Sword God in a World of Magic

Alex gathered the fruits.

There were 26 of them, which was insane!

The pig Alex had fed to the Hegemon before had only given him five, with one being taken away by the lizard.

But now, Alex received 26!

'Obviously, the Hegemon is rewarding me with fruits based on the power of the prey,' Alex thought as he gathered the fruits. 'What defines power? I guess it's mostly the amount of Mana inside of a being. The pig had only been a normal animal, but it had been quite massive. A normal wolf would probably only give me three fruits or something like that.'

As Alex took up the last fruit, he looked at it with narrowed eyes. 'I can train my body without problems when it comes to muscles, but power isn't only muscles.'

'I need powerful bones to resist my own power and to continue fighting after taking a heavy hit.'

'I need powerful organs for the same reason.'

'There's probably even something that can increase the effectiveness of my blood. More powerful muscles need more oxygen, and the blood is the thing that transports said oxygen.'

As Alex thought about that, he furrowed his brows. 'Wait a second. If my body requires more oxygen, I would be taking far deeper breaths. After all, my muscles are already more powerful than any human's muscles on earth. Yet, I'm breathing normally. In fact, now that I think about it, my breathing became even shallower.'

'It's almost like the more powerful my body gets, the less oxygen it needs, which makes no sense,' Alex thought. 'I wonder, can Mana work as some kind of replacement for oxygen? I think that's a possibility.'

Then, Alex sighed.

'Well, even without that, blood still plays an integral function for the body, and even if the blood itself has no chance of increasing its effectiveness, my blood vessels still need to become stronger. After all, I don't want to pop a vein whenever I bow forward.'

'In short, everything's important. My normal training gives me all I need for my muscles, but I require these fruits for everything else. I need to damage my body so that it can absorb Mana, and any damage to my bones or organs could prove fatal without a lot of Mana.'

Alex looked at the fire in the center of his clearing.

The fire crackled peacefully, and it was the sole source of light in a sea of darkness. The white snowflakes danced around it as the warm air pushed them away and melted them.

The sky was dark.

The forest was dark.

Only the fire wasn't dark.

What kind of impact did this image have on Alex?

Alienation.

From what?

From the fire.

to humans, but Alex didn't

not comfort and safety but

Alex wasn't prey anymore.

He was the hunter.

the Stalker

He wanted

Alex wouldn't

learned a lot from

been about

out of the fight without even being

even been able

Why?

Willpower!

Conviction!

put his life on the line. He had never thought about retreat, and he had only attacked. He

similar situations before,' Alex thought as he gazed at the fire. 'Back when I trained my ass off for my fights, I had to uphold

of my future on my shoulders. If I lost my fight, I would not have any ways to make more money. I decided to go all-in in my training, and if I didn't win this gamble, I would fall into

for a couple of weeks, hard for a couple of months, but the closer it

the pressure was overwhelming, and no matter what I did for the remaining couple of days, it wouldn't offset everything

had already been decided by my past actions. Yet,

of powerlessness. It was like I no longer had control

at

everything and simply sit down. I could find solace and escape this pressure. After all,

my dream, I need discipline. One day of skipping training will lead to another day a week later, which will lead to another

the end, I will have

will have invaded

around and took hold of

the fire and hung the hide near

from the

can't give

arrived at his bag and

That's enough food for several days. I shouldn't eat anything right now since I will be training. I don't want to eat jerky just to puke it out again,' Alex

fruits and looked at it

stalwart his mind was at the moment,

another harrowing, torturous,

other ways to train my organs, bones, skin, blood vessels, and so on. I can't imagine everyone going through this hell. The path to power is hard,

these other methods be

'I don't know.'

but after gnashing his teeth,

felt like

noticed a

with fiery eyes. 'I will still explode if I don't do anything about this Mana,

more powerful, and the fruits no