Samantha rose from her sleeping mat as the sun crested the mountain peaks further to the east. The dew still clung to the blades of grass, and as they shimmered and reflected the morning rays she looked like she was amid a small galaxy. The air was fresh and crisp with the smell of wildflowers and pine, and each breath she took helped to quickly banish the lingering sleepiness she felt.
In preparation for the hunt, Samantha took a few minutes to enjoy the growing warmth under the sun’s light and did some stretches to loosen up the muscles that were still sore from the prior day’s exertion. After eating a quick breakfast, she tied her remaining supplies in the upper boughs of a nearby sycamore tree to protect them from passing wildlife. Once she felt that her camp was as secure as she could make it, she left the safety of the nexus with only her spear and a handful of medical supplies. She reasoned that traveling light would help her move quickly and quietly, increasing her chances of a successful hunt.
Picking a direction at random she walked north, keeping the sun to her right as she looked through the forest for signs of a spirit beast’s passage. She noted every sign of wildlife–from odd pieces of bark torn from trunks to paw or hoof marks left behind in the mud–and followed a trail that she deemed relatively fresh. She had never been more grateful to be raised in a family that specialized in crafting items from spirit beast materials. Being trained from childhood to be familiar with the different types of beasts and how to track them was turning out to be a huge advantage.
After several hours of tracking, she was almost positive that she was pursuing a solitary Forest Howler–an ape-like creature with four arms that allowed them to navigate the tree canopy as easily as Samantha could maneuver on the ground. She had seen several other tracks she could have potentially followed, such as the slithering path of a procession of the Mud Adder or the well-beaten trail left behind by a herd of River Deer, but the Forest Howler was the most feasible option.
Mud Adders killed by paralyzing their prey, then swallowing it whole. Seeing as she had no way to counter poisons and the prospect of being slowly consumed while still alive was horrifying, she had happily left that trail alone. The River Deer were more tempting since they were generally gentle creatures that were quick to run away. The problem was that if she wounded one of them before the rest of the herd cleared out, the entire group would turn on her and stampede. Even with her enhanced body she wasn’t confident she could survive being repeatedly trampled, so again, she left that trail alone.
The Forest Howler was still a bit risky, but there was no spirit beast that was completely safe to hunt. Howlers were typically slower on the ground than they were in the trees, and so long as she didn’t let them get close enough to bite huge chunks out of her or rip her in half, the worst that one could do would be to try and stone her to death from afar. Keeping distance with her spear was her specialty, and with her new reflexes she was fairly certain she could dodge any long-range projectiles.
Before long, she heard the sound of breaking wood and the low, hooting call of a Forest Howler. Samantha slowed down, and carefully crept towards the noise until the spirit beast was in sight. The Howler looked to be close to her height, and it was covered from head to toe in deep green fur speckled with yellow. Its lower lip jutted forward slightly as two enormous lower canine teeth protruded intimidatingly from the sides of its mouth like straight daggers. They looked closer to tusks than teeth.
Each of its four long arms rippled with muscle as it easily tore chunks of wood free from a fallen log, and upon closer inspection, she could see that it was rooting around for grubs to eat. It growled softly in frustration whenever a grub escaped the grasp of its sausage-like fingers.
Samantha focused her spirit upon its form and activated [Inspect], figuring more information couldn’t hurt. After three points of qi had been expended, she cut off the art, satisfied with what she had learned.
Forest Howler (Rank 1 - Mid)
Highest Attribute: Strength (9)
Lowest Attribute: Resilience (4)
This primate is both predator and prey in the Eastern Reaches. Omnivorous, it spends half of its time foraging for berries, roots, and bugs, and the other half hunting other spirit beasts. As an ambush attacker, they prefer to surprise their victims by dropping down from above and tearing them limb from limb with powerful arms.
Hoping to take advantage of a blind spot, Samantha edged around her target so that she was directly behind it. She slowed her breathing, tightened her grip on her spear shaft, and sharpened her senses as she watched for the perfect opportunity to strike. She was about to thrust forward when she saw the Forest Howler distracted with digging out a particularly plump grub, but paused as she perceived an ominous rumbling at the edge of her hearing. The sound was rapidly getting louder and louder, and even the oblivious Howler took notice and searched for the source of the irritating buzzing. It was then that a large, black blur burst through the thicket and slammed into the Howler’s side.
A gargantuan beetle, at least four feet tall and equally wide, snapped its sharp pincers at the primate’s throat, the swift beating of its wings droning like an angry swarm of wasps. In response, the Forest Howler grabbed a mandible in two of its hands, balling its other two hands into fists and slamming them repeatedly into the exoskeleton of the beetle. Surprised by the beetle’s sudden appearance, Samantha momentarily ducked behind a tree as the beasts grappled for supremacy. Not having planned to take on two spirit beasts at once, she wondered if she should continue this hunt or quietly escape during the chaos.
She peeked her head around the trunk, and decided to get more information about the newcomer before making a decision. After another three qi was expended, she cut off [Inspect] and reviewed the details.
Matron Rock Beetle (Rank 2 - Low)
Highest Attribute: Resilience (12)
Lowest Attribute: Agility (4)
Starting their life as small grubs hatched in rotting wood, these bugs grow rapidly from the consumption of dead plant matter and reach their peak size within six years. As their size increases, their Agility and the distance that they are able to fly decreases, but their Resilience continues to rise as their exoskeleton becomes more durable.
Samantha assumed from the information she was given that the Matron Rock Beetle was returning to check on her nest of grubs when she saw the Forest Howler feasting on her children. As a mother protecting her young, the only reasonable response was to attack without mercy. This was the story Samantha told herself as the presumably very angry Rock Beetle had her mandibles around the leg of the Forest Howler, slamming it into the ground repeatedly as the ape released a piercing screech befitting its name.
After brief consideration, she reasoned that this was actually the perfect opportunity for her. Instead of fighting the Forest Howler and having all of its attention on her, she could strategically strike out at both spirit beasts while they were busy fighting with each other. There was of course the small chance that both of the creatures would turn on her, but she felt that the potential to double her rewards from this fight outweighed the risks.
Samantha sprung from her hiding place and focused her initial efforts on whittling down the defenses of the spirit beast she felt was the more dangerous of the two–the Matron Rock Beetle. She swung her spear in slashing arcs at its segmented leg joints, attempting to cripple its movements as the ape began to try and pry the crushing mandibles apart and free its twisted, bloodied leg. Most of her attacks glanced off the beetle's thick armor and left only small scratches, but with time and some luck, strikes began to land true.
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After breaking the beetle’s second leg, however, its attention shifted from battering the Forest Howler to retaliating against Samantha. It jerked its body sideways and struck her–the Forest Howler’s right leg still trapped in its unrelenting pincers. The impact felt like she had run full tilt into a brick wall, but she jumped with the hit and rolled in an attempt to minimize the damage.
Samantha’s left side throbbed with pain, but a quick test revealed she still had full range of movement despite the discomfort. It was irritating, but not a fight-ending injury. The Forest Howler–tossed after being vigorously shaken like a rag doll–hit the ground a few seconds after her about 5 yards to her left. The Howler rose from the ground and screamed in rage, seemingly not caring at all about the way its right leg was bleeding and bent at a wrong angle. It used one of its right arms to stabilize the side with the broken leg and picked up fist sized rocks with the other three arms. It hurled two at the beetle rushing towards them with hobbled strides, and one towards Samantha, making this battle a true free-for-all.
Samantha twisted her body to the side and leaned out of the way of the deadly missile, a rough edge barely scratching against the edge of her cheek and leaving a thin line of blood in the wake of its passage. Turning her twist into a full turn, she used her momentum to thrust her spear back at the ape and open a deep cut on the arm that it was using to support its body weight. As it stumbled, she danced out of the way of the rushing beetle and took a pot shot at its dull carapace. She clicked her tongue in frustration as she noted only a slight scratch was left behind on its iron hard shell.
Despite its best efforts to turn the Forest Howler into paste, the two broken legs that Samantha had inflicted on the bug earlier slowed it noticeably, which allowed the Howler just enough time to lift itself up into a small nearby tree to get out of the immediate path of the charge. The Rock Beetle revealed its impressive Strength by grasping the tree trunk in its mandibles and uprooting it in its entirety. The Howler, with no other trees near enough to grab onto, instead chose to go on the offensive and leapt on the back of the beetle. It stabilized its position with two of its arms, while using the third, uninjured arm to bash down on the Rock Beetle’s exoskeleton with a sharp rock held in one of its hands.
The beetle hissed as green ichor began to flow from cracks and holes in its shell, suddenly rolling over and pinning the Howler beneath its heavy body. Samantha took that opportunity to leap up on its stomach, striking at the less-armored underbelly of the bug. Her spear head found purchase at last and pierced deep, causing the Rock Beetle to warble in panic. Samantha held tight to the shaft of her spear as the insect began thrashing, its four working legs eventually succeeding in kicking her off to the side. She took her spear with her as she fell, causing more damage to the creature’s insides as the tip shifted, slid, and was torn out with a small geyser of fluid.
Upon landing, Samantha rolled and quickly popped back up to her feet. Just as she was turning around to face the two spirit beasts again, a fist-sized rock whizzed past mere feet away. She caught sight of the snarling ape–still pinned beneath the beetle–struggling to free itself from beneath the heavy weight and trying to reach for another rock.
Oh no you don’t!
With a shout, Samantha thrust her spear towards the Forest Howlers face, its uninjured right arm lifting just in time to take the stab instead and spare it from a deathblow. Seeing as two of its arms were still pinned beneath the weakly moving Rock Beetle, and it could not both continue defending from her strikes and work to free itself, her victory was only a matter of time. Samantha proceeded to unleash a flurry of thrusts towards the downed Howler, eventually finding her mark in its throat and ending the fight. Once the ape was dead, she plunged her spear into the head of the Matron Rock Beetle to end its suffering as well.
Samantha pulled the spear out of her fallen foe and did a quick scan of the area, seeing if their fight had drawn any other unexpected beasts. She panted heavily as she strained her sight and hearing, but after a minute or two of relative silence, she confirmed that the fight really was over and promptly fell on her backside.
The adrenaline crash caused her limbs to tremble, and now that she wasn’t in a life-or-death situation the injuries gained during the fight were making themselves known. She groaned, certain that a solid portion of her body would be black and blue by the time she made it back to the nexus.
Her ribs on her left side flared with pain every time she took in a breath, but she took comfort in the fact that even if the bones were broken she wasn’t coughing blood, so it likely wasn’t life threatening. The other discomforts and pains she felt were hardly worth mentioning in comparison, so all in all she wasn’t in too bad of shape. Unfortunately, the only thing she could manage with her current medical supplies was to cover the scratches and scrapes she had accumulated with some healing ointment.
After tending to her minor wounds, Samantha walked over to the corpses to get what she came for: the beast cores. Now that their life force was extinguished, the energy in their bodies would coalesce into a physical form and be harvestable. With her new cultivator’s sense for qi, it was easy to immediately tell where the cores were located and cut them out.
Samantha beamed looking at the two small, shining blue cores in her palm. Beast core potency was directly proportional to the rank of the spirit beast it was taken from, meaning that she was now in possession of a Rank 1 - Mid and a Rank 2 - Low core. In Yivesh, these two cores would be worth a tidy sum of money given how useful they were. They were used in everything from alchemy to enchanting, and according to her quest, were useful to progress cultivation as well.
Spirit beasts had a power categorization system that differed slightly from cultivators. Instead of designations such as ‘Copper’ or ‘Bronze’, spirit beasts were ranked numerically, with Low, Mid, and High stages in each rank. Generally, the higher the rank and stage, the stronger the beast. However, just because a spirit beast was ranked higher, didn’t mean that it was guaranteed to win a fight against a lower ranked beast. A high rank could be due to impressive physical prowess, or the possession of a variety of useful abilities. In short, it was both difficult and unwise to try and judge the danger a beast posed just by looking solely at its rank or appearance.
As she stashed the two pearls away in an inner pocket of her robes, a System notification sounded in her mind.
Core Quest: Unlock Your Potential (Part 3 of 5) [COMPLETE]
Beast cores, sometimes also referred to as spirit pearls, can be used to quickly progress your advancement towards the next rank or open meridians. Be warned, while safe in moderation, excessive consumption of cores without appropriate rest periods between uses can permanently damage your cultivation base.
You have defeated not one, but two spirit beasts in your quest for power! For pushing yourself beyond requirements, the lower ranked core will be raised to match the higher. Rejoice, for fortune favors the bold!
A light began shining through the fabric of her robe, and she quickly pulled out the pearls from her pocket. When she checked to see where the light was coming from, she was amazed to see the smaller of the two beast cores visibly growing in size. She could sense the pearl drinking in the ambient qi to fuel its growth, similar to how she pulled in qi when cultivating, but much, much faster. An even larger smile than before stole across her face, and she punched a fist into the air in triumph, then winced slightly as the movement caused fresh agony to ripple through her left side. Upon closing that notification, she received yet another:
Core Quest: Unlock Your Potential (Part 4 of 5)
Use your inner sight to locate a clogged meridian, then use a beast core to accelerate the process of clearing and opening it. Opening a meridian has many benefits, from increasing the base value of your Attributes to enabling the use of more powerful and complex arts.
Be warned that it is a fine balancing act between advancing in cultivation and opening meridians. Opening few meridians will allow you to advance in rank more quickly, but you will be weaker than most peers of the same rank. Conversely, opening many meridians quickly can make you powerful in the short term, but will slow your advancement.
Accept? Y/N
Samantha accepted the next chain in the quest without hesitation. This seemed to be another optional objective, but completing this quest would give her another opportunity for an additional reward. Quest rewards were seemingly impossible to predict. Two people could complete the same quest in the same way, and yet receive different things or nothing at all. Still, she felt she’d been having relatively good luck with her quest rewards so far, and wondered what she could possibly get next.
She dug out the Forest Howler Corpse from under the Matron Rock beetle and slung it across her shoulders.
"No sense in wasting perfectly fine meat and materials," she mumbled to herself, hardly noticing the additional weight on her back with her enhanced Strength. Then, she began retracing her steps back to the nexus she’d been calling home for the last couple of weeks.