Crossroads (3)

It was a pleasure hunt for Ja Sun indeed. He wasn't doing the work. Not this time. Oscar and Yuehua, by right, are support-type spirit masters and they should commit to the role until necessary otherwise against opponents of a higher level but when during their own hunt, Ja Sun expected Yuehua and Oscar to do well on their own now. Not because this was a King's Lair and humans couldn't hunt in teams, no, that was just a hypocritical excuse. Even the weaker beasts hunt in packs, more common in the canines and a few cat families.

Ja Sun just found that his teammates just would be able to hold their own against the beasts they do eventually find.

So, there they were. Oscar, Jun'er, Yuehua, and Ja Sun. The Clear Phoenix was flying overhead, sometimes hopping from branch to branch at times. Xiao Wu watched the Clear Phoenix with her brown eyes widened in wonder while Xiao Bei followed while continuously glancing at Ja Sun. And Jun'er's twitching nose was quick to find something odd, or in this case, smell something odd.

"Did you know? Pregnancy can make sense of smell stronger?" Jun'er suddenly breached the topic as Ja Sun glanced at her with an odd expression, "So? Stay the fuck away from Oscar's tofu after the second trimester or you'd be shivering in the knees."

Jun'er choked back her next words and barked, "Never!"

"But why did you bring it up?" Oscar inquired curiously while Jun'er hummed gratefully and looked at Xiao Bei mischievously, "Oh, you know. I got a whiff of something... great."

Not to sound too narcissistic but Ja Sun simply had such an effect on many, many female beasts whether they looked human or not. To beasts, strength was an undeniable and unclaimable wealth and this only made him look more attractive to many. Not to mention his silver main and luxurious coat of fur around his body and the swaggering tail behind were captivating in their own manner.

"Something... great?" Xiao Wu frowned for a second, sniffing around and quickly settling her direction towards his position. If it's something great, he must have a hand in it, right?

Jun'er blinked as she watched Xiao Wu sniff Ja Sun in a daze...

'Beautiful... a sniffer...' The dark-haired woman scoffed a stifled chuckle and then looked towards the glaring Yuehua, "What?"

"Sister Jun'er! Could you please not embarrass others?" She was quick to understand what Jun'er was implying but they were on stranger lands. Though a human, Xiao Bei still had spent her life amongst beasts. She did have a concept of shame, but it wasn't as flimsy as the human society would be comfortable with.

"Hmm, wrong, wrong, Wu Wu," The mature brunette in a creamy, pink-outlined training robes shook her head, "That scent isn't coming from him."

Pulling her daughter into a hug from behind, Xiao Bei took it upon herself to educate her daughter to the best of her ability while resting her chin atop the slightly shorter bunny's head. "When a female human finds a male attractive, they find themselves... ah, I forgot what you mentioned, God... Lord Ja Sun."

Xiao Bei looked at Ja Sun coyly, her lips thinned into a captivating smirk, and her large brown eyes seeking his attention.

"The correct term is being turned on," Ja Sun smiled sincerely, dodging the shove of Yuehua's elbow as Jun'er and Oscar looked at each other speechlessly.

It wasn't that Ja Sun had gotten more shameless. He didn't have a cap on it so it couldn't even be quantified but... they never expected Xiao Bei to be so open in front of her daughter.

"So..." Xiao Wu tilted her head, "Sun-Sun is a human carrot?"

She looked up while Xiao Bei unconsciously licked her slightly dry lips as she viewed him. He had solely denied them because his other lovers were not present but that situation had passed, right?

"No, you're inexperienced, Xiao Wu... Beast God is the whole carrot stew!"

"Woah... that's dirty talk, right?" Jun'er leaned in on Yuehua and whispered.

"I don't know!" Yuehua muttered despondently. And she felt worse because she truly didn't know if calling Ja Sun a carrot stew was in any way a sexual talk but Oscar hummed in surprise. The cook and food support master he was, he chimed, "Damn, a whole stew? You really got some base here!"

"Amazing..." Meanwhile, a thin drool escaped Xiao Wu's lips.

"Exactly, I'm the stew!" Ja Sun grinned as he looked at the beautiful mother and daughter pair.

Even now, Yuehua didn't understand a thing and Ja Sun shot a glance in her direction, "No need to really think too deep about it. We're speaking the language only God understands."

"Right, and Brother Oscar is a God?" Yuehua tugged one of her blue brows up in question as Ja Sun shrugged, "Sure, he can be a God, too."

"Food God Douluo... now that is a good title for me," Oscar smirked.

*Chiiii*

The Clear Phoenix suddenly let out a sharp cry and flapped its large, pitch-black wings to shoot ahead, resembling a bold of darkness. It found prey!

Others looked at one another and followed behind the Clear Phoenix with Xiao Wu barely keeping up with their speed but with how she had denied the help of her mother and Yuehua for that matter to assist her, others didn't offer a hand and just regulated their speed until reaching the location of battle shortly after.

Even now, Ja Sun couldn't figure out just what the Clear Phoenix sought in its target. Every target was different from the one before but Yuehua was sure that Clear Phoenix would only pick the best of its capabilities and that is one of the reasons why Yuehua had to come to a compromise with the Clear Phoenix for it not hunt beasts optimal to her condition but to hunt the beasts that challenged her.

But this also meant that the Clear Phoenix was challenging its own capabilities during every hunt!

So, without a shred of hesitation, Yuehua kicked up and entered the battle. Oh, she was scared. The moment she saw Clear Phoenix harassing a pack of Windswept Deers, she felt an urge to look towards Ja Sun again. Every beast in the pack was above 5000 years of cultivation and she could communicate with the Clear Phoenix to understand that what her martial soul wanted to hunt was the peculiar leader of the pack as her fourth spirit ring.

19000 years!

*Huff*

As the Clear Phoenix slammed into the ground, its sharp talons barely having any effect on the wind blades that struck it, Ja Sun shrouded everyone's presence but Yuehua's who was on her way to the weakest Windswept Deer.

It was easy to note her inexperience at first glance. Ja Sun trained her with the knowledge to aim for the opponent's weaknesses. That's how a support master like her should fight in the first place— quick and deadly!

Yet, she wasn't accustomed to fighting at all. Her experience came from sparring with Ja Sun and Erlong alone.

Her movements were awkward, especially against a beast. Usually, she wouldn't even try to fight given her conflicted feelings over violence but she couldn't sit back while her martial soul was being battered by the pack it chose to hunt, right? She realized that her team was the aggressor.

"Hmm, she is being too passive..." Oscar frowned. He admittedly was stronger than her and more perceptive than most.

"Then about time she starts learning again," Ja Sun shrugged.

"Hey, you can go easy on your fiancee. Nothing wrong with that," Jun'er pouted.

"There isn't? If I was in her stead, I would start by opening her Noble Circle domain, or was it Clear Circle now? Then, I would beat the shit out of the beasts. But she's too rattled to realize that," Ja Sun muttered casually while Xiao Bei chimed from the side, "Indeed! If you like someone, you shouldn't be easy on them! That's why I don't feed Wu a carrot if she doesn't get her answers right in her studies!"

She quickly glanced at Ja Sun, full of anticipation. But Ja Sun wasn't about to incentivize the disciplining of kids. Fuck, he hated that when he was a kid, too!

Instead, he looked at the battle unfolding in front of him.

And boy, his expectations were blown out of the park!

A group of startled dears tossed Yuehua and Clear Phoenix until their bodies were full of bruises and despite Clear Phoenix actively using the clear attribute to negate the attacks, it only could do that for 20997 years worth of attacks and this was shared between Yuehua and her Martial Soul.

They lost terribly.

---

"Your grandaddy has a tough and sturdy tofu!" Oscar chanted as he dodged, his third spirit ring acted up and he swallowed the Tough Tofu, increasing his physical stat by 30℅ as the white glow in his hands intensified as the region closest to it seemed to vibrate very softly.

While Yuehua had lost indeed, in the name of having a varied set of support tofus, Oscar settled for a Mental Storm Bear and he was spectacular for a support master. Not even intending to use the one-handed revolver shotgun variant of a spirit energy array that Oscar had when things got dire, just the basic version of the gentle fist he had traded with Ja Sun back then helped him a lot. After all, the thick hide of the bear couldn't really resist the penetrative effect of the shock force and Oscar wasn't stupid enough to claim any mental-type beast.

No, the Mental Storm Bear needed to land physical hits on the opponent to pull them into a world of illusions and Oscar wouldn't have that!

As cheerful as he may be, the white-headed devil had grown by leaps and bounds. Silently, at that. He looked up to Ja Sun despite him being the older one of the two not only because of Ja Sun's skills but because the silver-maned freak was crazy!

And Oscar enjoyed that in a friend... a brother.

Just as the bear's paw was about to strike him, Oscar grinned. He didn't chant this time, revealing he already had formed this tofu beforehand as he popped it into his mouth, his being turned entirely phantom. The paw phased through his body and Oscar revealed he had more aptitude for battles than he let on as he let his arm enter the bear's body, too. Close to the beast's heart.

In this phantom state, only energy skills worked. And he had one such skill— Gentle Fist.

His hand suddenly burst with potent shock force into the beast's body as the Bear let out a painful cry. The battle only felt short because Oscar kept to the basics. Deadly and Quick. Collected and calm to the very end.

The sight of the fallen beast as a pitch-black spirit ring emerged from its body made Yuehua lower her head in a further state of distress. Oh, she'd been patched up for the time being... but her own failed hunt made the Clear Phoenix absolutely frustrated for it was the Martial Soul's first failure, too.

"It's alright..." A cute voice entered her senses and a lithe hand patted her head.

Yuehua looked up to find Xiao Wu smiling earnestly, "Failures are... not bad..."

Yuehua pursed her lips. Somebody needed to teach Xiao Wu to speak... wait, she should be well-versed in human language, Ja Sun said so...

'Is she calling me a failure?' Yuehua went into a daze.

"She's right, you know," Ja Sun smiled from the sidelines, "It ain't that bad. But if you really want to get stronger and breakthrough rank 40... it's about time you actually put in an honest effort alongside your martial soul. Not many are as lucky as you... you have a target. You have an absolute beast of a partner and you have a team who can train you... only if you ask for it."

And just like that, the day's hunt came to an end with one success and one failure. With Oscar becoming a 63 ranked spirit master and finally catching up to others in the team.

---

"Huh?" Bibi Dong smiled, "Does this have something to do with your display today?"

"You knew?" Yuehua sighed as she slouched further into the couch. She had been healed. With Ah Yin once again cultivating, it was Bi Ji who had healed her injuries and Ja Sun's most recent gift allowed her to quickly restore her clothing.

"Well, I would say that Ja Sun doesn't hide anything from me but... Jun'er is pretty loose on the lips," Bibi Dong leaned back and she continued to gaze at Yuehua, "I wouldn't mind helping you in this hunt, you know?"

"Clear Phoenix doesn't like that," Yuehua gave a strained smile, "So... I will be practicing a whole lot more before being able to breakthrough on my merits alone so I don't think I'd be able to form etiquette plans for others to follow."

Bibi Dong nodded naturally. She would like if other beasts are more under control and the best way to do that is by civilizing them but she didn't want to sniff out Yuehua's desires.

Bibi Dong could see through the blue-haired sister of the Tang Family easily. What Clear Phoenix? After facing so much only to have such a spectacular loss... the calm and collected etiquette trainer was finally willing to face her own conflicted thoughts at a deeper level and overcome them. There was a great incentive on the line, after all— Personal Growth.

"And how would you actually kill something?" Bibi Dong struck where it hurt the most as Yuehua felt complicated once again.

Especially after this loss, Clear Phoenix was even more adamant about completing the hunt. Truly... how was Yuehua going to navigate through all this hot mess?

***

Shoutout to Kheinz!!!

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