The stone plaque was big with lots of cryptic words, magical symbols and even aura signatures, describing the technique or skill on it. It took an hour for Finlay to realise what exactly is on this stone plaque.
Unfortunately for him, it was a Cultivation technique for non-attribute body types. It even has the early stage Qi condensation counterpart. This was completely useless to Finlay and it is forbidden to sell the contents of the plaque directly to others to not completely defeat the principles of why the sect gives these opportunities.
He still bought out a small book and a simple pen and noted down the words and symbols on the stone plaque. He had no use for such a thing but it would be perfect for Lu Bao. He spent a few hours more comprehending the remaining parts that he could not copy onto the book before leaving.
Once he was back at the market area, he met up with the old Blacksmith to handover the materials.
“Oh, you’re already back? No bad. Let me take a look at the quality of the material first.”
Finlay handed over the good quality materials first.
“Okay these look mostly fine. You can consider this part of the mission complete.”
“In that case, please take a look at these as well. The pelt is a bit more damaged but the horns are still in good condition. I’ve also collected others I’ve come across.”
The old Blacksmith seemed a bit surprised at the second set of materials. He quickly evaluated and gave him an appropriate value in shop credit. He also noted down the normal Tier 1 beast materials and converted them into credits as well.
Finlay didn’t immediately set off to complete the other task but returned to his place to handover the new cultivation technique for Lu Bao. After returning, he first entered his own room to comprehend it for himself so that he could teach it to Lu Bao. He didn’t actually have to cultivate it to just understand how to.
With Finlay’s naturally high comprehension ability, he took about 4 hours to understand the whole technique and translate the complex words and symbols into a simplified guide. He exited his room and found Lu Bao preparing some dinner. He presented some of the meat and after dinner, he presented the new cultivation technique to a stunned Lu Bao.
“...Senior brother, this…Ho- How?...No. I can’t accept something this valuable.”
“Brother Bao, no need to be like this. You have taken a big risk when protecting me from Peng An, let alone all the other times I received help from you. Think of this as me repaying my debt. Besides, I got this for free and by chance. I lose nothing by this. Please accept it.”
After Finlay’s persuasion, Lu Bao accepted it with gratefulness.
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A night’s good rest and some good food let Finlay recover from any fatigue. He set off to hunt the other Creature, the bird, the next morning.
This time, he had to be much more careful as he travelled much deeper in the forest as there are supposed to be a few peak tier 1 beasts. He encountered some of the usual Azure rabbits but many of them were much bigger and stronger than the ones he was used to. Finlay confirmed his guesses when he took a look at their cultivation level with the upgraded Analyse skill.
Azure Rabbit; Magical Beast :
Tier 1 (Late stage)
This also cleared another of his doubts. The Two-Horned bunnies were from a mutation, a variant creature. He also spotted some green forms flying in the sky occasionally. He tried to get a better look at them. He caught a glimpse of one, perched high on a tree but it was too far for him to use his Analyse skill on it. It was still clear to him that they were a bird type creature with what appeared to be scaly neck and of the wind attribute. The last part instantly piqued his interest but after a few more attempts to get closer in vain, he gave up and focused back on the task at hand.
He reached an area with a series of small mountains and very tall trees. This area had more visibility of the sky due to the rocks and boulders in the way of too many dense trees growing. This also made it a good spot for spotting flying bird type creatures. He found a good position for spotting the said birds.
Just as he was waiting in anticipation of finding the green birds from earlier, he is surprised by a slowly flying form with long, flowy, tail feathers that were the colour of Fire and a body similar to a buff Rooster. It had particularly prominent legs with thick digits at the end. The head resembled a fat crane with a thick and long curved neck and a long, large, bright orange beak. Finlay was able to quickly identify from the appearance that it was the Fire attribute bird he was looking for. He kept his eyes on it as he slowly manoeuvred through the forest to not break his line of sight.
The bird didn’t fly too far. It landed on a tree on the summit of a nearby tall hill and nimbly made its way up the tree towards a large nest at the top. Finlay didn’t approach and waited patiently to see if it would leave again from its nest. After confirming that his quarry isn’t going anywhere, he found a suitable place to hide in the area and keep an eye on it as he contemplated his approach.
He had been lucky to spot it in the sky his first time as these birds are known to be rare flyers. Finlay wasn’t comfortable in a direct approach for this fight. Even though that method had served him well before, the guide book repeatedly mentioned the danger of this bird. It is supposedly better than most peak level inexperienced body transformation practitioners.
Finlay had certain advantages in his body compared to typical practitioners but he wasn’t arrogant enough to believe he was a skilled fighter. He didn’t even master any special combat arts yet. All his earlier victories were purely reliant on his superior speed, strength and appropriate response for the situation. He wasn’t even confident in fighting an experienced human at his level, let alone this dangerous beast. No, he is going to plan ahead for the attack, setup traps, lure it away and take it down with his brains rather than his brawn.
He used the terrain to his advantage to set up various traps with stakes, stones and slings. It took a while to slowly do this without alerting the bird. After a couple days of setting up traps, driving away or killing the local fauna that stumble upon his traps area, he was finally ready to take action. Luckily, the bird had not left during this whole time. Seeing that it is still light out, Finlay decided that he would take a short rest till nightfall when he will begin his ambush.
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A rested Finlay slowly sneaked up closer to the nest of his quarry. He quickly checked his surroundings and confirmed that there were no other beasts nearby, that could possibly disturb his fight. He used his trusty skill of hurling a javelin to take good aim at the bird from a vantage point upon a boulder nearby. He made sure the bird was asleep and hurled the wooden stake at one of the wings. Fortunately, he was lucky and his projectile connected the bird’s wing.
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There was an extremely loud shrill and ugly cry filling the forest from the startled, hurt bird. Finlay’s guesses were correct. Although the surprise attack seemed to have hurt the wing a little, it didn’t even pierce through the feathers properly. Soon, the frantic bird was searching its surroundings for the one who startled it awake. Its eyes soon landed on a human who was hiding behind a big boulder.
Just as it noticed him though, another wooden stake came flying at it with a sharp whistle. The bird instinctively tried to dodge by using its wings for additional force, but due to the earlier injury to it, it failed to completely dodge it. It sent a kick at the incoming heavy projectile with clenched digits, almost fist like. There was a loud thunk as the wooden spear connected with one of the nails but the deflected spear still left a gash on its belly, the area with smaller feathers.
Finlay was a bit disappointed with the result of his two attacks. This special heavy spear was something he was hoping to use to cause massive damage. He was even able to lure it closer before surprising it for a second time, but no point in worrying over spilt milk. It’s not like it was a complete failure. He just needed to continue with the next part of his plan.
If it was merely annoyed from being startled awake before, the beast was thoroughly enraged now from being hurt and bleeding, albeit slightly. Now that it had its target in its eyes, it quickly ran towards him letting out a fierce yet ugly croak. Even with its long tail, its powerful legs carried it at incredible speeds. Finlay didn’t hesitate as he turned tail and ran away at the same time.
Finlay led the bird to the area clustered with his traps. The bird was actually gaining on him in its familiar environment. Finlay didn’t panic but made sure he led it deep enough into the trapped area before unleashing the first one, a swinging log with sharp spikes. Finlay turned around and stood beside a tree with ropes tied to it, going in all directions. The trap almost worked from the surprise but the bird was clearly much more vigilant and managed to avoid it barely.
‘So, it jumped back, then…this rope.’
Finlay pulled on the rope that would drop a rock from above. The Bird was almost relaxing from dodging the trap this time when it heard something from the top and was horrified to notice a large boulder falling from above. It once again tried to swivel and twist its way out of the stone but the trap came too soon and it didn’t have enough time to successfully dodge. The heavy rock impacted the left side of its torso. Before it could assess the damage, another trap was sprung by Finlay at the place it dodged toward and it suffered for underestimating him.
Like this Finlay ran away from the chased bird springing traps as he went, outwitting the beast each time. He mixed up his tactics to throw it off each time. Once the bird realised that the trees with ropes going to it were trouble, it stopped chasing him, kept a distance and breathed in heavily. Finlay could somewhat sense that Qi was being gathered into the Beast’s legs. Before he could react appropriately, the bird jumped forward in a massive lunge. Finlay’s eyes went wide as he saw the beast fly towards him. He was quick enough to react and dodge away behind a rock on the side. The bird’s feet and the seemingly blunt talons connected with the tree behind where he was momentarily. There were splinters flying everywhere.
Finlay was shocked at the power displayed by the bird. He didn’t want to be too close to such a beast and took off away from it. He would have been in trouble had the attack not unleashed all the surrounding traps with a trigger. Being the one who set them up, he was able to weave through them as he ran but the beast didn’t have so much luck and had trouble navigating them without being hurt too much. It tried the same Qi attack one more time but a prepared Finlay was quick to dodge and run away.
Since the method of using traps that needed to be manually triggered was not working so well anymore, Finlay led the bird into the area with traps with triggers like trip wires etc that worked automatically. The bird was already a bit clumsy from its piling injuries which only snowballed with the new traps.
In a desperate attempt, it launched another of the attacks where it launched itself towards FInlay. This time, it was even faster and the power, more explosive. Finlay only had the time to duck and was grazed by one of its wings, thankfully avoiding its feet. The bird wasn’t as lucky though. It went through the bush but stuck the boulder immediately behind it. Hitting it with its feet at full force, un prepared didn’t go too well for it. It severely hurt one of the legs but Finlay didn’t fail to notice that the boulder it hit cracked completely in two.
Without allowing his mind time to imagine the consequence if he had failed to dodge that, he took off towards the final trap he prepared to finish off the bird. The bird was completely berserk by now and was frantically trying to chase after him, limping and using its wings. It completely ignored all the small attacks from the traps it sprung on the way. Finlay was now getting frantic as he was now slower than the bird as he had to still dodge the triggers.
Finlay leaped forward to cover one last stretch as he safely slid over the covering of a deep pit trap, camouflage with dry leaves. Unfortunately, before he could cross the rigged surface to safety, he heard a loud thud of the bird landing just behind him, triggering the trap. The floor below him collapsed and he heard another surprised croak from the bird as it pummelled towards the long, sturdy pikes at the bottom of the deep pit. Finlay had almost made it across so as he slid down the wall, he was quick to grab onto a vine that he previously used as a ladder during the pit digging.
The bird screamed once again as it hit the sharp wooden pikes. He didn’t have time to look at it though as he frantically pulled himself even as a bunch of massive boulders fell down towards the bird to crush it against the sharp pikes. Finlay got to safety as he barely dodged the falling boulders, huddling against the wall of the pit. He fell onto all his four as he took deep breaths. Despite the intense action, he was only slightly injured from the bird grazing him with one of its wings, but he was deeply shaken by how dangerous the fight had been.
He calmed down and approached the pit to take a look at his quarry. There was no final death scream from it. It simply went silent once the large boulders fell on it, likely impaling and instantly killing it. As the dust slowly settled, he took a good look at the beast that had caused so much trouble. It was actually massive now that he could calmly assess in relative proximity. Thankfully, its tail feathers appeared relatively unharmed and at least one of its claws was not crushed.
As he was considering how to deal with his fresh kill and how to explain to the old Blacksmith about the crushed meat, he heard something from his side and instinctively turned. He received a quick, powerful kick to his stomach that sent him hurtling through the air and crashing against a tree.
“Hahahaha! What do we have here? A welp got lucky and took down a mighty red kicking demon?? Not bad! Not bad. Colour me impressed.”
“Boys, quickly check if there are others in the area assisting him.”
“Yes Big boss!”
Finlay was thoroughly pised this time from again having these thugs trying to benefit off others' hard work and wealth. He slowly turned his head from his prone position as he tried to ignore his pain in the stomach.
Identity :
Chen ???
22 yrs old
Male
???
Character type :
Lawful bad
Mortality :
Sura (Mortal)
Job :
NA
Titles :
???
Cultivation Talent
Qi Cultivation : Low
Body : Poor
Constitution : NA
Cultivation :
Body Transformation level - 7
????
Body transformation level - 5
Ni ????
Body transformation level - 3
???? Bao
Body transformation level - 4
Meng ????
Body transformation level - 3
???? Li
Body transformation level - 4
????
Body transformation level - 4
To be continued.