“We should split up.” Said Bao Hua.

  Mei Ling and Ren exchanged amazed glances and watched their friend immediately panic and start stammering.

  “N…No! Tha…That’s not what I mean!”

  “How could you?!” Ren hammed it up.

  Mei Ling, looking crushed, said, “Where did we go wrong?”

  “I am betrayed!” Ren cried out dramatically even as he took another gulp of wine.

  Mei Ling couldn’t keep it any longer and started laughing.

  Bao Hua looked at them, his mouth open, before he too got it. He shook his head ruefully.

  “Some friends you are. Heh. I just mean that we are not making the most of this opportunity. We keep taking the safe choices. If we never push ourselves, we will never advance and become true cultivators.”

  The other two stopped joking around. In fact Ren had just started to think the same along the same lines. Somehow Bao Hua had managed to put the words together perfectly to crystalize the feeling in Ren’s mind.

  Hua continued, “When I was out there patrolling with unfamiliar people to guard my back, having to protect them, with unknown threats out there, I somehow made amazing progress in my cultivation. I know we work very well together and we face the same dangers, but I don’t think I ever had to push myself.”

  “I was afraid of being left behind and pushed myself to breakthrough. Without that to motivate me, I don’t think I would have made it here. It was a risk, but one worth taking. I… I…”

  Mei Ling cut in, “I understand what you mean. I have seen others who joined the sect at the same time we did barely reach the 8th layer of qi gathering realm. And they were even of a higher spirit root order than you. The difference is, they took the safe path and relaxed. One, I know, relies only on the stipend the sect provides and barely does anything to earn more spirit stones. So I understand. Steel can only be tempered in the hottest flames.”

  “I think I was just starting to realize the same thing. After that battle, I felt my shortcomings more keenly than ever. After the tournament, I put everything into breaking through but didn’t plan for anything afterwards. This trial is a slaughter trial, and it is filled with amazing natural treasures. It is the perfect environment to grow stronger," Ren spoke his piece.

  “My uncle once told me cultivating to become immortal is a lonely path. I think it means that some things can only be done alone. You will always be my friends, but if we aim for the lofty ideals of cultivating immortality, then we should accept the burden and push ourselves.”

  They fell silent as they pondered each other’s words. The fire popped and crackled, and the faint sounds of others filled the air. Eventually, they all looked up and nodded. The decision was made.

  Bao Hua left first. He was going to try his luck in the area that previously belonged to the Hidden Sea sect. After Ren patched up the formation as best he could, he decided to head the other way, angling towards the section of mountains between their sect’s territory and that of the monks of the Golden Light Monastery. Mei Ling still had a few disciples she was healing and would leave soon after. They all promised to meet back in a month or so at the camp unless something changed.

  Ren already felt a little more tense as he made his way through the forest cautiously. With no one to watch his back, he started using the Third Eye Sense more frequently to observe his surroundings. Blood beasts were rarer, but the scythe-armed beasts bluntly called ‘Slashers’ were more common.

  When he saw the first one, he hid and watched. He made note of its limbs and saw how, like other blood beasts, it seemed to rely on a sense of smell. He almost sighed in relief that he had covered his own with those stinky berries. When he was sure that it was alone and that no other beast could intrude on a battle, he retreated a short distance and laid out a formation.

  His plan was to lure it in, trap it, and use an illusory mist to attack it from its blind spot. He knew he lacked the strength to take its blows head-on. His other concern was his sword. As strong as it was, it wasn’t meant for the foundation realm and was showing signs of wear. So he would have to be swift and retreat from its reach and possibly hobble it first.

  The first part went flawlessly as he attracted its attention and lured it straight into his formation array. The thin vines burst out to wrap all over it. He tried to focus on restricting its blade arms first to prevent it from cutting itself free. The thin white mist around the area was starkly different from the red haze that covered the realm. Under its cover, he lunged in using Earth Striding Leap to speed up his attack. He struck its shoulder in an upward blow and hurtled past as it tried to turn. After repositioning, he struck again at the same shoulder. The slasher was already starting to break free, the vines unable to hold it down.

  Ren was worried, but he had planned an escape route, so he wasn’t too scared. He hastened his attack and managed to sever one arm, but unfortunately it escaped the bindings. He could choose to flee or continue the attack. Surprisingly, he didn’t hesitate. This is why he had split from his friends.

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  The beast was still extremely dangerous even with a limb down. It roared and made sweeping motions, but the mist was not ordinary. It was persistent and had some mild disorienting properties. To Ren’s astonishment, it was very effective! It couldn’t locate Ren, and he was free to leap in and out after dealing swift, precise blows. It came close to succeeding occasionally, but he could react fast enough to dodge.

  When it finally bled out, Ren examined it to see if it had any obvious weaknesses. Its scaly legs were incredibly tough, and its bladed arms were razor sharp. With the right blow, his bronze grass blade would be shattered. He needed to come up with a better plan. As he harvested its core, he thought on what had worked to his favor in the fight and came up with several ideas to try. Not wanting to stay out in the open too long, he quickly retrieved his formation and departed.

  After trying a few different methods, Ren figured out the best tactic. He repurposed one of the simpler formations to enormous success. It was a simple earth-moving formation he used to make narrow but deep pits in the ground. The formation was usually poor defense because it was very obvious, and the simplest of beasts could detect it and easily avoid it. But when he combined it with the disorienting formation, it worked extremely well on the slasher beasts.

  Once in the pit, they could move their arms and couldn’t climb out. It left their relatively soft heads extremely vulnerable to Ren’s sword. In this manner, he had already slain over 10 slashers. The only caveat was he needed to spot them first. It wasn’t hard for someone as cautious as Ren, but he couldn’t deny his luck either. It needed the time it would take to brew a cup of tea, and his trap would be laid. And the rewards were rich. Their higher realm cores were more valuable than the blood beasts', and when Ren made it back, he was going to have plenty of resources to play around with.

  Continuing his hunt, he eventually reached the foothills of the inner mountains. The qi once again rose higher, and with it, the strength of his foes who now inhabited the caves that dotted the mountains. Fortunately, his main tactic still worked even if there was less cover to hide behind. He had grown faster at laying out the formations, and his skills were improving with each attempt.

  In the caves he occasionally found a plant or vein of ore. He harvested the plants but had to leave behind the precious ore. He hadn’t prepared a pickax and could only ignore the sensation of throwing wealth into the sea. Disappointingly, none of them held the blood pools with the best treasures. He continued to climb until he had reached around halfway up.

  Here the Slasher beasts started to get faster and more intelligent, but he could still barely hold his own. If he messed up and failed to trap his target, he continued to make contingency plans to buy time to escape. But as Hua had said, the risk seemed to speed up his cultivation. Whenever he stopped and made camp, the amount of qi he absorbed seemed to increase. With his earlier epiphany already getting him across most of the first layer, he was pushing on the edges of the second layer.

  It was the other half of his cultivation manual that was holding him back. He had found the right meridians to cycle his qi, and his dantian was filling with the condensed qi, but his fire of life was still the same. He needed to form more karmic strand constructs and actually use them to grow his Fire of Life. Until he did so, he wouldn’t be able to break through.

  With his new understanding of how the seeds of intent bloomed into connections, he was still apprehensive, but he couldn’t shy away from it forever. He still refused to use it on his friends, but he had made himself form a connection with Zhen Bing before leaving. He didn’t know her too well, but she had acquitted herself well during the battle. Her demeanor may be cold and serious, but she was honorable. The only thing that made him break out in sweat was if some elder from her Zhen family took offense at his connection.

  It had been mentioned many times in the Causality of Karma that the constructs were hard to detect for anybody not specifically looking. But you can never speak in absolutes when dealing with powerful cultivators. There were as many techniques as grains of sand in a desert. And valued heirs were always regularly checked for any malicious workings targeting them.

  You also can’t reach too far beyond your station when forming a connection unless it was known in advance and willingly accepted. That was why Zhen Bing was perfect. She was only a few layers above him. She was honorable and took her duties seriously. She was also someone who would rise very high in the cultivation world in the future. Such a connection would be very valuable.

  So, despite the risks, Ren had formed a reinforced connection anyway. He convinced himself it wasn’t malicious because the intent he used to form the seed wasn’t. He had focused on the respect he felt for her and also specifically on how he didn’t mean her any harm.

  Still, that was just his second connection. To break through to the second layer, he needed at least one more connection. He would also have to take more risks when it came to people; otherwise, he would never reach the core formation realm. He would need many weak connections or around 30 connections reinforced with a karmic strand construct before he would be ready.

  His meditation was interrupted by sounds of an approaching slasher. He quickly activated his defensive formations and began a new hunt. Honestly, traveling alone was cutting into his rest so much that he occasionally climbed down the mountain for a decent night’s sleep. Still, he was thoroughly enjoying the challenge.

  Ren had just struck gold! The slasher beast he tracked back to its lair had been different, which was what had first piqued his curiosity. It was taller and bulkier, and more importantly, its scales had a darker tinge of red, more closely resembling blood but with pale white markings around the edges. It was also peculiar, as it was actually dragging back the corpse of a blood beast to its lair instead of devouring it in the field.

  He had kept watch, but it exited shortly afterward and loped down the mountain. He crept into its lair when he was sure there wasn’t another beast inside and found huge piles of bones taking up almost all the space. It was when he got closer to the small area in the middle that he saw it.

  A yin flame! One that was being nurtured by the slasher beast with bones. The pale white flame emitted almost no heat and was actually burning on a small pile of bones. Ren was ecstatic! A yin flame like this with its varied uses was a treasure of incomparable value to alchemists, smiths, and many other professions! He needed to obtain some for himself!

  Although Ren wanted to take all of it, he wouldn’t be able to sustain it at its current size. These spiritual flames were strange and only grew over time with a lot of nourishment. If he took away a small portion, it would stay that size until he could grow it. But this way he could bring it away and keep it hidden. He didn't want to be robbed for treasuring a jade ring.

  His mind was so full of joy and plans for the future that he only just heard the click of claws on rock at the last instant.

  The slasher had returned!