A Meal

It was another beautiful morning in the misty jungle beneath the tall stone pillars. The air was nicely cool and fresh, and a cacophony of sounds from various birds chirping and singing songs, echoed through the valleys.I was just in the middle of examining a peculiar plant. If memory served me right, its name was Mistobrn Lilly. While quite rare, and often mistaken for other similar flowers, it was quite useless. Unless we are talking about its thick bulb often hidden deep beneath the ground that could be brewed into a potion or fashioned into a pill with the addition of a few other precious ingredients.One of which being the Mistwalker Moss I also found in the jungle just a few days ago. It offered those that consumed it increased speed and agility, and combined with the Mistborn Lilly Bulb, which granted improved stealth, it was one of the most praised combinations for assassins and those trying to escape from a fight.While not quite all that useful for Spirit Realm or even high Golden Core Cultivators, their potentially live-saving properties made them quite expensive.I took a tiny piece of a beast core and injected it with a strand of my Qi and a fragment of my Soul. It was just a minuscule piece I wouldn't even notice if it went missing, but it served as a sort of imprint I could later find again. I basically left a beacon only I knew how to find, so when I finished my exploration I could quickly gather the few selected treasures.***The exploration of Avatar Mountains went better than I expected, with many more great finds, though that also made it slower. After a week, I basically barely just scratched the surface. If I ever wanted to finish, I would have to ignore 99% of all the herbs I recognized on the way and only spend time on the most valuable ones.Surprisingly there were no beasts I could find. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of wild animals around, but none came even close to being a Spirit Beast. I was attacked by some creatures guarding their patch of fruit trees, various tasty vines, or rare flowers, but I mostly slapped them away and didn't engage in an actual fight.There were two reasons for that. The first one was that none of them tried to attack me for a second time and often did their best to escape, and second, they were just too weak for me to bother chasing them. As long as they didn't bother me, I was happy to ignore them.It was so funny seeing a group of monkeys go all ape-shit with screaming and posturing, but when I took a few fruits from right under their noses, they did nothing and went quiet instead. They were smart and didn't try to attack someone so powerful that could wipe them all from existence with a single word.I just had to order them to burn and they would have no choice but to burst into flames. My dominion over Qi, even if it was inside their bodies where they had superior control, was still infinitely stronger. That was the difference in strength between Realms, especially when so many separated us.In any case, the fruits they ate, small, sweet, red peach-like things, surprisingly contained Body Essence. It was not the first time I found fruits like that, but it was the first time I tasted some. And they were decent, even if the sweet taste of the wild fruit wasn't all that strong.I could see why the creatures would go nuts for them. Cultivating by eating was the easiest way to get stronger after all. But they weren't for me. The Essence they contained was pitiful. I would get more in a single mouthful from a Nascent Soul creature than was available on an entire tree.Some people liked to make wines from such natural treasures, concentrating the Essence and improving flavor, so maybe they were worth something. I left an imprint near the tree so I could find it later just in case I decided to take some. I also took a handful of seeds, each fruit had a hard pit inside about a third of the volume of the fruit itself. They were small, so there was no fear of clogging up my inventory.Anyway, after all that time my energies were topped off. My Dantian was full and slowly expanding day by day. I calculated it was growing by about a tenth of a percent per day, so in another two and a half years, my energy stores should double.They were quite large for a Cultivator of my level, but I noticed that as I was advancing quickly through the Minor Realms, the difference was shrinking. Growing my Dantian was just not something that could be done quickly. It was a sensitive organ that was beyond complex, and unless a specially made treasure was used, it would grow at its own pace. Well, its growth was slightly accelerated compared to others since my Realm was much too high for its size, but it was still slow. It was like trying to grow a bone compared to muscle.I secretly hoped I could find some rare herb that could speed up the process but it was unlikely. The Avatar Mountains were a fantastic place, but the things growing inside weren't of all that high quality.I followed an animal-made trail through the jungle and noticed I was nearing a spot with denser Qi. Those places were good since valuable plants often made their home there. As I neared what I considered the middle of that area, with an especially tall stone tower right in the center where the highest concentration of Qi was, I noticed something moving.Pushing the dense foliage to the side, I came face to face with a large creature chewing on massive juicy leaves.It was a gecko. That was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw it. It looked at me with its large eyes and a smile. And then tilted its head to the side.I immediately jumped back and just barely moved out of its range as it tried to chomp on me. Its long pink tongue flicked out of its mouth and it licked one of its eyes and tilted its head to the other side. It then pounced again, trying to swallow me whole, but I dodged.Oh, yeah… The gecko's mouth alone was larger than me. It was a Spirit Creature after all. It had thousands of small sharp teeth lining the inside of its mouth and was green in color, like the vegetation around it. Weirdly enough it had no Aura, no Qi signature, and I only realized that after it already attacked me twice.That was somewhat of a problem. Stumbling upon a Spirit Beast was not something that should happen. They should be announcing their presence and guarding their territory unless they were hunting, which it clearly wasn't, since it was eating leaves and fruits.The creature rose higher on its feet, lifting its head well above the ground cover, and released a squeak one could even consider cute. It then slowly blinked its big round eyes and formed that big smile you could see on their smaller terrestrial cousins.Then, like lightning, it dropped down on top of me with its mouth open. I immediately transformed, growing in size a few times, and gripped both sides of its mouth with my hands, holding it open.I grinned as the beast tried to snap its mouth closed and bite off my fingers, but I was stronger. The creature was still larger than me in size, but I was taller, giving me the advantage. My claws also grew and scales on my hands became thicker, preventing the countless sharp teeth from digging into my skin.I finally felt a surge of Qi building up inside the beast in what would most certainly be some kind of breath attack, but I forcefully used Disruption with about 5% of my Qi, and I could almost see the explosion inside the creature's stomach.It spasmed and aggressively tore its head from my grasp. Its fatty tail flicked at me and struck me in the chest, but I grabbed it and was only moved back a few steps. I felt a pull as it tried to pull back, yet I was ready. My vice-like grip didn't let go, and my weight suddenly multiplied as the gravity on me increased.I knew that Spirit Beasts were strong, and if I let it escape, I could never catch it again. That wouldn't do. My eyes glowed for a moment, and a powerful beam of Arcane Blaze shot from it separating its head from its body.Unsurprisingly, the giant gecko still wasn't dead. It was a Spirit Beast, and its Soul was stubbornly stuck inside its body despite losing its head. Actually, the body even tried to escape, and I saw a small bump already growing where the head used to be.Somehow I didn't doubt a new head would grow in its place in a matter of hours. A gecko's regeneration enhanced with powerful Cultivation was no joke.[Stay still, you beast.] I half-growled, half-laughed. It was strong, but not strong enough, and it clearly lacked combat experience. I couldn't blame it. If I spent my entire life in a paradise like that I would be quite useless and fat as well.Digging my claws into its flesh, I slowly pulled it closer until I reached the place in its chest where its Dantian should be. With a few powerful swipes from my claws, I tore its belly open, and though it tried to squirm in my hands and run away, I didn't let it.I empowered my flesh with Qi and blasted it with Disruption again to disperse its body enhancement. I then bit into one of its front legs as I dug through its chest cavity until I found its core. I pulled it away, cutting its connection to the rest of the body, and it finally died. I felt its large Soul, Spirit Realm, Third Level, and absorbed it into me. Tasty.After spending some time absorbing it completely, I realized I was one step closer to the Eighth Layer.[Four left…] I murmured as I held the beast's core in my bloody hand. I scraped off the chunks of flesh that still held onto it and then stored it away.The large body of the gecko was unfortunately too large to be put into storage, so I took the time to eat it whole. It was larger than me, and I went slow as I was in no hurry, and after a week it was gone with only the white bones remaining.I took a flask of its blood I had stored, and carved a formation into my back and then on the forehead of the severed head. It belonged to a Spirit Beast so it didn't rot and would most likely remain so for a long time. I had to clean up after myself.I activated the formation and felt a searing pain burrow its way into my body. As I was still transformed, I felt the impulse from the Gecko's bloodline trying to fatten up my tail, but I resisted and forced the binding process into a different direction. I mostly took only the increased regeneration which was passive, unlike my Fire Mending from the Phoenix which was active. The former worked over time and should still work even in the absence of Qi while the other was basically instant and used up quite a bit of energy.Apart from that, the bloodline addition also improved my vision a tiny bit, which was an ability I didn't even know the gecko had. It gave me better vision in low light, which wasn't all that amazing but it was better than what I already had and it was useful, so I allowed it.And as a final boost, it made it easier to change the color of my skin. I didn't know if that would ever be useful, but it was a neat ability. An improvement was always welcome, even if it wasn't all that big.I stood up and stretched, having already digested both the Soul and flesh of my opponent and with both of them incorporated into my body, I felt stronger.[Well then…] I clapped my hands and rubbed them together. [I guess there are things to hunt here after all. Four left, huh?] I filled my eyes with Qi and released a pulse into the wild. Various lifeforms lit up in my vision. [I'd better get started.]