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Chapter 152 – An Aura of Success or Failure?
🕑 Added 2024-12-07 06:08:08 +0000 UTCBenton dropped Stealth just before loosing the bowstring simply because it felt more sporting to give the eagle a chance in lieu of having the swift arrow appear literally out of nowhere. Not that it mattered. His Foundation Establishment level archery technique made his arrow faster than a bullet and added a seeking function.
Even if the bird would have had time to dodge the arrow, it wouldn’t have been able to.
The tip struck true, aimed at the junction of the right wing and the eagle’s body. Wood qi overwhelmed the bird’s Wind aspected qi shield, and Void qi destroyed a good chunk of the wing.
The creature was tough, though. Even a hundred qi supercharged with a Concept wasn’t enough to kill it. In fact, if Benton hadn’t hit a critical location, the beast might not have even been all that injured. As it was, the bird couldn’t fly with only a single operatable wing and soon crashed to the rocky ground.
With its five allies still far off, Benton Quickstepped to it and finished it off with his spear. The tough eagle took three more strikes to die.
Rank nine beasts truly were on another tier compared to the last wave. If there had been thousands of them like in the first wave, he might have been in trouble if each of them took four hits or so to kill.
In the end, though, he still had way too many advantages over them to consider them a true challenge. His gravity burst, while not slowing them to barely moving or anything, hindered their movements. Time Manipulation sped his relative velocity so fast that it would have been like the beasts were standing still regardless of the gravity. His attack technique countered each of the beast’s qi shields with an opposing element, giving each of his strikes more penetration power and allowing his Void qi to touch skin or fur or feathers or what have you.
Between his extreme effective speed advantage which allowed him to strike the beasts with impunity and the absurd amount of damage each hit with his spear caused, the five didn’t last long, and bonus, the extremely valuable carcasses weren’t too beat up to sell.
Well, they were kind of missing chunks from the use of Void aspected qi here and there, but still, he’d be able to get some decent money for them. It wasn’t like there were a lot of rank nine beast pelts going on the market. Even scraps were worth something, and he had a lot more than just that little amount.
Reflecting on his last couple of fights, though, he did have a worry. The overall toughness and prowess of the beasts steadily improved from rank to rank. Which obviously was to be expected. But the magnitude of the jumps was still a bit disconcerting.
The entire seventh wave had been completely incapacitated by his gravity field, and he’d been able to one shot all of them. For the eighth wave, the beasts were able to still move in an equivalent gravity field, albeit slowly, and three of the creatures had survived his first strike to be taken down by the second. Finally, for that last wave, the beasts were only somewhat slowed by the field, and all had taken multiple hits to kill.
What was really bad about that progression was that all those ranks were jumps in minor realm only. They were still all the equivalent of Golden Core cultivators. Rank ten represented an advancement to the next major realm, the realm above Benton—the equivalent of Nascent Soul.
Such beast would have developed an aura, which he knew about from his knowledge technique. The aura had the ability to suppress him in some way, hindering his attacks and defense, but he didn’t know by how much. The knowledge didn’t quantify anything.
There was some good news. One, his Time Manipulation worked great no matter the rank of his opponent as far as he could tell, and his attack technique did exactly what he expected it to do—deliver a much harder punch than would be expected for an attack that didn’t utilize an opposing element to break a shield and Void to consume flesh. Two, a beast was never as strong as a cultivator of the same realm. He'd put him at Nascent Soul minor realm one versus a half dozen rank twelve beasts any day.
But he wasn’t at the first minor realm of Nascent Soul yet. He needed a thousand loyal sect members before he could make that advancement.
From his knowledge, fighting against an opponent that had an aura would put him at a big disadvantage, but it wouldn’t completely take him out of the fight. His techniques would still work. They just wouldn’t be as strong.
And of course, his opponent being in the next major realm up meant that the beast would be that much stronger and tougher.
Frankly, Benton didn’t know if he’d be able to defeat even a rank ten beast, much less multiple rank tens or a rank eleven, or heaven forbit, a rank twelve.
But he didn’t have a choice. Beast tides were all or nothing. Either the Big Boss was defeated, or the humans all died.
If he were a normal cultivator stuck at the peak of Golden Core knowing what he was about to face, he’d be quaking in his boots. But he wasn’t a normal cultivator. He was a cheating cheater who cheats.
“System,” he said, “is there a way to minimize the impact of an aura?”
Benton tensed as he waited for the response. Whether the answer he received was positive or negative wouldn’t change his actions. He had to proceed onward regardless, but a technique might just provide him with the advantage he needed to succeed.
He let out a relieved breath. Perfect.
“System, I’d like to create such a technique and buy it to Mastery.”
Nice.
Benton still anticipated a difficult fight, especially if he had to face multiple rank tens at once or higher ranked beasts, but he was at least somewhat more prepared.
He Quickstepped down to the valley. Time to find the next wave if there was one or the Big Boss if not.
###
Zou Tian stripped everything from his mind, his thoughts, perceptions, feelings. Everything. From the breeze caressing his skin to his worries about the badger somehow finding its way to Wan Ai, he pushed all of it away.
Two months ago, or even one, he wouldn’t have been able to attain such a state of concentration, but hours and hours of daily practice had led to steady improvement. As it had with all the members of the Rising Tide Sect. Being able to instantly drop into a meditative state and clear their mind was something that almost any of them could do in seconds.
Until the situation with the stealthed badger, Zou Tian had never considered that Shadow qi could reveal as well as conceal, but his instincts had led him to the path. He would follow it through to its destination.
His experience earlier had proved that there was a way to use Shadow to reveal. He just needed to figure out how.
With an empty mind, he concentrated on a single idea—letting Shadow speak to him.
In his mind, Shadow swirled around him, light and dark. Empty and full. It was as ethereal as a spirit, as solid as night, and translucent as nothingness all at the same time.
What did any of that even mean? What was it trying to tell him? That it was a contradiction?
No. That wasn’t right. It was simply trying to tell him that it was something, not nothing.
Yes. It had properties. It was a substance, not merely the absence of light.
More than that, it was an element. A qi aspect.
It could be used to conceal. That was its most common purpose. But it could do so, so much more than that. One only had to embrace it, to become one with it, and open oneself to the possibilities.
Zou Tian felt Hide Presence advance. He’d reached Mastery.
Never before had he been so connected to Shadow, both as a concept and literally to the shadows around him. To the shadows between the houses that Senior Brother was walking toward.
Zou Tian’s eyes popped open.
###
Yang Ru calmly walked toward the shadows with a pile of spirit coins in his hands, determined to draw the badger out of hiding.
Obviously, his actions were dangerous. The beast was at a much higher level than him, the equivalent of the near the peak of Foundation Establishment versus him having barely began his journey in the realm.
Yang Ru had factors on his side, however. His Body Cultivation made him much tougher than other cultivators of the same minor realm, though he had no doubt that the badger could damage him if it got in a good shot. The beast was already injured, having retreated with one of his sister’s arrows sticking out of it.
Neither of those was his biggest advantage. That distinction belonged to his allies. As soon as it attacked him, he expected his sister to stick another arrow in it, and Kang Lin was watching him. She’d join the battle as soon as the badger moved out in the open.
As long as he could survive long enough and keep the spirit coins for it, he had no doubt that the two girls would kill the creature.
He was almost to the alley the beast had disappeared into.
“Senior Brother!” Zou Tian yelled. “Stop!”
Comments
Baconwargod
I feel like he should probably max out his body cultivation before as well. I know minor realms aren’t as impactful as major realms but 9 minor realms of body cultivation at the Gold Tier feels like it would be a major boost at least physically.
RedFaux
I wonder of he got anything else other than Hide Presence Mastery. It would make sense
RedFaux
Thanks
Gopard
Thanks for the chapter!
