"I hope it didn't cost him much. Where is little Xu, I want to thank him."
"He left."
"Left?"
On another place in the outer layer.
Ling Xu was trying to sleep while thinking of how he barely arrived in time before Xu Min suffered something she wouldn't be able to forget.
"Fortunately I didn't arrive too late!"
Feeling grateful, he still didn't stay with them. Barely knowing them, Ling Xu still cared about his group after spending a day with them. He even had something good to say about Xie Lin, as he observed on the first day of the mission how he cared for the rest of the team in his own way.
But his path was different having a great gap in strength with all of them. Ling Xu could differentiate between taking care of someone, as he just did, and sacrificing his own growth in fear of them being in danger.
So he gave Xu Min another blood replenishing pill for each of them in case they needed to recover their energy in an emergency, and another wound ointment apart from the one he gave her to help Sun Min recover from his injuries.
After doing that, he left to sleep elsewhere as he had already got accustomed to sleeping on the trees alone. Xu Min couldn't say anything before he disappeared once again, looking in the direction he left with a special light in her eyes.
…
[System Points]: 12.230
[Equipment]
[Pills]
[Special Items]
Once he woke up, Ling Xu ate and then called the store panel ready to claim his rewards. There was a small decrease in points after he bought the high grade pills and wound ointment for Sun Min and the rest of the group.
He entered the special items then as he saw the following.
[Random Skill (low grade)]: 3000 points (8)
[Luminous Stone (low grade)]: 1000 points (73)
[Upgrade Skill (middle grade)]: 3000 points (8)
"Someone has already managed to buy a skill."
By now, Ling Xu had bought a random skill and two chances to upgrade skills. So he was surprised when he saw that the random skill had one less available as someone else had bought it.
He wasn't surprised about the big decrease in the available luminous stones as its price was the lowest and there were more than 900 survivors remaining. After all, there were still may participants who haven't gotten their own middle grade weapon.
[You have spent 5000 points on Upgrade Skill (high grade).]
[You have used Upgrade Skill on Copper Skin Iron Bones (middle grade).]
[You have spent 5000 points on Upgrade Skill (high grade).]
[You have used Upgrade Skill on Electric Sensory Field (middle grade).]
Ling Xu fell to the ground, experiencing the same pain he had already gone through when acquiring the skill and fusing it into middle grade.
The process was three minutes long and once he could stand up again you could see inside his body a layer of protection around every one of his organs.
He then activated the skill on his skin as he realized that this layer had completely turned into a bronze color. It then disappeared as it merged with his skin, this time he realized that the protection was still there even after doing so.
The effect was even stronger as he realized that it had become quite robust, changing from a thin layer of protection to increasing his skin width half an inch.
"Cling!"
The sound of metal could be heard as he tried cutting himself with his refined short sword. It bounce back after he used his whole strength, so he slowly unleashed his blood qi until he saw a small cut on his arm.
Stopping at 30% his blood qi speed, Ling Xu finally saw a cut made by the sword. He was extremely satisfied as it had turned from 10% with the use of the golden shadow energy, to 30% with the increase of his skill grade, making it even harder for beasts to make a scratch on him.
[Name]: Ling Xu
[Realm]: 7th stage of Blood Qi (23%)
[Cultivation]: Basic Blood Circulation (perfection), Existence Shadow Will (10,1%)
[Techniques]: Blood Thread Transformation (completed)
[Skills]: Enhanced Synapsis (high grade), White Heavy Strike (high grade), Gale Steps (high grade), Bronze Body (high grade), Profound Electric Field (high grade)
"The names have changed too, after upgrading from middle to high grade they have turned from Swift Steps to Gale Steps, from Copper Skin Iron Body to Bronze Body and from Electric Sensory Field to Profound Electric Field."
The only thing he had to do now was try the changes of his new Profound Electric Field skill which needed his activation to use.
A soft electric current appeared all of a sudden on his skin, giving him a weird sensation.
Ling Xu felt weird not because of the current but because he could now perceive inside his own body. As the sensory field introduced into his body, he was able to see the insides of his body. From the blood qi flowing through his veins to his organs and even his bones.
Ling Xu observed his body, which had slowly separated from the body of a normal human. After being refined in the low and middle stages of the Blood Qi realm, his muscles and organs looked extremely dense and resilient, full of vitality.
But on the other side, he couldn't see that much of a difference on his bones as he had barely advanced into the high stage of Blood Qi and there wasn't an apparent change.
Moving his attention out of his body, he also observed the new appearance of Profound Electric Field which now had a vague current flowing through his body. He could now sense even more sharply anything that was three inches close to his body.
[System Points]: 2.230
[Equipment]
[Pills]
[Special Items]
"Now that I have spent almost all of my points, it's time to hunt once again."
...
It took him almost three hours to see another transparent barrier that divided the inner layer to the next layer.
Ling Xu decided to delve deeper as he was very curious about what would appear next and he couldn't continue hunting in the inner layer when other survivors had started to enter it.
While Ling Xu was in the outer layer hunting the tough boars and red deer, the rest was still in the desert having not found the deserted forest. After entering the inner layer and wiping out three different habitats where he found the charged leopards, black scale snakes and ravenous crocodiles, the rest had started hunting in the outer layer. And now that he had been a few days inside the inner layer, the rest of the survivors had started to delve deeper into the inner layer.
Ling Xu had already started to feel a few traces of aura closing the distance with him, so after careful thought he decided to enter the next layer while he still had the chance to hunt alone.
He knew that it was still possible to continue exploring other habitats of the inner and even outer layer, but his desire to continue didn't allow him to go at such a slow pace, and even less now that other people would start to take his points.
[You have entered the core layer of the Deserted Forest.]
After hearing the message, he looked in front and observed a few beasts that looked like the apes from Earth. They looked more imposing than any other beast he had seen in the inner layer as they emanated a denser aura, coming from the blood qi which could surpass any of the seventh stage beasts he had met on the mission.
"Although they are pretty similar, apart from their beast like appearance, they also have two tails instead of one."
Approaching slowly, Ling Xu sensed something with his improved Profound Electric Field as he dodged to the right. Behind him, he was startled by the appearance of another ape like beast that had tried to kill him with its sharp claws.
"Fortunately, I kept my skill activated. I doubt it could have broken through my Bronze Body skill, let alone my skin, which has been refined to its limit. But still, if I wasn't cautious who would have known what could happen if my opponent was just a bit stronger."
Falling to the ground in confusion, the two tailed ape was confused as he didn't even have the chance to hit his target. It was always easy for it to hunt for food in the inner layer as it was the apex predator in the forest, only weaker than his leader.
"Although it's very fast, the problem is it didn't make a sound. I wouldn't have noticed it without the help of my Profound Sensory Field skill."
Ling Xu activated his Enhanced Synapsis as his eyes also became red. He stopped suppressing his blood qi as his aura increased dramatically all of a sudden.
The ape suddenly trembled and felt a chill down its spine but without even a warning Ling Xu took its head off with his short sword.
[You have killed a Whirling Ape (8th stage Blood Qi) +128 points.]
He didn't look at the message as he charged at the two other apes that he was previously sneaking at as they had noticed his aura too. They could barely move a bit before Ling Xu appeared next to them, moving faster than they could react.
[You have killed a Whirling Ape (8th stage Blood Qi) +128 points.]
[You have killed a Whirling Ape (8th stage Blood Qi) +128 points.]
All of a sudden, with his blood qi running rampant and his senses enhanced, Ling Xu heard several gusts of wind coming at him from different directions in the forest.
A few breaths passed and he suddenly saw several enraged apes coming at him from different places, they screamed at him seeing the corpses of their fellow species on the ground.
[You have killed a Whirling Ape (8th stage Blood Qi) +128 points.]
[You have killed a Whirling Ape (8th stage Blood Qi) +128 points.]
[You have killed a Whirling Ape (8th stage Blood Qi) +128 points.]
...
After 15 minutes of Ling Xu going around in a radius of hundreds of meters killing every ape he found, he started to sweat a little after spending a considerable amount of blood qi.
Fortunately, the only skill he used repeatedly was Enhanced Synapsis which didn't have a great impact on his use of blood qi, so he had more than enough energy to continue with the hunt.
He also used his Wind Blood Shoes, but their effect started to decrease compared to before as Ling Xu's current cultivation stage surpassed the middle grade, making its effect diminish.
Looking at the store panel, a smile from eye to eye could be seen.
[System Points]: 12.470
[Equipment]
[Pills]
[Special Items]
Ling Xu had actually recovered in less than an hour the number of sacrificial points he used to upgrade his skills.
Not knowing what to use his points for now, he decided to continue going deeper into the core layer of the forest.
...
Opening his eyes wide, Ling Xu observed a massive tree that spanned twice as tall as the biggest tree he had found yet while seeing their sizes grow while delving deeper. It was very wide and was located in the center most part of the forest.
After running for ten minutes straight, Ling Xu had run into it. And hanging on one of the wide branches the tree had, he found a gorilla with a strong build, looking straight into his eyes. He didn't doubt whether it was related to the whirling apes as it also had two tails.
The gorilla jumped to the ground, caving it a bit from its huge size and pressure. Seeing the beast unfaced by the dozen meters fall, Ling Xu felt its aura and realized what he was dealing with.
"It should be on the ninth stage of Blood Qi, its aura surpasses a few times the whirling apes!"