Hunting trip

The group, including, Henry, Cara, Sam and Sej travelled quickly out of the city. They were heading eastward towards the forests. The forest was only a four hours walk away. For cultivators, it was much easier to travel such distances with bags. Cara was equipped with a short-sword same as Sej, it was however not a grade one artefact though it would still be effective against stage one mister beasts as it was made of superior materials and sharpened. Sam, on the other hand, did have an artefact spear. It was most likely given to him by his senior brother in the sect. Henry came with a bow and arrows. He also had a small knife. All three were wearing basic leather armour.

All three of them were proceeding on the ride quietly while throwing glances at Sej. Annoyed from the constant feeling of being a tiger at a zoo, he asked, "what are you all looking at."

The others looked away startled like rabbits and continued walking along.

"What is it?"

"It's nothing, we were just wondering where you got the armour," Sam spoke out. He was truly curious how Sej managed to get not one but 2 pieces of grade one artefacts even if they were mediocre in quality.

"I completed a mission for the sect and traded one for sect points. The other was a gift from a senior. Sej lies, he had come up with this explanation for his artefacts as it was best not to let others know he was being nurtured by the Apail family clan.

The others nodded in understanding and then looks of envy appeared on their faces.

The group had left in the early hours of the morning so that they could arrive at the boundary of the forest before midday. They can then spend time exploring and hunt slowly.

There was a small farming village by the forest. It was not to develop as the forest was quite close to the capital. The herbs that could be found were not rare and not much could be gained so the village could not develop. After finding a place to stay, everyone proceeded to the forest.

The trees in the forest were Dark trees. It was a type of wood commonly used in some low-grade artefacts. They were larger trees of about 3-4 meters tall when grown for tens of year. The highest recorded height of the threes was 10 meters from a thousand-year-old tree but that tree was not found in this forest.

The jade cane from the fact that a jade mine was once found under the forest but the sect had long since excavated all the jade, however, the name stuck.

Sej led the group into the forest in formation with him in the lead as he had the best armour, to his left followed Cara with her sword already drawn and at the right was Sam with a spear in hand. Behind him followed Henry who was protected by the other three as he was the long-range fighter, he seemed to be quivering in trepidation at the prospect that he could get hurt. It's one of the reasons that he chose the boy in the first place.

Cara warned before they entered the forest that they could only travel up to four miles in before monster beast at the peak of grade one started to appear these monster beast would be two

Much to handle for the group as they would be just as strong or even stronger than the average meridians refinement stage cultivator.

Even as a group it would be very dangerous to proceed. Taking one step at a time the group soon found themselves 2 miles into the forest. It was darker here and was getting slightly damp. The soil became harder to walk in. The group heard the bushes to their left bristle a little. They slowed tensing up. Henry drew his bow and pointed in that direction.

The wind started to blow, whoosh, a four-legged leopard-like creature pounced out of the bushes and right towards Cara at a very fast speed. A second whoosh could be a bear coming from behind as Sen saw an arrow flying in the direction of the black monster beast. The arrow flew right over the creature missing by a small margin. By now the beast was almost upon Cara, she reacted by jumping to the side and dodging the beast. She had no shield and had no intention of trying to fight a beat with brute strength.

With her dodging, the best quickly changed targets to Henry who was in the middle. Sej seeing the situation going bad finally reacted and rushed to block the beast as fast as he could but it seemed he would not make it. The beast was almost upon Henry who had frozen in place, luckily at this time, Sam manages to grab Henry and pull him backwards providing the time needed for Sej to slash at the monsters. Focusing all his strength into the sword, Sej strikes. Boom. The monster was flung backwards. It gained a long scar on its side with one of its front legs begging hurt. At this time Cara comes from

Behind the creature and stabs it at the back of its head. Splash, the sound of blood shooting out of the monsters head and hitting the ground echoed through the area. Cara was also soaked in blood from head to toe. Blurgh, Cara kneels over and starts vomiting right. She looked unsteady and could fall at any time. Sej quickly moves and grabs her before pulling her away from the mix of blood, dirt and vomit on the floor. Henry and Sam also looked pale.

Sej was also feeling queasy but held on as he wed to take care of Cara. He collected himself and took a good look at the dead creature lying there on the ground. It was a horned leopard. They were a common low grade one monster beast in the Darkjade forest. It had a small spiral horn at its head that it could use to ram people but it tends to bite and claw. It had black skin and bee charm claws. It was the size of a small to medium-sized dog, no more than half a meter tall.

After taking a good look Sej called out to Sam who was reviving quickly. Henry was still frozen in place while Sej was holding Caras hair as she continued to vomit. "Sam, hey Sam, "Sej called before getting Sam's attention.

"Grad the beast and get Henry. We should leave, quickly. The blood would draw more beasts and we are into condition to keep fighting. Let's head to the village. Cara had stopped vomiting by now. She cleaned herself as best she could before shooting a grateful look to Sej.

Sam did as she asked before quickly slapping Henry to wake him from his daze.

Henry came to after taking a slap. His face stinging with pain as he glared at Sam before quickly letting the matter go. Sej held the still shaken Cara in his arms to support her as they left the forest as quickly as they could.

But just as they were almost to the entrance, a howl came from behind then. Sej turned around to quickly take and saw another horned leopard. Rage filled its eyes, that was filled with killing intent and some sorry. Sej thought that it was most likely the partner of the beast they killed. "Henry take Cara and go. Sam me and you have to take care of this." Henry quickly came over and took Cara from Sej. They then quickly left the forest. Meanwhile, the monster beast fixated its gaze at the two people who were blocking its path.

Growling, it took a step forward slowly. Another step followed and another. It was trying to intimate them. To make them feel fear. That is what it's instinct taught it to do in this situation. It was very effective as Sam quickly took a step back and lost any momentum he may have gained due to fear. Sej, however, faced this head-on. " calm down Sam, we can do this. He spoke just as much to himself as he did sam.

The leopard seeing its prey retreating accelerated and arrived in front of Sam very quickly. Sam swung his spear to defend against the creature. The leopard slammed its claws against the spear to block. They were both pushed back but the leopard recovered faster and pounced again. Sej was already on the move, he pushed Sam out of the way of the monster but the hit right in the chest from a ramming attack from the beast. He was blasted away while his organ shook but he was not pierced through as he had his armour blocking for him. The beast became slightly disoriented from slamming its head into a metal armour artefact. Taking this opportunity, Sam slammed his spear on the head of the monster beast causing it to collapse off the ground.

It tried to get up but was stabbed in the head killing it on the stop. Brain matter went flying in all directions and blood flowed everywhere covering sam. As the strong stench of blood-soaked him, while being covered in brain fragments, he followed in Cara steps at vomit flew everywhere like he was a hose. Sej who just returned saw this and just sighed.