Once again an alert youth moved through the forest collecting herbs and checking the trees for the characteristic marks of the Steelback Bear.

Soon he found a tree that was marked and he started to look for others close by. Soon he found another two and was now better able to calculate the territory of the Steelback Bear.

Of course he couldn't be absolutely sure that the marks were from the same one but the size and the distance of the claw marks was very similar so it was likely for them to belong to the same Steelback Bear.

Now that he had a reduced area to search he soon found the Bear that had made the marks. Unlike the first one he had met it was just an F grade one. As such with his experience from his first fight he was able to easily slay it.

Sadly he still wasn't able to skin it well enough and as such the hide was once again ruined but at least it was better than before.

After finis.h.i.+ng the cleanup he then continued his hunt but wasn't able to find another one until it got late.

After returning to the cave he once again called his daughter for a chat. Following the call he then practiced his pill refining without much success.

Like this a week pa.s.sed during which he hunted during the day and practiced pill refining during the evening.

Now that a week had pa.s.sed he had finally managed to collect the 10 Steelback Bear pelts he needed for his mission. He also had at least 100 kg of bear paw, but sadly he didn't get another Blood Essence. As such he had a decision to make on whether to go back or continue for a bit more. After all he would be able to gain some more contribution points by hunting for more pelts. Since he wasn't able to decide he decided to call his mentor.

"So you finally decided to call me? If your daughter didn't tell me about your talks I wouldn't even have known whether you were still alive or not."

Only now did Ivan realize that he had completely forgotten to call his mentor ever since he left the capital. Even though he didn't explicitly said that he should call it would still have been prudent to do it.

"Sorry. It just slipped my mind."

He could then hear his mentor laughing at him.

"Was it that much fun to be outside of the capital and hunt?", his mentor then asked, giving him the feeling that he could see right through him.

Ivan could only admit it embarra.s.sed, "Yeah, it was great to experience something so different."

"That's good. Then why did you call? Because I'm sure you didn't call just because you missed hearing my voice."

"Oh. I called because I wanted a second opinion on whether I should stay to hunt a bit more or come back."

"You managed to get everything for the quest?"

"Yes, but only just. If I stay I could get some more pelts which I could submit but I'm not sure if it is worth the time."

"The bit of contribution points you would get for it is surely not worth it but the question is if you would be able to gain more experience by continuing and that is something only you can decide on."

Ivan thought back at the last fights he had against Steelback Bears and how easy he felt they were.

"Well to be honest I found the last few fights quite easy."

"Then you wouldn't gain much by continuing. Did you find anything else you can do there better than here?"

"Such like?"

"There are sometimes spots which are much better for training than artificial environments. These are often high cliffs, waterfalls or caves."

Ivan thought about all the areas he had explored but nothing special came to his mind.

"I don't think so.", only after saying that he remembered the ease at which he was able to find herbs around here so he hurriedly followed up with, "But there are lots of common herbs to be found around here and I have used them for practice."

"These herbs can be easily bought here in the city so that's not really a good reason."

"But I don't have money to buy them."

Once again he could hear his mentor laugh at him.

"Haha, did you forget your mission reward? Besides that these kinds of common herbs can be bought for only a few contribution points per kg."

Once he heard that he let out a surprised gasp, "So cheap?"

"Don't forget that even though contribution points aren't worth much if you exchange them for silver or gold, they are much harder to get and since they can't be exchanged for money many use resources to trade for them. Because of the exchange rules one contribution point is only worth one silver but can be used to buy resources worth more than five silver."

After hearing the explanation Ivan understood the reasoning behind it but was still quite surprised. He had never taken a closer look at exchange rates for the contribution points and to make it worse he didn't even have a good feeling about the worth of the currency used in the empire.

"I guess there is no reason to stay here then.", he sighted. Even though life in this little valley was hard and primitive he had still enjoyed his stay here and would miss the freedom he enjoyed here.

Hearing the sad tone in his students voice his mentor chuckled. He had felt the same way when he had to return to the capital for the first time. Living in the wilderness was really something special.