Gains

'Kurama' the nine-tailed fox, so named by Ma Sa, made its way back to its home after watching the human cub inexplicably vanish. Its master had instructed it to attack whatever came through the tunnel and it had tried its best. Unfortunately the cub was simply unkillable! Also, the black orb thing was scary!

It could only agree by nodding its head whenever the master asked if the mission was complete. The master didn't specify a human cub after all so it could just indicate that it attacked something that came out of the tunnel. There was a big crater at the end to prove it!

Still, it wasn't as if the master was kind. Master would probably take his frustration again by not feeding the young fox or worse, if he was really mad he might activate that damn slave mark. The nine-tails's ears drooped as it thought about it. That thing really hurt! The master was really mean!

*******************

Bu Lei sat in his home awaiting the return of his pet. Schluupi had returned earlier and confirmed that the trail was in place. Seeing Schluupi always improved Bu Lei's mood. Her majestic eye stalks, her scintillating slime, the curve of her perfectly smooth shell... Schluupi was one sexy snail! More than that, she was so reliable! Better than any damn human.

Since the trail had been placed and the replica shell had been left at the ambush site, all that was left was to wait for that mangy fur-ball to return. Bu Lei had picked up the nameless fox around a year ago. It had idiotically had designs on his darling Schluupi and instead paid for it by being enslaved. That shitty fox had dared to try and take a bite out of Schluupi's rear end! Fortunately, Bu Lei had been close at hand with a vial of a potent sleeping drug. By the time the fox woke up Bu Lei had already branded it with his mark.

What really pissed Bu Lei off was that the fox was actually really strong... Like, scarily strong. If he hadn't got the jump on it with the drug it would probably have blown him up! Ah well, at least the shitty thing had a use. Bu Lei wondered what kind of fox this thing was but he wasn't interested enough to actually research it. The fox only had eight tails when he first got it and over the last year it had grown another one. It needed its tails to fire that scary Qi orb so Bu Lei had grown accustomed to binding them together most of the time when he didn't need it to fight. He also relished the discomfort that doing so brought the shitty fox. That'll teach you drool over my Schluupi!

Finally, late in the evening, the shitty fox strolled casually into Bu Lei's camp. He asked the fox if it had completed the task he gave it and the fox nodded.

"Good. Hmmph! This thing is useful for once! Little Du Teng will be so happy!" Bu Lei beamed inwardly as he thought about his nephew's future success. The kid was quite the little schemer! He'd definitely go far in the settlements. It was such a pity that he didn't have talent for the family beast taming art, otherwise, he could do great things in the Jianghu too.

Bu Lei threw the shitty fox a bit of semi-spoiled meat and let it eat as he bound its tails together. He ordered it to get out as soon as possible and wait in the shack outside the camp as usual. Schluupi would be coming to visit soon and Bu Lei couldn't let the shitty fox set its filthy eyes on her magnificence!

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"Muhu!-"

Bu Du Teng suppressed his laughter by habit. Judging by the letter in his hand there was no need to keep it inside any longer!

"MUHUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

His carefully laid plans had borne fruit! Ma Sa was no more! Tomorrow was going to be a great day!

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Ma Sa returned to his room after having dinner with Old Guan, Grandpa Su, and the ever icy Su Ya. He was really looking forward to seeing how his cultivation had improved from earlier. He sat on a cushion on the floor in the lotus position and directed his senses inwardly.

Hmmm...

*~*

[WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?! BY TIGER WOODS' EIGHT IRON THAT'S A LOT OF QI!!] *return*

*~*

Ma Sa's inspection of his Dantian and other energy wells was too much for him to take in. The place was huge! Not only his three Dantians, all of the other energy wells had literal oceans of Qi in them, each with nine geysers jetting liquid Qi around the perimeter. In the center of each Qi ocean, a polished gemstone hovered in space above it. Wasn't this the sign of a Martial Warrior?? The same scene repeated in every energy well that Ma Sa examined. All three hundred and sixty one of them had an ocean and a gem. He'd certainly never read anything like this in any of the cultivation manuals he'd looked through and he'd looked through hundreds of thousands!

It might be time to ask Old Guan what a normal Martial Warrior should expect to find in their energy wells after breaking through... Maybe he could ask the old man to assess his current true cultivation and help him plan out his future training? He'd definitely need to learn some fighting techniques as soon as possible!

*i*

Ma Sa entered his inventory to pick out a few fighting manuals that appealed to his sense of style. He wanted something powerful but not something that would mess with his looks like 'Poisonous Night Palm' which discoloured the hands. 'Iron Forehead' was out too. There was no way he wanted to go around headbutting people like a drunk Glaswegian soccer hooligan!

'Tian Style Tui Na' seemed promising... It was pretty much like evil chiropractic adjustments. Instead of relieving joint restrictions, this technique created them. Learning to joint lock would be pretty great as it would mean that Ma Sa would be able to refrain from killing.

To be honest this idea was really for his own sake. He'd often thought about killing and recognized that there were some criminals who were simply too malevolent and dangerous to remain free. Once they had infringed on the rights of others they signified that they don't hold rights in regard. If they don't respect rights then they shouldn't possess them either. This was Ma Sa's thoughts on the subject. He just really didn't want to take a life and, if he could avoid it but still neutralize the immediate and future threats without doing so, then he would. Thusly, Ma Sa took his first steps along the fearful path of the Crippler. How do you neutralize a criminal without killing them? Imprison them - in their own bodies!

Next!

'Qi Thread Manipulation Art' seemed like it would be a smart supplementary art for 'Tian Style Tui Na'. It would allow Ma Sa to extend Qi Threads to apply joint locks from range. It wouldn't be of any use against practitioners with richer Qi than his own but for large groups of weak attackers he would be untouchable. What he needed next was a single target Boss (not)killer skill.

'Chaos Infused Divine Ire'? Nope... That'll kill too easily! The name caught Ma Sa's eye due to the silent pilot's obsession with a game called Path of Exile. He was pretty sure that was a meta build in 3.6...

'Spear Law Scripture'. Hmmm... Ma Sa had seen a few of the Law Scriptures since he had started importing books from other worlds. Most of them weren't readable as they were in different languages. This one definitely originated in the Qian continent though so he should be able to cultivate it. The only problem was that it was really damn complicated! What was new? Ma Sa was clearly a glutton for punishment. His idea was that if he could train a skill to be deadly then, if he mastered it further, he would be able to dial it back a bit and make it non-lethal. He settled on studying the Spear Law Scripture and thus started his journey to becoming the 'Crippling Impaler of Tianzhu'.

With his future plans laid out, Ma Sa decided to turn in for the night. He had training with Ye Zhen tomorrow morning after which he could get started on learning how to fight!

*****************

Bu Du Teng whistled to himself happily as he made his way to the workshop. His weird uncle Bu Lei had really helped him out this time. It would only cost him a couple of hours of listening to his uncle verbosely describe the beauty of his pet snail at the next family meeting. With all obstacles cleared from his path, nothing would stand in the way of the Forgemaster recognizing his talent and naming him as the successor! He was so damn good! Yup! Today was gonna be a great day!

"Muhu!-"