Chapter 3: Garden of Eden.

Yao Jun stood before the tiger, neither of them moving, slowly sizing up their opponents. Yao Jun kept his eyes squarely on the tiger, not daring to move them away or even blink for too long. The tigers eyes flashed with purple bolts of lightning as it slowly crouched, gathering it's strength in it's legs.

Yao Jun found himself to be calmer than he had ever been, his heart beating a to a steady rhythm. But his blood was boiling, roaring in his veins, urging him to fight, to let loose the suppressed feelings gained from 7 years of training. Shouting at him to prove his worth.

The tiger put a bit more weight into it's legs, and it's shoulders slightly moved. Yao Jun grasped the timing and moved immediately, stepping to the left and slashing out with his sword.

Just as Yao Jun moved, the tiger shot out in a straight line, shooting straight for the place where Yao Jun had just stood. The tiger was caught off-guard by Yao Jun's well timed dodge and attack, but it wasn't slow to react.

There was no place for it to leverage it's force in the air, so it chose to twist it's body slightly, using it's right shoulder blade to meed the sword. Yao Jun's sword flashed with a resplendent orange light in the sunset, slashing across the tiger's shoulder blade, drawing a line of blood through the air.

Yao Jun wasted no time, he knew that he had hit the beast, but it was merely a slight wound, just enough to slightly impede it's movement. He quickly moved backwards, building up more distance between the two of them.

The tiger twisted it's body, allowing itself to land steadily on it's feet. It quickly turned it's head and stared at Yao Jun with hatred in it's eyes, it had been wounded by someone it considered to be food, for a proud Demonic beast like it, there was no greater humiliation.

The two of them returned to gazing at each other in silence, looking for the slightest flaws to exploit. Yao Jun noticed the light getting dimmer and dimmer as the sun was setting, he knew that if he continued to stay here for too long, night would fall and his vision would be too heavily impeded to properly fight. Thinking about ways to settle this fight faster, a slightly mad idea crept into his mind.

Yao Jun moved his eyes away from the tiger for a slight second, pretending like something to the side caught his eyes. The tiger would obviously not miss a chance like this and lunged forward with all the might it had saved up.

Yao Jun was already prepared for this, so he moved the moment he moved his eyes away. But instead of moving to the side to dodge the attack, he rapidly moved forward, welcoming the tiger's lunge with his own body.

The tiger felt a slight unease as it saw him lunge towards it instead of dodging, but it was too proud to allow itself to change it's move just because of some human child that was supposed to be it's food.

The tiger opened it's maw and slapped out with it's paws in an attempt to catch Yao Jun. Yao Jun took a step forward and leaned downwards, making the paws of the tiger clash with each other behind his back.

The tiger was slightly taken aback but it quickly reacted, moving it's head forward and biting down with all it's might onto Yao Jun's left shoulder, a burst of electricity entering his body through it's teeth, numbing his left arm. Yao Jun gritted his teeth at the pain, listening to the sound of his bones shattering. He moved his right arm and stabbed the sword in his hand upwards.

The sword sank into the tiger's chest and twisted itself, moving towards it's head, slicing it's entire chest open. Yao Jun fell backwards with the tiger on top of him, his sword had sliced open it's heart as it moved through it's chest, dimming the light in the tiger's eyes.

Yao Jun used his right arm to pry the tiger's jaws out from his flesh, his entire body covered in cold sweat. If he had reacted any slower, he could have died in that earlier clash, but he couldn't draw it out either, every second longer would decrease his chances at survival, so he could only stake it all on that he would react faster.

He gritted his teeth as he rolled out from under the tiger, he really wanted to scream out loud, but if he made too much noise, there was no telling what he would attract. He had spent seven years doing grueling physical training so he already had a high pain tolerance, but the pain of having his flesh lacerated and his shoulder completely broken still filled his eyes with tears as all he could do was crouch down and bend over, screaming in his heart.

After spending a bit of time to calm himself down, Yao Jun stood up and turned towards the body of the tiger. He had just taken a step towards the body when it's entire body suddenly lit up with a purple radiance, forcing back the darkness that had settled in the area.

Yao Jun was shocked and took a quick step back, but the purple radiance suddenly shrank into a small ball of light. As the radiance turned into a small ball, the corpse of the tiger disappeared, sucked into that small ball of light. The ball of light hovered in the air in front of the shocked Yao Jun for a short second, before violently shooting into Yao Jun's chest, merging with the little gate that was located next to his heart.

Before Yao Jun had time to inspect his body, a hot stream of energy came out from the small gate, quickly spreading through his body. As the hot stream of energy moved through his body, Yao Jun lost all strength in his legs, falling to the ground while clutching at his chest. His mouth was wide open, looking like he wanted to scream, but no sound came out.

Yao Jun thought the pain of having his shoulder crushed was almost unbearable, but only now did he understand what truly unbearable pain was. The hot stream of energy felt like liquid fire flowing through Yao Jun's body. Accompanying the agonizing burning pain was the crackling sound coming from his bones. All his bones felt like they were repeatedly breaking and displacing themselves, before the hot stream of energy passed by and pushed them back together.

Even Yao Jun's shoulder slowly repaired itself, the broken pieces moving through his flesh and settling themselves back with the rest of the shoulder blade. The teeth marks swiftly disappeared, leaving behind nothing but a large scar from where the teeth had penetrated his flesh.

Yao Jun endured the agonizing pain in silence for almost half an hour. It wasn't that he didn't want to scream, he simply couldn't. No matter how much air he pushed through his throat in an attempt to scream and give voice to the pain, the sound simply wouldn't leave his throat, it was like his entire throat was blocked.

After half an hour, once the pain subsided, Yao Jun simply laid there on the ground, covered in sweat and trembling. After his trembling weakened he stood up and unsteadily walked towards a tree and sat down, using the trunk to support his body. Catching his breath for a few minutes to calm down and repress the last of the trembling, Yao Jun moved his thoughts towards the little gate located at his heart.

It looked like a simple and unadorned gate made out of heavy black stones, almost no different from how it looked before. But Yao Jun noticed a small change on the edge of the gate, a small mark in the form of a purple tiger had appeared at the edge of the gate, looking exceedingly life like.

As Yao Jun moved his thoughts closer towards the gate in an attempt to inspect the mark, the gate suddenly opened. A bright white light flashed as the gate opened and Yao Jun felt his entire consciousness dragged into the gate by that white light.

When the white light disappeared, Yao Jun was shocked to find himself standing atop a large mountain, overlooking a small wilderness. From where he stood, he could see that the wilderness was only around five kilometers in size, consisting of only a large forest and the mountain he stood on.

Turning around, Yao Jun saw that the gate was located right behind him, looming over the wilderness from the top of the mountain. Yao Jun turned his gaze back upon the wilderness below him, thinking how he should get down from the mountain to check out the wilderness.

Just as the thought flashed past his mind, he found the space around him distorting, bringing with it a nauseating feeling. After the nauseating feeling stopped, Yao Jun found himself suddenly standing in that very wilderness.

“Controlled through thought?” Yao Jun murmured to himself and tried it again, imagining himself standing atop the mountain once more. Just as he thought of it, space distorted once more and he appeared on the mountaintop.

Seeing that his idea was right, Yao Jun tried something else. He imagined himself meeting whatever lived in the wilderness and as the thought passed through his head, space distorted and Yao Jun disappeared.

Once he re-appeared, Yao Jun was standing in a small clearing in the large forest. In front of Yao Jun was a tiger covered in purple fur with black stripes, lightning dancing around it's fur. It was just a little bit shorter than Yao Jun and it's claws and fangs gleamed with a white light.

Looking at the tiger, Yao Jun was shocked, it looked exactly like the tiger he had just fought and killed. As he thought of this, a few ideas about what the gate and that purple ball of light really were flashed through Yao Jun's mind.

The tiger noticed Yao Jun's arrival and slowly sauntered over to him with a friendly look in it's eyes. As it reached his front, it laid down and rolled over, presenting it's stomach, looking like it wanted to be pet.

Yao Jun carefully crouched down and slowly put his hand on it's stomach. When his hand made contact with the fur, a bolt of lightning ran through his mind, bringing with it a large amount of information pertaining to the Demonic beast itself, as well as how to use his power.

His power had a very simple use, any Demonic beast he himself killed would be absorbed by the gate, allowing him to either summon the Demonic beast as a familiar, or utilize it's powers with his own body. If he killed two Demonic beasts of the same race, the first one he killed would devour the second one, empowering itself. The same would happen if he killed two Demonic beasts that were very similar.

The tiger prostrating itself before him was from a race called simply Lightning Tiger. They were a type of Demonic beast that could utilize the power of lightning, but since the one before him was still a young child, it could only use the power of lightning through it's physical body, but not send it out over larger distances.

As long as he used the gate to let the power of the Lightning Tiger flow through his body, he too could use the power of lightning, but to discharge lightning over larger distances would need him to strengthen the gate as well as the Lightning Tiger itself.

Yao Jun finished petting the tiger and returned to the mountaintop. Looking over the wilderness he couldn't help but feel a bit giddy. He had been training for seven years, and every single day he cursed himself for having such a useless power, but it seemed like it wasn't truly useless, he simply hadn't unlocked it's true power yet.

Looking at the large forest before him, a smile appeared on his face. Since this place was truly his Garden of Eden, why not just use that as it's name? Turning around, he pushed open the gate and disappeared from the large forest. It was time to return home and deliver the good news.