After a few minutes walking, the group met a beast that had the appearance of a scorpion but was much bigger and had a sting.
"It's in the third stage of Blood Qi."
Said Xie Lin with confidence as he had advanced to the third stage a few days before the mission begun.
"Let's go together, I don't feel great about the black substance hanging by its sting, it should be extremely poisonous."
Sun Min said, although he was in the third stage too, he was very careful.
Xie Tan and Xu Min nodded a bit nervous, but they were confident in their group strength as they had already managed to defeat the fourth stage adult copper lizard in the second floor of the tutorial.
Ling Xu remained indifferent and he gave a slight nod too.
Not long after they encountered a third level beast.
"I will take care of it."
"Wait Xie Lin, we should deal with it together."
Ignoring Sun Min's advice, Xie Lin charged alone without trying to get into formation to kill the beast with ease.
He unsheathed his middle grade sword which had the same appearance as Ling Xu's previous refined short sword before upgrading to high grade.
Getting close enough to the scorpion, he activated his skill as the veins from his right arm protruded and his arm acquired a red color.
"Damn, it feels as if we have returned to before we fought through thick and thin in the tutorial, he always does this in the beginning."
Said Xie Tan who was very familiar with his cousin's attitude.
Still, they didn't panic as they knew Xie Lin's strength was the highest in their group, so they got close in case he needed their help and observed.
Although Sun Min's realm was the same, the difference came from their skills as Xie Lin had a middle grade one while his was of the low grade.
Xie Lin's arm exploded with amazing strength and when the sword slashed it made a big wound in the scorpion.
The scorpion enraged and feeling its wound's pain, shot its tail at him planning to pierce him with his gloomy sting.
Xie Lin was prepared and he reacted as he shot again, the fight ended after this second slash as he cut through the shell and destroyed its internal organs afterwards.
"This shell is quite hard, it might even be stronger than the one from the copper lizards, after all it needed several strikes from someone in the same stage with a middle grade weapon and the use of a skill."
He thought remembering that it didn't take that much effort for him to kill the copper lizards.
"When I killed the copper lizards I didn't even have a skill that directly increased my attack strength."
After all, although both beasts had defensive characteristics, the copper lizard had an agile tail able to help them react faster while the scorpion beast had barely done one attack with its heavy tail.
…
"This is going too slow, if only I was alone."
Moving forward, Ling Xu realized the speed at which his teammates explored the map was incredibly slow as they refrained from spending their blood qi before a fight occurred.
He started to have thoughts of going alone but decided to wait as he had just entered the mission and there was enough time. He was also observing his neighbor and seeing if he would be fine with his group once he left, after all Sun Min had barely got to know them by coincidence in the tutorial, so there wasn't much time to build up a bond with them.
The group encountered different beasts from the desert as they met more scorpions and a few desertic tortoises, rats and even coyotes.
The majority were in the third stage of Blood Qi while some were even weaker.
The tortoises put them under a lot of pressure as the time it took to kill them was very large.
Once the desertic tortoise realized it was at a disadvantage it would hide on its shell, which was extremely hard to break. So after a few minutes of trying and leaving a few scratches on it, they decided to avoid fighting it as it wasn't worth their blood qi.
If Ling Xu had decided to help it would have been extremely easy, the rest would need to stay in their places and he would have cut right through it.
With his high grade short sword and the great gap between his realm and the tortoise, a slash containing a bit of his strength would have cut it in half.
He only helped once or twice when they met a small group of beasts as he gave his help to lessen the pressure on the group, but he didn't show much of his strength as he didn't have the need for it.
Although he didn't feel like showing off, he also felt like it wasn't necessary as with just a bit of his strength he could do the work.
But although he wasn't even breaking a sweat for the group, Xie Lin stopped saying anything to him as he noticed every strike of Ling Xu's was extremely strong.
He couldn't feel the exact power but he knew that he wasn't anything lower than himself.
...
After a few hours of walking, hunting and walking again, the sun had started to descend as it had reached its highest point a few hours ago.
"Over here!"
After two hours since the mission started, the group had started to see the forest which was first seen with difficulty by Ling Xu.
The difference was great as they realized Ling Xu's senses were way above theirs, it took them two hours to finally see as much as Ling Xu did when he first noticed the forest in the distance but couldn't tell what it was.
Now, they were following Ling Xu once again as he had called them to see a hole that was unnoticeable to the eye even if you were a few feet apart from it. Ling Xu had found it by luck as they weren't very close to it and it was very well hidden.
"Ling Xu, you have an amazing eyesight!"
"Yes Ling Xu, I can't believe you were able to tell this hole apart from the sand even though we were dozens of feet apart from it, I barely noticed it ten feet apart."
The group was surprised at Ling Xu's ability and even more at the blending of the hole in the sand.
The entrance wasn't anything impressive as it was small and made of hard sand and rocks, but once they entered they realized that it was actually much bigger than it seemed.
Entering a cave that was almost in complete darkness, just like the tutorial, the group advanced forward. They weren't afraid as they knew that although danger was something probable in there, there was a chance that they could earn something.
Even the experience was already enough as Sun Min and Xie Lin had realized the difficulty of completing the third stage of Blood Qi with their current Basic Blood Circulation mastery.
As they continued to go deeper, they found themselves in a small room which has a few bats. There were around a dozen as three were in the third stage and the rest were in the second.
If any more of the bats were at a higher stage it would become a big burden as only Xie Lin, Sun Min and Ling Xu had the strength to fight them. Because the bats' strength was in their speed, it was incredibly difficult to land a hit if you weren't in the same realm.
Xie Lin was the first to attack as the rest of the group followed in formation, the hunt progressed smoothly as they cooperated very well.
Ling Xu had everything under control as he saw the bats very slow without even using his skill, having a difference of five and four stages in his cultivation realm.
He had to kill some bats that had entered the blind spots of his group and he did so without anyone noticing.
"They are very cunning! While one or two bats take someone of the group's attention, there is always another one lurking in the dark ready to strike."
He was surprised as the bats were very smart and if he hadn't intervened maybe Xie Tan or Xu Min would have become gravely injured as they only attacked at the neck.
Although the bats were small, their claws were very sharp and fatal. Because Ling Xu's group hadn't even reached the fourth stage of Blood Qi and they haven't started to refine their organs and skin, they would have probably died having their necks severed if one of the bats landed a precise attack.
Still, Ling Xu helped and casually swung his refined short sword killing the bats that were hiding in the dark.
...
Moving forward, the group entered another two identical rooms, with each having a dozen more bats than the previous one.
Ling Xu felt that as the difficulty increased, he had to help his group more to lessen the pressure that they couldn't withstand alone.
Fortunately, there was a long and stretch path between each room, leading to the next one.
Occasionally there were some small openings on the ceiling where they could see a little bit of light between the rock and sand.
Ling Xu's teammates started to notice something strange as they went through the path with a bit of light.
Walking forward, they realized that Ling Xu didn't have a single piece of torn clothes.
They all had exposed wounds on their body while he looked unharmed and almost completely clean.
"I didn't expect you to hide so well."
Mr. Sun said with a very low voice as he saw it too.
Ling Xu gave a small grin as he continued forward without saying anything.
Sun Min had already felt something from seeing Ling Xu fight above in the desert as he had observed that the swings from his sword looked very casual as if he didn't need to exert that much strength to kill the beasts.
Xie Lin's face had become quite the spectacle as he didn't understand why he didn't say anything if his strength was so high when he talked rudely to him.
He felt a chill running down his spine when he realized that he had actually provoked him. But fortunately, he realized that Ling Xu didn't seem to care about his attitude.
It took them two hours to see their path change as it widened a lot, having already cleared the third room full of bats.
Although they had several blood wounds that stood out of their torn clothes by now, they had already closed them up as they used their blood qi to do the work.
Entering a great hall made of stone, the group had already become vigilant of what they would encounter next.
They looked everywhere to no avail as the light was very dim and they couldn't see a single bat or even hear the sound from the wind.
"Is this room empty or wha…"
As if losing all the air from his body, Xie Lin's face became colorless as it looked a few feet in front.
The rest of the group looked in Xie Lin's direction as they found two red beads appear in the dark.