Chapter 21
After everyone was able to recover their recomposure, Zhao Xieren immediately gave out orders to the disciples. Since it was the first day, she wanted everybody to stay together and get used to the terrain first.
As such, she took out a compass that was given to them by the event personnel. This compass was a special compass and would point to the center of the forest which was the tallest mountain in the forest hunt area. The event personnel had told them there was a special formation that was set up in the middle of the hunt area for them.
However, she didn’t walk towards the center as she led the group somewhere else. As the leader, no one would question her but she knew it would be better to explain her thoughts. “For the first few days, there will be a lot of spiritual beasts in the outer circle that are easy to find. After it becomes harder to find spiritual beasts, we will go deeper towards the center to look for better beasts,” she said calmly.
Hearing her words, the disciples nodded and agreed with her plan. As they managed their way through the forest, Qian Yu quickly found a lot of herbs and was delighted. As people couldn’t really travel through this forest, he could easily find rare herbs and plants that would normally be hard.
In fact, he had already discovered a herb that was called a Snowdrop Flower which had very potent treatment power even if it wasn’t used as a pill and just applied externally. He didn’t hesitate as he took out a container in his bag as he put his harvest into it.
The disciples were given containers that they could use to carry things they found inside the forest such as beast cores and plants. Of course, those who were like Qian Yu and knew about rare herbs were rare and this was a great blessing for him. Previously, when he went to the auction house with Zhao Xieren, he had seen that a dozen of these flowers were sold for 50 gold coins! Each one was almost 5 gold coins each.
After about 10 minutes, the group ran finally into their first spiritual beast. It was one of the most common ranked spiritual beasts found in the area and it was none other than the ice scorpion.
As the spiritual beast saw them, it grew enraged seeing that there were invaders in its territory. On the other side, the disciples smiled and got ready to fight. However, before any of them did anything, Zhao Xieren stopped them saying, “Alright, Qian Yu will kill the ice scorpion by himself. It will be good practice and each one of you guys will be getting some fighting experience over the next few days. You will also keep the loot of whatever beast we encounter this way which will be fair. Prepare to intervene if needed.”
An ice scorpion was actually a pretty weak spiritual beast. However, what made it dangerous was its poisonous ability which was problematic even if one got slightly grazed.
Zhao Xieren had gone home yesterday and asked her mom for a quick crash course on various medical treatments that could come up during the hunt which included the ice scorpion. As she had seen Qian Yu gather the herbs for it earlier, she could go along with the plan she stated.
Hearing their leader’s words, they naturally agreed to it and thought it was a good idea. Qian Yu, on the other hand, was the most excited. He had been practicing his spear for the past few months as he looked through countless basic manuals. Additionally, this was another chance for him to make money even if a common ranked spiritual beast core like this was worth only around 1 or 2 gold coins. Although it wasn’t as high as finding herbs, it was still like free money.
On the other hand, the low intelligence ice scorpion was delighted as it saw the lone Qian Yu walk up to battle against it.
*Swish!* With a quick dash, the one feet tall, one meter long ice scorpion lunged at Qian Yu who dodged it before knocking it away with his spear. Even then, it seemed like the ice scorpion wasn’t hurt by his attempt as it quickly got on its foot and charged back at Qian Yu.
*Swash!* *Clank* After several more trades with the ice scorpion, everyone including Qian Yu noticed an issue. The ice scorpion was truly tenacious with a hard shell. The only weak point it had were its limbs which could really only be abused by a sword or saber as the spear mainly had high lethality and penetrating power.
‘Hmm, I will need to remember this weakness,’ Qian Yu made a mental note to himself. At this point, the scorpion lunged forward for the 10th time with its claw.
“Hiyah!” However, instead of rolling to the side to dodge it or blocking it with his spear, Qian Yu jumped up with all strength.
“Die!” Aiming his spear down, he stabbed downwards.
*Crack!* a sound ranged out as blood started gushing out from the ice scorpion. The spear had broken the shell and penetrated the ice scorpion instantly killing it.
‘I-I did it!’ Qian Yu muttered and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Afterwards, he started finding the beast core with the help of his spear.
“Woot nice job!” “Let’s go!” The other clapped as they saw Qian Yu’s movement and how he quickly solved the issue. It was clear that all of them couldn’t wait for their own turns to kill a beast and hoped that they would go as soon as possible.
Turning his head towards his fellow sectmates, Qian Yu saw their happy faces and the beautiful smiling Zhao Xieren.
‘This feels good,’ he thought to himself as he smiled back. It was a short battle but meaningful nonetheless. Every trade with the scorpion was tough. The way he defended, the way he attacked, how he dodged, everything he did filled him with adrenaline and he wanted to fight again.
Looking down at the jade bracelet on his wrist, he saw the number had changed from 0 to 1 and the 30th had changed to 16th. The first number was, without a doubt, their team’s amount of points while the second was their current ranking of the 30 groups.
Following the next 5 hours, the group had managed to find 7 other spiritual beasts including more ice scorpions but also a snow lynx which was a lot more fierce than the ice scorpion, injuring the fighter and forcing Qian Yu to perform treatment.
By that time, night was approaching, and the group started to look for a safe place to camp out.
After setting up a campfire, they enjoyed delicious roasted spiritual beast meat as Zhao Xieren gave out some orders for tomorrow. Before retiring for the night, a few were chosen to be on guard duty during the night but Qian Yu was exempted as he had asked Zhao Xieren for a special job.