[Note: the last three paragraphs on the chapter before this are messed up. I had fallen asleep in the middle of writing this, so I do not even remember writing those paragraphs. I promise I am not on any drugs…]
[Note 2: I am keeping that unedited for now because it makes me crack up reading it. Forget everything last internal monologue in the Chapter.]
After deciding that he would face every single enemy with all of his power while he was training, Qing Shan set off through the wilds. Almost immediately, Qing Shan found himself amongst a pack of 6th level Poison Fang Hyenas.
Qing Shan immediately sprang backwards, opening up distance between the four beasts and himself. While he knew that he could take down one of these in little over a minute, four would be much harder.
Seeing Qing Shan move, the four Hyenas instantly bolted into action. Qing Shan let the one in front approach, then kicked it in the jaw as soon as it was in range, stunning it. He then burst past the side of the Hyena and past another, clocking that one during the process. Qing Shan moved again, this time aiming towards the hyena in the back, which seemed to be a bit bigger. Qing Shan let out a Qi amplified punch toward the large Hyena.
The Hyena then did something that Qing Shan had never seen before. It folded in its front legs, ducking underneath Qing Shan's punch. This was especially surprising to him. Usually, beasts that he fought would just take hits while dishing out their own. Those beasts had never even tried to dodge.
Realizing that this Hyena was stronger than its brethren, Qing Shan decided to deal with the others first; he did not want to face this Hyena without his full focus.
Qing Shan shot toward the only untouched Hyena other than the large one, axe-kicking down hard on its spine. He then moved towards the first Hyena, which seemed to have regained its bearings.
The Hyena noticed his approach, and pounced, its purple saliva glinting on its yellowed fangs. While the poison from these Hyenas was not deadly, Qing Shan still did not want to be hit with it. He knew a good amount about this poison because it was actually one of the ingredients for Runic Forging. If he memory was correct, the Hyenas' poison would cause the common cold, along with a continuous itch. While there was a cure, it was noted in the large book that he had read that the poison's effects would fade in about a week. Qing Shan had only remembered these Hyenas' name because he found their poison quite intriguing.
'What am I so worried about? If I do come in contact with the poison, I can just take a dip in the Primal Water.'
While this thought did flash through Qing Shan's head, he still stayed as vigilant as before. Who would let themselves get bitten by a hyena, poison or not?
Qing Shan spun to the side, grabbing the leg of the hyena is it flew past him. He then turned and unceremoniously slammed the beast into the ground. After that he stomped on the beast's neck, killing it.
One beast down, Qing Shan turned toward the Hyena that he had hit while moving past it.
Surprisingly, that Hyena was dead on the ground; it looked like it had been killed by having its neck be snapped.
'…It works, I guess.'
'Two down.'
Qing Shan quickly finished off the Hyena that was lying practically paralyzed on the ground, before turning toward the larger Hyena.
'Three down.'
The Hyena snarled at Qing Shan, as if trying to provoke him. Qing Shan took the bait, not wanting to wait for it to move. He sprang right next to the Hyena, before sending a kick towards the joint on one of its legs.
The Hyena clearly had not been expecting Qing Shan to do this, as shown by the loud howl of pain it let out. One leg hanging limply, the Hyena scratched at Qing Shan. Belatedly, he remembered that the claws of the Poison Fang Hyena also had poisonous tips.
How ironic.
Qing Shan ignored the small sensation of pain on his arm, before pulling out his Staff and thrusting it toward the Hyena's eye. While a punch enhanced by a Qi loop was already much stronger than a normal punch, an attack with a weapon while enhanced by loops of Qi is even more powerful.
Puchi!
Qing Shan's Staff slammed through the Hyena's eye with a gut-wrenching sound, coming in contact with the damned thing's brain.
Qing Shan hurriedly pulled his Staff straight out of the Hyena's eye socket, trying not to deal any new damage. He wanted to play with this beast just a bit longer.
Qing Shan brutally slammed his Staff into one of the Hyena's front legs, making it stand on two diagonal legs. In this position, the beast would not be able to move.
Qing Shan kept trying new things, trying to see what kind of damage his fighting techniques had on a real beast. Soon, Qing Shan let the poor Hyena die; even he felt that he had been a bit cruel to the Hyena.
After he was done with the Hyenas, Qing Shan moved to the pocket dimension and jumped into the Primal Water. Qing Shan immediately watched the wound close up, as per usual.
After that, Qing Shan went about his day as per usual, killing all the beasts he came across. Qing Shan stayed in the 6th level area, and made sure to only fight beasts one on one. After the day was over, Qing Shan re-entered his Primal pocket dimension and went about his normal training. However, late into the night, while running through the aura of the Primal Wind, trying to find out how to slip between the wind and move against it, Qing Shan suddenly felt a sharp itch on his arm.
Feeling this, Qing Shan backed out of the Primal Wind, standing in the Primal Water. He looked at his arm, and to his surprise, saw a scar where the Poison Fang Hyena had attacked him the day before. Qing Shan watched as the scar started to radiate heat, turning a bit of the blood around it a purplish color that could be seen through his skin. Qing Shan got dizzy, and his whole arm suddenly felt like bugs were crawling all over it.
"Holy…"
Qing Shan panicked, and flopped to the ground, submerging his arm in the Primal Water. Unfortunately, the only affect the water had on him was to get rid of the purple blood, and clear up his headache. Unfortunately, Qing Shan still felt the itch from the poison.
At this point, Qing Shan was confused.
'I thought the Primal Water was supposed to heal all physical injuries? Could it be that itching does not count as a physical injury? Surely it does…'
After trying to continue training, Qing Shan became so annoyed and wanted to start itching his arm all over.
'Relax. Relax. Just think of this as a test of willpower… I can use this as a way to train myself mentally too.'
Qing Shan immediately resumed his training, throwing himself toward the Primal Wind, trying to focus on only his movements. Sadly, Qing Shan found that training while terribly itchy was definitely much harder than normal training. While he did manage to keep himself itching, which was a masterful feat in and of itself, Qing Shan could not focus on his training, and his movements seemed almost robotic. There was none of his usual fluidity within his motions at all.
'This will make things… difficult.'
Once the morning came, Qing Shan exited his pocket dimension. After slaughtering many more 6th level Formation Soul beasts, Qing Shan decided to continue further south until he came across the 7th level beasts. Qing Shan had noticed during his fighting that his alleged battle power did not take into account the type of enemy he was facing. In his mind, the low level 8 Formation Soul battle power he had assessed himself as was just the amount of power that he could inflict on a training dummy in a short amount of time. That is to say, when facing actual, intelligent enemies, well, as intelligent as beasts can be, his actual battle power was much lower. A whole level lower, to be exact. So, no matter how easily Qing Shan could now defeat 6th level beasts, he could still barely match the weak 7th level formation soul beasts.
After walking for about half an hour, Qing Shan finally came across the first 7th level beast. Once Qing Shan sensed the beast, he did not dare to observe it until checking that it was the only beast in the area–killing one of these would be hard enough.
Qing Shan looked at the beast from behind a tree, and quickly identified it. It was a beast with power between the low and middle levels of 7th level Formation Soul, and was called a Flat Foot Panther. Luckily, Qing Shan managed to come across the Flat Foot Panther while it was out of its element. Panther beasts fought the best inside of dense forests at nighttime. Currently there were only a few trees in sight, one being the one Qing Shan was hiding behind. It was also morning, and the Flat Foot Panther had not yet gone back to its dwelling.
As Flat Foot Panthers were primarily known for their stealth and sneak attacks, Qing Shan did not want to give the Panther any opportunity to sneak up on him. Thus, he decided to go for a blunt approach.
Stepping out from the cover of his tree, Qing Shan yelled.
"Hey you! Yes you, the ugly Panther! I'm gonna blast you to Hell!"
Qing Shan did not even pay attention to the words he was saying, just spitting out the first insults that came to mind.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Qing Shan's provocation worked. The Flat Foot Panther whipped toward him, its powerful muscles visibly bulging across its body. For a second, Qing Shan got a little scared, but convinced himself to soldier on.
"Come at me you fat cat!"
'I definitely could have come up with something better than that.'
[The Author cringed as he looked at those terrible insults.]
Qing Shan stood still, trying to his superior height to intimidate the Panther.
"Snort."
After the obvious displeasure shown by the Panther, Qing Shan prepared for the Panther to attack. He had definitely pissed it off enough for it to want to attack him, even if it could not comprehend his words.
Sure enough, the Panther launched itself at Qing Shan, its jaw wide open and its sharp teeth glinting. For a beast renowned for its stealth, it could definitely growl quite loudly when it wanted to.
Qing Shan immediately noticed how fast the Panther was flying toward him. There was no way he would be able to completely dodge the attack. This was the first time Qing Shan had come across a beast that was superior to him in terms of mobility, and was thus flustered.
Then, Qing Shan did the most logical thing that one could do in his position. He curled up against the ground, bracing for impact.
Qing Shan was again surprised when the Panther landed hard on his back. Hot damn, was it heavy! As Qing Shan felt the hot, disgusting breath of the Panther on the back of his neck, Qing Shan panicked. This Flat Foot Panther was truly an expert at sneak attacks! It had managed to catch him off guard even when he was at his most vigilant!
Qing Shan resorted to his last safeguard, and grabbed the locket at his neck, sending himself into the Pocket dimension. Once inside, he quickly jumped into the Primal Water before immediately exiting.
Qing Shan was met by a confused Panther that was still standing at the spot he had disappeared a few seconds ago. Once it finally noticed that Qing Shan had appeared once more, his Staff had already made contact with the beast's head.