Ling Xu charged to the group of lizards as he identified they were the same stage as the adult copper lizard and they were on the fourth stage of the Blood Qi realm.
He had already prepared and didn't need to delve on it any longer as he knew that after breaking through to the third stage and reaching its peak he would be able to kill several of them.
So, he approached very fast trying to make it quick as he knew this was just the beginning.
He used his shoes' skill to enhance his speed and jumped three meters high. The lizards sensed a big movement as they all looked at a figure flying down.
Ling Xu landed as he cut the neck of the nearest copper lizard. Then he moved as he wasn't planning for the lizards to pounce on him all together. As he moved to the side, he severed the neck from another one that was close.
All this happened in just a few breaths and Ling Xu cut both beasts without any problem, he even felt that he didn't have to use much strength as he had killed them with little effort thanks to the grade increase of his refined short sword.
As he sensed a tail coming at him, he avoided it without a problem dodging to the side once again as he was eyeing his next prey.
A few breaths went on as Ling Xu had already killed two more lizard beasts, leaving only a pair of them. He slashed at the fifth one in no time as they were scared and didn't know what to do to save themselves making them stagger in their place.
The last lizard was scared to death as it tried one last attempt for life. It desperately jumped straight at him trying to bite him.
Ling Xu felt a little funny seeing a beast so scared while he was in complete control. He still remembered how he acted just an hour ago after he fought his first adult rabbit.
When he was a few centimeters away from its mouth, he smoothly made a flexible turn with his whole body making the lizard bite the air. He then punched it without using half his strength as the lizard was sent flying several feet away.
The lizard fell chaotically to the ground and rolled before getting up once again. It had lost all spirit after being completely overwhelmed so it was no surprise a breath later when Ling Xu ended its life having his sword inserted on its chest.
Without having a drop of sweat coming out of his body, Ling Xu looked once again at the door in the distance. He walked straight to it as he saw a figure become clear.
Ling Xu observed a beast guarding the door as he looked at it. The lizard was already aware of him after hearing the big commotion when he fought his underlings but it didn't go and help them because it had the job of guarding the door.
It looked at Ling Xu's sword as it saw his underlings blood pouring down from it and felt rage wanting to kill him right away. Confined in a limited space it waited until he entered the range where it had access to.
If he wasn't limited to a specific space the guardian would have stayed with his underlings and would have fought Ling Xu to the death, but the leader had ordered him to guard the door as it had a special guest inside.
Ling Xu looked at the lizard that was over a dozen feet long glaring at him with eyes that had the intent to kill. He remained calm as he stared at the beast straight into the eyes.
Feeling like the difficulty of defeating the guarding lizard was lower as he wouldn't need to focus on several bladed tails flying at him, Ling Xu charged right away.
He appeared in no time at the beast's side ready to land a strong slash with his refined short sword, but before he even tried he was greeted with the lizard's attack.
Being of a higher stage than the adult copper lizards, although it looked identical it was much bigger in size. Ling Xu never expected that apart from its size it would also have another difference.
He was surprised as its tail that suddenly attacked him divided itself into three razor sharp blades. And although it was divided, that didn't mean that they were smaller. It was quite the opposite as Ling Xu saw the three tails were the same size as the ones the fourth stage lizards had.
Ling Xu avoided the first two attacks but the third one came from an angle that he couldn't avoid. He reacted right away as he blocked with his bare hands calling out his Copper Skin.
Ling Xu didn't feel any pain as the copper skin had managed to withstand the full blow from the copper lizard. He didn't even budge as his body weight was higher than before after his bones had turned stronger than metal.
While being careful of the ongoing attacks, Ling Xu managed to make a direct cut at the lizard's back. He even used his blood qi to make the bones in his arm heavier to improve his attack strength using the advantage of gravity by slashing downward.
Hearing a low-pitched cry of pain coming from the beast he attacked again in the already big wound as he directly pierced through it reaching its inside.
The lizard could only move in place having no strength to defend itself while he destroyed its internal organs.
Hearing the notification sound, Ling Xu confirmed that the guarding lizard was of the fifth stage as he sat down to rest and recover.
It only took him a few minutes as he still felt very energetic and had more than enough blood qi to confront what was on the other side of the door.
The door was opened and Ling Xu stepped inside as he observed the beasts laying in the room. He saw a four-legged rabbit in the center of a big dome.
The place didn't look like a cave anymore as it started to have carved stones that were used for the ground and walls.
Why it was beasts and not one beast is because he noticed after seeing behind the four-legged rabbit a small part of the body of a big lizard while the rest remained submerged in a water pond that was at least twice as large as the one on the second floor.
"Don't worry, I am going to make it quick." He said planning to kill both beasts the fastest he could as he doesn't like prolonged fights.
As he had already settled on it, he saw the door actually close as if it wouldn't give him a chance to leave anymore.
Going all out he stimulated his eyes with Enhanced Synapsis to the limit as it was the biggest advantage he had against every enemy he encountered from the beginning. Having the ability to see every movement in more detail making him capable of avoiding fatal wounds and almost always landing a precise attack.
He also needed to pay attention to the lizard on the big pond as he didn't know when it would come and interrupt his fight with the rabbit.
He never expected he would be allowed to kill the rabbit because that would put the lizard in a disadvantage. Even if it was a beast, it would be normal to think that numbers made a difference when fighting a strong enemy.
As he ran straight at it, Ling Xu saw the rabbit charging with a long horn as the horned rabbits Ling Xu had many times killed before, this one tried to pierce him with it too. And as it had four normal legs, it didn't jump but run.
It was unprecedently fast as he had never seen a rabbit running but jumping, making them a little slower because they couldn't focus their whole strength on running forward.
Avoiding the horn and then another attack from the beast, Ling Xu used the fastest movement he had as he used both movement skill and his wind blood shoes.
But unfortunately, the lizard had interrupted as the moment both parties charged towards each other it was already coming to help its partner.
Ling Xu detected its movement pretty fast with his peripheral view, but he acted as if he hadn't noticed continuing with his ongoing fight.
So, when the lizard was just a few meters apart from them, he interrupted his refined short sword's and made an angle directing it towards the lizard's eye.
The thick-skinned lizard couldn't yell before Ling Xu pressed with all his strength as his blood qi roared through his whole body making his muscles explode to another level.
The sword made a sound as it broke through the lizard's skull and pierced right into its brain. The four legged rabbit was standing in the same position as it barely had time to react at the sudden scene he just witnessed.
He never expected that a foreign being would be capable of completely overwhelming its partner before. Left on the ground with a sword in its brain it started spasming as it lost all bodily functions.
Snapping out of it, the rabbit reacted moving to the side to avoid Ling Xu's incoming charge.
Taking the dagger from his pants, Ling Xu was running at it as he slashed to thin air. The rabbit had dodged the incoming attack but it never expected what would come next.
Seeing everything way slower than it was he changed precisely the target of his attack curving it to the side the rabbit dodged to. He slashed at its neck from bottom to top, completely severing it.
[You have killed a Four-Legged Rabbit (5th stage of Blood Qi).]
Even though it took him his whole strength to pierce through the copper lizard which was one stage higher in cultivation than the four-legged rabbit, Ling Xu wouldn't have been able to kill it in one go if he didn't use his whole strength too.
Although the four-legged rabbit had a much weaker defense because its specialty was speed and its cultivation was lower, leaving the refined short sword in the lizard's brain significantly decreased his combat power as he had to use his small dagger which was two grades lower.
If it wasn't because it wasn't specialized in defense but speed, Ling Xu wouldn't have been able to kill it in one cut.
After all the short sword was stuck in the lizard's brain and he didn't intend to take his time taking it out while giving his back to the rabbit.
He then looked at the lizard which was spasming on the ground and got in front of it.
"I will end it now." He said as he pressed hard the refined short sword once again completely cutting off the lizard's brain. The lizard didn't even know what had happened before it died as it had lost his consciousness ever since it was pierce in the head.
[You have killed a Penta-Tailed Lizard (6th stage of Blood Qi).]
After Ling Xu took the sword stuck on the lizards mouth and he set himself in a comfortable position, he read the messages from the system that appeared after killing the penta-tailed lizard.
[You have cleared the 3rd floor of the Dark Cave with a raised difficulty.]
[As a reward you have obtained a Random Skill (high grade).]
[You have obtained a Spatial Ring (low grade treasure).]
[You have cleared the tutorial mission.]
"They are incredible! If I am right with what I think the spatial ring is it will be very helpful." He never expected he would have the chance to get such a thing in his life.
"It even has a different rank than the small dagger, short sword and wind blood shoes I have." Ling Xu was shocked, after all this was the first time he had gotten his hands on a treasure grade item.
Having great expectations for its performance, Ling Xu took it out and placed it on his left index finger. As he observed it, he saw the ring had a black stone place in the middle.
"It looks so small." He said as he felt the stone was extremely small being way less than half an inch long. But it didn't look simple at all.
He put some of his blood qi to see if it would activate and it sure did. As the ring's stone shone a bit he suddenly felt a suction force coming from it.
"As expected, it is really the spatial ring that is able to store items." He looked around in search of something useful to put inside and he threw his dagger to the ground as it was already deemed useless.
Realizing the slow performance of a low grade weapon, Ling Xu didn't think of taking it with him at all.
"What can I take into the ring then?" Looking around he only saw the beast's corpses as he thought of something. "The meat from the beasts!"
Ling Xu started to cut them down as that would make it easier if he wanted to later take it out, that way he wouldn't need to take the entire body out he thought.
Living in a small apartment would make it impossible for him to take out the beast's body that were almost as big as its size.
Ling Xu was actually planning to use their meat as a delicacy at home so he cut their bodies into many pieces and only took the parts he considered edible.
As he ended the cutting process, Ling Xu started putting the beast's meat into the suction range of the spatial ring.
After he was done with it, he checked his status panel.
[Name]: Ling Xu
[Realm]: 3rd stage of Blood Qi (peak)
[Cultivation]: Basic Blood Circulation (great success 2%), Existence Shadow Will (4,87%)
[Skills]: Enhanced Synapsis (high grade), Swift Steps (middle grade), Copper Skin Iron Bones (middle grade)
And he also saw once again the mission panel.
[Map]: Dark Cave
[Mission]: Survive 3 hours
[Participants]: 05/10
[Progress]: 2 hour, 7 minutes
He didn't see anything new. He felt that it was quite natural for the number of survivors to remain the same.
Even though a long time had passed, those who already survived wouldn't put themselves in danger that easily. They had already been in the cave for two hours and knew the range of their strength so they wouldn't through themselves into a fight they couldn't fight.
He even expected that many of the survivors would even group up. As more people were together it would probably become less dangerous to hunt the beasts.
"I wonder why I haven't met anyone else apart from the one who tried to kill me." He thought as he lied down on the floor trying to rest a bit.
He was going to wait for the mission to end as he had been notified that he had already cleared the tutorial so he didn't plan on checking the upper floors again as he had already passed through every room.
It took a few breaths before Ling Xu's eyes started to close without him noticing. After all, he was mentally exhausted and physically exhausted.
Although the blood qi remaining in his body was still quite high, in less than three hours he had gone through so many fights that his body needed to rest.