When Alex woke up the next day, he felt much more fresher than before. As he went downstairs to have food, the innkeeper handed him a letter. He opened it to see that it was a message from Nia, the Ninja girl.

"Come to adventure house at noon."

Brief message Alex thought. After having food and feeling comfortably full, Alex went to the Adventure House, to see Nia waiting for him.

"Is it already noon?" He asked.

She ignored his question amd got to the point. "Are you interested in helping me out?"

"What's the job?" Alex asked, all business like.

"I want to kill a supreme beast." She said.

"You... what? What's the point though? It only gives a single use card." Alex said.

"Inside the beast there is a special item that is helpful for me." Nia said.

Alex understood. "Okay, let's go."

The two quickly set off eastward, with Nia leading the way. Along the way, Alex kept randomly slaughtering monsters to get fragments.

Nia noticed something weird as the fragments never seemed to appear when Alex killed the monsters. In actuality, the fragments were directly absorbed into his inner world and digested by his vortex card.

"Are you so unlucky? You killed so many creatures, but I didn't see a single fragment appear?" Nia asked with curiosity.

Alex shrugged and tried to be dramatic. "This is life."

Nia ignored the theatrics. Along the way, Alex absorbed another two fragments directly into the vortex card and suddenly the vortex card began glowing.

"Finally! 100 fragments have been collected." Alex thought. He motioned to Nia and sat down on the road.

The glowing vortex card then channeled a force into the dark card and a card directly began to form. Alex didn't even wait to form and directly pumped in all the stored dark energy into the Rank 1 card directly forming a Rank 1 Grade C card of the dark attribute.

Alex had a vision of what the card really was. He was a shadow and he could hide in corners and disappear into the night. It was the perfect a.s.sa.s.sin. Finally the vision disappeared and Alex got up.

He now had a new Rank 1 card, Dark Shadow. The card literally turned him into a shadowy figure and eliminated his presence. In darkness he could become completely invisible.

Alex then stood up and motioned to Nia to continue. Nia looked at Alex curiously. "Why did you suddenly stop? I even felt a disturbance in the energy within you."

Alex pondered before explaining. "The grade of my card improved." Then he displayed the Light Aura all over his body and deactivated it.

Nia had no choice but to believe him after that, but she felt this young man was a very curious person.

After a few days, they arrived at a hilltop with a single tree standing on it. No monsters seemed to head near the hill.

Alex asked. "Is the monster we came to kill hiding in that tree?"

Nia shook her head. "The monster is the tree itself. Its a living tree whose roots and branches will move rapidly to kill anyone appearing it its vicinity."

Alex understood. "Alright, how are we attacking it?"

With his Energy Affinity, he could clearly see that there were thousands of roots encroaching the hill inside out and a single move would potentially incite the tree to send the roots up like spikes.

Nia said. "I can sense an overwhelming amount of life energy within the tree and under the hill. There are probably a lot of roots guarding the hill. I have a powerful movement art that will allow me to get closer to the trunk in am instant and attack the tree's heart directly. I need you to distract the tree."

Alex nodded. "Sure, I can distract the tree."

Then Alex dumbly stepped on the hill and struck his stick into the ground. Immediately a group of roots pierced upwards like spikes, however Alex had already moved before the spikes came up. Once again he banged the ground as he jumped around the hill like a crazy monkey constantly dodging the spikes because of his immense sensory abilities allowing him to see every movement of the roots like an x-ray.

Nia was momentarily dumbfounded, but then smiled behind the mask. Then she suddenly disappeared from her location, appearing seconds later beside the trunk. She activated a card and began drawing life energy out of the trunk into her body as if quenching her thirst.

The abnormal tree instantly felt the threat from Nia absorbing it's life energy and immediately sw.a.n.g tens of its branches as well as propelled several roots to pierce Nia. However, Nia once again used the movement art and disappeared from the place.

Alex who had seen the skirmish also began heading towards the tree in a zig zag manner, however the tree had now turned its attention completely towards Nia who was constantly zipping towards the trunk and sucking its life force out.

While this was a threat to the Tree, the tree was actually ancient and had an immense amount of life force. It was a potential threat, but at this rate Nia was only causing ant p.r.i.c.ks.

At that moment, Alex suddenly took out his Light Aura and began piercing the roots of the tree by creating spikes with his aura.. Once again the tree was irritated and turned its attention towards Alex.

Nia took this opportunity to activate a rank 2 card and all the life energy she sucked in early turned into a blast of energy and shocked the tree's trunk, leading to several leaves falling down.

The tree went into an even bigger frenzy as it's branches began turning into whips las.h.i.+ng around the hill. Nia was. .h.i.t several times by the whipping branches, but her physical strength was high and her tenacity allowed her to hold on.

At that moment, Alex activated his Dark attribute rank 1 card, Dark Shadow. Suddenly, his presence completely disappeared in the eyes of the tree.