Chapter 29:

The next day, Lin, Jianfeng, and I left Everlake City bright and early. We headed south on foot, following the roads. We could have rented horses, but Jianfeng and Lin both considered it a waste. The horses would have made the journey easier, but they couldn’t be brought into the Great Southern Forest. Which meant that they would have just been left outside, where they could end up stolen or eaten by spirit beasts.

It was simpler to not bother in their eyes and go on foot instead.

Just a bit over a week ago, I would have considered this insane. The edge of the Great Southern Forest was more than 100 miles away from Everlake City. At best, it would have taken me several days to travel that distance, only stopping to sleep for the night.

But, with my new speed and endurance, it was much more manageable. So much so, that I found myself enjoying the experience. There was just something exhilarating about being able to jog at car speeds—even if we kept to the lower end of that to not overly tax ourselves. The way the wind tugged at my hair and clothes, as well as just how quickly anything close by seemed to rush behind me as I went. It was all an extremely potent reminder of just how far I’d come in such a short amount of time.

Of course, as exciting as it was for me to get to indulge in my superhuman abilities, my enthusiasm could only last so long. Sometime after we left the city far behind, and I got used to seeing the wide open and lush fields around the southern road, my excitement started to dim and boredom began to set in.

Thankfully, I wasn’t alone and was able to talk with Jianfeng and Lin as we traveled along the road. But it still made me think that I would like to figure out a faster traveling method for the future. In case I needed to travel alone. Especially since this world was as absurdly large as one would expect of a Xianxia world.

Perhaps a flight Skill of some kind. I had considered the idea before, and flying spirit beasts were definitely on my target list today. I wasn’t quite sure if that would actually work or not, but there was very little reason for me not to try.

Though, despite how cool that would be, it wasn’t birds or other flying beasts that I was the most focused on trying to find today. No, instead, I had other targets in mind. My first targets were going to be cats and any large and physically powerful beasts, preferably without any other abilities. They’d be easier to find quickly, and the hope was to get more passive buffs like Primal Vitality that would boost me considerably.

Afterward, we’d go for some more unique and interesting Skills, but passive buffs like that seemed the easiest and fastest way for a quick power-up. Something even more necessary now because of that jerk Qian Zhi and his threats.

Aside from Skills, my other goal for the day was going to be getting spirit beast cores. I needed at least 25 to reach Mid Stage Rank 1 if my calculations were correct and there were no complications. I’d already processed five since reaching Rank 1, and now was my chance to get the rest—something only doable in a single day because all cores we would be gathering today would be mine. Jianfeng and Lin still felt the need to repay me for my help getting them out of the mines, and wouldn’t be taking a cut of the cores since I needed more in the short term.

Although, even if we got all the cores I needed today, I wasn’t going to be able to reach Mid Rank 1 in time for the trial. I could rush things and eat multiple at once, but the increased cooldown would end up making things take longer. That didn’t mean that getting all the cores today would be pointless, however.

I still needed a lot of them to get as strong as I could for the trial. And it would be good to get all the cores I needed to reach Mid Rank 1 sooner rather than later. Just in case anything came up and made another hunting trip more difficult in the future.

Eventually, an hour or two before noon, the Great Southern Forest finally came into view. At first, I was unimpressed. It was supposed to be far more dangerous than the Amberwood. So much so, that the depths of the forest were mostly unexplored, and it was said that even Rank 3 spirit beasts roamed within. Perhaps even Rank 4 spirit beasts, but many consider that to just be rumors. Yet, despite all that, it didn’t look all that much different from the Amberwood.

It was only as we got closer and closer to the forest did I realized just how mistaken I was. I first noticed when we didn’t actually reach the forest as quickly as I thought we would. Then, as we continued to run, the trees became bigger and bigger to my eyes. By the time we actually reached the edge of the forest, I realized that perhaps the name Great Southern Forest didn’t really do the place justice.

Perhaps the Forest of Massive Fucking Trees would have been a better name.

Because the trees here were indeed massive. I’d seen images of people standing next to old-growth redwoods back on Earth before. And while I think the trees at the edge of the forest weren’t quite that large, they were getting there. They were also probably a lot younger and smaller than the trees further into the forest.

“Holy shit,” I said, standing at the base of one of the massive trees and looking up into its branches. “How did you guys not mention how fucking big the trees here are? Like you mentioned the spirit beasts, and the dangers and rewards. But how was this not something you felt like you should mention?”

“I’m quite sure that I said the trees here were large,” Lin said from beside me.

I turned and gave her a deadpan look. “This,” I said, gesturing at the massive tree with both hands, “is not large. This is ridiculously massive!”

“Is it?” Lin asked, tilting her head.

I gave her an incredulous look for a long moment, wondering what the hell she would consider massive. Then I saw Jianfeng out of the corner of my eye, trying hard not to laugh. Oh, these fuckers.

“Oh, haha,” I said, shaking my head, “real funny.”

Lin smirked and chuckled softly. Behind her, Jianfeng burst out into laughter.

I just sighed and shook my head before turning back to the trees. They really were just fucking massive. Was that because of the greater ambient Qi? I could already feel the difference here at the edges of the forest; Both from my Earth Sense as well as my still often finicky sense for Qi in general.

“Come on, let's stop burning daylight,” I said when Jianfeng finished laughing.

The three of us headed into the forest. The trees were large, but they were quite far apart from each other, making the forest seem quite open. The underbrush was quite sparse out here as well. The branches also started quite high up, and the canopy above was not too dense, letting a lot of sunlight reach us. It left the place feeling rather peaceful. Safe even.

Which I knew was not the case at all. Even though the troubles with the spirit beasts in the western part of the Great Southern Forest weren’t going to affect us here, it was far from being safe. It was why all the joking around disappeared as we made our way into the forest. Why we all stayed close and kept each other in view. Why Lin had repeated the rules I was to follow while we were hunting on the way here, despite the fact that she’d already gone over them with me yesterday.

This place was dangerous as all hell, even when the spirit beasts were calm.

If I’d ended up here when I first arrived in this world, instead of in the Amberwood, I would have died. Plain and simple. Only cultivators dared come into this forest, and even then usually only in teams unless they were very strong. And, of course, even then, they would usually only hunt at the ‘outer’ parts of the forest. Which might not sound like much, but was apparently anywhere from the edge of the forest to hundreds of miles deep into it.

It didn’t take long for us to encounter our first spirit beast. Just as we were making our way around a giant root sticking out of the ground, it happened. Jianfeng was the first to notice, unsheathing his sword and calling it out.

“To the right,” he said, pointing with his sword. “Early Rank 1.”

I quickly unsheathed my sword as I looked for what he’d seen. There. It had been hiding in a particularly dense bit of underbrush. But perhaps realizing it had already been seen, it moved out from its cover, revealing itself to be a bear. It looked like a black bear but was far larger than any I’d seen before. Closer to the size of grizzly bears I’d seen in pictures.

Though perhaps not quite as big as a grizzly. And, as it prowled towards us growling, coming out of the shadows, I realized that it seemed a bit ragged. Not quite thin, but not as filled out as I would have expected either.

“Do you want to try taking it out on your own?” Jianfeng asked as the bear growled while he split his attention between watching it and looking around for other threats.

I hesitated for a moment, looking at the bear. It wasn’t close enough that I could feel it with my Earth Sense, and I still hadn’t gotten the knack of gauging the strength of my opponents from what Qi emanated from their bodies. But Jianfeng had said it was an Early Rank 1.

I’d taken those out before when I was much weaker. It had been scary and panic-filled, but I’d done it. Now I was much stronger and should be able to handle it far better. Given its size, it probably still had me beat in strength. But I could likely outspeed it just with Burst Step, and it was unlikely to do anything clever either.

This really was the perfect opportunity for me to demonstrate to myself just how far I’d come. And this was exactly the kind of spirit beast I’d been hoping to find. Something that might give me a strength-based passive.

Despite all that, however, there was still something holding me back. A part of me that spent the last 18 years living on Earth. Where the idea that I could kill a bear by myself without a gun or mace was fucking absurd.

That part of me screamed this was insane, and I should run away.

“Sure, just watch my back,” I said, taking a deep breath and telling the screaming part of myself to shut up. I wasn’t a normal human on Earth anymore. I was a cultivator—kinda, as I technically didn’t cultivate like a normal cultivator. At the very least, I was someone with superhuman abilities. I could do this.

I started towards the bear, which had stopped its approach. Its eyes locked onto mine as I stepped away from my friends, and its growling only got louder. It was like a car engine at this point, but I wasn’t going to back down.

I continued my approach but held back on boosting myself with Qi Devourer. I’d been keeping my reserve pool topped off with my own Qi since this morning, meaning both it and my own reserves were full. But we had a long day ahead of us, and I didn’t want to use the ability so soon. Not for just one spirit beast, and not if it meant using up more spirit stones.

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So, instead, I prepared myself to use another ability while I waited for the bear to act. I had a pretty good idea of what it would do, given its posture and what I’ve read about bears like this in the bestiaries from the Starguard Hall. And had a really solid plan for just how to take it out.

All I needed was for it to—there!

The bear finally decided I’d gotten too close. It reared up on its hind legs and growled again. It made slashing gestures with its paws as if trying to scare me away. That was a mistake.

I activated Metallic Razor Slash. Then I kicked off the ground and activated Burst Step. As I practically flew to the side of the bear, I slashed out with my silver light-coated sword and cut deeply into the bear's right hindleg. So deep that my enhanced slash scraped its bones before I pulled my sword away.

The bear roared in pain and tried to spin and retaliate. But with its leg crippled and my momentum, I easily avoided its claws. The bear lashed out futilely at me as I backed away and circled around quickly.

It did its best to keep me in sight. But it was just too slow with its crippled leg. And I was too fast.

I circled around it and used Burst Step once more. My sword cut into its other leg, just as deep and debilitating. The bear roared and stumbled as it tried to face me. Tried to lash out at the thing killing it. But its legs wouldn’t cooperate and gave out.

I took a step back as the thing thrashed, pretty much helpless as it tried to charge me just using its front paws. It made me feel a bit ill for a moment. But I powered through the feeling. If I felt bad, then I should give it a quick death. Or at least as quick of one as I could without risking myself.

Conserving Qi and not using Burst Step this time, I circled around the bear again and rushed behind it. It tried to follow but was just too slow, and I leaped onto its back and used Metallic Razor Slash one more time. I cut straight through the back of the bear’s neck and leaped off the thing.

Its body spasmed for a moment before the bear slumped to the ground. I rushed to its head, still wary of it lashing out despite having just crippled it. Better to be safe than sorry, and who knew what a spirit beast might be able to handle. Thankfully, the bear didn’t have any surprises like that and remained still. So I cut down with my sword again and beheaded the beast fully.

And just like that, it was done. No boost needed, and no need for anyone else to intervene. I’d done it all by myself. Rather easily as well, with barely any danger to me. A far cry from my last encounter with Rank 1 spirit beasts.

A familiar blue glow appeared around the bear’s carcass, and I focused on it to—ouch!

Something hit me on the head. I rubbed at the spot and saw Lin tossing another rock up and down in her hand. I glared.

“What did I say about letting your guard down after a fight?” she said, not at all bothered by my glare.

I just sighed at that and shook my head. “Okay, you’re not wrong. But did you have to throw a rock?”

“Oh, don’t be a baby,” Lin said before she threw the rock away. This time, she’d done it a lot harder, and it smashed apart against one of the trees. “I gently lobbed it at you. And a little pain will help you remember in the future.“

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, shaking my head. She wasn’t wrong, but it was still annoying.

I put a show of looking around the clearing for a moment, seeing nothing around us, before I focused back on the bear. I ignored Lin’s comment of ‘better’ and instead focused on the Skill available. Though not so much that I wouldn’t see another rock coming or any other kind of danger around us.

It didn’t take me long to pick my Skill. There was the Skill I was expecting and wanted, and then two other ones that were rather lackluster. The lackluster options were a Claw Attack Skill and the option to add 2% progress towards raising Primal Vitality to C-Rank. Neither could compare to the final Skill, so I chose it without delay.

Ursine Strength (Passive) (Rank D): Strength is increased by 100%.

The bear disappeared into light a moment later, and a rush of power surged through me. All my muscles seemed to tense up for just a second. Then it was over, but I could still feel the change. The strength coursing through me.

I couldn’t help but grin at the feeling. Such a major boost for barely any effort at all. It made me feel just a bit giddy. Even if I was pretty sure that the boost I got from Qi Devouring would be pretty much useless now. And if not now, then it would be once I got the Dex version of this kind of Skill.

Still, it was worth it. I’d rather be this powerful all the time than only from a boost. Also, eventually, I’d increased my reserve pool large enough that I could actually get something out of it again. Then it would be pretty amazing. And there was always the trick where I just scarfed down a bunch of spirit stones at once.

It would be absurdly costly, and not something I wanted to do, but still a powerful trump card if I ever needed it.

“Out of curiosity,” Jianfeng said from beside me as I basked in the feeling of strength. He nodded towards where the bear had been. “What are the chances you could have done that after extracting its core?”

I froze as I registered his question and frowned. Huh. Hadn’t thought about that. Did I waste the core just now? It wasn’t a big deal, but it was a good question.

“No idea,” I said before shaking my head. “Remind me next time in case I forget.”

“Sure.”

With the bear taken care of, and nothing else appearing, we quickly left the site of the fight behind. That was one of the rules Lin had drilled into me yesterday and on the way here. Do not stick around after a battle. It didn’t matter as much so close to the edge of the forest, but it would matter a whole lot more later. Because of how many spirit beasts there were in the forest, it was very easy to draw the attention of more spirit beasts with the sounds of fighting and the scent of blood.

Something we very much didn’t want to do. Things like that could escalate out here, and we could either end up overwhelmed with numbers depending on what we attracted, or we could end up dealing with spirit beasts too powerful for us to deal with.

Not long after we left the bear behind, we ran into more spirit beasts as we made our way deeper into the forest. Nothing that stood out or anything we’d noted down from the bestiaries, though. Just more powerful versions of normal animals.

They were also even easier to take out than the bear. Not because they were weaker, as some of them were actually quite a bit stronger. But with my strength doubled and not fighting alone, these fights did not last long at all.

They ended even faster after we figured out I had to choose between harvesting Skills and getting spirit beast cores. I realized this after an extracted core disappeared from my hand when I tried adding progress toward ranking up Spirit Beast Cultivation. Eating cores also didn’t help with this, as that simply made the System no longer deem the beast that a core had come from an acceptable target.

Because of this, I ended up choosing to not harvest most of the more common spirit beasts, and the others didn’t have to hold back anymore to let me finish them off. The most common spirit beasts just didn’t have any more useful Skills, and 2% towards ranking up Primal Vitality or Spirit Beast Cultivation was just too slow compared to the gains I could get from cultivating.

It was only when we ran into a pair of lynxes that I made the extra effort to get the finishing blow again and harvest a Skill. Like that first damned cat that had welcomed me into this world, it had the Skill Cat-Like Reflexes.

Cat-like Reflexes (Passive) (Rank D): Dexterity is increased by 100%.

And then just like that, my Dex stat doubled as well. The sudden boost to my reflexes and perception took a moment to get used to. But it was well worth it, and I couldn’t help but start to feel very confident about myself.

I knew I shouldn’t, of course. Doubling my stats was still not enough for me to stand up against the higher stages of Qi-Gathering, let alone anything above that. But it was still very nice to grow so quickly in moments. Addicting in a way. It was just too bad I wasn’t likely to get any more quick power-ups like this any time soon.

Despite having checked a lot of other spirit beasts before getting to these lynxs, there didn’t seem to be any other Str, Dex, or Vitality passive boost available. No Boar Strength or Rodent Agility or anything like that. Disappointing to say the least, but I supposed that would have been too overpowered.

Still, at least these Skills would continue to benefit me well into the future. That was something I could be very happy about.

I would have taken the time to enjoy that thought longer if Lin didn’t urged me to hurry up as we were on a schedule. Our little hunting trip was supposed to end well before sunset as the forest was more dangerous at night. We also had a specific part of the forest in mind that should have even more Skills for me to collect.

So right after that, we left the other Lynx corpse behind after extracting its core and continued on our way. More spirit beasts soon barred our path, and we took them out even easier than before. I found myself enjoying the hunting, and I couldn’t help but notice how I was comparing to Lin and Jianfeng.

I was pretty close to their level in terms of pure stats as far as I could tell. I didn’t know for sure, since I still didn’t have any kind of Observation Skill. But I was pretty certain I was physically stronger than Jianfeng now, and close to Lin in terms of reaction time. Future sparring would show if that was actually the case, as they had techniques that could pull them ahead. But regardless, it was another nice indicator of my progress.

It was around noon when we finally neared that part of the forest we were aiming for. The massive trees around us started to thin, and instead, the land around us became rocky and barren. The change was very abrupt, and apparently, the wasteland ahead was one of many different mini-ecosystems encompassed by the forest.

Almost as soon as we left the trees behind, I finally found one of the spirit beasts I’d come out here to hunt. A specific beast and not just a certain type I wanted to aim for like a feline or something that seemed strength-based. It was a kind of armadillo but unlike any on Earth because of its sheer size. It was called a Great Rocky Pangolin. Twice as large as the bear I’d first fought, with a hard thick shell, it would have been a tough nut to crack.

Even with my enhanced strength, my Razor Metallic Slash couldn’t cut through its protective shell in a single go. I needed multiple attacks in the same spot to break through, and even if it didn’t fight back, it would take me quite some time to kill it by myself. Pretty impressive defensive ability for an Early Rank 1 spirit beast.

Thankfully, while it seemed really good against slashing damage, blunt damage seemed a bit more effective. And with Lin’s warclub and her enhanced strength that was still a bit higher than mine, she was able to smash apart its protective shell far more easily. Enough so that the thing ran.

But the pangolin was not fast, and we quickly crippled its legs before I finally finished it off with a beheading.

The pangolin’s head hit the ground with a meaty thump, and the battle was over. I quickly checked our surroundings in case anything else appeared, but we seemed to be alone for the moment. So I finally focused on the pangolin’s head, while still keeping an eye out for dangers.

Defeated Enemy: Great Rocky Pangolin

Available Skills to Harvest:

* Earth Sense Upgrade (Passive) (Rank D): Increase progress to rank up Earth Sense by 2%

* Digging Proficiency (Passive) (Rank D): Improves digging speed by 100%

* Armored Shell (Active) (Rank D): Create a defensive shell of Qi around yourself. The more you move, the weaker the defensive power is. Duration of Skill can be extended with additional Qi.

* * Cost: 15 Qi

* * Base Duration: 1 minute

I quickly read through the available Skills and grinned when I saw the last one. While the other two were disappointing, my guess as to what kind of Skill I could get from this creature was right. A hopefully powerful defensive Skill. Something I was kinda lacking at the moment. Sure, Earth Constructs could do something similar. But I was hoping this one would be a lot faster and a lot stronger without having to expend so much Qi.

Not needing to think about it anymore, I made my selection and gained Armored Shell. The pangolin disappeared into light. And after the wave of information from my new Skill ran through my mind, I activated my new Skill just to test it out.

Qi rushed out of my body, and a semi-transparent small armored dome with patterns similar to the pangolin’s scales appeared around me. I could feel a restrictive force from it, but I knew I could move if I wanted to.

“Hey, Lin—” I started to call, only to be interrupted by her war club slamming into my new shield.

I gave her a deadpan look despite the shell not wavering. She’d gone easy, but she’d still done it before I’d even finish asking.

“What?” She asked innocently. “It's not like I went full power. Now, come on. We can test it more elsewhere away from all this blood.”

Knowing she was right, I started to move. The restrictive force was there like a reminder that I should stay still, but I was pretty sure I could get used to moving like this. Even if that would make the defensive power a lot weaker, something visually indicated by the shield becoming more transparent.

However, before we could actually leave, a familiar girl’s voice spoke out and made us all freeze.

“So, that’s what you were doing. I’d been wondering what that little light show with the corpses was all about.”