Flower Seeded

Fred hummed as he understood.

"We don't have time for that. Remember your goal, to help Cecil's friends and get her a new beast," Fred reminded Xu An.

"I know that. Go first to the capital, I just remembered something," said Xu An as he rushed off to somewhere else.

Fred watched his back as his figure disappeared through the thick woods and bushes.

"Does he know how to get out of here? Spatmension Great Forest is very vast and dangerous. Many people sometimes vanished and reappeared in another empire or kingdom. Worst case scenario, somewhere dangerous. 

"Though, it is none of my concern. He'll be fine," Fred said as he paused; continued, "probably."

Xu An ran through the thick bushes and trees. He did so rather skillfully and so, he advanced without slowing down.

After a few minutes, he saw the familiar red wheelbarrow. He was delighted as he smiled that he found it easier than expected yet something was missing that his smile disappeared.

"The monster carcasses are gone?! Did another creature smell the blood and eat all of them?" Xu An speculated as he walked in the wheelbarrow's side.

Upon reaching there, he took a look at the inside and saw many tiny, black flower seeds.

Picking up a bunch of them, which filled his palm, Xu An wondered as he frowned, "what is this?"

Abruptly, something came to mind.

"It can't be that this is…" Xu An could not believe it. He believed that this was the same seed as he got from killing an assassin.

Nevertheless, he never thought this applied to animals too. Though, he was not quite sure. It could be this seed was a habit of an animal that just stole his loot.

He was trapped and lived in this forest for a few years, after all. He was compared to a zoologist as he knew most creatures here. Not all of them though.

Considering the vastness of the Great Spatmension Forest was. It would still take years to remember every creature lived here, thousand years if not.

How is that possible in mere two years? The original Xu An was a genius in cultivation. That does not mean he sucked at everything else.

Simply put, he had a rather high IQ. Unfortunately, after he was found survived and woke up from his coma. His IQ dropped considerably but this recovered to average. His knowledge and everything he learned about cultivation also seemingly went into the thin air.

Thankfully, other things he learned stayed. Though, he focused on cultivation only. Precisely 80% of his brain was filled with cultivation and 20% was other things.

So basically, everything he learned was not too good or bad. Just average.

Anyway, he looked around. Spread his spiritual senses as he scanned the area.

Many scenes appeared in his mind, which were mostly trees and other flora though.

A few seconds later, a beast with five red eyes, looking like a bird and the feet of a cat appeared in his vision.

It was about three hundred meters away from him. Xu An rushed to this bird to prove his point. His figure left after images as he ran.

Leaves, grass, and bushes swayed about as he went past them.

A minute later, he found the bird-like creature and hurriedly halted his steps.

The latter was idling as it relaxed but quickly alarmed upon finding a human spilling out intense killing intent.

It reflexively took a few steps back ut when it found out the human was rather weak. The bird-like creature suddenly became relaxed and dropped its guard considerably.

However, it was curious why this human had a terrifying killing intent as it tilted its head to the side, looking at Xu An curiously yet a bit warily.

Xu An did not move an inch as soon as he found the creature. He instead observed it for a short moment.

He knew this creature, for the fact he had been killing it for food when he was trapped in the forest.

Without saying a word, Xu An picked up his pace as he rushed at Gradion. The latter was the name of the bird.

Swoosh!

Gradion shrieked as it was provoked. Xu An came as it was relaxing! Unforgivable! Unless Xu An was dead. By then, probably Gradion forgave him. Yes, probably.

Xu An unsheathed his blade. It let out silver glint and shing noises.

The bird flapped its wings as it went into the air. Dust filled the air, limiting Xu An's vision.

Quickly afterward, the arc of winds. Five of them, to be precise, were shot at Xu An. The dust was cut in the process.

Xu An's eyes were useless and so, he chose to rely on other senses. Which was his danger senses and instinct.

Then, they tingled as it sensed danger was approaching. Xu An did not doubt it as he prepared his blade.

Not long after, he was met with the wind arcs. Xu An blocked two but something unexpected happened.

His blade cracked! Fortunately, it had not spread yet, only a small crack. However, should he parry the rest, his blade would be nothing but only the hilt left.

Therefore, he dodged all of the attacks which almost hit him. His hair swayed about and the missed wind arcs formed small ditches on the ground as particles of dust raised to the air.

Boom boom boom!

Xu An did not slow his speed at all despite the surroundings limiting his vision. He had other senses.

It was his spiritual senses. Mere dust was not enough to block it. Unless it was a special one.

Seeing its attacks were missed. The bird became pretty furious and constantly built its guard up as Xu An got closer.

But, the bird was not a fool to wait for that to happen.

The bird then flew straight into the air. Xu An's spiritual senses did not feel the bird anymore and so, he halted his steps.

"Is it running away? No, that's impossible. It's not the type to flee when it was provoked by someone weaker.

"It's planning something," said Xu An as he narrowed his eyes. His heart slightly sunk as he got a bad feeling.

A unique thing about this creature was that: each Gradion had different behavior from others. They looked like humans if one saw them from a different perspective.

No humans were different. That made our kind unique.

Well anyway, for Xu An. This was the most headache thing when facing a Gradion. One could not predict their behavior upon first meeting.

Xu An fished out a small, wooden figurine from his inside robe pocket. It was the mini version of him.

He kept his spiritual senses around the area. It was unfortunate though that his spiritual senses had limited range when it came to the air.

Although Xu An could not detect its presence right now. He could feel something was watching from above.

The feeling of something might attack you from anywhere and you were powerless to fight against it, was a rather uncomfortable feeling.

It was akin to walking under the moonless night and felt like something was going to attack you from behind.

However, that only applied to normal people. Who do you think Xu An was?

Gradion plunged as its wings cut the air, leaving two trails of faint cloud.

Whoosh!

Xu An held his blade and the wooden figure tightly. As Gradion appeared in his vision, which was limited to about five meters.

Xu An quickly threw the wooden figurine. Gradion ignored it as it thought it was used to distract it.

Foolish human, I'm not dumb to fall for that trick! Gradion probably thought.

Little did it know that it made a grave mistake.

As Gradion opened its beak and ripped apart Xu An's torso from his lower part or so it thought, when Xu An suddenly vanished!

In the next moment, he appeared above Gradion with his blade raised to the sky and fell to its neck.

"Haaa!" Xu An shouted a battle cry as the blade hit Gradion's neck. His sword stopped for a split second as Gradion's neck was a bit tougher than he expected.

Xu An hurriedly poured out more qi into his blade. Making it sharper as it cut its head.

Before that, however, Gradion let out an agonizing shriek. Xu An's ears almost exploded as they were ringing.

It was an undramatic fight. Xu An expected that but that shriek came out of nowhere and it startled him.

He did expect one but not that loud. He even almost fainted.

The Gradion collapsed to the ground with its flying momentum still in effect. As the blade cut through its neck, Xu An landed on the ground as he watched the headless bird fell.

A trail of dust filled the air as the ground was paved like a rural road.

After it stopped, Xu An saw the creature's head was rolling. He approached it and picked it up.

Blood gushed out and seeped into the ground. Red paint could be seen.

"Looks like I don't have to pay for tonight's dinner. Though–" Xu An halted his words as he narrowed his eyes at Gradion's headless corpse.

He wanted to prove his speculation. So, he waited for something to happen as he was training his swordplay before the Gradion's corpse.

He earned something from that fight and training to get the feel of it before it disappeared was a must.

It was in some form of enlightenment. Only a fool would miss such a thing.

This lasted for an hour before Xu An stopped.

His body was soaked in sweat. His clothes were like he just had a swim on a river with clothes on.

Xu An was panting quite hard as he wiped the sweat on his forehead.

"This is a pleasant surprise," Xu An said to himself as he was delighted. It was rare for an occasion like this to happen. To get it again depends on one's luck!

Quickly afterward, something strange happened to Gradion's body.

Xu An stopped his training as he got his enlightenment clear. Before training, the enlightenment he got was vague.

Before Xu An was the process of Gradion's body turned to particles of soft sand. Nothing remained! Everything went into dust– er… sand.

In the next moment, the sand moved as it went to the head. After that, it formed a dust devil with the head's position as the center.

Of course, the head turned to soft sand as well. It's just a bit late and it also did not last long as it quickly turned into a tiny small seed.

This amazing dust devil which extended to about twenty meters into the air suddenly shrunk!

Fifteen meters, eight, five, then finally zero. It was absorbed by the seed. As it absorbed the soft sand, the seed shook greatly, and after it was all done.

The seed stopped shaking.

Xu An knew everything was done and so, he picked it up.