Step Step
Right now, walking carefully was Nio, with his eyes closed. Around him were his chakra strings scattered in various directions scouting his position. Where was he? Back into the cave, he was trying to sneak back into the forest. After various moments of thought, not that many, he had reached the conclusion that he should try to enter the forest through other cave openings.
Before escaping that first night, Nio had guessed the position of three possible locations where the entrance for the cave systems was located. In the end, the first location he had tried to reach did have a cave entrance, but a powerful guard nearby. Nio never had the opportunity to check the other locations. That's what he was doing. That night he had various objectives.
The first was to find out if the other locations did have a cavern entrance.
The second was to find out if it was possible to sneak out of the already known cave entrances, without being attacked by the panther.
Finally, the third was to hunt as many creatures as he could in order to buy both the [Itadori Yuji's Physique] and [Full-Concentration Breathing].
And if he had the time, to start practicing the Rasengan. Although Nio had established some steps to train it, that did not mean he had to be strictly restricted to those.
For example, in order to master the rotation aspect of the Rasengan, good chakra control was needed. The scouting technique he had created to navigate the cave was a good method to practice. By creating more and longer chakra strings, he struggled to keep control, however, it was that struggle that showed that he would improve. Exercises like this couldn't be that easy, could they? Besides that he also started to change the form of the strings turning them sharper before turning them back to normal, he did so to practice his control even further.
Walking at a slow pace, Nio took his time, both navigating the cave but also practicing his control.
It didn't take long before finding the cave entrance where he had come back from.
Looking up he found the stars, in the sky high above.
Channeling chakra to his feet, he started to walk on the walls, going up.
He was slightly crouched, making sure that he did not make a sound.
At the Skin Tempering stage, the panther should not have any type of supernatural senses, however, felines have good hearing and sense of smell. Considering that Organ Tempering boosted their senses slightly, he didn't want to take any chances.
He soon reached the edge of the entrance and looked around.
There was nothing.
'The coast is clear?'
It seemed so, but should he risk it?
'Ah! Fuck it! Even if it appears, I should be able to escape for as long as I stay close to the cave entrance.'
Thinking that, Nio climbed up and vigilantly stepped away from the clearing into the dark and hiding embrace of the trees.
Sighing in relief, Nio decided to get the other objectives of this night's outing out of the way.
"Next on my Do List is to find the other cave entrances."
If they turned out to be more dangerous than this one he would have to be forced to sneak around a black panther every time he wanted to go to the forest.
Once again, he conjured various strings around him to keep vigilance and to keep training his control.
While doing so he also started to mess with cursed energy in his hand. Since he didn't understand barrier techniques that well, he couldn't replicate them, but what he could do was replicate something else. The Finger Bearer Curse was capable of firing pure cursed energy beams at its opponents. He was aiming to recreate that.
But it was only him messing around for now. In the future he would have much more fun toys to play with.
Thankfully he could multi-task like this thanks to his [Android Physique] and its ability to continuously generate both Chakra and Cursed Energy infinitely. The cost of chakra and cursed energy right now was much lower than the speed that he could replenish, it was just unfortunate that he was still limited by the output and size of his reserves otherwise he could just spam chakra and cursed energy shockwaves with infinite energy.
'What a wonderful thought.'
Sensing one of his strings being cut he turned around.
In front of him was now a wild boar. It was around half of his size and it was staring at Nio with great fury.
"Hey there! Why are you so angry? Did I step into your territory?"
Instead of answering, not that it could, the wild boar rushed forward aiming to headbut into Nio.
Reacting swiftly, Nio willed some of his strings to wrap around a tree and pull himself out of the way of the attack. He landed with his feet on the tree, sideways, using chakra control. Using the remaining strings he wrapped the boar in a cocoon of chakra, before merging the strings into one single construct, fully covering and imprisoning the wild boar.
Nio approached the imprisoned boar and made a small gap in the chakra construct. The gap was directly placed above his neck. Taking out a knife and reinforcing it with chakra and cursed energy he stabbed through the gap, killing the boar.
[You have killed one Forest Boar of the Organ Tempering Stage]
'A stage below muscle tempering, two below than the panther, huh?'
After recreating the chakra strings he used to scout the area, Nio kept moving forward, exploring the area.
He kept practicing both chakra control, with his strings, but also cursed energy, by trying to replicate the cursed energy beam attacks.
He spent around two hours walking around the forest and killing beasts.
[You have killed three Emerald Snakes of the Muscle Tempering Stage]
[You have killed two Forest Boars of the Bone Tempering Stage]
[You have killed one Emerald Snake of the Skin Tempering Stage]
And he kept going until he reached the first location which supposedly was one of the cave entrances.
The area was a huge clearing that surrounded a pretty big lake, its pristine water reflected the moonlight in a magical way, illuminating the area as if it was day.
'In a supernatural way and not a metaphorical one, I mean.'
He remarked in his mind.
The lake's source of water came from a waterfall that filled the scenery with a calming background sound.
"Now where is that cave entrance? Behind the waterfall? Underwater?"
As he was wandering where the cave entrance could be in, suddenly, one of his strings snapped. Nio turned in high alert to the one who had entered his range.
It was a rabbit. A white rabbit. A white horned rabbit. With red eyes.
He felt a sudden shiver travel across his spine.
He shook his Re:Zero trauma out of his head and he faced his new opponent.
'System, what is the cultivation of this guy?'
[Answer: Mind Tempering]
'Mind Tempering?'
That was the highest cultivation he had ever been forced to confront.
The rabbit just kept staring into Nio's eyes without blinking. Without any noise he jumped forward, making Nio step back. Seeing that Nio reacted in an almost wary way, it tried a different approach.
The rabbit suddenly started growing in size, in an instant he was now twice the size of Nio. It turned around and supported itself with its short front limbs, before launching a powerful strike with its legs.
Reacting as fast as he could he tried to get away using his strings, to find them cut off. He hastily looked to the side to find numerous horned rabbits nibbling on the remains of his chakra strings, leaving him flabbergasted.
If he had the time, he would probably curse the damn rabbits with the worst things he could formulate with his vocabulary, alas, there were two gigantic rabbit feet heading in his direction.
He hastily reinforced himself with chakra and cursed energy. In a split second, or less than that, he tried to find a way. A useless endeavor.
BAM
Nio was launched into the lake. Instead of trying to stop his fall with chakra control to stand on water, he decided to use the water as a cover, to fool the rabbits into thinking that he had died or something.
'That has to work, right?'
He was wrong.
As soon as his body became suspended in the void-like feeling of being underwater, he felt something wrap around his foot. He couldn't tell if it was a plant or an animal, he just knew that it was pulling him towards the bottom of the lake.
'Crap!'
He tried to free himself by shaking his leg, by trying to reach whatever was grabbing with his knife. He failed.
Soon, the world grew dark and he started to feel dizzy. He didn't remember what happened.
When he woke up he was in a cavern.