Yun Fei sighed as he sat around a cookfire preparing the croc meat of the alligator he had just slain.

For the past 3 weeks he had slowly been choosing increasingly stronger opponents and as a result had become extremely adept at identifying and exploiting the various weaknesses that he could identify.

Much stronger and faster beasts had fallen to his combination of supernatural eyesight and an uncanny awareness that allowed him to flawlessly execute complex counters and to swiftly end the combat.

His technique had experienced a qualitative change and with the constant supply of high end sustenance his disabilities were mostly gone.

He was now 180 cm tall, with the muscles on his body very well defined, he was neither lean nor buff just a perfectly optimized killing machine made for survival. His skin was slightly tanned as he rarely bothered with garments.

Yun Fei experienced true health as his physical prowess broached new boundaries with each passing day.

His eyes shone purple, giving off a very similar demonic glow to Sun Ming on his last day. His hair dishevelled reaching to his shoulder blades

This day he had finally exhausted all opponents that were his match, all except one.

While on a routine recon trip Yun Fei had come across a fight between two true behemoths. A gorilla more than 3 metres tall and what looked to be several quintals heavy was facing off against an awe inspiring bear standing at 4 metres or more. The sheer size of the combatants led Yun Fei to expect a close gruelling battle of attrition with the odds leaning either way.

The result came as a shocking eye opener as the gorilla’s heavy slaps and slams were shrugged off by the bear, its strangely dense fur acted like a shock absorber, as he slowly but surely cornered and brutally clawed the hulking hominid to death. The gorilla died pathetically flailing on the ground trying to get away.

As he remembered that scene Yun Fei looked at his dagger and thought, 'fighting barehanded against that monster is simply courting death, I must use all my cunning and each of the means placed at my disposal to contend with him, his pelt will make a damn fine coat once I finish him off.'

Smiling evilly and sheathing the dagger at his side Yun Fei set off towards the west, surprised that all he felt at this moment was a growing sense of exitement.

Yun Fei sat upon a tree branch as his gaze searched for his target. Closer to the area in which he had last spotted the bear Yun Fei finally saw it on a tree about 100 metres away from his position.

The bear had climbed 20 meters on a wide and sturdy tree which had a diameter close to 4 meters and was consuming the sapwood of the tree, slowly cherishing its taste eating at his own pace.

After finding the bear, Yun Fei went towards the tree it was on without any hesitation and started climbing it stealthily diametrically opposite to the side the bear was on.

'It has noticed me, it matters not. I am the predator here and the bear has no escape' Yun Fei raised his spirit as he stared into the bear's eyes that were peeking at him from 2 meters above him from behind the trunk of the tree with a hint of irritation and anger as its space was being infringed upon.

When the bear looked at what he considered a weird looking animal below, it clearly felt irritated. The bear considered the whole western region as its own territory and whoever dared to provoke it here had found a swift death. The bear considered this as just another instance where it would tear apart the transgressor and then have it instead of the sapwood for food.

The bear rotated it's whole body along the tree with the help of its claws to get on the same side of the tree as Yun Fei.

Just as the bear was going to climb a little downwards towards Yun Fei, Yun Fei pressed hard on the branch he was standing on with his left foot and leaped towards a branch that was jutting out from opposite the position the bear had manoeuvred itself into.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Grabbing the branch with his outstretched arms, Yun Fei didn't pause for a second as he used the force from the jump to rotate around the branch and then as his feet landed on the branch he initially grabbed, Yun Fei leaped once again to another branch higher up, finally stopping and pulling out his dagger from its sheath as he looked downwards with a disdainful smile towards the bear that was exactly in the same position as Yun Fei was in before.

The bear looked towards Yun Fei with confusion and then anger as it realised what had just happened. With a loud roar the bear once again started shuffling towards Yun Fei.

As Yun Fei looked towards the raging bear, his disdainful smile widened a little more as he climbed higher on the tree.

As the bear saw Yun Fei climbing higher, it characterized him as prey, after all only the weak ran from confrontation. It was a confession of inferiority to the bear, it had never avoided a a fight, in fact it revelled in the hunt.

The bear grew a little complacent as it speedily followed. Yun Fei was coming and disappearing from his field of view which couldn't be helped because the tree was wide and there were natural blind spots all over the place.

The bear tried its best to keep Yun Fei in its field of view when suddenly Yun Fei went directly behind the trunk and didn't come out for a few seconds, because of which the bear quickly tried to peek upwards by going a little around the tree, but when the bear peeked around the tree, it found no one. The bear was flabbergasted with these turn of events but just as it had an inkling about what was happening, it felt a stabbing pain in its back.

The bear roared and reached out towards its back but could not touch anything other than its own blood.

The bear was truly enraged this time and its speed shot up as it clambered around the tree looking for Yun Fei.

'Weird, that wound is very deep, how is this bear even able to move around so much with it. I even twisted the dagger into it's body for good measure'

thought Yun Fei as he speedily circled the tree, sometimes climbing upwards and sometimes downwards to always be out of the field of view of the bear.

Yun Fei knew what his advantages in this fight were. He was able to spot the bear easily and avoid its line of sight because the bear was too wide and tall to be able to hide its whole body perfectly behind the tree. At every instant, any one part of the bear was always visible even while looking from the opposite side of the tree, be it its claw or a leg however Yun Fei was relatively thinner than the bear and was able to quickly adjust his position since he knew the position of the bear.

After playing around with the bear for some time and stabbing it repeatedly in different areas of its body, Yun Fei was thoroughly perplexed. The bear was still moving albeit a little slowly than it did in the start.

Finally aware of the threat Yun Fei posed, fearing for its life the bear rushed down the tree trying to flee from a creature for the first time, unaware that it had spelled its own doom by leaving an opening for Yun Fei.

'humph, thinking of escaping when the things go awry, ask me for permission first.'

Yun Fei thought in his mind as he circled around the tree, grasping a branch in his left hand to maintain a better balance, he stabbed his dagger directly in the bears throat and then kicked it's torso with a little force, making it fall to the ground.

Yun Fei climbed down to the ground and put the convulsing bear out of its misery, separating its head from its body.

As Yun Fei was draining the blood of the bear to make it easier to carry, he felt a faint tingling in his eyes like he felt once before from the place he got the dagger from.

'So that's how it was, this bear had Qi in its body. It was probably very long lived or had eaten some kind of herbs to allow itself to cultivate to some degree' understanding the reason behind the uncanny resilience of the bear, Yun Fei's heart pounded as he stopped trying to drain the blood and paused for a bit.

As Yun Fei looked at the quickly coagulating blood of the bear, he felt an urge to just slurp a little of it down his throat. He didn't know why but he felt that doing that would be beneficial to himself. Yun Fei decided to follow his urge and bent down to slurp a little of the blood directly from the neck of the bear.

Just as a mouthful of blood went down Yun Fei's throat, He almost moaned in ecstasy. The blood was very tasty, much tastier than the boar, croc or any other kind of meat and fruits he had eaten in this forest. Just as the taste of the blood faded away, Yun Fei sensed a new sensation rise like a wave flowing to every part of his body.

Yun Fei drank a little more of the blood and then broke out of his intoxicated like state and realised what he had just been through.

"Hahahahahahaha" Yun Fei laughed heartily.

"So that's Qi and that's how it feels" after laughing a little more Yun Fei dragged the bear back towards his cave.