They killed two demon cats, which brought Mr. Harris from level 1 to level 2. So, what about going from level 2 to level 3?

Ryan Clark wanted Mr. Harris to level up as much as possible here, to gain even greater combat power.

A single slow step leads to falling behind at every step—this principle applies everywhere. Since the conditions allowed, Ryan Clark didn’t plan to miss any opportunity to harvest resources.

If there really is some crisis in the future, having enough strength would allow him to better protect himself and the people he cherishes.

Why couldn’t he be the “tall one”?

Someone has to stand at the top of the world.

If you can be king of bug-fighting, why not beast-taming?

“If I keep getting stronger like this, even if that dream becomes reality, I should be able to stop those monsters from destroying the city beneath my feet.”

Ryan Clark thought of that dream again, which made him even more motivated.

Four hours later.

Deep in the dense forest.

“Idiot, didn’t I tell you? Even though we have items that can heal injuries, you should still try not to get hurt!”

After recovering, Ryan Clark and Mr. Harris, now with greater ambition, began actively searching for prey.

During this time, they encountered some new extraordinary creatures.

Most were level 1 to 3.

The species were mainly low-level extraordinary types.

For example, the Tooth-Eared Rabbit—despite being a rabbit, it was extremely aggressive. Courting death!

Or the Giant Rat Beast, which looked even bigger than a duck, and the little thing was actually quite delicate in appearance.

Unfortunately, they had no tools, and since it was a phantom anyway, otherwise, with Ryan Clark’s personality, he would definitely have dissected and studied these creatures he’d never seen before.

Without exception, even those that were 1 or 2 levels higher stood no chance at all against Mr. Harris.

In comparison, those demon cats were actually harder to deal with. After all, this was called the Forest of Demon Cats—these creatures were probably just food for the demon cats.

This made Ryan Clark feel that facing these guys was the kind of difficulty a beginner’s secret realm should have.

But aside from that, there were still some tough opponents. For example, Mr. Harris had just taken down a level 3 green serpent of a mid-tier extraordinary species.

Of course, Mr. Harris himself was also quite badly injured.

Maybe it was the healing power of the Divine Deer Pendant along the way that gradually gave Mr. Harris a sense of security—its fighting style was becoming more and more reckless. For the sake of victory, it had started to fight brutally, trading injury for injury.

In the natural world, this is an extremely risky tactic. After all, most fights in nature are for survival and food—getting hurt means being further from life. But Mr. Harris didn’t care about that, and quickly figured out a new fighting style, making even Ryan Clark have to admire this dog’s talent.

But this was way too reckless—something could go wrong!

For example, this snake was actually poisonous! Luckily, they had picked some antidote herbs along the way.

“Woof.” Pressing down on the big snake, Mr. Harris put on an innocent expression.

At this point, it had already reached level 3.

This put both Mr. Harris and Ryan Clark in an extremely excited state.

If they could keep leveling up at this pace, then in just 24 hours, they should be able to keep fighting at full excitement the whole time—after all, getting stronger really feels great.

However, as fun as leveling up was, they still paused for a moment.

Ryan Clark had discovered traces of human activity.

It was a tattered tent.

They had just dealt with the big snake because it was guarding the area near the tent.

Carefully approaching the tent, nothing else happened.

Inside the tent, there was nothing but a yellowed travel journal.

Ryan Clark picked up the journal and started flipping through it excitedly. He couldn’t read the writing, but perhaps because of the Eye of Data, he could unexpectedly understand its meaning.

[This is the first stop of my journey—the once-deep forest, now the Forest of Demon Cats.

I came full of confidence to investigate the real cause of the forest’s mutation back then, but I realized I was wrong.

Father was right—I shouldn’t have come to this place...]

The journal ended abruptly.

“That’s it?” Ryan Clark was stunned.

“Riddler, get out of the secret realm!” Seeing the scant information in the journal, Ryan Clark was annoyed.

He had thought that, aside from the trial quest, he might unlock some hidden mission.

Even without this journal, he already knew that “forest mutation” was the keyword for this secret realm.

“Woof.” Beside him, Mr. Harris told Mr. Clark to calm down.

Let’s just go back to leveling up.

“You’re right, we only have one day anyway.” Ryan Clark sighed. The main issue was that there was too little information about the Forest of Demon Cats, and their strength was too weak. Even if there were other secrets in this secret realm, exploring them would probably be troublesome.

But after analyzing the journal carefully, Ryan Clark realized it did reveal a bit of information...

Investigating the real cause of the mutation... Maybe it meant that the black rain, known to cause the mutation in creatures, was only a surface reason.

The journal writer’s father didn’t want him to come here, which might mean his father knew some inside story. The person who left the journal was probably from a notable background.

Ryan Clark kept all this in mind, but for now, it was better to focus on leveling up—remembering these things wouldn’t help at the moment.

Gradually, Ryan Clark and Mr. Harris became immersed in leveling up, weaving their way through the Forest of Demon Cats.