A darkish purple shadow stood staring at Zoran, with its red eyes carefully examining his entire body.
It seemed to be confused at his existence. Never had it seen a human before and it boggled the instinctual mind of the beast. It didn't know if it was going to pounce or flee.
Zoran stood deathly still. The existence of the being in front of him was thought of merely as a myth. It was just a piece of fiction to further elevate the already dangerous infamy of the Miasma.
It was true. This creature did raise the threats of the Miasma, but it was no mere fantasy. It was real and Zoran was looking right at it.
This was a Miasma Beast.
He was hesitant to move. The books he read and the stories he heard about the Miasma Beasts told of their constitution as an indistinct blob of darkness and shadow.
He thought Miasma Beasts had no form, acting only as a gas. But this one did.
Zoran was staring at a fully edged four-legged creature akin to a normal animal.
Its body shape was similar to that of a puma without the tail. It was also two times larger than the common cougar, with its body filled with nothing but the Miasma.
Its head looked like a snake, but a thick mane of Miasma tendrils replaced its scales.
Zoran poured all his focus on the beast. He had no knowledge of its style of attack or powers. He didn't know of its weaknesses—if any. He didn't even know if they could be killed.
Miasma Beasts were not living beings, hence they could survive the Miasma. They also weren't dead. They were merely manifestations of the Miasma.
Zoran felt the intensity of Miasma in their bodies. They had no organs, no brains, and no soul. The heart was instead replaced by a small bead of condensed Miasma.
This was a dangerous creature because Zoran knew little about them. Thankfully, the beast knew little of him too.
The Beast could sense the Miasma in Zoran's body and thought of him as a comrade. But Zoran also exuded an unfamiliar and uncomfortable warmth that was the enemy of the Miasma: Yi energy.
But it didn't have to worry if Zoran was hostile or not because in the voids of Miasma, a friend or a foe was ultimately a source of nourishment for survival.
The Beast moved, with its darker than dark body disappearing into the void and its darkish purple outline leaving traces into the Miasma like neon signs.
Zoran smiled. His body was aching to explode in strength. He wanted to test out his new powers.
The Beast unhinged its jaws and showed the sharp fangs on its jaws. It lowered its body, contracting the muscles as close as possible to finally spring out to its prey with tremendous speed.
Zoran's eyes were no longer slow and mortal. He saw the path of the Beast with clarity and ease. It had no form. After all, the beast was only acting on instinct.
He stepped to the side and turned his whole body around. And using that momentum, he raised his leg and kicked the back of the Beast.
Immediately, the Beast exploded into a gas of Miasma.
Zoran cracked his neck. His body was still unfamiliar with the almost weightless condition inside the Miasma.
Behind Zoran, a pair of red eyes opened and pounced at the opportunity. It thought it caught Zoran off-guard.
Of course, Zoran was never that complacent. He dodged to the side perfectly as if he had eyes on the back of his head.
The Beast didn't know that Zoran sensed all of the Miasma around him. It didn't know that Zoran felt every disturbance in the Miasma field, especially fast and dangerous movements.
Zoran sensed the Beast's body. It was uninjured. His kick, which he estimated to have the same firepower as a gunshot, did not damage the Beast.
It must have been because of his physical body. His flesh was a paradox in the Miasma as it cannot exist within this realm, so his attacks could not land on the Beast.
But Zoran found an easy solution for this.
Zoran rushed towards the Beast. It looked at him with ease and didn't move. It didn't have to. After all, it learned that Zoran's attacks could not damage it.
But just as Zoran's punch was about to land, he coated his fist with Miasma. With this attack he questioned: can Miasma damage Miasma?
The Beast felt the full brunt of Zoran's gunshot punch. It whimpered from the contact as it flew through the Miasma and crashed on one of the towering spires.
He landed a punch on the Beast, but Zoran felt that it was not enough. He used all his muscles with that punch and it barely damaged the Beast.
Zoran's strength was nothing to scoff at, but that was not the extent of his true power. In his attacks, he hadn't used any of his Yi energy.
That was because he didn't know what type the Miasma Cultivation Technique required.
There were five main types of cultivation: Natural, Anima, Weapon, Mage, and Physique
It couldn't be the natural type because that cultivation required the manipulation of souls and spirits. Techniques like beast taming, necromancy, spirit magic, and many others are examples that came to mind.
The anima type cultivation was a technique used for the creation of many constructs like automatons, bombs and throwables, and any other structures. Miasma cannot do such a thing.
Next was the weapon type. These types of cultivators used their Yi energy and embedded it upon their weapons to boost its performance. Sword masters use this to sharpen their swords while hammer masters use it to make their weapons heavier.
The Miasma would only decay and disintegrate any weapon that it touched, so the Miasma Cultivation Technique was not a weapon type.
The only two left were the mage type and the physique type.
Zoran pictured a small sphere in his hands made out of Miasma. This was usually a test done by beginners to test their control of their mage cultivation techniques.
His muscle-memory mastery of conjuring a simple sphere was as instinctual as breathing. He knew to direct his Yi energy on the tips of his fingers and slowly move it away from his palms.
But no matter how hard he tried to construct a simple sphere, it did not manifest in reality.
There was only one conclusion: the Miasma Cultivation Technique was a Physique type cultivation.
Physique type cultivation focused on enhancing the user's body by continuously feeding Yi energy through it.
Cultivators who used this technique perfect their bodies through more and more torture to elevate their physical form to the point of godhood.
Some used lava, some used poison, others temper their bodies in the cold depths of the ocean. The Miasma Cultivation technique used the Miasma to decay the body more and more to achieve resistance.
Just at the same time he made this discovery, the Miasma Beast finally recovered.
And it looked like it wasn't alone.