Knowing how this beast worked somehow, they both get ready. Jiang gets closer to the gem while Zou gets as far as possible.

Then Jiang gives the signal, Zou starts hacking at the flowers while staying out of range. The flowers try to hit him but are unable to do it. He proceeds to hack enough to be able to walk forward. He knows the flowers can't leave the beast. When he comes on top, the flowers rush towards him, he backs off swiftly.

It works! they both think in unison. Zou proceeds to do this cycle over and over, thinning the flowers slowly. The flowers on the other side closer to Jiang slowly start moving there too. Jiang knows his chance is coming soon.

After about 10 minutes of this repeated cycle, there's almost no flowers left close to the gemstone. He starts running forward, removing the last stranding flowers. It doesn't take long for him to be next to gem stone, he starts smacking at the floor with the sword. He hoped to leave with that peace of dirt since he couldn't pull it off.

The sword bounces back barely managing to make a small scratch, barely a centimeter deep. He starts repeating the process while screaming;

''Distract him as much as you can! I'll do my best to be quick!''

''Sure, easy as pie!'' He replies nervously under his breath.

The monster start moving around with his pincers, Zou starts hacking at one of the arms, he knew he would need to stay close to the beast with those pincers. Jiang meanwhile had to evade one of the pincers while continuously hacking at the ground.

When he gets about halfway done, the beast starts going erratic, being more careless about the environment. it knew that the human wanted it stone and it wouldn't allow him. The flowers that once didn't go near the gem started creeping forward.

Jiang now had to deal with the pincers while hacking at the flowers. Since he couldn't allow himself to be bit by them he had to leave the gemstone and remove all the flowers slowly. It was extremely hard and tiring, evading that pincer was extremely taxing on his body.

He didn't know how Zou held down there but he knew he wasn't any better. Dealing with that pincer and the legs of the crab is also a challenge of its own. It takes them a lot more time than anticipated, detroying a whole chunk of the surroundings in the meantime.

After about an hour of continuous fighting, Jiang manages to get rid of the flowers and the ground holding the gemstone. When he goes to remove the gemstone, the beast goes mad. It starts trashing around and Zou gets sent backwards directly on a nearby tree. He goes directly uncounscious.

Meanwhile Jiang tries to hold his balance. He tries to think of a way to deal with that beast. The only thing he could think of was to run away. He jumped on a tree and went down, the beasts finds him and starts running at him. He turns around and starts dashing away, using his Qi to reinforce his body. Using the meridians in his hips to allow a faster movement.

The beast being big couldn't run fast, the trees slowed it down even more. Jiang slowly brought the crab away. After about 10 minutes of that, he goes in a big circle and goes around to see if his friend was okay.

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It takes him around a third of that time to be back. Coming closer to his friend, he sees him bloodied and unconscious. He tries to shake him awake. He opens his eyes slowly.

''You think you can walk? We gotta get moving quick.'' He asks, hoping Zou was still in shape to move.

''I think so, where is it?'' He tries to get up and loses balance.

''It should be far away, I managed to lure it but it could be back. Come on, lemme help you walk.''

As if to manifest his words, they hear trees getting destroyed closer and closer. They both knew they didn't have a lot of time. They started walking away from the noise, as quick as Zou could.

After an hour of walking and not hearing any sound, they make a temporary camp. Jiang starts studying the stone. Touching it doesn't feel cold not hot, as if it was body temperature. He starts trying different things with his Qi, wether it accepts it or not. Nothing happens after a couple of attempts. he decides to leave it in his bag for now.

''Man this thing is useless, we did all that for nothing.'' Zou says, annoyed.

''Probably but it was a good fight, until you got hit, that is.'' he remarks.

''Right, at least we managed to escape. What now?''

''Well, we got to move but first you need to stop the bleeding and heal a bit. You don't look good at all. I'll take that time to recuperate the Qi I lost.''

''Good idea, my ribs are hurting like hell.''

Jiang stays in guard to make sure nothing would attack Zou while he recuperates. After a while Zou stops and tells him to go ahead. He couldn't do much more to heal his body unless he had a lot of time.

Jiang sits down and does the same. He soon realizes that the Gemstone is also absorbing the Qi as he is doing so. He brings it down to try and feel it, the moment he touches it, dense life Qi goes in his body. The arm that was badly damaged started visibly healing, at least 100% faster than before.

He thinks carefully and decides to share it with Zou. He knew Zou wouldn't betray him, that last fight proved so.

''Hey Zou, this gemstone isn't useless! We thought it did nothing but it can help in healing.''

''Really?! That's a relief.'' Looking a bit ecstatic.

''Yeah, do you need it?''

''Nah, I'm hurt but I can still move my whole body, look at you. Your arm is useless, try to heal it as soon as possible.''

They both knew it was late anyway, since it was preferable to hide at night, they went up a tree again. It was better than to stay on the ground. At least you could see them coming before you would get jumped.

Zou takes the first watch. Jiang decides to enter his meditative state and focuses on healing his arm and trying to breakthrough another meridian. He decides to go on the the meridian that is on his leg.

It takes him a while to do so. He starts sweating a lot and after a while he has to completely stop. It was starting to be too hard to focus on both, sensing he was losing control, it was the only sensible choice.

It takes him about 2 hours, his meridian now fully opened. The barrier that once stood there now in his Qi, changing it further. Jiang now understand what's happening to his Qi. It is slowly augmenting the Quality of it. Making it better than other's Qi.

He had managed to get in the fourth realm of the Qi gathering now. It was only a matter of time.

After that he focuses the rest of his time to heal his arm and to sleep a bit. His arm now able to move again, it wasn't the highest mobility type but it could slowly go up and down. It was only a matter of time before he recuperates fully.

Then he gets woken up by Zou, understanding it was his time to watch. The night luckily went without trouble. There were a couple of beasts that passed and even a group of 5 humans.

Once Zou wakes up, he goes on to meditate too. He was only Qi gathering II and needed to catch up. Since Jiang cultivated too he didn't mind much. After about the same amount of time Jiang took, Zou manages to bring himself to Qi gathering III.

They then start marching, the next step was to find Sun Hei and Han Gou. Since they were friends, they didn't want to leave them behind. They already had their treasures and they hoped they could help them if they needed it.

Then it began, in daytime they would walk, trying to find them and in the night they would go in trees and cultivate. They have a couple of though fights with beasts and competitors as well. It goes on pretty well and they don't get hurt.

After about 3 days, Jiang as finally managed to open 6 meridians. Zou has managed to open 4 of them. This meant that Jiang was in the 6th Qi gathering and Zou was in the 5th.

Starting from 5th Qi Gathering, people needed to open two meridians to say they were in an upper realm.

That's when they find a group of seven person. They tried to run but that's when someone stopped them. The person shook their head as if to say they shouldn't try to run.

Since they didn't want to waster time, they took out their weapons and started slashing at the person. The person evaded easily, each and every strike. When they managed to outsmart the speed, He blocked it.

Before they knew it they were encircled.