《A God in a Xianxia world》


 Author Note

    Just a forewarning, this is my first piece of writing.


    The first 5 chapters are more of a prologue than anything else and it has a lot of information dumps that don''t actually add much to the story. I like to think that after this, the quality of my writing improved, however, I do also have some information dumps onthebackground and the setting.


    Because I was busy with introducing new characters and such, this novel takes a little longer to get into the action but afterwards I plan for it to go at a relatively fast pace with a decent amount of action.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Also, to finish this off, the beginning chapters aren''t as long and I think I''m averaging somewhere in the ball park of 1300 words per chapter.


    Well, thanks for reading and I''m hoping that as the story goes on I''ll continue to improve as a writer.


    P.S I''m primarily posting/editing on Wattpad but i heard that this site is better for fantasy stuff.


    P.P.S Sorry for the bad grammar. Not so great with commas and apostrophes.

 Chapter 1 - Godhood

    This is a story about Tom. Who is Tom you ask. Tom is a God. He is also extremely bored. To understand his boredom you first need to understand a little about Godhood, the Grand Cosmos and his position in it.


    Although Tom is a God, not all Gods are created equal. You see, Tom, is a minor God. In the Grand Cosmos and the society of the Heavens, Gods have their own hierarchy and levels of power. These are broadly sorted into the categories of Ancient Ones, Old Gods, Full Gods, Minor Gods and Demigods.


    Ancient Ones, which are fewest in number, are those that have existed since the beginning of the Grand Cosmos, and the beginning of known time for all those within it. However, as the Ancient Ones all came into being at the same time and none have openly spoken about their early years, it is theorised by the younger generations that the Grand Cosmos existed for an unknowable time beforehand and they were born from it as part of some natural phenomena. On the other hand, there are also those that theorise that there is a plane of existence beyond that of the Grand Cosmos, from which the Ancient Ones originally came from or, from which; the Grand Cosmos was originally created. However, as the Ancient Ones themselves have not spoken on this matter and the first Old God only came into being many myr after the Ancient Ones appeared, the society of the Heavens and the Great council of the Gods can only speculate about the matter.


    Although the Ancient Ones are the undeniable powers of the Grand Cosmos, which none can thwart, they rarely appear within heavenly society or the Heavenly Plane where the society resides. Due to this, amongst all the Gods, the old Gods hold the most functional power within heavenly society, having created the council of Elders and later the Great council, which set the governing rules of the Grand Cosmos and Heavenly society. All of the Old Gods are those that ascended to Godhood from the first worlds and planes that the Ancient Ones created. Having been the first group of Gods to ascend from mortal living beings, as opposed to the Ancient Ones which merely came into being, they came together and formed the Heavenly society. Functionally, the Old Gods don''t differ much from Full Gods, but, the advantage of being older granted them both seniority and a longer period of time to comprehend the Grand Cosmos, thus allowing themselves to become stronger.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    Full Gods occupy a significant position in their separation from Old Gods and Minor Gods. Full Gods are separated from Old Gods by virtue of the fact that they ascended after the Old Gods formed the Heavenly society and the first council, now known as the council of Elders. Whereas Old Gods make up the council of Elders, Full Gods occupy the 1200 positions of the Great council, though not all Full Gods have a position on the council due to its size being limited. Full Gods are ascended from the first worlds and planes, the worlds of Old Gods or the worlds of other Full Gods. To date, no Full God has directly ascended into being a Full God from the worlds and planes of Minor Gods and Demigods. However, there are some beings that have ascended as Demigods or Minor Gods from the worlds of Minor Gods and then went on to become a Full God through their comprehension of the Grand Cosmos.


    Finally, this brings us to Minor Gods, and to Tom. The difference between Minor Gods and those of higher rank is determined solely on one basis. This basis is the ability to create new life. Yes, Tom is a Minor God. He ascended to Godhood and after several millennia he has created his own planet. However, this planet is completely devoid of life. Right now Tom has two options. The first is to meditate on the profundity of the Grand Cosmos and attempt to reach the rank of a Full God, an arduous and longwinded task that could take days or aeons, though if the past few millennia told Tom anything it''s that it would be closer to the latter than the former. The second is to ask another God to help him, preferably a Full God or higher as the most assistance Minor Gods could give is to transfer living beings from their worlds over. However, there is a great deal of complexity in creating a functional ecosystem on a planet and the sheer quantity of living organisms that would have to be transferred brought about both practical and ethical issues. What''s more, this hardly allowed for any originality in the world. Tom didn''t want his planet to be just another run of the mill world. He wanted to add some of his own originality and flare.


    Tom whilst looking down on his world; came to from his inner ponderings, raised his head, sighed and softly said out loud ''I guess I''ll have to do that then''.


    Tom stretched his body, an unnecessary action for a God though excusable for one who was relatively newly ascended, opened up a portal and stepped through.

 Chapter 2 - Getting Help

    Tom exited out from the portal into the Heavenly Realm. The Heavenly Realm was both the location with the greatest concentration of the Cosmos''s energies and where the heavenly society and the two councils situated themselves.


    Tom found himself floating in mid-air above green pastures. All around was beautiful scenic imagery of a rural landscape. In one direction were rolling hills and gentle streams and in the other was a lush meadow that leads to an open and well-lit deciduous forest. This was the outer world of the heavenly realm.


    Tom''s body flickered and disappeared, reappearing in front of a cottage home a great distance from his starting position. This home belonged to perhaps the only person within heavenly society that Tom could call a friend. This was the home of a Full God that went by the name of Jacob.


    Just after he arrived, Jacob suddenly appeared in front of the cottage to greet Tom. Tom was quite happy at this turn of events, after all, there was no guarantee that Jacob would be in the Heavenly Realm. Though the only other places he was likely to be would be at one of his celestial viewing platforms overlooking his different worlds, Tom was glad to have guessed correctly and saved making a hassling search.


    "Well hello, whatever brings you here? I was under the impression that you were busy with world building. You seemed quite enthusiastic about the prospect too" Said Jacob joyfully.


    "It''s good to see you too" replied Tom.


    "But as to why I''m here, it seems I''m in need of your help"


    "Help with what?" Jacob asked questioningly.


    "Help with my world. I''ve built it, but, there''s a severe deficiency of life"


    "So, it''s that. I guess you would need help for that" said Jacob as the corners of his lips rose into a smirk. "Unfortunately that seems like it would it would be quite the hassle. Besides, can''t you just ask the God that made the world you''re from?"


    Hearing this, Tom''s mouth twitched in irritation and a slight feeling of depression grew in his heart. "Unfortunately that won''t be possible. Just after I ascended and met them for the first time, we had a ... disagreement of sorts. That''s why I''ve never returned to my original world, nor why you''ll ever see me in their company".You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    "I see" Jacob answered in an understanding manner. "So, that''s why you need me" he proceeded to say with a smug attitude.


    "Aargh, are you going to help me or not?" Tom frustratingly asked.


    Jacob sighed and said "As much as I''d like to help you, I really don''t particularly want to. Although I''m a Full God, creating new life is still a taxing experience for me. What''s more, getting the balance right is always a tricky business. It usually takes several attempts to get it right and I''ve just got my new world up and running recently. I''d like to observe it for a few more millennia first before I start another large project. Besides, since you ascended from a world with mana and I ascended from a world with qi, the life I create won''t be suited to sensing and comprehending the energy of mana. In which case I''d have to spend even more time gathering and fusing qi into your world and its'' surrounding. It''s just not really practical."


    In the Grand Cosmos, everything that is and can be is due to Cosmic energy. From this energy other energies are derived and these energies can be comprehended in order to ascend into Godhood. The myriad energies that can be derived from Cosmic energy fall under four main categories from which other energies can be derived. These categories of energy are; Heavenly, Essence, Primal and Spectral energies. Furthermore, whereas mana is derived from Essence energy, qi is derived from Primal energy. So, although Jacob is a Full God, since he has yet to comprehend Essence or any of the energies that can be derived from it, he is unable to create life that is geared towards the sensing and absorption of mana and Essence.


    Tom sighed listening to this. Although he had some awareness of Jacob''s powers he was not aware of everything he could do, or his limits, making this endeavour of his to be fruitless. Exasperated at how the course of events was turning out the only thing Tom could do was to once again ask if there was any way Jacob could help him with his world. Since Tom was only a Minor God his only recourse was to ask others for help in this matter. Unfortunately, due to his relatively solitary nature, coupled with the fact that he hadn''t been a part of Heavenly society for a very long period of time, relatively speaking of course since he had actually ascended a couple hundred thousand years ago, Tom had very few connections in Heavenly society. Jacob truly was the only one he could rely on for this matter.


    "Actually, there is a way I may be able to help. Just because I can''t help personally doesn''t mean I can''t help at all. The God who created the world I come from is an Old God and we''re on rather good terms because most of the people that have ascended from my homeland have been Demigods. Ever since I achieved my status as a Full God we''ve been on friendly terms. If I go and speak to him he might be willing to help you, though it really depends on what mood he''s in."


    Hearing this Tom perked up again. The fires of hope were alit in his heart and his enthusiasm was rekindled. After some more brief discussion on the matter, Jacob opened a portal and they both stepped through it.

 Chapter 3 - Meeting Methis

    Tom and Jacob exited the portal in space above a vast world far larger than the Tom''s homeland. This was one of many planets belonging to the Old God Methis and also the homeland of Jacob.


    Tom glanced down at the world and had a sense of awe. Aside from its size, Tom could detect many attached pocket spaces and dense energies that permeated the world. Even if he couldn''t comprehend the Primal energies used to make the world, he could still detect the concentration of energy across the world. The whole set up was far more impressive than what he had come up with when building his own world. Even his homeland paled in comparison.


    After taking in the sight below Tom noticed Jacob smiling and beckoning him to follow. They moved at speeds inconceivable for mortals and within the blink of an eye they had arrived at the edge of Methis''s celestial viewing platform. This was a square landscape 1000 miles across, on which Methis had built a home to stay at and look down upon his world.


    Tom and Jacob slowed their speed and finally stopped after reaching the garden and courtyard of a brick mansion. Tom couldn''t help but note the vibrant mix of colours from the variety of flowering plants in the garden. It created a calm and light spring ambience, easing the doubts and nervousness that had started to develop in Tom''s heart. After all, although he was enthusiastic for this meeting and had no real reason to be worried, some gods could be very difficult to deal with, either because they were eccentric, arrogant or just plain unwelcoming of visitors. Tom had already experienced troubles with the creator of his home world and had also heard stories of gods fighting because of trespassing on each other''s territory and other trivial matters, so he knew well enough that he might not be well received.


    However, Jacob was right in that there would be no problem coming here and the scene in front of them had already allayed any doubts or fears. In the centre of the courtyard, sitting on in stone seat within a gazebo was a mature man that looked to be in his 50s. He was lean, had grey hair that had been styled back and was wearing a rather plain, dull blue shirt and brown trousers. He had of course already known that he had visitors the moment Jacob''s portal had opened within the solar system, yet he hadn''t moved from the spot and was currently drinking a steaming beverage of unknown design from a ceramic cup. Finally, he set down the cup on the table in front of him, turned his head towards Jacob in the sky and blandly said "Hello Jacob".Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    Taking Methis''s prompt Tom and Jacob both descended to the ground and Jacob began the conversation.


    Jacob saluted Methis by placing his right fist over his heart and then bowed saying "Thank you elder for receiving us"


    At the same time Tom also bowed his head down to signal his respect and said with his deep voice "Thank you for receiving me"


    Methis moved his eyes over the two of them, indicating for them to continue.


    "Right, well, I suppose it''s best to get straight to the heart of the matter" Jacob said and then gestured towards Tom. "Elder, this is my friend. He is only Minor God and although he ascended many millennia ago he does not yet have a planet with life. With no other options he came to me for help populating his world, but, he ascended through Essence energy and I ascended through Primal energy, so as you know, although I can create life for him, it will be nigh impossible for anything to ever ascend from the world."


    Although this may not seem like a big deal, to a god, having a world where nothing can ascend is almost like having a dead world. Sure, one can still enjoy watching the mortals and there are in fact many science worlds where the energies of the cosmos cannot be detected by the life there, however, these worlds are also more fragile and tend to be much less exciting. They can be especially infuriating for Minor Gods, who can''t really afford to interfere with them because of the risk of throwing the entire world irreparably out of balance. After all, since Minor Gods haven''t gained insights into the mysteries of life they can''t fix them if anything significant happens. Furthermore, there is a certain prestige that comes from having a world that someone has ascended from. Without it, it is unlikely that you''ll be respected in Heavenly society.


    "That being the case I was hoping you might be able to help because I know you have comprehended both Primal and Essence energies" Jacob finished saying in a respectful tone.


    Tom waited anxiously for Methis''s response and could see from the subtle changes in his face that he was mulling it over.


    "I see. I understand the situation." Methis said flatly.


    After waiting for a few moments Tom and Jacob could see that Methis didn''t intend to speak any further, so, Tom finally spoke up.


    "Good sir, I would be very grateful if you would help me. I''d be in your debt too"


    "Hmmm" was Methis''s response.


    "My just helping you doesn''t seem like it would bring any benefits to me. It would also be rather tedious... ... but perhaps. Yes perhaps if we did that."


    At Methis''s vocal musings Tom first felt dejected but perked up again upon hearing that there was a chance of getting Methis''s assistance.


    A smile grew on Methis''s face as he looked at Tom and said "I have an Idea".

 Chapter 4 - The Bet

    Methis, while looking at Tom and Jacob proceeded to explain his idea to them. This was something he''d done many times before and found quite a bit of enjoyment in it, however, it would be his first time doing it with a god.


    "I could very well go over to your planet and help you by creating life. I am very old and very experienced at doing it, but, I do not know you and there would be no benefit for me. So, I''ve thought of a way to get something out of this exchange. What I''m proposing for you is an opportunity in more ways than one. Let''s make a bet." said Methis very matter of factly.


    "A bet?" both Tom and Jacob started and inquired.


    "Yes, a bet. There is currently a Demigod on my planet. He has not yet transcended the bounds of this world and is unaware of heavenly society, the Grand Cosmos and me. He believes himself to be the most powerful being in existence. He is very arrogant. If this was all I still wouldn''t much care, but, ever since he''s become a Demigod he''s been destroying pocket spaces attached to the world. He has already destroyed three. The first two were small but the last one was rather big, so, I''d been planning to deal with him one way or another. The bet will be about this Demigod. I will give you 20 years in order to kill him. If you can do this within the time frame, I will help you finish your world."


    Hearing this both Tom and Jacob were shocked, firstly because Methis had asked Tom to kill someone as part of a bet and secondly because the target of that bet was a Demigod. They were especially confused about there being a 20 year time limit, but, most of all they were just thinking ''isn''t this too easy''.


    It must be understood that although the gap in strength between different gods could be massive, in terms of fighting prowess alone the strongest Minor Gods could still contend with some Old Gods and wipe the floor with many Full Gods. But, this wasn''t true when it came to Demigods. Even the weakest God could kill the strongest Demigod with ease. The difference in power was something that a Demigod just couldn''t cross. The main reason for this is that Demigods hadn''t fully ascended.


    When someone ascends into Godhood their body is converted into pure energy and then they can change their form however they want too, but, a Demigod is someone that still hasn''t or hasn''t fully thrown off the shackles of their original body. For a comparison of differences in strength, any god could go and fall asleep inside of a sun for a refreshing nap, but if a Demigod tried to do the same thing, they would die. Heck, a god could turn into a sun if they wanted to, but the same is not true for a Demigod.


    Because of the power difference and the fact that a Demigod is someone that hasn''t full ascended, they are looked down upon in Heavenly society with open disdain and derision. It is exasperated by the fact that even amongst Demigods there are vast differences in power. There are some strong Demigods that can transcend the boundaries of their world by themselves in order to enter Heavenly society; however, at the same time there are also weak ones that may never discover anything beyond their own planet and solar system without external assistance. There are strong Demigods that are able to build their own pocket spaces and even planets; though they would take longer to do so than a god, they wouldn''t be able to do it as well and they would have to transfer life from elsewhere to make it functional. However, at the same time, there are weak Demigods who can do no such things.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    It was because of these things that Tom and Jacob were so surprised. Killing the Demigod on Methis''s planet would be as easy as swatting a fly and yet Methis had even given a 20 years time limit. To Tom and Jacob it seemed rather nonsensical.


    "Is that all?" Tom tentatively asked.


    "You didn''t let me finish. To win this bet you are not allowed to use Essence energy, instead use have to use Primal energy."


    Hearing this, both Tom and Jacob felt uncomfortable. After ascending to Godhood people would find it very difficult to comprehend the other major forms of energy. When Tom first ascended and learned about the four major energies he spent a lot of time in order to try and fully comprehend them. Unfortunately, although he gained further insights into the profundity of Essence energy, he was unable to even touch upon the other major energies. Methis who had a deep understanding of three different types of energy was a rarity, but, that was just one of the advantages that came with age. The Old Gods had spent far longer than others comprehending the Grand Cosmos.


    "Aren''t those conditions a bit harsh elder? Many Gods spend millions and millions of years, billions of years, billions and billions of years and still might not be able to comprehend other energies. Is there not some other way or challenge you could issue?" asked Jacob tentatively.


    Methis smirked and answered "actually, there is a way to bypass those constraints. You may not know but it actually happens quite regularly, it''s just that it either works or it doesn''t. The method involves taking over a vessel that is suitable to cultivate a particular type of energy. For instance, you could take your friend to your world and either make a vessel for him or just let him take over the body of a living being on your world. Unfortunately there is often the problem of the vessel being unable to contain the very being of a God and will more often than not immediately explode when attempted."


    Tom and Jacob listened to this speech attentively. It was new information for the both of them and intrigued them greatly.


    "However, there are two ways around this. First is the construction of a sturdy vessel able to house the soul and being of a God, which I of course am capable of. Second, so as not to destroy the vessel, split part of your soul and consciousness off to inhabit the vessel. Unfortunately this second method also has problems as the mere connection with your main soul form can cause the vessel to break down. In order for the second method to be successful, as well as splitting off your consciousness, your main soul, your main form, Your Essence in your case, must become inactive, must be put into a sort of slumber."


    Listening to this, Tom and Jacob looked at each other. This was a lot to take in. These were things the two of them had never heard of before or even considered, but, it opened up new avenues of possibilities.


    "That being the case let us discuss how we are going to go about doing this" said Methis.

 Chapter 5 - The Decision

    "So, Jacob, what I propose is for your friend to go down to my planet, inhabit a vessel and cultivate Primal energy. Since my planet doesn''t have his species on it and just sending him down there with a brand new body that has zero cultivation would make the task a bit too difficult, we''ll use the second method and have him split his soul and take over an existing body. After all, if we use the first method he''d probably be dead within a week" explained Methis.


    Although Jacob was somewhat relieved that Methis was Giving Tom this opportunity, Tom was feeling a bit conflicted. He too was happy to have this opportunity, but, the conditions made him feel a bit uncomfortable. Splitting his consciousness from his Essence and putting his true form into slumber actually made him very vulnerable. Although he was hardly a powerful god, he was actually on the weak side; there was still a degree of difficulty for gods to kill other gods. If he were to go through with this, although there would be an Old God and his friend Jacob, a Full God, watching over his Essence, there would still be a certain sense of defencelessness. In that condition, even a Demigod might be able to kill him if they had enough time.


    What''s more, in the plan that Methis was proposing, Tom would be taking over the body of another organism, of another species. This was actually somewhat understandable because none of Methis''s worlds had the species that Tom was on them. Tom, unlike Jacob and Methis, wasn''t human. In fact his name wasn''t even Tom; he didn''t actually have a name. Tom is just the name he permanently adopted after he went through this whole escapade. Tom''s species was that of a carnivorous oceanic magic beast called a Liopleurodon. He was a 25m long sea creature, though he had sized down when traveling with Jacob, with a blue colouration to his skin, a long and powerful jaw and four strong paddle like fins.


    Seeing that Tom had gone quiet and was in deep thought, Jacob gleamed some understanding about the doubts that Tom was facing and decided to chime in with some words of encouragement.


    "This is the best opportunity you''ll get for this, you should take it. On my honour I swear to you I''ll protect your Essence and make sure it comes to no harm."


    Tom was pleased to hear this; Jacob really was a true friend. Nevertheless, the conditions of the bet were still weighing heavily on his mind. After about a minute of silence Tom finally gave his answer.


    "I''ll do it"


    Even though he had some concerns, ultimately he decided to go through with it. Although he found the whole situation to be frankly absurd, he would get nowhere if he didn''t take a leap of faith and get over any personal qualms he had about the situation. He would later reflect on this situation and be glad that he''d hardened his resolve and took the plunge. He would also later reflect back on this and realise that this first meeting with Methis was a clear indicator that Methis, like many other Gods, was somewhat of an eccentric individual.


    A slight smile appeared on Methis''s face hearing Tom''s answer. The smile seemed charming and harmless, but, for a moment, to Jacob, it seemed more like a smirk. Little did Jacob realise, he''d already gotten caught up in Methis''s kindly atmosphere and forgotten that Methis was doing this not to help a fellow God out of the kindness of his heart but rather for his own amusement. Because Jacob had been drawn in by Methis''s atmosphere he''d already put the absurdity of the bet and the situation out of mind.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    "Right then, let''s get on with it" Methis said cheerily.


    "The first thing I''ll have to do is find a suitable vessel. Hmm I don''t want to make this too difficult, I''ll have to give him at least a decent chance" Methis muttered to himself.


    Methis then closed his eyes and concentrated. He reopened them and a 3D image of his world was projected in front of the group of people. He then proceeded to stare deeply at this 3D image and continued to mutter softly under his breath.


    "A suitable vessel, one that hasn''t started cultivating yet. Best if the soul has already been dispersed so something freshly dead. Hmm, best if it''s human, more exciting to watch. Perhaps?... No, not that one, too easy. Not that one either, he''d have no chance. Perhaps? Yes, this one, this one should be perfect."


    Methis looked towards Tom with a smile on his face.


    "I believe I have the perfect vessel for you".


    Methis then proceeded to stand up and walk towards Tom. He reached out his hand, palm facing Tom''s head and asked "are you ready for this?"


    "As ready as I''ll ever be" replied Tom.


    "Good. This will be ... disorientating".


    As he said this, Methis moved forward placing his hand on Tom''s head. Energy started to surge from Methis''s hand and pervaded the surrounding atmosphere. A strong light shone from both Methis''s hand and eyes, causing Jacob to temporarily look away. The strange power that Methis was using was causing Tom''s consciousness to fade. Even though Methis was incredibly strong compared to Tom, the only way he was able to so quickly perform this operation was because Tom wasn''t putting up any defences and was letting him.


    Finally, the light started to dim until Methis and Tom could be seen clearly again. Of course a god didn''t need to use his eyes to see, so Jacob could perceive what was happening the entire time, but still, most gods have eyes and prefer to use them.


    "Is it done?" asked Jacob.


    "Not yet" said Methis, "I''m still isolating his consciousness"


    "And this is completely safe?" asked Jacob.


    "Mostly" said Methis in a dull voice.


    Jacob''s expression changed as he asked "what do you mean mostly?"


    "Well, even for Old Gods this sort of thing requires a bit of finesse, especially when doing it on another god. But rest assured I have performed this on other Gods before and countless mortal souls as well" said Methis.


    "Mortal souls?"


    "Yes. I initially did it to practice"


    "Initially. Then what about now? You still do it?" asked Jacob a bit confused.


    "ha ha" Methis chuckled to himself.


    "As I''m sure you''re well aware, there''s not exactly much for us to do up here, so, sometimes, I''ll take mortal souls from my different worlds and place them elsewhere. It can be fun to watch them adapt to a new world. Why do you think I''m watching this world at the moment and not any of the others?"


    Jacob''s eyes widened in shock and he said "Then you mean"


    Methis just smiled, looked back at what he was doing and then slowly started to draw his hand away from Tom''s head. Floating just above his fingertips was a small orb of blue light. Methis quickly pointed towards the projection of his world and the blue orb of light shot towards it. As it touched the projection, both it and the projection suddenly disappeared.


    Methis turned to Jacob again with a smile on his face and said "Now, it''s done"

 Chapter 6 - A New Body

    After Methis put his hand on Tom''s head, Tom felt his consciousness start to become hazy. Bit by bit his connection with his surroundings was being eroded away. It felt like his very link with the Grand Cosmos itself was being gradually cut off. Eventually, it felt like he was staring into darkness and he was surrounded by nothingness. Suddenly, Tom felt a jerking sensation and then felt as though he was spinning.


    ''I guess this is what he meant by disorientating'' thought Tom.


    The spinning got faster and faster until it stopped as suddenly as it started. Once it had stopped Tom felt a strange sensation all over his body. He opened his eyes and the canvas of a night sky appeared in his view. He felt a tingling feeling and he also felt cold, colder than he''d felt before. But, if there was one word to truly describe how he felt right now, it would be diminished. As he was now, he couldn''t feel a shred of his own power. As he was now, he was the most powerless he''d ever been before.


    Tom tried to orient himself but realised he couldn''t move properly. All that happened was that his limbs jerked slightly. As he kept trying to move he felt a thumping coming from chest and heat flushed through his body, or rather through his vessel, for that was where he knew he now was.


    The heat that Tom was feeling was of course from the reanimation of his vessels'' body. Methis had chosen a freshly dead human as the vessel and now that it was occupied, the heart had started beating again, the blood was flowing and all the bits and bobs of the body had become active.


    As heat was returning to the body, Tom was able to move his new body more. He turned his head to the side and saw the face of a bloodied man lying motionlessly on the ground. The man was wearing dull scaled armour that obviously hadn''t done him much good and there was a broken sword lying not far from his body.


    As Tom continued to move his head, his field of view expanded. He saw that he was lying on a rocky, dirt track road and that the bodies strewn about weren''t limited to his vessel and the man facing him. There were several other dead men, and some dead horses, that could be seen lying around the area, some of which had arrows protruding from them and others which had gruesome wounds with bone showing and guts and blood spilling out of them.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    Tom slowly but surely began to gain the strength to move this new body. He was finally able to lift himself up into a sitting position. He looked down on himself to discover he, unlike the others around him was devoid of any armour or weaponry, however, like all of the others his clothes were soaked in blood. This blood was concentrated around a slit in his clothes in the middle of his torso. Tom reached his hand to feel this area but discovered after putting his hand through the slit that aside from sticky moisture of the not yet dried blood, there was no wound on his body.


    [So Methis repaired the vessel then]


    While still staring down at himself, Tom lost himself in thought as he experienced a series of complicated emotions. He''d just willingly allowed his consciousness to be put in a mortal vessel while effectively making himself powerless in the process. Furthermore, the vessel was that of a human. It was truly an odd experience.


    After being lost in thought for a period of time that may have been mere seconds or perhaps minutes Tom finally regained his composure. He knew that he had to get a handle on the situation. He knew too little about his vessel or in fact anything about this world, after all he came down here without asking Methis or Jacob anything about it. Of course this was Jacob''s home world and he had told Tom some stories about it and his life there, but, none that was helpful in this situation.


    To get a clearer understanding of who he now was, where he was and what had happened to his vessel and all the dead men around him, Tom stimulated his new body''s brain in order to look into its'' memories. He closed his eyes and was beginning to delve into the memories, however, before he had barely scratched the surface Tom was brought to by the sound of hoof beats and the wooden rattle of a wooden wheel.


    Looking over, Tom saw a man riding over on a horse and another man driving a wooden cart. The two men had evidently spotted the carnage on the road and the man riding the horse began galloping over to Tom who was sitting up.


    Tom felt annoyed at being disturbed at such an inopportune time. The only thing he had managed to learn about his vessel was his name.


    The man riding the horse had finally drawn close. Tom could see that he was a middle aged man; with greying hair, wearing a steel grey long sleeved top, with an emblem of a closed fist on it over where the heart would be.


    "Who are you? What happened here?" said the man in a gruff voice.


    Tom turned to the man and answered using the name of his vessel that he had just found out. "My name is Tom... Tom Cardinal".

 Chapter 7 - Tom Cardinal

    Hearing his name, the man in the grey top''s expression changed. He turned back to the man driving the cart and shouted "Old man get over here, we''re putting him in your cart".


    "So Tom, what happened here?" said the man in a gentler voice.


    Tom paused for a second as he thought to himself. He had only been able to learn his vessel''s name so far, so, he didn''t know what had actually happened. Therefore, he could only give a generic answer.


    "Thieves" Tom spoke to the man.


    Tom was no fool. He may not have been human but it wasn''t like he had no knowledge of humans or human society. After all, his friend Jacob was an ascended human and although he hadn''t met with many Gods, quite a few of the ones he had met were human or some other humanoid species. He was perfectly aware that thievery was practiced amongst humans and judging by the situation it seemed like a suitable explanation to give. In fact, when he was young and swimming in the oceans of his home world, the pack he was in at the time often had to fight off other ocean magic beasts that would try and steal their prey.


    "Bloody bandits!" the man said hatefully. "The roads are getting worse and worse and the bandits are getting more brazen than ever"


    The man, looking down at the bloodied body of Tom with some concern introduced himself.


    "Tom my name is Arnet, are ok? How bad is your wound?"


    Tom noticing his concern looked down at his body before looking up and reassuring the man.


    "I''m fine, it''s not my blood. They just knocked me out"


    The man seemed to understand and since the cart had finally drawn close, he reached down his hand, grabbed Tom''s arm and pulled him up effortlessly. Tom was still unsteady and didn''t yet have full control over his new body so Arnet had to steady him. Arnet then proceeded to lift him up and place him on the cart where Tom was able to sit and rest has back against the cart''s wooden side.


    The two men then proceeded to ask Tom a few more questions about what had happened but all Tom could do was continue to give generic or ambiguous answers, saying he didn''t know who exactly the attackers were or how powerful they were. Eventually he had to tell them that he still felt groggy and had to rest in order to clear his mind, so, Arnet let him be, scanned the surroundings and then signalled for the man driving the cart to continue. One had to say, Tom was doing a fairly good job at bluffing his way through the situation.


    Now that Arnet had given him some time to rest, he was able to once again stimulate his vessel''s brain and delve into its memories. He quickly learned the reason why after hearing his name the man in grey''s tone changed and he became much more affable. His new body was that of one Tom Cardinal of the Cardinal family clan of Hill City.


    From what he learned, Hill City was one of two powerful cities in the area and the Cardinal family was in control of it. They had been granted governorship over the city by the royal family of the kingdom over one hundred years ago. However, their control over the city wasn''t just because it had been granted to them. The Cardinal family clan was a large clan and a powerhouse in the area. On the surface, this was because the clan had a lot of strong cultivators and was very wealthy. However, it was also due in part to the natural talent for cultivation that the family possessed as well as the clan''s overall competence.


    In the Grand scheme of things the Cardinal family may not have appeared old; however, they still had a history dating back 1,100 years when they first came into notability. The clan originated form one individual who was a talented cultivator. He was able to acquire a fair amount of wealth in his life, bringing his family out of poverty. He then built the foundations of the family in Hill city by buying a large mansion and bringing his relatives under one roof. From there on the Cardinal family developed, eventually becoming a prominent family within the city. However, it wasn''t until 300 years ago, when the Central continent underwent many changes and entered into a period of chaos and warfare that the Cardinal family truly rose to their current position of power.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    By being active participants in the wars to come, they were able to ingratiate themselves with the Royal family and, when the original governors of Hill City, the Hill family, suffered great losses during the wars and could no longer functionally control and run the city, the Cardinal family were best placed to inherit the position.


    This was why Arnet decided to become more helpful and even went so far as placing Tom in the cart. Of course Arnet was by no means a cruel hearted man and had genuine concern for Tom, even before hearing his name; nevertheless, he couldn''t argue that the Cardinal name influenced his actions henceforth. After all, by helping a member of the Cardinal family, in a situation such as this it wouldn''t be a stretch to expect some form of reward at the end.


    Sorting through the memories, Tom was learning more and more about his vessel and was becoming quite pleased with himself as he did so. He couldn''t help but be happy about the vessel that Methis had chosen for him. It seemed that being Tom cardinal would bring many benefits to him, so, he decided to play the role. As such, Tom continued working through the memories to find the most useful information relating to his vessel. He needed to find out the more personal information about the human Tom Cardinal.


    He found out that Tom was 23 years old, unmarried and unlike the rest of the people in his clan, he was not a cultivator. Tom grew up in Hill City in the Cardinal family''s estate. He was the only son of the 10th elder of the family and grandson of the 4th elder. From an early age he grew up as friends alongside his cousin, Adam, of the same age. However, unlike Adam, by the time he reached his teens he had not passed through any of the preliminary stages of cultivation. As time went on it grew more apparent that Tom was not able to cultivate. His grandfather provided some pills to try to force him through the preliminary stages of cultivation, but, this was to no avail.


    One might think that a child in this situation would quickly become ostracized from his family; however, this was not the case. Of course, there was some jeering and mocking from the younger generations of the family, but, one of the main reasons that the Cardinal family was able to build their power to what it is today is because they knew how to take care of their family and make the most of what they had.


    The world isn''t built with only cultivators in it and being able to fight isn''t the only skill that the Cardinal family values. Because of this, when it was evident that Tom was unable to cultivate, his development took a different direction. Being from a powerful, wealthy and prestigious family such as the Cardinal family, Tom was brought up with an education far better than many others would ever have to opportunity to receive.


    The affairs of the clan involved more than just fighting, so, Tom''s abilities were put to use elsewhere. At the age of 17 he began helping with some minor administrative and financial issues in the clan. He quickly proved his competence in this field and as time went on his responsibilities expanded. Of course his responsibilities didn''t expand that much, but, he was still sent to help to help in the Governor''s office of Hill City and also sent out to surrounding towns and villages to conduct official work.


    It was during one of these outings that Tom Cardinal met his unfortunate end. He had been sent with another individual of his clan, a distant relation at the 4th level of body strengthening, and various low levelled guards, to a neighbouring town to inquire over some financial matters. This task had taken longer than expected and consequently, when Tom Cardinal''s group left to return back to Hill City it was fast approaching night. It was during this return journey that they were suddenly ambushed by bandits on the road.


    Tom''s group found themselves outnumbered and unable to flee when arrows shot into the group and felled several of their horses. Those that remained on horseback became the first targets of the assailants. Men quickly ran in from off the side of the road and sprang at the guards. Although the Cardinal family was powerful and could bring quite an impressive force to bear, were they to mobilise, because Tom and his relative were only low levelled individuals out on a routine outing to a neighbouring town, nobody saw any need to send any particularly strong guards. The strongest guard was at the 7th level of body strengthening, however, he was killed during the first volley of arrow fire. Once the enemies came out of the darkness and started close quarters combat, guard after guard quickly fell.


    Tom Cardinal had no way to escape in this situation. Since he wasn''t a cultivator, he was the weakest person in the group. However, he was actually the last person to die. When it was down to just him and the guard in front of him, the bandits slowed their assault and took some time to laugh and revel in their victory. One gaudy man appearing to be in his twenties took the opportunity to come forward and duel the last remaining guard one on one. He was far stronger than the guard and after he finished toying with him he sent one powerful swing that broke the guard''s sword in half and cleaved through the armour on his chest.


    Finally, Tom Cardinal was the only one left. The bandits could easily tell he wasn''t a cultivator and so, had on a rather relaxed attitude. While they were having a short laugh about what they had just done, all Tom could do was wait shaking, waiting for the cold embrace of death. The gaudy man, after light-heartedly speaking a few more words to his comrades, plunged his sword into Tom Cardinal''s chest. And so came an end to the life of one Tom Cardinal of the Cardinal family.

 Chapter 8 - A Broken Kingdom

    Tom''s group proceeded to move forward at a slow pace, the reasons being threefold. First, it was night time, so, visibility was low, though Arnet could see further than the other two because of his cultivation capability. Second, both Tom and the cart driver were slowing the party down, and, third, Arnet was wary of the bandits that had attacked the group Tom Cardinal was with.


    In fact, after stopping from searching through the memories of the old Tom Cardinal for a bit, Tom began conversing with Arnet again and learned of the traveling duo''s circumstances. It turned out that Arnet was a disciple of the Iron Fist Sect that was located in the highland areas not far from Hill City. Arnet had actually been born in the same village as the cart driver, who was a friend of his father''s. The cart driver was just an ordinary village man and not a cultivator, but, he still occasionally travelled to neighbouring villages to trade goods. He and Arnet had coincidentally met in a large village not far from here and, so he wouldn''t have to stay the night in an inn, Arnet offered to escort him back his home.


    It was actually quite peculiar for people to travel at night since many cities, towns and villages were walled and would have their gates closed at night and because there were many inherent dangers to travelling at night. This hadn''t affected Arnet and the cart driver because their home village was just a couple miles away from Hill City and so, wasn''t walled. Although Hill City itself was walled, because it was a powerful city with many powerful cultivators and a strong city guard, the villages in the near vicinity were considered to be safe from danger and weren''t protected by walls of their own. The lateness of the evening also hadn''t affected the departure of Tom Cardinal''s group, because, since the Cardinal family controlled Hill City the city guard would of course open the gates to let them in when they arrived.


    Unfortunately for Tom Cardinal, his group hadn''t anticipated being attacked so close to Hill City. This was somewhat understandable as the areas surrounding big cities were usually safe, but, the hilly terrain along some of the paths provided very good hiding spots for bandit groups. Tom Cardinal''s group had truly underestimated the threat that these groups posed. As Tom got to thinking about this, he also found it strange. From what he''d seen from his vessel''s memories, Hill City was powerful, so, there ought not to be such groups operating in such close proximity to it. Tom realised he still didn''t have a very firm grasp of things. It was one thing to know about the situation and personal history of his vessel, but, he still hadn''t explored the wider situation of the world he was in.


    Tom once again began exploring the memories of his vessel. It was fortunate that his vessel had the education he had and was so well read, because, Tom was able to uncover a great deal of information about the history of the kingdom and the wider world.


    Tom learned that he was in the Mantal Kingdom of the Central continent. The Kingdom had been formed 3,000 years ago by the Mantal family, after the central continent went through a period of great turmoil and bloodshed. When it was formed, it was a mid-sized kingdom with a strong military ruled by old and powerful clans that had survived through the chaotic era. The kingdom stayed strong, stable and rich for a great period of time, but, like many times before, the central continent once again entered a period of war and bloodshed.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    A series of devastating and large scale wars started 300 hundred years ago and lasted over 200 years, finally coming to a close 80 years ago. During this time, people died by the millions. When all was said and done, over a billion lives were lost.


    Unfortunately, the effects of this period could still be felt today. The once proud Mantal kingdom lost over half of its territory to its western and southern neighbours. Now, it was nothing more than a small kingdom surrounded by more powerful neighbours. However, it at least had some respite in that its current borders were easily defensible.


    To the North was the Yendel Mountain range, which formed almost the entirety of the northern border, to the West was the tainted forest; which, aside from one long corridor through the middle, formed the entirety of the Western border, to the South there was the misty barrows; a danger zone running East to West, protecting much of the southern border, and to the East was a vast expanse of Ocean.


    Besides the loss of much of its territory, the chaotic era had many other negative effects on the Mantal kingdom. The wars devastated the south of the country. The southwest was hit especially badly. The people were slaughtered, cities were destroyed and farmland was burned. Furthermore, what had previously been the upper half of the kingdom became inundated with refugees fleeing the hardest hit areas. This caused many cities to swell in population and also led to widespread famine and starvation.


    Of course, the people to suffer the most during this were the powerless people, the non-cultivators. Despite the fact that non-cultivators essentially conducted the entire kingdom''s agriculture, they were the hardest hit by famine.


    When the people were starving they threw away niceties such as kindness. In order to feed themselves cultivators resorted to stealing from those weaker than themselves. This led to the deaths of millions of powerless people in the country, but, despite the tragedy, it was also the nation''s saving grace. Because cultivators weren''t the ones dying, the armies of the Mantal kingdom were able to stay strong enough to prevent the kingdom''s collapse from external powers. But, despite the kingdom retaining its sovereignty, the litany of problems that followed makes that achievement seem obsolete.


    The wars had thoroughly torn apart the order of the kingdom. The people who were once united had turned against each other. The country became plagued by the uprising of bandit groups, gangs, religious cults and more. The authority of the crown and noble families became shaky and in a greatly changed kingdom law and order became harder to enforce.


    Sifting through these memories Tom gained a greater understanding of the nature of the world he was in. He also understood how the country''s circumstances led to the death of Tom Cardinal. The kingdom had been trying to rebuild itself for the past 80 years and the noble families had re-solidified their power, but, these problems still pervaded.


    Although the previous Tom Cardinal and his group were aware of the state of the kingdom, their travelling choices, which some might think of as foolish, were actually forgivable. Hill City was located in the north west of the country, an area largely unaffected by the wars. Unfortunately, although this region was not ravaged by the wars, the social problems that resulted from the wars still reached here, and, immigrants from other parts of the country came here and caused havoc. In fact, many of the bandits now residing in the north west were from other areas of the country.


    Nevertheless, it is a fact that this kingdom, this continent, is a dangerous place to live.


    A place where one''s life is at risk every day.


    A lawless place.


    A chaotic place.

 Map of the Kingdom & Map of the North-West

Note: This is just conceptual and not the finished version. I will likely change it at some point.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    A close up of the North-West, including the political/tax spheres.

 Chapter 9 - To The City

    The cart continued to rattle forward through the night, getting closer and closer to its destination. Finally, Tom was able to make out a few small stone and wooden buildings. It was still night and there were no lights burning but Arnet and the old man knew where they were. This was their hometown and their destination.


    Arnet turned to look at Tom and the old man.


    He said "Alright. Tom, you''ll have to get off the cart now. Old man, I''ll help you unload".


    Arnet was planning on personally seeing Tom back to Hill City but this was the old man''s home and he wasn''t going any further. He''d been courteous enough to let Tom ride in his cart but now that he''d arrived Tom would have to get off and make his way on foot.


    They stopped outside of the man''s house and then Arnet dismounted from his horse. He approached the cart and reached his hand to help Tom off of it. Although Tom had been in this human body for several hours now, he''d basically spent the entirety of that time not moving. As such, he was still quite unfamiliar with how to move it properly. He was still very unsteady on his feet and when Arnet helped him out of the cart he had to lean against it to avoid falling over. Arnet raised his brows at this and questioned internally whether Tom was really injured or actually drunk but in the end he decided not to comment. He proceeded to grab a few wooden boxes that were in the cart and took them inside the house.


    The old man also got off the seat on the front of the cart and started to untie the horse from it. He then took the horse into an outside extension on the house, where it had a roof over its head, and tied the horse to a post.


    After this, Arnet came back out from the house. The two shared some words of gratitude and parting, and then, Arnet started walking over to Tom while the old man went inside his home.


    "Well, we can''t take the cart anymore but we''re only a couple of miles from the city now and the path is flat from here on out. Are you ok to walk it?" Arnet asked Tom who was still leaning against the cart.


    Tom looked himself over, tilting forward in the process. It looked as though he was going to fall over but he was able to keep himself upright.


    "I... ah... I.. I think I''m fine" said Tom.


    Arnet frowned and looked at Tom dubiously. He was considering letting Tom riding on his horse with him. He particularly didn''t mind letting Tom ride his horse, but, he knew that in the state he was in right now Tom probably wouldn''t be able to stay on it without any help. That was something he did mind. However, to his relief, Tom insisted that he would walk so Arnet decided to walk alongside him while leading the horse along.


    From Tom''s point of view, walking the distance would help him in being able to control his new body. Better yet it was night and the only person who would be able to see him was Arnet, who''d already seen him clumsily stumbling around. Honestly, Tom was quite embarrassed. He was a majestic celestial being. A God. But, right now he was floundering about like a fish out of water. Of course he actually was a fish. Well... technically a swimming reptile, but that was neither here nor there. Nevertheless, it would be best if he could achieve at least some mastery over his new body before appearing in front of any more people.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    It was one thing to be seen this way by Methis and Jacob, who were undoubtedly watching from Methis''s celestial viewing platform, but, it was another thing entirely to be seen this way by a bunch of mortals. At this time, Tom was thankful for being placed in this body. But, what no one else knew was that the reason that he was most thankful was not because of the benefits that being Tom Cardinal would bring in this new and dangerous world but because he didn''t have to look a fool in front of a bunch of people and feel humiliated while getting accustomed to his new body.


    Tom and Arnet started walking along the path and Tom rested a hand on the horse''s back to steady himself. Slowly but surely, as they proceeded Tom began to get more accustomed to his new body. Although he still swayed while walking he''d managed to stop dragging his feet and accomplished a semi proper walking posture. Doing so, he was able to increase his walking pace. This was a refreshing change because, although they were rather close to Hill City now, Tom''s walking pace had been making them go at a slow crawl.


    As they went around a curve on the path they were able to see lights in the distance. It was still night time and small villages didn''t leave lights burning, but, cities were different. Previously they had only been progressing under the light of the moon, unable to see far into the distance, but, they were able to easily make out Hill City at the end of the road.


    "Hah, nearly there" remarked Arnet.


    "Yeah, nearly there" repeated Tom.


    At this time Arnet was feeling reinvigorated. Even for a cultivator like him he preferred to travel during the day and would still get tired at night. Originally he would have stopped in his home village after travelling with the old man, but, after finding Tom on the road his pace had slowed considerably because he had to be cautious of bandits. Now, he was walking Tom to Hill City and would probably have to stay with him for some if he wanted to get a reward out of this, therefore, he felt energy returning to his body upon seeing the lights of Hill City in the distance.


    Contrary to Arnet, Tom was experiencing a more complicated mix of feelings. He was now in the body of the old Tom Cardinal, making him the new Tom Cardinal. When he arrived at Hill City there would undoubtedly be certain expectations for how he should behave. He would be amongst his vessel''s family and they would probably notice any strange behaviour. He was concerned that any odd behaviour by him might result in suspicion from the family, preventing him from obtaining any benefits from them.


    This seemed like it would be a problem because he knew that at the moment, the Cardinal family would be his greatest asset in gaining strength and staying safe. Of course this required the prerequisite that he would be able to actually cultivate the energy on this planet. Furthermore, the danger aspect of this world wasn''t that huge of a problem. If Tom died in his current vessel he wouldn''t actually die. The vessel would be destroyed but his consciousness would instantly re-fuse with his essence back on Methis''s celestial viewing platform and he would instantly be back to full strength. Only, under these conditions he would have thoroughly lost his bet.


    Nevertheless, he was giving far too much credit to Tom Cardinal''s family and overestimated how much of a problem it would be. Tom Cardinal may have been part of the prestigious Cardinal family that ruled Hill City, but, because he was just an ordinary person in a family of cultivators, his existence was largely ignored. It was not that he was actively ostracised or any such thing, but, in either the hustle and bustle of the Cardinal clan''s estate or in the Governor''s office, who would pay attention to an ordinary person.


    Another reason that he had no need to be concerned over such a matter was that the original Tom Cardinal had quite a few similarities with him. Since he was just an ordinary person in such a powerful family, he himself grew solitary and withdrew from others in his family. And, like Tom who could perhaps only call Jacob a true friend, Tom Cardinal only had a true friend in his cousin Adam. Even his parents no longer spent much time with him as they all had their own work to do within the clan, therefore, when he actually made it to Hill City, no one noticed a change in his behaviour and his concerns proved to be unfounded.

 Chapter 10 - Hill City

    Tom and Arnet drew closer to Hill City until; finally, they were underneath the looming city walls. The two of them looked up and could see the sentries posted in the well-lit areas on the wall above the closed gate. Likewise, the sentries looking down could see the two men and one horse approach.


    "Oi! Open up" Arnet shouted up to the guards.


    The guards hearing this were a bit disgruntled. They were already stuck with night duty, a job everyone detested, but, now they had a couple of clowns coming during the middle of the night telling them to open the gate. This annoyed them because the city gates would remain closed at night. The only exceptions were when important people came, but, from their point of view Tom and Arnet looked like ordinary travellers.


    "It''s night! The gate''s closed!" The guards shouted back.


    "I think you''re going to want to open up" Arnet shouted up again.


    Hearing this some of the guards started to grumble amongst themselves. As far as they were concerned, ordinary people ought to know that the gates stay closed at night-time. Nevertheless, since there was nothing else going on, the commotion drew more of the guards over. Amongst this new group of people there were some people with better cultivation levels that could see Tom and Arnet more clearly. Unlike the first group of guards, who were all low levelled cultivators, they could see the blood soaked clothes of Tom, and, some of the guards with particularly apt vision could even make out the onyx black symbol of a fist that represented the Iron Fist sect on Arnet''s top.


    The new group of guards realised that a sect member was trying to bring an injured man to see a doctor, but, although some of them sympathised with his situation, they didn''t make a move to open the gate. In fact, it wouldn''t have been much of a problem to open the gate. There were actually two gates. One large one that was the main thoroughfare for traffic passing though the city walls, and, a smaller gate to the side that was still big enough to lead a horse through. Nevertheless, it was policy to keep the gates closed at night.


    "The gates stay closed at night. If you need a doctor you''ll have to wait or go to village" one of the new guards shouted down.


    "Yeah, well what if I tell you that this man here is TOM FUCKING CARDINAL!" shouted Arnet.


    Hearing this, the expressions on guard''s faces instantly changed. They didn''t know who Tom Cardinal was, nor did they know what he looked like, but, the name Cardinal was all they needed to know.


    The weaker guards who couldn''t see Tom and Arnet very well began discussing amongst themselves. They had never heard of a Tom Cardinal before and judging by the way the two of them had approached, they assumed they were just a couple of travellers. They thought that they were just some jokers that were trying to use the Cardinal name to get them to open the city gates. In fact, they could be forgiven for this. After all, Tom Cardinal wasn''t exactly a high profile figure, even if he was part of the Cardinal family.


    But, the reaction of the stronger guards, who could see the two more clearly, and the more experienced guards, who had better judgement, began to have a sinking feeling in their chests. Although they too didn''t know the name Tom Cardinal, they weren''t willing to risk the consequences if there was one. After all, from their point of view there were many members of the Cardinal family. It wasn''t like they knew all of them. Plus, the person below them was covered in blood. If he really was a member of the Cardinal family and they turned him away, the consequences could be disastrous.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    "Just a moment" one of the stronger guards shouted down as several others ran to get their superior.


    A few moments later, the smaller side gate was opened and several guards appeared from it. Amongst them was the senior guard who was responsible for the east gate of the city during the night shift. He came over to the two, quickly looked them over, then turned to Tom and asked "You''re a member of the Cardinal clan?"


    The senior guard was a little bit suspicious of Tom because he could see that Tom wasn''t a cultivator. He wasn''t aware of there being a member of the Cardinal clan that was like that, but, on the other hand, he reasoned that the clan wouldn''t publicise something like that either. If he was telling the truth it would still make sense that they wouldn''t know who he was. What''s more, the man beside him that had done the shouting was a member of the Iron Fist sect. The Iron Fist sect had a long history in the area and they were generally considered to be respectable, so, the senior guard didn''t think he would make up such a lie, causing a commotion at Hill City''s gate during the night. If he was lying, although there may not be any punishment, it would damage his own reputation as well as the reputation of his sect.


    "Yes. My name is Tom Cardinal. I''m the son of the 10th elder and grandson of the 4th elder of the Cardinal clan." Tom replied to the guard.


    The senior Guard had now cast most of the doubts of Tom''s identity out of his heart. It wasn''t because Tom had revealed information that made him immediately recognisable, on the contrary, the guard would still have to check up on this information to make sure it was correct, but, the guard couldn''t imagine that an ordinary person would dare to bullshit about being a member of the Cardinal clan at the gates of Hill City.


    "Follow me" The senior guard said and then turned and passed through the gateway.


    Tom and Arnet followed and went through the passage after him. Going through the wall, Tom was able to tell its proportions. The wall was quite high, 20m, and about 6m thick. They exited through to the other side of the wall and started to walk into the heart of city. They were taking one of the main roads and were heading for the Cardinal clan estate.


    Unlike before, when Tom and Arnet were walking in darkness outside of the city, there were lights burning along the road and in some of the buildings. The road too, wasn''t deserted. There were people who enjoyed late night debauchery still here and there, although considering that it would soon be approaching first light, the number of people still active were very few.


    Tom''s eyes followed the road up and could see a large building situated on a gently sloping hill in the distance. This building was the Governor''s office of Hill City. It took up a fair amount of land just by itself and also controlled a fair amount of the surrounding land. In fact, there were several similar buildings situated in the city. These included the large estates belonging to the prominent and wealthy families residing in Hill City, as well as other official buildings, such as the city barracks.


    Tom was actually quite curious about the city, being that it was somewhat of a new experience for him. Of course, he''d visited the city of the gods in the Heavenly Realm before, but, the experience was rather different. As he walked he continued to take the sights in around him, but, there were few buildings that were as well illuminated or eye catching as the Governor''s office, so, in the dark of the night he wasn''t able to make much out.


    As they continued plodding along a man in a guard uniform ran up to them.


    "Captain" shouted the man as he approached and made his way over to the senior guard that had been leading Tom and Arnet.


    He was followed shortly afterwards by several other men. These men were dressed differently from the guards Tom had seen so far. This was because they were men from the Cardinal estate.


    There was one well-dressed old man leading a small group of guards. The uniforms these guards were wearing were slightly different and were characterised by an emblem of a red sword over their hearts, symbolising that they were the personal guards of the Cardinal clan.


    The leading man took one look at Tom and then immediately questioned with urgency "Tom, where''s Paul".

 Chapter 11 - Home For The Night

    Tom listened to the old man in front of him in confusion.


    [Who the hell is Paul].


    Tom quickly ran through everything he''d seen and done since coming to this planet. He didn''t know who this Paul person was but felt that, given the current situation, he should. Thinking over everything he soon made the connection. Paul was a relative of Tom Cardinal and had been on the outing with him. Furthermore, the old man in front of him was Paul''s father.


    After having processed through all this Tom answered the man in front of him in a somewhat monotone voice.


    "Paul''s dead"


    "What!" The old man shouted at Tom as he began to shake.


    "What did you say? What do you mean, dead!" he continued to shout.


    Right now, Paul''s father was quite distressed. He hadn''t been sleeping well recently, and, by chance, he was awake at this early hour when some of the household guards knocked on his door. He was informed that Tom, one of his distant relatives, had shown up at the city gates covered in blood. This usually wouldn''t be something that would concern him, but, it just so happened that his son had been travelling with Tom. They were meant to be back the previous day but hadn''t arrived yet. Honestly this hadn''t concerned him too much. Not only was Paul a grown man, but, it was usual for trips to sometimes take longer than thought. He assumed that he would be staying in the town overnight and hadn''t given it much thought at all. Unfortunately, things weren''t the way he assumed they were.


    After being informed by the guards of Tom''s appearance, Paul''s father felt a sinking feeling in his heart. He quickly got dressed and rushed out, following a man from the city guard who had come to inform them of the situation. Not long after; they came across the captain from the east gate, a bloodied Tom and a man wearing the Iron fist''s sect uniform.


    Upon seeing Tom''s figure, the sinking feeling he had earlier grew at a rapid pace. He was filled with unease. When Tom told him that his son was dead, he was filled with pure shock. He couldn''t believe it, he didn''t dare to.


    He grabbed Tom and began shouting at him.


    "WHERE IS MY SON!!!? WHAT HAPPENED! WHAT HAPPENED?"


    It was at this point that Tom came face to face with a sensation he hadn''t experienced for a very long time. This sensation was pain. Paul''s father wasn''t a very strong member of the clan, only at the 7th level of body strengthening, but, Tom''s current body hadn''t cultivated at all and Paul''s father, in his current emotional state, wasn''t controlling his strength as well as he should be. Tom felt like the bones in his shoulders were about to be crushed when suddenly, he heard a shout coming from the distance.


    "Take your hands off my son!"


    Everyone present looked over and could see a man with similar features too Tom rushing over. This was Tom Cardinal''s father; Gerald Cardinal, 10th elder of the Cardinal clan. Like Paul''s father, he had also been notified of the situation. After all, his son was at the crux of the matter. However, unlike Paul''s father, he had been asleep and so had taken longer to get dressed and leave the estate. Now that he was here he could hardly let someone shake his son half to death in front of him.


    Paul''s father didn''t remove his hands from Tom straight away. He was still in shock and worried about his son, but, when Gerald drew closer he had no choice but to withdraw his hands. He didn''t care much for Tom in this situation, nor how he was treating him, but, Gerald was an elder of the clan and also far stronger than him. He knew that if he didn''t take his hands off Tom, Gerald would do it for him.


    Tom was very thankful for the timely arrival of Gerald. Honestly, he hadn''t considered the fact that he would have to experience all of his new body''s sensations, pain included amongst them.


    Gerald looked Tom over and immediately began giving out orders. First he dismissed the captain of the east gate and told him to go back to his post, and then he told one of the household guards to run and fetch a doctor.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "That''s not necessary" Tom said, stopping the guard. "It''s not my blood".


    "Ask him what happened to my son!" Paul''s father shouted. Normally he would have never talked to an elder of the clan like this but given that he''d just been told his son was dead he wasn''t concerned about being polite.


    Gerald too wanted to know what had happened for his son to appear at night, in blood soaked clothes, at the east gate without Paul or the guards who were accompanying them. But, the previous shouting had woken people up and was starting to attract unwanted attention.


    "Not here, let''s go back to the estate first and hear what happened there" Gerald said, half a suggestion, half a command.


    After that, the group travelled at a quick pace to the Cardinal clan''s estate. When they had finally entered the estate Gerald turned back to his son and began to question him.


    "Tom, what happened? Speak now"


    "We were attacked by bandits on the road back to Hill City" Tom answered.


    "What of Paul and the guards?" Gerald asked.


    "They''re all dead"


    Hearing this, Paul''s father finally couldn''t hold in his grief. He collapsed into a chair and let out an ungodly wail before holding his head in his hands.


    Gerald was a little suspicious about how Tom managed to survive through this ordeal, though he figured it must have something to do with the sect disciple who was standing beside him.


    "Did you rescue him?" Gerald asked Arnet.


    "No. I only found him lying on the road and then escorted him here"


    Arnet had come this far because he was hoping for a reward. He wanted a physical reward, like cultivation resources or money, but even if it was only building a good relationship and reputation with the Cardinal clan it would be beneficial to him. Because of this he didn''t put on any airs and didn''t dare to lie to Gerald. After all, he''d only found Tom and hadn''t actually saved him.


    "Why didn''t the bandits kill you?" Gerald asked Tom whilst frowning. He was happy that his son wasn''t dead but he still had to get a full handle on the situation.


    "They joked that it wasn''t worth it. They said I was a nobody they could kill whenever they wanted"


    This was the long prepared excuse that Tom had prepared for when he arrived at the Cardinal clan. He himself believed that there would be no reason for a group of bandits to leave someone alive in the situation he woke up in and indeed they had actually killed Tom Cardinal. The excuse he had just given was the best explanation he could think of for why he might have been left alive.


    Hearing this Gerald became thoroughly enraged and the surrounding guards showed an angry expression. Although this was perhaps the best excuse Tom could give, it also caused the surrounding people to become furious.


    From Gerald''s point of view although his son was weak, fragile even, he was still a member of the Cardinal clan. This group of bandits had already brazenly killed a member of the clan so close to Hill City, but, also said that they could kill another anytime they wanted, even if it was a weakest one.


    This was an insult to Gerald, as the father of Tom and as an elder of the Cardinal clan. It suggested that he, as a father and as an elder didn''t have the power to protect his own son. In fact this was an insult to the entire Cardinal family. There was a group of bandits out there, nearby, who were thoroughly looking down on them. They didn''t even put them in their sights, to the extent that they would kill Cardinal family members without thought and would go so far as to say they could kill them whenever they wanted.


    Even the guards were reeling from this. If Gerald was angered by the accusation that someone could kill his own son so easily, given who he was and the Cardinal clan''s position in society, the guards were angered by what this suggested about them. Many of them had devoted the majority of their lives working for the clan and took pride in working for such a prestigious family. Even if they didn''t respect Tom or some of the weak members of the clan, they too felt insulted when the clan was insulted. They also felt that they were being looked down upon when they heard what Tom said. After all, they were the guards of the Cardinal clan. The words of the bandits disregarded them completely, trampling over their own personal pride.


    Gerald sucked in a breath of cold air and then patted Tom on the shoulder.


    "Did you see what they looked like?" He asked.


    "No, it was dark and they ambushed us from the side of the road. They were also far more powerful than the guards and it ended quickly."


    "I understand" said Gerald. "You should go and get some rest. I''ll sort everything out"


    After that, Tom walked past Gerald in the direction of his room which he''d seen in the memories of the old Tom Cardinal. Meanwhile, Gerald turned to Arnet and began asking him questions.


    "What''s your name?"


    "Arnet"


    "Can you lead us to where you found him?"


    Tom wasn''t able to hear anymore after that because he rounded a corner and then passed through a doorway. He made his way to his new room that he''d be spending a lot of time in from now on.


    Upon reaching the room he breathed out a breath of relief. He''d been on this planet for several hours now and was quite exhausted. This was partly from the physical exertion of his new body and partly from general fatigue. As an ascended God Tom didn''t have to sleep, but, it was a different story in this mortal body. He quickly found some fresh clothes to change into and then collapsed onto the bed and drifted off to another place.

 Chapter 12 - The Next Morning

    Tom woke up in the late morning to the sound of knocking. It''d been the early hours of the morning when he''d reached his room and fallen asleep, and now, it was almost midday. He would have slept longer, but, outside the door of the room, Sarah Cardinal, the mother of Tom Cardinal had come to see her son.


    Tom groggily raised his head as Sarah opened the door and entered. When Tom had come to the city gates in the early hours of the morning, Sarah had been asleep. She was a deep sleeper, so, when the guards on the night shift knocked on the door to her and Gerald''s room she didn''t wake up. In fact, all through the night, no one had woken her. She was only informed of everything that had transpired when she woke up in the morning.


    Right now she was anxious to see her son. Tom was her only child and he was precious to her. Although both Sarah and Gerald held some disappointment in their hearts about Tom being unable to cultivate, this didn''t mean that they didn''t love their son.


    Sarah had wanted to see Tom as soon as she learned about what had happened but Gerald had stopped her, insisting that she should give Tom more time to rest. But, she finally couldn''t wait any longer and decided to come to his room. She had been shocked and affrighted by the prospect that her son was almost killed and needed to see him to help calm her heart. Little did she or anyone else know, Tom Cardinal had already died the previous night. Nor would they know, for Tom had decided to play the role of Tom Cardinal whilst he was on this planet, in order to get the full benefits out of his new body.


    "Tom, are you awake?" she asked in a gentle voice.


    Tom turned his head to look and saw a blond haired woman. Although she was in her forties and there were some signs of this age on her face, she could still be regarded as good looking. Rather than aged, she had a sense and air of maturity.


    "Yes, I''m awake" Tom responded to the woman.


    He knew from the memories of his vessel that this was the mother of Tom Cardinal and that he would have to be playing her son for the foreseeable future.


    "Are you ok?" Sarah asked as she approached him.


    She had been told by her husband that he was fine and unharmed, but, she had also heard that he had shown up at the city gates covered in blood, so, she wanted to check for herself.


    "Ok, huh" Tom smiled and muttered to himself. "Can being like this be considered being ok?"


    Tom wasn''t speaking to answer Sarah''s question, these were just his personal lamentations at being stuck in a mortal body, disconnected from his own essence. Nevertheless, Sarah heard this and believed her son was depressed over his own powerlessness. She was glad to see that her son wasn''t injured but turned her eyes down and sighed after hearing what he said.


    "It''s ok Tom. You don''t have to worry about this sort of thing happening again"


    Sarah felt saddened by what her son was feeling and that he had to go through such an experience last night, so, she tried to console him. She found it a pity that with all the resources and knowledge of the Cardinal clan that her son was unable to cultivate, but, she had already come to terms with this fact. Hearing him now, all she could think to do was ease the distress his situation was causing him.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    In fact, although Tom Cardinal was the only non-cultivator in the Cardinal family, there were many members who were untalented at cultivation and were stuck in the body strengthening stage of cultivation. The fact that Tom was the only non-cultivator was actually a unique circumstance. The Cardinal family was a large clan with many members and even if they gifted with better breeding that made them more suited to cultivation than regular people, it couldn''t be expected that each and every single descendant would be able to cultivate. For instance, even with lots of cultivation resources, some people were just unable to pass through the preliminary stages of cultivation, which to a certain degree required both acquired ability and natural ability. This was why when Tom Cardinal''s grandfather had given him pills to help force him through the preliminary stages of cultivation, it wasn''t successful.


    Sarah was thinking of ways to cheer her son up a bit but then decided she ought to talk to him about the current situation in the clan.


    "Tom, for the near future you shouldn''t go out of the city. With what happened last night, your father and I have decided that it''d be best if you spend some time to recover at the clan. You also don''t need to report to the elders about what happened. We already questioned the man that came in with you and he relayed all of the important information"


    "I see" said Tom, though to be honest he didn''t particularly care about those matters. Actually, he was glad to hear he would have time to rest over the next few days. His purpose on this planet was to comprehend primal energy and so far he hadn''t even started that task. If he was shoehorned into doing the tedious administrative paperwork of the old Tom Cardinal as soon as the new day began, that would have frustrated him to the ends of the earth.


    "Yes. That man, Arnet, he led your father to where you were attacked last night and they found Paul''s body"


    As she was speaking, Sarah clenched her fists and her previously gentle eyes turned into a deathly stare laden with killing intent. Many members of the Cardinal clan were angry right now. Although most of them didn''t know Paul and it wasn''t like members of the family hadn''t died before, this case was different.


    Most of the time when an unexpected death occurred in the family it was due to Qi beasts. Hill City was relatively close to the tainted forest, one of the central continent''s biggest danger zones that just so happened to form a large part of the western border of the Mantal kingdom. Members of the Cardinal clan would frequently enter the tainted forest to either train or acquire training resources. In doing so, they put their lives at risk and even if they were accompanied by guards, death comes easily to those in the tainted forest. But, there was a big difference between dying from qi beasts and dying from bandits. Considering the power and influence of the Cardinal family in the north-west of the kingdom, how could they not be enraged when bandits were murdering their family members. Such an act trampled on the pride of the entire clan.


    "After what happened last night, a family meeting was called" Sarah continued. "The clan elders are discussing the situation. These bandits have been running rampant in our land for far too long" she said while her voice unconsciously became heated.


    "They''re smart and they''re sneaky; they''ve been hiding from us for years. But this time, they''ve gone too far. The clan will be making more efforts to deal with these vermin, but, since they were even so brazen to start directly attacking us it''ll likely become more dangerous to travel. So, Tom, for now just stay in Hill City, ok?"


    Sarah felt it was important to reiterate that Tom shouldn''t travel needlessly and should stay close to the clan. She''d nearly lost her son last night and she didn''t intend for a repeat of that experience.


    "Don''t leave the city. I understand. No problem" replied Tom. It really wasn''t a problem because for the time being he had no intention of leaving the city at all. Right now he wanted to focus on trying to cultivate.


    "Ok, there''s a lot going on right now so I''ll have to go for now. I''ll check in again later" and with that, Sarah got up and left the room, leaving Tom alone.

 Chapter 13 - Adam

    [Finally, I''m alone].


    Tom had been on this world for half a day already and he still hadn''t started trying to cultivate or comprehend primal energy. At first he had get used to his new body, then he had to travel to his new home, then he fell asleep and just now he had been stuck talking with Sarah Cardinal. He was happy that he could finally move on to the reason he was here in the first place.


    He sat on the end of his bed and started to sift through the relevant information in the previous Tom Cardinal¡¯s memories with regards to cultivation. Although Tom Cardinal hadn¡¯t been a cultivator himself, he was of course exposed to the cultivation world and had vast knowledge from the clan¡¯s records and cultivation books. Besides just being around cultivators, Tom Cardinal had read many of the instruction manuals the clan had on cultivation. He knew of many different cultivation methods and what many of the different cultivation realms were. Actually, this was another one of the reasons that the clan was as powerful as it was. The Cardinal clan was good at record keeping, and as such, they could remain largely self-sufficient when cultivating. Their library had a fair amount of information on cultivation and over the years they had continually developed the martial techniques of the clan. However, Tom wasn¡¯t able to learn all of this just now, because, as he was starting to sift through these memories there was a knock at the door.


    [For the love of] Tom exasperatedly thought as he clenched his teeth to supress his frustration. [Who the hell is it now?]


    "Come in"


    The door opened and a young man and woman entered. The young man was the same age as Tom Cardinal and had the same characteristic dark brown hair of the clan, which was cut short. He also had light brown eyes, a clean shaven face and a healthier complexion than Tom. Unlike Tom Cardinal, he was a cultivator and spent a lot of time outside, training. As such he developed a healthier complexion than Tom, whose face was a bit pale. He was wearing a stylish black overcoat with a red top underneath. Red was the colour of the clan and many members liked wearing something in this colour.


    The woman beside him was younger and unlike him she had had long, collarbone length, maroon coloured hair that was tied into a bun behind her head. Of course maroon wasn''t her natural hair colour, it was dyed that colour. Dyeing ones hair was a luxury not everyone could afford, but, sometimes it could be seen on people from wealthy families. Also, her eyes were lighter than the young man''s. They appeared to be a honey brown colour.


    These two people that had just entered Tom''s room were the 23 year old Adam Cardinal, cousin and close friend of the old Tom Cardinal, and Rowan Cardinal, the 18 year sister of Adam Cardinal, also Tom Cardinal''s cousin.


    "Hi" "Hey" Adam and Rowan said respectively.


    Tom raised his hand to acknowledge them and invite them in, though secretly he was somewhat unenthusiastic about their appearance. However, he would shortly change his mind on this matter as they didn''t come emptyhanded.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    After entering the room they were followed in by a servant, who placed a tray of food on a table in the room before leaving.


    "I figured you''d be hungry" Adam said.


    "Thanks" said Tom. Now that he thought about it he did feel hungry. He hadn''t eaten since inhabiting his vessel last night and it had just reached midday. After he had ascended into godhood and shed his original physical form, he didn''t need to eat. Some gods would still continue to eat after ascension, after all eating can be a very pleasurable experience, but, they didn''t actually have to. However, in his current state, he would have to eat. In this mortal physical body, eating was a requirement.


    "So, I heard you had a tough time last night" said Adam.


    "Yeah, it could be described that way"


    Both Adam and Rowan found places to sit down in the room. Even though their cousin wasn''t a cultivator, and therefore the weakest member of the clan, save for the clan members that were too young to start cultivating, he still had a relatively nice room. Actually, the Cardinal clan''s Estate was huge; it had to be to accommodate all of its members, and as such, every clan member had at least a decent room, with the higher ranked members owning rather large and luxurious ones.


    "So, how are you doing?" asked Adam.


    "Fine I guess"


    As Tom was being asked these questions, he was actually thinking about his experiences of coming down to this world, but, despite the disconnect between Adam''s concern and Tom''s thoughts, the conversation meshed quite well.


    Over the course of the next half hour, Adam and Rowan talked with Tom, discussing about the previous night and making sure he was alright. They also took the time to catch up with him about more recent events in the clan and experiences they''d had, after all they were close with their cousin. Tom still hadn''t worked his way through all of his vessel''s memories but luckily he managed to bluff his way through and direct the conversation away from himself. Eventually, after talking for some time they got up to leave.


    "Alright, we''ll be off. We''re both on patrol duty searching for the bandits that attacked you so we can''t stay here all day"


    With those last words both Adam and Rowan left the room.


    The two of them were considered to be good cultivating talents of the younger generation. Adam was at the 3rd level of qi expansion and Rowan had reached the 10th level of body strengthening. Because of this, both of them were participating in searching the region surrounding Hill City for the presence of bandits. Adam had informed Tom that the clan was sending out many search parties and kill squads aiming to find the bandits hideout and eliminate them. Actually the clan already policed the area using their authority as the Governors of Hill City and would kill any roaming qi beasts or bandits they found, but this time they were expending a lot of effort and mobilising many members of the clan and the city guard to conduct these searches.


    Usually bandits weren''t much of a problem in the area, but, over recent years the presence and strength of bandit groups had been growing in the north-west of the Mantal kingdom. Although the clan was already investigating these matters and dealt with bandits where they found them, the bandit''s current actions had truly enraged them. From now on the clan was intending to put more effort into this matter.


    After Adam and Rowan left, Tom took the time to eat the food they had had delivered. It was an interesting experience for him eating human foods in a human body. In doing so, he was opened up to new foods and new tastes he had never experienced before. Tom had to say, Adam and Rowan had left favourable impressions on him, though at this point in time he still didn''t have any particular feelings towards them.


    After devouring the food, he got back to doing what he was trying to do before he had been interrupted. Tom sat on the bed and once again began working his way through the memories of his vessel.

 Chapter 14 - Sensing Qi

    In the world that Tom was currently located in, people cultivated qi, a lesser form of Primal energy that this world was inundated in, in order to become strong. They did this by cultivating through many different cultivating stages and in the end they would have to chance to extend their own lives and possibly even ascend to godhood through comprehension of Primal energy.


    As Tom was sitting and concentrating, memories about cultivating flooded through his mind. He learned that on this world, to embark on the process of cultivation and become a true cultivator, one most pass through the preliminary stages of cultivation. Right now, in his current body, Tom couldn''t even be considered as a preliminary cultivator. Right now he was just an ordinary person. Methis had told him he would have to start from scratch and this was truly the case. In fact, even if Methis had put Tom''s consciousness into the body of a superior cultivator on this planet, it wouldn''t mean that Tom would be able to use or comprehend the energies that resided in that cultivator''s body. Sticking him in a vessel with zero cultivation was the best way for a god to begin to comprehend energies outside of the primary energy or energies that they ascended to godhood through. By starting off with zero cultivation, Tom would be able to incrementally increase his understanding of Primal energy and his ability to use it.


    Sifting through the information from the memories, Tom learned that there were seven stages of preliminary cultivation. These were; qi sensing, body sensing, body opening, qi absorption, qi storage, qi assimilation and qi infusion.


    Now that he had this information, Tom could finally start on the path of cultivating and take his first step towards comprehending Primal energy. Of course, a prerequisite for this was whether or not he was actually able to take that first step. Methis had told him that this was a method for gods to bypass the constraints of being able to comprehend different types of energy, but, he also warned that it would be a situation where he was either able to do it or wasn''t able to.


    Tom sincerely hoped it would be the former; otherwise, he wouldn''t be able to win his bet with Methis and would be stuck with a barren world that he wasn''t able to populate. What''s more, regardless of whether or not he was able to cultivate, he''d be stuck on this planet for the next 20 years. Of course, he could just destroy his vessel as an easy way out. If he did this, his consciousness would instantly reconnect with the rest of his Essence that was in slumber, but, that would be wasting the time he had down here. Even if he didn''t win the bet, just sensing a bit of Primal energy or its lesser energies would set Tom off on a path to becoming a stronger god. Being on this planet, in this vessel, was a huge opportunity for Tom and he didn''t intend to waste it.


    Having gotten a comprehensive overview of things, it was time for Tom to start tackling the preliminary stages of cultivation, of which the first stage was sensing qi. Tom had mixed feelings going into this. Whether or not he was able to pass this first stage would determine his next 20 years on this planet.


    Tom started by trying to sense the energy around him. He was concentrating and trying to become in tune with the qi which was present in the air. Although the first stage of preliminary cultivation was called qi sensing, it could also be called qi feeling or qi connecting. In fact, to a certain degree Tom could already sense the qi on this planet, but, although he was aware of its presence, he wasn''t able to feel it and he couldn''t connect with it.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    Currently, the energy on this planet was all rather indistinct to Tom. When he was looking down at this world from above he could sense the different concentrations of energy across the world, but, he couldn''t comprehend that energy. Right now he was in the same situation, just on a smaller scale. There was qi in the atmosphere around him. It wasn''t very much, it was rather faint, but, he knew that it was there. Unfortunately, he just wasn''t able to properly sense it. It all felt too indistinct to him. The moment he was able to distinguish it would be the moment he had passed the first obstacle on his path to cultivation.


    In this state, sitting and trying to feel the energy in the air, several hours passed, but, Tom still wasn''t able to pass the first hurdle of cultivation. He was beginning to get exasperated. He''d tried using methods and guides from the Cardinal clan''s records to help in sensing the qi around him but none of them were any help. They were all pretty much just vague descriptions and suggestions of qi and how to try and sense it, but, how could someone who has passed this first stage possibly explain it in a way that someone who hasn''t would be able to understand?


    Tom stood up to stretch his legs. He''d been sitting motionlessly for several hours now and needed a small break. He decided to take this opportunity to look around his room. He''d already taken note of the larger items, such as the bed, the desk, the chair, the chest of drawer and the wardrobe, but he hadn''t taken note of the smaller items lying around the room.


    He looked over the desk and saw some papers, things that were related to Tom Cardinal''s work. After all, about the only thing Tom Cardinal could do in the clan was administrative and financial work that involved documents and such. He looked in the chest of drawers and wardrobe and saw the different clothes he owned. A lot of it was smart attire. Mixed in there were some garments which were red or had the Cardinal clan''s emblem, which was a sword that was pointing to the ground and had a split down the middle. The colours and emblem of the Cardinal clan could be seen on the clothes of the clan''s personal guards as well as clan members.


    Continuing to look around the room, Tom''s eyes were attracted to the bedside table. On this table was a small and impure stone. It seemed to have a mineral or ore running through it. This stone was actually a low quality qi stone. Gerald had left it with his son in case he was ever able to cultivate. If he was, he was meant to absorb the qi present in the stone as proof and show it to his father. Gerald would then spend time educating his son about cultivating and try and to help him become a true cultivator. Well, although he did this, he didn''t hold out any hope that this day would ever come to pass. He''d already accepted that his son just wouldn''t be able to cultivate.


    Tom picked up the stone, twiddled it in his hand a bit and then sat down with it in his hand. Tom was attracted to this object because it had a greater density of qi than anything else in this room.


    A qi stone was essentially a natural deposit of qi that formed in the earth. By its nature, it would have a greater concentration of qi than the atmosphere. These were actually valuable cultivating resources that would help people progress on their path of cultivation.


    Tom stared intently at the qi stone. His eyes followed the discolouration where the mineral or ore was. As he was staring at this rock, his perception of it began to change. The discolouration began to look more vibrant and the stone no longer felt like a mere dead weight in his hand. Tom could feel the energy inside it. What was previously intangible to him was becoming tangible. What was indistinct was becoming distinguishable.


    "Ha ha ha, Ha ha ha ha Ha" Tom burst out with laughing boisterously.


    Right now Tom was unbelievably happy, because, right now Tom could sense the qi in the qi stone and as he sensed the qi in the qi stone, he became able to sense the qi in his surroundings as well. It was only a little bit, it was only the first step on his journey and far away from Primal energy, but, he''d done it. He''d passed the first stage of preliminary cultivation and stepped onto the path of a cultivator.


    "Methis, just you wait... just you wait" he said while grinning to himself.

 Chapter 15 - Continuous Breakthroughs (1)

    "Wow. He really did it. I''m surprised" said Jacob.


    "Good, good. It should get entertaining from here on out" said Methis.


    The two of them stared at a projection of the world below them and were keeping a close eye on Tom. They had been waiting for a day now and had finally seen some results. Jacob was happy that Tom had managed to step onto the path of cultivation that would allow him to win his bet, and, Methis was happy that Tom wouldn''t bore him by living the life of a mortal, though that would bring some amusement to him too. Nevertheless, both of them wanted to watch and see what Tom would do while he was on the planet.


    They figured that from now on, they would be able to have some fun watching Tom struggling around down there. They''d already found it hilarious when Tom couldn''t stand properly and was stumbling about, but, they wanted him to get involved in some action too. What they were doing was like sitting down to watch a movie and they wanted it to be an exciting one. They had high hopes that Tom would do this for them.


    "Let''s see what he does now" said Methis.


    ................................................


    Tom sat in his room, a huge grin on his face, silently revelling in his accomplishment. He was very happy to have passed the first stage of preliminary cultivation, but, he was also astutely aware that it was only the first stage. Right now he couldn''t even be considered as a cultivator, just a preliminary cultivator. He needed more than this. Now that he''d passed the first stage, he had to move onto the second. Time after all, was of the essence. He only had 20 years down here and he didn''t plan to waste it.


    The second stage of preliminary cultivation was body sensing. This was similar to the first stage and required one to become in tune with one''s own body. There were very faint traces of qi within the human body and one had to sense these traces to pass the second stage. The reason being was that there were energy channels in the human body, conduits for qi to travel through. Sensing qi was only one part of the equation when it came to cultivating. To cultivate, one had to take this energy inside their body. The second stage was equally as important as the first, because, if one couldn''t sense the energy channels in their own body, they wouldn''t even know where to begin when it came to absorbing qi into the body and moving it around the body.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Tom kept his mind focused. He continued sensing the qi around him and then slowly moved his focus from his surroundings to his body. This was one of the methods written in the records of the Cardinal clan of how to achieve body sensing. He needed to stay in touch with the qi, sensing it, and in doing so sense his internal qi.


    There was qi inside the body as well as outside. He just needed to sense internally what he already could externally.


    Tom was a bit worried about this because this wasn''t his own body, it was a vessel. What''s more, although he''d gotten used to it now and was fully functional in it, his motor control still couldn''t be called exemplary. This wasn''t to say that he couldn''t perform any of the actions any normal person could perform; it just meant that he lacked still lacked a certain degree of finesse in controlling his body.


    Luckily, his skill and competence in the motor control of his body did not hinder his progress and he shortly passed the second stage of preliminary cultivation. Now he could move on to the third stage.


    The third stage was body opening. When a person had sensed the faint, almost negligible amount of qi that was in their body and in doing so had discovered the energy channels of their body, they would the need to open these channels and open their body up to be able to move qi in and out of it. This involved the stimulation of the energy in one''s body.


    Previously all one had to do was become attuned to qi, but now, to pass the third stage, a person was required to manipulate qi. Well, it wasn''t really a true manipulation of qi, but, it still required a person to interact with it and affect it, causing it to flush out of their body and open up the body''s energy channels.


    Like the first stage, Tom wasn''t able to achieve this straight away. Tom continued to sit there, focused on the task at hand. He was rather patient and unconcerned. Since he had already gotten this far, he was confident that he would pass this soon enough.


    After over an hour passed, he finally felt a reaction from the qi in his body. Unfortunately, this was a volatile reaction. What started as just a slight tingle turned into an excruciating pain as the qi in his body was flushed out of it. All of his muscles tensed and began cramping, his face turned bright red and beads of sweat formed on his skin.


    Tom clenched his teeth as hard as he could to bare the pain. He was feeling quite indignant about it. Ever since being in this body, he had gotten to experience a variety of new senses he wasn''t used to. He wasn''t human and being in a human body; feeling what it felt, was a new and curious experience for him, but, now that he was in a mortal body again, he also had to experience its pain. This was something he most certainly was not happy about.


    Fortunately, the pain Tom felt in his body didn''t last for long and although he had to undergo such pain, this meant that he had cleared the energy channels in his body and completed the third stage of preliminary cultivation.


    "Three down, four to go"

 Chapter 16 - Family Meal

    Tom was pleased with having passed the 3rd stage of preliminary cultivation. He was planning to continue straight onto tackling the 4th stage but at this moment there was a knock at his door.


    "I''m coming in" came a gentle voice from outside the door.


    It had been many hours since Tom had begun starting to cultivate and it was now approaching the time that people would eat their evening meal. Because of this, Sarah had come back to check in on her son again and ask if he would be joining her to eat. After knocking on his door she entered to find Tom sitting on his bed drenched in sweat.


    "My God, Tom, look at you. Why are you all covered in sweat? You stink. What on earth were you doing in here?"


    Looking at Tom, Sarah had first thought that her son had taken ill with a fever but quickly saw that that didn''t appear to be the case. He was a bit red in the face but he didn''t look like he was ill. Thinking it through a bit more, she believed she''d come to a realisation. She thought about the things men sometimes did when they were alone and said to Tom, "Never mind, you don''t have to tell. Actually, I''d prefer it if you didn''t".


    One had to say; if Tom felt indignant at having to experience his vessel''s pain, that was nothing compared to how incensed he was now. First, this woman had come in and chastised him for how he looked and smelled, then, she had made baseless insinuations about what he had been doing.


    He could understand and bare the criticisms over his appearance. After all, he truly was drenched in sweat right now and would have to change his clothes, but, he didn''t feel like the smell was particularly noticeable and he most certainly did not appreciate her insinuations. He was a god and considered the accusations she''d made against him an insult to his very character and majesty. Like HE would ever try to get his jollies off in a human body!


    Despite being angered by her words, he didn''t show this on his face. He decided to calm himself and not lash out over it. He was a majestic celestial being and it would make no sense for him to get so angry over some hairless ape, no offense to Jacob and Methis of course.


    "What brings you here?" Tom asked in a flat voice.


    "Don''t get snarky with me young man. I came here to ask if you''d be joining me for tea"


    Tom thought about it for a moment. He didn''t particularly care to spend time with these people, but, now that he thought about, he was beginning to feel hungry. He was sure he would be able to get food delivered to his room but decided to join the woman.


    [I suppose if I join her I''ll be able to get a better run of the place]


    "Yes, I''ll join you"


    "Good. Join me at mine and your father''s dining room in half an hour. Oh, and change before you come"


    With that, Sarah left the room, leaving Tom alone again. Tom had some time to spare so he went out of his room to find a pail of water. After he procured one, he went back to his room. He changed out of his dirty clothes, wet a cloth with the water and used that to wipe himself down. He then changed into a set of fresh clothes and made his way over to the room Sarah had indicated.


    When he arrived he found several other people already there, gathered around a mahogany table. Aside from Sarah, there was also Rowan and two new faces Tom hadn''t seen before. These two people were Emery and Evelyn Cardinal, the parents of Adam and Rowan Cardinal. They were also, respectively, the 9th and 11th elders of the Cardinal clan.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    The clan had 12 elders in total and included not only the direct blood descendants of the clan, but also people who had married into it. Hence why Evelyn held her position as a clan elder. Sarah however, who had also married into the clan, was not an elder, because she wasn''t strong enough to be qualified as one and because there were no more positions available.


    The number of elders in the clan was fixed at 12 and to become an elder a certain amount of strength was required, usually the 6th level of qi expansion, however, because the number was fixed, it meant that the strength of the elders fluctuated over time as the strength of the clan members changed. It meant that sometimes there would be a series of weaker elders that came in to fill in the empty positions; however, this was not one of those times. Unlike Gerald, Emery and Evelyn who were all at the late stages of qi expansion, Sarah had only reached the 8th stage of Body strengthening and was still far off from being qualified to join the ranks of the clan elders.


    Actually, the fixed number of elders also meant that some clan members that became stronger than the current elders wouldn''t be recognised as an elder themselves, but in these situations the weakest clan elders were expected to abdicate from their positions.


    Considering how the elders were ranked, one might expect Gerald, Emery and Evelyn to be on the weaker side amongst the elders, but, everyone from the 7th elder and above actually had fairly similar strength. The 6th elder and above though had a more noticeable gap in strength as they were all in the 3rd realm of cultivation.


    Another interesting thing to note was that Emery and Gerald the cousins of the current clan patriarch. Though this didn''t actually matter too much because the next patriarch or matriarch of the clan was always decided by a majority vote amongst the elders.


    "Hi" Rowan said to Tom upon seeing him enter the room.


    Tom looked at Rowan and gave her an affirmative nod, acknowledging her greeting and implying it back. He then took the closest empty seat and sat down.


    Sarah, who was moving around the room, popped her head round a doorway and spoke a few words to a servant that was out of sight. Then she turned back into the room and proceeded to sit down at the head of the table.


    "Nearly ready" she spoke to everyone, then directed her attention towards Emery and Evelyn.


    "Is Adam going to be joining us?" she inquired.


    "No, he''s still out with the patrol teams, because of the... you know what"


    As Emery spoke the last part of his sentence; he''d glanced over at Tom, an action Tom caught sight of. Tom obviously knew that he was talking about the search for the bandits and realised he was trying to avoid directly mentioning last night''s incident, perhaps out of concern for his nephew. Emery was in fact slightly concerned. He thought that it might have been a touchy subject, what with his nephew almost being killed and all, so thought it best to skirt around the issue.


    "I see. A pity. Gerald''s also still out, he might not be back tonight" said Sarah.


    In the family there were several close knit groups. This group consisted of the brothers, Emery and Gerald, their respective wives and their children. They would often eat together but today their family meal was short a few members because of the manhunt that the clan was conducting. Actually, save for Sarah and Tom, the rest of the people at the table had all been out today attached to different search parties. Emery and Evelyn had travelled out in the early hours of the morning and Rowan had joined a local patrol after she''d visited Tom at lunchtime. However, none of them had any luck in finding any bandits.


    After a minute or two, a couple of servants began bringing food through. Tom spent the next hour at the table engaged in eating and light conversation, the latter of which he did not take the initiative to add to. He considered the food good and enjoyed eating it, but, the conversation seemed trivial to him and he didn''t hold much interest in it.


    After all was said and done, he left the dining room with a full stomach. Although he didn''t care much about the conversation, he was satisfied with the meal he''d just had. He made his way back to his room and sat back on the bed. It was still far from midnight and Tom was planning on using the rest of the night to break through the remaining stages of preliminary cultivation.


    "Alright then, time for the 4th stage" Tom said to himself.

 Chapter 17 - Continuous Breakthroughs (2)

    Tom was finally ready to move on to the 4th stage of preliminary cultivation, qi absorption. This was the process by which one would draw qi from their surroundings into their body and there were actually several different methods to accomplish this.


    These methods included full body absorption, directly absorbing qi through the skin and pores on the body, breathing techniques to draw qi from the air into the lungs and ingesting materials with high concentrations of qi to break down and absorb in the stomach.


    Right now Tom was attempting to perform the first of these methods. The reason he was attempting the first method over the others was twofold.


    First, from the memories of the old Tom Cardinal, Tom could tell that absorbing qi from the skin was the better of the three options. The breathing techniques would absorb the same qi from the surroundings but to a lesser degree. Whereas the first option would allow absorption of the qi all around someone, through all parts of their body, the second option could only allow the absorption of the qi that someone had managed to breathe in. Also, the third option was reliant on external materials he didn''t have at the moment, but, even if he did have them, they may not necessarily be any better than just absorbing the qi from the surroundings and it would be bad if he became reliant on them without being able to perform the other methods.


    Secondly, full body absorption of qi from the surrounding was essentially the same as how he collected mana when he was still a magic beast on his home world. There he had had a magic core and naturally drew mana from his surroundings and absorbed it. He did it subconsciously.


    This was why he chose to attempt this method of gathering qi.


    In fact, this kind of full body absorption was generally considered the hardest of the three methods and people who weren''t capable of this would find it more difficult to progress as a cultivator, so, one way or another he pretty much had to learn how to do this in order to accomplish his goals.


    Tom started to focus on his surroundings and began sensing the qi that was all around him. To accomplish what he wanted, he was trying to make a connection with the qi surrounding him and draw it towards his body. This was similar to how he made a connection with and was able to influence the qi in his body to achieve body opening, only this time he had to influence to qi outside of his body and maintain that connection.


    Tom concentrated to feel the qi in his surroundings and slowly but surely he could feel it becoming more tangible. He remembered the feeling when he had connected with the qi in his body and used that to guide him.


    After just a short while, Tom could feel that he was able to influence the qi surrounding him. It was just a miniscule amount at first but as time went on his field of influence was increasing. Having made this connection, Tom started to use his influence over the qi to draw it towards him and into his body. He felt the energy start to enter his body, moving into his body''s qi pathways and filling them up.


    A smile grew on his face. He had achieved qi absorption, the 4th stage of preliminary cultivation.


    [Good, this is going well. Now for the 5th stage]


    After having achieved the qi absorption, Tom proceeded to move on to qi storage. Now that had achieved qi absorption he was able continue doing it without focusing on it, just like when he was a magic beast, but, qi storage would be a little different for him in this body. As a magic beast he had had a core that drew in and stored his mana but this body didn''t have that. In fact, qi storage was one of the problems for cultivators. Without learning how to do it qi would naturally seep out of their bodies. This was obviously a problem when cultivating if the person cultivating was bad at qi absorption. In fact, even now the qi that Tom had absorbed into his body was seeping out; only his current rate of absorption exceeded the rate that it leaked out so he didn''t notice much of a difference.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Tom was actually very fortunate in that he was able gather and absorb qi without consciously trying to do it. Like when he was a magic beast, he was able to do it naturally without concentrating. Although the amount he could gather and absorb was greater when he was concentrating, this ability of his would prove to be very useful in aiding his cultivating. Unfortunately, because his original body and the current one he was in was so different, Tom had to put some thought into the 5th stage of preliminary cultivation.


    The 5th stage, qi absorption, was a bit trickier for him because his current body didn''t have a core that would natural store the qi he had gathered. The qi that he had and was absorbing was residing in the tiny energy pathways that ran throughout his body. When he was a magic beast storing mana was an inherent ability and he''d never had to even think about it. Now however, he had to use the information from the Cardinal clan in order to guide him.


    The clan records were quite extensive about preliminary and the first three realms of cultivation. Tom had already singled out the relevant information from this body''s memories. Unfortunately, several of the stages of preliminary cultivation were only vaguely described. Tom reckoned that this must be because of the difficulty in explaining something to someone that has never experienced that thing before. The clan records after preliminary cultivation were actually much more detailed and this could be attributed to the first realms of cultivation involving the stages of preliminary cultivation in one way or another.


    Tom started using the information on qi storage to adapt to his body. He wasn''t quite sure how humans would keep qi inside their body without a core but the information described it as a sort of reverse absorption. Previously he had been influencing the qi in the air around him, drawing it towards him and absorbing it, whereas now he had to use his influence over the qi to stop it from moving. By drawing the qi towards him he had made it energetic and now he had to make it lethargic. For the most part this would keep the qi idle in his body and stop it from leaking out. Furthermore, after going through the 6th stage of preliminary cultivation, qi assimilation, this would help to keep the qi as one with the body.


    Using the principles he''d already learned from qi absorption and the information from the Cardinal clan, Tom found himself being able to control the process of qi storage. He stopped his absorption of qi in order to concentrate his focus on preventing what was already in his body from escaping. At first he wasn''t able to calm the qi down and it would continue to escape, but, after several cycles of filling up with qi and losing it Tom found that the rate qi leaked from his body was slowing.


    As he practiced he became able to calm the qi as it entered his body. Doing this many times over he eventually got to the point where he could barely notice qi leaving his body. Actually, what he''d accomplished in this short time was far more than most people ever accomplish. People would achieve the different stages of preliminary cultivation to varying degrees of accomplishment. This would directly affect their ability to progress as a cultivator and right now Tom was performing rather well. His grasp over qi absorption and qi storage would be regarded as high amongst the general populace and were a good indicator of his future prospects.


    "Hah, the 5th stage is done. That wasn''t as difficult as I thought it was going to be, though it''s certainly different from what I''m used to" Tom muttered himself.


    Tom was happy with himself right now. He''d spent the day cultivating on this strange new world for the day and it appeared as though he was having continuous breakthroughs. There had been a few interruptions but he felt as though things were progressing rather swimmingly. Nevertheless, he knew that he was still only at the very beginning on the path of cultivation and decided to plough on.

 Chapter 18 - Continuous Breakthroughs (3)

    It had gotten dark while Tom had been sitting in his room but he wasn''t particularly tired yet and felt that it would probably be another couple of hours before he would be. Considering the rate he''d been going at, he reckoned that he would be able to pass through all the stages of preliminary cultivation before he had the need to sleep.


    Having passed the first five, qi assimilation was next. This was an important step in cultivation as it allowed a cultivator to freely manipulate the qi they had absorbed. Before qi assimilation the extent of a person''s influence over qi was limited to moving it. They could make small amounts of qi become more, or less, active and could also draw qi towards them or push it away. However, that was the extent of a person''s influence. The qi that they had absorbed wasn''t really theirs and they couldn''t do anything with it beyond that. Assimilating qi made it one with their mind and body, allowing them to easily manipulate it, move it through the body and change its form.


    Tom began focusing on the qi he had already absorbed into his body. He had already become in tune with the qi and could feel it in his body. He had also already managed to make a tangible connection with it to exert his influence over it. However, he knew he wasn''t the owner of this qi. The control he could exert over it was just the basics of the basics. To assimilate it he needed to make a deeper connection with it.


    Like this Tom sat continuing to try and make a breakthrough. His current state of mind was one of both relaxation and expectation. With his previous breakthroughs he was no longer as concerned about the time limit of the bet and had started to become confident in his own ability.


    Tom wasn''t always the most patient person, evidenced by running to Jacob for help finishing his world, but, he wasn''t a stranger to patience either. On his home world, before his ascension, he had spent countless years traveling the seas, living a carefree existence. Currently, he wasn''t trying to rush breaking through to the next stage. He knew that these things took time and that he would need to stay calm and composed.


    Almost two hours passed while he was in this state before a change occurred. Tom could feel that the qi in his body was becoming connected to his mind, to his thoughts. It was no longer a foreign object inside his body; rather it was a part of his body, an extension of himself.


    Tom had achieved the 6th stage of preliminary cultivation and the qi in his body was being assimilated by him. It wasn''t long before all of the qi in his body had been assimilated, but then again, there wasn''t much to assimilate. Right now there was only an insignificant amount of qi in Tom''s body. Nevertheless, Tom had once again made headway on the path of cultivation.


    Now that he had achieved the 6th stage of preliminary cultivation he could move onto the 7th and final stage for a preliminary cultivator, qi infusion. Tom knew from the original Tom''s memories that qi infusion is one of the applications of qi and also necessary to step into the first realm of cultivation, body strengthening.


    Qi infusion is the process by which someone or something injects qi into an object in order to strengthen it. In the case of human cultivation, a person must allow the qi they have assimilated to permeate through all the parts of their body. This qi will then imbue the body with greater strength. However, as with all things, there is a limit to how much qi can be infused and how much the body can be strengthened.


    Human cultivators go through 10 levels of body strengthening, with each level increasing the force the body can exert by an additional 1000 jin. The process of body strengthening is vitally important to cultivators because only after they''ve gone through it will their bodies be strong enough to enter the next realm of cultivation, qi expansion. Without achieving the 10th level of body strengthening, the body will not be able to handle the expansion of the qi pathways in the body and the increased amount of qi.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Actually, the body can be strengthened further through qi infusion, however, that comes later in cultivation. Furthermore, besides the permanent increase in strength that qi infusion gives, there are many ways to apply qi in order to temporarily increase ones strength.


    Tom immediately began trying to infuse qi into his muscles and the rest of his body. He''d been annoyed at how weak his current body was because as a magic beast, never mind as a god, he had had a naturally powerful body since birth. The chance to improve the strength of his current body came as a comfort to him.


    Surprisingly, since he had already assimilated it, he didn''t find he had a problem with infusing qi. He was already fully in control of the qi in his body and quickly felt it seeping through his qi pathways into the rest of his body. Perhaps it was because he already had so much experience with mana, which had some similarities to qi, that he was able to conceptualise its manipulation so easily.


    Tom could feel the qi was soaking into all the parts of his body. He began to structure the qi in accordance with the Cardinal clan''s cultivation manuals. Qi structuring is one of the ways that qi is manipulated and is done as part of qi infusion. It is one of the ways in which qi''s form is changed and is done to increase the strength of objects, in this case Tom''s body.


    Unfortunately, qi infusion is a process that requires accumulation and not just comprehension. The little bit of qi in Tom''s body would never be enough to achieve the first level of body strengthening. He would have to soak all of his body in qi before its structure would complement itself and increase his body''s strength by 1,000 jin.


    Tom quickly ran out of qi in his qi pathways and needed to start cultivating again. He needed to absorb and assimilate more qi before he could start infusing qi again. Looking around, he spotted where he had left the low quality qi stone and picked it up. This qi stone had a high concentration of natural qi that was easy to absorb and assimilate, and would greatly reduce the time needed to achieve the first level of body strengthening.


    Tom held the qi stone in his hand and started absorbing the qi from it. He felt a rush of energy move through his qi pathways which were almost instantly filled up. Actually, even when just cultivating normally these qi pathways wouldn''t take too long to fill up because they currently couldn''t hold much qi at all. Nevertheless, using the qi stone did undoubtedly cut down the time by a fair amount and that time would stack while trying to achieve the first level of body strengthening.


    After having absorbed the qi from the qi stone and assimilating it, Tom immediately went back to infusing qi. Even if he wasn''t in a rush, he didn''t want to waste time either. His current goal was the first level of body strengthening and he intended to reach it as quickly as possible.


    ................................................


    "So... he''s accomplished all the stages of preliminary cultivation" said Jacob.


    "It appears so" responded Methis.


    "You know... I should feel happy for him, but honestly I find it annoying that he was able to do it so fast."


    "Ha, you would" Methis chuckled and said. "How long was it that you were stuck as a preliminary cultivator? I forget"


    "3 years" Jacob said with a slightly sour expression on his face.


    "Well... after all, he is still a god. He might not be used to qi but from my perspective it''s not that much different from mana. Since he''s actually able to, I''d be more surprised if he couldn''t pick it up quickly" Said Methis knowingly.


    "Still though, will 20 years be enough? Has anyone ever advanced that fast on this world?" asked Jacob.


    Jacob was thinking about the time limit for the bet that Methis had set. It was regretful, but no matter how he thought about it he couldn''t help but think that Tom wouldn''t have enough time. Even if Tom had a better starting point than when he was a mortal human on this world; it still took him 237 years from the beginning of his life until when he finally ascended, which could still be described as rather fast, especially since so few people are able to achieve ascension and godhood. Tom had to essentially accomplish what he had in less than a tenth of the time.


    "Perhaps" Methis mused.


    "It''ll all depend on his circumstances. He''s unlikely to experience the bottlenecks that people cultivating for the first time experience, but, it''ll be nigh impossible if he doesn''t use cultivating resources and the Mantal kingdom alone, not to mention the Cardinal clan, doesn''t have enough to provide him with. Well, even before that, it seems we''re getting ahead of ourselves. First he has to survive down there and considering what''s going on in the Mantal kingdom that might be easier said than done"


    "I see" said Jacob.


    Having discussed about these matters, both Jacob and Methis returned their attention towards Tom. They were keeping a close eye on him to see what would happen next.

 Chapter 19 - First Level of Body Strengthening

    Tom continued infusing qi for the rest of the night but unfortunately wasn''t able to reach the first level of body strengthening before he became too fatigued and had to sleep. In fact, he wasn''t able to reach this level the next day, nor the day after that.


    By the end of the second day the natural qi in the qi stone had already been completely depleted. From there on out his progress slowed noticeably. Thankfully, he was able to spend the majority of his time cultivating instead of doing any of the busy work that the original Tom Cardinal had to do.


    Ever since the incident on the night he had first arrived Tom was given time off from his regular work. The reasons for this were threefold. Firstly, it was recognised that he might not be at 100% after the ordeal he had went through so he was being given some respite. Secondly, part of his job involved work in the governor''s office and travelling to nearby towns and villages. It was still hectic at the moment with the manhunt for the bandits and his presence could cause problems. If he was in the governor''s office he''d probably just get in the way and if he tried travelling outside the city he might end up getting targeted by the bandits. Thirdly, his job wasn''t actually that important anyway so it didn''t really matter if he took some time off.


    Anyway, since he had all this spare time he could focus on cultivating, only taking breaks to eat, wash and sleep. Then, after seven days, Tom finally broke through to the first level of body strengthening.


    Tom could feel the strength of his body was greatly improved. He clenched and unclenched his hands to feel his grip strength and his muscles tensing. He smiled, happy at the force his body was now able to exert. Although it was only the first level of body strengthening, his body no longer felt weak and frail. He felt a sense of comfort for the first time since being on this world. He felt empowered.


    "Good... very good" Tom muttered under his breath. "It''s time to put my plan into action"


    The plan Tom was referring to was his plan to extract as many resources as possible from the clan. The clan did its best to nurture all of its members, providing them with cultivating resources and training, but, in the end the resources of the clan were limited and they had to prioritise who to spend their effort on. If a member of the clan proves to be untalented, after a certain age they stop receiving as many resources, or, in some member''s cases, any at all. Tom Cardinal was one of these cases. Never mind the first realm of cultivation; he hadn''t even achieved any of the stages of preliminary cultivation, so the clan didn''t give him any resources. Therefore, even though Tom had reached the first level of body strengthening he was unlikely to receive much support at this time.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Reaching this level at 23 years old was not the worst record in the clan but it certainly wasn''t good either. Even if Tom attempted to get resources from the clan they wouldn''t be likely to give them to someone who showed such low talent. Because of this he decided to be smart about it.


    Tom knew that there were three places he could go to try and extort *cough cough* receive resources from the clan. These were; Tom Cardinal''s parents, Adam Cardinal and one of the elders responsible for managing the clans resources. However, the latter of the three would be the least promising of these endeavours.


    If Tom went to someone responsible for managing the clan''s resources he would have to wait a while for his efforts to bare any fruit. This is because firstly he might not be able to meet with one of these people, they were after all busy, and secondly, for reasons already given, unless he reached a higher level of strength he was unlikely to get much, if anything at all, from them. Heck, even if he did manage to meet someone it would probably be someone who was lower level and didn''t have the authority to make any changes to distribution of resources.


    However, if Tom went to Gerald, Sarah or Adam Cardinal he was much more likely to be able to secure resources from them because of the pre-existing personal relationship between them and Tom Cardinal.


    Out of all the people who he had an idea to go and see, he most wanted to meet Gerald. As the father of Tom Cardinal and an elder of the clan, he was the best candidate to secure resources from.


    Actually, Tom could have gone to see Gerald immediately after he had depleted the qi in the qi stone. Gerald had given this stone to his son in the hopes that he would one day be able to cultivate and if he ever managed to deplete it that would be proof that he was able to. If this ever happened, Gerald intended to once again spend effort in helping his son become a true cultivator.


    Although Tom knew this information, he decided not to go see Gerald immediately after the depleting the qi stone. The reason for this was that he wanted to reach the first level of body strengthening first in order to create the most impact when going to see Gerald. If he''d gone to him just after depleting the qi stone he would surely receive assistance, but, by reaching the first level of body strengthening he was doing more than proving he had the capability to cultivate, he was showing that he''d already become a cultivator. The more talent he showed, the more resources he would receive.


    With this, Tom got up and left his room. Anyone who saw him would see that he had a joyful look on his face and a spring in his step.

 Chapter 20 - Off To See The Family

    Tom was on his way to see his family. First though he had to actually find them. The Cardinal estate was large and everyone was busy at the moment, never staying in one place too long. What''s more, over the past week he had been spending the majority of his time in his room cultivating and still wasn''t sure of their schedules.


    Thankfully, it was around midday so he was quite positive he would be able to find at least one of the people he wanted to see in the communal eating area he and those close to him shared.


    As he was merrily going on his way he couldn''t help but think maybe he should wait and try and catch people in their own rooms or their places of work. Honestly, he didn''t want to meet his family all at the same time. In order to maximise the amount of resources he could obtain from them, he wanted to approach them all individually and then con them *cough cough* convince them to each give him some qi stones.


    Thinking of this he shook his head. Even if heading to the communal area wasn''t the perfect way to pull off his plan, he didn''t want to stall his progress by wasting time. Besides, if he did wait to try and catch them all individually he wouldn''t know where they might run off to and might not be able to see them at all. Also, he was hungry and wanted to get something to eat.


    Tom finally arrived at the communal eating area he and his close relatives shared. He opened the door and went inside.


    [Damn!]


    Tom was currently feeling a bit of frustration as he stood at the door to his family''s communal eating room. He''d come here looking for someone to extract resources from but none of the people he was looking for were here.


    Looking in the room Tom was able to see Rowan and Evelyn Cardinal but no one else. He felt exasperated at this outcome but nevertheless sat down to eat some food. When he had finished eating Evelyn had already left the room but Rowan was still there. Since she hadn''t gone yet Tom decided to ask her the whereabouts of the people he wanted to meet.


    Tom turned to Rowan and asked "Rowan, have you seen either of my parents or Adam?"


    Rowan, who hadn''t been paying attention to Tom, looked up at him. She was slightly surprised because her cousin had been uncommonly quiet this past week and this was the first time he had initiated a conversation during that time. Her cousin wasn''t the most talkative person anyway but that was normally just around outsiders, he was actually quite conversational with her and Adam. She assumed he was just disheartened after the bandit incident and as she got used to his new quiet nature he just seemed to fade into the background, hence, why she was surprised when he actually started talking to her again.


    "I think your parents are in your father''s office but Adam isn''t here today. He went out with another search party this morning and should be gone a couple of days. Why?" she asked curiously.


    This was the first time Tom had initiated conversation with her in the past week so naturally she was quite intrigued about his question.


    "Heh. Why indeed. By any chance do you notice anything different about me" Tom said in a slightly cocky manner.


    Rowan gave Tom a once over with her eyes but couldn''t see anything different about him. She wasn''t sure what he was talking about but him acting this way actually got her more interested.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    "Let me give you a little clue"


    Tom then proceeded to pick up a glass from the table and then crush it in his hand, an action that he immediately regretted because the shards of glass gave him cuts on his hand.


    "That was not well thought out" said Tom with hindsight as Rowan stared at him in shock. Though, now that she had seen his ill-advised actions she finally understood what he was taking about.


    Rowan hadn''t been paying attention to things such as the qi in her surroundings. Why would she? She was having her lunch. It wasn''t like she''d be paying attention to such things all of the time, but, now that Tom had made his display she immediately began sensing qi.


    Looking at Tom with new eyes she could see the faint infusion of qi that represented he was at the first level of body strengthening. Many thoughts ran through her mind but the main ones were shock and disbelief.


    "Tom... you, you... How?"


    "Ha ha ha" Tom laughed gloatingly. "So, what do think?"


    "What do I think, I''m shocked. When did this happen"


    "Just this morning. I finally broke through, I''m finally a cultivator" Tom said while grinning.


    Tom didn''t actually think this was something particularly worth showing off about. To him it was just an infinitesimal growth in strength hardly worth mentioning, however, it represented more than just an increase in strength. The first level of body strengthening represented he had become a true cultivator and could be considered the first real step he was taking to win his bet with Methis. It also represented that he had achieved a certain understanding of the power of qi; which would help in gaining insight into one of the four main energies of the cosmos, Primal energy, and this was something to be pleased about.


    "Well... well bloody done I guess. I get why you''re looking for people now"


    Finding out that Tom had become a cultivator had shocked Rowan but as she was adjusted to this her shock turned into sincere happiness for him.


    Done with his showing off Tom was making plans to go to Gerald''s office. He felt it was unfortunate that Adam wasn''t there but it couldn''t be helped. He would just have to try and get resources from his parents. But, while thinking of this, he decided he might as well try his luck with Rowan.


    Adam and Rowan were both friends to their cousin only the former was undoubtedly closer to him than the latter. This was why Tom hadn''t thought to look for Rowan. Even though she was friends with her cousin, he didn''t think it would be to the extent that he would be able to get any resources from her if he asked. Nevertheless, since Adam wasn''t here he felt that it wouldn''t hurt to at least try.


    Actually he didn''t particularly enjoy having to ask people so much weaker than him for anything, he had his own pride after all, but, he wasn''t so foolish as to not do so. He knew that right now, in his current body, he was weaker than everyone around him. He also knew that to maximise the chance of winning his bet with Methis he would have to cultivate as quickly as possible and cultivating resources were key to this.


    "You know... if Adam was here, he''d probably give me a gift to celebrate my success" Tom said.


    He didn''t say this line directly to her. He didn''t want to make it seem too forceful but he believed he''d appropriately broached the subject and intimated his intent.


    Hearing this Rowan gave Tom a knowing smile.


    "Ha ha, right, now I see what you''re trying to do" Rowan said in a cheerful voice.


    "But, I''m afraid you''ll get nothing from me"


    "Are you sure?" Tom queried.


    "Tom it''s not that I don''t want to help you, I mean I''m happy for you, but I''m trying to break through to the first level of qi expansion and can''t really spare anything for you at the moment. Besides I''m sure your dad will give you plenty. You''re his only son and you''ve just become a cultivator, I hardly think he''ll be stingy"


    After a short pause she added "Good try though" and then laughed again at Tom''s tomfoolery.


    "Well, it was worth a try" Tom muttered to himself before turning to leave.


    Adam and Rowan were both a bust but he wasn''t finished yet. He had yet to see his parents and they were the key players in securing cultivating resources. With that, he left the room and Rowan, who was still shaking her head and chuckling to herself, and began making his way over to Gerald''s office.

 Chapter 21 - A Happy Father

    Tom proceeded along his way through the Cardinal clan''s estate. He was heading to Gerald''s office. He was actually quite lucky that Gerald conducted his work within the estate rather than in the governors building. It saved him quite the walk.


    Whereas before he had only stayed in the residential area that his close relatives lived in, he was now heading out to a new area of the estate. In doing so he came across many people from the clan, including family members, servants and guards. They didn''t pay him much attention as he passed them by and he only got a few courteous nods and greetings here and there.


    After a bit of walking he finally arrived at Gerald''s office. Without knocking on the door he directly opened the door and entered. Inside he saw Gerald sitting at a desk with many papers spread across it.


    Unlike some elders whose purpose was only to decide on major issues affecting the clan and to defend the clan when it was threatened, Gerald actually had an administrative job within the clan''s estate. Actually several of the elders had some form of administrative job; working in the clan''s estate, the governor''s office or some other clan affiliated place, such as a regional town. The trade-off of having less personal time was that these elders would have more influence in the day to day operations of the clan. Some saw this as a benefit in which they would have more power to shape the clan the way they wanted, whilst others saw it as their duty to keep the order and prosperity of the clan.


    When Tom entered the room Gerald raised his head and saw him. Gerald was frowned at his son''s appearance. It wasn''t particularly unusual for his son to visit him since his son worked under him, performing tasks at his direction, but, he was confused at Tom''s appearance at this time because his son hadn''t returned to work yet since the bandit incident.


    "Tom, what''re you doing here?" Gerald queried his son.


    "And what happened to your hand?" he added with concern after noticing that Tom''s right hand was bloody.


    "Oh, this" Tom said while briefly raising and looking at his hand.


    "Never mind that. Father, do you notice anything different about me?" said Tom, goading Gerald''s curiosity as he had done with Rowan.


    Unfortunately, Gerald was a serious and practical straight-faced man so Tom found he couldn''t direct the conversation as well as he''d hoped.


    "I see that you have a bloody hand. That''s certainly different" Gerald said in all seriousness.


    Perhaps if Tom was talking to Emery instead, who was more laid back than his younger brother, the conversation would have flowed better.


    "How did that happen?" Gerald persisted in asking.


    "I crushed a glass in my hand" Tom had no choice but to reply.


    "Why did you do that?"


    "I admit, in hindsight, that it was a mistake, but, this actually brings us full circle back to the question I asked you"


    Hearing Tom''s response, Gerald payed closer attention to Tom and unlike Rowan he needed less of a prompt to figure out the situation. He, like Rowan, wasn''t sensing qi at the time that Tom entered. Actually, since he was already in the late stages of qi expansion, his natural attunement with qi was greater than Rowan''s, but, since he had been concentrating on work he wasn''t paying attention to the qi in his surroundings. In fact most cultivators, especially at the lower realms of cultivation, unless actively sensing qi, wouldn''t be able to do it.


    Seeing the qi infused body of Tom that represented the first level of body strengthening, Gerald''s face immediately changed. He jumped up from his chair, knocking it over, and stared at Tom, wide-eyed.


    The previous serious attitude of Gerald immediately collapsed as the broadest grin Tom had ever seen appeared on his face. Tom actually feared that Gerald would incur some sort of facial muscle injury from it, but... Gerald couldn''t really be blamed. Right now, he was incomparably excited and overjoyed. His one and only son, the one blood descended clan member that wasn''t able to cultivate, bar the young who were not yet able to, had finally become a cultivator.


    "YES!!!" Gerald shouted out loudly and jubilantly.


    Gerald proceeded to quickly make his way around the desk, over to Tom, and clasped his hands on Tom''s shoulders. Gerald just couldn''t contain his excitement. He was looking Tom over and sizing him up in a whole new light. His greatest dream had finally come true.


    "When? When this happen?" He couldn''t help but ask.Stolen story; please report.


    "Just this morning" Tom replied in a calm manner. He had already done his gloating with Rowan earlier and had calmed himself down. He actually chastised himself for being so self-satisfied and smug earlier. Perhaps to the original Tom Cardinal this would have been something to rejoice at, but he was a celestial being. Yes it was the first step to winning his bet with Methis but he reminded himself that this was still just an inconsequential thing to him. A mere 1000 jin increase in strength, how laughable was that to a god.


    "Hahahahahaha" Gerald laughed almost maniacally while tears of joy formed in his eyes but never really escaped them.


    "This is brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! We have to let people know. Your mother, she just left, I have to call her back" he said and then began turning towards the door.


    Gerald had got caught up in his emotions but before he could continue his rambling or go search for his wife, Tom cut him off with the wave of his hand.


    "Wait, there''s plenty of time for that. We should discuss things now, I''ll tell mother later. She''ll enjoy the surprise"


    Tom said that, but, little did Gerald know, this was just because Tom thought that by catching her by herself he''d be able to get some resources from her. Nevertheless, this seemed to calm Gerald down and he took another look at his son, a smile still plastered on his face which had become heated and flushed from his excitement.


    "Yes, yes... I suppose you''re right. There are many things to talk about"


    Tom smiled to himself. This is what he''d been waiting for and he intended to make the most of the situation.


    "Well, as you can see father, I''m a cultivator now. I can finally bring pride to you and the clan" Tom said, trying to play on the emotions of Gerald.


    "Of course, of course... wait, no. That''s not what''s important" Gerald said while patting Tom''s shoulders.


    "I''m just glad you''re a cultivator now" he said with sincerity.


    Gerald was feeling overwhelming pride right now, not just because his son had accomplished something he would never be able to, but also because he was thinking about the clan first.


    [He should be thinking just about himself right now, yet I can''t believe his first thoughts are about how I would feel and about bringing honour to me. He truly is a good son, a good son indeed]


    "Father, there''s more. You know I''ve been stuck for so long, never being able to make my way through preliminary cultivation. You''re probably thinking I was slowly making my way through, hiding this from you in order to surprise you when I finally succeeded, but that''s not true. Last week, after I was attacked, I suddenly gained some insights and it was like my eyes were opened. That''s why I wanted a break from work and have been staying in my room this whole time"


    "Look" Tom said while taking the completely depleted qi stone out from his pocket and holding it up for Gerald to see.


    "I used this that you gave me and I was able to quickly make it to the first level of body strengthening"


    Hearing all this, Gerald was taken aback by shock. It was like his son had said, he''d assumed his son had been slowly working his way through the preliminary stages of cultivation and had only appeared before him now that he had achieved the first level of body strengthening. How could he have guessed that it had only been one week since he had become and worked his way through being a preliminary cultivator.


    Hearing Tom''s words and seeing the depleted qi stone, many thoughts raced through Gerald''s mind. It must be known that sometimes it takes people years to make it through the preliminary stages of cultivation, yet Tom had done it in such a short time.


    [If what he says is true then could it be that he actually has talent? No it''s too soon to confirm that, he''s only at the first level. I mustn''t get my hopes up by setting them too high. This alone is enough]


    Thinking these thoughts Gerald tried to calm himself. Even if his son passed preliminary cultivation quickly after gaining sudden insights, it didn''t mean he would be a talented cultivator. Each of the realms of cultivation required some basic knowledge and ability. Someone who passes through one quickly may not necessarily be able to pass through another and right now Tom was only at the first level of the first realm.


    Actually, the time it takes to pass through the preliminary stages of cultivation tends not to be a reliable indicator of talent. This is because, especially in noble families, clans, sects and various other martial institutions, young children are educated from an early age to try and pass through these stages. To a young child who is still learning and developing, these concepts can be hard to take in and understand. Thus, sometimes there are children who will take years to pass through these stages and sometimes there will be children who can easily pass through them within just a short amount of time.


    Of course, passing the stages more quickly does show greater natural talent, but, that doesn''t mean that through hard work and time the position between two children can''t be reversed.


    So it doesn''t affect their growth, children are only meant to start infusing qi after they have hit puberty and grown. Although it varies from place to place; in the Cardinal clan, clan members are only meant to start doing this after their 15th birthday. Therefore, from birth to 15 years of age there is plenty of time for a child who at first showed less promise than another to achieve greater attainments.


    "Father" Tom said with an emotional voice.


    "Now that I can cultivate, I feel like if I had more resources I could quickly advance as a cultivator"


    This was not the most subtle way to approach things but Tom wasn''t the most subtle person either, especially when he wanted something, but, he felt he''d already laid the proper groundwork with his previous words.


    "Yes, of course, of course. I''ll arrange for things, don''t you worry. This is a momentous occasion, there''s much to do, much to do"


    While Gerald got caught up in his own excited ramblings again, Tom began smiling.


    [It seems to be going well]


    Tom felt he had tugged on all the right heartstrings when talking with Gerald. He believed he had made a significant impact and would get at least a decent reward from his efforts.


    "Come, sit down" Gerald said to Tom, pointing him to a chair in the room.


    Gerald then proceeded to take a seat himself, facing towards Tom.


    "Let''s talk" He said, excitement still on his face.

 Chapter 22 - 3 Months Later (1)

    Clang! Clang! Clang!


    The sound of metal on metal rang out as Tom traded blows with his opponent.


    Tom aimed a strike towards his opponents head but it was easily parried away, with a force that sent his sword flying out of his hand. Afterwards, he received a kick to the stomach that knocked the wind out of him and sent him backwards onto the ground. Lying there, gasping for his breath, Tom couldn''t help but think back on the past 3 months and everything that had happened since then.


    When Tom first arrived on this planet it was the 3rd month of the year 3000 on the after chaos calendar, which started around the same time that the Mantal kingdom was formed. Now, it was A.C 3000, 6th month.


    In this time, Tom had fully immersed himself in the role of Tom Cardinal. He no longer thought of himself as inhabiting a vessel, rather he now thought of his current form as his own body, a thought process easy to achieve by virtue of the fact that his perceptions and sensations were all felt through this body.


    Somewhat surprisingly, he also experienced his first birthday in this body because the original Tom Cardinal had been born at the end of the 3rd month in the year 2977. This meant that he had the body of a 24 year old man. The actual birthday though, was a small, close knit affair.


    Tom also no longer thought of the Cardinal clan as some stranger mortals. Now, they were his clan, his family.


    To a certain degree he was still distant from them and his feelings towards them was that of apathy, however, he also appreciated being part of a collective.


    Although he hadn''t had any friends for a large part of his life, perhaps Jacob being the only one, and being ok living relatively solitarily in his later years as a magic beast and then as a god, this didn''t mean he objected to having them either. Infact, after his ascension and first meeting with Jacob, he was quite pleased tohave someone to talk and converse with. Such being the case, he decided to willingly settle in to his new position and had even begun conversing somewhat with those around them.


    Tom thought back to how his current situation, lying on the ground after being forcefully knocked down, had come about as a direct result of a conversation he''d had with his father, Gerald Cardinal. Tom remembered how 3 months ago he had gone to see Gerald, to show him that he had broken through to the first level of body strengthening and to try and receive some cultivating resources from him.


    When Gerald learned of what had occurred he was incredibly happy and the two had ended up conversing for quite some time. At the end of it Tom was actually successful in securing some cultivating resources from Gerald. Although Gerald didn''t have any on him personally at the time, he told Tom that he would make arrangements within the clan to secure some for him and also that he would provide him some from his own personal stock.


    Afterwards, Tom went to see Sarah and she, like her husband, was jubilant at the news he had to tell her. In this manner he was actually somewhat successful in his plan, which admittedly lacked forethought, to speak to people individually in order to obtain more cultivating resources. By catching her alone at her room, where she had the materials he was after, he was able to immediately obtain some lesser cultivating resources from her personal collection. Unfortunately, since Sarah was already in her 40''s and was only at the 8th level of body strengthening, she wasn''t considered a priority when it came to receiving resources from the clan. This meant that she didn''t have many resources to begin with so Tom couldn''t obtain much from her.


    When all was said and done, Tom had obtained two dozen lesser qi stones, some qi imbued ointments and also some form of ingestible qi infused food. This was actually quite a good haul considering Tom''s age and strength in the clan and he would have received even more, only; his grandfather, Frank Cardinal, the 4th elder of the clan, was away visiting the city of Raventree to the south east. Had he been home, Tom would likely have received more than he had.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Of the resources he received, the majority of them were provided by his father from his personal collection. In particular, the qi stones were largely provided by Gerald, with only a couple coming from Sarah and none from the clan.


    Getting qi stones; even lesser ones, was unexpected for someone of Tom''s level. Qi stones contained a more pure and dense natural qi than most other cultivating resources. In addition, the natural qi from qi stones could be easily and quickly absorbed and assimilated, making them very beneficial for cultivating and recovering ones qi. However, because of this, they would be reserved for the more talented members of the clan.


    This was especially true since the Cardinal clan didn''t actually control a mine that produced qi stones and so were limited in their number. Considering the size of the clan and the limited intake, qi stones were usually reserved for those that had at least reached the later levels of body strengthening or showed greater cultivating talent.


    Although Tom was pleased with the haul he got and it benefited him substantially, there were also things he was displeased with. The qi stones were by far the best resources he received but the others he was as happy about.


    The ointments he received from his mother and from the clan were used by rubbing it all over the body. This would create a hot and tingling feeling on the skin. This didn''t actually feel particularly bad or uncomfortable but the problem was that the ointment had limited efficacy. Tom didn''t know whether it was just because he was given lower level resources or because this type of resource wasn''t very effective but he didn''t feel that it was helping him much.


    Aside from the qi stones and ointment there was also the ingestible food, however, this qi imbued food was truly terrible. It could hardly be called food at all.


    There were two different types of this food. The first was a black viscous solution of unknown origin. The taste was bland, which was ok, but the texture was a problem. Its consistency made it difficult to swallow and Tom later found it gave him terrible stomach pains. After the first couple of times of trying it out he decided to stop altogether. Although his tolerance for pain was high, he wasn''t willing to put himself through so much discomfort for such a small reward, as, like the ointments, this cultivating resource had a low efficacy.


    The second food type resource he was given had similar problems. It had a higher efficacy than the other food but it was also much worse. It appeared as though it was once a cheese because there were spots of yellow on its largely grey yellow. Tom didn''t know what had been done to it for it to have the colouration it did but it had a putrid smell and just as repulsive a taste. Also, like the black goop, this repugnant cheese also gave him stomach pains.


    After eating this terrible foodstuff Tom went and had some strong words with his parents. The response he received was that it wasn''t for everyone, which was also a response that he didn''t particularly appreciate. To be frankly honest, Tom felt that merely being able to eat it without throwing up was a praiseworthy effort.


    There were actually many other ingestible cultivation resources with much higher efficacy and without the unfavourable side effects, but, Tom didn''t receive any of these. It could be said that because of his level of strength, the clan had basically just scraped the bottom of the barrel when his father had went to organise some resources for him.


    Given the current situation, Tom decided to forgo the food type cultivating resources and just use the qi stones, the ointment and natural cultivation.


    Over the course of the next 3 months, Tom spent a large portion of his time by cultivating. In these 3 months, with the aid of his newly acquired resources, he was able to progress from the 1st level of body strengthening to the 4th and felt like soon he would step into the 5th. Perhaps he already would have, if not for the fact that his time was split between cultivating and martial training.


    Previously, Tom''s job had been to carry out low level administrative work for the clan. However, now that he could cultivate the, situation had changed. Tom wanted to spend the majority of his time cultivating and was glad when his father told him he wouldn''t have to waste his time with paperwork for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, at his father''s insistence, Tom was forced into a martial training regimen. Tom found that his time had become split between cultivating and learning martial arts, which brought him to the situation he was currently in.

 Chapter 23 - 3 Months Later (2)

    While Tom was lying on the ground, a muscular, brown haired man approached and reached down his hand to help him up. Like Tom, this man stood at 6ft tall.


    "Ha ha ha, down on the ground again" the muscular man chuckled.


    It wasn''t only the man in front of him that was laughing. There were two other men off to the side who were also snickering at the scene in front of their eyes.


    Tom grabbed the man''s hand and was pulled up until he was standing again.


    "Though I do have to say, you''re getting better" said the man with some praise in his voice.


    He was truly surprised at Tom''s improvement over the last 3 months. When Tom had first started sparring with him he was a complete novice. His movements were slow and terrible and he was completely devoid of skill. But, in these short 3 months Tom had actually turned into a semi-competent swordsman and a decent fighter.


    In terms of swordsmanship he was still subpar, with obvious signs of some of his movements being rather jerky and unnatural. This was because Tom still wasn''t completely used to his body. He could do all ordinary tasks perfectly well, with no hassle at all, but he still lacked a bit of finesse in his motor control when he did swifter and trickier movements. Thankfully, over the course of the past 3 months he had improved massively in this regard and one benefit of his training was that the longer he practiced, the more control over his own body he gained. In fact, Tom believed that he would shortly have full control over his body and would no longer lack finesse in his movements.


    Although Tom''s skill with the sword was still subpar, he could hardly be blamed for this. After all, he had only picked up a sword for the first time 3 months ago. Even with this disadvantage he was still picking it up remarkably fast. Furthermore, his sparring partner was shocked at one particular aspect of swordsmanship that Tom was showing adeptness at.


    Tom had shown that he was particularly adept at parrying and redirecting the force of the man''s blows. In fact, on the whole, Tom''s reaction speed, judgement and fighting sense had shocked the man.


    In truth, this was all linked to who Tom really was and his past experiences.


    His reaction speed could be attributed to the fact that he was actually a god. Regardless of whether or not he had access to his true powers, his ability to think and process sensory information was greater.


    Furthermore, his skill at redirecting the enemy''s force came from his understandings and insights into the cosmos. Tom had ascended into godhood by gaining deep enough insights into Essence energy, amongst which his deepest insights were into the essence of water and flow. Using his insights into the nature of flow, he was able to better predict his opponent''s movements and redirect and resolve the forces of his blows.


    Finally, his fighting sense could be attributed to his time a magic beast. As a carnivorous magic beast Tom had to hunt for his food. This was done in a variety of ways, such as; ambushing, stalking, harassing and directly striking and chasing prey. Because of this, Tom''s sense of when to strike and when to defend were already honed. So, even though he still lacked a certain degree of skill and technique, which he was quickly improving upon, the man standing in front of Tom thought that he was actually a decent fighter that would be able to fight evenly against people at the same cultivation level.


    After standing up, Tom took a second to catch his breath while the man in front of him put his sword away.


    The man in front of Tom, who he had just been sparring with, was called Avery.


    Avery worked as a guard for Tom''s father, Gerald, but he, along with a couple of others, had been assigned to help train Tom in fighting techniques and martial arts.


    Gerald saw this training as a necessity for his son, a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw when considering the nature of the world they lived in, however, although Tom assented to his demands, he would have much preferred to spend his time solely on cultivating. Be that as it may, since Tom had never learned to fight in a human body before, it wasn''t like this training was useless or a complete waste of time for him either.


    "I bet you must be hating me right about now" said Avery cheerfully.


    "Oh, on the contrary, I respect your strength" Tom replied to him.


    This was no lie. Tom''s original form was that of a magic beast. He naturally had a respect for those stronger than himself. Although Tom''s real strength was incomparable to Avery''s, right now in his current body Avery was undeniably stronger than him. Furthermore, Avery was the one who''d essentially been kicking has arse for the past 3 months while training him. Because of this, Tom had started to respect Avery and develop a rapport with him.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    [Still going to kick your arse when I''m strong enough though. Just you wait Avery... just you wait]


    Nevertheless, even though Tom had started to respect and become friendly with Avery, this didn''t mean he forgot about being knocked on his back day after day during his training sessions.


    "What about us, do you respect us too?" came a shout from the side.


    Tom looked over to the two other men on the Cardinal clan''s training field that were participating in Tom''s training. These men, like Avery, were the personal guards of his father.


    The one who had shouted was the larger of the two. A man named Pike. He was a tall man, standing at 6''3", and had a very buff and stocky body. He also had very short black hair as well as a beard which could be described as short to medium length stubble.


    Next to him was a shorter and leaner man called Lance who stood at 5''11". He had medium length light brown hair and a handsome looking face. Although none of the group were bad looking per se, Lance was still the one who could claim the best looks. He was also the youngest of the group, being only 21 years old, and the second weakest, being at the 7th level of body strengthening. However, since he was younger and wasn''t that far behind Pike and Avery, it suggested that he had more cultivating talent and potential.


    "You''re not as strong as Avery" Tom replied to Pike.


    "Damn, what do you mean not as strong? He only advanced yesterday, that''s bullshit" Pike said quite annoyed.


    Out of those present, Avery was at 9th level of body strengthening, having only just stepped into that level, Pike was at the 8th level and Lance was at the 7th. Pike was understandably upset at Tom''s words because until the previous day, he and Avery had been on equal footing. In fact, Pike was slightly stronger and would be unlikely to lose in a one on one fight against him. However, in the span of a day, that had all changed.


    Despite this, that wasn''t actually the real reason Tom had said what he said. Although both Avery and Pike were involved in training him, Avery was the one in charge of this process and sparred with him the most. Furthermore, despite his appearance, Pike was a lot more lenient in the training he conducted and never went full force against Tom. Therefore, because of Avery''s rather harsh treatment of him during practice sessions, Tom''s opinion of the two had become more skewed in Avery''s favour.


    Another thing to consider was that the nature of their training differed. Pike was mainly teaching unarmed combat, Lance was teaching the spear and Avery was teaching swordsmanship, with general fighting techniques mixed into it. Because of this, a lot of the training that Pike and Lance were conducting tended to be visual in nature, showing Tom different stances and movements, whereas Avery was a lot more hands on in his approach.


    Hearing Tom and Pike''s conversation, Lance, who was originally laughing in schadenfreude at Tom, instead began deriving pleasure from Pike''s situation.


    "What are you laughing at, he doesn''t respect you either" Pike said after turning towards Lance, quickly killing his laughter.


    Lance stopped laughing less because of what Pike had said and more out of fear that pike would wring him over the head. By now all three of them had gotten to know Tom a bit and the mood between them was rather jovial and friendly. They knew that there was no ill will behind what Tom had said and that it was said half-jokingly.


    "Well then, that should be it for the day, training over. Oh yeah, you guys coming with me to Benny''s tonight?" Avery asked.


    Since he had broken through to 9th level of body strengthening the previous night, Avery was planning to go out celebrating at his favourite drinking haunt with the guys. His question was directed at Tom as well as Pike and Lance.


    "Sure" Lance replied


    "Of course! I''d be there anyway" said Pike.


    "I''m sure you would" Lance said jokingly.


    After his one liner, Pike turned and stared at Lance. Lance, looking up at Pike, stopped his smiling and decided to take a step back for good measure. Inside his heart he was scolding himself. He''d already tempted fate once and now he''d done it again. He figured that even though they were all just joking around, the longer he stayed, the higher the chance would be that Pike would hit him over the head for something he said or did. That being the case, he decided to excuse himself.


    "Well. Training''s over and I''ve still got work to do. See you at Benny''s tonight" Lance said before starting to walk away.


    Seeing him walk off no one could keep in their laughter anymore.


    "Pfft, if you pull a straight face like that again you might scare him half to death" Avery said as he began laughing.


    Tom chuckled lightly at this and Pike who had had on a blank and serious look started guffawing in laughter.


    "I couldn''t... hah hah... help... hah hah... it... ha" Pike said with laughter interspersed.


    "He just sets himself up for it. How am I not supposed to mess with him?"


    The three continued standing there for a few more minutes until the laughter died down.


    "So, Tom. You coming too?" Avery asked.


    "Yeah, why not. Might as well." Tom replied.


    In truth Tom wasn''t that bothered about the drinking or celebrating aspect of this outing but he had quite a favourable opinion of Avery. Even when they weren''t training, Tom would sometimes talk with him and found that they got along quite well, so he figured he might as well take the night off and go with him to Benny''s. Besides, since he''d entered his home on the first night that he''d arrived here, he hadn''t been out of the Cardinal clan''s estate even once. Even the martial practice was conducted on the Cardinal clan''s training field.


    Thinking about this, Tom became quite resolute. He''d already looked through all of the old Tom Cardinal''s memories and knew many things about the city but looking through another''s memories and actually going out to see and experience the world for himself was completely different. He''d decided. Even if he was working towards winning his bet with Methis, that didn''t mean he couldn''t enjoy his time down here. He''d spent enough time alone on his home world and he didn''t feel like just sitting in a room for 20 years all by himself.


    "I''ll be there" Tom said to Avery, once again confirming that he''d participate.

 Chapter 24 - 3 Months Later (3)

    After finishing with his practice for the day, Tom went back to his room to clean himself up. He had worked up quite a sweat from his vigorous training, plus his clothes had gotten rather dirty from being knocked on the ground over and over again.


    In truth, Tom''s current state wasn''t entirely his own fault. In order for Tom to get the most out of the training and improve as quickly as possible, Avery made the training quite intensive. Furthermore, Avery didn''t pull his punches nearly as much as Pike or Lance because he was trying to push Tom to his limit, helping him stimulate his own potential and accrue as much battle experience in as short a time as possible. This resulted in the sorry appearance that Tom currently had.


    As Tom was travelling through the Cardinal estate, he noted that the hustle and bustle had already completely died down since he first came here. This all had to do with how the Cardinal clan was dealing with the aftermath of the bandit incident.


    After Tom had arrived at the city gates on that first night and relayed his tale of the bandit attack, the Cardinal clan went into somewhat of a frenzy as a response. Not only was the clan angry at having one of their members murdered, but, they also saw the actions of the bandits as a direct challenge to their authority.


    Starting from the next day, the Cardinal clan launched a massive operation to hunt down the bandits and wipe them out for good. The clan mobilised the city guard as well as many of their own members in order to search out and hunt down the bandits. Rewards were even posted at the governor''s building and at the nearby Iron fist sect for anyone who was able to find and kill bandits that were operating in the North West and around Hill city.


    However, after 3 months, the Cardinal clan''s efforts had only been met with mixed results.


    Tom had heard about how the situation was developing through conversations with Adam, who was participating in the searches and would periodically return to the Cardinal estate.


    Over the course of the last 3 months, a few Iron fist sect disciples and ordinary warriors had had some success in finding and killing bandits. But, these were all in areas far away from Hill city and involved small bandit groups consisting of low levelled cultivators unaffiliated with the larger group that had begun operating around Hill city.


    Closer to home, the bandit group responsible for the attack on Tom''s group was proving incredibly hard to track down. Adam had informed Tom that there were only two instances in which the clan''s forces had come into contact with this bandit group.


    The first was when some lower levelled city guards who were patrolling and searching the hills were killed. This was considered unfortunate but not wholly unexpected.


    Although the Cardinal clan could mobilise a large force, and they had done for this particular operation, there was a lot of ground to cover and search through. Along with patrol teams with higher level cultivators in them, who would be responsible for the actual killing of the bandits, there were also search teams with lower level cultivators, whose job was to act as scouts, seeking out the enemy, uncovering their hideouts and reporting their movements. This led to a situation where groups without higher level cultivators in them that were searching through rural areas became vulnerable to attack.


    It could be said that it was lucky that only one group was killed in this way, the death toll was expected to be higher; however, the behaviour of the bandits actually posed a problem for the Cardinal clan. The reason only one group were killed in this manner lay in the fact that the bandit group had retreated into its shell and was hiding away. This made it very difficult to locate them.


    Over recent years this particular bandit group had been gaining strength and increasing in scope. Furthermore, their roots in the North West were deep.


    The reason for this was that they weren''t just a ragtag group of opportunists that preyed on those weaker than them. This group was smart and organised.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    After they had assaulted Tom''s group on the first night of his arrival and the Cardinal clan began their operation to hunt them down, they purposefully decided to hide themselves and lay low so as avoid being caught. This was proving to be an effective strategy and was giving the Cardinal clan a headache in trying to locate them.


    However, as deep as their roots were, as knowledgeable as they were about the land and as well-hidden as they were, they couldn''t completely prevent themselves from being discovered. This led to the second encounter that the forces of the Cardinal clan had with them, just a few short weeks after the searches had begun.


    The second encounter with the bandits occurred when a group being led by two brothers of the Cardinal clan stumbled upon one of the bandits hideouts.


    The two brothers were fairly powerful and were both in the mid-levels of qi expansion. Furthermore, the group they were leading was assigned to a fighting role in this operation and had many warriors in the realm of qi expansion, as well as several in the later levels of qi expansion. This group was by no means weak.


    Sadly, no one in this group survived. After they had been missing for half a day, it was actually Adam''s group that had found their trail and located them. Only, when he found them they were all already dead.


    From how Adam told it, the hideout that the two brothers had found was rather large and it was suspected as being one of the major bases from which the bandit group was conducting their operation.


    Outside of the hideout; Adam had found numerous bodies strewn about the place, people belonging to the Cardinal clan''s forces as well as the bandit''s forces. The number of dead was high and the fighting was obviously intense.


    The two brothers of the clan had led a team of just over 20 people consisting of elite fighters. They easily swept through the cultivators that were in the body strengthening realm of cultivation, but, as they pushed into the hideout their initial success was interrupted by stronger resistance.


    The hideout was a large cave structure artificially carved into a hill and could house about 200 people. Many of the people there were only cultivators in the realm of body strengthening and their sleeping quarters and the largest communal area were both located near the entrance of the cave. This meant that when the two brothers of the Cardinal clan attacked and entered the hideout they began swiftly massacring these people. Unfortunately for them however, they underestimated the strength of the bandit forces and the elites from the bandits that had been located further in soon showed up to meet them in battle.


    Judging from the scene that Adam found, it seems the two brothers were pushed back outside the hideout, where the fighting finally concluded. Also, rather disconcertingly, a serious of large fissures and sunken patches of earth made it apparent that an expert in the third realm of cultivation, qi condensation, was present in the bandit''s forces and was responsible for the deaths of the two brothers.


    By the time Adam''s group had found the hideout and the two dead brothers, the surviving bandits were already long gone. They had made a hasty retreat and only collected the most valuable things, leaving their hideout in a mostly intact state.


    After these events transpired, the efforts of the clan increased threefold. The initial operation being led by the clan could be said to mainly have been conducted on principle, but what followed was because they were truly enraged.


    The family had expected some losses, they were prepared for that inevitability, but they didn''t expect to so suddenly lose a number of their elites. Furthermore, the two brothers in question were the children of the 7th elder and were well known faces in the Cardinal estate. When the 7th elder learned of his two son''s deaths, he was livid and went into a mad rage. It took the patriarch and several other elders to calm him down.


    The clan had also finally begun to realise just how much of a problem this bandit group really was. Unfortunately, the bandit group that was already hiding themselves became even harder to find.


    After this second incident there wasn''t a single encounter with the bandit forces again. Even their activity against regular people had completely died down, not giving the Cardinal clan any clues as to how to find them. The only clues that the Cardinal clan found were a couple of small caves suspected of being used by the bandits, but, since they were empty and no trails were found surrounding them, all the clan could do was collapse them and continue their search.


    As time went by and months passed, the clan still hadn''t uncovered any new leads. As a result, they had no choice but to suspend their search efforts.


    The Cardinal estate had returned to a state of normalcy.


    Thinking about this, Tom returned to his room and cleaned himself up. Once he was done, it was time to leave and meet up with Avery and the others. Tom proceeded to leave the Cardinal estate for the first time since he had arrived there and started to make his way towards Benny''s.

 Chapter 25 - A Night Out

    Thud!


    Pike slammed his tankard down on the table, spilling some ale, and started laughing boisterously.


    "Damn Avery! That''s funny as hell"


    "Well what can I say, I''m a well-travelled man after all" said Avery while smiling back at Pike.


    In truth he wasn''t actually a well-travelled man. He was born the son of a shopkeeper in a town in the North West of the Mantal kingdom and five years ago he moved to Hill city and by chance got a job working as a guard at the Cardinal clan''s estate.


    Nevertheless, as a frequenter of this particular pub, Benny''s, he''d heard his fair share of stories and didn''t feel any qualms about pilfering the best ones.


    It wasn''t only Pike who was laughing at the story Avery had just told. To the side, Lance and a couple of other guys who worked for the clan were laughing, however, they were easily overshadowed by Pike. Pike by far was the noisiest of the group and boasted the best lung capacity amongst those present.


    The only person who wasn''t laughing was Tom. To be honest, he didn''t quite get the sense of humour that the others were revelling in, though he couldn''t really be blamed for this considering his life history. He was just too far removed from human culture to really see what was funny about it.


    "So if I''ve got this right, the woman was actually the daughter of the governor?" Tom asked.


    "Yes" Avery replied.


    "And they were really in the government building and not her estate?"


    "Exactly" Avery explained.


    Tom paused for a moment thinking it through, but, in the end he still didn''t see what was funny about that.


    "I don''t get what''s funny about that" Tom said.


    In response to Tom''s words, everyone started shaking their heads.


    "You''re just too humourless Tom, you never laugh. You need to live more" said Avery.


    "But I am living" Tom said with a deadpan face, causing another round of head shaking and sighs from those around him.


    "To Avery!" Pike shouted suddenly, raising his tankard and then taking a large swig of ale from it.


    "Hoorah!"


    "Yeah!"


    "Hell Yeah!" followed several others as they too raised their own drinks and took large gulps from them.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    This behaviour had been repeated many times throughout the night. Officially they were celebrating the fact that Avery had reached the 9th level of body strengthening, but in truth they just wanted to have an excuse to get drunk.


    Tom was also participating in this as part of the festivities but in contrast to the others who all already had a strong buzz or were tipsy, Tom was still sober. The reason for this was that Tom found he did not like the alcohol he was drinking. This was the first time he was drinking a fermented drink and he could not for the life of him understand why the others enjoyed it so much. He had a high tolerance level for the taste of things he ate and the taste of the ale he was drinking didn''t exceed that threshold, but even still, he didn''t see the need to continuously consume something that he derived no pleasure from drinking.


    This resulted in Tom being at an even bigger disconnect with those around him. Perhaps if he had allowed himself to actually get drunk he would have found it easier to cross the cultural barrier that set him apart from the others.


    Despite Tom''s situation, he wasn''t uninvolved with the celebratory nature of their outing. He drank when he needed to and he spoke when he wanted to. Actually, the guys considered his questioning remarks and naivety to be funny in and of itself.


    The night continued much the same as it had started with everyone chatting and drinking around the table. Of course, the topic of conversation that came up the most was of Avery''s advancement.


    "So Pike, how does it feel to know that Avery can easily beat your big arse up now?" joked one of the guards who was friends with the two.


    "What do you mean! Avery still wouldn''t be able to beat me up in a million years" Pike vehemently denied.


    "Yeah, except when he beats you up in training" joked Lance to the side, setting off a round of laughs from the table.


    "Hey! He hardly ever wins against me. If anything its 7-3 in my favour" Pike said back, defending himself.


    "That''s only on the training field. Besides you''re splitting between matches involving different kinds of weapons. You might have an edge with polearms and with the fist, but you''re shit with a sword" said Avery.


    "That''s because I don''t bloody use a sword!" Pike replied back, feeling indignant.


    "Hey now" Lance chimed in.


    "He''s shit with everything, just strong as an ox" he said while patting Pike on the shoulder.


    Lance''s quip had gotten another round of laughter. Everyone present knew that even though Pike was a good fighter, he was also a bit of a brute. He had a tendency to rely on his greater physical abilities, such as his strength and his reach, to outdo his opponents.


    "Don''t you bloody start an'' all"


    Like this, the night continued and Pike ended up being the butt of many jokes because of the rivalry he had going with Avery.


    As time went by and it started getting later and later, the number of people in the pub dropped a bit. It eventually got to the point that the guys in their own group started to leave.


    Aside from Tom, the rest of them were all under the employ of the Cardinal clan and had to be up for work the following morning.


    Before the rest of them were going to leave, they decided to order one last drink.


    Tom got up with Avery to grab them from the bar and bring them over, however, he himself decided not to order another one. He still had some ale left, unfinished in his own tankard, and decided he would call the night quits after he finished it.


    Actually, out of everyone in their group Tom had drunk the least alcohol and was still perfectly sober. Perhaps if he had drank to the point that he was drunk he might''ve enjoyed and appreciated the experience more.


    To Tom, the night was defined by the rowdy and joking conversation that was going on around him. He had placed the alcohol he was drinking out of his mind and considered it as a thoroughly unimportant part of the night. To him, the most memorable thing about this particular outing was the atmosphere. It was something he hadn''t experienced before and couldn''t help but think that it wasn''t the worst of things.


    [Perhaps I''ll ask Jacob for a drink the next time I see him]


    Thinking this, Tom and Avery made their way towards the bar.

 Chapter 26 - Trouble

    Benny''s was a fairly large pub. It had many tables situated in the L shaped floor area which was open to the customers.


    The tables located along the walls had screens attached to the backs of their benches in order to provide some privacy and noise cancellation to the people sitting at them.


    In one particular corner of the pub, sitting at one of these tables were two men. These two men both had an unkempt appearance and had been enjoying their drinks. This however, all changed when Tom and Avery got up to get a new set of drinks.


    Because of the shape of the pub and the places the two groups were sitting, Tom and these two men were out of sight of each other. The two men could see the table Tom was sitting at, they could see and hear the boisterous laughter and conversation that had been going on throughout the night, no thanks to Pike, and they could see the stream of drinks going back and forth from the table to the bar. However, it just so happened, because of where he was sat, that Tom was out of their sight.


    When Tom and Avery went up to collect a new set of drinks, Tom finally came into the field of view of these two men.


    While Tom was standing at the front of the bar, one of the two men, who had shoulder length shaggy black hair and a short beard, caught sight of him. This man quieted down as he felt his gaze drawn towards Tom. He couldn''t quite put his finger on it but there was something about the man he was looking at that had attracted his attention.


    A look of confusion appeared on his face as he was looking at Tom. After a short while, the man had a flash of recognition and he went wide eyed in shock, quickly perking up, with colour draining from his face.


    "Oi, what''s wrong with you?" said the other man.


    In response to this, the bearded man discreetly pointed towards the bar where Tom was standing. The man sitting opposite him looked over but didn''t understand what the bearded man was pointing at.


    "What?" the other man asked quizzically.


    "The redhead waitress? What''d you do for that reaction?" he asked not understanding what the bearded man had meant.


    The bearded man had no choice but to lean forward speak to the other man under his breath.


    "Not the damn waitress you idiot, the man, the bloody man at the bar"


    Looking back towards Tom and Avery and still not getting it, the other man asked


    "What about him? You piss him off or something?"


    "You fool, don''t you recognise him" the bearded man said, the irritation in his voice clear.


    "No. Who is he?" the other man asked.


    "He''s from that night" the bearded man said.


    The other man couldn''t help but shake his head at this.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    "You''re going to have to give me more to go on than that"


    "The night 3 months ago" said the bearded man, mistakenly raising his voice a bit in frustration at his companion''s ineptness.


    Hearing this, the other man directed his gaze towards Tom and Avery again. He wasn''t even sure which of the two men the bearded man was talking about but after those words something had finally clicked in his brain. He stared at Tom and came to a slow recognition of what the bearded man meant.


    When he realised the situation, he too showed shock and confusion. He turned towards the bearded man and said "How is that possible?"


    "I don''t know" the bearded man said under his breath again.


    "But we have to tell the boss"


    "Can''t we just jump him? If we do that it won''t be a problem. We won''t even have to tell the boss... I mean, if he finds out, he''s going to be pissed. Actually, do we even need to do anything at all? It''s been 3 months already and nothing''s happened. It might be fine" reasoned the second man.


    "Don''t be a bloody idiot" the bearded man said annoyed.


    He couldn''t believe how stupid the other man was being.


    "Even if nothing has happened so far, it doesn''t mean nothing will happen. If he''s alive then it can still come back to us. And what do you mean jump him? Can''t you see everyone he''s with over there? When the fuck would we have the chance to jump him?"


    "Come on. When, when would we have the chance? He''s surrounded by people at the moment and I''ll bet your arse that while he''s in the city he''s always gonna be surrounded by people"


    "Fine then" the other man said.


    "So are we going to inform the boss now?"


    "You''re going to inform the boss" the bearded man instructed.


    "I''m going to stay here and keep an eye on him. Seriously, use your fucking brain for once. If he leaves without his group then I''ll be able to jump him"


    "But you just said-"


    "I know what I fucking said. I''m just saying, just in case. No move your arse and get a move on. This is important" said the bearded man angrily, interrupting the other man.


    With that, their conversation ended and the second man got up and left the pub while the bearded man stayed behind and continued to watch Tom from the side-lines. When Tom went to sit down again and was out of the bearded man''s sight, the bearded man got up and moved to sit on a stool at the bar. This way, he was able to keep Tom in his sight and if Tom got up to leave he would know and would be able to follow him.


    Both of the men had been shocked to see Tom, a man they had known to be dead, still alive. The first time they saw him was just over 3 months ago when they had attacked a small group of people travelling at night. It was quite a memorable night for the bearded man because the people they had attacked belonged to the Cardinal clan''s estate and it had caused them no end of trouble ever since.


    Seeing Tom, here and now, made the bearded man very concerned. He and his group had many members that operated from within Hill city. This wasn''t a problem because they were very careful when it came to hiding themselves and their tracks. They''d been getting away with it for years and had never been caught, but now, a man, a member of the Cardinal clan no less, had seen several of their faces and miraculously lived to tell the tale. He would be able to pin any of the faces of those present that night as criminals and completely upturn their operation. This was something they definitely had to tell their boss about.


    It was unfortunate for them that they hadn''t known that there was a survivor from that night. Although Tom had caused quite a scene by coming to the city gate at night covered in blood, the bandits hadn''t heard about this. Of course, there was an uproar the next day when the Cardinal clan started mobilising their forces, but the story of Tom at the city gates was only shared between those who had been on duty that night. In fact, had it not been for the fact that everyone was so focused on the death of Paul Cardinal and gossiping about the Cardinal clan''s reaction, it''s likely that the story of Tom would have been the one to make its way through the rumour mill. In this way, the bandits own actions had overshadowed and concealed this piece of information that was of import to them. This, coupled with the fact that Tom hadn''t left the clan''s estate since arriving there, meant that the bandits didn''t learn about his survival.


    Thinking about the possible repercussions of the man before him still being alive, the bearded man kept his gaze focused on Tom.

 Chapter 27 - Death

    It was about 10 minutes later that Tom finished the rest of his drink and got up to leave. Since he didn''t order a new one, unlike everyone else in his group, he had finished drinking much sooner than them and was leaving first.


    Tom wasn''t particularly bothered about waiting around for them to finish up before leaving. He didn''t know how long they''d be and it wasn''t like they all lived at the Cardinal estate anyway, so, he saw no point in waiting for them. He said his goodbyes and proceeded to walk out of Benny''s, onto the cold and wet streets of the city.


    When he did so, the bearded man also put down his drink and got up to leave. He couldn''t believe his luck. He''d told his friend that he would stay behind on the off chance that Tom would leave without the rest of his group and now it was actually happening.


    He only said what he had because he knew someone would have to go and inform the boss and he didn''t want to be the one to do it. The boss had a bit of a temper about him and would sometimes act out. The bearded man didn''t know what he might do when learned of this information and for good measure decided to push this responsibility onto his friend. But more than that, he just wanted to continue drinking. Only one of them had to go and pass the information on, so he might as well be able to stay here and enjoy his drink. What he hadn''t expected was that Tom really would get up and leave without the rest of his group.


    The bearded man was excited to see Tom leave by himself. Now, he was actually presented with a golden opportunity to win some major merits.


    He wasn''t a particularly strong member of the bandit group, quite weak actually, but, right now he had the perfect chance to ingratiate himself with his superiors. If he got rid of this problem here and now, he reckoned he would be rewarded generously.


    Thinking this, he exited the pub after Tom and started following him at a distance, just waiting for the best opportunity to strike.


    Meanwhile, Tom was proceeding along his way, walking through the dark streets of the city. It was very late now and the only light was coming from the still lit lamps on select streets and in certain buildings.


    When Tom had first travelled to Benny''s he had only had a vague idea of where it was and had to travel along the major streets running through the city to find it, but, going from Benny''s back to the Cardinal estate was a much easier affair. Using the well-lit governor''s building, standing tall on its small hill, Tom was easily able to orient himself and determine the quickest path back to Cardinal estate.


    Actually, Tom could easily remember the route he took to get to Benny''s and given that that was also the most well-lit path, many people would choose to take it. But, Benny''s was practically on the other side of the city from the Cardinal estate and the closest major street would take him the long way round. Tom had no intention of taking such a detour when he could easily make his way through the lesser travelled backstreets and alleys. However, it was this way of thinking that exposed him to unknown dangers.


    The bearded man, who saw Tom start walking through the backstreets, couldn''t believe what he was seeing.


    Benny''s wasn''t attached to a main street. To get on one of the major and well-lit streets from where they were, it would require a couple of minutes of walking. The bearded man had figured that he had just a short window of opportunity to strike before then, but, to his surprise, Tom wasn''t walking towards the well-lit main street, he was actually walking into the dark backstreets.


    [Sweet mother in Heaven, oh how you smile upon me] the bearded man thought to himself, with a gleeful smile on his face.


    [It''s almost like I''m destined to be the one to kill him. Yes, that''s exactly it. The heavens smile upon me. This is meant to be. It''s finally my turn to shine]


    Unbeknownst to the danger behind him, Tom passed from one back alley to another, getting further and further away from the light of the local night establishments.


    Eventually, after Tom entered a particular alley, the bearded man could wait no more. There were no people around, nor were there any lit lamps in the surrounding buildings. Even if there were, the walls of the alley would have obscured them.


    The man took a knife strapped to his belt out and increased his pace, getting ready to break out into a run.


    The man had a clear memory of what had happened on that night 3 months ago. As far as he was concerned, Tom wasn''t a cultivator. There was no way he, who was at the 4th level of body strengthening, would fail to kill him. The only reason he had waited this long was so that he would be out of the sight of other people. On the off chance that someone stumbled upon him when he was doing the deed it would be game over for him. After all, this city was still controlled by the Cardinal''s, so he had to be at least somewhat careful.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Seeing his chance, the bearded man broke into a run. One quick strike and it would all be over.


    Tom, walking along, heard the sound of rapid footsteps behind him as the bearded man''s heavy footfalls echoed in the back alley. Curious, Tom turned to look behind him and saw the bearded man running at him, knife in hand.


    Tom was shocked at this development. He could clearly tell that the bearded man was running at him and was not going to pass by, but didn''t know why anymore would suddenly try to attack him with a knife. Nevertheless, the bearded man had gotten quite close and there was not a lot of time to process this information. Seeing the danger approaching him, Tom immediately went into fighting mode. He started sensing qi in order to determine the enemy''s strength and when he saw that the opponent, like him, was at the 4th level of body strengthening, he chose fight over flight.


    The bearded man, upon seeing Tom take a defensive posture, laughed in his head. Even now, he was a little concerned that Tom would shout for help and he would be discovered, but, lo and behold, he was just standing there, not even trying to run.


    [He must know its futile] thought the bearded man.


    Thinking that, the bearded man was finally within striking distance. He thrust out his arm, the knife aiming for Tom''s throat. A look of joy was on his face. He was already contemplating his success, thinking about how smart and lucky he was. Unfortunately, the turn of events he had pictured in his head did not come to fruition.


    When the man thrust out with the knife, Tom finally made his move. He had been practicing hand to hand combat with both Avery and Pike and was no longer a complete novice at it. He back stepped and batted the bearded man''s arm away.


    At this moment, the bearded man was full of shock. He didn''t know what had happened. His fool proof plan had just gone completely awry. The person in front of him wasn''t even meant to be a cultivator, but he had just knocked his arm aside.


    His first thought was ''my god, I''ve got the wrong person''. He believed that he had made a mistake and that Tom wasn''t actually the person from 3 months ago, that he''d just attacked a random, unrelated person. But, looking at Tom up close, he was forced to throw this conclusion away. This was, undoubtedly, the man that had been killed on that night 3 months ago.


    After the initial shock of it, having his arm knocked away had a sobering effect on the bearded man''s mind. He couldn''t understand how the person in front of him had blocked his strike, but, he undeniably did. Therefore, using the momentum of his run, he changed his knife lunge into a shoulder bash, knocking over both Tom and himself.


    When the two of them fell, the bearded man lost his grip on the knife and it flew out of his hand. Nevertheless, since he had fallen on top of Tom, he had the advantage.


    Tom was cursing in his mind. He had chosen to stay and fight this man but he had made grave miscalculation. He believed with his training over the past 3 months and his reaction time he would easily be able to deal with this attacker. However, this fight wasn''t like those he''d experienced in training. There was no trading of blows per se. The bearded man knocking them both to the ground was outside of Tom''s expectations.


    Now, with his position on top, the bearded man raised his fist and struck down at Tom. Tom, seeing the incoming fist had no choice but raise both his arms to protect his face.


    Blow after blow was landing on Tom''s arms. Through the pain resounding in his arms, Tom had started feel a sense of danger. He understood that he was actually in danger. But, rather than fear, what he felt was an upwelling of pure unbridled anger. He''d came down to this planet as a way to accomplish his goals and just when he''d started to enjoy it and have some insights, some stranger had attacked him out of the blue and was about to ruin it all. He couldn''t let that happen. He wouldn''t.


    Between the bearded man''s strikes, Tom raised his left hand and grabbed the man''s face, digging his fingers and nails in and pushing his head back. The bearded man had no choice but to stop his attack as he shouted in pain. He then proceeded to try and rip Tom''s hand and vice like grip off of him.


    Tom, taking this opportunity, reached his right hand out along the stone floor, searching for the knife that the bearded man had dropped. Meanwhile, the bearded man managed remove Tom''s hand from his face, which now had five lines of blood where the nails had pierced the skin.


    While Tom was still reaching his hand out and his face was unprotected, the bearded man launched another punch at him. The heavy blow hit him on the side of the face.


    Although it hurt a lot, Tom was actually quite lucky. Not only had nothing been broken but the blow knocking his head to the side had also given him more leeway to extend his arm out further.


    Unfortunately for Tom, he still wasn''t able to reach the knife, but, he was able to clasp his hand around a large rock. ''Good enough'' Tom thought to himself. He quickly raised his left arm to block the next incoming blow from the bearded man and grabbed the hair on the side of his head, using it as leverage to pull him off from on top of him.


    After forcing the bearded man down to the side, Tom swung his right arm, rock in hand, aiming at the bearded man''s face. Tom had managed to reposition himself so he was now on top but the bearded man was not yet in a position to block the incoming blow.


    Tom''s anger finally had a release as the blow with the full force of his strength landed on the bearded man''s face and made a satisfying crunch. But, there was no way that Tom''s anger could possibly be abated with just that. He swung again and again and again, until the he could no longer hear the moans of the man, nor could he feel him struggling underneath him and then continued to swing some more.


    Eventually, when the rage in his heart had calmed down, he finally stopped. His arm felt exhausted and he was heaving heavily. Looking down, he saw his hand and the rock covered in blood and the bearded man''s now unrecognisable face. The question of whether or not the man was still alive didn''t have to be asked. He was dead. Tom had killed his first person since coming to this world.

 Chapter 28 - Who Was That?

    Tom sat there, on top of the bearded man, deep in contemplation. The fact that he''d just killed someone didn''t matter to him at all. He was completely unfazed by it. After all, he used to be a carnivore. If he didn''t kill; he didn''t eat. Though, that was a sentiment that mellowed out substantially after he ascended and no longer required food for sustenance.


    The reason that Tom was lost in thought was purely because of how unexpected and bizarre the situation was for him. He''d just been walking along and some strange man suddenly attacked him out of nowhere. He didn''t know what to make out of the situation. After bashing the man''s face in and calming his anger, Tom was left with a sense of surrealism.


    However, Tom couldn''t remain in his stupor for very long. Once again, he heard running footsteps coming from behind him. His first thought was that another attacker had appeared. Logically, it wouldn''t make sense for another attacker to run out with this timing, but then again, Tom hadn''t expected the first one either. He quickly got up, grabbing the knife lying on the ground and looked with a serious gaze at the corner of the alley, unsure of who or what to expect.


    As the sound of footsteps grew louder, Tom began to hear new sounds, far off voices and shouting.


    Tom thought about the possibility of running but even if he had calmed down somewhat, that didn''t mean his blood wasn''t still boiling. He''d just won one encounter and he was fully prepared to fight again. He wanted to see just who exactly was challenging him.


    Rationally, running away could be both the right choice and the wrong choice. Tom was working on the belief that the footsteps he was hearing might belong to another attacker. In this situation, there was logic in both, waiting to see who else was trying to kill him and assessing the threat level, and, running away before more danger arrived.


    Tom made the choice to stay in the alley because he wanted to see who else was involved in this strange plot to kill him and if possible, kill them too. Part of this was motivated by his anger at having been attacked out of nowhere and nearly killed, part of it was because when challenged it just wasn''t in his nature to back down, and part of it was that with his sense of pride as a god, how could possibly stand to be targeted by these weaklings.


    In the back of his mind he knew that he was weak at the moment and that retreating and avoiding danger would be more sensible at this moment in time. He knew that if he died, it would ruin his plans and likely lead to him losing his bet with Methis, but, his sense of pride just wouldn''t allow run off like some coward.


    However, ultimately, Tom had made the rational choice by staying, though not for the reasons he did stay.


    Tom''s body tensed in anticipation, preparing himself, as he saw a person run round the corner and enter the alley. This person then stopped shortly after entering the alley, facing Tom with concern in his eyes.


    "Avery?" Tom asked.


    After making out the figure in front of him, a look of confusion spread across Tom''s face. The question he asked wasn''t so much to confirm who was in front of him, Tom could see him well enough, it was out of confusion as to why he was there.


    Avery looked at Tom, seeing a bruise forming on his face and blood running from his nose and a cut on his lip. Then Avery looked to the body of the bearded man on the floor. He looked back and forth between the two before pointed at the dead body, tilting his head and asking "Him... you did that?"


    "Yes" Tom said emotionlessly.


    "Why are you here?" he asked again, a hint of suspicion on his face.


    Collecting himself from the scene he saw before him, Avery answered Tom''s question.


    "When we were in Benny''s, that guy kept looking at you. I didn''t think much of it at first but then he followed you out after you left. Because of the alcohol, I was a bit slow to react, but, I realised something was wrong and sobered up. I tried to follow after you and catch up but I didn''t realise you''d walked this way. I ran all the way to main street and when I didn''t see you I backtracked and came this way. It was only after I heard sounds of a scuffle that I found you in this alley"


    "I see" said Tom, absorbed in thought at Avery''s explanation.


    "You didn''t get here in time"


    Hearing this, Avery swallowed deeply. He wasn''t sure what Tom meant by that. Tom hadn''t expressed these words in a strong manner and Avery didn''t know what the hidden emotions and thoughts behind them were.


    These words had caused a myriad of emotions and thoughts to run through Avery''s head.


    Firstly, they were something to feel guilty about. Avery was a guard under the employ of the Cardinal clan. It was his duty to defend members of the clan. He was even a guard working under the direct employ of Gerald, Tom''s father.


    Even though he had come looking for Tom, his slow actions were clearly insufficient. The fight had already concluded by the time he had arrived there. Whether he went looking for Tom or not had no impact on the outcome. If Tom hadn''t gotten the upper hand, it would be he who was lying dead on the ground.


    This left Avery with a sense of failure. He had gotten to know Tom over the past 3 months and he also deeply respected Gerald, who had hired him. For a person of ordinary birth, working for the Cardinal clan held some prestige and brought about many other benefits. Furthermore, Avery had his own sense of pride in his job. The mistake he had made in not, realising the threat soon enough, or, acting fast enough to prevent the attack, weighed on his mind.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    On the hand, Avery was concerned that Tom''s seemingly casually said words were actually hiding his anger. In the time that Avery had known Tom, Tom had never showed any particularly strong signs of anger. Frustration, yes, but not anger. Nevertheless, since Avery worked for Tom''s father, if Tom was angry at him for not arriving in time, Tom could potentially get Avery fired.


    Though Avery was thinking all this, he was just overthinking things. Tom had no complex thoughts on the matter when he spoke his words. He had been absorbed in thought when considering the contents of Avery''s explanation and only spoke out absentmindedly. It was nothing more than a statement of fact and held no emotion in it. By this time, all of Tom''s anger had already dissipated.


    As they were standing there, they both heard more people approaching them. Another man came running around the corner and was breathing heavily, clearly out of breath. He also worked for the Cardinal clan and had been at table, drinking with them. Upon seeing Avery, he launched into speech.


    "Avery, what the hell!? Why did you suddenly bolt out the door and then start running around like a mad ma- WHAT THE FUCK!!!?"


    The man, who was originally berating Avery, suddenly saw Tom and the dead man on the ground and shouted out in shock.


    At this moment, Lance and two others came around the corner and upon seeing the scene before them made similar exclamations.


    "HOLY SHIT!"


    "What the hell!?"


    No-one could blame them for their shock. This situation was completely unexpected.


    "What on earth happened?" asked Lance, being the first to recover from his shock.


    "Well he" Avery said, while pointing at the dead bearded man.


    "Followed Tom out of the pub and then tried to kill him"


    Hearing this explanation, Lance and the others that had followed after Avery finally understood why he was acting so bizarrely. Originally they had thought the drink might have gotten to him and that he had turned mad. Though knowing the actual situation, they didn''t know whether they should feel relieved or not. That someone had tried to murder Tom, a member of the Cardinal family, inside Hill city, was quite unnerving.


    "Wait, I don''t understand. Why did you come down this alley" Lance asked Tom. Puzzled as to why they were in such an out of the way place.


    "Did you realise he was following you and tried to draw him out?"


    This was actually a question Avery wanted answered as well. He hadn''t been able to catch up to Tom because he thought he would have been walking to the main street. He wasn''t sure why Tom would walk this way but hearing Lance''s words he came to an understanding, an understanding that was dropped on its head by the next words out of Tom''s mouth.


    "No. It''s just faster this way" said Tom in reply.


    [Oh, it''s faster] thought everyone else in a daze.


    [Wait, so that''s the reason you took this ridiculous route] everyone shouted in their heads in disbelief.


    "Never mind that, there''s a more important question that needs to be asked" said Avery.


    "Tom, do you know who this man is? Do the two of you have some sort of past grudge?"


    "Never met him before in my life" replied Tom.


    "You can''t think of anything that you might have done that someone would want to kill you over?"


    "No, nothing" Tom said matter of factly after a short pause. Aside from the first day of his arrival and today, Tom had spent the entirety of his time at the Cardinal clan estate. Furthermore, there was nothing in the old Tom Cardinal''s memories that gave him a clue as to who the bearded man was or why he would want him dead.


    Hearing Tom''s reply, everyone present became puzzled about what had transpired. It could easily be passed off as a chance occurrence had it been a random encounter in the backstreets. Tom could hardly blame anyone else if that was case. After all, he had chosen to walk down a series of dark and out of the way back alleys. But, the fact that the bearded man had been watching Tom from the bar and followed him out made this premeditated.


    Confused over who this mysterious bearded man was and his reasons for attacking Tom, the group decided to go over and have a better look at him. Because it was particularly dark, with only a small amount of moonlight poking through the clouds, they couldn''t see what the bearded man looked like from where they were.


    Only Tom and Avery had gotten a good look at him so far and they wanted to see what he looked like too. All of them had drunk at Benny''s before and they figured that if they saw his face, one of them might be able to recognise him.


    However, when they went closer and peered at his remains, what used to be his face was now a mushy and mangled mess. The sight was quite horrifying and one of the men even threw up upon seeing it. Perhaps if he hadn''t been drinking he would have had better control over his body.


    There was no way they could recognise the man from his face. There wasn''t even a face left, just a bloody caved in pit with bits of bone and brain seeping through.


    Of course, he still had his facial hair, but many man had long hair and beards. His clothes also had no identifying marks. The group of men were left stumped.


    Afterwards, they continued to talk for a while, trying to figure out the situation and trying to find if he had anything on him that would give them a clue about his identity. In the end they didn''t find anything and people had started to gather. Neither Tom''s scuffle, nor Avery and the other guards had been quiet and they had started to attract quite a bit of attention. Numerous people from surrounding buildings had come to see what the commotion was and people from further off came to see the reason a crowd was gathering.


    Eventually, some men from the city guard came and Tom explained the situation to them. Since the city guard was under the command of the Cardinal family, they quickly heeded the words of Tom and didn''t cause any trouble for him. Whether he was telling the truth or not wasn''t their concern, they would leave that for their superiors to worry about. After explaining everything to the city guard, Tom and the others were ready to leave, though this time they were all going to walk back to the Cardinal estate together and those that didn''t live there permanently were planning to stay in the temporary lodging for the clan''s employees.


    Unbeknownst to Tom and the others, there were a couple of people standing in the crowd that were staring hard at Tom, a mix of emotions shown on their faces, ranging from surprise, disbelief and concern. However, one young man''s face looked warped and twisted. Usually this man was arrogant and proud, but whenever something didn''t go his way his bad temper would flare up.


    He didn''t care for the dead man on the ground, but seeing Tom made him feel angry and uncomfortable. This was the gaudy man who was showing off his skills 3 months ago during the bandit incident and then killed Tom Cardinal.


    "See boss, I told you, he''s still alive" said the man who had been drinking with the bearded man, with a slightly pained and meek voice.


    The young man who was called the boss responded by clenching and unclenching his fists.


    "Let''s go" he ordered through clenched teeth and then starting walking off. His underlings followed after him.

 Chapter 29 - Family Discussions (1)

    "Again Tom. Hah..." Adam sighed.


    "You just can''t avoid trouble, can you? I''m not even sure if you''re lucky or unlucky"


    "Well I''m hardly to blame for this" Tom said in reply.


    "And I would posit that I''m unlucky"


    After the incident the previous night, Tom had returned home and after speaking a few words to a clan member, he went to bed and allowed Avery to explain the situation.


    When the new day came, he found that things in the estate had once again livened up. This was to a much smaller degree than before, but seeing as someone just tried to kill Tom within Hill city it certainly caught the attention of the higher ups in the clan. Perhaps it wouldn''t have gotten as much attention had the bandit incident not occurred 3 months ago and they were on high alert, but since Gerald would''ve made a clamour about it anyway, it still would have made it to the upper echelons of the clan.


    Of course, when he woke up, he was visited by his parents who inquired about what had happened last night and he explained it as best he could. After they left, presumably to go investigate and deal with the situation, Adam came in, leading to the short exchange they just had.


    "I heard the details of what happened last night. I heard you killed the man. Are you alright?" Adam said with concern.


    "Yeah I''m fine" Tom replied casually.


    "Really?" Adam questioned.


    "I know when I killed someone for the first time my hand wouldn''t stop shaking for the rest of the day"


    "Yeah. No problem at all"


    Hearing this, Adam was surprised. He knew his cousin well and didn''t think Tom would be able to take this so well. Especially since Tom had no prior experience with such a thing, though thinking about it for a bit, he reasoned that the bandit incident 3 months ago must have hardened his heart and toughened him up.


    Little did he know, the reason was because Tom had already had plenty experience with killing. He''d done it for countless years as a magic beast. From Tom''s point of view, the act of killing wasn''t a problem at all. It was not that he was some mindless psychopath, he had never gone out of his way to purposelessly kill before, but, killing was just a way of life for him. More than that, it wasn''t in his nature to be fazed by it. He''d killed in anger before and he''d relished kills before, but, he had never been upset at killing. It just wasn''t something that would affect him like that.


    Disregarding his life experiences and his nature, there were two other reasons that Tom''s mental state wasn''t affected by the act of killing the bearded man. Firstly, it was because he wasn''t really a human. Just like the humans in this world and countless other worlds wouldn''t bat an eye at killing magic beasts or qi beasts, in fact they would even go out of their way to do it, why would Tom bat his eye at killing a human.


    This wasn''t to say he didn''t respect humans; he greatly respected Jacob and Methis who were both ascended humans and had even begun to appreciate the existence of Adam, Avery and the others around him, but, that didn''t mean he would care about humans who he didn''t know, much less ones that had tried to kill him.


    The second reason that that killing the bearded man couldn''t affect Tom''s state of mind was because of his position of power as a god. He was so far removed from mortals that unless he formed a personal connection with them, like the members of the Cardinal clan, Avery, Pike and Lance, it would be nigh impossible for him to care about them. Perhaps he would care about the myriad of mortal lives on his own world, when he finished creating it, but right now he didn''t have such attachments.


    "Well... anyway. You''ll need to be more careful from now on, even inside the city" said Adam seriously.


    "Oh, and why''s that?" Tom questioned.


    "I don''t think you quite get the seriousness of the situation" Adam sighed.


    "And how serious is it? It''s true that being assaulted inside the city was unexpected but the chances of it happening again must be very low. I''ll even stop taking the backstreets. Won''t that solve the problem?"This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    Tom certainly wasn''t happy at being targeted by someone and attacked, but neither did he place much concern on it. He had decided to pin it down to a freak occurrence and put it out of his mind. He knew that logically there would be others targeting him, but, there wasn''t much he could do about it anyway, so, what was the point in dwelling on it. Like Adam said, he just had to be more careful from now on, which he fully intended to be. He would just take things as they came.


    "See, this is what I mean. You don''t understand the seriousness of the situation. There''s more going on here than what is on the surface. Let me explain it to you"


    "Very well then" Tom said, intrigued at what Adam had to say.


    Although he''d decided not to dwell on these things, he wasn''t so stupid as to ignore Adam should he have information relevant to his safety.


    "Well then, first off, we have to consider the reason you were attacked. Because the man had been staring at you and then followed you out from the bar to kill you, it was clearly a premeditated attack. What''s more, since he targeted you specifically, it can be determined that he knew who you were. Now, you said you didn''t know the man, nor any reason someone would want to kill you, so, that only really leaves one option"


    "And what''s that?" asked Tom.


    "Well, do you remember what you told us the bandits who let you go said?"


    "Yes, vaguely" answered Tom.


    "That you were a nobody that they could kill whenever they wanted" Adam said, recounting what Tom had said on that night 3 months ago.


    "We believe that they just tried to make good on that promise"


    Hearing this, Tom didn''t quite know how to respond. After all, that was just the lie he told as to why he was still alive and the others weren''t.


    He was feeling disappointed right now because he thought that the clan had figured out a greater threat to him and would be able to deal with it, but instead, a false conclusion was drawn because of his own words.


    "As to why this is so serious, the bandits said those words as a direct challenge to the clan. The meaning behind them was that they didn''t put the clan in their sights. That they believed they could do anything to us and still get away with it. It was why they attacked you and Paul that night and also why they left you with those words. They''re making a statement, that they''re the power in these parts, that the Cardinal clan isn''t as strong as everyone believes"


    "Think about it logically. You and Paul, as well as the guards accompanying you, were wearing the insignia of the clan. Any regular bandit group would never dare to attack people from the clan so close to Hill city. The initial attack could be explained away as a mistake because it was dark, but, after they''d finished everyone off, they let you go and made no attempt to hide the bodies. They just left them there In the middle of the road"


    "Even if they were a particularly brazen group, the Cardinal clan name still resounds strongly in the North West. Their actions would be the equivalent of courting death. But, they''re not a regular group of bandits. They are directly challenging our authority and trying to undermine us. Killing you would have cemented the statement they were trying to make"


    "That''s why you have to be more careful from now on. It''s likely they didn''t realise that you had become a cultivator; I mean it was a surprise to us too, but, they know that now. They''ll likely come after you again, maybe to prove themselves, maybe just to wipe away the disgrace of their failure. Nevertheless, you''ll probably have a bullseye on your head until we finally find and uproot them."


    "That''s... good to know" Tom said after hearing Adam''s long explanation.


    Internally, Tom was shaking his head. He acknowledged that Adam had good reasoning but because it was half predicated on the lie he told he couldn''t completely buy into it either. Adam made a good case but Tom remained uncertain as to who the true culprits were.


    Little did Tom realise, Adam had hit startlingly close to the truth. Aside from in regards to Tom specifically and the lie Tom told, Adam had pretty much gotten the intent of the bandits from 3 months ago spot on. It was just that, the real reason the bandits wanted Tom dead was because they believed he would be able to identify them, not because of some remark they''d left him with or because killing him would prove the point they were trying to make.


    The bandits from that night were actually right in their concern. Although Tom had told Gerald that he couldn''t see what the attackers looked like, that wasn''t entirely true. The original Tom Cardinal, with his lack of cultivation, hadn''t been able to make out the people in the dark with just the moonlight to go by, but he had seen the man who had killed him, who just so happened to be the leader of that group of attackers. It still wasn''t a completely clear picture, but it would be enough to recognise the man if he was up close again.


    At that point in time, when first meeting Gerald, Tom was exhausted and just wanted to sleep. He told Gerald he couldn''t identify any of them so he could spare himself the hassle of being asked more questions. He also did it because he didn''t think it was that important. From his perspective, unless he personally saw the person up close and pinned him as the attacker, he didn''t think the clan would possibly be able to find someone from some vague descriptions of their appearance. There wasn''t even anything particularly unique or special about the man.


    However, even if Tom did have a perfect picture of the man, he still wouldn''t give it to Gerald. Methis was working from a specific criteria when selecting a body for Tom, part of which was a freshly dead body with zero cultivation. If the bandits hadn''t killed Tom Cardinal, Tom never would have gotten this body, and a good body it was. As a show of gratitude, Tom didn''t want to reveal this information so easily.


    Thinking about Adam''s words and the possibility of it being those bandits, Tom re-evaluated his position a bit.


    [If it really is those bandits then I won''t pull any punches. I may have gotten this body because of them but I''m certainly not going to let them take it away]

 Chapter 30 - Family Discussions (2)

    While Tom was speaking with Adam, there was another discussion occurring within the Cardinal estate.


    In a large meeting room in the estate, several elders of the clan were gathered. The reason for their gathering was precisely because of the incident the previous night where Tom was attacked.


    "What are we going to do about this? Twice now, my son has almost been killed by these people. I want action" Gerald said agitatedly to the patriarch of the clan; Lucian Cardinal, A man in his late 50''s with short grey hair and a lean figure.


    "And what exactly do you want me to do? We already started a search 3 months ago, after the first time, but we haven''t turned anything up. Plus your son bashed his attacker''s face in so badly that he''s completely unrecognisable, we don''t exactly have much to go on"


    "At the moment, we can only continue on how we''ve been going. We''ll conduct a search of the city, rattle a few doors, question some petty criminals, but apart from that, there''s not a lot we can do" replied Lucian in a calm manner.


    "I understand that" Gerald said in frustration.


    "But we''ve even stopped the searches for the bandits. I don''t want to sit here doing nothing while the people trying to kill my son are left to operate unhindered"


    "You know the situation''s not like that, Gerald" said Emery, trying to calm down his brother.


    "We haven''t stopped all the searches Gerald, but, we were turning up nothing and there''s a limit to how long we can keep sending so many people out of the city every day. It was causing far too much disruption and it wasn''t getting us anywhere, so we had to scale it back. You know that" Lucian explained calmly.


    "But as soon as we did that, these bandits! Crept out of where ever they were hiding and started raiding along the roads again" said Gerald animatedly, voicing his unhappiness at how the situation was being handled.


    Those present, sympathised with Gerald. The whole bandit situation had left a bad taste in everyone''s mouth. They too, weren''t happy that as soon as they pulled their forces back the bandits had become active again, attacking people travelling on the roads. They wanted to resolve it as quickly as possible but that was hard to do when they couldn''t even locate the people responsible.


    The elders present also couldn''t blame the usually calm and serious Gerald for lashing out like this. After all, whatever else they could say about the man, Gerald was a person who deeply cared about his son. Many of those present had lost a loved one over the years; be it their parents, their partner, and for some, even their children, so they could sympathise with Gerald, whose son essentially had a target over his head.


    "That''s not necessarily a bad thing. While we were out searching, they had hidden themselves away very deeply. It''s unlikely we would have found them. We only found one of their hideouts by chance and paid a high price for underestimating them, a mistake we won''t make again" Lucian said, receiving nods of acknowledgment from around the room.


    Although the clan knew that bandits operated in the North West and they periodically made efforts to deal with them, they had severely underestimated the strength and scope of this particular bandit group. Previously, the clan had assumed the group was just slightly larger and more well organised than regular groups, but, the discovery that they had qi condensation level warriors in their midst had come as a complete shock to the clan. At most, they assumed that the bandits would have peak level qi expansionists; a qi condensation realm warrior was outside of expectations. After all, when it was so easy to earn a living and live comfortably as a qi condensation level warrior, why would they stoop to this level of banditry.


    "These bandits are smart and we won''t be able to find them while aimlessly searching. It''s regretful, but, when they''re more active that also gives us more leads to follow."Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    "The incident with your son last night was actually helpful for us Gerald. They made a mistake and it confirmed once and for all that they have people in the city. It gave us a lead to follow, starting with the pub Benny''s. We''ll start our search there and hopefully we''ll uncover some more of them. We just need to get our hands on one of them and make them talk. After that, we''ll be able to unravel their operation bit by bit" Lucian finished explaining.


    Gerald finally calmed down a bit after listening to Lucian''s explanation.


    "There''s still the chance that the bandits will be targeting my son, what''s the plan to deal with that? Should I just have some of my high level guards attached to him?" asked Gerald.


    "Oh, I don''t think that''s necessary. In fact, I don''t think he''ll be a target from now on at all. They clearly have a larger end game; they''re not going to care enough about pursuing your son to waste manpower on it. Besides, whatever point they were trying to make by killing him has already failed"


    "They aren''t strong enough to contend with us openly. The purpose of both attacks, yesterday and 3 months ago, was to deal us a psychological blow. If they go after him again they''d just be weakening their own position and revealing themselves needlessly"


    "Perhaps" said Gerald quietly, with uncertainty in his voice, thinking about Lucian''s assessment of the situation.


    The other elders present were considering these words and felt that they made sense, though not everyone agreed with them.


    "Perhaps its best if you send him out of the city" said the 8th elder.


    "Out of sight, out of mind. Besides, I heard that he''s already reached the 4th level of body strengthening. This might be a good opportunity to send him to the tainted forest or the haunted forest so he can gain experience and temper himself"


    "You mean you want to take him out of the frying pan and into the fire" Gerald scoffed.


    "Well now, that isn''t such a bad idea. Which one of us didn''t do such a thing as a coming of age ceremony? I remember a couple of years ago Adam was only at that level when he went out and killed his first qi beast. Tom is a cultivator now. He can defend himself. You have to stop coddling him brother and let him leave the nest" said Emery.


    "Emery makes a good point cousin. You''ve been asking about getting resources for him anyway and anyone in the clan who gets them is expected to contribute back. The clan didn''t get to where it is today without hard work. Each and every one of us has worked hard to get to where we are. Besides, as long as he stays at the outskirts, there won''t be much danger" said Lucian.


    Listening to Emery and Lucian, Gerald calmed down. He had to admit, he''d gotten quite worked up over this matter. Thinking about their words, he felt that they were reasonable.


    "Ok then. Perhaps it would be best to send him out of the city, get him away from all this" Gerald said, mulling it over.


    "You know what, I''ll even have one of my men at the peak of qi expansion shadow him. If anything serious happens, he''ll step in to help out" said Lucian, offering his support.


    With that; Gerald finally accepted his proposal, agreeing to send Tom to gain experience as a cultivator. The meeting came to a close and the elders that had gathered started to file out of the room.


    The patriarch, 8th elder and 5th elder however, stayed behind. The 5th elder didn''t quite agree with Lucian''s assessment and had some questions to ask him.


    "Do you really think they won''t target Gerald''s son again?" the 5th elder asked in a deep voice.


    "You could very well be sending him to his death by making him leave the city. These bandits are spread far and wide, there''s plenty of opportunity for them to find him in the outside world"


    "You don''t get it. That wasn''t the point. We were just trying to convince Gerald" said the 8th elder.


    "And what good does calming Gerald down now do if his son ends up dying soon after? Our 7th elder already had had a breakdown; we don''t need it happening to another one"


    "We needed to convince Gerald because otherwise, he never would have allowed us to use his son as bait" Lucian explained coolly.


    "Whereas not everything I said was a lie, I do believe there is a slight chance they might go after Tom again. Even if that chance is low, I''m still going to dangle the bait and try and get something on my hook"


    "Gerald is not going to be happy about that" said the 5th elder.


    "Precisely why I didn''t tell him" said Lucian.


    "I don''t know if I feel comfortable with you using one of our own like this" said the 5th elder, with inner turmoil in his heart.


    "I know, but desperate times call for desperate measures. This is bigger than just any one of us. We can''t afford to weakened with everything that''s going on at the moment and nothing else we''ve tried has been working"


    "I understand that, but is this really necessary?"


    Lucian took a deep breath in and then exhaled.


    "We''ll just have to see"

 Chapter 31 - Family Discussions (3)

    While Adam and Tom were talking in one room of the Cardinal estate and the elders were talking in another, a man, in his mid-twenties, with a dirty blond hair colour was making his way through the hilly countryside 30 miles to the north of Hill city. This was the man that had killed the original Tom Cardinal and whom the bandit underlings were calling boss.


    He had left the city in the early hours of the morning, soon after the city gates were opened and proceeded with haste.


    The current area he was in was off the beaten path.


    His horse was churning up the wet ground as it galloped forward. Patches of wet soil and grass were thrown into the air.


    He should have been more careful about not leaving a trail, but, no one was following him and he wanted to reach his destination quickly. Besides, he was already far away from any of the distinguished paths and these parts weren''t as well travelled anyway.


    He soon entered a well hidden valley and could see wooden constructions, a palisade, storage hut and a couple of houses built against the side of a very steep hill face.


    As he rode closer, some men that had been loitering about saw him riding over and immediately came to attention, grabbing swords and spears at their sides. However, as the blond haired man rode closer and they saw his appearance, all of these men relaxed, putting back their weapons and returning to their idle chatter.


    These men had been idling about in the valley, outside of the small settlement that had been built there. As the blond haired man drew closer, a couple of them went to open the gate that was only partially open.


    [The fools. Do they really think that a measly 3m high wall could stop me on my way?]


    The blond haired man sped through the gateway almost knocking down the men that had gotten up to open the gate. He scoffed at them in his mind. If the gate had remained closed he would have just jumped over it and continued on foot.


    [Ha, serves them right. I don''t know why they even built this stupid wall in the first place]


    The blond haired man was a dick.


    Also, contrary to beliefs of the blond man, the wall did actually serve a purpose. It was built to disguise the settlement as some simple village should it ever be chanced upon and also to hide the entrance to an expansive underground cave system that was artificially carved into hillside.


    Approaching the cave entrance, the blond man dismounted in a swift movement while the horse still galloping. He then walked towards the cave letting one of the surrounding men get the horse under control.


    As he passed into the cave, he saw many familiar faces, fellow warriors in the realm of qi expansion. Seeing them, he was internally displeased. This den was one of the hideaways of his family, run by his father, but, it was also one that he rarely frequented and had little influence in. The warriors he passed by were his father''s men, not his. He''d be hard pressed to get them to follow him. Although he had a very high position in the bandit group, with many underlings, he wasn''t actually the top boss. That position belonged to his father.


    Making his way into the bowels of the cave system that was lit with numerous lamps and even some glowing crystals, he passed through a couple of large rooms until he finally happened upon a certain closed door. Without knocking, he entered the room and saw his father, a man in his fifties with long dirty blond hair that had begun to grey and clear signs of aging on his face, sitting at a table with some confidantes, looking over a detailed map of the North West.


    Upon his entry, everyone turned their heads to look at him. Some were visibly displeased at his attitude and some were just generally displeased to see him. However, there were also others that didn''t care or weren''t in a high enough position to be able to display this emotions at him.


    "What are you doing here?" the man''s father questioned.


    "I have some things to talk to you about father" the blond haired man answered.


    "Very well, out with it" said the man''s father with impatience.


    "I''d rather discuss this privately"


    This particular trip was not one the blond haired man had wanted to make, but, his better judgement had prevailed and he decided he ought to let his father know the current situation. Nevertheless, he anticipated that his father wouldn''t be happy to receive this news and would probably blame him for it. If he was going to have rough words with his father he certainly wasn''t going to let these other people listen in.


    [These confidantes of father are all sly and scheming. They''re worth nothing but will no doubt take this opportunity to try and mock me and put me down. They''re just jealous of my power. They have no right to look at me like that] thought the blond haired man fiercely.


    After looking into his son''s eyes for a moment, the father looked at his attendants and then nodded at the door, indicating for them to leave. Obeying his orders, they all filed their way out of the room and took the opportunity to go get some fresh air. That was the other reason they had built things out in the valley. If they had left it as purely the cave system it would have been less conspicuous, but, it could easily get stuffy living underground and the people wanted somewhere they could go and relax.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    Once the last person left the room, the blond haired man closed the door and then turned back to look at his father.


    "Ok, everyone has left now. What was so urgent that you had to come here and then interrupt my meeting to speak to me in private?"


    "It''s about 3 months ago" said the blond haired man a bit tentatively, a sour expression on his face.


    Just those words alone made his father''s face sink.


    "It turns out that one of the men I killed, one who is a direct descendant of the Cardinal clan, is still alive"


    Hearing those words, the blond haired man''s father was furious. He clenched his fists tightly and started shaking slightly from his anger. Blood rushed to his face, turning it red, and the veins on it started sticking out. With his face contorted in anger, he slammed his hand on the table, breaking part of it off, and then stood up, staring down his son.


    "GODDAMNIT JOSHUA!" he shouted.


    "WHAT''S WRONG WITH YOU!?"


    The blond haired man, whose name was Joshua, flinched slightly at his father''s outburst and turned his head away.


    "You already did such a foolish thing 3 months ago, which I had to deal with the fallout from, but it turns out that even when you do something wrong, you can''t even do it right!"


    "It''s ok, he obviously didn''t recognise me. Otherwise, they would have got to us already" Joshua said, trying to calm his father''s anger.


    "That''s not the point! I told you not to make any direct moves against them and you did it anyway"


    "I was doing it for us" Joshua spoke up, using the break in his father''s speech to defend himself.


    "Doing it for us? Don''t try and kid me Joshua, you can''t pull the wool over my eyes. You were doing it for yourself" Joshua''s father scoffed in anger.


    "They have no right to sit on their high horses in Hill city, acting all righteous and pompous. I was showing them they''re not in charge anymore, that this is our land. I was taking the fight to them" said Joshua heatedly.


    "AND I TOLD YOU, that we''re not ready for that yet!" said Joshua''s father, trying to keep his anger under control.


    "We will make our move against them when the time is right, but that time isn''t now. We aren''t strong enough at the moment. I''ve told you this already"


    After these last words were spoken, both Joshua and his father took a moment to calm down and cool their heads. After doing so, Joshua''s father finally came around to asking his son some important questions that needed answering.


    "This person that you failed to kill, who is he?" he asked in a calmer voice than before but with a mocking tone.


    "He''s just some low level member of their clan who got lucky" Joshua said through gritted teeth.


    This was why he wanted the others out of the room. He knew they would have some scathing remarks to make over the fact that someone he''d killed, against the express orders of his father, and then gloated over, was actually still alive. What''s more, it seems that only through sheer luck this person wasn''t able to expose his identity and ruin their whole operation.


    "His name is Tom Cardinal. I''ve investigated; he''s the son of the Cardinal clan''s 10th elder"


    "And why did you just discover that he''s still alive now and not 3 months ago?"


    "He must have stayed in their estate to recover from his wounds and only came out recently when he had fully recovered" answered Joshua.


    After thinking for a short while, an important thought popped into the head of Joshua''s father.


    "Wait, you said he didn''t recognise you. Does that mean to say he actually saw your face?" said Joshua''s father seriously, concern in his voice.


    Joshua inhaled a sharp breath of cold air. They''d finally gotten to the crux of the matter.


    "Technically... yes" Joshua admitted.


    "It was dark at the time and he wasn''t a cultivator so he wouldn''t have been able to see that well, but I stabbed him in the chest personally and I didn''t have anything covering my face"


    "But like I said earlier, he obviously didn''t recognise me. It''s been 3 months now and there hasn''t been so much as inkling of that coming back on us. We''ve both been in the city since then and had they known, they would have taken us out when they had the chance" Joshua explained confidently.


    Joshua''s father grumbled with discontent but also knew his son''s words were the truth. Had his son been identified, they would probably both be dead already, with their entire operation dismantled.


    "For good measure you''ll need to stay out of the city for now. He hasn''t recognised you so far. We''ll just have to make sure it stays that way permanently" said Joshua''s father decisively.


    "And of course, there''s more than one way of making that permanent" the hostile intent in his words clear.


    To Joshua''s father, making sure his son wasn''t walking around Hill city was just a temporary measure. Even though this Tom person hadn''t seemed to recognise him, that didn''t mean that the possibility of it happening in the future was nil. It was better to be safe than sorry and eliminate the boy. Thinking along these lines, Joshua''s father picked up on something from his son''s words.


    "I just realised. You said, ''wasn''t a cultivator''. What did you mean by that?" he asked.


    "Well you see, that''s the strange thing. 3 months ago, he wasn''t a cultivator. He definitely wasn''t. I''d stake my life on it. But something unexpected happened yesterday when we found out he was still alive" said Joshua as he began to tell his tale.


    "Two of my men, low level people, not really worth mentioning, saw him, late at night when they were drinking in a pub. One of them came to inform me while the other stayed to keep his eye on him. I didn''t believe it at first; I mean, I stabbed him in the chest, I saw him go down. He shouldn''t have survived it, but... I went to the pub anyway"


    "Neither my man or the Cardinal man were there, however, what I did find was a commotion in the streets, people running about and shouting. I went to see what was happening and saw my man, dead in a back alley. It seems he must have followed and tried to kill the Cardinal man in the backstreets. I assumed one of the Cardinal man''s guards must have saved him, after all, my man was just an uneducated idiot, it''s no wonder he''d get caught in the act. However, on closer inspection, I saw that this Tom Cardinal had already reached the 4th level of body strengthening, the same as my guy"


    "Hmm, I see" said Joshua''s father after hearing that story.


    "Although it is surprising that someone who started so late suddenly became a cultivator and advanced so fast, that''s just it, it''s surprising. He''s still just an ant. Besides, with the resources that the Cardinal clan has and with this person''s father being one of their elders, it''s not too surprising he was able to advance this fast after breaking through from preliminary cultivation"


    "All this means, is that the weakest of our people won''t be able to kill him. It''s of no consequence"


    Joshua nodded in agreement at his father''s words.


    "Oh and you''ll need to deal with your other man that was at the pub. We can''t afford any loose ends that can trace back to us"


    "Don''t worry father, I know the rules. I already killed him. No one will find the body" Joshua said and smirked gleefully. It was the first thing he''d felt happy about something during the entirety of this conversation.


    "Good, Good. Well anyway, I''ll just tell everyone to look out for an opportunity. This Tom Cardinal won''t stay alive for much longer"

 Chapter 32 - Family Discussions (4)

    Later that day, when Tom was eating tea with his parents, Gerald brought up the topic of having Tom go out into the outside world.


    "Tom" said Gerald suddenly, putting down his fork and looking at his son.


    "Yes father?" said Tom.


    Tom also put down his fork at this moment. He guessed that he would probably have to engage his father in further conversation.


    "I and the other elders have discussed about what happened last night. The bandits clearly have people hidden in the city. That''s why you got attacked last night and we can''t be sure if they''ll do it again"


    "I see. That is troubling" Tom said, slightly exasperated.


    He was frustrated that he still didn''t have any real answers or solutions to this problem. He didn''t even know if it''d be safe to walk the streets of Hill city.


    [Well, it shouldn''t be too dangerous but unexpected things will always happen]


    He could of course just stay within the Cardinal estate, as he had done for the past 3 months, but that was starting to bore him. There was only so long he could stay cooped up in the same place without becoming annoyed. More than anything, he detested not having the freedom to go where he pleased.


    "Are there any leads yet?" Sarah asked, concerned about her son.


    "I''m afraid not. We couldn''t find out anything about the man who attacked Tom other than the fact that he''d been drinking that evening in Benny''s with another man. We''ve looked for this other man but no one knew who he was and we haven''t been able to turn anything up" Gerald explained and then sighed.


    "So no one really knows anything" Sarah said critically.


    Gerald gave an awkward smile which was confirmation enough of Sarah''s suspicions.


    "Honestly, do you and the rest of the elders even know what you''re doing? Did they even have any suggestions?" Sarah asked frustratingly.


    "Yes. They did. They believe that so long as Tom is out of sight of the bandits, he''ll also be out of their mind. It was suggested that he go to the outskirts of either the tainted forest or the haunted forest, to hunt his first qi beast"


    "That''s really the best they could come up with?" said Sarah in anger.


    She was getting annoyed at the incompetence of the clan elders. It wasn''t really their fault but since her only son had almost been killed the previous night, she was a bit emotional and needed to vent her anger.


    She wanted a quick fix solution and retribution to fall on the heads of the bandits, but unfortunately, it just wasn''t that simple. This was something that would take time, work and also a stroke of good luck. The elders hadn''t been able to find the bandits yet because of how carefully they operated and it was really more of a case of waiting for them to make a mistake or stumbling upon them by chance.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "Actually, it''s not that bad of an idea. I was reluctant at first as well but he is getting to that level of strength now. We''ve all done this as a rite of passage before and it''s about time for him to do it too" said Gerald.


    "So you want to send him out there now? For heaven''s sake Gerald, he''s only been training for 3 months now. Aside from his fighting abilities or current lack thereof, he doesn''t know anything about qi beasts. He''s never had to learn before. There was no point" said Sarah, stressing the dangers involved.


    Because their son hadn''t showed any promise in cultivation before, he hadn''t been taught many of the things important to a cultivator. He''d had some basic swordsmanship training when he was young, but, after he hit 15 years of age and still hadn''t accomplished any of the stages of preliminary cultivation, that had stopped. Furthermore, since he had never become a true cultivator, he had never been educated on the myriad of qi beasts and danger zones found throughout the kingdom.


    "I hear you and you''re right. I don''t intend to send him out straight away. We''ll wait until he reaches the 5th level of body strengthening and studies up a bit on qi beasts first. After that, he should be fine. Besides, he won''t be alone. I''ll send a team of my men with him and Lucian said he''ll pick someone suitable to search along the roads for any bandits"


    Hearing his words, Sarah finally felt relief. If this was the case, then she didn''t have to be as concerned. Plus, she too had experienced a similar rite of passage when she was younger, going out to hunt a qi beast.


    While this conversation was going on, Tom just sat there listening. He was feeling a bit indignant at the moment. He had stopped eating in order to speak with his father but although the conversation still continued to be about him, he no longer seemed to be involved it. However, it was at this moment that Gerald turned his attention back to Tom.


    "Will you be fine with all that?" he asked


    "I''m... open to it" Tom replied.


    He had been mulling it over in his head and it didn''t seem like the worst of ideas. Yes, there was an increased amount of danger, but, it would give him the freedom to move around and explore the kingdom a bit.


    Plus, there were benefits to be gained by leaving the city and hunting qi beasts. The atmospheric and earthly qi was thinner in the cities so it would take him longer to cultivate if he spent all of his time in Hill city. Besides, he would be able to personally obtain cultivating resources by killing qi beasts.


    Everything he had gotten so far in the way of resources, were only handouts from his parents and from the clan. They had helped him progress quickly through the beginning stages of body strengthening, but, the further he progressed, the more qi he would need to absorb.


    The clan was generous to its talented members but they still had to ration what they had. After all, the clan only had a limited amount of resources and many members. Plus, they also had to cultivate the strength of their guards and general employees.


    If the clan used everything they had, they could easily help promote the strength of its members but that would be at the cost of the future generations and a severe mismanagement of their future prospects. Well... perhaps it would be easy for them to make it back, but, they''d never done things this way before. Their current method of management had always benefited them and they saw no reason to change it, never mind completely overhaul it.


    All of this meant that if Tom wanted to secure as many cultivating resources as possible, he would have to show both outstanding talent and also personally secure resources for himself with his own effort.


    "Well it''s decided then. You''ll continue your training for the time being and when you''ve gotten strong enough you''ll leave the city" said Gerald with enthusiasm in his voice and a smile on his face.


    "There''s just one thing I don''t understand" Tom said to his father.


    "Oh? What''s that?" Gerald asked.


    "You said that this was a way for me to be out of sight and mind from the bandits but surely, after killing a qi beast, I''ll just be returning back to the city again.


    "*Cough cough* that... well. You''ll just have to stay out there for a short while until things calm down. I''m sure that after a month or two the bandits will have completely forgotten about you and you''ll be able to get plenty of experience in the meantime"


    "Very well" Tom answered back.


    [I''m sure it''ll be more exciting than staying in the city anyway]

 Chapter 33 - Departure

    A.C 3000, 7th month, 12th day.


    On this day, Tom was preparing to leave Hill city and make his way over to the Tainted Forest.


    He had cultivated, studied and trained arduously over the past couple weeks and he had finally achieved the 5th level of body strengthening. Because of this, Gerald''s concern over his son had lessened and he felt that now would be a good time for Tom to go out and experience his first hunt.


    In the Cardinal clan, going out and hunting your first qi beast was a sort of rite of passage that all members tried to undergo. Of course, there were a fair share of clan members that were only at the lower levels of body strengthening and so couldn''t do this, but, by the time someone had reached the 4th level of body strengthening it was generally considered safe enough to challenge some of the weakest qi beasts.


    Given that Tom was making fairly remarkable progress in his cultivation and was near the 5th level of body strengthening anyway, Gerald decided it would be best if he had his son delay his departure until he further raised his cultivation level.


    Upon reaching the 5th level of body strengthening, Tom had immediately informed his father so the preparations for the outing could be sorted out. Tom wasn''t going alone and nor was the purpose of this trip purely to hunt qi beasts in the forest.


    Since Tom was still at a relatively low level and the Tainted Forest was one of the kingdom''s most dangerous places, he would be accompanied by several guards. Of course, even if he wasn''t travelling to this danger zone, he would still be accompanied by guards. After all, since the situation in the kingdom was rather unstable at the moment and law and order was shaky at best, it was dangerous to travel alone. Still, this meant that Gerald had to first select which personnel to accompany his son, prepare their wages in advance and also prepare a number of horses too. However, besides the selection of personal, there were other preparations that had to be made.


    This trip was not only a rite of passage for Tom, but, it was also meant as a way for Tom to contribute back to the clan. The Cardinal clan didn''t have much in the way of qi stones or cultivating pills, however, they did do big business with qi beasts.


    Like with humans, qi beasts infused and stored qi in their bodies and it could be absorbed to aid in cultivation. The problem was, like with all infused and assimilated qi, it could be difficult to extract and absorb, but, the Cardinal clan had methods to do this.


    In fact, all the noble families and local government buildings had ways to this. It required a device called a qi furnace. It just so happened that Hill city had the largest qi furnace facilities in the entire North West and these facilities were under the control of the local government, which in the case of Hill city, was the Cardinal clan. Actually, there were only a few other places in the entire kingdom that had larger facilities of this sort than Hill city had.


    Of course, people could buy private qi furnaces, but these were very expensive and generally of a smaller scale. It was only the rich and powerful families that had private qi furnaces, while ordinary warriors would just pay the fee to use the public ones.


    Aside from this, the actual physical materials from qi beasts, such as their skin, bones, flesh, etc., had other practical uses.


    Because of all this, a lot of trade passed through Hill city and wagons laden with dead qi beasts or select parts of qi beasts would make their way over to the city from the Tainted forest and other places, bypassing the smaller towns. This helped to strengthen both the Cardinal clan and Hill city on the whole, as well as provide a large amount income to both of them.


    Anyway, Gerald wanted to prepare a cart or wagon for Tom so any qi beasts he killed could be delivered back to Hill city. This didn''t actually have to be prepared here, as the Cardinal clan had delivery services located at all the surrounding towns and even without them Tom would be able to buy a cart himself, but Gerald decided to prepare one in ahead of time regardless.


    This was why Tom didn''t leave the city as soon as he reached the 5th level of body strengthening but instead waited a few days first.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    Still within the bounds of the Cardinal estate, Tom was collecting all the necessary equipment he needed.


    He grabbed the sword he''d been using during all of his training sessions and sheathed it on the left side of his waist. It was a standard, double edged, one handed, iron arming sword. Actually, the fact that it was iron wasn''t standard; most weapons were made from steel. Steel was, of course, a better material for weapons, but there were still many iron weapons used by cultivators in the realm of body strengthening and it just so happened that when Tom first went to select a weapon to start training with, this was the one he picked up. It wasn''t even a particularly good sword. It had a sharp edge on it yes, but its quality was still low. Objects could be infused with qi to make them stronger and more resistant to damage but this sword hadn''t been infused to its limits, making it subpar. Nevertheless, this was the sword that Tom was familiar with and it was still in good condition. He saw no reason to exchange it for something else.


    Aside from the sword, Tom also picked up two different knives. The first one and also the longest, was a dagger, which he strapped on his belt on the right hand side of his waist. It was always good to have a spare weapon. The second one was hunting knife which he had at the back of his waist. Since he was going to be hunting qi beasts, he needed a tool knife to help him extract any valuable materials from them.


    Finally, Tom also picked up a thick, heater shaped shield, made from ironoak, a type of sturdy wood. He had chosen to forgo armour on this trip, along with the rest of the guards that were accompanying him.


    Armour could be very useful in certain situations, but this was not one of them. Disregarding the hassle in lugging it around with them and taking it on and off, armour only had limited effectiveness in the face of qi beasts. Most qi beasts had especially strong jaws and hard teeth, so, the types of armour available to the guards and Tom wouldn''t have been very useful.


    Instead, warriors preferred greater mobility and speed in combat. This was especially true for cultivators from martial institutions and powerful families. They tended to be skilled enough anyway that even when they encountered an opponent of the same cultivation level, who was wearing armour, they could aim at the gaps in the armour and secure victory. Of course that was only in a one on one and they would still be at a disadvantage against numerous armoured opponents if they themselves weren''t armoured but since the Mantal kingdom hadn''t seen large scale warfare for over 80 years, this type of unarmoured combat had become popularised. It was mainly only the stationary guards in towns and cities that consistently wore armour.


    Having picked up what he needed to, Tom started walking towards the front of the Cardinal estate, where a group a people and horses were already gathered.


    "Ha ha ha, here he is" chuckled Pike after he saw Tom approaching from the corner of his eye.


    Tom nodded at Pike and the rest of the guards as a greeting. Then, not wasting any time, he immediately went and mounted one of the horses. The guards, seeing this, also did the same.


    "Tom" Sarah called out from the side.


    Tom turned his head and saw his family, his mother, his father, Adam, Emery and even Evelyn.


    "Be safe" she said concernedly.


    Tom nodded at this. He didn''t intend get harmed or killed during this outing.


    "Father, mother, so long" he said.


    After the rest of his close family said goodbyes and words of encouragement, Tom trotted forward on his horse and left out of the front of the Cardinal estate. The guards that Gerald had arranged followed after him.


    Unbeknownst to anyone from the clan, a man sitting in a shop, looking at the front of the clan''s estate, perked up.


    "Finally" he said, before getting up and running to go make his report.


    Meanwhile, inside the estate, Gerald was making his way over to where the clan patriarch and the 8th elder were standing and discussing something. They had been near the entrance and had watched Tom leave.


    "Patriarch" Gerald greeted respectfully as he approached.


    "Ahh, Gerald. Morning" Lucian replied with a bright voice.


    "Lucian, I''ll cut to the chase. I didn''t send any of my elite guards because you said you''d send someone yourself, but I don''t see anyone. Who''s going and where are they?"


    "Worry not" said the 8th elder.


    "Jeffrey is the one going"


    "Really?" Gerald asked, visibly surprised.


    Jeffrey was the gay lover of the 8th elder and not a subordinate of the clan. He was actually more an honorary member. Nevertheless, Gerald was satisfied at hearing this. Jeffrey was at the peak of qi expansion and was rather skilled too.


    [Like this, there ought not to be any problems] he thought to himself.


    "Yes, he''s already waiting at the western gate. He''ll follow them out after they leave and will patrol along the roads they take. If your son does get targeted again, he''ll easily deal with any threats. Besides that, he''ll stay out of sight and leave Tom to his own devices in the forest. After all, Tom needs to experience the forest for himself otherwise he''ll never grow as a warrior" replied the 8th elder.


    "You see" said Lucian, "Nothing to be concerned about"


    "Well if that''s the case then I guess everything is fine" said Gerald.


    "Exactly. I''m sure nothing particularly eventful, at all, will happen on this trip" said a smiling Lucian.

 Chapter 34 - Unexpected Companion

    Tom left Hill city through the west gate and proceeded along the road at a trot.


    He was going to entering the Tainted Forest which was about 70 miles to the west of Hill city but first he would be passing through the town of Acorn, just a stone''s throw away from the forest boundary.


    Thankfully, unlike the land directly north and south east of Hill city, which was hilly and mountainous respectively, the land to the west was mainly flat and rolling. This meant that the ride to Acorn could easily be handled in a day.


    Although the horses Tom''s group were riding weren''t the best; strengthened by qi, travelling a 100 miles a day was no problem. However, since Tom''s group also had a horse drawn wagon that they were bringing along, their pace was slowed considerably. By the time they would reach Acorn, the Town gates would already be shut and unlike with Hill city, the guards there wouldn''t open the gates for them. Because of this, Tom was planning to stop in a village east of Acorn for the night and then continue on the next day.


    While riding along, Tom saw many travellers along the road. There were people from regional villages and small towns that were walking back and forth to Hill city, conducting their own business, such as peddling goods. However, many people Tom saw consisted of warriors and mercenaries. People who made their business as escorts for those weaker than themselves and people that made a living by hunting in the Tainted Forest and selling the goods they procured.


    Aside from the weaker and poorer people, who were walking along the road, there was also a fair share of people travelling on horseback. Generally these were the stronger warriors and cultivators who were able to make a better living for themselves or people from wealthier families, however, Tom also occasionally saw individual and groups of people wearing the grey tops of Iron fist sect disciples.


    Although the majority of people to enter and hunt in the Tainted Forest were ordinary warriors, since the Iron fist sect was located in the mountainous region just south east of Hill city, many of their disciples would enter the forest by passing through the town of Acorn and then conduct their business in either Acorn or Hill city.


    After several hours of travelling, Tom''s group stopped to have a rest and eat some food.


    While they were sitting down on the side of the road, Tom looked back on the path that he had just travelled along and saw a rider galloping quite fast towards them. At first, Tom just assumed this was an ordinary traveller that would pass them by, but, as the rider got closer and their features were easier to make out, Tom noticed the distinctive maroon coloured hair of the person riding the horse. As that person got closer still, it became easy to identify them as Rowan Cardinal, Tom''s 18 year old cousin.


    "Whoa!" Rowan shouted at the horse, telling it to stop and pulling up just in front of Tom.


    "Hey there" she said cheerily, "It seems I''ve caught up"


    Tom looked at Rowan in mild confusion while the guards that were accompanying him had started to fuss between themselves at her sudden appearance. He wasn''t sure why she was here and he hadn''t been told about anything like this before hand. All he knew was that unlike her brother and parents, she hadn''t gone to see him off when he left the city.


    [Is she here because she wanted to say goodbye to me? That''s kind of weird isn''t it? Maybe she regretted that she didn''t get to say goodbye to me, but, isn''t this going a bit over the top, we''re already 25 miles from the city]


    "Wha... what are you doing here?" Tom asked.


    "Oh, I''m going with you" she replied brightly.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    "Why?" Tom frowned and asked after a short pause.


    It wasn''t that he was against her being there; he was just suspicious over her sudden appearance.


    "Hahaha" she laughed after hearing Tom.


    "What''s the matter, don''t want a girl on your little trip?" she joked.


    It just so happened that out of the personal guards Gerald selected to go with Tom, all of them were male.


    "Eh,,, no, I was just wondering why you''re here" Tom replied.


    "Tom you''re being rude" said Lance in a reprimanding tone to Tom, while stepping forward.


    He then turned towards Rowan, extended his hand for a handshake and then said "Hi, I''m Lance", winking in the process.


    Rowan bit her lower lip at Lance''s attempt to flirt with her, until Avery came over and gave him a whack over the back the head, saying "Alright, that''s enough out of you, Lover boy", to which Rowan started laughing to herself.


    Once again, as the youngest in their group, lance was getting picked on again. The other guards who saw this scene started to laugh and Pike''s hearty laugh was well heard among them.


    "Anyway" Tom continued, "this was rather unexpected. What brought this about?"


    "Haha" Rowan laughed again.


    "Can''t you tell?" she asked.


    "Do you notice anything different about me?" she said, mirroring the words Tom had once spoken to her, while gesturing with her hand at her body.


    [Has she gone mad? What on earth is she doing] Tom thought to himself.


    She was enjoying herself thoroughly while seeing the look of confusion on Tom''s face. This was very like what had happened just a few months back. She couldn''t wait to see the look of shock on his face when he figured it out.


    Off to the side, Avery and another guard member called Harrison had both realised what this was about and smirked. Towards Rowan, they gave an internal nod of approval and respect.


    "Let me give you a little clue" she said while smiling.


    She then extended her hand out and then a red light glowed from it.


    "What do you think?"


    She had a smug look on her face as she waited for Tom''s reaction.


    Seeing the glowing qi that was projecting from her hand, Tom finally understood what was different her. Shehad broken through from the 10th level of body strengthening intothe 1st level of qi expansion. However, contrary to her expectations, he didn''t react in a shocked manner.


    "Oh, ok. Well done" he said rather blandly.


    "Eh?"


    Her smile and good mood had been broken by Tom''s bored answer. She was trying to gloat and get him back after he shocked her over 3 months ago and yet he seemed thoroughly underwhelmed.


    [What the hell man? Not being shocked is one thing but at least be excited or something. This is a big deal. Why are you looking at me like it doesn''t matter? It matters Tom. What''s wrong with you?]


    "Is that all you have to say?" she said, shocked.


    "Pretty much"


    "Ah..."


    Rowan didn''t know how to reply to Tom. Somehow, she had lost control of the conversation and was left on the losing end.


    Rowan had thought that Tom would be both surprised and also excited for her. Unfortunately, what she didn''t know was that this level of improvement and strength was nowhere near high enough to impress Tom, who was a god. From his perspective, she was nothing but a child with a stick.


    Tom had been excited over his own improvement because that was important to him and he also respected Avery''s strength, who was weaker than Rowan, but that was only because Avery frequently beat him in training and knocked him down, which led to Tom acknowledging him. As for others though, since his personal bonds with the people around him still weren''t that strong, he felt no need to be hyped up over what he considered a puny increase in strength.


    "I have to ask. Did you come all the way out here just to tell me that?" Tom asked.


    "What? No!" Rowan hastily said back while feeling indignant.


    "I''ll have you know, I really have a reason to go to the Tainted Forest. Now that I''ve entered the realm of qi expansion I want to make some hard but light armour for myself, so I''m going there to hunt some blue devil beetles. They have really hard shells but aren''t that strong. They can be found in the outer regions of the Tainted Forest so you''ll probably encounter one anyway. I figured I''d go with you and even give you some help"


    "Ah, I see now. So you wanted to tag along. That''s fine" Tom said, coming to understand the situation but not Rowan''s feelings.


    "Well, breaks over" he said while climbing back onto his horse, "let''s get a move on"


    Rowan meanwhile was just left staring dumbfoundedly at him. A few of the guards let out sighs or laughs and then got on their own horses. They still had a long journey ahead of them and it seemed they weren''t allowed to loiter any longer.


    "Well come on then" Tom shouted back to Rowan as he led his horse at a trot down the road.


    Still lost for words, Rowan had no choice but to begin riding after him.

 Chapter 35 - Passing Through Acorn

    After Rowan caught up and joined Tom''s group, the rest of Tom''s journey west was uneventful.


    They made relatively good progress and in the end they reached a village 10 miles east of the town of Acorn, just as it was getting darker. Since Acorn town had a strict policy on their gate closures and Tom''s group wouldn''t be able to make it in time before the gates shut, they stopped where they were and slept at an inn for the night.


    Actually, even though Acorn town was so close to the forest boundary, it wasn''t that dangerous to sleep under the city walls at night. Many warriors would enter the forest from Acorn and also return to Acorn after they finished. Since hunts would take an indeterminate amount of time, this led to a situation where many warriors ended up camping outside the city walls. So long as one camped on the east side of the town, where all these late night warriors gathered, the danger would be reduced. It was a safety in numbers thing. By relying on each other, they could easily fend off the attacks of roaming qi beasts that travelled beyond the bounds of the forest.


    The only real danger emerged when particularly fast or stealthy qi beasts roamed outside the forest and could pick people off under the cover of darkness. There was also the case where there were qi beast waves, where many qi beasts would charge out of the forest at once, but, such situations were uncommon.


    After a good night''s rest and a morning breakfast, the gang was all ready to go again. Since none of them had any particularly bulky equipment and their weapons could be put straight into the back of the wagon, along with food they had stored for the journey, they could leave straight away. There was no hassle where they had to wait for someone to put on armour or where someone needed help putting on their armour on.


    Like this, they got an early start and proceeded along their way to Acorn town.


    Finally reaching the town, Tom was impressed by the sight of it. It was larger than he had imagined.


    Large, 20m high walls, the same as Hill city, surrounded the entire town and the 80,000 people inside. Tom could see many men patrolling on the top of those walls and at the bottom of them he also saw a large campsite with many warriors moving around.


    Passing along the road and by the numerous warriors off to the side of it that were tending to their gear, Tom breathed in the sweet aroma of meat. Evidently some of the warriors were preparing a mid-morning meal. Tom couldn''t help but salivate in his mouth. Since coming to this world, he had gotten to enjoy a whole new eating experience but at his core he was still a meat eater, a carnivore. It was a good thing that they were passing through the town first in order to get some fresh food instead of just going around it. Actually, because the main street was so wide and basically a straight line running from the east to west gate, it took about the same amount of time to go straight through the town as it would to go around it.


    As Tom passed through the eastern gate and entered the town, the first thing that hit him was the noise. He hadn''t realised it before he entered because the walls blocked most of the noise but the main street was very loud. Straight after entering the town, Tom was buffeted by the shouts of stall owners, peddlers and other small business owners.


    The second thing that hit Tom when he entered the town was the smell. The previous sweet smell of meat was replaced by a whole litany of other smells, some good and some bad.


    Clearly a lot of the people in the local vicinity were selling food and some of that was being cooked right on the side of the street. The fragrances, steams and smokes released from the various people''s cooking all wafted up and intermingled with each other. The suddenly changing cooking aromas weren''t particularly bad, just jarring to the senses, but, these were not the only smells on the street.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    The cooking aromas, while competing against themselves, were only partially masking the underlying stench in this town. The business, the trade of this town, its lifeblood, was based on cultivators and the hunting that took place in the forest outside of its walls. This meant that the pleasant smells of freshly cooked foods also had to contend with the many carcasses of qi beasts, sometimes days old and oftentimes not cleaned, that passed through and were sold in the town.


    It tickled Tom''s nose and he found it unpleasant. Thankfully, Hill city didn''t have such a severe problem as this, though that might also be attributed to the fact that Hill city covers a large area of land and the people aren''t as jammed together as they are in Acorn town.


    "Augh" Lance commented, voicing his displeasure whilst also wrinkling his nose.


    "I take it you''ve never been in Acorn town before?" said Rowan to the side, seemingly unfazed by it all. She had been here before and the smell no longer bothered her.


    "No, he hasn''t. He''s a complete greenhorn. Never even killed a qi beast before" laughed Pike to the side.


    His loud voice easily carried to the nearby people on the street, who looked up at Lance and shook their heads at him. The guards too, could be heard tutting behind him.


    Unlike other times, when everyone was joking around and Lance would just take this kind of humour and work with it, this comment actually caused his face to burn red. Tom was surprised at this because he had never seen Lance react this way before.


    "I have too!" he responded angrily.


    "It was a roaming beast that came near my village and I killed it to protect a couple of kids"


    "Hahaha, Lance, that was a cow" Pike laughed again and also got a wave of laughter from the other guards.


    Still with his face burning red, Lance sucked in a cold breath of air to calm himself and then turned to face Rowan to defend himself.


    "First of all, it wasn''t an ordinary cow; it was a black maned cow which had strength equivalent to 3,500 jin, second of all, I was only at the 3rd level of body strengthening at the time and thirdly" Lance emphasised while turning to face Pike, "You know that my village is close to Hill city and that we rarely see roaming qi beasts there"


    Turning back to face Rowan, Lance continued.


    "Ever since I moved to Hill city and found work with the Cardinal clan, I hadn''t left. This is my first time coming this far" he explained.


    Listening to his story you might expect people to feel sorry for him because of the way Pike was making fun of him and in fact, Rowan did feel some sympathy for the bullying he was experiencing and so, smiled kindly at him. However, to that, Pike and the rest of the guards started whistling at Lance, the implication and mocking behind it obvious. The reason they were doing this and in general made fun of Lance over everyone else was that he was notorious for hitting on women. This usually would have only gotten him mocked slightly, only the thing was, because he was good looking, he proved to rather lucky and well-liked by women and so he had gotten the resentment of the rest of the guards.


    During this whole time, Tom had chosen to remain as a silent observer, contemplating on the nature of humans.


    [They''re his comrades and friends, his pack so to say, and yet they mock him so. How odd. But at the end of the day, they will still fight together. Remarkable. I never realised just how intricate and confusing human relationships could be]


    Bringing his attention back to the world around him, Tom located a food stall that enticed his fancy. By going over to it, he killed the fuss that Lance was making with the others and they quieted down as they prepared to buy something for themselves.


    Tom bought two sticks of skewered meat. Eating them, he relished the taste of the juices that the meat released.


    [This is it. This is what food is]


    After he and the others had finished, they were ready to leave Acorn town and make their way over to the Tainted Forest for Tom''s very first expedition.


    It didn''t take long for them to make their way over towards the west gate and exit the town. The hustle and bustle of the west gate was much the same as the east, with many people buying and selling on the street and many people passing through the gate, venturing out towards the Tainted Forest or returning from it. The only difference Tom observed was that there were no tents of people camped outside the west gate.


    Since Acorn town was so close to the forest, Tom was able to see the edge of the forest at the end of the flat plain that extended out in front of him.


    [So that''s it huh] he thought to himself, before stirring on his horse and moving forward.

 Chapter 36 - Entering The Forest (1)

    From the west gate of Acorn town to the start of the forest, there was still about 1.5 miles that had to be covered and because all the land between the town and the forest was flat, Tom and anyone from Acorn''s town walls could see the people moving about in this open area.


    This buffer zone was actually vital to the town''s safety as it provided an early detection capability to the town''s inhabitants for when particularly dangerous qi beasts ventured out of the forest. Though of course, the forest stretched for hundreds of miles along the western border of the kingdom and it wasn''t like qi beasts would only exit the forest where Acorn town was. They could easily exit the forest further north or south of the town and then turn their sights on it.


    Actually, it was only ever during the night or during beast waves that qi beasts would exit the forest directly west of the town. After all, of all the border towns in the North West, Acorn by far had the most traffic running through it and no qi beast would be stupid enough to charge along the north''s most well-travelled road into the forest during the daytime, while countless warriors were also walking the path.


    Even when qi beasts did exit the forest near Acorn, or further afield and the made their way over to the town, since the town had a gathering of a great many strong warriors, who had come to the town trying to find gains in the forest, it could defend itself fairly easily.


    Despite this, roaming qi beasts were actually quite a problem. It wasn''t uncommon for qi beasts to exit the forest and wreak havoc on the countryside and the roads, killing weak country folk who weren''t able to defend themselves. After all, whereas Acorn and the rest of the border towns were on the frontline and closest to the danger, since they all had high stone walls and a fair number of strong warriors, they were also poor targets for qi beasts.


    Roaming qi beasts would generally bypass the border towns and move deeper into human territory, threatening smaller and weaker settlements. Because of this, not all the warriors that could be seen residing or passing through the border towns were doing so with the intention of entering the Tainted Forest. Warriors consisting of the less accomplished, less courageous but also of the honour bound, would travel the rural roads and to the rural villages, making sure they stayed safe and also looking for their own opportunities.


    It was unfortunate, but this situation only came about because unlike further in the country where noble families, clans and local government had strong control over their own territory and populace, the local governments of the border towns did not have strong control. In the territory controlled by the Cardinal clan, which extended beyond Hill city to many villages and a couple towns, the strong forces that were subordinate to the local governor''s office could easily be deployed as stationary guards in the small villages, thus protecting them from any roaming qi beasts, or other threats. However, the areas immediately adjacent to the forest didn''t have a particularly strong local government or force subordinate to them.


    When these patrols from ordinary warriors didn''t do the trick and dangerous qi beasts roamed the countryside that was when bounty''s ended up being posted, enticing greater interest from stronger warriors and the disciples from martial institutions.


    As Tom was moving along the road towards the Tainted Forest, there were numerous people passing him by, making their way back to Acorn. Since it was still midday, these were mostly weaker warriors who had gotten lucky quick kills shortly after entering the forest or stronger warriors who had stayed in the forest overnight at one of the various outposts that could be found inside.


    Tom could see the bodies of dead qi beasts that the groups of people were either carrying in hand or had on the back of wagons and carts. Having been forced to study up on qi beasts before he came here, he was able to identify quite a few of them.


    Two warriors walked by with a red skinned boar supported on a wooden pole between them. It was large, over a meter tall, but such a creature was only moderately powerful. They typically had tyrannical physical strength, equivalent to late stage body strengthening experts and beyond and they would kill enemies by charging at them, then either trampling them or impaling them with its tusks. However, despite its size and physical ability, like many weak qi beasts, red skinned boars were unable to gather large amounts of qi or use any qi techniques. Such a beast was easy to kill by those that had stepped into the realm of qi expansion.


    For qi beasts, it was an unfortunate situation in life that although humans were born as one of the weakest creatures on this planet, they also had the most potential for advancement. Most of the rest of the animals of this planet had varying degrees of natural strength and ability but generally had less potential than humankind. As such, you would often find all manner of beasts that developed towards a certain level of strength and then got stuck there while humans eclipsed them.


    Continuing on, a group of people wearing navy blue clothes passed by. They were disciples of the Flowing Water sect, one of the most powerful martial institutions in the country, located in the North East of the kingdom on the south bank of Lake Yendel.


    Unlike most of the people Tom saw, they were on horseback rather than on foot and in the back of wagon they were pulling behind them, there were several dead bodies that looked similar to horses. However, these were not horses. They were kelpie''s, a type of water qi beast that could shapeshift and change their form to a certain degree. Compared to the red skinned boar Tom had seen just moments before, they were much stronger and considerably harder to deal with. Although their physical strength was only in the same range as the red skinned boar, they had a much greater ability to gather qi and used some unique and peculiar qi techniques. Coupled with their shapeshifting abilities and the fact that they lived in water, they were harder to deal with than other qi beasts that rivalled their strength.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Tom passed these people by and continued advancing towards the forest. He and the rest of his group were rather close now.


    By coincidence, just as they had approached within 30m of the treeline, they saw a group of people exiting the forest with the insignia of the Cardinal clan on their clothes.


    The Cardinal clan had many members and they would often travel to the tainted Forest to hunt qi beasts for themselves and for the family. For themselves, because, due to the rationing of resources in the clan, it was hard for any one clan member to have a lot resources set aside for them, and for the clan, because, it was seen as a kind of duty to contribute back and help raise the clan''s strength.


    It was a happy surprise to those present, running into this other group. For Tom and Rowan, they got to see a family member, and for the guards escorting Tom, they got to see some of their friends and acquaintances.


    "Daniel" Rowan shouted to a young man in his twenties who had just emerged from the forest.


    This man was a distant relation to Tom and Rowan and a direct blood descendant of the clan. He had come to the Tainted Forest in order to hone his skills and make some gains. However, Daniel was 20 years old but was only at the 7th level of body strengthening and as such, didn''t show nearly as much cultivating talent as Adam and Rowan, who were both considered to be very talented among the young generation of the clan. Nevertheless, he still showed a decent amount of potential and was still well on track to advance further. It was suspected that he would be able to reach the realm of qi expansion while he was still in his early twenties.


    "Rowan" he said, slightly shocked, but he soon recovered himself and a merry smile grew on his face.


    "I didn''t expect to see you here"


    "Yeah, well, I didn''t expect to be here either, but I just had a breakthrough and wanted to test out my new power. I also wanted to get some goods in the process" responded Rowan.


    Hearing this, Daniel went wide eyed in shock. He knew perfectly well that Rowan had been at the peak of body strengthening. If she had a breakthrough then that could only mean that she had stepped into the realm of qi expansion.


    "What? A breakthrough, that''s amazing" he said, though internally he was thinking ''shit, first Adam and now her. Their side of the family are like monsters, how the hell am I meant to compete with them''.


    "I know right!" Rowan burst out, happy that at least one of her family members had acknowledged her achievement.


    Tom''s underwhelmed reaction the other day had dampened her mood but Daniel''s words had they opposite effect. Her spirits had been raised again as she pressured Daniel for confirmation that her achievement was in fact noteworthy and something to celebrate about. That it was something to be shocked and also excited about.


    "Ah, yeah" he said, taken aback by Rowan''s sudden shout.


    "It''s impressive; you''ve done it even faster than Adam. I''m sure you''re going to rub that it his face" he said and then chuckled.


    [Well I guess I''m not the only one who''ll have worries. I can only imagine Adam''s face right now]


    "Hmm, I''m not sure about that yet. After all, Adam got stuck at the peak of body strengthening for a while and then after he broke through, he breezed through the early stages of qi expansion" said Rowan.


    As much as she wanted to lord it over her brother that she''d beaten him to the 1st level of qi expansion, she knew that she wouldn''t necessarily show more talent than him while in the realm of qi expansion. She also knew that her brother would feel sincerely happy for her and that any gloating or showing off she attempted in front of him would just make her seem vain and egotistical.


    But rather than rubbing her success in another''s face to put them down, what she really wanted was for someone she was close with to look up at her with deep praise in her ability and since her brother was stronger than her, with similar talent, she couldn''t get that feeling from him. Therefore, after she had broken through to the 1st level of qi expansion the previous day, she chose to forgo telling her immediate family and instead accompany Tom into the Tainted Forest so she could hunt a Blue Devil Beetle. Of course, she had her own friends she could have gone to, but, this way she could kill two birds with one stone by acquiring the materials for a new armour, as well as being able to bask in Tom''s awe at her success.


    It was against her expectations that Tom would be so underwhelmed by her news and wouldn''t even do the slightest to stroke her ego. The best praise she had gotten was from Lance but since she didn''t know him well, it just didn''t create the feeling she was looking for.


    This was why she was so happy and animated now that Daniel had given his acknowledgement. It was also why she didn''t have many thoughts about trying to rub it in her brother''s face.


    Hearing Rowan''s reply, the smirk on Daniel''s face disappeared. He was reminded again that he wasn''t in the same calibre as Adam and Rowan. While thinking this, his eyes finally fell upon Tom.


    "Tom? Wha-what are you doing here?" he said in shock.


    Daniel had heard about how Tom had broken through and become a true cultivator but he was still shocked at his appearance here. He thought that he would still be at the 1st level of body strengthening and had no idea that he''d made it all the way up to the 5th level.


    "Tom, you can''t possibly be thinking of going in the forest? If you do that, you''ll die"


    "Worry not" said Tom with a wave of his hand, dismissing Daniel''s words.


    "I have more than enough strength"


    "That right" said Rowan.


    "You haven''t been around lately but Tom''s at the 5th level of body strengthening now. He''s come to hunt his first qi beast"


    "Fif-fifth level!" he shouted, wide eyed in shock.


    [Fuck. What the hell? Tom too? And he''s already nearly caught up to me. This is a fucking joke. It can''t be real. But shit, it is] thought Daniel as he checked out Tom''s cultivation level.


    "Yeah. Looks like you''ve got some new competition during the family meet" said Rowan with a smile on her face.


    "Ahh, right. Well, Tom, well done" said Daniel, though without much enthusiasm in his voice, then he added "You''re finally joining the ranks of the strong".


    "No, merely this much isn''t strong at all" Tom matter-of-factly replied.


    This further caused Daniel''s mood to drop. This chance meeting with his family should have been a happy coincidence, but instead, Rowan and Tom''s words were causing his spirits to tank.


    "Well, anyway, good luck in the forest" Daniel said, changing the subject. He no longer felt much like staying around to chat.


    "Oh and by the way, I don''t know if it''s because of a surge in their population or because they got forced out of their territory, but there''s a ton of red eyed wolves running about, so look after your horses" he said, leaving them with a last piece of advice before dismissing himself to make his way over to Acorn town.


    "Ok then, better get going. We''ve still got things to do" Rowan said to Tom and the group enthusiastically. Whereas Daniel''s spirits had dropped from their encounter, hers had risen. She was positively merry.


    With that, Tom, Rowan and the accompanying guards all rode forward, passing the treeline and entering the forest.

 Chapter 37 - Entering The Forest (2)

    The forest that Tom had just entered, with its tall deciduous trees, loomed over him.


    He could see strong and vibrant shades of green all around him; from the leaves of the trees, the grasses on the forest floor and the thick mosses that grew on the trees as well as the interspersed rocks spread about the forest floor.


    Besides the different shades of green, there was also an assortment of other colours that had entered Tom''s vison. To the side of the path, in-between the roots of the trees and on the forest floor, he could see red bells, white orchids, orange violas and multi-coloured pansies.


    At this border part of the forest, the trees weren''t as densely packed together, nor were they as big as the trees found further in. This resulted in a greater amount of light penetrating through the canopy, supporting the common flowering plants and grasses that Tom could currently see.


    It also meant there was more room to move and consequently it was easy to take the horses off the beaten track. Unfortunately, even though they could take the horses off the road, it would be problematic to take the wagon off road as well.


    The path that Tom and the group were currently traveling on was actually relatively wide. That was because it happened to be the main road that led to the lost city of Forestview, located about 70 miles west of their current position.


    The current borders of the Tainted Forest were different than they had been in the past and had changed many times over the eons. At some point in the past, at least further back than 3000 years ago when the Mantal kingdom was formed, the forest was several hundred miles shorter and there had been human settlements built in this region. Because of this, there were a series of well-defined paths that were easy to travel along, which allowed for people to enter the forest with large carts and wagons.


    However, even though it was easy to take horses along these old roadways, it was still unadvisable. Unless you were using a hardier breed of horse, like a swift horse or a dragon horse, they would be very vulnerable to the qi beasts within the forest. Typically, only people that weren''t travelling far into the forest or were strong enough to guarantee the safety of their mount would take a horse into the forest. The horses that Tom and his group were using were all just regular horses but they were taking them in anyway because they didn''t plan to go that far in.


    Of course, aside from the old roadways that made travel in the outer part of the Tainted Forest easier, the old human settlements, which were now in ruins, also provided many benefits to warriors making a living from the forest or going in to develop their skills and aid their cultivation. The old towns and villages served as outposts and waypoints for the cultivators entering the forest. They were rest stops and gathering points. When cultivators were spending several days in the forest or were just unable to make it out before nightfall, they would sleep in these ruins much like how warriors would camp outside the town walls of Acorn. By staying together during the night, the various cultivators could find security and safety in numbers.


    After entering the forest, the few members of Tom''s group that had left their weapons in the back of the wagon for convenience sake went to go and get them. Pike grabbed his polearm, a glaive, from the wagon and hefted it up in his hand, followed by Lance who picked up his spear. Another member went and grabbed a battle axe and Tom went to grab the heavy ironwood shield he had left there.


    "You know, I don''t think that shield is going to do you much good here" Avery remarked.


    "Fighting qi beasts isn''t like fighting people. Their proportions and the way they attack is all different. Plus a lot of them are larger than us so your shield won''t block as effectively. All in all, I don''t think the shield will help much" said Avery, giving Tom his advice.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    "Perhaps, but safety is key. If I''m not going to wear armour I should at least have this much" responded Tom.


    "Fair enough"


    Aside from this brief conversation between Tom and Avery, Pike and Lance had started chatting to the side.


    "So baby face" Pike said to Lance, "it looks like you''ll get to have your proper taste of blood too"


    "Hah, I told you already. I''ve killed a qi beast before" responded Lance.


    "Ha ha, yeah, a qi beast that gets farmed in some areas" said Pike while laughing.


    "But this is the real stuff now. The things you find in here, you won''t find on farms. This is what real danger is. It really gets your blood pumping, just wait and see"


    Unlike the young, 21 year old Lance, who had never been to the Tainted Forest before, Pike had actually had several past experiences in it. Since he wasn''t particularly strong, he had never been in very far, but the times he had come here, he had enjoyed the thrill of the hunt. There was nothing quite like man and beast battling it out and standing on the brink of death together until a victor emerged. Besides, since it was more dangerous work, he''d gotten paid more. Now too, accompanying Tom would result in more pay for him.


    "You know, you''re going to be mightily embarrassed when your slow arse is stuck behind me and I take down all the biggest qi beasts" Lance said cockily to Pike. He had made the decision, in order not be mocked and also to get back at Pike, that he would show him up by outperforming him while they were in the forest together.


    "Ha, you really think a greenhorn like you can do better than me. You''ve got to be joking"


    "Well you know if you continue to be as loud as you are, you''ll probably scare off all the qi beasts before we can even find them" Harrison chimed in jokingly. Although both Lance and Pike weren''t being particularly quiet, this remark was directed at the loud mouth Pike, whose voice always carried quite far.


    "He makes a good point. You shouldn''t be as loud as you are Pike. We might not be very far in yet but there are still qi beasts around and it''d be bad if we can''t hear them because of you" said Avery seriously.


    Even within just a few miles to the border of the forest, it was still good to stay vigilant. After all, even if the most powerful qi beasts were found deeper in the forest and the first 50 miles were considered safe for body strengthening experts, there would still be dangerous qi beasts that travelled to these outer areas and beyond. Plus, even the weaker qi beasts could be dangerous to their group. Weak qi beasts that were stealthy and quick, or travelled in groups could easily kill opponents more powerful than themselves. It was a situational thing. That was why even at the outermost edges of the forest you should still pay attention to your surroundings.


    Pike consented to Avery''s words and the group carried on for another 2 hours without incident. Because this was a well-travelled road anyway, there weren''t as many qi beasts that popped up in its vicinity, nevertheless, the group had seen numerous different qi beasts. There were bronze nosed stags, fallow deer, yellow tip falcons and many more. They even saw some of the red skinned boars far in the distance, between the trees.


    Most of the qi beasts Tom saw only attacked when challenged or when you got to close to them. Originally, it would have been fine to hunt and kill any one of these since Tom didn''t have any particular purpose in the forest other than killing qi beasts for a while. He was just meant to stay here for a month or more to gain experience. However, Rowan did have a purpose in being there, so, Tom and company decided not to hunt after any of the beasts they saw and instead proceed to Rowan''s objective. After all, Rowan''s objective was to hunt a blue devil beetle, which would be the same as killing two birds with one stone. It didn''t matter what qi beast Tom killed and this way Rowan would get the material for the new armour she wanted.


    The place that Tom and company were heading to, was a place called Insect Gorge. It was where they would be able to find a blue devil beetle to hunt. It wasn''t along the main road that they were travelling along but luckily there was another minor path that branched off from the main road that would take them very close to it. It was also lucky that it was just a 25 mile journey and that if they were quick they would be able to go there and then exit the forest before nightfall.


    It was while they were travelling along, shortly after they had turned onto the branching off path, that they heard a sound in the distance.


    HOOOOOOOOOOOOOWL!

 Chapter 38 - Red Eyed Wolves (1)

    Tom, Rowan and the others all quickly turned their heads to the west, where a series of guttural growls, howls and snarls could be heard.


    GRRRRRRRRWL! HOOOOOOWL!


    "Well that doesn''t sound good" said Lance nervously as the horse underneath him started to whinny and stamp around.


    "Alright, we''ve got company. Pucker up boys" said Pike in his usual loud voice that sounded more like a bellow than anything else. He then tightened the grip he had on his glaive.


    "Hah, I suppose those''ll be the red eyed wolves that Daniel warned us about" sighed Rowan, who then turned to face Tom.


    "Don''t worry cousin, I won''t let any harm come to you"


    "Well it shouldn''t be too bad anyway, they''re strength is usually only equivalent to 3rd-5th level body strengthening" said Avery, who then also directed his gaze to Tom before adding "You should be able to one on by yourself easily enough".


    "Ok then. But what do we do about the horses?" said Tom.


    Tom wasn''t feeling any pressure from the snarls that were coming closer and closer. He''d already read a bit about the red eyed wolves and didn''t feel that there was anything to be concerned about.


    As Avery had said, the strength of red eyed wolves was generally only in the range equivalent to 3rd-5th body strengthening level cultivators. Furthermore, they had only little reserves of qi and weren''t able to use any qi techniques. This meant that in the Tainted Forest, they really weren''t that strong. They were just a type of weak qi beast whose strength lay in the fact that they travelled in packs. There were however several other wolf species that were far more powerful than the red eyed wolves, but they wouldn''t be seen this close to the boundary of the forest.


    An interesting thing to note about the red eyed wolves was that although they were one of the weakest qi beasts in the forest, they were also incredibly vicious and would attack other creatures regardless of their strength. This was probably because of a combination of their naturally fierce nature and their inability to accurately judge the strength of their opponents. As a cultivator, Tom was able to determine the strength of others, be they other people or animals, by sensing qi and judging the amount, structure and concentration of qi present on them. It seems the red eyed wolves either didn''t have this ability or because of their savage nature, they just didn''t care about what they saw.


    It was because of his knowledge about the red eyed wolves that Tom wasn''t concerned about himself but was concerned about the horses. They had been avoiding qi beasts up until now and hadn''t been attacked by any in turn. This had meant that the horse hadn''t been in any danger. If they had chosen to attack the previous qi beasts they had seen, they would have been in a better position, where they could dismount and pursue them while a few hung back and kept the horses safe. Now however, it was the red eyed wolves that were charging at them and even if they were stronger than the wolves, the horses weren''t. Just hearing the sounds in the distance had already gotten the horses agitated and riled up. Out of the eight people present, only Rowan, Avery, Pike and Harrison had kept horses under control. Tom and the other guards that had come with him were having trouble keeping their horses in check.


    "We should dismount and form a ring around the horses" said Avery decisively.


    "Agreed" said Harrison, who then dismounted and drew the bastard blade he had at his hip.


    The rest of the group performed similar actions. Tom got off his horse and drew his arming sword. He had his shield strapped on his left arm for defence. Rowan got down and pulled out her arming sword, though compared to the one Tom was using, which was made from iron, hers was steel and of considerably better quality and Avery unsheathed the two handed longsword he was carrying. The rest of the guards however didn''t have to perform such actions. This was because one of them carried a battle-axe and the rest were carrying polearms. They were already just holding them in hand while they were travelling.


    The only person who didn''t get off his horse was Pike. He intended to fight while on horseback. This wasn''t actually completely stupid though because he was good at using his weapon and the horse he was seated on was one of the steadiest there.


    "Pike, aren''t you getting down?" shouted Avery.


    "Nah, I''m good up here. I''ll ride around and clear the ones up circling around us"


    "Fine, but if the horse dies it''s your own bloody fault"


    "Hah hah ha, no problem. I''ll sweep them all away. They won''t touch the horse"


    While Pike and Avery were talking, the rest of the horses were gathered together, with Harrison holding onto some of the reins and keeping them from running off. Tom and the others took positions around them, two guarding the back and the rest on the front. Tom''s position was at the front but to the side, while Rowan and Avery were a couple of steps forward to take the brunt of the incoming wolves.Stolen story; please report.


    Tom and the others had gotten into position just in time because as they did, the red eyed wolves had come into sight and could be seen charging towards them.


    "That''s a lot of wolves" said Lance, a bit shocked.


    There were a good 20 wolves that were running towards them, growling and making various other aggressive noises. It was good that they were neither too strong, nor too big. They were only about 4ft tall. However, there was one particularly large wolf among them; their alpha, that stood at 5ft tall.


    "Don''t lose you nerve. But watch out for the big one. It should have a strength of around 7000 jin" said Avery, who was maintaining his calm. Unlike Lance, who had never been in such a situation before and was generally just less experienced because he was younger, Avery had taken part in a qi beast hunt before and was rock solid when it came to a fight. There was little that could make him panic, he could always stay calm and concentrate during combat. It was what made him such a good fighter.


    Tom''s muscles tensed a bit as he took a defensive stance and prepared for combat. The wolves ran closer and closer and were now only 20m away. They had started to group together and several would end up attacking the front of their ring together.


    Pike lowered his glaive, pointing it forward, and took this opportunity to spur his horse on. He galloped towards the rapidly approaching wolves and swiped across with his glaive once he had reached the front of their pack.


    This action was incredibly reckless. Not to mention the safety of the horse, even if he was at the 8th level of body strengthening and the wolves in front of him were only equivalent to several levels below him, it wasn''t like they were unable to kill him. Among the qi beasts in the forest, they were quite weak and wouldn''t be able to bite through heavy or good quality armour, but, Pike wasn''t wearing heavy armour. The most he had on was a heavy leather combat jacket made from a material that was resistant to being cut. It would not, however, be able to stop the wolves from biting and clawing through it and into Pike''s flesh underneath. It could barely save someone from the sword strikes of a cultivator at the middle levels of body strengthening. Nevertheless, Pike''s reckless charge actually resulted in good results and neither he nor his horse were harmed. Well, perhaps the horse developed a psychological scar from being made to run head first towards the snarling maws of a couple of red eyed wolves, but that is something that we can never know.


    When Pike had charged forward, two red eyed wolves each maddeningly jumped towards him and the horse with their mouths opened wide. However, before they reached either Pike or the horse, Pike''s weapon had swung round, slicing through the jaw of one wolf and then slamming into the side of the other. The first wolf fell down dead at the side of the horse while the other was slammed away and left incapacitated on the ground with broken bones. It would probably be in agony from the shattered bones in its body until it finally died or was put out of its misery. It couldn''t be helped. Even though the force of swing was weakened when the glaive head sliced through the first wolf, Pike''s bursting power of over 8000 jin still easily crippled the wolf, that was only equivalent to the 3rd level of body strengthening, when he caught it on its side.


    Like that, Pike had charged through and taken down two of the wolves in the process, easing the pressure that those behind him would face. He then kept on going and aimed towards the wolves that were following behind.


    Meanwhile, the rest of the wolves that were charging at the front didn''t have any thoughts of turning around to pursue Pike. They had vison locked in front of them, charging with the uncontrollable desire to kill and spill blood.


    Rowan and Avery each faced a wolf at the same time. Rowan faced one of the stronger ones, equivalent to 5th level body strengthening, but since she was the strongest person present, already at the 1st level of qi expansion, she was able to kill it perfectly easily. When it jumped up at her she made a diagonal step forward with her right foot and a simple left to right upwards slash, cutting deep into its neck and killing it. Avery on the other hand was facing a weaker wolf. Like Rowan, he made a side stepping movement, but, instead of a diagonal slash, he made a horizontal one against the body of the beast, cutting deeply into it, and then turned his blade around to attack another wolf that was following closely behind it.


    Thankfully for Tom, he didn''t need to face two wolves at the same time and the one that came at him first was one of the weaker ones. It jumped at him head first with its jaw open, ready to bite him. Tom raised his shield high and then slammed it into the side of the wolf''s head as it got close. Luckily, he had gotten the timing just right and the wolf had its head knocked down to the ground. Before it could recover and move away or attack him again, Tom quickly swung his sword down at the head of the wolf.


    Because he wasn''t as strong as the others and because the sword he was using wasn''t of a very high quality, the cut he made wasn''t as deep as the cuts the others were able to make. The wolf was still alive and tried to move back but Tom swung his sword again, this time hitting its neck and biting deep into it. Blood gushed out and the beast died, collapsing on the ground.


    Tom didn''t have much time to breathe though. Another wolf jumped up at him from the side. Rather than bite him, this one was trying to attack with its claws. Tom raised his shield and blocked the beast. Then, while he had it caught on its back legs, he thrust his sword through its exposed belly.


    It wasn''t a killing stab, having missed the wolf''s vitals. The wolf ferociously tried to bite at Tom but Tom was keeping it at bay with his shield and it couldn''t leverage its head to reach him. Struggling with the beast, Tom pushed forward, knocking it over on its back. He drew his sword out of it and then thrust again, this time hitting important internal organs. The wolf whined and struggled but ultimately it couldn''t escape the clutches of death.


    After killing his second wolf, Tom was able to look back and take in the whole situation. In the short while he had been fighting, Pike had ridden around and killed two more wolves and Rowan had run forward to kill two more herself. Avery had only felled his third because he had stayed back to protect the horses. Tom could see the guard with the battle-axe to the side cleaving a wolf in half at the waist. There was a dead wolf at Harrison''s feet and another one still impaled on Lance''s spear after it had run round the back and tried to attack the group from the rear.


    In just a short amount of time, the number of the wolves had already dropped to only five left and neither the horses nor anyone present on Tom''s side had been injured or killed.

 Chapter 39 - Red Eyed Wolves (2)

    Seeing so many of their brethren had already fallen, the remaining wolves became more cautious and no longer charged blindly forward.


    There were two at the back making quick darting movements towards Lance and the other guard, two were circling around at the front and the alpha wolf was further away, growling, barking and baring its fangs.


    Rowan sprinted forward under the full force she could bring to bear, kicking up a fair amount of dirt behind her in the process. The wolf in front of her either realised it was unable to turn around and escape from the charge of someone whose body had reached the peak of body strengthening or it was too bloodthirsty to consider such an option in the first place. In a last desperate bid, the wolf jumped forward, claws extended, aiming to rake them down on Rowan''s head. Rowan however, was faster. She moved forward under its paws, stabbed her sword through its belly and then slammed it to the ground in front of her.


    The second person to get a kill was Lance, at the back. The wolf had tried to run through the gap between him and the other guard, aiming for the horses. He had thrust out with his spear and caught the beast on the front of its torso. Between the force of the wolf running forward and Lance''s spear thrust, the spearhead easily penetrated into the beast and broke through some of it bones, reaching its internals and killing it.


    The third kill went to the other guard at the back, who shortly after Lance, was able to swing across with his own polearm, which was like a spear but had a side spike too, and impale a wolf himself, earning his first kill.


    This left only two wolves remaining.


    The wolf eyeing Avery decided to turn around and run off. As bloodthirsty as it was, there was only itself and the alpha left, with the rest of its pack lying dead all around.


    Now there was only one.


    The alpha wolf, after seeing its pack decimated, had no intention of leaving.


    Pike started galloping towards it, aiming for the last kill, and the alpha started charging towards him in turn.


    "Co''mere you bastard" Pike yelled while riding forward.


    They quickly closed the distance between the two of them and were nearly within striking distance. Pike was anticipating the kill but his horse finally balked and veered to the side, not wanting to continue riding further towards the wolf that was almost as tall as itself and far stronger. This put Pike into an unfavourable position where his side had started to be exposed and he had to reposition his weapon. Nevertheless, he was confident that he could still pull off the kill.


    However, just as the alpha jumped at Pike and Pike was waiting to catch it on his glaive, a shadow flew over from the side and imbedded itself into the side of the wolf, knocking it over onto the ground. This caused to Pike to miss with his weapon but it also prevented the attack of the wolf from reaching him and his horse.


    Pike rode on safely by and then turned around to see the wolf struggling on the ground with Lance''s spear stuck in it.


    "I had that!" shouted Pike, annoyed at Lance for stealing his kill.


    "Had it my arse. Even if you killed it, there''d be a chunk missing from your horse" said Lance in reply.


    Even though his words made it seem as though he was motivated by concern, both for Pike and the horse, his thoughts lay elsewhere.


    [Like hell I''m going to let you get all the glory. Calling me a greenhorn all the time. Well fuck you Pike, that greenhorn just killed the strongest beast here]


    He hadn''t actually killed the alpha wolf though because it still struggling on the ground. It would probably die from the wound but since it still looked like it had some fight in it, Avery went forward and finished it off. It tried to bite him as he approached but he easily avoided it and cut off its head in one clean downward slash.


    "Whoo" whistled one of the guards.


    "What are we going to do with all of these then?"


    "We''ll just stick them in the wagon, won''t we" said Pike.


    "No, there are too many for that. Besides, we have to leave room for a blue devil beetle" said Avery, giving his opinion on the matter.


    "I don''t know,,, maybe if we stack them right" added Harrison, who was thinking about the best way to stick them on the cart.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    "No, I still don''t think we can get them all on. It''s best if we just put half of them on and then skin the rest for their pelts. They''re not that valuable anyway so even if we leave some it won''t make that much difference. Besides, collecting qi beasts is only secondary for us. Our main purpose is to help Tom gain experience"


    "Oh, and on that note, you''ve killed your first qi beast. What d''ya think?" Avery said, turning towards Tom.


    "I think this thing works" said Tom while tapping his shield with his sword.


    "Hah, fair enough"


    "And what about you Lance. How did you feel, killing your first qi beast?" said Avery.


    "I told you already. I''ve already killed a qi beast before" Lance said, annoyed. He expected this kind of thing from Pike but didn''t think he''d be getting it from Avery right now as well.


    Nevertheless, the other guards all found it funny and started laughing, with Pike being the loudest of course. Even Rowan was laughing, but, she was doing it to the side and when Lance looked over at her, she at least she had the decency to look away and cover her mouth.


    Actually, Tom couldn''t help but chuckle at it a bit too. After all, no matter what Lance said, it was true that the qi beast he had killed was a type of cow that could be found on farms within the kingdom.


    All this laughing had greatly diminished the pride that Lance had felt at the kills he had made. He had even killed the alpha wolf, but, all of that had been overshadowed by the joke they had made. The only thing he could do was suck it up and give off an even bigger display later on. The only respite he felt was that now at least, they wouldn''t be able to keep making him the butt of their jokes by calling him a greenhorn. He smiled a bit at this thought before quickly realising that they would probably find another way to make fun of him soon enough.


    [Damn it. Why am I always the one they fun off? I''ll have to get them back somehow. Especially Pike, you lumbering giant. Huh, wait... lumbering... giant. Is there something there maybe? Lumberjack? Never mind, I''ll think about it later]


    "Okay, I think it''s about time we stop tormenting Lance and get on with it" said Harrison, the voice of reason.


    With that, their chit chat died down and they starting moving the bodies of the dead red eyed wolves into the back of the wagon, starting with the alpha, which was the most valuable one. Since they were fairly large, they only put ten bodies on the wagon, like Avery suggested, and began skinning the rest.


    Some of them weren''t particularly experienced at skinning animals, such as Tom for example, but since there were only eight of them and ten wolves to skin, it was faster to have everyone participate.


    As for Tom, he was meant to be gaining experience and learning new skills anyway. Besides, he knew that he would be involved in many qi beast hunts in the years to come and this was good practice for him if he wanted to quickly and cleanly get at the valuable materials that could be found within them. He sheathed his sword and took off his shield, then took out the curved hunting knife he had at the back of his waist and started on the wolf at his feet.


    While Rowan was skinning the wolf in front of her, she turned her head to look over at her cousin. She knew he had never skinned an animal before and wanted to see how he was doing. However, what she saw shocked her beyond imagination.


    "What the hell are you doing!" she shouted while hurriedly standing up and staring at Tom.


    Her sudden outburst caused all the others to look over as well and a strange mix of facial expressions developed on their faces as they frowned and looked on incredulously.


    "What?" Tom asked in confusion. He didn''t know what had caused Rowan to be so startled.


    "Why... Why are you doing that?" she said loudly, while pointing vigorously at Tom, at his bloodstained mouth and hands.


    Tom looked down at himself but still didn''t recognise the problem. He had started skinning the wolf and then he had started eating it. He couldn''t understand what he was doing within all that that would cause Rowan to have such a reaction.


    "What?" he asked again.


    "Why are you eating the wolf!?"


    "What, that? Well of course I am. Why wouldn''t I eat what I kill?" said Tom questioningly.


    "Be... because... because you shouldn''t. You''re eating it raw for God''s sake!"


    "That''s when it''s best" said Tom vibrantly.


    Hearing Tom''s words, Rowan was gobsmacked. She didn''t know what to think and she didn''t know what to say.


    Looking at the reactions of everyone present, Tom realised something was wrong. He thought about it a bit, about human culture and his own.


    [It seems they don''t always eat the things they kill. It also seems that they don''t eat meat raw. I have to admit, while in the body, the cooked meat did taste better. Maybe they just weren''t built for that]


    "By that logic Tom, you should have eaten the guy that attacked you in the back alley" said Avery jokingly, trying to diffuse the tension.


    "Well there was a lot going at the time. It wasn''t really the time or place" said Tom seriously.


    Hearing his words, everyone had a blank look on their faces.


    Rowan, whose face had gone a bit pale, was the first one to speak up.


    "You''re joking... right?" she said weakly.


    ".........Yes" said Tom, sounding unsure.


    [Note to self. Don''t eat humans]


    "Ha ha ha, fucking hell Tom, you nearly had us. Damn you''ve got one dark sense of humour" laughed Avery in relief after coming to his own conclusion. He ran his hand through his hair and heaved a sigh of relief.


    He thought that Tom was just putting on an act and that he hadn''t realised that he had a bit of a morbid sense of humour.


    The moment that Avery said that, the rest of the people present also felt relieved.


    [Holy shit, I thought he was being genuine for a moment]


    [Oh thank god for that]


    [Shit, I nearly had a heart attack]


    "Goddammit Tom, that wasn''t funny" said Rowan angrily, but it was clear that colour had returned to her face and she was feeling better.


    Tom wiped the blood from his mouth on the back of his sleeve and then said "Ok, let''s finish this up"


    They had all been distracted by Rowan and Tom and had stopped skinning the wolves. Now that everything had been cleared up, they could return to what they were doing. They still had a long day ahead of them and if they wanted to get to insect gorge and back before nightfall, they ought to pick up the pace.


    [Hmm, I learn new things about humanity every day]


    With that thought in mind, Tom took his knife and continued making cuts on the wolf carcass in front of him.

 Chapter 40 - Insect Gorge (1)

    After finishing loading and skinning the wolves, Tom and company were ready to move on and head towards insect gorge.


    They tried to pick up the pace a bit but it was still around 4.30pm that they finally arrived at insect gorge. This was because, on the way, they made two brief stops. Once when they were attacked by several ferocious jackal rats and again when they were attacked by a couple of particularly territorial black furred bears that had decided to settle down near the road that Tom and the others were travelling along.


    The jackal rats each stood at 3ft tall, with long and sharp teeth and long brown hair sticking up on their heads and along their bodies. They were also very much like the red eyed wolves in that they were a particularly aggressive and ferocious. However, they were comparatively tame compared to their cousins, the spiked back rats; a truly vicious and bloodthirsty animal that would take any opportunity to attack others.


    Similar to the wolves, they weren¡¯t that strong and they could only bring to bear a strength equivalent to the 6<sup>th</sup> level of body strengthening. Individually, they would only really pose a threat to Tom and if they wanted to take down any of the others, they would have to work in concert with each other, ganging up on their opponent and overwhelming them. Unfortunately for the jackal rats, there were only seven of them and after the first four were quickly dispatched, the rest ran away, screeching with their high pitched voices.


    The black furred bears however, were not as easy or quick to deal with. The two beasts were both mature and stood at 5ft tall. Furthermore, they each had a strength equivalent to 9,500 jin, making them slightly stronger than humans at the 9<sup>th</sup> level of body strengthening.


    The two beasts, when they had perceived Tom¡¯s group coming close to their territory, had moved over to the road to confront them. In doing so, they had actually blocked the group¡¯s path forward, making the conflict inevitable.


    Once again, it was vital that Tom and company dismounted in order to fight. If they fought while still on top of the horses, the bears would easily be able to take swipes at them and kill them.


    Since Tom, with his strength at only the 5<sup>th</sup> level of body strengthening, wouldn¡¯t have been very useful in this fight, it was his responsibility to hold the horses and stop them from running off. Meanwhile, Rowan and Harrison, the two strongest of the group, with Rowan being at the 1<sup>st</sup> level of qi expansion and Harrison being at the peak of body strengthening, were standing at the forefront, ready to challenge the beasts while the others supported them.


    The two beasts had stuck quite close to each other when they had approached, increasing the difficulty in taking them down. If they were not so close to each, Rowan and the others would have been able to challenge them separately without havening to worry about attacks from the side.


    To deal with the two bears, Pike, with his glaive, Lance, with his spear, and Avery, with his longsword, rushed at one of the bears, forcing it back and keeping it away from the other one. Although they were all physically weaker than the bear, with the long reach of Pike and Lance¡¯s polearms, they were able to stay out of its reach while making consecutive thrusts towards its head. Using this tactic, they were also able to allow Avery to move closer and aim some sword strikes at the beast. Since the bear wasn¡¯t as mindless and recklessly violent as the red eyed wolves or the jackal rats, it retreated from the pressure of the three¡¯s fierce onslaught, widening the gap between it and its companion.


    The actions of Avery, Pike and Lance gave the others a chance to encircle the remaining bear, though they had to be careful in doing so because aside from Rowan and Harrison who could directly contend with the beast¡¯s physical power, the polearm guard and the battle-axe user were both weaker than it. They had to stick close to each other and use the advantage of the polearm, like Pike and Lance were doing, so the bear couldn¡¯t break through the encirclement where they were.


    Taking the first opportunity they had, Rowan and Harrison rushed at the bear at the same time. Sensing the danger, it tried to escape through a gap in the encirclement, but, Rowan moved in front of it and then the other two guards also closed in on it. Finding itself trapped, it desperately attacked towards the two guards that were weaker than it.


    The guard with the polearm managed to stab into it as it charged forward but it was only a minor wound and didn¡¯t impede the beast¡¯s ability. Since the guard was only at the 7<sup>th</sup> level of body strengthening, he wasn¡¯t able to hold the beast back and was knocked over backwards as it tried to run forward. The bear would have trampled over him and possibly even killed him with the claws on its feet, had it not been for Harrison who was able to rush in and slice the back of the beast¡¯s leg open, maiming it.


    With its back leg crippled, its forward momentum was killed and it howled in pain. Rowan was able to approach from the side and stab into its body and while it was distracted from the pain, the battle-axe user at the front was able to land a solid hit on its head, thus landing the killing blow.


    With the first beast dead, the second became angry and more aggressive in biting towards and swiping its claws at Avery, Pike and Lance. However, the three of them were able to fend it off until the others encircled it and closed in for the kill.


    Unlike the jackal rats, which were not much more valuable than the red eyed wolves and were just left on the side of the road, the bears had a markedly higher value. Because of this, the group decided to unload a couple of the wolf bodies and then load the bears onto the wagon instead. Not wanting to lose out on part of their profit without need, the two wolf bodies they took down were quickly skinned by Harrison and Lance. Harrison was the oldest and also most experienced in this group. He had participated in many qi beast hunts and was adept at skinning them. Lance on the other hand, although he hadn¡¯t participated in any hunts before, he used to be a farmhand when he was young and had gotten quite proficient at this skill.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    After the fight with the bears and subsequent reorganising of their goods, Tom and the others were able to continue on without incident to their destination, insect gorge.


    Arriving there, Tom found himself standing at the top of what looked like an elongated pit in the ground.


    The insect gorge in front of him was about 50m wide and 100m deep. He couldn¡¯t see how long it was because aside from the 200m stretch of it directly in his vision, the rest was obscured by turns in the gorge and large overhangs of rock. Although he couldn¡¯t see how long it was, in the reading materials he had been forced to study while still in the clan, it stated that its total length was just over 2 miles and Rowan had reaffirmed this when she had been talking about it earlier.


    Looking to the other side of the gorge, Tom could see that it had steep, uneven rock walls extending all the way down to the bottom, however, there were also many outcroppings, some large and some small, that would allow people to make their way down. As well as the choice outcroppings though, there were also overhangs of rock that would make scaling back up it more difficult.


    Tom could see that the walls of the gorge were slick with water and covered in many places by vines and mosses. He surmised that it would be easy to get down but difficult to climb back up, but still possible by jumping and climbing up the outcroppings or using the vines. Actually, using the vines, it was also possible to make it to the other side of the gorge since some of them extended from one wall to other. However, since none of them connected at the top of both walls and they would be difficult to easily travel along, perhaps only a qi expansionist being able to do so with relative ease, they were wholly impractical for such a task. Besides, even if someone could walk or climb along them, they would be at risk of the vine breaking and falling down into the gorge below, which was something you didn¡¯t want to happen.


    Another thing that he noted about the walls was that there appeared to be holes in them, either the burrows of qi beasts or part of some kind of subterranean system he couldn¡¯t see, perhaps both. In fact, as he was thinking this, he saw a couple of people scrambling up the opposite wall. They were in a rush and trying to make their way to the top of the gorge as quickly as possible, but, as one was climbing up the vines, suddenly, a claw reached out from a hole hidden behind them, grabbing him and pulling him inside. Tom could hear a loud scream ring out when this happened but it quickly died down. It seemed that whatever had grabbed the man had already killed him.


    ¡°Well that¡¯s not disconcerting¡± said Lance nervously. Of course, he actually meant the opposite; he found what he saw very disconcerting.


    This was when Tom noticed all the other things in the gorge.


    [Wow, it certainly isn¡¯t called insect gorge for nothing]


    Tom didn¡¯t notice them at first because they blended in a bit with their background but the gorge was actually filled with all sorts of giant insect creatures that were moving around. There were giant spiders, beetles, isopods, centipedes, earwigs, pseudoscorpians and more, ranging from 20cm to several meters. They were all qi beasts.


    [It seems that the people trying to climb up just now had entered the gorge but had been too weak and were overcome by these creatures] he contemplated.


    Avery and Harrison both sighed seeing the scene in front of them.


    ¡°Novices. It looks like they went down there when their strongest was only at the 6<sup>th</sup> level of body strengthening¡± said Avery.


    ¡°Mmn. It would have been fine if they had stayed at the top and lured or dragged some up, but, going down when they were only at that level of strength and with so few of them too was just suicide¡± said Harrison, weighing in on the situation.


    It wasn¡¯t that Avery and Harrison were scorning the group of people that had gone down into the gorge, but, it was clear that they had bitten off more than they could chew. Most of the insects in insect gorge weren¡¯t that strong, only around the 5<sup>th</sup> level of body strengthening for humans, but, there were quite a number of them and they also had a clear terrain advantage. It would only be safe for Tom and the others to go down because aside from Tom, the rest were all in the late stage of body strengthening and above. Plus, there were eight of them and even excluding one guy to watch the horses, they would be able to sufficiently support each other were they to go down there.


    Tom stared on expressionlessly at the other side of the gorge, while several of the others had queer looks on their faces. The one remaining man who was scrambling up the other side of the gorge was nearing the top, but, Tom and the group could see a giant centipede making its way along the top of the wall, moving to intercept him.


    It was a race against time. The man jumped from one outcropping of rock to another, making his way towards the top. As he was standing on one small outcropping of rock and using his hands to hold onto the gorge wall in front of him, an earwig qi beast about 30cm long crawled onto his shoulder and bit into him. He gave a shout of pain and then grabbed it in one hand and crushed it in his vice like grip, forcing its gooey innards outwards.


    With renewed effort, he started climbing up the wall in front of him. Since there were no more large outcroppings ahead of him, he was forced into a scrambling climb. The giant centipede was drawing closer but he was approaching the very top and it looked like he was about to reach safety.


    With the centipede just 4m away from him, his hands found the top of the gorge wall and he raised his head up. With just one good push, he would be out of the gorge. Unfortunately, just as he raised his head to look above the gorge wall, a green forest troll that had been meandering at the top, grabbed his head in its hands, lowered itself and then bit into his head.


    The troll¡¯s teeth punctured cleanly into the man¡¯s skull, killing him. It started raising the man¡¯s body up, planning to carry him away to eat him. However, the giant centipede had finally reached the man¡¯s body and closed its jaws around his waist. The troll and centipede then engaged in a tug of war in which the man¡¯s body was torn in half, the troll getting the upper half and the centipede getting the lower.


    Rowan and the Cardinal guards stood there, disgusted by what they saw. They all had a sour feeling in their heart, but, even if they wanted to help, there was nothing they could do. The man was on the other side of the gorge and even if they had charged down and made their way over, they wouldn¡¯t have made it to him in time. All of a sudden, Tom clapped his hands, startling them all and causing them to flinch.


    ¡°Right then, where do we find a blue devil beetle?¡± he asked.

 Chapter 41 - Insect Gorge (2)

    "Goddamn Tom" said Rowan.


    She was annoyed at having been startled by Tom and also felt that his words were a tad bit inappropriate. It was true that they didn''t know the person they had just seen die, but, even still, the casualness and ease with which Tom spoke his words seemed wrong to her or at least mistimed.


    "What? Its dying light Rowan" said Tom, pointing out that they had better things to do.


    They didn''t know the man, so, why should he care about him. He was just trying to help everyone refocus on the task at hand, the real reason they had come here. As much as Tom could sympathise with the man, which wasn''t very much, barely at all in fact, there was no point in them becoming distracted by his fate. After all, he was unrelated to them.


    From Tom''s point of view, there was no reason to care about the life or death of some stranger mortal that wasn''t even the same species as him. The only reason he had more respect for humanity than any of the other countless creatures on this planet was because of his interactions with humans. As a god Tom had seen the potential and power of humanity. Methis alone was enough to give Tom a healthy dose of respect for humanity. However, it was his relationships with humans that really made Tom see them as something more. His friendship with Jacob as well as the newly developed friendships with those around him as Tom Cardinal all helped in shaping a more favourable opinion of humanity for Tom. Had it not been for these reasons, Tom likely wouldn''t have seen much difference between humanity and the wolves or the bears that had been killed earlier.


    With his own personal lack of strong emotions or attachment to humanity, there were few things that Tom would be bothered to involve himself in if it wasn''t related to him or the Cardinal clan. Perhaps the only things he would actively involve himself in would be the affairs of the clan or his newly made friends, because, he had started to develop a sense of belonging and pack mentality with them.


    "Tom''s right. People come to the Tainted Forest knowing full well of the danger it holds. Some make gains and others experience misfortune. We shouldn''t dwell on it" said Harrison.


    Although the scene they had just seen was quite jarring, Harrison knew that countless others who came to the Tainted Forest would experience similar fates. To make something of their lives, warriors entered the forest, risking life and death. It was their own choice to do so and they had to live, or not, with the outcome. That being the case, they shouldn''t get worked up at every death they came across.


    "Yeah and for all we know they might have been right bastards. Besides, I don''t particularly want to be caught in the forest while it''s dark" said Pike.


    "Yes, we really ought to get a move on. Mind you, I don''t particularly feel like going down there at the moment. All the qi beasts have been disturbed and are crawling all over the place. We should either wait until some of them re-enter their tunnels, or, walk along and find another place" said Avery, while assessing the situation.


    "OK" agreed Rowan.


    "I can''t see a blue devil beetle down there so there''s no point in going down anyway. We might as well walk along until we see one and then figure it out from there"


    After Rowan spoke these words, Tom and the group started making their way along the top of the gorge. Even if they could survive by going down where they were, they would be bringing unnecessary risk to themselves. There were also easier places to enter and exit the gorge that would be less dangerous, so, while still looking for a blue devil beetle, they might as well move to one of these spots.


    Tom and the group proceeded to walk their horses along the top of the gorge. As they were walking along, they saw two qi expansionist realm Iron Fist sect disciples practicing martial skills below. There were grey and copper coloured lights of qi glowing as the two of them were killing the numerous insect qi beasts around them and shouts and booms resounded up to the top of the gorge in the process.


    "Impressive" Lance noted.


    "Hmm. Not that great. As far as I can tell they''re still in the early stages of qi expansion" said Rowan, unimpressed.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    "Still, many people aren''t able to reach that level. I myself am already in my 40''s but stuck at the peak of body strengthening. I''ll probably never break through" sighed Harrison.


    "Ah, sorry. That was a bit insensitive" said Rowan regretfully.


    She realised she hadn''t taken into account the situation of those around her and that her words must have been especially poignant for Harrison, who was the oldest of the group and had been stuck at the peak of body strengthening for over a decade now. She also thought about the opportunities afforded to her by being born as a member of the Cardinal clan and how if it hadn''t been for this, her own cultivation speed wouldn''t have been as fast.


    In truth, although she hadn''t been very impressed by the strength being displayed by the Iron Fist sect disciples below, she didn''t mean to diminish the lives of anyone who wasn''t strong. It was just that from her perspective, having grown up in the Cardinal clan around some of the most powerful people in the kingdom, the level of strength displayed by people in the lower levels of qi expansion couldn''t impress her much.


    She could still remember an awesome display her grandfather had put on when he had had a sparring match with his brother outside of the city. In contrast to two qi condensation realm experts going at it, how could a couple of people from the lower levels of qi expansion possibly compare?


    "Don''t mind" said Harrison, waving his hand to show that he considered it inconsequential.


    "In the grand scheme of things the lower levels of qi expansion really aren''t that impressive. Heck, I''ve beaten couple of people at that level in fights before myself, albeit they were only at the first level of qi expansion"


    "Mmm, besides, I still might break through. Tom is a good example of someone suddenly breaking through and then rapidly advancing. Maybe I''ll have a breakthrough myself and then become a peak expert"


    "Amen to that!" shouted out Pike in agreement. Ever since Avery had broken through to the 9th level of body strengthening he''d been quite annoyed. Avery had already overtaken him and that damn youngster Lance was catching up too. The prospect of sudden rapid breakthroughs was something that he himself had his fingers crossed for.


    After this, the group continued walking for about 600m, idly chatting, until they found one of the more suitable spots to go down into the gorge from. The spot they found was where a mass of earth and rock had fallen away from the side of the gorge wall, creating a large platform that was 20m lower than the surrounding wall but which also had an easily traversable slope. Plus, the rock and earth that had fallen down also meant that the ground at the bottom of this part of the gorge wall was higher than the surrounding areas. This combined made it one of the easier places to descend into the gorge.


    "Alright, this should be good enough. Tom and Lance, you two should watch the horses" said rowan as she dismounted.


    "It''ll be difficult to bring anything up. Would it not be better if I go down with you as well?" asked Lance.


    "No. Tom can''t really go down and also be safe so he''ll have to stay up here anyway but as we just saw, there are still qi beasts that roam around at the top of gorge, both ones that come from the forest and also those that exit the gorge. Even if he can fend them off by himself, he might not be able to protect the horses at the same time" explained Rowan.


    "You make a good point, but I don''t think Lance should be the one to stay" said Harrison.


    "That troll was more powerful than either Tom or Lance. If something like that comes along, they won''t have much of a chance. I''ll stay instead"


    "Yeah, you''re right, I didn''t think that far. Ok then, Harrison you stay here and Lance you come with me" said Rowan.


    Everyone dismounted. Harrison and Tom stayed at the top of the slope leading down the platform while Rowan and the others walked down it. They still didn''t know if there would be any blue devil beetles down in this part of the gorge, since they couldn''t see down from where they were standing, but, even if there weren''t it would still be worth it to go down and have a little look. After all, there may be some hiding in the underground tunnels.


    "Ha ha, yes! I see one" shouted Rowan joyfully, before turning around to face the others.


    "There''s one down there all right. It''s not very big either so it''ll be easier to bring up"


    When Rowan had gotten to the edge of the platform and looked down, she had been able to make out a meter long blue devil beetle on an outcropping of rock near to the bottom of the gorge. Since it was only a meter long, it meant that it was only a young blue devil beetle and its strength wouldn''t exceed 4,000 jin. This meant it would be easier to capture, kill and drag back up to the top of the gorge.


    Unfortunately though, because it wasn''t a mature blue devil beetle, its shell wouldn''t be as thick or hard for the armour Rowan wanted to have made. There were still skilled armourers that worked for the clan that could fashion a good armour out of it for her and it could still be infused with qi in order to further strengthen it, but, it was a bit of a pity that they couldn''t see a bigger one.


    Those that were going to accompany her into the gorge made their way over to the edge of the platform. Just as they were preparing to descend and Avery and the battle-axe guard, whose name was Bartholomew, grabbed some vines to start making their way down, movement off to the side caught Avery and Rowan''s attention.


    "Look out!" shouted Rowan, as Avery grabbed Bart and pulled him back.

 Chapter 42 - Giant Velvet Worm

    The thing that had appeared to the side and caused Rowan to shout out a warning was a qi beast. However, this was no ordinary qi beast. It was a giant velvet worm and unlike most of the beasts in insect gorge, it could utilise qi techniques. It even had a qi core.


    Like the giant centipede that they had seen earlier, the giant velvet worm was hanging out on the side of the gorge wall near the very top. When Rowan and the others had gone down to the platform, it had detected them and moved forward to hunt its prey.


    It had moved its head around the side of the wall to look down at Rowan and the others on the platform and then sprayed at them with its adhesive mucus from two tubes at the front of its head.


    Despite Rowan¡¯s shout, they had noticed it too late and a few of them were hit with this sticky, adhesive mucus. Thankfully, because of Avery¡¯s fast reactions, he and Bartholomew were only partially hit. Their movements became slightly restricted from the slime that was covering them but they were still far better off than the polearm user, Ray, who had become affixed to the ground.


    He had been hit directly and the force of the spray had knocked him over. He then got almost completely covered by the sticky substance but was thankfully able to protect his mouth; otherwise he wouldn¡¯t have been able to breathe and would suffocate to death. Nevertheless, in just a short moment, the velvet worm had completely knocked one person out of commission and reduced the fighting potential of two others.


    The velvet worm proceeded to round the corner of gorge wall and move onto the platform where Rowan and the others were. Because of this, it came into the view of Tom who was still at the top of the slope.


    ¡°Augh, that looks nasty¡± said Tom in disgust. It was a comment on both the situation that Ray found himself in and also the appearance of the qi beast that had just came into his view.


    Although the velvet worm hadn¡¯t completely rounded the corner yet, Tom could see that it was rather large, probably 10-15m in length, and, although it actually had dark skin, it was hard to tell because it was covered with many knobbly orange papillae.


    ¡°Yeah, I know what you mean¡± said Harrison, looking at his colleague who had been caked in the glue-like slime.


    ¡°Should we go down and help?¡± asked Tom, unsure of whether or not they should get involved.


    ¡°No, its fine, Rowan and the others will be able to take care of it. It can use qi techniques but its body isn¡¯t that strong and it¡¯s also incredibly slow. So long as you don¡¯t get caught in its slime it¡¯s not that difficult to deal with¡± said Harrison, who had seen them before.


    As Tom and Harrison were discussing the situation, the velvet worm was crawling further onto the platform and Rowan and the others were dodging as it continued to spurt more of its glue slime at them. Unfortunately, Lance ended up getting one of his feet stuck to the ground and Pike got hit on the arms.


    Lance was stuck struggling, trying to free his foot, while Pike only had his hands stuck to his weapon and ran forward towards the worm. Even though his hands were stuck, his arms could still move freely and he could still easily swing and thrust with his glaive.


    Rowan too, found the opportunity to run forward and dodged under a stream of the glue slime to approach the worm¡¯s side. As Pike thrust with his weapon at the worm¡¯s head, Rowan struck at its side with her sword.


    The reason the velvet worm was so difficult to deal with was because it was able to gather a fair amount of qi and utilise qi techniques. It utilised its qi in such a way, in conjunction with its natural slime glands, that it produced a very sticky and adhesive glue like substance. The slime was one reason the worm was difficult to deal with, but, another reason was that it was also able to use its qi defensively.


    Just before Pike and Rowan¡¯s weapons hit against the worm, an orange hue spread all around its body and their weapons bounced off without causing it any harm. It had expelled its qi outside of its body and created a protective layer around itself. If it wasn¡¯t for this ability, then with its slow speed and large body, even with its slime, it would still be vulnerable in insect gorge. This defensive layer of qi was what protected it from the smaller and quicker qi beasts in the gorge that might try and attack it in places it couldn¡¯t defend against.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    ¡°Goddamn!¡± shouted Pike at his failed blow, however, he didn¡¯t have any time to stay idle as the worm moved its head back and looked directly at him.


    Pike quickly dodged to the side and managed to avoid the slime that the worm shot at him, but, he had to continue moving back and was forced away and out of striking distance from the body of the worm. Luckily though, Rowan was still at the beast¡¯s side and Avery and the Bartholomew both took this opportunity to rush in too. The velvet worm might have had a defensive qi layer but as long as they struck at it they would be able to wear it down and exhaust its qi.


    Rowan made several quick slashes with her sword then chose to instead point the tip of it at the worm¡¯s body and try and push it in. Avery came in from the side and made a heavy overhead swing with his sword. Bartholomew, because of where he¡¯d been hit with the slime, couldn¡¯t utilise his weapon or his right hand; so instead, he began punching it with his left.


    The three of them all managed to land a good few blows in before the worm moved its attention away from Pike and back onto them. Unfortunately for it, the defensive layer of orange qi had noticeably dimmed and before it had completely turned to face them, Rowan managed to puncture it and pierce her sword into the worm¡¯s body.


    One stab wound on its large body wasn¡¯t enough to fatally injure it, however, Rowan had pushed her sword into it as deep as it could go and then forced it along the side of its body, creating a deep 3m long cut. This wound was enough to fatally injure it, but, it didn¡¯t die straight away.


    The velvet worm started desperately thrashing about and squirting slime out of the two tubes at the front of its head. Everyone was forced to move away from it because even if it wasn¡¯t that physically strong, it could still deliver a blow with the force of 8,000 jin if it hit into them.


    A couple of them got hit by its glue-like slime as they retreated back and Bartholomew ended up tripping after stepping in some that was already present on the ground. Thankfully, without the addition of the worm¡¯s qi the glue slime was much easier to deal with. It was also fortunate that the effects of the qi on the slime wore off over time.


    ¡°Oh no¡± Rowan said.


    She could see that as the velvet worm was thrashing about, it was in danger of falling off the platform and down into the gorge. She didn¡¯t want that to happen because not only was the worm¡¯s qi core useful for her and its slime glands valuable, if it fell down it could disturb the qi beasts below, riling them up and possibly causing the blue devil beetle to flee.


    It was at this moment however that Lance was finally able to free his foot. He ran forward, ditching his own spear and picking up the polearm that Ray, who was still stuck to the ground, was using, then raced forward and impaled the velvet worm with the polearm¡¯s side spike. Using this as leverage he was able to drag the velvet worm further onto the platform and secure it there as it went through its last death throes.


    Finally, the velvet worm¡¯s thrashing about died down and became weak. Rowan went forward and stabbed her sword into its head for good measure and then the worm finally ceased all movement.


    ¡°Hah¡­¡± Rowan exhaled deeply.


    ¡°Well that was more than I expected¡±


    ¡°Ahh, can you help me now¡± called out Ray, still stuck on the ground.


    ¡°Hahaha, man look at the state of you¡± laughed Avery while making his way over to him.


    Most of the slime had already hardened by this point and Avery just had to break it apart in order to free him. Everyone else who had been hit by the stuff also started to break it off of themselves, though Pike had to get help with this because he couldn¡¯t force his hands apart by himself. Only Rowan was able to completely avoid getting hit by it and was as clean as a whistle.


    After everyone had gotten the glue like slime off of themselves, Rowan then proceeded to cut open the velvet worm¡¯s head, carefully removing the slime glands and also taking out the yellowish orange qi core.


    ¡°Whew, that took longer than I thought. Thankfully the blue devil beetle is still down there and I don¡¯t see much else moving around. We should hurry down and get this over with¡± said Rowan.


    ¡°Oh, by the way¡± Tom called over to her and then started pointing to somewhere along the top of the gorge that Rowan and the others on the platform couldn¡¯t see.


    ¡°About halfway through your fight I realised that there was big blue devil beetle over there. You don¡¯t have to go down into the gorge¡±


    ¡°Hah¡±


    ¡°Argh¡±


    ¡°Goddamn¡±


    Rowan and the guards on the platform all voiced their exasperation, sighing, shaking their heads or putting their heads in their hands.


    ¡°Is that true?¡± Rowan asked towards Harrison.


    ¡°Yeah. There¡¯s a mature blue devil beetle wandering around over there. I didn¡¯t see it at first either because it was too far away and hidden behind the trees but it¡¯s definitely there. Since it¡¯s bigger and we won¡¯t have to climb down to get it, we might as well go and get that one instead. Its shell will be thicker and harder as well so it¡¯ll also be more suitable for what you want¡± said Harrison.


    ¡°Well then¡­ I guess we¡¯ll go and get that one then. Almost makes everything we just did pointless¡± said Rowan.

 Chapter 43 - Blue Devil Beetle (1)

    Rowan and the others walked up the slope to join Tom and Harrison at the top. Upon arriving next to them, they looked over in the direction Tom had pointed. Sure enough, through the trees they could see a large blue devil beetle; just what they had come here for.


    "Well what do you know, it''s really there" said Rowan.


    "Damn, I can''t believe my hands got covered in all that sticky stuff for nothing" said Pike, annoyed at having been hit by the glue-like slime of the giant velvet worm earlier.


    "Really? I was under the impression that this wasn''t the first time your hands had been covered in sticky stuff though" said a smirking Lance.


    "HAHAHAHAHA!" laughed Avery, while Pike''s face dropped.


    "What the fuck''s that supposed to mean!"


    "Hahahaha, I think you know well enough what it''s supposed to mean Pike" said Avery heartily.


    "Damn you Lance, we were all hit by it" said an aggrieved and angry Pike in a huff.


    "Ah, actually, I wasn''t hit by it" said Rowan as she raised her hand.


    "Yeah, and I only had my foot stuck in it" said a still smiling Lance.


    "Screw you. Avery was hit more than me and Ray was absolutely caked in the stuff. I''m sure it wasn''t their first time experiencing such a thing either" said an indignant Pike.


    Whereas Pike''s face had suddenly dropped earlier, it was now the turn of Avery and Ray''s faces.


    Avery immediately stopped laughing upon hearing Pike''s words. He had enjoyed laughing at Pike after Lance had made his witty remark, but now, in his anger, Pike had turned the heat towards him and Ray. He considered the insinuation Lance made against Pike funny, but, now Pike had made a similar accusation against him and even upped the ante.


    "HAHAHAHAHAHA!" laughed Lance hysterically. He had only meant to make fun of Pike, to get him back for earlier in the day, but now, Pike''s words had actually put all the others in dismay as well. Since they had all laughed at him earlier about having only ever killed a black maned cow before, he couldn''t be happier about Pike''s words.


    Everyone present understood the meaning behind Pike''s words. Rowan showed a face of disgust, Harrison gave a knowing smile, Lance had one of the largest smiles Tom had ever seen, Pike had recovered a bit after passing the attention away from himself, Tom was disinterested and all the others had sour expressions on their faces. Ray, the man who had been almost completely covered by the velvet worm''s slime and had been stuck to the ground, was feeling especially demoralized and put down.


    "I have never... Never, experienced something like that before" said Ray strainedly, emphasising that he''d never experienced what Pike insinuated before. He was almost unable to respond to Pike''s comment because his throat kept closing from his heightened emotional state.


    "Pike, Lance, I think that''s enough out of both of you. We''re here to do serious work, not lark around" said Avery in a serious voice, all traces of his previous amusement completely gone.


    "Yes, we really should get a move one. If we wait any longer, our prey will end up walking off" said Harrison sternly, bringing the conversation to a close once and for all.


    After this short exchange, everyone started leading their horses and the wagon towards where the blue devil beetle in the distance was. Thankfully it seemed to just be idling about at the top of the gorge and wasn''t moving around very much.


    Drawing up to about 50m away, everyone stopped and prepared to make their move.


    "Alright, Tom, you''ll have to stay behind again to watch the horses. Ray, stay with him. I''ll need Harrison with me on this one" instructed Rowan.


    "Ok" said Tom and Harrison.


    Ray was a bit reluctant to stay behind with Tom; he wanted to be in on the action. Unfortunately for him, Tom wasn''t really strong enough to make any difference against a mature blue devil beetle and someone had to watch the horses anyway, but, because Tom was relegated to watching the horses and would be away from the safety of the main group, someone would have to watch Tom.


    Although Ray was a bit disappointed that he wasn''t getting to participate in the battle against the blue devil beetle, he also understood that Rowan was only tagging along with them and that following her about wasn''t his priority. He worked for Tom''s father and his current mission was to keep Tom safe. Besides, he still had some of the hardened slime on him and it was restricting his movements a bit. He was only at the 7th level of body strengthening anyway and with his movement impeded, he probably wouldn''t be able to help much with the blue devil beetle either.


    While Rowan, Harrison and the others started making their way over to the blue devil beetle, Tom remained where he was and looked on. From his position, he could clearly see the appearance of the beetle. It was at least 5m long and 2m tall. It was also, like its name suggested, covered by a blue carapace, which had a shiny lustre to it.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    Tom knew that since it was this size, it was a fully mature blue devil beetle and possessed physical strength exceeding the strength of an 8th level body strengthening warrior. Luckily, the insect type qi beasts found at insect gorge all tended to be on the weaker side, in terms of both physical strength and qi manipulation. This meant that the peak strength of the insect qi beasts found in insect gorge all tended to be lower than 10,000 jin. It also meant that they were unlikely to ever be able to store and use large amounts of qi. The giant velvet worm that Tom had seen earlier was actually an oddity in that regard. Nevertheless, even though their physical peak was lower than that of humans, they had other physical advantages that benefited them.


    The blue devil beetle was one of the hardier qi beasts found in insect gorge. The reason for this was that it had an incredibly hard exoskeleton. Many other qi beasts would find it difficult to harm them. Even humans at the peak of body strengthening would be hard pressed to harm them. It would be easy to deal with a young blue devil beetle, but, it was a different story for a mature one. This was why, even though the blue devil beetle that Tom was watching could sense people approaching it, it wasn''t particularly bothered about them at first. It was only when Rowan and the others had reached within a 20m radius of it that it finally reacted to their presence.


    The blue devil beetle, sensing the people drawing close to it, perked up and turned to face them. It started moving its short but powerful mandibles in a defensive display, indicating that it was not to be messed with. Unfortunately for it, Rowan had no intention of letting it go. It was lucky of her to be able to find one this big and she wanted to harness this opportunity. After all, the shell of a mature blue devil beetle would be much better for the armour she wanted making than the shell from an immature one.


    Moving forward in a spread out pattern, with her and Harrison at the centre, Rowan drew ever closer to her prey. When she was within 10m of it, it finally started to become nervous. Generally, because of its hard shell, there weren''t many other beasts that would prey on it. That was why it knew that anything that approached it in the manner that Rowan and the guards were was either stupid or dangerous.


    Rowan sprinted forward before it could react and landed a powerful blow on the top of its head with the hilt of her sword, followed by a punch to its face. However, despite her blows, the blue devil beetle was largely unharmed. Its head had been knocked down and rattled slightly by the overhead blow and the punch had forced it back several feet, but, on the whole it was still perfectly fine.


    After Rowan had gotten her shots in at it, Lance threw his spear, aiming for its mouth. He was the weakest of the group and with its hard shell it would be difficult for any of them to harm it. Therefore, Lance tried to strike it in its mouth, where it would be vulnerable. Unfortunately for Lance, the blue devil beetle turned and Lance''s forcefully thrown spear bounced off its shell, only leaving a faint mark.


    "Shit" said Lance, having missed. Now he had to go and retrieve his spear, which happened to have fallen just to the side of the blue devil beetle.


    "Stop screwing around Lance. That was never going to work" reprimanded Pike.


    "I thought I''d at least give it a shot" responded Lance.


    "Give it a rest you two. Focus on the task at hand" Avery shot over at them. He then ran over to the side of the blue devil beetle, which had started to move around and kept turning to face its different opponents.


    Even if its physical strength was lower than his, Avery still had to be careful. With its hard shell and obvious weight advantage, getting rammed or trampled by it could still cause him injury.


    Avery tried to stab his longsword into the side of the beetle, but, his thrust was stopped by its shell, barely puncturing it. He had caused some damage to the shell but it was only minimal and hadn''t harmed the beetle.


    After Avery attempted to stab it in the side, Rowan and Harrison approached from the front and the Bartholomew attacked from the side, aiming to swing his axe down on it. Recognising Rowan as the biggest threat, after having felt the force of her earlier blows, the blue devil beetle moved to the side and in doing so, slammed into Bartholomew and knocked him to the ground. Thankfully he wasn''t too injured, just winded and slightly bruised.


    Moving over Bartholomew, the blue devil beetle encountered Pike. Pike swung his glaive at the head of the beetle, but, like Avery, he only produced a light cut. This was more than the mark Lance had made because Pike was stronger than Lance; however, the damage done was still negligible.


    The blue devil beetle, not fearing Pike, charged forward and attempted to bite him with its curved mandibles. Seeing the beetle charging forwards at him, Pike quickly made the decision to drop his weapon and free up his hands. This quick thinking on Pike''s part was the correct decision to make in this situation. Even if he had the space or the time to raise his weapon and strike with it again, he wouldn''t have been able to deal any significant damage to it and in the process would have prevented himself from defending his body.


    The blue devil beetle charged forward at Pike, attempting to bite him, however, Pike was able grab the creature''s mandibles and wrestle with it. The blue devil beetle was stronger and heavier than him so had started to push him back, but, at this moment, Rowan and Harrison both attacked it from the side.


    Rowan went in for another punch, trying to disrupt its attack on Pike and also cause it some shock damage, however, Harrison was smarter and struck with his sword against one of the beetle''s legs. Rowan was successful in knocking the beetle to the side and stopping its attack on Pike, who then let go of its mandibles, however, she wasn''t able to cause it any noticeable damage. It only seemed slightly stunned before trying to move again. On the other hand, Harrison''s sword slash produced the first real damage of the fight. His sword had bitten in noticeably into the beetle''s leg and obviously wounded it.


    "Aim for the legs!" shouted Harrison to the others.


    "If we kill its movement, if won''t matter if we can''t break its shell"


    Hearing Harrison''s advice, everyone started to target the beetle''s legs. They were still pretty hard but were one of the easiest parts of the beetle to damage. However, how could the blue devil beetle just let itself be immobilised and killed like that. It lifted up its elytra, the hard front wings, then unfurled its back wings and used them to start flying.


    With the blue devil beetle''s weight, it was unable to fly very well, only capable of lifting itself up from the ground by a meter of two and only for a short time at that. Be that as it may, the use of its wings gave it increased speed, manoeuvrability and forward thrust. As it started flapping its wings, it also pushed off from the ground and charged forward, knocking both Rowan and Harrison to the ground and escaping from the encirclement that it had found itself in.


    50m away, Tom was still standing and watching with Ray and the horses.


    "It''s coming this way" he said matter of factly to Ray.


    "Yeah, it is" Ray responded.


    "Wait... YEAH, IT IS!"

 Chapter 44 - Blue Devil Beetle (2)

    Ray, seeing the blue devil beetle flying over towards where he, Tom and the horses were, started to panic.


    ¡°Ah crap, we have to do something¡± he said, panicked.


    The blue devil beetle, which was stronger than him, was barrelling towards his direction and had already passed Rowan and the others, meaning there was no one there to stop it. As much as he didn¡¯t like it, there was nothing he could do about it. The blue devil beetle was coming towards him and he would be the one who had to deal with it.


    [I wanted to be a part of bringing it down, but not like this. Shit, the wagon. Shit Shit Shit, the horses. Fuck, I have to move them]


    ¡°Tom, quickly, we have to move the horses¡± said Ray as he turned to look at Tom.


    Although Ray was panicky at this unexpected turn of events, Tom remained calm. He actually sighed in disappointment at what had transpired.


    [Look at them, floundering around like headless chickens. Being around them has reminded me of being around Jacob and my current weakness has been making me misjudge their strength. I¡¯ve made myself biased and set my expectations of them too high. In truth, they¡¯re not like Jacob. They¡¯re not strong. A mere bug is causing them this much difficulty. A mere bug is causing Ray this much worry]


    ¡°What are you?¡± Ray asked as Tom took off the shield that was on his left arm.


    ¡°Showing you how it¡¯s done¡± he said arrogantly.


    ¡°Now slow it down for me¡± he instructed.


    ¡°Wha-¡°


    Ray didn¡¯t get time to finish his thought because the blue devil beetle was fast approaching and had nearly reached them. He quickly moved forward, trying to create more space behind him in order to protect the horses, and raised his polearm. He wanted to slow down its advance and ward it off by striking at its head.


    He could see Rowan and the others behind it, running after it, but, they clearly weren¡¯t going to catch up. He wasn¡¯t sure what Tom was doing, but, he hoped that he could slow it down enough to give the others time to reach it, or, at least stop it from smashing into the horses behind him.


    The blue devil beetle didn¡¯t stop when it saw Ray in front of it. It continued forward and ended up clashing into his weapon. Ray¡¯s polearm only hit against the side of its head, however, with the speed and force with which it was moving forward, it actually created a slightly deeper cut than Pike had. This was still fairly negligible, but, what happened next wasn¡¯t.


    Although Ray wasn¡¯t really able to harm the blue devil beetle, after his weapon glanced off the beetle¡¯s head, it got caught against its body. Ray was by no means able to withstand the forward force of the blue devil beetle¡¯s momentum and was quickly knocked down, with his weapon cracked and skin torn from the palms of his hands; however, he was able to slow it down substantially.


    When Ray had stood to block it and tried to withstand its forward momentum, even though he was knocked down, he was successful in both slowing it down and also forcing it to turn to the side slightly, away from the wagon and most of the horses. Nevertheless, it continued on and there were still a couple of horses in front of it.


    The blue devil beetle moved forward, ramming into two horses. Ray could hear the sick crunch of bones and pained yells from the considerably weaker horses that couldn¡¯t withstand the force of the blow. Both of their bodies contorted unnaturally as they fell down to the ground and the other horses, at least those not tied to the wagon, ran away in terror.


    It was at this moment that Tom made his move. While Ray was at the front and had his attention focused on the blue devil beetle, Tom had climbed onto the back of the wagon, unsheathed his sword and also picked up one of the two slime glands they had retrieved from the giant velvet worm.


    At first, Tom had only intended slash open the slime bag over the top the blue devil beetle¡¯s head, with the intention to glue its front wings in place and stop it from putting them back down to cover its back, but, since it had changed trajectory and was no longer approaching him head on, this was no longer possible. However, as the saying goes, when one door closes, another one opens. By turning its side to Tom, Tom was presented with the opportunity to directly jump onto its back.


    Taking this opportunity, Tom jumped from the wagon, with a slime bag in his left hand and sword in his right; the force of his jump made the wagon creak and roll slightly, dragging the few horses that were tied to it.


    Luckily, even though the blue devil beetle was no longer heading directly for the wagon, it was still passing close by it. This made it easy for Tom to jump onto its back and when he did so, he landed with his sword in a reverse grip, thrusting down into the back of the beetle.


    As he was doing all this, Tom began to feel the excitement that a good fight would always bring him. He hadn¡¯t felt this way before when he had been assaulted in Hill city, because at that time the emotion he was overwhelmingly feeling was anger, nor did he feel it earlier when facing off against the Red Eyed Wolves, because they didn¡¯t pose any real challenge to him, however, the Blue Devil Beetle he was facing off against now was legitimately more powerful than his current form and would prove a tough foe to bring down. Nevertheless, despite his excitable mood, Tom spared a thought in his mind to criticise the efforts of Rowan, Harrison and the others.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    [How foolish. When the beetle opened its wings to help itself escape, it also presented you with one of your best opportunities to harm it. Its hard front wings form a protective shell over the back of its body but underneath it is considerably softer. If you had reacted fast enough, you would have been able to severely harm it by attacking this exposed area]


    While thinking this, Tom landed onto the back of the blue devil beetle and his sword pierced down into its body. There was still resistance and since Tom was only at the 5<sup>th</sup> level of body strengthening it didn¡¯t pierce down that far, however, it went in far enough for Tom to secure himself on the beetle¡¯s back.


    After landing on the beetle¡¯s back, it was time for Tom to enact his original plan. He¡¯d found himself in an advantageous position by getting onto its exposed back and would be able to deal significant damage to it, however, he still wished to use the glue-like slime on its wings. Not only would it prevent the blue devil beetle from closing its protective front wings, but, it would also prevent it from flapping its back wings, thus preventing it from flying and moving as fast. If he could accomplish this, then it would be unable to protect its vulnerable exposed back area and Rowan and the others would be able to quickly catch up to it.


    Feeling itself being injured by Tom¡¯s sword, the blue devil beetle desperately started shaking its body from side to side, trying to shake him off, and tried to close its wings. However, despite its best efforts, Tom was able to hold on and throw the slime bag forward.


    The slime bag impacted upon the back of the blue devil beetle and the glue-like slime splashed out over both its wings. Tom¡¯s efforts had proven successful as the beetle became unable to flap its hind wings and the slime had glued its front wings in place, unable to fully close over its back.


    The blue devil beetle that had already been making efforts to shake Tom off its back started violently thrashing about now that its wings had been glued in place.


    Tom found it became increasingly difficult to stay on the beetle¡¯s back. He was being thrown from side to side. Suddenly, his sword came loose and he was thrown from the back of the beetle.


    Tom landed on the ground, hard, and started rolling. When he came to a stop and his view was no longer spinning, he could see the blue devil beetle over him, with one of its legs about to come down on his face. He quickly rolled to the side, avoiding the incoming threat and attempted to get away from the wildly rampaging beast.


    Luckily, at this moment, after having been slowed down by Ray and then again by Tom, Rowan and the others had finally caught up to the blue devil beetle and were ready to re-join the action.


    ¡°Good job Tom!¡± shouted Rowan cheerily. She had seen everything that Tom had done while she was running over and was thoroughly impressed.


    [Yeah Yeah, just get on with it already. I¡¯ve already done half your job for you] thought Tom.


    Although Rowan was impressed by Tom¡¯s actions, he wasn¡¯t impressed by hers. He realised it was his own fault for overestimating her abilities, but, nevertheless, he was feeling annoyed and his patience was wearing a bit thin. After all, despite being the weakest member of the group, his contribution to this fight was already the greatest.


    Rowan and the others started to engage the blue devil beetle, but, once again they were doing it haphazardly and were failing to take advantage of its exposed back. They were attacking its legs again, a strategy that was working, but, seeing this, Tom couldn¡¯t help but speak up.


    ¡°Pike! Avery! Lance! Everyone! Drop your weapons, grab a leg each and pull¡± he ordered.


    A few of them were slow to react; however, Pike and Avery immediately followed Tom¡¯s orders, closely followed by Lance. They rushed forward, each grabbing a leg and starting to pull. The benefits of what they were doing immediately showed as the blue devil beetle¡¯s movements became restricted. With its wings stuck and three of its legs being pulled, the beetle had great difficulty moving.


    Seeing the effect Avery, Pike and Lance were having, the others quickly wizened up and moved forward to do the same. There were of course, only six legs and therefore, only six people had to move forward to grab a leg. In the end, this left only Tom and Rowan still standing with their weapons out, with the others each holding a different one of the beetle¡¯s legs.


    ¡°Ok, Rowan, kill it¡± said Tom.


    ¡°Yeah¡± Rowan nodded in response.


    Rowan proceeded to move to the back of the struggling, but restrained beetle and then started to stab into its exposed back. Since its front wings were stuck open and no longer provided it protection on its back, Rowan¡¯s sword strikes were able to create large, noticeable wounds as she stabbed into the beetle. However, even though she was able to stab into it, it didn¡¯t look like it would die any time soon.


    ¡°Don¡¯t you have any martial skills to make this go faster? You¡¯re at the 1<sup>st</sup> level of qi expansion after all¡± said Tom, a bit annoyed with how long it was taking.


    ¡°No, I left on the day I broke through. I haven¡¯t practiced any qi techniques yet¡± Rowan replied apologetically.


    ¡°Haa¡± sighed Tom, before moving to the front of the beast.


    ¡°You know, Lance actually had it right at the start. The weakest part of the whole thing is inside its own mouth¡± he said as he thrust his sword into the mouth of the restrained blue devil beetle.


    Even though he had thrust his sword halfway in the mouth of the blue devil beetle, it was still struggling and its pincer like mandibles were still trying to bite at him.


    Tom took a step back, raised his leg and then kicked the pommel of his sword, forcing the blade deeper into the beetle¡¯s mouth until only the hilt was still showing. This seemed to have done the trick as the beetle¡¯s struggling died down, only twitching slightly and jerking its legs.


    ¡°Woah¡± said Harrison as he accidently ripped off the beetle leg he was holding and stumbled backwards with it.


    ¡°Hot damn¡±


    ¡°Holy shit¡°


    ¡°Wow¡±


    The others couldn¡¯t help but exclaim at what had happened.


    ¡°Whew. Well, since it¡¯s not reacting to that, I think Tom got it¡± said Harrison.


    ¡°Yeah, I guess you got the killing blow¡± said Rowan to Tom while she was still on the back of the blue devil beetle. She had been continuing to attack its exposed back and had made numerous wounds, but, even still, it was clear that it was Tom¡¯s actions that had finally finished it off.


    ¡°I have to say, you¡¯ve gotten rather strong, Tom¡± she said.


    Tom only gave an awkward smile at her words.


    [No¡­ you¡¯re wrong] he thought, his head completely cooled down from his earlier excitement during the fight.


    [I¡¯m weak¡­ far too weak. You are too. We all are or a mere bug wouldn¡¯t have caused us this many problems.


    I have so far to go, yet I¡¯ve barely taken my first steps. I need to get stronger]


    Tom¡¯s eyes tightened as a new sense of resolution was born in his heart. The fight with the blue devil beetle had once again reminded him that he was nowhere near to accomplishing his goal and that before he even came close to accomplishing it, he¡¯d probably face countless dangers along the way. The only thing he could do, was, with a renewed vigour, continue to arduously cultivate and develop his strength.

 Chapter 45 - Leaving The Forest

    Tom stood, contemplating things like his own strength and cultivation level; however, he was pulled back out of his thoughts by the situation around him. He and his group had just killed the blue devil beetle before them and now they needed to decide what to do with it.


    Tom grabbed the hilt of his sword that could be seen sticking out of the blue devil beetle mouth and pulled. As he pulled out his sword, a dark, blue-green blood trickled down from its mouth and started pooling on the ground. His sword too was covered in the stuff and he had to wipe it clean before putting it back in its sheath.


    Tom could hear chatter spring up beside him as the guards started talking about the battle they had just had. A few of them gave their congratulations to Tom and praised him for his ingenuity, first for using the slime of the giant velvet worm to stopper the blue devil beetle''s wings and then again for his idea to simply grab the beetle''s legs and wrestle it, instead of trying to cut through its hard exoskeleton.


    As they were all just standing around the corpse of the qi beasts they had just killed, Harrison spoke up and raised a rather important issue.


    "Ok, so how are we going to do this?" he asked. He had looked at both the size of beetle and the space left on the wagon, identifying a major issue.


    "Rowan you said you wanted the shell for making armour, right. Do you just want to cut off its front wings or do you want to take its whole body?"


    "I''d like to take the whole thing. The front wings are the one of the thickest and hardest parts of it, but, the rest is also good for making armour and blue devil beetles aren''t that common, especially not ones this big" said Rowan, explaining her position on the issue.


    Out of everything they had hunted that day, nothing could equal the blue devil beetle in value. The only thing that came close was the giant velvet worm and that was only because of its qi core, which would aid people in their cultivation and could help people learn how to make their qi sticky.


    "Alright then, but, if we do that we''ll either have to carry it ourselves or take some stuff off the wagon. We''re already pushing the weight limit that the horses can pull along and if we add this too, they won''t be able to move it" said Harrison.


    "Considering two horses died and another two ran off, half of us''ll be walking anyway. We might as well just drag it behind us" chimed in Avery.


    "Good point. It''ll probably be slow going from now on anyway; dragging it behind us won''t make much difference. Pity about the horses though" said Rowan, though as she said this, her own horse came running back from wherever it had been scared off to.


    "Hmm, we better get a move on as quickly as we can. I don''t see us making it to town before the gates close but we should at least get there. After all, I doubt any of us would relish the opportunity to sleep in the forest at night" said Harrison, reminding them that they were working against the clock.


    Since it was the summer, the days were longer, but, it was fast approaching 6 O''clock and now that some of them had to walk and carry the corpse of the blue devil beetle to boot, it would undoubtedly take at least 5 hours to make their way back. This meant that it would undoubtedly be dark before they made it out of the forest.


    "Ok then, I guess we better get going" said Rowan as she mounted her horse.


    Those that still had horses began to mount them, while Avery, Ray and Bartholomew, each grabbed a part of the blue devil beetle''s corpse and raised it above their heads. Even with their level of strength the beetle was heavy and they wouldn''t be able to carry it all the way. That''s why as they set off, Harrison and the others, with the exception of Tom, offered to switch positions with them and take turns carrying it. Actually, Rowan didn''t have to offer either; after all, the guards all worked for the Cardinal clan. Nevertheless, since she was the one who brought them all the way out here for it in the first place, she felt an obligation to bear some of the load.


    Coincidentally, just a short while after they had set off, while they were still walking along the top of the gorge, back towards the path they had come from, they encountered the two Iron Fist sect disciples they had seen practicing in the gorge earlier, as they were climbing out of it. Since these disciples had only been there to practice their martial skills and not actually to hunt anything, they hadn''t brought up the bodies of any qi beasts. After all, aside from a rare few, the qi beasts found in insect gorge weren''t that valuable to them.


    The two Iron Fist sect disciples, after many bouts down in insect gorge, were finally calling it a day and were preparing to make their way back to their resting place. Neither of them had any horses and since they had just tired themselves out in the gorge, they weren''t planning to travel at a fast pace. Not being in any particular hurry, they decided to walk back with Tom and his group, a decision that made a fair amount of sense given that they were headed in the same direction.


    As they walked along, the two sect disciples occupied their time by talking with Rowan. They obviously saw that she was at the 1st level of qi expansion and also a member of the Cardinal clan due to the clan insignia she had on her clothes, which was a more complex and intricate version of the one that the guards had. This being the case, they thought they would have a lot to talk about when it came to qi techniques and martial skills.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    Unfortunately for them, Rowan had only just entered her level and didn''t have any personal knowledge or experience with which to talk to them about, however, this provided them with the opportunity to show off and talk up their own abilities, something they were glad to do since they were both only at the 3rd level of qi expansion and weren''t considered overly strong in their sect.


    As they travelled along, the group occasionally encountered a few qi beasts and the two sect disciples would jump forward to continue their practice. Each time they did so, Tom was able to see them employ the martial skills of their sect.


    The older of the two sect disciples was a masculine blond haired man in his thirties. He would always employ a skill which turned his hands a dark metallic grey in colour and then run forward to engage qi beasts in close combat. It seemed that the technique made all of his punches more powerful. Tom recognized it as the first stage of both the iron body and iron fist techniques of the Iron Fist sect, each core skills of their sect, which many in the North West would recognize.


    On the other hand, the younger of the two disciples, a 25 year old man who had light brown hair, always employed a skill that turned his entire body a copper colour. Similar to his fellow disciple, this skill seemed to make his blows more powerful.


    The two sect disciples, always running forward to deal with qi beasts that came across their path, helped Tom and the group to move forward more quickly. If they hadn''t been there, then whenever they encountered aggressive qi beasts, Tom and the group would have had to stop in order to fight them. Not having to do this, they were able to continue on with relative ease, save the large blue devil beetle they were dragging along. Dragging now because their arms had gotten tired holding it above their heads.


    Unfortunately, although the presence of the two sect disciples was making their journey back smoother, the two sect disciples were not going back to Acorn. They were in the forest in order to train their martial skills, not to hunt for money. As such, they were planning to stay in the forest overnight, as they had been doing for the past week, at the ruins of a small village.


    The path that Tom''s group was travelling along went through this particular village and after a bit over 2hrs of travelling with the sect disciples, they finally reached it.


    "I guess we''ll see you guys around" said the older disciple.


    "You''re not done seeing us now" said Pike as he let go the blue devil beetle and started stretching his arms.


    "Fuck me, that''s tiring" he exclaimed.


    "Alright, I think its best if we stop here for a break" said Harrison.


    "Agreed" replied Rowan. She herself had had a turn at carrying the beetle corpse but since she was stronger than Pike, she was less worn out. Nevertheless, a short rest would be good for all of them.


    Looking around, Tom could see the familiar dilapidated stone buildings, missing doors, windows and roofs that he had passed by earlier on his way to the gorge. They were all only single story buildings and there were only a couple of them at that. He assumed there must have been more when it was an actual functioning village but that the homes built with wood or other such materials hadn''t survived over time due to decay and collapse. Of course, there may have been other sturdier buildings that were lost over the years, due to forest reclamation, rampaging qi beasts or perhaps just people who had fought in the vicinity.


    "God Damn!" came a shout from one of the buildings. It was one that the younger of the two disciples had just gone into.


    This shout drew everyone''s attention and they started to make their way over to it, Tom included.


    Upon entering the building, Tom saw what had caused the man to shout. There were three shrivelled and dried up corpses on the ground that seemed to have a blue discolouration all over their skin.


    "What the hell did this?" the younger sect disciple asked the older, who had entered at the same time as Tom and the others.


    "A mimic" said Harrison sourly before the older sect disciple had a chance to speak.


    "What''s that?" asked the younger disciple.


    "It''s a unique qi beast with shapeshifting and illusionary skills. They''re quite rare or at least we think they are and every so often they''ll go through active periods where they start attacking humans. The last notable time was 20 years ago when one or maybe more infiltrated Acorn town and there were a string of deaths similar to this. Unfortunately their shapeshifting and illusionary skills are so good that they can copy almost any animal, even down to their voices, hence the name mimic" explained Harrison.


    "Hmm, I read about them in the clan''s records. There wasn''t a lot of information on them. Only that their true forms are that of a bipedal creature partially humanoid in nature, they have a wrist spike with which they can suck the qi out of living beings and that they are astoundingly good climbers" said Tom.


    He was little surprised when he first read about such creatures in the clan''s records but ultimately it didn''t shock him too much. He himself had plenty of experience with shifting abilities given that after he ascended he could make his body whichever shape he wanted.


    "Yeah, I''ve read that too. Luckily their physical strength peaks just below that of peak level body strengthening humans and other than their illusionary and shifting skills they can''t use qi in any other way" said Rowan.


    "Still, even some rather powerful people died last time. There was even a qi condensation level expert found dead in his bed. They think it mimicked his wife and got him while he was asleep. If they''re active again then we''ll have to let people know" said Harrison.


    "You''re right. I think its best if we leave this place as soon as possible, it''s starting to give me the creeps" said Rowan.


    "Hmm, I think it''s best if we leave too. This place just got a lot less safe" said the older Iron Fist sect disciple to the younger.


    "We''ll stick with you guys back to Acorn" he said to Rowan.


    With that, they all exited the stone building and prepared to set off again. Those that were going to be carrying the blue devil beetle went over to it and those that were going to be riding horses went over and mounted them.


    "Where''s Ray" Harrison suddenly said.


    "Ah, I''m here" said Ray as came around the corner of a building.


    "I was taking a leak"


    "I didn''t need to know that. Just get on your horse and prepare to set off, we''re going" said Harrison seriously.


    "Ok" said Ray as he mounted his horse.


    "Let''s go"

 Chapter 46 - Rowan Leaves

    Tom and company proceeded on their way towards the town of Acorn. As they suspected, it got dark before the left the forest. Travelling along, they were subjected to hoots and howls of qi beasts in the distance, but, since they were nearing the periphery of the forest they knew that they were unlikely to encounter any powerful qi beasts and none of the qi beasts that had set eyes upon them attempted an attack.


    By the time they exited the forest and arrived at the town, the town gates were already shut. Having no other recourse, Tom and the others, the two Iron Fist sect disciples included, camped out on the eastern side of the town. They hadn''t actually brought tents with them but luckily there were people there who made a living by selling or renting such goods.


    The next day, early in the morning, when the town gates opened, Tom and the others entered the town. Their first order of business was to go to the Cardinal clan''s trading post and caravan service that was located in the town so they could secure the transfer and delivery of the qi beasts they had collected to Hill City. The two Iron Fist sect disciples however were planning to go to the local governors building to inform them of the mimic activity they had witnessed in the forest, not that they would do much about it anyway.


    Coincidentally, when Tom and Rowan made their way over to the Cardinal clan''s business in Acorn town, with bodies laden up on their wagon and several of the guards carrying the blue devil beetle over their heads, they encountered both Daniel and Adam.


    "Wow, that''s quite a haul" said Daniel, a bit envious. He''d never brought back a bounty as impressive as Tom and Rowan had just brought back.


    [God damn, his first day out and he already brings this much back. Just how lucky is Tom? No, that''s wrong. It''ll be because of Rowan. Yes, that''s right. They never would have brought that much back if it weren''t for Rowan. Tom himself probably didn''t do much. He''s still far behind me. No competition at all. No worries]


    "Hah, thanks" Rowan chuckled cheerily.


    "So this is what you ran off for" Adam said, glancing over the corpse of the blue devil beetle and giving a little smile.


    "Yeah" said Rowan while patting the body of the beetle.


    "I plan to get some armour made from it"


    "It looks like you''ll have a lot of material left over. I''m impressed that you were able to grab one this big. They have pretty hard shells, must have been difficult to bring down"


    "Actually, it was Tom that brought it down in the end" said Rowan, giving credit where credit was due.


    "Wow" Adam said shocked and then looked over at Tom.


    His surprise was understandable considering the size of the beetle and the fact that Tom was only at the 5th level of body strengthening. It must be known that the larger a blue devil beetle grows, the harder its exoskeleton becomes and the more difficult it is to kill. Even Ray and Lance, both at the 7th level of body strengthening, only caused it superficial damage. If it was just a young one then Adam would have understood but Tom taking down a one this big was truly surprising.


    "How on earth did you do that?" he asked, partly in disbelief and partly in genuine intrigue at how Tom had accomplished such a feat.


    "Everything has a weakness Adam, it''s just about finding and taking advantage of it" Tom explained to Adam while having an air of seniority.


    "Stabbed it in the mouth" Avery spoke up to explain.


    "Ahh" Adam said in understanding.


    "Well it was not just that. He jumped on its back and glued it wings open with the slime from a giant velvet worm" said Rowan, giving further praise.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    "Oh, you hunted velvet worm as well?" asked Daniel, though internally he was thinking ''show offs''.


    "Yeah. Got its core too. Was a close though, it nearly fell into the gorge after we killed it" answered Rowan.


    "Insect gorge?" Adam asked. There weren''t many places to find both a blue devil beetle and a giant velvet worm but he was just checking for confirmation of where they had gone.


    "Yeah. We just went there and back again, but, as you can see, we also encountered some Red eyed wolves and Black furred bears. There were Jackal rats as well but we didn''t have time or space to bring them back with us"


    "It seems your adventure has been quite fruitful. Not only did you get what you wanted but you also brought back so many qi beast corpses and Tom got his first beast kill, even took down a mature blue devil beetle to boot"


    "It wasn''t much" said Tom indifferently, though Adam detected a hint of cockiness and pride in his voice.


    Adam gave a smile at Tom''s words. Even if he was acting as if it was unimportant, the fact that he had accomplished so much on his first trip out was very praiseworthy. Adam felt that if Tom''s abilities were that high then all the batter for him and the clan.


    [I''m sure uncle will be happy with the result]


    "Well anyway, a congratulations is in order. Not just for you Tom but also for you too Rowan. Daniel told me that you''ve entered the realm of qi expansion and standing here now, I can see it for myself"


    "Thanks. Oh and by the way, what are you doing here? I didn''t know you were planning to come here too" said Rowan.


    "Actually, I wasn''t. Dad sent me over to bring you back. You would have heard if you hadn''t run off; grandfather wants you to go over and meet him in Raventree. Mam and Dad were going to tell you after they saw Tom off but they couldn''t find you"


    "Oh, what for?" asked Rowan.


    "They didn''t say but I think they''re trying to set you up with someone from the Raventree family" Adam answered.


    "And I definitely have to go?"


    "Yep"


    "Ok then. I''m going to be heading back to Hill City with this blue devil beetle anyway. I''ll talk to Mam and Dad then. Will you be coming back with me to make sure I actually go home?" asked Rowan.


    "No. I wasn''t originally planning on coming here but since I''m here now, I might as well stay a little while. You''ve been out on a hunt with Tom already, I think I''ll go out on the next one" said Adam.


    "You''ll have to wait a while then. My father wanted me to come out here and hunt my first qi beast, I''ve done that now. I want to spend my time cultivating until I reach the 6th level of body strengthening, then I''ll go out again and test my new strength" said Tom, explaining his position on the matter. Being reminded that he was still so weak and at the bottom of the food chain when he was in the forest, he didn''t want to divert too much time from actual cultivation.


    "That''s ok, I can wait. Besides, at the rate you''re going you''ll probably reach that after just another month" Adam joked, though he knew that that may actually be true and was anticipating it.


    "Haha" Daniel gave a muted laugh at the side.


    [If he can really do that in just a month then what does that make me look like. No, it''s ok. Tom is four years older than me anyway. Even if he catches up, even if he gets stronger than me, that''s only to be expected. No worries, no worries]


    After that, they all stood around talking for a while before they moved onto other matters. They still had to organise the transport of the qi beast corpses and each of them that had been out on the hunt was sorely in need of a wash and a fresh set of clothes.


    After they had all cleaned themselves up, they had a midday meal together and then Rowan prepared to set off for Hill city. Tom went to the city gates with Adam to send her off.


    Standing before two wagons laden with the corpses of qi beasts and several people who worked for the clan, Rowan turned to Tom and Adam to say her goodbyes. Before she spoke, she held up a small bag towards Tom, indicating for him to take it.


    "Here, these are for you Tom. For helping me with my armour, here''s a little something to help with your cultivation" she said.


    Taking the bag and looking inside, Tom saw that there were several different cultivating resources, such as qi imbued lotions and tonics. They would all help in him advancing towards the 6th level of body strengthening more quickly.


    "Thanks. Come again" Tom said. If she would be willing to give him stuff each time they went out together then the exchange would be fully worth it for him.


    "Haha, what are you like" Rowan laughed.


    "I don''t know when I''ll next see you but good luck" she said as she walked forward and gave him a hug, completely catching him off guard and startling him, causing him to tense up.


    "er, thanks" he said as she released him and gave him a pat on the shoulder.


    "And I''ll be seeing you too brother"


    "Yes" replied Adam.


    "Have a safe trip"


    With that, Rowan mounted her horse, as did those she would be travelling with. Tom and Adam stood and watched as they departed out of the town gates.


    "Right then, I guess we might as well just go back to the hotel" Adam said.


    "Very Well" Tom replied.


    "Lead the way"

 Chapter 47 - Kill Order

    Two days after Rowan had gone back to Hill City and while Tom was cultivating in peace in his room, in the hotel he was staying at, a particular man by the name of Dug had ridden into the town of Acorn and entered into a particular building.


    Dug was walking forward with a feeling of trepidation. He was only a news bearer and the information he had come to deliver was nothing to feel anxious about. In fact, it was something everyone was expecting. It was the confirmation they had asked for in order to take a certain action. An action they had been informed a month ago that they may have to take. However, despite it being such a simple piece of news, the man was still feeling uneasy or rather unwilling.


    This was because of the person he was going to deliver this news to, a woman called Rosaline who ran their little operation here and who Dug found to be rather unpleasant. The two of them had a bad relationship. He didn''t like her because she never treated him well; often scorning him, ignoring his words and generally viewing him with contempt.


    On the other hand, she didn''t like him because although he was much weaker than her, he had a direct line to the higher ups of their organisation. He even knew who the big boss of it all was, when she didn''t. Compartmentalisation they called. She scoffed at the word. What right did Dug have to know who her boss was when even she didn''t know. But there was nothing she could do about it. Dug was her primary line to her superiors and she had to live with that.


    She had to listen to the words of this man that she held in contempt just because out here, he spoke for her superiors. However, just because she had to live with this situation didn''t mean that didn''t mean she had to treat him well, a fact that caused many a conflict between them as there were always some matters that neither of them wished to back down on.


    His heart palpitating a bit from his restlessness and the veins on his head showing, Dug approached the door to a fairly large meeting room. He knew that inside, he would find Rosaline and several others.


    Dug opened the door. The view of the meeting room appeared before him, as did Rosaline, an attractive 32 year old woman with auburn hair and a cold and aloof air about her, who was sitting at the head of the room''s large table.


    "Oh, it''s you" she said with contempt as she looked over at who had entered the room.


    "Yes, it''s me" he answered back.


    "I presume you''ve brought news"


    "Why else would I be back?"


    "Well, have out with it then. What did they say?" she said harshly.


    "We''ve been given the confirmation. We kill Tom Cardinal" he answered, causing several others who were in the room to start talking amongst themselves.


    "Be quiet!" Rosaline ordered.


    "What do we know about this Tom Cardinal?" she asked.


    Although she had been informed the previous month to be on the lookout for him, she didn''t actually know anything about him. Even when she was informed that he''d come to this town and Dug had gone off to confirm the kill order, she still hadn''t bothered to learn anything about him.


    "Well, as you already know, his name is Tom Cardinal and he''s a member of the Cardinal clan. More specifically, he''s the son of the 10th elder of their clan, as well as the grandson of the 4th elder and great grandson of the 1st elder" answered Dug.


    "I don''t care about who his parents are. How strong is he? That''s all we need to know" said Rosaline derisively.


    [You snide and contemptible bitch] thought Dug with a sour look on his face before he continued on.


    "I''m given to understand that he''s in the mid-levels of body strengthening and his guards are all in the late levels"


    "Humph, just some body strengthening cultivators" she said snidely, not bothering to hide the contempt in her voice.


    "That''s not quite right" piped up someone else who was in the room.


    "I''ve had reports that he was recently joined by someone at the 3rd level of qi expansion. It looks like it''s another member of the Cardinal clan"


    "Another member or not, it makes no matter. We''ll just kill them too" Rosaline said coldly.


    "So how are we going to do this?" asked another man who was present in the room.


    "Do we just send some people to people to kill them on the street or in a bar? I mean, the town guard here don''t involve themselves in the fights of cultivators" he said.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Unlike places like Hill City, Acorn town had a rather weak governing body. Well, it wasn''t that they were actually weak; it was just that they didn''t involve themselves too much with what happened in the town.


    As the biggest thoroughfare and stopping point for cultivators in the North West entering the Tainted Forest, Acorn town had a great many cultivators passing through, coming from a variety of different places. Because the town thrived on the trade these people brought and getting confrontational with them could hurt business, the local government just let them do as they pleased and didn''t get involved.


    Actually, it wasn''t that uncommon for there to be bar brawls and the occasional street fights that resulted in deaths, but, so long as it didn''t threaten the safety of the town or the interests of the local government, the city guard and people from the local governor''s office would never step in to interfere. Ultimately, the only places the city guard genuinely defended were the town walls, the governor''s office, the auction house and a few other select areas of interest.


    "Tell me, did your mother drop you on your head as a child or were you just born stupid?" said Rosaline, the derision in her voice heavy.


    "Killing them is a simple matter but we can''t just do it inside the town. Disregarding the fact that the Cardinal clan has other people here, people that can rival us, just because the town guard won''t make a move doesn''t mean other people won''t. There are plenty of people here who would step in to save them in order to curry favour with the Cardinal clan. Even if they didn''t, attacking within the town would expose us and people could sell that information to the Cardinal clan. Before the day ended we''d already be found" she explained.


    "I see, so we attack them inside of the forest"


    "Makes sense. That way, they''ll assume it was done by qi beasts and it won''t be tied back to us" discussed two other people who were in the room.


    "Ok, then we send out a kill squad to follow them into the forest and end them when no one else is around" said the man who had previously been shot down by Rosaline.


    "Exactly" said Rosaline rather boredly. She didn''t know why it was taking everyone so long to come to this understanding.


    [What idiots, is it really taking you that long to understand such a simple matter]


    "Gather up a few warriors in the mid-levels of qi expansion, have them watch this Tom Cardinal person and follow him into the Tainted Forest when he inevitably goes in" ordered Rosaline to one of her subordinates.


    "Ahem"


    Hearing Rosaline''s words, Dug cleared his throat to grab her attention.


    "What?" she said sharply as she glared at him.


    "Well it''s just... the boss considers this to be a very important matter. He doesn''t want any mistakes on this" said Dug.


    "Hah, mistakes?" scoffed Rosaline.


    "It''ll already be overkill sending out more than one mid-level qi expansionist realm warrior, what more do you want?"


    "I think perhaps we should get Duncan to do this job" said Dug, thinking about a powerful warrior their organisation who was based in the town of Acorn.


    "Duncan? Don''t be ridiculous. Why would we possibly need Duncan to do this job?"


    "The Cardinals are strong and have access to powerful martial techniques. Even if the person accompanying Tom Cardinal is only at the 3rd level of qi expansion, there''s still a chance he would be able to escape and get help. Even if he couldn''t make it back to town, there are many powerful warriors that enter the Tainted Forest. What if he was able to escape and then run into one that was willing to help him? That''s why we should get Duncan to do it. He''s not one to make mistakes" explained Dug.


    "Ha, it seems the heavens themselves disagree with you. Duncan is at the lost city and there''s no telling when he''ll be back" laughed Rosaline.


    "But very well. If this is that important, I''ll go myself" she said.


    "You?" Dug questioned, causing Rosaline to flare with anger.


    "Have you been so blinded by Duncan that you''ve forgotten that I''m at the 7th level of qi expansion too" said Rosaline angrily as she aggressively stood up out of her seat and released some of her aura threateningly towards Dug.


    [Humph. The damn upstart] thought Rosaline about Duncan.


    "Of course not. If you go personally then this matter will be solved easily" replied Dug.


    [Please, you''re nothing but a pencil pusher. You might be a lot stronger than me but that''s only because of the difference in our cultivation levels. Duncan could kill you with his eyes closed and one arm tied behind his back]


    Despite what Dug felt personally about Rosaline, he at least knew that if she went out personally, there wouldn''t be any problems with dealing with Tom cardinal and getting this job done. Even if he didn''t consider her particularly powerful for her cultivation level and nowhere near the strength of Duncan, who could easily defeat opponents several cultivation levels higher than himself, the gap between the early levels of qi expansion and the late levels, weren''t something that could be easily overcome. Whoever the qi expansionist level warrior that had joined Tom Cardinal was; wouldn''t be able to escape from Rosaline.


    "Good, it seems you know your place" said Rosaline, seeing Dug take a step back and answer her in a subdued and flattering manner.


    "Now that that''s sorted" she said, tuning her attention back to the larger room.


    "Who here knows where this Tom Cardinal is? I might as well get a look the person I''m meant to kill"


    Rosaline''s words caused many of the people in the room to turn their heads away. Very few of them had actually bothered to keep up with the particulars of this case or get a look at the man themselves. Only a couple of the people knew where he was staying and only the person who was responsible for having Tom''s movements monitored had actually seen him.


    "I know where he is" spoke up the person responsible for having Tom''s movements monitored.


    "I can show you to him and point him out"


    "Good, show me later"


    "And you" she said looking at one of her subordinates.


    "Prepare those mid-level qi expansionist warriors like I said"


    "Yes, of course" the man hastily replied.


    Finally, as the conversation was coming to an end and the people in the room started to go about their business again, Rosaline turned her head to look at Dug again.


    "What are you still doing here?" she said aggressively.


    Dug met her gaze for a few moments before he let out a quick exhalation and turned to leave the room.


    [Bitch]


    He had done his job and delivered the news he was meant to deliver. Now he was just glad to be away from Rosaline and attend to his own affairs. Thinking this, he left to go about his own business and the operations within the meeting room returned to normalcy.

 Chapter 48 - 6th Level Of Body Strengthening

    After Tom got back from his first hunt in the Tainted Forest and saw Rowan off, he returned to arduously cultivating. He had actually enjoyed the change in environment by coming to Acorn town and exploring the forest, however, the experience had also reminded him that he was still at the bottom of the ladder when it came to cultivation.


    Not wanting to waste his time, Tom spent the majority of his time cultivating in his room at the hotel. This time, away from Hill City, he didn''t have to split his focus between cultivating and martial practice, meaning that the time he spent cultivating had noticeably increased from before.


    Adam advised him to continue on with his training, claiming that it was important and that he needed to be able to defend himself, however, Tom felt that he had already achieved a decent attainment in fighting techniques and that for the time being, increasing his cultivation level was more important than increasing his skill. This was especially so, since his primary focus was to reach the peak of cultivation for a qi cultivator.


    Tom was also thinking in the long term and although the practice now would help him build up solid foundations, he knew that as he cultivated through the different realms of cultivation, his insights into and ability to manipulate qi would prove more important than the swordplay and close quarters combat techniques he was currently learning. Besides, he was able to pick it up remarkably quickly and reckoned that there would be plenty of time later to improve upon his current ability.


    However, just because Tom spent the majority of his time cultivating alone in his room, it didn''t mean that he didn''t get out at times. He, of course, had to maintain his body properly and this resulted in him frequently dining with Adam and the others at local eating establishments.


    Over the course of the next few weeks, Tom learned of many things that been happening by spending time with Adam and the others. For instance, just three days after he had returned from his first qi beast hunt in the Tainted Forest, a shrivelled up body with a blue discolouration to it was found in a back alley. It seemed that the mimic Tom and the others had discovered while they were in the forest had made its way into town and started preying on people.


    Tom remembered when he had first heard of this that both Adam and Avery chastised him that this was the reason he ought not to travel down dark alleys at night. In fact, all of the guys had a bit of a laugh about that. Tom however, came to the realisation that unexpected things like these truly do occur and are not always one off occurrences. He made a mental note that from now on he should stay more attentive and vigilant of his surroundings. It wouldn''t do if someone or something tried to sneak up on him again.


    Another interesting to happen, just two days after this, was that Adam managed to break through from the 3rd level of qi expansion into the 4th level. The 4th level was the first big barrier to cultivators in the realm of qi expansion and the fact that he had broken through had a significant effect on the amount of qi Adam could store in his body.


    Besides what it would mean for his combat ability, being able to fight for longer and use more powerful qi techniques, it was an especially big step for Adam considering that he was actually able to work his way through the cultivation stages relatively quickly and only tended to get stuck at the major barriers. Since he was now at the 4th level of qi expansion, there was a high chance he would be able to quickly and smoothly advance to the 6th level.


    As the days passed by, Tom continued cultivating, infusing qi into every part of his body. The cultivating resources Rowan had given him, before she left, worked quite well. They weren''t nearly as good as the qi stones his father had once given him; however, they were still far better than the low quality cultivation resources that the clan had allocated him. Those were so low quality and poorly made that only the poorest and most desperate of people would purchase them. The materials Rowan had given him however, were the proper things; resources that were frequently purchased by many cultivators.


    Using up the resources Rowan had given him and staying in his room most of the time, Tom was making swift progress on the path towards the 6th level of body strengthening.


    The further along someone was in a particular realm of cultivation, the harder and longer it was meant to be and take to advance. Tom could feel that this was true and realised that his speed of advancement was slowing down a bit. However, since he wasn''t spending time in combat practice and practical training, with more of his time devoted to cultivating, Tom''s rate of advancement had actually increased. This compensated for his slowed down pace.


    Part of cultivating and advancing in the realm of body strengthening involved knowing how to form and structure the qi infused into the body in order to increase the body''s strength. With the knowledge Tom had gained from the instruction manuals of the Cardinal clan and his own experiences working his way through the first 5 levels of body strengthening, Tom already knew how to do this for the 6th level. The only thing that was stopping Tom was that he had to infuse qi into every part of his body. Luckily, with the rate he was going, he felt that he would be able to finish this and achieve the 6th level of body in under a month of cultivation.


    As the days passed and Tom continued to cultivate, the happenings in the outside world continued as well. In just a couple of weeks, there were more reports of shrivelled bodies being found. The mimic or mimics had struck again, several times.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    In one part of town, a woman woke up one morning to find her husband dead beside her. In another, a family were found dead in their home. What really scared the neighbours and friends of this family was that they had seen the father walking about the streets, but, when the bodies were discovered, they had all clearly been dead for several days. Their friend that they had seen and greeted in the street had actually been the mimic in disguise. That was a scary thought for them; it had actually passed right by them and they didn''t even realise. They spoke to it and they didn''t realise. It could be anyone at any time and they wouldn''t know.


    Although the governor''s office and city guard didn''t get involved in the disputes of cultivators in the town, it was a different story entirely for qi beasts, especially for a beast like the mimic, which was incredibly dangerous and who anyone could fall prey to. In response to its actions, an investigator was assigned to look into the case and track it or them down. Though of course, the problem in finding a mimic is that they are so adept at hiding themselves. No one even knew how many there were. For all anyone knew, there could be one mimic going around or there could be several.


    One day, there seemed to be a lucky break in the case of the mimic. At night, there was an unknown man walking around the halls of the auction house. The auction house, being a heavily guarded place with restricted access, obviously wasn''t meant to have random people walking around it at night. The guards stationed there reacted quickly and tried to chase the man down; however, he seemed to disappear into thin air. The investigator working the case went there and quickly determined that it was actually the mimic and that it had infiltrated into the building. He then questioned every guard and inspected every room. Unfortunately he wasn''t able to turn anything up and the case went cold again.


    AC 3000, 8th month, 6th day.


    Tom was sitting in his room in meditation. Suddenly, a warm rush seemed to go through his body and he felt invigorated. A smile crept up on his face. He was very pleased with what had just happened.


    "Finally. The 6th level of body strengthening" he spoke out while examining his body.


    It had taken him just 3 weeks but he had managed to break through from the 5th level of body strengthening to the 6th. This meant an additional 1,000 jin of strength for his body.


    "Perhaps it''s time for me to stretch my legs again. Test what I''m capable of"


    Tom hadn''t left Acorn town to venture into the Tainted Forest since his last trip, however, he felt that now would be a good time to do that. He had spent so much time holed up in his room in his attempt to advance, now he wanted to let loose a little.


    Although Tom had never gone out before to kill just for fun, fighting often caused his heart to run and blood to boil. Plus, despite the danger, he had enjoyed his last hunt and there wasn''t much else to do here that interested him. Besides, he also wanted to test out what he was capable of with his new strength and any qi beasts he hunted would serve to increase what resources he would be allocated from the clan.


    Full of vigour, Tom stood up and went to Adam''s room, knocking on his door and calling his name.


    "Come in" said Adam through his door.


    Going inside, Tom saw Adam seated on a chair. It seemed that he had been cultivating too and without Tom even having to say anything, Adam knew the reason why Tom had come here.


    "The 6th level of body strengthening. Wow, you really are fast. I''m not sure who the last member of the clan that was able to progress as fast as you through body strengthening was" said Adam in admiration.


    Adam was genuinely impressed with Tom. Although Tom was 24, the same age as him, and was only at the 6th level of body strengthening, he had only broken through preliminary cultivation a few months ago and was now rapidly progressing through the realm of body strengthening, with no signs of stopping at that.


    Most people who saw Tom would view him as only having low talent because of his current strength, nevertheless, Adam, who knew the particulars of his advancement, knew that Tom actually had astoundingly high talent. Even the top geniuses of the kingdom usually took at least a year to make their way through the realm of body strengthening; however, Tom looked well on track to do it in under that.


    "Hmm" Tom mused, though he was still pleased with the compliment.


    "I think I can guess what you''re here for. You said you wouldn''t go out in the forest again until you reached the next level. You''ve reached that now, so, I''m guessing you''re here to let me know you want to go out on a hunt again" said Adam.


    "Correct" responded Tom.


    "I knew it" smirked Adam.


    "Obviously we can''t go now, given how late it is, but, I''ll be sure to get up early to prepare for tomorrow"


    "Good. Tomorrow it is then. No point wasting time" said Tom.


    "Haha, I know what you mean. I''ve been waiting the last couple of weeks for this after all" chuckled Adam.


    "Hmm, sorry about that" said Tom.


    He felt that Adam was very decent, wanting to spend time with him and waiting as long as he did. He also enjoyed Adam''s company and felt a connection with him as a member of the Cardinal clan. To Tom, who would develop a pack mentality whenever he was in a group, considered Adam to be part of the same pack as him and because of this, he''d developed a connection with and become fond of him.


    "No, it''s no problem. Since I broke through myself, I''ve been absorbed in my own practice. Entering the mid-levels of qi expansion, I can finally bring my Crimson Fury Fists to the next stage" said Adam, thinking about the primary martial technique that he practiced with and how in the last 2 weeks he was able to increase his mastery over it.


    "Well anyway, I just came to let you know that I''m good to go. Like you said, it''s late. I''ll let the other guys know that they''ll have to be ready for tomorrow and then rest up. I have a feeling that tomorrow will be interesting at least" said Tom.


    "Yes, I''m sure it will be. I''m looking forward to it. Maybe we can hunt something even stronger than a blue devil beetle" said Adam excitedly before seeing Tom out of his room.


    [Tomorrow eh. It''ll be fun. It''s good that you''ve finally joined us in cultivation Tom. You''ll finally get to see first-hand just how much it has to offer]


    Thinking this, Adam returned to his meditation with a smile on his face, anticipating what the new day would bring.

 Chapter 49 - The Mimic Strikes Again

    Early in the morning, a man in his late 30¡¯s, with short and slick black hair, blue eyes and a piercing gaze, made his way towards a large residence within the town of Acorn. This man¡¯s name was Alistair Richmond and he had been assigned to investigate the mimic attacks that were currently plaguing the town. His job, ultimately, was to track the mimic down and kill it.


    By Alistair¡¯s side, he was accompanied by his younger assistant, a short ginger haired man by the name of Vincent who was struggling to keep up with Alistair¡¯s quick pace.


    Just after the sun had risen, the two of them had been roused from a state of drowsiness and had to hurriedly dress themselves. They had been informed that the mimic had struck again and that this time it wasn¡¯t just some commoner who had been killed.


    The sound of footsteps on stone could be heard as Alistair and Vincent hurried through the wide, stone-paved streets in the affluent part of town. Rounding a corner, the two of them saw numerous town and personal guards standing outside and around their destination, a large residence belonging to the powerful cultivator and merchant by the name of William Sinclair.


    This recent attack boasted a fair amount of urgency for Alistair, because, it was this very person, William Sinclair, that was the victim of the attack. Being a very wealthy man and also a cultivator in the realm of qi condensation, the higher ups in the local government had attached a fair amount of importance to it. Of course, they were attaching a fair amount of importance to all of the mimic attacks, but, some people are considered as more important and deserving of attention. After all, the local government was able to turn a profit from his business and because he was a powerful cultivator, he would play a vital role in the town¡¯s defenced should it ever be attacked, by either qi beasts or people.


    Furthermore, disregarding the fact that William Sinclair¡¯s family held enormous wealth and did big business in the town, the man¡¯s wife was also a cultivator in the realm of qi condensation. They all wanted answers and they all wanted the mimic to be caught and killed.


    It wouldn¡¯t do to dawdle when such a family and such a woman were left in an upset state. There might not be much trouble from the economic side of things, after all, it¡¯s not like the family would hurt their own interests by stopping their business, however, who knows what an upset woman in the realm of qi condensation would do. If she acted out, it could cause massive damage.


    Alistair and Vincent approached and then entered the Sinclair estate, passing by the guards who recognised the two from their previous investigations.


    Just after steeping into the front courtyard of the Sinclair estate, an older man, looking to be in his late 40¡¯s or early 50¡¯s greeted them. He was the head steward of the estate and had been waiting for the two of them ever since he had first sent word to the governor¡¯s office.


    ¡°Are you the investigators?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Yes. I¡¯m Alistair Richmond and this is my assistant Vincent. We¡¯re here to investigate the attack¡± said Alistair matter of factly, getting straight to the point.


    ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve been waiting for you. Please, come in¡± said the steward, directing them to follow him.


    ¡°Lead the way to his body first. I¡¯d like to see the scene before I start questioning people¡± instructed Alistair.


    ¡°Yes, of course. Will do¡± responded the steward as they entered the lavish building in front of them.


    ¡°Can you tell me what happened last night?¡± Alistair asked the steward, as they started ascending a flight of stairs.


    ¡°Of course¡± replied the steward.


    ¡°The master, Sir William Sinclair, was out late last night. When he finally returned, he wasn¡¯t alone. He was accompanied by a very pretty young woman. I don¡¯t know who she was but she had an air of purity and naivet¨¦s about her, something which suited the master¡¯s tastes¡± said the steward as they reached the top of the stairs and started walking along a marble corridor.


    ¡°*Sigh* Truth be told, the master bringing back women wasn¡¯t an uncommon occurrence, much to the chagrin of his wife. He never did it while she was around and he ordered everyone not to talk about it, but, it wasn¡¯t exactly something he could keep secret. Anyway, as soon as he entered the residence, he went straight to his room with the young woman. I don¡¯t think I need to tell you what they were going to do¡± he said as they stopped before two white double doors at the end of the corridor, which were being guarded by two men.


    ¡°Ah, this¡± said the steward while pointing at the double doors, ¡°is the master¡¯s room¡±.


    ¡°Hmm, I think I¡¯ve got a good grasp on the situation. It seems that the young woman was really the mimic and when they went to do the deed, Mr Sinclair did not get happy ending he was looking for¡± said Alistair.


    ¡°Yes, you would think that, only-¡± said the steward as he pushed open one of the doors.


    ¡°The woman was killed too¡± he finished as the scene of two shrivelled blue bodies entered the view of Alistair and Vincent.


    ¡°Oh¡± Alistair exclaimed at this unexpected development, ¡°never mind¡±.


    Alistair and Vincent followed the steward into the room and took a proper look at the place. The room was very large, as expected for the master of the house, and although for the most part it was relatively open, along the walls there were a number of items which showed William Sinclair¡¯s opulence.


    There were gold rimmed drawers, shining gemstones of different colours and even a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Even though William Sinclair seemed to be restrained in his decorating; only keeping such things to the side of the room and not overdoing it, the room still clearly portrayed the man¡¯s wealth. Vincent couldn¡¯t help but look at the place in envy, wondering if he would ever live like this.


    [Hah, I wish I could sleep in a room like this] thought Vincent.


    After taking in the full view of the room, Alistair and Vincent turned their attention towards the two dead bodies.


    The two bodies were left as they had been found, lying naked on a bearskin rug near a fireplace that had the ashes of burnt wood in it, the man¡¯s clothes strewn nearby. It seemed as though Mr Sinclair and his partner had chosen to forgo the large, decadent, double bed and instead complete their evening on the floor.


    [Hmm, quite the romantic was he. Sex on the rug beside a burning fire. At least it seems he knew how to please a woman] thought Alistair.


    ¡°So, do you know what really happened?¡± Alistair asked the steward.


    ¡°No, I¡¯m afraid not. To tell you the truth, there are very few guards that patrol within the estate and those that do, stay away from the master¡¯s room. He doesn¡¯t like to be disturbed you see. That¡¯s actually why it took us so long to discover what had happened. Anyway, no heard anything and no one saw anything¡± said the steward.


    ¡°I see¡± said Alistair as he inspected the bodies.


    ¡°It seems after he did the deed with his lady friend, the two of them fell asleep where they were. I¡¯m guessing she was either a prostitute from some upscale place or the daughter of some wealthy family. It won¡¯t be too hard to find out. Vincent, make sure to make a note of that. We¡¯ll have to go around asking later to find out who she was¡±


    ¡°Hmm, anyway, the mimic must have infiltrated the estate; I guessing disguised as a guard going about his duties, and couldn¡¯t resist the pull of a qi condensation warrior. Since the two were asleep and defenceless, it would have been easy for it to silently kill them both, and because no comes near this area, it wasn¡¯t discovered when it attacked, nor when it left¡±


    ¡°Well, perhaps someone saw something that might be useful¡± he mused.


    Alistair then turned his head away from the bodies and faced the steward again.


    ¡°Continue with the story, tell me about when they were found¡± he instructed.


    ¡°Yes, well, in the early hours of the morning, before first light, the madam finally returned. She had been hunting in the forest for several days and we didn¡¯t know when she would be back. It¡¯s why the master took this time to find himself a new partner. Anyway, since the madam is a qi condensation realm cultivator, she just flew over the city wall and returned directly to the residence. By chance, I happened to be awake at the time and gently let her know that her husband had company, however, when she heard that, she became quite angry. You see, despite his transgressions, the madam quite loves her husband. It¡¯s why she gets so angry whenever he is with another woman. Anyway, she stormed off to their room, her aura fully released. I was already getting a headache over the mess I would inevitably have to clean up after the sun rose, only, when she burst into their room, she found both her husband and Mr Sinclair¡¯s lady friend, lying here, dead¡± said the steward before letting out a sigh.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    [Everything around here is going to change now. I just hope it isn¡¯t the eldest son that takes over the family business] thought the steward, thinking about his future at the Sinclair estate.


    ¡°I see. Not much to go on¡± mused Alistair.


    ¡°Take me to see Mrs Sinclair; I¡¯ll need to ask her some questions. Since she was first on the scene, she might know something that could help, even if she doesn¡¯t realise this herself¡±


    ¡°Yes, very well. Only, please be gentle and consider her situation. She¡¯s rather upset right now, as you can imagine, and doesn¡¯t need someone being overbearing and stressing her further by incessantly asking her questions¡± said the steward.


    ¡°Of course¡± agreed Alistair.


    ¡°It¡¯s important to get as much information as I can from her but I¡¯ve dealt with grief before. I know the proper way to approach this¡±


    ¡°Vincent, stay here while I go talk to Mrs Sinclair. You¡¯ve never questioned a grieving woman before; I don¡¯t want you screwing things up¡± instructed Alistair.


    ¡°Then what should I do?¡± asked Vincent.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, inspect the place¡­ look for clues. Your job¡±


    ¡°Yes, I read you loud and clear¡± said Vincent.


    ¡°Ok, lead the way¡± said Alistair to the steward before the two of them left the room and closed the door behind them.


    Left behind in the room, Vincent couldn¡¯t help but look around in admiration and envy.


    ¡°At least he lived a rich life¡± said Vincent, thinking about William Sinclair¡¯s personal wealth, as well as his nightly escapades.


    Vincent moved closer to one of the bodies and knelt down beside it, getting a close up view of it. The body he was kneeling over was that of the unidentified woman, though that was difficult to tell.


    When a mimic injected their toxins into a person and sucked all the qi out of the body, the body turned blue and became shrivelled up. The former person then became unrecognisable. It was to the point that even gender couldn¡¯t be told. The only reason they could tell which body belonged to William Sinclair and which one belonged to the unidentified woman, was that the woman was a head shorter than him.


    The nature of the deaths in mimic attacks made it hard to figure out who had actually been killed. When someone was killed in their own home or the person wore easily distinguishable clothing, it wasn¡¯t such a problem. However, when someone was killed outside or had nothing on them that set them apart, it was incredibly difficult to know who was killed. For the most part, they had to rely on missing persons reports to try and figure out who it could be and height was actually one of the primary factors used to try and identify the victim in one of these cases. After all, women tended to be shorter than men and it¡¯s easy to judge if it¡¯s a child that has been killed.


    Vincent looked down at the face of the shrivelled corpse below him. He felt disgust at what this person had been turned into.


    ¡°They say you were very pretty but look at you now. Picked out by one of the wealthiest men in town but now just a corpse¡± said Vincent, thinking about the twists and turns of fate, before letting out a sigh.


    [Hmm?] Vincent thought while frowning.


    [Neither of you are wearing clothes. That¡¯s understandable considering what you were doing, but, why can I only see Mr Sinclair¡¯s clothes lying at the side?] Vincent thought in confusion.


    [Wait!] he thought, his eyes widening from a sudden realisation.


    Vincent jerked back slightly, as he had his epiphany, and was about to shout out, however, just at that moment, the eyes of the corpse in front of him opened. They stared directly at him, seeming to pierce into his very soul.


    A cold sweat instantly formed on Vincent¡¯s face and back. He was terrified by what had appeared in front of him.


    All of this happened in an instant as Vincent began to open his mouth to shout for help. Unfortunately for him, this shout never came to fruition. Just before he could let his voice out, the mimic below him shot its arm up and penetrated its wrist spike through his throat.


    Vincent tried to yell but the wrist spike had blocked his airway. All that came out was a quiet gurgle from the blood that had started to fill his mouth and throat.


    The mimic quickly flipped them over so it was on top and Vincent was below. Vincent tried to push it off of him but he could already feel his strength leaving him. The mimic had already injected its toxins and they had started to break down the qi in his body, making it ready and ripe for absorption.


    Vincent could feel his cultivation level dropping as the area around his wound started to turn blue and his vitality seemed to leave him. He desperately tried to make some noise but the mimic had pinned him where he was and he could only weakly flail his legs.


    While struggling, Vincent finally managed to raise his leg and drop it, causing a loud thud. The guards were just outside the room. He couldn¡¯t help but think ¡®if only I could get their attention. If I do, I¡¯ll be saved¡¯.


    Hearing the noise from inside the room, the two guards looked at each other and then looked at the two closed double doors. After a moment of contemplation, one of the guards spoke up.


    ¡°What was that...? Is everything fine in there? You better not break anything¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. Everything¡¯s fine¡± replied the mimic in Vincent¡¯s voice, causing Vincent to feel utter despair.


    This feeling didn¡¯t last long however, as soon, Vincent stopped struggling altogether and became motionless. His entire body had turned blue now, skin and muscles. It had also started to shrivel and resemble the body that had just been there.


    Finishing its kill, the mimic quickly undressed Vincent and wore the clothes itself, and not a moment too soon as just after it had completed this task, Alistair came back into the room.


    ¡°Boss¡± said the mimic as it turned to look at Alistair.


    ¡°So, did you get anything from Mrs Sinclair?¡± it asked.


    ¡°No, I could barely get a coherent sentence out of her. I¡¯ll have to question her again later¡± said Alistair, frowning.


    ¡°What about you? Is there anything that stands out?¡± asked Alistair.


    ¡°No, nothing at all¡±


    ¡°I see¡­ a pity. But you¡¯re still young Vincent. Inexperienced. To the untrained eye many seemingly unimportant details might be the most important of all. I¡¯ll give the room another sweep¡±


    ¡°Yes, of course. Should I get started on finding out who the woman was?¡± said the mimic.


    ¡°Very well. In case she really is from a prominent or powerful family we ought to find out sooner rather than later¡± said Alistair as he began a closer inspection of the room without paying much attention to Vincent, acknowledging his request with a wave of his hand.


    After these words from Alistair, it left the room, giving a perfunctory nod towards the two guards stationed outside as it passed by them.


    The guards, curious about both the death of Mr Sinclair and whatever the noise from earlier was, looked inside the room, however, they saw the exact same scene as they had before, Mr Sinclair and his lady friend lying dead on the bearskin rug. Not seeing anything out of place, the two guards each gave a shrug and turned their attention back towards the corridor as they saw the assistant investigator walk off.


    The mimic proceeded to calmly make it way outside of the residence. All anyone saw was a completely unhurried assistant investigator leaving the premises. As far as everybody was concerned, he was just conducting his business as he should be. They didn¡¯t know exactly what his job entailed but assumed he was going off to make a report or investigate some new lead. They didn¡¯t find anything about him or his actions suspicious. Why would they?


    The mimic continued to walk forward, away from the affluent part of town, and soon happened upon a busy street. After making its way through the crowd, it ducked into a secluded back alley where no one else was present.


    Had anyone been watching both ends of the alley, they would have been mightily surprised. This is because, although a short, ginger haired man entered into one side of the alley, a person with a completely different appearance exited from the other side. The only thing left out of place was a bundle of clothes that had been dumped in the middle of the alley.


    About 10 minutes later, Alistair could be seen bolting out of the Sinclair estate and frantically looking up and down the street. Unfortunately, what he was looking for was already long gone.


    ¡°GODDAMMIT!¡± he shouted suddenly, much to the surprise of all the nearby guards, both those that worked for the town and the personal guards of the Sinclair family. The town guards especially, were shocked given that Alistair had never been seen to lose his cool before. Not even in front of any of the horrifying things he had seen in his career.


    ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­


    In another part of town, Tom, Adam and the others were standing around a couple of horses and a wagon, just outside of their hotel. They were even joined by a friend of Adam¡¯s, called Marcus, a member of a prominent family in Hill City.


    Marcus, at 25 years old, was a year older than Tom and Adam. He had light brown hair, light brown eyes and a clean shaven face. He was also a cultivator at the 4<sup>th</sup> level of qi expansion and had been trained to fight by his father, an elder of his clan and a qi condensation realm cultivator who worked for the governor¡¯s office in Hill City.


    Adam had seen him in town a couple of days ago and got him to change his lodgings to where he, Tom and the others were staying. It turned out he had come to town to do some hunting and training in the Tainted Forest. Since they were friends, Adam invited him to come along with them when he finally went to do the same with Tom.


    Right now, Tom, Adam and the others were planning on setting off to go into the Tainted Forest on a qi beast hunt. The only problem was, they were missing one of their members. The previous night, Tom had gone down to the hotel¡¯s communal area to let the guys know of the plan to set off the next day, but, Ray wasn¡¯t there. They had all just assumed he was out somewhere, drinking, however, when they woke up in the morning, they still couldn¡¯t find him. It seemed that he hadn¡¯t returned to the hotel that night.


    ¡°You don¡¯t think the mimic got him or something?¡± asked Lance tentatively.


    ¡°I¡¯m sure it¡¯s not that. He probably just fell asleep drunk somewhere¡± said Harrison.


    At this moment, Pike caught sight of Ray in the corner of his eye, walking over to them.


    ¡°Oi, where the hell¡¯ve you been? We were looking for you last night but we couldn¡¯t find you. What the hell were you doing?¡± he said in his loud voice, with his arms crossed.


    ¡°Ah, sorry. I got lucky last night¡± replied Ray with a sly grin.


    Hearing this, Pike¡¯s previous displeased face was replaced by surprise. His mouth was left open in an O shape.


    ¡°Hahaha, you dog¡± he laughed boisterously.


    ¡°Who was the broad?¡±


    ¡°Someone who bit off more than they could chew¡± replied Ray smugly.


    ¡°Leave ¡®em squealing did you?¡± asked Pike.


    ¡°C¡¯mon Pike, that¡¯s a bit too vulgar¡± chastised Harrison, though secretly he too was interested in what Ray had to say.


    ¡°You could say I¡­ took their breath away¡± said Ray.


    ¡°Hahaha, that¡¯s my man¡± said Pike, giving Ray a bump on the shoulder.


    Bartholomew, who was friends with Ray, also went forward and gave him a pat on the shoulder.


    ¡°Lance, it looks like you¡¯ve finally got some competition in the ladies department¡± said Pike.


    ¡°Please, it¡¯s not a competition¡± replied Lance.


    [More like a one sided domination] thought Lance and not wrongly either since he had proven to be very popular with the serving women of the Cardinal clan and several the eating establishments he frequented.


    ¡°Ok, ok, that¡¯s enough of that. We¡¯ve waited long enough, it¡¯s about time we crack on¡± said Harrison.


    ¡°What are we doing?¡± asked Ray.


    ¡°We¡¯re finally going back in the forest¡± replied Tom, answering Ray¡¯s question.


    ¡°Oh, ok¡± said Ray.


    ¡°Are you guys ready?¡± asked Adam from the side.


    ¡°Yeah, just about¡± replied Avery.


    ¡°Alright. Let¡¯s mount up then¡± said Adam as he got on his horse.


    The rest followed and mounted up themselves. They then started to leave the bounds of the hotel and make their way over to the western gate.


    Unbeknownst to them, a woman, who was covertly watching them from a caf¨¦ down the street, had a smile on her face.


    ¡°Finally, took you long enough¡± she muttered, before quickly paying and hurrying to make her report.

 Chapter 50 - The Best Laid Plans (1)

    Tom, Adam and the others, all made their way through the west gate of the town and exited Acorn. Their aim, of course, like all the other cultivators travelling along this same path, was to enter into the Tainted Forest.


    Much like the previous time Tom had journeyed out, everyone in the group was riding a horse and they also had a horse drawn wagon along with them. This time, like the previous hunt Tom had been on, the aim was to both train Tom and also secure some qi beast bodies for the clan.


    Actually, Adam especially, was anticipating this particular hunt and wanted to outdo the previous performance of Tom and Rowan. He was happy when Tom had finally become a cultivator and had wanted to journey out with him some time, though was a bit annoyed that Rowan took that opportunity first. Now that he was here instead of Rowan, together with Tom, he wanted to hunt something more impressive than she had.


    Though he felt that way, he also knew that he couldn''t take Tom anywhere too dangerous. After all, even if he wanted the experience to be more exciting and to outdo Rowan, Tom was still only at the 6th level of body strengthening. Adam would certainly be able to protect him from more dangerous qi beasts, but, that didn''t mean Tom would be able to bring them down. There was no point in dragging Tom somewhere that he couldn''t do anything. That would defeat the purpose of this trip.


    "So are we going to Insect Gorge again?" Tom asked Adam.


    "No, there''s not much point if you just go to the same place over and over again. I was thinking we''d go about the same distance in and just go off road a bit. That way, there are still qi beasts you can handle, but, there''ll also more powerful qi beasts, ones that you''d need to work with the others to bring down as a group" said Adam.


    With those words, Tom''s group trotted forward on their horses, going at a faster pace than the first time he had entered the forest, and entered the forest, sharing a bit of friendly chatter along the way.


    Unbeknownst to Tom and company, in the west side of Acorn, a group of 11 people, led by a woman with auburn hair, were gathered and about to exit the town. All these people were in the realm of qi expansion and were about to leave and enter the Tainted Forest too, but, unlike other cultivators who went in to hunt qi beasts, they were going in to hunt people, more specifically, a man by the name of Tom Cardinal.


    "It turns out they actually have two mid-level qi expansionists. I suppose it''s a good thing so many of us gathered" said one the weakest of the group, a man who was still only in the early levels of qi expansion.


    "Don''t be ridiculous" Rosaline scolded him scornfully.


    "I could do this by myself. I don''t even know why I decided to bring you lot along"


    "No, he makes a good point. If only one of us went, it isn''t unreasonable that at least one of them would be able to escape. Heck, if their two strongest worked together and with a bit of good luck, even the person we came to kill might be able to get away" said Dug, much to the displeasure of Rosaline.


    "Are you saying I can''t kill two measly 4th level qi expansionists and a couple of body strengthening runts by myself" Rosaline said hatefully to Dug.


    She was at the 7th level of qi expansion, the strongest one among them. As far as she was concerned, it would pose her no trouble whatsoever to kill Tom and those he was travelling with. Honestly, she considered this task beneath her. The only reason she was going personally and bringing along others to boot was because Dug had said that this was important to the higher ups and because she had become angered when he suggested they get Duncan to do it.


    She felt insulted by Dug''s words just now. A possibility of failure? Of even Tom Cardinal getting away? He was essentially disregarding her and insinuating that if she went alone, she wouldn''t get the job done.


    This infuriated her. She was seething in her mind just thinking about it but contained her rage. They were still only at the west gate of the town and it wouldn''t do to do anything that would draw attention to themselves.


    In fact, several others present were also angered by Dug and their junior''s words. Although Rosaline was the strongest person present, at the 7th level of qi expansion, and the only person in their group that was in the later levels of qi expansion, most of the others in the group were at various levels in the mid-levels of qi expansion.


    Each of these people all had their own pride. Many of them believed that they too would be able to complete this assignment by themselves, with ease at that. They weren''t pleased by the insinuation that their ability was so unsubstantial, nor did they believe that their opponents were much to be worried about. They couldn''t help but look at Dug and their junior member with scorn and condescension.


    "I''m saying that unexpected things always happen and we don''t want any mistakes. This is important to the big boss and he doesn''t want it done sloppily. Tom Cardinal must die today" said Dug.


    [I don''t know why you''re being so anal about it anyway. You obviously agree with me, otherwise you wouldn''t be here yourself, nor would there be so many others with us] thought Dug.


    "Humph!" scoffed Rosaline haughtily.


    "Let''s just get on with it. This Tom Cardinal has been making me wait so long that I actually want to kill him now" she said, her eyes tightening into a fierce look full of murderous intent.Stolen story; please report.


    Finished speaking, Rosaline, Dug and the others in their group left the town and started travelling along the path into the Tainted Forest. Unlike Tom and his group though, they were not on horseback.


    They were not, however, concerned about not being able to keep up with Tom''s group. They were cultivators in the realm of qi expansion and they each knew movement arts that could increase their speed and allow them to travel with ease.


    It would be a bit harder for the weaker members of the group, such as Dug, who were in the early levels of qi expansion and still had a fairly small store of qi, to continuously use their movement arts; however, since Tom''s group were travelling with a wagon, it was obvious that their pace wouldn''t be particularly high. Certainly not anything they would be unable to keep up with. Heck, it would be easy to keep up just by running, using their bodies which were at the peak of body strengthening.


    Rosaline, Dug and company followed behind Tom and his group for almost 2 hours along the main road leading to the lost city. They were maintaining a sizeable distance from them, staying out of site and only sending one person forward to periodically keep proper track of them.


    Although they didn''t want to waste so much of their own time just following behind them for so long, Dug had insisted that they do this. He said that there were still far too many people, both weak and strong, who were travelling along the path for them to make their move. He was adamant that they had to wait until Tom''s group was further in, saying that they shouldn''t be seen and shouldn''t leave the possibility of anything unexpected happening and ruining things.


    If they were too close to other people when they made their move, Tom Cardinal or one of his group could escape and possibly get help from someone even stronger than themselves. Alternatively, if someone they couldn''t deal with saw what happened, that person could potentially sell that information on to the Cardinal clan. These were both scenarios they didn''t want happening. Therefore, although they were loath to do it, for the time being, they quietly and obediently followed behind Tom Cardinal''s group.


    Although Rosaline''s group, with the exception of Dug, all felt dislike for their current situation, having to follow Tom''s group at an arm''s length, they didn''t have to feel this for much longer.


    Contrary to the last time Tom had entered the forest, he was going at a relatively faster pace. With Marcus at the forefront dealing with any and all qi beasts that chose to disturb them on their journey through the forest, they had no reason to slow down or stop and were making quick progress.


    There was just the continuous clip clop of hooves on the ground, as the horses trotted forward and occasionally broke into a canter, and the spinning of the wagon''s wooden wheels, interspaced by the occasional small bang as it went over uneven parts of the path and had its wheels lifted into the air, only to come crashing down again.


    Within 2 hours, even with the wagon, Tom''s group had already managed to cover over 20 miles. Reaching this point the amount of people on the path had already clearly thinned out and the groups of people travelling along it were much more sparsely spaced out. Having come this far, Adam finally felt it was time to slow their pace and get down to business.


    "Alright, I think this is far enough. If we go off the path here, we should start to see some more powerful qi beasts"


    "There should be some around about the same strength as you" he said, looking at Tom.


    "For the most part, I''ll just hang back, Marcus too. As we go deeper and further away from the road though, the qi beasts will start getting stronger and more dangerous. There might even be something we can take down together" he said with a smile on his face.


    "OK then, let''s turn off here. Luckily the wagon isn''t too wide so we can still take it through the trees" said Tom, agreeing with Adam''s proposition.


    Behind them, out of site, one of the bandits returned back to his group.


    "They''re finally turning off" he reported.


    "Good. We should let them get a little farther from the road before we strike" said Dug.


    Rosaline begrudgingly agreed with Dug''s words, though she didn''t voice that agreement outwardly. After all, as they were travelling, they had just passed a couple of Flowing Water sect disciples who were in the late levels of qi expansion, proving that there were still powerful people around here.


    Rosaline ended up following behind Tom''s group for another 30 minutes before deciding to make her move. She had chosen to wait this long because, as they were traveling off the beaten path with a wagon in tow, Tom''s group was moving at a much slower pace than before and had only travelled about 2 miles. Nevertheless, she was sick of waiting and wanted to kill the bastard.


    At this moment, the person she had sent forward to check on the position of Tom''s group returned.


    "And?" she said impatiently.


    "I''ve done a quick skirt of the area. There''s no one else around, we''re good to go" said the man.


    "Finally" said Rosaline, the anger and annoyance in her voice clear.


    With that, Rosaline and company began to move forward at a faster pace. They were about to engage in combat Tom Cardinal''s group and conduct a slaughter, something they were all eager for after spending the last 2 and a half hours docilely trailing them. The best thing about it was that Tom Cardinal''s group was completely unaware.


    They couldn''t hide the excitement on their faces as they moved forward. Many of them considered nothing more thrilling than having someone they attacked understand the complete and utter despair they were in.


    However, unbeknownst to Rosaline, Dug and the rest of the bandits, there was another man in the vicinity who also had a smile on his face.


    "So the fish has finally taken the bait eh" he muttered under his breath, before he too started to make his move.


    As they started to move forward, Dug suddenly raised his hand and loudly said "Stop" before coming to a stop himself.


    The others stopped their forward movement as well and looked at him, rather annoyed.


    "What it is it now, not far enough away for you yet?" Rosaline said scathingly.


    "I didn''t realise you were this much of a coward" she said mockingly.


    "It''s not that. I thought I heard something" Dug replied professionally, ignoring the tone of her voice and looks he was getting from the others.


    "Oh, you heard something did you? Maybe it was your own shadow" said Rosaline, laughing at him. The others too began to laugh. They were all looking down on him.


    "No, I really can hear something. It sounds like footsteps. I think there''s someone else around here" said Dug seriously.


    "I just checked around us" said one of the other men present.


    "There''s no one else here" he said with disdain.


    "I''m not going to wait any longer because of your cowardice, DUG" said Rosaline.


    "It''s not cowardice Rosaline" replied Dug, inwardly looking down at her.


    "It''s called cau¨C"


    Before he finished his sentence however, a blur suddenly descended from the trees above and fell behind him.


    Rosaline hadn''t seen what had just fallen from above. What she did see however, was the end of a blade sticking into the ground between Dug''s legs and a faint red line appear vertically down his face.


    "-tion" he managed to finish as he fell forward, his body separating into two equal halves, blood and guts spilling out of him and onto the ground.

 Chapter 51 – The Best Laid Plans (2)

    Everyone stood there, wide eyed, in utter shock, unable to process what had just happened, unable to react.


    Rosaline¡¯s face drained of colour after Dug¡¯s body fell to the ground. This was not because she was in anyway sad over his death, on the contrary, in any other situation, she would probably be celebrating. No, the reason her face drained of colour was because of what was revealed after Dug¡¯s body fell to the ground.


    In her vision, Rosaline could see a man with curly light brown and grey hair. He had yellow qi wings on his back, a two handed longsword in his hands and was looking down at the ground where he had just sliced with his sword. What¡¯s more, Rosaline could clearly tell that this man was at the peak of qi expansion.


    Rosaline knew. She understood that this man was here to kill them.


    This thought made her more frightened than she¡¯d ever been in her whole life, because, she knew that he was stronger than her. That he¡¯d most likely succeed.


    All of a sudden, while Rosaline and the others were still standing there in shock, a change occurred on the yellow qi wings of the man in front of them.


    The yellow qi wings on the man¡¯s back seemed to shine slightly and the feathers all started ruffling. What came next was a 360 degree attack as the man launched the 3<sup>rd</sup> stage of his martial technique and razor sharp, metallic like feathers shot out in all directions.


    Those that were weaker and those that were slower to react got caught in the attack and suffered an untimely end.


    One woman had a feather puncture directly through the centre of her forehead and out the back of her head, while another one of the bandits became riddled with holes.


    A third was quicker to react, but, he panicked. He wasn¡¯t able to concentrate properly and failed at operating his defensive art properly, instead just blasting a lot of his qi outside of his body, without it taking proper form. Despite this, his actions saved his life from the salvo of qi feathers. He ended up with several light wounds on his body and a more substantial one where a qi feather pierced through his leg and caused him to collapse to the ground.


    The other, stronger and more experienced members of the group managed to react faster to the incoming threat. None were able to dodge; however, they were all able to deploy their defensive techniques.


    At the front, Rosaline operated her martial art. A glass barrier appeared a couple of feet in front of her and glass armour formed around her body. Several qi feathers hit the barrier and caused several cracks formed, however, it held firm and protected her. The others too, managed to successfully defend against the qi feathers by using their defensive techniques.


    Despite the feathers only killing two of them and wounding another, the man who had launched the attack was unconcerned. He knew that the 3<sup>rd</sup> stage of his martial technique was also the weakest and hadn¡¯t expected too much from it. It was just easy to launch before he moved onto the 4<sup>th</sup> stage.


    Still with his head down, immediately after he had launched the qi feathers, the man moved onto using the 4<sup>th</sup> stage of his martial technique. The qi wings on his back underwent a change. Whereas before they were full of metallic looking yellow feathers, they now appeared to be made up from large and wide blades.


    So long as he had his qi wings active, the time taken to operate the 4<sup>th</sup> stage of his martial technique was quite fast. Because of this, the blades launched just a moment after the feathers.


    The bandits who had previously blocked the qi feathers were only able to experience a short lived respite before the blades came at them. There were some that were confident in being able to block them as they had already successfully blocked the qi feathers; however, the 4<sup>th</sup> stage of the man¡¯s martial technique was far stronger than the 3<sup>rd</sup> stage. The difference in offensive power couldn¡¯t be compared. Those that had believed they could defend against the blades quickly learned that they were sorely mistaken.


    One person was impaled by a blade and pinned to a tree a metre behind him. Another had two qi blades pierce through his body, destroying his vitals and knocking him onto the ground. A third had tried to dodge but was too slow. A qi blade flew horizontally and sliced through half of his neck, causing it hang at an odd angle and blood to gush forth.


    Unfortunately for the man with the qi wings, this attack had only killed 3 people. Since the qi blades were far larger than the feathers, they were a lot more powerful; however, this also meant that he couldn¡¯t create as many of them. He could launch several qi feathers at each of the bandits before, but, he could only launch one or two qi blades at the remaining people and as an omnidirectional attack, their accuracy was limited. This made it easier for the remaining bandits to dodge them.


    At the front, two qi blades pierced through and shattered the glass barrier formed from Rosaline¡¯s defensive technique; however, they missed her and she was left unscathed. Not just her, around the man, several of the bandits who were at the 5<sup>th</sup> and 6<sup>th</sup> level of qi expansion had managed to avoid the qi blades.


    [NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! THIS ISN¡¯T HOW IT ENDS] Rosaline thought in her head, discarding her fear and regaining her ferociousness.


    Rosaline¡¯s face contorted in rage as she reached for the sword hanging at the right side of her waist and started drawing it. When the man with the qi wings operated the 4<sup>th</sup> stage of his martial technique and shot out all of the qi blades, the wings formed from his yellow qi disappeared. Rosaline believed that while they were gone, she would be able to strike at him and end his life.


    Her thoughts however, were premature and very wrong. Just because the man had lost the wings formed from his qi, by no means meant he was defenceless, nor did it mean his offensive capability had dropped. True, he had gotten the nickname Yellow Feather because it was the primary technique he used, but, he still practiced and was adept at many others. In fact, he was recognised by many cultivators who knew him as a blade master because he was able to form his qi into a sharpness that could cut through metal as though it was butter.


    While Rosaline was still drawing her sword and had just gotten it out of its sheath, Yellow Feather suddenly moved forward. Instead of feeling fear or dread, Rosaline smiled with bloodlust. She thought that he was being foolish by moving forward so quickly and believed that she would be able to land a killing slash with her blade as she drew it.


    She was wrong. After his sudden dash forward, Yellow Feather planted his foot on the ground, stopping his forward momentum, and swung his sword far faster than Rosaline was moving hers. He skilfully positioned his blade under hers and struck at her wrist, easily cutting through her glass armour, severing her sword hand from her body.


    Just as Rosaline began to scream at the loss of her hand, Yellow Feather removed his left hand from his sword and grabbed her right hand. While holding it and keeping her arm outstretched, he moved his sword in a circular pattern and then raised it quickly, cutting off her other hand and causing her to stumble back, crazed and wide eyed in shock and horror at the two stumps at the ends of her arms that were spewing blood.


    While she was stumbling back, for good measure, Yellow Feather dropped her severed hand and then clenched his left hand into a fist. His fist shot forward and the image of a ram¡¯s head appeared over it as he punched Rosaline in the chest.


    Like before, her glass armour technique was unable to match up to Yellow Feather¡¯s technique. The glass armour completely shattered and she was sent flying back, where she hit into a tree. A crunch could be heard from the impact before she rebounded off it and fell to the side. Yellow Feather surmised from the sound he had heard that she had broken something, most likely her shoulder from how he saw her hit into the tree.


    After dealing this blow to Rosaline, Yellow Feather had to deal with two 6<sup>th</sup> level qi expansionist bandits who had finally recovered from the attack of the qi blades and were approaching him from either side, each preparing to release a deadly martial technique in close quarters. They were both confident in their attack. After all, Yellow Feather had already lost his qi wings and had left himself exposed while dealing with Rosaline.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Noticing the two bandits get within striking distance and start to launch martial techniques at him, Yellow Feather just smiled. Ever since he had used the 4<sup>th</sup> stage of his beast wings martial technique, even while he was fighting Rosaline, he was accumulating qi at his back and preparing to form his beast wings again.


    As the two bandits launched their strikes at Yellow Feather¡¯s unprotected sides, Yellow Feather activated the 1<sup>st</sup> stage of his beast wings technique. Two skeletal wings, devoid of feathers or blades like before, suddenly emerged from his back and impaled the two bandits that had come forward to attack him, before they could land their hits.


    Although the 1<sup>st</sup> stage of his beast wings technique lacked the defensive ability of the 2<sup>nd</sup> stage of the skill, nor did it aid him in airborne, 360 degree manoeuvres, it could still be used quite effectively in close range combat.


    Taking into account several factors, such as his high degree of mastery over the skill, his cultivation level at the peak of qi expansion and his overall skill as a cultivator and in using qi, he could display a fair amount of power when using this technique. Add in that his opponents were several cultivation levels below him and were also both sub-par when it came to their martial techniques and skill in using them, it was no surprise that Yellow Feather was able to easily dispatch them.


    Manipulating the skeletal qi wings, Yellow Feather slammed the two, now dead, bandits into the ground and turned his attention to the side, where he could see one of his opponents running off. The combat that had happened so far had occurred within a short period of time and whereas the two bandits he had just dispatched had chosen to try and attack him unawares from the side, there was one man who had instead chosen to run.


    This man was the oldest member of the group, already in his mid-60s and at the 6<sup>th</sup> level of qi expansion. His name was Harold.


    When Yellow Feather had dropped down from above and bisected Dug in half, he, like everyone else present, had been completely stunned. However, when he regained his composure, unlike the others who had entertained the idea of killing Yellow Feather, he instead chose to flee.


    He was involved in a dangerous business and had been for a long time. His experience was far greater than anyone else present and he didn¡¯t survive as long as he did by being reckless. Actually, he was one of the few people that didn¡¯t look down on Dug for the precautions he was trying to make.


    When he saw Yellow Feather drop down and saw his cultivation level, he knew he wouldn¡¯t be able to take him on. The others thought they had a chance and they weren¡¯t entirely unreasonable in thinking so. After all, just because someone was at a higher cultivation level, didn¡¯t mean that they would be able to survive the onslaught of several weaker opponents. In fact, even during a 1v1, didn¡¯t mean that a higher level cultivator would win. This was because ultimately, the personal skill of the people involved and the martial techniques they used played a large role in the outcome of battle.


    However, those that had tried to attack Yellow Feather were really just being too arrogant. None of them could be regarded as exceptionally skilled for their cultivation level, not that they thought that way themselves, and they had made a fatal mistake in underestimating their opponent.


    Harold was different though. Although he was at the 6<sup>th</sup> level of qi expansion, he knew wasn¡¯t a particularly talented cultivator. Be it in his speed of advancement, mastery over his martial skills or just the actual quality of the martial skills he knew, he knew he wasn¡¯t exactly the cream of the crop. So, when he saw Yellow Feather brazenly drop down in the middle of them all, he made a conscious decision to flee.


    Unfortunately for Harold though, fleeing wasn¡¯t an option either. With Harold as the only one still moving about so vigorously, he attracted all of Yellow Feather¡¯s attention. Well, even if he wasn¡¯t the only one still standing, Yellow Feather wasn¡¯t about to just let someone go.


    Although Harold had gotten a head start, Yellow Feather was much faster than him and had no problem in closing the distance. While still in pursuit, Yellow Feather once again operated the 3<sup>rd</sup> stage of his beast wings martial skill and shot out many feathers towards Harold.


    Harold saw the salvo of feathers out of the corner of his eye when he was checking to see if he was safe and quickly kicked off of a tree trunk to dodge to the side. Although he was able to easily defend against the feather attack earlier, that was an omnidirectional attack that had no particular target. This however, was a concentrated attack aimed solely at him. Even if he could defend against several of them, they would still wear down his defence and possibly break through. He wasn¡¯t about to let that happen.


    Seeing the salvo of feather attacks coming towards him, Harold knew that he wouldn¡¯t be able to escape, so, after kicking off the tree trunk and while he was still in mid-air as he dodged to the side, he spun around with sword in hand and slashed it in the direction he had come from, unleashing a green qi sword in the process.


    However, as he looked forward at the place where the salvo of qi feathers had come from, the place he had just released a shooting sword made from qi at, he couldn¡¯t see anyone.


    Still airborne and with confusion in his eyes, Harold looked up just in time to see Yellow Feather slam down from above, impaling him on his sword and nailing him to the ground.


    The sword pierced directly through Harold¡¯s heart and he died when he impacted on the ground.


    Yellow Feather stood up and removed his sword from Harold, a layer of blood visible all the way up the length of the blade. He then started making his way back over to where Rosaline was.


    He knew that she wasn¡¯t dead because she wouldn¡¯t bleed out that fast from where he cut off her hands and because when he had last hit her, he had purposefully held back. He did this because he wanted to capture her alive.


    He had been following them for a while and although there seemed to be some discord between her and the first person he had killed, he could clearly tell that she was the leader. If the fact that all the others were obeying her orders wasn¡¯t enough to evidence that, then her cultivation level at the 7<sup>th</sup> level of qi expansion was. Even if she wasn¡¯t the leader, since she had the highest cultivation level among them, she would probably know more valuable information than any of the others.


    As Yellow Feather returned to where Rosaline was and looked at the carnage he had caused, he started to mutter to himself.


    ¡°There were 11 in total. I killed one at the beginning, two with the feathers and three with the blades, immobilised the woman, another two after that and I just took that one down there. Hmm, there seems to be someone missing¡±


    Yellow Feather was frowning as he walked forward and was getting closer and closer to the spot where Rosaline was. Suddenly, his face relaxed and he chuckled to himself. He chucked his sword into the air and then caught and held it as though one would hold a javelin. Then he coated it in sharp qi and threw it at a particular tree. The longsword easily penetrated through the tree and skewered the person hiding behind it.


    This person was one of the weaker members of the bandit group. He had been injured by the feather attack at the beginning and after having his leg pierced through, he fell to the ground. This had saved him from the following blade attack and while Yellow Feather went to deal with the rest of the bandits, he had crawled over to and hid behind a tree in the hope that he would go unseen. After all, there wasn¡¯t much else he could do. Even in peak condition, without a crippled leg, there was no way that he, a cultivator still at the 4<sup>th</sup> level of qi expansion, could possibly outrun or fend off a cultivator at the peak of qi expansion. Unfortunately for him, Yellow Feather wasn¡¯t so careless as to forget about him.


    Yellow Feather went over and retrieved his sword before moving to where Rosaline was. While the rest of the fighting had been going on, she had managed to operate her martial art to staunch the flow of blood from her now handless arms and was now kneeling on the ground looking at her bloody stumps, tears running down from her eyes.


    ¡°Hello there¡± Yellow Feather cheerfully greeted her.


    ¡°My name is Jeffrey and I have some questions to ask you on behalf of the Cardinal clan¡±


    ¡°MY HANDS! YOU CUT OFF MY HANDS!¡± she screamed hysterically in response.


    ¡°Yes, well, you¡¯re a dangerous woman. I couldn¡¯t run the risk of you striking at me when I have my guard down¡±


    ¡°My hands¡­ my hands¡± she just repeated as she stared at where her hands used to be.


    ¡°That reminds me¡± said Jeffrey as he walked around her until he was facing her back.


    ¡°I can¡¯t have you running away either¡± he said as he swung his blade.


    A scream echoed in the forest.


    ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­


    In a place not too far away, but, out of sight and out of the range of hearing, Tom, Adam and the others were making their way through the forest.


    Tom frowned while looking at Ray.


    ¡°Ray, what¡¯s the matter? You keep looking behind us. Is something wrong?¡± Tom asked, catching everyone¡¯s attention and bringing the group to a stop. Everyone looked between Tom and Ray, unsure what this was about.


    ¡°Oh, I thought there was something but it turns out its fine. Nothing to be concerned about¡± replied Ray.


    ¡°Oh? Did you see something following us?¡± Adam asked curiously and also confused because neither he, nor his friend Marcus, who were both at the 4<sup>th</sup> level of qi expansion and had better senses, had noticed anything stalking behind them.


    ¡°It was more like heard, but, like I say, it seems I was worrying over nothing¡± said Ray.


    Everyone was a bit confused by what Ray had said. None of them had heard anything. They started to talk amongst themselves to confirm with each other if any of them had noticed anything.


    ¡°Speaking of which¡± Ray continued.


    ¡°There seems to be a couple of boar over there¡± he said, pointing into the distance and directing the attention away from himself.


    Tom, Adam and the rest looked over to where Ray was pointing at and lo and behold, two red skinned boars came into their view.


    ¡°You heard them. Wow, that¡¯s¡­ impressive. Your hearing is inhuman¡± praised Adam.


    ¡°One of my many talents¡± said Ray, a friendly smile on his face.


    ¡°Well then Tom¡± said Adam as he turned to face Tom.


    ¡°I think this is as good an opportunity as any¡±

 Chapter 52 – Red Skinned Boars (1)

    Tom looked at the two Red Skinned Boars in the distance and took in their appearance. They each, as their name implied, had red skin and they also each sported a pair of impressively large tusks, which they would use to gore any opponents. Tom could also clearly see that one of them was larger than the other, standing at around 5 and a half foot tall, with the smaller of the two having a total height of just under 5ft.


    The size of qi beasts, within each individual species, was generally a good indicator of their level of strength and the appearances of the two boars indicated that the larger of the two could exert a strength rivalling that of a peak body strengthening human expert, while the smaller of the two was likely only comparable to a late stage body strengthening expert of the 9<sup>th</sup> level.


    Tom was able to make this assessment of the two Boars because of the records he had read in the Cardinal clan. Before he had come out here, he had read up on many, not all, but many of the qi beasts that were commonly found in the outer area of the forest, including details about the Red Skinned Boars. This was why he was able to judge their approximate strength at a distance without first getting close and sensing the qi from their bodies.


    However, Tom knew though that although size was generally a good indicator of a beast¡¯s strength, especially since most beasts would naturally grow stronger as they grew older and then hit a peak, it certainly shouldn¡¯t be used to guess the strength of qi beasts one didn¡¯t know anything about. This was because although it was a good indicator for each individual species that a person knew about, size didn¡¯t always denote actual strength.


    Humans were a good case in point for this. The mature Blue Devil Beetle that Tom had encountered on his last trip into the forest could only exert a bit over 8,000 jin of force, while Rowan, with her comparatively smaller body could exert a force of 10,000 jin. Likewise, this can also be seen in the human population at large. People of the same height and weight would have drastically different strength based on their cultivation level, for example, a non-cultivator and someone at the peak of body strengthening.


    Of course, regardless of the physical strength a creature was capable of because of the qi it had infused into its body to strengthen itself, the weight of the creature would also play a role in the force behind its blows, so, a larger and heavier creature would still have more force behind it should it hit into you.


    ¡°So, what do you think? Do you reckon you can take one of them on?¡± asked Adam in anticipation.


    Adam had been wanting to fight a qi beast with Tom for some time now and now the opportunity had finally presented itself. Of course, considering the gap in their cultivation levels, anything that Tom was able to fight against would be something that he would be able to easily take down, so, the idea of them fighting together was a little bit farfetched.


    Nevertheless, if there were multiple qi beasts, it would still be like they were fighting together and if there were stronger qi beasts, he could still provide Tom with cover, interfering if he was in mortal danger. Furthermore, he could always just refrain from using any qi techniques. He would still be four levels higher in terms of body strengthening when compared to Tom, but, they would be much closer in terms of strength and fighting ability. Plus, such a thing wasn¡¯t exactly an insurmountable gap; there were many cases of people slaying others that had a higher cultivation level than them, especially in the first realm of cultivation.


    Actually, across essentially all the realms of cultivation, there were people that were able to kill others that had a higher cultivation than themselves. After all, it wasn¡¯t just about having power, it was also about how that power was applied. This was why many people, at least in the north of the Mantal Kingdom, recognised that they shouldn¡¯t be too cocky or arrogant about their own cultivation level and should always be wary of those a couple of levels below them and especially those that were older and more experienced than them.


    ¡°I reckon I¡¯m eating meat tonight¡± replied Tom, eliciting a laugh from Adam.


    ¡°Hmm, but I¡¯ll only be able to take on one of them, the smaller one at that¡± said Tom regretfully. He found it a great pity that he was still stuck at such a low level of strength where he could barely take on one wild pig.


    ¡°That¡¯s ok. There¡¯s no pressure anyway. After all, this is mainly for training purposes, it doesn¡¯t matter even if you fail¡± said Adam reassuringly.


    ¡°I assure you, I won¡¯t fail¡± said Tom somewhat arrogantly, though to Adam and the others it came across as confidence.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    [Even if it¡¯s stronger than me, in the end, it¡¯s just a dumb animal. The bigger one is still a bit out of my reach but I refuse to believe I can¡¯t even take down a single wild pig] thought Tom.


    [Good, he seems confident. He must have already formulated a plan] thought Adam as he smiled at Tom.


    Adam was feeling more and more excited about what was to come. As well as wanting to go on a hunt with Tom and fight qi beasts together with him, Adam also wanted to essentially one up the experience Tom had had with Rowan where they had hunted and killed a mature Blue Devil Beetle and Giant Velvet Worm.


    He had intended to do this by hunting a powerful qi beast with Tom, however, he also knew that that would be pretty reckless and would put Tom in danger. Well, technically just being in the Tainted Forest was dangerous, but, there was still a limit to the risk Tom should be exposed to at his current level of training.


    However, right now, they were about to go off and fight with a couple of Red Skinned Boars, some of most powerful qi beasts that were commonly seen close to the forest boundary. They couldn¡¯t compare to the defence of the Blue Devil Beetles that naturally made them tough for body strengthening cultivators to harm, nor could they compare the Giant Velvet Worms¡¯ glue-like slime and ability to use qi, however, their greater physical strength still put them in about the same league as them, though a bit lower because they were easier to handle than the other two and had a much lower economic value.


    ¡°Alright, so we don¡¯t endanger the horses, we ought to dismount here and approach them on foot¡± said Adam.


    He¡¯d heard about what had happened on the last hunt and didn¡¯t want a repeat of it. Three horses had been lost on the last hunt and it would be pretty bad if they kept getting their mounts killed.


    It wasn¡¯t like they wouldn¡¯t be able to afford more horses but it would still set them back a bit. Besides, what kind of psychopath would have such a blas¨¦ attitude about the situation that they would take keep taking horses into the Tainted Forest only to continuously get them killed and then get a new horse? There would always be accidents and unfortunate incidents of course, but still, there¡¯s a limit.


    ¡°Marcus, can you look after the horses?¡± Adam asked his friend as a back-up safety measure.


    ¡°Sure, no problem¡± replied Marcus.


    ¡°Thanks¡± said Adam, before he turned to look at Tom again.


    ¡°Anyway, I¡¯ll take care of the big one and then you can have a go at the smaller one on your own. If you need any help, just ask for it and if you¡¯re really struggling, I¡¯ll step in to make sure you don¡¯t get seriously hurt¡± said Adam, assuring Tom that he¡¯d have the freedom to move about without having to worry about any greater danger.


    As far as Adam was concerned, Tom was still inexperienced and wouldn¡¯t necessarily be able to adapt to and perform his best in a dangerous situation. After all, it was common for people new to fighting to hesitate at crucial moments and be distracted by the things going on around them and then fall apart from the pressure.


    He wanted to create the best possible environment for Tom to gain experience, where he could be free from distraction and focus solely on the task at hand and where his performance wouldn¡¯t be affected by the mental pressure that so often accompanied danger. Learning to react to multiple targets and other things going on around him at the same time as well as the mental fortitude to be unshaken in the face of adversity could be slowly learnt and built up over time.


    Little did Adam know though, there was no chance of Tom doing something like hesitating in combat, nor was there anything that would cause him to feel fear. After all, killing wasn¡¯t exactly something that fazed him and even if he was killed on this planet, at worst he would only lose his bet with Methis and have to wait an untold amount of time before he was finally able to become a Full God or was able to garner someone else¡¯s assistance in helping him populate his world.


    Although there was no danger of him hesitating or falling apart in combat due to fear or mental stress, it was possible that he might become a bit hot headed and reckless, as fights would often get his blood boiling. Nevertheless, even when such a thing got his heart pumping he still tended to remain calm, with a clear and focused mind, and had great instincts anyway so it shouldn¡¯t be a cause for concern in regards to fighting.


    Furthermore, there was little risk of Tom being distracted in combat or unable to react to the actions of multiple combatants. He was someone with a vast array of fighting experience and wouldn¡¯t become muddleheaded just because he had to split some of his attention to the things happening in his surroundings or to the actions of multiple enemies he was engaged in combat with.


    Also, ever since he had been snuck up on and attacked in Hill City, Tom had woken up to the fact that there was a lot of danger on this world and that even if the various dangers that existed here were nothing to him while he was at his peak, he couldn¡¯t afford to ignore them as he was now.


    That was why ever since then; he had made more of an effort to not be indifferent to the things going on around him. This was further reinforced when he saw the bodies that were the victims of the mimics. Since then, he made an even greater conscious effort to stay vigilant and pay attention to what was going on around him.


    After all, it wouldn¡¯t do him any good if his time here was cut short just because he had done something foolish like underestimate an opponent or got caught completely unawares because he wasn¡¯t paying attention to his surroundings. Just imagine if he suddenly got killed and didn¡¯t even know how it had happened, if something happened and he wasn¡¯t able to react to it because he wasn¡¯t paying attention. That would make him a complete and utter laughing stock.


    ¡°Like I said, I won¡¯t fail. Now let¡¯s do this¡± said Tom.

 Chapter 53 - Red Skinned Boars (2)

    Tom and Adam dismounted from their horses, ready to go over to the two Red Skinned Boars on foot. A couple of the others dismounted too. They would follow behind, but, not get involved unless ordered too. Several however, including Marcus, would stay behind with the horses.


    Tom removed his shield from his arm and put it on the wagon. There were some situations where it would be useful but he knew that this was not one of them. After all, the boar he would be facing was already stronger than him by a fair amount and its preferred method of attack involved charging at its enemies. That being the case, the shield would be fairly useless. It would just get in his way and make him less agile.


    ¡°So, do you have a plan worked out for how to tackle it?¡± Adam asked, wanting to know how Tom was planning to approach this challenge and take down the boar.


    ¡°I have a few ideas¡± replied Tom as they started to make their way over towards the two boars.


    The Red Skinned Boar wasn¡¯t the most violent of qi beasts and wouldn¡¯t take the initiative to go and attack others. However, this was only so long as others didn¡¯t get too close to it, making it feel threatened. The rest of the time though, they tended to mind their own business.


    This was why, although Tom, Adam and those following behind them weren¡¯t being particularly loud as they made their way over to the Red Skinned Boars, they made no attempts to hide their approach. They knew that while they were still far away from the boars, the boars would notice them but not take any particular actions and when they drew nearer, the boars would start to get defensive and aggressive.


    This was actually good for them. They wanted the boars to see them coming, thus inciting them to attack because even if they wanted to sneak up on them, it would be difficult and such an action was much more likely to spook the boars and cause them to flee instead of responding with aggression.


    As Tom and Adam walked closer and closer to the boars, with a couple of the guards spread out further behind them, the two boars finally began to get disgruntled by the people approaching so close to them. They both got noticeably riled up as they turned to face Tom and Adam and then started snorting, rapidly and loudly blowing air out of their noses and stomping their feet. Eventually, not being able to hold it any longer with people getting so close to them, both of the boars started to charge towards Tom and Adam.


    ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll quickly take care of the larger one¡± said Adam.


    As he finished speaking, Adam began to quickly run forward at a speed that Tom was incapable of. This was because he was operating the personal movement art of the Cardinal clan, Red Light Running.


    Although Red Light Running wasn¡¯t a peak level movement art and there were many in the kingdom that were able to match it or were better than it, it was still a rather good movement art. With the Cardinal clan¡¯s over 1,000 year history and constant striving to improve themselves, it had still been improved and refined until it had been transformed from just a low level technique at its first inception, into an above average one; making it into one of the better techniques in the kingdom.


    As Adam ran forward and also slightly to the side, in order to draw the bigger of the two Red Skinned Boars, which was running in front of its companion, away from the other boar and the space in which Tom and the smaller boar would undoubtedly fight in, Tom could see a few, very faint, red lines of qi coming from Adam and ever so slightly trailing behind him.


    Not all movement arts produced an external glow or emission of qi, however, this one did. The very reason it was named Red Light Running was because it would produce these faint emissions of red qi. It didn¡¯t actually produce that much, far less than many other movement arts that were used in the kingdom and across the world, however, it was still there.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Despite what Tom saw in the brief moment that Adam was using the skill, there were actually members of the clan that had personally refined this technique in ways that produced no external emissions of qi and also members that had personally refined it in ways that increased the external emissions, making them much more apparent. Nevertheless, Adam was just using the base technique and that was what Tom saw.


    Adam came to a stop shortly after he ran forward. They weren¡¯t that far from the Red Skinned Boars anyway and just now, Adam had run forward while the larger of the two boars was charging towards him. Obviously, the distance was being closed quite quickly and they were about to meet in around about the middle, though because Adam had run a couple of meters to the side as well, he had created a little bit of extra space between him and the larger boar against Tom and the smaller boar.


    Adam turned around to look at Tom behind him, nonchalant about the charging boar behind him, as he started accumulating qi at his fist and spoke to Tom.


    ¡°Tom, have a look at this. This is what you¡¯ll be able to do when you break through into qi expansion¡± he explained, grabbing his cousin¡¯s attention.


    Adam then proceeded to spin back around to face the large boar and not a moment too soon, as it had reached just a meter away. As he span back around, he had raised his fist and Tom could see a red qi light shining on the front of it.


    Currently, Adam was employing the 2<sup>nd</sup> stage of the Cardinal clan¡¯s personal fist art martial skill, Crimson Fury Fists. This involved the concentration of his qi on the front of his fist and greatly increased the power of his attack. What¡¯s more, unlike Red Light Running which could only be classified as above average, Crimson Fury Fists was legitimately a high level martial skill and Adam had achieved a mid-level of mastery over its 2<sup>nd</sup> stage.


    This meant that although Adam was only at the 4<sup>th</sup> level of qi expansion, his attack was power was actually rather high and other cultivators in the mid-levels of qi expansion that practiced weak defensive skills or had a low degree of mastery in them, would find it hard to defend against his attacks, if not having their defence completely crumble under them.


    Although Adam had achieved a mid-level of mastery over the skill, which was respectable for someone of his age, especially since many cultivators aren¡¯t particularly adept in their control and manipulation of qi, never advancing much higher than this themselves, and was definitely above average as a cultivator and in combat, he himself wasn¡¯t satisfied with it.


    Crimson Fury Fists was the primary technique that he trained in and unfortunately for him, he couldn¡¯t practice it properly while he was still in the early levels of qi expansion, due to having a low amount of qi. It was to the extent that he could only launch the 2<sup>nd</sup> stage of the skill twice, before depleting his qi to the point he couldn¡¯t use it again in a short time, and he couldn¡¯t even begin to operate the 3<sup>rd</sup> stage of the skill, much less the 4<sup>th</sup> and final stage.


    Obviously, this meant that he wasn¡¯t able to practice it much, as he didn¡¯t have much qi to work with in the first place and would then have to cultivate again to restore his depleted qi before he could continue again, making it more difficult to make progress with it. Despite this, he had still managed to achieve a mid-degree of mastery over it while still at the 3<sup>rd</sup> level of qi expansion.


    Ever since he had broken through to the 4<sup>th</sup> level of qi expansion, his store of qi had significantly improved and he had been devoting a lot of his time to improving his mastery over his martial skills, especially the Crimson Fury Fists. However, he had of course only broken through to the 4<sup>th</sup> level of qi expansion recently and so, although he had been making some progress, for the time being, he was still stuck at only a mid-degree of mastery over this particular martial skill.


    Nevertheless, even if he had only achieved a low degree of mastery over it, or even just basic mastery, which was one lower than a low degree of mastery and considered the bottom level that someone could achieve while still actually conducting the martial skill, that would still be enough for what he was about to do. Heck, even if he just employed the 1<sup>st</sup> stage of the Crimson Fury Fists, which was noticeably less powerful that the 2<sup>nd</sup> stage, it would still be more than enough.


    That was why when Adam turned around and slammed his fist down on the head of the charging Red Skinned Boar, he essentially obliterated the top of its head, blood, brain and bone flying out as the front of the boar¡¯s body slammed into the ground and it then its hind end flipped over itself in the air and came crashing down again with a loud thud on the ground.

 Chapter 54 - Red Skinned Boars (3)

    The boar stood no chance. In that situation, even if Adam was only using his strength of peak body strengthening, he still would have won that encounter. Well, he only would have stunned the beast and would have had to move to avoid injury, but, he would still be the one to come out of it with the advantage. This was because the Red Skinned Boar was a qi beast that relied on its greater physical strength and didn¡¯t actually have a particularly strong defence.


    This meant that so long as someone avoided their direct charge, they would have a high chance of survival and of being able to take the beast down themselves, even if their strength was weaker. It was actually one of the reasons why Adam had suggested to Tom that he try and independently take one on.


    ¡°You see that?¡± Adam asked Tom.


    ¡°Yes¡±


    ¡°What do you think?¡± Adam asked, before realising that the other boar was still charging at Tom and that this wasn¡¯t exactly the best time or place to have a conversation.


    ¡°Never mind, I¡¯ll move out of the way. Do your best¡± he said as he moved back several meters and put a bit more distance between himself and Tom.


    [Hmm, I wonder what your plan is. You sounded awfully confident in being able to take it down. I guess you must have something worked out] thought Adam.


    He was curious as to what Tom was planning to do. After all, Tom was only at the 6<sup>th</sup> level of body strengthening and his strength was far below that of the Red Skinned Boar, which had strength just below a peak body strengthening expert.


    Adam didn¡¯t have to wait long to see what Tom was planning to do, however, he was surprised by it. This was because while he was standing there, Tom still hadn¡¯t drawn his sword. Instead, he took the dagger attached to the right side of his waist and flicked it up into a throwing position.


    In his current situation, there were two main ways that a cultivator would usually take on a Red Skinned Boar charging at them. The first, if they were stronger than the boar, would be to take it on directly, as Adam had done. The second, however, was to dodge its frontal charges and then start inflicting wounds, as big as possible, on its side and back before it could turn around and charge again. Doing this, those that were lucky would be able to inflict serious injuries on the beast and fell it relatively quickly without much danger to one¡¯s self.


    Tom, however, had chosen neither of these two options. He had decided on a completely different approach, one that followed the principle of targeting the opponent¡¯s weak spots.


    [The skull of the Red Skinned Boar is one of the hardest parts of its body and provides it the most defence] thought Tom, while thinking over the information he had read on this species in the Cardinal clan¡¯s records.


    [Even if that defence isn¡¯t very strong, pitifully weak in fact, with my current strength, I won¡¯t be able to cut through it. At most, by targeting its head, I¡¯d only be able to inflict superficial wounds that won¡¯t kill it. However, as with most animals; its greatest weak spot is on its head. Hah! Your skull can be as hard as diamond but it won¡¯t matter if you get a knife through the eye]


    Thinking this, Tom threw his dagger towards the oncoming boar, aiming at its eye and confident of his success. By throwing his dagger into its eye, the blade point would penetrate into the beast¡¯s brain and quickly end its life.


    [I see] thought an impressed Adam, who was looking on from the side and had seen through Tom¡¯s plan.


    [That¡¯s certainly one way to approach it. Throwing techniques have been utilised by warriors throughout all of history in order to take down powerful beasts and besides body strengthening cultivators, this is something which is continued throughout the cultivation realms. After all, what are many of the external qi martial skills, that qi expansionists and above use, if not just advanced forms of such a thing.


    No wonder he felt confident. If he can take down such a beast at range, there isn¡¯t much need to be concerned about his safety. It¡¯ll surely be difficult if he wants to get a one shot kill, but he seemed rather self-assured of himself. He must have been practicing his throwing skills without me knowing.]


    Both Tom¡¯s confidence and Adam¡¯s ease and expectations were proved to be premature. This was because, unlike what Adam had thought, Tom hadn¡¯t actually been practicing his throwing skills. Now in all fairness to Tom, the dagger he had thrown was actually on target at first, however, unfortunately for him, the boar¡¯s head didn¡¯t remain in a stable position. As the boar was charging forward, its head was naturally moving up and down and side to side, resulting in Tom¡¯s dagger missing the boar¡¯s eye. Instead, it glanced off the side of the boar¡¯s head, only leaving a small, superficial cut.


    [Shit!] thought Tom, seeing that he had failed to hit his mark and that the boar had already approached to within several meters.


    Not having time to draw his sword, Tom immediately dove to the side, avoiding the forward charge of the boar, and performed a roll before finding his feet again, much to the relief of Adam, who had started when Tom¡¯s throw had failed and was prepared to run forward to help his cousin.


    [He missed. It¡¯s a pity but at least he was able to get out of the way. Hmm, but his form and technique didn¡¯t seem that good. Could it be that he hasn¡¯t actually been practicing? No, it must be nerves. He¡¯s still inexperienced so even if he has been practicing, it¡¯s not unexpected that the reality of actual combat would affect his posture and positioning. Besides, even the best don¡¯t always hit their mark.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    Then again, he might have been confident for a different reason. He might have had something else up his sleeve, some other plan, and was just trying his luck with this]


    After Tom dove to the side, the boar stomped its front feet down on the ground and forced itself to come to an abrupt stop. It then turned around and once again charged towards Tom. This time there wasn¡¯t much distance between them, but, that also meant that the boar couldn¡¯t build up as much momentum.


    The boar charged towards Tom, who was half kneeling on the ground and still hadn¡¯t drawn his sword. However, when the boar approached closer, when it was just outside of his striking distance, Tom made his move. He suddenly started drawing his sword and as he did so, he also pushed himself forward off the ground.


    Tom stayed low and tilted his body to side, in order to avoid the boar¡¯s tusks, as he sprang forward, all the while drawing his sword out in a slashing arc. His aim, however, was not to slash at the head or body of the beast, but rather at one of its front legs. He may have missed with his dagger throw, but, the eyes of a creature were just one of its weak points.


    [Damnit, I have to practice throwing later. I suppose Adam wasn¡¯t wrong when he insisted I trained my fighting skills. Cultivation really isn¡¯t everything; I also have to make sure I can protect this body] thought Tom, kicking himself a bit over his failed first attempt at the boar.


    [Humph, never mind. I might have missed my throw, but you¡¯re still not too difficult an opponent. As long as I immobilise you, you¡¯re as good as dead]


    Moving forward at an angle and with a slightly tilted body, Tom was able to avoid heading directly into the forward charging path of the boar and soon found its tusks safely passing him by.


    He, of course, with his strength at the 6<sup>th</sup> level of body strengthening couldn¡¯t meet the boar head on and had he not sprang forward at an angle, he would have suffered a serious injury from the impact of the boar¡¯s charge and then died being trampled to death beneath it.


    The next moment, just after he saw the beast¡¯s tusk pass him by harmlessly, Tom felt a strong impact force reverberate in his arm as his sword bit into the creature¡¯s front left leg. This forced his arm back slightly, but, he was able to draw his sword across the boar¡¯s leg as he continued to move forward.


    Moving forward and coming out of the sword slash, Tom had a slight smirk on his face. This time, he had been successful in hitting his mark and clearly felt the impact of his sword against the creature¡¯s leg.


    What¡¯s more, when his sword had hit the leg of the boar, it had easily cut into it, achieving Tom¡¯s goal of wounding one of its legs. The crashing sound behind him as the boar fell to the floor was testament to this. The only unfortunate thing was that he was unable to cut off the leg. Nevertheless, the wound he¡¯d inflicted wasn¡¯t minor and the drawing cut he¡¯d made on it had opened up quite a bloody mess.


    [Yes, that it, that¡¯s how you do it] thought Adam, internally praising Tom.


    ¡°Good going. Now you just have to finish it off, but, remember not to take your guard down, it¡¯s down but not out¡± shouted Adam to Tom.


    Tom, turning back around to face the boar, flashed his eyes over to Adam after hearing his words and gave a slight nod. This however, wasn¡¯t something he needed to be told. Of course he wouldn¡¯t be careless at this stage. He knew well enough that even wounded animals could still be dangerous. In fact, many, in their last death throes, would pull out all of their remaining strength in a last ditch effort to escape or kill their attacker, something one should always be prepared for. This time however, Tom didn¡¯t think it was going to be a problem.


    Tom looked on at the boar as it struggled to get up, but, it crashed to the ground when it tried to put its weight on its wounded leg. With three good legs it would still be able to stand up and move about, but, Tom obviously wasn¡¯t about to give it that chance.


    As it was starting to stand up, Tom ran forward and with both hands grasping his sword, he thrust it into the side of the beast, penetrating into its innards and earning a pained squeal from it. Then, after pushing the sword in as far as he could, Tom continued to push against the side of the beast and forced it to fall over on its side.


    The boar started kicking it legs out and thrashing about, but, this was to no avail. It was no longer in a position where it could harm Tom and Tom certainly wasn¡¯t about to allow it to be. Furthermore, Tom continued applying pressure to the sword and holding the boar in the place on the ground, preventing it from getting the leverage and footing it needed to raise itself back up.


    The boar continued to struggle about on the ground, slowing bleeding out. Each of its jerking movements increased the size of the wound where Tom¡¯s sword was and was bringing it closer and closer to death. Finally, after a while, Tom twisted his sword inside the boar and with one final squeal, the boar fell limp, the last of its life having been extinguished.


    While Tom wiped some of the sweat off his brow, it had taken quite a bit of effort for him to hold the boar down in place, Adam walked over to him.


    ¡°Well done Tom, well done¡± he praised, with a smile on his face.


    ¡°I was a bit worried for a second at the start but you really did it¡±


    ¡°I told you, no worries¡± replied Tom as he looked over to Adam.


    ¡°Took a while to die though¡± he said calmly while frowning at it. Internally he felt a bit annoyed.


    [Can¡¯t believe it took me this long to kill a pig, this is ridiculous]


    ¡°Hmm, I suppose you were holding it down for about 5 minutes. If you had managed to get it in the neck or had taken your sword out to stab it again, it would have been much faster. Ultimately though, safety comes first. I remember on my first trip to the forest, like you, I encountered a pack of Red Eyed Wolves. One of my guards bisected a wolf in half and after he turned his back, the wolf jumped at him with just its front legs and bit into his head. It really showed that you can never be too careful¡± said Adam.


    Hearing this story, the guards who had followed not too far behind and those that had remained with the horses but which had drawn close after Tom pinned the boar, winced and sucked in a breath of cold air.


    ¡°Oh, I remember that. Wasn¡¯t that Mallory?¡± asked Harrison.


    ¡°Yes, it was Mallory. He¡¯d worked for the clan for almost 50 years. It was such an unfortunate way to go. None of us saw it coming¡± lamented Adam.


    ¡°Hah¡± sighed Pike. ¡°It¡¯s unfortunate but these things happen, don¡¯t they? You never know what¡¯s going to happen in the forest, what¡¯ll happen in life¡± said Pike.


    ¡°Hmm¡±


    ¡°Yeah¡±


    ¡°Amen to that¡± agreed several of the guards as they contemplated on Pike¡¯s words.


    ¡°Well, like I say, safety comes first. You really need to be careful in the forest, I mean, you just turn your head away for a second and you could end up dead. Too many people have died in this place because of that kind of carelessness¡± said Adam, before turning his head back to Tom.


    ¡°Remember Tom, you can do anything if you¡¯re alive, but nothing if you¡¯re dead, so, when you¡¯re dealing with beasts, stay vigilant, never rush and always confirm the kill¡± said Adam.


    ¡°Of course¡± replied Tom.


    [Nothing I didn¡¯t already know but ok] thought Tom.


    ¡°Ok then¡± said Adam after clapping his hands, before pointing at the dead boar in front of him.


    ¡°We should put this on the wagon and get going again. After all, it¡¯s still early. Plenty of time to continue on¡± he said cheerily.

 Chapter 55 – Adam and Tom

    Loading the carcasses of the two Red Skinned Boars onto the back of the wagon, Adam couldn¡¯t help but feel satisfied in his heart. Not only had he found a strong qi beast, relative to Tom¡¯s strength, to hunt, meaning that today¡¯s hunt wouldn¡¯t pale in comparison to the one Tom took with Rowan, but, watching Tom¡¯s fight just then, he was able to see just how far his cousin had come in this short time. He was truly impressed by the progress Tom had been making as a cultivator in the recent months and was sincerely happy for him.


    Thinking about this, Tom, Adam and company all mounted their horses and spurred them on. As Adam had said, it was still relatively early and they had plenty of time to continue on with the hunt before it got dark. Thus, they proceeded forward, further away from the forest road and deeper into the forest.


    ¡°So, what was the experience like? Taking down the boar I mean. After all, compared to you, it¡¯s quite a bit stronger¡± Adam asked as his horse walked forward, curious to know how Tom was feeling.


    ¡°Nothing special¡± Tom replied blandly, seemingly uninterested over what had just occurred.


    ¡°It was pretty similar to the fights I had on the last hunt¡± he continued, causing Adam to feel a bit downhearted and internally sigh.


    [Hah, it¡¯s as I suspected. After his last hunt with Rowan, where he fought the likes of a Red Eyed Wolf pack, saw a Giant Velvet Worm in action and personally took down a mature Blue Devil Beetle, anything I can show him at the moment won¡¯t raise his excitement.


    I can¡¯t blame Rowan though. It¡¯s not her fault his excitement has died down a bit. Even if she didn¡¯t run off to join him, he still would have had his own experiences in the forest, though she still shouldn¡¯t have hijacked his trip and taken him somewhere as dangerous as Insect Gorge. It¡¯s no wonder a boar, even if it is equivalent to a late stage body strengthening warrior, wouldn¡¯t pique his interest after he had seen the weird and intriguing creatures of Insect Gorge. A boar just seems kind of ordinary in comparison to them.


    Sigh, if the Patriarch hadn¡¯t assigned me a job at the time, I would have gone with Tom when he first left Hill City and could have been there from the beginning, could¡¯ve been present on his first hunt.


    Oh well, what¡¯s past is past. There¡¯s nothing I can do about it. Such are the circumstances of life.


    Ha, I guess in the end, I should be thanking Rowan. If she hadn¡¯t run off, father never would have sent me to get her and I would still be stuck doing patrol runs around Hill City. Still though, a pity I couldn¡¯t be here for Tom¡¯s first hunt and be the one that first showed him the strange wonders of the Tainted Forest. I guess I¡¯ll just have to wait for the opportunity to show him something better]


    ¡°I guess it¡¯ll all seem similar until you reach the realm of qi expansion. When you reach that, you¡¯ll be able to do things you couldn¡¯t even imagine doing as a body strengthening cultivator and you¡¯ll also be able to fight against far more unique and interesting beasts than the ones we¡¯ve seen today¡± said Adam.


    ¡°Oh that reminds me¡± said Adam abruptly; face palming himself at nearly having forgotten.


    ¡°What did you think of the martial skill I employed, the clan¡¯s Crimson Fury Fists?¡± he asked, curious since it was one of the primary techniques of the clan and Tom would undoubtedly learn it when he made it into the realm of qi expansion.


    ¡°The technique seemed simple¡± answered Tom.


    He had seen a whole myriad of different kinds of powers and ways to use cultivated energy in his life, not to mention what he himself was capable of as a God. In contrast, there wasn¡¯t really anything that Adam could show him that would shout out sophistication.


    ¡°Mmn, I can see why on the surface it does look that way. After all, the concept behind the 2<sup>nd</sup> stage of the Crimson Fury Fists is basically just to concentrate the qi used during the 1st stage onto the front of the fist, greatly increasing the force of the blow. However, beneath the surface, there¡¯s a little more to it than that and even if the concept seems simple, it¡¯s a little harder to actually put it into practice¡±


    ¡°Still, the Crimson Fury Fists aren¡¯t considered that difficult to learn for a technique of its level of power, which is a good thing for us. Though I should say, the 3<sup>rd</sup> stage is meant to be significantly more difficult to learn and master than the previous two. I¡¯m actually still struggling to pull it off myself. Hopefully I¡¯ll be able to increase my cultivation and store of qi quickly, so I can practice it properly. After all, it requires even more qi than the 2<sup>nd</sup> stage of Crimson Fury Fists. I could barely practice that while in the lower levels of qi expansion because I didn¡¯t have enough qi so I¡¯ll be annoyed if I now can¡¯t practice the 3<sup>rd</sup> stage properly either because of the same reason¡±You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    ¡°Hmm, I see¡± replied Tom, mulling over what Adam had told him since he knew he would likely end up learning the same martial skill as well.


    [Although the concept behind the 2<sup>nd</sup> stage of the skill he described is simple, it¡¯s also effective. Many techniques do the same sort of thing to increase their power. I myself have applied this concept when fighting and all the way through my original cultivation at that. The principle is sound.


    What¡¯s more, his technique didn¡¯t look very fanciful. This is good. It means it doesn¡¯t needlessly waste qi trying to be artsy. The only thing that needs to be considered is the form of the qi and how well it is manipulated]


    Thinking up to this point, Tom suddenly frowned when a new thought popped into his head.


    [Hmm?]


    ¡°Adam, I thought this technique was meant to be more powerful than what you just displayed¡± Tom said to Adam.


    ¡°Ahh, that¡¯s because I haven¡¯t attained a high or peak degree of mastery in it yet. I could have made up the numbers by pouring more qi into it but that would have taken longer to charge up and I didn¡¯t want to be wasteful either. Even if my qi store has increased fairly significantly since I advanced from the 3<sup>rd</sup> level of qi expansion to the 4<sup>th</sup>, this is still a technique that uses up a fair amount of qi and I didn¡¯t want to run myself dry¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s understandable¡± responded Tom after hearing Adam¡¯s explanation.


    [Good, that wasn¡¯t the most the technique is capable of. Even if he destroyed the top half of the boar¡¯s head and caused it to flip over, that didn¡¯t mean that his display was that impressive. After all, the Red Skinned Boars have fairly weak defence.


    Hah, it really is quite pitiable that I wasn¡¯t able to cut its leg off. Such a weak beast that can¡¯t even harden its bones properly and I can¡¯t cut through them. Ridiculous.


    If it was able to use qi in even just the most basic way to defend itself, I likely wouldn¡¯t have been able to kill it by myself and the attack Adam sent out wouldn¡¯t have caused nearly as much damage as it did, though it still would have killed it]


    ¡°Actually, what you saw was still quite a bit more powerful than what I was capable of when I was still at the 3<sup>rd</sup> level of qi expansion. At that time, I would purposefully hold back how much qi I used in it; otherwise, I would use all my qi in just one punch. Also, you have to remember, this is just the 2<sup>nd</sup> stage of the Crimson Fury Fists martial skill. The 4<sup>th</sup> stage is the most powerful and the reason that it is classified as a high class martial skill. If I was using that, the boar would¡¯ve ended up in bits and pieces¡± said Adam.


    ¡°Yes, there¡¯s the 3<sup>rd</sup> and 4<sup>th</sup> stages as well¡± said Tom, thinking over his memories of other clan members using it and also of its descriptions in clan manuals.


    [I really didn¡¯t land myself in a bad place, did I] thought Tom, while reflecting on the strength of the Cardinal clan.


    ¡°It would be good to practice that. I¡¯m given to understand that mastering it helps for when you try to break through into the realm of qi condensation¡± said Tom to no one in particular, though Adam thought he was still talking to him.


    ¡°Yeah, I hope so. Mastering the condensation of qi during the technique is meant to be greatly helpful for when you try to break into the realm of qi condensation. Plus, it¡¯s the most powerful technique of our clan. Though I suppose many would disagree with me on that point since most of the people in the clan prefer our sword style over our fist art¡± said Adam.


    ¡°I¡¯m given to believe that the clan¡¯s qi techniques were all personally developed by clan members over many different generations before they became what they are today. Perhaps you¡¯ll be able to further refine the Crimson Fury Fists yourself into the undisputable most powerful technique of the clan¡± said Tom.


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯d be good¡± said Adam as he lost himself in thought on the matter, bringing their conversation to a close.


    With these last words, a quiet formed over their group, with only the occasional chatter from the guards being heard as they continued to move forward. They tried to pick up some speed, however, their pace remained rather slow. This was because although they had been moving forward quite easily until now, there were several areas with thick underbrush and places where the trees were quite close together, resulting in them having to slow down to manoeuvre the wagon through the trees or find a different route to continue forward.


    Nevertheless, despite their slow pace, they naturally started to encounter more qi beasts as they continued moving through the forest. Some of the first ones they saw were fairly weak and tame and would stay away from people, fleeing when Tom and company drew near, however, the forest also contained many aggressive and territorial qi beasts, as well as ones which just wouldn¡¯t care about the proximity of humans, so, it wasn¡¯t long before they encountered a qi beast that didn¡¯t and wouldn¡¯t run from them, one which caused Tom and several others to be surprised.

 Chapter 56 - The Amoeba (1)

    Staring at the qi beast that was in front of him but still quite far away, Tom couldn¡¯t help but frown and feel a bit puzzled. This was because what he was looking at was basically just an orange blob, one that had a diameter of 50cm.


    He was legitimately surprised when he saw it because he hadn¡¯t read about it when he was made to study the Cardinal clan¡¯s records on common qi beasts found in the Tainted Forest and because in a way, it resembled a single celled organism, though it was a bit different to what Tom was familiar with, in ways other than just its size.


    ¡°What is that?¡± asked Tom, though even as he did, he began making his own assessment on the creature.


    The most noteworthy thing about it of course, was the fact that it was basically just a formless gelatinous mass; however, Tom was able to make some deeper observations upon seeing it. Firstly, he was able to conclude that the beast was slow, its max speed likely topping out at about 3 miles per hour and secondly, he noted that it seemed to be able to freely change its shape, sometimes travelling along in a uniform blob form and sometimes spreading out parts of itself flat against the ground, as though it was seeking something out or feeling its surroundings.


    ¡°It¡¯s an Amoeba qi beast¡± replied Adam.


    ¡°Though some people give them other names; such as, blobs, slimes, gooeys or gelatons¡±


    ¡°It looks odd¡± remarked Lance, who had never seen or heard of anything like this before either.


    ¡°Well, I suppose it is odd. After all, it¡¯s basically just a formless gooey mass¡± replied Adam, who, realising that Tom and several of the others didn¡¯t know anything about this particular qi beast, decided to take the opportunity to inform them about some of its characteristics.


    ¡°Interestingly, although they have no eyes and seem to travel aimlessly, tests have confirmed that they can sense the presence of living things and move towards them, it being suspected that they do this through qi sensing abilities. However, this seems to be a bit of a double edged sword to them because they¡¯ll move towards something regardless of the danger it poses towards them¡±


    ¡°Is it dangerous?¡± asked Tom, wanting to hear about what was most important.


    ¡°Erm, not really. They move slowly so you can easily keep your distance from them but because of the way they eat, if they get on you, it can be quite bad. Also, since they basically move soundlessly, they¡¯re incredibly deadly if they catch you sleeping. Though I suppose any qi beast is deadly if they can get near you when you¡¯re asleep¡±


    ¡°And how do they eat?¡± asked Lance, intrigued, to an Adam who was happy to explain.


    ¡°Well, as you can see, Amoeba qi beasts don¡¯t have mouths, so, instead of biting and swallowing their prey, as other creatures do, they actually envelop them within their bodies. After they do this, they then start dissolving their prey, digesting the physical body and sucking the qi out of them¡±


    ¡°It might interest you to hear though that this isn¡¯t just limited to animals, nor is it limited to living beings. They are known to frequently digest spirit herbs and are also known to move towards cultivating resources, such as qi stones¡±


    ¡°Now, going back to their eating, although their ability to digest prey and suck the qi out of them varies among different types of Amoebas and Amoebas of different sizes and strengths, with some being particularly corrosive and difficult to get off, even the weakest can still be deadly to many creatures. This is because anything that gets enveloped and trapped inside their bodies, unless they know qi techniques or are lucky, are unlikely to survive¡±


    ¡°Of course, like I said, because of how slowly they move, they aren¡¯t considered very dangerous and you can easily just keep your distance from them, however, if you are going to fight them in close combat, it¡¯s easy for them to make contact with you. When that happens, if it¡¯s a type which is particularly sticky, it can be difficult to get them off and they¡¯ll take the opportunity to spread out over you and start trying to digest you. Luckily though, or unluckily in some circumstances, it¡¯s usually a pretty slow process¡±


    ¡°So, is it easy to kill?¡± asked Tom.


    Throughout the explanation, Tom and the others who didn¡¯t know much about Amoeba qi beasts, listened on with interest, however, what they really wanted to know, what they considered the most important information, was how dangerous it was and how to kill it and Adam¡¯s previous answer to this was a bit roundabout and didn¡¯t really answer the question. After all, it was all well and good to say that a qi beast wasn¡¯t dangerous if you stayed away from it, but then again, you could say that about all qi beasts.


    ¡°Yes and no. It¡¯s a bit situational thing but at the moment I can say it would be difficult for anyone other than me and Marcus to take it out. You see, although it¡¯s no real threat to you, nor to any of us, due to the very nature of their bodies, most physical attacks against them cause negligible damage. Plus, they can even use qi in a limited fashion to help repair their own bodies, so, if a body strengthening cultivator such as yourself were to cut them with a sword or stab them with a spear, they could just reform their bodies¡±This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    ¡°Now of course, it¡¯s not a completely hopeless thing. Although difficult and time consuming, it is still possible to kill them with just physical attacks and there are still some other methods body strengthening cultivators or even just regular people can employ to deal with them. For instance, they have proven to be weak to extremes of heat, so, if you raise or lower their temperature enough, you can kill them. There are also some alchemical formulas that they are particularly susceptible to¡±


    ¡°Unfortunately, there isn¡¯t really a way for anyone below the realm of qi expansion to lower their temperature, so, that isn¡¯t a method you would be able to employ. Likewise, although we have some flint and it¡¯s a dry day, we wouldn¡¯t really be able to make a big enough fire to kill it, at least not quickly anyway. Perhaps if we were able to alight many different branches and burned it from all sides, but that would take who knows how long. And as for the alchemical formulas, well, none of us purchased any to bring with us. Though that isn¡¯t something you should do anyway because you¡¯d just be throwing money away¡±


    ¡°I see. So, it would be difficult for me to kill it and if I were to try and do so, it would just be putting me at risk¡± stated Tom.


    ¡°Exactly¡± said Adam.


    ¡°Hmm, but you also said that it would be difficult for anyone other than you or Marcus to kill it. Considering what you¡¯ve already told us, shouldn¡¯t the same restrictions affect the two of you? Would you care to elaborate on that?¡± asked Tom, wanting understand the strange Amoeba creature¡¯s weaknesses as best as possible.


    ¡°Yes, well, that¡¯s the other big weakness of Amoeba qi beasts. Although they can absorb qi from living beings and use it to a certain extent, they are also quite weak to qi based attacks. Whenever someone or something uses a qi based attack on them, unlike with a non-qi based attack, it¡¯ll actually deal effective damage to them, damage that they find difficult to repair. Damage that seems to affect both their physical body and their life-force itself¡±


    ¡°Plus, when using a qi based attack, any part of their body that is blasted away will lose any sense of life and become unable to re-join the main body or take independent action. Essentially it¡¯ll become inert. Dead. This is why other than me or Marcus, no one else here will be able to easily dispatch the Amoeba in front of us¡± explained Adam.


    ¡°Hmm, but I should probably mention that although the one we see in front of us is nothing to be concerned about, it is actually meant to be relatively small and weak compared to other Amoebas. Well, I say that, but, the biggest ones we see in the Mantal Kingdom aren¡¯t much larger than this one here. However, as Amoeba qi beasts get stronger and absorb more qi, they become more and more resistant to qi based attacks, making a battle with them especially difficult and there are legends of ones far bigger, faster and more powerful than the one in front of us now, which supposedly even have high levels of intelligence and are capable of complex thought. If we encountered one of them, not even me and Marcus would be able to deal with it¡±


    ¡°Though that¡¯s nothing you need to be concerned about. They¡¯re just legends and even if they¡¯re true, they¡¯re not something we¡¯ll ever see in our lifetimes. As for the biggest ones that have been seen in the Mantal Kingdom, they¡¯re found in qi stone mines and are generally stronger and more adept and varied in their use of qi than the one in front of us, but, since we don¡¯t actually have one of those mines, I doubt you¡¯ll ever have the opportunity to see one of those either. Plus, the kingdom will quickly kill them to protect the qi stones within and also to prevent powerful, qi resistant Amoeba qi beasts from getting loose¡±


    ¡°I see. Good to know¡± said Tom, after having taken all of that information in and filing it away in his mind should he ever need to rely on it at a future date.


    ¡°But I¡¯m curious about one more thing¡±


    ¡°Oh, what is it?¡± asked Adam, with his spirits lifted from his earlier dejectedness.


    [It seems he¡¯s quite interested in this. To think I thought I wouldn¡¯t be able to show him anything exciting on this trip. I guess my earlier thoughts were a bit premature.


    There are plenty of strange and wonderful beasts in the Tainted Forest and this is only his second trip into it. Of course there would still be plenty of things I could show him that would catch his attention and pique his interest.


    It¡¯s also good that he¡¯s paying attention and asking questions of his own volition. By listening and learning now, he¡¯ll be able to be safer in his future hunts]


    ¡°Can this Amoeba¡± said Tom, while pointing at the Amoeba qi beast that had finally managed to draw close to them over the course of their conversation.


    ¡°Be used to aid cultivation? Or by chance is it worth a lot?¡± Tom asked.


    ¡°Sort of. Amoeba qi beasts can, of course, be used in qi furnaces to help extract the qi from them, so, they already have more value than ordinary things and they also have a couple of other uses, but, the amount of qi that those in the kingdom and the outskirts of the Tainted Forest can store isn¡¯t that high, which reduces their value and usefulness. The Red Skinned Boars for example are actually a lot more valuable than them. Plus, we don¡¯t really have anything we could store its body in, nor do we have anything to use to scoop it up if we kill it¡±


    ¡°I see. A pity¡± lamented Tom.


    ¡°So, are we going to kill it or just leave it be and continue on?¡± he said, asking Adam, since there wouldn¡¯t be much to gain from killing it and Adam himself said that only he and Marcus would be able to take it out.


    ¡°Hmm, we won¡¯t be able to take it with us, but¡­ yes, we¡¯ll kill it¡± said Adam after a bit of contemplation.


    [There¡¯s no material gain to be had here, but, I can still use this opportunity to show Tom a little more about qi techniques]


    ¡°Marcus, will you do the honours?¡± Adam asked his friend.


    ¡°Sure. To be honest, I was getting a little bored. This¡¯ll help me stretch my legs a little¡± said Marcus as he dismounted from his horse.


    ¡°Sorry¡± apologised Adam. He had invited Marcus to come with them but so far, aside from when he killed a few weak beasts after they had first entered the forest, Marcus had just had to take on more of a guarding role and was put on the back burner a bit as Adam focused more of his attention on Tom.


    ¡°No problem¡± said Marcus, the tone of his voice indicating that he didn¡¯t really mind it, as he loosened up his shoulders and limbered up, his body a bit stiff from sitting on his horse.


    ¡°I¡¯ll have this done in a matter seconds¡± he said confidently as he looked at the Amoeba qi beast in front of him.

 Chapter 57 - The Amoeba (2)

    ¡°Alright, Tom, watch carefully. There are many different ways in which qi can be used and you¡¯re about to see one of them. This one¡¯s actually quite powerful as well¡± said Adam to Tom.


    ¡°Mmn¡± acknowledged Tom, a little curious about what Marcus would do.


    With his whole host of experience as a magic beast and then as a God, the rudimentary use of qi he was about to witness would be nothing more than a parlour trick to him, however, this was also a parlour trick he was not yet capable of. Even if he could reproduce the effects when he was in his true form and not stuck in the body of a human, it would not be the same. After all, the people of this world used qi, derived from Primal energy of the Cosmos¡¯ four main types of energy, whereas he had formerly used mana as a magic beast and as a God he used Essence, another of the four main energies. Of course, there was some knowledge that was transferrable between the two, his experience and knowledge at manipulating energy undoubtedly already helping him to rapidly advance in cultivation, but, nevertheless, any use of qi he could observe; be it rudimentary or masterful, on a small scale or on a large scale, would be useful to him.


    In this way, Tom watched on attentively as Marcus strode forward towards the Amoeba qi beast. The qi beast, sensing the approach of a high concentration of qi but oblivious to the threat it presented, continued to slowly ooze forward over the ground towards it.


    As he was striding forward and getting closer to the qi beast, Marcus began to employ the 2<sup>nd</sup> stage of the qi technique that his father had been teaching him. Suddenly, the glow of qi could be seen as a half formed golden gauntlet formed around his right hand and lower arm.


    Unfortunately for Marcus, although the technique his father had been teaching him was fairly powerful, better than the 2<sup>nd</sup> stage of the Cardinal clan¡¯s Crimson Fury Fists, it was also harder to master than regular techniques and with his talents, he had not yet been able to perfect it, resulting in the half formed appearance that Tom and the others could see.


    Nevertheless, he was undaunted by such a fact. Even if his skill at using qi wasn¡¯t that high, he was still fairly talented at cultivating. Besides, as far as he was concerned, he was still young and had plenty of time to fully comprehend and master it, especially since qi techniques learnt in the realm of qi expansion could still be effectively used throughout higher realms of cultivation. As for the current situation, it was more than enough for what he was about to do. After all, even half formed; it was still a powerful technique.


    Looking on though, Tom couldn¡¯t help but judge Marcus¡¯ display.


    [His qi technique doesn¡¯t appear to be complete. His control over it is poor. This won¡¯t bode well for his future cultivation. Even if he can reach a high cultivation level, his combat strength will likely remain average for his level. Such is the curse of mediocrity]


    Walking forward to just a few feet away from the Amoeba qi beast, Marcus waited for it to move a little closer before slamming his right fist, glad in the golden qi gauntlet, down on the beast.


    The effect was immediately visible as Marcus¡¯ hand went through the gooey body of the beast, accompanied by a soft thud when his hand hit the ground beneath it, and a large part of its orange body exploded outwards in all directions, a bit like when soup is brought to boil in a pot.


    Tom could see that this first attack from Marcus had already reduced the size of the qi beast¡¯s body by a third. What¡¯s more, the parts of its body that were blasted away clearly showed no sign of movement, indicating that they had lost their life force and become inert.


    After landing his first blow, Marcus raised his hand before slamming it down once again, aiming at the now smaller sized Amoeba that was finally starting to move away from him. Its intelligence may have been very low but after losing a third of its body it could tell that it was damaged and that it should move away from the qi source it had previously been moving towards. This however, made no difference to the outcome of the battle. With its slow speed, it couldn¡¯t even get outside of Marcus¡¯ striking distance before the next blow had landed.


    Once again, Tom witnessed a large part of the gooey mass in front of him splatter all over, though this time he clearly heard a loud thud when Marcus¡¯ fist impacted on the ground, an unsurprising result considering the beast was smaller now, with less depth to it, and when it was moving it would naturally flatten and extend its body along the ground.


    Marcus proceeded to follow up his second punch with a few more blows on the remainder of the Amoeba¡¯s body, quickly churning it up, the qi around his fist destroying its life force.


    After a few more seconds, the beast¡¯s body, which was now splattered all around in small blobs, was rendered completely motionless. There was no doubt in anyone¡¯s mind that Marcus had succeeded in killing it and that it was now dead, never to rise again.


    After landing his last blow, Marcus turned around and walked back over to the group, while trying the absorb the qi gauntlet he had formed back into his body, something he only partially achieved, the majority of it dissipating in the air.


    ¡°All done¡± said Marcus as he went to mount his horse.


    ¡°Thanks¡± said Adam gratefully before turning to look at Tom.


    ¡°So, Tom, were you able to see clearly? What did you think?¡± he asked.


    Tom realised that openly criticising Marcus¡¯ incomplete technique would be frowned upon so stopped himself from answering truthfully and took a moment to think of an appropriate response.


    ¡°There truly are countless techniques under the heavens and his clearly shows a different way to use qi then ours. It is a reminder that there is no one true path to divinity¡± answered Tom.


    ¡°Wow, that was pretty deep¡± marvelled Adam as both he and Marcus looked on at Tom in surprise.


    ¡°Haha, yes¡­ well, it¡¯s still quite similar to the Cardinal clan¡¯s technique. For the truly unique techniques, you¡¯d have to look at those which have a heavy emphasis on form change. Any of those from the big sects, such as the fire techniques of the Fireblaze Sect, the earth element techniques of the Iron Fist sect and water techniques of the Flowing Water sect are all good examples¡± said Marcus, pleased at Tom¡¯s response.


    It wasn¡¯t an outright compliment on the technique or Marcus¡¯ skill in using it, but, reading between the lines, Marcus believed that he¡¯d discerned the deeper meaning behind Tom¡¯s words. That the technique he was practicing, the technique that was being taught to him by his father, the technique of his clan, was in fact just as good as the techniques of the Cardinal clan and that it too was something worthy of awe.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Of course, he already believed it rivalled the Crimson Fury Fists fist art of the Cardinal clan, as did the rest of his clan, who all took pride in this martial technique of theirs, however, it was one thing to be self-assured in the strength of their technique and believe that it was just as good as other high ranked techniques, such as the Cardinal clan¡¯s fist art, but another thing entirely for someone who had access to powerful techniques to in turn rate their Golden Gauntlets highly as well. That was why Tom¡¯s words just now, comparing it to divinity, had truly hit Marcus¡¯ soft spot and pleased him so.


    ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­


    Continuing on for another 2 hours, even though they had managed to increase their pace more than twofold from the slow drawl they had found themselves in after first leaving forest road, the most eventful thing they came across was another group of people making their way through the forest.


    They had actually met a number of different qi beasts as they continued on but most of these would keep their distance from them and those that didn¡¯t were low level and proved no challenge at all. Tom alone was more than enough to dispatch them to the afterlife.


    Looking around them, Adam finally came to a decision, a decision which would lead them to their third eventful moment on this hunt.


    ¡°Alright, I think we should start heading back now. I know it¡¯s not that late but if we zig-zag through the forest a bit and just head in the general direction of out of the forest, instead of heading to the forest road first, it¡¯ll take a bit longer and that way we¡¯ll also be able to see more¡± said Adam, who then received a few words and nods of agreement.


    Tom too, found it a perfectly reasonable suggestion, since it would be a waste to just retrace their steps and also because he didn¡¯t want to sleep outside of the town for the night. He¡¯d gotten quite used to his comfortable bed in the hotel he was staying at and didn¡¯t fancy exchanging that for the ground.


    According to Adam¡¯s suggestion, they started to make their way out of the forest, traveling not towards the forest road, nor directly towards Acorn, until after an hour of travel, a sweet smell in the air caused them stop in their tracks.


    Looking around and sniffing the air, Tom didn¡¯t understand what was causing the sweet smell which was pervading the air around him; however, the more experienced members of the group had joyous expressions on their faces.


    ¡°Tom, everyone, quickly look around. There are spirit herbs here. Oh, but be careful as well. Qi beasts tend to hang around spirit herbs so there might be some around here¡± said Adam, before dismounting from his horse.


    Adam, Marcus, Harrison, Avery, Pike and Bartholomew all were a bit eager at the moment and understandably so, because spirit herbs were useful in both cultivation and alchemy. Even without personally using them, they would still fetch a fair price if sold and in fact, they were the main reason people ventured into the Tainted Forest besides hunting qi beasts.


    From the strength of the scent in the air, these more experienced members of the group could tell that the nearby spirit herbs were of good quality. Of course, being only this far into the forest, they would hardly be exceptional, perhaps at best being comparable to a low rank qi stone, but they were still well worth having. Besides, the smell indicated that there would be more than just one or two and since they were so small, it would be easy to collect them all and put them on the wagon.


    At this moment, the various members of the group were all having different thoughts. Adam was thinking about the prospect of sending them back to the clan to be burned in Hill City¡¯s qi furnaces, though he was also wary of his surroundings, Marcus was thinking about collecting them as alchemical ingredients for his family and the guards were thinking about the extra pay they would inevitably receive because of this find.


    Tom though, was the least enthusiastic among this group. He did in fact hold a mild interest in these spirit herbs that he had never seen before, however, he wasn¡¯t unfamiliar with the concept. Even if he was unfamiliar with the particular herbs that were present here, he had seen many such things on countless different worlds. Besides, in the end, they were nothing more than qi beasts themselves, albeit plant qi beasts that weren¡¯t actually sentient. Heck, even humans were technically qi beasts.


    As they were looking around, Adam finally spotted what they were looking for and smiled.


    ¡°I found them¡± he called out.


    ¡°They¡¯re milk poppies and fragrant sweet orchids¡± he said, pointing to the location where groups of flowers with pure white petals and groups with violet petals could be seen around a couple of trees.


    ¡°Adam, I need some of the milk poppies. They can be used to alleviate pain and one of my uncles recently got injured in the forest. They¡¯d be a great help for him while he recovers¡± said Marcus.


    ¡°Yeah, no problem, you were going to be getting some anyway. After all, I¡¯m the one who asked you to join this trip. I wasn¡¯t about to just take everything for myself. But if you need the milk poppies more then we can just divvy it up accordingly¡± responded Adam.


    Truth be told, looking at the spirit herbs present, Adam wasn¡¯t that bothered about which ones he got. The milk poppies were of use in alchemy and medicine when concocting pain medicine and the fragrant sweet orchids were sometimes used to make perfumes, however, none of this mattered to Adam. Anything he took would just be burned in a qi furnace anyway. Besides, even if he did have some alchemical interest in them, the Cardinal clan didn¡¯t actual have any alchemists so it became a bit of a moot point.


    Of course, Adam wasn¡¯t the only person here who would be receiving the spirit herbs. A third of them would naturally be going to Tom, though since he didn¡¯t voice any objection at the words of Adam or Marcus, Adam assumed he had no problem with what was said and decided upon.


    Adam, looking at the spirit herbs in front of him, couldn¡¯t help but feel a little disappointed because they weren¡¯t actually as high quality as he thought they¡¯d be. It wasn¡¯t unreasonable to believe that there might be high quality spirit herbs around since high quality spirit herbs would often give off more powerful scents, however, in this case it was just the powerful smell produced by fragrant sweet orchids.


    Interestingly, the reason that fragrant sweet orchids released such a powerful sweet smelling scent was because they actually unconsciously used their qi to empower the scent they released. This, however, was a bit unfortunate for Adam because it actually resulted in them having a lower content of stored qi and even after they were picked, they would still lose a little bit of qi by doing this.


    Overall, in both qi content and material worth, the milk poppies were more valuable than the fragrant sweet orchids. Marcus asking for the milk poppies might have caused some conflict had this been a group of complete strangers, but, it wasn¡¯t a group of strangers. Marcus was Adam¡¯s friend, so, when he asked for the higher valued milk poppies and gave his reason why, Adam wasn¡¯t about to deny him. Besides, the majority of the spirit herbs here were fragrant sweet orchids anyway and if Marcus was only going to take milk poppies, it would just mean that Adam and Tom would each end up taking more of the fragrant sweet orchids, which would even everything out, especially because of what each of them would end up using their respective hauls for.


    Well¡­ Adam didn¡¯t actually know for sure what Tom would end up using them for but he assumed he would either directly try absorbing the qi from them to aid in his cultivation or send them back to the clan since he hadn¡¯t actually been working for the past several months and was racking up a bit of a net loss for the clan, what with the cost of the hotel he was staying at and also the wages of the guards who were accompanying him, who were receiving higher pay for it, all of which was coming out of the clan¡¯s and Gerald¡¯s pockets.


    Of course, Tom had some of his own money saved up, but, ultimately, the previous Tom Cardinal didn¡¯t actually earn that much, certainly not enough to support the current lifestyle Tom was living and although his father and the clan could easily pay for him, they were only willing to give financial support up to a certain limit, so as not to encourage laziness on Tom¡¯s behalf.


    Tom, Adam, Marcus and the others all began making their way over to where the spirit herbs were when they suddenly heard a buzzing noise.


    ¡°Well that¡¯s not good¡± said Lance, as everyone started looking around.


    ¡°Hah¡± sighed Adam.


    ¡°I knew it wouldn¡¯t be that easy¡±

 Chapter 58 – Marauder Wasps (1)

    Everyone dismounted from their horses and tightened the grips on their weapons, prepared for battle as what started as a low hum in the distance built into loud buzzing sounds. Of course, they were already somewhat prepared for the possibility of qi beasts showing up, but nevertheless, such an event was not welcomed and not being able to see what was approaching brought about a slight feeling of trepidation in some of the guards.


    Tom cast his eyes over his surroundings, trying to discern the direction in which the harsh buzzing sounds were coming from, when Ray suddenly shouted out.


    ¡°Over there¡± said Ray, pointing to a series of trees not too far off.


    Everyone looked in the direction Ray was pointing at and although they could not yet see the approaching qi beasts, Tom became sure that Ray¡¯s claim was correct when he focused his hearing and was able to determine it as the source of the buzzing sounds, though even if he hadn¡¯t, he would have ascertained the veracity of Ray¡¯s claim in the next moment, when the qi beasts finally rounded the trees and came into view.


    Not panicking in the slightest, Tom immediately noted what appeared to be a small horde of large wasps, each one being about 1 ?¡¯ in length.


    ¡°Oh, those are some mean looking wasps¡± commented Lance upon seeing them. Tom couldn¡¯t help but also agree with this statement. The wasps did indeed have mean looking faces, a product of their biology rather than a reflection their personal feelings or efforts as wasps were not particularly known for their facial expressions.


    At the same time, on Methis¡¯ celestial viewing platform, where 4 Gods were sitting together in a gazebo and watching a projection of what was happening, one of them, a giant wasp itself, started excitedly making some high pitched noises which roughly translated as ¡°Ah, look, look, some of my people. I can¡¯t believe some of my people are here¡±, while moving about animatedly. Jacob couldn¡¯t help but let out a wry smile as he thought to himself [they¡¯re not going to be there much longer].


    Back on the planet, several of the more experienced members of the group started cursing.


    ¡°Shit, Marauder wasps. I bloody hate the things¡± cursed Pike.


    ¡°Same here¡± replied Avery, and with good reason too. Marauder wasps were venomous and although a single sting wasn¡¯t enough to kill a body strengthening cultivators like them, it would still hurt to high heaven, a fact that both Pike and Avery could testify to due to previous misadventures in the Tainted Forest. Right now however, there weren¡¯t just one or two Marauder wasps, there looked to be around 50, which meant it would be easy for a single person in their group to get swamped by them and stung multiple times. If this happened, that person would definitely be at risk of dying.


    ¡°Marcus¡± Adam called out.


    ¡°Yeah, I know¡± replied Marcus as he moved to the front of the group and a half formed golden gauntlet formed at the bottom of his right arm.


    ¡°Alright, someone will need to lead the horses awa¨C¡± Adam began to say, knowing full well that the Marauder wasps would pose a far more significant threat to the horses than any of them, before he was abruptly cut off by Ray.


    ¡°I¡¯m on it¡± cut in Ray, already moving to grab the reins of several horses before retreating away from the group and the incoming Marauder wasps, an action which garnered the ire of the other guards who felt like he was running off with soft duty while they had to do the heavy lifting. I mean, it would have been fair enough if one of them was personally selected or they¡¯d decided between themselves but Adam hadn¡¯t even finished his sentence before Ray had stolen their opportuni- *cough cough* cut and run. Wasn¡¯t that just shamelessness to the extreme?


    In the midst of their grumblings, Harrison shouted an ¡®Oy¡¯ at them, attracting their attentions towards the front and the rapidly approaching Marauder wasps. This was, after all, not the time to be complaining, even if he understood why they were.


    Everyone quickly prepared their weapons as the wasps drew nearer. Tom, Harrison and Avery all drew their swords, Tom readying his shield as well, Bartholomew took his axe off his back and Lance and Pike stood at the ready, their polearms already in their hands.


    [Damn, why is it I use a spear again? How the hell am I meant to hit those things with this] thought Lance after appraising the incoming wasps. Although they were certainly giant by the standards of wasps, they were still a fairly small target to hit with a spear, especially considering that they were fairly agile in the air. Because of this, Lance couldn¡¯t help but curse at his choice of weapon as even though he was actually rather skilled with a spear, it would still be difficult to do well in this situation. He just hoped that given their size he¡¯d be able to take some of them out with a few good swings and quick thrusts.


    Not just Lance, Pike beside him was also annoyed at the moment. The thing he hated the most were small, fast moving qi beasts that entered within the range of his weapon or hid in small nooks and crannies. He especially hated Marauder wasps since he¡¯d been stung by one before and gotten a painful lump that had persisted for over a week.


    ¡°Grr, fucking things¡± he mumbled under his breath as they approached. Sufficed to say, both he and Avery, who had experienced their painful sting before, would be glad when this fight was over, as, seeing the number of Marauder wasps approaching, the prospect of getting stung by them weighed on each of their minds. However, these thoughts didn¡¯t affect their preparedness for fighting in the least. They were, after all, professionals. They just didn¡¯t want to get stung again.


    While different thoughts were running through everyone¡¯s heads, some feeling anxious, others annoyed and yet more merely focusing on the combat to come, Adam finally unsheathed his own sword and launched the 2<sup>nd</sup> technique of the Cardinal clan¡¯s Crimson Sword Style in the process, starting the fight before the wasps had drawn too close.


    A crimson light shot out from Adam¡¯s sword at high speed towards the approaching Marauder wasp horde. This technique was instantly recognised by the others as the Crescent Moon technique of the Cardinal clan¡¯s Crimson Sword Style, both because it was one of the most frequently used techniques of the clan and they were thus already familiar with it but also because before reaching the wasp horde, the crimson light had already formed crescent moon shape for which the technique so aptly got its name.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    However, before the crescent moon shaped light had even reached the wasp horde, Adam swung his sword several more times with unprecedented speed, releasing more crimson coloured qi. This barrage quickly turned into crescent shaped blades of crimson qi as well and followed up the first blade in targeting the incoming wasps.


    In launching this attack, Adam had shown his sharp judgement and fighting sense, things that he had developed through numerous combat experiences. Using his advantage as a qi expansionist cultivator, he had decided to launch a ranged, qi based attack, however, knowing of the enemies¡¯ agility in the air, he had waited until they had drawn in close enough so that they could not react in time to avoid his attack.


    In the next few moments, Adam¡¯s judgement and assessment of the situation proved correct. Although the Marauder wasps in the centre of the small horde tried to dodge his attacks by scattering in all directions, they were too late; or rather, they never had the time to do so in the first place. The attack had been perfectly timed and executed, not being launched too prematurely so as to be dodged, thus wasting qi, but, just at the right time, where Adam could maximise the damage dealt in one surprise ranged attack, before they came to close and it became harder to target them in a group.


    The crescent moon shaped qi blades of crimson light sliced through many of the Marauder wasps in the centre of the horde, instantly reducing their numbers from 50 to just over 30. The bodies of the killed wasps falling to the ground in pieces after having been bisected into halves from Adam¡¯s attacks and the buzzing noise that had become almost deafening, lessening a bit.


    Tom noted how along with this successful barrage of attacks from Adam, a sizeable hole had formed in the centre of the wasp horde, essentially creating two separate groups of wasps, one which was headed for Adam, Marcus, Avery and Lance on the left and the other which was headed for Tom, Bartholomew, Harrison and Pike on the right. This grouping however would prove to be somewhat pointless as shortly thereafter, when they had finally gotten close, the wasps started to fly about haphazardly.


    On Adam¡¯s side, Adam had already stopped launching his crescent moon attacks. Although his first series of attacks were successful in taking out a large number of the enemies, his kill rate using the technique quickly dropped and using it so many times in succession had had a large drain on the amount of his stored qi. Plus, besides the drop in effectiveness by having to target individual wasps instead of a group, since they had now spread out more, the wasps had learned to be cautious Adam and the crescent blades of crimson qi, avoiding them by flying erratically. However, while Adam had stopped using his own qi techniques, Marcus had not, and now, it was his turn.


    As they drew in close, a number of the wasps that had spread out in the air, once again gathered together and formed a small group as they converged towards Marcus, who was at the front of his group. Marcus however, couldn¡¯t help but smile at this. What they were currently doing would only help him to make better use of his technique. They were basically handing themselves on a silver platter to him.


    Stepping forward, Marcus threw out his right fist towards the angry Marauder wasps that were trying to swamp him. The golden qi on his arm then moved from his fist, changing from its gauntlet form and spreading out like a cloud in front of him. This by no means killed the wasps coming at him, however, it did stun them, causing them to stop and hover in mid-air, seemingly disoriented and with only the strength to keep them where they were.


    With this attack, Marcus had managed stun a good six of the wasps and taking this chance, he drew his sword and began slashing at them, joined by Avery who quickly came in and killed two that had only been caught by the edge of the golden cloud and were about to recover and escape.


    The horde being thinned out even more, Adam began operating his movement art, Red Light Running, in order to speed up and catch the wasps which were buzzing around in the air, not bothering to deploy any defensive techniques as such a thing would only be a waste of his already depleted qi. He jumped forward, swinging his sword at the flying wasps but met with only little success as they had become wary of him, giving him a wide berth and flying up and out of reach when they noticed him get near. Of course, in the somewhat chaotic flying pattern they were taking as they were buzzing around everyone, not all of them could react in time when Adam dashed in from their sides, but, for the most part, they were able to avoid his attacks.


    Unfortunately, behind him, Lance wasn¡¯t having much luck either. Instead, he was floundering about, desperately trying to avoid being stung as two wasps kept diving at him stingers first. He tried swinging at one as it dived towards him; however, it easily and agilely avoided it, its forward momentum only momentarily stopped as it moved to avoid the blow. Seeing its stinger speeding towards his face and the other wasp that was harassing him also quickly moving towards him from the corner of his vision, Lance dove to the side and rolled on the ground, dropping his spear in the process. In doing so, he had managed to avoid the assault of the first wasp; however, looking up from his position on the ground, he could see the second bearing down on him, the first turning in mid-air, continuing its pursuit and new one diving down from above and joining the fray.


    [Oh Fuck!]


    A sense of panic grew in Lance¡¯s heart as he wasn¡¯t in a good position to dodge again and he knew that he wouldn¡¯t have enough time to grab his spear and raise it to defend himself. Even if he could grab it in time, what good would it do? He hadn¡¯t landed a single hit on any of the wasps yet and his swings were doing little to slow their advance. There was almost no chance he would be able to effectively defend himself with it. Even if he managed to pick it up in time and was lucky enough to kill the first wasp and through some miracle took out the second as well, he knew that he¡¯d never be able to take out the third. There were just too many directions and small, fast moving targets to deal with at once.


    However, luckily for Lance, as the three wasps drew nearer to him, they all became stuck and stunned in a golden cloud of qi that had suddenly passed over his head. Marcus had been able to reform his golden gauntlet, expending a fair amount of qi in the process, and then once again expelled that in mid-air to stun the wasps attacking Lance.


    Seeing the wasps stunned and struggling to hover in place, Lance smiled. He kicked off the ground and ran forward, grabbing the wasp closest to him and pinning it to the ground. Lance then took a dagger he kept on a belt at his waist and, much to his satisfaction and relief, drove it through the head of the wasp that was squirming in his hand.


    As he was doing this, Marcus, who had approached from behind to save him, was not standing idle either. He too, rushed forward, dispatching the remaining two stunned Marauder wasps that had been caught in the cloud of golden qi, further reducing their number.


    Looking around, Marcus saw Adam chasing after a wasp that was frantically trying to stay out of his reach and Avery, with a flick of his wrists, skilfully and deftly kill a wasp that had approached him, slicing through it cleanly with his sword. Seeing these things and noting how so few of the wasps that had attacked their group of four remained, he couldn¡¯t help but be pleased and somewhat surprised at the quick work they were making of them.

 Chapter 59 – Marauder Wasps (2)

    While all of fighting on Adam¡¯s side was happening and progressing smoothly, things had not gone as well on Tom¡¯s side. When the wasps had drawn in close, they buzzed around in all directions, making it hard to target them effectively and the opening kills that Harrison and Pike had managed to score when first contact was made, paled in comparison to what Adam¡¯s group had achieved. The reason for this disparity of course, being that one group had two qi expansionist warriors whilst the other had none.


    Just after Pike had managed to earn the first two kills with the swing of his glaive and Harrison had killed another that had flown towards him head on with a simple downward slash from an overhead defensive stance, the wasps had scattered in all manner of directions, moving in-between them at high speed and attacking from multiple directions.


    Tom, who was standing at the back of his group, witnessed as the small horde of Marauder wasps broke apart and began circling the others, darting here and there and launching unpredictable attacks at irregular intervals, sometimes individually and at others times, in concert with their brethren. However, these wasps obviously wouldn¡¯t just start attacking the others while attacking the others. After the initial few kills that Harrison and Pike got, they were still outnumbered at a little over 3 to 1 and some of the Marauder wasps naturally made their way past the others and towards Tom.


    Seeing Marauder wasps flying towards him, Tom quickly raised his shield in front of his face as one of them darted forward, targeting his head. Just after, Tom heard a pin-point noise on his shield and chuckled, considering it funny, as when he looked, he saw the wasp that attacked him had gotten its stinger stuck and was desperately beating its wings to fly off again but to no avail.


    The wasp being right there and unable to move, Tom simply swiped his sword down the front of his shield, earning an easy kill. Next, he quickly made a flick of his hand, seeing another wasp speeding towards him out of the corner of his eye. Tom¡¯s fast reaction time and quick movement proved too much for the attacking wasp as it was heavily injured and fell to the ground, only to be subsequently crushed underfoot when Tom stomped on it to end its life.


    Tom¡¯s attention however was brought to the front again when he heard a loud and pained yell. Looking up, he saw Bartholomew with one wasp on his leg and another on his chest, both of them having managed to sting him, causing him no small amount of pain.


    Gritting his teeth and working through his way through the pain, Bartholomew tightened his grip on his weapon as hard as he could and swung it down with one arm past his leg, easily cleaving through the Marauder wasp that was still resting there. Then, he moved his free left hand to grab the wasp that was still on his chest and crushed it in his hand. The way its legs squirmed and juices oozed from it when doing this, looking and no doubt feeling, disgusting. Finally, to finish all this off, while yelling out a battle cry, partly due to the pain he was experiencing and partly in anger, Bartholomew lifted his axe up and holding it in two hands, swung it like a bat at an approaching Marauder wasp, the two large blades on either side of it proving effective for this as he was able clip the head of the wasp and send it spiralling to the ground.


    Unfortunately, when Bartholomew yelled out in pain, it didn¡¯t just attract Tom¡¯s attention and was soon followed by a large grunt from Harrison, who, due to being momentarily distracted, ended up getting stung in the back. He, not being able to strike at the wasp on his back, which was just out of his reach, was fortunately helped by Pike, who swung down his glaive as Harrison stood perfectly still, bearing the pain much better than Bartholomew.


    After this brief period of respite however, where Tom was able to safely watch what was happening to the others, he had to refocus on the battle. Although he and the others were making good progress, they weren¡¯t doing nearly as well as Adam¡¯s group, with a fair few wasps still buzzing about, the battle far from over.


    Seeing 3 more Marauder wasps begin flying at him, Tom once again prepared for combat, however, before they had reached within striking distance, Tom saw three crimson lights in the shape of crescent moons shoot over from the side, killing two of the wasps and missing the third, which was able to dodge. Glancing over, Tom saw that Adam¡¯s side had essentially finished up and Adam running the short distance over to him and his group.


    ¡°Haha, how are you guys doing over here?¡± asked Adam as he moved towards Tom.


    ¡°So-So¡± replied Tom as he looked at Adam and saw the latter¡¯s face quickly change from its smiling appearance to one of concern.


    Adam began opening his mouth, about to speak out, however, before his words of warning had even begun to escape his mouth, Tom flicked his sword arm up, hitting a the Marauder wasp that was approaching him from the side, injuring it and damaging its wings, knocking it to the ground.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Closing his mouth before he¡¯d even had the chance to speak, Adam subconsciously raised his eyebrows in shock before lowering them again, lost for words.


    Quickly refocusing his attention on the current situation, Adam looked towards Harrison, Pike and Bartholomew, who were still struggling with the few remaining wasps.


    ¡°We should help them now¡± he said.


    ¡°Naturally¡± replied Tom, as Marcus, Avery and Lance joined them, finally having killed the last wasp on their side.


    With the new addition of Adam¡¯s group, Tom re-joined the fight where Harrison, Pike and Bartholomew were, their combined efforts easily bringing it to a close.


    When all was said done, the almost deafening buzzing sound that had previously permeated the surroundings was gone and a mass of wasp bodies were left scattered all over the ground.


    ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­


    In response to this, up on Methis¡¯ celestial viewing platform, where 4 Gods were watching these events unfold, the previously animated and excited wasp God was now dejected and downcast, its legs and front antennae drooping and lacklustre, while a dolphin sat laughing hysterically beside it.


    ¡°Hey, don¡¯t be too down about it. I mean, you didn¡¯t even know them¡± said Jacob sympathetically, reaching out his hand to pat him on the back before thinking better of it and pulling it back.


    ¡°Vrrrr vrrr vr Vrrr, vrr vrrr vr vr vo¡± responded the wasp God, which roughly translated to ¡®I know I didn¡¯t know them, but they were still my people and compared to you guys, there are so few of us¡¯, complaining over how common humans were and how rare his species were in comparison.


    What made him particularly irate in this matter was that in all of the cosmos, he was the only of his kind to ever ascend into Godhood, paling in comparison to the many humans who had managed to accomplish this feat, making up a fifth of all the ascended. He considered such a thing truly unfair and was also the reason he would get excited whenever he saw any of his own race, even if they were just the weaker members of it.


    ¡°Well now, c¡¯mon, it¡¯s not that bad. What about Eritrey? He¡¯s like you¡± said Jacob, mentioning another God he knew.


    ¡°Vrrr vr vr Vrr Vrrr Vrrr Vrrr¡± responded the wasp God angrily while pointing at Jacob, its vigour seemingly returned to it.


    ¡°Fine, yes, he¡¯s a bee¡± apologised Jacob, while thinking [You¡¯re the same sort of thing though], not understanding why that was such a big deal to him, but then again, maybe it just wasn¡¯t within the abilities of humans to understand the nuances of wasp culture and the rivalries they had with the bees.


    ¡°Enough¡± cut in Methis, silencing Jacob and the wasp God, as well as the dolphin God who was still laughing at the side and hitting his flippers together in amusement at the conversation taking place.


    ¡°I¡¯m watching this. We can talk when we take a break¡±


    ¡°Understood¡± ¡°Vrrr vvv¡± ¡°Okay¡± replied the 3 Gods as they turned their attention back to the projection screen to watch what was happening down below.


    ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­


    ¡°Hah, damn, that was something¡± said Lance, a little out of breath after having chased after one particularly fast moving and elusive Marauder wasp and thinking about the close shave he had had earlier in the fight.


    ¡°Yeah, it was pretty intense¡± said Pike, thinking about his own close shave while looking down at his combat jacket where one of the wasps had tried to sting him but failed, internally cheering that it had been unable to get its stinger all the way through.


    Looking at the members of Tom¡¯s group after this little exchange, Avery couldn¡¯t help but smirk a bit.


    ¡°It seems you guys didn¡¯t fare too well though¡±


    ¡°Aaargh, Grrrrr¡± were the sounds coming through Bartholomew¡¯s clenched teeth as he stood, weak in one leg, giving a death glare to Ray who was walking over from the distance with the horses in tow.


    ¡°Hey guys. I kept the horses safe¡± he said, earning a string of curses from the others, though mostly from Bartholomew who had suffered the worst during this time and was looking at Ray in annoyance, anger and envy.


    ¡°The fuck do you mean you kept the horses safe!¡± shouted Bartholomew.


    ¡°It was an important job. Someone had to do it¡± replied Ray nonchalantly, an action which caused the others to become angry again at his seemingly smug attitude.


    ¡°Yeah, you ran off bloody fast for just protecting the horses¡± added Pike, eliciting a shrug from Ray.


    ¡°Aw c¡¯mon, you¡¯re just jealous you didn¡¯t think of it first¡± said Avery, chuckling.


    ¡°How dare you. Is that how you see me?¡± said Pike, exaggeratedly acting as though he was insulted by his words, though not fooling anyone.


    ¡°Well¡± said Avery, seemingly unsure and looking as though he was pondering over something in his mind.


    ¡°Oh screw you¡± said Pike.


    ¡°Alright, alright, it¡¯s not important who went to lead the horses away or how fast Ray ran off to do it. The fact of the matter was, someone had to do it or we¡¯d all be walking back on foot¡± said Adam, quieting them all down before he turned to look at Ray.


    ¡°But yeah, that was pretty sly of you¡± he remarked.


    Once again, Ray just shrugged, half the group continuing to glare at him while the other half quietly chuckled to themselves, finding the situation funny.


    ¡°Right then. Since that¡¯s been settled, we should probably get on with¡± said Marcus, reminding everyone why they were here.


    ¡°Agreed¡± said Tom.


    With that, everyone got moving again, moving to collect the spirit herbs that were growing all around them.


    Thankfully, having killed all the surrounding qi beasts, they were able to do this undisturbed. Plus, as an added benefit, they were also able to collect the bodies of many of the wasps, piling them onto the back of the wagon with the rest of this trips¡¯ gains.


    Following this, the group set off once more, heading in the direction of the kingdom, only now, they stopped taking a roundabout route zigzagging through the forest and instead proceeded directly to its exit.


    Not only had the spirit herbs taken a while to collect, cutting down the amount of time they had to spend out in the forest, but, they also needed to be stored properly so as to get the most benefits from them. As a result, it was deemed that a direct journey back to Acorn was best.

 Chapter 60 – End Of The Hunt

    Exiting the forest and coming into the full, unobstructed, light of the sun, which had yet to descend below the horizon, Tom stared out at the vast plain of grass in front of him.


    ¡°Hah, finally out. Now we can really pick up the pace¡± said Adam, stopping on the grassy plain.


    ¡°Yeah, we made good time for what we did. Should make it back for tea¡± said Marcus.


    ¡°Ok then. Harrison, we¡¯re going to speed up now. It¡¯s all plains from here on out so just go as fast as you can¡± said Adam to Harrison, who was driving the wagon.


    ¡°No problem¡± he replied and with two clicks from his mouth and an ¡®aye up¡¯, he encouraged the horses to move forward again, wagon in tow. They did so slowly at first, however, they soon started picking up speed and what started as a walk, developed into a trot and then again into a gallop, the wagon thundering along behind. Thankfully, not only was the land before them flat, but, it was also a dry day so there was little difficulty in traversing it at high speed.


    Tom and the others quickly spurred on their own horses and followed behind with a speed far eclipsing anything they had done while in the forest, their horses breaking into gallops too. However, even though the horses were running at a gallop, it was still a slow gallop. After all, the horses pulling the wagon could only go so fast with the weight they were lugging behind them and the others had to match the wagon¡¯s speed in order to protect the spoils of their hunt. Plus, abandoning Harrison to lead the wagon back while they rode ahead would be unkind to say the least.


    Moving forward at high speed, his horse galloping beneath him, Tom felt the wind blowing on his face and through his hair, the warm evening sun giving him a sense of comfort.


    In this moment of quiet and calm, he couldn¡¯t help but reflect on the events of the day.


    [Hmm, there was a fair amount that happened today. I guess it all really started with those Red Skinned Boars.


    Yes. They were nothing if not a good indicator of my current level of strength. There are lessons to be learned from that encounter.


    I¡¯ve clearly been ignoring my martial practice too much. What I need more than anything is to advance my cultivation and advance my understanding of qi, however, to advance quickly, I¡¯ll also need the support of resources.


    What¡¯s more, the further along on the path of cultivation I go, the harder it¡¯ll be and the longer it¡¯ll take. I¡¯ll need more and more resources and resources of higher quality to help speed up my progress.


    Undoubtedly, in order to meet my needs, I¡¯ll have to procure a fair amount of these resources myself. In order to do that though, a certain amount of requisite strength will be required. I¡¯ll need to be strong, strong enough to continually challenge more powerful opponents and the basic increase in strength I¡¯ll have from increasing my cultivation won¡¯t be enough for this.


    Yes. I should make sure that I become adept in some martial techniques to ensure this and no longer ignore the art of fighting so much.


    Hmm, and another thing, that strange Amoeba beast. Beneath me though it may be, it truly was odd. I know I by no means know of all the different types of life in the cosmos and even less know the specifics of the different races that I do, but, it was surprising to see something so soon that I had no knowledge of.


    I wonder what other oddities there are on this world? Perhaps there will be many more surprises? Or maybe none at all.


    There might even be some incredibly dangerous beings I¡¯ve never heard of before. That¡¯ll be interesting to say the least. I wonder if any will dare to challenge me?


    Perhaps I¡¯ll challenge a few myself. Show them who¡¯s boss. It¡¯ll certainly be a glorious fight in my current form and no doubt the more dangerous such beasts are, the more useful they¡¯ll be as cultivating resources. But, there¡¯ll also be untold danger involved, even more so if I don¡¯t know anything about these creatures.


    Fortune favours the bold. A good expression. Trampling all with one¡¯s own personal strength. That¡¯s the proper way. But even I know that the blind will walk to their death.


    My knowledge of this place is a bit too lacking at the moment and merely having good situational awareness may not be enough. Perhaps it¡¯s worth looking through the Cardinal clan¡¯s records and my own memories again.


    Hah, there really was a lot that happened today. The boars and the Amoeba aside, I also got to see some of the qi techniques of this world. Although it¡¯s certainly different from the use of mana where I come from, it has its similarities. Nevertheless, seeing Adam and Marcus using their qi techniques was a good indicator for the strength of people in this world in the realm of qi expansion.


    Of course, they are both meant to be above average cultivators, Marcus falling much closer to the average line than Adam, but it was still a good indicator nonetheless. It¡¯s just a pity I didn¡¯t get to see a greater variety of techniques. They talked about form change, something that was actually relevant to increasing ones understanding of this energy, yet I only got to see a small example of this.


    If there is anything I can take away from what I saw of them though, it¡¯s that be it power or the quantity of their qi, they were both far superior to those two iron fist sect disciples I saw when I was travelling with Rowan.


    I suppose that¡¯s the gap created from the difference between early level qi expansion and mid-level. I do keep hearing that that is one of the major gaps for cultivators and the first true and significant jump a person experiences is combat potential.


    Supposedly, a peak level body strengthening expert can challenge cultivators up to the 3<sup>rd</sup> level of qi expansion and still have a chance of winning in single combat, but against a 4<sup>th</sup>, mid-level qi expansionist, barring some ridiculously extreme and improbable circumstances, they have no chance.


    I guess that means that qi techniques only really start to show their full metal in the mid-levels of qi expansion.


    ¡­ ¡­ ¡­


    Hah, I could really do with something to eat right now]


    Reflecting on all that had happened during the day, Tom lost himself in thought, time passing by unawares until he was finally brought to by the voices of his comrades.


    ¡°Whew, there it is¡± said Lance, looking at the town of Acorn that had come into view.


    ¡°Almost back now¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I can¡¯t wait for a good drink and a good rest. Riding this horse has been killing my backside¡± said Pike beside him, his voice easily heard by everyone despite the sound of the wagon roaring along behind them and the horses hoof beats stampeding along the ground beneath them.


    ¡°We¡¯ll have to sort all this stuff out first though¡± said Adam, flicking his head towards the items on the wagon.Stolen novel; please report.


    ¡°Yeah, but after that, I¡¯m going to the pub¡± replied Pike.


    ¡°Hahaha, perhaps I¡¯ll join you¡± laughed Adam.


    ¡°Coming up on the forest road now, it¡¯s time to slow down and turn¡± called out Harrison on the wagon.


    Moving along the grassy plains at the edge of the forest, Tom and the others had been making their way back to Acorn at high speed and now, they were finally approaching the forest road that led from the town into the forest. Because of this, and because of the many cultivators that traversed this path, it became necessary for the wagon to turn onto it and towards Acorn¡¯s west gate, as well as slowdown from the gallop they were currently barrelling along at.


    ¡°Yeah¡± shouted Adam in agreement, before everyone gave cues to their horses to slow down and begin turning.


    Tom, taking his horse onto the road and trotting forward towards Acorn¡¯s west gate in view at the end of it, took notice of the many cultivators moving back and forth along the road.


    Like usual, there were many people present, all cultivators, constantly trudging back and forth as part of the monotony of Acorn¡¯s town life. People, weak and strong, rich and poor, in groups and by themselves, all moving back and forth between the forest and the town, making their living, tempering themselves, strengthening themselves or just seeking the thrill of the hunt.


    There were those that were armoured and those that were not. There were a few who had horses but many who did not. There were people with wagons, people with carts, people with bags and people with nothing but their own two hands and the clothes on their back.


    Some, coming back from their hunts in the forest, were bloodied and injured, others, weary and exhausted, and yet still more who were happy and content with their day¡¯s worth of hard work.


    In stark contrast to them though, there were those who had yet to enter the forest. The eager opportunists seeking to make their fortune, the confidant veterans who approached it as just another day and the inexperienced young, impatient and curious novices who had yet to have their first taste of the forest, nor know of its dangers.


    Looking along the length of the road, Tom saw the familiar scenes he had seen when travelling it before. Ordinary warriors and sect disciples alike, both carrying back the hauls of their hunts, hard earned after much trail and tribulation. A fantastical array of beasts slain and brought back to be dissected without mercy, their lives ending so new goods could be bought and sold from the stalls and shops of Acorn town.


    It wasn¡¯t just Tom looking at others though. Tom and Adam¡¯s own group attracted a fair amount of attention and not just because of their full wagon or the fact that they were all riding horses. The powerful smell that was still being emitted by the fragrant sweet orchids had spread throughout the nearby area and turned many heads, though after a momentary interest people started turning away again and those who had lingering thoughts, being so close the Acorn and with so many others around, could do nothing but watch on with greed in their eyes.


    Looking around, Tom could see that amongst the people travelling to and fro, the ordinary warriors, wearing a vast array of different clothing, made up the majority, yet the familiar grey uniforms of the Iron Fist Sect were a common sight and the blues of the north east¡¯s Flowing Water Sect could also be picked out.


    Amidst all of this, the only truly strange or rather unexpected thing was the new addition of those wearing the orange uniforms of the south¡¯s Fireblaze Sect, a sight that came as a great surprise to all present since those of the southern sects rarely ever came to the north.


    ¡°Hmm, that¡¯s a surprise¡± said Adam, who saw them first.


    ¡°Are they Fireblaze Sect disciples?¡± said Harrison questioningly upon seeing them. This question however, was to know one in particular. It was merely shocked utterance he let out after being surprised at what he saw.


    ¡°It looks like it¡± replied Avery with a serious look on his face, his mood ruined.


    ¡°God I hate those guys¡± scoffed Marcus.


    ¡°They are rather arrogant¡± said Adam.


    ¡°Arrogant, hah, they¡¯re more then arrogant Adam, they¡¯re insufferable pricks. I¡¯m just happy they usually stay in the south, with the rest of their kind¡±


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s not like we need to bother with them. They¡¯re of no consequence to us, just ignore them¡± advised Adam.


    ¡°Hey, what¡¯s the big deal?¡± asked Lance to Pike. Having grown up in a village and still being relatively young, he didn¡¯t have much knowledge of this subject area, nor why everyone was reacting the way they were.


    ¡°Basically, all Fireblaze Sect disciples, are giant dicks¡± responded Pike, his loud voice easily catching the attention of nearby cultivators, including some of the Fireblaze Sect disciples who shot him and the entire group furious looks, their rage at the attack on their prestige and pride unconcealed, their faces going red in anger. Unfortunately for them though, with their cultivation levels, they could do nothing but seethe in anger from afar.


    Continuing on and ignoring the Fireblaze disciples as they passed them by, Tom and the others finally made their way through the West gate of the town and onto the busy main street, a hubbub of activity clearly present as people ran to and fro chaotically, shouting out prices and trying to attract customers. Thankfully though, travelling further into the town and away from the gate, where a great deal of trade took place, things quieted down a bit and the streets became less crowded.


    The group was finally nearing the end of their day of hard work and started relaxing a bit, but, it was not over yet. As Adam had said earlier, they had to sort out the stuff on the back of the wagon and that meant going to the headquarters of the Cardinal clan¡¯s transportation business in Acorn.


    However, as they were travelling along, a commotion that was going on down a street they were passing caught Adam¡¯s eye.


    At first he was just curious as to why a crowd seemed to be forming, with many people pointing and discussing amongst themselves, however, when he saw what they were pointing at, he frowned, confused, and stopped his horse.


    Seeing Adam suddenly stop, the others, in turn, also stopped, curious to know why he had done that and what exactly he was staring so intently at. When turning to look in the same direction as him, what they saw was exactly the commotion that was going on down the street.


    Staring hard at the groups of people going into and out of a particular building, carrying bloodied blades, Adam finally spoke up.


    ¡°Th-they¡¯re men from the Cardinal clan¡± he said confused.


    ¡°A-and, is that, is that Jeffrey?¡± he said incredulously.


    ¡°What do you mean? What¡¯s going on?¡± asked Lance, who was shocked by Adam¡¯s words and the events playing out before them.


    Lance however, was not the only one who was shocked. Even Tom was frowning at this development.


    ¡°H-hang on a moment, I¡¯ll go see what¡¯s happening¡± said Adam, before riding off at speed towards the forces of the Cardinal clan in the distance and going up to Jeffrey, who appeared to be conducting the operation that was currently going on.


    Tom and the others only had to wait a short while, watching Adam talk with Jeffrey in the distance, before he rode back up to them.


    ¡°What happened?¡± asked Tom, taking the initiative to speak out for once. The Cardinal clan was his clan now and due to the natural pack mentality he formed with them, this was something that he was genuinely curious about.


    ¡°Apparently Jeffrey uncovered a bandit cell operating out of Acorn and went to deal with them. They¡¯re searching through the place now and trying to find any leads that will help to uncover more of their operation. He said with this, we should be able take out a large part of their network in the north¡±


    ¡°Blimey. Good riddance¡± said Marcus. He was well aware through his own travels and through his father, who worked at Hill city¡¯s governor¡¯s office, just how big of a problem these bandits were. Hearing this news from Adam, he was pleased that the Cardinal clan had finally made some progress in rooting them out.


    ¡°Wait, so, did Acorn¡¯s forces just let the clan raid a residence in the town, no problem at all?¡± asked Lance.


    ¡°You don¡¯t get it¡± said Avery.


    ¡°The local government here really doesn¡¯t care. They don¡¯t like wasting resources and they think that if they get involved in stuff like this, it¡¯ll only hurt the town¡¯s business. They¡¯ll only get involved if whatever¡¯s happening involves their interests or if they think it¡¯ll hurt the town¡¯s business. In this case, it¡¯s absolutely in their interests to sit back and let the Cardinal clan do whatever they want. After all, the clan¡¯s much more powerful than them and they also share a beneficial trade relationship. Even if they had some sort of attachment to the people getting attacked, they¡¯d definitely weigh the costs of going up against the clan in order to protect them¡± explained Avery.


    ¡°Oh¡± was Lance¡¯s reply, surprised at how things worked here. He¡¯d already heard about this somewhat before but didn¡¯t think that things were to this extreme.


    ¡°Jeffrey said that he informed them before hand and that when they first went in, Acorn¡¯s town guard blocked off the street for them. It¡¯s just that they¡¯ve been here a while now and the town guard already left¡± Said Adam, explaining what had transpired.


    ¡°Makes sense. Bandit attacks in the area will stop people from going into the forest as much and also hurt the flow of trade going out of town. This way, someone else took care of their problem and it didn¡¯t cost them a thing¡± reasoned Harrison.


    ¡°Ah, I see now¡± said Lance in understanding.


    ¡°Ok, well, enough of this. We¡¯ve still got to get all this stuff packed up and sent off to Hill city yet. After that we can all relax and get a better handle on the situation¡± said Adam.


    ¡°Ok¡±


    ¡°Understood¡±


    ¡°Yes boss¡± came the replies of the guards as they once again started moving forward, heading towards the Cardinal clan¡¯s transportation headquarters so they could finally unload the wagon and call it a day.

 Chapter 61 – Lucian Makes His Move

    Lucian stood, in the dark hours of the early morning, at the edge of a grassy field in the western territory, looking out towards a village in the distance. Beside him he was accompanied by several elites of the clan and although he couldn¡¯t see them in the darkness, he knew that there were yet more dotted around the surrounding area, hidden and waiting.


    ¡°Are you sure?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Absolutely¡± replied Jeffrey with certainty.


    ¡°This is it. Not only was the woman I questioned quite forthcoming after a while but I also found more evidence in their residence at Acorn that pointed towards it as well¡±


    ¡°And the whole village is a fake?¡± questioned Lucian.


    ¡°Yes. I have no idea how long it¡¯s been like that, but at some point, the bandits cleared everyone out of the village and have been using it as a hidden base ever since. No one ever realised because of how out of the way it is¡±


    [Tsk tsk] thought Lucian.


    [To think that they were able to get away with something this brazen. Our eyes have been too confined these past few decades. Isolationism may have helped us build our strength but it has left us blind to the goings on around us. It certainly doesn¡¯t help that other matters have drawn our focus away too. I¡¯ll have to send out reliable people to get a better handle on things. This is not the time to have hidden threats in our own backyard]


    ¡°Not even the larger border towns? Surely they would notice something was up when it came time to collect the tax?¡± said the 8<sup>th</sup> elder incredulously.


    It wasn¡¯t exactly farfetched for the Cardinal clan to be unaware of the situation here as it was outside the Cardinal clan¡¯s zone of control and it truly was just a small, out of the way village, not falling on any of the major roadways in the area, but still, it would have to be a mind bogglingly large oversight for the town the village payed tax to, to not realise that there was something amiss here.


    ¡°Well, you know what the border towns are like. The governors there don¡¯t exactly govern. So long as they get the tax on time they probably wouldn¡¯t ever send anyone out here to check on things. That or they knew and just didn¡¯t care¡± explained Jeffrey.


    ¡°Their complacency or ignorance isn¡¯t important right now. Even if they were in collusion, it can be addressed at another time. Right now, the only thing that matters is the village. Jeffrey, tell me, do you know what kind of forces they have there?¡± said Lucian.


    ¡°Apparently this is one of their major bases in the western territory so it has a qi condensation warrior in it, though at what level I have no idea. It¡¯s also meant to house a few hundred body strengthening cultivators and a couple dozen qi expansionists¡± Jeffrey replied.


    ¡°Hmm, I see¡± said Lucian, pondering over the situation with mixed feelings.


    [It¡¯s a pity. I¡¯d have liked a clearer picture of their forces beforehand but news of what happened in Acorn will quickly spread and we can¡¯t risk them bolting. If we don¡¯t strike while the iron¡¯s hot, we may miss our greatest chance yet]


    As someone who liked to plan and prepare long in advance whenever he made a move, the current situation caused Lucian to feel a bit ambivalent. He was happy that his efforts had finally payed off and that the clan had uncovered their greatest lead yet on the bandit organization operating in the North, however, the time constraints with which he had to move and the lack of clarity on the situation made him unhappy.


    Despite this, right from the get go, he was aware that should the plan to use Tom as bait pay off it would likely require fast action on the part of the clan. It was why instead of chastising Jeffrey for leading forces of the Cardinal clan to raid the bandit residence in Acorn in broad daylight, he actually agreed with the move. He knew that from the very moment Jeffrey had saved Tom from a group of the bandits within the Tainted Forest, the timer had already started.


    Moving from the assassins in the forest to the bandit cell in Acorn to the rest of the hideouts in the western territory, time was of the essence. Should they be to slow to act at any of these stages, it¡¯d be like letting the goose go when it¡¯s already in your grasp. If this happened, the hard work and patience put in by Jeffrey would have gone to waste and ended in another dead end for the clan. This couldn¡¯t be allowed to happen.


    Jeffrey had to act as he did, raiding the bandit cell in Acorn, because the people he killed would undoubtedly be expected back. If they had never returned after going off to assassinate a member of the Cardinal clan, the rest of the members of their cell would be alerted and react to cover their tracks and avoid suspicion, very possibly leaving their hideout in Acorn and destroying any evidence that would connect to their larger network in the process.


    Likewise, this was why, when Lucian received news of what was happening from a messenger Jeffrey had sent over from Acorn, he immediately went to work gathering the elites of the clan, the governor¡¯s office and the town guard, forming a taskforce to travel out with him to the west.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    It was also why, after assembling all the personnel he believed necessary for this particular mission, he had even authorised the use of the clan¡¯s swift horses in order to get everyone over to the west as quickly as possible, without them having to expend their own qi in the process.


    Just like how Jeffrey had to act fast so that the bandits present in Acorn wouldn¡¯t become aware of the situation and flee, Lucian had to do the same thing. He needed to be able to act fast enough so that the bandits in the rest of the western hideouts wouldn¡¯t hear of what had happened in Acorn and start to escape, fading into the shadows and hiding away.


    If the bandits were able to do this, not only would they be able to save a larger part of their organization and prevent information leaking, but, they would also then have the opportunity to return later on and set up new hideouts.


    This sort of thing had happened in the Cardinal clan¡¯s territory and throughout the rest of the North plenty of times already, causing many people no end of bother. A prime example of that being when the clan upped its efforts and started an extensive search after the Tom incident several months ago yet was unable to turn up anything substantial. This was something that Lucian and the other elders of the clan absolutely didn¡¯t want to happen.


    Of course, even with Lucian¡¯s fast actions and speed in travelling to Acorn to meet up with Jeffrey, it was still a good five hours after Jeffrey had conducted his raid in the town that Lucian had arrived, by which point it was already dark and the town gates were closed.


    Lucian then had to spend some time discussing things with Jeffrey outside the town gates, learning all that he had done and found out before he could make his next move. After all, if he didn¡¯t do this, Lucian and his men would just be a bunch of idiots running around the western territory with no clear goal in mind.


    Indeed, from his talk with Jeffrey, Lucian had learned of several hideouts that were operating in the western region, something which both pleased him and caused him to frown. After all, it was just recently that Lucian had finally understood the true scale of this particular bandit organization and knew that these few hideouts in the western territory would be but a fraction of their operation and power.


    Anyway, learning of these several hideouts, their size, their distances from Acorn and their approximate importance to the bandit organization, Lucian split up his taskforce into several smaller groups, taking the bulk of the force himself as he was planning the assault the largest of the bandit hideouts that Jeffrey had learned of.


    Unfortunately, adding on the time it took to do all this, as well as actually travelling out to the various bandit hideouts in the area, Lucian knew that the news of what had happened in Acorn may very well have already reached their ears of several of the closer western hideouts, this village included.


    This was a cause of concern for Lucian, not because he was particularly worried about the bandits being able to prepare a proper defence against him and his men, but because he was worried that they might be able to get away or destroy any evidence of their dealings.


    Like pulling on a loose thread, he wanted to be able to unravel as much of the bandit organization from this operation as possible.


    As for the bandits being prepared for their arrival and putting up a defence, he wasn¡¯t particularly concerned at that at all. Although he would certainly have preferred to get a clearer picture of their forces in this village and the other western hideouts that were going to be hit tonight, especially since he had finally begun to understand just how strong they were, their having a permanently placed qi condensation warrior in a regional base being a testament to that, he had the utmost confidence in his forces and own personal strength to deal with the situation, an opinion shared not just by him.


    ¡°Well that shouldn¡¯t be too difficult¡± said the 8<sup>th</sup> elder in response to Jeffrey¡¯s words.


    ¡°The body strengthening cultivators are nothing more than fodder for our forces and we¡¯ve brought plenty of mid-peak level qi expansionists along to deal with theirs. As for the qi condensation warrior, well, we¡¯ve got you for that. I highly doubt they¡¯d have someone who could match up to you. If they did then this is a much bigger problem than we initially thought¡±


    ¡°Yes, that would indeed be a big problem, but highly unlikely¡± said Lucian.


    ¡°I suppose a bigger concern would be if they have more than one qi condensation warrior there, but then again, so do we¡± said the 8<sup>th</sup> elder.


    If the bandits had more than one qi condensation warrior present, so long as one of them could hold down Lucian for a little bit, the other might be able to escape or inflict heavy casualties on the rest of their forces. Thankfully though, this operation they were leading wasn¡¯t a half assed one. Although the most powerful members of the Cardinal clan weren¡¯t present in Hill city at the time, Hill city was the powerhouse of the North West and held many qi condensation warriors for its size. Because of this, Lucian was still able to get several qi condensation warriors on short notice, without compromising the city¡¯s safety or working operation. As such, besides himself, there were also two other qi condensation warriors in the force preparing to attack the village and a further four leading the groups that would be assaulting the other hideouts they had discovered.


    At this moment, while the three of them were discussing these things, two people, a man and a woman, quickly made their way over to them. Lucian immediately recognised them as two of the most senior figures within the city guard, qi condensation warriors of the 4<sup>th</sup> and 2<sup>nd</sup> level respectively.


    ¡°Max Powers, Tula Max¡± he said, giving them a nod of recognition.


    ¡°Is the encirclement complete?¡±


    ¡°Yes sir¡± replied Tula.


    ¡°Good. Did you make sure to leave an opening?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Yes, as you ordered¡±


    ¡°Excellent¡± said Lucian with a smile.


    ¡°We¡¯ll let a few of them slip through our lines and have the shadow team follow them. That way they¡¯ll be able to lead us to more of their hideouts¡±


    ¡°It¡¯ll probably only work this once, but with it, we should be able to completely uproot them in the west. Perhaps, before they wizen up to what¡¯s going on and take measures against it, we¡¯ll even be able to find clues to their bases elsewhere¡±


    ¡°Aye. It¡¯s about time these bandits learn that their time¡¯s running out¡± said Max, a man who was devoutly loyal to Hill City and had a strong sense of duty and responsibility.


    ¡°All right, if everyone¡¯s in position, it¡¯s time we make our move¡± said Lucian after looking over everyone and checking they were all set.


    With that, he drew his sword and took to the skies, the pulsing red light on the soles of his feet visible to those beneath him as he flew forward in the air towards the bandit village.

 Chapter 62 – News Travels Fast (1)

    Thud!


    Pike, loud as ever, slammed his cup down on the table while smacking his lips in enjoyment, savouring the taste of the mead he¡¯d just drunk.


    ¡°Ahhh, that was good¡± he said, earning a raised brow from Tom.


    ¡°I still don¡¯t understand how you can enjoy that¡± said Tom, who was still perplexed as to why humans liked these sorts of drinks so much. From his own personal experience of tasting alcohol, he was unable to draw any satisfaction from it, considering its only use thus far being to quench his thirst.


    ¡°Of course I can enjoy it, it¡¯s honeybrew mead, it¡¯s good stuff¡± responded Pike, while beside him, Avery tilted his hand side to side, making a hand gesture that indicated scepticism over such a claim. Deciphering the nonverbal meaning of Avery¡¯s gesture, Tom took it to mean, ¡°Eh, it¡¯s ok, but it¡¯s not that great¡±, something which he still considered a gross overestimation of the product.


    ¡°Well, Tom¡¯s never been much of a drinker. Even when it comes to some of the fine wines and brews we have at the clan, he¡¯s never been enthusiastic about them. I think he¡¯s only ever drank socially¡± said Adam.


    ¡°Ahhh, you¡¯re missing out, you really are¡± said Pike, thinking it was a pity, before raising his fork and taking a bite out of a bit of meat.


    Right now, one day after they had returned from their trip into the Tainted Forest and unaware of the full extent of Cardinal clan¡¯s actions that had taken place the night before, during the early hours of the morning and in fact throughout the day as a whole, Tom found himself in one of the many pubs his companions had frequented during their stay in Acorn, drinking, eating and enjoying small talk with them after what for him was a day of quiet cultivation.


    However, although Tom was able to relaxingly while away the day with his solo cultivation, continuing to infuse qi into his body and edging himself closer to the 7<sup>th</sup> level of body strengthening, blissfully unaware of what had been happening with the likes of Lucian and the clan, Adam¡¯s mind had been far more occupied by recent events.


    Unlike Tom who had spent the entire day cultivating by himself, seemingly without a care or worry in the world and not taking great concern over what he had seen in Acorn the previous day, Adam, someone who already held certain responsibilities within the clan, responsibilities far greater than Tom, had placed a fair amount of importance on what had happened. Ever since he had returned back from the forest and seen the commotion going on within the town, he had taken great interest in it, especially since someone of the calibre of Jeffrey was the one leading charge.


    As a result of all this, since he was too busy organising things after the hunt to follow up on what was happening, the next day, after seeing off his friend Marcus, who had departed for Hill city early in the morning, Adam had spent the majority of his day at the clan¡¯s transportation headquarters in Acorn, trying to get as much information about what had been happening as possible.


    Unfortunately for him though, although he was able to get a more in depth understanding of the raid that had been conducted on the bandit residence the previous day, the explanations he was given were still a bit vague and didn¡¯t give him a good idea of the bigger picture. He even slightly felt that the people he talked to were purposefully leaving out a part of the story; though quickly dismissed this notion as nonsense, determining that there was no reason why they would withhold information about the bandit subjugation from the son of a clan elder, especially one who had been involved with the subjugation activities around Hill City.


    As he continued to question people however, it soon became apparent that part of the reason the information he was receiving was so vague, was because the people he was questioning genuinely didn¡¯t seem to have a full understanding of the situation either. In fact, something he discovered when he first went to the clan¡¯s transportation headquarters in Acorn and which greatly hampered his line of questioning, was that none of the senior members were present.


    Having left Acorn the previous night with Jeffrey, leaving only middling managers that were essential to the continued operation of the business, as well as the many lower levelled guardsman and non-combatants, there were few left at the headquarters that were truly in the know. Even those who had a better idea of what was going on could only give Adam an explanation of events from the previous day as even they were yet to learn the outcome of Lucian and Jeffrey¡¯s activities in the surrounding area.


    All of this had caused Adam somewhat of headache throughout the day as he cared greatly about the wellbeing of the clan and had more of a personal stake in the bandit situation than others because he was close to Tom and had also been friends with the two sons of the 7<sup>th</sup> elder who had subsequently been killed by them after Tom¡¯s ordeal.


    Nevertheless, his concern over it wasn¡¯t getting him any answers and even when he went to some of the other businesses the Cardinal clan had in Acorn, finding similar situations of the higher ranked members being absent; he was still unable to learn more about the situation.


    In the end, he just had to wait back at the transportation headquarters, where he was able to receive a few sporadic updates on the situation from returning combatants, though even then, the reports he received lacked full details and didn¡¯t give a picture of the whole situation as he¡¯d soon learnt that those who had left Acorn with Jeffrey had separated into different groups to investigate and attack different bandit hideouts.


    However, although he still lacked some of the specifics, by the end of the day, there were several pieces of important news that he had been able to learn, such as the fact that the patriarch of the clan, Lucian, had personally come to take part in this operation and that together with Jeffrey, he had successfully attacked a bandit stronghold and made great gains towards uprooting the bandits in the western territory, as well as securing the first foothold in uprooting them throughout the entirety of the North-West.


    Having received a clearer picture of what was going on and seeing no point in continuing to stay at the transportation headquarters, since it had gotten dark again and the town gates would soon close, preventing the flow of any more news into the town, Adam finally returned to his hotel to meet up with Tom, before going with him and his guardsmen for a much needed sit down and drink.


    Now the guards in question, as opposed to Tom who had spent the day cultivating and Adam who had been running around Acorn and had his mind occupied with greater things, had very much enjoyed the respite they had had after their eventful trip into the Tainted Forest the other day, especially those who had been injured. Plus, since Tom didn¡¯t do anything all day other than stay in his room and cultivate and they weren¡¯t required to follow Adam around, a restful day they had indeed.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Actually, that was one of the reasons they liked their assignment to protect Tom. Not only had several of them already developed a friendship with him due to his training, but on the whole they found him to be pretty laid back and since he spent most of his time assiduously cultivating, their workload was actually quite light, far lighter than they were used to back at Hill City.


    The extent of it was so much that it easily outweighed the increased work they had by going into a place like the Tainted Forest, especially since contrary to their expectations of having to frequently enter it whilst Tom was tempering himself, he¡¯d only gone in there twice since they had first come here.


    And so, now, after Tom had stopped cultivating and Adam had returned, they went out with the guards, such as Harrison, Avery, Pike, Lance and Bartholomew, who, as human beings, naturally enjoyed having a bit of downtime after a day of hard work, to eat, drink, talk and on the whole, relax and unwind. However, as they were sitting and chatting, sharing a bit of small talk with each other, some of the other conversations that were going on around them, taking place on neighbouring tables, started to attract their attention.


    ¡°Hey, Bert, Sully¡± said Jake, an ordinary looking man in his 30¡¯s who had just entered the pub, seen his friends and sauntered over to them before sitting down at their table.


    ¡°Haha, good to have you join us¡± chuckled Sully, a hairy man sporting a somewhat frizzy beard.


    ¡°So, when¡¯d you get here, I thought you were down in Merryton¡±


    ¡°I was but I¡¯ve been making my way back up. New job prospects, you know. Anyway, I got here earlier today but had a few things to sort out first. Was planning to look for you and it wasn¡¯t difficult to guess where you two¡¯d be¡± said Jake.


    ¡°Haha, I guess¡± chuckled Sully.


    ¡°So, any news?¡± asked Bert, the most sensible of the trio, curious of what stories his friend would bring back from his travels.


    ¡°Any news?¡± said Jake whilst looking quite excited, something which the other two knew meant that he was about to launch into some long and most probably inaccurate story.


    ¡°There¡¯s a whole lot of news¡± he said excitedly.


    ¡°In fact, just last night, I witnessed something unbelievable¡±


    ¡°As I was coming up from the South, travelling at night along some of the quieter roads, I passed by Grenple Village¡±


    ¡°Grenple village?¡± asked Sully quizzically.


    ¡°Ah, it¡¯s a village about 20 miles south of here and a bit east. It¡¯s not very big. Anyway, as I was travelling along, I was passing right by where it is and was able to witness a battle of epic proportions take place¡±


    ¡°A battle of epic proportions? At some small village in the middle of nowhere?¡± said Sully with scepticism, already believing this to be one of Jake¡¯s farfetched, cockamamie stories.


    ¡°I¡¯m telling you, it¡¯s true. When I was travelling along, I heard some loud bangs, looked over and saw everything that was going on¡± said Jake.


    ¡°Oh, and what happened then?¡± asked Sully.


    ¡°I¡¯ll tell you what happened. I saw a stone giant rise from the ground and do battle against a crimson dragon that descended from the sky. Meanwhile, a pillar of fire erupted into the sky and from within it, a fire demon emerged. Only then, a wind wraith appeared and created a great storm of blades to fight against it¡± explained Jake excitedly.


    ¡°Ohhh, ok, dragons, giants, demons and more. Go on then, what happened next?¡± said Sully sarcastically, obviously not buying into it.


    ¡°The battle between the wind wraith and the fire demon was intense, with some back and forth between them, only it was obvious that the wraith held the upper hand, pressuring the demon and pushing it back. Seeming to sense that it would lose, the fire demon tried to escape into the distance, leaving a trailing blaze of fire in its wake, but was obstructed by an illusory purple monolith that appeared in the sky. Its escape blocked off, the wind wraith caught up from behind and attacked once more, pinning it in place. Trapped against the monolith, with all its escape routes blocked off, it made its last desperate attempts at defending itself with a great eruption of fire, but this was easily supressed by the attacks of the wind wraith. Ultimately, unable to escape and unable to overpower its opponents, the fire demon was torn to shreds by the wind wraith, letting out an inhuman cry in the process.¡±


    ¡°On the other hand, the battle between the giant and the dragon was over much quicker. In the first attack, where the dragon rushed down from the skies and the stone giant raised its fist to meet it, the giant¡¯s arm shattered upon impact and its whole body crumbled and collapsed to the ground in one big heap. Then, the dragon launched a series of blade like attacks in the shape of crescent moons down at the rubble beneath it and the stone giant didn¡¯t rise again¡± finished Jake as he looked at Sully with a sparkle in his eye.


    ¡°Hah¡± scoffed Sully, ¡°You really expect me to believe all that?¡±


    ¡°I swear to God, it all happened¡± said Jake seriously.


    ¡°It all happened did it? Dragons, demons and bullshit is what I say. I still remember last month when you got back from the northern hills and kept trying to convince us that the hills and valleys were disappearing¡±


    ¡°That wasn¡¯t a lie either, I was telling the truth. I remember one time I was travelling through the area, I passed by the opening to a small valley that had a village inside it and people moving about, but when I came back, the valley wasn¡¯t there any longer, instead there was just more hill¡± exclaimed Jake.


    ¡°And that wasn¡¯t the only time either. I swear to God there have been other times where hills, valleys and villages have disappeared and other things have appeared in their place¡±


    ¡°Yeah and I called bullshit on that too. Hills don¡¯t suddenly appear out of thin air Jake, nor do valleys disappear after just one day. Face it, there was nothing supernatural going on, you just got lost¡± chided Sully.


    ¡°Well what about the village then and all the people I saw?¡± questioned Jake.


    ¡°What do you mean what about them? You were in the wrong bloody place. And even if you were in the right place, so what? Hunting groups set up temporary lodgings in the hills all the time. They might be there one week and then gone the next. And not just them either, there are plenty of people who form small communities up there because they want to stay away from the prying eyes of others. The point is, that story was bullshit and this one is too¡± said Sully.


    ¡°I really can¡¯t stress enough with you that this really happened Sully. I was there man, I saw it. This stuff really happened¡± persisted Jake.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know Jake¡± said Bert, speaking up for the first time in all this.


    ¡°Even at the best of times you¡¯ve been known to wildly exaggerate. All I can say is that I believe you believe you saw this¡±


    ¡°Hey, is my word really worth so little to the two of you¡± said Jake, a little hurt.


    ¡°Ok then, fine. If you know so much, tell us, why were these dragons and demons fighting at some village in the middle of nowhere and what happened next? If you were there then surely you at least know a bit about that too¡± questioned Sully.


    ¡°Well actually, like I said, I still a bit away from there and was only watching from the distance. Plus, I mean, with everything that was happening, people running about in the darkness, shouts and sounds of fighting, I figured I shouldn¡¯t get too close either, so I just kind of continued on my way¡±


    ¡°Wait, so there were other people fighting there as well, not just these mythological creatures you saw fit to make up? Can it actually be that the fight you were describing wasn¡¯t quite as fantastical as you were making it out to be and instead, was just a fight between some qi expansionists that had broken out late at night?¡±


    ¡°Welllll, I guess I suppose they could have just been cultivators¡± ceded Jake.


    ¡°Bloody hell, finally¡± said Sully while slamming his hands down on the table, ¡°We finally get something that actually makes some goddamn sense¡±


    ¡°So a fight between cultivators broke out at a place called Grenple village as you were passing by. Yes I suppose that is noteworthy, but still, you really need to cut back the crazy Jake. Now, is there any other news that¡¯s worth mentioning? And woe betide you if any of it involves dragons, demons or giants¡±

 Chapter 63 – News Travels Fast (2)

    Listening to the conversation going on on the next table over, Tom couldn¡¯t help but smile slightly, while the likes of Avery, Pike and Lance chuckled softly to themselves and Harrison raised his eyebrows in amusement.


    Tom had to admit, no matter how foolish humans could be, they were far better at telling stories than his own race and for someone who had lived as long as he had, the ability to tell a good story was something he greatly appreciated, a sentiment that seemed to be shared by his chuckling companions, as well as people from several other tables, however, not everyone was laughing. There were some, Adam included, who were thinking seriously about the events that the man, Jake, was describing.


    To Adam, Jake¡¯s seemingly foolish and extraordinary ramblings brought about a clarity of knowledge and understanding that he had been seeking all day and although he assumed that Jake was in fact exaggerating to a certain degree, the story told had several pieces of key information in it that helped unmuddy the waters and fill in the blanks of his inquiries earlier in the day.


    Jake¡¯s fantastical description of the fight taking place already let him know that the fight wasn¡¯t one between demons and dragons and such the like, but, as Jake¡¯s friend Sully and just about everyone else had surmised, one between cultivators. Adam however, unlike many others, was in the unique position of knowing from scene described and his knowledge of the actions of the clan, that this wasn¡¯t a mere fight between a couple of qi expansionist cultivators, but was in fact a far more serious conflict involving several qi condensation realm warriors, the patriarch of the Cardinal clan included.


    [Grenple village. So that¡¯s the place the bandits were hiding, the place that Jeffrey and Lucian went to attack, and from the sounds of it, their forces there weren¡¯t meagre either. From what was described, they must have had at least two qi condensation realm warriors present.


    I guess the reports I heard of Lucian uprooting them in the west weren¡¯t exaggerated at all. After all, with warriors of that calibre stationed there, Grenple village must have been a major stronghold for them. It was probably a hub for their activity in the west. With any luck, Lucian really will be able to uproot them.


    Plus, thankfully, with Grenple being their main base of operations in the area, the other hideouts being targeted shouldn¡¯t prove too difficult for our forces. After all, even though the bandit forces are far greater than we previously imagined, the two qi condensation warriors a testament to that, their strength is still limited.


    If their strength was such that Grenple village still wasn¡¯t their biggest stronghold in the west or they had comparable forces in each of their western hideouts, then their strength would be at a level where they could openly contend with us. Thinking logically, this just can¡¯t be the case. After all, after the Tom incident, when we started pursuing them with a purpose and fervour we hadn¡¯t shown before, they retreated away and hid in their shells, avoiding us at all cost. If I¡¯m misjudging the situation and the strength of their forces in the west, underestimating them, then there should have been no reason for the actions they have taken in the past.


    In fact, it¡¯s much more likely that the Tom incident, where they seemed to be openly challenging us, was actually the result of some internal divisions within their organization, between those who have thus far kept a low profile, operating carefully so as not to get caught and those who no longer believe they have a need to hold back on their actions. It would seem however that the latter of those two factions have exposed them far more than they ever could have anticipated and now, the genie can¡¯t be put back in the bottle.


    Well, whatever the case is inside their organization, one thing is for sure, after today, their overall strength and the scale of their operation should both have diminished by no small amount. The clan has truly made significant progress in this matter]


    Aside from Adam, who had begun deeply pondering on the things Jake had said and what it meant as part of the wider goings on of the North-West, there were a few others who also had a little bit of knowledge of what was being talked about and now took this time to start discussing it amongst themselves.


    On a third table, located beside Tom¡¯s and Jake¡¯s, two people, Nate and Kat, were listening on intently as well, Kat with a sense of earnest interest and Nate with a sense of smug superiority.


    ¡°Ha, what an idiot. Dragons, demons, how stupid. I¡¯ll tell you now Kat, the real people responsible for that battle were the Cardinal clan, they¡¯re the ones who attacked Grenple¡± said Nate, putting on an air of all knowing.


    ¡°The Cardinal clan? Are you sure?¡± asked Kat in confusion.


    ¡°Yeah, it was them. I know a guy who works for them, got it from him, but then again it¡¯s easy enough to figure out¡± said Nate.


    ¡°Huh. The Cardinal clan. They¡¯ve been really active lately, haven¡¯t they? First they attacked some people in the town and now they¡¯re going around attacking villages, isn¡¯t that really bad? I didn¡¯t think they were like that¡± said Kat.Stolen story; please report.


    ¡°They aren¡¯t attacking innocent people Kat. The place they raided in town the other day was home to some criminal organization and didn¡¯t you hear the story that was told. Clearly the village had some powerful cultivators there. Don¡¯t you think that¡¯s a little bit suspicious? I mean, why would some little village have people as strong as that?¡± explained Nate.


    ¡°Ah, I guess that does make some sense, but are you sure what you heard was right? I mean, you did just say you heard it all from someone who works for the clan. He¡¯s hardly going to tell you if they¡¯re doing bad things¡± questioned Kat.


    ¡°I¡­ it¡­ its common knowledge Kat¡± stuttered Nate, not quite sure how to respond.


    ¡°Everyone knows what¡¯s happening with the Cardinal clan, they¡¯re going after the bandits. It all started a couple of months ago remember, when a member of their clan was killed just a couple miles from Hill City, then they went in uproar and had thousands of troops scouring over the countryside, only they couldn¡¯t find anything and even lost some more of their people¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but can we be sure that wasn¡¯t just a ploy on their part. After all, ever since they took over from the Hill family, the king said they could only rule a certain amount of land instead of the whole North-West, yet now, they¡¯ve expanded their forces and are even attacking people outside of their territory. Are they not just making excuses to expand their rule while ignoring the royal decree?¡± said Kat.


    ¡°That, what, what?¡± Nate said incredulously, the volume of his voice rising.


    ¡°Kat, how out of touch with reality are? You¡¯re worse than that Jake person¡± said Nate heatedly, exasperated beyond belief that his companion would show such incomprehensible ineptitude and most importantly that after thinking she would be impressed with his inside information, she instead didn¡¯t think any of it was true.


    ¡°Hey!¡± came a shout from Jake on the next table over, followed by guffawing laughter from Sully.


    ¡°Just leave it be¡± said Bert, patting him on the shoulder.


    ¡°The royal decree was set 100 years ago Kat and the Cardinal clan have never broken it. Plus, you can¡¯t dismiss everything as unfounded gossip Kat. I mean, the 7<sup>th</sup> elder of their clan lost his two sons, literally everyone was talking about and they took a hit to their reputation because of it. Are you really going to say that that¡¯s a ploy too? Do you really think they would let something like that happen?¡± said Nate.


    ¡°Well I don¡¯t know. I was just thinking out loud Nate. The big clans do stuff like that¡± said Kat angrily.


    ¡°Yeah, in the South! But we¡¯re not in the South Kat, the northern clans aren¡¯t that conniving¡± argued Nate.


    ¡°Oh, so are you calling me stupid?¡± said Kat confrontationally.


    ¡°What? No, that¡¯s not what I was saying, but the things you¡¯re saying right now are stupid¡±


    ¡°Oh, so you are calling me stupid then¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s, argh, why are you being like this Kat¡± said Nate to an angry Kat as their conversation started to devolve more into a domestic dispute than anything else, the people on the surrounding tables soon losing interest and beginning to talk amongst themselves again.


    ¡°Wow, that woman doesn¡¯t seem very smart¡± said Jake.


    ¡°Like you¡¯re one to talk¡± said Sully.


    ¡°But I¡¯ll tell you what, the man¡¯s right. She is worse than you. The Cardinals hunting the bandits really is common knowledge. I wonder how she could have such stupid views?¡±


    ¡°Probably an idiot¡± said Bert.


    ¡°Mind you, there are some towns and villages out there that are biased against the Cardinals and think some crazy stuff about them¡±


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ve been to a few places of those places. It¡¯s a bit weird actually. I¡¯m surprised anyone can think that way since the clan has always had a good reputation¡± said Jake.


    ¡°I guess it all has to do with how they rose to power as the governors of Hill City¡± said Sully.


    ¡°Well, the whole area did used to be ruled by the Hill family and they ruled for 3000 years at that. It¡¯s hardly surprising that there are some biased people out there¡± said Bert.


    ¡°Yeah, it seems like it¡¯s mostly minor families from small towns and villages that think that way, people that supported the Hill Clan then suffered when they fell. Still though, after what they did, I can¡¯t believe anyone could still have good feelings about them¡± said Jake.


    ¡°Well, like I say, 3000 years of history doesn¡¯t go away just like that. Besides, it¡¯s as you said, it¡¯s the former supporters of the Hill Clan, the ones that were involved in the conflict 100 years ago that think like that. Many of them suffered foundation shaking losses and even if they no longer view the Hill family of old in a good light, they¡¯re all resentful over what happened, remaining focused on past glory and blaming the Cardinal Clan for their downfall instead of accepting it as the natural punishment for their crimes, even ignoring that it was by royal decree that the Cardinal Clan acted the way they did and were then made the new governors of Hill City¡± said Bert.


    ¡°You know, you¡¯d think they¡¯d get over it already. None of them were alive when it happened. It was their ancestors that did the crime and it was their ancestors that were punished for it. I don¡¯t see why they should be upset about it either; they were hardly born beggars on the street. If they care so much about how powerful or wealthy their families used to be they should just go out and earn some money¡±


    ¡°Yeah, amen to that. Hard work, it¡¯s what I do every day¡± said Jake.


    ¡°Every day?¡± questioned Sully.


    ¡°It¡¯s what I do almost every day¡± corrected Jake.


    ¡°But I have to say, those two said some pretty interesting stuff. So the Cardinals are behind it, and they raided some place in town yesterday as well, is that true?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, it caused a fair bit of commotion. The town guard even came and blocked off the street so everyone knew something serious was going down¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s a surprise. The town guard rarely does anything¡±


    ¡°Exactly, though I suppose they have been fairly active recently, what with the mimic situation an all¡±


    ¡°Wait, there¡¯s a mimic?¡±


    ¡°Yep¡± replied Bert.


    ¡°Shit. How long?¡±


    ¡°Bout a month¡±


    ¡°How many dead?¡±


    ¡°9, I think. It might be 10¡±


    ¡°Damn. I¡¯m glad I¡¯m not stopping for long then. I¡¯ll be back on the road in another couple of days, guess I¡¯ll have to be careful while I¡¯m here. I sure as hell don¡¯t want to be killed by one of those freaks¡± said Jake.


    ¡°Yes, you should be careful¡± said Ray quietly as he sat on Tom¡¯s table and listened to Jake and Sully¡¯s conversation.


    ¡°What was that?¡± asked Harrison, curious because Ray had been quiet all night.


    ¡°Oh, nothing. Nothing important¡± he said as his eyes tightened.

 Chapter 64 – News Travels Fast (3)

    ¡°Hah, it seems there¡¯s a lot going on at the moment¡± said Jake as he let out a gasp of air.


    ¡°Yeah, it seems there is quite a bit going on. The mimic situation is already one thing but what that woman said was true. The Cardinal clan really have been rather active lately, all starting from that bandit incident a couple of months back, even being active out here at the border. And it¡¯s not just them. A couple dozen Fireblaze Sect disciples just arrived here as well and have already started stirring up trouble¡± said Sully.


    ¡°Oh you don¡¯t know the half of it¡± said Jake excitedly while perking up again, a glint in his eyes once more, appearing as though he was about to launch into some great story again.


    [Man, I can¡¯t believe I got so caught up in the conversation that I forgot to tell them this. This news is basically gold standard and only just arrived when I did. There¡¯s no way they would have heard it yet]


    ¡°I told you I was staying down in Merryton right¡± started Jake.


    ¡°Well, those Fireblaze Sect disciples you just mentioned showing up aren¡¯t the only ones in the North West at the moment. In fact, there are about a hundred of them, maybe more and they were accompanied by two of their sect elders¡±


    ¡°Oh? Really? A hundred of them and two sect elders as well? We¡¯ve only seen a couple dozen of them and certainly no elders of any sort, otherwise people would be talking about it¡± said Sully.


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m sure. I saw them enter Merryton while I was still there and they actually left slightly before me, splitting into groups and heading towards the different border towns, no doubt aiming to temper themselves by entering the Tainted Forest. Only the thing is, these disciples, they¡¯re not that impressive. They¡¯re basically all just body strengthening cultivators and most of them aren¡¯t that young either. I¡¯m guessing that they¡¯re actually the rejects of their sect and that¡¯s why they¡¯ve come this far for martial training instead of just doing it in the South. After all, it¡¯s a long way from here to their sect and considering they can enter the Forest in the south as well, I see no other reason why they would have come here¡±


    ¡°So you reckon they¡¯re the rejects of their sect?¡± chuckled Sully.


    ¡°That¡¯s a good theory and I¡¯ll admit the sect disciples I saw earlier today really were only at the body strengthening level, but, there¡¯s a bit of a flaw in logic. If they were rejects, why would they be followed by two of their sect elders?¡±


    ¡°Well, ok, I¡¯m a little shaky on that point but like I said, none of the disciples that were part of that group were exceptional and I think that might be the reason for what those sect elders did next, because, you see, after leaving with their disciples, they stopped again and decided to just stay in a town inside the Merry Clan¡¯s territory and let their disciples carry on by themselves. I¡¯m guessing that after travelling for so long with a bunch of their weak disciples, having to babysit them, they got bored and decided to just send them off on their own while they rested¡±


    ¡°Ok, I think I see how this story is developing. If I¡¯m not mistaken, why those sect elders were traveling with some of their weak disciples isn¡¯t important, rather it¡¯s the elders themselves that are important¡± said Bert.


    ¡°Oh, you¡¯re good Bert. You catch on quick, because the disciples aren¡¯t the main part of this story. The elders are¡± said Jake, praising Bert for catching on so quick, ¡°and what they did next¡± he continued, his tone and body language becoming a lot more sombre and serious and the smile on his face disappearing.


    ¡°You see, those sect elders, they didn¡¯t just rest where they were. No. They also raped a town¡¯s girl¡± said Jake with disgust in his voice.


    ¡°The Southerner Scum!¡± shouted Sully in outrage after hearing what Jake had to say, slamming his drink on the table and causing a great commotion. He was not however, the only one who expressed such sentiments. There were still several people from surrounding tables listening to the conversation going on between the trio of Jake, Bert and Sully and when they too heard this, a string a similar curses could be heard.


    ¡°The Bastards!¡±


    ¡°Savages!¡±


    ¡°Absolute scum¡± came several voices from around the room.


    ¡°Jake, continue with the story¡± said a serious Bert after gesturing for Sully to calm down.


    ¡°Well, those elders of the Fireblaze Sect, after resting for a few days, while walking the streets, they saw a pretty girl. Now the girl in question, she was from a wealthy merchant family in the town and was just returning home when they saw her. It should have been an ordinary day for her, only, those sect elders, they followed her into her home, they killed her family, then they raped her and afterwards, they just left town and started following after their disciples¡± said Jake, relaying the events of the tragic story.


    ¡°The cruel bastards¡± said Sully.


    ¡°And they just left? What about the Merry clan¡¯s forces? What about the town guard?¡±


    ¡°Well that¡¯s the thing, they only found out about it after the fact. By the time they found out what had happened and who was responsible, the sect elders were already out the gates. Plus, the strongest person in the town was the mayor and he was only a late level qi expansionist, whereas the two sect elders were both qi condensation warriors. That being the case, the only thing he could do was send word to Merryton and hope they sent some people over quickly. But even then, that would still require the highest level experts of the Merry clan and they might not have even acted. After all, the Fireblaze Sect is incredibly powerful and also incredibly unreasonable. The Merry clan might have gotten away with killing their elders retaliation free within their own territory, especially after what they did, but if they pursued them outside of their territory to kill them, the Sect would be sure to respond¡±


    ¡°Damn, so the fuckers just got away with. Unbelievable¡± said an angry Sully.


    ¡°No. They didn¡¯t¡± said Jake, a smile reappearing on his face and his mood lightening up once more.


    ¡°Earlier, when you were talking about the Cardinal Clan and the Fireblaze sect disciples being active lately and I said ¡®you don¡¯t know the half of it¡¯, I wasn¡¯t referring to just the sect disciples¡±


    ¡°Ohh?¡± said Bert curiously, ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°Well, when I said that the strongest person in the town where this took place was only a late level qi expansionist cultivator, that wasn¡¯t strictly true. You know the 12<sup>th</sup> elder of the Cardinal Clan¡± said Jake.


    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ve heard of her¡± said Sully a bit enthusiastically.


    ¡°Alessa Cardinal. The crimson babe.¡± He said.


    ¡°The scarlet seductress¡± replied Jake as they started to discuss how attractive they found her and Sully began making some vulgar hand motions.


    Meanwhile, Bert, who was once more taking a backseat to all of the conversation, was taking a drink from his tankard and caught site of a young man from the next table over staring at him and his friends. Frowning, he looked more closely at the young and soon caught site of the insignia of the Cardinal Clan that they were discussing, causing him to open his eyes wide in shock and to spray out his drink all over the faces of Jake and Sully as thoughts spun rapidly in his mind.


    [Oh crap, we¡¯ve been sitting next to a direct member of the Cardinal Clan all this time and he¡¯s clearly listening to what we¡¯re saying. This isn¡¯t good. Oh God, Jake and Sully are actually talking about one of their elders like that. They¡¯re going to get punched in the face, they¡¯re definitely going to get punched in the face. I might get punched in the face too. Wait, no, we¡¯ve been talking for a while now and none of us have been punched yet. He might not do anything at all but I should definitely get Jake and Sully to stop talking like that]


    ¡°Oh God, my eyes¡±


    ¡°Argh, what hell¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong with you?¡±


    ¡°Bert what the Fuck was th-¡± were the shouts coming from Jake and Sully before the both of them felt their heads get smacked.


    [Ow. What the fuck is he doing? First he spits his drink out all over my face and then he slaps me over the head as though he¡¯s the one that was wronged. This is unjust] thought both Jake and Sully incredulously, not understanding why Bert had done what he just did and feeling especially wronged that when they had tried to ask him about it he even went and slapped them over the head.


    ¡°What am I doing, what are you doing?¡± said Bert in an accusatory tone of voice.


    ¡°Talking about her like that, calling her names, making vulgar hand gestures, she¡¯s an elder of the Cardinal Clan, the daughter of their patriarch and a martial genius who once saved a village from a roaming qi beast attack, you should treat her with more respect¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    [What! When on earth did you ever have such strong feelings about her? That¡¯s why you hit us and sprayed your drink over us. That¡¯s unbelievable] shouted Jake and Sully in their minds, still feeling extremely wronged by what Bert had just done, however, just as they were both about to speak up in complaint, Bert said something that caused them to reconsider their position and simmer down.


    ¡°Honestly, I can¡¯t believe you can talk about her that way given the nature of what is being discussed¡± said Bert.


    ¡°Ah, ok, yeah, fine. I¡¯ll eh, just continue with the story¡± said Jake, much to Bert¡¯s relief as he saw the expression of the young man on the other table seem to ease up.


    ¡°As I was saying. Alessa Cardinal¡±


    ¡°Now this is something that gets talked about a lot in Merryton, because as it would seem, she¡¯s rather close with the Merry Clan or rather, she¡¯s rather close with a certain member of the Merry Clan. In fact, there¡¯s a lot of gossip that the two of them are actually involved with each other, only no one knows for sure, but, whatever the case, we do know that she spends a lot of time with him. Now, this is where it gets important. Guess where he lives?¡± said Jake.


    ¡°In the town¡± guessed Bert.


    ¡°Bingo¡± said Jake, ¡°and as it just so happens, she was visiting him at the time¡±


    ¡°Now, do you know how strong she is?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Yeah, she¡¯s meant to be at the peak of qi expansion right? But still, you said the sect elders were qi condensation warriors. Even if she was there, what could she do?¡± answered Sully, following up with a question of his own.


    ¡°I¡¯m glad you asked that Sully and I¡¯ll explain it in just a bit. Going back to the story, just after the two sect elders had left the town, a servant of the girl¡¯s family arrived at their home and discovered the family and the rest of the servants dead. Except, those two sect elders, they left the girl alive. Badly injured, but alive. She was able to tell the servant what happened and the servant then went and screamed for help¡±


    ¡°Now being in the wealthy part of town, there were already members of the town guard not that far away and they rushed over when they heard the screaming. Only, like I say, at that point, there wasn¡¯t really anything they could do; only being able to forward the news to the mayor, who would then have to forward it to Merryton¡±


    ¡°But, and here¡¯s the thing, the servant girl didn¡¯t just stop at screaming for the town guard. No, she knew they wouldn¡¯t be able to do anything, not against sect elders. She didn¡¯t know how powerful they were exactly, but she knew if she wanted justice then she¡¯d need to find the strongest person in town she could and beg them for help. So, after the town guard rushed over and went inside to help the girl, the maid ran to the Silva Restaurant, the most prestigious restaurant in town, where all the richest and strongest people ate. Where she¡¯d passed by earlier on her way to work and saw the 12<sup>th</sup> elder of the Cardinal Clan, Alessa Cardinal, enter with her friend from the Merry Clan¡± said Jake.


    ¡°So the maid was able to find someone strong straight away. But that still doesn¡¯t answer all the questions. Alessa Cardinal still shouldn¡¯t have been capable of dealing with either of those sect elders, much less the two of them together¡± reasoned Sully.


    ¡°Well here¡¯s where I answer your question from earlier¡± said Jake while smiling.


    ¡°Because you see, Alessa Cardinal wasn¡¯t just going to that restaurant for no reason. This wasn¡¯t just like any other ordinary day where she¡¯d go there. No, that day, she was going there to celebrate. And do you know what she was celebrating? Only her breakthrough from the peak of qi expansion into the realm of qi condensation¡±


    ¡°Blimey¡± said Sully in awe.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t she only, what, 28 this year. That¡¯s frickin unbelievable¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that is impressive. A true martial genius. The Cardinal Clan are lucky to have her¡± added Bert, thinking deeply about her impressive achievement and about just how much of a powerhouse the Cardinal Clan were when it came to martial cultivation.


    ¡°Haha, so as it turns out, there was someone strong enough to deal with those bastards from the Fireblaze Sect. Tell me, what happened next?¡± asked Sully.


    ¡°Well, as I was saying, the servant girl ran into the restaurant, then she ran straight up to Alessa Cardinal, got on her knees and begged for her help, telling her what had happened and begging for justice. Now of course, when good ole Alessa Cardinal heard this, she was furious and she wasn¡¯t the only one. And here is where another piece of interesting news comes in. Because, not only is this town the home of Alessa Cardinal¡¯s Merry Clan friend, but, it¡¯s also the hometown of an elder from the Iron Fist Sect and guess what, not only was he visiting home at the time, but, he was also eating in the very same restaurant as Alessa Cardinal. So now, there wasn¡¯t just one qi condensation expert who was furious over what had happened, no, there were two¡± said Jake, pausing to take a breath while Sully, Bert and everyone else on the surrounding tables listened intently.


    ¡°Straight away, Alessa Cardinal and the Iron Fist Sect elder left the restaurant looking for the Fireblaze elders, only to find out that they had already left town. But the two of them weren¡¯t just going to leave it at that. Not after what happened to that poor girl and her family, not to mention all the servants that were killed too. No, they were out for blood. So what if the Sect elders had already left town? They¡¯d just chase after them. In fact, it was better that way. If they¡¯d fought in town, countless people would have been at risk, especially considering the martial techniques of the Fireblaze Sect, but, out in the open, away from the town and away from other people, that¡¯s when they could really go all out¡±


    ¡°Now of course, they still had to catch up to the elders from the Fireblaze Sect, but what kind of people were they, they were elders of the Cardinal Clan and the Iron Fist sect. The two of them naturally both had Swift horses and those two southern bastards had only been gone for about 10 minutes or so. Catching up, that was easy enough¡± said Jake, looking as though he was the one who did all this.


    ¡°And what then?¡± inquired someone from another table.


    ¡°Well¡± began Jake, leaning back on his chair.


    ¡°No one actually saw the fight as it happened, but we all saw the aftermath. Great amounts of land were split apart and cracked. Large areas of grass had been burnt to ash, the ground beneath it smouldering and scorched. But most importantly, two dead elders of the Fireblaze Sect and two very alive pursuers that had met injustice with justice. That and a good ole can of whoop ass¡± finished Jake, a large grin spread across his face as ¡°Whoop¡¯s¡±, ¡°Yeah¡¯s¡± and ¡°Hell Yeah¡¯s¡± resounded across the room, along with the clattering and banging of cups and fists as everyone celebrated the outcome of the story.


    ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­


    Everyone returning to their own conversations, the cacophony of noise died down and the room was instead filled with the usual background chatter. Meanwhile, the people on Tom¡¯s table turned to look at each other to discuss the events they¡¯d just heard. Events which were arguably even more important than those regarding Lucian and the bandit subjugation.


    ¡°The 12<sup>th</sup> elder killed an elder from the Fireblaze Sect. Is that bad? I mean, good riddance to those elders, they were despicable people who should¡¯ve been killed 100 times over but isn¡¯t the Fireblaze Sect meant to be super powerful? And from what I¡¯ve heard from you guys and that guy just now, they¡¯re also meant to be really unreasonable. Will they retaliate?¡± asked Lance.


    ¡°Hahaha¡± laughed Pike as he slapped Lance on the shoulder.


    ¡°And here I was finally starting to think you were more than just a pretty boy from the country. Don¡¯t worry, the clan is stronger than you think, something you¡¯ll learn after you¡¯ve worked here longer¡± said Pike.


    ¡°Hmm¡­ well, things might get a bit difficult for any of our clan members that travel to the South but on the whole, Pike¡¯s right. The clan is strong and if the FireBlaze Sect wanted to cause any trouble for us in the North, they¡¯d have to bring an army with them¡± said Adam.


    ¡°Yeah, and even if they did, our good neighbours the Iron Fist Sect wouldn¡¯t just sit back either¡± added Avery.


    ¡°Actually, they¡¯d have to be concerned about the Flowing Water Sect too. Many people don¡¯t know this but back in the day, the 2<sup>nd</sup> elder used to be a disciple of their sect, back before she married into the clan that is¡± said Adam.


    ¡°Really? I didn¡¯t know that¡± said Pike in astonishment. Given that he¡¯d essentially been born in the clan, both his parents working for the clan as servants, he was surprised that he¡¯d never heard about this.


    ¡°Oh yeah¡± confirmed Adam.


    ¡°Most people don¡¯t know because of how long ago it was and because she only ever uses her martial skills while hunting in danger spots that most other cultivators don¡¯t go, but she was legitimate disciple of their sect. In fact, I heard from my grandfather that when her husband died they even invited her back to be a Grand Elder, but she said no because she wanted to remain at the clan¡± said Adam.


    ¡°Blimey. I didn¡¯t realise the clan was that well connected¡± said Pike.


    [Nor did I] thought Tom.


    [It seems that despite being from the current strongest family line of the Cardinal Clan, my body¡¯s former owner wasn¡¯t much in the know. In fact, aside from grandfather, I¡¯m not even clear on the cultivation levels of the top elders, only that in the North-West, the only people who can best the Clan are the Iron Fist Sect]


    ¡°Well it¡¯s not that we¡¯re particularly well connected with them or anything but given the 2<sup>nd</sup> elder¡¯s strength and position as one of their former disciples, it might be enough for them to get involved should the Clan ever face such an attack. Plus, it¡¯s hardly like the two sects are on good terms with each other anyway. Even if there was no connection at all or if it was some other northern clan they might still get involved¡± said Adam.


    ¡°Well whatever the case, the Clan is strong enough to withstand anything they could throw our way. But enough about the clan¡¯s strength, what about the 12<sup>th</sup> elder¡¯s? A qi condensation warrior at 28, that¡¯s damn impressive. The 12<sup>th</sup> elder is a genius¡± praised Pike.


    ¡°Not to mention she was also able to best an elder of the Fireblaze Sect¡± added Avery.


    ¡°A true martial genius¡± concluded Harrison.


    ¡°Yes. Yes she is¡± said Adam while losing himself in thought.


    [Qi condensation already. Good on you cuz]


    ¡°Oh¡± said Avery, raising his eyebrows.


    ¡°You seem a little lost. Could it be that you¡¯re depressed she beat you to the punch?¡± joked Avery.


    ¡°Oh I never thought I¡¯d make it to qi condensation before her. She does have a 4 year head start after all. I¡¯m just wondering if I¡¯ll be able to beat her record. Unfortunately, I only have until I¡¯m 28 to do that, so it¡¯s not looking that good for me¡± said Adam.


    ¡°I guess it doesn¡¯t help that even without a 4 year head start she¡¯s still a martial genius eh?¡±


    ¡°Yes, she certainly doesn¡¯t set the bar low¡± sighed Adam.


    ¡°You know, it¡¯s not just her you¡¯re contending with¡± spoke up Tom.


    ¡°I also plan to break through to qi condensation before I¡¯m 28¡±


    ¡°Oh¡± said Adam in surprise, eyebrows raised.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t realise you had such an ambition¡±


    ¡°I have reasons that compel me¡± said Tom.


    ¡°In fact, I plan to break through faster than anyone ever has before. And I don¡¯t just plan to stop there either¡±


    ¡°Wow Tom, you¡¯ve really gotten more into cultivating than I realised¡± said Adam.


    ¡°Cultivating all day is already something not everyone has the patience to do, but to think you also had this kind of ambition, you¡¯ve surprised me¡±


    ¡°Yes, well, I don¡¯t plan to dawdle at the lower cultivation realms¡± said Tom.


    [I¡¯ve only got 20 years to beat this game after all]


    ¡°Good on you cuz, but if you¡¯re truly planning on competing with us, you have quite the deficit to make up. Mind you, considering you only started cultivated recently, even if it takes you until after you¡¯re 28, your accomplishments would still be higher than ours. As for if you¡¯re actually able to do that, well, then you¡¯d just be a monster¡± said Adam.


    ¡°Perhaps¡± replied Tom.


    ¡°Hmm, where are you going? Are you leaving already?¡± he said, noticing that Adam had begun to get up.


    ¡°No, not leaving. I¡¯m just going to go and say hello to our friends, Jake and Sully, on the next table. I¡¯ll be back in a bit¡±


    ¡°Oh, ok¡± said Tom as he turned to face the likes of Avery and Pike to continue the conversation.

 Chapter 65 – News Travels Fast (4)

    AC 3000, 8th month, 10th day, 3 days after the Cardinal assault on the bandit residence in Acorn, inside a partially trashed meeting room in the bandit hideout located approximately 30 miles north of Hill City in the area known as the northern hills.


    ¡°So¡± said Francis, a greyish-blond haired man in his late fifties, the boss of the bandit organisation and also its most powerful member.


    ¡°What are our losses?¡±


    ¡°Ahem, well¡± began a green robed old man, clearing out his throat.


    ¡°As you well know, three days ago, the Cardinals attacked our site in Acorn. Naturally, the forces there have already been eliminated, though some of the personnel weren¡¯t present at the time and were thus able to escape unscathed¡± he said, stopping as Francis waved his hand to cut him off.


    ¡°The Acorn site is of little consequence. Its two strongest members were only at the 7<sup>th</sup> level of qi expansion and it only had a smattering of mid and low level expansionists. The only person of true note from there was Duncan, but even then, a dead genius is no genius at all¡±


    ¡°Ah, actually, Duncan is in the Forest at the moment, tempering himself and improving his arts¡± said the green robed old man.


    ¡°Oh. I see. Good. Then we can at least salvage the most valuable asset we had there. Make sure to recall him. I want to bring him into the fold¡±


    ¡°Into the core of our group?¡± asked the green robed old man.


    ¡°Yes¡± replied the boss.


    ¡°Is that really wise? Someone of such common birth and no prior affiliation with us¡± said a silver haired man, voicing his discontent.


    ¡°It would not be the first time it¡¯s happened. Besides, there¡¯s no point wasting his talent by keeping him on the fringe of our operation, especially since he¡¯ll probably reach qi condensation in a few years anyway. When that happens, it¡¯ll be better if he already has a place in our core¡±


    ¡°Still¡± began the silver haired man before being cut off.


    ¡°Are you displeased with my decision Morgan?¡± questioned Francis in a raised voice, staring him down.


    Morgan met Francis¡¯ gaze for a few moments before deciding to back down.


    ¡°No. Never mind¡± he said.


    ¡°Good. Now back to my question¡± said Francis, turning his gaze back the green robed old man.


    ¡°What are our losses? And never mind about the Acorn site. As we all know already, the Cardinal¡¯s left Hill City with their forces after it was hit. They clearly weren¡¯t doing this to attack the same place twice¡±


    ¡°Yes, quite¡± answered the green robed old man.


    ¡°Now then, where would you like me to begin?¡± he asked.


    ¡°Well, since you informed me when I first arrived that our main base of operations in the area, Grenple, has gone dark, start there; then give me an overview of our total losses" said Francis.


    ¡°Yes, of course¡± replied the green robed man, collecting his thoughts before speaking to the room.


    ¡°Now, considering the strength of the force that left Hill City three days, under the leadership of the Cardinal Clan¡¯s patriarch himself no less, as well as a story which has started making the rounds in Acorn, I believe it¡¯s safe to assume that Grenple base has suffered the same fate as Acorn, with all hands lost, not counting the few lucky survivors who may not have been there at the time. This would put our losses in personnel from Grenple at 2 Qi Condensation Warriors, over 100 Qi Expansionists and nearly 2000 Body Strengthening Cultivators¡± he said, causing a few of the people in the room to wince and have ugly looks on their faces. These were no small losses and although body strengthening cultivators could be easily replaced, the same could not be said for those of higher cultivation levels, especially those 2 Qi Condensation Warriors.


    ¡°Continue¡± commanded the boss.


    ¡°If I then take into account the reports of other locations hit, as well as places that are suspected to have been hit, I project our total losses in personnel to be at 3 Qi Condensation Warriors, around 180 Qi Expansionists and perhaps around 2800 Body Strengthening Cultivators¡± continued the green robed man.


    ¡°I see¡± said the boss, not showing any emotion.


    ¡°The condensation warriors?¡±


    ¡°They would be the two in Grenple, Old man Harry and our southern friend, as well as bastard axe Axel from a different site, confirmed dead by Fast Feet Fenrick over there who decided to flee from battle¡± said the old man, indicating towards a man in orange garments.


    ¡°It was an unwinnable battle. We were assaulted by the 1<sup>st</sup> elder of the Aurelius clan as well as another early level Qi Condensation warrior and numerous high level Expansionist warriors. I barely got away myself and if Axel had any sense he would have fled too¡± said Fenrick, angered by the accusatory words. His words however, did not stop the others in the room from looking down on him with mocking, scorn and displeasure.


    ¡°Tell me, was it just because of your lack of skill that you fled or could it be that you were too scared to meet the enemy in battle?¡± said a grey haired woman mockingly.


    ¡°No, he made the correct decision. There¡¯s no point in offering yourselves to slaughter when there¡¯s no need and no chance of victory. All that does is weaken our position¡± said Francis, understanding and agreeing with Fenrick¡¯s actions, though not happy at the outcome of the events that had transpired.


    ¡°But if you fought with them directly, can I take it to mean your identity was exposed?¡± he said in a harsher tone.


    ¡°Yes, they recognised me¡± admitted Fenrick.


    ¡°Damn fool¡± chastised Francis.


    ¡°Does no one hide their identity when out on the job anymore?¡± he asked angrily.


    ¡°Well¡± began another in an unconcerned voice before he too experienced being cut off by Francis.


    ¡°Oh shut up. Judging from how all of you are reacting to this it¡¯s clear you don¡¯t take it seriously¡± grumbled Francis.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry Francis¡± said the grey haired woman from before.


    ¡°Some of us still do follow protocol¡±


    ¡°Yes¡± agreed the green robed old man.


    ¡°Though it would seem some of us have become complacent¡± he said casting his gaze towards Fenrick.


    ¡°Yes. It¡¯s just good that the person in question isn¡¯t significant enough to tie back to the rest of us, at least not by his identity alone. I don¡¯t think I have to say what the repercussions would be if one of our core members was caught and questioned, and if his willingness to run away is any indication, how can we expect him not to run his mouth off as well?¡± said the grey haired woman.


    ¡°Then rest assured Petunia, I have no intention of getting caught¡± replied Fenrick to the grey haired woman curtly.


    ¡°Though it¡¯ll probably be impossible for me to go through the Cardinal¡¯s clans land now¡± he added afterwards, speaking more to himself than anyone else and letting out an exasperated sigh at the end.


    ¡°Undoubtedly¡± spoke the green robed man.


    ¡°And perhaps throughout much of the North-West as well. The Cardinals have men in many places and if you¡¯re seen they¡¯ll send news back to their clan. Barring that, they¡¯ll no doubt inform the other major clans as well and may even put up your capture or death as a mission in the Iron Fist Sect¡±


    ¡°Yes, which makes your being seen problematic for the rest of us. From now on you¡¯re to remain out of sight. Don¡¯t go the cities, don¡¯t go the towns, don¡¯t even go to the villages. Heck, don¡¯t even travel. Just stay here until I tell you otherwise¡± ordered Francis sternly.


    ¡°Yes¡­ very well¡± replied a subdued Fenrick, displeased but with no other alternative than to accept Francis¡¯ order.


    ¡°Good. Now then, we¡¯ve digressed. I was asking about our losses. You¡¯ve covered personnel, what about our more physical losses? What resources has this foray of the Cardinal¡¯s into the western territory cost us?¡± asked Francis towards the green robed man again.


    Clearing his throat, the green robed old man spoke once more to sum up the losses they¡¯d incurred.


    ¡°Ahem, well unfortunately, our physical losses have been fairly high as well; most of them stemming from Grenple and the site presided over by Axel and Fenrick. The problem being that not only did Grenple have a fairly large stockpile as our western operating base but both it and Fenrick¡¯s site were both being used to train prospective cultivators¡±


    ¡°Adding everything up, I would estimate our total losses at perhaps about one ton of qi stone scraps, 400 low quality qi stones, 2 mid quality qi stones, a small scale qi furnace, over 1000 steel weapons, a couple hundred steel armours, several skysteel blades and a few miscellaneous defensive treasures and gems. I should also say that that¡¯s not including iron weapons and armour but since the markets are flooded with cheap pig iron I didn¡¯t think they were of any consequence¡± concluded the green robed old man.


    ¡°I see¡± said Francis in a monotone voice.


    ¡°So we¡¯ve lost about a 5<sup>th</sup> of our total forces and that many resources. That is¡­ unfortunate¡± he said, his face darkening as he let the numbers sink in. An unfortunate side effect of this however was that hearing his words and seeing his face, no one else dared to speak and the room plunged into silence.


    Taking a few moments to think things over, Francis sat in silence while collecting his thoughts before finally speaking again and breaking the tension that seemed to be permeating the air of the room.


    ¡°Our losses in the west¡± he began, ¡°are not small¡±


    ¡°And the deaths of 3, Qi Condensation warriors, are most regrettable, but, we cannot simply dwell on this alone. This meeting was planned before the events that have just transpired in the west. There are other matters to be discussed. I want to hear reports from all of you on what gains we¡¯ve made and if any other problems have arisen, if there are any concerns that should be addressed now lest they fester into something else¡±


    ¡°Sebastian¡± said Francis to the green robed old man.


    ¡°You can start, but first, I want to know why this place is such a mess¡± he said, his eyes glancing over several holes and slashes on the walls as well as a few broken bits of wood next to the wall that used to be a chair.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    ¡°And I don¡¯t just mean this room either; other parts of the base have also suffered damage, even if it is only cosmetic in nature¡± said Francis, clearly unimpressed with the state of things.


    ¡°Ah, that¡± replied Sebastian.


    ¡°That was caused by Samuel here¡± he said, gesturing to a man sitting beside him who¡¯d had his hands clenched into fists and an angry look on his face from the beginning.


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid his son Dug was the messenger we used for the site in Acorn and is now¡­ well¡­ dead. He didn¡¯t react well when he found out¡± explained Sebastian.


    ¡°Is that so¡± muttered Francis, pondering for a moment before ordering Sebastian to start.


    ¡°Thank you. In fact, there is a matter I consider quite pressing that I¡¯d like to discuss. It¡¯s about the safety of this base. I¡¯m not sure we can keep it hidden much longer¡± said Sebastian.


    ¡°You seem to have managed so far¡± remarked Francis.


    ¡°Yes, but I¡¯m afraid it¡¯s not been without its difficulties¡± said Sebastian.


    ¡°The Cardinal clan¡¯s 7<sup>th</sup> elder has been combing the northern hills with a vengeance ever since we killed his two sons. Even now there are hundreds of men from the Cardinal clan, the City Guard and even independent cultivators making their way through the hills looking for us and all our hideouts¡±


    ¡°Now the independent cultivators aren¡¯t really a problem because even if they do manage to find us we can usually convince them with the village outside that we¡¯re with a Hunters Guild and even if they don¡¯t believe us we can just kill them no problem. Unfortunately, it¡¯s not that easy with the Cardinal¡¯s forces. They¡¯re more organised and they know where their men are meant to be searching. We¡¯ve killed a few of them before that have chanced upon us but each time we do, the Cardinal¡¯s 7<sup>th</sup> elder is able to close in on us a bit more. Even if don¡¯t just hide the bodies but dump them someplace else, it still doesn¡¯t help. The only thing we can do is run the illusory Hills and Valleys formation whenever they get close¡±


    ¡°Unfortunately though, without you here we can¡¯t run it properly without using a significant amount of resources¡±


    ¡°Your cousin Bill¡± he said, indicating to the weakest person in the room, a mid-level qi expansionist who bore some resemblance to the boss but was younger and had brown hair instead of Francis¡¯ greying dirty blond colour, ¡°has helped mitigate this somewhat, however, his cultivation level is just too low, which limits his effectiveness. I was hopeful your son might be of greater help in the matter since he has a higher cultivation, however, be it his level of attainment in the formation or his temperament, he proved wholly unsuited for the task. Besides, although he was told to stay out of Hill City he¡¯s decided to spend none of his time here. Instead he¡¯s been off in the Fischer clan¡¯s territory¡±


    ¡°Sebastian, you¡¯re going off topic¡± said Francis.


    ¡°Ah, yes, sorry. Where was I again? Ah yes, the formation. As I was saying, we can¡¯t run it properly without you. It¡¯s such that without either you, Bill or a painful amount of resources we can¡¯t even give it any substance, it remaining wholly illusory in nature. During one such time a guardsman from the Cardinal clan actually fell through it. Needless to say, we killed him and his group but the end result was that the Cardinal¡¯s 7<sup>th</sup> elder started to focus his attention away from some of our other hideouts he was closing in on and onto us instead¡± explained Sebastian.


    ¡°Yes, I suppose that is problematic¡± said Francis contemplatively.


    ¡°Very¡± chimed in Morgan, who, like Sebastian and Samuel, was also stationed at this particular hideout and was frequently involved in operating its formation.


    ¡°Over the past 5 months we¡¯ve used a considerable amount of resources to keep the formation running and the more the 7<sup>th</sup> elder narrows his search on us, the more often we have to run it¡±


    ¡°Perhaps if you were to reveal more of the hidden technique behind its operation we won¡¯t have to worry about anymore¡­ difficulties¡± said Morgan slyly, words which caused Francis¡¯ face to darken once more.


    ¡°Morgan, you¡¯re overstepping your bounds again. Do you really think you have the right to act this way?¡± questioned Petunia assertively.


    ¡°Yes Morgan, you¡¯re overstepping your bounds. But you¡¯ll be glad to know that there¡¯s a solution to this little problem. Now that Fenrick has nowhere else to be, you¡¯ll have another Qi Condensation Cultivator to assist in handling the formation, helping to give it more¡­ substance¡± said Francis threateningly.


    ¡°Well then¡± he said, his threatening tone and demeanour completely disappearing.


    ¡°Now that that¡¯s been cleared up, does anyone else have any concerns they would like to address?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I would like to raise an issue¡± spoke a scar-faced man, ¡°and it¡¯s much along the same line as has already been discussed¡±


    ¡°Sebastian and Morgan have spoken about the difficulties this base has keeping hidden from the search parties roaming through the hills, but, they pose more of a problem than just the possibility of them discovering our base. What I mean is that it¡¯s been getting harder and harder to get here without being seen. And if it¡¯s harder for us, it must be considerably more difficult for our qi expansionist and body strengthening cultivators. I question just how much longer we can practically continue to use this base?¡± he said, voicing his thoughts.


    ¡°I find I have to agree with him on that point¡± said Bill.


    ¡°Our messengers are still able slip through the Cardinal¡¯s patrols but it¡¯s becoming increasingly harder for larger groups to move to and fro. As a result we can no longer transport food here and instead have to rely on our stockpiles and what little we¡¯re able to grow in the valley. If things continue to go the way they are then after a while we¡¯ll exhaust not just the cultivating resources we have stored here but also our food, while at the same time being unable to carry out our normal activities. Given these conditions, resolving the formation issue is only a stop gap measure and not a permanent solution, not unless the Cardinal¡¯s decide to stop searching the hills for us, which considering they know we¡¯re here are unlikely to do¡±


    [It¡¯s just one thing after another isn¡¯t it] thought Francis, getting a bit of a headache from all this.


    ¡°Then what do you suggest, we just abandon the base and hold all of our meetings in the city?¡± questioned Morgan.


    ¡°It¡¯s an idea¡± said the scar-faced man.


    ¡°It¡¯s not like the Cardinal¡¯s know we¡¯re the ones running this operation, nor would they be able to keep us under constant surveillance even if they suspected we were. They can¡¯t exactly see behind closed doors¡±


    ¡°No¡± said Francis, flat out rejecting the scar-faced man¡¯s idea.


    ¡°I won¡¯t risk all of us meeting in the city, nor will I abandon this base, even if our lower levelled cultivators can no longer launch offensive operations from it. As for food, there¡¯s easily a year¡¯s worth of dried food here and if need be I can bring more in myself. As for whether or not we assign a new meeting place however, I will take it into consideration¡±


    ¡°Now. Anyone else?¡± Francis asked.


    ¡°YES!¡± shouted Samuel, slamming his fist on the table.


    ¡°What are you going to do about the Cardinal¡¯s!? They¡¯ve uprooted our western bases and they¡¯ve killed my son, do you plan to do nothing like last time?¡± he said, highly aggravated.


    ¡°Samuel!¡± shouted Petunia, angry at his outburst.


    ¡°You dare to shout like that¡±


    ¡°Yes! Yes I do! My son¡¯s dead and I want revenge, but we¡¯ve been through this before 5 months ago and he had us do nothing¡± said Samuel.


    ¡°Regardless¡± said a frosty toned Sebastian beside him, ¡°that is no way to speak to our leader. However, I do agree that this is a very serious matter and that our course of action must be discussed¡±


    ¡°There is no need for any particular change¡± answered Francis in response to Samuel.


    ¡°Our approach last time was working, and, although what has happened this time is unfortunate, our other measures have helped limit the damage to the western territory whilst keeping our core safe¡±


    ¡°Indeed¡± agreed Sebastian.


    ¡°Which would suggest that we carry on the way we have been¡±


    ¡°Yes, but our losses this time are not the same as last time. Given that, would you still have us do nothing? At least let me go out and kill that bloody 7<sup>th</sup> elder of theirs¡± argued Samuel.


    ¡°Sigh, we have discussed this before. You are not to kill the Cardinal clan¡¯s 7<sup>th</sup> elder. If one of their elders is killed they¡¯ll recall their top elders, who are away at the moment. If that happens, this base and the core of our operation will be at a much greater risk of being discovered and destroyed. Need I remind you that of the perhaps 5 people in the entirety of the North-West that can best me in single combat, 2 of them belong to the Cardinal Clan?¡± said Francis.


    ¡°Is that it then? We do nothing? Will we ever do anything? Will we ever strike back at the Cardinal¡¯s and claim this land for ourselves?¡± asked Samuel.


    ¡°Once again, we have discussed this before¡± said Francis, losing a bit of patience.


    ¡°The 1<sup>st</sup> and 2<sup>nd</sup> elders of their clan are the only ones amongst them that pose any threat to me and both of them are in their 90¡¯s. So long as we wait 10 years, both of them will be dead, at which time, the North-West will be in the palm of my hand¡± he explained.


    ¡°Yes, but we might not have 10 years, might me? You yourself have seen to that. For so long you have told us that we must not expose ourselves too soon, that we must keep ourselves hidden, only performing select attacks on trade convoys or travellers, never directly attacking any of the great clans so as not to unduly draw their attention, yet it was your own son who did exactly that, attacking the Cardinal¡¯s directly and thus attracting their attention in way we¡¯d never done before. Then, just so your son could go frolicking in the city without chance of discovery, you ordered our forces to look out for the one who could expose him, exposing ourselves in the process and leading to our current losses in the West, my son included, and the funny thing is, with the way things have progressed, I have no doubt that this, Tom Cardinal, is still alive. Yet, after all this, you still sit there and say we should do nothing when it is your own wishy-washy attitude of neither fully committing to secrecy, nor to open and aggressive conflict, that has led to our current predicament, us getting weaker while the Cardinal¡¯s remain untouched¡± said Samuel in anger.


    Listening to this rant, there were some in the room, such as Petunia, who glared at Samuel hatefully or with displeasure, however, there were also some in the room who were moved by his words, falling into contemplation and shifting their gazes between him and their leader. Samuel himself found that his mind swayed as the anger he felt towards the Cardinal¡¯s over the death of his son actually started to shift towards Francis, blaming him and his leadership as the cause.


    No one had much time to think too deeply about these things however because Francis also became angry at this moment, losing his patience and slamming his fist on the table, startling everyone and pulling them out of their thoughts.


    ¡°Enough¡± snapped Francis.


    ¡°I said there was no particular need for change, not that there would be none at all. Our losses won¡¯t go unanswered. We will increase our attacks on trade and you can begin attacking the forces of the Cardinal Clan directly, both their guards and their blood members, however, my previous point still stands, none of their elders are to be killed and no one, No One, is to do anything rash¡± he said, with particular emphasis while looking at Samuel.


    ¡°Quite right¡± agreed Sebastian.


    ¡°Yes, however, Samuel did raise some important points. For instance, you may not have those 10 years you desire and not just because of the effort the Cardinals are putting in to finding us. Our southern friends are not like to wait that long and we¡¯ll be dragged in when they make their move, regardless of how much time has passed. Furthermore, they have started to show a bit of discontent on our side, voicing their displeasure at what they perceive to be a lack of action on our part. We may have to face the possibility that they¡¯ll expose us just to force us into action¡± said Bill.


    A few of the people in the room scoffed at these words of Bill¡¯s, Francis included, and a few mutterings of ¡®southerners¡¯ could be heard.


    ¡°They can be as displeased as they like, I don¡¯t care¡± said Francis.


    ¡°And as for purposefully exposing us, they know better than to do that. After all it goes against both of our shared interests¡± he explained.


    ¡°Perhaps, but we should still be prepared to take action should they decide to reconsider the nature of our relationship. After all, they want this land too and may not always consider us necessary for holding influence here¡± said Bill.


    ¡°Hah¡± scoffed Petunia.


    ¡°You worry too much. If they were so sure of themselves, they never would have approached us in the first place. They need us and they know it¡± she said.


    ¡°Yes, and they know there would be consequences to pay were they to betray us¡± added Francis.


    ¡°No argument there¡± spoke the scar-faced man.


    ¡°But before we continue, I¡¯d like to address another point brought up by Samuel, namely, Tom Cardinal and what to do about him. Assuming he¡¯s still alive, which at this point it seems rather obvious that he is, what with our western bases falling because the site manager of Acorn was apprehended whilst in pursuit of him, are we still going to pursue the matter of killing him?¡±


    ¡°No¡± said Francis with a sour look on his face.


    ¡°Not only is it clear that he¡¯s being watched by someone high ranked, meaning we¡¯d probably have to send someone in the realm of Qi Condensation to deal with him but he¡¯s no longer our highest priority. Our current objective is to hit back at the Cardinal¡¯s, which will require us being more careful than normal. Pursuing the matter of Tom Cardinal would only distract our forces and leave us open to exposure. Therefore, I hereby rescind the order for our forces to seek out and kill him. Make sure those orders are passed along¡± he said, though through grated teeth at the last part.


    [That ungrateful son of mine can just keep his distance a while longer]


    ¡°You know, one of us could just go and kill him¡± suggested Morgan, re-joining the conversation.


    ¡°For the site manager of Acorn to have been subdued, they clearly didn¡¯t send someone weak to watch over the boy, but I hardly think they¡¯d have sent someone of our calibre¡±


    [So you¡¯re suggesting that one of us, venerated Qi Condensation Warriors, must be forced to stoop to the level of assassinating some body strengthening runt? Have you lost all your pride?]


    ¡°No¡± rejected Francis.


    ¡°In this time when we¡¯re about to step up our actions against the Cardinals and the other major clans, I¡¯ll have to rely on all of you to make sure our operations are conducted with speed and surgical precision, leaving no room for mishaps and no loose ends¡±


    ¡°Very well, it was just a suggestion¡± said Morgan.


    ¡°A somewhat pointless one given that you¡¯re not free to do it anyway¡± chided Petunia.


    Morgan chuckled in response to this.


    ¡°Well my apologies if my work is more vital than yours, taking up more of my time, but this doesn¡¯t preclude others from taking action now, does it?¡± he replied, giving tit for tat.


    ¡°Stop with the bickering¡± said an unimpressed Francis, cutting through their nonsense.


    ¡°We¡¯ve talked about the most pressing issues there are to talk about, now we can get back to the original purpose of our meeting. Who will speak next?¡± he asked.


    ¡°I shall¡± said Petunia, steeping up to the plate.


    ¡°Good, and I hope what you have to say will be better than what we¡¯ve discussed so far¡± said Francis.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I can assure you, there have been no unforeseen or unfortunate circumstances on my end¡± she said arrogantly as she started her report.

 Chapter 66 – Duncan (1)

    AC 3000, 8th month, 10th day, inside the Tainted Forest.


    A tall, dark haired, blue eyed, handsome man, stood tall in the centre of eight people, smiling at the ringleader who was staring at him with a firm will.


    ¡°So, two disciples of the Flowing Water Sect, two Iron Fist Sect disciples, one from the Fischer clan and three independent cultivators. I wonder, what could you all possibly want with me?¡± asked the handsome man casually.


    ¡°Cut the crap Duncan, we know what you¡¯ve been doing. It¡¯s over¡± said the ringleader, an inner disciple of the Flowing Water Sect.


    ¡°Oh, and what would that be?¡± asked Duncan, completely unperturbed by the people surrounding him.


    ¡°You know full well what you¡¯ve been doing!¡± shouted one of the independent cultivators emotionally, sword clenched in his hand, ready and waiting, ¡°and you¡¯ll pay dearly for it¡±.


    ¡°Is that so¡± said Duncan, a smirk emerging on his face.


    ¡°Yes, it is¡± said the ringleader.


    ¡°And rightly deserved as well¡± said the stronger of the two Iron Fist Sect disciples.


    ¡°We all come out into this forest to train ourselves and make a living by hunting beasts; but instead, you¡¯ve been hunting people, killing them and stealing their gains for yourself. These actions of yours, they¡¯re despicable¡±


    ¡°Dishonourable to the extreme¡± added the other Iron Fist disciple.


    ¡°A criminal well deserving of death¡± commented the Fischer clansman.


    ¡°Oh¡± said Duncan with a raised eyebrow.


    ¡°These are some rather serious accusations you¡¯re making against me. I wonder where you got them from?¡± he said, a cockiness and confidence showing on his face.


    ¡°I thought I told you to cut the crap Duncan¡± said the ringleader, unimpressed.


    ¡°Its common knowledge that parties of cultivators have been going missing and getting killed out in the woods these past few months and not by the hands of qi beasts. None of us knew who was responsible up till now because you never left anyone alive, but this time, you made a mistake¡± he said, casting a quick glance over to the emotional independent cultivator who spoke out before.


    ¡°You left a survivor who was able to tell us of your crimes and when we followed him back to his dead friends it wasn¡¯t hard to follow your trail. So I ask you, do you dare to deny it?¡±


    ¡°Hah¡± chuckled Duncan, raising a hand to comb through his hair.


    ¡°Fine, I admit it. I¡¯m the one whose been killing all those people. But you should know one thing¡±


    ¡°And what would that be? You¡¯re not about to claim you did it all in self-defence are you?¡±


    ¡°Hahaha, no, nothing of the sort¡± laughed Duncan.


    ¡°I just wanted you to know, I don¡¯t make mistakes¡±


    ¡°And yet here we are¡± said the ringleader.


    ¡°And here you are, surrounded by us¡±


    ¡°Yes, and being the proud and just men that you are, you rushed over here without telling anyone else, am I right?¡± said Duncan, smiling a smile that unnerved Finley, the ringleader of those gathered against him whose face twitched at Duncan¡¯s nonchalance to the situation, as well as the stronger Iron Fist Sect disciple who sharpened his gaze upon hearing Duncan¡¯s words and the Fischer clansman, the eldest of the group, who with his years of experience caught something in Duncan¡¯s relaxed body language that caused him to become wary.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    ¡°There are 8 of us¡± said Finley matter of factly, partly to reassure himself and cast aside the doubt that had just risen up in his mind and partly to insinuate to Duncan that he was mad to be as unconcerned as he was.


    Nevertheless, despite what he said, Finley¡¯s mind was working overdrive thinking about what Duncan might have up his sleeve for him to be as untroubled as he was, as well as considering the strength of himself and his hastily formed party and whether or not they could truly kill Duncan so easily, regardless of whether he had a trick up his sleeve or not.


    After all, Duncan was rather famous in the North-West, especially in the border town of Acorn and in the lost city of Forestview, where he had a reputation as a young genius and was given the moniker Howling Sword for the unique sound his sword arts gave off, though Finley had heard it was more akin to a screech, one which people in other worlds would compare to the sound of certain fireworks.


    Still, when Finley had first heard from the independent cultivator that his group had been attacked and killed after slaying a qi beast by Howling Sword Duncan and sought someone¡¯s help to bring him to justice and stop him from looting the bodies of his comrades before he got away, despite his fame, Finley had held no doubts that he and his training partner were up to the task. After all, he was a 9<sup>th</sup> level qi expansionist and inner disciple of the Flowing Water Sect and although he only begrudgingly admit it but his training partner who was only at the 6<sup>th</sup> level was just as strong as him.


    Furthermore, even while the situation was being explained to them, a late level qi expansionist from the Fischer clan had happened upon them with his two hired hands and agreed to join in the pursuit, with another two reinforcements added in the form of two Iron Fist Sect disciples who had happened upon the group of dead independent cultivators the survivor had been leading them towards.


    Now however, Finley found himself quickly assessing the actual strength of their party. Looking at the Fischer clansman, a 7<sup>th</sup> level qi expansionist, he wasn¡¯t too concerned. He knew they weren¡¯t a 1<sup>st</sup> rate clan by any means and nor could their arts match up to the arts of his Sect but he had met them before and knew they weren¡¯t weak either. His two hired hands on the other hand would be a different story. Whether independent cultivators or actual clan guardsmen they were only at the 4<sup>th</sup> and 5<sup>th</sup> levels of qi expansion respectively and neither were likely to profess as great a skill as a clansman or a Sect disciple.


    Then there were the two Iron Fist Sect disciples. As one of the Kingdom¡¯s four great Sects, Finley of course knew about the nature of their qi arts and where their strengths lay, boasting some of the greatest close combat fighters to grace the kingdom as well as arguably some of, if not the best, defensive arts. This was why even though the two were only at the mid-levels of qi expansion, with the professed durability of Iron Fist Sect disciples, they could easily participate in duels with people stronger than them without suffering life threatening injuries.


    However, when thinking about it, he remembered that the Iron Fist Sect also had a reputation of accepting just about anyone into the inner sect as long as they reached qi expansion and proved loyal and of acceptable personality, regardless of how talented they were and that because of this, they were meant to have a great many disciples who practised weaker but easier to learn qi arts. Realising this, Finley began to wonder which type of disciples they were, the talented or untalented, and how helpful they would be in the fight.


    All of this ran through his mind at an astronomical pace, with barely a moment passing between his words and now before he finished his assessment and calmed his mind. This was a distraction and nothing more, a way for his opponent to gain any advantage he possibly could in a hopeless situation and one that Finley had to give silent praise to for. Whether his fame was deserved or not, that Duncan could keep so calm in a situation like this and still try and undermine his opponents before he had even drawn his sword was something that was worthy of respect. But, there were 8 of them, while there was only one of him and Finley was a noble practitioner of the Flowing Water Sect.


    At this moment, calm had been completely restored to Finley¡¯s mind. He was going to win and Duncan was going to lose. That was the truth. It was fact and even if he managed take one of their group down with him, Duncan was going to die. And then, Duncan spoke.


    ¡°No, there are 7¡± replied Duncan.


    Puzzlement. Utter puzzlement. That was what he first felt. In that single moment when the words landed, Finley locked his gaze and tensed ready for battle, but at the same time felt completely baffled. These were not the words he expected to hear and at first took them for a vainglorious boast from a Duncan about to make his first move, however, still relaxed as ever, Duncan continued with his speech.


    ¡°and they weren¡¯t his friends¡±

 Chapter 67 – Duncan (2)

    [And they weren¡¯t his friends¡­ AND THEY WEREN¡¯T HIS FRIENDS!]


    Thought Finley in recognition, the importance of these oh so simple words not lost on him as they now reverberated through his head and kicked his brain into overdrive once more.


    Thoughts of betrayal and treachery raced through Finley¡¯s mind as he thought of the one who had led them here, the independent cultivator who claimed to have witnessed Howling Sword Duncan murdering his friends from afar before running to get help.


    Looking to him now in that split second after Duncan¡¯s words landed, Finley was shocked to realise that the man was no longer where he thought he was. In fact, he was shocked to realise that he¡¯d actually overlooked him for some time and hadn¡¯t even registered him while assessing the strength of their party.


    Realising the danger this could mean for them all despite the advantages they still held and despite the fact that the others would no doubt come to the same conclusion as him mere moments later, Finley decided to shout out a warning lest any of the others were slow on the uptake. However, just as he began to open his mouth to shout out a warning, he finally saw the rogue cultivator out of the corner of his eye and knew it was too late.


    No one was quite sure when he did it, but during that short exchange of words just now, that rogue cultivator that had led them here in chasing after Duncan had managed to soundlessly and inconspicuously move towards two of the others, aptly positioning himself to strike whilst leaving his first opponent at least, completely helpless.


    That was why in that split second after Duncan had spoken, when all those thoughts had rushed through Finley¡¯s mind as he processed the situation, it was already too late.


    It was why when Finley finally caught sight of him again after the mere fraction of a second that had passed as all this took place, he had already managed to thrust his sword through the side of one of the two hired hands of the Fischer clansman with everyone else caught unawares and unprepared.


    Shock. That was only thing that could describe how Finley felt as he went wide eyed at the sight of this scene. Shock at having been taken unawares. Shock at having lost one of their group before any of them were able to even react. Shock at the realisation that he must have struck before Duncan said his last words, given that he had not only completed his thrust but was actually already withdrawing his turquoise clad blade, and shock at the situational awareness that Duncan possessed given that the rogue cultivator in collusion with him wasn¡¯t even within his line of sight.


    All of these thoughts raced through Finley¡¯s mind in a split second of pure shock that left him momentarily stunned.


    [Shit!] he thought, drawing his eyes away from the rogue cultivator just in time to see a flash of blue accompanied by a loud screech as Duncan drew his sword.


    ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­


    Looking at Duncan¡¯s back, John couldn¡¯t help but think of the bodies he had found not long ago, lying dead beside the remains of a dead qi beast and yet clearly not killed by it. Instead the wounds on their bodies, a mix of cuts, stab wounds and other injuries of indeterminate qi arts clearly showed that they were made by a human cultivator or cultivators.


    There was no doubt about it. The killer, or killers, had struck again.


    It was a story he had grown used to in recent months. Parties of cultivators going missing while out on hunts, men found dead by the sword instead of beast and personal harvests disappearing from peoples abodes in Forestview. There were even some of his fellow disciples who were currently missing that were thought to have been killed by this infamous but as yet unknown murderer and thief. No one even knew if it was the work of one or of many. The only thing people knew was that too many had died in suspicious yet similar circumstances for it to be a coincidence or merely a bit of bad luck during this hunting season.


    Nevertheless, looking at Duncan now, John couldn¡¯t understand why he would be the murderer, why he would do all this. When he had first heard from Finley, a Flowing Water Sect disciple who had approached the site of several dead bodies he had found and informed him of the situation he was in rather a bit of disbelief.


    Duncan was a renowned name in these parts, a young genius who came from nothing and yet had been able to leave his mark in the minds of others. A young man who could challenge some of the best independent qi expansionist cultivators despite them having many more years of experience, training and guidance to boot. He was even said to be comparable to and even better than many sect disciples and clansmen at similar cultivation levels, a praiseworthy achievement considering the martial capability of the sects and some of the major clans.


    It wasn¡¯t an over exaggeration at all to say that he was an inspiration to many cultivators young and old who came from similar backgrounds as him and thus worthy of great respect.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    So why? Why would he do this? It didn¡¯t make sense that someone who was that strong, who had made a name for himself despite all the disadvantages in life that he started with would do this, and yet, he was the one they found after following the trail from the dead bodies.


    Up until then, as he travelled with the others in following the trail of the murderer, John had still been unsure. He couldn¡¯t help but wonder if the independent cultivator had seen wrong. Maybe the murderer only looked similar and so had been mistaken for him, or maybe the killer intentionally made himself look like another in order to protect his identity, creating an unsuspecting fall guy should he fail to finish everyone off, as he had failed now.


    [He¡¯s certainly strong enough to take the blame] thought John at the time, rationalising that the culprit would want to shift the blame to someone who was recognisably strong enough to have committed the atrocities that had been taking place over these past few months.


    But all these thoughts eventually came to a loggerheads with the truth when they finally reached the ends of the tracks and caught up with the murderer.


    At first, John was truly in disbelief, his first thought being, [Could it have been a coincidence?].


    His second, [Could the real killer, by some blind luck, have happened upon the real Duncan and then given us the slip?].


    The third, [Or could the dead men have been in the wrong? Could they actually be the attackers, but they bit off more than they could chew and now the lone survivor is trying to deal with Duncan by any means he can before the truth comes out?].


    But no, as he closed in on Duncan and took up his position behind him, all his doubts, even the new ones that had just sprung up in his mind were cast away. There was no other killer, no person masquerading as another, and Duncan being the one standing here wasn¡¯t a coincidence.


    Duncan was the one they found at the end of this trail because as the independent cultivator said, he was the murderer. The idea that the real killer could have first disguised himself as Duncan and then miraculously happened upon him as he was running away from the scene of his crime whilst simultaneously leaving easy enough tracks for a group of skilled hunters and trackers to follow before then giving them the slip and disappearing into thin air was laughable at best.


    John couldn¡¯t even reconcile the thought that this was some private dispute unrelated to the murders that had been taking place or that the dead could have possibly been the attackers and Duncan the victim because he knew even as he thought it just how absurd it was. The scene he had seen was unmistakable, just like several others he had also seen. This was without doubt the work of the infamous murderer and although up till this point he hadn¡¯t wanted to accept that a person of such renown as Duncan, a person who had come from nothing and made a name for himself was the perpetrator of all these acts, he had no choice but to accept the truth before him and everything that meant about a man he once respected.


    [That¡¯s right; he might have been worthy of praise once but not anymore. With the strength he¡¯s attained he could have made a good life for himself but instead he chose this] thought John as he heard the others telling Duncan that he would pay dearly for his crimes.


    ¡°And rightly deserved as well¡± said John in agreement.


    ¡°We all come out into this forest to train ourselves and make a living by hunting beasts; but instead, you¡¯ve been hunting people, killing them and stealing their gains for yourself. These actions of yours, they¡¯re despicable¡±


    Nevertheless, despite his words and despite accepting the truth before him about who Duncan really was as a person and the things he had done, John just couldn¡¯t understand why he would do this, why he would choose this path in life. But alas, that was the path he had chosen and after just a few moments of waiting and pondering John was pulled out of thoughts when he heard Duncan confirm it by his own mouth, confessing outright to the crimes he had committed.


    [So there it is] thought John when Duncan said the words ¡°Fine, I admit it¡±, not quite sure if he was relieved or not that he came right out and said it rather than trying to deny it.


    [At least he can come right out and said it. I suppose that¡¯s better than if he were to deny it]


    As the conversation continued however, John¡¯s new understanding of Duncan deepened and his opinion soured as Duncan merely laughed off his actions to Finley.


    [What a heartless bastard. After everyone you¡¯ve killed you just laugh. You really are despicable, aren¡¯t you] thought John, deciding once and for all that Duncan was wholly and completely irredeemable.


    At this point, John stopped his internal musings in favour of adopting a more readied state. He knew, now that Duncan had come out and admitted it, that they were going to fight soon and he needed to be ready for it. It was, after all, if Duncan¡¯s reputation was anything to go by, going to be a daunting task to subdue and kill him.


    Of course, he supposed that would only be the case were the situation not so one sided right now. It wouldn¡¯t do to be careless lest anyone receive a major injury but with the strength of their party, especially Finley, who was at the 9<sup>th</sup> level of qi expansion and an inner disciple of the Flowing Water Sect, John couldn¡¯t imagine Duncan escaping from this encounter. However, as Duncan said, ¡°I don¡¯t make mistakes¡±, a gnawing feeling started to grow in his heart and he started to feel as though something was wrong.


    ¡°And yet here we are¡± said Finley, speaking to Duncan.


    ¡°And here you are, surrounded by us¡±


    ¡°Yes, and being the proud and just men that you are, you rushed over here without telling anyone else, am I right?¡± said Duncan in response.


    Upon hearing these words, John sharpened his gaze at Duncan¡¯s back as he realised what was wrong. It was nonchalance. His nonchalance and complete calmness at the situation that had unnerved him and now that he had said those words those feelings grew into a legitimate and pressing concern.


    And it wasn¡¯t just him he realised. Finley and the Fischer clansman had both been affected by them too and that was why he believed Finley said what he did next, as means to reassure himself and the others too.


    However, just after, Duncan replied with words of his own.


    ¡°No, there are 7, and they weren¡¯t his friends¡±


    And then, all hell broke loose.

 Chapter 68 – Duncan (3)

    Without even having time to process the words Duncan had spoken, John¡¯s attention was abruptly distracted by a grunting yell to his right, one which he knew to be to be synonymous with injury, and when he glanced over, what he saw stunned and horrified him.


    Before his very eyes, John saw the independent cultivator; the one who had supposedly survived his group¡¯s encounter with Duncan, with his sword plunged into one of the two hired hands of the Fischer clansman. Not only that, he had already begun withdraw his sword and John could clearly see the turquoise coloured glow covering it from his qi art.


    Seeing this scene, the blood spurting from the man¡¯s wound as he began to fall to the ground and the turquoise clad blade that was becoming more and more visible as it was pulled from the body, the pieces of the puzzle began to fit together in John¡¯s mind as he processed what was happening. Unfortunately however, he was left with little time to think as his attention was abruptly pulled away once again as he heard a screeching sound to his left.


    Looking back over in shock, more in reaction to the noise than in realisation that this was Duncan performing his sword arts, John missed the rogue cultivator pull his sword all the way out of his victim and in a swing towards the other hired hand of the Fischer clansman who was standing nearby. Had he continued watching, he would have seen the hired hand¡¯s look of relief at seeing that even without the back step he managed to take, the rogue cultivator¡¯s swing wouldn¡¯t reach, before said looked turned into one of fear and horror as a sword shadow of turquoise qi shot from the edge of the blade towards his neck at a speed he couldn¡¯t react to. Instead of this scene however, John instead witnessed the sword art of Duncan as two distinct sword lights shot towards Finley and the other Flowing Water Sect disciple.


    [SHIT!] thought John in self admonishment and shock, seeing that in the mere second he had looked away, a look that was no more than a mere glance, Duncan had launched an attack towards the two in front of him and worrying that they, like him, had been distracted by what was happening to the side and were unprepared for the assault they were about to face.


    The answer to John¡¯s worried thought came just a moment later when he witnessed Finley raise his arms, throwing them forward in one quick motion as two streams of aqua qi forcefully erupted out of them and collided with the two sword lights in a bid to protect both himself and his fellow apprentice brother who had yet to react.


    A flush of relief went through John¡¯s mind seeing that Finley had been in time to protect both himself and his fellow disciple, however, this relief of his quickly passed, or rather was forced out of his mind, as he saw that even before the swords lights and streams of aqua qi collided, Duncan had already turned and, briefly putting both feet back on the ground, shot towards John and his partner.


    [So fast!] thought John, shocked once more at the speed and agility Duncan had just shown, though thankful that he and his training partner had both been standing slightly further back than the others and so had more time to react to Duncan¡¯s sudden manoeuvre.


    Nevertheless, even as he activated his Iron Body defensive art, John¡¯s confidence was sapping.


    Attention now focused solely on Duncan, John couldn¡¯t see the outcome of the sword light and aqua qi colliding, however, he knew that without the help of another, preferably Finley or the Fischer clansman, he and his training partner, at the most, would only be able to supress Duncan, keeping him busy while the others sorted things out on their end. If it came to actually killing or crippling him, that was another matter entirely.


    John had long since assessed, whist looking at him before the fighting kicked off, that were he and his training partner to go against Duncan alone, they would be outclassed. This wasn¡¯t only because Duncan was a higher cultivation level than them, being a late level qi expansionist while they were only in the mid-levels of qi expansion; rather it was because of a combination of factors.


    In addition to Duncan¡¯s higher cultivation level and the gap that existed between the mid and late levels of qi expansion, there were several other factors to consider. After all, if it were merely a consideration of cultivation levels, John would still have some confidence as the defensive arts of the Iron Fist Sect were widely regarded as some of the best in the kingdom whilst simultaneously not actually being that qi intensive, a consequence of which meant that he would be able to continue fighting and defending without much risk of being exhausted, especially in the short term. However, cultivation level wasn¡¯t the only thing that had to be considered.


    Even before they had caught up to him, even while he still believed or perhaps hoped that Duncan wasn¡¯t the culprit who had been committing so many wrongs these past months, John found the prospect of having to fight him to be a daunting task. Duncan¡¯s reputation as a young genius wasn¡¯t earned without reason and it wasn¡¯t solely because of his cultivation speed or background, no, it was also because of his fighting ability and most specifically, his sword arts, which were said to grant him great offensive power, such that he was able to defeat long time cultivators of higher cultivation levels than him. There were even some who praised him as being a sword master in the making.


    Nevertheless, even with this, John still had a degree of confidence that he and his training partner working together would be able to take him. He had pride in the defensive arts of the Iron Fist sect that he practiced and although he couldn¡¯t profess to be a master of them and was sure that he would incur some injury, he didn¡¯t believe Duncan could break through them that easily.


    The final nail in the coffin however came when he and the others finally caught up to Duncan and he had gotten a good look at him, as well as the equipment he currently wore, equipment which was far in advance of his own and which posed a troubling problem to John and the others.


    Throughout the kingdom, armour, for several reasons, was something that had currently fallen out of popularity with the masses and in the North West in particular, the quality of armours had deteriorated over the years, such that aside from the stationary guards of the towns and cities, many independent cultivators would forgo armour altogether rather than fork out the cash to get a good set made.


    This was a problem in the Iron Fist Sect too as even those disciples who weren¡¯t too prideful as to wear armour in addition to their defensive body arts tended to only use the cheap, low quality pig iron that the Sect had been mining in vast quantities for the past two-three decades. It had even gotten the nickname disposable armour by the Sect disciples because sold as is, in such an unrefined state, it was generally only good for one or two battles before whole sections of it needed to be removed and replaced. There were even instances of it being used in training fights and competitions within the Sect and essentially being shed mid battle like the shaking off of dead skin.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    This was why, amongst their group, none of them were particularly well armoured, John himself only wearing some of the low quality disposable armour that was so cheap for a disciple of the Sect to get.


    However, standing in front of them, clad from the legs to the neck in a deep and dark blue, they had found Duncan sporting what was considered one of the best armours on the market, even before the deterioration in quality that armours of the North West had suffered in recent years. That was why, upon seeing the premium made, highly refined chitinous armour of a Blue Devil Beetle covering his body, everyone had the same thought, thinking it¡¯d be a tough nut to crack and that even with their numerical advantage, it would serve to increase the difficulty of the fight and extend it longer than they desired.


    It was for this reason, in addition to the others, that John knew that he and his training partner alone would not be able to take on Duncan to the point of actually defeating him, for as confidant as he was in his own skills and his ability to work in concert with his partner, it would still be very difficult for either of them to break through his armour or score lucky hits against the unprotected areas. John even lacked the confidence that the blunt force trauma of his fist arts would be able to do any significant damage to Duncan.


    All of these were reasons for John to feel trepidation towards the Duncan now approaching him. Nevertheless, he steeled himself, almost literally due to the nature of his defensive art and prepared to engage in combat, hoping that the others would soon come to assist him and his partner in supressing and killing Duncan.


    As Duncan approached with a speed that was outside of John¡¯s expectation, he swung his sword, flicking it up so fast that was hard to see and releasing a marvellous blue sword light towards John, a light which was accompanied by a screeching sound that seemed to tear at the very air around it as though forcing its way through anything and everything that resisted its path.


    However, as this attack came towards him, filling up his vision with brilliant blue as he quickly raised his arms to cover his face, John was able to witness two golden brown, brass coloured swords of qi shoot across from the left, indicating that his partner had been just as fast, if not faster than himself and launched his own attack towards Duncan in return.


    Unfortunately for John, he was not able to witness the result of his friend¡¯s attack because before those qi swords of his reached Duncan, Duncan¡¯s own sword light which was travelling at a much greater speed had already reached in front of John.


    Holding his arms in front of his face with his Iron Body defensive art active he was fully prepared to take this blow of Duncan¡¯s, however, as it actually landed, John was shocked senseless once more.


    ¡°Argh!¡± yelled John in pain, feeling the sword light of Duncan¡¯s biting deep into his flesh.


    [WHAT!] he thought in shock when the last of the sword light had finally abated in its assault against his arms and body.


    [SO DEEP!!! IMPOSSIBLE!]


    Looking at his arms dripping with blood, John could see that that attack of Duncan¡¯s had actually broken through his skin, biting so deep that it had actually reached the bone. And the wound didn¡¯t stop there either. Even on his chest, which had been covered with a layer iron plate and wasn¡¯t even the primary target of Duncan¡¯s attack just now, now had a line of blood dripping from out of what could only be described as a large gash wrought in the armour.


    This was just too shocking for him. He could readily admit that he was not a master of his Sect¡¯s qi arts; however, such an amount of damage should have been impossible. After all, unlike many defensive arts that only provided one external layer of protection, the Iron Body technique was one which, even if it still had most use on the surface, provided protection all the way through the body. It was one of the reasons it was hailed as one of the best defensive arts in the kingdom because although there were certainly people who could break through this defensive art, it was incredibly difficult for assailants to leave deep, life threatening wounds. This was true to such an extent that people even argued that of the four major Sects and three major Academies of the Kingdom, at the qi condensation stage of cultivation, it was precisely practitioners of this martial art that were the most annoying to deal with, being the hardest to defeat because of their unparalleled durability.


    Stunned for a moment by this turn of events, John realised he was slow to react to the battle situation going on around him and with a start looked up to put Duncan in his line of sight again and get a clear picture of what was happening, the last thing he had seen being the qi swords his partner had launched Duncan¡¯s way.


    John wasn¡¯t sure exactly what to expect when he brought his eyes to the forefront again but hoped that given the offensive power Duncan had shown with his ranged attack just now that his partner¡¯s own attack would have slowed him down somewhat and given them some breathing room to prepare a proper response.


    Unfortunately, had John been able to continue watching, he would have seen that after launching his attack towards him, Duncan agilely dodged the ranged attack of his partner and then began to make a beeline towards him instead of going to finish off John.


    Now that John had recovered from Duncan¡¯s assault and looked up to see what was happening, he was greeted with the sight of Duncan mere metres away from his friend, a new set of golden brown, brass coloured swords harmlessly shattering against Duncan¡¯s armour as he advanced with sword raised, glowing with the blue light of his qi as he prepared to bring it down across the body of his opponent as soon as he was within range.


    Panic gripping him, knowing that if a ranged could do what it did to him, a physical strike from up close would almost certainly be fatal; John hurriedly pivoted his feet, pointing them to his left in the direction of his friend and Duncan.


    [One Bound] thought John as he executed a movement art of his Sect, channelling qi into his feet before erupting it out of him at the same time he began pushing off the ground, creating a small bang as well as an indentation in the ground as he shot forwards with explosive speed.


    Unfortunately however, he was too late. Just as he began launching himself forward he witnessed in horror and pain as Duncan reached within striking distance of his friend and brought his sword down across his chest, easily slicing through the brass coloured skin and glow of qi being emitted from his body as he cut a deep and bloody line down his chest from shoulder to navel.


    Eyes starting to water slightly and clenching his teeth, John felt a flush of anger run through him as he shot towards Duncan.


    [YOU BASTARD!!!] thought John in anger as he saw his friend and long-time training partner start to fall back with blood spurting from his body.


    Pushing the pain in his arms to the back of his mind John readied his fist with all the strength he could muster. He could no longer save his friend but with that last attack of his, Duncan was now facing away from him and shouldn¡¯t be able to recover in time. All John had to do was smash into his side and unleash the full force of his blow at his temple. Duncan¡¯s armour might have been impressive, however, [I might not be able to break your armour, but when you don¡¯t wear a helmet, you¡¯re leaving yourself open].


    Like this, John shot towards Duncan¡¯s side and prepared to unleash what would surely be a killing blow at him, however, showing a level of spatial awareness and agility that was almost unprecedented and once again shocked John, showing him that not only was his reputation as a young genius deserved but even an underestimation of his abilities, Duncan turned on the spot, taking a back step to move out of the way as John began to shoot past him.


    Unable to change his trajectory, John was left staring wide eyed wide eyed in shock at Duncan. Shock that he had managed to anticipate his approach and move out of the way so agilely and gracefully and shock at seeing the sword he had raised once more, shining with the blue of his qi as he began to thrust it towards his neck.

 Chapter 69 – Duncan (4)

    Seeing the sword light coming towards him, without having time to think about it even with the Flowing Mind, Flowing Thoughts Mantra of the Flowing Water Sect he was so proficient in, a mantra that allowed him to process his thoughts at a speed that was nigh unrivalled by the cultivators of any other major power within the kingdom, Finley reacted instinctively, throwing his arms out and erupting his qi out of them, performing the Shocking Streams martial technique of his Sect in a bid to stop the sword lights Duncan had launched at both him and his fellow apprentice brother.


    Luck or skill, no matter what it was, at that moment Finley believed it to be on his side as he managed to successfully intercept the sword lights speeding towards both him and his fellow apprentice brother. However, controlling the streams of aqua qi he¡¯d sent crashing forward and feeling them as they collided with Duncan¡¯s sword lights, he realised they were not only failing to achieve the effect he wanted but were in fact about to fail altogether.


    Initially, even as he¡¯d lacked time to properly think things through, he¡¯d wanted to not only block Duncan¡¯s sword lights but also directly smash them apart, destroying them completely so as to regain the initiative and stop Duncan from taking advantage of the opening he had just made for himself. Unfortunately, as his aqua qi and Duncan¡¯s sword attacks hit he knew that that thought was overly optimistic.


    Nevertheless, even though his own attacks didn¡¯t break Duncan¡¯s, he clearly felt Duncan¡¯s sword lights shudder and slow at the impact with his Shocking Streams martial technique and believed that although they were not outright destroyed they would surely exhaust themselves mere moments later.


    This however, did not come to pass, as, shockingly, Finley discovered that the shuddering slow of the sword lights was only a momentary one and that not only were they not exhausting themselves as he expected but nor were they stopping. In fact, they actually began to speed up again as they cut through his aqua qi, first breaking through the Shocking Stream he¡¯d sent out to defend his apprentice brother, then the other sword light, which, comparatively, had collided more head on and thus had more opposition to work through, travelled along the length of his Shocking Stream before breaking free of it and reaching his left shoulder.


    Once again, Finley found himself in utter shock as in the period of a mere second he had discovered treachery within their ranks, been attacked in the moment his attention was distracted and then had his martial technique broken through before then witnessing as a blue sword light impacted against his shoulder.


    [Oh God] was the only thing Finley managed to think in silent resignation as he felt the sword light impact against him and was momentarily knocked off balance, having to turn with the blow in order to secure his footing and prevent himself from falling over.


    Fortunately for him however, he discovered that dressed lightly as he was, with the extent of his protective clothing being clothes made from the hide of a sea beast he had once killed, he was actually uninjured and realised that although it had taken time, time in which Duncan¡¯s sword light had managed to travel along the admittedly short length Shocking Stream he¡¯d sent out, Duncan¡¯s sword attack had, in fact, been exhausted by his defence, dimming in the last moment before it hit him and losing most of its power.


    However, as fortunate as that was, Finley¡¯s mind was not put at ease. Instead, now that the chaos in his mind had subsided and he had gotten time to think again, he became increasingly more concerned and alarmed and although many in this situation might be relieved or happy to have come out unscathed from Duncan¡¯s attack, Finley was worried.


    That¡¯s right, at this moment, Finley was worried. Worried that the stream he sent out to protect his apprentice brother hadn¡¯t dissipated enough of the other sword light¡¯s strength. Worried that his friend, who was similarly unarmoured, hadn¡¯t reacted fast enough to throw up a defence of his own. Worried that put at such a disadvantage and thrown off balance as they were, Duncan would be able to easily close the gap in order to finish them off or at least seriously injure them.


    All of these thoughts raced through Finley¡¯s mind, as, anticipating Duncan coming to finish him off, he spun back round to face the front, drawing his sword in the process and stimulating his qi to course through and around his body.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Upon spinning back round however, he missed catching sight of Duncan and panic instantly surfaced in his mind as he continued with his spin in order to look to his fellow apprentice brother. In his mind, if Duncan hadn¡¯t closed the distance to him, without even considering that he would take any other action, Finley believed he would surely be going after his apprentice brother instead.


    Completing his movement, Finley looked at his fellow apprentice brother and saw that he too had been knocked off balance from Duncan¡¯s blow, seeming to have stumbled down to one knee. However, looking closer, just as he began to process the yell of pain he was hearing, he realised that his friend was actually clutching the left side of his face with his hand and could see the red of blood seeping out from beneath it.


    Seeing this scene and understanding what it meant; understanding that there was a good chance his friend had just been blinded in one eye, Finley didn¡¯t have the time to process his anger at what had happened nor his concern for his friend. This was because, as he turned in panic, wanting to see the condition of his friend and preparing to rush forward to intercept Duncan, the man himself hadn¡¯t appeared in his vision.


    There was only one reason for this that Finley could think of. Duncan wasn¡¯t in front of either of them because he didn¡¯t close the distance to them. As for why he didn¡¯t close the distance, once again, there was only one reason Finley could think of.


    [The Others!] he thought, partly in alarm at how things would be going on at their end, especially considering the rogue cultivator who had turned out to be a traitor and partly in thankfulness that they must have acted to stall Duncan, preventing him from taking advantage of his first attack in order to kill them.


    Thinking this, Finley swivelled his head and turned to face the front again, expecting to see the others battling it out with Duncan and the traitor, putting pressure on them or at least holding them at bay.


    The scene he saw however was completely contrary to his expectations and caused him to stare in shock. This was because, instead of a scene of his allies, however shortly known they were, battling it out with Duncan and the traitor, with the fight just having begun and the two Iron Fist Sect disciples surely taking some advantage given the fact that they had been standing behind Duncan before everything had just kicked off, he was instead greeted by a scene of one of the disciples falling to the ground, his chest split open with blood gushing out and the other being outmanoeuvred and about to have his neck split open.


    To Finley, this course of events was just too unexpected, too ludicrous. He¡¯d had some concerns of course, especially given Duncan¡¯s reputation and the fact that he didn¡¯t know the other¡¯s personal strengths¡­ but this; this was beyond anything he could have imagined.


    [My god. He got us. I can¡¯t believe it but he got us.


    His acting earlier wasn¡¯t arrogance, it was just confidence. Confidence in his trap, confidence in his ability to take advantage of it and confidence to take us all out]


    Thinking this while looking at Duncan and seeing the blue light of Duncan¡¯s qi shining on his sword as he thrust it forwards towards John¡¯s neck, Finley, even in all of his frustration and even as he started to move forward, knew that there was nothing he could possibly do, no movement technique he could execute and no qi art he could perform that would allow him to save John¡¯s life in time, and so, even as he stared in frustration, in anger and in a multitude of other emotions towards Duncan, his mind fell into a silent resignation that it was hopeless, that their party of 8 was about to be cut down by 2 more.


    [It¡¯s over] he finally thought, despairing at the strength, skill and ability that Duncan had shown and in that moment losing confidence in his own ability to retake control of the situation.


    That was¡­ until he saw a stream of aqua qi cutting across his vision from the right.


    [Hah] laughed Finley inwardly as a grin started to appear on his face.


    He might not have been able to save John in time but there was another who could, and, seeing that confined, highly pressurised jet of aqua qi shooting over towards Duncan, he knew that he would. That was because his fellow apprentice brother, who had been late to react and had stumbled to the ground in pain at having his eye cut open by Duncan¡¯s sword light, had managed to keep his wits about him and, extending his right hand towards the man who had injured him, performed what was, if not the most offensively powerful martial art of their Sect, then definitely the most dangerous.


    [Yes] thought Finley as he saw that jet of qi shooting towards Duncan, despair turning into joy as this one act pulled him out of his mental desolation, uprighting the skies and overturning the resignedness of defeat that had fallen upon him.


    [It¡¯s not over yet] thought Finley fiercely, confidence returning to him alongside a swelling of pride as a noble practitioner of the Flowing Water sect.


    [You got us good with your little tricks¡­ but you¡¯ve played your hand. Now it¡¯s time we play ours]