The winds churned around He Yu as he landed in the middle of the clearing. The Howling Wind whipped the serpent’s poison around and away from him. The beast’s golden eyes regarded him for a moment as he stared up at it with an expression he hoped would come across as defiant. Done with speech, the serpent’s mouth opened and its fangs hinged down once again. With golden eyes fixed on its prey, it struck.
It took everything He Yu had not to dash away using the Sky Dragon’s Flight. He had the time. Ready as he was for the strike, and with the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment showing him the shape of the attack an instant before it happened, he could have avoided it. But he couldn’t risk the serpent adjusting. He needed to stay here—he needed to bait the trap.
The world around him slowed to a crawl as the arrow-shaped head with two glistening venom-tipped fangs surged ever closer. There almost wasn’t enough space left between him and the serpent now, and panic rose once more as any window for escape closed. Then, a flash of silver and the impression of snow on a clear winter’s night filled his awareness.
The serpent struck Li Heng’s ancestral blade, and for an instant moonlight filled the grove. Li Heng spun away from the attack, carried by the strike’s momentum, and the serpent reared back. It recovered quickly, just as it had before, and opened its mouth once again. Whether to strike a second time or to bellow more noxious clouds, it made little difference. He Yu wasn’t about to give it time.
He formed the Rushing Wind and thrust his guandao like a spear. At the same time, he activated the Sky Dragon’s Flight and crossed the dozen or so feet separating him and the serpent in an instant. A spray of blood erupted from the beast as he drove the head of his weapon into the roof of its mouth.
“Now!” he screamed, desperate the others would do their parts as the serpent thrashed and threatened to rip the weapon from his hands.
Shadows curled around the serpent’s jaws, forming into thick tendrils that stopped its movement for the space of a breath.
Li Heng appeared next to him and thrust his jian into the serpent’s mouth. The brilliant silver blade flared with qi. He Yu pulled back the guandao. Sword light streamed off the blade as Li Heng fully released the power he’d absorbed from the serpent’s strike. The beast’s head popped like an over-ripe fruit, spraying blood and bits of brain and bone across the clearing. The beast’s body fell to the forest floor with a thump and was still. With a pulse of the Bracing Wind, He Yu blew away the last of the serpent’s lingering poison. Although he tried to be as nonchalant about it as he could, his blood thundered in his ears as Li Heng turned and gave him a single nod.
“That was quite the show,” Yan Shirong said, his shadow tendrils gently setting him down next to the other two.
“Quite the show indeed,” Li Heng said, his voice containing a note of respect along with something else that He Yu couldn’t quite place. He’d since stopped using the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment during the fight, so he received no insight from the technique. Glad as he was to simply be alive, he paid no attention to the minor shift in his friend’s demeanor.
“Wasn’t sure that would work,” he said, his voice shaky in his own ears. He looked down at the dead serpent. “What do we do with it now?”
“Well, the head is ruined, that’s certain,” Yan Shirong said. “The fangs would have sold for a decent amount.”
“Not sure we could have finished it off and left the serpent’s head intact,” Li Heng said.
“And the rest?” He Yu asked. He wasn’t certain what they would need to do to process the beast. The only real experience he had with this sort of thing was from the wood spirit hunt from several weeks ago. Once they’d dispatched the spirits, their bodies simply dissipated into qi, leaving the cores lying on the ground. That clearly wasn’t going to happen here.
Li Heng produced a large hunter’s knife from his storage treasure. “Let’s get to work.” To He Yu, he added, “I’ll explain what you need to do.” Li Heng’s words were more commanding than He Yu was used to, and once more something pricked at the back of his mind with them. He still couldn’t have said what, and whatever it was, it was quickly forgotten as they got to work.
The first task was to extract the beast’s core. He Yu had to use the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment to find its exact location, as none of the others had a perception technique suitable to the task. When they finally pulled the core from within the serpent, it was nearly twice as large as He Yu’s fist. It pulsed with a faint green light and smelled of rotting wood. Poison and wood qi clung to it, and the three cultivators set in on a nearby stump as they decided what to do with it.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“We won’t get anywhere near what it’s worth if we sell it in any of the towns we come across,” Yan Shirong said.
Li Heng nodded his agreement. “We’ll have to bring it back to the sect. Otherwise, we’re just throwing away spirit stones.”
“We’re not going to use it?” He Yu asked. Aspects aside, the core of a Third Realm beast would be a potent boost to his cultivation he was certain.
“Well,” Li Heng hummed, “the wood qi would be useful for dealing with any wounds, but I don’t think any of us are injured.” A quick glance around confirmed this was the case. Almost miraculous now that He Yu thought about it. “Even then, it would be a waste. We’d have to be on the verge of death to need anything close to the amount and potency of qi this core contains.”
Yan Shirong sniffed, “Besides,” he said, “none of us cultivate either of these aspects. So much would go to waste. Not to mention the fact that only one of us would be able to absorb it. Better if we sold it and divided the spirit stones. We’d all get our share, and absorbing the stones themselves would be far more efficient.”
As loathe as he was to let a cultivation resource of this potency simply sit in a storage treasure until they returned to the sect, He Yu couldn’t argue with their reasoning. They’d only been on the road for a few days, besides, which meant they had almost a full month’s travel ahead. There would be plenty of opportunities to collect more cores before they reached their destination.
With the matter of the core settled for the time being, they got to work skinning the snake and butchering the meat. The skin would have to be cured before it would be of any use, and He Yu wondered if it might be worth having a portion of it fashioned into a protective treasure. Cultivators frequently did similar with parts from awakened beasts in the stories.
Of course, when he mentioned it to the others, Yan Shirong just snorted. Li Heng at least seemed to mull it over before rejecting the idea though. In the end, it would only be a low-grade treasure, fashioned from the skin of a Third Realm beast. If he were willing to pour a foolish amount of resources into it, any treasure made from the skin might last a way into the Fourth Realm. Hardly worth the expense, especially given how short his days in the early stages of his advancement would be once his lifespan began to stretch into the hundreds—or even thousands—of years.
The meat from the serpent was an entirely different story, however. Snake meat of even the mundane variety was said to have significant health benefits. Those qualities would still be present in the flesh of an awakened beast, of course, but the real prize was everything else.
Feasting on the flesh of awakened beasts was said to have all sorts of benefits for cultivators. Eating meat from a Third Realm beast while they were still only at the Foundation Stage would enhance those benefits even further. It may only be one snake, and given how much each of them ate compared to mortals it would only last a week at most, but the effects would last far longer than the meat itself.
When He Yu asked if it was truly that auspicious of a find, Li Heng and Yan Shirong both practically fell over each other trying to explain. The most immediate benefit would be the restoration of the qi they’d expended in the fight. Even with the pills he’d taken after his fight with Sha Xiang, it had taken He Yu more than a day to fully replenish his reserves. That was all cultivation that hadn’t gone to his advancement. The snake meat would get them topped up that very night, and allow for their nightly cultivation to add to their base rather than simply replenish what they’d spent.
More importantly, the meat would fortify their bodies, and give them a higher baseline than they’d otherwise have at their stage. It was common knowledge that the Third Realm—Body Refining—was primarily the time that a cultivator spent preparing their physical body for the rigors of greater advancement.
By strengthening themselves on the flesh of a Third Realm beast now, they would be able to push themselves that much further once they reached the Third Realm. The way Li Heng explained it, the effect would be similar to what Princess Tan was doing by staying at the peak of the Foundation Stage for as long as she was.
“Wouldn’t that be like a shortcut then?” He Yu asked, thinking back to how Zhang Lifen had chastised him after he’d broken through to Foundation.
“Not at all,” Li Heng said as he stirred the nearly-done snake soup they’d made with the help of some wild medicinal herbs Yan Shirong had found. “It’s almost the opposite. Knowing her, she probably sent us as far from the sect as she did intending for us to hunt beasts on the trip.”
“We are truly blessed to share in Sect Brother He’s good fortune,” Yan Shirong said. “If only all of us could have such a mentor.”
“Are you jealous?” He Yu asked.
“Hardly,” he said with a sniff. There was a slight humorous note to his response that hadn’t been there previously, however. Almost as if the other cultivator had finally sort of decided He Yu and Li Heng were worthy of his attention. He Yu figured he’d take it. Especially since he’d have to spend a couple of months with Yan Shirong.
When the soup was ready, it turned out to be everything Li Heng had promised it would. Feeling well-fed and refreshed, the excitement He Yu had initially felt about this trip only increased as he imagined all the benefits two months in the lands outside the sect would bring.