The Missing Technique

Just as Li Yi and the others reached the designated location.

In the Danger Zone, there was an abandoned zoo that had been deserted for a full ten years. No one had set foot inside during that time. Weeds and wild trees grew everywhere, the cartoon animal statues lining both sides of the roads had long since become mottled and faded, and the various amusement facilities had deteriorated and fallen into disrepair.

Yet what was utterly baffling was that all kinds of animals were still being kept in the zoo's cages. The animals inside, however, were slightly different from those people had once known.

In the tiger enclosure, a strange tiger slowly paced back and forth. Its back was hunched, its body was emaciated, and its once-bright, beautiful fur had long since faded, becoming sparse, black, and white. What made people uneasy, though, was that in the darkness, the vicious tiger's eyes radiated an eerie green light. Its two fangs were also extraordinarily thick, growing out of its mouth like those of the long-extinct saber-toothed tiger.

"Roar!"

The vicious tiger growled. Its oily green eyes stared fixedly through the yellowed tempered-glass window at a certain direction in the darkness. At the same time, its gaunt body gradually retreated, as though it sensed some kind of danger approaching.

A sliver of light faintly appeared in the depths of the darkness.

They were two pairs of gleaming eyes.

One gaze was crystalline and extraordinarily mystical. The other shimmered blue-green in the darkness, like a demon from the shadows.

Merely by approaching, the vicious tiger that had once stood at the top of the food chain seemed to have become prey, able only to retreat again and again.

Yang Yilong and Qin Qing entered the abandoned Danger Zone zoo together.

Though they seemed outnumbered and outmatched, after undergoing repeated evolution and transformation as cultivators, they had already become the most dangerous beings here.

"An aberrant vicious tiger?" Yang Yilong saw the beast locked inside the enclosure. His footsteps paused slightly, and he frowned. "No, that's not right. Although it looks very similar, this thing absolutely isn't a tiger."

"It should be the legendary... Biao."

Qin Qing's blue-green vertical pupils shifted slightly. "As the saying goes, one Biao emerges from ten tigers. Wherever a Biao appears, the tigers have surely been wiped out. But it's strange. Why would this Biao be locked up here? The zoo has been abandoned for ten years. If the animals couldn't escape, they should have starved to death long ago."

"Besides, raising a Biao requires a sufficiently large tiger population. Unless, after this place was abandoned, something took over and continued feeding the animals."

"Yang Yilong, do you think that thing did it?"

Yang Yilong said, "That thing's intelligence is already no lower than a human's. It isn't impossible that it would raise animals, but judging from the situation, it doesn't seem to be raising them for food. If it were merely for food, there'd be no need to spend so much time and effort raising a Biao."

"Let's keep looking."

The two continued forward through the darkness. As for the Biao locked inside the tiger enclosure, they ignored it. Their objective was the most important thing to them; a few aberrant beasts were not worth wasting their time over.

They continued onward.

When they passed the monkey enclosure, they saw a humanoid figure standing atop the zoo's artificial mountain. Its entire body was covered in hair. It looked like a savage who had yet to evolve, or perhaps an ape, but it possessed a human face. The contrast between its savagery and civilization gave off an indescribably frightening feeling.

The ape with the human face stared motionlessly at the passing Yang Yilong and Qin Qing, its expression slightly bizarre.

"That's the Mountain Demon... a Mountain Demon?" Qin Qing sensed the strange gaze in the darkness and turned her face toward it, her blue-green vertical pupils cold and dangerous.

Their eyes met.

Round pupils faced vertical pupils.

At that moment, it seemed as though the positions within the food chain had been decided. The Mountain Demon standing atop the artificial mountain suddenly revealed a look of terror on its human face. Then, with a faint whoosh, its figure vanished instantly, its movements unbelievably nimble.

With a single glance, Qin Qing had frightened it away.

"This place certainly has no shortage of dangers. If they aren't dealt with soon, then in a few more years, whether it's that Biao or the Mountain Demon from earlier, they'll probably become formidable. As the saying goes, when humans cultivate, they can become immortals; when animals cultivate, they can become demons. They're already passively absorbing Cosmic Energy. As their intelligence grows higher and higher, it's only a matter of time before these aberrant beasts become demons."

Qin Qing withdrew her gaze and then offered her suggestion.

"Now I understand what that thing is trying to do." A smile appeared at the corner of Yang Yilong's mouth. "Its ambition is truly considerable. It's cultivating subordinates and wants to become king. Unfortunately for it, it encountered me today, so its beautiful dream can end here."

"After I kill that thing, I'll come back and deal with these creatures. We can't act first, or we'll alert it. Although I've set up many sentries, if that thing really runs, Spirit Medium Realm cultivators won't have any way to deal with it. I don't have time to hunt it down again."

"Alright." Qin Qing nodded.

The two continued searching through the zoo.

No one knew how much time passed. Perhaps ten minutes, perhaps twenty. It was only when an eerie cry, resembling a baby's wail, rang out that the silence of the night was thoroughly shattered.

Then, enormous commotion erupted from one corner of the zoo.

Dust billowed there, figures darted back and forth, and one thick tree after another toppled. The leaking auras frightened all the animals in the zoo into panic, and they let out waves of strange cries.

In a dark corner of the zoo, a battle between an Extraordinary Creature and cultivators had begun.

But none of this had anything to do with Li Yi.

Led by Brother Tao, he and Zhang Gao crouched on the top floor of an abandoned high-rise, surveying the surroundings.

"Everything is normal. At least there's nothing unusual on our side. That's good. Keep it that way. Once dawn breaks, we can leave." Brother Tao withdrew his gaze. He did not dare survey the distance for too long. In the Danger Zone, he was afraid that staring at something for too long would allow some creature to capture his gaze and come looking for him.

Li Yi asked, "Brother Tao, that blade you were holding earlier was quite special. Do you practice blade techniques?"

"There's nothing special about this blade. It's made of special steel; it's just a little expensive. I bought it for self-defense." Brother Tao sat down again and chatted casually. "I don't know any blade techniques. I just swing and hack with strength and accuracy."

"You don't know blade techniques? Then what methods do cultivators usually rely on to deal with enemies?" Li Yi asked in surprise.

Brother Tao laughed. "You really are a new guy who knows nothing. Let me ask you: what are the so-called blade techniques and fist techniques of our world used for?"

"Fighting. Killing people." Li Yi thought for a moment before answering immediately.

Brother Tao nodded. "Exactly. The foundation of martial arts is something that evolved from people fighting one another. Do you think such methods are suitable for cultivators? A cultivator's strength, speed, reflexes, and even vitality far exceed those of ordinary people. In ancient times, cultivators like us would have been called immortals."

"Human martial arts are laughable when used on immortal cultivators. It's just like the evolution of warfare. Ancient warfare relied on cold weapons, so weapons such as blades, spears, swords, and halberds emerged. Modern warfare relies on firearms, so all kinds of guns, missiles, and other weapons came into being."

"If someone in modern warfare still trained swordsmen and archers and sent them onto the battlefield, wouldn't the enemy die laughing? By the same logic, cultivators can't spend huge amounts of time learning ordinary martial arts either. If you can deduce martial arts to the realm of techniques, then forget I said anything. But I haven't heard of anyone who can do that yet."

As Brother Tao spoke, he began laughing.

"Of course, there's one exception. They might not be practicing the martial arts of this world, but high-level martial arts passed down from another world."

But then Brother Tao's smile faded, and he continued, "Li Yi, I know what you want to say. It's nothing more than that our world has no techniques suited to cultivators. In truth, you're not the only one who thought of this. Every cultivator has. After all, only ten years have passed since the Skyfall Event."

"Ten years isn't enough for our world to develop mature techniques. As I said before, I bought this blade only for self-defense. After all, most cultivators' bodies still haven't evolved to the point of being harder than this blade's edge. Besides, this thing is easy to buy. If I had the connections, I'd rather use firearms."

"What kind of cultivator doesn't use a gun when they have one?"

"If I'd been carrying a Gatling gun earlier, I could have shot that spider monster full of holes. How could I have let that thing escape?"

"But whether it's a blade or a gun, they're only transitional tools. They can't fully adapt to our world. The finest blade in our world can't cleave an Extraordinary Creature's scales, and the most powerful guns and cannons can't kill a terrifying evil spirit. Some Extraordinary Creatures even possess their own energy fields. They can destroy a city merely by passing through."

"Then aren't cultivators terribly useless?" Zhang Gao asked curiously.

"No. Our cultivators have infinite potential."

Brother Tao continued smoking as he said, "I heard Yang Yilong say that cultivators in our world can adapt to any kind of 'technique' and bring its power into full effect. It's just that we lack 'techniques.' To put it in the words of a martial-arts novel, every one of us is a master with profound inner power, but none of us knows any martial arts."

"So we can only explore and create our own?" Li Yi asked curiously.

"Exactly. For example, Gaze Strike is a technique created by cultivators in the Spirit Medium Realm, and it spread rapidly afterward. After all, Spirit Medium Realm cultivators are the most numerous. There are always some people who can come up with a new trick in that realm. But the farther you go, the fewer evolvers there are, so fewer techniques are born."

Brother Tao furrowed his brows as he smoked, casually giving Li Yi and Zhang Gao a lecture to pass the time.

"By the way, since we were talking about Yang Yilong, I heard other cultivators say that he had obtained some of the latest research findings in cultivation. Then, inspired by mythological legends and using ancient artifacts as models, he developed a technique of his own."

Suddenly, Brother Tao remembered something and mentioned it in passing.

"What kind of technique was it?" Li Yi pressed.

Brother Tao laughed heartily. "How would I know? I only heard about it. A Spirit Medium Realm cultivator named He Jun accidentally came across Yang Yilong practicing it in the underground training ground of that previous building. Of course, he didn't tell only me. A lot of people know about it. Yang Yilong didn't take issue with it, either. After all, there was no way to keep it hidden."