Metavision

There was a reason Ryujin had never practiced martial arts in the new world, not even a movement technique.

The constant physical training routines and cultivation alone required a lot of energy, and currently his family lacked the necessary resources to enable him do so.

In fact, now that his father and uncle were already preparing to initiate his plans, the lack would for the foreseeable future become even more glaring.

Despite his nine (or ten) lifetimes worth of memory, Ryujin had never learnt anything on butchering, much more cooking.

Thus, he felt the need of someone who he could learn from, and that was why he was headed for the abode of Luo Fei, the only hunter within an immediate distance from his house.

"The problem is that I have no idea how to get her to help. I'm still too little for apprenticeship, and even if I wasn't, it's very unlikely that she hadn't heard about Ella's offer.

Moreover, she has nothing to gain by helping me. I can only hope she is a kind and benevolent woman."

Luo Fei's house was a single-story wooden house, much smaller than Ryujin's, and there was little to no extra space, except for the one in close proximity to her house.

The said space was unkempt, full of weeds, tall grass and whatever the wind hand brought along over time.

"She clearly has no interest in farming and stockbreeding, and that's good news. That simply means her business is good enough. I wonder what's in the shed near the house. It's almost as big as the house itself."

Ryujin knocked, his innards tied in a knot from the nervousness, and the door swung open almost immediately.

"You again? Are you lost or something?" Luo Fei was a woman in her early thirties, six feet in height, and a skin tanned from long exposure to the sun over the years. Her black hair was kept short with a haircut identical to Earth's military standards.

She could have been considered very cute, but the small bosom coupled with her sharp eyes and rough attitude made her manlier than most female tribesmen.

She wore a brown leather hunting jacket over an green shirt, green cargo pants and brown hunting boots with a soft outer sole, all for camouflage, and to limit the amount of noise she made while moving.

"Hi Miss Luo, I need a favor. Could you please teach me how to skin and gut animals?"

Luo Fei raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because I am hungry." Not having any leverage on her, Ryujin had decided that truth was the best policy.

"I have been hungry long enough to forget how being full feels. I know I can hunt, but I also know that without proper handling, meat goes bad and becomes inedible." He exaggerated slightly.

"No, you got me wrong. I mean, why should I help you? What's in for me?" She was already knitting her eyebrows at this point.

"What do you want?" Ryujin asked, bottling up the urge to sue her to the gods for negotiating with a kid.

"Honestly, I don't believe a runt that barely reaches my belt can hunt anything, not even a rat. And since teaching is a waste of time, it demands compensation."

Luo Fei scratched her chin searching for a deal bad enough to drive the pest away. She never wanted a child of her own, let alone dealing with someone else's.

"So, if you want to learn from me, first you must bring me some game.

If you mess up while playing butcher, you'll ruin my merchandise, wasting my goods and time.

So here is my deal, whatever you bring me, I'll teach you how to skin and gut it. But half of it is mine for the trouble. Take it or leave it."

'So much for being kind and benevolent, isn't this a blatant extortion.' Ryujin thought in repulsion.

"I'll take it. How long will you stay home?" He replied.

"I'll be here all day, I have a lot of work to do. Why?"

"Because when I get back with my prey, I'll need your help. Don't forget our deal."

With that, Ryujin turned around, and started heading towards the outer ring.

Seeing the little runt act all tough, without a bow, traps or even just a bag for the game, Luo Fei couldn't help but chuckle out loud.

She had just finished chuckling when the door suddenly slammed shut before her face, sending her butt first to the floor.

Swiftly, she got up and made a dash for the nearest window; however, Ryujin was still in the same spot, but his face was turned towards her door, his eyes glowing brightly in the dim ambience of the dawn.

Upon arriving at the outskirts of the Skeleton Forest, Ryujin's activated his Mystic Transformation Pupils, and then unleashed his mental sense.

This was one of the techniques he had managed to create during the last year, and what it did was allow his mental sense to relay every information about his surroundings back to him, and use his pupils top paint a rough 360-degree 3D view of his surroundings within his mind.

He called it, Metavision.

This vision appeared within Ryujin's mind, almost like how an infrared camera shows its images.

Living beings were colored, while the rest of the world were fifty shades of grey. The stronger the lifeforce or Qi of the being, the brighter their colors got.

Then for the sake of differentiation; he let each being possess different colors; for example, It was White for humans, Blue for insects, Red for Beasts, Green for plants and so on and so forth.

This way he could easily spot animals, even if they were hiding underground, in bushes or inside a tree.

Ryujin wasn't looking to hunt something big, as long as it had meat it was the perfect prey.

Most of the animals would run away as soon he came too close, but not all of them.

Some birds and squirrels would perch or run up tall tree branches for safety, but with Ryujin's Metavision that now had a range of about twenty meters, they might have as well simply stayed within his reach.

Though he wasn't bulky or built like the child of a greek god, his muscles and bones still contained an obscene amount of explosive strength that even someone twice or thrice his age might not have.

Thus, he only needed to extend his hand towards his prey, squeeze and twist it quickly for their neck to snap. Thus, in less than twenty minutes, Ryujin had already killed two birds and two squirrels.

"I could catch more, but I want to pay that harpy as little as possible." He thought to himself as he returned to the huntress' house, his greed debating fiercely with his rage.

"Dammit! I wish I could just ask father. But he currently has his hands full by now. Moreover, bringing them home and butchering them might give me away to Dara and Jada."

Before long, Ryujin had arrived before Luo Fei's door; so, with a deep breath, he calmed himself, swapping his furious expression with his business face, and then knocked.

When Luo Fei saw him, she was just about to start mocking him, calling him a quitter for giving up in less than an hour, when Ryujin shoved his game before her face.

Her jaws slacked open, but nothing came out of them. 

From the looks of things, it seemed like the -'Never underestimate how hard a hunter's job is'- speech she wanted to give him had died in her throat.

"How did you do it?" Luo Fei asked, still reeling from the shock.

"Let's just say, I'm blessed by the light... Didn't you get the news?"

Luo Fei started rummaging her brain, until the answer made sense.

"Oh! I get it now. You are the kid that's on everybody's mouth in the village. That's explains a lot, including your shitty attitude."

"Excuse me? You found a little kid on your door, asking for help, and the best thing you did was send him away with a rip-off deal, even laughing at his efforts, and I am the one with a shitty attitude?"

Ryujin was now so pissed that even the idea of selling his prey didn't seem to be a drag.

Luo Fei laughed out loud. "Kid, you really are funny in the head."

"First, when you come at the door of a stranger asking for help, the best you can hope for is to be sent away with a polite kick in the butt.

If I had to comply with every madman's request, I would be broke in a jiffy.

Second, you had the guts to slam the door at my face and then come back like nothing happened. That's a shitty attitude."

Now that he was seeing things from her point of view, Ryujin couldn't help but agree that she had a point.

For all of his lifetimes, he had mostly intentionally been a recluse, his only interactions happening with the close to him.

He had gotten too used to getting a yes as a response, that he had mostly forgotten the basic rules of social interaction rules and even common sense of etiquette.

His frustrations weren't helping either, making him single minded and prone to anger. Upon realizing that Luo Fei was right, and admitting that his actions earlier were indeed the childish tantrum of an immature mind, he apologized.

"I'm really sorry." He said earnestly, looking her in the eyes. "I have no excuses from my behavior. I would understand if you wanted to call off our deal."

This time, Luo Fei laughed even harder.

"Hold your horses, kid. I said that you are crazy and rude, and I like that. As you so kindly pointed out, I'm a bit of jerk myself. And dog does not eat dog, our deal is still valid."

She said with a chuckle, before handing him a small knife with a wooden handle.

"Rule number one, bleed out the game as soon as possible. If the blood starts clotting, the meat is ruined.

Make a deep incision in the neck and then hang them upside down, to make the blood drain out." She instructed, pointed him to the clothesline beside her house.

"When you don't need the fur, always cut off the head directly, that makes things faster."

Ryujin put down the knife, accumulated water from the moisture in the atmosphere, and coated it all over his hand.

Then with three swift snapping twist and a vigorous yank, he beheaded the birds, and collected their blood within the coalesced blob of water in his hand.

Then he picked up the knife and used it on the squirrels, before collecting their blood in similar fashion.

Luo Fei whistled and nodded in approval.

"Nice trick. You don't shy away from blood, do you?"

"As I have told you before, I'm hungry. Too hungry to care about big round eyes or a warm fur, I only see them as food."

Perhaps he was just exaggerating, and perhaps it was just his bestial instincts that were starting to show forth; regardless, Ryujin's words were intent was clear enough to Luo Fei. 

"That's the right attitude for a hunter!" She said, giving him a thumbs up.

Then she took the animals and hanged them, thinking the clothesline was too high for Ryujin to reach.

"Since we are building a master-apprentice relationship and all that crap, mind you telling why come to me instead of your father or mother?

I just moved to this neighborhood not quite long ago, and have spent majority of my time hunting for days on end, so do not take any offence if I say I don't know your family.

That being said, I believe every adult in this village knows how to do things like of such nature; after all, it would be too expensive having someone else butcher your livestock, wouldn't it?"

"Indeed." Ryujin concurred already arriving at the destination she was steering the conversation towards.

"Then why have you come to me instead?"

Ryujin took a deep breath, pondering how to answer the question in that moment.

Then looked her straight in the eyes before asking; "Just between us, master-apprentice secret and all that crap?"

Luo Fei nodded, surprised about receiving an actual answer instead of a cranky remark.

"For some reasons, my parents do not want me to cultivate; perhaps, they are just overprotective and want me far from harms way.

However, our living conditions are getting bleaker and I just want to, at least, remove myself from the number of mouths they would have to feed."

Ryujin answered, deciding to thread the line between the truth and a lie.