Haiyang awoke the next morning feeling as refreshed as ever. A small happy smile crawled onto his face as he thought back to yesterday’s fight.

He started to analyze all the details he could remember. He analyzed Mu’s attacks and their wild nature. He started to analyze how the panther responded and how it got angry. After a certain point the control it had faded.

Haiyang then started to analyze his own performance. He thought about some well-timed seals and some missed opportunities. He even started to think about how weak his seals were. He needed an upgrade so he turned to the Tide Flows Seal technique.

He “read” through the second seal. He read about how it should feel and how it needed a second rank qi condensation cultivation base. When he saw that he smiled excitedly.

He stood up and started to try and form the new seal. He raised his paw and let qi flow through it into the air. He started the first stroke of the seal but the qi just dissipated into the air. He tried again and there was the same result. He tried one more time and tried to study the way the qi moved.

This time he felt the problem. His technique was fine but there was this feeling of something missing. I felt like his qi couldn’t do it, almost as if it was too weak. He knew his body was above the second rank so he didn’t understand.

He thought about all the possible reasons to why he couldn’t form the seals. After tens of possibilities, he came to the conclusion that the seals mostly helped his body and not his qi. He shook his head with slight frustration but Haiyang knew he could only cultivate now.

Haiyang sat down and took a few deep breaths to calm his mind. After a few minutes, he was completely calm. He started to cultivate breathing in a large volume of strong wood qi.

He leads it through his whole body focusing it on his left arm. He slowly worked the wood qi into the symbols stabilizing them one by one. With each new stabilized seal Haiyang could feel a small rise in strength.

Time flowed in this manner for maybe two or three hours but Haiyang kept at it. He kept pushing past the pain that came with stabilizing the symbols and used every drop of wood qi he could grab.

When the last drop was absorbed by Haiyang his left arm was completely stabilized. He slowly opened his eyes that now shone slightly brighter than before. He let out a breath and smiled a small happy smile.

When his left arm finished he felt something break. It was very light but he could notice it and it effects. His body rose by a large margin of strength and his qi felt so much purer. He felt as if he was on a whole new level. The small desire in the back of his head told him to try the second seal again.

He stood up and raised his right paw. He let yin qi flow through him and into the air as he moved along the pattern of the second seal. With four small movements making four small strokes a character hovered in the air.

Haiyang dropped his paw studying the new character. He studied the small details and felt for its aura but after a minute he could only shake his head bitterly. He waved his paw dispersing the character.

There wasn’t any aura on it. It didn’t have any substance. The character wouldn’t be sealing anything like that so he just tried again. This time he added some feeling just like how he did with the first seal.

He waved out the four strokes forming another character. That one being a failure so he waved it away trying again.

He tried again putting a different emotion into it. Again he failed, and he failed again and again but he didn’t stop. With every failure, he waved it away and made a new seal with a different emotion.

On his 15th seal, there was finally some results. This time there was something there, a light overbearing feeling. Haiyang smiled and his eyes flickered with excitement as he started another seal.

Haiyang made seal after seal slowly improving with each one. On his 45th seal, there was a small breakthrough and it had a much stronger overbearing aura. It almost felt like it wanted Haiyang to submit. With more excitement, he practiced again and again.

Soon the 75th time came and a silver four stroke character hovered in front of Haiyang. It felt like it wanted to make the whole world submit to it. With a smile, he waved away the seal.

Haiyang then formed another seal this time on his paw. He slapped himself on the chest imprinting it dead center of his chest. He felt it’s power start to try and seal his own. When he felt it’s sealing power his jaw dropped in shock!

Actually, it would be better to say he was shocked by the lack of sealing power. It was even weaker than the first seals he kept to limit some of his strength. Haiyang’s eyes showed some fear and broke the seal.

He quickly made another and slapped it onto his body. It was weak just like the first. He tried using sealing type thoughts like how he did for the first level seal.

This seal was just as weak and so he tried again and again. With every seal, it didn’t get any stronger at all! He started to make more and more seals.

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The first ten seals Haiyang was scared, the next ten seals he was worried, and the final twenty times caused frustration. It got to the point where he was stomping his paws in frustration.

He was standing there thinking about everything when his stomach rumbled. The tension broke and he laughed a bit. In his cultivation, he completely forgot to eat anything.

He took a small breath clearing away the last of his frustration as he walked out of his burrow.

He stepped out of the hole and almost dove back in from the sharp sunlight. He closed his eyes tight slowly trying to accustom them back to light.

“Brother Yang this is why you shouldn’t stay underground all day. The sunlight starts to hurt,” Mu’s familiar lazy voice called out from Haiyang’s left.

When Haiyang’s eyes finally adjusted he just kinda stared at Mu confused.

Seemed like Mu could feel his confused stare and looked at him simply saying, “What?”

“Why...why did you shorten my name to Yang,” Haiyang asked puzzled?

“Oh that,” Mu exclaimed with understandingly, “That’s because your name is too long. So I shortened for my own convenience.” He smiled so proudly after saying that.

“I..see,” Haiyang said just as confused as before.

“What,” Mu asked, “Is it really that strange.”

“No, not really...just interesting,” Haiyang shrugged.

“I’m not bright alright! I even shortened my own name,” Mu yelled clearly offended!

“What’s your real name then,” Haiyang asked shortly after the outburst?

Mu stopped and just stared at Haiyang. There was a solid minute or so of just silence before Mu starts bursting out laughing and says, “It’s been so long I forgot!”

Haiyang just stared in disbelief and responded with, “Well...ok then. I’m gonna go hunt and practice...watch the place”

A smiling Mu happily exclaimed, “Ok Brother Yang! I’m just gonna nap for a bit longer.” Mu then closed his eyes and rested under the shade of the spirit tree.

Haiyang smiled and shook his head. He started to lightly jog towards the west. Quickly he went passed through the tree line surrounding the clearing.

He walked calmly through the trees admiring the surrounds and all the small sounds of the bugs and such. With every few steps, he sent out the first or the second seal depending on how he felt.

Before Haiyang knew it he walked almost 300 meters and left a trail of slowly dissipating seals. He continued to walk a bit further until he heard a noise. He stopped and crouched low to the ground his ears perked.

Crouched down low he slowly moved towards the sound. Haiyang stayed within the cover of shadows, bushes, and high grass. Slowly without any sound, he was within a meter of the sound.

The source was a small white rabbit resting under a tree. It had long straight ears, short fur, and green eyes. It sat within the tree’s shade constantly looking around.

Haiyang sensed the rabbit’s aura and saw that it was many times weaker than the panther. It was actually very close to Mu’s aura. This fact calmed Haiyang a lot and actually started to make him view this rabbit as his next meal.

Slowly he crawled forward getting closer and closer. When he was about to strike the rabbit shot it’s gaze in Haiyang’s direction. Quickly the rabbit turned and sprinted off into the forest. Haiyang quickly dashed after it.

He weaved between trees and around tall patches of grass. He kept the rabbit in his sights but it kept getting further and further away. He even started to use his full strength and small qi pads to launch himself forward.

Haiyang couldn’t understand why he couldn’t catch the clearly weaker beast. He pushed his speed higher and higher to the absolute maximum! He barely kept the rabbit from getting further away but he also wasn’t getting closer.

He focused everything into moving forward and analyzing the surrounds to try and push the rabbit into a dead end. Haiyang even shot out a seal or two trying to slow the rabbit down.

Ten minutes quickly passed and he started to get tired and his mind started to unfocus. It was to the point where he was so focused and so unfocused his body started to go on autopilot.

He started to slow down and as he did something inside him pushed him forward and moved his qi for him. Slowly the first seal started to form in front of him. It didn’t shoot out neither did it dissipate it just hovered there.

Soon more strokes started to form overtop the first seal. One stroke after another joined and in total four new strokes joined. These four strokes came from the second seal! Each of the stokes giving an overbearing feeling to the entire seal.

This new seal had both the calming feeling of the first seal and the overbearing one as the second seal. It almost felt like it was forcing calmness onto the surroundings.

This new seal shot toward the rabbit. The rabbit was fast but the seal was faster and struck the rabbit dead center.

The rabbit stumbled over itself and flew into the ground! The feeling that was pushing Haiyang then broke. He was shocked at what had just happened but he quickly ran over and with a yang filled stomp and a loud crunch the rabbit fell limp.

Haiyang sat and panted heavily this time fully exhausted. He slowly rolled over onto his back and looked up towards the sky.

Only now did he realize the sun was starting to set and quickly got up and started to feast on the rabbit.

By the time he was done only a few minutes passed and all that was left was a green gem, bloody bones, and a stuffed and satisfied Haiyang.

He stood up and took the gem in his mouth and started to study his surroundings. As he looked around he slowly realized he had no idea where he was. He sighed in his head before he started to retrace his steps.

Haiyang took a grand total of five steps before realizing he had no idea what the steps he took were. He laughed bitterly and started searching the ground.

After a few minutes, he found a trail of small holes. These were all left by his small qi pads blasting away the dirt. He started to follow the trail and slowly but surely he made his way through the forest.

A time well after nightfall Haiyang finally returned to his small clearing with his amazing spirit tree.

He practically started to sprint towards the tree. He was in front of his burrow and he started to laugh at the snoring Mu.

He quickly made his way into his burrow and placed his new prize into his treasure chamber. Haiyang then made his way to his sleeping chamber.

He quickly took a few steps and slumped into the ground, exhausted. Without cultivating and without a care Haiyang drifted into a deep well deserved sleep.