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1083 Words
He missed all the groveling from his father’s servants. It had seemed like hundreds of years since he had some good groveling.
After that, he went around to kill the men and relieve them of their presumably hard-earned items, but when he got back to the mud girl, she was weeping over the body of her healer friend, which was really killing his buzz.
“What’s the matter, girlie, can’t you try to hit me with [Cresting Dragon Waves of the Overwrought Metaphor]? No [Lashing Vines Hidden Beneath Summer Night’s Harvest]? Some other overly pompous description of your impotent magic?” She was still crying, sobbing into her missing hands. “Your magic is weak. Your people are weak, and they will not survive the coming war. I hope that you’ve learned a valuable lesson on attempting to exist in the hunting grounds of your betters, and the most valuable thing you can do with your life is take this message back to your sniveling Sects. For their sake, I hope you make it.”
With his mood appropriately brightened, he stood up to see if there was anything else of interest nearby and started walking in the direction of the closest uncleared ruin. The girl could figure out what to do on her own, or she could die. Either way, it wasn’t really his concern.
Force the Realm to remember your passing.
Lesson forty-seven. A classic.
Long Zhiyuan watched the team from the Clans and was about to move when he felt four sources of Genesis Energy start approaching with a hostile speed.
Backing up into the shadows, he sent more mana into his obscuring cloak and let it hide his presence from spiritual perception.
That, combined with having most of his Genesis Energy in a ring, meant he was nearly undetectable.
Once the attacking team passed his hiding spot, he rushed forward with his claws ready to rip out the last man’s throat.
His hand was just inches away from flesh when the man turned and cut out at him.
Dodging, Long Zhiyuan barely avoided catching the blade in the face, and seeing he wouldn’t get his clean kill, activated [Heavenly All Seeing Eye].
The technique started parsing the information, and he immediately set two of his clones to fighting the man’s copies.
It wouldn’t be a perfect copy of the man, but his technique was now upgraded and had a better measure of people it encompassed.
Withdrawing a sword and shield, he stored his cloak so as to not damage it and engaged the man with more traditional weapons.
He nearly caught the man, but he was good with his blade, and almost caught Long Zhiyuan a number of times as well.
A rare occurrence, as people who could match his training efforts were hard to find.
And Talented.
That was always a possibility he couldn’t discount.
Still, [Heavenly All Seeing Eye] would eventually gather all the information he needed, and then he would learn how to beat anyone.
He was just settling into the brutal rhythm of a life and death battle with an equal when they were attacked by another party.
That wouldn’t do.
After taking care of the trash, Long Zhiyuan jumped back at the man, but to his surprise, he shot out a weapon that activated his last measure defensive artifact.
Despite the Sect leader not liking him, Soaring Clouds Sect knew how to take care of its most valuable resource, and commissioned him a set of embroidery for his robes that would protect him from neutral mana spells.
It cost a Tier 14 mana stone every second of activation, but its defensive power had the strength to match.
And he came in with a spatial ring full of the power sources for the embroidery.
In the second he had to attack, he used his off hand to replenish the pocket where the mana stones were kept, in case the man could cast that same spell again.
At the same time, he cast [Heavenly All Seeing Eye] once more, wanting to get more information about his opponent.
He cataloged the information to his [Spiritual Self]. Stronger than the average Tier 12. Faster than average. A higher defense than average. A higher attack than average. Average regeneration. The armor that flicked in and out of existence was rated as exceptional, with a potential weakness to either the floor theme or innate duration. The skill suspected the man in front of him had done exceptionally well on Genesis Cultivation and Back to Basics, which would explain most of his physical abilities.
As he updated his copies of the man to fight, he started planning his retreat.
He could see that the tide was turning in the larger battle that was happening next to them.
When an explosion went off and knocked everyone around, he was already ready to run for it.
He’d come back once he had a better understanding of the man’s abilities and how to counter them.
As far as he had seen in a purely one versus one, he had a good chance of beating the man, but with the rest of his team, that was a long shot at best.
And this wasn’t the time to take a fight for pride.
He could always kill the man deeper into Minkalla, when he had a more perfect model.
Even as he picked up the equipment from two of the bodies that were blown this way, he wondered just what techniques the man used to be that strong at Tier 12. That raw physical strength was hard to match for a long time and could make any prolonged battle a challenge. With that information, Long Zhiyuan let the two clones fight each other.
He needed to hurry up and get ahead of the pack.
This whole getting third partied thing was growing old quickly.
He was supposed to be the one interrupting fights to take advantage of both sides.
Finding an untouched ruin, he found a lone sheep monster and carefully fought it while gathering its information with [Heavenly All Seeing Eye].
Once he had enough information, he set two sets of clones to fight it. When he knew everything about the monster, he started a one sided slaughter.
Deeper into Minkalla. That was where he needed to go.
But first, he needed Genesis Energy, and if he couldn’t properly ambush people without dozens more teams coming in to scavenge, he needed to focus on monsters.
- Writer
