“Hehehe, well, though I now have a grand goal, I still need to think about how the hell do I get out of this forest.”

Riyue then stopped the embarrassing action and sat down in a cross-legged position as he scoured through the memories of the original Riyue before he made a plan. After a while of brainstorming, he decided on one.

First of all, he decided not to get out of the forest, at least not instantly.

‘I need to wake up the sleeping Qilin and inform him of the weird movements of the Jin and royal family.’

The sleeping Qilin is a legendary Divine Beast that is worshipped as a guardian deity of the Zhang Family. Though others would think of it as a mere legend, the Zhang Family alone knows that the Qilin is real and has been sleeping for the past 50 years.

As for the reason why he bothered to wake up this sleeping beast at the cost of escape, it is simple.

‘Even if I escape the forest, I will just be caught by the assassins currently patrolling around the forests. If they have a sliver of intelligence, there is no way they wouldn’t have thought of such a simple thing.’

Of course, he could always take risks and try to escape with luck when the patrol wasn’t there coincidentally, but as someone who has below-average luck, it might as well be suicide. Of course, sneaking through the many guards that are two stages higher than him or fighting through is also unrealistic. In the first place, he was only able to get away due to the fog surrounding the forest that has a certain power of disrupting the senses.

Therefore, rather than that unreliable plan, he would rather go through the forest he was familiar with and head towards the Divine Beast to wake him up, inform him, and plead for his help to go outside. Since the Qilin is amiable towards the people of the Zhang Family, Riyue believed that his plan would work or at least be feasible.

‘Well, now that I have a plan, I need to prepare for it.’

As for how he will do that, it is of course by relying on the status window he had!

Ignoring the status section of his Qi, he immediately headed towards the [Training Room] section.

Martial Arts and Mastery Gauge: None (Unlocked in the Training Room)

Training Room

Considering how the martial art the original Riyue learned wasn’t recorded onto the status screen, Riyue deducted that perhaps only the martial arts gained in the Training Room will be recorded, and a martial art from the System would probably not be weak.

Riyue then clicked on the Training Room and his screen flashed as additional words appeared.

[Would you like to enter the training room now?]

[Yes] [No]

Riyue clicked on the [Yes] button, and the surroundings trembled and distorted as if it was being overlaid by something else. The cavern walls turned into a pure white room with no ends in sight. Riyue’s mouth gaped open at the area that could make one develop a mental illness.

‘I did expect a gamelike thing to happen but seeing it firsthand is… sort of disconcerting.’

Riyue then gained a sudden urge to see how long this seemingly endless space could go. Would he smash into the cavern wall if he walked far enough to the left? Or is this truly another space altogether, and not just an illusion?

Riyue then decided not to do such a stupid thing and saw the blue screen displayed next to him.

[Welcome, Apostle. Here are the list of martial arts you could learn at stage 1.]

* Mountain Tiger Martial Art

* Sun and Moon Breathing Method

Riyue looked upon the list and slightly frowned.

‘Just two techniques?’

‘Shouldn’t a game give you a list of techniques for you to choose from?’ Riyue sighed and clicked his tongue before pressing on the Mountain Tiger Martial Technique.

[Mountain Tiger Martial Art]

The Mountain Tiger Martial Art is a basic martial art that aims to imitate the movements and techniques of a Mountain Tiger. It is the foundation of various other martial arts that use the body as a weapon. The technique emphasizes explosive prowess, destructive strength, and predatorlike movements.

[Would you like to start learning this technique?]

[Yes] [No]

‘It’s a martial art that uses the body… Damn it, how primitive. Why use the body when you have a sword!’

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Riyue sighed. Now the sword he had is just a useless lump of steel. He then tried to think of the positives to calm himself down.

‘...A martial art given by the system is probably not weak. I have no choice but to learn it if I want to survive.’

Riyue clicked on [Yes], and a familiar headache coursed through his mind as information was forcefully inserted into his brain. This time, the pain was less than before, so Riyue didn’t fall to the ground and stood tall, enduring it. Only a couple of seconds passed by before the pain reduced and eventually disappeared.

Now, Riyue had understood quite a bit about the Mountain Tiger Martial Technique. He understood the movements, the various techniques, and such about the martial art. However, there was one problem. The system had only given him the theories of the Martial Technique. In terms of actually applying it, there were no changes whatsoever. Riyue then opened his status window again to try and confirm something.

Martial Arts and Mastery Gauge: None (Unlocked in the Training Room)

Riyue let out a stiff smile.

‘...I guess it’s telling me to learn on my own.’

Riyue sighed, then bent his legs in an attempt to imitate the Mountain Tiger Martial Technique he knew of inside his mind.

Tiger’s Pounce

Qi flowed from within his Qi core into his legs, arms, and his entire body, giving it a newfound strength. He then lunged straight at the empty air and, with precision, struck his fist at a spot he had been eyeing.

He then tried out a couple more moves before smiling in satisfaction. He already felt his body adapting to the moves despite the short time.

Ever since the so-called body reformation, Riyue felt that his current body is leaps and bounds better than the original Riyue, who had been called talentless.

‘If it’s like this, I think I will master it pretty fa-’

As a result of being distracted, Riyue had forgotten that he was a mammal on two legs rather than a tiger with four. As a result, he tripped due to not considering the landing and a lack of balance, as his body struck headfirst into the ground.

‘...Maybe it will take some time.’

However, Riyue was not discouraged nor impatient. He knew that mastery takes time and learning as well. Just the fact that he had a chance to learn the martial art through the system was something he was grateful for.

Riyue then stood back up and proceeded to train. It was quite hard to mimic a tiger’s strength and movements, but with Qi, various things that were impossible in his past life were now possible. Although he had failed quite a lot, he had also learned a lot; therefore, his next movements had become better and smoother. This process of learning and growing was extremely fun to Riyue, and in turn, also helped him master the movements faster.

After an unknown period of trying out the moves of the Mountain Tiger, as well as experimenting with some things, a system message he had been waiting for finally appeared.

[Mountain Tiger Martial Art acquired.]

Riyue smiled as he pumped his fist in happiness. He then took a look at the status screen of the martial art section.

Martial Arts and Mastery Gauge:

* Mountain Tiger Martial Technique: 0%

‘0%, is that the mastery gauge? Will the technique become stronger the more I master it?’ Riyue smiled in satisfaction before he remembered a vital thing he had overlooked.

‘...Is my real body safe?’

Because he did not get tired in the Training Room, he had forgotten about his real body that he left in the real world. Heck, he even thought unconsciously that his body was also transferred here, but is it really like that?

‘Shit!’

“System, I would like to leave this Training Room!”

Immediately after he said so, the surroundings distorted as the white room turned back into the familiar cavern walls. His completely fine body suddenly felt extremely exhausted, his stomach growled in indignancy, and his throat felt like he had swallowed sand.

‘W-water.’

He immediately went towards the lake without thinking, brought his empty leather bottle to the lake, and immediately downed the water. He had remembered from the Original Riyue’s memories that the lake water here had a natural purifier, and though it was not the cleanest water, it was still somewhat good enough.

‘Thank you, natural cave purifier. Had it not been for you, I would’ve needed to battle stomach pains throughout the journey.’

After finishing the water bottle and wiping off his lips, he immediately filled the leather bottle again. Now that he had learned the martial arts, it was time to finally embark on his journey. He was tempted to eat but decided to do it later, as he felt that fighting on an empty stomach would be better. With that said, he couldn’t help but rest first for a couple of hours before he embarked due to exhaustion.

At that point in time, the Qi that had been expended during the Training Room also recovered as the amount of his Qi increased to 511.

After he had sufficiently rested, albeit with a bit of sleep deprivation, Riyue exited the cave and greeted the morning dawn. He then thought about the route he needed to take for the place where the Qilin slept and the plan for it. He needed to avoid the wandering assassins, and monsters stronger than himself. He also needed to find some kind of food as well since he currently only had a few jerkies left.

Riyue headed into the forest surrounded by an everlasting thick fog. He carefully went forward as he used the thick fog to his advantage and hid between trees in caution of his various enemies. Even if the fog could make others lose their way, he still had to be cautious.

After traveling at a relatively fast speed, Riyue’s eyes shined as he spotted a certain prey.

It was a boar. Riyue, whose stomach had been famished, licked his lips as he snuck around the forest, hiding between the trees, as he slowly got closer to the boar, until eventually, he lunged straight at the boar.

Tiger’s Pounce.

Sun Qi surrounded Riyue's body and strengthened it as he pounced straight at the boar. The boar flinched in surprise and turned around to run away. However, Riyue got to it first and leapt upwards in an aerial somersault over the boar. After landing on the ground and blocking the boar’s path, he immediately spun his body around and kicked the boar straight in the head.

‘Heh, headshot.’

The kick crushed the boar’s skull as a crunching noise resounded. The boar’s body stopped and lifelessly fell down.

Satisfied, Riyue then walked toward the boar corpse, intending on making dinner when he suddenly sensed the presence of others. Riyue looked around before he smiled.

“There are a lot of you guys in this forest, damn it, you guys aren’t frogs.”

Four Dire Wolves appeared as they surrounded Riyue from each side.