followed up by a quick sword stab. He quickly obtained the beasts core and moved around in search of the next careless hog.
A few hours later, there were only 5 Earth Hogs left at the center of the pit as their numbers slowly dwindled. Earth Hogs were relatively dumb creatures but even they could tell when a large amount of them were missing.
Squee! Squee! Squee!
The remaining hogs began to panic. Eden was not standing very far from them hidden in a bush.
Large thumping sounds began to be heard. Thump! Thump! Thump! A 5ft tall hog came out of the cave.
'Evolved?.. No Champion?!' was the sense that Eden got. Eden's elemental sight couldn't identify the power level of this beast due to Eden's strength but he could sense that it was out of his current ability. Eden began to take a step back. He stepped on a twig backing up.
Snap!
The Champion hog began to look at Eden's direction. Eden could feel an immense pressure on him as the giant hog looked at his way. The hog had easily detected Eden's presence nearby.
A giant dirt wall soon rose from just behind Eden. The Champion Hog commanded all the other hogs to charge in that direction.
SQUEE! SQUEE! SQUEE!
The remaining hogs began charging in the direction that Eden was in.
Eden casted entangle to slowdown all the hogs but it would not last long. He had to move quickly he didn't have any skills that could damage the Champion hog from afar. He ran as fast as fast as possible around the earth wall which impeded his direction.
The Champion Earth Hog casted Earth Wall once again, however this time, Eden just narrowly avoided being caught by it again. The hogs broke out of the entangle spell and began their chase of Eden.
'Quick! What to do? What to do?'
Eden was sure he could not outrun the earth Hogs. With the Champion Earth hog present, he couldn't use his invisibility either. His invisibility spell didn't work on higher level magical beasts. Eden could only avoid detection of beings with the same or weaker amount of strength than him when using Moonlight Aura.
Eden was at a loss. 'So this is what it means to face something with overwhelming strength.' He would soon be outpaced by the Earth Hogs. He turned around constantly in order to slow down the hogs by casting entangle. He had to think of a solution or this wasn't going to last long.
As Eden continued running he tripped over a vine on the ground.
fa-thud!
At that same instance that Eden fell, an Earth Wall rose up from the ground blocking Eden's escape. Eden was at a loss at what to do. His strength right now could not match up to the Champion Earth Hog.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The Champion Earth Hog and the smaller hogs approaches slowly. Three Spikes made of dirt began to form around the Champion Earth Hog.
'Earth Spike!' Eden was ready for the end. Surrounded by Earth Hogs and blocked off by the Earth wall.
Eden casted Entangle on the ground in order to raise vines from the ground to come up with a defense against the Earth Spike spell.
Three Earth Spikes from the Earth Hog were launched at him.