The return journey part 1

Bian woke up in the desert, he was on his mount which continued to ride at full speed.

"Huh? What the...? Bian felt like he just had the best sleep of his life, it took him a little while to regain his composure and sort out the mess in his head.

"Okay so it wasn't poison but rather some sort of tranquilizer. It must have been a beast soul cause it looked like a spider's fang, it even had small hairs. Since he 'ran out' I'm guessing it was a one time use beast soul."

As Bian rode on shaking his head from left to right, some more dots connected in his head.

"That guy Tengu is probably from the Xue family or was sent by them." 

He saw sand all around him and decided to make a U-turn heading back the way he came.

After riding for two days he saw the groove from afar. Like the events of that night was but a dream the groove was desolate.

It had dead trees, amd definitely had no grass.

Bian came to a stop and realised two things.

Firstly he was asleep for about two days, meaning the beast soul must have been a mutant beast soul. Just a scratch was enough to knock him out cold for two days even though he had maxed out his ordinary and primitive geno points.

If he had practised body enhancing geno arts he wouldn't have been in such a precarious situation. With Jadeskin poison of that level would be ineffective on him.

Secondly the monster was connected to the groove. He didn't know if the location of the groove moved or of it only spawned during the night.

'Hmm there was a full moon that night right?' Bian mused as he began to walk around the groove, he noticed some indents on the floor and went to take a closer look at them.

'Horseprints, must be from Xue Longyan's mount' the direction of the horseprint lead to the desert.

Bian hesitated on whether to go back to steel armour shelter or proceed to glory shelter. 

"Bian!" Suddenly Bian heard his name being called from a distance in the groove. He squinted his eye and saw Dai and his girlfriend signalling for him to come.

"Impossible" Bian clearly saw when they died. As goosebumps travelled up his spine he decided it was best to avoid the groove. 

With no other choice he began to follow the horse prints into the desert. After a while he noticed the prints were getting lighter and lighter. He moved from soil to sand noticing the lighter shade of the horse prints, as he stood between the soil and sand boundary the horse prints had completely faded. They faded once they reached the sand.

"Just perfect" Bian said sarcastically, the sand had covered up their tracks making it impossible for him to follow after them.

"Well, the journey of a thousand steps begins with the first step" he journeyed through the desert occasionally hunting and eating the wild beasts present.

Two months later.

"Ordinary creature one-horned reptile killed. Beast soul of ordinary one-horned reptile gained. Eat the one-horned reptile to gain zero to ten ordinary geno points randomly"

Bian stood on a rocky platform as he surveyed the surroundings, three vultures were circling his game waiting for the owner of the spear to make a move, their curved beak and sharp talons gleamed maliciously under the sunlight.

Ignoring the blinding light, Bian summoned another beast soul spear as he posed to throw it like a javelin, an invisible ring only seen by him occupied half his vision as it shrunk rapidly and homed in on the eye of a vulture.

After hunting for two months his vital points targeting occupied only half his field of vision. The time taken for it to shrink also decreased substantially.

The Bian of two months ago would need to pose for two minutes before achieving this pin point accuracy but now he only needed sixteen seconds.

Vital point targeting will lock on the part of a body focused on by the user. If earlier you saw an injury on a bear, at a later date activating vital point targeting while thinking of the injury would lock on that spot on the bears body.

It depends on the data collected by the brain to predict the most likely position of the animal a few seconds before the strike. To improve on vital point targeting you would need an upgrade in your physique and the ability to predict an opponents movememt. Hunting in the desert increased Bian's familiarity with wild beasts.

Basically vital point targeting is like the trainers on a bicycle. If a person can predict his opponents movements and has a good throwing stance, vital point targeting would be a hindrance for such a person due to its inflexibility. Like how it's much more difficult to pull stunts on a bike with trainers attached.

The whistling of the wind was heard as a bronze spear flew towards the vulture, it couldn't dodge in time as the spear pierced it eyes and punctured its brain.

"Primitive creature desert vulture killed. Beast soul was not gained. Eat the desert vulture to gain zero to ten primitive geno points randomly"

The two primitive vultures flew away as they watched one of their own tumbling to the ground. Bian had exhausted his packed rations and depended on the flesh of the creatures to survive.

Bian unsommoned the spears and was about to walk over to collect his night meal when a shadow flashed from beyond, it swooped down and began munching on his dinner.

Bian was enraged at the desert manticore, it had the body of a lion, the wings of a bat and the tail of a scorpion. Standing at 2 meters with a body length of 3 meters, a wingspan of 1.5 metres and a scorpion tail that was 7 meters long when fully extended the manticore is a top class mutant creature.

The beast soul was quite unpopular though, it is a pet type beast soul.

'If I'm not wrong to increase the chances of pets levelling above their grade they need to eat meat in their tier or of a higher tier. I finally understand why people don't like pet type beast souls, even I haven't gotten a single mutant geno point.

To increases the chances of a mutant pet evolving to become sacred blood, it would need to be fed mutant meat but preferably sacred blood meat.

The manticore ate the one horned reptile and carried the vulture in its maw, it flew ahead of Bian.

Bian summoned his white panther mount and gave chase to the manticore, after riding for two hours, he was about to lose sight of it. He noticed a tree in the distance and lost sight of the manticore as it flew towards the top of the tree.

Three hours later Bian got to the bottom of the tree, it's height reached the clouds. It was so thick, it would take ten adults with arms stretched to circle round the tree.

'Do desert manticores live in trees' Bian thought to himself. He remained at the bottom of tree waiting for an opportunity throughout the night.

As the sun was rising the manticore flew from the tree into the distance, Bian hid behind the tree away from where the manticore flew to. After twelve hours it returned with a prey in its mouth.

After observing it's daily routine twice, Bian decided to make his move tomorrow.