Catching a Discerning Eye

Si Ming belonged to the latter group. The bigger the occasion, the more it fired his fighting spirit; the tenser and more critical the moment, the more it brought out his hidden potential. At that moment, he felt every drop of blood in his body boiling. His body was far more responsive than usual, he could clearly sense every part of it, and his mind was more focused than ever before.

"Taking it head-on would be hopeless. With enough force to smash through a concrete wall like it's a foam board, it would leave me with every bone broken and a grade-one disability if it so much as grazed me. Unless I can awaken my Cosmo and learn that resurrection technique that comes from thinking about my sister, my master, and Athena.

"Because of the Demon Beast tide, the Mohist Knight Guard and the army have both gone to defend the eastern coastal line. But while the whole army might have been mobilized, some members of the Mohist Knight Guard must have stayed behind. Their headquarters is in the east of the city, though, so they might not notice what's happening over here. That means I need to lure this Demon Beast east."

Si Ming's thoughts became exceptionally clear, and he quickly devised a strategy based on what he knew about himself and the enemy. So absorbed was he that he failed to notice his qinggong had risen another level.

After receiving an infusion of vital essence from the Six-Transformation Bear and Snake Pill, he had cultivated Hundred Birds Frolics to the realm of Hundred Birds Fall Silent. Judged purely by the Cultivation Method itself, that realm was the end of the road. Yet now, combined with the all-purpose qinggong Flying over Grass, Hundred Birds Frolics had found a path to a breakthrough that even its creator had never anticipated, entering a completely new and higher realm—the realm of Hundred Birds Soar through the Sky!

The imagery of birds shifted from stillness to motion, taking the form of a hundred birds taking flight. Si Ming unconsciously adjusted the flow of force within his body, and a wisp of True Qi immediately emerged.

This was not the refinement of essence into Qi that came from tempering the flesh to its limit. It was merely True Qi produced by Hundred Birds Frolics itself, and thus did not belong to Si Ming. It appeared only when he used Hundred Birds Frolics, and once he stopped, the wisp of True Qi would dissipate on its own.

To Si Ming, that wisp of True Qi was like charcoal delivered in the snow, enough to bring a qualitative transformation to his qinggong. Although the amount was exceedingly small, without True Qi he could only act within the bounds of "science." Once he had True Qi, he could break free of its shackles.

Faster and faster, Si Ming leaped onto a landscaped strip. His feet touched down, and before the shrubs could even bend beneath him, he had shot a great distance forward. When a building blocked his path, he did not bother going around it. He raced along the wall, his body parallel to the ground as he sped sideways.

If coins could be lined up along the wall, this would have been a parkour game.

Before long, Si Ming caught up to the toad monster. By then, less than ten meters separated it from the girl.

The girl wore a stubborn expression. Even though she knew she could escape if she put the boy down, she refused to abandon him. The boy, meanwhile, obediently kept his mouth shut without saying a word. At a time like this, whether he cried and screamed or shouted for his sister to put him down, he would only slow her down. Doing nothing was the wisest thing he could do.

"Hey, ugly, look over here! Why does a creature as ugly as you even exist? Were your parents a toad and a rhino? Even their sizes wouldn't match! It's not your fault you're ugly, but coming out and scaring people is! Why are you chasing a girl? Or is the boy your real target, you sick pervert?"

Si Ming taunted it, unsure whether it could understand human speech. But just as a dog could sense a person provoking it and get angry, sometimes words were not necessary for communication, especially when expressing more basic emotions.

The toad monster, however, acted as if it had heard nothing. It continued chasing the girl, paying Si Ming no attention.

"You, you, you've got some nerve! How dare you ignore me! Even I'm afraid of myself when I get angry! I'll give you one chance to turn over a new leaf. Hurry up and notice this young master's charm, or I'm going to fill my rage bar and unleash my ultimate move!"

Si Ming grabbed a handful of stones and hurled them at its head. But the toad monster's skin was as hard as if it were covered in armor; smashing through houses and walls was nothing to it. The little stones could not even stimulate its neurons.

"Fine, fine, fine! You've finally made me angry. This is the biggest mistake of your life! I warned you again and again, but my words went in one ear and out the other. Now I have no choice but to use my trump card. Pray for your miserable fate, because you're about to suffer the most inhuman ravaging imaginable. Jie jie jie!"

Si Ming was not in the habit of running his mouth. He was using it as a way to relieve the pressure he felt, because the closer he got, the more strongly he felt the oppressive weight of the creature's enormous body. That sense of danger, like a building about to collapse, kept telling him to turn and run and come no closer. He had to suppress his survival instinct as a living creature.

"Take Phoenix Ikki's ultimate move-Phoenix Wings Soar!"

As he ran, Si Ming swooped down like a swallow skimming the water and picked something up from the lawn, then aimed and hurled it at his target.

The lump of unspeakable matter flew in a perfect arc like a phoenix spreading its wings, then dropped from the sky and landed squarely on the toad monster's head. It spread with a splat, smearing the creature's face.

It was a blessing-type projectile that symbolized good luck. Though it had no destructive power of its own, its properties—it was warm and gave off a powerful stench-made it an intensely effective taunt.

Si Ming looked at his palm. It was sticky, with bits of residue still clinging to it and giving off a stench, prompting him to sigh ruefully. "It really is a forbidden move. It wounds the enemy by a thousand and yourself by eight hundred!"

"Croak-"

The toad monster was utterly enraged. Si Ming had drawn all its aggro. It stopped chasing the girl and boy, turned with a bellow like a great bronze bell, and charged at him.

For the first time, Si Ming learned just how terrifying a high-decibel croak could be. He turned and ran for all he was worth.

He might have been losing, but he would not lose face. He kept up his taunts. "Hahaha, come and get me, you ugly, stupid, lazy toad! If you can catch me, I'll treat you to another move-Rozan Dragon Flight!"

In truth, the toad monster was not slow. Running on its four thick legs, it could reach nearly sixty kilometers an hour, or 16.7 meters per second. It needed only six seconds to cover a hundred meters; even an Olympic champion would have had to close their eyes and await death. But with True Qi supporting his qinggong, Si Ming was faster still. He could also maneuver and turn nimbly, like a bird in flight, without losing much speed on a turn, so the toad monster could not catch him.

Sure enough, at the first turn, Si Ming changed direction as though drifting, but the toad monster could not turn in time and had to slow down first.

Si Ming wondered whether running too fast would make it think it could not catch him and return to chasing the girl, undoing all his work. Should he slow down? He turned to check what was happening behind him.

Then he saw the toad monster suddenly puff out its belly, its body swelling to more than three times its size in an instant. It opened its mouth and blasted out a ball of air, destroying every tree and plant in its path and even snapping a utility pole.

Si Ming's face went pale. He hurriedly dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding it, then saw the air ball slam into a nearby building and blast a huge hole straight through the wall.

If that had hit him, he would have become dumpling filling on the spot.

"Referee, that's a foul! How can a melee fighter use ranged attacks? Have you no pride as a melee fighter? If you've got the guts, use Toad Skill on me!"

Chapter 12: Catching a Discerning Eye

Si Ming fled with every ounce of strength he could muster, but he did not dare focus solely on what was ahead. Every so often, he looked back to see whether the Demon Beast was about to attack. If there were any signs of another ranged attack, he had to be ready to dodge in advance.

As a result, he inevitably slowed down and could not widen the gap between himself and the toad monster.

Si Ming knew it, but there was nothing he could do. The air ball covered too large an area, equivalent to a sphere eight meters in diameter. If he watched only ahead and ignored what was behind him, he could easily take a direct hit. He had yet to develop any kind of martial artist's intuition, so he could not rely on a sixth sense to dodge attacks from behind.

"This isn't what we agreed on! It was a parkour game, so why has it turned into a shooter? And I'm the one getting shot at! What kind of trash game is this? Give me a refund!"

Si Ming glimpsed its belly swelling again and quickly curled up, dodging down and to the right.

With a boom, the air ball roared through the spot he had just occupied and blasted a statue to pieces.

"I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die! I want to spend money! I want to top up! I want a ten-pull! I want to be a pay-to-win player! Dragon-Slaying Saber and greasy senior sister, where are you?"

Si Ming did not dare stop. He rolled forward with the motion, used the momentum to flip back to his feet, and sprinted off again. Along the way, he took a medicine bottle from his pocket, poured out a Six-Transformation Bear and Snake Pill, and swallowed it.

Even though his stamina was far greater than it had been twenty days ago, he could not possibly keep up such a fierce chase for long. After all, he was running at his absolute limit. It was like an ordinary person running a marathon at a hundred-meter sprinting pace.

Although he did not feel tired yet and his legs were still moving rapidly, it would be too late to think of taking a pill once he began to slow down. He had to take precautions beforehand—that was the countermeasure he had thought up while fleeing.

On the surface, Si Ming was talking nonsense, completely out of line, as if he had lost his head. In reality, he was exceptionally calm, his brain thinking ceaselessly as he searched for a way to turn defeat into victory.

It was as though his mind had split in two. One half rambled on with wild, unrestrained thoughts, while the other, like a gamer, considered its strategy from a third-person perspective outside the screen.

Demon Beasts were divided into eight grades according to strength: livestock, monster, essence, spirit, ghost, god, earth, and heaven.

Of these, Livestock Grade Demon Beasts were basically wild animals with mutated appearances. An ordinary adult could deal with one. If they had encountered a livestock demon, there would have been no need for an alarm at all; everyone could simply have swarmed it and beaten it to death with sticks.