24 Chapter 24- Mountain Carp Peaks Pt. 1

A few days after that little encounter with Zhao Yu Chun, Long Ren and Xing Lao could be seen drinking tea under an old but beautiful tree at Long Ren's backyard.

They were currently enjoying the breezing wind after a sparring session.

(A/N: Something like this, but imagine the broke sugar daddy as MC and more relaxed.)

The sparring session, as per usual, ended with Long Ren's loss, though, after each spar, their next session would usually last longer as well as fiercer, indicating Long Ren's growth.

They have had a couple of dozens of sparring sessions together and each time, Xing Lao feels very satisfied with Long Ren's growth.

He had been steadily improving his skills and techniques individually as well as in coordination.

Usually, Long Ren would fall for a hit or two before the first minute of the spar, but now, even with the increased intensity, He could dodge everything as he got more used to interweaving between [Swift Storm's Encore] and [Space Step].

"I must say, the [Space Step] you learned from the book is a very tricky skill to counter, I've seen similar techniques before but not as perfect as this one." Xing Lao said and sipped his tea.

Hearing Xing Lao's remark, Long Ren asked. "Why don't Master learn it as well then? From my experience, it's not that difficult after all."

"Un, that's what I wanted to do as well when I first discovered the book, learning the side techniques, but, its efficiency is considerably decreased, so much so that it's sub-par when one does not cultivate the main technique in tandem." Xing Lao sighed regretfully.

'Hmm, such a shame, both [Space Step]and [Spatial Bullet] are such powerful abilities.

With Master's cultivation, he could probably blink every second while shooting 10 bpm, but, soon enough I'll be able to do that.' Long Ren thought to himself, excited about the future and how powerful his abilities will grow as he grew.

While Long Ren was lost in his thought, Xing Lao said, " Long Ren, with your current proficiency with [Space Step], you should try visiting Mountain Carp Peaks."

"Mountain Carp Peaks?" Long Ren asks, even though inwardly, he was uninterested.

"Yes, it is located literally behind our clan so you don't have to travel far like last time, and you can test your capabilities of dealing with Magical Beasts." Xing Lao said, while stroking his luscious beard.

Hearing that, Long Ren still felt uninterested, he'd rather laze around in his futon, cultivate, or even spar with Xing Lao rather than hunt some pesky beasts.

Before Long Ren could reject the idea as Xing Lao knew Long Ren's thoughts, he immediately added. "It is called Mountain Carp Peaks as it hosts a pond full of Mountain Carp near its peak, and when one eats a Mountain Carp dish, one would feel extremely full, and their sleep quality would increase by up to 100%!"

(A/N: the extremely full in this context means u feel very content and WidePeepoHappy, not bloated, IDK what the word is so I went with it :v)

Xing Lao then continued. "Mountain Carp is a commodity due to its difficulty to climb to the pond, but, I believe you can reach the peak while training your [Space Step]."

Long Ren nodded and immediately answered seriously. "Yes, Master, this student will follow Master's order."

"Bah! Quit it with the formality, just remember to bring me back some as well. It has been a while since I ate one of them." Xing Lao made a shoo-ing motion with his hand and got up, stretching his body while Long Ren soon followed

"I'll be leaving for around two months, there's something I need to investigate. I hope you will be done with this task by then."

"Ok."

As Xing Lao was about to leave, he added, "Right, don't poach every fish there no matter how good they taste or make you feel, it is clan property after all. At least leave 30% of it if you're alone, or there will be consequences."

Long Ren nodded, and with that, Xing Lao left Long Ren to his own tools.

With nothing left to do for the day, Long Ren went to the bathroom and took a quick warm bath to clean off his sweaty body.

Good thing there was something akin to soap here to clean his body thoroughly, though the product is unpopular and hard to find as most cultivators don't even take baths regularly.

Laying on the futon, Long Ren thought about his next course of action.

'I have around two months till Master comes back and I don't think he will give me an impossible task, considering he also wants some of the fish. I guess one month should be enough to reach the peak…

Though, I haven't tried space stepping to a higher elevation, so that might pose a challenge. That's actually pretty stupid of me, not having tried different levels of elevations.

Maybe that's exactly what I need to do to tackle this little bottleneck. Maybe the same could also be applied to spatial bullet, I just need to think of a creative way to utilize it, but how…

Ricochet? That's for normal bullets, mine just swoops through space and reaches their heads so that's not it. Maybe increasing its size to a baseball? Takes too much qi to make and teleport through, so scratch that…'

Suddenly, as Long Ren was thinking of innovative ways to use his skills creatively, rain poured down from the sky. Droplets after droplets hit his rooftop, creative noises after noises.

'Hmm? Ah! Right, rapid-fire! If I could only shoot 5 bullets at a time from one hand, might as well make smaller bullets with an increased fire rate…I don't know how much stronger it might be though if it even turns stronger…Will need to do more testing!'

With that thought, Long Ren slept through the rainy night, anticipation for tomorrow to come as he wants to try and break his skills bottleneck, twice at one go!

(A/N: a sword is only as strong as its wielder, and a book is only as creative as its dumb fuck writer…I'm sorry I'm not creative at all, I suck .3.)