Anda brought back the fainted Leyvi into the carriage and asked Lilian to keep her thorned vine barrier up. She's not sure if there would be another strong demonic beast around. Since the demonic leopard was here, there shouldn't be any. But it was better to be more careful.
Tal and Tasya were completely shocked by the battle between Leyvi and the demonic leopard. It was their first time seeing a battle of this scale. There were multiple craters with burnt grass and huge claw marks formed around the area. Some grasses were still burning and spreading so they could see the aftermath in the dark of the night.
Lilian was quiet as usual. She was focusing on maintaining her barrier while staring at the unconscious Leyvi. After traveling with him for some time, she has a little grasp on his character. He would always be goofing around with his wife and liked to act gentlemanly with other people. But when dangers come, he would always be the first to react, going all out.
"Are you two scared?" While gently caressing Leyvi's hair who was lying on her lap, she asked Tal and Tasya.
Both of them nodded. There's no point in lying.
"This is the life you will be facing from now on. If you don't fight, you will die." Anda sighed. She doesn't like to fight and she knew Leyvi was the same. The battle tonight has made her realize that she has been too overconfident in her ability. She needed to find a way to improve her combat ability.
The next morning, Leyvi regained consciousness after his qi was refilled to a certain extent and nourished his fatigued body again. Then, he consumed peak-grade qi replenishing pills to quickly fill his dantian to the maximum again.
"Hahaha! We got a nice demonic core!" Leyvi was showing the party an orange-colored demonic core with a hint of yellow on it.
Mr. Bison drooled when he saw the demonic core. Stripey didn't care much about getting stronger so he was not interested in it.
"The demonic leopard was already in the process of becoming a high-grade demonic beast! We are lucky to be alive." Leyvi felt chills when he recalled yesterday's battle. If not for him instinctively detonated his fiery qi, he would have lost the fight.
Leyvi jotted down the qi detonation method in his mind. He might be able to integrate it into his fighting style better later. Additionally, he felt that he needed to use his hand more too while fighting. His hands are too free. He felt that it was wasted.
Using his Fiery Trailblazer martial skill as the core, he managed to add two more applications so far in his fight. Firstly, he could fly faster by blasting fiery qi from his feet enabling a powerful thruster. Secondly, he could detonate the accumulated fiery qi. This was an extremely useful means to attack when he was static.
However, his most obvious weakness was still the qi consumption rate. Each move needed way too many qi in exchange for powerful attack power. He has a lake-sized liquified qi, but he still faints from qi exhaustion. If it was a normal cultivator, they would probably be depleted after 3 or 4 moves. No wonder there was no continuation of the martial skill even though it was powerful.
"Tal, Tasya, come here." Leyvi suddenly remembered that they were celebrating their advancement as new cultivators before the demonic leopard came to disturb them.
Tal and Tasya immediately sit in front of Leyvi.
"I'm going to teach the basic application of qi today. It can't help you much in battle but it will be useful for daily activities. However, based on which basic applications you have the best proficiency with, you can use it to determine how you proceed with your martial skill later." Leyvi explained the significance of the basic qi applications to the kids.
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There are sharp qi, jolt qi, vibration qi, static qi, shield qi, projectile qi, and manipulation qi.
Sharp qi can be used to cut things. Users need to release an extremely thin layer of qi and maintain it. Cultivators who are proficient at sharp qi usually become sword cultivators.
Jolt qi is releasing a big amount of qi in an instant creating a qi impact. Leyvi was the best example of someone proficient with jolt qi. The moves he uses are all explosive and have a big impact.
Vibration qi most common application was to dry and clean things easily. A cultivator with a very high proficiency in vibration qi could fight using sounds.
Static qi is just a way to stop the qi from leaking from the body. It is used to hide your presence. Assassins and spies are very good at this application.
Shield qi is applying multiple layers of qi to protect oneself or things from damage. Projectile qi needs the user to expel qi from the body while maintaining its power. If the power dissipates before it reaches the target, it would look like a fart.
Lastly, manipulation qi is using the qi on an object to control it. Manipulation qi is the hardest basic qi application to master as it needs more control from the user.
After Leyvi taught the kids how to use the basic qi applications, they resumed their journey. Mr. Bison pulled the carriage with even more energy. Ever since he saw Leyvi's fight, he became more respectful to his employer.
In an instant, another week passed without accident. They met a few more intermediate-level demonic beasts along the way, but they were nowhere near the power level of the demonic leopard.
During this week, Stripey leveled up to become an intermediate-level demonic beast. He ate a lot of demonic core as snacks after all. Although he's not strong, he is multiple times more agile than before.
Leyvi was confused when Anda suddenly wanted to fight solo with them. He just allowed Anda to do as she pleased. She was probably frustrated that she couldn't injure the leopard back then.
There was something that Leyvi noticed when Anda was fighting solo. All of the demonic beasts that attacked her directly, without exception, became extremely dizzy. It happened when the demonic leopard attacked her too. It was this weird moment that gave Leyvi a chance to injure the demonic leopard. Was this her passive ability or something? He wondered.
As the carriage travels, the party can slowly see the end of the grassland coming into sight. They finally crossed the plain after two weeks.
Not long later, they reached the end of the grassland and started to enter a rocky area. They stopped right at the border of the different landscapes. When they looked further they could see a city was nearby.
Leyvi went down the carriage and walked to Mr. Bison. He took out an intermediate-level demonic core and gave it to Mr. Bison.
"Mr. Bison, thank you for carrying us this far. As promised, this is your reward." Leyvi was in his gentlemanly employer persona.
For some reason, Mr. Bison hesitated. He felt that his life would be better if he followed Leyvi. What was the point of getting a bit stronger and getting his revenge anyway? Traveling with them was a far better life. There are a lot of things he experienced for the first time during the travel.
"Boss Leyvi, can I continue to follow you? I will be your carriage puller full-time!" Mr. Bison decided. This was the chance to leave his old boring life.
"Are you sure? There is no turning back after this." Leyvi's expression turned serious. He needed the demonic bison to understand that he might not be able to return any more.
"Boss, I'm sure!" There was no hesitation in Mr. Bison's eyes now.
"Good! I'm sure you will not regret your decision! From now on you will be my second spirit beast! When I send my spiritual imprint, don't resist." Leyvi was happy that the demonic bison decided to follow him.
Leyvi sent his spiritual imprint through his spiritual sense into Mr. Bison's sea of consciousness. Previously, when he was in the Qi Refinement realm, he couldn't use spiritual sense to send his imprint, so he needed to use the blood imprint method on Stripey. Now, it was easier.
Cultivators can try to forcefully send an imprint to the demonic beast's sea of consciousness but it will make them retarded or crazy or even die, so it was not recommended.
Leyvi smile. He got his second spirit beast. Maybe he was destined to become the best beast tamer in the world!
"From now on, your name will be Mr. Bison and you have to learn human language to make it easier to communicate with others," Leyvi instructed.
"Boss, right after I became your spirit beast, I can understand human language. I can understand what they were talking about in the carriage." Mr. Bison told Leyvi his discovery.
"Huh?" Leyvi was confused. Could it be the universal language?
While Leyvi and Mr. Bison were having a serious discussion, the rest of the party only saw a human talking and a bison snorting and grunting. They still can't get used to this sight.