Because of his Blind Cat Stance: Shadow, Xia Mao was temporarily in an ethereal state which he passed through objects with ease. However, that stance consumed chi like flowing water from the tap, and it meant that Xia Mao only had one shot at making it right.
But the Blind Cat Cultivator was not an assault based cultivation style and more of a support type cultivation. That was also the reason why he adopted the use of Mechatronics and infused it with chi (i.e. His Cat Head Arrows) to fight against the Valgs. Xia Mao had shamelessly admitted to his dungeon group that when he was younger, he did use his cultivation knowledge to break into secure locations or big companies to pick their company safes.
If not for his Blind Cat Cultivation, he would have gone to jail more than just once. For his imprisonment, the police had to specially create an anti magic barrier along with inscription charms designed to absorb Xia Mao’s chi. He recalled that the prison was meant to have the bare minimum amount of chi to survive. This was all to make sure that his blind cat cultivation would not be activated in prison.
Fortunately (Or unfortunately), it was due to people like Xia Mao, the government became wary of such cultivations and begun upgrading prison security and even tried to ban the Blind prefixes in cultivation styles. (Xia Mao tried to boast that he was the few that made the government revamp the prison system, but no one ever believes him.) No doubt there were protests, but the country’s culture still made it easy to implement those bans as compared to other nations.
Thus, most of the existing ‘Blind’ cultivation types were either altered to suit the government ban (Such as Yue Han’s Blind Bat Cultivation) or those who used the original blind cultivation types were hidden in plain sight.
The rest who were still active? Try the underworld society.
It is uncommon to know a Blind cultivation type user in the underworld, but surprisingly, the Triads had also limited the number of blind cultivation types one could employ. All of the Royal Zodiac Triads obliged to it strictly without any question. (If Royal Zodiac Triad spies ever find out that a triad had more than what was considered acceptable, a shadow civil war between the Triads.)
Despite the enforcement from the Royal Zodiac Triads, they were only a fraction part of the underworld society. And if one were to give a moral alignment to them, they were already considered to be lawfully evil.
Why? Simple.
It’s the society of shadows.
Previously when Kraft travelled into the Abyss Web, it was not solely just for Foxy. As part of an unwritten rule with the System, he was there to scout and gather information.
One portion of such information was regarding black sites and servers filled with contractable hitmen. The System needed data on those hitmen in case those people ever had the blind cultivation types and infiltrate the shop in order to take out Jin. While nothing can escape the eyes of the System when they are in the shop instance premises, it would still be useful to have the preemptive information on them. (And so, Kraft could strike them back hard too.)
Even though most of the information was hard to obtain and such sites had the counter hackers to protect the identities of their hitmen, Kraft and the System never fail to break their security and decipher them during their spare (processing) time. And once they had access to their servers, Kraft kept a separate watchlist to take note of those men.
In the meantime, the Devilman tried not to use Foxy spyware if possible since he wanted to keep its appearance as low as possible to reduce overexposure if counter hackers stumble on to it. Thus, it was solely his skills and his ability to break into the black servers. (If he ever fails, he would take it as a lesson to be learnt and come back with a better cracking procedure.)
As for Xia Mao, because of his previous offence, he had to wear a mini monitoring device on his leg for 20 years after a year of jail. (Due to the intense and isolated nature of his imprisonment, the judge sentenced had reduced it only a year upon revision. Besides, the prosecution could not find any further pieces of evidence for his previous thefts except for the one he was caught for.)
During that period, he atoned and worked (somewhat) honestly to become a successful businessman in the field of mechanical engineering with the money he had stolen. (Of course, he used it sparingly to avoid suspicion.) There were times Xia Mao had the urge to commit crimes again for the thrills but technology advances made it too risky for him, especially after being caught once.
Through the years, he did attempt many dungeon instances from various dungeon suppliers, but they never gave him the kick he always wanted until now. Xia Mao never felt the battles to be this exhilarating in Jin’s store, and the use of his cultivation had become beneficial for the dungeon group he joined. (For example, he used his Blind Cat cultivation to retrieve the cosmetic inscriptions in the Deep One Dungeon.)
That was why he never failed to miss a group dungeon meeting ever since he found Jin’s store.
—–
“Hey, Frog! Catch this!” Xia Mao said as he threw the scimitar towards Gaeru. The moment the frog swordsman caught it; the scimitar turned bright green like the colour of his skin. Apparently, what Xia Mao had used was something similar to a technique in Yue Wen’s Healing Maiden Cultivation.
The Healing Maiden employed a technique that permitted the transference of chi through the physical touch of the body, but for the Blind Cat cultivation, Xia Mao transferred his chi using the scimitar as a medium of transport.
That was also how he could never get caught until that fateful day. Xia Mao was able to make an item dissipate as chi, causing it to vanish without a trace.
Well, actually almost.
His technique enabled him to break the item down into dust, but those dust still contained traces of his chi, which was why he was caught with the advancement of forensic technology.
Gaeru, who was barely familiar with the chi concept, only knows that the bright green light he was holding on to, was some form of energy which could be utilised to boost his strength. So, the frog swordsman held the glowing scimitar tight alongside with Boo, finally enabling Jin’s sword to change into a shape which Gaeru had desired.
A larger version of Masamune. (What else could he think about?)
But unlike the standard Masamune, Boo, now enchanted with a voluminous amount of chi, allowed Gaeru to feel like he was merely holding a feather despite its size. Without any doubts or hesitation, Gaeru casually took a swing against the Giant Valg, and the impact from the enlarged Boo caused it to fall to the ground almost instantaneously.
The Giant Salamander Valg had no idea that the frog was able to wield such a weapon and was indeed taken by surprise. If not for the Giant Valg’s fists of pillars to block the swing, it would have been cut into two.
By this time, some of the cultivators who came to reinforce were flabbergasted to comprehend a frog holding a sword hundred times its size. A few nearly assumed he was part of the monster horde they had to fight until their mask interface indicated that he was a friendly.
“Stop staring and start killing the Giant! Do not give it a chance to stand up!” Jing Yu’s shout broke the mood of shock and awe as she channelled a bulk of her chi into her swords.
Zi Dan, who was also in a daze, swiftly got out of it and release the triple barrel RPG launcher from his storage ring. The Mask’s user interface immediately booted up a screen that enabled Zi Dan to lock Valg into his target.
To his amazement, the RPG missiles were programmed to follow the target locking mechanism provided by the Mask interface which allowed the Bullet Cheetah cultivator to fire without any training. With a click, three missiles were mercilessly shot out from their barrels, and they roared towards the Giant Salamander Valg’s head.
Xia Mao who managed to ledge himself on top of a castle pillar after the previous stunt unleashed his Triple barrel RPG launcher at the direction of the Valg’s head as well. When all six missiles exploded, Jing Yu did not hesitate to follow up the attack by sending her swords forth. The only difference was that all six swords were attached with the incendiary grenades which the Pit Stop shop app had gifted her.
Similar to Zi Dan, her incendiary grenades could be rigged for remote explosions via the Mask’s user interface, and that gave her more control with those grenades since she too had no experience in handling them.
Somehow, Gaeru felt that those puny attacks were not sufficient against such a large Valg, as if they were merely scratching the surface.
Thus, in order to finish this Giant Salamander once and for all, the frog continuously jumped up the walls and pillars, dragging that huge sword right beside him.
Using the momentum of his jumps, he backflipped the moment he reached to the top of the ceiling and plummeted his sword down into the Valg’s torso. That giant monster screeched due to the wound he recieved, and his violent reaction to it was noticeable for everyone.
It was evident Gaeru had struck a vital blow against the Giant Salamander Valg.
Needless to say, that fabulous one-hit strike significantly boosted the morale for the rest of the cultivators as they rushed in, hoping to finish the Giant Valg before it was able to get up.
And their efforts were not in vain.
