12 Cross Ranking Kill.

The sun looked like a hiding diamond in the sky covered up by the growing moons. The daily eclipse was only topped by the monster standing in front of him.

"That map is something my dad found." The burly veins of the Big Steel foot popped as he talked.

When you compared Tao Lin to the monster in his front, it was like a tooth pick to a candle. And the monster also had a more impressive energy. He looked as strong as an axe standing in front of a chicken. It didn't help that Tao was shaking.

"I'm sorry but I can't give it back to you," Tao gulped, "I'm not the type of person who goes down without a fight."

Mr. Big Steel Foot lightly squeezed Tao's shoulder. However, he put enough pressure to nearly knock out his shoulder-blade. It just seemed light to the higher leveled monster in front of him. It was flurry and had big swoops of long-whip hair dangling from its bizarre head.

Tao Lin shivered from the tension but didn't dare squeak like a mouse. He knew this monster could kill him instantly.

"Well, I'm not going to rob you. I'm here to help you remember? I didn't come all the way over here and help you through the waterfall just to cause trouble for you."

"So, why are you trying to kill me?" Tao pointed to his shoulder. He was losing 50 points of Vim every few seconds.

The Big Streel foot laughed before letting go of his grip. However, then he turned around hearing clawing sounds scratching against the wall.

"Bang, Bang, Bang"

He immediately pushed Tao Lin behind his back, and a saber appeared in his hand.

"You've encountered the Qi-9 monster the ice dragon's son."

Tao Lin scratched his head as he stood behind the much bigger back of the monster. He was terrified that the monster had to defend him. The two ran at each other with their weapons drawn. One had teeth with ice breathe, and the other was quick like a bullet with a sword that spun fire.

"Boom!"

Tao Lin got worried watching the fight. They clashed, and flames of blue ice and sword energy spun into cute little patterns and spread through the room. He literally had to draw the shield from his back to block the ricochet.

"You're trying to protect an invader, Steel?" The dragon whipped is rose thorn tail and slammed it

against Steels blade.

"You've done nothing since my father died but obstruct me. Today you die filthy tadpole."

The dragon laughed as the two clashed.

"Smack, Smack, Smack"

Steel jumped around the room on the frozen rocks and crisscrossed the steel tip icicles as the dragon whipped and lashed its flames like colorful and blue and dazzling arrows. Finally Steel hacked his blade into the beast's neck. Sparks and blood mixed like the moon into the sun.

"Kill it now, Tao! You need the experience for the mission." Big Steely said dodging the squirting blood.

"Ha, this little pipsqueak couldn't kill a mou…. AHHHH!"

"Ha, well you know dad wouldn't like if I killed you. Tao now!"

Tao's tiger crane spear materialized in the air like a mysterious puzzle that somehow gained weight. He flicked the spear and activated all his amplifiers. This included the frost blossom gadget, and the new boots so he could run faster. His speed quadrupled, topping at 500 miles an hour, and he quickly threw his blue spear into the monster's face. Moreover, Steel hacked down a little harder to keep the monster from sending out its blue frost breathe. Yup, now all he had to do was hope that the monster would die. And since it was four levels higher than him, he would get a huge bonus.

Basically, if a monster was two cultivation stages higher than you, the pill they dropped would give you 2x the normal essence; for three levels it would be 4x, and for four levels 8x. So, if Tao managed to kill this he would get Qi-9 experience x 8. It would be like killing eight boss monsters. He gulped as the spear flew.

Alas, even though it worked, and the monster died he didn't get any special drops. All he got was a warning from the system saying that he should kill monsters himself. Luckily, though, the monster dropped a trove of essence, and he immediately swallowed them down.

"Congratulations on reaching Qi Condensation 7! You should thank Steel for all the help."

Big Steel Foot jumped off of the dragon corpse and looked back at it with disdain.

"This monster here caused my father a lot of trouble. He didn't want any humans getting that map."

Tao Lin cleared his throat. "Why, its not like he could have done anything with it."

Big steely laughed. "That map is worth more than this big fat worms weight in gold. Of course, it doesn't matter if he can use it or not, silly. It's a map that shows the earth, and a rare dungeon there.

Apparently, there are relics there from millions of years ago."

Tao Lin scratched his head. "So, how do we get to this dungeon?"

….

Diana found herself in middle of no man's land. There were girl monsters all around her. They seemed like Amazonians, from back ancient lore, except they were slightly smaller. The girls were maybe 5'10, or 5'11 max. However, when compared to Diana Hong's 5'4. It looked like a small dog next to a big dog.

She wielded a weapon Tao Lin gave her a few weeks ago. Apparently, it was his old weapon called the Half-Worthy Dual Blades. She felt like she was pretty good with them. And she cut down one of the monsters in front of her.

"You're going to regret this," The Amazonian commented in her exotic attire.

Diana put her sword to her throat. "Give me a map and I'll let you live."

The Amazonian shook and strung out a map from her purse.

"If you can find what's on this map, I'll give you something special. Thanks for not killing me, Diana."

Diana scratched her head and opened the map.

"You've unlocked the quest of the Amazons, difficulty level Emerald."

Diana slipped the blades back into her satchel and tried to make heads or tails of the map. She began following it as the sun finally recovered from being moon ridden. A purple panther, however, was lurking in the bushes. It smelled something good and was getting ready to attack.