Leaving Blue Mist Gorge

A few years had past and Shui was now eleven. He no longer looked like a cute boy, instead he had a wild charm. During these years he spent in the Blue Mist Gorge, there was not a day where he didn't have to fight. Still, he quickly got used to it and fighting for survival became part of his daily life. Within the gorge, he had built his own base where there were spaces for sleeping and training. He also used beast spirit blood to make several arrays to protect it so he could rest peacefully at night.

After countless battles and near-death experiences, Shui had finally made it to the Soul Realm and had a three-star saint body. Although he still couldn't enter nebula one-star, his soul was as strong as it was in reality. Overall, Shui's strength was now greater than it had been before he entered the trial. Although this wasn't his real body, it was still something that made him happy.

However, he had explored all over the gorge and knew that there was something he had to do outside. And so, it was time to fight the gatekeeper, a ten-foot tall golden lion with a purple mane. In order to leave this training ground made by the first mayor of Cyrus, he had to defeat a golden electrolion on the verge of becoming a high beast.

"Time to get out of here."

The golden electrolion rested in its cave den. It still remembered the day it was captured and forced into this place. It had been a talented beast spirit, destined to become the next beast lord of its clan, but its power was useless against that terrifying figure.

Over the years, it fought many battles to become the master of this gorge and discover the exit, but there was still a barrier that stopped it. All it could do was slowly accumulate to become a high beast before it could attempt to leave. However, since this required several decades, it liked to pass the time with whatever toys it encountered. Around its den were the scattered bones of humans who had challenged it. None of them could provide a challenge, but it was very entertaining to see their faces painted with despair.

On this day, another toy disturbed its rest. The prey had the weakest cultivation it had seen for one so bold. In human terms, it would be around fifth level in the Soul Realm, but for some reason its hairs stood up when it saw him. Although this puny human didn't seem like much, he was drenched in the smell of beast spirit blood.

When Shui saw the electrolion get up and stare at him, he took out the greatsword artifact he made from the bones of beast spirits and got ready to fight. Both sides understood that there would be no peace, one of them had to die.

There was no need to test things out, so Shui quickly used the power of the World Assimilation Art. As the golden electrolion saw the black markings that appeared on his skin, its wariness jumped and it immediately slapped down with its paw. However, instead of crushing the bug, a hole was made in the paw it slammed down.

"Grr?!"

Even though Shui had a three-star saint body, it wouldn't be enough to pierce through the skin of a beast spirit as strong as this. But with the Connection stage of the World Assimilation Art, all of his abilities were boosted by at least 20%. With this increase in power, even without spells Shui could fight the golden electrolion.

Since it now recognised Shui as a threat, the golden electrolion opened its mouth and fired a ball of concentrated lightning the size of an adult's upper body. Shui cut the lightning orb into two but the golden electrolion then slapped him to the wall with its left paw. It stared at the area where it flung him, but his figure was missing when the dust cleared.

Shui was already above the beast spirit, ready to drop his blade into its back. Unfortunately, the golden electrolion wasn't fooled so easily. Before he could even get near, the beast spirit exploded with enough lightning from its body to destroy the den. Shui managed to get out of the blast without a scratch, but he knew the real battle was about to begin. Rather than an enclosed space, he knew that this evolved beast was stronger in open field.

The golden electrolion's dash allowed it to cross several tens of cales in under a second, but since this was merely in a straight line and it was much bigger than he was, Shui had no fear. Forget fear, there was even a fierce smile on his face. It dashed towards him with sparks all over its body, but after moving like a flash of light, blood dripped from under it. With martial intent to stabilise his body, Shui had crouched before the beast spirit could change direction and let his blade run through its belly skin as a consequence of its own acceleration.

"Grrr!"

The pain made the golden electrolion roar in anger and glare at Shui with its red eyes. In the Connection stage, Shui could absorb essence through his weapon so while it was injured, he was feeling refreshed.

The golden electrolion stopped attacking and watched Shui carefully rather than making another move.

"Done already? Fine, then."

Shui took the initiative and dashed towards the golden electrolion with a fierce smile. Once he got close enough, it released countless spheres of concentrated electric charge around it and sent them flying at him. It was more than an adequete amount of energy to incinerate a peak Soul Realm warrior, but Shui made it out with his barrier after boosting his energy under triple harmony state. After much training, he was now able to choose what aspect of his cultivation would get stronger in the harmonic trinity state.

Roar!

Shui was getting dangerously close so in an enraged state, the golden electrolion summoned a barrage of lightning to strike him. Shui wasn't sure his barrier would be enough this time, so he strengthened his soul instead of his energy and mentally drew 'Protect'. The shield that 'Protect' provided, allowed him to get close enough to the goden electrolion to slash the ankle of one of its forelegs, however this also made him close enough for the golden electrolion to wrap his torso with its tail.

"Ughh!"

He struggled to withstand the force of the beast's tail as he gritted his teeth and tried to resist, but he was still smiling. During his time in the gorge, he thought of nothing more than the battle that he was in. He didn't have to worry about the people he wanted to protect, or what would happen if he lost, none of those considerations could bind him in here. Sometimes, when he could truly focus on nothing but beating the enemy in front of him, he could use martial intent the way it was meant to be used.

Shui struggled to keep himself from being crushed at first, but then his body stabilised and began storing energy. The golden electrolion sensed this and tried to put a quick end to him but even though it tried to swing him around, Shui was firm. Soon, he was even able to push back the tail despite its powerful resistance.

"Ha!"

Shui released all of the energy he had pent up inside him and forced the beast spirit's tail off his arms. This amount of strength wouldn't normally come out of him but when he was in this focused state it came naturally. Before it had time for a next attack, Shui took his blade and swung straight through the beast's flesh and fur, severing its tail from the rest of its body.

"!!!!"

The golden electrolion's roar of agony spread to nearby beast spirits and had them holding their ears down. This noise could hurt Shui as well but he had already protected his eardrums with a small barrier. Anyone else at his level wouldn't have such a high level of control over the size and position of a barrier, but Shui had become even more of a monster inside Blue Mist Gorge.

Without skipping a beat, after cutting off its tail, Shui jumped to deal the final blow. While pointing the blade down, with both hands over his head, Shui slammed down the tip on the golden electrolion's head. The force of this attack dropped the golden electrolion's head to the ground, but the blade had only made a slight scratch on its head. He felt electric current striking him through the electrolion's body, but he resisted the pain with willpower.

'As expected, it's pretty tough. Well then,'

"Beast Resentment!"

Shui flooded the blade with his nature energy and it glowed with a bloody-red glow before sinking deeper into its skull. Once he pushed the blade all the way past the roof of its mouth, he finally let go of the hilt.

"Whew~."

Although it may have seemed like an easy battle, if it wasn't for martial intent activating he would have had his bones broken by its tail. The fact that one hundred beasts were refined to make his blade super effective against evolved beasts also played a part, but that state was what truly made the difference.

Shui opened and closed his fist, the power that filled him was gone. Even though he gained martial intent after mastering the path of martial arts, Shui thought that it only had two simple uses, telekinesis and body enhancement. However, in this trial world he realised that the second use that he neglected was much more useful than it seemed. Furthermore, he hadn't even truly mastered the path yet. After constantly using martial intent in the gorge, Shui realised that he wasn't using it to its maximum potential, which was evident from the state he was just in.

It was different, but when his mind reached a state of absolute focus in battle, martial intent would trigger the Still Heart state. He still couldn't enter it at will, but the fact that martial intent could help him like this proved that he had underestimated the power of one of the world's laws.