Ambush

Having now noted that he wasn't the only person in the forest, Xiao Fan decided to spend the night inside the cave. It would be much better to go out and figure things out at first light tomorrow opposed to going out in the night, but not wanting to sit all night time, he would do something inside, starting with refurbishing the cave.

After a while, his plan had started by dragging the rat carcass deeper into the cave so that the smell of fresh meat it spread wouldn't attract any other animals while throwing the other bodies into the waterfall just outside. For now, this was also enough refurbishing for him for he didn't know anything else needing to be done, and he didn't feel like doing anything more than was necessary.

Which left him with two options for the night, either sleeping inside the cave or read the newly acquired book.

Choosing from these was too easy for Xiao Fan as how could he not read his new book and the second option? How could he even sleep after what had happened today? After all, Xiao Fan being a newbie to everything was somewhat of a nerve wreck from what had happened.

So reading it was Xiao Fan decided and picked up the book that in his opinion, holds all knowledge and more.

In reality, Xiao Fan didn't know how much more the book held, as for him The Book of Cultivation could be much more. Like a weapon or a shield. The Book of Cultivation was made to be a book; however, it was meant to be a book in a place where everything was much different.

But of course, in the case where if Xiao Fan would actually use it as a weapon or a shield, Cao Cao would need to make some adjustments into the book, but Cao Cao hoped it wouldn't come to that.

A small bother was still a bother that needed to be resolved.

And for now, Xiao Fan hadn't thought of any such use for the book in question since for him was a priceless treasure that shouldn't be put into danger. Currently, Xiao Fan was very content in just reading The Book of Cultivation with no further ideas. Moreover, this time when reading the Book of Cultivation Xiao Fan begun to read the book in order, so starting from the introduction to the Body realm cultivation.

In the Introduction to Body realm cultivation pages, the book told him that the sole reason people cultivated this realm was to strengthen their bodies to handle the Qi realm, which was after Body realm. It also stated that a very long time ago the human body could start Qi cultivation from a child, yet somehow that knowledge had been lost or never existed in the first place; nevertheless, the truth was that the Body realm had become the first realm in cultivation.

While in truth, a truth even above Cao Cao, the Body realm was only a realm for people who wouldn't even sense Qi, but for people who use their bodies as fighting strength. Whereas a person in Qi Realm would use Qi to make him or herself a barrier, wrapping around the skin to deflect incoming attacks, and then at the same time use spells to attack enemies from range, not needing to bother with melee fighting so much. Meanwhile, a person practising body cultivation would further and further his body long after the Body Limit realm to match a person in Qi realm.

But again those realms beyond Body Limit Realm were long lost, and ways to get there forgotten.

In simpler words, there were two paths, but the non-Qi way long forgotten is mostly remembered by it being the foundation for Qi realm, and the first stepping stone for any cultivator aspiring for the Qi realm.

Xiao Fan reading this became interested in these facts and having a god with him took a break to pry information about these things from Cao Cao, however, coming out of the book Xiao Fan noticed that Cao Cao had gone missing. Seeing that his new liege was away, he little disappointed got back to reading through the night only to be awakened from his reading by the rays of light penetrating the waterfall's curtain of water.

Knowing well enough that morning had come, Xiao Fan stood up to take a look outside, as today he would need to do some assessment of his surroundings and the forest.

So leaving the book, he made his way out.

Perceiving that nothing was waiting for him on the outside Xiao Fan begun his scouting by climbing his way up the mountain next to the waterfall while at the same time he looked around him to see that he was in somewhat of tropical terrain, yet not in a humid rainforest type of terrain.

Here around him, green was everywhere around him. There was green in the trees and in the bushes that covered the land. Also, there was a small river originated from the waterfall downwards to the direction he had seen the smoke rising yesterday.

'That should be the direction of the village or town' He imagined as he finally after half an hour had he climbed to the top of the waterfall to see more clearly around him.

Behind the waterfall, there rose dozens of higher and higher mountains with their tops gathering snow, next when looking at the direction of the waterfall and the river there was a large endless plane of tropical forest which he couldn't see the end of. Following the river, he saw the owner of all those smokes from before. It was a big village or a small town boasting wooden walls constructed next to the river.

The town was using the river as a natural barricade to block almost half of the approach to the town itself. Xiao Fan thought that using the river this way seemed smart because that made the town easier to defend while additionally giving them a freshwater source just outside.

He could also see from the vast fields and newly erected houses of the town and around it that multiple small dots were walking and running about the place, the town was very much so lively and filled with villagers.

However, during his survey, he didn't notice he was being watched at by someone else, for an arrow came whistling towards him which at the end of it flight penetrated the calf of his left leg, finding its new postcode there.

Why was Xiao Fan shot? Well, from the shooters perspective he was scouting her village, so shooting at him to immobilise the target was the correct thing to do because a kill could be confirmed, but the scout could have valuable information to be extracted, so taking a kill shot was a no.

However, Xiao Fan who didn't think like that, this sudden impact made him do two things that anyone would do at that point, he screamed like a mad man while dashing towards a random direction to look for cover, as another arrow came towards him.

The second arrow, however, didn't hit him like the hunter had estimated it would, seeing as the target by her estimations should be by now lying on the floor with one of his legs immobilised, so she had aimed the second arrow differently. About the reasoning for this, the person shooting the bow thought only for a second before realising that she had made a grave mistake.

Xiao Fan, on the other hand, had by now ducked behind a cover and was looking at his leg to find an arrow struck there. Looking at it he could say that luckily for him it had only penetrated the skin, not affecting any real damage to it, which to him seemed that the power of the arrow was too low to injure him.

Moreover, such a small wound that he had made him make the easy decision of ripping the arrow out of his calf, letting out another scream in the process.

The shooter still cursing something to herself came back to her senses because of the scream, for the target should have just removed her arrow on him. And now that the target had already removed the arrow he would soon be coming from her since there was one major realisation that both sides had come up with.

Xiao Fan was a cultivator, his assaulter was a mortal, and by that fact alone, the fight was already decided to be dominated by him, and she would have no say in the battle if she stayed, and so immediately after her coming back to her senses quiet steps could be heard as whoever had shot at Xiao Fan was now running away from him.

Which in turn, made Xiao Fan try and locate the assailant only to be countered by another arrow that had been shot this action in mind.

The arrow had also done its duty as it suppressed Xiao Fan's curiosity very well, for he ducked back into cover. It would take a moment for Xiao Fan to find courage again and even then even time to look for the assailant; however, when he was finally taking another peek he could perceive nothing, there was no one still left hiding in the bushes from which the arrow had come.

This made Xiao Fan finally realise that someone was playing him, which in turn, caused him to become angry and hurriedly rush to the place from where he had been shot from. But then again there was no one hiding around the shrubs, yet there was something that could be used.

There was a path starting from this spot.

Grasping what it mean, Xiao Fan executed another quick decision to follow and try to catch the mortal with his superior speed, and soon, only moments later he was shortening the distance between him and the mortal.

Neither of the people could see or sense the other with their senses, not even the cultivator, but from a bird's eye of view, one could see that Xiao Fan was rapidly gaining on the woman running the same path. His cultivation might be low, but the girl had none, so it was like a limping prey trying to run from a lion. Every corner was cut short by him knocking down obstacles in front of him while every straight was only one or two leaps for him.

And soon the hunter now turned prey could start hearing certain sounds that were coming from small trees and shrubs being trampled upon behind her, making her heartbeat rise through the roof.

The hunter hadn't wanted anything like this happening.

Today she had only come to ambush a giant rat terrorising the fields and livestock in her village, yet coming to the nest she had heard noises of someone climbing up the mountain and decided to set up an ambush.

Sometime later a figure of a human had climbed over to the top and started to scout the area around him. She, looking at him and what he was doing, reasoned from all the actions he was making that the man should be from one of the neighbouring towns and that he had come scouting for something, most likely the town she lived in. From this, she draws the line from this happening to the local warlord's announcement that stated he wouldn't be interfering with anything happening between any group within his territory, and finally, she concluded that.

The person in front of her must be a scout with hostile intentions!

And she, having nothing to gain from co-operating, felt that cathing this scout was of the highest priority for her; furthermore, she wouldn't let her sister be in danger because someone had scouted their village.

All those thoughts in her mind she had made sure to capture or worst case kill the scout, who had now compromised her village's location. However, this plan went south soon as the man was found out to be a cultivator. This had frightened her big time! And because of that, there was no real chance of even running away alone, making her think more thoughts inside her head while still running.

Meanwhile, as she was thinking and running at the limit of a human, Xiao Fan already saw a long silver hair fluttering in front of him with a bow in hand and a bag of arrows in a quiver on her back, and from these hints, there was no mistaking that this woman was the person who had ambushed him moments before.

¨STOP!¨ He angrily shouted as he was closing in on her. He at least wanted to get her before she would be able to get any help and compromise his survival.

Hearing him shout, the young woman glanced over her back to see the man who had a black hair with strands of silver in it close behind her, so close that she could now see his face, and from seeing it, she would have stopped to have a talk, if not for the reason that the person might be wanting to kill her. Nevertheless, right now she didn't comply with the man, she did the opposite in fact as while running, she took another arrow from her quiver while another shout came behind her.

¨DON'T YOU DARE SHOOT AT ME AGAIN!¨ Nonetheless, she did not bend to Xiao Fan's demands, and soon the arrow left the bow towards him.

On his side, Xiao Fan hadn't thought her to be so unreasonable that she would resort to re-shooting him, so he hadn't thought about dodging much, and so he was forced to make the only possible thing to avoid the hit now. And not having a lot of time to do much, he jumped to the side at the last moment, letting him dodge the arrow yet making him plunge into the forest head first.

Again on the other side, the hunter seeing this felt how she had gained herself a moment of respite before noticing soon after that the man was already behind her with only a few scratches on his face.

A cultivator wouldn't feel pain from that, and the only thing that fall made was an extra ten or so seconds more time for her.

Yet there was still too little time if this kept on, so she decided to take another chance and so she took another shot at him, hoping for a miracle to happen again.

But this time Xiao Fan was on top of it, and just as the arrow left the bow, he had already made changes to his path, causing the arrow miss by a longshot.

With his increased eyesight and motion control from cultivating dodging an arrow coming straight at him was not a big deal if one knew to expect it. There would be no next miracle for the hunter anymore as she was now out off tricks and would soon be cornered.

Likewise knowing this and therefore figuring out her possibilities, she knew that there was only one that could save her, so hoping that her sister would hear her scream for help, she screamed. Following that scream, she then turned to face the man, performing a motion in which she drew and released multiple arrows in succession towards the man charging straight at her.

Praying that maybe just maybe she could gain another ten-seconds or so as the arrows left towards a set target which was still charging straight towards her.

Facing these three arrows coming next to each other at him, Xiao Fan wasn't panicky anymore. He dodged first two easily with only small steps to the side yet the third one nailed him again hitting his shoulder this time.

A miracle had happened, or maybe it was her skils with a bow and arrow; nevertheless, in the end, it had occurred as somehow, her arrow had penetrated Xiao Fan's shoulder.

Being nailed again wasn't such a pleasant sensation, but like last time the arrows were way too weak as it only made him stumble a bit and with one hand hitting the ground was it enough to stabilise and get back into motion the arrow still in his shoulder.

Xiao Fan back on track, her hand was already on more arrows while her head counted every ten or so meters that Xiao Fan was cutting between them. A number which was decreasing too fast for her liking. However, for her luck this time, a new figure appeared next to her with the same silver hair but with a totally fit body, unlike hers.