Chapter 18
Currently, Zhao Xieren and the 10 outer court disciples she was responsible for were sleeping in a village somewhere south of Yellow River City. This time, they took a mission that would take no longer than a week and they would directly go to the Xia capital for the winter hunt after finishing it.
Compared to the last one, their mission this time was much more difficult. Recent reports had come in saying there was an uncommon ranked spiritual beast in the mountains near this village that had been killing many villagers. More specifically, it was a white-striped tiger whose name was the Ice Mountain Tiger.
During the past months, Qian Yu had been eating common ranked spiritual beast meat which was similar to beasts at the qi gathering realm. Above that was the uncommon rank which was similar in strength to the soul foundation stage. Above that were rare, epic, mythic, and divine ranked spiritual beasts.
Zhao Xieren had taken the opportunity to take this mission as she said it would be a good experience for them in the winter hunt. Naturally, she had made this decision after she herself reached the 7th stage of the qi gathering realm while Li Cheng, the strongest of the outer disciples in the group, had reached the first stage of the qi gathering realm and started learning the sky ranked version of the Ice Sutra, the Ice Manipulation cultivation technique. However, he only barely just learned how to conjure his qi into ice qi and couldn’t do much outside of that.
Meanwhile, Qian Yu had managed to enter the 7th stage of the body refinement realm. As for the rest of the group, Chen Ya and Wu Jing were both at the 8th stage while the others were between the 7th and 9th stages.
Waking up the next morning, the group proceeded to enter the mountains in search of the uncommon ranked tiger. Traveling through the mountain now, the group discovered it was a lot harder to traverse through unlike before.
Perhaps, only Qian Yu wasn’t have trouble as he had always roamed the woods for herbs as a child. Along with the spear in his hand, he would occasionally prod and look for something rare but alas, he couldn’t find anything.
“There’s something here!” Qian Yu shouted to everyone. After a few hours of walking through the woods, they had finally found some blood stains.
“Are they fresh?” Zhao Xieren asked Qian Yu.
“Mhm, there’s a trail of blood as well,” Qian Yu pointed towards the red spots on the ground.
“Let’s go then,” Zhao Xieren took the lead as they followed it.
Minutes later, they found their target. Currently in front of the cave, the large 6 feet tall tiger was licking its large wound on one of its legs. As it didn’t notice the disciples yet, the group started thinking about what to do but they couldn’t formulate a plan after 15 minutes.
Originally, one of the more simple minded disciples just asked why they couldn’t just surround the tiger and attack it. However, it was quickly scoffed at. If it didn’t want to fight it could just run away and Zhao Xieren wouldn’t be able to kill it. With 9 body refinement cultivators, they didn’t have much at their disposal.
As they were still thinking, three people rushed out from nowhere as they surrounded the tiger.
“Bastards, what are they do-” one of the disciples got up and said before he was silenced by Zhao Xieren’s right hand.
“Watch what they do, we’ll intervene if needed. They are all at the early stages of the qi gathering realm,” she ordered. She knew it was no easy feat for her to take on three qi gathering fighters by herself while protecting her group members, and as such, just ordered everyone to watch and learn how to handle the beast.
Everybody realized the three that rushed out were rogue cultivators from their clothing, and more importantly, experience. They all used different techniques but more importantly, had a surprisingly good amount of teamwork with each other.
“Ember Slash!” one of them yelled as flame qi appeared on his sword. Fearing this, the tiger did its best to dodge the fatal slash. However, the direct consequence caused the tiger to dodge right into the cultivator who relied on his fist.
“Internal Smash!” he yelled as he took a stomp forward and pushed forward his fist, hitting the ribs of the tiger. Although the tiger didn’t fly away or anything, it immediately gushed out a lot of blood from its mouth as it started running away into the woods.
“Shattering Ground!” Just as it entered the woods, the third cultivator slammed both his hands onto the ground causing the ground to shake. Immediately, a large hole opened up in that area of the woods as the tiger fell into it.
*Bam bam!* Afterwards, they jumped into the hole to finish off the tiger and take the spiritual beast core. These things had numerous purposes such as being materials for weapons. Most of the time though, they were just sold for money.
“Wow, what the hell, they killed it so easily,” one disciple said.
“Yea, I can’t wait to enter the qi gathering realm!” another disciple said.
The disciples were all in awe at the quickness and efficiency of the rogue cultivators. With just three basic skills at the first layer of some random cultivation method, they were able to easily subdue and corner the tiger together.
“Alright, that’s that, let’s return. I guess this mission didn’t help much,” Zhao Xieren sighed, realizing how weak their group with only 2 qi gathering experts. Depressed, she continued to think of plans for the winter hunt.
Seeing her expression, Qian Yu started putting his brain to work. By the time the evening dinner had arrived, Qian Yu had already thought about a way to solve their innate weakness.
“Meet me by that house at midnight,” Qian Yu whispered to Zhao Xieren when he found a chance.
He could have just said it out loud at dinner but it would be better if Zhao Xieren said it. In a team, the stronger the leader appeared to be, the more everyone else would trust that leader. All in all, it was just better if it looked like Zhao Xieren came up with the plan.
A few hours later, Qian Yu got out of his room and arrived at the meeting place that he had agreed on with Zhao Xieren. As he got there, he saw Zhao Xieren was already there waiting for him.
“Ok, let’s go over what I thought about,” Qian Yu said as the two walked away from the house and started a walk under the moon.
“Firstly, Li Cheng’s 1st martial skill will be the Spears of Ice right?” Qian Yu asked to confirm.
“Yes, that’s the 1st layer of the Ice Manipulation technique,” Zhao Xieren nodded.
“Alright, our disadvantage is mainly our weak amount of body refinement cultivators. It may look problematic at first but it isn’t really. As for our advantages, what you are good at is executing enemies with your sword. Li Cheng who uses the Ice Manipulation technique can be a good support with the ice spikes,” Qian Yu said.
“Mhm, keep going,” Zhao Xieren nodded as she listened to him talk. Earlier, she had always thought about their weakness as a group and didn’t think about what they were best at.
He continued, “With a large number of body refinement fighters, the best quality we have is our endurance. While we may not be able to harm a strong spiritual beast, a 9 on 1 will be easy for us to handle and the beast wouldn’t be able to do anything. As such, the beast will probably decide to run away after it realizes it is pointless. All we need to do is position in a way that allows us to decide where it escapes towards. If it runs towards you guys who are waiting to ambush it, there’ll be a good chance to instantly take it down.”
This idea had stemmed from watching the rogue cultivators fight earlier. One of their “Ember Slashes” had caused the tiger to dodge into the fighter who used his fist allowing him to land a direct attack. As a person with a legendary grade technique and using a sword, Qian Yu believed that Zhao Xieren’s attack would be much more lethal and stronger if she could land a direct hit on it.
Zhao Xieren was truly enlightened by his plan, “That’s a good idea. I only thought about doing the majority of the work previously but now I just need to land the critical blow. Why didn’t I think of this? Hehe, another great idea!”
Zhao Xieren was in a good mood now as she continued to talk with Qian Yu for the next hour before they went back to sleep. Tomorrow, they would need to travel to the capital city of the country where the annual winter hunt would be held.