Archive - 007 (Patreon)

[A/N: Hey guys, I am out of town for the next two days and don't know how much time I will have to write. Most likely, I won't have any time, so I probably will not upload during these two days. I should be back Tuesday, when everything goes back to a normal schedule.

Hope you had a nice weekend, enjoy!]

Chapter 007 – A Calculated Risk

Sharp claws passed by Fang's side, barely missing his body but still ripping apart his clothes. The aggressive wolf-type vicious beast though wasn't discouraged, as it pounced forward with its maw opened and bloodthirst in its eyes.

Eight Directions Step, Second Step - Flowing Step!

Basic Dual-Wielding Technique – Swallow's Descent!

A smooth and measured step to the side, followed by the passing of a black blade shadow, and the wolf-type beast directly lost its head.

Sensing movement from his back, Fang pushed himself a step forward while crouching down and spinning around his own axis. Midnight Shade Wings danced through the air, directly cleaving apart the other wolf-type beast behind him.

Basic Dual-Wielding Technique – Swallow Reversal!

Threatening growls sounded from all around him, as he saw another dozen beasts approaching, there were even a handful of low-level cultivators among them.

Fang readied himself mentally, as he already rushed forward with quick and efficient movements. His twin blades drew basic, but lethal arcs in the air, as the blood of his opponents drenched his attire.

In the end though, exhausted and surrounded, Fang fell victim to the beast's claws and the cultivator's weapons, but not before he had taken down more than half of them.

This was quite a feat, considering that all of them were at least in the Early Organ Transformation Realm while two of them were even in the Early Meridian Transformation Realm.

…

The pain of death though left Fang as quickly as it came, as he opened his eyes and found himself sitting on the Illusionary Killing Formation in the inheritance cave.

What Fang just experienced had been nothing more than just illusions created by the formation, which had been powered with some spirit stones. It was an excellent way to experience real combat and force himself to fight at his limits without any actual harm.

Roughly three months had passed since Fang had come here. Every day was filled with the endless training of his Battle Arts or entering the Illusionary Killing Formation.

He still kept up his cultivation, but it wasn't a priority for the current him as actual combat ability was more valuable in his eyes. Still, his cultivation had increased to the Middle Bone Transformation Realm through the use of the beast cores and low-grade spirit stones he had found in the two low-level Spiritual Stage cultivators' spatial rings.

Fang was much more enthusiastic about his progress with the Battle Arts, as he had managed to reach the Intermediate Stage in both of them just recently, showcasing his vastly superior talent in comparison to this body's last owner.

The 'former' Fang hadn't reached the Intermediate Rank even after nearly eight years of training, thus was the difference between an Unranked Spirit and a Rank One Spirit coupled with the 'former' Fang's lack of intelligence and perseverance.

Battle Arts mastery could be ranked from Novice to Elementary, Intermediate, and Master, followed by the Truth Realm and lastly the Union Realm.

For Fang to reach the Intermediate Rank in only three months was a big accomplishment, worthy of being called the top talent in the whole Wilderness. Still, this wasn't to say that his hours upon hours of hard work each day could be overlooked. It was the visible result of these efforts that caused Fang to be so happy with his progress.

And while his Battle Arts made it possible for him to go against stronger cultivators and beasts in the Illusionary Killing Formation, the density and purity of his spirit essence also played a big role in this achievement. As did the fact that he used the Titan Star Law to refine and temper his body, giving him superior strength, speed, reflexes, stamina, and endurance than normal cultivators of his realm.

Still, Fang felt that his mastery over his Eight Directions Step was still a little lacking, even though he had reached the Intermediate Realm for both the Mortal Step and the Flowing Step. It was the Compression Step, which was the third step, that he found more difficult to get good control over, as he had only reached an elementary understanding of the technique.

For executing the Folwing Step, one had to direct the spirit essence on a specific path through one's body, enhancing one's overall agility by a large margin, which allowed one to move with great speed and flexibility.

The Compression Step was vastly different though because to execute this technique spirit essence had to be gathered and compressed, before releasing it from one's feet on a moment's notice to grant short bursts of incredible speed. It required great precision when controlling spirit essence and even greater bodily control to use this speed burst efficiently in combat.

That last part was what Fang struggled with currently, as his mastery over the Mortal Step, which was pure bodily movement, wasn't good enough which resulted in a lack of control over his movements.

As things were, it wasn't practical for Fang to use the Compression Step in actual combat, but with more time and training, he was sure that would change.

After months of training though, Fang had decided to change his action plan. Instead of being couped up inside the cave, he planned to go out into the forest and hunt some real savage beasts.

It wasn't that he didn't enjoy his quiet and secluded training, but the fact was that he lacked some important materials to further his progress. Now that his Battle Arts were coming along nicely, it was time to improve in another direction, specifically his spirit.

Improving the rank of his spirit was now priority number one for Fang, as the benefits that came with doing so were incredible. Not only would his soul force grow exponentially, as well as his control over it, but it would also improve his mind greatly.

Memory, calculation ability, the speed of his thoughts, comprehension, and more, all would improve tremendously with a higher-ranked spirit. It wasn't for nothing that high-ranked spirit's signified the talent of a cultivator, as the enhancement of one's fundamental abilities was just that great.

His Blackhole Revolving Art was also only at the first stage, while the second step required more than eighty runes to advance in this cultivation technique, and greatly improve his cultivation speed.

His current control over his soul force and mental strength though wouldn't be enough to keep the Blackhole Seed under complete control, so he couldn't advance that technique for the time being, as such was the limit of a low-ranked spirit.

Of course, most cultivators would slowly add more runes to advance their cultivation technique regardless, ignoring the problem of control and only thinking about momentary power.

That was also why suffering from a backlash when they overdrew their strength was such a common thing for cultivators, as most of the time they would lose control over the rune constructs that made up their cultivation technique.

It was a risk they gladly suffered in exchange for great combat power and faster advancements. In the Divine Realm, this was called the unorthodox path, while ensuring full control was the orthodox path.

As one could guess, almost all cultivators of the Mortal Realm followed the unorthodox path, simply because the average rank of the spirits in the mortal worlds was simply too low.

Fang was different, as he was clear on his own limits and didn't fancy taking unnecessary risks, not when the alternative was safer and more beneficial for his long-term growth anyway.

The conclusion was rather simple in this case, which meant Fang had to gather some materials so that he could craft a few Paralyzing Runes and use the Spirit Forging Technique again.

…

Walking up to the entrance of the inheritance cave, Fang used his soul force to activate the hidden locking mechanism, of course not before checking the situation outside through the Archive.

Fang didn't have to worry about others finding the entrance to the cave, as the formations had been bound to him using blood and soul force, which prevented them from being activated by anyone else.

As the large boulders moved to the side and the smell of the forest rushed into the cave, Fang left his home for the last few months for the first time.

His shoulder-long black hair swayed gently in the wind, as his emerald-green eyes took in his surroundings. Weak beams of sunlight managed to pierce through the dense foliage and illuminate his tanned skin, as he drew his mat-black blades from the sheaths strapped to his waist.

Shrouding his body in soul force, as he activated his Deceiving Heaven Technique, Fang's eyes turned into galaxies as he used the Archive to search for suitable prey.

As his strength had increased greatly in comparison to several months ago, the information he could get through the Archive was also much clearer.

His targets were unranked snake-type beasts from the lowest class to the weaker high class, meaning their strength was equivalent to an Organ Transformation martial artist.

Even though he was able to contend and even slay peak-class beasts, that was just in the illusions and he didn't come out of those fights uninjured.

It was unnecessary to take such risks in an environment that was as dangerous as the Wildernis. Fighting weaker beasts and preserving his combat strength for any unexpected situations was the way to go.

The next few hours passed relatively uneventfully, as Fang let himself be guided towards his prey by the Archive and took care of them with the greatest efficiency, including surprise attacks. The sharpness of his Mortal-Rank blades made sure that his strikes were as deadly as could be.

It had to be said that the Wildernis was truly infested with beasts, and it was easy to find them when one's goal wasn't to avoid them. So at this point, Fang had already taken down nearly two dozen snake-type beasts and a dozen others who had crossed his way.

Being satisfied with today's haul, Fang decided to return to the inheritance cave and take care of the corpses that took up space inside his storage ring.

On the way back though Fang picked up an unusual scene from the Archive.

A fight between two unranked peak-grade vicious beasts, and one of them was a snake-type one.

Focusing his mind and drawing even more information from the Archive, Fang realized that there weren't just peak-class beasts, they were both half a step into Rank One, which explained their fight.

Beasts usually advanced by devouring the cores of other beasts over long periods of time, the quality of the cores wasn't that important as it took time to digest the energy in the core anyway. So most beasts would hunt weaker beasts to devour their corpses and avoid taking risks.

The exception to this rule was the advancement from an Unranked Beast to a Ranked Beast, which was the equivalent of human martial artists going from Meridian Transformation to Dantian Opening, and therefore entering the Spiritual Stages of the energy cultivation system.

It was an enormous leap for human martial artists and even more so for beasts.

That was also the reason that beasts at the half-step level couldn't advance using lower-tiered beast cores anymore, they would need at least beast cores of the same level, or even higher which was an almost impossible goal.

Fang came to the conclusion that these two beasts probably fought each other for a chance at advancement. And that was where his opportunity lay.

The corpse of a snake-type beast half a step into Rank One would be an incredible material to make runes with, runes that were necessary for the advancement of his spirit.

If he just waited for them to tire each other out or even until one of them was down, he may have a chance at taking down the survivor, as their battle wouldn't leave either of them in an uninjured state. Adding the sharpness of his weapons, he only needed to land one good hit and take down the surviving beast.

It was a risk for sure, but a well-calculated one. And in the worst-case scenario where his life was threatened, he could use one of the three teleportation runes Elder Luo had left behind for his inheritor.

They would instantly transport him back to the cave if he was still within a ten-thousand-kilometer radius of it. There were incredibly precious and had cost the Elder a great amount of money, but in the end, they were resources and thus were meant to be used.

Deciding on his course of action, Fang approached the place of the battle, which was only a few kilometers from his current position, once again forcing his Deceiving Heaven Technique to work overtime, while his soul force was recovered by his use of the Absolute Serenity Tactic.

…

Arriving near the battle, Fang started observing the valley where the two beasts fought it out from atop a cliff. The moment he laid eyes on the snake-type beast's opponent though, a chill went down his spine.

A snow-white Three-tailed Fox Beast!

A Ranked-Beast!

'How?', Fang thought to himself, suppressing his rising panic, as he was absolutely no match for a ranked beast.

The ranking of a fox-type beast, like some others, could easily be discovered by some special characteristics. Generally speaking, unranked fox-type beasts only had one tail, as only by breaking through and becoming a ranked beast could they develop three tails. This trend went on: Six tails transformed into the void, while nine tails broke the void and reached divinity.

There were exceptions to this rule, but it was incredibly rare to come across such an exception.

He saw the Spirit Fox battling a huge black python that was easily a few dozen meters long, its body as thick as a barrel. In comparison the fox had snow-white fur and while still being as tall as two tigers, it looked tiny when facing the giant snake-type beast.

The python had two incredibly sharp claws and it used them to in conjunction with its fangs and tail as fearsome killing weapons. Every time the python's tail lashed out and crashed into the ground, the earth was ripped apart while a deep crevice was left behind.

The fox on the other hand was nimble and managed to avoid most blows, though not all and so it had to block some with its three tails that formed a protective cage around it. Its claws and fangs ripped into the black python every chance it got, but the snake-type beast was simply too massive and its vitality was very powerful.

Observing the battle with eagle-eyes, Fang realized that the fox was obviously not a Rank One beast, as the two beasts fought on even grounds which should have been impossible considering the massive gulf between unranked and ranked beasts.

Probing the Archive again for some more information, Fang felt a stabbing pain in the back of his head. Trying to extract information from a lifeform much stronger than him was always difficult, thankfully the proximity and the other party's injured state eased his burden considerably.

A few moments later, Fang's eyes returned to their bright green color, and a thoughtful look appeared on his face.

'So it's like this. Sigh, the Wildernis truly is a place where the strong prey on the weak, even motherhood is a weakness.'

Through the Archive, Fang had discovered that the Three-Tailed Fox truly was a powerful ranked beast, but it was pregnant. To ensure that its offspring would be born with the best aptitude possible, it infused its child with its own essence, greatly weakening itself in the process. Its essence could be recovered of course, but that would take a long time of recuperation, maybe even decades.

Normally this wouldn't have been that much of a problem as beasts had a lifespan several times that of humans, but at the critical juncture, the mother had been attacked by another ranked beast, injured, and chased away from its territory. In its injured state, it had come across the half-step ranked snake-type beast.

The fox really was a great mother though, as even at this point it didn't try to forcefully take back its essence from its child to regain its strength and survive this calamity, as this would more than likely kill or cripple the child.

Fang knew that as a powerful-ranked beast the fox had enough spiritual intelligence to not be influenced by its instincts of protecting its offspring, but instead chose to do so out of its own free will.

At this point, it was impossible for the Three-Tailed Fox to survive even if it won the battle by some miracle. Its essence was already too damaged and its life force was rapidly weakening.

'Should I help her or not?', Fang asked himself, 'She won't survive either way, but the same isn't true for the snake-type beast. Its strength is greater than mine and if it survives the battle, I am not confident in defeating it. But with the Three-Tailed Fox's help, I could very well kill it.'