Giant Bees - 443

Zhu Yi continued running, and without a hitch, completed the mission. He carried with him more beast parts and got more money. He was not yet even close to ranking up in the rogue cultivators guild.

As cultivators, everything seemed to take much more time. To cultivators, time was mostly ignorable. Perhaps it was a side effect of Qi, but no matter how much time a cultivator spent cultivating, they were almost never tired or bored of it.

Zhu Yi took another mission and soon left the rogue cultivator guild. Every time, Zhu Yi would give Zhou Fan another 1000 beast cores to absorb, but its effect was not as great as Zhu Yi had hoped.

While running to complete the 6th mission, Zhu Yi sat on a log and complained. "Master, this is taking forever. How much do you need to recover more?"

Zhou Fan sighed. "I can't tell. Recovering seems to be different from cultivating. It isn't necessarily defined by realms. I can feel my power increasing slightly with every core, but I haven't felt a great recovery since waking up from the ring. I can't say how hard it will be for me to recover, but you should be patient."

Zhu Yi nodded and calmed himself.

He mumbled "The wise are not conspicuous in their actions or given to much talking. When troubles arise, they are not irritated."

Zhou Fan watched as he mumbled. Zhu Yi seemed to enjoy hearing about Zhou Fan's Cosmic Dao comprehension. During the fight, innumerable phrases had popped up in his head. He occasionally told them to Zhu Yi.

Not everything within the sayings was applicable, but it all felt right and made sense. Even if not living in such a way, the phrases could give inspiration to anyone.

Zhou Fan enjoyed living freely and would never change, but Zhu Yi was at the bottom of the entire universe. Learning about different ways to live, such as following the philosophy of the Cosmic Dao, could be considered helpful.

Zhou Fan would make sure that Zhu Yi would live how Zhu Yi wanted, but he could at least occasionally impart some wisdom into him.

After a rest, Zhu Yi stood back up and continued running.

After a while, Zhu Yi took his ninth mission. 

"Are you sure? This can be considered an unnecessary risk." Zhou Fan said.

Zhu Yi nodded. "I am sure. Cultivators cannot live in too much peace or they will become content."

This time, Zhu Yi was taking a slightly more dangerous mission. It was still to gather body parts from Qi gathering beasts, but the location was less structured than the other places. In other words, it was not impossible for a foundation establishment realm beast to roam around the area that Qi gathering realm beasts usually stayed at.

Used to going out, Zhu Yi ran on the long path. Every time he did so, he gained a new respect for those who created the path. It was so much more convenient to run on a path than in the forest.

He could simply zone out without running into trees or tripping over tree roots.

"Damn trashy village pathmakers."

After a few days, Zhu Yi arrived. There was no marker or sign, just a change from path to forest.

Zhu Yi looked at his map, confirming he was in the right area, and entered into the forest. 

Along the way, it was eerily quiet. So quiet that not even crickets could be heard.

Zhu Yi had studied what he was hunting and knew why. Compared to his other hunting missions, this one was more dangerous not only because of the possibility of Foundation establishment realm beasts appearing, but because his target lived in groups.

Suddenly, Zhu Yi's head snapped over and he pulled out a sword. He had bought one after the first few missions. The sword was the weapon of the cultivator, or at least that was what Zhou Fan had said.

Even Zhu Yi could sense his master's bias.

Zhu Yi put his back to a tree and calmly waited. As time had passed, he had also gained some courage when hunting. 

The buzzing sound was getting closer and closer. As Zhu Yi saw a shadow to his right, he swung his sword. A large bee was cut in half. Zhu Yi charged out and waved his sword around with little experience. Luckily, the beasts were not intelligent themselves.

Before the group of bees could react, half of the 8 were dead. Giant bees, in comparison to normal bees, traveled in smaller numbers.

If they were to travel in the hundreds, they would no longer be something that Qi gathering realm cultivators could deal with.

The giant bees were a fourth of the size of a human, and their stingers were horrifying to anyone who saw them. 

Getting stabbed would be like getting poked by a needle the size of two regular pencils end to end.

As 4 bees came, Zhu Yi managed to slash one and roll away from the others. The bees were fast, but not intelligent. Zhu Yi repeated, letting them charge, slashing one, and rolling away. Before long, he was cutting open 8 corpses. Unfortunately, the first four had already lost the majority of their Qi before Zhu Yi could get to them.

"Is it worth it?" Zhou Fan asked.

"I can hunt faster and get paid more. I think so." Zhu Yi responded.

Zhou Fan nodded. He let Zhu Yi make his own opinions. After all, he could barely help at all in his current state.

Giant Bees traveled in groups up to 8, and often smaller. Zhu Yi only ran into a few such groups. Before the day ended, he had already completed the mission. Around the 500 mark, he had heard much louder buzzing from afar and retreated intelligently. 

Luckily, that was the only close call.

As night fell, Zhu Yi was running on the path. In his loan bag were 1000 needles.

"Not bad for a single day. Around 700 cores. Will you keep doing these missions?" Zhou Fan asked.

Zhu Yi shook his head. "Placing myself into constant danger is not smart, but stupid. I'm not talented enough for that. I'll just do it occasionally."

Zhou Fan chuckled and nodded.