Understanding the Earth Mountain Bear

After his day off he plans to spend another 6 days at the lake before setting off into the forest to practice his sword and martial techniques.

He got up bright and early sending the girls back to do their jobs while he went back to his normal getup of being basically naked. Today he plans to do some extreme body training before heading off into the water to hunt again.

He starts off by creating a grade 1 array that increases the gravity within a small area. He increases to the max which is 20x before then getting a bunch more weights with runes on them that increase their weight even more.

Like this he started to do some extreme body training. It only took a few minutes before his muscles screamed in pain and his body started sweating all over. Feeling the pain in his whole body from his exercise he plans to use this as a chance to train the Spirit Controlling Technique.

This is a special technique he found within the database which allows his soul to leave the body temporarily and control the body using the soul. This is a god send technique that body cultivators would die for. As it would allow one to control their body to tempter itself while experiencing none of the pain. It would also allow them to move their body even if its physically exhausted possibly allowing them to save their life.

This technique although very useful is incredibly hard to learn and even though Fen Chang has been practicing it for months, he is still only barely able to make his soul leave his body and is still has major struggles controlling his body using his soul.

With the pressure from the array and weights making it even harder for his body to move he is just about able to make his arms bend and come back. A push up, after months of hard work training the technique, he is currently only able to do push-ups. Even so, he is proud as he is using his soul to move his body under 20x gravity + many extremely heavy small weights each the weight of a large boulder which are then even heavier due to the gravity.

These push ups are extremely exhausting but by using his soul he is able to persevere and continue way past what he normally would. He notices a flaw with his training though. His special way of breathing stopped and was now just a steady flow of large normal breaths.

He spent the next few hours training and trying to keep his breathing consistent even when using the spirit controlling technique.

At lunch he decided to stop his workout and eat before then going back into the water to search for more water rats. This time how ever he plans to use his fists as he doesn't want to be caught off guard and unable to fight properly should he ever not have a weapon.

…

It has now been 6 days and was the day that Fen Chang has set as the day to leave for new and better training grounds. The past 6 days have been very useful for Fen Chang as his cultivation increased to peak level 4 and is near the barrier of level 5.

He also collected lots of resources. He has now got hundreds of rank 1 beast cores from all the rats he has slaughtered. Many different types of grade 1 and 2 herbs and materials. He even found a few storage rings hidden under dirt at the bottom of the lake.

The storage rings had nothing of extreme value apart from money and some plants he hasn't found before.

Right now, Fen Chang is watching from a distance as a giant cloud of blood came rising to the surface of the water in the lake pushing up against the thick layer of ice.

'Seems the shadows are making quick work of those water rats. I told them to slaughter them all and collect the beast core since its used in alchemy. I also told them to collect everything the rats collected no matter how plain it is.

I would have kept some rats to tame and then breed into an army but they are too weak and rank 2 high is the maximum they can go; it would be a waste of effort. Once the shadows are done, I will leave this place since there seems to be no secret and it's not ideal to train in one location for too long as I want the experience of fighting in different environments and different creatures.'

An hour later a group of people dressed in black appeared in front of him. They each held out their hand which contained a storage ring filled with all the things that were found.

Collecting the rings, he sent them back as he took a look at the contents within the rings.

Again, there was a lot of money and low rank swords, weapons and armour. There where some interesting pieces though. There was a few sets of rank 3 armour and weapons which he will give to his army generals. Some rare rank 3 and 4 metals, though they are only small bits.

There where a lot of gems such as garnets, sapphire's, ruby's and such. He plans to use those for jewellery and decorations. Apart from a few other random items the main thing that caught his attention was a giant token with a earth dragon's mouth on one side and a snake's head on the other.

He uses the database on it to find out its information and uses.

[Name: Reptile Palace Token]

[Material: Flood Dragon Spinal Bone]

[Uses: Allows access to Reptile Palace]

'Hmm, not much information and it doesn't tell me about this reptile palace either. I imaging from its name and novels I've read it likely some sort of inheritance that requires a token for entrance. That's the most common answer, the actual palace is likely on the main land and is used by the big sects. Its very unlikely its here.'

Storing it away since it doesn't have much use right now, he looks towards the peak of a mountain in the distance and starts running towards it.

…

2 days later Fen Chang finally reached the mountain he wanted. On his way he stopped many times to hunt and collect low level herbs or interesting things he likes the look of.

The mountain in front of him is the first of many that start popping up behind it. This mountain marks the marks the start of the mountain range which houses high rank 1 and rank 2 beasts with rank 3 and a few ranks 4 in the centre.

The forest has few beasts below rank 2 because within the mountain range the Qi is slightly thicker and there are more treasures. So, all the beasts with power fight for a place within the mountain range. The rats aren't in the mountain range is because they need large lakes to survive and mountain ranges have a limited number of lakes which are monopolised by rank 3 creatures.

Not wanting to go against rank 2 beasts yet he focuses his attention on high rank 1's that live on the edge of the mountain range. He takes out his sword in search a cave that houses a high rank 1 beast.

Within 20 minutes he finds a bear hibernating through the winter. The bear is covered in dirt like fur with muscles visible throughout its body. It's roughly the size of a van as it sat there with an imposing aura.

This bear is a rare type of bear called the Earth Mountain Bear. Known to have a close connection with the earth it has a large amount of earth element Qi. They have the potential to reach low rank 3 but mostly average out at mid-level 2.

The earth Qi allows it to have crazy high defence and attack while having slow speed. But it's clear the usual slow movement has been countered by its densely packed muscles on its legs. The only thing it might lose out on is moveability but with its defence, attack and pure speed, would still makes it a deadly foe.

Liking the look of the cave and seeing it as a good chance to practice his sword skills he decides to fight.

Normally he would get in a sneak attack and try to one shot it but because he wants the experience, he instead wakes it up and antagonises it.

After getting woken up the bear furiously roars and starts to fight with him. After 30 minutes both Fen Chang and the bear are covered in wounds and both look like they would fall any minute.

During the fight Fen Chang has improved in his dodging and moveability, but also his slashing power because at the beginning his sword wouldn't even penetrate its hide. He was forced to learn and adapt, there by allowing him to swing with more precision in weaker areas and more powerful, while also using his careful control over his Qi to amplify his attack.

But he wasn't the only one who improved though. The bear itself started out like a wild animal thinking Fen Chang as easy prey but after 15 minutes it started to get cautious and when Fen Chang started changing and adapting causing the bear pain it also started to learn.

It learned to send energy to its weaker places, it learned how to use its speed better and most importantly it learned how to read Fen Changs moves, though only slightly.

This caused Fen Chang a great amount of surprise seeing it learn. As it clearly doesn't have intelligence but its natural instincts have allowed it a form of intelligence to improve and learn.

Seeing himself and the bear in a similar near-death state with blood and wounds littering their bodies. He decides that he wants to tame the bear. Seeing it improve so much within just half an hour with instincts alone he is excited to see how much he could improve it if he personally trained it.

It would also make a good sparing partner for him. Making up his mind he used the rest of his Qi and charged it into his fist. The bear seeing its opponent going for its final attack also mustered up the last of its strength.

The two collided for the last attack. With the victor being Fen Chang due to him adding the powerful ice Qi into his attack. The bear slumped on the ground ready for death, stared at him with acceptance.

The bear knew it lost and that it was time for its death. Seeing the human come closer with sword in hand it closed its eyes ready for the final strike.

Seeing the bear ready for death made him smirk as he struck down.

*Clang*

Hearing the noise, the bear opened its eyes only to be greeted by a sword stuck in the ground piercing the rocks below. In front of it was the human he fought looking directly into his eyes with happiness with a hand on its head.

"Bear. That fight was one of the most fun ones I've ever had. Your ability to adapt and learn left me stunned and when you where ready for death you accepted it and where ready to die. That is commendable.

Bear I would like to grant you another chance. Since I won instead of taking your life, I want to help you grow. I want you to become my subordinate and fight by my side. What do you say?"

Despite not gaining intelligence it should still understand the meaning of the human's words. It nodded its head as its pride as a bear makes it unable to go against its values of the winner commands the loser.

Seeing the nod Fen Chand sends a seal to the bear and makes it his subordinate. With a smile on his face, he sits down next to the bear and gave himself and the bear a healing pill.

Covered in blood the bear and human duo sit in piece healing their wounds.