Chương 12: 11.1. Dragons and Bears

At the Clear Mirror sect, Long Tao stood in front of a stall in the market. It was a stall selling second hand weapons. Right now, Tao held a long pole glaive made with first level materials over ordinary iron or wood. The blade gleamed against the sun, polished to a shine.

"This one isn't bad." The old ghost commented. Tao narrowed his eyes with grim determination. Tao wasn't in love or anything, but it irked him that somebody tried to control who he could speak with. It also hurt his pride that he had been challenged so openly to do something he already believed he was capable of.

"I'll take this one. How much?" Tao asked the peripheral disciple across the barrels of old weapons.

"Forty silver sir." The disciple manning the stall rubbed their hands together.

"I only have 30 on me right now." Tao responded.

"That's the same price I purchased this for dear sir."

"I can go back and get 5 more." Tao probed. The stall owner wavered, considering it, "That would be alright sir." Tao pulled out a pouch of 35 silver, almost all his remaining savings which he had been able to bring with him after his family had been slaughtered by that unknown cultivator. The clerk's eye twitched seeing Tao not even blink at his lie of having to go get more.

"Good, good." The old ghost commented as Tao walked away from the stall.

"I have a set of techniques for the glaive here. Since it will take several days of walking there and back, try to learn it on the way."

"Thank you master." Tao said, feeling the weight of the weapon in his hands as he looked for some dry rations to purchase for the journey. After blowing more money on supplies, Tao checked everything. While his master was just a soul for now, he had a perfect memory still and simply glanced at a place selling maps to memorise the entire empire's geography.

"Huu… Last thing…" Tao told himself, approaching Foria's residence higher up the mountain. Raising his hand to knock, the old ghost suddenly interrupted, "Stop." Tao looked at the old ghost, whose wavering translucent form passed through the door effortlessly.

"It appears she's entered a state of minor enlightenment." He explained. Tao widened his eyes slightly, "Really? Is that common?" He asked.

"Minor enlightenments are very common. Any incredibly well written notes could cause it." The old ghost ran his hands through his beard before continuing, "If you get the opportunity, ask her elder brother for his notes on Qi control. Looking at the few pages I could see his explanations will probably be far more helpful to you than my outdated ones made in a different language." Tao lowered his hands, a little downcast at not being able to say anything before his first big hunt.

Still, he wandered down the mountain resolutely. He wanted to set off immediately to take down that bear and complete the mission. He would prove not just to Faust, but to all the others that had been mocking him in the Mission Hall and himself what he was capable of. In Dark Petal Valley, the sun began to shine again, lighting up the massive pit of dull grey trees. Not wanting any sudden noises after the long, unnervingly quiet night, the group didn't speak much for a while.

Faust suspected Sirius had actually fallen asleep at some point, but didn't point it out. Soon, the group was high in the sky, continuing to scour the depressing forest below. Wind blew, the sun cast its rays and clouds passed overhead until the sun began falling westward once again. At some point Sirius started singing a song that had recently been sweeping through the empire. The song sounded cute rather than its intended theme of melancholy and legends due to Sirius's high pitched airy voice.

She sang loud enough Faust could hear despite the group having spread out hundreds of meters apart. Gazing at the grey mass of gloomy forest on the ground, Faust was about to call for them to gather up and try something else when Phalecia suddenly signalled from where she was in the distance. The group immediately swarmed to Phalecia.

"Did you find the beast!" Satheon practically shouted, his eyes almost bloodshot after the boring task of searching for the beast when he clearly just wanted to fight. Phalecia pointed and Faust followed her gaze. There was a large patch of destroyed forest, a few hundred meters across and with a clear indent that curved and wound around, tightening into a spiral at the center around a shriveled corpse of a large crocodile beast.

"I believe we've found its trail then." Faust led the group to take a closer look. The group landed around the shriveled corpse of another Iron Spine Crocodile that seemed to love the inky waters of this place.

"Harvest the Living Iron while I check the trail." Faust passed his skinning knife to Sirius who happily accepted while Faust walked off and followed the long, river-like trails that snaked around the area. Comparing the Rot Qi to the actual state of the corpse suggested it had been roughly a late stage Open Palace equivalent beast and killed several months ago. Looking for places where the tail flicked and left marks on the ground, Faust guessed the Flood Dragon had only been about 500 meters long at the time.

"It's growing fast." Faust commented, walking along until he found a few drops of bright blood that stood out against the ash grey ground. Faust swept some of the ash away, revealing a small, dried puddle. The bright blood meant that the beast was halfway to transforming into a flood dragon, though most people considered even half transformed flood dragons as genuine flood dragons. Faust understood the sentiment. Even half transformed, a flood dragon was still immensely dangerous.

Looking back on the rest of the group, Faust wondered if they would be alright. The group was made up of Faust and Phalecia at the early stage of Open Palace, Sirius at the mid stage and Satheon at the late stage. If body tempering was included, Phalecia had none, Sirius was at starting line of the 2nd realm, Faust halfway through the 3rd realm and Satheon had made progress into the 4th realm, able to rival Golden Core experts Qi enhancement in an ordinary fist fight provided they had no body tempering cultivation.

Faust considered his own mental library of spells and techniques. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Hmm… We should be fine…" He mumbled, noticing a broken black scale in the dirt and picking it up, turning it in his hands. Faust stared at the scale intently, scrutinising it. After a few moments, he increased the force in his fingers. The scale held firm. Faust began further reinforcing his body tempering strength with some Spirit Qi. The scale finally snapped between Faust's fingers.

Faust continued to look the broken scale up and down, before looking across the ground and seeing a small trail of blood go a few meters into the forest before disappearing.

"Everyone, let's try this way." Faust called out. Sirius ran over to deposit the Living Iron from the crocodile before the group ascended back into the sky atop their flying swords, following the trail. Further ahead, the group found another patch of destroyed land. Spreading out again, the group began finding several trails, narrowing the search area. At some point, they stumbled upon a truly vast swath of destruction. There was far more blood and ripped scales.

Moreover, there was no corpse and the blood was fresh. The beast had been injured. Very recently. The group followed a trail of ripped out trees and overturned rock and soil.

"Roooooarrrr…." A distant roar sounded. The group changed directions. Faust held up a hand and brought the group to a stop. A giant black serpent, whose head had narrowed and begun growing horns and whiskers was curled up in a large, smooth crater. It was still a long ways away, even their enhanced vision struggled to make out the details.

"Let's go through the forest from here. Do you all know about simple concealment?" Faust asked. The group all nodded. Below the Golden Core realm, it wasn't surprising, one didn't even need to learn a dedicated technique, just how to control their subconscious manipulation of the surrounding Qi. The group descended into the forest, suppressing their Qi and quietly pushing through the weeds and shrubbery.

"Hsssssss! Raaaaah!" The flood dragon hissed and screeched, leading the group closer. At the edge of the crater, the group leaned past trees and over thick bushes, getting a closer look at the flood dragon.

"... Yup…. Deeeeeefinitely not six hundred meters." Sirius chimed.

"Which bastard said it was six hundred." Faust cursed.

"Hehe… It just means it's a challenge, junior brother." After almost a full day of searching, Satheon grinned madly, already preparing his halberd.

"Are we fighting?" Phalecia asked. Faust continued scrutinising the beast while annoyedly waving at Satheon to stay down and not reveal them yet. It was easily 800 meters long, approaching 900. The Flood dragon was coiled up, there were several large gashes of blood and broken scales.

"Grrrr!" The flood dragon raised its head from the centre of its coils, tearing a large chunk of bloody meat. Crocodile flesh, Faust realised. Faust activated the Clear Mirror Pupil. It was specialised in seeing the truth through illusion rather than detecting Qi but it was the best vision and pupil technique he knew.

"The crocodile is…. was… at about the Peak of Open Palace Equivalent…" Faust estimated.

"So we're retreating?" Phalecia asked. Even Satheon paused, weighing if their group could win. Body Tempering was great against humans, but it only meant you would match the physical abilities of spirit beasts. A flood dragon also wasn't a typical spirit beast. It wasn't as dangerous as an actual dragon or phoenix, or anything else on that level, but it was half way there.

"Hmmm…" Faust turned his gaze to a large black rock that jutted out in the distance.

"... Lead it to that rock over there." Faust pointed and the group followed with their gazes.

"Let's keep it simple. Me and Phalecia will prepare spells, formations, poisons and traps around that rock. Satheon and Sirius will wait until we're ready then lead it towards the rock." Faust explained.

"Do we have formations powerful enough?" Phalecia asked.

"I do… I believe… Probably?" Faust became less sure as he looked at the creature.

"If we fail. We immediately split into two groups. Satheon and Phalecia will be one, me and Sirius will be the other. We rendezvous at Soft Meadows Town." Faust said, taking a few steps back to go around the flood dragon to the big rock. The rest of the group nodded, with Sirius and Satheon staying behind to watch the beast while Phalecia followed Faust.

"What formation will we use? I'm not very knowledgeable with combat formations." Phalecia said.

"Theres a large Wood Qi gathering formation used in alchemy right?" Faust answered after a moment of thought.

"Yes."

"Just make a bunch of those. Carve them with whatever materials you can find, I'll use the Wood Qi to feed a Fire Qi based spell and layer the damage with a Qi amplification formation." Faust explained his plan. It was simple, yet effective. Wood Qi to feed Fire Qi. Phalecia nodded seriously and the two separated as they closed in around the protruding black rock. Long Tao rode a rented spirit horse, shooting down the road that would lead back to Clear Mirror Lake.

"Take your next right and head north west. You should reach Black Pine forest." The old ghost directed from the side and Tao acknowledged. Wind whipped past and the rhythmic bang of the spirit horse's powerful legs continued long after Tao had gone numb in the head from it. Tao looked into the sky. The sun was beginning to fall from its zenith on the second day of the trip. According to the old ghost, he should reach the forest by nightfall.

The 2nd level bear was supposed to be near the edges of the Black Pine forest, terrorising some small towns and stealing livestock. Two early Meridian Opening disciples had apparently been killed in the attempt to subdue the Black Iron bear, hence why it had been up in the mission hall for over a week.

"Huuu… Not much further…" Tao reassured himself, touching the long glaive on his back.

"…You made a mistake…" The old ghost suddenly said.

"What do you mean?" Tao asked.

"You've put too much on this one mission."

"…I don't understand…" The old ghost sighed.

"You don't believe in yourself and have decided to use this mission to prove your dao heart. You like that girl Foria and want to prove to her brother you're worthy. You want to be beyond exceptional and to prove to others that you can fight above your realm." He listed out.

"…"

"If you fail here… Your dao heart could be damaged…"

"If losing once could damage my dao heart, wouldn't it be too weak?" Tao smiled bitterly.

"…" The old ghosts eyes widened.

"HAHAHAHAHA!" The old ghost began cracking up, laughing manically.

"You're right! If a dao heart breaks from a single loss… It was a weak dao heart! It's so simple! I can't believe no one's ever thought of that." Tao rubbed the back of his head, "Is what I said really so profound?" He asked.

"Well… Not quite… Others have said similar things. I just like the way you phrased it. Many are just careful of offending those who've been stuck in their cultivation due to a damaged dao heart." The old ghost clarified before chuckling, "Hehe… They may be broken, but there are still immortals who've ascended and can slaughter one lineage…" He mumbled to himself. Tao didn't respond, staying silent as he stewed in his thoughts. Nightfall soon came. Tao had gone a few kilometers inside the forest.

Massive trees with roots so large the ground only had grass and fungi towered into the night sky on all sides. A small dirt trail with a few signposts that were several meters off the ground from the tree growth had led the way over shallow creeks and overgrown grass. Eventually, Tao slowed down as he saw lights in the distance, some rickety wooden fences cordoned off different areas, one of which Tao spotted several goat-like creatures sleeping around in.

Approaching a small bridge over a trickling stream, two people raised their spears, arms trembling as Tao came to a stop atop the marvelous dark blue spirit horse, whose coat matched his long shining dark blue hair.

"W-who are—" One of the village guards started when the other immediately dropped to their knees.

"Sir cultivator!" The one kneeling shouted. The first guard immediately took a second look at Tao and saw the Clear Mirror sect robes, dropping down to his knees as well.

"Forgive the impudence! There's a demonic bear that's been attacking the villages here!" Tao was stunned into silence atop his steed.

"In large towns and cities, as well as within a few hours of a major sect, the local laws still apply to cultivators." The old ghost began, "But in small villages surviving on their own, the law of the jungle is the only law." Tao understood, hardening his gaze as he dismounted.

"I've come to slay the Black Iron bear. Do you know where they are?" Tao asked, stepping forward and putting on his most domineering attitude.

"We don't know right now sir cultivator! But we can ask the other villages and nearby villages! We'll know where it is by morning!" One of the guards claimed.

"W-would you like us to throw a feast for you… Sir?" The other guard asked cautiously. Tao looked between the guards for a moment, "No need. I just need a quiet place to rest and I will head out to find the bear at first light." Tao commanded, striding forward with the spirit horse naturally following behind him.""Yes sir, cultivator!"" The guards shouted in unison before running past Tao into the village. Tao sighed, before continuing to walk calmly.