Fire Energy Hunting: A First Glimpse of "Trifling" Tricks

Deep within Jia Nan Academy's Inner Academy, the horn of the fire energy hunting competition echoed through the valleys like muffled thunder.

Xiao Yan stood at the edge of a dense forest, his fingertips unconsciously brushing the Storage Ring at his waist as his seemingly casual gaze swept over the shifting tree shadows ahead. Sunlight filtered through layers of leaves, casting dappled spots across his face and lending his slightly worn black robe a faint sheen.

The fire energy hunting competition... more like children playing house.

A trace of disdain flitted through his mind, but his spiritual power had already spread silently outward like an invisible net. He had compressed the might of his emperor realm soul to the utmost, covering only a ten-li radius, yet every quiver of grass and wood, every crawling insect, registered clearly in his perception.

According to the Absolute Concealment System, his current "public strength" had to remain at Peak Dou Master—the level he had deliberately displayed when entering the Inner Academy, neither so weak that he seemed useless nor so strong that he attracted undue attention. The fire energy hunting competition was the perfect stage for playing someone "slightly talented, yet forced to tread carefully at every step."

Rustle, rustle.

The bushes thirty feet to his left suddenly shook, and two figures in fitted gray clothing sprang out, ill-intentioned smiles on their faces. Scarlet badges identifying them as "Hunters" were pinned to their chests, and the leather pouches at their waists bulged, clearly filled with a considerable haul of Fire Energy Talismans.

"Well, if it isn't Xiao Yan, the freshman who just entered the Inner Academy?" The tall, skinny man on the left licked his lips, the saber in his hand glinting coldly in the sunlight. "I heard you showed a few tricks during the entrance assessment, but nobody's here to back you up in this fire energy hunting competition."

The short, stout man on the right immediately assumed an attacking stance, releasing his Seven-Star Dou Shi aura without restraint. "Hand over your Fire Energy Talismans if you know what's good for you, or don't blame us brothers for getting rough!"

Xiao Yan slowly raised his head, displaying just the right amount of "nervousness." His grip on the Heavy Xuan Ruler tightened, and his voice carried a hint of deliberately suppressed "anger." "I have no quarrel with either of you. Why press me so hard?"

"No quarrel?" The tall, skinny man sneered. "In this hunting competition, the strong devouring the weak is the rule!"

Before his words had faded, the short, stout man shot forward like an arrow loosed from its bow, his fist carrying a fierce gust straight toward Xiao Yan's face. To an ordinary fighter, his movements would have seemed swift, but in Xiao Yan's perception, he was as slow as a crawling snail.

Xiao Yan "hastily" twisted aside, sweeping the Heavy Xuan Ruler across in a "sluggish" arc. The strike appeared powerful, but he had actually used less than one percent of his dou qi.

Clang!

The short, stout man's fist collided with the Heavy Xuan Ruler, producing the ring of clashing metal. With a muffled grunt, he was jolted two steps backward, surprise flashing across his face. "There's something strange about that ruler!"

The tall, skinny man seized the opening to attack from the side, his saber tracing a devious arc toward Xiao Yan's waist. The angle was vicious, clearly intended to end the battle in an instant.

Xiao Yan "stumbled," as though the short, stout man's counterattack had thrown him off balance, narrowly avoiding the blade as his Heavy Xuan Ruler "frantically" knocked against the spine of the saber.

Clatter!

The saber was knocked from its owner's hand and flew away, embedding itself in a nearby tree trunk with a vibrating hum.

"Trash!" The tall, skinny man was both shocked and furious, never having expected a freshman to leave him scrambling. He abandoned all restraint, driving the dou qi within him into a frenzy as pale blue halos gathered around his palms. He had clearly activated some sort of Dou Technique.

Just then, from the corner of his eye, Xiao Yan spotted a dark figure lurking silently in a treetop diagonally behind him. It was another Hunter, an Eight-Star Dou Shi, preparing to reap the fisherman's profit while others fought.

Perfect. Now I won't need to find another excuse.

A thought stirred in Xiao Yan's mind, but outwardly, he deliberately exposed an opening, his body freezing for an instant as though cowed by the tall, skinny man's imposing aura.

Overjoyed at the sight, the tall, skinny man thrust both palms toward Xiao Yan's chest with a howling rush of wind. "Go down!"

Just as his palms were about to touch Xiao Yan's robes, Xiao Yan took a seemingly disorderly step that happened to evade the killing blow. At the same time, he "inadvertently" swung the Heavy Xuan Ruler sideways, its tip striking a nearby tree trunk as thick as the mouth of a bowl with perfect precision.

Crack!

The trunk snapped, and the enormous crown, robbed of its support, crashed down behind the tall, skinny man with crushing force. More ingeniously still, the falling tree's path perfectly blocked the lurking Hunter's line of sight while cutting off the tall, skinny man's retreat.

"Oh no!"

By the time the tall, skinny man realized the danger, it was too late to dodge. He could only watch helplessly as dense branches and leaves swallowed him. With a dull impact and the sound of splintering bones, his scream abruptly ceased.

The Hunter hiding in the treetop felt his pupils contract. This seemingly accidental falling tree was far too convenient! He was about to take a closer look when Xiao Yan suddenly turned, pointing the Heavy Xuan Ruler in his direction, his face showing "lingering fright" and wariness. "Who's there?!"

The Hunter's heart tightened. Mistakenly believing he had been discovered, he instinctively circulated his dou qi to change positions. But the instant he moved, the branch beneath his feet snapped—Xiao Yan had quietly loosened it with his spiritual power moments earlier.

"Ah!"

With a startled cry, the Hunter fell from the tree, landing directly in front of the short, stout man. Startled by this sudden turn of events, the short, stout man instinctively threw a punch.

Thud!

The two collided and rolled into a tangled heap.

Seizing the opportunity, Xiao Yan "snatched" the pouch of Fire Energy Talismans the short, stout man had dropped and turned to flee. His steps were stumbling yet extraordinarily swift, and he soon vanished into the depths of the forest. He had not gone far before two screams rang out behind him, followed by silence—the two low-grade Explosive Flame Talismans he had deliberately left on the ground had been triggered by his spiritual power.

A perfect accident.

Xiao Yan slowed his steps, an almost imperceptible curve lifting the corner of his mouth. Every movement he had made appeared clumsy, yet he had secretly controlled everything: the timing of the falling tree, the load the branch could bear, and even the psychological reactions of those two Hunters had all been included in his calculations.

According to the system's notification, those two Hunters were actually informants planted by a faction within the Inner Academy, specifically targeting promising freshmen. Eliminating them fulfilled the "plot correction" mission without exposing him, while also providing a perfectly natural way to acquire Fire Energy Talismans—three birds with one stone.

Next... it's time to meet that "Wolf Fang" squad.

Xiao Yan took a crude map from his Storage Ring. Several locations had been marked in red, all areas where conflict was fiercest during the fire energy hunting competition. His fingertip rested on a valley in the center of the map, precisely where the Wolf Fang squad held sway.

The Wolf Fang squad was the most ferocious Hunter team in this year's competition. Its captain was a senior student at Nine-Star Dou Shi, said to have robbed more than a dozen freshmen of their Fire Energy Talismans in succession with utterly domineering methods. More importantly, Xiao Yan's spiritual perception had detected a Jade Pendant hanging from the captain's waist, engraved with the Soul Hall's insignia—yet another hidden informant.

Since they've delivered themselves to my doorstep, there's no reason to spare them.

Xiao Yan put away the map and once again melted into the dense forest. This time, his footsteps became even stealthier, like a shadow merging with the darkness. His emperor realm soul served as the most sophisticated radar, allowing him not only to avoid every patrolling Hunter but also to pinpoint the traps laid by the Wolf Fang squad.

Beside a narrow mountain ravine, five cultivators wearing scarlet badges sat in a circle, counting their spoils. Among them, a burly man toyed with a black Jade Pendant, his face brimming with a smug smile.

"Captain, we've made quite a haul this time! We've got more than twenty high-grade Fire Energy Talismans alone!" one teammate said ingratiatingly.

The burly man laughed heartily and tucked the Jade Pendant into his robes. "Once this hunting competition ends, we'll exchange the Fire Energy Talismans for contribution points, then trade those for that Wind-Splitting Formation. After that, every freshman in the Inner Academy will have to watch our faces before making a move!"

The others eagerly agreed, utterly unaware that a figure had silently appeared on the cliff across the ravine.

Xiao Yan looked down at the five men, a cold glint flashing through his eyes. Rather than act immediately, he condensed his spiritual power into an invisible thread and extended it toward the rock face above the ravine. A thick layer of snow covered it, freshly fallen the night before and now poised at a critical point. The slightest external force would trigger an avalanche.

Let a "natural disaster" finish this.

Xiao Yan gently moved his fingertip.

There was no earthshaking surge of dou qi, only a nearly imperceptible wisp of spiritual power touching the snow on the rock face like the beat of a butterfly's wings.

Crack... crack, crack...

Faint cracking sounds came from above, inconspicuous at first, but they soon swelled into an unbroken roar.

"What's that sound?"

The Wolf Fang squad's captain abruptly looked up, his expression changing drastically.

The snow above the ravine surged down toward them like an enormous white dragon, carrying countless shards of ice and chunks of rock. Its terrifying might was enough to grind any Dou Shi cultivator into dust.

"Run!"

The piercing shout was swallowed by the avalanche's roar. Five figures were instantly engulfed by the white torrent, leaving not even a trace of struggle behind.

Standing at the cliff's edge, Xiao Yan quietly watched the ravine settle back into stillness after the avalanche, as though he had merely admired a natural wonder. With a flick of his finger, a Storage Ring flew from inside his robes and landed precisely beneath a rock at the ravine's edge—it contained the Fire Energy Talismans he had "painstakingly" acquired, enough to see him through the rest of the hunting competition.

With everything done, he turned and left, his black robe leaving a faint afterimage among the trees.

Sunlight shone through gaps in the leaves onto the deserted ravine. Only the occasional tumbling stone bore witness to the "accident" that had just occurred.

No one knew that this avalanche, enough to reshape the entire fire energy hunting competition, had come from nothing more than a flick of a Peak Nine-Star Dou Saint's finger. And that being, who held the power of life and death, was now taking "labored" steps toward his next target, continuing to play the part of a cautious freshman.

The reaper in the shadows had only just begun his performance.