Around a day had passed since the battle with the assassin, and Riyue, who remembered the relatively safe path to the Qilin, recognized that he was now about an hour or two away from his destination.
This fast speed of travel was because he could function with far less sleep using the Training Room, ensuring that he too could move during the night. Of course, moving through the night was far riskier than during the day, but it couldn’t be helped. Riyue needed to get there as fast as possible. Rather than the monsters whose patterns he memorized, he was more scared of another unlucky encounter with the assassin who got ‘lost’ right next to him.
‘Fortunately, I am now very close to the Qilin. Shit, I did all this work to wake that guy up, so I should get a reward, right?’
Riyue thought as he kept on moving. After around 20 minutes of walking, however, he felt a sense of deja vu.
‘Wasn’t I here just a few minutes ago?’ Riyue tilted his head.
Riyue had not paid any attention to remembering the forest terrains, but his subconscious thought that he had been here before. The forest trees and the terrain all felt eerily similar to the ones he had been through.
‘...Somehow, I’ve got a bad feeling.’ Riyue frowned.
Riyue decided to walk again, considering how there was no danger currently, in the same direction that he had set off previously. Despite his feet clearly traveling away from the same spot, when he came to, he was in the same spot as before.
Riyue gritted his teeth before calming down. He thought about some monsters or plants that could’ve caused this wide-scale illusion, and he only thought of one.
‘Mogwai, the mischievous spirits that roam around the forest, pranking unsuspecting travelers. They do not hold any hostility toward humans in particular, yet, due to their desire for pranks, they would often bring them into danger just for fun, or they would just annoy them during their journey.’
In Riyue’s case, it seemed like this particular Mogwai just wanted to annoy him with its wide-scale illusions.
‘Well, as long as the bastard doesn’t bring me to danger, I am quite fine with it… But how do I get out of this situation?’
Fighting an opponent whose location he didn’t even know was impossible. In the first place, Mogwais are rare spirits that are Stage 5 at minimum. It would be suicide to fight them.
Riyue went through his memory and eventually decided on one method.
‘To give tributes and sacrifices.’
It was one way to please the mischievous Mogwais, whose favorites are pranks and food. As Riyue didn’t have much on hand, he could only place a few pieces of the smoked boar he had on the floor as he kneeled down and prostrated.
“Oh, great Mogwai, please accept this offering and give mercy to this humble traveler.”
Honestly, Riyue didn’t know whether the Mogwai could understand human speech or not, but it could probably understand the intent behind Riyue’s prostration.
‘Though you may see my prostrating self right now, when I reach Stage 5 or 6, I swear that I will kill this Mogwai bastard.’
Riyue knew that Mogwai were great monsters for pill ingredients. After Riyue had repeated his words two or three times, like a mirage, a figure started to form in front of him. It was a small creature standing on two legs, with fur all over its body, three eyes, an extremely big ear on each side, and hands with claws.
Riyue trembled at the sight of the Mogwai. The differences between stages could be clearly felt, even if the Mogwai had no intention of doing anything.
‘No wonder they are called one of the stronger Mythical Creatures that exist.’
Mythical Creatures and Monsters were not that different from each other, except for the fact that the former had Pure Qi and were used by the Orthodox Practitioners for pills and various other things, while the latter had Demonic Qi, which only the Demons would use.
“Oh, great Mogwai! Please accept my offering.”
‘And just fuck off.’
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Riyue kept prostrating while slightly peeking at the Mogwai. The Mogwai looked at the boar meat and then to Riyue. He was scared that the Mogwai would try to eat him, but he remembered that Mogwais had a similar sense of taste to humans, so he didn’t need to worry about that.
After an uncomfortable two to three minutes, the Mogwai suddenly grinned. It grabbed the boar meat and immediately disappeared. The surroundings twisted, and the terrain changed into a similar yet different forest terrain.
‘Nice, now I’m bac-’
Riyue’s thoughts ceased as he saw a tall humanoid figure through the thin fog. The figure’s body was made of wood, twigs, and plants. Its hollow eyes met with Riyue’s own.
It was a Corrupted Twig.
‘Oh, you Mogwai cunt!’
The Corrupted Twig dashed at Riyue, and as Riyue was about to run away, he immediately thought:
‘Wait, why should I run?’
The Corrupted Twig is a Stage 2 monster that can grow its arms with twigs and swing them around with great power. It also has quite a high defense.
‘However, it is also very slow and predictable.’
Which is why it is considered barely a Stage 2—just because of its power. It is even easier to defeat than some troublesome Stage 1 monsters.
Riyue’s eyes gleamed as he grinned. Instead of running, he chose to dash toward the Corrupted Twig. The Corrupted Twig’s arms burst as they grew in size, and it swung them toward Riyue. If it hit, it would kill Riyue instantly or break a lot of his bones.
But those things don’t matter if it didn’t hit, not to mention, the swing was too slow.
Riyue moved sideways to dodge the arm that was used akin to a hammer and spun his body to deliver a kick toward the twig’s joint.
Tiger Leg Sweep.
The kick filled with Sun Qi dislocated the Twig’s leg, and it almost fell to the ground. However, its hard wooden leg and its body structure, which were very different from humans despite the similar look, enabled it to stand tall again as it swung its arms toward Riyue.
‘Being a Stage 1 really sucks. If I were a Stage 3, I would’ve long destroyed this dude.’
Yet despite his complaints, Riyue grinned. He felt his Mountain Tiger Martial Technique grow a bit stronger as he fought. Although 2% didn’t make much difference, once it reached 9%, he sensed quite a big difference in the effectiveness and efficiency of his movements.
‘It’s still far from good, though.’
Riyue then ran as he swerved around the trees near the Corrupted Twig. With a forest full of trees, it was hard for the twig’s gigantic arm to hit Riyue precisely. Yet, it seemed as if it didn’t care about such things as it started smashing the trees around, crashing them to the ground.
“No mercy for your own kind? How heartless!” Riyue grinned as he shielded himself behind an extremely big and old tree. The Corrupted Twig mindlessly smashed through it, and as the tree was about to fall after having half of its trunk smashed, Riyue kicked the tree with full force, causing it to fall in the Corrupted Twig’s direction.
The Corrupted Twig mindlessly looked at the falling tree before it twisted its body and arms and smashed the tree, ensuring it did not fall upon itself.
“Wow, power alone you really are amazing, at the cost of intelligence and speed though.”
Riyue grinned. The Corrupted Twig was not fast enough to dodge the falling tree, so it just smashed through it with full power, leaving a very big opening.
His right hand filled with Sun Qi, and his left hand with Moon Qi, Riyue dashed at the Corrupted Twig, which was losing its balance.
Tiger’s Pounce.
Tiger’s Fist of Fury.
Riyue pulled back his hands and proceeded to lay out a barrage of fist attacks on the Corrupted Twig. Each attack was not strong individually, but when combined, the fist managed to pierce through the high defense of the twig. As a result, the Corrupted Twig’s body crumbled and fell to the floor.
Once finished, Riyue took a deep breath and rummaged through the corpse. He then took out a dark red, murky crystal before storing it. It was the Qi Core of the Monsters. Though it wouldn’t fetch a high price for anyone other than the Demons, it wasn’t useless either. It could be used for various things such as artifact energy sources, crafting, and more.
Riyue then checked his status screen, specifically for the Qi Amount and Martial Arts.
Qi Amount: 258/522 (recovery 3/minute), (Next Stage requires 2000).
‘The Qi amount is steadily growing, though not much. On the other hand…’
Riyue smiled after seeing his Mastery Gauge.
Martial Arts and Mastery Gauge:
* Mountain Tiger Martial Technique: 20%
‘Hehehe, a whopping 11% increase for beating a monster. This is extremely fast progress.’
In this world where Qi stages determine the weak and strong, there were not many things that could be done to close the gap between the higher and lower stages. However, it was not impossible, and one such method was the mastery of martial arts.
People with lower stages, yet high in terms of martial skills and fundamentals, could very well defeat someone a stage higher who had low skills and fundamentals.
‘After all, stages are merely that—stages of a person’s Qi Core. If they lack Qi Control or the mastery of fundamentals and martial arts, it is doubtful they can use their own stages to the fullest.’
With that said, stages were still the biggest factor in winning or losing.
Riyue then looked around at the damage to the forest and the corpse of the Corrupted Twig.
‘Shadow Panthers will probably come here soon. Yeah, I don't want to fight with them.’
Riyue smiled before he ran, finding the path he was familiar with, and resuming the journey.