The next week went by in a routine. The trio would split up and hone their skills against the shadow panthers. Hong Zhao ventured back to the area that the snake had swallowed him and began to attack the slightly higher level snakes and warned the other two not to follow him. They would split up during the day and kill fierce beasts to their hearts content until the sun fell behind the trees. After the darkness crept in, they would meet back at their camp.
Li Wei stopped accompanying Li Wuhan after the second day. They hadn't met another panther the size of the last, so she became somewhat confident in her abilities. Hong Zhao had impressed the importance of finding their own strength after she began to steal her brother's kills.
Before they set out on their first day alone, Hong Zhao killed a shadow panther and cracked open its skill, taking the beast core from the center and showed the siblings. When they understood what they were looking for, everything moved smoothly. Each day, they came back with ten or more beast cores per person. Hong Zhao swallowed one of his beast cores in front of them and began refining the savage qi that poured into his dantian.
As they saw what effects the little pearl had on Hong Zhao, both siblings popped one of their own into their mouths. Li Wei grimaced as she realized she forgot to clean off the blood and sticky sweet viscera from the beast core she put in her mouth. She swallowed before she threw up. Gravity did the rest. Li Wuhan suppressed a chuckle before he shut his eyes and refined the savage qi which poured into his own dantian.
Thus yet another routine set into place. They would battle during the day, and refine the qi they gathered during the night. Hong Zhao stayed steadily ahead of the siblings due to the rank of the snakes he attacked. He could feel his strength rising as he fought. When the snakes coiled around him, most of the time he could use his muscles to wrench himself out of the death hold. He also used his devouring qi claws, ensuring he got all of the qi he possibly could per kill. The beast cores he consumed had a slightly higher potency than that of the shadow panther beast cores.
Within four days, both of the siblings had reached the fifth star student level. Hong Zhao was correct in his first assumption. They needed more combat experience than they originally had. For the year that they trained, they only sparred with each other. The only life and death experience they had was the situation that he himself saved them from. If they were to get stronger, they had to trust their own strength and venture out on their own.
Hong Zhao gave Li Wuhan and Li Wei as many jade vials of qi grasping pills as they could carry. He also gave them spirit fruit, yet quickly realized they could only benefit from the effects of the fruit once. He had to make a mental note of that.
Along with refining the beast cores, they began to ingest the qi grasping pills during their cultivation sessions, giving them an extra boost of qi. This helped all three of them immensely. Hong Zhao also taught them how to strengthen their organs with qi and they began hungrily devouring the beast cores in order to replenish the qi they spent on solidifying their foundations.
After the first week, Hong Zhao decided it was time for the two to join him against the serpents further within the forest. At first, Li Wei and Li Wuhan took his suggestion as if he were praising them, but then came to find out that he believed they were taking it easy on the panthers only to boast about their strength when they met for their cultivation sessions.
Hong Zhao watched at first while the siblings wandered in the dark in search of their first snake. When Li Wei found one and Li Wuhan was no where in sight, Hong Zhao sighed. If they would have stuck together, maybe they would have stood a chance. He watched with his eagle vision as the young girl's feet were wrapped in the coils that once took him to the cavernous maw of his own snake. He saw Li Wei try to scream, to get her brother's attention, only to have the snake's mouth meet her head.
Hong Zhao waited until the snake had fully devoured his friend before he unsheathed his sword silently in a tree. He knew he only had one shot, and if he missed, Li Wei would never be able to learn her lesson.
Silent as the night itself, he launched himself in an upward arch and brought his sword point down. Not even the sound of the wind betrayed his location as his dark form raced downward towards the waiting snake. He could see a squirming bulge where he knew Li Wei to be and aimed only slightly upward. Hong Zhao used the momentum of the jump to add force to his blow and severed the snake's head cleanly from its body.
The headless fierce beast thrashed in its death throes, its spasms lessened over a minutes time before it finally fell silent. Hong Zhao then reached his hand down the creatures esophagus and grabbed hold of its last meal. He met no clothing, only bare flesh as he yanked the young girl out of the snake's stomach. She breathed sporadically. Hong Zhao could tell that she was in shock. He didn't blame her, she was just eaten by a snake. He took out a skin of water and handed it to her. "Make sure you wash off the stomach acid." He then smiled slightly. "Now you know why I wasn't there to help you with that giant shadow panther, right?"
Li Wei only slowly nodded at him as she took a small drink of water, then drenched herself with the rest of the contents, washing away the filth from within the monster that had devoured her. After having being satisfied with the level of cleanliness, her eyes went wide as she realized the position she was in now. "We need to find my brother!"
Hong Zhao helped Li Wei to her feet and they activated their vortex thrust abilities. They raced together through the dense trees, following the trail they knew to have seen Li Wuhan travel as they left. It took only a moment to find him. Li Wuhan stood above a decapitated snake, taking out the beast core from the head that was in his hand. Hong Zhao was slightly surprised to see the older brother had already bested a snake without the help of his sister. He had almost been certain that they would need to work together in order to take down a fierce beast at the same level as himself.
As he looked at the slightly older young boy, he noticed a haunted look on his face. He must have almost met the same fate as his sister, yet somehow gained the upper hand instead. "Li Wuhan?" Hong Zhao called out as they approached him slowly.
The haunted expression changed so fast, Hong Zhao was almost uncertain he actually saw it at all. Instead, recognition went through the young boy when he saw the two friends approaching. "You had us come here to prove a point, didn't you?" He asked with a small smile. "You thought we were getting slightly complacent with our training." He dropped the snake head to the ground as he examined the beast core before putting it in his ring.
Hong Zhao nodded slightly. "If you wish to continue training with me, you must realize that there is no end to the strength of the enemy. If you find one area to be too weak, move on to the next. Meet every challenge head on and don't shy away." He said seriously as he looked at the two siblings. "Li Wei was lucky I was in the area. She had become overconfident and became her opponents mid day snack instead of it becoming her prey.
Li Wei looked down in shame as his words hit her. She knew he was right. In her training, she had become overconfident. If she had used a little more caution, her situation may not have ended with her being devoured by a snake. She looked at her own brother's snake and realized that her lesson was slightly one sided. Having taken out the shadow panther from before, her confidence had improved too greatly. She felt like such training wasn't a challenge anymore, and instead a waste of her time. She had let her guard down and allowed an opening for the snake to strike.
Hong Zhao placed a hand on the young girl's shoulder. "Now is not the time to think about how you have failed yourself." He turned her young face to meet his own. "Now is the time to learn from your failure and improve yourself. If you focus too much on your shortcomings, you may make them permanent. Instead, think about what you should have done differently in that situation, and prepare yourself for the next opportunity to prove yourself." He squeezed her shoulder softly and gave her a comforting smile. "I had also been swallowed by my first snake." He said sympathetically. "I also learned from my own shortcomings."
Having consoled her slightly, Hong Zhao decided he would spend some time with Li Wei. It seemed her brother could take care of himself.
The two found many snakes together. Sometimes, Hong Zhao played the bait and lured the snakes to an opening where Li Wei swooped down with the qi fans, decapitating the snakes. Other times, they took the snakes head on, trading blows with the fierce beasts and gaining some scars of their own.
The last week they spent in the forest was full of close calls. There were times when Hong Zhao and Li Wei sat at the fire for hours waiting for Li Wuhan, only to have him show up, covered in blood with a haunted expression on his face. Hong Zhao had often wondered why the young boy paled when he brought out five or ten beast cores to refine. He knew that the training was fierce, but he also knew that Li Wuhan wished to battle alone.
After their cultivation sessions, Hong Zhao noticed that his qi spiral would only increase slightly in size. Even if he were to use both beast core, qi grasping pills and devouring qi claws, it seemed that his qi would only increase an inch in thickness by the next day.
As they trained, the trio quickly noticed that they required less sleep during their excursions. Instead of needing a full night's sleep, they were more content with a few hours, making the watches much easier as they slept.
By the end of the second week, Hong Zhao could tell that the Li siblings were nearing their own bottlenecks into the sixth star student rank, yet they hadn't broken through quite yet. He wished that they could have spent more time out in the forest. There were still many more areas to discover in the large area, yet he knew that Li Wei and Li Wuhan were anticipating the end of their training session. They had gained much within the two weeks, yet at a cost. Their previous innocence had melted away. Their life and death experiences had hardened them in the way Hong Zhao hoped would happen.
He now knew he had made the right decision in having saved the Li siblings a year ago. They showed much promise in the way of gaining strength, as well as following his instructions. After Li Wei's unfortunate first encounter with the snakes, she looked to Hong Zhao for advice and support.
"The tournament begins in a few days from now." Hong Zhao announced while sitting around the embers of their last fire. "You two have done well in the short time you have trained, yet it isn't over." He smiled as he got to his feet. "We will come back after the tournament is over, and we will spend a year out here, honing our skills and becoming stronger."