“But Blue-Dew Leaves can cover my scent as well and its cheaper!” I argue as I wave the bundle in Tie Feng’s face who slaps my hand aside with annoyance.

  “Yes, but rather than beasts it will make insects want a taste of you! I swear to the heaven’s Zhan, you will buy the Ignis Plum Extract and if I hear another word about something being too expensive, I will hit you.”

  I slump and put the leaves back and let Tie Feng place the vial onto the counter of the store we’re buying supplies in much to the amusement of the disciple manning it.

  Something that is quickly killed once Lan Yue comes with her final items.

  I gladly carry the bags shoved in my arms after her ‘negotiation’.

  “That should be all the two of you will need for your missions, all that’s left are rations for the journey,” Tie Feng says as he looks through the list he made of supplies we’d need.

  It’s not my first mission out the sect so I still have most of what I bought last time, but Lan Yue doesn’t, so we’re out getting everything she needs along with anything special I need to hunt my target.

  After the tournament a month ago, our schedules changed rapidly, partly due to our senior’s being able to ascend to Meridian Creation and graduating to become inner disciples.

  Well, everyone but Xue Xu joined the inner sect. As I expected, she was the sole one among the four to become a core disciple. Her age plus achieving second in the tournament made her a clear choice to become a personal disciple for one of the core elders.

  That doesn’t mean the others didn’t get something out of it though, Chen Yun’s win also got him his grandfather’s approval and became his disciple which was his goal. Mei Ruyin on the other hand impressed an inner elder who took a shine on her due to her combat style, one similar to her own.

  Doesn’t hurt that she’s close with Xue Xu, someone who can potentially become a core elder in the future.

  Sect politics.

  Wang Xie however got the short end of the stick, he didn’t get to show off much with his match against Chen Yun being so early in, so he didn’t receive an offer from an elder, something he wasn’t too torn up about anyways as there aren’t any that specialize in poisons in the sect. What he was looking forward to though was being able to join the Alchemy Hall.

  I didn’t like how unnaturally excited he was talking about all the materials and recipes he’ll have access to.

  Not much changed for me though except I sadly lost most of my training partners, I even started missing Xue Xu.

  Mainly her excitement to spar.

  I also haven’t seen hide or hair of Biu or his friends, so my plan by knocking them out early if I met them seems to have worked. Hope they’re having fun in the Imperial army’s bootcamp.

  Unlike me, Lan Yue was able to leverage her position to get an introduction to an outer elder. Never heard of his name, which isn’t surprising, but a friend of hers that she made for mercantile connections is his disciple. He took a shine on her and although he can’t offer an official apprenticeship, outer elders being limited to a single disciple, he has been giving her advice and such.

  That also came with a recommendation to go on missions outside the sect, hopefully to gain an achievement to show off to other elders by doing it relatively earlier than others.

  She’s assigned to investigate a string of killings in a village a few days from the sect. Could be a murderer, bandits, or a beast, but she’s only meant to investigate, killing it only if within her means.

  I myself took a mission that has quite a monetary reward that I may or may not have gotten through nepotism.

  Xue Xu wants some brownie points with her fellow senior sister under her new teacher, hence a letter half begging me to go find something ‘nice’ as a gift.

  I don’t know what can be considered nice for a core disciple, neither did Xue Xu when I asked her so I fell back to Lan Yue who of course knows what a high standing female cultivator would appreciate. That led her to asking Tie Feng for certain spiritual beasts nearby and pointing me to one called a Cloud Seeking Rainbow Panther.

  The name’s quite literal; the beasts have an exotic rainbow coloured coat that’s always in demand. Luckily there’s been known reports of it a few days from the sect! Unluckily, it’s very hard to hunt as it’s one of the few beasts that can naturally use qi even at Body Tempering and use their rainbow coat to camouflage, essentially turning invisible to the senses of those at the same realm which makes it a rare catch.

  Its invisibility isn’t perfect, those at higher realms with qi sensing able to easily pick out the beast in the wild but it doesn’t really help me much.

  Although difficult, it’s the only thing that won’t break Xue Xu’s relatively large purse, so she put it through the sect as an official mission, the conversion rate of coin to sect points high if assigned as an official mission so here I am.

  It broke my heart to fork over the points I saved over to get a new Martial Art that should help hunting the beast down, the bit of practice I put into it getting me to a decent enough level. It’s a very useful auxiliary art that I’ll likely use for a long time, but it still hurt spending the points.

  “I was hoping to ask you two a favour,” Lan Yue suddenly speaks up as we head back to our homes.

  “Sure, what is it?” Tie Feng asks.

  “Well,” she hesitates, “my family is arriving at Cloudrest in a few weeks. Or well, my brothers are. And they have been pestering me through letters to meet my… friends,” she glances at me before focusing on Tie Feng, “so I was hoping you two can come with me when they arrive.”

  “Of course we will,” I say immediately, Tie Feng agreeing as well.

  Her shoulders relax a bit, something I didn’t notice. Was she really that nervous to ask us to meet her brothers?

  ---

  A week! A week and I still haven’t found the damn beast!

  It was simple finding the reported location of the beast and even simpler finding its marked territory. The problem is that said beast is one of the strongest in the area which lets it control a large territory without contest, large enough that I haven’t even caught a glance at it after all this time.

  But that changes today! I found some of its waste near what I believe is the center of its territory and it’s warm, meaning that I know for sure it’s close by.

  Smiling, I start preparing.

  First, I find a small clearing nearby, need it for the wind that blows through so it can carry scents further. Next, I find a nice spot in a tree overlooking the clearing and jump onto a thick branch.

  Holding my breath, I open the small container on my waist, releasing visible fumes from the stench of the bait within and toss it into the clearing relatively near my position. Tumbling out is a cut of Sun Grass Deer soaked in an alchemical mixture to enhance its scent, a known prey of the panther.

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  Now it’s time to wait.

  I made sure the new Imperial armour and spear I had to buy, thanks a lot Biu, had their shine dulled, leaving my figure a bland grey, unassuming and even unpleasant to look at given the looks I got in the sect, but it doesn’t matter.

  What does matter is that it helps my new technique, Stone-Veil Immobility. A niche technique and not too popular among the sect even as one of the few stealth Martial Art’s available. For one, not many cultivators are too inclined to sneak around. Secondly, as in the name, you need to be as still as stone for it to work, immobile.

  I don’t quite care about the ‘honour’ of sneaking around, ambushes and traps are the best way to fell beasts, human and animal. It’s especially useful against something that can evade my senses and camouflage better than I can.

  Slowing my breathing, I lean against the trunk of the tree to get comfortable. My heart soon follows along as my presence fades, stock still in the tree.

  I flinch as the unpleasant smell of the bait hits me which breaks the technique, forcing me to take a few minutes to familiarize myself with the smell before I can dip myself back down into the technique.

  A good side-effect of the technique is that you don’t sweat much, not nearly enough to wash the scent erasing lotion I rubbed on me earlier so I can stalk in the tree for far longer than normal.

  What I forgot to think about was how boring it’s going to be, leaving me stuck in a tree overlooking a clearing in the middle of a forest as the sun crawls across the sky.

  I have to shake my mind awake a few times to scare off some birds that come looking for some easy food. Killing a few wards off their friends and I toss their corpses far away to not give the beast any hints, the scent of blood covered by the bait.

  The sky is starting to turn orange when I notice the bait move.

  Focusing onto it, the piece of meat shifts slightly, as if knocked from the side. I strain my eyes to see what’s doing it, perhaps a beast that burrowed underground?

  But then I see a faint indent in the grass next to the bait, a paw shaped one. Straining my eyes, I can finally see a faint blur, barely an outline of the leg of the beast I’m hunting.

  My heart picks up a pace, and I already know I’m on a time limit as my technique fades, so I make my move.

  The bait raises into the air, pulled by an invisible force before it gets chewed and disappears from sight, none of the vibrant mixture layered on the meat dripping anywhere to showcase the panther’s mouth.

  It’s something that I prepared for though as I reel my arm back, a fragile vial in hand that I’ve kept in my hand the entire time, and throw.

  The indent in the grass disappears by the time it leaves my hand, and it takes a moment for the vial to whistle through the air and pierce where the panther was.

  It keeps going, the beast apparently noticing me and having moved, but I wasn’t hoping to hit it directly.

  The vial smashes into the ground a near where the bait was, and from it comes an explosion of pink dust.

  Holding my breath, I leap towards the hacking I hear from the beast within the cloud covering half the clearing, barrelling and reeling my arm back with my palm open and push.

  Adamantine Crash!

  My palm meets air as I extend it forward, but the force of my strike violently pushes the cloud around me away and I’m left in the clearing, dust dispersing in the wind.

  Everything’s covered in pink alchemical dust, including the outline of the invisible panther.

  Its massive, at about eye level to me and braced on all fours as it tries to growl at me in-between coughing hacks.

  There is a clear difference in strength between my Mortal technique and its previous form. I can’t handle its full strength without tearing my muscles, not until I hit the eighth stage. What I can do however is underpower it, something I wasn’t able to do beforehand. In exchange for lesser strength, slightly weaker than before the technique advanced, I’m able to shorten the recovery time after the strike to less than a second.

  Which is why I can pivot just as the pink beast launches at me with a roar and dodge under the outstretched claws aiming to tear me apart and punch both fists up into it’s underbody as it passes over me.

  Its roar turns to one of pain as my fists dig in and launch it head over paws far away from me, but it’s nimble enough that it’s able to land on its feet.

  I can see the hesitation in its body, spiritual beasts are smarter and more strategic than their monstrous cousins and are known to retreat if they’re in danger, but I can’t let it run after the time it took me to track it, so I burst towards it to cut off its chance to retreat.

  It turns to try and bound out the clearing and into the forest like I expected but I’m already there. Even with moving earlier, it’s still almost able to escape, but I’m able to grab onto its tail just as it’s about to move beyond my grasp and slam my feet down.

  My feet grind against the dirt, the beast stronger despite being at a lower stage than me, but it does the trick as it yowls and immediately stops trying to run less I pull its tail clean off.

  It twists its body and sends a paw towards me, claws almost half the length of a sword.

  I lean back, unwilling to let go of its tail, and pay the price as claws dig through my breastplate and I wince as I feel the tips pierce all the way through and drag across my chest.

  My steel can only take another strike or two before it turns into scrap and without armour, it’ll dismantle me in a single strike.

  I keep a grip on its tail as I spin with the strike. It moved closer to claw at me and gives me just enough room to yank its tail to bring it closer to let my foot meet its face.

  Crunch

  Something breaks as it jerks back in pain, perhaps its snout and it gives me an opening, something I don’t miss.

  Planting my foot back down, I lean forward and shove my palm forward once again.

  Adamantine Crash!

  The strike slams into its ribcage, sending it tumbling back a meter.

  I found through practice that using my technique with palm strikes work differently than punches, focused on internal damage rather than breaking through everything in its path. Less damage of course, needing to get through hide, muscles and bone before reaching any organs, but enough to change the tide. You can condition yourself to be tougher, to fight through external pain, but it doesn’t help much when you’ve never dealt with the pain of having your organs ruptured into slurry.

  It staggers to its feet even as a steady stream of blood flows from its jaws along with pieces of its innards.

  I grab my spear and dash towards it before it can regain its footing, spearhead pointed straight for where its eye should be as the world suddenly slows for a moment. The hairs on my neck tingle as my eyes catch the way the beast’s muscles tighten, corded strings visible by the dust layering it, and I swear I see them expand in size.

  I trust my instincts and raise my spear to a guard, something that saves me as the panther suddenly blurs and slams into me, tossing me back to the ground as it pressed down onto me.

  Saliva and blood drips down onto my face as it furiously snaps its jaws down towards my face, only held back by my spear pressing up against its thick neck.

  I try to push it back with all my strength but its strong, stronger than it was a moment ago and far more than it should be with the crippling injury I gave it.

  Heaven’s damned beast advanced a stage at the worst time possible.

  It strains itself to get its fangs into me, bracing its muscled legs to push down further to maul me.

  Can’t let it do that, so with a grunt, I crunch my abs and plant both feet against its chest and with a deep breath, I shove.

  It gets pushed up for a moment before slamming back down, barely pushing it back from its renewed fury and I wheeze as my arms burn with effort.

  I plant my feet once more and shove it off me, but this time we’re both ready.

  It weaves its head around my spear as it comes down and bites onto the wood, forcing me to leave it behind as I roll away and my head just misses the large paw that slams into the ground.

  Crunch

  I wince as the shaft in its mouth shatters, but the time it took to do so lets me get into a crouch and leap at it.

  It snarls as I get onto its back, wrapping both arms around its neck as it twists and turns to get me, but I hook my feet around it to keep myself pressed against its back.

  It then decides to just drop to the ground and start rolling around and I wheeze as a literal ton of muscle presses down onto me, but I don’t let go.

  Not until we roll around to where the head of my spear lies.

  It shifts above me as it keeps me pinned underneath it and I can feel my breastplate slowly deforming under the weight of the beast. I release a hand, the other gripping its hide tightly, and my fingertips brush against the blade.

  Reeling my arm back, I take a deep breath and rock to the side, just enough to get some leverage and then, shoot my arm to the side with a yell, rocking back the other way and getting just close enough for my fingers to touch the broken shaft.

  Enough to slide it closer to grip it and send it flying into the beast’s neck.

  Schink

  It roars as the blade digs deep into the side of its neck, blood spurting out the wound as I take it out and start stabbing the beast.

  It’s roars of fury soon turn into gurgles, then whimpers before it shudders one last time and abruptly goes limp.

  Releasing my grip on the spear and its neck, I shove the corpse off me with a groan and just lay there for a second and stare at the darkening sky as I strain to catch my breath.

  Looking down, I wince as I see my brand-new armour bent inwards, the furrows from the claws not helping its integrity.

  The metal did its job though and I can tell the claws barely dug into my chest so a pill shouldn’t be needed.

  I turn back to the corpse of the large panther, longer than I am tall and heavier by a long shot.

  “Now how will I get you back.”