Chapter 20: Solo Hunting

Lance took a deep breath as he stood up.

'You have rested enough, now let's go hunting.', Cloud said as he jumped up and settled on his shoulder.

"What do you mean by hunting?"

'Go fight others, cultivators animals whatever you want. You can't progress by sitting under a tree and meditating however much talent you have.'

"But I will not kill indiscriminately."

Lance turned towards the hole from which he had entered and retraced his steps. He too understood that cultivation wasn't peaceful or gentle. Only the strong could make rules and force others to abide by them.

He soon was standing outside from where he had entered the cavern. The weather was the same, dry and windy.

"In which direction should I go?", he asked Cloud.

'North.' Lance mutely nodded as he started walking.

After walking for a few hours, he found a cadre of cultivators. They were busy breaking down a door similar to the one he had entered. But they stopped their work and turned towards him.

"Stop right there! This place is occupied by us, go somewhere else", a feminine rang out a young woman stepped out. Lance looked at her but didn't stop, instead he materialized the twin swords in his hands.

"Attack! Kill him, no matter how strong he is, he can't take on all of us at once.", she then proceeded to materialize her own sword and lunged at him.

'Don't use your mid skin stage cultivation!'

"I wouldn't have even if you didn't remind me."

He easily sidestepped her blade but didn't counterattack, he instead waited for the others to surround him. He wanted a challenge not someone to take out his anger on.

A few swords and spears attacked him from all directions. He took a deep breath as he dodged a few and blocked the others. Most of them had just reached the skin realm so they didn't have enough strength to overwhelm him. Only the woman who has shouted at him was at the early skin stage. He slowly increased his attack speed to try and separate them. The weaker ones were getting in the way of the only early skin stage warrior, Lance jumped towards a cultivator as he saw an opening. He tried to avoid killing them and only knocked them out using the hilt of his sword.

Soon, only three cultivators were left, including the woman. The other two weren't weak either as they coordinated well with her. But even their teamwork couldn't hurt Lance. He soon got bored as he felt nothing. He knocked out the other two, now only the woman was left.

Her face was red with humiliation as she saw the others being knocked out one by one. Her anger seemed to fuel her attacks but Lance still did not feel any pressure. He maintained the stalemate for a few more minutes to see if she would have a breakthrough but was disappointed. He then dodged her attack abruptly and punched her in the face with his hand around the hilt of his sword. The woman collapsed as he silently looked around.

After noticing that there were no more threats, he turned towards the door. He used a little bit of sword mastery to coat his blade black and cleaved through the door. Inside he found a spirit bronze grade treasure with an oversized rat as it's protector, it wasn't much of a challenge to him as he killed it though he did feel disgusted at its rotten appearance.

Soon, the spirit bronze grade fruit was harvested from the tree and stored in his ring. He looked at the place where they had dug a hole in the last cave and wondered whether there would be another treasure hidden there.

'There isn't another spirit silver grade treasure waiting for you here. If you think that every cave would have that grade of treasure, then you're dreaming.' Lance sighed and went away without any retort as he indeed had been expecting the same. He again set off in the same direction as before.

Lance kept seeing cultivators along his way, the unfortunate fellows were all nocked out after being unable to present a challenge for him.

He rested for a few hours under a dried tree which had been surviving in the desert somehow. Even though its leaves were sparse and yellowed, it stubbornly clung to life. After he was rested, he poured a bit of water mixed with essence energy. Spirit water, his teacher had called it. The water came from a spring in the middle of the island, it was quite expensive in the outside world according to her.

Cloud opened his eyes and looked at him pouring the water on the ground and let out a snort as he closed his eyes again. Lance didn't bother to look at him as he tried to sense the essence energy. The energy should have been absorbed by the tree immediately but instead he noticed only a trickle of the energy being absorbed by roots.

He had heard from his teacher that even trees and rocks could gain sentience after absorbing essence energy, though it usually took millions of years just to form a rudimentary consciousness.

He smiled as he felt the aura of death and decay being replaced by rich vitality. Since the tree had absorbed the energy, it would be able to survive.

Lance then moved on to continue his journey, even though some people may consider what he had done a waste, he didn't think so. Each and every thing deserved a chance to survive and thrive and he had given the tree its chance. But that didn't mean he had to take care of each and every need of the tree. He didn't have the time or energy to do that and he still would not have done it even if he had both because then the tree would become dependent on him and give up its growth.