Perfecting Techniques

Hong Zhao jumped from tree to tree, his presence masked from the shadow panthers below. As he looked down, he momentarily thought of his own friend, Shadow. He hadn't seen his friend in some time. Shadow always left whenever he wanted, and always came back stronger. The last time Hong Zhao had seen him, he had achieved the Eighth Star Student Rank. Yet that was a few months ago. He knew his friend was somewhere back in this forest, training against other panthers, or other fierce beasts that got in his way.

Hong Zhao snapped out of his musings as he saw a clearing within the wanderings of the beasts. He decided on a plan of action. Stopping his momentum on one tree, he activated Qi Explosion and created two Qi Balls. Even though his body didn't emit Qi, which would alert the enemies to his presence, the abilities could draw the enemy to him.

Hong Zhao dropped the two Qi Balls down to the forest floor and waited. The experience reminded him somewhat of fishing. He had to wait and see what would nibble on his line.

Sitting on a branch, his eyes bore into the forest floor below. Not one movement would escape his Eagle Vision, unless the enemy was of a higher rank than him.

He had gone further than the Shadow Panther area of the forest and found a place within the Stone Snake domain. He didn't quite know why all of the fierce beasts seemed to seclude themselves in their own area within the forest. Maybe they were sentient? Shadow never seemed dull witted as far as he had noticed.

As he waited, Hong Zhao decided to cultivate within the treetop. As far as he was concerned, the Qi that gathered was invisible upon entering his body. One would have to look for the funnel of Qi at the end of his cultivation in order to guess where he might be.

Hong Zhao was snapped out of his cultivating by an explosion below. Looking down, he saw a very irritated stone snake. It wasn't damaged in the slightest, aside from a few burn marks around the mouth. He could see the snake was at the same rank he was. It looked around the forest floor for the source of the exploding Qi, yet couldn't find where Hong Zhao was.

Hong Zhao activated Qi Shot and Eagle Vision. He let his eyesight zoom in to the snake in order to maximize efficiency. Though it had been a long time since he had held a rifle, he still remembered the breathing techniques as he inhaled slowly, and let loose one shot on the exhale. Luckily the ability had no kickback, as the beam of pure white Qi sailed through the air and struck the target on the head.

Just as the Qi Explosion, the Qi Shot didn't seem to affect the beast, aside from a welt on its head. It did however help the stone snake discover where Hong Zhao was located. It started to slither up the tree, where it saw the dark shape that had no cultivation base.

Hong Zhao activated Vortex Thrust and jumped from tree to tree, circling the snake. He released a barrage of Qi Shots, hitting the snake from all sides. He saw the welts from the many shots that had landed, and did his best to hit the beast on the same spots.

The snake shot venom from its mouth, trying to catch Hong Zhao. Each shot only met air. Hong Zhao had Vortex Thrust maxed out as he blurred from tree to tree, shooting even faster as the shots began to take effect. The welts on the snake began to open after multiple shots. He could see dark red blood oozing from the many shots. Yet he didn't relent. He continued shooting the creature until it resembled a pin cushion and fell off of the tree to the ground below.

Hong Zhao felt most of his Qi was depleted from this one snake, and felt it wouldn't be a bad idea to confront the beasts one at a time for a while, at least until his abilities ranked up slightly.

He decided to wait in the tree and cultivate for a while to replenish the Qi he used. He could feel how his Qi Spiral had enlarged slightly, yet the size of which he had to gain was as vast as the earth to the heavens. He knew that it would be a long year, and he didn't know whether he would be able to achieve the Eighth Star Student Rank before his year and a half of seclusion was over.

It took little less than a half an hour to replenish his Qi. It seemed that the Qi around the area was much more dense than when he had cultivated closer to the exit of the forest, where the shadow panthers resided. It made some sense. The stone snake he had fought was that of the Seventh Star Student Rank. The Qi in the area had to be dense enough for the fierce beast to attain such levels.

As far as Hong Zhao read, fierce beasts accumulated Qi differently than humans. They collected it just by living and breathing, while humans had to cultivate in order to achieve their cultivation base. So the further he would go into the forest, the stronger the enemy would be.

Hong Zhao prepared two more Qi Balls and threw them to the ground. His understanding of the ability Qi Explosion was almost good enough to have three balls, yet not quite. If he tried to form another, it would likely blow up in his face. He didn't want to go through his Health Recovery Pills any faster than was necessary.

Leaving the corpse of the stone snake at the forest floor attracted yet another one within the next half hour after Hong Zhao had replenished his Qi. The smell of blood promised the snake a tasty snack, as well as a boost to its rank, due to the other beast's core. Consuming a beast core allowed even beasts to absorb the stored Qi into their own core. They could shave off a year of collecting Qi and possibly hit through their bottleneck in one go!

As the stone snake came closer, it came close enough to the first Qi Ball that Hong Zhao activated the ability, sending the snake flying into a tree where the other ball was located. Hong Zhao activated Qi Explosion for the second time and then used Eagle Vision and Qi Shot once more as he moved around the trees, not stopping long enough for the snake to lock on to where he was located. He used the leaves on the branches to obscure him from the snake's vision, and used his sight ability to see it.

Within two minutes of doing the same thing, Hong Zhao finally wore the snake down. It was confused as to where the shots were coming from, since they were falling from the trees like rain. At first they were just irritating, yet after a while, the shots remained true and wore it down enough for Hong Zhao to find an opening. Suddenly, he dove from the tree and activated Devouring Qi Claws and decapitated the snake before it had a chance to look up.

With two snakes down, Hong Zhao used his claws to carve out the beast cores, as well as a healthy portion of their corpses and stored his gains in his ring. "Looks like snake tonight." He said with a smile. It was about time he replenished his supplies anyway, the panther meat was almost gone within the ring. If he was going to be living in the forest for some time, a little variety wouldn't hurt, would it?