Chapter 54: Morning Hunt
The sun rose early in the summer months and Hui Yue woke together with the first rays of sunshine as they shone through his tent door. Although Hui Yue had only returned to his village for a month or two, he was aware that he had moved away from home, and soon his bed was going to belong to his younger sibling.
The Rong twins seemed aware of this as Rong Ming had said that they needed to make a tent for Hui Yue while he was conversing with his mother and Gao Yan was rushing around, hunting fanged hogs.
A Fanged Hog was quite similar to the warthogs which Hui Yue knew from his previous world, except these Fanged Hogs were many times bigger. A Fanged Hog was two metres long and a metre and a half tall. Its cultivation base was extremely low, and the same could be said about its intellect.
These animals were usually used for the sake of breeding and eating, and the outskirts of the magical forest was filled with these animals as they breed quickly.
Although Fanged Hogs all had a low cultivation level they were by no means something which Hui Yue would underestimate. Firstly, although the cultivation base was low, the sheer size of the hog made it dangerous and secondly, even if it was had a low cultivation base it was still sufficient to grant the beast enough speed to pose a threat to Student ranked cultivators and Student ranked commoners, much like Hui Yue’s father.
The following morning, Hui Yu rose alongside the sun as usual and after a night of meditation the energy within Hui Yue’s body was was overflowing, making him slightly restless. Had he been at the academy, then he would have moved out to sit under his favourite tree and absorb the sun’s early morning rays, yet today he felt as though he needed to try something different.
Moving through the tent’s opening Hui Yue squinted his eyes slightly as the early sun was sharp, but his eyes had gotten used to the new light within seconds. Looking around the field in which they were camping, Hui Yue noticed that the morning mist was rolling around exposing the fact that they were currently hidden deeply within a valley.
At the end of the field was a small trail which lead towards the Magical Forest, and this morning Hui Yue found himself moving towards this trail quietly making his way towards the thin line of trees which he could see in the distance.
A smile appeared on Hui Yue’s lips as his adrenalin started pumping. He no longer walked slowly towards the trees instead now he was jogging, but even so he was still as quiet as before.
Hui Yue had decided that it was time for him to put his Transforming Weapons, bow style to the test while moving around in the outskirts of the forest.
Hui Yue, having rushed to the trees, quickly arrived at the tree line which had been visible in the distance a few moments ago. The small boy was as quick as the wind and as silent as the morning air as he shot into the forest on his hunt for prey.
After making his way through the forest for a few moments, Hui Yue came across a lone Fanged Hog. This was clearly a male as it was bigger than the one Gao Yan had found yesterday. Hui Yue had a hard time not whistling in respect for this massive animal in front of him.
Yet, even though this was an impressive animal, it was also the perfect target for Hui Yue. The boy slowly made his way up into one of the big trees where he sat perched on a thick branch. Slowly he allowed for his Qi to circulate through his meridians making a specific pattern internally, before it gushed out of his hands forming itself into the shape of a bow.
The bow itself was a little shorter than a longbow, and the string required quite a bit of strength to pull back. The arrows were created by Hui Yue’s Qi, and what he lacked in strength the purity of the Qi more than made up for in damage.
Currently Hui Yue was capable of hitting his target dummies every time, yet he had still only managed to create the most basic of all arrows. The arrow which was created by Hui Yue’s Qi was insanely sharp and filled with a ferocious energy which made Hui Yue proud, yet every time Lan Feng noticed this he would start asking why his arrows did not explode yet, or why they were not capable of being as swift as the wind.
Hui Yue would always feel slightly depressed as he heard the disdain within Lan Feng’s voice, but he kept training hard and now he finally had the chance to prove that his arrows might be simple, but they definitely were not inferior when it came to causing damage.
Steadily, Hui Yue pulled the bowstring back, and Qi gathered into a sleek and white arrow. Slowly, Hui Yue took aim and then let the Qi arrow fly through the air quicker than the eye could see, before it buried itself within the Fanged Hog’s neck.
Although the arrow hit the hog right on the neck it was not enough to kill the boar right away, and Hui Yue instantly loaded another arrow. From the beginning, he had known that he would need to use more than one arrow should he wish to defeat this giant hog.
Arrow after arrow rained down from the big tree in which Hui Yue had located himself. The first shot had hit where he aimed dead on, yet, after the first arrow, the others were slightly off target three even missing it completely.
Hui Yue sighed as he looked at the enraged and bleeding Fanged Hog below the tree, before he created yet another arrow and waited patiently.
Finally, the arrow was let loose and a squishing could be heard before a loud thump sounded, followed by screams of agony. Looking down a satisfied smirk appeared on Hui Yue’s face as he saw the Qi arrow slowly dissipate, leaving behind a bleeding eye.
The arrow had dug straight into the skull and although the hog was currently screaming it did not have long left to live. Looking down at the beast, Hui Yue wondered whether he should wait patiently for it to die, or if he should try out his new dagger and kill it swiftly.
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In the end he decided to wait it out. Although the hog was on the verge of dying it was obvious that it still had the strength to wail in agony, causing Hui Yue to feel slightly apprehensive about allowing his ten-year-old body to get close to the giant pig. Instead he leaned back against the large tree trunk and watched the wailing hog waiting for it to breathe its last breath.
The wailing sounds were loud, and they could be heard all across the area even way back at the village. Deng Wu was the first to wake up, yet he was calm as soon as he had been told by little dragon that the sounds came from a beast which Hui Yue and Lan Feng were currently playing with.
Leaving his tent, Deng Wu noticed how the villagers were gathered into groups, and terrified they stared in the directions of the wailing cries. Next to them was the Rong twins both vigilantly keeping an eye on their surroundings, behind the group was Gao Yan and Ma Kong, also keeping an eye on the surrounding areas, ready to defend should they suffer an attack from a strong magical beasts.
Seeing this, Deng Wu could not help but laugh slightly. As soon as the laughter escaped his lips, a deathly glare was sent his way by Rong Xing who seemed to think that the laughter was mocking.
“What’s so funny?” she hissed, clearly nervous about what could have caused these agonizing screams to resound throughout the entire area.
“Nothing really”, Deng Wu chuckled not looking sorry at all. “What you hear is a Fanged Hog which is currently playing tag with Hui Yue.” Deng Wu said with a shrug of his shoulders, after which he moved towards one of the group of villagers who had doubt written all over their faces.
“It’s Hui Yue?” Rong Ming asked surprised, but after a short while he nodded his head without waiting for the answer. It made no sense for a high ranked magical beast to arrive so close to the village and then go hunting down Fanged Hogs.
Other than magical beasts, the only ones who were capable of attacking and defeating these hogs were the students which had arrived the previous day, and of the six of them only Hui Yue was not there.
The villagers could not help, but shiver upon hearing that Hui Yue, their darling child, had gone into the outskirts of the magical forest to fight Fanged Hogs which not even they stood a chance against.
What confused these worried villagers was also the fact that none of Hui Yue’s new friends seemed to show any particular amount of worry for this young boy who was currently fighting against a Fanged Hog alone.
The wailing died down and an eerie silence had taken over the small village. All the villagers had returned to their daily chores, as they knew that they had no ability to neither protect themselves, nor save anyone else and they instead left all their hopes for the future on the shoulders of those five youngsters who had arrived the previous day.
Half an hour had passed before Ma Kong noticed a small figure moving towards them, carrying a massive beast. As this figure got closer they were able to see the young Hui Yue dragging along the biggest Fanged Hog they had ever seen.
The distance which Hui Yue previously traversed in a few minutes now took him more than double the amount of time, as he was dragging the big Fanged Hog by its tail.
The villagers who had chores to do at that side of the village quickly stopped in their tracks as they gaped at this sight. Slowly all the villagers returned to see Hui Yue leisurely dragging along something so big, only to then leave it in front of his friends.
“Sorry”, he said with a sheepish grin. “I couldn’t wait for you guys, and I went to get the first kill of our trip.”
Hearing this, the five other friends all chuckled gently as they went to observe the hog.
“Don’t show off”, Gao Yan said while pushing forth his chest. “If Fanged Hogs count, then I definitely won with my kill yesterday.”
Hui Yue could do nothing, but shrug his shoulders as that was indeed true. Instead of trying to argue about something obvious he unsheathed his black dagger, Black Blood, and removed the magical core from within the hog’s head with steady hands.
Although this was the first time Hui Yue had tried to remove a beast core from within the head of a beast, it had gone surprisingly well. The knife was truly a treasure, and it managed to slice through the hog’s skull as though it was made of butter.
The core itself was quickly scooped out, and although grime and gore covered Hui Yue’s hands and clothes, it was nothing comparing to killing a fellow student, so the young child sprouted an expression of devoid interest throughout the entire process.
Looking at the beast core Hui Yue was slightly disappointed. All beast cores had the same size, around the size of a pearl and one centimetre in length. Yet this was the only point on which this beast core resembled a pearl. Its outsides were jagged and the colour a lustreless brown, causing it to look like a pebble. Had Hui Yue not personally dug it out from the Fanged Hog’s head, he would not have believed that it was truly a beast core.
The higher the cultivation level of a beast the clearer in colour the beast core would be, not to mention the jagged surface would become smooth. A magical beast of the Duke rank would have a beast core which looked exactly like a pearl, while beasts of King rank and above would start to have a golden lustre within their cores. Magical beasts of the Saint rank possessed golden pearls within their heads.