Esteemed Elder

When night fell on the first day in the Darkwood forest, Qai had stopped honing his archery skill and spent his time cultivating.

What he actually had in mind was to do the same every night in this training.

And with the use of the Qi Gathering Pills he got from her sister-in-law, he made use of his time in attempting to push his level to advance to mid Earth stage—which was basically a tall order.

An average cultivation would need around more or less a year to breakthrough. Any earlier than that would mean the cultuvator was a cultivation genius—and Qai was not one of them.

'I may not be a genius, but I might have some luck.. who knows? So I'm gonna push my luck,' he thought.

He tried hard that entire night, but to no avail.

The following day, Qai had turned to hunt more ferocious mortal beasts. He included wild bears and wild wolves in the list of practice targets.

In no time, his archery was able to reach milestones.

'There is no better training than practicing the skill on live targets,' he said to himself.

And on the third day, he decided to move south towards the area near the unnamed forest which was believed to be the entrance to a desolate wasteland.

He didn't wander though inside the inner region. He simply traced the periphery to avoid any demonic beast.

**************

While fighting a ferocious mortal ape, he suddenly felt a powerful breeze that passed over him.

'Swooooosh.'

In that instant, the wild ape threw a mouthful and blood and popped its eyes to death.

And at that same moment, Qai dropped on to his knees feeling a great pressure from a Wind element aura.

All of a sudden, a cultivator at the initial Heaven stage of Sage realm appeared from his behind.

'Ba dum,' 'ba dum.'

Qai's heart obviously beat fast. The unknown cultivator's level was obviously a whole realm stronger than his father's.

And he could not figure out why would such a cultivator steal his mortal beast useless prey.

Thus, he simply stayed on his knees, and decided not to look ahe had never felt such pressure before.

"Esteemed Elder," he uttered stammeringly.

He then glanced for a bit while kowtowing at the same time.

"What can this humble servant do for you?" Qai continued as he figured out from the robe of the cultivator that he must belong to a great clan.

"Boy," the Sage cultivator said with a hint of arrogance, "do you perhaps live in the hunter's plateau few hours away from here?"

"I do, Esteemed Elder," Qai quickly answered. "I am the youngest son of the Shu family in the plateau you speak of.. and I am here for training."

He immediately realized that this sage must have stayed in their inn.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Qai asked.

"Hmmmn," the sage muttered after some moments of thought as he finds Qai to be speaking the truth, "I am looking for a sage realm wind white tiger said to be lurking in these part of the forest."

The white tiger was originally from the desolate wasteland but, for some reason, it eventually wandered off in the outskirts of the Darkwood forest.

"I have not seen one, Esteemed Elder. But further down south is said to be the entrance to the wasteland. I guess such beast would come from there.. and the tiger must be near there since the inner region of the Darkwood forest is still far from here," Qai replied pointing his hand to the inner region.

"Your deduction is pretty smart," the sage said.

The sage then took something from his spatial ring like magic and threw it towards Qai.

"Here," he said. "This will greatly help you in your training."

"Thank you, Esteemed Elder," Qai replied as he continued in the kowtowed position.

He didn't move an inch convinced that one mistake might offend the sage. And only after the sage left that he picked up what was thrown.

To his surprise, it was a Qi Gathering Pill but a 3-tier higher than what his sister-in-law could actually concoct . It was a supreme grade one!

He felt elated and immediately ran away from the elder and looked for a place to cultivate that early as he didn't want to waste such an opportunity.

Qai eventually found a suitable tall tree and sat on one of its sturdy branches in a lotus position. He then swallowed the pill and immediately felt its amazing effects.

'No wonder father said that cultivators in the clans and sects are way stronger,' he thought.

He continued to cultivate for the next two days.. and in the following morning, when he opened his eyes, he saw black liquid-like dirt all over his skin.

"Ah."

He broke through to the mid Earth stage!

He immediately ran off to look for a pond or a river to wash his body and immediately cleaned all those impurities away.

Then Qai ran off to with the strong desire to test his upgraded strength.

So when he saw a wild ox, he instantly released two consecutive arrows infused with much stronger lightning Qi straight to its head.

'Swoosh, swoosh.'

'Boom, boom.'