After a few more conversations, Xia decided to help Riyue gain the Golden Lotus as thanks for the medicine. Of course, she was also going there to pick up some Golden Lotus as well, so it would be more appropriate to call it a cooperation rather than help.


    Riyue agreed since he decided to trust Xia a little bit, considering her personality. As he has quite a long experience, he is confident in his people-judging skills while still retaining a healthy amount of doubt.


    ‘At the very least, she is trustworthy currently, as long as I don’t tell her about the horn I have.’


    One of the Qilin’s Horn powers is the ability to conceal its Qi Presence to a certain extent. That’s the reason why he had not been attacked by anyone greedy for the strong ingredient. Honestly, Riyue doubted it had that kind of ability originally and suspected it to be some kind of blessing from the Qilin.


    And if he had to reveal it in an emergency, he would just say it is some kind of family heirloom and make it vague, saying that he only knew of its powers to scare other monsters. Since he would be concealing its Qi powers, it would only look like a somewhat good heritage, not inciting greed that overwhelms Xia’s values.


    Riyue then remembered that he had forgotten to ask one simple question.


    “Come to think of it, why are you here anyways?”


    “To train by fighting against the monsters here and to master more of my martial arts.”


    ‘Understandable.’


    As they were still on the lower side of the mountain, it would still be a long time before they reached the top. They had to be careful as well to avoid meeting the strong monsters. Of course, now that he had Xia’s temporary cooperation, it would be fine to be a bit more reckless than usual.


    “Enemy spotted,” Xia said as she unsheathed her dagger.


    Riyue looked in the direction of her sight and saw a massive creature taller than 2 meters. It had a wooden club and huge muscular arms, a flabby stomach, and two protruding teeth from the bottom of its mouth.


    ‘That’s an orc!’


    The weakest of orcs are Stage 2 monsters, while the stronger ones are in Stage 3 or even Stage 4.


    ‘Fortunately, that guy doesn’t seem like a Stage 4, but it doesn’t seem as weak as a Stage 2 either.’


    Riyue then met Xia’s eyes and nodded. Immediately after that, Xia snuck around the trees of the forest, getting closer and closer to the orc. Riyue also did the same but stayed at a farther distance than her. It was because he was a lot weaker, so to be safe, he would only attack after Xia got the orc’s attention.


    Xia then put her back against the tree and watched the orc. The unsuspecting orc looked around and twitched its nose as if it found something and roared before rampaging. However, after it discovered nobody, it continued doing its own thing with slumped shoulders.


    After the orc turned its back, Xia’s dagger glowed with a green radiance before she swung her dagger at the orc’s direction, creating a gust of wind that cut through the trees on its path. The orc turned around again, its eyes widened, and swung the club at the wind. However, the wind effortlessly cut through the club and sliced the orc’s right arm.


    “Groarr!”


    The orc roared in anger and pain, and Riyue immediately came out, went to the orc’s back, and spun to gain momentum before kicking the back of the orc’s knee with the convergence of Sun and Moon Qi on it. The orc’s body immediately crumbled down, and by that point, Xia was already in front as she decapitated the orc’s head.


    Seeing the easy win against a Stage 3 made Riyue think for a moment.


    ‘Though the difference in stages is almost absolute, it doesn’t mean that the ones from the lower stages could not win against the higher ones, especially so in the lower stages of 1 to 3... Add things like surprise attacks, and strategies then it would be almost manageable to handle someone a stage higher. Of course, in the higher stages things would be different.''The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    Riyue sliced up the orc’s body before getting the orc’s Qi Core out and gave it to Xia. After all, she was the biggest contributor, and Riyue was only interested in the Golden Lotus. Xia accepted the orc’s Qi Core, and they went on their way. Due to Xia, who Riyue suspected to be a Stage 3 Practitioner, the journey to the top was very smooth.


    Since the monsters of the higher stages seldom went out of their territory, it was easy to avoid them. As for the ones in the lower stages that Riyue would originally have trouble with, they were easily dealt with by Xia.


    ‘I’ve never been carried before, but to think that it was this great of a feeling…’


    “We are about to arrive at the mountain peak, but since it’s a dangerous place, let’s rest somewhere else first to recover our Qi,” Riyue said. It was a lot faster than Riyue expected due to Xia’s strength.


    Xia nodded and pointed at a certain cave nearby.


    “Then let’s sleep there. It looks comfy.”


    ‘In what way? I only see protruding rocks.’


    “Sure.” Riyue smiled before they both went inside and set up each of their own sleeping quarters. Xia set her own sleeping straw bedroll while Riyue simply slept on the hard ground. He was already quite used to sleeping on hard ground, which is why he didn’t bother bringing any bedrolls.


    ‘But damn, being used to it and liking it is a different thing altogether. Next time I will bring one.’


    Both Riyue and Xia slept in turns, and after Riyue rested for about two hours in the real world and eight hours in the Training Room, he made Xia sleep for eight hours straight before they set off on their journey again. He could see Xia frown as she looked at him from head to toe as they went on their journey.


    “Are you really fine?”


    “With what?”


    “Sleeping for two hours.”


    “It’s fine. I have a special condition that allows me to sleep for only two hours a day.”


    “Lies.”


    ''It''s not though? It''s like 90% the truth.''


    Xia then looked down; somehow, she looked a bit sad.


    “Perhaps it’s because you still do not trust me?”


    ‘Isn’t that obvious for someone I just met yesterday? But I really got eight hours of sleep.’


    As Riyue was about to explain in a way that doesn’t expose the status screen, the ground suddenly shook as if a massive bomb landed right next to them. Riyue fell to the floor and crashed into a nearby tree, while Xia managed to nimbly land on the ground after being tossed into the air. Riyue’s widened eyes looked over the surroundings, trying his hardest to process what had just happened.


    Immediately after that, he heard a wild roar resonate throughout the mountains, with a pressure that made Riyue shrink in fear, as his body trembled and his stomach churned. Xia’s face also turned pale, and they both didn’t dare to move in the face of that roar.


    Riyue could also hear the chaos ensuing: roars of many fearful monsters, the crashing of humongous amounts of Qi that shook the ground again and again, as well as a shrill laughter that brought chills to Riyue’s spine.


    It was only after a few minutes that the ground had ceased to shake and the humongous Qi disappeared. Only then did Riyue have the capability to think about what the hell had just happened.


    ‘That roar and the presence behind it… It felt all too familiar to the presence of the Qilin back then, maybe just a bit weaker…’


    However, what’s more important was the source of that shrill laughter that echoed throughout the surroundings, and the Qi behind it. It was a Qi of a monster and the laughter of a human… Only one type of existence held those contradictory traits together.


    “Yuan, did you feel that?” Xia said, her face pale and body trembling, a far cry from her usual self. Riyue nodded and muttered.


    “A demon, a very strong one at that.”


    Xia nodded.


    Demons, existences who were originally humans, sacrificed their humanity for power by cultivating their abilities using the Demonic Method, a method that is the complete opposite of the Orthodox Method, which aims to make one’s Qi as pure as possible. Instead, demons aim to absorb as much Impure Qi as possible to forcefully advance through the stages. Because most of them have extremely impure Qi, their personalities gradually change as well, their humanity reduced, and they begin to resemble monsters more than humans.


    They are true enemies of mankind, and the majority of them hail from the Demonic Sect. Since they are a declining sect due to constant targeting from all countries and basically the whole world, their activities slowly ceased to nonexistence. Until recently, their activities started up again, growing to a frighteningly high degree where even the destruction of the original Riyue’s family was suspected to be the work of demons.


    ‘I don’t know what the hell a demon is doing here, but judging by the silence, the Divine Beast must’ve defeated that strong demon.’


    The reason why Riyue didn’t think otherwise was because he had experienced the strength of a Divine Beast firsthand with the Qilin. Not to mention, the Divine Beast of the Qian Yang Mountain is quite popular and hailed as the King of the Qian Yang Mountain Range. Its strength is a bit more well-known than the Qilin, and judging from the roar, the Divine Beast is at least a Stage 9, meaning it is hard for it to lose to even a strong demon. Therefore, it should be safe to go up, as long as they waited for a while—for a day or two.


    Riyue didn’t want to go down without getting the Golden Lotus after all this trouble, especially when he was right before the peak. However, whether down or up, it seems like both options would be troublesome.


    “Yuan… Enemy spotted. Or should I say, enemies!”


    Thanks to the chaos, many monsters had run around the entire mountain, even the stronger ones. Among the places those monsters ran away to, the place they were currently in was, of course, included.


    ‘Goblins, orcs, and… a Dryad… A Stage 4 monster.’


    Riyue sighed.


    ‘Fuck my luck.’