11.1. Dragons and Bears

At the Clear Mirror sect, Long Tao stood in front of a stall in the market. It was a stall selling second hand weapons.

Right now, Tao held a long pole glaive made with first level materials over ordinary iron or wood.

The blade gleamed against the sun, polished to a shine.

“This one isn’t bad.” The old ghost commented.

Tao narrowed his eyes with grim determination.

Tao wasn’t in love or anything, but it irked him that somebody tried to control who he could speak with. It also hurt his pride that he had been challenged so openly to do something he already believed he was capable of.

“I’ll take this one. How much?” Tao asked the peripheral disciple across the barrels of old weapons.

“Forty silver sir.” The disciple manning the stall rubbed their hands together.

“I only have 30 on me right now.” Tao responded.

“That’s the same price I purchased this for dear sir.”

“I can go back and get 5 more.” Tao probed.

The stall owner wavered, considering it, “That would be alright sir.”

Tao pulled out a pouch of 35 silver, almost all his remaining savings which he had been able to bring with him after his family had been slaughtered by that unknown cultivator.

The clerk’s eye twitched seeing Tao not even blink at his lie of having to go get more.

“Good, good.” The old ghost commented as Tao walked away from the stall. “I have a set of techniques for the glaive here. Since it will take several days of walking there and back, try to learn it on the way.”

“Thank you master.” Tao said, feeling the weight of the weapon in his hands as he looked for some dry rations to purchase for the journey.

After blowing more money on supplies, Tao checked everything. While his master was just a soul for now, he had a perfect memory still and simply glanced at a place selling maps to memorise the entire empire’s geography.

“Huu… Last thing…” Tao told himself, approaching Foria’s residence higher up the mountain.

Raising his hand to knock, the old ghost suddenly interrupted, “Stop.”

Tao looked at the old ghost, whose wavering translucent form passed through the door effortlessly. “It appears she’s entered a state of minor enlightenment.” He explained.

Tao widened his eyes slightly, “Really? Is that common?” He asked.

“Minor enlightenments are very common. Any incredibly well written notes could cause it.” The old ghost ran his hands through his beard before continuing, “If you get the opportunity, ask her elder brother for his notes on Qi control. Looking at the few pages I could see his explanations will probably be far more helpful to you than my outdated ones made in a different language.”

Tao lowered his hands, a little downcast at not being able to say anything before his first big hunt. Still, he wandered down the mountain resolutely. He wanted to set off immediately to take down that bear and complete the mission. He would prove not just to Faust, but to all the others that had been mocking him in the Mission Hall and himself what he was capable of.

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In Dark Petal Valley, the sun began to shine again, lighting up the massive pit of dull grey trees.

Not wanting any sudden noises after the long, unnervingly quiet night, the group didn’t speak much for a while.

Faust suspected Sirius had actually fallen asleep at some point, but didn’t point it out.

Soon, the group was high in the sky, continuing to scour the depressing forest below.

Wind blew, the sun cast its rays and clouds passed overhead until the sun began falling westward once again.

At some point Sirius started singing a song that had recently been sweeping through the empire. The song sounded cute rather than its intended theme of melancholy and legends due to Sirius’s high pitched airy voice. She sang loud enough Faust could hear despite the group having spread out hundreds of meters apart.

Gazing at the grey mass of gloomy forest on the ground, Faust was about to call for them to gather up and try something else when Phalecia suddenly signalled from where she was in the distance.

The group immediately swarmed to Phalecia.

“Did you find the beast!” Satheon practically shouted, his eyes almost bloodshot after the boring task of searching for the beast when he clearly just wanted to fight.

Phalecia pointed and Faust followed her gaze.

There was a large patch of destroyed forest, a few hundred meters across and with a clear indent that curved and wound around, tightening into a spiral at the center around a shriveled corpse of a large crocodile beast.

“I believe we’ve found its trail then.” Faust led the group to take a closer look.

The group landed around the shriveled corpse of another Iron Spine Crocodile that seemed to love the inky waters of this place.

“Harvest the Living Iron while I check the trail.” Faust passed his skinning knife to Sirius who happily accepted while Faust walked off and followed the long, river-like trails that snaked around the area.

Comparing the Rot Qi to the actual state of the corpse suggested it had been roughly a late stage Open Palace equivalent beast and killed several months ago. Looking for places where the tail flicked and left marks on the ground, Faust guessed the Flood Dragon had only been about 500 meters long at the time.

“It’s growing fast.” Faust commented, walking along until he found a few drops of bright blood that stood out against the ash grey ground.

Faust swept some of the ash away, revealing a small, dried puddle. The bright blood meant that the beast was halfway to transforming into a flood dragon, though most people considered even half transformed flood dragons as genuine flood dragons.

Faust understood the sentiment. Even half transformed, a flood dragon was still immensely dangerous. Looking back on the rest of the group, Faust wondered if they would be alright. The group was made up of Faust and Phalecia at the early stage of Open Palace, Sirius at the mid stage and Satheon at the late stage.

If body tempering was included, Phalecia had none, Sirius was at starting line of the 2nd realm, Faust halfway through the 3rd realm and Satheon had made progress into the 4th realm, able to rival Golden Core experts Qi enhancement in an ordinary fist fight provided they had no body tempering cultivation.

Faust considered his own mental library of spells and techniques.

This book’s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Hmm… We should be fine…” He mumbled, noticing a broken black scale in the dirt and picking it up, turning it in his hands.

Faust stared at the scale intently, scrutinising it. After a few moments, he increased the force in his fingers. The scale held firm. Faust began further reinforcing his body tempering strength with some Spirit Qi.

The scale finally snapped between Faust’s fingers.

Faust continued to look the broken scale up and down, before looking across the ground and seeing a small trail of blood go a few meters into the forest before disappearing.

“Everyone, let’s try this way.” Faust called out.

Sirius ran over to deposit the Living Iron from the crocodile before the group ascended back into the sky atop their flying swords, following the trail.

Further ahead, the group found another patch of destroyed land.

Spreading out again, the group began finding several trails, narrowing the search area.

At some point, they stumbled upon a truly vast swath of destruction. There was far more blood and ripped scales. Moreover, there was no corpse and the blood was fresh.

The beast had been injured. Very recently.

The group followed a trail of ripped out trees and overturned rock and soil.

“Roooooarrrr….”

A distant roar sounded.

The group changed directions.

Faust held up a hand and brought the group to a stop.

A giant black serpent, whose head had narrowed and begun growing horns and whiskers was curled up in a large, smooth crater.

It was still a long ways away, even their enhanced vision struggled to make out the details.