Chapter 23

“Welcome back, have some food,” Zhao Xieren walked up to Qian Yu who had just returned. In her hands, she was holding onto a skewer with some roasted meat. He was just short of two hours and he was able to have a quick bite before leaving.

“Thank you, I’ll fill you in as well...” Qian Yu accepted the skewers from her before filling her in on a route to take.

Soon, Zhao Xieren called everyone together under her lead, “Alright, today we will be looking for more beasts. For those who did not fight a spiritual beast yesterday, you will have your chance today.”

Everyone nodded as they followed her, traversing through the forest. Finding the occasional spiritual beast, everyone started getting their own battles with the beasts.

After an hour, Zhao Xieren looked at her bracelet.

“19th with 11 points only,” she sighed. They were able to find spiritual beasts more easily now since they started moving at a quicker pace as everybody gradually got used to moving in the forest. Despite that, it looked like it wasn’t good enough and they were still behind a lot of groups.

“Don’t worry, there’s a wolf camp ahead. There will be many spiritual beasts,” Qian Yu said, looking at her face. Besides finding herbs this morning, Qian Yu had also scouted out some spiritual beasts. Since he was alone, it would take too long to hunt them while also being potentially dangerous.

“Alright, that should be good for us,” Zhao Xieren nodded. Continuing forward, they eventually saw a pack of wolves that was currently feasting on some meat under a large cliff.

“They are Icy Wolves,” a smile appeared on Zhen Yue’s face as she saw the dozen of wolves. Compared to regular wolves, they were stronger and faster, however, not by much. The most troublesome part was that they always moved together, making it hard to deal with the pack by oneself.

“Surround them,” Zhao Xieren whispered to everyone.

Hearing her order, the disciples quietly moved, getting in place as they converged around the pack of wolves.

“Charge!” she yelled. With Zhao Xieren at the middle of the charge and Li Cheng directly behind her to support the other disciples if needed, everyone ran forward with their weapons in their hands.

Noticing the incoming rampage, the wolves were startled before realizing their predicament. “Awooo!” The largest wolf howled, immediately bolstering their morale. Like the band of humans running at them, the wolves started charging forward as well. If they were to wait, they would easily be cornered and restricted before becoming fresh beast meat.

Leading the charge, the wolf leader charged forward aiming to break through the disciple’s formation. In the view of the spiritual beast, the weakest point was the one with the least amount of people.

However, this had ended up being the strongest part of Zhao Xieren’s formation with herself and Li Cheng in the middle.

“Now!” Zhao Xieren called out as she continued to run forward.

Li Cheng immediately stopped hearing her shout. Channeling his qi and the Ice Manipulation cultivation technique, he pushed his hands forward from his chest he yelled, “Spears of Ice!”

*Whoosh!* Three icicles formed in the air as it launched past Zhao Xieren’s head.

With such a large distance between Li Cheng and the wolf leader however, it was easily able to dodge them.

Yet, this was good enough. As the wolf’s momentum slowed down, Zhao Xieren came charging in. Her sword out of its sheath and ready to slash at the enemy.

“Wandering Blade!” Zhao Xieren yelled out.

*Slash slash slash!* Her sword glowed as she exquisitely performed the three slashes, dismantling the common grade spiritual beast.

“Awoo!” “Wooo!” Seeing their leader becoming pieces of raw meat, the other wolves immediately lost all coordination and started running and escaping randomly.

“Don’t let them run away!” Zhao Xieren shouted at all the disciples.

In front of Qian Yu, a small wolf charged at him before pouncing with its fangs bared.

*Clash!* Sparks flew as Qian Yu blocked the attack with his spear. Its fangs were but a foot away from biting Qian Yu’s neck.

“Yah!” Qian Yu shouted as he mustered the energy to counter. With a heavy kick, he sent the wolf flying back.

*Stab!* Qian Yu didn’t let the opportunity go as it flew off a couple of feet. As it tried to get back up, he stabbed forward, impaling the wolf through the neck and ending its life.

Similarly, everyone else was starting to finish up their fights.

“Good job everyone!” Zhao Xieren nodded her head, seeing their performance. Looking at her jade bracelet, their points had jumped from 11 to 25, boosting their ranking to 6th.

“Oh my god!” “We are in 6th!” Similarly, everyone was excited as well.

“Alright, we still have plenty of work to do if we want to maintain our position,” Zhao Xieren calmed them down.

Hours flew by as they continued to hunt more spiritual beasts. Unfortunately, the amount of prey they found quickly decreased and by nightfall, they had amassed another 40 points. As for their ranking, it dropped from 6th to 9th.

Zhao Xieren expected that they would eventually be overpassed but she could only sigh when they dropped 3 rankings. Still, it was rather early and only two days had passed.

After Qian Yu had finished dinner, he was going to go to sleep again since he was planning to wake up early and do some early scouting, however, Zhao Xieren had stopped him.

“Good work today,” she whispered.

It was a long day today. Along with travelling and running around the whole day, he had fought 3 other not including the one with the wolf.

Yet seeing her smile and compliment, he suddenly felt alive again. “Glad to be of service,” he smiled back.

In a small cave, a lady in a black dress opened her eyes before sitting up. Her eyes were confused as she looked at her wounds where there were traces of residue. Curious, she called out, “What happened?”

From the corner of the cave, a black object slithered out. A snake came out and its eyes glowed as the lady and snake exchanged eye contact. After a few seconds, the snake slithered towards the lady before touching her leg and vanished!

Clearly, the snake was some kind of spiritual beast. After all, spiritual beasts were called spiritual for a reason. After creating a contract with a human, they would be able to enter their master’s soul world and leave which was extremely convenient.

As for the woman, she closed her eyes as she took in the images that the snake had seen before she sat upright and started cultivating and recovering from her wounds.