There were several ways for him to put down the beast in his hand, so before taking the next action he simply watched it struggle. Unlike the horned boar, Shui had no reservations about competing with this evolved beast in physical strength. With one hand he had it immobile so it posed no danger to him.
Since the carnage deer would need to be scrapped for parts, Shui chose a killing method that did the minimum amount of damage to the beast. With one hand still on one of its antlers, Shui strangled it with his other hand. To an animal lover, this would be a grossly disturbing sight, but none of three thought so. Putting aside that Ryan and Lilia were teenagers, this was clearly not something a child of Shui's age should have been doing, and yet he felt nothing regarding it. He could kill humans without much guilt so why would he feel bad about strangling an evolved beast?
After the carnage deer stopped breathing, Shui looked at Lily. When faced by him, she immediately lowered her head in shame.
"I'm sorry Mr. Shin."
"Don't apologize to me. Save that for yourself and your loved ones. If you die they're the ones who're going to be the most upset."
"..Yes. It won't happen again."
He had only taught her for a short time so Shui wasn't upset with Lily. Based on the look in her eyes, he knew this would be a necessary step for her to get stronger. After dealing with Lily, Shui went to Ryan.
"You got played with by a deer, how does it feel?"
"...Not good."
"I'd think so. You're not strong enough crush your opponent's schemes so you should be careful. Watch carefully before you act."
Ryan quickly nodded to his words with an ashamed but determined expression. Subsequent to this, as the two dismantled the carnage deer, Shui told them that he would only be able to train them until winter so they had to practice in their personal time as well.
"Of course."
"Definitely."
"Good, you two can keep those," Shui said while pointing at the sword and bow and arrows.
After their eyes were directed to the artifacts, they looked back at him with shock. It was definitely too good to be true. However, they believed in Shui so they weren't very worried that he was tricking them.
"Really?!"
"Yeah, at least until you can buy your own."
After his declaration, they looked at each other before turning back to him with bright smiles.
"Thanks!"
Before leaving the town for the day, Shui also gave them the pills for Rut. Since he wouldn't be able to go to Cyrus in the winter, he needed them to get used to dealing with Rut.
For the next couple of weeks, Shui trained the two of them while hunting evolved beasts. As their skills steadily increased, the two were able to hunt weak evolved beasts by themselves. Additionally, they both advanced to the sixth level in the Mortal Realm with Shui's help. For most cultivators, especially those in the lower cultivation realms, it wasn't that hard to absorb enough energy to advance; the real problem was having the comprehension required. However, with Shui helping them, how could that be a problem anymore?
Naturally, since he wasn't going to train them forever, Shui didn't tell them his understanding of the Mortal Realm, but asked them questions that led them to form their own answers,
'Why do people cultivate?'
'What is the purpose of cultivation?'
'Why does it go against the rules of the heavens?'
'What is the significance of each cultivation realm?'
For questions such as these, when cultivators answered in their own words, they generally had different answers, even if only slightly. After all, every person lived a different life and had different experiences. But even if their responses were different, these were questions that all cultivators had to ponder as they continued their journey.
In addition to improving their cultivation, the siblings' use of their weapons also became more refined. With the money they earned each time they hunted an evolved beast, they both bought their own weapons and constantly practised with them but Shui allowed them to keep the weapons he initially gave them.
Lily had become good enough to shoot at the same spot five cales away while running, while in terms of sword skills alone Ryan was comparable to Shui. Although Shui said that he didn't really care since he didn't actually try improving his sword skills, since Ryan's skills started approaching his, he began to put more effort into his swordsmanship.
After working up a sweat with his sword in hand, Shui entered the Primordial Library and sat down. His cultivation had reached the eighth level in the Mortal Realm a week ago so he began spending more time thinking about the perfect limit of the Mortal Realm. Like many before him, he had considered that he wouldn't be able to reach the perfect limit of the Mortal Realm. This didn't mean he wouldn't be able to reach it in another realm, but he didn't want to rely on such hope. If the other perfect limits were even harder to attain, then it would become a matter of luck, and he didn't like that. He acknowledged that luck was a factor in everyone's success, but he couldn't rely on such a fickle thing. Only when he was confident that he could achieve success with his own abilities would he be satisfied.
He spent this Library session pondering the perfect limit of the Mortal Realm and studying inscriptions. Though the layering technique of mid-level inscriptions that would allow him to stack the effects of the same inscription greatly intrigued him, he still hadn't fully mastered low-level inscriptions so he had put it aside for the meantime.
When he went to Cyrus that day, he sighed before the entrance to the Workers' Association building. Due to the coming of winter, this would be the last time he did a task until spring came. He couldn't deny that he felt his skills had improved significantly despite training the siblings, and that made him even more reluctant to stop coming. However, he knew he couldn't slip up and alert Lilia.
After letting out his sigh, Shui stepped into the building and quickly caught sight of the siblings and Rut. Since he wouldn't come to Cyrus in the winter, he had given the two a month's supply of the poison and its antidote along with the recipe which he told them to burn after memorizing it. Neither felt pity for Rut when they gave him the poison and antidote; by this time Rut was so addicted to them that he had even asked for an extra dose despite not needing it. Even if they told him it was poison it wouldn't matter since drugs were basically the same.
At first, Shui was worried that he might act violent once he got too addicted to it so he learnt the theory of soul brands in the Library and applied one to Rut. Soul brands were like slave contracts for cultivators. By leaving your soul's unique imprint on the soul of another, you would gain complete control over their life and once the user died, so would the one marked by the soul brand. There were many soul brand spells that made it possible to even force the one marked to obey the commands of the user, but since Shui wasn't in the Soul Realm he could only use his one-star nebula soul to make the most basic imprint. His soul cultivation was too low to affect physical substances, but it was possible for him to invade the minds of others. Unfortunately, it was rare for him to get a chance to invade someone's mind since it was a cruel technique that couldn't be performed mid-battle.
When Shui told Rut that he wanted to put a soul brand on him, he was obviously against it. Though he didn't know how Shui would accomplish it, he didn't want to take any chances.
"Okay, then I'll just kill you now."
"Wha-?"
"You didn't think you had a choice, right?"
Rut had already tried to use a sneak attack on Shui, but had ended up with his legs broken and left without the antidote for a week, so after that incident he never tried to rebel again.
With no ability to make decisions, Rut could only submit to save his dog life.