Hunting A Grade One Beast

"Yaa it is really unbelievable! He took out sixteen single handedly. We seem to have underestimated big brother Zhang."

"Number doesn't matter. I could've done it too. The important thing is he took out Tang Zhi. Even Du Shui and I combined would've had some difficulty dealing with him."

Zhang Wuji could hear faint conversations as he woke up. He looked around to see all the ten members of Du Feng's group were present. First thing he did was reach for his wound. The moment his hand touched his bandaged stomach he cried out in pain. He forgot about the blade wound on his hand.

"Big brother! You hid yourself well. And here I was worried about you. I can't believe I almost put my life on the line for you." Du Shui was the first to greet him. He slapped him on his chest and laughed.

"Big brother you really went crazy this time. I almost can't hold myself from snatching your loot." Du Feng threw a bag to his side.

Zhang Wuji got up with difficulty and checked the contents of the bag. It was filled with tokens. He stared blankly at them before tossing the bag back to Du Feng. "You can have them. This time I really would've died without you guys' help. Thanks."

"Big brother, you let us go when our tokens were within your reach and we saved your life. Consider us even. Well we did give up on a grade one bull horn snake that we were this close to beheading to come to your rescue so I guess you owe us." He threw the bag back and continued "So you are gonna come hunt beasts with us. Whatever this spiky thing is, I'm sure we could put it to good use."

This time Zhang Wuji did not pass the bag and took out the tokens. The moment he touched them, they were bound. He thought of something and looked around. Not a single evidence of the sixteen deaths remained. No! It was fifteen.

"Brother Du Feng, when the spikes were about to impale Tang Zhi, he turned into white light and disappeared. What was that?" That was the last scene he saw before losing consciousness.

"Ah that," he took out a white token from his token and said "a few of these are given to each country. They save the holder right before their death and transport them out of the realm. Small countries like Iron Rhino only get one. We got three. Among the ten of us, only I have one."

"This time Iron Rhino suffered heavy losses. They seem to have brought along an ally of theirs. They seem to be from a Blue Star Alliance. Do you know why they were after you?" A bearded member of the group asked.

"Yeah they were after this." Zhang Wuji showed them the gun and explained what it does.

"Didn't expect Tang Zhi to be eliminated just for this. He must be slapping himself crazy back home." Du Shui laughed imagining the scene.

"Also what caused this?" A refined looking lady asked pointing at the spikes around.

"That's-"

"Big brother we can have this question session later. The sun is about to set. We should move." Du Feng interrupted as he was about to answer.

"Mm."

....

Back at Zhang Wuji's base.

"Ah I must say, your medicine is awesome!" Zhang Wuji checked his wounds with amazement. It hadn't even been a day and it was showing signs of healing.

"Well of course! Poison master is the best profession in the world. We are killers, healers, alchemists, we even have better energy sense than most. I say big brother, you should come to Poison Valley. You will see for yourself how awesome poison masters are." Du Shui said proudly.

"What do you need energy sense for?"

"Same reason healers need it. They have to sense qi flow to heal it and we sense to disrupt and poison it. Both professions are very similar if you ask me." Du Feng who was discussing the next day's plan with his teammates joined their discussion.

"Big brother, you are going to join us in the next hunt right?"

"Yeah about that, I don't have a problem but you seem to have misunderstood something about the formation."

"Tch, knew he would come up with some excuse. Red, looks like you owe me some gold." A yound man wearing golden earrings spat out.

"Gold, let's hear him out first." Red was a petite girl with dull red hair. With her sunken eyes and dark circles combined with pale skin, she scared the shit out of Zhang Wuji.

"What's the problem big bro?" Du Shui asked.

"The formation you saw is a simple, well not simple, I don't even know how most of it works. My master taught it to me just before coming to this realm. It doesn't use space, resonance or any of the methods I am familiar with. I tried to study it in the start but realized it was beyond my comprehension. What was depressing was that other than the transfer components, healing linking ignition and other components which I thought I was really familiar with were also proving to be a headache. I studied each component layer, each figure and even each line separately but it still didn't help my understanding. Maybe I shouldn't have separated them so. If I were to-"

"Get to the point." The earring boy Gold was really impatient, at least he was the only one that displayed it.

"Ahem. Sorry, got excited there. Those patterns only transfer energy. You can't expect me to construct a deadly formation right next to the grade one beasts for many days. All the energy is supplied from this base. The transfer patterns can't really handle all that energy. Those that transfer get corroded over three to ten uses. While the last pattern that releases all the energy is instantly destroyed. It also takes a lot of time to make them. So you see..." He made a gesture to show his helplessness.

"How long did it take you to reach the point you did?" After a brief silence Du Feng asked.

"A week?" He answered weakly.

"A week? and you only covered, what a kilometer?"

"Y-yes." He was a bit ashamed. It shouldn't have taken this long but his lack of understanding made it harder for him to draw the pattern.

"What exactly is your target? You seem to be aiming for the center, do you realize how big the marsh is? Were you planning to spend months here? And what if you are attacked like today? Wouldn't all your efforts go down the drain? How can you be so stupid!"

"Well, except for the output pattern which is instantly destroyed, the rest can heal to their perfect state overnight. So.. repeated attacks aren't a problem unless a bunch of them occur on a single day.

"As for the time taken, once I reach a 1080 meters, with a day's preparation I can conquer any region within ten kilometers of any of the patterns. That should be enough for the centre." He replied confidently. Initially he thought Du Feng was calling him slow, which he thought he was. But when he realized that he was doubting his formation he was a little pissed. He had worked really hard on it!

"What is the problem then?" Du Feng asked puzzled.

"Sorry?"

"You said we have a misunderstanding about the formation."

"Yeah, I can't just keep firing those attacks. There's also preparation timing. Also I still need to draw about 6 no 7 more patterns before the first array is over. It's awesome really. The base can actually transmit energy for long distances but there has to be an equally strong formation to receive it. But with the first array of 108 patterns, the energy would be transferred in instalments to a receiver array of 9 patterns. It is quick, requires less specifications from the receiver end, and most importantly-"

"Concentrate brother. So after two days you will participate in the hunt. Yes?"

"Actually if you help me, we could hunt tomorrow evening itself." Although he was interrupted, he was excited about hunting his first grade one beast.

"How so?"

"I'll show you the formation design. The ten of you just have to draw the common skeleton. It's simple copy paste. I'll draw the specific parts. The preparations would be done before sun hits the peak."

"Sounds good." They shook hands and got to work.

....

"Absolutely impossible!"

"It isn't that hard. Just a bunch of simple figures. Don't look at the completed whole product. See one two..ten eleven.. seventy thr-" his pen was kicked out of his hand and he was interrupted.

"This is absolutely ridiculous! You can't expect us to memorize so much overnight."

"Yeah."

"Absolutely."

.

.

"I worked so hard to make pens for you guys!" Zhang Wuji said with grievance.

"Big bro, this really is too much." Even Du Feng didn't agree with him. Helpless he could only give up.

"So what do you propose?"

"You do your preparations. We'll hunt together two days after."

"Alright."

A round of sighs of relief was heard and everyone went to rest their exhausted minds. Everyone except Zhang Wuij. He finally had multiple tokens. He could finally try what he had been meaning to for long.

....

The next two days under the escort of Du Shui completed his preparation work. They were going to take down the bull horn snake that slipped through their fingers because of the rescue mission. It was now alert. They had to hunt it in the swamp it ruled. Tough. The prize, two tier two poison herbs, totally worth the risk.

Other than it being it's home ground and the difficulty of hunting in a swamp, the other grade 0 beasts in the swamp were a big problem. They couldn't be ignored. And worst, the snake could even command them a little.

But with Zhang Wuji's formation, all swampy problems were solved. The spikes would provide them footing, kill the irrelevant beasts, and of course harm the snake.

With that confidence, the fight began.

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Du Shui was stealthy and fast. He left a delicious snack for the snake near the swamp and retreated. With a special coating, courtesy of the Poison Valley, the beast's smell was irresistible. They didn't wait long before the snake devoured the boar in a single gulp.

When it came out, Gold threw a small insect at it. It struck and exploded into a wonderous colorful mist and the snake didn't seem to notice it.

Zhang Wuji looked on shocked as the beast was covered in mist and it's silhouette became clearly visible even when it entered the swamp. "Fascinating!"

Zhang Wuji had learned from Du Shui that this was how the two of them were tracked by the Iron Rhino and it's ally.

"I can't believe you don't even know of the marking fogfly! You didn't even know of the white token. Was your sect even serious in sending you here? Maybe your country is simply inadequate." Gold said with disdain.

"Hmph! Did you know about linking tokens? Did you! It's a ridiculously simple formation and not one of you so called cultivators from a higher country knew about it." Zhang Wuji shoved one of his tokens in front of Gold's face to prove his point.

"Don't show it to me you little creep!" Gold pushed his hand away and jerked backwards. The pattern was indeed simple to a trained eye but to others, it was nauseating.

"Big brother, can you not do that. I got dizzy looking at it. We are in the middle of a fight in the marsh. Even if we were winning, we can't afford to not be alert." Du Feng reminded him helplessly.

Zhang Wuji hmphed and turned back to the snake.

One might think that the bait was poisoned. But the team didn't have a strong enough poison that could harm the poisonous snake after being ingested through mouth. This was the first time they were using this tactic on a poisonous beast.

But if the bait wasn't poison, why feed the snake? To curry favor with it? Maybe it would be pleased and let them take the herbs without a fight? Maybe even get so impressed as to hand over it's beast core? Unfortunately it wasn't anything that fun.

Inside the boar was a token. Not an ordinary one of course, it was a special token inscribed with Feng Shi's special formation. A formation specially made for this realm's tokens. Simply named token linking formation by Zhang Wuji given that his master didn't bother naming it.

It had three variations. Two spatial variations and one qi variation.

Qi variation, which depended on the token's blood sucking ability, led to a combat formation that added continuity to a group's qi flow. Under energy sense, instead of appearing as ten different qi flows localized in ten different bodies respectively, it would appear as one continuous qi flow encompassing the whole group making it difficult to identify one's opponent under energy sense. If combined with some sense inhibiting formation, it would do wonders.

Spatial variations obviously depended on the token's space attribute. One variation was a defensive sphere made out of eight tokens. Any attack that touches the periphery of the defensive sphere is warped to the opposite end leaving the inside of the sphere completely safe. Of course the ability wasn't that overpowered. It had one fatal flaw. If an attack exceeding the cross sectional area of the token were to hit directly on the token, the token is displaced and the formation broken.

Unlike the first spatial variation, the second one could be considered awesome. Two tokens are linked. An attack not exceeding the cross sectional area of the token warps to the second token.

And it was such a linking formation that graced the surface of the token that the snake just ate. Piggy, a short fat young man of Du Feng's team stabbed at the token in front of him with all his strength. The long sword in his hands looked dull with a purple coating on it. Poison made specially for the snake by Du Feng.

Though he knew that the stab wouldn't hurt him, Zhang Wuji was still scared looking at Piggy's momentum. He was holding the token linked with one that the snake ate.

The sword seemed to disappear into the token. A loud screech was heard from the swamp and the snake surfaced. The snake was ten meters long with two meters girth. Massive. With it's green scales and thick bull horns, it looked like the very definition of sturdy. Zhang Wuji was sure he couldn't pierce those scale even with the best grade zero sword.

All eleven of them were at the shore. They couldn't distance themselves from the snake more than twenty meters. Any farther, and the token would return back to the owner. The fogfly was used to make sure that they maintained the distance.

One might think, that would be perfect. It would pierce through the snake and give it a severe injury. Unfortunately, according to Gold, the token just enters an ethereal state and passes through the obstruction.

Piggy kept withdrawing the sword and stabbing. He was fast. Zhang Wuji couldn't even follow his movements anymore. The snake writhed on the surface of the swamp before finally spitting out the token. Grade one, whether beast or human, allows great control over one's body. The party expected that and went to step two.

By now the snake had discovered their group. With a long hiss it summoned it's minions and swam to the shore in rage. Du Feng and eight others were ready to stop the snake and Zhang Wuji and Du Shui went to activate the formation. Since he was fighting in a team, he modified the formation to attack only non human life forms. He worked real hard to come up with it but no one was willing to listen to his boasts. Sigh.

Soon the swamp was covered in spikes killing all beasts except the bull horned snake which though alive, couldn't dodge the spikes due to it's size and was injured. Tough scales indeed.

Zhang Wuji looked shocked. He was planning to use the formation on mid stage grade one beasts but it couldn't even handle a low stage beast.

"Big bro hurry!" Upon Du Shui's urging he got to the adjacent pattern. He had drawn three patterns near each other to get the most out of the formation.

Puchi!

Puchi!

.

.

After three times being hit by the formation, the snake was seriously injured. This was the time when it's attacks were strongest, it started attacking with reckless abandon. But at this time the Piggy's stabs took effect. The poison had only one purpose. Weaken and slow it down. Du Shui joined his brother to fight the enraged beast and the rest of the team kept distracting the snake.

Their coordination was beautiful. Jumping on the spikes and using the environment to their advantage, playing it's huge size against it, their precise attacks, there was a lot Zhang Wuji could learn from them.

Unfortunately Zhang Wuji wasn't paying attention.

Looking at the bloody swamp, dismembered body and the snake's cries of pain, his heart trembled.

He reached for his heart 'Shit! I'm in trouble.'