First battle

Kaelen walked slowly inside the forest, carefully looking around for his first opponent. He was currently two breakthroughs away from reaching Elemental Resonance and awakening his second bloodline; It will be difficult to find a place to cultivate in this environment where vicious beasts lay dormant. He planned on subduing a few to protect him during his next breakthroughs in the next few months.

"Hmm, the area of the mountain is about a few miles long and a dozen miles high. variant beasts and monsters tend to dislike sharing their territory with other animals, meaning there's a zone probably dedicated to a specific earthly beast. Since the range of the zone a beast occupies usually depends on its individual strength and ability to ward off usurpers, I need to find the nearest beast and measure the area it occupies depending on its strength. Then I will have an idea of how the rest are spaced out." Kaelen planned out his strategy for finding the beast and not having them find him. By having an estimate of their zone size, he will be able to predict where not to go after defeating one of them and the safest place withing each zone.

He walked for a dozen minutes while carefully choosing directions; He would walk up the mountain for five and then go left for five minutes, to make sure not to miss the nearest beast and head for the strongest too quickly. He assumed the strongest were at the top and the beast became increasingly difficult to defeat as he went up, so he wouldn't walk straight the whole time.

As Kaelen was traversing through the forest, he felt a predatory aura eyeing him from nearby. He kept moving as if he hadn't felt anything, but his senses were on high alert. He took out his spear and gripped it tightly. He decreased the pace at which he walked and looked around from whichever angle he could without moving his head.

Not noticing anything, he knew that whatever was eyeing him was behind him. He stopped walking and bent his body in an almost crouching position, while he waited patiently for the beast to fall for the bait.

"Rooaaar!!" A vicious roar resounds while a massive black shadow pounce at him from behind, slapping towards him with a huge black paw armed with four very sharp golden claws.

Without turning, Kaelen waited for the beast to almost reach him, before leaping up dozens of meters to the sky.

From high up, he saw the surrounding miles and distinct zones of interest but paid no attention to them. He looked down at the black shadow on the ground and raised his Blood Swallowing Spear.

"Heaven-ending void strike." He turned his body into a falling arrow with the spear in hand. A crimson bronze aura quickly covers the weapon, his crystal clear eyes squinting into a fierce glare. With forceful movements, he unleashes a barrage of quick thrusts towards the ground.

Dozens of spear Qi traverse the air, piercing through the fur of the black shadow beast, which wails in pain reaction and blasting many holes in the ground surrounding it.

Falling back on the ground, Kaelen stood erect while holding the Blood Swallowing Spear in his right hand. Its blade shone with a blood light as it rejoiced at the rich blood it just tasted. He looks closely at the shape of the black beast.

It was a very big black leopard. It had a pair of golden eyes that contrasted greatly to its pure black fur. Its paws were so big they dwarfed the size of Kaelen's head by at least three times.

The beast glared at Kaelen with its golden eyes. It growled in pain at the wounds it had just received. A black gas-like aura began diffusing from its body, it's form slowly disappearing within the black-gas.

Seeing the dark aura, Kaelen exclaimed in surprise.

"Darkness attribute!? No, it missed the light swallowing and eroding abilities of the darkness attribute. So it must be the shadow attribute. I see, It's the Golden-eyed Shadow Leopard, ranked in the bottom of the hundred Earthly beasts. It seems to be at the upper Elemental Resonance level." He quickly recognizes the beast in front of him.

The Golde-eyed Shadow tiger is ranked 87th in the hundred Earthly beast ranks. It's a relatively regular cat type monster beast, except for the fact that it has a very rare shadow attribute, making it a very rare variant beast; there only being one other shadow attributed beast on the least. It is a very fast and agile beast that can use its shadow attribute to hide and attack from unlikely positions, making it a very difficult opponent. Not only is it fast, but you may also not see it coming.

Realizing the type of battle on his hands, Kaelen put on a defensive stance, preparing for the incoming attack. He activated his heart spirit to the maximum, entering a state of supreme calmness and focus.

His crystal amber eyes perused the surrounding for any hints on the beast's position. Indeed, wisps of black gas could be seen flashing here and there while the beast was moving.

Having an idea of where the attack would come from, Kaelen changed his defensive stance into a counterattack one. A bronze like sheen covered the blade of his spear. He readied himself mentally and physically.

Patiently, he waited for the leopard to pounce.

"Swoosh." A wind tearing noise erupted from his left, the great claws of the beast tearing at his head. "Coiling Dragon Pandemonium." He reacted with a series of elusive movements as he wielded the Blood swallowing spear with both hands, cutting at the coming claws.

"Clang-clang." Sharp noises of metal clashing erupted while the spear collided with the blade like claws. The beast attacked many times at lightning fast speed, leaving trails of gold and black with every attack. Kaelen successfully managed to fend off the attacks of the beast.

Seeing its attack fail, the golden-eyed shadow leopard retreated swiftly and began turning into black gas again.

"Not this time. Hah!" Retracting his spear, Kaelen unleashes his blood qi to the extreme, gathering the fullest extent of his body strength and pounces at the leopard with a domineering flying kick to its face before it could disappear again. With more than a million pounds of strength, the kick lands on the face of the huge beast, ruthlessly smashing it, causing a few of its massive crocs to fly away as blood gushed out its mouth.

"Roaahh." The beast wails, its body sent flying a dozen meters away.

A large explosion erupts the moment the golden-eyed beast crashes on a few trees with great inertia.

Not giving it any chance to get back up, Kaelen grips his spear strongly then rushes towards it with a heavy stomp, crossing the distance in a flash while destroying the ground underneath from sheer momentum.

"Heavenly Descent of the Crimson Dragon." He tears through the air at high speed, a crimson-bronze dragon qi form gathers around the Blood swallowing spear. The void shaking from the crimson dragon might. He flips the spear with a flick of his wrist and uses the tail end of it to drill towards the beast.

"Roarr!" A majestic dragon roar sonorously blasts through the atmosphere as the spear end falls upon the giant leopard.

"Booomm." The body of the beast is ruthlessly smashed by the spear tail in a heavy collision. The ground beneath caves endlessly, leaving a huge hole on it.

"Flip." Kaelen steps back with a backflip and relaxes his tensed up muscles with a deep breath. He subsequently looks down at the beast laying in the hole.

"Well, that wasn't so hard. Thankfully, it was in the Innate Spirit stage or it would've been a very annoying battle." Looking at the unconscious cat on the ground, Kaelen thought to himself.

The Golden-eyed Shadow Tiger had completely passed out from the pain. Its body devoid of any consciousness, and its mouth was wide open as blood gushed out from the smashed teeth. "Huu…" Exhaling, Kaelen approached the beast by walking down the crater. Arriving beside it, he slapped its head with a wrist flick.

"Hey. Wake up, you large cat." He slapped it repeatedly until the poor beast finally opened its eyes.

"There you go." Seeing it open its eyes, the boy smiled in satisfaction.

"Alright, you fat cat." He placed the crimson-silver spear on the ground and grabbed the leopard's huge head with both hands. He approached his handsome face to it's huge head, until they were separated by only a few inches; its eyes were almost half his head, but that did not faze Kaelen one bit as he looked right into the soul of the poor beast. A domineering and tyrannical dragon might diffused from his body while he intimidated it. "I purposely used the soft part of my spear to not kill you, since you may have some use to me. You better behave, however, as I won't hesitate to send you to your next reincarnation and hope for a better end for you in your next life. Understand!?"

"Mhm." Surprisingly, the large cat let out a light noise from its throat as if agreeing with the boy.

"Good." Kaelen nodded in appreciation and put its head back on the ground. "These rare beasts are quite intelligent indeed, nothing like those boars and animals we would hunt in the back mountain." He paused for a second, looking at the pitiful beast. He thought for a moment, then took a large roasted bear meat. He took a large bite and placed the rest in its mouth. "Here," he said and fed the beast.

The eyes of the leopard widened and glistened at the sight of the delicious-looking bear meat. It opened its large mouth and chewed the meat into minced pieces in seconds; although it lost a few teeth, it still had most of them, allowing it to chew the meat.

"Hmm, this roasted bear meat is delicious, and I feel my qi and energy replenishing at absurd speeds, even faster than with a source crystal, how peculiar. It must be high-quality spirit food. I wonder where the teacher got all that food from. I heard even a plate was expensive, let alone a small hill of meats." Taking out a smaller piece of meat about an arm's size, Kaelen also began to eat.

...

A dozen mountains away,

At the top of Culinary Haven Mountain, three big restaurants stood side by side, each with a distinct look.

A calm and peaceful atmosphere reigned.

Until…

"Where the hell is all my meat!!!!??" A grumpy and rough voice completely destroyed the peace.

An angry, muscular old man is seen rushing out of the middle restaurant. He wore an apron with nothing underneath to cover his hyper-muscular upper body. Thick veins bulged out of his thick arms; one could tell how angry he was just by referencing them and the gas-like fumes coming out of his ears. His whole head from the neck up was completely red.

The students walking around the streets of the mountain all stopped to look at the angry figure. Recognizing him, some immediately ran away, while others began talking to each other in tiny voices.

"It's Elder Huo. Looks like his kitchen was stolen again," one of the older-looking disciples said.

"What!? Who dares to steal food from an elder?" a younger one near him exclaimed in shock and fear.

"How would I know? Regardless, anyone who dares do that isn't someone we can offend either. Anyway, let us clear up the area before he picks a sacrificial lamb to appease his anger." The older-looking disciple immediately turned in the opposite direction of the fuming old man.

"You there!"

As he was about to walk away, a voice called towards him, causing him to shiver in fright. He cautiously turned around while pointing at himself. Looking at the angry elder, "Me?" He asked.

"Yes! Come with me." The elder pointed towards him and flicked his finger upward, directing him to get closer. Then turned back and walked into the restaurant.

The older disciple gulped loudly and followed the elder inside.

A few moments later, a loud "No," is heard followed by an even louder explosion as a figure is sent flying through the roof of the restaurant; If one were to look down at the roof from above, they would see many such holes in different parts of the roofs.

The surrounding disciples immediately ran away in fright seeing the fate of their senior brother, not willing to be the next one to appease the furious old man.