Jintian sighed heavily as he sat beside the campfire he had made, eating hard rations with only the sound of crackling wood to keep him company. It glowed in the darkness of the night, casting shadows that danced at the edge of his vision, while he sipped on the broth he had made to soften his cured meat and dried vegetables.
He had nearly forgotten how quiet the night could be, having spent most of the length of his journey with others.
Shaking such thoughts from his mind, he instead looked upwards. Faint starlight was visible past the thick canopy above his head, and he smiled as he saw their twinkling presence.
Finishing his dinner, he stowed his supplies away, and pulled out the bounty of his day.
Six small beast cores sat in the center of his palm, warm and swirling with that red mist they carried internally. Five more of the panthers had attempted to ambush him throughout the day, but thankfully he had managed to sense them before they could strike.
He didn't know the name of their species, so he had taken to calling them "sky panthers", on account of their vividly bright blue fur. Since he had already experienced their ferocity once, dealing with them a second time hadn't posed as much of a challenge. The second panther had been felled similarly to the first, with a Strike spell crushing it against a tree. The third, fourth, and fifth ones, however, he had used to practice one of the techniques Kang Shanxi had procured for him, the Dancing Flame Serpent.
It was only a two node spell, Flame and Form, and thus did not tax his Qi heavily. Like its name suggested, the Conduits of the spell directed flame into the shape of a serpent, which he could control with his fingers. He had marveled at the difference between a single node spell, and a two node spell. With only one additional node, the spell's effect became far more intricate.
After Jintian had conjured the flame serpent, which at his current level was about the length of his arm, he had set it upon the panther that attempted to ambush him. It had been engulfed in flames and burnt to death in seconds.
Kang Shanxi had told him that low level demonic beasts were relatively easier to deal with than cultivators of the same level. They could not guard themselves with Qi, instead relying entirely on the strength of their bodies to fight. While this meant they could overwhelm an inexperienced cultivator, so long as they were kept at bay with magical techniques. That would change depending on how close the creatures were to the level of Foundation Establishment, but that was something he would not need to worry about, being this close to the mortal realm.
Looking down at the six beast cores resting on his palm, he then pulled the larger core he had acquired from Huixian and Xingyue. Compared to the other six, it really was far more impressive, the demonic energy it resonated dwarfing even the others combined. He guessed that while the ones he had gathered and used so far could be counted as low-rank, the one he had been given was either a high-rank or supreme-rank core.
The manual had advised against consuming high-rank or supreme-rank cores, at least until he had reached the first major threshold. Jintian was tempted to give it a try anyway, but after remembering how violently even the smaller sized cores resisted, decided to trust the wiser judgement of the manual.
Stowing the large beast core in his pack, he placed the first of the Cores in his mouth, crushing it between his teeth and absorbing the energy inside of it. It quickly cowed beneath the torrent of his Qi, and for the first time in weeks he felt the tingling sensation of his bodily cultivation improving once more. Of course, it was preceded by the feeling of his veins being sliced open by hundreds of miniature razors, but he decided to put that thought out of his mind.
After consuming the remaining beast cores, he was now at a total of one hundred and nine. The next minor threshold would come at five hundred, so he still had a ways to go until then.
Breathing deeply, he then slipped into far more pleasant meditation, absorbing the spiritual energy around him as he practiced his cultivation. He continued doing so, the lake of this Third Circle growing ever so slightly larger with each passing minute. The moons of his Beast Transformation hovered serenely over his Circles, and he found himself almost smiling as he imagined that his father might have done the exact same thing he was doing now, before his Immortality. Hunting beasts, consuming their cores, practicing cultivation.
It was an almost peaceful routine. If not for the fact that the routine could end in his death with one careless slip.
A few hours later, he opened his eyes and once again looked upwards at the starlight above him. The fire had died, wood smoldering in the place of its blaze. He stood, feeling refreshed, and crawled into his tent.
His nightmares, though, continued to haunt him through the night. Just as they did every time he closed his eyes.
-
Jintian woke the next morning to what sounded like whooping echoing through the jungle.
He climbed out of his tent, drawing his sword as he heard dozens of branches being shaken, and scanned his surroundings. What he saw then made the hairs on the back of his neck stand.
There were dozens of dark green monkeys swinging through the trees, leaves cascading down to the forest floor as their shadows flashed past his vision. They were each only about a quarter of his size, but the fact that there were so many of them caused his heart to race.
He watched the monkeys pass with his grip tight around the hilt of his sword, priming the Brooming Frost Lotus spell just in case. One of the monkeys seemed to notice the cultivator, pausing mid swing and hanging off the branch to stare down at him.
Jintian raised his sword slightly, and the monkey hissed at him, before whooping and swinging away, joining the rest of the pack. The monkeys continued on, and he watched them leave warily.
Soon the whooping faded into silence, as the last of the monkeys left his field of vision. Shaking his head at the strangeness of the morning, Jintian cleared his throat and began packing up his camping supplies. Once he had everything stowed in his bag of holding, he pulled his walking stick from his bag and resumed the long trek northwest toward the city of Shan'an.
The next few hours passed by without incident. The forest offered its own kind of beauty, in the majesty of its sheer size and the birdsong that filled it. His heart ached when he thought of the forest he had grown up in, spending his days hunting and teaching Shen Xiacheng to hunt, just as Shen Anjia had taught him.
Still, such thoughts did not diminish his ability to appreciate the current forest he was in. Kang Shanxi had referred to it as the Vermillion Ginkgo forest. He'd said that in the summers, the leaves turned a vibrant shade of red, but this early in the spring they remained a healthy shade of dark green.
Just as Jintian was imagining how pretty the leaves must have looked in the summer, he heard something that made him think he must have been mistaken. After listening closer, however, he realized he was in fact not mistaken at all.
There was music being played, somewhere in the distance.
A small smile lit his features, and he promptly changed his path to head towards the sound. Although it had only been a day since he had last had company, Jintian was admittedly a very social person. Those who grew in a small village like himself tended to lean towards sociability, as he had grown accustomed to having a small community nearly always present.
The days ahead would no doubt be filled with loneliness, so he wished to speak with someone while the opportunity presented itself.
He followed the sound for nearly five minutes, the music growing louder with every step. Jintian was even quite pleased to realize that the person playing the music must have been fairly talented, as the music itself had an almost ethereal quality to it, a lullaby that hovered in the space between sorrow and serenity.
He then suddenly paused, frowning.
Wasn't this how many of the horror folk tales he had grown up listening to began? By a careless traveler following a sound, only to be met with something monstrous?
He had always scoffed, thinking those travelers to be stupid for following a random noise in the forest. But here he was just now, about to do the very same!
Cursing himself for his foolishness, he turned and began walking away. But after only a few steps, he heard a voice calling to him, though the music did not stop.
"Wait young fellow! Please, come back! I am in need of your aid!" The voice said frantically, and he turned back to try to find the source. After scanning the area for a few moments, however, and unable to find the person the voice belonged to, he felt unease prickling his heart.
He turned and began to walk away faster, but the voice called out to him again. "Young fellow! I am up here, in the trees! Please!" It begged, and he could practically hear desperation bordering on tears in the voice. Swallowing thickly, Jintian turned again, this time casting his gaze upward.
Sure enough, nearly a hundred feet away, he saw an older man sitting on a branch, playing an erhu. The man wore a bright yellow changshan, his dark hair beginning to grey at the roots but still long and tied into a knot. Jintian's frown deepened.
"How did you get up there?" He asked. The man was sitting on the lowest branch of the tree, but that was still nearly twenty feet off of the ground. The man sighed deeply, his song turning sadder.
"I was being chased by a demonic beast, and a young cultivator happened to be nearby at the time. He carried me up here and set back down to do battle with the creature, but it seems as though he is not coming back." The man said sadly. Jintian's brows furrowed.
"Well, why are you playing music?" He wondered, and the man laughed bitterly.
"That is the reason I believe the cultivator is not coming back. The creature he left to battle with returned, while he has not. However, it does not seem to like the sound of my music, and it stays away while I play. Ai, my fingers hurt, yet I cannot afford to stop, lest it return." The musician lamented. "I never thought the day would come when I was so grateful that my music was hated."
Jintian considered this for a few moments, before he finally relented with a nod. "Very well, Senior, I will help you down." He said, before walking forward. Judging the distance, he strengthened himself with Qi and leapt upward, sailing to the branch and landing on it lightly. The man's eyes lit with delight.
"Ah, another cultivator! Thank you young fellow, thank you!" He said, and Jintian nodded, grabbing the man and then leaping back down.
He landed with ease, his knees bending slightly to absorb the shock for the man in his arms. The musician laughed as Jintian set him down, bowing slightly as he finally stopped playing his song.
"What is your name, young fellow? I am Huang Ruifeng." The man greeted, and Jintian smiled slightly.
"I am Shen Jintian. Well met, Huang Ruifeng." He said, and the man laughed at that.
"Well met indeed! Thank you again for your help. Say, are you headed to-" He suddenly paused, his eyes widening as he looked at something over Jintian's shoulder. "The beast! It has returned!"
Jintian turned to look as well, drawing his sword as he stood protectively in front of the man. He saw what looked to be a gargantuan red bear nearly three times Jintian's height barreling towards them both, charging from the trees faster than a horse. Jintian glanced behind him.
"Stay back, Seni-" He began to say, then smiled bitterly as he saw that the man was already running. Shaking his head, he turned back to face the demonic beast.
Once it entered the range of his spiritual sense, he realized that the strength of the core he sensed in the bear was stronger than the panthers he had faced earlier. Mouth settling into a firm line, he gathered his Qi inside of him and wrapped it around his blade, slicing forward and launching Sword Qi at the demonic beast.
The Qi flashed through the air with silver light, but Jintian frowned as he saw only a small splash of blood leave the creature. It had been wounded, but shallowly, and it roared as it charged towards him. The bear was now only fifty feet in front of him, and from its speed it could close that distance in a breath.
He leapt backwards, pointing his finger in front of him and casting his Strike spell on the creature, aiming it at one of its churning limbs. Qi thrummed through the air, and the bear's leg buckled underneath it. It tumbled to the ground, but rolled upwards only a moment later, rage clear in its dark beady eyes.
Jintian then cast the Dancing Flame Serpent spell, and the air in front of him blazed with light as fire erupted in front of him. The serpent slithered forward, wrapping itself around the bear, but in the next moment Jintian yelped as the creature barreled through the fire to lunge at him.
He could see that the flesh around the bear's head and chest had been scorched, but it continued on. Jintian barely leapt back in time to avoid the jaws that snapped closed just in front of his face, but he was unable to dodge the humongous paw that swiped towards him, nearly the size of his chest.
He felt the air leave his lungs as he was battered to the side, pain arriving a moment later as he felt hot slicing agony erupt from his torso. He rolled to his feet, just in time as the bear slammed its paw downward onto where he had been moments before.
Jintian took a page from the panther's book, leaping away and stabbing his sword into the trunk of a tree about fifteen feet upward, hanging from it and watching the bear warily. The bear roared at him, circling his tree, and Jintian winced as he looked downward at his wounded side.
He had been cut by the bear's claws. Although thanks to his own bodily cultivation and his Qi, the wounds were just as superficial as his own cut had left on the bear, the sight of his blood still made him grit his teeth.
The bear seemed to have grown impatient, as crouched down and then leapt toward him. Jintian yelped, wrenching his sword free and launching himself from the tree towards the ground. He rolled and sprang back to his feet, while the bear slammed against the trunk of the tree, tumbling down but landing on its paws.
The two eyed each other, drawing a slow circle around each other. The bear had seemed to think it had found more easy morsels to eat, while Jintian had clearly underestimated the toughness of the bear's hide. Taking a deep breath, Jintian steeled his nerve, once again slicing outward with Sword Qi.
The bear charged forward, ignoring the Qi as it pierced into its hide, another spray of blood erupting into the air. Jintian launched another Strike spell, once again aiming for the bear's legs. This time, as the bear flipped over itself and sprang to its feet, he had another spell already formed inside of dantian.
Blooming Frost Lotus!
The bear was only ten feet away, but it immediately collapsed as a snap of ice cold Qi filled the air. Its leg, the same one that Jintian had struck twice now with his other spell, seemingly couldn't handle the burden of this one. There was a snap of bone as the creature's leg gave beneath it, the flesh freezing and cracking underneath it, unable to support the weight of the bear, and it howled in agony while the lotus bloomed fully.
And then, the lotus exploded.
Due to the sheer mass of the creature and the location of the lotus, most of the petals pierced directly into the bear's torso. It wailed as blood erupted outwards from it, the petals tearing several fist sized holes through its body and rupturing its insides. A few more petals had exploded outward, slamming into the dirt while one petal exploded through one of the trees in a shower of bark and dust.
The creature let out one last gurgling wail, before it went still completely, dead.
Jintian let out a pent up breath, wincing as he felt his wounded side. The lacerations weren't deep, but they still hurt.
He limped towards the bear, blood oozing from his wounds as he turned it over. The creature's belly and chest were caved inward, and Jintian's nose wrinkled as he saw several organs spilling out of it. He had been a hunter, and thus was familiar with the gore of killed game, but the sheer size of the bear made the offal particularly grisly. Jintian plunged his hand into the bear's chest, and once again was covered in blood as he pulled free the beast core.
It was larger than the panthers' cores by nearly a full half, but still dwarfed by the core he had acquired from Xingyue. Still, he could feel the energy radiating from it in his spiritual sense, and figured it was probably equivalent to a mid-rank core, if not sitting just below it.
According to his bodily cultivation manual, low-rank cores could be used until he crossed the first major threshold. After which, he would need to use mid-rank cores until he crossed the third major threshold, and would then need to use high-rank cores, and finally, supreme-rank cores, which would belong to Foundation Establishment beasts.
Still, that did not mean he could not use a mid-rank core now. While he was advised against consuming high-rank or supreme-rank currently, mid-rank was still available to him, and each mid-rank core was equivalent to three low-rank in terms of his bodily cultivation progress.
In truth, Jintian had gotten lucky just now. A mid-rank demonic beast could range in strength from the Third Circle all the way to the Seventh. Thankfully it seemed that the bear had just barely been equivalent to the Third Circle, the absolute lowest it could be. If he had used the Frost Blooming Lotus to begin with, he might not have even been injured at all. But he had been lured into a false sense of security by the ease with which he had slain the panthers.
The lacerations in his side were a painful lesson of his mistake.
Jintian sighed, then paused as he heard footsteps cautiously approaching from behind him. Schooling his expression, he turned to find Huang Ruifeng walking towards him, an awkward expression on his face.
"Ah… young fellow, my apologies for running away previously. It's just that since the previous cultivator had seemingly perished, I…" He began, but trailed off, unsure what to say. Jintian shook his head.
"No, it is alright. Your reaction was the right one, you would have just distracted me." He assured the man. He truthfully felt no ill will towards the man. What could a mortal do, in the face of a creature such as this?
Huang Ruifeng seemed relieved to hear that Jintian would not hold a grudge against him, and he immediately smiled as he looked at the corpse. "That's an impressive beast. A Crimson Cloud Bear is a rare sight, this far south. It must have lost its territory recently." He said, and Jintian nodded, remembering the name. "Are you going to sell it? I know a town not far from here that would offer you a fairly decent sum. It seems to be a juvenile, so it won't fetch as good of a price, but it'll still be worth your trouble. Maybe thirty spirit stones?"
Jintian froze, his neck creaking as he slowly turned to look back at Ruifeng. "W…what did you say?" He asked, and Ruifeng blinked in surprise.
"Hmm? Oh, it might seem a little low to you, but I promise you that's a good price, this far away from any of the cultivator cities. And the carcass won't remain good enough to take with you to Shan'an, which would be the closest one." He explained, perhaps misunderstanding Jintian's shock as offense at the price.
Jintian suddenly laughed, the sound almost wooden to Ruifeng. It made him a little nervous, as Jintian suddenly rushed towards him. Ruifeng yelped as Jintian grabbed his shoulders, his grip steel that he could not resist.
"Tell me, what are the blue panthers called? And how much are they worth?" He asked, and Ruifeng swallowed thickly.
"Blue panthers? Ah… oh, you must mean the Viper Panthers. Real nasty creatures, very venomous and stealthy." He answered. "I'd say they're worth about ten spirit stones for a juvenile, perhaps fifteen for an adult."
Jintian suddenly released Ruifeng, crouching down to the forest floor and holding his head in his hands.
"You can sell them?" He whispered to himself, and Ruifeng looked at him curiously.
"Of course, the bodies of demonic beasts are fairly valuable for alchemy and other things. Everyone knows this…" He trailed off, and gnashed his teeth, glaring up at the sky.
"WHY WOULDN'T YOU TELL ME THAT EITHER, YOU DAMN OLD MAN!" He shouted his curse at Kang Shanxi.