Boots
patreon
2.4 - Hunting Beasts
🕑 Added 2024-01-13 22:31:02 +0000 UTCOver the next few days, they made better time than He Yu would have thought possible before joining the Shrouded Peaks Sect. The signs of civilization became increasingly sparse until they disappeared altogether. By the fourth full day of travel, they were well and truly in the wilds—the vast stretches of land between settlements that were the domain of spirits and awakened beasts. That night they made camp just inside the protection of a formation stone that the sect maintained along the route.
“We should be deep enough in the wilds to begin hunting,” Li Heng said once they’d finished their meal for the evening. “If we can find enough Late Second Realm beasts, we should be able to get He Yu up to Middle Foundation before reaching our destination.”
“What if we don’t find any beasts with the appropriate aspects?” He Yu asked. The main benefit of beast cores was their potency—the higher the awakened beast’s advancement, the more potent the qi contained in their core. The main drawback was that awakened beasts were more strongly aligned with their nature, and their qi took on those aspects as soon as they awakened. This meant that if a cultivator could find a beast with aspects of qi that matched their own, it could be a huge benefit to their advancement.
Due to his cultivation of the Five Crescent Winds, He Yu’s qi was beginning to gain a wind aspect. The Cloud Emperor’s Heavenly Palace was supposed to cultivate wind, water, and heaven qi, but so far only the Sky Dragon’s Flight—a wind-aligned technique—carried an aspect of its own. Much of the art’s other techniques were locked behind further advancement in his cultivation of the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment, and deepening his cultivation of that technique required him to advance to Golden Core.
“Even if we don’t find beasts aligned to our cultivation, the potency of their qi will benefit us,” Yan Shirong said. “Besides, doesn’t your cultivation technique include a method for converting qi to the appropriate aspect?”
After a moment’s thought, He Yu said, “I suppose it does.” When he cultivated the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment, the unaspected qi that he absorbed from spirit stones gradually took on a wind aspect as he cycled it. Now that he thought of it, he couldn’t see a reason why the same wouldn’t happen with qi which had already taken on an aspect other than wind.
“It’ll be less efficient,” Li Heng said, “but the potency of a beast core will make up for it somewhat. Ideally, we would find beasts that matched the aspects of our qi, but so long as the aspects don’t oppose, it will still be a net gain. Between the aspects we all cultivate, any cores we find should be useful to at least one of us.”
“So that means we’ll be venturing off the road,” He Yu said with a mix of apprehension and excitement. The memory of losing a fight to a squirrel was on that still stung. Hunting beasts and harvesting their cores would be a sort of revenge, but they were outside the bounds—and the safety—of the sect.
“Of course,” Yan Shirong said with one of his dismissive sniffs.
Li Heng nodded. “With the three of us, anything of the Second Realm shouldn’t be a problem. Should we run into a Third Realm beast,” he shrugged before continuing, “it’ll be good practice for facing this King Hao.”
The next day they traveled until the sun was high overhead before leaving the protection of its formation stones behind them. This far from any settlements awakened beasts would be relatively common, but the vast majority would only be of the First Realm and of little use to a Second Realm cultivator. Their cores could be used in much the same way as a qi restoring medicine, but with far less potency—only worth the effort were one truly desperate. Signs of beasts were abundant, however, and it wasn’t long before they spotted something promising.
“What do you think?” Li Heng asked, arms folded across his chest as he looked at the track in the dirt. It was a long, sinuous disturbance in the soil and leaf-bed characteristic of a snake—only far larger than He Yu thought it had any right to be.
“I’d say it’s certainly big enough,” said Yan Shirong. “Easily Second Realm, maybe even Third. But not particularly useful.”
Li Heng hummed a tentative agreement while He Yu looked between the two of them. “Why not?” he finally asked when nobody volunteered an answer.
“Serpents typically aren’t aspected in a way that’s compatible with any of our own arts,” Yan Shirong said. “Not surprising in my case, since awakened beasts that cultivate shadow qi are exceedingly rare. Li Heng cultivates aspects of ice, so he’d get some use out of a beast core aligned to water. Poison is another common aspect in serpents, but none of us cultivate that aspect. As a subtype of metal, it could help with cultivating the White Mountain Body Art, but the efficiency would be terrible.”
It made sense. The White Mountain Body Art cultivated mountain qi, which was a combined aspect of earth and metal. So not only would the poison qi first have to be converted to metal, but it would then have to be absorbed without its corresponding earth phase. In order to be converted into mountain qi, the earth would have to come from somewhere. Without a suitable source of earth qi at hand, that meant yet another conversion. Terrible efficiency was almost an understatement.
“The core from a beast that size would fetch a good price, even if it were only Second Realm,” Li Heng mused. “Then there’s the meat and the skin. Sell the scales, consume the meat.”
“We should go after it,” He Yu said. The mere mention of the meat made his mouth water a bit. Stories often spoke of cultivators consuming the meat of powerful awakened beasts as a means to grow stronger. Although his training had put on more muscle than he’d ever had in his life, he was well aware that he was far weaker than his friends except maybe Yan Shirong in pure physical strength.
“I agree,” Li Heng said.
Yan Shirong nodded a moment later. “At the very least the price we get for core and skin will be enough to buy some spirit stones. I’m not opposed to some snake stew, either.”
With the agreement unanimous, He Yu activated the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment. While the cultivation technique of his principal art didn’t function as a true perception technique, the jade slip described it as allowing him to “see the truth of things.” He hadn’t thought much of the ambiguous wording at first, but it had shown its worth during his duel with Sha Xiang several weeks prior. Since then, he’d explored its uses and had found that it could be stretched to a significant degree.
Knowledge flooded into him. “Early Third Realm,” he said, before gazing off to the dense vegetation a short distance from the road. “It went that way.”
“Did you get anything about which aspects it cultivates?” Li Heng asked.
He Yu shook his head. “Not without actually seeing it. Hopefully I’ll be able to eventually.”
“Useful technique, even still,” Yan Shirong noted with an arched eyebrow. “I’d say I was almost envious.”
“You should be,” Li Heng said with a grin. “Sect Brother He was given his art by Elder Cai himself.”
Yan Shirong’s second eyebrow joined the first. “How fortunate of you,” he said, his envy truly palpable now.
“Well, Elder Cai did say that it was more for Zhang Lifen’s benefit than for mine,” He Yu admitted.
“Make yourself useful and find that serpent,” Li Heng said, ending any further discussion about He Yu’s art.
Yan Shirong grumbled about the unnecessary expense of his qi a bit but produced one of his constructs regardless. This one was shaped like a rat, and once he’d infused it with the shadow qi that animated it, he sent it off in the direction He Yu had indicated.
Following the construct, the three of them headed off. The dense woodline held denser undergrowth. Despite the late season, it was warm now that they’d left the Shrouded Peaks’ misty slopes, the cool brought by the canopy shade was a welcome change from the heat and dust of the road. Would have been even more welcome had the foliage not held the promise of an awakened serpent of the Third Realm.
As they pushed further away from the road, Yan Shirong softly directed He Yu and Li Heng. Occasionally He Yu caught glimpses of the serpent’s track through the undergrowth. The sheer size of it made him a bit nervous, and he was glad that he’d the other two along. He also kept the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment active as they followed their prey. It wouldn’t do to be surprised by a sudden strike coming unseen from the shadows, and he hoped the technique would at the very least provide an early warning.
The tangle of vines and ferns and trees made the going difficult, even for three cultivators. The bursting plant life all around them lent a wood aspect to the qi in the area which only became more dense the deeper they went. He Yu glanced down and examined another trace of the serpent with the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment, and for the first time caught a trace of oozing poison in the serpent’s passage.
“It’s close,” he said softly. “Poison qi in the track.”
Li Heng grimaced and summoned his jian from within his storage treasure. “I’d hoped for something a bit less formidable.”
With a nod of agreement, He Yu produced his guandao. As the weapon fell into his hand, the distant expression that indicated Yan Shirong was looking through the eyes of his construct faded. “Ready yourselves,” he said, shadowy daggers forming in the air around him as he activated his combat techniques.
The triangular head of a serpent, nearly as long as He Yu was tall, rose from the undergrowth. The serpent was covered in gleaming emerald scales, and a forked tongue flicked out briefly as it regarded the three of them with a frightening intelligence visible in its slit-pupiled golden eyes. Its body coiled behind it, giving it all the readiness it needed to strike.
“So,” it said in a sibilant hiss, “prey finds us.”
