Chapter 2: First hunt.

Shuang Dao engaged their spirits and headed to the west forest called Flying tiger mountain. The most dense Spiritual Beast territory, but at the same time the most spread out, it was perfect for newbies like them to hunt. Of course, first before going, they bought tools and resources for everything, after all they will sell these ferocious beasts later, but they will take out the good stuff. Brain and meat this is because brain and meat has the biggest concentration of spiritual energy in them, which when eaten helps to increase the rate at which one gains attributes. This is the main way to increase one’s strength. Because of this one can only imagine how strong Solitary Demons would be, if they were being fed with ferrous beasts meat from since they were little, because in truth, they have never ate it before! As it was too expensive for them and they didn’t have the strength to kill them. But not anymore, the time has come for them to kill them and get endless benefits.

However the most important thing about Spiritual Beasts, is that they have Spiritual Core which can help even the Spiritual Beasts themselves cultivate. One can do Spiritual Pills with alchemy out of them or eat them directly. Although in the later situation you would lose too much of the Spiritual energy. This is because it’s not refined for human consumption the effects are a lot worse than Spiritual Pills.

….

Some distance away they could see the mountain which pierced the heavens, this is where they are heading.

Legend says that the Flying Tiger Mountain was named after fearsome Spiritual White, Flying Tiger that lived at the top of the mountain. The Flying Tiger was once the king of the continent and that there were no equals to him. But after all legends stay legends isn’t it?

Going towards it, there were barely few miles. They were able to rather quickly reach the beginning of the mountain which was covered by trees all the way to the top. Normal trees would not grow like that, but because of incredible Qi, Spiritual and Pneuma Energy concentration the trees has become stronger. Because there are many variations of trees who has become stronger because of Pneuma they are called differently or by one name, ‘Pneuma Trees.” Or Trees who ‘breathe’ many things in the world has been effected by Pneuma, some are even able to gain conciseness after existing for long enough.

“Guys what was the strategy we were talking about again.” Jiang Li spoke as to confirm with everyone, he was the youngest, but he was not stupid at all, although he was the weakest one from the team but not with overly huge margin.

“We surround the beast with enough gap for each of us to dodge, but enough to attack from every angle.” All of them spoke as they smiled.

…

5 people, 5 swords, the Solitary Demons have finally entered the area of Ferocious beasts for the first time.

All of them knew that they must be extremely cautious. They knew very well that what they are doing is almost a suicide. This is because any of the Spiritual Beast is at least two times stronger than simple animal. Most importantly, they are more intelligent because they have been effected by the Spiritual energy. Normal animals do not even dare to go into Spirit Beast territory.

“Can we really do it?” Huo Ba asked her teammates, but in truth, she asked herself.

“Sister,” Lin Hao spoke, “What do we have to lose? We are completely alone in the world, we have nothing.” She spoke sadly, “But are we going to give up?!”

“NO!” Everyone shouted. They were afraid, but they knew if they don’t want to be slaves their whole life that’s the only thing they can do. They knew that that have to fight with their whole being.

Gripping their swords harder, they knew that they might have taunted some ferocious beast as it has been five minutes since they entered Flying Tiger Mountain. It was about time some ferocious beast showed up. Because of the gigantic size of the forest the ferocious beasts were spread out and so they were not afraid getting the attention of a group of ferocious beasts, as they would live much further in the Flying tiger mountain.

*Roar*

Turning their heads, just like expected they heard a roar of some ferocious beast. Much like a bear and tiger combination.

All of them got ready, as they stood in line, the most basic of formations. After all, they never had a teacher, they knew no tricks or formations. What they had to rely on is only themselves and their swords. In the near future what they will have to rely on is their attributes, because they knew it was impossible to get into any good background without being chained.

Suddenly, behind the dense trees and bushes they finally saw a bear like creature who had very dark purple fur. The fur looked like metal wires absolutely terrifying as one could only imagine it in words, ‘Not to touch.’ Although its fur looks like sharp metallic wires, it is rather short and so not that dangerous.

The bear called Purple Spiked Spirit Bear, it is quite common Spirit animal in this mountain. It is as strong as three common bears and twice as fast. Extremely fearsome beast.

As the bear charged at them, Yun Ji quickly climbed onto the tree, while Lin Hao and Huo Ba went to right and left respectively. Shuang Dao standing in front and Jiang Li at the back as he was the weakest.

The bear saw that Shuang Dao was youngster and so he relaxed a bit, Shuang Dao didn’t look intimidating at all. Charging at Shuang Dao it jumped and attacked Shuang Dao with its pawn. One could see even from far that it had nails as sharp as razors. If one would get pawned by it then one would instantly die from bleeding and broken bones.

When Purple Spiked Spirit Bear and Shuang Dao was about to clash, Lin Hao and Hao Ba attacked the bear from the sides; they didn’t hide anymore. At the same time Yun Ji jumped from top of the tree one the bear and Jiang Li behind Shuang Dao slid downwards trying to attack the bear at its stomach.

Seeing this, the bear couldn’t help but be startled, it tried to dodge by twisting its body at the same time clashing with as many of them is possible, but it was confident in its defence so he was rather relaxed.

Unfortunately the bear underestimated them way too much. When Shuang Dao clashed his sword with the bear’s claw his control was so peerless that he was able to slide his sword in such a way that it went through the claws.

He twisted his body appearing on top of the bear’s claw, he pierced towards the bear’s eye. Unfortunately he missed and was only able to leave a not very deep cut at its eyebrow.

At this time the bear twisted his back claws to attack Lin Hao and Hao Ba. Because their stats were much lower they were not able to do such tricks at that speed like Shuang Dao, so they had no choice but back up and try to attack the bear from behind.

At this time Yun Ji also fell on top of the Bear and with all his might he stabbed towards its neck, but who would have expected that he only pierced to deepness of the tip of the sword. Purple Spiked bears’ defence was too tough!

Jiang Li who slashed from downwards was actually only left a one centimetre deep cut around 5 centimetres long, he was not even able to cut through the bears hide! The bear was too terrifying, so he had no other choice but to roll to the side.

At this moment, all of them knew that this battle will be hard!

*clash* *clash* Multiple clashes and it started to feel for them like they were hitting a metal. Piercing towards simple hide would not make such a sound.

….

After many clashes with the bear most of the Solitary Demons had scratches of some kind and Shuang Dao even got a bit deeper cut from one of the bear’s claws on his right arm as he was not able to totally dodge it. Of course Purple Spiked Spirit Bear didn’t end up good either, as it now had cuts all over its body and started bleeding heavily.

Shuang Dao knew that if they don’t quickly kill it, the bear might escape and run deeper into the forest even if it risks its life being attacked by stronger beasts for entering their territory.

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So just when the five attacked again, when they were about to hit the bear they changed the direction of their swords and stabbed at the bears’ legs which had bunch of cuts. Alas this time they actually sneakily hit at the deepest cut on each of the legs and managed to severely cut the nerves at its legs. The bear immediately fell on the ground with three of its legs because unfortunately Jiang Li was not able to cut deep enough.

They have finally managed to cut it down. The Purple Spiked Spirit Bear could do nothing at this point and just let them kill it.

Life and death battle which lasted almost a fifteen minutes finally ended.

Under such a stressful battle they could feel that they improved a bit. After all, under heavy stress is when human improves the best.

“We did it!” Jiang Li shouted excited.

“Ah! We really did it!” Lin Hao was so excited that she jumped towards Shuang Dao and hugged him really tightly.

“Ai, Ai” Shuang Dao was so surprised that he forgot about the pain from his right arm. Ling Hao realized that as she released Shuang Dao, and blushed a bit.

Seeing this, everyone couldn’t help but chuckle.

*cough* *cough* Shuang Dao coughed awkwardly.

“Guys we need to drag this guy back to our place. Today we will celebrate!” Shuang Dao said cheerfully.

“Let’s cut two small trees and with rope put this huge guy on top of them, It will be easier to drag it.” Yun Ji spoke as he was rather interested in hunting, so he researched the processes. The big guy weights around two hundred fifty kilos, so the five of them will just barely be able to drag it. Because Yun Ji did his research on this mountain he knew that for Purple Spiked Spirit Bear this is natural habitat, and so he prepared a good rope to be able to drag it back.

....

Solitary demons dragged the bear to their hideout without problem as it was in solitary part of the town. Well rather than hideout it was slums, but because so little people would go there, it could be called a hideout as well.

When everyone living there saw Solitary Demons dragging the huge bear they couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise. There were around 10 people living there together with Solitary Demons so the Purple Spiked Spirit Bear will be more than enough to eat for everyone for a week or so.

“Everyone! let’s celebrate this first successful hunt of ours!” Shuang Dao spoke joyfully.

“You really succeeded little ones?” A very aged old man spoke as he looked at the five kids on front of him, the old man was very frail and skinny seemingly haven’t ate anything for months.

“Grandpa Shu, we really did hunt this bear!” Lin Hao spoke as she looked at Grandpa Shu cutely.

“Really, well done!” Grandpa Shu said as he gazed at the bear trying to figure out how it was killed. Bus soon enough of course he figured it out and was surprised at how 11-13 year olds managed to come up with such sneaky plan.

If only the old man knew who made this plan...

...

3 days ago...

Next to campfire at the slums.

“Brother Shuang, I thought of a genius plan if we encounter a Purple Spiked Spirit Bear!” Jiang Li spoke with wide smile on his face.

“Hmm?” Shuang Dai looked at him interested.

“Brother Shuang as you know we absolutely do not look like someone who has a lot of experience and neither do we have any. So my strategy would be to cut it extremely randomly and look as amateurish as possible. Hehehe, But! We will after every second, third, fourth attack we will attack its legs in very disordered manner. This way we will trick bear in thinking that we are not targeting its legs, when in truth, that’s exactly what we will do! At the final moment we will all hit the deepest wound on the legs and cut the nerves!”

Hearing this Shuang Dao couldn’t help but exclaim, although he knew that not all plans go as well as they were planned, but this one was absolutely genius.

...

Jiang Li the youngest among the Solitary demons, but his strategic capabilities could not be measured with common sense!

Quickly gathering wood for the fire, the five Solitary demons started to prepare the Purple Spiked Spirit Bear for the first feast.

The very first spirit beast they will eat.

....

Sitting next to the campfire it was already getting darker, the bear was thoroughly cooked. It had to cook for almost 12 hours to be ready for eating.

Sharing the meat in between them all they started eating.

Shuang Dao bit huge chunk of meat that he was barely able to chew, there were barely any seasoning. It was dry and not very delicious, but as soon as he got it down he felt his body warm up a bit as if he just received huge amount of energy.

Quickly everyone exclaimed by the meats effectiveness, although everyone besides the five Solitary demons ate spirit beast meat before, but that was long time ago for them. Being able to eat it again they might even recover and finish their miserable lives. All thanks to the Solitary Demons.

Uncle Shu was so happy that he had wide smile on his face, but one could also see him contemplating on something.

Eating their fill and chatting a bit they started training for the greatest effect. Training after eating spirit beast gives greatest effect as it helps one absorb the Spiritual energy. Although they themselves cannot not absorb the Spiritual energy, but their muscles, bones and organs all can.

One thousand wood chopping swings later they could still feel that their bodies were full of energy, so they exclaimed in surprise. This is because usually after one thousand chopping swings they would be extremely tired, but the spirit energy even on level one spirit beast is very great and the effect on those who never ate it is multiple times stronger. One could say, that no matter what strong medicine you use after many times using it, the medicine will start losing its effect and so you need it stronger and stronger.

Unfortunately for humans they cannot absorb Spiritual energy and so they have to do it externally through spiritual medicine, treasures and beasts.

“Jiang Li you know I heard that when you reach absolute limit on all your stats, your body will change and you will be able to be called a true warrior and be able to cultivate Qi.” Yun Ji said with confidence.

“Really?” Jiang Li said as he gapped, he couldn’t believe it. He was thinking what kind of power it would be to be able to cultivate Qi. Qi is like Spiritual Energy, but Spiritual Energy is only something spirit beasts can cultivate over time. While Qi is something that every single thing possess, but only can be cultivated through specific technique that human like creatures create. There is also Pneuma energy, some people call in True Self energy,

If you could absorb Qi energy from the nature one would probably not even need to breathe...

Jiang Li thought, but he could not be more wrong then that.

Jiang Li really could hardly imagine such fearsome power, because it was common knowledge that Spiritual, Pneuma, Qi energy is the energy of origin. Everyone knew these energies is something that exists together with everything but also because of it. If there were none of these Energies than everything would go in to chaos, it’s like Ying and Yang. Without Ying there would not be Yang and vice versa, so if one could actually directly interfere with one of them; just how strong could one become if they could control all of the Spiritual Energy? Jiang Li thought amazed.

Yun Ji however was more worried about how hard it is to get all your stats to the limit.

If I Yun Ji can reach 100 with all of my stats then I could then die without regret.

Yum Ji tough, but if he remembered these words in twenty years he would definitely die from embarrassment.

“Ahhh!” Suddenly a scream could be heard and everyone looked in Lin Hao’s direction.

They could see shock on her face, “What happened sis?” Huo Ba spoke as she was next to her.

“I-I actually just gained another point in strength! The second today!”  Lin Hao was shocked after all gaining two same type of stat in one day is just too hard! It usually only happens with Wisdom stat when a scholar gains enlightenment.

“Naturally it is because your strength stat is low, that’s why this happened. After experiencing life threatening fight it squeezed out your potential and after you had enough nutrients your strength increased. This also shows that your talent is incredible but you were just lacking in nutrients.” Shuang Dao spoke with confidence as if knowing, but naturally none of them knew the reason, as they had little knowledge in this area.

Everyone was startled by Shuang Dao for a moment, but then they started laughing.

“Shuang Dao all you know is how to compliment girls.” Yun Ji laughed like a horse as he patted Shuang Dao.

Shuang Dao blushed as he started coughing and went back to training. All he knew his whole life is how to train, he figured out most efficient ways to train by countless tests.

Seeing this, Lin Hao didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Old man Shu walked to the kids and as he heard them talk he was rather surprised by Shuang Dao’s words and nodded with his head. Walking off he quickly disappeared from the view.

“Uncle Shu is really strange, we don’t even know where he lives, but he always appears when he is needed and quickly disappears when he is not...” Huo Ba spoke curious. Although Grandpa Shu was mysterious but because he was really nice and he looked really poor they thought that he must live somewhere nearby in secretive place. But like them he must have faced unfortunate accident and now he must hide or maybe he was even crippled.

After this incident they quickly calmed down and started training but they soon enough became ecstatic again, because they had huge gains.

As Shuang Dao trained he saw Jiang Li coming towards him, so he stopped and waited Jiang Li.

“Brother Shuang can we talk?” Jiang Li spoke very seriously.

Seeing this Shuang Dao knit his eyebrows as it seemed a serious matter, he nodded his head and followed Jiang Li for around the corner.

“What’s wrong?” Shuang Dao quickly spoke in worried manner as he looked at Jiang Li.

“This... Brother Shuang, I do not know if you noticed, but actually I fell for Huo Ba, but she is older than me and she is more mature... Do you think that Huo Ba could like me?” Jiang Li said extremely embarrassed, he felt like he could die.

Shuang Dao gapped this was actually quite serious matter, because this could affect the whole teams relationship. Thinking about this, “Jiang Li, you know, I think you are really great guy and Huo Ba would definitely like you, but this... the thing is I am actually really bad with these things and I don’t think if I can give you any kind of advice.” Shuang Dao spoke rather embarrassed.

But after hearing the first part of what Shuang Dao said Jiang Li became ecstatic and as if he didn’t hear the second part of what Shuang Dao said, he already became determined to go after her. Shuang Dao ignited Jiang Li’s confidence.

“Thank You brother Shuang I will definitely pursue Huo Ba and won’t disappoint you!”

At this time, right around the corner three kids were hiding. Two of which were barely able to hold their laugh, while the other one, who was Huo Ba, was shocked and embarrassed.

Yun Ji kept patting Huo Ba shoulder as he almost burst laughing, he was barely able to hold it.

Huo Ba wanted to say something, but Lin Hao quickly put her hand on Huo Ba’s mouth and made ‘Shhh’ sign.