Ye Jun could have sneak-attacked the Mistveil Serpent. It was his expertise. But he wanted to experience a real battle and hone his skills so he walked out right before the Spiritual Beast, alerting it of his arrival.
The serpent hissed at him, warning him to leave its territory but Ye Jun just smiled and dashed towards the serpent. His speed was far greater than what it had been a month ago.
He ran as if the winds were supporting him.
Before he even reached it, however, the mist around him grew denser, shortening his vision. Knowing it would happen, he took a deep breath and held it as the mist was poisonous.
Gripping his dagger’s hilt tightly, he used his Ashen Phantom Steps, a High-Grade Yellow-Rank Mysterious Technique. It gave him a short burst of acceleration while leaving behind a heat mirage which confused the serpent.
’Found you!’
The serpent fell for the third mirage as Ye Jun smiled and used two quick short bursts of acceleration to close the distance between them.
The serpent was agile but he caught up to it before it could escape again. Noticing that it had no chance of escaping, the serpent hissed, releasing a cloud of mist directly at Ye Jun’s face.
Ye Jun quickly deactivated the mysterious technique he was going to use and dashed sideways, leaving a warm burst of hot wind behind that distorted one’s vision.
Still, he didn’t give up and used the Ashen Phantom Steps once again in rapid succession to reach the Mistveil Serpent once more.
The serpent once again tried to release the mist but Ye Jun was prepared this time. Just as it turned its head towards him, he kicked it from underneath, changing the trajectory of the released mist.
The next moment, he stabilized himself and coated his dagger with soft, humming red Qi. But the serpent had changed the way it attacked him. It coiled its thick body around him, trying to suffocate him to death.
’Clever! This almost got me.’
He couldn’t breathe the air, which made the situation worse but he had already prepared for this moment even before the fight.
Ye Jun brought down the dagger with his other hand, stabbing the serpent’s head from underneath where the scales were nearly absent.
The coated Fire-Attributed Qi turned the metal hot and burned the serpent’s flesh, making it hiss loudly in pain. Ye Jun didn’t stop just at that and pushed it deeper, making the serpent’s grip around him tighten.
Air pushed out of his lungs as he almost breathed again, but out of instinct, he managed to hold the urge back. Then, he poured more Qi into the dagger as it severed the serpent’s skull bones, making the blade come out of the other side.
The Mistveil Serpent’s body grew limp and the grip around him also loosened enough for him to break out of its clutches.
Ye Jun didn’t waste a second after that and dashed out of the misty zone at full speed, pushing himself. His lungs burned, as if they were on fire. All because they were deprived of air.
His eyes also began burning, but he kept his focus forward and finally found his way out of the tall grass which usually kept the mist inside.
Falling on his knees, Ye Jun gasped for air, his chest heaving up and down. Sweat made his forehead shiny, as he took a few moments to calm his rapidly beating heart.
"Weren’t you so confident earlier?" He heard a familiar voice from above. "What? Just a Low-Grade Tier 2 Spiritual Beast turned you like this? I feel disappointed as your mentor."
He took a few deep breaths before looking up at Meihui. "I know, I know. I just didn’t expect I would suck this much in Qi control in desperate situations."
Meihui smiled and said, "It’s good that you acknowledge your shortcomings and are working on it. I saw you didn’t use your other techniques."
"It would have been foolish," Ye Jun replied, finally calming down. "I could control these few even better in that condition, but not the others."
"Good! You’re learning well," Meihui nodded in appreciation. "I’ll go retrieve the Core and your dagger. Wait here!"
Ye Jun nodded, using a thick tree’s trunk to rest his back and recover his stamina and Qi. While doing that, he also thought about the battle.
The system gave him strength and cultivation, but it didn’t give him control over it. When it was just his body, he could handle the changes well as he was pretty good at learning and adapting and he had also practiced martial arts for a long time, so it was nothing new to him.
But it was different for the Qi.
Ye Jun had never experienced the sensation of this invisible energy of Heaven and Earth. It was out of his scope, a complete stranger so even though the system helped him in achieving the Qi Condensation Realm, it didn’t give him the experience of using it.
’I got the attributes for it.’
But they didn’t show up in the status, nor did he get the knowledge of it. He could only guess that it took a certain amount of attributes before it showed up in the status.
Just like how he gained attributes of other Dao affinities, yet he currently held only four of them. He would need to collect more attributes related to them.
The past month had mostly passed with him perfecting his Qi control, which still sucked but he made rapid progress. Though, he didn’t know if it was because of his fast learning capabilities or the attributes he collected.
Either way, this battle proved he was still behind in this aspect. He had used more Qi than necessary on the Mysterious Techniques, not to mention his control over it made the dagger get stuck in flesh when it should have ended the serpent’s life in one blow.
’I will need more battles like this.’
Since the battle had a time limit, it pushed him past his limits and made him realise his weaknesses. This was his entire reason for not killing the serpent through his assassin ways.
These kinds of battles allowed him to progress at the fastest rate.
As he was thinking about the battle and the ways he could improve, he heard voices some distance away and instantly went on alert.
’Which group is that? Gotta see. Maybe we can use them to spread the news.’