When I transformed into a human I was alone, laid helpless on the dirt, trying to make sense of my new body. The pale moonlight illuminates my surroundings. Of course I was all by myself, spiders aren’t known for keeping family members around. I chose to become a human because spending 100,000 years in this sunset forest is getting boring. I wanted to see what human life has to offer. Also, there's this ingrained promise of immortality at the back of our heads telling us that we would reach immortality if we reach rank 100 which is a pretty sweet deal.
I tried to get up but my knees wobbled before I fell. God, I already miss having 4 pairs of legs.
Just the first of many trials, I can do this.
Second try, finally gained some footing but still struggling a bit. Human legs sure move funny, this is going take a lot of getting used to. On my third try I was finally able to find my balance, standing upright while walking feels whack. Time to leave this forest.
Right, I'm sure the other spirit beasts would let me waltz right out of this forest with no problem at all. Ah crap, I just remembered about my neighbor, that stupid Man-faced spider.
Damn it, I should’ve transformed near the forest outskirts. In my former form I could’ve murdered any spirit beasts I would encounter on my way out or outright slip past through them. Now, I’m not even sure if I could make it out of here alive with all the powerful spirit beasts laying in the wake.
Assuming the lotus position, I needed to grasp my martial soul and manifest my first soul skill so I could have a chance of escaping this forest in one piece.
Once I started meditating I felt the qi inside of me informing me of my current rank.
Soul master level = 10
A yellow spirit ring manifested around me. Ooh, that’s good. I instinctively knew that this would allow me to use one of my abilities when I was in peak spirit beast form. If I get access to my shadow form then I could get out of this forest scott free, but I doubt my current qi reserve could handle it at the moment.
If I get [Super Jump] I swear to all the gods above that I’m gonna use it to jump into the lake and drown myself rather than becoming food to that stupid man-faced spider on my way out. My forehead scrunched at the thought.
There is! Please don’t be [Super Jump] Please don’t be [Super Jump] Please don’t be [Super Jump]!
1st Spirit skill acquired….[Shadow Stealth]
Bless my luck. [Shadow Stealth] is my bread and butter skill. It’s one of the main reasons why I lasted for a 100,000 years. It turns me invisible, hides my qi, while also muffling every sound I make and it also increases my agility stat by 30%.
Standing up from meditation, I looked at the forest’s dark horizon with determination. Human cultivation is going to be difficult, there will be countless cultivators who will not hide their intentions of murdering me once they found out that I’m a spirit beast that attained human form, all for turning me into a spirit ring and harvest my spirit bone. Even so, from what I gathered by observing the humans who wandered in this forest, human lives are also filled with countless adventures. I’m ready to take the risk, My road to immortality begins now.
“First skill activate, [Shadow Stealth]!” I utter the words that marked the start of my cultivation journey.
As I was about to dash off, I noticed something peculiar. Wait a minute. Why the fuck am I not invisible!?
There is only one explanation I could think of. My spirit rank. I roughly guessed that human life is fraught with hardships but I didn’t think it would come one after another. Being human sucks.
I further test the ability of my current….[Shadow Stealth]. Ugh, if you can even call it that. Running in circles, it looks like my footsteps are still muffled, that’s great. The increase in my speed seems to be about 10%. I’ll take it.
Only 40% of the spirit beasts inside Sunset forest are nocturnal, In my humble opinion the Nocturnal Spirit beasts are even more deadly than their diurnal counterparts. Definitely not saying this because I have a bias or anything. Ok I admit, there's a little bit of bias, but I am the top predator of this forest. Or at least was.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Worrying will not solve anything. I stretched my legs preparing to sprint through the forest. It’s highly unlikely that I would wake any sleeping spirit beasts with my soul skill active, I do however worry about that pesky man faced spider. You couldn't even compare our strengths before, he maybe has about 20% of my previous soul power and that’s all it takes to snuff out a rank 10 soul master. I must have innate resistance to poison but with my current rank the venom that he could produce will be a death sentence. If I get as much as a single scratch from one of his legs, I’m done for.
Bolting through the forest, I need to test the limits of my current body. While running, I decided to jump from tree to tree, doing some somersaults and backflips in between. Even though this body pales in comparison to my previous form, it’s still fluid enough to dodge attacks it seems.
Feeling something odd on my left leg, I decided to stop and check it out. Strands of webs, this is bad. These webs aren’t for stopping my movements, they’re for alarming a predator and that predator is coming straight for me. With its crude stealth, I managed to detect it scuttling towards me by sensing its qi. Frantically resuming my sprint, I need to think of a way to escape.
My heart pounded on my chest, as my breathing started to become more ragged. Calm down, I was the king of spiders in this forest, no way I’m going to let a second rate spider like him turn me into a snack. There’s only one way for me to get out of this forest alive.
When the ginormous violet spider closed in on me, it didn’t hesitate to use its massive legs to pounce me. Rolling to the side, my keen reflexes managed to keep me safe. This body still has all my previous battle experience but my offensive moves I couldn’t really use since I don’t have the extra legs necessary to pull off those maneuvers. Finally face to face with my hunter, I stood while anticipating its next movement. Gotta admit, when one of your spider kin that's 8 times your size is staring at you with murderous intent, it can get a little frightening.
Judging from its less than stellar stealth ability, this one’s probably around 10,000 years old, language only becomes prevalent when you’re as old as me. A shame since I couldn’t talk to him and probably bullshit my way out.
Poised to strike once more, I saw the bastard smile at me before he rushed at me, trying to impale me with one of his pincers. My sharp eyes saw through his attack, almost as if everything slowed down, I watched as one of his legs nearly grazed my cheek.
The missed attack gave me leeway to resume my sprint with one destination in mind. I ran like I’ve never ran before. Come to think of it, this is the first time I’ve run on two legs.
Almost there, this frail body won’t be able to keep running for much longer. I can’t blame this vessel, it’s only probably 7 years old.
There it is, it’s my ticket out of here!
Spiders are known to be territorial. In the middle of the forest where my territory lies, any spider who dared to tread inside would be automatically courting death. Ripped asunder by my agile legs before they even had the chance to process what struck them. No better time than now to take advantage of that instinct.
The moment the demon pit spider locked its eyes on me I smiled knowing my plan would go off without a hitch. As I charged towards the humongous spider, it welcomed me with its two pincers that belonged to a mantis rather than a spider. The dual pincers rained down on me, missing me as I dexterously slid underneath the spider.
Now it was my turn to smile at the ugly bastard that was chasing me. Frozen in its tracks, it’s well aware that it would need to defeat the demon pit spider before it can come after me again.
A miniscule prey we can let go, however getting slighted due to dropping by unannounced in our hunting ground is a slight we cannot forgive. The Man-faced spider is stronger but its opponent isn’t aware of that, leading the two to fight until one of them gets killed.
Rooting for you, spider-mantis buddy.
“Being chased around like a common prey, in my own forest no less. Remember this well, Man-faced spider, I shall return this humiliation a hundred-fold. Until then, you better stay alive.”
I knew I was just shouting at the wind. I was just saying something similar to what I heard when I observed a bout between two humans many years ago, one of them said something like that before fleeing. Damn, declaring that shit felt good.
When the two clashed I continued traveling towards the exit. All that’s left now is to make up a convincing story for the villagers to take me in.
I know just the perfect tale.