Bab 29: BAM
Growl
Tom's stomach rumbled loudly, indicating its emptiness. After all, Tom had spent his days training without eating, and the first thing he did once outside was to fight a monster for hours, which left him hungry.
"What could be edible around here?" Tom thought aloud.
He began to search the trees to see if he could find something to eat, but unfortunately, none of the trees he encountered bore fruit.
After wandering the mountainside for an hour, Tom finally found his next meal.
There, behind some trees, he spotted a couple of rabbits frolicking.
'Let's hope these are just normal animals this time,' Tom wished in his head. Since he had arrived in this damned forest, he hadn't encountered any animals that were even remotely normal, so he hoped that at least this time these rabbits would be ordinary.
Trying not to make a sound, Tom approached the rabbits slowly until he was just a leap away from them. He prepared himself and lunged at the rabbits, extending his arms to catch them. He could already envision them on his plate.
Unfortunately, just as he was about to grab them, each rabbit darted off in different directions, and they were already dozens of meters away from him before he even landed.
'What the-'
Before he could finish his thought, he had already collided with the ground, landing face-first, while some leaves entered his mouth. Getting up, he spitted out the leaves , and wondered, 'How come these rabbits are so fast?'
But not one to back down from a challenge, Tom prepared to go after one of the rabbits again.
However, this time, he decided not to catch them by surprise by suddenly appearing behind them. Instead, he planned to rely on his speed. He was quite proud of his speed and was sure he could catch a simple little rabbit.
Plus, he intended to use his etherium to boost his speed, so how could he not catch a rabbit? Besides, with the newly absorbed core, his speed, just like his strength, should have increased.
With etherium coursing through his leg muscles and his speed pushed to the maximum, Tom began to sprint after one of the rabbits.
However Tom had been naive in his judgment. As he had experienced since arriving in this forest, all the animals he had encountered were dangerous and had all tried to kill him.
The question he should have asked upon seeing these rabbits should have been: How could such seemingly fragile creatures survive in such a forest?
Unfortunately, he didn't ask himself that question and foolishly thought he could catch these rabbits with just a bit of speed.
Conclusion: he had run for over an hour without catching a single rabbit.
It wasn't that he was slow; it was just that the rabbits were faster than anything he had seen before. Once they started running, these rabbits could even go faster than the crystal projectiles launched by the crystal creature!
"Haa...haa... How...can they be so fast?" Tom wondered, out of breath and feeling like he might cough up his lungs.
The worst part was that the rabbits never strayed too far from him; it was as if they stayed close to mock him.
Exhausted, Tom fell onto his back while continuing to watch the rabbits casually hopping around.
'Speed is obviously not the solution,' he thought.
Growl
Meanwhile, his stomach was growling louder and louder.
"I know, I know," he said, addressing his belly, "but it's not like I can... AH."
He remembered something he had read when preparing to come to this world.
'Some Etherians who choose to become assassins can completely silence their footsteps using Etherium. If I could do the same, it would be a piece of cake to catch these rabbits,' he thought, excited to have found a solution.
However, there was a problem: the article he had read only mentioned that it was possible and didn't explain how to do it.
Nevertheless, Tom decided to try to learn this technique on his own. He stood up and focused his Etherium into his legs, taking steps forward to see if his footsteps had diminished, but as he expected, nothing changed.
"Hmm... Let's try a different approach."
Throughout the day, Tom tried various methods of channeling Etherium into his legs to see if there would be any change.
He attempted to channel just a small amount of Etherium into his legs, but it yielded nothing. Then he tried directing Etherium in bursts into his legs, still to no avail.
He tried several methods without success until night was approaching.
'Sigh... still nothing,' Tom thought after trying yet another method that failed.
Growl
"I really need to find something to eat," he said while preparing to climb a tree for shelter at night.
However, before he could do anything, Tom felt himself being hurled into the air and then crashing violently into a tree.
BOOM
"Cough... Cough..."
He immediately started spitting up blood, and all his wounds, which had started to cauterize, reopened. In addition to that, he felt that some of his ribs were broken.
'What was that?' he thought while coughing up blood, his vision becoming blurry. He truly felt like he was about to lose consciousness but quickly snapped back, knowing that wasn't an option if he wanted to stay alive.
Struggling, he opened his eyes and looked at where he had been standing before. His eyes widened when he saw what had likely dealt him that blow.
In the spot where he had been standing before, there was now a creature similar to the very first one he had fought.
This creature, like the previous one, had monkey-like features, but unlike the one Tom had fought, this one seemed smaller in size and even less bulky.
However, it was not small by any means, as it was about the size of Tom, but unlike Tom, it was wider, with well-toned and muscular limbs.
It stood there with its right fist extended, but after a moment, it retracted its fist, looked at the location had landed and started approaching Tom slowly.
'Sigh... There's never a second of peace in this damn forest,' thought Tom when he saw the creature approaching.
"Arg," he groaned as he got up.
Tom focused his Etherium into the muscles of his legs and arms, preparing for combat.
He knew full well that his Astralums would be utterly useless in this fight since none of his Astralums seemed to work on living beings.
He had already tried using his Time Astralum on the rabbits, but unfortunately, nothing happened. He didn't know if it was the limit of his Astralum or just his lack of mastery, but he had suspicions it was the latter.
As for his deconstruction Astralum, it was the same story.
The worst part was that he no longer had his sword, so it would be complicated to inflict any damage on this monkey-like creature. Which meant he had to fight barehanded again, but unlike the crystal creature, this creature had a body made of flesh and blood, making it a more challenging adversary.
But that didn't mean he was giving up; in fact, it was quite the opposite.
On Earth It's said that the best defense is a good offense, so this time, Tom didn't wait for the creature to make the first move. He charged against it at full speed!
In a matter of seconds he arrived in front of the creature and was about to strike, but the creature was too fast. Before Tom could raise his fist to strike, the creature's punch came hurtling toward his face.
However, after fighting a creature that launched projectiles faster than bullets, the monkey's punch, which would have seemed lightning-fast before, appeared clearly to Tom's eyes.
Tom hadn't realized it, but his reaction speed had also greatly increased, to the point where he could easily dodge the monkey's punch.
Tom skillfully avoided the monkey's punch and circled around to the side where the monkey had its arm extended, then delivered a blow to its ribs!
BAM
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
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Status Power Mingguan
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Power 
-- Power
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