Luckily, he had access to a special method of progressing in his cultivation super-fast! And that at least soothed those subdued feelings of his a little.
“Let’s change back.” Entering the Shape-shifter Technology again, Virus transformed back to his original face and anatomy since he didn’t find a reason to keep the fake one.
‘So, where should I go hunting?’ As he thought about that, some memories of the past during the time he was still in the Silver Sky Sect flowed into his consciousness.
He recalled how he had heard disciples discussing the subject of the most mysterious hunting ground and it was somewhere called Chao Mundi. In fact, he had heard this name more than once as it was said even the Animal Kingdom of monstrous beasts could only rule over a small part of it and did not dare to travel beyond their borders deeper into Chao Mundi for some unknown reasons. All the books he had read in the library of the Silver Sky Sect also confirmed that fact.
And when it came to cultivators, history itself had proven those who were courageous enough to venture too deep never came back! Due to that, everyone knew Chao Mundi was one of the most dangerous forbidden lands.
Of course, in case a cultivator only hunted at its very shallow borders and did not trek deeper, it was considered safe grounds unless one was unfortunate enough to come across a beast he or she cannot handle.
‘Let’s see… with the current speed of the spaceship, it should take about a week before I leave the Wild Islands, cross the ocean, and reach Chao Mundi which is a neighbor of the ocean.’
…
Six days flew by in a heartbeat as Virus finally arrived at his destination.
Looking out of his spaceship, he could see oceans of trees right outside the cockpit. There were trees of any sizes perceivable which pointed at the fact that the jungle had definitely existed since ancient times!
‘Shall we begin?’ Muttering that, he jumped out of the entrance of the spacecraft with no delay.
In the past six days, Virus had checked the condition of his vehicle and concluded that he would need to fix it himself if he ever wanted to return.
Regrettably, however, according to his calculations, since he did not have many of the necessary parts and materials, that was going to take a long time since that’s how awful the damage was.
Finally landing on the ground, Virus started searching around in hopes of finding prey. Fortuitously, it took only five minutes before he spotted a two-headed snake. Following that, It took a single charge from his part to behead both of its heads.
Letting out a disappointed sigh, Virus murmured next, “Unfortunately, it’s only a monstrous beast of the First Order. It couldn’t raise the synthesis percentage of my third pair even by one percent!”
In the Cultivation Multiverse of Qi, the cultivation stages of the monstrous beasts were graded by ‘Order’ count. Denoting, from the weakest to the strongest it was, respectively, First Order, Second Order, Third Order, and so on until it reached the monstrous beast of the Tenth Order!
Each Order corresponded to its own equivalent stages of human cultivators meaning the beasts at the ‘First Order’ were comparable to Human Cultivators at the ‘Energy Disentanglement’ Stage which was the beginning stage of Cultivation.
Following that were the monstrous beasts of the ‘Second Order’ who were as strong as cultivators in the ‘Liberation Stage’.
The ‘Third Order’ matched the ‘Sublimity Emergence’ Stage and the list continued like that until the Tenth Order.
In fact, for monstrous beasts, other than their level of cultivation, what mattered the most was the grade of their bloodline which represented their potential as it was also one of the main factors determining their standing position and level of authority among each other. Their ‘potential ranking’ from the known strongest to the weakest was, respectively, Legendary-grade, King-grade, Beast-grade, First-grade, Second-grade, Third-grade, and so on.
Naturally, the stronger beasts with higher and more valuable bloodlines were respected by those of weaker bloodline grades.
And now, having come across a monster of First Order, Virus knew he had to go a bit deeper.
Therefore, as he sprinted into the forest, Virus came across many types of first and even second Order monstrous beasts as he easily beheaded them without even needing to pause or stop.
It didn’t matter if the monster was in the lower or middle phase of the Second-Order, Virus was still capable of slaughtering them in leisure.
MOOOOO~
As he encountered a new monster, a cow-like creature with three sets of horns on its head and blood-red eyes to be exact, wanting to get rid of it as fast as possible, Virus hacked at its neck, only to feel as if he had just hit an unbreakable rock before all of the force came rushing back into his own hands.
‘It’s at the higher phase- no, ah, shit, it’s at the ‘peak’ of the Second Order! Damn it!’ A frown crept over Virus’ expression as he casually began to contemplate whether to escape or try fighting the beast head-on, not that he was confident enough to run away on foot.
On the other side, however, having just been attacked, the cow monster didn’t need to think as it directly rammed into him using his horns!
MOOO!
“Argh!”
The force put behind the headbutt was so heavy that Virus promptly felt as if a truck had just hit him, only that it felt even worse since the cow’s pointy horns had penetrated through his stomach. Luckily, due to the horrifying level of Virus’ corporeal body defense, the injury wasn’t that deep as it couldn’t even reach his internal organs.
The reason for Virus’ prior hesitation mainly had to do with the fact that the monstrous beasts at the ‘peak’ of the Second Order usually could rival those at the eighth and even in some rare cases the ninth level of Liberation stage cultivator.
Unfortunately, since most cultivators could only reach the sixth level of Liberation before breaking through to the next stage of Sublimity Emergence, they could only face these types of ‘Peak’ Second-Order monsters only when they had successfully elevated their Cultivation to the Sublimity Emergence.
Of course, even then, some rare geniuses could handle these kinds of monsters even at the sixth level of Liberation using various factors such as their talent or high-quality techniques to fight these monsters.
Sadly yet, the reason Virus didn’t want to go against the beast was because he was aware with his third level of Liberation, he could at most go against peak seventh level Liberation even using all his three perks.
‘Hmm, now that I have two fused pathways that can release energy outwardly to the world, it looks like I can only try using a technique.’ Standing up, Virus sped up his processing speed to its absolute limits as he began going through countless ‘Human-class’ Techniques while quickly narrowing them down to ‘attack-types’ that required a ‘longsword’ for utilization, and then he further cut it down to the ‘top three’ that required ‘two’ liberated pathways.
In the Human-class Technique, the requirement for learning and using them depended on the number of liberated passages a cultivator had access to. That signified if someone had synthesized and liberated only ‘two pathways’, that person would not be able to use Human-class Techniques that necessitated at least ‘three liberated pathways’ as only those with that minimum of three pathways might have a chance of doing it.
Other than that requirement, the ‘location’ of the liberated pathways was also of utmost importance. For example, the ‘attack-type’ Human-class Techniques that uses the ‘sword’ usually needs the pathways on the ‘hand’ to be liberated while the ‘movement-type’ Human Techniques are commonly needed for pathways of the ‘feet’ to be unlocked and liberated. That was precisely why Virus was currently searching for attack-type techniques and not those of movement-type since his two liberated pathways were located on his hands and not legs.
Following that, Virus swiftly looked through the top-three most suitable ones as he picked a Human-class technique for the very first time. The reason why he had not done this before today chiefly had to do with the fact that techniques that utilize only one released pathway are simply too weak and no different from releasing the energy outwardly by himself.
「Delirious Judgment Slash」:
[Description: A madman thinking him God! The first form is a vertical hacking attack using two liberated pathways, the more ‘delirious’ you are, the stronger the attack in both forms and vice versa. The second form is a horizontal slash and needs three liberated passages. Requirements: Longsword, minimum of two pathways liberated in the hand area.]
…
「Twisting Tempest Thrust」:
[Description: Twist like tempest a hole in your enemy! The first form requires one pathway as it focuses on the word ‘Thrust’, the second form requires two liberated pathways as it concentrates the ‘Tempest’, the third form needs three liberated energy paths as it needs the ‘Twisting’, the fourth form has a requisite for four liberated pathways and it fuses all three aspects ‘Twisting’, ‘Tempest’, and ‘Thrust’! Requirements: Longsword, minimum of one pathway liberated in the hand area.]
…
「Trash Lash Bash」:
[Description: No place for trash! The technique only has one movement and that is to concentrate all energy on the sword using two liberated energy pathways in order to bash trash with a lash! Requirements: Longsword, minimum of two pathways liberated in the hand area.]
…
Quickly analyzing the three options he had, Virus didn’t need to consider before picking the second one, [Twisting Tempest Thrust].
Virus chose that not because it was a Mid-Human class Technique, but rather because he will be able to use it for a longer period until he breaks through and out of the fifth level of liberation.
In fact, until he achieves and comprehends the fourth form of the technique, it was only considered a Low- or Early-Human class technique, but that was only possible after he liberates his fourth pathway!
Therefore, to the current him, there wasn’t really much of a difference between the three techniques other than one still being useful in the long run.
Nevertheless, having already set his mind on it, Virus started the comprehension process of the technique on the nail.
Usually, depending on the complexity of the technique, a normal cultivator needs to spend around a month or two to comprehend and train a form at this stage.
Of course, that only included the cultivators at the Liberation stage since those of higher stage can comprehend them much easier since with each stage, the cultivators’ physique gets faster and their processing and thinking speed increases substantially while their perception of time slows down.
What that meant was that as cultivators get stronger, they can attain the calculative levels of artificial intelligence and even exceed it at some point.
Nonetheless, even though it would take a normal cultivator a month or two to understand the first form of [Twisting Tempest Thrust], Virus pulled it off at once!
Not stopping there, he also actualized and attained the second form which necessitated two liberated pathways, and that was about his current limit!
Returning his perception of time to somewhat normal next, Virus yelled in excitement. “Hahaha, I’m ready now, let’s get back to it!”
To Virus, every time he starts using his terrifying processing speed to its utmost limits, it felt as if time freezes up entirely!
As a matter of fact, not only does it feel like time has stopped, even his body gets trapped in time as he gets motionless like a statue. His physique is simply incapable of keeping up with his sharp mind.
Nevertheless, since the time was back to normal now, Virus could see the enraged cow storming toward him, about to headbutt him even harder!
