Alive

Yun Tian had the knowledge of two people in him and although he hasn't lived for very long even with both of them combined, he knows many things thanks to the things he has experienced. Both of them give him unique takes on subjects, for example the Yun Tian of the modern world had read a few stories about cultivators and the Yun Tian of this world had been taught much about cultivators by his parents so he was by no means naive.

Thanks to the knowledge he has gained from two lifetimes he knew that people could do terrible things when there was nothing preventing them from doing it. He knew that in this world he was in strength was above all and if the strong wanted to they could kill whoever was weaker than them. There was nothing stopping them from ruling over those weaker.

At the moment the man across from him looked threatening and was stronger than him. Also, they were in the wilderness where there would be no witnesses. The man had probably seen him kill the demonic beast previously and knew he had a demonic beast core.

This alone gave the man enough reason to kill him since he knew that Yun Tian had wealth on him and nothing bad would happen to him out here if he killed someone. Since he knew about Yun Tian getting the demonic beast core, that also meant that he knew about him relying on his speed and would be prepared for his attacks if Yun Tian tried to attack him. Yun Tian thought, 'This guy is strong, maybe I should attack first just in case.'

Yun Tian wasn't someone who just kills others for no reason though, especially if he didn't know whether he even could or not. He may be strong, but he didn't know how strong he currently was. So he continued to watch the man and wait for him to do something first.

After a few moments of silence with both parties inspecting the other, while trying to look the most sincere and nonthreatening he could, the man said, "Hey kid you're quite strong yourself so I'm sure you can tell how strong I am. I could easily just kill you and take your belongings, even more so since you didn't even know I was following you I could have had an easy time attacking you from stealth just like you did to that beast. There is no need for that though, I don't even need any of your belongings. I will just let you go and will leave if you do one thing for me."

Yun Tian was on guard the entire time and even after the man said these things he raised his guard even higher since he thought he had an idea of what the man might want. He thought, 'I might have to try and kill him if he asks about me absorbing the demonic core.'

Just from him being on guard against the man it was obvious that Yun Tian was quite smart and quickly thought things through. He thought, 'Even if he just leaves without trying to kill me I probably can't have people knowing I can absorb the energy from demonic cores. If he leaves and tells others about it, they will either try to hunt me down and kill me seeing me as some kind of demon or they might try to hunt me down thinking I have a technique that allows people to absorb the energy from demonic cores.'

He thought it through some more and decided 'No matter what I can't let him go now that he knows about this. I don't know too much about the world and this might not be incredibly special after all, but if it is and people find out nothing good will happen to me.'

Yun Tian thought all of this very quickly and then replied to the man with a wary look" What do you want me to do?"

The man said back with a tone that said it was nothing big "All you have to do is give me the technique you used to absorb the energy in the demonic core earlier and I promise I will leave. I will even give you another demonic core of a demonic beast of the same strength as that snake. So we have a deal?"

Hearing this Yun Tian raised his guard even higher once more and thought about how he would attack first, 'Him asking for my "technique" means that absorbing demonic beast cores is definitely not something normal and if he values it so will others, so he has to die. Even more so since I don't even have such a technique and he will definitely try to kill me to get it if I say no. I have to kill him to leave here alive. It is obvious that he is lying since he first said he would let me go then even added payment of a demonic beast core that he would certainly want after getting a technique to absorb demonic beast cores.'

'The only problem is that he is quite strong. I don't know how strong I am though so I might be able to beat him. Even though I am strong he has seen me killing that beast earlier and knows about my speed. He also must have a large amount of battle experience seeing that he is out here in the wilderness right now combined with the fact that he is a mid Dantian Building expert.'

'With everything taken into account it is very likely that I will die here, but at least Shen Yu will live.'

He snapped himself out of his thoughts and reaffirmed himself 'No, I won't die here. I will instead kill this man and continue on growing stronger and protecting Shen Yu. I won't leave her alone.'

'Since I have to kill this man no matter what I should try to attack first. Even though he saw my speed previously, we are quite close right now and he probably won't anticipate me attacking first based on our conversation so far and my age.'

After this thought Yun Tian stopped just looking at the man and immediately just charged at him using his skills to the fullest potential he could.