???? bird; Magical Beast :

Tier 1 (Early stage)

  Not feeling particularly threatened by early or even any mid stage beasts, he simply readied his bow and took aim with an arrow. He used the Archery technique to channel the qi into the carved circuit on the arrow and carefully aimed it and in the next second, he quickly fired off 3 arrows, yet did not stop there. He fired off another 3 arrows for a total of 6 arrows. 4 towards the ones resting and 2 more at the ones that were moving about. Before he even finished firing his 5th, there was a cacophony in the canopy as arrows simultaneously shredded the green feathered birds. The rest of the birds were alarmed but were momentarily frozen from the confusion of where the enemy was. Before they recovered from the confusion, the next 3 arrived. The 4th arrow unfortunately, did not hit its mark and merely injured the wing of a bird. Miraculously, one of the 2 flying birds got hit and fell, but the other was completely unharmed.

By now, the surviving birds spotted Finlay and took to the sky, but fortunately, there were only 2 flight capable birds and 1 injured bird screaming at him from one of the branches. FInlay ignored the injured bird and quickly moved away from under the tree to a more open area where he could spot the flying birds. He tried to fire a couple of arrows but found it very difficult to hit the quarry with his current skill. Without any other choice, he brought out his spear and channelled Qi into his shoes, preparing to use the movement art during the combat.

The birds looked enraged and as they circling him from above, one of them suddenly dive bombed him from his back side at a very high speed. Finlay was unable to react in time and the talons of the bird dug into his shoulder. Finlay flinched from the pain and turned to look at the bloody wound, but was surprised that the wound was much shallower than he was expecting. After a moment of confusion, he understood the reason. His Earth element emphasised his strength and apparently, a mid stage tier 1 beast was too weak to hurt him much more than a shallow flesh wound. Already wounded, he was vigilant and did not fall for the same attack again. The next time, he expertly dodged the attack using the movement art while swinging towards his back in a wide arc. The bird could do nothing but get struck down by the shaft of the spear. Once down on the ground, it was an easy kill by a thrust of the spear. Seeing the fate of its companion, the surviving bird didn’t try to fight him anymore. It turned tail and ran. Finlay was caught by surprise and tried to take up his bow to shoot it down but his arrows simply missed their mark. Not willing to spend hours searching for missed arrows and potentially losing them, Finlay reluctantly let it go.

He picked up the dead bird’s corpse and the 2 arrows, and returned to the tree where the flock of birds were first nesting. The injured bird was still up on the tree warily looking around. Feeling confident from his new found fighting strength, Finlay walked up to the tree and took out the bow to shoot down the last bird. Surprisingly, seeing him with the corpse of one of the 2 last birds that chased him out, it did not show fear but instead seemed enraged. Finlay didn’t put much weight into it and aimed his bow at the bird and loosened an arrow.

*Thwaak!*

Unexpectedly, the arrow was dodged and got lodged into the trunk of the tree behind the bird. It not only didn’t seem wary of the attack but it seemed even more angry at him. Although confused by the bird’s behaviour, Finlay took out another arrow, preparing to try again. Seeing his actions, the bird glared at him and let out an angry shout. In the next moment, all of the feathers on its body let out a faint glow, with one very prominent, dark green feather in its tail glowing particularly bright. The bird swung its tail towards Finlay with another sharp screech and the conspicuous, dark green feather shot out of its tail at lightning speed at FInlay.

*Thunk!*

Finlay reacted at the last moment to avoid a fatal injury. The feather lodged itself into his right arm that was holding the arrow. Immediately, there was a sharp pain in his arm, far more intense than any he had felt before and his arm went numb and fell to his side unresponsive. The bird saw that its attack failed to take its target’s life and promptly started to jump down from branch to branch. Noticing the situation was turning south, Finlay fought through the pain. He promptly dropped the now useless bow and took out his spear and moved to meet the foe. Although he was injured, slowing him down, the bird with its unusable wings was much slower than normal and combined with his new movement art, FInlay easily dodged its attack and delivered a killing blow with his spear, instantly obliterating its head.

He first checked his surroundings for any other threats and once he confirmed that he was safe, he relaxed. He first removed the feather from his arm and the pain seemed like it started receding. By now, the shallow wound in his shoulder had also stopped bleeding. He tidied it up and dressed it with the supplies he had, which weren’t a lot since he wasn’t expecting to run into any danger here. Finlay had to sigh at how he couldn’t look down on any creature in mortal peril and everything beast had its own strength that came out when their life was in peril. He put away the arrogant attitude from earlier about feeling powerful and developed a respectful attitude towards all the creatures struggling for life.

He next gathered all the bird corpses and missed arrows. Due to his still numb arm, it took him a lot more effort than necessary and one of the arrows was nowhere to be found. He had to eventually give up due to fatigue and returned back to the tree. Looking at the birds closely, they all had a dark green feather and sharp but short talons. The beaks looked like they weren’t particularly carnivorous, but with them being magical beasts, that wasn’t such conclusive evidence. Apart from that, he noticed that 2 of the 6 birds before him were at mid grade and the last one which took his arm by surprise was a late stage tier 1 beast.

“No wonder! I was an idiot for assuming that there were no late stage beasts in this region. If only I could use Analyse from a longer range…I could have avoided this pitfall.”

Finlay carefully observed the late stage beast but found nothing out of ordinary except for its slightly bigger size, almost imperceptible from a distance, and three relatively large feathers on its head like a plume. They looked pretty much the same as the normal ones but he felt like there might be something special about them. He already realised that the dark green feathers were the most valuable materials apart from the beast cores and carefully plucked and stored them. He also cut off the largest talons and some of the finest feathers. Finally, he extracted all the beast cores and tied up the 3 strongest birds to carry them back. Despite his shoulder injury and a numb arm, Finlay was mostly fine and could easily carry all the load and with a jog too.

It did not take long for him to get back. He first visited the health services that he never before had to use to get a checkup of his numb arm to make sure there was no permanent injury. Next he visited the blacksmith to sell off the feathers, talons and the lower grade beast cores. WIth his cultivation in the Wind element at level 4, the lower grade beast cores were pretty much useless for his cultivation. He took out the three feathers that he took from the late stage bird’s plume and showed it to the store keeper to enquire about its value.

“Oh these? They’re actually not that valuable. But there are other variants of this bird with darker feathers in the plume instead of the same light green colour as the rest of its body. They are very valuable and can be used in the making of certain special Wind attribute items. Also, once we pluck all the feathers off those 3 birds, you should sell the meat to the restaurant. They’re a popular delicacy over there. I reckon you would get a much better price than if you were to sell it elsewhere.”

“Ah! That’s a shame. I’ll keep an eye out for those then and thank you for the advice.”

With most of the valuables sold off, Finlay followed the advice of the Blacksmith store keeper and sold the meat to the restaurant. He asked them to give 2 servings of said delicacy as part of the payment to bring it back to his place.

With the short, casual practice excursion turning into a more serious one, Finlay also profited from the materials. He made about 5 bits (Spirit stone halves) or about 0.5 of the value of a Poor grade spirit stone. That amount was only possible because it seemed the feathers were very valuable in making pretty armour and other beautiful items for female cultivators. Finlay remembered the popularity and cost of similar fashion from the world before. Back then, he disliked the unnecessary animal cruelty implied by them and yet he was killing things without much hesitation. He lamented at how hopeless the situation he was in right now and the consequences of failure had turned him into a decisive and even cruel man. He didn’t dwell on it too much. Afterall, in the grand scheme of things, if he had to choose to fight for his survival or show mercy to animals, he wouldn’t hesitate to survive. He still disliked unnecessary deaths, regardless of animal or human and would try his best to prevent such things.

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With his pockets full, he cheerfully greeted Lu Bao and offered the rare delicacy to him. Lu Bao was very alarmed upon seeing the limp arm, but eased up a bit once it was explained to be temporary injury. He still tried to persuade Finlay to take it easy in the future and thanked him repeatedly for actually treating him to a meal from the restaurant, just like he promised before.

Finlay was embarrassed that he wasn’t even thinking about that when he asked for this, but he did not say anything and simply accepted the gratitude. With the meal done, they chatted for a while and Finlay congratulated Lu Bao for entering level 5 within a day after using the body transformation pills. Eventually, they went back to their rooms to resume their grind of cultivation

With the arm being numb and the small shoulder injury, Finlay decided to put off going back for a bit longer and went back to cultivating and practising Alchemy. He finally started using the various herbs for the various exercises. The variation bought by the different materials compared to using just water was a small hurdle but it wasn’t that long before he got used to it.

After another 2 days, he ran out of all the Alchemy ingredients and achieved some minor proficiency in the various exercises individually. He was able to complete them 90% of the time individually. That might sound like a good number but when 10 of those individual activities are required in a recipe, the chance of successfully making a pill or elixir would fall to a pitiful 34% and this is without considering the failures from fatigue from having to perform the various parts continuously during a normal pill/elixir making process. He felt like he might not even have a 1% chance to complete the pill recipe from the stone plaque as he is right now. But unfortunately, he was out of materials to practise, so he put away Alchemy for now to focus on just cultivating.

He had bought back 2 mid stage cores and 1 late stage core of the wind element from killing those birds. He first used the 2 mid stage cores to advance to the peak of level 4. He finally used up the remaining late stage core to break into level 5. While this might seem like a fast phase, the amount of resources demanded by the wind element was more than twice the water element. He was starting to have a headache. The more he advanced, the more resources it would take. If he had to use late stage cores to have a reasonable speed to advance at mid stage, there was no guessing how many more resources he might need for completion. With his current state of Alchemy, he had no answer to the situation. He could only place his hopes on acquiring a lot more late stage wind attribute cores when selling his arrows. Thinking so, he even went back to the blacksmith to place an order for another 30 arrows.

In the next 2 days, he mostly cultivated using the natural world Qi. He did not use the pills because he wanted to save as many as possible for his last element, the Metal element of the five elements. He tried to inquire around and despite the fact that exact information was not allowed to be shared around, from what he could find out, either there were no Metal Element Magical Beasts and materials or if there were, it was very rare and almost impossible to obtain. He feared that if he didn't save up right now, he might regret it later. Even though the pills issued by the sect were a bad source of Metal elemental Qi, 30% of the normal amount is still a lot better than having no source.

“Maybe given the fact that there are some Magical beasts with both wind and fire available, I should perhaps dedicate my cultivation time exclusively to Metal when absorbing the world Qi.”

The more he thought about it, the more he felt like that idea made sense. If at some point his cultivation level and the pills in hand exceeded the requirements to complete the Metal Element, he could just use any extra pills to cultivate his other elements. With the decision made, he would focus exclusively on Metal element for here on when he isn’t using beast cores, pills or other such materials.

He had used up all the resources he had to either advance his cultivation, his Alchemy skills or purchased equipment like the arrows. With his wounds healed fully as well, Finlay set off on the next morning to return to the Alchemy stone plaque until the next pill distribution and hopefully by then, he would have completed another element and be well on his way to complete the 4th one.

To be continued.

Preview - System Status

Identity :

Finlay

Male

14 yrs old

–

Mortality :

Sura (Mortal)

Job :

None

Titles :

None

Cultivation :

Body Transformation stage level 9 (Water and Earth Dual attribute cultivation)

Stats :

→open←

Skills :

The All seeing eye (Analyse) :

(Grade - E)

Authority granted by the first god of the world, Dinn. You can peer into the secrets of things and beings of this world as long as you know what you’re looking for. (Requires activation conditions)

Inventory space :

(Locked until Foundation Establishment)

Universal Language comprehension (Grade A+);

Mana Blast (Grade F+)

Preview - Stats

Spiritual :

Cultivation Talent :

S+ Grade (Appears as C-)

Divine Sense :

None

Law Comprehension :

S Grade

Physical :

Body Type :

Five Element body (Grade : B+(Aggregate)) (Appears as C-)

Elemental Attunements :

Metal

S- Grade

Five Element Body Type

(Dominant trait)

Earth

A Grade

Wind

C+ Grade

Fire

C- Grade

Water

D Grade

Light/Darkness(Yin/Yang)

D- Grade

Lightning

F+ Grade

Other Talents :

Weapon Talents :

Sword/Bladed type

A+ Grade

Ranged

C+ Grade

Hand to Hand

C Grade

Polearms/Spear

D Grade

Soul based/Mental type

D- Grade

Qi Circuits :

(Arrays, Formations, Magical Restrictions)

B- Grade

Crafting Talent :

C+ Grade

Alchemy Talent :

D+ Grade