Its eyes looked ferocious giving the impression it wasn't happy about Ling Xu's attitude of coming into his territory. It hadn't even realized that he had also killed every one of his fellow species, leaving only a pair of them that had run away in time as they felt his aura in the distance.
In Ling Xu's hand, his sword was hanging as the gorilla turned its attention to it. It felt the aura from his fellow apes and realized what it meant.
"ROAAAAAAAAR!!!"
Its double tails moved through the wind as his body disappeared instantly. Moving extremely fast, Ling Xu's eyes which had a red color could trace them without a problem.
Taking its size into account, he was very surprised as he saw its speed comparable to his.
Gripping his sword very hard, Ling Xu moved a bit faster as a wind force could be felt on the blade. With his eyes, which allowed him to see the gorilla twice as slow, Ling Xu stabbed it in the chest.
"Kuughhh!"
Blood could be seeing coming out of the beast's mouth, having a very scary wound in his chest which made him look very pitiful.
What wrong did it do for it to be dying right now. It was only trying to defend his territory as it then realized that the blood of his tribe was on the human's blade.
With a face full of anger and regret, its eyes started to close losing its life.
"What is going on?"
Ling Xu felt normal when all of a sudden he realized that the atmosphere in the air had changed. He looked again at the gorilla as he felt its aura disappearing.
The next image would have been the gorilla falling to the ground if it wasn't for the fact that it opened its eyes full of vigor.
"This doesn't seem right."
Feeling no aura left, instead of the beast falling Ling Xu saw a light shining subtly in its eyes.
The blood from its chest stopped falling as the wound healed incredibly fast, becoming a horrifying scar. Ling Xu had already taken his weapon away from its body as it left the process go unimpeded.
Just a few seconds have passed after it was about to die and the gorilla beast had become a completely different being. Its aura was untraceable, but instead of making Ling Xu feel secure it only made him feel a chill running down his spine.
The gorilla looked at Ling Xu with a different face from before, feeling completely confident in its sudden increase of strength.
Ling Xu was trying to understand the situation when he saw it disappear in sight, the next thing that happened was him seeing everything move very fast.
"Cough! Cough! Cough!"
In his abdomen, his skin became extremely bruised with a few strands of blood slightly coming out from small cut wounds, made by the sheer force of the gorilla's fist.
For the first time, Ling Xu felt the consequences of his carelessness. Having deactivated his Enhanced Synapsis skill when he thought the fight was over, made him unable to react at its sudden increase in speed.
Fortunately he still had his Bronze Body skill activated, merged with his skin, allowing him to survive the violent attack from the gorilla and not becoming severely wounded by the strike.
Even the golden shadow energy from his abdomen came out at the critical time as it condensed where the gorilla hit him, saving him from having a hole in his body.
But now it had been broken and Ling Xu felt that it returned inside his body to regenerate as it had used almost every bit of energy to block that attack.
His eyes, red again, started to move incredibly fast as they saw the gorilla about to punch him hard again. Coming out of the small crater, Ling Xu avoided the next strike that made the ground cave even more, leaving incredible web cracks on the ground.
"I can't let it hit me again!"
He reactivated his Bronze Body skill as it merged with his skin and started to dodge the next attack that came, leaving him with no room to make one of his own.
Using his Gale Steps skill to the limit, Ling Xu was barely able to keep up with the help of his enhanced vision.
The gorilla made several hits that landed in the air. Every hit it made had a gust of wind blow into a tree and leave a small hole in it.
With the help of his Sensory Body Field, Ling Xu maintained incredible control over the terrain as he moved smoothly with the flexible moves of his movement skill.
"I need to land a decisive attack or else I'm going to be the one who dies."
He continued avoiding several fists as the gorilla became impatient. Enraged, it made several strikes in one go as Ling Xu couldn't keep dodging, being thrown into the air by the last fist it threw.
Seeing him in the air, the ferocious beast saw its opportunity as it charged at him.
But the gorilla didn't know the full extent of Ling Xu's skill, which even allowed him to react in the air.
The sound of the wind came with its fist, but as Ling Xu's body was about to be hit, it suddenly turned. Avoiding the fist and the air current that came with it, he took a downward posture.
"It's now!"
He swung his blade using all his strength and a current of air could be seen from the activation of White Heavy Strike.
The sound of a torrent of energy started to be heard from outside of his body as Ling Xu's aura increased for a moment. You could see blood coming out of his eyes and other orifices as he stimulated his blood qi to the limit.
Using every trace of blood qi he could, the wind pressure coming from his weapon's blade increased in size as it fell on the two tailed beast.
The wind tore its shoulder's skin completely as the blade entered and cut all the way to the abdomen, passing again through the big scar he had just received less than a minute ago.
With its body wreaked in havoc, the gorilla fell to the ground with its body almost cut in half. This time it couldn't muster any strength to move as its eyes closed almost instantly, losing all the momentum he had gained from its increase in strength.
The atmosphere in the air became normal once again as the gorilla died and a face of fear of death was left.
Breathing with difficulty, Ling Xu took out the sword that was stuck in its corpse.
After a few seconds passed, he could hear the sound of the system confirming the kill.
[You have killed a Mutant Whirling Ape (1st stage Qi Refining) +2560 points.]
"Is Qi Refining the next cultivation realm? I still barely know anything about cultivation as the system has barely given any explanation."
He said aloud as he didn't hear an answer even after a dozen seconds have passed. But instead of answering his question, the system came with another set of messages.
[You are the first to overcome the limits of your cultivation stage and defeat a beast in the Qi Refining realm.]
[You have earned a one way teleportation chance to the cultivation world, after using it you won't be able to go back to Earth.]
"What? I won't be able to come back?"
Ling Xu's mind, which was in turmoil, was suddenly interrupted by another notification.
[You have received a once in a lifetime chance in the final reward of the mission.]
"Oh, this is much better."
He felt satisfied after hearing the last message and decided to think the least about the teleporting matter and the world of cultivation. Either way he was still on the mission, and he didn't need to think about it for now.
[Notice to all participants: the boss on the core layer has been defeated and it won't appear again.]
…
On the rest of the map, several people yelled in confusion doubting their life.
"There is actually someone who could enter the core layer and defeated the boss.
"This is impossible! What have we been doing all this time, struggling to kill a few charged leopards on the inner layer?"
"I have already met several groups of people and none have dared to enter the core layer. How can there be a group to have already defeated the strongest beast in the map?!"
...
After the shock from the messages he received, Ling Xu climbed the massive tree in the center of the deserted forest, where the mutant whirling ape was resting.
"So this was where he was resting, there seems to be nothing."
Searching for a reward, Ling Xu was surprised to see nothing but the branch he rested on. But on second thought, he saw from the corner of his eyes, a hole on the side of the trunk.
"There should be something there."
He almost inserted his whole face inside the whole as he found two white fruits connected to the tree through a root, which made it seem as if it was its heart.
"Jackpot! This should be a real treasure."
He pluck them out of the core of the trunk and put them on his spatial ring, they looked very tempting but he felt it would be smarter to wait until he found out what their function was.
Before putting them inside the ring, Ling Xu sensed a trace of energy that made him remember the feeling he got when the gorilla broke through to the Qi Refining realm.
"There should have been another fruit on the third root, maybe this treasure was the reason the mutant whirling ape got the chance to breakthrough."
After searching a bit more, Ling Xu found nothing else to gain from there.
Deciding on resting for the time left on the mission, Ling Xu sat on the branch the mutant ape was resting originally.
[Name]: Ling Xu
[Realm]: 7th stage of Blood Qi (23%)
[Cultivation]: Basic Blood Circulation (perfection), Existence Shadow Will (12,1%)
[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)
"This is what a real status panel should look like."
Looking at the progress he had made since a month ago when the system appeared and he was forced into the tutorial, Ling Xu felt proud of his growth.
He knew there was still a lot of room to grow so he decided to enter the system store.
[Random Skill (low grade)]: 3000 points (7)
[Luminous Stone (low grade)]: 1000 points (52)
[Upgrade Skill (middle grade)]: 3000 points (8)
"The luminous stones seem to be very popular. After all they are the cheapest of the special items and once you acquire a higher grade weapon the ability to kill beasts increases a lot. It's almost as if you have acquired another skill."
After the majority of the participants entered the inner layer, it was only natural that with time they gained a thousand points. Still, it wasn't very easy to get so even though the mission had around a thousand people, only half a hundred had bought a luminous stone.
And buying the random skill or upgrade skill chance was three times harder, so it was completely normal that only one more skill had been bought since the last time he checked.
Seeing the effort that many people had put into increasing their strength, Ling Xu had a change of mind.
As he was already capable of killing a beast in the Qi Refining realm, he felt that buying another skill wouldn't help that much as an addition to his strength. He was even less eager to buy one as he realized that buying one would take a quarter of the points he had left.
Ling Xu had decided not to continue hunting as he realized that he had already completely wiped out several habitats of their respective beasts, so the amount of points he would get compared to his effort would only become lower and lower.
And he had already gained a lot after reaching the core layer and defeating the mutant ape.
He then entered the other sections once again as he saw something that called his eye on the pill category.
[Blood Tempering Pill (low quality 1st grade)]: 50 points
[Blood Replenishing Pill (low quality 1st grade)]: 50 points
[Blood Condensing Pill (low grade 1st grade)]: 100 points
[Wound Ointment (low grade 1st grade)]: 70 points
…
[Recommended]
[Blood Tempering Pill (high quality 1st grade)]: 120 points
"Why is the system recommending me the blood tempering pills?"
Ling Xu looked at the message that advised him to buy high grade blood tempering pills. He was speechless as there was no reason why it would advise him that, up until now it had never done such a thing.
"It didn't even give me a discount after asking me to buy it."
He looked at the rest of the store and soon enough realized that he had gotten everything he needed and there was no need to buy something else.
"I will trust on you system."
…
In Ling Xu's spatial ring, you could see eleven small bottles containing ten high grade blood tempering pills each. His current points had turned from 15.030 to 1.830 in a matter of a few seconds.
"I don't know why I should buy them but I have more than enough now. Next I should buy the high grade wound ointment so I can heal faster my wounds."
[You have spent 150 points on Wound Ointment (high grade).]
[You have spent 150 points on Wound Ointment (high grade).]
The rest of his points were then used to buy a bottle containing five high grade blood condensing pills, and another one containing five high grade blood replenishing pills.
At the end of the transaction Ling Xu had only 30 points remaining, which wasn't enough to buy a single thing in the store.