After covering his cave with bushes, dirt, and boulders to prevent anyone from claiming it, Liu Xing walked toward the main gate.
The two disciples on guard duty checked his paperwork and let him pass, and Liu Xing descended the stairs that connected the sect with the town below.
Seeing the stairs coiling and descending like a long white snake, Liu Xing decided to summon his gun, activate Lightning Cloak, and start running. When the stairs turned, Liu Xing decided to jump off the cliff, landed on a tree branch and jumped from branch to branch, descending like a ninja.
He didn't go full speed, just fast enough to keep the world from blurring. This way, he could enjoy the beautiful scenery: green mountain peaks, a winding blue river, rolling white clouds, and a refreshing breeze fluttering his robes, making him feel comfortable.
At normal speed, it would take at least a week to reach Dragon Skull Forest, but with this speed, he was pretty sure he could arrive several days early.
"I wonder when I can fly," he thought. In this world, there was no rule that cultivators could fly only after achieving a certain realm. Cultivators could fly if they had a technique or treasure that allowed them to fly, whether they were immortal or just starting to cultivate. Although most people in higher realms, notably in the Sun Refining realm, could control qi around them and fly freely like birds.
Liu Xing wondered if flying was more fun than jumping around like a ninja.
After several minutes of jumping, Liu Xing arrived at the small town below the sect. From the side, Liu Xing saw how bustling the town was, with roads full of merchants, hawking customers, horses, and mules pulling carts.
He didn’t enter the town but bypassed it and started jumping within the trees to the west. He was broke now. He didn’t have any spirit stones or anything that could be exchanged for supplies, so Liu Xing had no need to go there. Although he wanted to buy some jerky or medicine pills, he couldn't.
As he jumped from tree to tree, Liu Xing started to think about his mission. Purple Tailed Lizards lived in the deeper part of Dragon Skull Forest. They lived in swampy areas and usually spent their lives in water, like crocodiles. The difference was these lizards were big, as big as a normal house, and they were ferocious.
The lizard he needed to cut its tail from had to be at least three hundred years old with certain unique signs. First, the lizard needed to have a fully purple tail. The young and weak ones had dark spots on their tails, and while those tails had some use, what he needed was a perfect purple tail. The second sign was that its head needed to be small. It was said that the smaller the head, the more potent the tail, but it made the lizard more aggressive and dangerous, which was fitting, considering the effects the pills made from this tail would have.
Liu Xing passed a boy and a man—likely father and son—crouching in the bush and pointing an arrow at a boar. Liu Xing accidentally startled the boar, causing the father's arrow to miss.
Liu Xing shouted, "Sorry!"
The father just sighed, but the boy looked at him with shining eyes. Seeing the boy, Liu Xing waved, and the boy waved back.
"Hmm, should I finish the mission first or hunt first?" he muttered.
After all, while he needed to complete the mission, his main objective was to hunt and advance.
"I'll just hunt and do the mission at the same time. There must be many spirit beasts I'll encounter on the way to the swamp."
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Nodding, Liu Xing started to grin. His heart was full of anticipation. Dragon Skull Forest was famous as a beginner hunting ground. He would meet many, many spirit beasts there, and Liu Xing was pretty certain that he would reach the Lock Opening sixth stage in no time.
Excited, Liu Xing added more qi to his movement technique, moving like a blue lightning bolt, swimming in the forest like a flying electric eel.
Along the way, Liu Xing met several more people. He met a grandmother and her little grandson in the forest. They invited Liu Xing to join them after he helped them kill a tiger and gave him some beef jerky for supplies.
Liu Xing encountered a caravan attacked by a pack of wolves. The leader of the wolves was a spirit beast, albeit a weak one. Even without enhancement, Liu Xing punched the leader until it burst like a balloon filled with water. This spirit beast verified something Liu Xing hadn't accomplished in the forest two months ago, which was discovering what would happen if he held the gun but killed the beast using his own power. The answer was shocking. He thought the energy of the qi would be absorbed, but the reality was not. The beast core remained intact, and the merchant offered a single spirit stone for the core, which Liu Xing accepted.
Then Liu Xing arrived at a village terrorized by a centipede monster. Liu Xing shot its head with an explosive bullet. The villagers thanked him and gave him two spirit stones, which was nice because Liu Xing, while still broke, was no longer completely penniless.
He then met a group of robbers, another pack of spirit beasts, and a hunting group who apologized and kneeled to Liu Xing when they accidentally disturbed him while he rested.
While the journey was eventful, there were no noteworthy events happening, and seven days after Liu Xing left the sect, he finally arrived at Dragon Skull Town, a town on the outskirts of the forest.
Walking through the town streets, Liu Xing tried to walk normally. He didn't puff his chest or try to own the street, but nonetheless, when mortals realized he was a cultivator, they held their breath and tried to hide, as if Liu Xing were some kind of spirit beast.
He met a group of five cultivators.
They wore black robes with red trim. At the front walked a tan man with white hair. One man carried a big metal fan on his back, while the others carried big gourds on theirs.
When they were face to face in the street, Liu Xing put on a neutral expression and faced straight ahead. They noticed his robe—purple with a faint moon and cloud pattern—and also maintained neutral expressions.
The Purple Moon Sect was a big shot, and people generally didn't want to mess with a hornet's nest.
After that, Liu Xing passed a market area that seemed to mainly deal with spirit beasts. A merchant and a cultivator were negotiating over a giant slug corpse with an intact shell. Some were butchering a giant bear corpse, and Liu Xing saw a cultivator shouldering a big, long log until Liu Xing realized that the log had many tiny eyes and limbs that looked like branches.
Seeing this, Liu Xing started to smile. The appearance of spirit beast carcasses reignited his motivation. The sect mission was important, but he needed to remember that he came here to hunt, advance, and become strong.
Feeling his heart start burning with excitement, Liu Xing ran into Dragon Skull Forest.
***
Liu Xing stood atop a cliff, gazing over a sprawling green forest. In the distance, resembling a marble from his vantage point, lay a small hill shaped like a lizard's skull. Indentations resembling eye sockets and a slit that suggested a mouth capable of swallowing giants adorned the hill. That was likely Skull Hill, the reason behind the forest's name, Dragon Skull Forest.
He finally arrived!
Jumping from the cliff, Liu Xing landed on the grass in a small clearing. When he landed, he realized a group of cultivators was waiting for him.
One guy was sitting on a tree stump. He had short hair and tanned skin, wearing gray clothes that looked baggy and easy to move in. Another guy leaned against a tree. He had red hair and similarly red eyes, but he was pale and skinny, making him look sick. The third one sat on a branch, swinging his feet. There was a thin smile on his face, and his eyes were narrow, almost like slits, giving him a cunning and smart aura.
Seeing Liu Xing, the trio sprang from their positions and stood across from Liu Xing, blocking the way toward Dragon Skull Forest.
"Fellow cultivator, welcome to Dragon Skull Forest! I'm Mo Yan, the gatekeeper of the forest," the tanned guy said with a smile.
Liu Xing knew they were not friendly. They were probably a group of robbers.