The Witch Hunter System
chapter-858

Shortly after Vaan received Emerald's willing cooperation, he focused on sensing his surroundings for the hidden dangers lurking in the background.

However, he quickly realized that while his five senses worked fine, his sixth sense, like the Fourth Dimensional Sense, was greatly suppressed within the secret realm.

In essence, his Fourth Dimensional Sense was like a type of will.

As long as he willed it, he would be able to understand or peruse information about his target, or at least, that had always been the case until now.

However, it became clear to Vaan that there was a greater will within the secret realm that was able to suppress the will of his Fourth Dimensional Sense. As such, he had no choice but to rely on his basic five senses to navigate his way.

Nevertheless, Vaan didn't feel unfortunate about the circumstances. In fact, he felt fortunate for it.

After all, it helped him realize he had been too reliant on his Fourth Dimensional Sense.

Although the Fourth Dimensional Sense was awakened in his present life, it wasn't an ability that belonged to his current level. Moreover, he couldn't be over-dependant on the laws of his past lives either.

He could utilize them, but he shouldn't rely on them to solve all his problems.

Otherwise, he would only be revisiting the same feats of his past lives, which wasn't what the first-life him wanted when he ventured into the endless sea of nothingness.

Varuna left Chaos behind to search for answers, but he never got all his answers before his untimely death. He had only discovered the existence of the higher-dimensional world but never found a way to transcend beyond the level of Outerverse Originator.

That was why it was crucial not to walk the same path. It was to avoid the same bottleneck and explore a new possibility.

Even Vaan couldn't be confident he could live up to the expectations of his first life and surpass the Outerverse Originator Realm in his current life. In fact, he was more inclined to believe he would fail somewhere along the way.

However, it was the experience of his repeated failures that would pave the way ahead.

That was how humans have always grown to be as great as they were; they learned from their repeated failures before achieving success.

...

As Vaan carefully navigated his way around the foresty environment, he shortly discovered a patch of fresh tracks within a couple dozen meters of his location.

He immediately went over to investigate.

Upon careful inspection, he learned the footprint on the ground was shaped like a human's. However, it was too small to belong to an adult; it was around the size of a child's.

That said, the weight of a normal human child wouldn't be great enough to leave behind a deep imprint, let alone long enough to be noticed in such a vibrant green environment full of vitality.

Vaan immediately thought of multiple possibilities.

The human-like child could be very heavy or overweight, or the footprints belonged to an unknown larger creature with child-sized human feet.

Considering the possibility of humans being in such a hidden realm was quite low, Vaan was more inclined to believe there were other humanoid beings.

Nevertheless, while Vaan was studying the fresh tracks, Emerald's gaze wandered off to a nearby strange-looking, rose-like flower that exuded a holy aura like any other magical plant found in the secret realm so far.

Emerald couldn't help but feel drawn to its rich wood element and pleasant scent as she gave it a good sniff.

"Myu!" Emerald gasped with delight.

Suddenly, the strange rose-like flower wiggled, and a pair of human-like eyes underneath its rosy blue petals opened. It stared directly into Emerald's eyes before freezing.

At the same time, Emerald stared back at it and froze, too.

"Ahhhh!"

"Myuuu!"

Two separate screams followed before Emerald quickly retreated to Vaan's head and stared back at the startled flower spirit that had awakened from its slumber.

At the same time, its movements also exposed its small humanoid body, which its scale-like layers of leaves had camouflaged and made to look like stalks of grass.

Meanwhile, Vaan had already taken notice of the weird flower spirit the moment it opened its

eyes.

However, due to its lack of hostility, he didn't take any immediate action to silence it. He only sensed surprise, fright, and curiosity in its eyes.

Since it wasn't an immediate threat, eliminating it wouldn't be the best course of action.

If Vaan had eliminated every unknown lifeform he encountered based on the unknown risk and variable they posed, he would have missed out on greater opportunities that could have been explored instead.

After all, coming across non-hostile lifeforms in an unknown land was a blessing that shouldn't wasted.

If he could befriend the strange flower spirit, he would be able to learn more about the hidden

realm.

"Myuu?" Emerald glanced at the flower spirit curiously.

After studying the flower spirit for some time, Emerald realized it was a type of wood spirit like her. As such, she felt relaxed and lowered her guard around it.

Wood spirits were innately good-natured and docile.

That said, the flower spirit appeared quite different from Emerald. It seemed to be some magical rose that had gained sentience and evolved into a flower spirit.

Moreover, it was a much higher-ranked wood spirit than Emerald.

As such, Emerald had a subconscious inclination to revere and respect the flower spirit as she

was exposed to its holy aura.

"A fairy-type wood spirit...? Why are you so small?" the flower spirit unconfidently yet curiously asked in a language Vaan could understand, surprisingly.

Moreover, the flower spirit possessed a cute, childlike voice.

Despite being a divine-rank wood spirit that may have existed for a very long time as a magical plant, the flower spirit's intelligence seemed to only be at the level of a child.

"Myu, myuu, myuu?" Emerald tilted her head in confusion.

Why are you asking such a weird question? Are wood spirits supposed to be big like you? - Emerald seemingly asked the flower spirit.

Although they were both humanoid wood spirits, the flower spirit was five times bigger than

Emerald.

"Huh? I'm actually among the smallest of all wood spirits here, you know?" the flower spirit replied with surprise and bewilderment.

Nevertheless, after Vaan quietly observed the brief exchange between the two, he concluded that communication wouldn't be a problem for them.