Chapter 41: The Beast Lands and the Sixth Layer of Qi Condensation

Having taken the mission to capture Eared Crocodiles, An left the Outer Hall and headed straight for the Sect's eastern gates, which led to the Beast Lands.

Along the way, he began recalling information about the Blood Lion and where exactly it lived. The book Know Whose Tracks These Are described that this beast lived in only one location within the Outer Ring of the Beast Lands.

So all that remained for him was to get to that place and wait for Rollo Por and his friends to come to him.

After a few hours of walking, An reached the Sect's eastern gates. Around him, he saw many small, unremarkable shops. Each of them was geared toward what lay beyond the gates: repair workshops for weapons and armor, weapon shops, pills and everything related to spirit plants, everyday items that might come in handy in the forest, even a few places for butchering beast carcasses. And around these places, with carcasses hanging right out on the street, small tents were set up selling food made from freshly butchered meat.

What surprised him was that the gates leading to the Beast Lands were wide open, and there was no guard at all. Cultivators who weren't even disciples of the Heavenly Soul Sect were walking from shops to tents. Most of these cultivators were dressed in leather robes, with bows on their backs and large bags tied behind them. He realized that even a worn-out spatial pouch was a luxury for most wandering cultivators.

Stepping aside onto the sidewalk, closer to the tents, he began observing the wandering cultivators. This was his first encounter with them. He had always held the belief that only the cunning and ruthless could survive outside the Sects. Even a kindly-looking old man might stab you in the back with a knife when you least expected it.

"How long would I have lasted if I hadn't become a Sect disciple..." An exhaled heavily, understanding that even with all the oppression he encountered from time to time, his situation was significantly better than that of most of the cultivators passing by him. He wasn't even sure he would have made it if he had originally found himself here, among them.

"No — no!! Stop! My father would never do this! Please, let me go!" Suddenly, An heard, on the other side of the street, closer to the gates, a cultivator, holding a young girl no older than eighteen by the hair with one hand, dragging her toward the gates while talking to his companions walking beside him.

"Shut up! Your father sold you to pay off his debt!" The cultivator holding her by the hair snapped at her.

"Aaah!" She immediately received a fist to the stomach, and the wind was knocked completely out of her.

Becoming even angrier, he decided to hit her again.

"Ahaha!"

"Blame your daddy! Haha!"

His friends walking beside him, seeing him punch her in the stomach twice, began laughing loudly down the whole street.

"Stop!" Behind them, they heard a boy's voice. Turning around, they saw a young kid, no more than twelve, standing before them with a rusty, cracked sword in his hand, pointing it at them.

"L-let my sister go!! Or else..." He threatened them in a trembling voice.

"Or else what? Ahaha!" asked the one holding the girl by the hair. He lifted her higher and began shaking her in front of her brother, while at the same time, his friends began laughing even louder.

"B-brother! Run! P-please, run and find a Hall of Justice officer! Ju-just run!" Grabbing onto the huge paw that was holding her by the hair, fearing for her brother, she began trying to shoo him away in every way possible.

"O-okay! I'll r... UAH!" Just as the kid was about to turn and run, he felt a sharp pain in his chest. Lowering his head, he saw the tip of a spear sticking out of him, stained with his own blood. Lifting his head and finding his sister's eyes, he opened his mouth to say something, but instead of words, only blood came out.

"AG-agh!" Feeling the spear exit his chest, the kid was about to swing his rusty sword, but realized he was already falling to the ground.

"No! No! Someone! Anyone! Pl-please!" Seeing her younger brother's fallen body, she began to kick, trying to break free.

"Ahaha!"

Lying on the ground, the kid heard his sister's voice growing quieter and quieter. Trying to get up, he realized that with each passing second, he was growing more and more tired, his arms and legs were becoming heavier. Deciding that he would just rest for a moment and then get up and save his sister, the young boy closed his eyes.

"Haha, brother, you came just in time, or we would have all been killed by this hero! Ooo!"

"Hahaha!"

"I just stepped away to use the shitter, and you've already found another mess! Let's go, our boss is waiting for us!"

"Ha! Brother, as always, no fun with you, always so serious!"

They began walking through the gates, laughing and joking as if nothing had happened. The girl stopped resisting and went limp in the cultivator's hand.

After hitting her in the stomach a few times and receiving no reaction except an empty stare, he simply threw her over his shoulder.

Looking into those empty, dead, tear-stained eyes, An turned his gaze toward a large and luxurious tavern, specifically the second floor with an open balcony.

At a large table sat five outer disciples in red robes with the emblems of the Hall of Justice. While in the center of the street before the Sect's gates, on the Sect's own territory, a murder and kidnapping were taking place, the officers at the table continued their feast, not throwing a single glance, not deigning to pay attention.

"They sit there and drink! On our money! On what they steal from us under the guise of protection! And they don't even want to protect us?!"

"Quiet! Quiet! What if they hear you? Be quiet!"

Near An, two old men without cultivation, sitting at a small table and sipping tea, began to argue and spit out chewed tea leaves.

"As if this is anything new… They've never cared about us. The only thing that matters is that we pay them their taxes on time… Whether we're killed, raped, eaten... Even this great sect doesn't care about us ordinary people... Let alone those degenerate disciples…"

A very old woman came out, wiping a pitcher with a cloth until it shone.

Standing nearby and listening to all of this, An simply averted his gaze from the balcony and walked toward the gates.

'As always, if you have strength, you're right… If you can't even swing a rusty sword, then what's the point of you, even if you're just a child... A tiger with your head in its teeth doesn't care about your feelings...' With detachment in his eyes, An passed through the Sect's gates.

The Beast Lands. Deep within the Outer Ring.

"Hmm... Where are you..."

"Oh!"

Sitting on top of a tall tree, An looked around. Having arrived here a few hours ago, he had climbed one of the tallest trees he could find and begun searching for traces of Blood Lions.

'According to the book, they like to live underground. The quickest way to find their dwelling is to look for large, fresh burrows in the ground...' He once again recalled the description of these spirit beasts from the book.

An began jumping from tree to tree, searching for dug-out burrows. At the same time, he tried to leave as few traces as possible, both physical and spiritual, constantly erasing his Qi from around himself, which greatly reduced his speed.

"Finally!" An muttered when he saw a huge dug-out burrow, over five meters wide. Looking around and finding a more hidden spot, he made his way through the branches, sat comfortably, and began to wait.

"Uurgkh~ Uuuurgkh~"

He heard a low rumble. Turning toward the sound, he saw a huge four-meter lion with six legs and fur the color of blood. The beast's eyes were half-closed, but he noticed they were completely white, without pupils.

Slogging along the ground, the lion dragged behind it a large beast half its size, but An couldn't identify what kind of beast it was. The body was torn apart, without a head or any limbs. The beast dragged the pile of meat with two massive tails. As it approached the burrow, it made the low rumble louder and louder.

"Urgf~ Urgf~"

As soon as it got closer to the burrow, a very similar rumble came from inside, only slightly different: higher-pitched and shorter.

Without slowing down, the lion climbed into the burrow and disappeared from sight, dragging the carcass in with it.

Sitting in the tree, An read the unique Qi flows emanating from the lion and, concentrating on the ground for a long time, he managed to determine that there were at least four lions in the burrow. And judging by the fact that two of the flows were much weaker than the others, there were likely two cubs in the burrow.

Covering himself with the tree's foliage and watching the burrow, he decided that tonight, he would attempt to break through to the sixth layer of Qi Condensation.

All this time, locked away on his plot, refining pills, he had never forgotten about cultivation and Qi training. Through constant cultivation with his own pills and their boosts, he had managed to reach the limit of the fifth layer. 60% of his dantian, or in other words, sixty of one hundred sections were activated. He only needed to activate the sixty-first, and he would officially become a sixth-layer cultivator, just one step away from the late stage.

Without thinking long, he climbed to the very top of the tree to prevent the raging Qi of his breakthrough from alerting the beasts in the surrounding area and creating unnecessary problems for him.

Towards early morning, when the three moons had given way to the sun, which was just beginning to appear over the horizon, a loud sound echoed.

Swoosh~

The foliage at the top of the tree suddenly scattered in all directions, leaving a big bald spot.

"Ugh... Finally... I was starting to think it wouldn't happen by the end of this cycle…" An exhaled and stood up, checking his body with his Qi, observing the changes in his organism. The first thing he noticed was that his heartbeat and the intervals between his breaths had slowed down slightly, again. Standing on the branch, he could feel vitality raging through his body.

Closing his eyes, he felt every single cell in his body. With trepidation, he watched as some of his cells suddenly began to change. He could feel them starting to improve. He could directly feel a small portion of his cells evolving, trying to become something new.

This process gave him a feeling akin to ecstasy. His entire body was at its peak. When that portion of cells finished evolving, they had become stronger, they radiated life force. But the strangest thing was that they stopped changing altogether, as if their time had stopped, frozen. They neither began to age nor began to divide.

Having reached this moment, An opened his eyes. His irises were burning bright green. Exhaling particles of green Qi from his mouth, they began to settle on the bare branches of the tree.

Immediately, new shoots of foliage began to sprout on them. After unfolding, they began to mutate, and from each leaf, flowers began to sprout, different numbers on each leaf. The flowers, having opened, tried to reach toward An, toward his Qi, which was still exiting through his mouth.

Coming to his senses, his eyes stopped glowing, and the dense green Qi stopped exiting with his breath. Having cut off the source of this Qi, the flowers reaching toward him instantly began to wilt and turn to ash, leaving only a few leaves on the branches.

'What was that... what the hell…' An thought, his eyes full of a mixture of fear and confusion. He had just entered a strange state, akin to a trance, and in his head, he began to hear thousands of hungry voices, doing nothing but greedily begging him to feed them.

'Maybe... No, it was just a temporary delusion from the breakthrough and the changes to my cells due to increased vitality, and nothing more...' Coming to his senses, he calmed down and blamed it all on the breakthrough, not finding a more logical explanation.

Looking around and making sure everything was in order and that he hadn't disturbed the spirit beasts living in the vicinity, he decided to change his position.

Moving through the trees, An descended a little lower and moved closer to the burrow's entrance. Looking down, he could now clearly see that there were actually five beasts in the burrow: one male, two females, and two newborns, a girl and a boy.

Examining the flows and realizing that he could now read information from Qi slightly better, he understood that this was all thanks to his breakthrough and the partial evolution of his cells.

Even looking around, he could feel that he could focus on individual Qi flows and their information better and faster than before.

Turning his head, examining everything around him, he suddenly heard the rush of wind being sheared by a large, heavy object behind him.

Looking toward the sound, he saw a small boat flying through the air above the treetops a few kilometers away, heading toward him. It was a flying artifact, designed for a maximum of ten people, six by three meters in size.

Looking carefully and seeing the five people on the boat, he realized that they were the ones he had been waiting for. On the deck, at the front, stood Rollo Por. On either side were his two friends: Uku Tom with the iron prosthetic, and Badu Dum, the huge giant.

Behind them, at a slight distance, stood the two twins: Li Am and Li Um. Sister Am was constantly turning her head, examining everything around her with great interest. Sister Um, meanwhile, never took her eyes off the three men in front of her, afraid to lose sight of them even for a moment.

Sitting on the tree's branches, An intentionally almost completely stopped his breathing and heartbeat. Watching the flying artifact intently, he activated his Qi Silence technique as a precaution.

It was a technique he had derived from several universal stealth techniques he had managed to find during the Four Nights Festival, in the tents selling techniques. Extracting the concepts from these techniques and analyzing them, he had managed to create his own Qi Silence technique, perfectly suited for him.

Although the technique was still in its early stages of development, its capabilities already allowed him to partially mask involuntary Qi leaks from his body, while also dampening any sound and scent emanating from him.

Watching the boat carefully, he began to move through the branches toward where the artifact was slowly beginning to descend to the ground.