Not having been given food by Wei Yun, Bao Gang picked up the tiger corpse, lifting it to his shoulders in a fireman’s carry(look it up to see what I mean). With his super strength, the few hundred pound body gave him minimal concern, however, its long body kept dragging on the ground, and the once mighty adult tiger now served only as a tripping hazard. After all, Bao Gang had the body of a 7 year old, while the tiger had a 7 foot long body. When the limbs flopped around, it would be possible for him to trip on them.
He would have placed his second soul sea into the tiger corpse in order to create an autonomous puppet, but having had no experience with the puppet making section of the “Divide and Conquer” soul cultivation method, had no idea how long it would take. Keep in mind, he was still near the hundreds of demonic beasts which wanted to eat him, except they had been thrown into chaos due to Xiao Gou Shi’s fire.
Learning from his previous mistake, Bao Gang sent tendrils of his spiritual sense ahead of his body in order to sense any other animals hiding in ambush. While this would normally only be a skill reserved for those who had reached the realm of upgraded brain(8th realm of body tempering), Bao Gang had a special advantage, having had his soul nourished for years upon years until it reached perfection.
With this method, he evaded the ambushes of 5 different demonic beasts, changing directions before coming into ambush range, causing them to howl in frustration. Imagine tensely waiting for 24 hour for what you believed to be a treasure, only to risk death from fire. Then, being forced to watch those of the same species die while having no way to stop it. While this might mean less competition between demonic beasts, it also reduced the number of females, which angered the males. The females had lost children or their provider which also made them irate. Then, after laying in wait, seeing the success of the tiger’s ambush, failing to hide successfully.
After running for 25 minutes, constantly bleeding out of the wounds to his arm and torso, he had to stop. In his haze of exhaustion, he saw a mountain, and along the walls, a cave, sheltered from view. In the case of more beasts which came chasing after him, this would give him a modicum of cover, instead of being out in the open. Dragging his feet and the tiger corpse, he made it to the edge of the cave and collapsed.
“Crap!”
Having not made it to cover, he attempted to push his body off the ground when he heard,
SNAP*
“AHHHGGGG”
That was his right arm snapping. Having been damaged by the tiger and then having to push hundreds of pounds against gravity, his bone couldn’t take it and snapped. This became the straw to break the camel’s back, and he passed out.
This is the advantage which higher cultivation gives. His muscles had become stronger than a normal cultivators by 10 times due to his cultivation suited body and extra muscle reconstruction, but this did not hold true for his tendons, bones, and blood. In other words, he had suffered life-threatening, self-inflicted body injuries. His tendons had become frayed and unusable, his bones had taken too much stress under the power of his enhanced muscles and he had developed hairline cracks along his legs, and he did not have the blood flow to provide his body with resources, which caused shortness of breath, and in this case, was the root cause of his loss of consciousness.
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Two days passed while he slept and his body healed. Xiao Gou Shi watched over him the entire time, not daring to sleep in case a demonic beast used the opportunity to eat the both of them. As for why the little lizard did not hunt for demonic beast cores to heal Bao Gang, there were no demonic beasts which passed nearby, meaning that the lizard would need to leave the boy unguarded while he killed the beast. On the other hand, Bao Gang seemed to be healing fine with just the tiger’s beast core. Taking a risk when it would not be necessary is not something the intelligent lizard would do.
While they were running, Bao Gang did not dare to use the beast core for healing as it would take a minute or so to heal, in which he would not be able to move his body effectively, which might lead to death if a beast charged at him. However, after seeing the boy collapse, Xiao Gou Shi refined the core, and placed it on Bao Gang’s arm. Almost as if by magic, the arm which formed and oblique angle, rotated until it once again became straight and the bite marks on the arm began to fade and be replaced with new skin.
Additionally, the wounds on his torso began to close over the two days. In fact, the healing pace seemed to accelerate over the two days as if his body began to use a body function which had previously been unnecessary, which became more efficient as it began to get used to its job. Because Bao Gang was laying on his stomach, the lizard could only see the wounds on the side of his stomach closing, but assumed the same to be true about the wounds on the front of Bao Gang’s torso.
After the two days passed, Xiao Gou Shi saw another injured cultivator, so dirty that the cultivator’s gender could not be checked except with a hand.
The cultivator walked over and looked at the body with a flame of greed in their eyes, checking for belongings. The cultivator let out a high-pitched gasp of surprise as it saw the lizard. Xiao Gou Shi and cultivator made eye contact, and the lizard let out a roar. While not loud, the roar seemed to penetrate to the very soul of the cultivator, and the cultivator was forced to take a step back out of fear. Feeling slightly silly about being scared by a tiny lizard, the cultivator inwardly mocked themself in order to build up courage, but the once small flame of greed became an inferno. Seeing how such a small lizard could cause such heartfelt terror, the cultivator realized that it was no ordinary lizard. In this case, it should grow to a size much bigger than a normal demonic beast due to its power which it displayed as a child. If such a small lizard could cause the cultivator to feel fear, imagine what would be the outcome when the lizard finished growing!
“Hey buddy, come with me, be my pet, I can take care of you better than this weakling.”
The cultivator’s seemingly gentle, high-pitched voice conflicted strongly with their facial expression which showed anything but gentleness.
Recognizing the threat from this cultivator, the lizard now let out a tongue of flame toward the cultivator. The cultivator spit out a never-ending stream of water out of their mouth, clearly a magic spell with the purpose of dousing the flame.
The water did not stand a chance.
Without even coming into contact with the flame, the water evaporated, seemingly admitting its inadequacy to the fire. According to the five element cycle in which water counters fire, the water should hold an advantage against fire, but this only applied to water and flame of the same level. This reaction just showed how the fire emitted by the lizard was several levels higher in power than normal water. The greed did not diminish in the slightest, but clearly the cultivator showed some restraint at the lizard which had fire which could overcome elemental suppression.
“It’s okay buddy, I will just help you take care of that wounded boy.”
Seeing how a lizard with such strong potential felt attraction to the boy, the cultivator decided to use the boy to get on the lizard’s good side.
Grudgingly, the lizard seemed to consent by nodding its head and allowing the cultivator to come closer.