The next morning, Tang Jie once more went to Tiger Roar Valley.
This was Tiger Roar Valley's low-yield period, as the fiend beasts that were easy to deal with had essentially all been killed off. The remainder were all tough customers.
Students generally didn't go to Tiger Roar Valley in this period.
The valley was Tang Jie's alone.
He walked the wilderness of Tiger Roar Valley, Yiyi on his shoulder, the Heartbreak Saber at his waist, his white student robes drifting in the wind. At this moment, they looked rather like Kenpachi Zaraki and Yachiru Kusajishi from "Bleach".
But he lacked the exaggerated hair style and the scar on his face.
Tang Jie was much more energetic than usual today.
Not only had little Yiyi showed herself, she was even sitting on his shoulder with no intention of getting down.
They strolled through the valley as if its inhabitants were nothing.
Tang Jie glanced to his left.
A massive brown bear had appeared in the distance.
"It's that guy," Tang Jie said, tilting his head.
He and this bear could be considered old acquaintances. Tang Jie had first entered the valley more than a month ago, and he had run into the bear once every few days.
Every time he did, he had no choice but to flee.
But today, Tang Jie had no plans to keep running.
He continued forward.
When the fiend saw that he wasn't running, it roared and began to lope over to Tang Jie.
While it looked clumsy, it wasn't slow once it started running.
The four bear paws hit the ground, creating a rumbling earthquake.
A large stone blocked its path, and the fiend bear couldn't even be bothered to go around. It charged straight ahead, obliterating the stone.
Tang Jie sighed and said to the giant bear, "Stand aside. I'm not here for you today."
His warning was clearly useless. The giant bear roared, and as it charged close, it swung a giant paw at Tang Jie.
Tang Jie hurriedly retreated. As he avoided the bear's attack, he thrust a palm at the bear's body. The bear seemed to care little about this, opening its mouth and biting at Tang Jie. Ṝα𐌽𝐎𝐛Èṣ
Tang Jie kicked at the bear, using the force to launch himself.
This palm and kick would have sent an average student flying into a corner, but they barely itched the bear, which once more charged at him.
"Alright, it seems like there's no getting rid of you!" Tang Jie coldly snorted.
As the fiend bear charged over, Tang Jie grabbed the Heartbreak Saber and pulled it out of its sheath. A black wave of saber energy slashed at the brown bear.
The fiend bear let out a furious roar. As it raised its giant paws in the air, they grew incredibly large and began to exude an alarming spiritual pressure. This was the fiend bear's innate spell art, the Giant Bear Spirit Paw. That enormous paw howled down from the heavens. Tang Jie saw that there was no dodging it and grunted. Mustering his spiritual energy, he slashed upward, releasing a wave of berserk saber energy from his weapon at the paw.
Blood rained down, that saber energy almost cleaving apart that steely bear palm.
The Lesser Sea Grotto Metal Mantra finally showed its use, maximizing the power of the Heartbreak Saber and allowing it to punch through armor.
But Tang Jie didn't get off scot-free.
The fiend bear's strength was simply too terrifying. As a consequence of taking this attack directly, he suffered a powerful backlash that left his hands numb.
He was only able to take the blow because of his constitution. A normal student would have had to rely on spell arts and use hit-and-run tactics.
The fiend bear was both shocked and enraged by its heavy injuries. It placed its uninjured paw on the ground, and a powerful force traveled through the earth and jolted Tang Jie into the air.
The fiend bear bellowed at the airborne Tang Jie, formless sound waves striking Tang Jie as if they were solid and sending him hurtling away.
Tang Jie jumped to his feet, but the fiend bear was hot on his tail. Just as it was about to swing its paw at Tang Jie, Tang Jie suddenly turned around, gripping his saber with both hands, and thrust the saber at the fiend bear.
The sword thrust form of the Twelve-Form Horizon Sword!
There was a black flash as the saber plunged into the fiend bear's abdomen, encountering no resistance. This was a far more serious injury, and the fiend bear howled in pain and swung its paw, striking Tang Jie in the left shoulder and sending him flying away.
As Tang Jie flew out, the Heartbreak Saber was extracted from the bear's body, the barb dragging out a part of the intestines with it.
This only worsened the injury. The fiend bear bellowed in agony and swung its paw in pursuit of Tang Jie.
Tang Jie was also badly injured. While those saber attacks had seemed simple, they had consumed a significant amount of physical and spiritual energy. Holding his injured shoulder, he could only try and dodge the bear's attacks.
The fiend bear was berserk from its injuries and did not care that its intestines were dragging along the ground. As it fiercely pursued Tang Jie, it got faster and faster, swept up in its rage.
"Hurry and use the puppet!" Yiyi shouted.
"No!" Tang Jie said as he retreated. "The puppet's not good against it!"
Puppets were truly the best investment one could make.
A puppet with a value of five thousand spirit coins, capable of attacking and defending, in terms of individual strength, was something that any average student was no match against. Comparatively, no spell weapon or medicine would be able to provide as obvious an increase in fighting power.
But it also was a bad investment in some ways. The first drawback was damage. When dealing with an extremely powerful target like the fiend bear, a fiend that specialized in strong attacks, the puppet, which had no idea how to dodge, would generally just fight to the death. If it lost that fight, then what was left might not even be worth five hundred coins. If Tang Jie had to explain himself, he would say that he could break his body and slowly recover, but if the puppet broke, then he would be in tears. Secondly, its agility was lacking, and it was no good against agile targets like the black leopard.
Thus, puppets were good for bullying the weak and poor at fighting the strong. It was the best there could be against weak opponents. A target that would normally need a spell art to handle could be dealt with in one or two hits from the puppet, saving on spiritual energy.
But against strong opponents, one had to weigh the pros and cons.
Wei Tianchong had already lost a puppet once, and Tang Jie did not dare to risk this one.
Moreover, he wanted to see if he was strong enough to fight against this lower-grade Spirit Sensing fiend bear.
The Heartbreak Saber had so far not disappointed him, revealing its peerless sharpness.
It was just a pity that the fiend bear was too strong. Even after taking such a heavy injury, it still wasn't dead. He lacked an armor-breaking offensive spell and couldn't do anything to it for now.
He actually did have an offensive spell.
Tang Jie's eyes suddenly brightened.
That fiend bear was charging at him again. In berserk rage, it was moving faster and faster, a whirlwind of blood emerging from that severed paw as it swung it around.
At the same time, Tang Jie swung his saber at an angle, releasing a black surge of energy.
"Thousand Rupture Slash!"
The violent energy rushed out and slammed into the fiend bear's body. As the bear's body flew into the air, countless wounds appeared on it—the product of Tang Jie unleashing several dozen waves of saber energy in an instant.
This one attack had cost Tang Jie a fifth of his spiritual energy.
Although he was at the Spirit Spring Tier, after half a year of cultivation, he was able to store five-hundred-some drops of spirit liquid in his body. This one attack had used more than one hundred drops.
That fiend bear was so heavily injured that it couldn't get back up for a moment. But it was so tenacious that it still wasn't dead.
"Wow! Awesome!" Yiyi was gobsmacked. "But what is this Thousand Rupture Slash? Why have I never seen you study it before?"
"It's the Divine Court Thousandshift," Tang Jie replied.
The Divine Court Thousandshift was the third spell art that Tang Jie had claimed to have chosen during the art transmission session on the ninth floor of Heaven One.
It had originally been intended for use with the golden needle.
Alas, the golden needle grew too slowly, so he had never had a chance to use it.
The greatest advantage of this spell art was that it had different effects depending on the weapon it was applied to and had considerable power. It was just that it took quite a lot of spiritual energy to use.
This was the first time Tang Jie had used this spell art in battle.
"So this was the Divine Court Thousandshift? So when you're using it with a saber, it becomes the Thousand Rupture Slash?" Yiyi asked.
Tang Jie replied, "While the Divine Court Thousandshift will have different effects depending on the weapon, they all share the same core spell. Thus, there isn't anything like different names for different weapons. That would be so tiring."
"Then why did you shout 'Thousand Rupture Slash'?"
"I was just playing around."
"I hate you!" Yiyi angrily said, clenching her fists. I can't believe you made me think that you were secretly learning a new spell art!
At this moment, the fiend bear on the ground suddenly rose up and lunged at Tang Jie.
"Ah, watch out!" Yiyi shouted.
Tang Jie grabbed the needles at his waist and threw them out. "Thousand Rupture Needle!"
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Ten-some thin needles penetrated into the giant bear's body, and a golden needle flew through its eye and out the back of its head.
This was the final straw on the camel's back, and the fiend bear toppled over.
Seeing that the bear was dead, Tang Jie drew back his hand and shook his head. "I was already writing this trip off as a loss, but you insisted on letting me make up for my costs."
"'Thousand Rupture Needle'?" Yiyi looked at Tang Jie.
Tang Jie firmly replied, "I didn't have time to come up with a new term.
"Alright, turn back already. I have business to attend to." Tang Jie pushed Yiyi back into his bosom and had her turn back into a flower.
He hadn't come here to hunt today.
At least before yesterday, he would have never taken this fight.
But with the Heartbreak Saber and the Silver Cloud Needles, he had grown strong enough that he could go from prey to hunter.
Such was the way of the world. The relationship between hunter and prey was always changing.
From another point of view, no matter how much stronger you became, you would never be satisfied, for your targets would change with you, and you would want to get stronger and stronger until you had reached your limit and had to stop.
Strength was like money. You never felt like you had enough!
After getting the hide and other items from the bear, Tang Jie continued on his way.
This time, no new fiend beasts came to cause him trouble, and he was able to smoothly reach Tiger Roar Peak.
As he made his way to the stele, he spotted the fiend tiger at the summit.
He stood at the boundary line and smiled at the tiger. "How are you doing? I've been busy lately and haven't had the time to visit. Did you miss me?"