A few days had passed since our first raid, and we spent that time doing propaganda at my suggestion. We five sentient animals went to different towns and yelled that we were responsible for the mine attack and that if a sect tried to attack us again, we would retaliate not by beasts' raid, but by taking their mines as well.

The propaganda served several purposes. One, of course, was to avoid further conflict by stating that we would only attack in retaliation. Second, to show the population that the previous beasts' raids were only in retaliation for the sect's attacks, thus sowing discord between the sects and the general population. Third, to prevent the Thunder Furnace Sect from covering up our attacks, as they did not want to lose face.

There was a chance that the sect would unite to kill us, but until we didn't touch their bottom line, the chances were slim to none. After all, the Blue Flaming Leopard was backed by a strong power on the Beast Continent, and it was better to leave it unprovoked.

One day, the Blue Flaming Leopard came to me and said: "I've been thinking about it, and although I rewarded you for your idea and contribution to the raid, I didn't reward you for helping the other three little guys during the Thunder Furnace Sect's attack. So I decided to try to teach you how to evolve your fire into blue fire.”

(I) “ I have the yang element, not the fire one.”

(Blue Flaming Leopard) “The yang element is a compound element of Fire, Light, and Life, right?”

(I) “I think so.”

(Blue Flaming Leopard) “So why do you say that you don’t have the Fire element? It’s almost as if… Hei, how did you obtain your elements?”

I thought a bit about how to answer. In this world, I had yet to hear about the concept of beasts evolving. So I answered: “I should have mutated.”

(Blue Flaming Leopard) “I knew it. You are quite lucky to have this sort of mutation and reach your level. This could explain your lack of knowledge about your powers. You see, usually when a beast gets its wisdom awakened they also get an insight into their bloodline, and that allows them to somehow enhance their bodies or their element. The only exceptions are mutated beasts because they have already diverged from the path of their ancestors. Anyway, since you have the yin and yang attributes you should also have the Ice, Fire, Darkness, Light, Death, and Life attributes.”

I was growing excited: “?”

(Blue Flaming Leopard) “Yes. Change of plans, instead of teaching you how to use Blue Fire I will be teaching you how to control your elements properly.”

And so our training began.

We started by trying to perceive the Fire element composing my Yang qi.

First, she made me sit down and coated my paw with Yang Qi. Then I had to delve into it with my spirit sense. I had to look for something angry yet comforting, hungry yet welcoming. The Fire Attribute, as the Blue Flaming Leopard said, is a rather contradictory element, being both a source of destruction and a source of civilization.

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I concentrated. In the beginning, all I could feel was heat, but both Life and Light have the heat trait, so I ignored it, then came Light, but that's also a trait shared with the Light Element, so I discarded it as well. Understanding that the sensations couldn't lead me anywhere, I turned them off and tried to search for an emotion instead.

For a while, I felt nothing. Just as I was about to stop, beating myself up for searching for a feeling in an element, I perceived something. Something small, but with infinite potential. I saw something bright and hot like a sun, eternally giving warmth to every organism on earth, which takes it and treasures it for its whole life when it returns it to the earth.

I opened my eyes and saw my paw glowing with a soft green light and an astonished leopard.

She quickly recomposed herself.

(Blue Flaming Leopard) “I asked to start with the simplest Fire qi but the hardest Life qi is also a good start I guess. Now I have to ask: what did you do? It's important to understand the process to consolidate your findings”

I recounted the steps I took and understood that searching for a feeling is a strange way to search for an element, not that many have my problem since the few that have composite elements have constructed them starting from the basic ones.

Nonetheless, my temporary teacher suggested that I search for sensation while on the lookout for feelings. That’s because searching only for feelings is like navigating a maze with your eyes closed. You could be able to but it’s mostly reliant on luck where you end up.

My second try was much easier since I could distinctly feel the Life element. After a while, I was also able to feel the Fire qi, domineering and powerful, and the Light qi, fast and purifying.

I concentrated on the fire and a golden flame materialized around my paw.

(Blue Flaming Leopard) “You are full of surprises. A Yang Fire. It seems you no longer need me to teach my Blue Fire since your fire is far more powerful.”

(I) “What is a Yang Fire?”

(Blue Flaming Leopard) “A Yang Fire is one imbued with yang properties. Only someone in perfect balance with his Yang qi can achieve it.”

(Blue Flaming Leopard) “Now that you have done it with your Yang qi you can also master the elements of your Yin qi on your own. I don’t have much expertise on the elements of that spectrum and so I can’t help you much.”

I thanked her and then started my meditation on the yin elements: Ice, Darkness, and Death.

I first found Darkness which I was the most familiar with thanks to my skill, maybe I found Life the same way.

Then I was stuck: Ice and Death were both calm, cold, and sharp. I couldn’t find anything to distinguish them.

An hour later it struck me: hardness. Ice was hard while Death was not, being immaterial.

With this, I was able to also use the singular elements composing my Yin and Yang ones.

It was time to see what they were capable of though. I found out that some of my techniques went better with some of my elements instead of the others.

The Tiger Claws were both sharp and destructive and went well with the Yang Fire and the whole Yin qi.

The Sharp Claws instead were only sharp and went better with the Yin qi.

The two weight techniques went better with neutral qi and that made me think I didn’t have the necessary qi attributes for them.

Qi poisoning went surprisingly well with Life attribute qi since the strands of qi were more active with it.

And lastly my two skills. The regeneration and stealth skills, when I used the singular Life and Darkness qis, mutated.

Now I can use the regeneration skill to heal others. while stealth allows me now to enter any shadow no matter how little by transforming myself into a shadow.