"Phew, finally done" Richie sighed, he had finally finished his preparations, an entire day it took, but it was worth it, there were spike traps, pitfalls and webs of leaves, he used everything he could to prepare, and now, all he had to do, was wait.
3 hours later...
"Where is this stupid spirit beast"
-hehe- the system chuckled
Richie got an ominous feeling from that chuckle, something was wrong, it should be here now, it can't be that slow, right.
-look behind you-
Crap, Richie immediately dodged to the side, but it was too late. "AAAH!, MY ARM!" even though he dodged, his arm still got cut, it was now bleeding all over.
looking behind him, Richie saw something terrifying staring at him, drooling like a kid would over a meal.
One of the native animals to whirlwind Valley. The Gale wolf, it possesses the wind element and is an extremely fearsome foe due to its lethal ranged attacks, upon reaching maturity, it would already be at the 6th sub stage of the first realm.
luckily, this one is very young, only having reached the 2nd sub stage, it wouldn't have much control over its wind element.
The bloodshot eyes of the wolf were extremely intimidating to Richie, he had never had any experiences with spirit beasts due to him being his dads only son, yet he did have quite a bit of combat sense.
even thought he was terrified, he had to move or he would die.
"awooo", the wolf lunged at him, he sent a kick at it, praying it would do something. Bang, the wolf went flying into a nearby tree, breaking it into little shards of wood which further wounded the wolf.
How am I so strong, i am only at the first sub stage, richie thought, normally, it would be the spirit beasts which had the advantage in phisical strength, obviously he would be confused when he somehow overpowered it.
Slowly, it got up from the ground, with trembling legs. That's why! it had been previously wounded, maybe even poisoned! its legs were in horrible shape, like they had been furiously attacked by another beast.
Taking advantage of it this god given opportunity, Richie immediately dashed to deliver another blow to the wolf. "awwoooooo"
a pure blade of wind was shot at Richie's body, it was so fast he didn't have time to react before he was sent flying as well.
"oh, so you want to play that game then?"
"eat this wolf, earth bolt" Richie shouted whilst assessing his injurys, he had been cut on his chest, but it was only a minor flesh wound.
Earth bolt was a technique Richie learned, it worked by sending a beam of earth qi towards an enemy and blowing up into shards of earth upon collision, it also didn't use up much qi.
The wolf seemed to have realised the danger of that move, usually, it would be able to easily destroy a mere human an entire sub stage behind him, but because it was injured, it had no choice but to dodge.
it immediately moved but it was skimmed by the bolt ripping a hole in it's already bloodied fur, causing it to whimper in pain.
- I think you forgot about its bloodline ability- the system chuckled
Bloodline ability were abilities unique to a species of animal, they boast incredible power but often have horrible side effects.
The Gale wolf's bloodline ability was 'bloodlust' it enhanced all of the wolfs stats but also causes it to lose all rationality and attack anything It sees.
Richie however, did not forget about its bloodline ability like the system said, that's because he was subtly drawing the wolf closer and closer to the traps he created beforehand, trying to make it fall into one.
well, there it goes, the wolf's eyes turned pure red and an aura of extreme killing intent permeated the area around Richie.
Richie turned around and then... Ran for his life. "GOGOGO!" he ran as fast as his legs would take him to escape the pursuit of the wolf.
The wolf was right behind him, chasing him, getting closer and closer, until...
"HAHA, TAKE THAT!" the wolf had fallen into one of his pitfall traps, Richie looked at the poor wolf with pity in his eyes before launching a variety of moves on the wolf stuck in the trap whilst laughing with glee. "HAHAHAHA"
" this guy Is crazy, maybe I shouldn't have picked him, no but he has that thing in his possession. I have to stay with him to verify if he really has it, I guess I'll have to get used to this crack head " the system thought inwardly.
"finally, after digging around for so long, I have it" Richie then stared with starry eyes at the qi core he had in his hands, this would allow him to complete his quest and get the hellfire furnace thingy.
well whatever it is, it must be good considering it's cool name.
-ding, hidden quest complete-
-kill the gale wolf without sustaining grievous wounds-
-reward, all injures healed and the cultivation technique ' ying-yang cultivation technique'-
cultivation techniques are essential for cultivation, it is impossible to cultivate without a cultivation technique, and your overall strength and qi capacity and qi purity are directly linked to how powerful your cultivation technique is, these techniques can be changed whenever and the better your cultivation technique is, the less time it would take you to advance in your cultivation and it would also lower the amount of bottlenecks you have to deal with.
Bottlenecks are sort of limitations in cultivation and usually can be overcome using catalysts like a beast qi core, like what Richie used, but the less bottlenecks you deal with in your cultivation, the faster you improve. Now, back to Richie
Richie immediately found the information on how to cultivate the divine yin-yang cultivation technique engraved into his head, it was like he would never forget it. He was baffled on how the system managed to do that and even more baffled by the incredibly profound information contained in it, if he were to cultivate it, he would have no bottlenecks in the future and his qi core would be massive!
A smooth sensation quickly came over his arm and body, swiftly healing and returning him to his peak state. The system's ways were magical.
He quickly sat down with his legs crossed and started quickly absorbing the qi in the beast qi core, he could feel it rushing through his meridians and pushing him to make a breakthrough, and that's what he did.
BOOM
"yess, I've broken through! finally"
-that took quite a while-
"Shut up system, let me feel proud of something"
- I'm not wrong, it was pretty slow considering the rescouces you had at your disposal-
"I guess I could have done better"
-thats right, anyway, congratulations on reaching the second sub stage, you will receive your reward shortly-