“Crap!”

  Cade threw himself backward, earning shallow cuts from two segmented legs coming down on him like an executioner’s axe. A huge, bloated spider now stood in the exact spot he had occupied just an eyeblink ago, both of its chitinous front legs partially buried in the ground.

  Rolling over his shoulder, Cade shot toward a large tree behind him like an arrow loosed at full draw. He sprang rapidly off its rough surface, narrowly avoiding another ambush by a different spider, which had apparently been waiting patiently for its prey to come closer. The second spider’s serrated limbs sliced downward in a blur of motion, passing less than an inch away from his arm. Sliding over the moist grass, Cade tore at the ground with his claws, rapidly arresting his momentum.

  “Sneaky bastards,” he muttered, grinning like a madman, eyes gleaming with greed.

  He couldn’t believe his own luck. He felt almost blessed after being ambushed by these spiders. The sneaky creatures were five feet tall and could easily hide in tall grass, silently waiting for their prey. They were quite rare and possessed immensely powerful blood qi, capable of negating their own deadly, poisonous bile.

  Cade once again pushed off with both feet, launching himself toward another tree thirty feet away to create some distance, only to catch two incoming projectiles in the corner of his vision. He instinctively twisted his body mid-air, coiling like a serpent to narrowly avoid the splash from two green blobs of venomous bile. Landing on the tree, he latched onto its thick trunk with his claws.

  That was far too close.

  A pair of green silk spiders shrilled in frustration, first witnessing their sumptuous meal evade their ambush, then dodge their most powerful attack. Both acidic blobs splashed into a thicket on the outer edges of the meadow, melting through all vegetation with a hair-raising hiss. A waft of wind carried over a disgusting, fermented stench. The creatures bared their fangs in a vexed display of rage, revealing their cavernous mouths. It was no wonder they were ranked eleventh on the list of the most dangerous species found in the Verdant Sea.

  Witnessing the destructive effect of the spiders’ poisonous acid, Cade didn’t feel like giving them time to make more bile, and ignited a large amount of blood qi. His red form blurred in an explosion of speed, and a powerful kick struck the closer of the two hungering beasts, taking it completely by surprise. His heel landed right between the insect’s expressionless eyes with a sickening, wet crack. Its protective carapace shattered, and the spider was sent barreling over thirty feet like a deflated ball of flesh, its plump body brought to a halt after crashing forcefully into a huge oak tree. It struck with a loud, wet thud, falling onto its back with all eight limbs folded inwards, twitching disorderly.

  Cade tumbled once, quickly regaining his balance, and immediately powered forward at the second beast, the impact of his feet tearing up the soil. The spider raised its front legs, densely covered with sharp spikes, determined to carve its attacker into juicy strips. The young Asura jumped to the side at the last moment, narrowly avoiding the combined attack, and his shortsword flashed twice in quick succession, effortlessly slicing through the insect’s knobby joints thanks to its amazing sharpness. The creature released an ear-piercing scream as crimson fountains erupted from its stumps, its severed limbs dropping lifelessly to the ground.

  Cade pushed more of his ignited qi into his legs, launching a brutal front kick at the spider’s now defenseless head and bursting it with a wet, ugly pop. The forceful blow sent the creature’s headless body into a huge tree directly behind it. It tumbled through the air, all limbs flailing wildly, then struck the ancient trunk with a fatal splat.

  Not willing to count his chickens just yet, Cade carefully approached the first spider, unsure of both its tenacity and true level of intelligence, which he knew was fairly high. He had read about clever spirit beasts pretending to be dead only to unleash their deadliest bloodline ability after tricking their prey into lowering its defenses. Green silk spider bites spelled death, and Cade didn’t fancy testing if his body was strong enough to resist their venom. He lunged at the seemingly dead spider, extending his arm and pushing the sword forward while burning the rest of his ignited blood qi. The blade pierced effortlessly into its swollen body, provoking no response. The creature was dead as a doornail.

  “Huh, apparently these things are not that tough. They are crafty though,” Cade muttered under his breath. He sent the dead spider into his ring, repeating the motion with the other carcass while whistling a false tune.

  Interestingly, Cade had found himself in the area by accident. He was tracking a much larger beast: an alpha leading a sounder of goreswines. Unlike wild pigs, which were led by a female, goreswine packs were led by an alpha male, and most local pack leaders would have been at least at the peak of Rank 1. He had no idea the green silk spiders dwelled close by, as there were no signs of their characteristic green webbing. It was only after he walked into a small clearing while following the tracks that he was ambushed.

  After peeking inside his ring and observing the slowly accumulating blood essence, Cade couldn’t help but beam. He now had confidence in completing the Blood Transformation realm. If there was only some way he could break into Flesh Fortification, then according to the snippets he was able to preview in the Book of Life, just the act of advancing would greatly improve all of his physical attributes. By then, going after Gris would be considered bullying. A wolfish grin split his face.

  Cade pulled out his speeder from storage, jumping into the rider’s seat while initiating all formations with a trickle of blood qi. He then flew directly upwards, rising far above the treeline, and shot off towards the city.

  Two whole months after defeating the spiders, Cade had finally reached the great circle of Blood Transformation, in large part thanks to their high-potency blood. He had to make two additional trips to search for peak Rank 1 creatures, which lasted a few days each. The rest of the time was spent in the coffin, marinating in blood essence while reading books stored on handy crystal slips. Without them, he’d probably have gone mad with boredom. At least during his Asura rebirth, he had Lao Ren to talk to.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  However, the gains definitely rewarded his patience. The number of prismatic spherules in his blood had multiplied tremendously, and now there were around 500 of them, though their numbers everywhere else had grown only slightly. Still, he could now sense a trace of their strange, intoxicating power coursing through his veins. He could feel it was doing something to his body—possibly refining it—but the sensation was so vague, it was impossible to pinpoint any specific changes.

  The very first thing he did after breaking through was check the Book of Life for new information pertaining to the Flesh Fortification realm, which fulfilled a similar role as Foundation Establishment. It tremendously strengthened the body and granted access to several powerful techniques, and it was Cade’s curiosity regarding those techniques that made him reach for the book as soon as he broke through.

  He managed to glimpse one minor and two major new abilities; no details, just general information. The minor technique, like all the other minor ones, wasn’t given any special name in the book. It allowed the Asura to make minor adjustments to their body, like changing eye and hair color, skin tone, and so on. Useful, but it wouldn’t raise his battle power.

  Cade impatiently flipped the page, and his eyes instantly widened. Finally, a proper battle art!

  The first major technique—a blood art—was called Asura War Form. It was a shapeshifting and physical reinforcement technique. Its fundamental, single-blooded version was available at the peak of the early stage of Flesh Fortification. Mastering it required three types of blood—one for each of the stages. No further details were available to him at his current cultivation rank, but the Book made it sound pretty special.

  The second blood art became available immediately after advancing. Called Blood Wings, it allowed the Asura to finally take to the skies. As with War Form, a particular type of blood was required, but in this case a single source was enough.

  Excited to further increase his power and learn more about these abilities, Cade hopped back into the coffin to break through into Flesh Fortification. However, to his surprise, he wasn’t even able to shake the barrier. After going through the Book of Life and running several tests, he arrived at the conclusion that those multicolored spherules robbed him of a significant portion of the blood qi absorbed during his cultivation sessions. What should have been a smooth ride had turned into a steep climb. No matter how much blood qi he tried to absorb, it felt like using a cup to fill up a lake. If it continued like this, half a year would go by before he advanced, if not more.

  At this point, Cade was confident in facing an early Rank 2 beast on his own, but finding one within a thousand miles of Kettle was like hoping for a miracle. Even the weakest Rank 2 creature had several times the blood qi density of a peak Rank 1 beast, which would go a long way towards pushing him into Flesh Fortification. However, their cores were essential in producing many second tier pills, helping cultivators advance through Foundation Establishment or Skeletal Reinforcement realms. Thousands of hunting groups scoured Verdant Sea in hopes of killing one of those beasts.

  In the end, after discussing it with Gorgo, the duo decided this was as good a time as any to pay a visit to Baron Brightheart’s estate.

  “Anything interesting?” Gorgo inquired after returning from relieving himself.

  “Nothing, everything is quiet,” Cade answered, rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes. The sun was coming down, and the visibility was growing worse. Normally it wouldn’t affect him—day or night made little difference to him anymore—but today he could really feel the strain.

  Two days ago, the two of them had traveled to Sacrament City, reaching their destination in less than half a day. They could have flown much faster, but close to their top speed, the fliers started producing a loud phenomenon that goldscale artificers called a ‘sonic boom’. Not wanting to bring unwanted attention to themselves, they decided to drop the speed to around half of the speeders’ capabilities, and then slowed down even more as they approached their destination.

  With the help of Cade’s old map, it wasn’t hard to find Marius Brightheart’s sprawling mansion. With its four levels, thick stone structure, and two large wings, it could very well be considered a small castle. It was located in the city’s outskirts, where the Baron supposedly lived with his children and several young concubines, surrounded by a large plot of land. Or rather, he claimed to live there—Cade had his doubts in this regard, because other than the guards and a few servants, there didn’t seem to be anyone else around.

  Gorgo and Cade set up their observation post from a large hill positioned a mile away. While the location was pretty safe, at that distance Gorgo couldn’t see all that well.

  “I should have brought a telescope,” the gray warrior grumbled, unsatisfied with not being able to watch the estate.

  At first glance, Baron Brightheart didn’t seem to be doing too badly. He owned a dozen horses, a few dozen cows, and two large fruit orchards. The Baron’s property appeared to include most of the things a noble landowner was expected to have. However, hardly anyone attended to the animals, other than a couple of youngsters coming to feed them once per day. The orchards were overgrown with tall weeds. It was rather obvious that no one in Baron Brightheart’s family was trying to profit from the land, which only reinforced Cade’s suspicions that the slave trade was the family’s main source of income.

  The mansion itself was well protected, with its own small garrison of two dozen guards, all of whom were in the higher stages of Qi Condensation. Cade inferred this from the way they sparred, as the distance was too great for him to sense the guards’ spiritual fluctuations. The strength of their life force, however, seemed to confirm their cultivation rank. The soldiers appeared well-trained, patrolling the area at regular intervals as well as guarding the mansion’s three main entrances, including the servant’s entrance.

  “Maybe it’s a spring cottage?” Gorgo proposed half-seriously.

  “Could be,” Cade chuckled, scratching his chin. “Although, why would you keep more than twenty armed soldiers around if there is nothing to guard? Even half that number would be sufficient. It makes no sense.” The whole setup was puzzling.

  “Well, since my eyes are nowhere near as good as yours, I’ll leave you to it. Let me know if something happens. I’ll be working on stabilizing my foundation,” Gorgo patted Cade’s shoulder, then retreated a few steps, pulling out a meditation mat from his storage pendant. Five weeks ago, Gorgo had advanced to the eighth stage of Qi Condensation, and feeling like his foundation was still quite solid, he decided to continue. Then just four days ago, he had finally broken through into the ninth and final stage. Cade had brought over several jugs of expensive spiritual wine to congratulate his friend; the wine was surprisingly potent, and Gorgo drank far too much, regretting it the next day.

  “Maybe they moved?” Cade mused.

  Dusk gradually turned into night, placing a lot more strain on his already tired eyes. Still, he continued to watch the estate, unwilling to miss anything.

  Just as he was considering giving up, Cade noticed a flickering light source in one of the upper chambers located in the left wing. The light grew gradually brighter, as if someone had just arrived and rushed the servants to light up the fireplace. And yet, Cade was confident there had been no comings or goings to or from the mansion.

  A sudden thought flashed through his mind.

  “They have a transportation formation!”

  A lot of good stuff is going to happen in those chapters. That's all I can say, as I don't want to spoil anything :)

  In the meantime, here's a quick cheat sheet for cultivation tiers:

  Tier 1

  Qi Cultivators - Qi Condensation (9 stages)

  Body Refiners - Qi Saturation (9 stages)

  The Asura - Blood Transformation (3 stages - early/middle/late)

  Tier 2 (all realms have 3 stages - early/middle/late)

  Qi Cultivators - Foundation Establishment

  Body Refiners - Skeletal Reinforcement

  The Asura - Flesh Fortification

  Tier 3 (all realms have 3 stages - early/middle/late)

  Qi Cultivators - True Core

  Body Refiners - Muscular Enhancement

  The Asura - ?? (it's awesome)