33 Chapter 33- Nid the Tiger
After accepting the tiger's offer, Long Ren started living in the tiger's den. He moved out of his place and decided to make this den his temporary home.
The distance between his home and the tiger's den was too massive to do a roundabout trip every day. It would simply be a waste of time.
Though, the tiger did give Long Ren a 2-second ride that would otherwise take him 20 days to the clan so he could move immediately.
It was fast AF.
Xing Lao was okay with it. He was, to say the least, surprised, that the Chaos Tiger agreed on teaching Long Ren some skills. He wondered what Long Ren did to coerce it into teaching him.
Nevertheless, Xing Lao told Long Ren to bring his spatial attribute artifacts chest with him to cultivate efficiently, after all, there was no way for the chest to be stolen when the tiger was there.
And so he did.
The tiger's den is now divided into two unequal parts, 90%, and 10%, with Long Ren living in the smaller part of the den. Although it was only 10%, it was even bigger than his previous room at the clan.
He set up his space to look like his room, treasure chest on one the right, a small table on the left with the wardrobe and bookshelf beside it, and finally, a blank space in the middle for his futon.
Honestly, all of these furnitures are just here to fill up the room, otherwise, it will feel empty. Everything he uses such as clothes, books, and basically everything else is in his ring. How convenient.
Done with his room, Long Ren went out and saw the tiger laying on a huge stack of wool, munching on a piece of meat. The scary part is that the meat exudes an aura that made Long Ren's body shiver.
"What meat is that?" Long Ren asked.
"This?" the tiger pointed at the meat it was eating. "Just something the old man gave me as a "not rampaging around" fee. I think it belonged to something flood dragon something, I don't remember." It said while munching on the meat, as well as the bone in one bite.
"..."
"You can't have it. I may be your teacher now, but you're the one who's going to feed me, now, my payment," it said, licking its lips to clean its mouth off of leftover bone dust and forwarding its open paw toward Long Ren.
Long Ren sighed and took out a small brown ball of chocolate. "Here, an almond milk chocolate."
The tiger looked at the small piece of chocolate Long Ren put on its paws and its eyes squinted. "Huh? That's it?" it said, very dissatisfied.
Long Ren nodded. "Just try it first. You'll like it if you like the bread from yesterday."
The tiger's eyes squinted even more, but it popped the chocolate into its mouth and played with it for a while, only to squirm in delight the very next second. "Damn brat, this is even better than yesterday's bread!"
Long Ren showed a smug smile. "Heh, I know, now can we start?" Long Ren said. He hoped one piece of chocolate to be enough for one day of payment, at least for a while.
If he needs twenty years (from the tiger's estimation), to learn the skills, he would need to split his foods as much as possible, just to study for as long as possible.
Luckily, the tiger seemed to have a sweet tooth, and he has many sweet foods in his inventory that comes in multiples. Even a jar of the almond milk chocolate has 40 chocolates in it.
Long Ren hoped the tiger won't start asking for more, at least not so fast.
"Sure, sure, you stingy little brat. We'll start by training your qi control. Although you don't have two opposing spectrums of qi like me, this technique will still help you…maybe." The tiger said, a bit unsure.
It then pulled Long Ren with a puff of its breath and touched his forehead with its index paw finger.
"Now go, I'll be sleeping, don't disturb me until you can split your qi into two and intertwine them like this." The tiger opened its paw and two strands of equal qi appeared one black and one white.
They both intertwined with each other in the air until they reached Long Ren's eye level and exploded into two claw mark-shaped fireworks.
Long Ren's eyes and mouth opened wide. The tiger laughed seeing his face and patted his head. "Don't worry, if you can't do it in one month, I'll just give you some extra motivation~" It said as it gave Long Ren a wicked smile causing Long Ren's back to sweat.
'What have I gotten myself into…' Long Ren thought as he went back, leaving the tiger and processing the technique he received.
~One Month Later~
Long Ren was sitting with his back facing the tiger. It clawed on Long Ren's bareback as tattoos started appearing wherever it touches. Its claw's tips glowed with a bright black hue.
"Why…ugh…are we doing this again?" Long Ren asked. His mouth clenched, the pain was a bit too much for him to bear.
The tiger shushed him. "Quit your yapping brat, You almost completed my assignment but failed, so, as punishment, I will gracefully help you finish the last step, while you get to enjoy some mild pain~, How generous am I, you should give me more of those milk chocolates~"
The tiger then increased the intensity of the glow as it made a fierce swiping motion, starting from the butt of his spine up into his left shoulder.
"ARGH….." Long Ren screamed, his eyes rolled to the back of his head. "Hmm~, you still have one more shoulder brat~ Don't you dare pass out on me," The tiger said, as it very slowly traced its claw back on Long Ren's butt spine.
His back quivered at the simplest touch of its claw…
…
As Long Ren enjoyed his pain, the Tiger looked at the sitting old man a few meters behind her. He watched them while sipping a cup of tea.
=Tiger's PoV=
Hmm…This brat, Long Ren is quite, how to say…Unique. He's gifted in my beastly ways, that I'm sure of.
He had exceeded my expectation by a wide margin. Almost succeeding in the task I doomed him to fail. Didn't quite get to see his despair, but this is a nice surprise nonetheless.
My initial estimations would be quite off. With this pace, give or take 8 months and he'll be adequate for the real techniques…
I stared at the old man, Xing Hui, his name was. A good fellow. Accompanied me for about 100 years or so. Too bad his mind is too corrupted by the clan.
Guess I better stop Long Ren from seeing the same fate as him, while I still can.
Once he started learning my technique, He will be mine after all.
And no one can sully my kin with their silly little pills.
I looked away from Xing Hui and stared at Long Ren's back, fully tattooed with my primal essence. I leaned near his ear while erecting a barrier just for us.
"Brat, I'll need you to do me a favor."
…
~Two Months Later~
"Here Nid, your Cheesecake." Long Ren said as he stretched out his right hand, handing a cheesecake to the yawning Tiger.
The tiger slapped his cheeks twice. "Brat, I've told you to stop calling me that." It said, taking the cheesecake with its finger-paw and gulping it in one go. Its face changed into one of pure bliss. "That's the stuff~~~".
Long Ren clasped his now rosy cheeks. "Then tell me your name, I can't keep calling you tiger all the time." He said. "And stop slapping my cheeks, they've swollen so much in just 6 months."
The tiger, Nid spat off her tongue, "I told you I can't, also. Beh! I'm your teacher, I can do whatever I want to you, and no one will complain, Nyehehe~" Nid said as she laughed with her head facing the cave's roof.
Long Ren sighed. Sometimes, he felt like he was the older one of the two here, Nid's personality is really confusing, she acts like a child for one time and then sage-like for another.
Women huh.
(A/N 1: IS'SA JOKE! DON'T SUE ME!)
(A/N 2: Almond milk chocolate with small wafers in it [b*ryl's] is the best ngl. I'd kill a man in cold blood just to get another jar of it. [that's a joke btw, for legal reasons], I'm sad the ones that I really loved are only (probably) sold in Malay and not here.)
