Xiong rubbed his beard, not too far away from the fight he stood on a thick tree branch, he was concealed for everyone that was weaker than him. "Mhm, the little one has quite a large amount of Qi for someone so weak.." The fight between Kou and the Catfish had been going on for many minutes by now, and the little fox seemed not all that exhausted... That was good! He grinned, he may be an oddball, and a little derpy from time to time, but he had taken a liking to this little girl because she was adorable, but he also found himself admiring her perseverance and determination, this will inside her to become stronger.
Of course, Xiong was no Human, he did not know how to properly train someone as Yun Kou, he had long since found out that she was clearly not a beast. His encounters with Humans were... mostly bloody, but he could not find it in himself to resent this little thing. Humans, Spirits, Demons... they all were the same in the end, the strong preyed on the weak. The strength of one was devoured by the one that was stronger. This was the law of this world. Still, she had already found a place in his heart and he wanted to help her.
"It was a good idea to send her here... Humans have strange bodies - While I do not know much about them I know that Humans need to keep their balance, so sending her here is perfect, if she can eat some of the light cores, and absorbs some of the Qi here, she may make progress in her light technique as well." He felt very fancy right now. He had seen books in his adventures outside were old Masters with long beards would stroke it knowingly while watching their young charges improve! He copied that.
Kou growled, blowing some hair out of her face in frustration she stared at the Catfish while the Catfish stared back with his seemingly soulless black eyes. Their fight had been going on for a bit already... and it was starting to frustrate her. If she just went forward towards it she could engage it in close combat, she was way better in that than fighting on the distance, but being close to the lake would mean potentially alerting even more of them, and she already had her hands full with one beast at the time.
She threw another light spear at it, as it suddenly hit her - it was such an awkward moment but she suddenly understood the next step of Spiritual Weapon! It was not meant to actually fight with, it was something to be used and discarded during a fight! She always had wanted weapons that would not break and she could have handy at every given moment! But that was not was spiritual weapon was about was it! It was about just one strike! And the utility that came with a large arsenal!
In this moment of clairty she could feel some more things, begin to understand more. Light and Darkness, they were not opposing each other, they were complementary. Sadly she had no time to ponder much more, she had come to a halt in this moment of clarity, and just barely managed to avoid the catfishes beam, -it burned away some of her hair.
Kou growled, and another spear of light appeared in her hand, this one, however, was different, it was less solid than before, the Qi concentrated on the tip, it very much looked like she was running out of Qi for everyone that was looking. Still, she threw it all the same... but not at the Catfish! She threw it past him, and just as it was a bit behind it... She closed her left hand to a fist!
"BOOOM!" The weapon exploded into a shockwave of energy! That was just another form of light! Energy! Trying to make something solid with Light was very foolish! Light was a powerful but fleeting thing! It could devour everything! But be extinguished in the next moment!
The explosion was strong enough to catapult the catfish out of the water and on land. Just it's head resembled a Catfish! It actually had the same lower body that the Seahorse had, with a strong powerful tail and tiny stubby legs! But Kou did not stand there looking at the derpy creature, she shot forwards meeting the catfish still in the air halfway, her black sword covered in ice, while the pure ice flame was burning in her free hand! She had gained an advantage against a foe that was stronger than she and she had to use it and end the fight in one strike!
The Sword pierced the scales, but was being halted by the thick massive muscles the beast had, but cutting it had never been Kou's goal anyway, she overloaded her Iceflame with Qi and punched the Catfish right in the face, pressing the Ice flame against him! The beast had higher resilience than the Seahorse had so she had to fight it directly like this, the Sword had simply been a distraction!
The Catfish let out some kind of gurgle noise! It was not defeated yet! The Ice-Punch had frozen half its body but the glow from his scales quickly warmed it back up, and Kou had to jump back to avoid the massive tail. Still... she had inflicted massive damage on it, and the Catfish seemed like it would rather give up on the seahorse now, hopping back towards the lake. "As if I let you go now!" Kou growled shadows appeared around her like a cloak as she shot towards the fleeing catfish, her left hand throwing daggers of light towards it. Smaller explosions made it impossible for the catfish to continue running!
"We still have business!" Kou did not avoid the tail this time, holding her sword up to block it, the impact was heavy! She could feel something in her shoulder crack but she did not care! Simply dropping she sword she put all her Qi into her dagger, the light around it becoming razor-sharp as she rammed int straight into the creatures face. Her Ice flame had already weakened the scales and muscles there, so it pierced right through, killing the beast.
With heavy breath Kou forced the collapsed beast off of her, she had no time to relax now! There would probably be more creatures here in just a bit after the explosions! So even with her shoulder hurting, she pulled out her dagger, before ramming it into the creature's abdomen it took just a few moments for her to find it's core, picking it she jumped over to the Sea Horse and did the same, a look over her shoulder already showed ripples in the Water. "Goddamit!" She growled again, shadows cloaking her again as she shoots away!
Behind her a very dragon-like head shot out of the water, but ... it did not go after Kou, it's maw closing around the Catfishes corpse munching on it, It was one of those Eel's a creature already at the late stages of the 3rd realm, someone that could crush Kou easily! Luckily for her, she got away this time.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Xiong rubbed his beard again. " A battle that goes over realms, things like this do not happen often, usually one that is in a higher realm will always win no matter how close the other one is to that realm, but my little one did it, albeit she exhausted herself quite a bit.. for it... Ha, I've seen something good today! Only true geniuses can beat people above their level! Haha! I can foster a great person!"
Xiong jumped off his branch - going back home! He could not wait to tell his mate about this!
Kou was exhausted. She crashed into her pile of furs and curled up hugging both of the cores she had gotten today a grin on her face. "With that, the 3rd realm is just around the corner, I will catch up to Xiu Shihong in no time! I wonder at what level she is..." Once more her thoughts went back to her friends back in the Sect, Kou had no idea of the distance between them, how far she would have to travel and how she would even get back there at all.
Cultivation could wait for tomorrow, she was exhausted and needed to replenish her Qi, a nice long nap would not replenish her energy and get rid of her mental exhaustion! She also really wanted a nap to avoid the midday heat! "Mhh..: Tomorrow the 3rd and next week the 4rd! And after that, I'll get my gold core! He...As if.." Mumbling to herself she slowly fell asleep.
It was already dark outside when Kou woke up, stretching her limps including the tail out she yawned loudly before scratching the back of her head, blinking she looked around while adjusting her clothes. "Good nap...Mhm." humming a random tune she went to wash her face! Done with that she made her way over to the ocean, it was not a long track and quickly her feet were touching Sand.
"Well..not onto the not so fun part.." Stipping! She carefully folded her clothes and hid them in a bush! She had brought a rough dress made out of hide with her which she quickly threw over.
"Mh..." She mumbled and nodded while pushing her tail through the hole made for it. "Well... I dun want my normal stuff to get stinky.." Aside from this dress, she had brought a few more things, for one those two cores, and for the other - one of those Ice-flowers Xiong had given her. The Ice Qi was a bit weaker than when it was fresh but it was enough for her purpose. Slowly she walked into the Water, her golden eyes changing color as ice formed around her, quickly forming into a small dome around her. She directly fed the ice-flower to the Ice-flame before letting it burn next to her.
She did NOT want her breakthrough into the 3rd realm to be interrupted by anything! And she did not want to have to fight because Monsters would come over with the smell. So why not create an underwater Ice-house! It would holy be there for a few hours and it was just a few feet out of the Water.. but it was almost invisible from the beach and no creature was lurking in such shallow water! Perfect!
Kou rubbed her nose, sadly there was nobody around to admire her smart idea.. so she quickly calmed down again, sitting down cross-legged in the wet sand. Now she had a choice to make, would she use the Cat-fish or Sea-horse core. The Sea-horse was late second and the cat-fish had been in the early third realm. Using the Cat-fish now would make the breakthrough easier, but she had no other 3rd rank stones whatsoever! And once she was in the 3rd realm the use she got out of 2nd realm stones would plummet.
"A screw it! I can always go and find other 3rd realm beasts once I'm in the 3rd realm myself!" With that she picked up the 3rd realm core, gathering Qi in her left hand she crushed it into tiny pieces, that she quickly devoured! Before eating a few herbs! She could already feel the powerful light Qi filling her up, rushing towards her already cracking dantian! Kou tensed up! Very carefully she directed all the Qi into her Dantian, taking care not to let any of it run wild inside of her! It was hard and her forehead was quickly covered in sweat.
She could feel how her Qi channels were near bursting! How her Dantian was overflowing. "C...rack already damit.." Her face became deep red and her breathing stopped for a moment as she forced the Qi into her Dantian, without allowing it to spill back out! Crrrzs! A Sharp pain run through her head stomach, but she had no time to deal with that! She could feel how that last push did what she wanted, the inner wall of her dantian that locked her into the second realm broke! She felt her power rise and her body change! Qi flooded everything!
All of this is quite easily described but actually took a good 5 hours to happen, so when Kou finally emerged of her icy hole there was already the first hints of the sun on the horizon. Quickly she washed away the horrible grime on her skin. It was force than it had been ever before her whole skin having a black oozing and sticky liquid on it.
"Urg... Hwwh.." The first thing she did was vomit from the stench! And it took a good 20 minutes until she finally fully emerged from the water leaving a puddle of grime behind in the water... did that puddle just remind her of a skull in shape? ...Might just be imagination.
Flicking her left hand the Ice-flame appeared and quickly formed into an icy mirror that she used to inspect herself. She had grown! Not too much but she was about half a head taller than she had been before. Her skin was smooth as Jade, having shed any last reminders from her time on the streets. Her already long hair had grown even longer reaching down to the ground now. "Weird..." she just mumbled and shrugged, making her way to her clothes, directing some Qi into them to adjust their Size before throwing them over.
There she stood, in her dark robes, adjusting her gloves! While she was still small, one would actually think she was around 13 or 14 years old now, her face was more cute than beautiful, however, with large eyes and long white lashes, a small nose, and pink lips. Her golden eyes glowing all the time now. "Ah, whatever." She adjusted her hair some of it falling into her face. "I need a haircut..."
She blinked, she had not realized it before but even her voice had changed, it was smooth and a little deeper than her rather highpitched one before. All in All, Kou was still cute, if somebody were place her next to a beauty like Xiu Shihong, Kou would probably only get the eyes of other females that would prefer something cute over a pretty girl.
"I've hurt myself.. while making the breakthrough... but why.." mumbling she touched her stomach with one hand, she had gotten some light internal injuries, that would heal quite quickly, but if she had failed the breakthrough because of this the injury would've been far worse. "Mh..."
There were many things Kou was just vaguely aware of. The second realm was the end for many people, they could not overcome the wall that would lead into the third, simply not having the resources or talent to succeed. Even those children like Xiu Shihong and Ning Yue would prepare themselves for over a month and used a myriad of elixirs and pills to make the breakthrough as smooth as possible. Many would still fail many times, having to wait out injuries and such before they could try again.
To reach the inner sect at all one had to be in the late second realm. Many of the inner sect members were still on that level, just those truly talented reached the 3rd, and the geniuses the 4th. If you would go by numbers, there were a million people that could cultivate! Out of this 80 % would be stuck at the awakening or first realm. 15% would be able to step into the second, while just a small number would go on!
This once more proved the immense talent Kou had been born with, that together with her nature were the perfect mix for reaching the peak!