Ace considered what his friend had said for a moment, before speaking. “Well, let’s talk about that later, for now, how ‘bout you tell me what’s gotten you so upset about this,” He poked the life-like corpse of the wolf with his boot. “Lovely fellow.”
Sighing, Bao Feng consented. “Alright, but we are not just going to shove the topic into the back of our minds,” He summoned a ball of crackling lightning in the palm of his hand, brightening the darkness around them. “For now, it’s far too dark to converse so casually, especially with threats like that wolf out here. I’m concerned because that wolf was fully into the Qi Gathering tier and, absolutely, should not be this far out on the outskirts of the woods. And wolves hunt in packs. You can figure out the rest.”
“So, what are we going to do about it?” Ace asked.
Bao Feng’s smile glinted in the light of the miniature lightning bolt in his hand. “I’d thought you’d never ask,”
Uh, oh.
Bao continued. “You see, I loathe to let such a… unique training opportunity go to waste, and in truth, we need to clear the wolves out anyway.”
Aw, hell no, Ace played ignorant in the scope of his mentor’s divergent thinking. “I have no idea what you are trying to get at.”
His teacher opened his mouth in an O-shape as if astonished by him. “Well, I think you should have a go at fighting a few wolves, don’t you think so?”
“Of course,” Ace, stone-facedly said.
“Perfect,” He frowned at his clothes, before dumping his entire suit of armor onto the ground and his sword. “I know your training with a sword is limited, but trust in me, you will come out alive after your fights.”
Alive, how comforting.
“How do you even know that we’ll find the wolves?”
Bao Feng shrugged and grandly gestured around him. “I can assure you that I have my means of… attracting attention.”
Disbelievingly shaking his head, Ace clambered into his protective, but non-restrictive armor. Once done, he picked up his weapon and held it in a white-knuckled grip, he glanced at his mentor. “Okay, what next, do I follow you… or–”
He stopped speaking when he saw the orb of lightning in Bao Feng’s hand rise above his head and magnify the intensity of its charge by an extreme multiplicant. Once the orb was brighter than Ace’s future, it strobed like a disco ball, casting beams of light everywhere in the woodland mixed with dead and alive trees.
After a minute, Bao Feng stopped the show and exploded the orb in an outburst of sound, the aftermath echoing through the forest for a long while. Shortly after, he summoned a new orb to keep the light around.
Huh, that couldn’t have been a Qi imprint, I think, Ace absentmindedly thought.
Neither spoke, both listening to the quiet of the night with serious expressions.
That was when the bays of the wolves began. The creatures' loud howls sonorously reverberated off the trunks of the trees, reaching their ears with an intent to kill.
It wasn’t long before the hulking forms of the monsters could be made out from their position and Ace nervously tightened his grip ever further. Closer and closer, the wolves drew, snarling and snapping at the pair, drool dripping from their mouths.
“I can tell your Qi is regenerated, so if you start struggling, use your ability and I’ll pay slightly more attention.”
“That's not very reassuring,” Ace, alarmed beyond belief, retorted, readying his stance to the best of his ability.
Bao Feng earnestly promised. “I swear on my life, you won’t die here tonight,” A wolf lept at Ace, and Bao Feng shouted. “Ace, you have that one, I’ll take the—” His voice cut off as he steadfastly tanked the full weight of a wolf that had leaped at him.
Fuck!
Ace dodge-rolled to the side, narrowly escaping the shredding claws of the monster, he straightened up as quickly as possible, glancing behind him. And his confidence skyrocketed at the visage of his ally slaughtering wolves one by one.
Fully locking in on the struggle ahead of him, he stared down the massive creature in its unintelligent, feral eyes, gradually creeping forward and flanking around the side of the animal, longsword at the ready to stab if it struck first.
The monster pressed its body low to the snow, tensing up and letting out a baritone growl as he got within striking distance.
Ace struck first.
He fearfully lunged at the monster’s midsection, having snuck around to its side. The wolf responded by twisting as fast as it could, which was pretty fucking fast, and attempting to maul his skull with its massive canines.
The tip of his sword stabbed deeply into the pelt of the monster, causing it to bark in distress, but that didn’t stop it from continuing to try and crush his brains.
With his life flashing before his eyes, reassurance of Bao Feng or not, Ace propelled himself backward before falling flat on his ass in his escape. He scrambled, fully expecting the wolf to hurdle after him; instead, the creature stood high on its back legs before slamming its forelegs into the ground, resulting in a wave of what looked to be Qi bursting out of them.
What the-
An ever-increasing volume of rumbling came from below Ace, distracting him from the battle. He only just avoided the long-distance jump of the wolf when it attacked him with swinging claws and snapping chops by hiding behind a tree next to him.
And it was lucky he did as right where he’d been a second ago, an array of spikes made of compacted earth erupted from the ground, seeking to destroy anything that got in their way with blunt force.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Ace heard the thunk of a claw being planted far into the tree covering him.
Struck with an epiphany, he activated his sole Qi technique for the second time that night, only this time, he made it much smaller, but still enough to obscure his frame and some more from the wolf as he fled from his temporary safe spot.
Ace left the cloud, but opposed to running away completely, he circled back around the perimeter of the darkness, into the still dim, but seeable light of Bao Feng’s lightning ball hovering in the center of the battlefield, hoping to catch the wolf by surprise.
Which, for the sake of his life, he did.
He caught the bulky tail end of the monster as it snuck around the tree, headfirst into the darkness with reckless abandon.
Get fucked, wolf.
With zero hesitation, Ace raised his sword mightily high over his shoulder and unleashed his maximum power upon the lower spine of the animal, shattering it with a loud crack and cutting off its lower body motor function.
The animal crumpled to the ground, not in pain as its nerves had been severed in that area, but in lack of capability to stand upright after the devastating attack.
The wolf wailed in despair, but before thoughts of mercy could sneak into Ace’s mind, he ran to the head of the beast, raised his sword over its neck, and found home with a cutting strike. Regrettably, the execution wasn’t nearly as quick and easy as you’d think from hearing about a guillotine and he had to chop hard once more to bring an end to the rabid creature.
Bao Feng shouted across the battlefield after he killed two wolves at one time, bringing down their numbers to single digits. “Great job! One more now,”
His mentor slung a massive wolf over his head, sending it catapulting in Ace’s direction with a yelp. Without a thought, he improvised on the spot, calling upon his ability once more by the base of the same tree as he scaled up it.
I’m a genius if this works out.
Ace waited expectantly with only his head poking out of the cloud as the wolf rearranged itself after being thrown to the ground by one man. In one fell swoop, he would defeat the monster in a display of skill and quick thinking.
He grinned, reminiscing about the first time he had slayed a creature, the elusive mountain shrew. Good times, but not really.
Scratch that, the mountains fucking sucked.
Snarling with fury at being manhandled, the monster bounded towards the swirling mass of shadows at top speed, leaving Ace no time to react to its sudden movement.
Motherfucker, wait, hold on a second.
While the wolf was in the confines of his technique, Ace could see its tail sticking out, but he wasn’t sure enough to even consider jumping on top of it without knowing where its chompers were.
He softly muttered to his Qi in the cloud. “Come back, now is not the time.”
An abrupt change in the atmosphere occurred as the swirling mass gained a sense of purpose and began switching their looping movement toward the palm of his hand, rentering his meridian system.
Before the final bits of darkness had entered his dantian, Ace leaped upon the now exposed head of the wolf, screaming a furious warcry as he did so, heavily intent on his goal. With a triumphant ‘whoop, whoop,’ his longsword cracked the bony skull with force, before sinking into the mushy brain, cutting off all its remaining lifeforce. Less exciting was the splatter of blood that landed on his relatively pristine clothes, momentarily bringing him out of his monumental victory with a disgusted expression.
Ignoring it for now, Ace yanked his weapon out of the fragmented skull of the creature, flicking off any excess blood on the edge, then, in true adventurer style, he raised the sword over his head and let out a bellowing roar. In the dim cast of light from the lightning ball, it was a magnificent sight to behold, one deserving of immense–
“What the fuck are you doing,” Bao Feng, flabbergastingly said, flicking him in the forehead with his pointer finger. Not a drop of blood was on his apparel, it wasn’t even armor, just normal ass clothes. His mentor could be a little scary sometimes.
Ace turned bright red, sheepishly lowering his sword as he tried to appear dignified. “Well, I am celebrating my heroic victory.”
With the blandest face imaginable, Bao Feng articulated. “Heroic,” He cocked an eyebrow. “I did everything.”
Ace glanced at the tens of wolves scattered about the ground where his friend had been battling. “Yes, but–”
“Just look at your system, I don’t need to hear about your quote-and-quote ‘heroics.’”
With a disgruntled expression, Ace pulled up the fruits of his labor:
Achievement Unlocked: Quick Thinking
+.5 Processing
(T1) Processing 7.5 > 8
That’s nice. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a boost in that stat. I wonder what it means, oh, almighty System.
The Quick Thinking achievement is awarded to those who showcase exemplary on-the-spot planning or reactions to extreme circumstances without prior planning.
It was a fitting reward in Ace’s mind.
Must have been for either the dropping off the tree kill or the other kill, I don't know.
Achievement Completed: Defeat a Magical Beast
+.8 Strength
(T1) Strength 5.7 > 6.5
Muscles bulged out of Ace’s skin after the transformation. Interestingly, the increase in Strength was way more apparent than other attributes like Agility or Toughness.
Maybe the toughness will become very prominent when I inevitably get fucked over by a mutant pig or something, Ace half-seriously thought, Or a big ass wolf. OH shit, that already happened.
Bao Feng stripped him of his thoughts. “Ace, why do you think we hunt magical beasts in the first place, what is the point?”
He thought it over, cross-referencing this world with Xanxia back on Earth. “Well, apart from the physical materials like the hide, pelt, claws, teeth, etc. I bet there's a more magical explanation in store for me. Am I right?”
“Yes, as always your intelligence surprises me,” Ace bit back a snarky retort. “But, the actual reason we hunt them is for this.”
His mentor held up a glowing orb the size of a cueball, causing Ace to ask. “Is that a–”
“Core? Yes, yes it is,” Bao ended Ace’s sentence.
Bao Feng put it in his storage space before explaining. “Cores have the Qi of monsters in them, whether you get a lot in them depends on how much the creature used in its fight to stay alive,” He gestured to the wolf Ace had drop-killed. “I can tell you that one has a lot of leftover Qi in it.”
“Makes sense,” He nodded. “I’m guessing you're exposed to use the Qi from the cores for your advancement?”
“Right on,” Bao Feng approved, before dampening his enthusiasm. “But, Yin-Yang wolves only use Earth Qi, which means neither of us can utilize it to great effect. However, we can sell them in bulk for a large profit, which is how adventurers make the bulk of their money.”
Ace let out a ‘wow,’ before saying. “That is awesome, so how do you harvest them.”
Bao Feng held out his hands as if saying, ‘I have no clue,’ then waved Ace away. “Figure it out,” He began to take out their camping materials. “I’m tired of talking this late in the night.”
“Won’t other monsters be attracted to this location?” Ace inquired.
Bao Feng fixed a smoldering gaze on him. “They won’t, or they will find out why they shouldn’t have.”
Yes, sir. I’ll get right on core plucking duties, sir.