From a high vantage point, the school's teaching buildings were already among the tallest structures in this old district.
Li Yuan looked around. The old district was filled with lush greenery.
With human activity gone, the old district had gradually merged with the wilderness and dense forest.
From his elevated position, Li Yuan also spotted other people who had come here to train.
Qijia Town was a treasure trove for training, and far more people had come than expected.
No wonder it was regulated, with limits on the number of people allowed in at once.
If too many people entered at the same time, the training experience would be greatly diminished.
After coming down from the rooftop, Li Yuan had not even left the abandoned middle school.
He immediately noticed that something was off.
The two books Li Yuan had read before coming here had provided him with plenty of useful experience.
The strange sight before him matched what those books had described.
One section of the drainage ditch in this abandoned school was unusually smooth.
At the sight of it, Li Yuan gripped his alloy blade tightly.
Based on the experience he had gained from the books, he had entered a Fierce Beast's nest.
There were countless varieties of Fierce Beasts, and most of them were extremely cunning.
The smooth section was one of the entrances to the beast's nest.
But its nest definitely had more than one entrance and exit.
The paths it used most often were instead the ones it would immediately abandon when danger arose.
With that in mind, Li Yuan began searching for another route into the Fierce Beast's nest.
He remained cautious throughout.
At the moment, he could not be sure whether there was a Fierce Beast inside the nest.
Li Yuan was testing the experience he had learned from books.
The greatest difference between students in school and martial artists who had truly fought on the battlefield was practical experience.
Ninety-nine percent of what was written in books was not wrong.
But the situations they described were too idealized.
When applied in reality, all sorts of strange circumstances could arise.
Only through experience and experimentation could one truly make use of that knowledge.
The same was often true in other fields as well.
For instance, medical students could hardly make patients fall ill exactly as described in their textbooks, could they?
They too had to learn from books, then spend years practicing before they could stand on their own.
When they occasionally encountered symptoms that matched a textbook illustration, they would get excited for quite a while.
Following the drainage ditch, Li Yuan reasoned that the nest should not be somewhere easily reached by water.
These simple human facilities were still functioning after several decades.
The drainage ditch still seemed to be working quite well.
As he searched along the way, Li Yuan found some traces.
At the same time, he faintly heard a weak sound.
He had not made that sound himself, which meant there was something else...
As he pondered, a black shadow suddenly shot out and pounced at Li Yuan.
But Li Yuan had long been wary of that location.
Cloud Extreme Fist, Extreme Guard!
The instant he assumed a defensive stance, Li Yuan slashed forward with the long blade in his hand!
Six Martial Chain Blade! The force of his blade surged toward the black shadow.
Martial artists who rarely went to the front lines were usually far less proficient with weapon techniques.
But unfortunately for it, Li Yuan was unlike the other young martial artists here to train.
With the [Martial Recruitment Accelerator] Talent, his mastery of the Six Martial Chain Blade had long reached a profound level.
The black shadow also sensed the threat.
Its ambush having failed, it crouched some distance away and confronted him.
It was a Wildcat with mottled gray and black fur.
Its fur stood on end as it bared its bloody mouth, revealing sharp fangs.
This kind of wandering Wildcat was a typical D-level Beast.
Do not let its small size fool you. It was incredibly vicious.
When facing larger opponents, it was clever enough to target their eyes.
Once it blinded its enemy, even a stronger opponent that had once been beyond its reach would become its food.
But it was not so fortunate this time. Li Yuan was far more cautious than an ordinary martial artist.
His martial prowess was also solid and steady.
The Six Martial Chain Blade came in an instant, its blade force crashing fiercely toward it.
These small Fierce Beasts were agile, and if a martial artist lacked sufficient proficiency, trying to strike and wound them could easily go wrong.
But Li Yuan had an exceptionally skilled grasp of martial techniques.
With the Cloud Treading Step working in tandem, the Six Martial Chain Blade instantly shifted and transformed.
The blade swiftly landed on its body.
Blood splattered, and the small Wildcat Fierce Beast died on the spot.
Li Yuan grabbed a handful of wild grass from nearby and wiped the blood off his blade.
This was the first Fierce Beast he had personally slain.
It was much easier than he had expected.
The Practical Handbook for Beast Response and Border Records had proven even more helpful than he had anticipated.
With the [Mind Enlightenment] and [Enlightenment to Perfection] Talents, the gains Li Yuan received from reading were far beyond what others could achieve.
He could soon apply them in actual practice.
There was nothing valuable on the Wildcat Fierce Beast's body.
Unlike certain Fierce Beasts, whose fur, bones, tendons, and organs all had uses.
After resolving this minor trouble, Li Yuan continued deeper into Qijia Town.
The farther southeast he went, the farther he was from areas of human activity.
More Fierce Beasts hid there, including more powerful and aggressive ones.
Li Yuan planned to travel another ten li outward.
For a martial artist, ten li was not far.
But in this wilderness forest, every li traveled outward came with a host of dangers.
At a true border front, advancing ten li might take years.
For someone like Li Yuan, who was training outside for the first time, going ten li ahead was actually very risky.
But Li Yuan had confidence in himself.
Besides, after this training session, he would return to participate in the Youth Martial Tournament.
He had to make good use of this opportunity to train, allowing both his mindset and physique to adapt to this rhythm.
Especially those Fierce Beasts. The more he saw, the better.
Border Records documented a hundred common Fierce Beasts, including their habits and methods of attack.
But reading about them was still different from seeing them with his own eyes.
Only after seeing them firsthand could he deal with them more calmly.
Just as Li Yuan was preparing to head deeper in, he suddenly saw three Light Points fall to the ground.
After picking them up, he gained eleven experience points.
The gains from actual combat appeared to be greater than the insights he gained from burying himself in cultivation.
Holding his long blade, he proceeded southeast one step at a time.
On the first day, Li Yuan traveled one li before stopping to rest.
Along that stretch, Li Yuan encountered three Fierce Beasts.
The hardest to deal with was a War Spider.
The spider silk it spat could not bind a martial artist so tightly that they could not break free, but it could still impose severe restrictions.
Once caught in its web, one would have to face its venomous fangs next.
Li Yuan's experience was truly abundant.
While still some distance away, he discovered the War Spider's setup.
After facing four Fierce Beasts in succession, Li Yuan's state of mind grew increasingly calm.
Whenever he encountered a Fierce Beast, he could now maintain an ordinary, composed mindset.
Perhaps this counted as becoming desensitized.
At the same time, Li Yuan discovered quite a few more traps left by War Spiders.
There really were quite a lot of War Spiders around the outskirts of Qijia Town.
Li Yuan carefully observed these traces, studying their different patterns.
What the books had taught him was put into use again and again.
At the same time, Li Yuan ventured deeper and became increasingly vigilant.
He also saw more and more strange traces.
He rested for four hours midway through.
At noon on the second day, Li Yuan finally saw the owner of those traces...
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