After Qing Shan left Rising Sun City through the South Gate, he finally felt a feeling come over him.
Standing with a vast expanse of hills, mountains, and other landscapes in front of him, Qing Shan felt free for the first time in his life. While he still had revenge tying him down, Qing Shan actually forgot about that for a second as he processed the scene in front of him. The only other scene of nature that Qing Shan had ever seen was the boundless and boring expanse of the Silent Plains.
Qing Shan stood still for a while, blankly staring at the view in front of him. Once he managed to overcome his awe, Qing Shan remembered why he was here.
He needed to train.
This thought driving him forward, Qing Shan began to walk south. Qing Shan relaxed his guard until the city was out of sight. He figured that no beast would wander around the gates where any patrolling guard could easily take it down.
Once the city was out of sight, Qing Shan took in a deep breath of clean, refreshing air. He then burst into a run, energy filling his body. He watched vigilantly as he swept past small hills and shallow valleys. He saw more than a few trees, and could see that the north and the east were both painted green by thousands of trees.
However, Qing Shan did not let himself become distracted. While it would definitely be easy to forget in this breathtaking environment, Qing Shan was in dangerous lands, and was Prey to a large majority of the beasts. Soon, Qing Shan saw a dot on the horizon. Steadily approaching, Qing Shan noticed that it was a red-fanged fox. Red-fanged foxes were known for their powerful fire attribute, and most notably for their fangs which functioned as an amazing source of heat.
However, Qing Shan could feel that the fox was not that powerful. Based on what he could see with his Third Eye, Qing Shan guessed that the beast was around the level of a 3rd level Formation Soul cultivator.
As Qing Shan continued to approach steadily, the only change in his bearing was an ice-cold glint in his eye. As Qing Shan flew toward the fox like a leopard, he activated his third Qi loop, strengthening his arms. He pulled his reinforced bamboo staff off of his back and held it to the side.
Qing Shan landed between steps right in front of the fox. Moving too fast for the beast to follow, Qing Shan compressed his body before springing right past its head.
Crack!
A loud sound rang out, and Qing Shan landed with a thud, looking back to see the fox unconscious on the ground.
"Huh."
'That was easier than I thought…'
Without blinking, Qing Shan stomped on the fox's windpipe, insuring that it would never again awaken. It was not nearly as hard as his first kill in the Arena had been. While that had been accidental, it was the first time he had killed a beast. In this scenario, however, Qing Shan knew that he was in a kill or be killed environment–Nature's truest form.
Qing Shan ripped out the two largest fangs from the Fox's mouth. They were hot, but Qing Shan knew that his skin would barely blister. His body was quite used to scorching.
While there was no real spot unaffected by the elements in Qing Shan's pocket dimension, he figured that the fangs would be fine if they were exposed to the aura of Primal Fire.
Exiting the pocket dimension, Qing Shan looked at the tracks of the red-fanged fox. While he was no expert tracker, he could still see where the dirt and grass had been disturbed. Maybe following the tracks would bring Qing Shan closer to more beasts. Hopefully they would be stronger than that first fox.
Unfortunately, even after following the tracks back to the fox's dwelling, he could not find any more of them. Qing Shan guessed that the other foxes had been killed.
Qing Shan continued on, going south while killing every beast he saw. Surprisingly, Qing Shan noticed a pattern. At the beginning, Qing Shan was only seeing 3rd level Formation Soul beasts, however, they were getting stronger the further he travelled. By the time dusk broke, Qing Shan had killed quite a few 4th level beasts, and had found his first 5th level.
However, Qing Shan figured that should wait until morning before continuing. He entered the Primal pocket dimension, and continued training. Qing Shan substituted sleep for Primal Water, before moving toward the Primal Wind. Qing Shan could still move in that mysterious motion when facing the Primal Wind, but he had never used it in a real battle.
'Just one more thing I need to focus on…'
While training, a new thought hit Qing Shan hard.
He remembered how he had never used this movement technique against Master Liu due to the repression on his Third Eye.
'I wonder…'
Qing Shan knew that had grown drastically when under the Third Eye Repression, so he wondered if he could put it on himself. If he could, his training would become countless times more fruitful.
Before Qing Shan could convince himself otherwise, he sent a strand of lightning Qi into his Third Eye. As his mind had not been fully cultivated at this level yet, Qing Shan found this quite hard. However, once the Qi was in he easily added it to the circulation. However, it was not a true part of the Circulation, as he could not just cultivate his mind by adding Qi. No, Qing Shan was still in control of his Qi. He moved it around and placed it in his circulation, but moving at a much slower speed. Soon, The Qi began to meld with the rest of the circulation, and the speed stayed decreased. However, Qing Shan was painfully aware that his repression would not last nearly as long as Master Liu's. His would last for only around three hours.
'Maybe it is because I am using Qi of the same attribute?'
Qing Shan stood amidst the aura of the Primal Wind, and started to circulate his Qi. Immediately, a large influx of air attribute filled his entire body, starting to mix in with his lightning Qi.
Before the properties of the air attribute could completely transform, Qing Shan hurriedly moved some pure air attribute Qi into his Third Eye. While he was not quite sure how he could manipulate it, hoe summed it up to air being a part of lightning Qi. However, Qing Shan knew that the control was limited to within his body.
Once inside his Third Eye, the air attribute seamlessly entered his circulation. As the speed had already been decreased, the air attribute only served to make the repression last longer. Qing Shan had been right. As long as he did not tamper with the circulation in his Third Eye any more at the moment, his circulation speed would be repressed for at least ten hours!
With that done, Qing Shan circulated the rest of the air Qi into his Energy Channels, turning it into lightning energy. He was not surprised to find that using only the Air attribute had given him quite a meager amount of lightning Qi.
When Qing Shan opened his eyes, he was somewhat disoriented. As someone who always saw the world in slow motion, witnessing time at its normal speed never ceased to disorient him. Fortunately, the feeling was soon gone.
'Great. Now my training is going to be that much harder…'
Luckily for Qing Shan, he had no real problem with facing a challenge. In fact, he enjoyed it.
After sunrise, Qing Shan exited the Primal pocket dimension. After spending the night re-accustoming himself to normal speed, he felt that his combat prowess was at the peak of his current capabilities without his normal speed of thought. That is to say, instead of standing a chance against a peak Formation Soul cultivator, Qing Shan was currently barely able to beat an 8th level Formation Soul cultivator.
When Qing Shan saw the sight in front of him, he immediately remembered sensing a 5th level beast before entering his pocket dimension. Now, however, Qing Shan could see what it was.
On the small hill in front of Qing Shan, there was a large black rock. No, after further inspection, Qing Shan found out that it was a normal Black Bear. However, unlike most Black Bears, who are capped around the 3rdlevel of Formation Soul, this one is level 5.
'Must be an Abnormal…'
An Abnormal is a beast that is better than the others of their species. They have strength beyond what their species usually has, and many myths are out there about them. Some say that Abnormals could even gain intelligence. However, the oddest thing about abnormals was that they were not any type of evolution that could be passed down. They were just slightly mutated, but not enough to change their species.
Qing Shan looked at the Black Bear, calmly watching it slowly stir awake. It seemed like it was quite used to rising with the sun. Qing Shan could have easily killed it while it was not yet awake, but he wanted to test his real-time battle power on a real enemy.
The Black Bear noticed Qing Shan immediately once it woke up. It stood, suddenly vigilant, preparing to attack.
"Good. Come at me Bear. I don't want to kill you too easily."
Although it could not understand anything that Qing Shan was saying, the Bear suddenly became enraged at these words. Maybe it was pure coincidence, or maybe the Bear's instincts were informing it that it was being insulted.
Qing Shan didn't care.
As he watched the angry bear charge him, Qing Shan settled into a firm stance. He knew that he would not be able to think as much as he normally would. However, this fight should not be too hard. Once the bear got close, it was the one to attack first. It sent a large claw towards his legs. Not wanting to let it get an advantage, Qing Shan spun to the side and wacked it hard with his Staff. Qing Shan then grabbed the large head of the bear firmly, trying to hold it in place.
Big mistake.
While the bear could no longer see Qing Shan, it still had all of its other senses, and added together with its instinct these were more than enough to pinpoint Qing Shan's location.
The Black Bear picked up its hind claw and lashed out again, This time cutting through the inside of Qing Shan's right thigh.
"Ahh!"
Qing Shan stumbled away from the bear, clutching his thigh. He had been handicapping himself, not using his Qi loops to make the fight harder, but he did not care anymore. Al he could think about was the pain, and the damn bear in front of him that inflicted the injury upon him.
"Die!"
Qing Shan finds himself consumed by anger and everything fades from his vision until all he can see is red.
Qing Shan wakes to find himself curled up in the Primal Water in his pocket dimension. Unfortunately, he cannot remember anything after getting slashed by the bear. Curious, Qing Shan goes to leave the pocket dimension. However, something catches his eye. Right outside the Primal Water, directly in front of him, where there is the least influence from both of the Primal auras, is the head of a Black Bear. Qing Shan can tell that this was the bear that had injured him.
After exiting the pocket dimension, Qing Shan has no clue where he is. Actually, scratch that. Qing Shan can tell he is in a cave, and it is most definitely former home of the Black Bear. Of course, Qing Shan has never been here before, but he can tell all of these things with one glance.
The reason for this is because Qing Shan found that he had exited the pocket dimension amidst blood and guts. to be exact, he was standing in the remains of four Black Bears. The one that had injured him earlier was not one of the corpses. He knew that because all of the Black Bears had their heads mostly intact.
Obviously, seeing this gruesome sight just confused Qing Shan even more. While he had the general gist of what had happened, thinking it through gave him a terrible headache.
Somehow, from the moment that Qing Shan went into 'rage mode', he had killed the first Black Bear, then proceeded to track done the bear's kin and kill them. Honestly, Qing Shan had absolutely no clue how he could have found the Black Bear's kin. He did not even know any types of tracking techniques!
Qing Shan finally realized that pondering over this would not actually do anything. Thus, he decided to go back to training. He had wasted almost half a day, after all.
Based on the position of the Western Wall that was the cliff with the Silent Plains, Qing Shan immediately found his location. Well, he also used the level of the beasts to find how far he had traveled.
Considering that he was in an area filled with 6th level beasts, Qing Shan decided to stay. However, he made a major internal decision that would change the rest of his training.
'One handicap is enough. From now on, a fight with all my power, no matter who the enemy is. If I did not possess the Primal Water…'
The first part of the fight against the Bear was actually a good lesson for Qing Shan. Getting injured by the Black beat har raised his paranoia, while the man standing in front of out vehicle did the same. Perhaps it was due to the lack of medicinal consumption, but Qing Shan became scared. Once the paranoid man grows closer, he looks for any injuries.
Suddenly, the man tenses, and Qing Shan can tell that the man had realized he was unharmed.
"Oh shit."