Super Gene Immortal Chapter 7

'How the hell did Qin Xuan get my phone number?' Lux thought to himself after the call ended. Qin Xuan wanted Lux to report to her second, Yang Manli, at his earliest convenience. Meaning ASAP. Apparently, Bullseye was partnering up with Son of Heavens Gang to hunt a Sacred-Blood creature.

 Lux didn't have anything to do, so he headed out. Meeting Yang Manli was a strange experience. It was yet another beautiful woman who seemed to have hate boner for him with seemingly no cause. Lux had to fill out some forms and Yang Manli informed him that he needed to be in the sanctuary and at the Bullseye training grounds at 6.a.m. sharp the next morning.

 Then Qin Xuan summoned them both to talk about something. She specifically wanted to see Han Sen with Yang Manli.

 "Ok, so first of all. The reason I called you both here is because of a person who goes by the name Lux. After some investigation into the man, we found a guy who was acting as a broker for the guy. Su Xiaoqiao. Lux has been somehow producing an exorbitant number of beast souls for sale. Like a ludicrous number of them. It's not just personally and the Gang that wants to get hold of this Lux character. The military has also taken an interest because the sheer number of beast souls that he's produced indicate that he has some method of either guaranteeing a beast soul drop, or increasing the probability enough that it changes the dynamics of the sanctuaries. He could become a massive strategic asset not only for his allies, but also for the Alliance as a whole if his method can be replicated." Qin Xuan summarized, "The reason I called on you, Lux, is because Son of Heaven suspects that you work with this Lux person. I need to know if there is any validity to this."

 Lux burst out laughing at the question. He had gone to so much trouble to try and keep himself away from the spotlight, but he ended up drawing it anyway, just in a completely different way than he had expected. His beast soul drop rate was ridiculous, and he had no clue why it was like that. No buffs, no skills, no traits that would cause it. Maybe he really was just that lucky.

 "Do you think if I knew someone like that, I would be wandering around without any beast souls?" Lux asked, "Nah, whoever this Lux guy is, I've only seen him in passing when he was walking through an area where I was hunting. But always in that Golden Armor. Never saw his face."

 Qin Xuan sighed at that, "I figured. You are dismissed." She waved him off while turning to talk with Yang Manli.

 The next morning Lux entered the first sanctuary and was pleased to discover that the Swift Mantis finally made its transformation into a Sacred-Blood creature. Though still laying there with its innards exposed and waiting for Lux to kill it. Animal cruelty was ok if it gave you superpowers in Lux's mind.

 After a brief onceover of his stuff, Lux headed over to the designated meeting area for the Bullseye's. Much to his surprise, Su Xiaoqiao had also joined the Bullseye gang. Though it made sense after he gave it a thought. Su Xiaoqiao may have been a wealthy person with a lot of connections. But with the volume of beast souls that he'd been moving for Lux, he was probably getting far too much heat on him. Lux made a mental note that the freaking dead drop was probably no longer a safe location to visit unless he was heading out on a long excursion into the wilderness.

 Apparently, Yang Manli had decided that Lux needed a bit of hazing. His "practice" for the day was to fire a thousand arrows using a 7.0 fitness rated practice bow at a target that was 450 feet away. Which honestly would have been a terribly difficult task if Lux's actual fitness was 7.0. The bow that he had been using required you to have a 7.0 on the fitness index to even draw it. The 7.0 practice bow was designed for a person with a 7.0 fitness to use it for practice, which meant that it was a significantly lower draw weight than what Lux was used to at this point.

 After a few test draws, Lux stood at the firing line, beside a large basket filled with arrows. Then he started drawing and loosing arrow after arrow. Focusing not on speed, but on maintaining perfect form the entire time. He didn't stop until the basket was empty and then he went to retrieve his arrows and reset. This time switching from holding the bow with his left hand to his right hand. He didn't want to exercise his muscles unevenly after all and being able to accurately hit things regardless of which hand he was using could be incredibly useful depending on the circumstances.

 Without realizing it, Lux had gathered a little bit of a crowd around him. People were watching him loose arrow after arrow downrange, every arrow finding the target. They were arguing about whether or not he was really using a 7.0 practice bow, and some had even started a betting pool on whether Lux would stop before he finished the 1000 shots.

 Lux finished firing off a thousand arrows and paused to check the time before inwardly cringing. He had done that way too fast. He had averaged an arrow loosed every five seconds. The basket contained 250 arrows, and even with his retrieval of the arrows taking a few minutes each time. He had finished the task of firing a thousand arrows into the target in less than two hours. For damn near anyone else, this task would have taken at least six to eight hours, depending on their fitness level. The vast majority of people wouldn't have even been able to do it in a day.

 One thing that is often overlooked in fantasy and fiction is how strong archers have to be. When the draw weight of a bow was 200lbs on a war bow of old, that meant that the archer had to not only pull 200 pounds back, but he also then had to hold it there, aim, and then loose. Archery is a strength heavy activity. Games always make it about dexterity or agility, but that's some total bullshit. If a bow can throw an arrow fast and hard enough to punch through dragon scales, that bows draw weight would be something that the MCU Hulk might struggle with.

 Lux was in the middle of his mental chiding of long dead fantasy and game designers when Yang Manli showed up and dispersed the crowd that had gathered to watch him shoot off arrows like a machine. Lux really should have paced himself to make the task take longer, he'd kind of screwed the pooch by doing this in front of so many people. Now they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his fitness was way above what they thought Ass Freak should be at.

 "I have to say that I am seriously impressed." Yang Manli spoke, jolting Lux out of his introspection, "Come, I will brief you tomorrows hunt."

 Lux coughed and rubbed the back of his neck as he followed Yang Manli back to her office where she handed him a sheet of paper.

 "As you can see, Son of Heavens gang has found a Sacred-Blood creature. But it is a flying kind, and they lack any skilled archers. Bullseye is known for our archers, they are hiring us to participate in the hunt. We will be meeting at the Shelter gates at 0800 tomorrow morning, don't be late." She summarized the hunt that was detailed on the sheet of paper.

 Lux pondered his options after he was dismissed for the day. He could go hunting a bit by himself. But he did have a little bit of a problem. The arrows that he possessed would not be good enough for a hunt involving a Sacred-Blood creature. Even his beast soul arrows wouldn't be enough, the strongest ones being primitive. Sure, the arrows were enhanced, but he honestly didn't know by how much and whether they would be effective on a real Sacred-Blood creatures' flesh. The fake ones produced by the black crystal didn't count because they were weaker than a normal specimen. Which all meant that unless he wanted to reveal his sacred-blood spear Lux was going to have to go spend some money on arrows capable of piercing the flesh of sacred-blood creatures.

 Fortunately for Lux, his financial situation was fantastic. The last time that he'd gotten money from the sales of beast souls had brought his total available funds up to a little over a hundred million dollars. Yeah, beast souls sold for a lot. Especially with how Su Xiaoqiao had sold them in auctions in the Alliance instead of just distributing them in the Steel Armor Shelter. If Lux could find a few mount type beast souls to auction off himself, he could make even more.

 And so, Lux returned to his family manor and began surfing the web for anyone who was selling arrows that met his specifications. He was surprised to see an ad for arrows being sold close by. As in, here on planet Roca. The Arrows were advertised as being 1.2 percent z-steel. Now the weird thing about z-steel alloys was that the higher percentage of z-steel that you got, the better. Those arrows would be more than enough to take down Sacred-Blood creatures. The seller only had two of them, but hey, Lux was a good shot. If he needed more than one, he figured that he would be failing himself. But no reason to not buy both, right?

 Lux splurged a little and got an AV taxi service that cost an arm and a leg but got him to the seller's address within half an hour where he bought not only the two special arrows, but most of the guy's stock of other kinds of arrows as well. Supporting his local crafter who seemed to have been making these things with more skill than even advanced factory robots.

 After chatting with store owner for a little while about his business and the quality of his craftsmanship Lux went home with a large bundle of arrows. Very satisfied with his purchase. Someday Lux would have an entire show armory, just because he liked weapons and he thought it would be cool. Contracting that guy to make all sorts of novel weapons just to show them off would be interesting to say the least.

 The next day Lux met up with the group from the Bullseye gang at the gates of the Shelter in a good mood. His bow slung across his back, a quiver of arrows at his hip, and ready to hunt a Sacred-Blood creature. He probably wouldn't be getting any of its flesh, but he was determined to get the last hit and take the beast soul.

 The two gangs met up at 0800 and soon set off. Heading into the wilderness with only a little bit of heckling from Son of Heavens gang about Ass Freak being with them. Lux was convinced that there was something seriously wrong with the brains of the people of this world. They were… so stupid that it hurt to think about it sometimes. And they were extremely cruel. Like, nazi level cruel, or even worse, the blue haired Karens level of self-entitled and cruel. Lux shuddered at the thought. No, they weren't quite blue haired Karen level. But it was close.

 The hunting party was around 200 people strong. And though their trek across the wilderness was long, the advantage of numbers made any threat that would have deterred a single hunter or a small party into a trivial matter. Lux was taking advantage of the trek going off into an area that he had never been in before to surreptitiously acquire samples of plants that he hadn't eaten before. Gaining a few new buffs along the way.

 The one downside of traveling in such a large group was that the going was much slower than it could have been. What should have been a weeklong trek to get to the Sacred-Blood creatures territory ended up taking two weeks. The destination was in a craggy valley with cliffs running along two sides of it.

 The Bullseye gang split off from Son of Heavens gang and took up positions along a cliffside. Son of Heavens Gang was further split into two parties. One to flush the creature out, the other to participate in killing it. Son of Heaven himself was an accomplished archer. Lux had even seen him shooting the Bloody Slayer that one time.

 To avoid trouble, Lux maintained his distance from Son of Heaven and his gang members. Son of Heaven had provided a hundred z-steel alloy arrows manufactured by some company that called the Starlight Arrows. Starlight arrows were 1% z-steel and they sold for a million an arrow. It was a true scam as far as Lux was concerned. But Son of Heaven had literally invested over a hundred million dollars into this one hunt by providing those arrows. It really drove home how seriously hunting sacred-blood creatures was taken.

 Son of Heaven threw a fit when Manli tried to give Lux twenty of the arrows. Lux had waved her off and pointed to the arrows that he had in his quiver already. The special ones that he bought were better than the Starlight arrows, and the others were only inferior by 0.1% in z-steel content. So he was chilling.

 Lux waited for everyone else to take their positions and found a good spot for himself and settled in to wait. About twenty minutes later the roars of a very large creature could be heard in the distance heading towards the cliff face. A minute later Lux heard an intake of breath and multiple exclamations from the gathered hunters.

 Flying towards them was a creature that Lux would describe as a wyvern with feathered wings. Its scales were a deep purple while the feathers were a dark red that faded into the purple scales. In any other circumstance Lux would have just marveled at beauty of the wyvern. As it approached Yang Manli ordered for everyone to open fire.

 A hail of arrows flew into the beautiful creature… and accomplished fuck all. Even the vaunted Starlight Arrows barely scratched the wyvern's scales. Even its feathers were undamaged by the first wave of arrows.

 Lux carefully drew one of his special 1.2 percent z-steel alloy arrows and had it knocked, waiting for a that prime moment to send it.

 Son of Heaven and Yang Manli both summoned beast soul bows and beast soul arrows. They were obviously not sacred-blood level beast souls. But when they launched their arrows they were the first to actually do any damage to the wyvern. Son of Heaven's arrow hit first, causing the wyvern let out a guttural roar of pain and anger, followed closely by Yang Manli's arrow which his it in the wing.

 The next second, both Son of Heaven and Yang Manli had had their arrows back in their hand. The advantage of beast soul arrows that weren't specified as one-time-use. Hit or miss, you could just dismiss the arrow and resummon it. Infinite arrow glitch acquired!

 Of course, Lux already knew this, and technically he also had the tools to be doing the same exact thing that they were doing. But he couldn't do it without drawing too much attention. Maybe after this hunt he could 'buy' an arrow beast soul, and a bow beast soul. Just say that he won the lottery or something. He could figure out an excuse. He honestly already should have made an excuse, but he hadn't.

 Even under significant bombardment and with its wings severely damaged, the wyvern managed slip the encirclement and flee.

 "Quick! It's wings are badly damaged it wont get far!" Son of Heaven shouted as he summoned a mount and started charging in the direction that the wyvern had flow off too.

 Everyone started either sprinting or galloping upon their mounts, giving chase to the wounded wyvern. This was human nature. Humans are persistence predators, once humans have their sights set on prey, it can run, but humans will always outlast them in their tenacity.

 Lux was sprinting in the direction as fast as he could when Qin Xuan showed up beside him on her horse like mount, "Get on!" she yelled at him as she passed him. She took Lux along because she knew that he was a phenomenal archer, and she had space for one other person on her mount.

 Lux hopped on with a grin as the mount charged forward. It turned out that actually, the wyvern could get pretty far. It had flown to what Lux was tempted to call a mountain. But it really was more like a mountain sized rock spear that jutted out of the ground. Lux could almost imagine that it had once been wielded by some kind of celestial as a weapon and it had fallen here during some kind of ancient battle with Knull.

 The wyvern had flown to the top of this 'mountain' and was up there occasionally letting out a mournful roar.

 "Damnit!" Son of Heaven shouted, "We need to hurry!"

 Qin Xuan nodded, "If we give it a few hours the beast will recover enough to flee in true. Sacred-Blood creatures heal fast."

 "But the mountain is too steep! If it attacks while we are climbing we wont be able to defend ourselves."

 "We are going to have to send up small groups to lure it off the top of the mountain. It'll be safer for a couple people than it would be for a large group of us." Son of Heaven said after a moment of thought, "But only Manli and I were doing any damage to the thing so we will take up overwatch positions and shoot at it if comes down to attack the climbers. As compensation the climbers will get a larger cut of the meat. That sound fair?"

 Qin Xuan thought about it for a moment then nodded at that and gestured for them to get a move on. Lux followed close to her. Son of Heaven was giving him the look that said he was not going to be aiming at the wyvern. Son of Heaven was about to be trying to 'accidentally' shoot Lux in the back as he climbed. So, Lux just decided to stick with Qin Xuan. Son of Heaven would risk hitting her to try and shoot him.

 The climb got hectic as some of the frontrunners got brutally killed by the wyvern that had decided to be proactive about its own defense. Though that exposed it to the arrows of Yang Manli and Son of Heaven. Son of Heaven, as Lux had predicted, seemed to be distracted and was not hitting the wyvern like Manli was.

 Lux stuck to Qin Xuans side like glue and never gave the guy an appropriate opening as they scaled the side of the mountain. The wyvern managed to kill four climbers but once Son of Heaven realized that he wasn't going to get shot on Lux he had joined Manli in doing damage.

 Soon a tipping point came where the wyverns wings refused to support its short little jaunts to kill the pesky humans and it started to flee back up the mountainside, climbing desperately to get away from the encroaching humans. Its proactive killing of the climbers had been its own undoing.

 When everyone saw this those climbing started moving with greater vigor. The whole hunting party could smell blood. Qin Xuan took the opportunity to use her Lion shapeshifting Beast Soul to start climbing faster. Lux not wanting to be left as Son of Heaven target practice, grabbed onto her tail as she scaled the with her claws. Taking the lion woman elevator Lux smirked as he witness Son of Heaven activate his own shapeshifting beast soul and transform into a nine-foot-tall black ape before he began climbing at a rapid pace. Seeing that Lux released his grip on Qin Xuans tail and climbed himself. No need to hold her back.

 Within moments, Son of Heaven overtook Qin Xuan and sprinted past her. Arriving behind the wyvern which immediately turned to attack him. Lux was within about a hundred feet of the fight that going down and he saw his opportunity. He found himself some stable footing and took aim with his bow.

 Lux started pelting the wyvern with his lowest quality arrows. Taking advantage of the fact that it wasn't going to be changing location much to really zero in on the dynamics of the shots taken. And it was fun to act like he messed up and hit Son of Heaven a few times. Not that it did anything to Son of Heaven in his shapeshifted state, but it was still fun.

 Lux couldn't afford to use his good arrows at this moment anyway because there was no way that he would kill the Wyvern in just one shot with the state that it was in now. He had to let the others do enough damage that he could get the kill shot.

 What followed was an hour long slug fest of the Black Ape form Son of Heaven and Qin Xuan in her Lion form attacking while Lux and the others who had bows pelted the thing from a distance. Seriously. The resilience of Sacred-Blood creatures was insane.

 At some kind of turning point that Lux didn't even realize had happened, Son of Heaven reverted his shapeshifted form back to human and summoned a red sword that he swung down in a vicious strike that opened a huge wound along the wyverns wing. Qin Xuan also reverted to human form and summoned her sacred-blood malicious butterfly dagger and she plunged it into the same wound that had just been opened by Son of Heaven. Qin Xuan's dagger left a deadly necrotic toxin within the wound that was turning the copious mounts of blood that were flowing out of it black.

 Lux knew that his time was almost here. Knocking one of his special arrows he readied himself to launch the killing blow. He watched as wound after wound accumulated, the wyvern becoming more and more desperate. Son of Heaven managed to land another vicious blow, this time to the creatures neck. It was then that the Wyvern truly realized that it was going to die. It seemed to gather all of its strength and swept out with everything it had, driving the people who had it surrounded on the steep side of the mountain back as it tried one last desperate maneuver and launched itself off the side of the mountain, seemingly trying to at least glide away.

 Son of Heaven was the first to respond to this and summoned his bow and arrow. Firing off his arrow and hitting its already crippled wings. Which was the last straw and instead of gliding it was now falling.

 And that is when Lux's arrow struck. Sinking directly into the wound that Son of Heaven had inflicted on its neck. And an instant later Lux heard the wonderfully weird voice of the sanctuary telling him something.

 [Sacred-Blood creature, Purple-Winged Dragon, killed. Sacred-Blood beast soul of the Purple-Winged Dragon gained. Eat the flesh of the Purple-Winged Dragon to gain zero to ten sacred-blood geno points randomly.]

 Lux inwardly cheered at the getting the beast soul. But a genuine frown graced his face. That thing was not a dragon! It was a wyvern! How could the stupid sanctuary not know the difference? Wyverns have four limbs, dragons have six. The total disregard for fantasy rules was unacceptable! Lux could make an exception when it came to Chinese dragons, they got a pass because Shenron. But calling a wyvern a dragon was heresy of the highest order! Lux was suddenly wishing he had a heavy flamer around here to deal with the vile heretic.

 Lux who was busy being enraged at the heretical naming scheme of the sanctuary system. Only partially noticed that he was now the center of attention. Everyone knew that he had gotten the last hit. And they wanted to know if he got the beast soul. Obviously, he wasn't going to be telling.

 "Fuck! Who got the last hit? I thought I had that!" Lux yelled out as stared down at the corpse that had come to rest at the bottom of the mountain. Hoping that people would buy the act.

 "Did you get the beast soul?" Son of Heaven asked. He was staring at Lux with murder in his eyes. Pure and utter hatred etched across every line of his furious face.

 "Nope. I didn't even get the last hit!"

 "That's a fucking lie and you know it!" Son of Heaven roared, "We all saw it."

 "Well, I don't have a beast soul to show for it." Lux said with a shrug, "But even if I had gotten it, it would be none of your business now would it? The rules of the hunt specifically said that whoever gets the last hit is entitled to the beast soul if it drops. Too bad it didn't, or I would sell it to you or Qin Xuan."

 If Son of Heaven had looked enraged before, he now looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel and he took a step towards Lux with his red sword in hand.

 "Son of Heaven! My guy didn't break any rules and he's right. Even if he did get it you would have no rights to it. Leave my man alone." Qin Xuan said, seemingly unaware of the vast amount of emotional damage just done to Son of Heaven by calling Lux her man. She was in military mode, calling Lux her man wasn't in the relationship or emotional sense, it was more military slang than anything else. And Qin Xuan was completely unaware that this would really start the rumor mill churning when they got back to Steel Armor Shelter.