First fight

Five more days flashed past after the day Li Yu entered the 1st stage of Qi Expansion. In those five days, he followed the instructions given by uncle 96, and tried to adapt to his body's increased strength and the spiritual energy in his Qi pool. As he was not a body cultivator, the increase in his body strength was not much, hence most of the time was spent to learn to control his spiritual energy so that he can use it properly without losing control.

Uncle 96 had given him a set of simple yet extremely effective instructions that helped him to quickly adapt to the changes within his body. They were instructions like slicing apart a tree trunk in equal parts with the help of an artifact while doing so as quickly as possible, slicing apart falling leaves from a shaking tree without allowing any leaf fall to the ground in intact condition, carrying a huge boulder while running through the valley, which was full of obstructions.

Even though the instructions weren't some powerful skill techniques, they were helpful for a person like Li Yu who was new to the cultivation world, to adapt to his increased strength, speed and flexibility. Of course, he couldn't perform every task successfully within the five days, like whenever he shook a tree and tried to slice the falling leaves, there would always be some that would fall, while he couldn't do anything about them.

However, as his aim was to just adapt to the 1st stage of Qi Expansion realm, he didn't try to achieve the target, as that would take a large amount of his time, which would rather be well spent on increasing his cultivation. When he felt that he had a sufficient control over his body, he then tried to fight some beasts. However, as he was very powerful compared to the normal beasts now, the fights didn't bring any benefits to him, except some joy and exhilaration at killing the beasts single handedly without any tricks.

For his various exercises and fights, Li Yu had chosen to use a sword artifact from his possessions. He didn't use the broadsword, which was a mid grade Human level artifact, because it felt very heavy to him even after his increased strength, and he didn't have enough spiritual energy to activate it, making it lighter for him. Manager Ma had already said to him that he would have to be at least at the 3rd grade of Qi Expansion realm to use it.

Of course, manager Ma did not know that he was cultivating with a low grade Earth level cultivation technique. Li Yu felt that he would be able to use the broadsword at 2nd grade of Qi Expansion realm, given the high quality spiritual energy he had due to cultivating the Lesser Five Elements Circulation Part-I.

However, he wouldn't do so, as he could not bring the five weapons to the light of the day. He only planned to use the sword artifact to protect himself while he travels through the Southern Dark Forest. After crossing the forest, he would immediately put it within one of his spatial rings.

During these five days, he noticed that his need for sleep was lessened, as he felt refreshed with only around three hours of sleep everyday. He also noticed that his need for food had lessened as well. He asked about this abnormal reaction of his body in the chat room, and uncle 96, who seemed to be the only patient user to reply to Li Yu's 'basic' questions due to him being born in a mortal background, said that Li Yu was needing lesser sleep due to his stronger body and brain, and he needed less consumption of food because some of his body's needs for energy were provided every time he cultivated.

Here, uncle 96 also pointed out the difference between body cultivator's body and energy cultivator's body to Li Yu. A mortal heart contains a very small amount of essence blood that is vital for life. As a mortal is born, his heart is filled with the essence blood. The mortal grows up, while the essence blood slowly decreases. As the mortal grows old, the essence blood dries up. And once the essence blood is completely consumed, the mortal dies. Hence, it was clear that the amount of essence blood was essentially linked to the lifespan of mortals.

A body cultivator's aim was to use the energy within the essence blood, which was termed by the body cultivators as essence energy, to temper the body. As the whole body is tempered with the essence energy, the blood throughout the body gradually turns similar to the essence blood of the mortal heart, which in turn produces more essence energy. Does that mean a body cultivator gains much longer lifespan than an energy cultivator at the same level due to increased blood essence?

The answer is obviously no, as the body cultivator's increased bodily strength, which is many times more compared to energy cultivator of the same level, leads to an increased consumption of his blood essence. Hence the increased blood essence throughout the body, along with increased consumption of blood essence as a source of lifespan, will result in the lifespan of a body cultivator to be almost the same as that of an energy cultivator. The blood essence throughout the body works as a storage of essence energy, in a similar way that a Qi pool works as a storage of spiritual energy.

However, essence energy is used mainly to temper the body and not for maintaining bodily needs. Hence, a body cultivator's demand for food increases with his cultivation due to increase in bodily strength, till he/she reaches a certain height in body cultivation. Meanwhile, as the essence energy tempers the whole body, including brain, the body will only feel exhausted due to lack of essence energy. Hence, a body cultivator never feels the need to sleep, unless he is running low on essence energy.

After hearing uncle 96's explanation, and making sure that nothing was wrong, he put his worry out of his mind and slept only for three hours while he cultivated rest of the night and went about practicing and adapting the rest of the day.

On the sixth morning, he left the valley and went towards the Southern Dark Forest. As he approached the forest, he was immediately struck with wonder at the height and girth of the trees. He had not seen such gigantic trees ever in his life. Trying to make a judgement with his eyes, he realised that the trees were around hundred metres tall and around thirty metres in girth. The branches of the trees were spread widely, and their large leaves blocked most of the sunlight from touching the ground. Truly, the name 'Southern Dark Forest' was very aptly used to describe the forest, as it was very dark due to the low amount of sunlight.

Li Yu slowly entered the forest while feeling very anxious at the dark and humid environment within the forest. He trotted with a fast pace for about an hour or two, but did not meet any monstrous beast, so he started to calm down the anxious feelings. He had the sword artifact within his hand, ready for a fight at any moment.

After about three hours of entering the forest, as he neared a tree that was almost twice in its girth as compared to the normal trees within the forest, he heard a rustling sound towards his left. He quickly turned towards his left, with the sword in his hands pointing in front of him, ready to attack at any moment. A black shadow jumped towards him, while he quickly dodged to his right and attacked with the sword which was injected with his spiritual energy. He felt his sword connecting with the shadow. But before he had any chance to rejoice, he felt a sharp pain in his chest as a sound of his shirt being teared was heard by him. He noticed that he had gotten three large and deep scratches on the left side of his chest.

The black shadow flashed past him, and came to a halt behind him. He quickly turned around, to see that the shadow was a four feet high and six feet long black coloured leopard, who had light green coloured eyes. Li Yu realised that the leopard was a Shadow Leopard, one of the many monstrous beast manager Ma had warned him to be careful of. Shadow Leopard was a monstrous beast adapt at assassination skills. Fortunately, the Shadow Leopard in front of him was of similar strength to him. If it was slightly stronger, then Li Yu wouldn't have even heard it approaching.

Going through the details about Shadow Leopard in his mind, he realised that there was no escape for him, as the Shadow Leopard was faster than him. Hence, he would have to fight to the end.

He noticed that his sword had injured the Shadow Leopard right on its stomach. The leopard let out a small hiss of pain, and again jumped towards Li Yu. Clearly prepared this time, Li Yu once again jumped towards the right and attacked with his sword. The sword connected again, this time on the legs as Li Yu had specifically aimed at them. Unfortunately for him, he again felt a sharp pain, this time from his stomach. Clearly, Shadow Leopard was a bit more intelligent than the regular beasts he had faced, as it had used its hind legs to attack, leading to Li Yu being caught off guard. The gashes on his stomach were larger and deeper than the ones on his chest.

This time, the injuries to both of them were very heavy, as the Shadow Leopard had been injured on its left leg. The wound was not deep, but it would take away Shadow Leopard's advantage of speed, while Li Yu's blood was pouring out very fast from his deep wounds on his stomach, which would prove troublesome if he didn't take care of the wounds quickly. He didn't have any healing pills on him, so his only option was to heal it manually, using the spiritual energy. Unfortunately, it would take a tremendous amount of time and concentration, which he didn't have right now.

Li Yu had an advantage if the Shadow Leopard attacked him right now to finish the fight quickly, as the Shadow Leopard wouldn't be able to move as fast as it normally could. However, Shadow Leopard had the advantage if the fight were to last a bit longer, as the amount of blood loss would prove very troublesome for Li Yu.

Deciding to finish the Shadow Leopard in a single blow, Li Yu tightened his grip on the sword's handle. However, something unexpected happened, as he saw the Shadow Leopard turn around and run away.

Slightly dazed at the sudden turn of the situation, Li Yu slowly moved towards the large tree while keeping a close watch for any possible ambush from the Shadow Leopard. He waited for ten minutes, but couldn't wait anymore as he nearly fainted from blood loss.

Noticing a slight space in between the roots of the giant tree, he quickly entered it and blocked it with a nearby rock. The space was barely large enough for him to sit. After sitting down, he quickly operated his spiritual energy to stop more blood flowing from the wound, and started healing the wound by using his spiritual energy.

Now that he was out of danger, he started feeling pain that was repressed by his fear. He nearly shouted out loud, but held back. It was not that his willpower was huge, it was just that he feared attracting another monstrous beast if he shouted. The wound healed very slowly, as he quickly took a Qi Condensing pill to increase the absorption of spiritual energy and held a low grade spirit stone in between his hands.