Soul Beasts Cannot Stop

The third day after Qian Renxue left, Lu Yuan went to the North Combat Zone as usual.

The first match in the afternoon was still against Xu Heng.

The two had fought too many times already, and they had figured out each other's habits almost completely. As soon as Xu Heng saw Lu Yuan's spear tip tilt to the right, he knew the latter was mostly preparing to seize position from the left; when Lu Yuan saw Xu Heng's shoulders sink slightly, he could also guess that the next step was preparing to close in.

Around a quarter of an hour into the fight, Xu Heng seized the opening when Lu Yuan was retracting his spear, pressing his second soul skill directly inside the spear momentum and pinning the shaft with one palm.

"Stop."

Shao Ping spoke from the sidelines.

Xu Heng immediately let go.

Lu Yuan had originally prepared to pull back the distance again, but hearing that, he could only retract the Piercing Spear.

"Just one match today?"

"You won't need three matches every day from now on either."

Shao Ping closed the record book in his hand.

Lu Yuan looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"The North can't teach you much more than what it already has."

Xu Heng had just taken two steps when he heard this and stopped again.

"Graduating just like that?"

Shao Ping glanced at him.

"Or would you rather stay and spar with him until rank twenty?"

"I'll pass on that."

Xu Heng walked away very decisively.

Lu Yuan, however, didn't move.

Half a year ago, he couldn't last long under Xu Heng's hands. While he still couldn't win now, he was already thoroughly familiar with the fighting styles commonly used by Xu Heng and Du Chuan. To keep fighting would be nothing more than seeing whose stamina gave out first.

Shao Ping tucked the record book under his arm.

"Starting tomorrow, the mornings stay the same, but the afternoon schedule changes."

"Changed to what?"

"Outside the city."

Lu Yuan paused.

"Spirit hunting?"

"I'm not getting you a soul ring."

Shao Ping said, "You're only rank fourteen, your second soul ring is still a ways off. Go learn how to deal with real soul beasts first."

As he spoke, he glanced at the people in the arena who hadn't dispersed yet.

"No matter how people here fight, they will pull their punches in the end. Spirit beasts won't."

The next afternoon, Lu Yuan saw Shao Ping outside the North Gate.

Aside from him, there were also two Spirit Hall soul masters responsible for looking after things. The two didn't say much to Lu Yuan, only checking his short knife, injury medicine, and water pouch.

Shao Ping handed him a simple map.

"Thirty miles north, there's a spirit hunting area frequently used by Spirit Hall. The outer perimeter is mostly ten to hundred-year spirit beasts, and occasionally two to three-hundred-year creatures dash in."

Lu Yuan glanced over it.

"How many do I need to kill?"

"Not a single one."

"Then what are we going in for?"

"Come out alive."

After saying that, Shao Ping mounted his horse.

Lu Yuan looked at his retreating figure, put away the map, and followed behind.

Over an hour later, the group entered the forest.

This was completely different from the training ground.

There were no drawn boundaries on the ground, nor anyone standing by the side waiting to shout stop. The bushes were taller than Lu Yuan's waist, and half-whitened beast bones could occasionally be seen beneath the fallen leaves.

Shao Ping's words noticeably decreased after entering the forest, telling Lu Yuan only two things.

Don't touch unfamiliar things randomly.

Judge the direction first when hearing movement.

After walking for a while, the bushes to the front left suddenly shook violently.

Lu Yuan's footsteps stopped.

Shao Ping didn't move.

"You handle it first."

As soon as those words fell, a grayish-black shadow had already darted out from the bushes.

It was close to two meters in length with robust limbs, two tusks at the sides of its mouth curving outward, and a row of short, stiff black spikes growing along its back.

Iron-Backed Jackal.

Lu Yuan had seen it in the atlas before.

The size of the one in front of him wasn't considered large, and its back spikes weren't completely blackened either, so its age should still be under a hundred years.

Yet it didn't give Lu Yuan any time to continue observing.

Pausing for only a split second upon landing, it lunged directly forward.

The Piercing Spear came to hand.

Lu Yuan didn't use Piercing Edge for the first strike, merely sending the spear tip toward the Iron-Backed Jackal's chest.

In the training ground, this kind of frontal spear route would mostly be dodged by people.

The Iron-Backed Jackal, however, crashed straight into it.

The spear tip pierced into flesh and blood, going in less than half an inch before being blocked by hard bone. Feeling the pain, the Iron-Backed Jackal's front paws lashed out along the spear shaft.

Lu Yuan immediately released his left hand, flashing his body to the side.

Rip.

The claw tips brushed past his sleeve, tearing three opening slits.

Lu Yuan retreated a few steps, regripping the spear shaft securely.

There was no probing, nor would it actively avoid the spear tip just upon seeing it.

The Iron-Backed Jackal only wanted to bite the person before it to death.

When it lunged a second time, Lu Yuan no longer blocked it head-on.

He shifted half a step to the right and lowered the spear tail, forcing the Iron-Backed Jackal's body to slant slightly when it landed. The moment it twisted its head, the yellow spirit ring beneath Lu Yuan's feet lit up.

Piercing Edge!

The Piercing Spear thrust fiercely from the side.

This strike aimed right at the base of the front leg.

The spear tip pierced straight in.

The Iron-Backed Jackal let out a miserable screech, losing its balance as it tumbled and crashed into a nearby tree.

Lu Yuan didn't pursue.

If they were in the training ground, someone would have mostly called a stop by this point in the fight.

Yet the Iron-Backed Jackal beneath the tree stabilized its body and immediately stood back up, dragging its injured front leg.

Its mouth was covered in blood, and the gaze it fixed on Lu Yuan turned even fiercer instead.

The third lunge was messier and more vicious than the first two.

Lu Yuan didn't hold back this time.

He sided-stepped to avoid the tusks, his spear tip flicking upward from below the Iron-Backed Jackal's head, and immediately followed through by thrusting forward.

Thwip.

The Piercing Spear stabbed in from the side of the neck.

The Iron-Backed Jackal's body suddenly stiffened, its front paws scraping several deep marks into the ground, and it took quite a while before it finally went completely still.

Lu Yuan stood in place gripping his spear, his breathing somewhat heavy.

A pale white spirit ring slowly formed above the carcass, and none of them stayed.

Shao Ping walked over and glanced at Lu Yuan's torn sleeve.

"Why take the first strike head-on?"

"Wanted to test its strength."

"Tested it out?"

"Almost caught a claw."

Shao Ping nodded.

"Just remember it."

He didn't lecture further, raising a hand to signal them to continue forward.

Lu Yuan shook the blood off the spear tip and followed the group deeper inside.

With the taste of what had just happened, he was noticeably much more cautious. When he heard grass leaves rustling again, he didn't pull his spear out immediately, instead looking at the ground first.

A string of tiny footprints passed by the edge of the mud, only the size of a palm, with several gnawed open hard-shelled fruits scattered beside them.

"Wind-Tailed Rat." Lu Yuan said.

Shao Ping didn't look back.

"Age?"

Lu Yuan squatted down to look at the depth of the footprints, then compared it to the bite marks on a tree root nearby.

"Can't tell for sure, it shouldn't have passed fifty years."

"Then leave it be."

Shao Ping didn't specifically stop to teach him along this path, asking a question whenever they bumped into something. What kind of spirit beast left the traces, whether there was danger nearby, and where they should defend first if a real fight broke out.

Answered wrong, and he corrected it directly.

Answered right, and they kept walking.

Lu Yuan actually felt that this was easier to remember than sitting in a room and flipping through an atlas.

Walking further ahead for a stretch, the two soul masters in the very front suddenly stopped.

One of them squatted beside a broken branch, touching the split marks on it with a hand.

"Broken not long ago."

Shao Ping walked over and took a look.

There were obvious dragging marks on the ground, leading all the way deeper into the forest. The tree bark on several dwarf trees nearby looked as though it had been forcefully scraped off by something, leaving large patches of fresh white stubble.

Lu Yuan saw it too.

"This doesn't look like something under a hundred years."

Shao Ping gave a hum.

"So we're not heading that way."

As he spoke, he crossed off a small area ahead on the map and turned around, preparing to change routes.

Lu Yuan was just about to follow when a layer of gray light suddenly flashed before his eyes.

His footsteps halted.

The gray text didn't appear deep within the forest, nor did it fall upon those traces.

Instead, it was right above the head of Shao Ping, who had already walked a few steps out.

[Shao Ping]
[Today]
[North Hunting Forest]
[Fate Node: Severe Injury]

Lu Yuan stood frozen in place, looking at those lines of gray text above Shao Ping's head.

Severe injury.

Just today.