Slowly catching her breath, Jun Li looked to the wound the now slain Beast had left on her arm. A long gash trailed from elbow to wrist where the beast had pulled her down to the forest floor.

  Though Jun Li found it a ghastly sight, it was on her non-dominant arm and wasn’t so deep as to impair its mobility, painful though it was.

  Seeing the blood trail down her arm, Jun Li drew the carving knife from the sash around her waist and cut what tattered cloth remained of her robe’s left sleeve.

  The surface area of the wound was quite long, so she cut the now detached sleeve into three strips, fastening each of them across her wounded arm as tightly as she could.

  Feeling her bandaging was tighter than comfortable, Jun Li knew she had done a good enough job, even if it had already begun to soak through.

  Turning to the Beast’s corpse, Jun Li realized she would now have to find its Core.

  Flipping the Beast's corpse over, Jun Li decided first to check the upper half of its body, approximating from where the Middle Dantian would be located on a human.

  Making an incision from low on the Beast’s neck, down to its abdomen, Jun Li felt a strange sense of levity and comfort.

  This wasn’t the sort of work she had ever done before, but it seemed to come naturally to her, and despite more blood than she had ever seen spilling forth from the Beast’s chest, she felt an oddly compelling serenity overtake her, to the point that her own calmness caused her to become skeptical.

  Looking around, Jun Li couldn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary; by all accounts, she was alone in this small patch of forest.

  Turning back to her work and chipping away at Beast bones, Jun Li felt unable to reconcile the strange calm she felt as she looked at the flowing, pooling blood.

  Jun Li didn’t even notice she had begun to smile, enjoying the tacky sensation of blood on her hands, only stopping when she found a bright red glint in the Beast’s torso.

  Taking hold of it, Jun Li pulled out a pellet quite similar to what Elder Yao had presented at the edge of the forest.

  Placing it into her empty satchel, Jun Li stood back up, only now noticing her clothes were slick with blood from her visceral work.

  For a moment, Jun Li felt she should try and make herself more presentable, but the moment she realized there was no easy way to do so, the thought vanished entirely, replaced by simple satisfaction with having taken her first step in this Trial.

  Looking to the depths of the forest, Jun Li set off to find more Beasts to hunt, hoping they would prove a bit easier to handle.

  …

  Standing on a tall boulder and serving as lookout, a tall disciple looked out to the slowly setting sun and clicked his tongue in irritation.

  “Hey!” He looked down towards his friends, who were sitting over the body of a small Magical Beast. “How much longer until you’re done with that thing? The sun’s setting, and we’ve only got a dozen or so Cores.”

  An older-looking disciple looked up from the Beast’s corpse. “Relax, we’re making good time, even if the princess is at the Peak Qi Condensation Stage, she’s not going to be able to get more than two or three Cores an hour. Not alone.”

  Turning back to his work, the older disciple saw something out of the corner of his eye, looking to it, his heart leapt into his throat, seeing a girl, slick with blood from her robes to her shoes.

  “Shit! I told you to keep lookout, dumbass!” He shouted at the taller disciple on the boulder, who looked panicked by both Jun Li’s sudden appearance and being reprimanded.

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  Jun Li, on the other hand, was only surprised, encountering other disciples for the first time since entering the forest.

  Even so, seeing the area was clear of Beasts, she slowed down, taking slightly staggered steps, exhausted from her efforts these past six hours.

  Quickly turning to his friend, who had been working on carving out a Beast’s Core, the older disciple spoke in slightly hushed tones. “Hey, you see her?”

  The older disciple couldn’t help but smile at his idea. “Wanna secure our lead? She’s obviously got some Cores, I doubt all of that blood is hers after all.”

  The disciple who had been carving raised his sunken eyes to Jun Li, who was slowly walking away, estimating her. “They probably only have two, maybe four Cores? Still, easier than hunting a Beast.” As he said this, he slowly rose from his seated position.

  As he walked in long strides towards Jun Li, the disciple’s friends made no move to join him; he was by far the strongest, and their inclusion would only get in his way.

  Hearing his approach, Jun Li turned around, only to see the disciple suddenly lunge towards her.

  Panicked by the sudden onrush, Jun Li tried to jump out of the way, but before she could, the disciple grabbed her by the hanging bandages of her left arm.

  With the force of her retreat now pulling against her tightly bandaged wound, Jun Li froze, the sudden pain so sharp she couldn’t even cry out.

  Jun Li, led by little more than instinct and reflex, lashed out, swinging her fist in an arc without any technique.

  Though bereft of grace, Jun Li’s retaliation was so sharp and sudden that the disciple couldn't react, and was unable even to raise his arms in defense before Jun Li’s blow robbed him of consciousness.

  Dragged down by the arc of Jun Li's fist, the disciple’s unconscious body bounced off the forest floor, and Jun Li shot into the forest, not bothering to stick around.

  Behind, the disciples who had hung back to allow their senior to take care of matters stared dumbly at the sight of their unconscious comrade, his distorted face leaking blood and teeth onto the forest floor.

  Beads of sweat dripping down her face from pain, Jun Li pulled her hand away from her bandaged arm, face paling as she found the blood that had once dried now saturated the cloth again, such that it now coated her hands in a fresh layer of blood.

  ‘Damn it… what the hell was that asshole doing…’ Jun Li ground to a halt, trying to calm herself down before she ran headfirst into a Magical Beast.

  Taking a breath, Jun Li heard the subtle sound of running water nearby.

  It was a subtle thing, and she surely wouldn’t have been able to hear it before reaching the level of Cultivation she had.

  Following the sound and paying close attention to her surroundings, Jun Li safely arrived at a shallow creek, slowly flowing down from higher up in the mountain.

  Stepping over to the creek, Jun Li took the Cauldron and Furnace off her back and laid them down next to the water-smoothed stones of the creek.

  Sitting beside the creek, Jun Li pulled her Cauldron over to the creek and filled it with water.

  After inspecting the water in the Cauldron for any visible impurities, she set it down on a nearby stone and stretched her fingers out across its surface.

  Taking a slow breath, Jun Li focused her Qi to the tips of her fingers, where it flowed eagerly into a pattern inscribed on the surface of the Cauldron.

  As Jun Li continuously output Qi, a light flickered though the Cauldron’s inscribed pattern, and the contents rapidly began to heat up.

  It wasn’t particularly complex, but Jun Li had made it a point to continuously use her alchemical tools these past few weeks, even if it was for such mundane things.

  After the water had been boiling for a few moments, Jun Li sat up and decided to look around the area while the water cooled down to a usable temperature.

  It didn’t take long for her to find what she was looking for; the forest being as lush as it was, Jun Li was easily able to find numerous plants that, although mundane, did have medicinal properties.

  Placing the plants down on a stone next to her Cauldron, Jun Li grabbed a smooth, hand-filling stone from the creek and set to work, grinding the plants she had gathered into a paste.

  When it reached a smooth consistency, Jun Li slowly untied the bandages on her arm and peeled them away from her wound, using some of the now warm water from her Cauldron to soften the encrusted blood that stuck the bandages to her wound.

  After washing her wound and bandages with warm water, Jun Li evenly spread the medicinal paste over the wound on her arm.

  With her wound properly cleaned and covered, Jun Li just had to wait for her now clean bandages to dry before she could continue with her hunt.

  In the meantime, Jun Li opened the lid of her Pill Furnace, something she had been using throughout the day to store some ingredients she had come across during her hunt, not medicinal ingredients, but the ingredients for a proper meal.

  Inside the airtight Furnace, some edible herbs, wild vegetables, and diced Magical Beast meat were kept waiting.

  Preparing to make her dinner, Jun Li couldn’t help but feel satisfied with her efforts.

  Even in a forest as hostile as this, she was able to carve out a comfortable moment for herself.

  The System arrives on the day of his prison transfer. Championship gamer Ian turns disaster into a second chance at freedom, reluctantly accepting the System's brutal demand: lead or die.

  Transformed into a hulking orc and thrown into a deadly tournament to determine leadership of his cell block, Ian navigates a prison turned battleground, forging shaky alliances with rival gang leaders to survive.

  Guided by Otis, a snarky orc assistant who mocks Ian’s axe swings as “lumberjack chic,” Ian battles mutated beasts and advances through the System’s paths. He must escape before alien invaders descend in six days, then reunite with his wife and daughter. But Ian fears they’ll reject the monster he’s become.

  Ian must unite a crew of orc inmates, conquer monstrous guardians, and break out of the prison—before the aliens enslave them all.