Victor appeared right after Williams legs gave out of fatigue. Victor had a smile as he approached his exhausted grandson.

"Tired after playing with your pray?"

"I wasn't playing, I was studying it's movements."

Of course William didn't want to admit to playing around, even if it was the truth. He was a proper Martial artist, not some kid who played around without even realizing how tired he was. His mind was less exhausted than his body so he tried to divert the discussion to something else.

"Where is Rigel? I haven't seen him for a while now."

"Then you need to pay more attention."

Victor pointed to his left while answering.

Rigel was standing Immediately to Victors left as if had been there the whole time. Unlike Victor who completely disappeared when he wanted to. Rigel had done something to make no one able to recognize his existence even if he was right in front of them.

Victor went to the Mantis that William had killed before touching it and making it disappear, putting it in his storage ring.

"It's something of a tradition to fully use the first prey you ever hunted."

Dismantling a Qi beast was best done immediately after slaying it to prevent it's death from having any negative effect on the material that could be harvested. Putting it in a storage ring that slows down time would allow them to do other things rather than focus on dismantling it on the spot.

Victor's next question troubled William a little.

"What do you want to do with the other mantis?"

Victor and Rigel had shown what they thought about the quality of the material that could be harvested from the Mantises since the other mantis was still laying in the grass without any change from when it had been decapitated. Which made sense. Victor was at the highest level of cultivation and would have no use for the materials that could be harvested from lesser Qi beasts. Rigel also had a high level cultivation and he had also been here for a long time, allowing him to harvest from who knows how many Qi beasts that he had hunted.

They were only paying it any mind now when they were asking about what William wanted to do with it.

William's heart hurt a little when he thought about what a waste of materials it was. But he was unsure if this was a question to test him. He would have a problem if he answered that they should take it with them and was then forced to carry it. Answering conservatively would be for the best.

"Well it seems like a waste of material to just leave it here, but carrying it with us would cause unnecessary fatigue. So we should harvest the best material before leaving the rest."

"A good answer if the situation was normal."

Victor was starting up a lesson without caring that William was now laying down in the grass to give his body some rest before moving on.

"As a high ranking member of the clan it's best to harvest as much you can in the future. Even if you don't have a use for it, the clan can use it, either as materials or simply trading it for other material that there is a use for. But you also have to think about the balance in place where you are taking from. Taking too much from a single place can upset this balance, but this is easier said than done."

William was able to take the hint. These creatures were not from this forest and so the internal balance of the forest was already in danger from their migration, which forced them to be extra careful with what to take from it.

"So we should leave it here?"

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Not at all, these creatures are Qi beasts, if too many of their corpses were left around then the Qi that leaves their body can cause the forest numerous unforeseen problems, the most likely being that their collective Qi stagnates and starts creating Demons. But laving some of their corpses will help speed up the recovery of the forest, allowing it to find its balance again. But for this corpse, it's too close to the village. If a animal were to eat it and become a Qi beast this close then it could cause them problems if the animal was ill-natured. So we should take it with us and dispose of it later."

William had finally recovered enough that walking wouldn't be any problem, even if fighting would be a little annoying but from what he had learnt killing them fast wouldn't be impossible.

Victor had picked up the other mantis before coming back to William.

"We are done for today, Rigel is going to guide us to a place suitable for camping."

It was almost night when they stopped to camp for the day, the location was a similar clearing to the one that they had been fighting in previously. William couldn't really tell why this was a good place to camp, but he trusted Rigel, or rather he trusted Victor and Victor from what William could see trusted Rigel.

They quickly made camp with Rigel showing William how to put up a barrier around the camp. Putting up a barrier was quite simple, which didn't give William much faith in the strength of the barrier, as he had heard that putting down formations and barriers was a something that required years to properly learn, and that was simply to put down the formations and barriers not to actually make them from ground up. They simply had to put up eight small stone stakes outside the camp and one slightly larger stake in the middle of the camp.

"Will that really protect us? It seems quite... simple."

"The barrier is there more to give us enough time to prepare if we get attacked rather than completely block enemy attacks for long periods of time. Now it's time to teach you how to dismantle a Qi beast."

Rigel was currently showing William how to dismantle the Qi beast that he had cut the head off.

"The less damaged a carcass is the better. This isn't only because the material will be more intact making it more valuable but also because while a dead body won't natural circulate Qi as it does when it's alive, the Qi of someone dead won't immediately stop, there is a sort of grace period where the Qi of the body is still active and flows according to the bodies meridians. Now the longer that time passes the less active the Qi will be, until it fully stops and stagnates in the body or disperses into the world around it, it's also good to know that the purer, denser the Qi is the longer this grace period is.

As you might have realized from that description. The more destroyed the corpse is the more destroyed the meridians are which in the best cases causes the Qi that would have flown in them to simply leak out, if you are unlucky then the meridians might be so destroyed that the Qi cause a rebound effect where it flows into meridians that's it's not suppose to be in which will in turn cause the Qi there to clash with itself and cause further rebounds, creating a string of continues rebounds all through the body destroying the meridians and all sensitive materials in the body."

William tried to listen to Rigel about how to identify where the best places to cut up the body and how to use your own Qi in those places too not ruin the body's meridian network. This was much harder to do then normal cultivation as you had to use your own Qi to control the flow of the Qi of a corpse that would rampage against anything that tried to control it. This was further exasperated by the fact that anything that died violently would have it's Qi be in a turbulent state.

"Don't worry. You will have a lot of practice before we are done in this forest."

The smile Rigel had while saying that was one that brought less comfort and more so one that promised a misfortune fate.

Victor came over with a pot for William after he washed his hands from the blood that he had covered him while learning how to dismantle.

"Here. This should help you get your energy back for tomorrow. I added something new to yours."

The pot smelled similar to always but there was no bread or cheese this time.

William was careful when he was tasting the food this time. He had learnt over the years that many things that were meant to helpful with recovery were also quite bad tasting, especially when unprepared by anything less that a professional, and skilled as his grandfather was, he was no master chef.

There was nothing new with the taste that William couldn't identify, the meat of the soup was maybe a bit softer. The real change was a few seconds after he had swallowed the first spoonful. There was a small amount of Qi flowing from the food in his stomach to the rest of his body. William believed he knew why this was but better to ask in case.

"Grandfather, what exactly did you put in the pot?"

"Of course I put in some of the meat from your own hard fought prey. Converting the strength of the creature into a proper cultivation realm then it would be around the middle of the meridian expansion realm, so slightly below your level. But not far enough that you can't enjoy some assistance from its Qi. Not to mention it's tradition, to take nourishment from your first felled prey."

William was more than happy to eat up the rest of the meal, he didn't know why but after hearing that and knowing that he could finally eat some food with Qi in it, even if the Qi was lackluster compared to the meals in the clan, the food tasted the best it had since they left the clan.