40 - Fighting a peak tier beast

"Flowing Bolt Arrow: one bronze note."

Su Tao could not help but be extremely shocked at this price.

This price was only below that of rank five technique.

And this was under the case that lightning elemental skills were usually low priced and it was a bow skill, which further lowered its price due to the rarity of bow specialists.

'It seems that this skill is much more complicated than it lets on.'

Su Tao could not help thinking to himself that it was likely only on the second floor due to the lack of lightning element cultivators and bow specialists.

However, Su Tao still wanted to get this skill even after seeing its price. After all, he could get money at an unnatural rate due to his extreme hunting capabilities.

Su Tao then went down and rented the absorption technique. After all, even though he wanted to get the flowing bolt arrow book, it was far too expensive, and the absorption technique could increase his strength right now.

He then went back into the forest, and he killed the ones that were once again following him. However, this time, all three of them were at the middle tier one star silver rank, which showed that the people who sent them were clearly aware that the rest had died.

These people only had a total of about four gold pieces on them, which brought Su Tao's total up to eight gold pieces.

He then burned the bodies and moved on with his day.

But he was slightly annoyed. He was only barely able to kill these three. He wasn't infinitely strong after all. Just because he was extremely powerful among low tiers and basically unrivalled, it didn't mean that he could take on a group of middle tiers.

At that point, he would have to use the power of his eyes to kill a group any bigger than this one.

He could kill them with his bow, but it would be quite hard since they weren't beasts that didn't have intelligence. Most of those at the middle tier had the ability to block arrows with weapons anyway, although this didn't apply to Su Tao's arrows that were faster than normal.

But regardless, he would find it quite hard to kill them all with only his arrows. Plus, they could charge over to him while he was shooting them anyway.

Su Tao had better quality inner energy than some middle tiers, but he was only able to kill this group due to his high tier crackling fist skill.

But if he used the power of his eyes, even a high tier wasn't his match, and he could instantly kill one if the situation called for it.

He was able to beat and kill one of those two high tiers from the Yin Moon Sect, but only because they were countered perfectly by him as well as the fact that they were already injured and couldn't fight at their peak state.

He then went deep into the forest to a new spot he hadn't before, then he climbed up into a tree and went to sleep.

The next morning, he got up and started cultivating. He had still not started to grind at the barrier to the two star silver rank yet because there was no point to it right now. At least, that was what he thought.

Most people would grind at the barrier and refine their inner energy at the same time, but that took longer. For those that had high talent and potential, they could refine their inner energy first and then break through the barrier much faster later on.

The barrier to the two star silver rank was ground down by inner energy rather than Qi, which meant that it would use the inner energy that he was trying to condense, making it condense slower.

It was like a pitcher of water. If there was a hole at the bottom of the pitcher, then the water wouldn't be inside when you needed it. But if there was no hole, then you could easily pour yourself a drink when you wanted to.

Using inner energy to grind the barrier while refining it was like having a hole at the bottom of the pitcher, and it would be very hard to refine it if he did.

While doing this, he sent his watery inner energy to the rest of his body and made a barrier that covered his entire body, and it was slowly changing what it looked like.

The barrier of watery blue inner energy got a bit more solid, and below the surface, the inner energy within his body was making a kind of cushion that would spread out the inner energy that he got attacked with and make it get spread over a larger area to lessen its effects.

He had noticed something over the past few days.

He felt that his refining speed of his inner energy was extremely fast. At first, his inner energy was comparable to a normal top low tier, but now, with only a little bit of time and work, his inner energy was stronger than an average middle tier. Such progress was incredible.

He had felt the same feeling when he used the piece of charred wood to refine and strengthen his lightning inner energy the first time. It was just too unnaturally fast.

However, this time, it had nothing to do with potential how fast one could cultivate.

This meant that Su Tao wouldn't go past his limit no matter how fast he refined it.

This was because refinement was based on comprehension and control alone, which meant that it had no limit in terms of speed.

However, because of his eyes, Su Tao had incredible control over his inner energy even on a small scale, which allowed him to refine it much much faster. He was keenly aware of this.

Probably not even Li Lan or the City Master's daughter could compare to him in terms of control over their inner energy. In this regard, as long as he had a high enough level technique, he could break through to the next rank faster than them.

Su Tao cultivated for twenty nine days straight, and by the time he was done, he couldn't help but be astonished at the results. Today was the due date for the absorption technique.

His inner energy had been purified and its quality had risen to a top middle tier one star silver rank. As for its density, it was much more compact than a top middle tier.

However, he felt that he had reached a bottleneck for the quality of the inner energy. This meant that he was about to break through to be a middle tier one star silver rank, which was an incredible speed.

He still had the water spirit pill, but he was going to save it for later.

He had put more energy into refining the lightning inner energy to balance out the disparity between the refining techniques.

He then took his bow and went to hunt some beasts.

He figured it was time to try his luck out against a peak tier rank four beast.

Very quickly, he managed to find a peak tier beast. He had to go further into the forest, but he didn't care.

This peak tier beast was a black panther. He took out his bow, and he nocked an arrow.

He then put his lightning inner energy into the arrow, and then he released it.

The arrow was flying through the air incredibly fast, but the panther had an instinct for danger, which made it activate its inner energy barrier over its entire body.

This inner energy barrier was a translucent white, but it had a tinge of green and brown in it. Su Tao knew that this was a bit of the element of wood.

As beasts climbed the ranks, they would gain some intelligence, and they would be able to have a bit of a specific element if they were at or above the peak tier rank four beast.

Also, since beasts had no specific body part that they controlled the most, they could activate their inner energy barriers across their whole body extremely early, which some human cultivators found unfair.

The arrow then hit the inner energy barrier of the panther, and it stuck in only about a millimeter before it was pushed out. But Su Tao's strong lightning inner energy went onto the barrier and through it a little bit, slightly messing up the panther's control of its inner energy, weakening the barrier.

Then, without hesitation, Su Tao fired off another arrow, but when the arrow had reached the panther this time, it had turned around, and seeing the arrow flying at it, it charged towards where Su Tao was.

He had been found by a few of the slightly smarter high tier beasts that he had hunted, but this peak tier easily found him. This showed just how much smarter it was.

This arrow struck its side, but it only managed to pierce in about a quarter of an inch before being pushed out. However, Su Tao's lightning inner energy further weakened it.

By now, the panther was well on its way towards Su Tao, and it was going to reach him soon.

'Eh, it seems like I still can't handle a peak tier rank four beast for now. I should be able to beat those at the high tier one star silver rank relying on my skill and my stronger inner energy, but I can only escape from a peak tier without using the power of my eyes for the time being.'

Although the inner energy of the panther was much weaker than a normal peak tier's inner energy, it was still enough that Su Tao didn't have the confidence to beat it in a fight.

As such, since he didn't want to fight with this panther and get injured for no reason, he put about a quarter of his right eye's power into his lightning inner energy and put into another arrow which he fired at the panther.

Being very close to Su Tao at this point, the panther had no chance to dodge and the arrow pierced directly into its brain and instantly killed it. It met some resistance, but it was ultimately not enough.

The power of Su Tao's eyes could level up the power of his inner energy by quite a bit, bringing it to the strength of a high tier with that strike just now. Combined with the naturally explosive power that lightning offered, it was able to kill the panther in one hit.

Su Tao figured that his crackling fist should be able to at least damage the inner energy barrier of the peak tier panther, but it wouldn't be able to break through it.

As for the physical body of the panther, it was much stronger than his, and adding the fact that it was a beast, he would be no match for it in a fight.

The tough physical body of beasts was why they were hunted in groups. Su Tao's bow countered this because a strong physical body was basically useless against a bow, and he didn't have to deal with the physical strength of the beast.

In a direct confrontation, Su Tao would only be able to fight against a high tier beast due to his very strong inner energy and his high tier rank four crackling fist skill as well as his naturally stronger physique.

Su Tao then collected the body of the panther and went to kill some high tier beasts.

This time, he ended up killing twenty nine beasts to make thirty in total, and they were all of higher value.

On top of that, the corpses were less damaged than they were when he brought them in previously. This meant that their value was higher as well.

This was the maximum number of beasts that he could take at once due to the size of the sled.

He took them into the Su family, and he ended up getting twenty five gold pieces for the twenty nine high tier beasts and another two gold pieces for the peak tier panther.

He now had a total of thirty five gold pieces, which was more wealth than he could have previously imagined getting.

Then, he returned the book, then went back to the forest without even buying anything. He had only come today because he needed to return the book to the martial arts pavilion.