Meeting a Shameless Fellow

And after the jaguar made the rash decision, a huge cloud of steam started to emit from its body, clouding the forest behind it in a huge thick fog.

"Fuck!" Xue Bai was terrified.

While he knew that blinding it would certainly gain its aggression and make it follow him till death, Xue Bai didn't think it would burn its Blood Essence this early. The fight hadn't even started yet!

Blood Essence was a vital building block of life and was something inside of every creature. And each drop of Blood Essence within a creature contained that creature's life force.

So it wasn't far-fetched to say that however many Bood Essence drops something had was related to how much longer it had to live!

And when a creature advanced past the Blood Exchange Realm, they would naturally gain the ability to burn their Blood Essence, which, in return, would give them a huge short-term combat power boost. But this would naturally come with an equivalent price.

In relation to how many drops of Blood Essence one would burn, their lifespan would also decrease by that much. And if that weren't enough of a side effect, right after their short-term power boost, they would also enter an extended period of weakness where they wouldn't even be able to put up 10% of their normal fighting strength.

So Xue Bai seeing the jaguar start to burn its Blood Essence this early on, was just as shocked as he was scared out of his wits.

Xue Bai had already taken into calculation the jaguar's speed for the run toward the array formation. And earlier, he was more than confident that he could safely enter the formation long before the jaguar could, but now that it had started burning its Blood Essence Xue Bai wasn't sure.

However, no matter how scared he was, Xue Bai could only focus his emotions on his legs and hopefully run faster.

The jaguar down below, gaining the strength and speed of a demonic beast a few stages higher than its original self, felt full of confidence. So no longer wanting to continue the game of cat and mouse, it made a bold decision and hopped in the tree line wanting to swat Xue Bai down.

"Dude, you're a jaguar, not a monkey. Stay on the ground." Xue Bai pitifully cried as he was forced out of the trees.

Jumping down from his height advantage, Xue Bai rolled to distribute the pain before sprinting even faster to his goal.

Currently, he was only a hundred meters away from the gravity field array formation, so while getting out of the trees did endanger him, Xue Bai had some confidence he could keep the lead for this short of a distance.

And not wanting to burn his much more valuable Blood Essence for such a trivial demonic beast, Xue Bai would resort to firing arrows behind himself to keep the jaguar back.

50 meters

Xue Bai ducked under a low-hanging branch before using his sliding momentum to send himself flying forward.

30 meters

Xue Bai could almost smell the jaguar's hot breath behind him, but too scared to look, he only continued running as the gravity field array formation was in sight.

10 meters

Having already barely dodged a lunge from the jaguar, Xue Bai cared little for his appearance anymore, and after circulating his Spiritual Qi into his feet, he jumped forward, landing safely into the gravity field array formation.

Inside, Xue Bai sighed in relief while trying to catch his breath. That was too close for comfort. Thankfully it was worth the effort.

The jaguar seeing this odd spectacle, was slightly confused, but since his target had seemingly given himself up to fate didn't bother to question it and jumped at Xue Bai, aiming to bite a good chunk of his body.

"Finally! Gravity Field activate!" Xue Bai yelled in a refreshing voice.

And to his command, the demonic beast who had given him the scare of his life was instantly pinned to the ground like it weighed nothing.

"Idiot!" Xue Bai scornfully laughed. Earlier, he had been chased like a mouse being ousted from a diner kitchen. So now that his chaser was immobilized, he wanted to get his payback.

The jaguar, while confused at the sudden overwhelming force, was still influenced by the rage that overrode its mind, and instead of caring about Xue Bai's taunting, tried to still move in his direction, as to complete its goal of eating him.

However, Xue Bai activated 8 formation flags right from the start. And even the Peak Stage Organ Tempering Realm Wang Lin had been forced to the ground, unable to move an inch under such pressure. The much weaker jaguar wouldn't be able to even lift its head, let alone reach Xue Bai.

And after giving the still simmering jaguar a few petty kicks and insults, Xue Bai finally felt refreshed. So with nothing more to do, he finally beheaded the demonic beast with Fire Breath.

However, as he did, guests arrived.

historical

Before he could pull out the jade slip and claim the 500 points the Early Stage Organ Tempering Realm jaguar was worth, a volley of arrows came flying toward him, numbering in the dozens.

However, Xue Bai remained calm and continued to pull out his jade slip. Because as soon as the arrows entered the gravity field array formation, they all sank to the ground like they were 1000 pounds weights, and not the aerodynamic lightweight arrows that they were.

"XUE BAI, STOP!" Then, seeing that their deadly sneak attack had failed, the assailants made their presence known.

Ignoring them momentarily, Xue Bai first claimed the 500 points. Then after he did, he looked at his attackers.

"You all are not much stronger than me. So why have you come to disturb me when I have tried so adamantly not to bother anyone?" Xue Bai asked calmly.

The group that attacked Xue Bai wasn't a small one, as it had almost a dozen youths within it. But the cultivation bases of them all were extremely different.

The cultivations that Xue Bai could sense himself were 5 Early stage Bone Strengthening Realm cultivators, 3 in the Middle stages and 1 in the Late Stage.

The other two were either two strong or had cultivation-concealing artifacts, but Xue Bai was leaning more toward the former rather than the latter. As the two stood in the front of the group, and instead of carrying bows like the others, they carried long shiny silver swords that looked extremely expensive and high-ranked.

And just from the swords alone, Xue Bai could tell that these youths in front of him were of noble identity. But since he hadn't seen any of them in the Empire nor recognized them from the game, he could only guess that they were from an affiliated family to the Soaring Sword Sect.

The Soaring Sword Sect in the game didn't have either of the two protagonists on this continent join it. So naturally, the side characters and extras that were a part of it didn't gain any of the popularity and fame that the other two Sects did.

"You, with your mere 2nd stage cultivation base, are only slightly weaker than us?' One of the two leaders snorted.

This youth had a messy head of black hair, but it was most likely because of the less-than-livable standards of the hunting grounds. Other than that, he was a handsome-looking fellow, but compared to his partner, he was a little normal looking.

"I can't tell if you're arrogant or blind. Don't you know if you can't see someone's cultivation base, it means they're stronger than you?" The youth continued speaking.

Ignoring his rhetorical remark, Xue Bai looked at the other leader.

This youth, unlike his partner, still had a pristine robe, and his hair was still in a stylish man bun while the rest cascaded down his back like a black waterfall. And coupled with his chiseled chin and determined eyes, he was definitely a looker for the opposite gender.

Not only that, but he also seemed much calmer and possessed a much steadier temperament than his partner. It was obvious to the keen eye that while the two had the same cultivation base, he was the bigger voice.

"Answer my question." Xue Bai emotionlessly spoke as he pulled out his bow.

The rasher leader was about to erupt at the sign of disrespect, but the calm one put his hand on his shoulder before he could.

Cupping his fists toward Xue Bai, the calm youth spoke, "Young Duke Xue, we had noticed that you seemed to have some trouble with that damned jaguar demon, so we came to assist you. Thankfully you managed to behead the beast before our arrow volley could assist you."

Astounded at the man's words, Xue Bai didn't know how to respond for a moment.

'I have seemed to have met a shameless fellow.' Xue Bai thought.