Chapter 36: Watching while squatting

Translator: xiiannie Editor: adeadaxe

Starting off once more, their travelling speed had vastly slowed down, and the atmosphere in the small team had turned more anxious.

Yi Jiao told Lu Mingshu, “The deeper we go, the more dangerous it’ll be. We might not have met a lot of Harmonization Realm ferocious beasts before, but from this area onwards, we will frequently spot some Harmonization Realm ferocious beasts. The two of you must be careful and look out for each other.”

For Lu Mingshu and Gao Xiang who were out for hunting for the first time, their main task was to learn. Hence, no one expected them to be able to come in handy. It would be sufficient if they did not drag the team down, like Le Xiaoyi for example.

With a whistle sounding in front and a lift of Wei Peng’s hand, the team ceased their movements.

Bird chirping sounded with a rhythm, making feelings of excitement and nervousness arise in the team members that could understand the meaning of the chirping.

This chirping was a signal from the whistle upfront that they had discovered two large Harmonization Realm ferocious beasts.

Though Yi Jiao had caught a Harmonization Realm White Hoof Rhinoceros previously, it could only be counted as a small fry.

“Continue!” With a command from Wei Peng, the team proceeded deeper in.

As the battle upfront had started, the beastly roar gradually got louder.

With a wave of Wei Peng’s hand, the team dispersed into a fan-shaped formation and started their advancement; Lu Mingshu, Gao Xiang, and Shao Zhengyang were placed in the last squadron.

“It’s two Flying Tusk Elephants!” A squadron member called out excitedly.

The Flying Tusk Elephant was a type of giant demonic beast that was as light as foam and had tusks as hard as mystic steel that was exceptionally suitable for manufacturing weapons or grinding into pieces to make armor. Just a single piece of complete ivory from the Harmonization Realm could fetch a market price of over ten thousand gold.

If they were to capture these two flying elephants successfully, their trip wouldn’t be a fruitless one even if they did not have any other harvest.

Three days later, the team had familiarised themselves with the initial formation, so much so that they could remain in position even without Wei Peng’s instructions.

“A bull and a cow.” Zhu Jingliang furrowed his brows. “Is there herd of elephants nearby?”

The frontline team member replied, “None. These two should be rogues.”

A heaven-sent opportunity! One of the reasons why elephant tusks were valuable was because they traveled in herds and thus, were hard to hunt.

“That’s feasible.” Wei Peng said, “Form groups of three with one in reserve, advance!”

Originally consisting of eleven people, after sending Le Xiaoyi back, the team only had ten members left. Minus the three in the Inner Breath Realm, there would be seven left. Wei Peng wanted them to form two groups of three in order to pull the two elephants apart.

The six rushed up.

“Come over.” Shao Zhengyang called the two young ones over to hide behind a tree.

Gao Xiang could not help but ask, “Senior Brother Shao, do we have to merely dodge? Won’t we become freeloaders this way?” Nine Jade Palace’s small hunting team had always distributed their hunting harvest. They would even take care of the newbies and give some to them for good luck.

“Who said so?” Shao Zhengyang finished speaking unhurriedly, then took out a slingshot and aimed it towards an Elephant. With a sou, a steel pellet shot out.

Gao Xiang was dumbstruck upon seeing this display. “Senior Brother, why do you bring this with you while hunting?” Shao Zhengyang could not be judged by his age, for he was actually someone who cared a lot about how he presented himself; his performance in the team was also steadier than that of an adult’s. Hence, Gao Xiang did not have the slightest thought that he would actually carry a slingshot around.

“Can’t I?”

Gao Xiang thought for a moment. “You can.”

Lu Mingshu observed the surroundings for a while before asking, “Senior Brother Shao, why don’t we dig a trap? Since we are idling around.”

Shao Zhengyang shot her a strange glance. “What kind of trap do you think we can dig for such a large Flying Tusk Elephant when we only have this much time?”

“We don’t know whether it will work or not if we don’t try! Since we are just standing by anyway.”

historical

Shao Zhengyang waved his arm. “Try it out then.” At any rate, they were situated far from the site of action.

Upfront, the pace of battle sped up. Both of Wei Peng’s fists lit up with twinkling rays of light and punched out the strength in huge waves that fell onto the elephant’s body firmly.

Yi Jiao threw her whole weight into exerting all her strength; the dots of sword light fell like star blades.

Standing in position at the back of the formation, Zhu Jingliang cracked out his Nine Section Whip. Each time the whip was cracked, the afterimages of the whip dazzled as one.

“What kind of trap are we digging?” With how much Gao Xiang was itching for some action himself, he was only treating the matter of digging a trap half-heartedly.

After some thought, Lu Mingshu said, “Since it’s too late to dig a hole now, and a simple trap would certainly be useless... why don’t we make a small spell?”

“Spell? You sure it would work?” Gao Xiang was sceptical. He knew about spell formation, but those were generally dismissed as deceit.

“Since we are just idling around ...”

Flying Tusk Elephants have terrifying combat strength; hence, Wei Peng did not dare to allow the Inner Breath Realm cultivators intervene, and had even excluded Shao Zhengyang. Lu Mingshu knew that the trap they set would most likely not come into play, but since they weren’t doing anything anyway, she did not mind wasting effort into setting up a trap.

“Alright then.” With such high-levelled combat, Gao Xiang did not dare to defy the teacher’s command; hence, he chose the option of doing something instead of standing around uselessly.

Lu Mingshu decided to set up an illusion formation.

In recent years, she had picked up a lot of cheap deals in Heavenly Wheel, and this illusion formation was written in a certain ancient book. It did not possess much damage ability nor did it possess many uses. Thus, it would not be able to come into play when used against an enemy. However, with the current situation, this illusion formation had the best chance of being useful compared to any other formation.

Any other traps would basically be void in front of these two Flying Tusk Elephants with valiant combat abilities. Their outer skin was exceptionally hard; ordinary weapons would not be able to even scratch the surface. If they were to dig a hole, Gao Xiang herself would be there digging for days and nights to be able to dig a hole big enough for their large stature. Thus, they settled on the illusion formation so they could trap the prey if an accident ever happened.

With how easy it was to set up this formation, it was no surprise that it would be sold as rubbish. Under Lu Mingshu’s orders, the two set up the illusion formation fairly quickly.

“You sure it will be useful?” Gao Xiang was sceptical as there did not seem to be anything unusual about moving stones here and there.

“I don’t know either! I am just testing it out.”

“Why must the rocks be distributed this way?” As a childhood playmate of Lu Mingshu’s for years, Gao Xiang knew she was extraordinary. She had always brought along some strange things that she said she learned from the Heavenly Ascension Pavilion whenever he asked her. Gao Xiang once went to check out the Heavenly Ascension Pavilion out of curiosity to find out if the books there were all of such strangeness, but he gave up after a few days; he wasn’t someone who loved reading books.

Reading had always been incompatible with him. Hence, he shoved his curiosity away as “a thousand whys”, and would ask Lu Mingshu every time a new strange thing came up.

“According to the book, this is called the Eight Divinatory Trigrams formation.”

“Eight Divinatory Trigrams?” Gao Xiang scratched his head, “To think we can use the Eight Trigrams to set up a formation too.”

The current world had the Eight Trigrams as well, though the average person was unable to make sense of this thing.

The source of this illusion formation was from some lower-tier martial world, and the Eight Trigrams was normally used by the experts there, according to Lu Mingshu’s knowledge. It was said that it had once trapped a total of nine thousand nine hundred and eighty-one experts, which was how it earned its widespread fame.

Of course, the energy in that world was much weaker and could not even form cultivation energy, only the top-notch experts could control the energy, which was far from what the other worlds could do. Thus, this widely famed Bagua* illusion formation was only termed as rubbish in the Heavenly Wheel.

“Be careful!” A shout rang out from the other side, “Dodge quickly!”

When the two turned over, their breaths were knocked out of their lungs.

The heavily injured bull and provoked cow were maniacally waving their trunks towards Wei Peng. Under their rampage, they ran everywhere and the direction they were rampaging towards was unluckily towards them!