It took a few moments for the shock to wear off and for his situation to sink but eventually Xu Long let out a deep sigh and accepted his fate. He then looked down at Xu Xing who was looking a little worried about this situation. “It’s alright Xiao Xing, this is just another challenge to overcome, come on lets eat before this poison really sets in.”
Xu Long emptied the node on the branch in front of him and quickly poured the water and dissolved Xu Xing’s tea pill before popping one of his new supplements into his mouth and swallowing it. After he had cleaned up he started to think about this task that lay ahead of him and what would be the best way to handle it, he could feel himself getting drowsy and knew that he didn’t have a lot of time. As he was thinking he looked down at Xu Xing and had an idea, it wasn’t a great idea but at this point he couldn’t let perfect become the enemy of good.
“Xiao Xing i am going to need your help with this task.” This declaration got her attention and pulled her out of her usual focus whilst drinking her tea. “When you are finished, I am going to start trying to meditate and fall asleep lightly enough that I can stay sitting upright and not fall off this branch. What I need you to do is sit in my lap and bite my fingers if you see me moving in any way that would result in my untimely death. Can you do that?”
She yipped in confirmation and then went straight back to her bowl. Xu Long had to smile but he quickly closed his eyes and started to cycle his qi in the manner that the Clear Spring technique called for in an effort to stave off the sleepiness that he felt rising. When he felt Xu Xing climb onto his lap and give his hand a nip he knew it was time, he kept his qi cycling almost without conscious effort as he concentrated on locking his body in place. His back was up against the tree trunk, his legs folded in the lotus position, his hands resting in his lap next to his emergency wake up. He was as ready as he was ever going to be, so he concentrated on succumbing to only a fraction of his ever mounting tiredness, keeping a conscious effort to not fall into a deep sleep in which he would relinquish control of his body, it was a difficult process.
When he woke up what he assumed was a few hours later given that he could feel the sun was still up yet it was much colder and thus later in the day, he disregarded his instinctive impressions of the time of day and concentrated on maintaining a calm mind and replicating his prior success, as he cycled his cultivation technique he concentrated on keeping his body static and yet relaxed and then slowly allowed a little more of his sleepiness to take hold. ‘This iss going to be a long night.’
He awoke to distant bird song and the characteristic thawing of the night's chill that indicated dawn had arrived, he was feeling quite well rested despite having woken from his light sleep like clockwork every couple of hours through the night. Eventually it became easy for him to roll into his next sleep cycle from the previous as he meditated and cycled the Clear Spring technique.
He briefly used the function of his blindfold to check on his furry friend, when he did Xu Long was greeted with a very tired looking Xu Xing looking at him, when he saw that she had endured an entire night of just watching him to ensure he didn’t fall out of their perch his heart warmed and he smiled lovingly at her.
“Thank you Xiao Xing, that can’t have been an easy night for you, but I am grateful and was reassured knowing that my life was being safeguarded by you.” He scratched her behind the ear before lifting her up and placing her into the front of his robes while he turning off his blindfold. “You can sleep now, it is my turn to protect you.”
The result was almost immediate, he felt the small spirit fox in the front of his robe go limp and fall asleep. He smiled and then stood up, feeling the chill that almost certainly meant that the sun had likely not even crested the horizon. Knowing it would be difficult for him to discern its position without feeling its direct heat, Xu Long began to descend the large tree that had been his place of respite in order to avail himself of his other options.
When he reached the forest floor he scanned his vicinity looking for moss on the trees and the rocks so he could use Old Wu’s trick until the sun was further up and he could use that to confirm his bearings. After he had found the moss he was looking for and was about to set out he felt something to his left, something that he thought maybe actively trying to hide itself, which incidentally only made it stand out more to Xu Long’s qi sight.
It was crouched low to the ground, it looked rather lithe to him, his guess was a spirit beast of the stealthy variety considering how it was acting. Xu Long unsheathed his sword in one fluid motion and turned to face the beast, letting it know that it had been found. He could have run, could have pretended he didn’t know it was there and sprung a trap, but he didn’t want to do any of that, he was full of anticipation for his first actual fight against a spirit beast.
As he was about to take a step forward to goad the beast into combat, it ran…it ran quickly too. Xu Long just stood there at a loss for a few moments, before he sighed and sheathed his sword.
“Well, maybe we will have better luck next time.” He said to Xu Xing as he looked down at her, all he received in return was her quiet rhythmic breathing, it seemed she had slept through the whole thing. Shaking his head and letting out a small chuckle, Xu Long reorientated himself and then took off to the west at a moderate pace, looking to pace himself and ensure that he was ready for any beasts that he came across that actually wanted to fight.
It took far longer than he hoped for that to eventuate, he had been on the move for hours, the sun had well and truly risen and Xu Long was moving through the forest with it at his back when he heard a very guttural growl. He stopped immediately on a thick tree root that he was about to launch off of, when he scanned his surroundings more thoroughly than was possible when he was running along he noticed it rather quickly, a very large bundle of what appeared to be earth qi, but not, it was in front of him but a little further north. Judging by the hostile noises it was making, this one was more keen for a fight than his previous run in.
Xu Long unsheathed his sword with a huge smile on his face. Although he had never actually faced a spirit beast in combat, he had discussed it with Old Wu extensively and it was determined that Xu Long’s natural proclivity to avoid being hit and focus on precision strikes would serve him well against spirit beasts, he would however, still have to adjust his style considerably. Against Old Wu and his assortment of weapons and then just his spear, Xu Long would rely heavily on the redirection of incoming blows and the precise timings and movements that facilitated such. That would not be very effective against spirit beasts, especially extremely large ones, he would have to adapt and evolve his style, he couldn’t wait to get started.
Standing on the root and waiting while he analyzed what he could make out from this distance, Xu Long heard the guttural growls turning into enraged squeals, at which point he knew that he was dealing with a spirit beast of the boar variety and it certainly appeared that this boar both knew he was there and was not happy about it. After it let its displeasure be known it started charging in Xu Long's direction.
Stolen story; please report.
Still with a smile on his face Xu Long started to get a clearer picture of the boar the closer it came to him, the rough blob of what appeared to be earth qi cleared up and the outline of the creature came into sharp relief. It was very large indeed, it stood at least as tall as Xu Long even on four legs and judging by the trees it was shrugging off as it charged in a straight line at him, it was plenty strong and robust as well.
With his qi sight Xu Long could see that the boar’s qi was concentrated heavily around its skin, except for a few strategic places around its body, the most accessible of which was the eyes. It certainly seemed like this spirit beast was going to require a very precise approach. Considering that this was his first spirit beast battle, despite his excitement, Xu Long decided to play it safe, he would be passive and react to the actions of the boar. Not that there was a whole lot to react to, if the start of this battle was anything to go by, the boar’s repertoire consisted of running into things at speed and throwing its weight and tusks around.
Xu Long stood and waited for the boar’s charge until the last possible second, just as he was about to be skewered or crushed by the charging boar he moved to his right, placing his foot on a gnarled protrusion of the root he was standing on and used it to push off and up into air going in the opposite direction. Time seemed to slow down, Xu Long felt like he was suspended in the air, his limbs were splayed out and his chest was facing the ground as he concentrated on the boar that was being carried by its momentum straight under him. When the boar’s head reached the point that it was in line with Xu Long, his sword arm blurred as his sword lashed out like a viper in a devastatingly fast thrust into what he perceived to be and hoped was the eye of the boar, his sword entered at least half way down the blade and was then retracted just as fast as it was inserted lest his sword get stuck in the boar that was barreling past him full of momentum.
The boar continued on its way as Xu Long was casually scanning his environment for the best place for him to land, considering the boar had just trampled through the root he was standing on. He quickly made a decision and kicked off the tree that he had flung himself towards, aiming to land safely in the cleared path that the boar had just created. Before his feet had even touched the ground, however, there was a huge crashing sound as the boar's legs gave out from under him.
Xu Long was fairly certain that the beast was dead, considering its qi appeared to be dissipating rather than moving with a sense of purpose, even if that purpose did look crude to Xu Long’s senses. He took a deep breath to calm his heart after that adrenaline filled few seconds and then started walking towards his first spirit beast kill.
“Well, that was rather anticlimactic wasn’t it?”
Not actually expecting a reply from Xu Xing who had somehow managed to sleep through that whole ordeal, Xu Long smiled and gently pet her head as he approached the almost certainly dead boar. He was walking along beside it and ran his hand along the coarse fur that was caked in hard clumps of dirt, until he reached the head. When he reached the head of the beast and was standing there solemnly in front of his first kill, he decided that now would be an appropriate time to use his blindfold. He used as small an amount of qi as he could manage to activate its ability and the darkness that his blindfold inflicted on him blinked out of existence almost instantly and in its place was the forest he had been running around in for the last day. Lying on the ground right in front of him was quite the sight, it was an Earth Boar, if his mother’s lessons were to be believed, the weakest and most numerous spirit beast of the boar variety in the entire realm, not the most auspicious of first kills but one shouldn’t be greedy.
Quickly inspecting the entry point of his sword thrust, so as not to waste his blindfold’s charge, and finding it dead center of the rather crusty looking eye of the beast, Xu Long nodded his head and welcomed the darkness back. He took a deep breath and looked off to the west of the forest, his path forward.
“Better get back to it.”
A few minutes after Xu Long had resumed his journey an old bearded lump of muscle of a man appeared as if out of nowhere in front of the dead boar, inspecting it with a glance.
“Alright kid, looks like I am going to have to push you further than I thought.” He mumbled to himself while shaking his head thinking about what he had just witnessed. That Earth Boar was supposed to provide a decent challenge to a freshly minted cultivator who didn’t even have any arts to speak of, but the kid had dispatched it in a single move, he didn’t even break a sweat. He looked to the west before disappearing just as quickly as he had appeared.
Xu Long, blissfully unaware he was being monitored, was once again making his way west at a measured pace, although the rate he was running into spirit beasts was abysmal. The monotony of the relentless travel and sparse spirit beasts encounters was threatening to overwhelm Xu Long with boredom, so like most situations such as this in his life he simply turned it into a training exercise. In this case he was trying his hardest to survey his surroundings for moss on the trees and rocks that he was passing without slowing down.
The task, it turned out, was a lot more difficult than it sounded when he thought it up. It turned out that one of the biggest advantages that the eyes had over feeling the qi around you was range, at least presently anyway. Sure, if one were running at the speed Xu Long was through a forest you may also have difficulty identifying small details in the landscape that was passing you by at speed. However, by looking further ahead you could concentrate on one particular patch of forest for longer and could thus reasonably pick out details like moss on the trees that you are passing with some success.
While Xu Long’s qi ‘sight’ was not dependent on his eyes and thus worked in all directions, the range was not conducive to such a solution, and the only reasonable solution to such range issues was to walk further down the path of cultivation. Thus Xu Long found himself having to compromise, he would take his fuzzy picture of the landscape that he was running through and then make an educated guess as to the presence of moss on the surrounding trees and rocks and where exactly it was, then he would briefly stop his run to confirm his guess. It was predictably tedious, and yet rewarding all the same, by the end of his first day he had more results than he was expecting when he began. The times he would stop and confirm his guesses and find himself correct grew higher and higher as the day progressed.
His constant tracking of the surrounding moss placement coupled with the position of the sun meant that he stayed on his general course quite handily and the fact that he had not come across another spirit beast that did not run from him meant he had made it a decent distance by the time Xu Xing stirred from her deep slumber. When Xu Long heard her insistent yip he knew that it was time to stop for what amounted to a meal for the two of them.
After scanning his surroundings for a few moments, Xu Long selected a tree that seemed promising and pointed it out to Xu Xing who led him up the multitude of branches with much gusto. By the time they had arrived at a suitable branch and Xu Long had taken his place with his back to the trunk, he could feel the impatience radiating off his little spirit fox friend. With a small smile he materialized the pills and accoutrement and quickly sorted out Xu Xing's tea, lest she rebel at his tardiness and let him fall out of the tree in the night. When he was finished with her tea and had a moment to breathe, he realized just how hungry he was after two solid days without food, a lot of it spent running through a forest. Placing his supplement pill in his mouth and swallowing, Xu Long was struck by a thought.
‘That is so deeply unsatisfying.’