28. Demon Forest

Kai ordered the ants to search for information about variant bodies in the library and started practicing phantom steps.

'I should go practice outside to speed up the training.' thought Kai. Practicing indoors will not yield many results compared to real-life experience. A single battle is always better than a hundred days of training, so Kai decided to go to the mission hall to find suitable tasks to do along the way.

Kai walked into the mission hall and started searching for any relevant task that would give him battle experience, but luck wasn't on his side, and he did not find any suitable task.

'I thought of making some contribution points along with the training, but it seems there is nothing here.' thought Kai. All the tasks related to battle are not available for his realm, and for the supernatural realm, the tasks are either support or assistance for alchemy and blacksmithing.

'I should go to the demon forest to train, it is nearby, and the beast there is not dangerous.' thought Kai. The demon forest is located near the sect, and it is managed by Slaughter Palace. They use this place as a sort of training ground for their disciples. 

In the demon forest, beasts above Tier 3 cannot be found. Every time the beast was about to break through, he sent people to kill them. In Tier 4, the beasts will develop their intelligence, and they will come here for revenge for raising them as tools.

A beast in the semi saint realm won't be a threat to the Yang family, but it is a huge danger to disciples in the sect. If the Yang family is not even capable of protecting their people, then the Slaughter Palace may decline due to this reason. No one will join a sect that isn't capable of protecting their person. So, there is a lot of trouble in managing such a huge forest, but because of the gains, the sect manages them.

Kai got out of the sect and started running towards the forest. He did not use a carriage because he was faster than them. After two days of traveling, he reached the periphery of the forest.

"Little brother, how about you join our team? Our group is just missing a single person." Asked a mature lady.

"Hey, don't listen to them, little guy. Join our group; we, brother will protect you." Asked another bald middle-aged man. He is surrounded by a group of weird-looking men. 

"Thank you for your invitation, but sorry, I prefer being alone," Kai replied and started walking into the forest without hearing their reply.

"Hey, where are you going? Do you think you can ignore us?" Said a guy from the group. He placed his hands on Kai to stop him.

"Do you think you can stop me now?" Kai asked, and he showed them his inner disciple token of Slaughter Palace.

"Sorry brother. Please forgive us for the disturbance we caused." Said the bald middle-aged man as soon as he saw the token and hurriedly walked away with his group. The other group also walked away in another direction.

The reason for both groups staying away from Kai is because of his status as a disciple of Slaughter Palace. They only invited Kai to cheat with his money and valuable things, but after seeing his status, they ran away from him. 

'It seems this token is very useful in this type of situation.' Kai thought. In this world, all people will consider their status before messing with other people. Sometimes personal strength is not needed if one has a high enough status.

Kai started walking inside the demon forest without minding the group. After walking inside the forest, he saw some Tier 1 beasts, but he did not kill them. Their strength is too weak for him and won't give him any experience. He also did not want to mindlessly slaughter all of them.

After searching for a suitable beast for hours using his vision talent, he finally found a perfect beast that was suitable for his training.

A giant ape was sleeping at the side of a tree. The giant ape is a peak tier 2 beast, and its bloodline level is also relatively good. It did not have good speed compared to other beasts of the same tier, but it had an advantage in strength.

'This is the perfect beast for training, so I should start my training with you.' thought Kai. He took his sword and started walking towards the ape. 

The ape sensed the presence of Kai as soon as he reached 10 meters around it. The ape attacked him with its fist. Kai used a phantom step to escape and appeared behind the ape. He slashed his sword at the back of the ape, but it did not even leave a scratch since the defense of the ape was very high.

The ape again punched him in anger, it seemed to be very angry with the ant that disturbed its sleep. Kai again used his phantom step ability to dodge and attack from behind, but this time he attached his Will Manifestation to the sword. The sword left a deep mark on the ape.

*ARGGHHHHH*

The ape screamed in anger and agony, and its eyes also got red due to pain. 

*ROARRRRR*

The ape roared, and it activated its talent. The gravity around the ape changed, and it increased by twofold. Kai, who was unprepared for this situation, was caught off guard and lost his balance. The ape did not miss the chance and hit him straight in the chest.

Kai flew towards a tree and got hit by it due to the force of the punch. Due to his tempering in Refining Tower and proper tempering in the body tempering realm, Kai had a high amount of defense and survived with only a few injuries. If there is a regular cultivator in Kai's situation, he may die due to the sudden impact.

"It seems my experience with Tier 1 beasts is not enough." Thought Kai. He had already trained to fight with beasts for 3 years, but all of them are Tier 1 and they don't have any abilities to fight. But from Tier 2, every beast has their talent and abilities. Their fighting style will also differ based on their abilities.

Kai did not consider any of these in the fight, he did not even use his full power in this battle. If he were to use his willpower to sense, he would have found the change in gravity as he was already capable of sensing them. He could have also used his soul perception to see the situation, but he did not do anything and fought without any consideration.

'I must control my pride. If I used all my strength, the situation wouldn't have happened.' thought Kai. He had already realized his mistake.

Kai got up from the tree and used phantom steps to escape from the gravity field around the ape. 

'TCH!, This gravity field is very annoying. It is almost like a domain ability,' thought Kai as he continued to dodge the assault of Ape.

The ape won't be able to maintain the ability for a long time since it will consume energy. Kai wanted to take advantage of this situation and make the ape tired. He used his willpower and soul perception to avoid any surprise attacks.

Kai was only passively receiving the attack while dodging them with phantom steps. He was not able to attack the ape due to the gravity field around it.

'Ahh! This type of battle is so annoying. I should have learned at least one attack technique from the library' Thought Kai. He wasn't able to attack the ape, and even if such a chance appears, the attack's impact will be reduced a lot due to the field. Considering the high defense of apes, it only causes a negligible impact.

Kai can also perform his [Freedom Scripture] technique to kill this ape in one shot, but it will use all of his energy and leave him in a defenseless state. So he did not use that move since he was still in the forest.

Due to being on the receiving end of the attack, he suffered a lot of small injuries. Kai activated his evergreen talent to heal his injuries by absorbing the surrounding wood element, Qi. He also made his blood run at a faster rate to increase his speed. It was achievable due to the heart control ability he acquired in fire tempering.

Kai got a little advantage in the battle and finally started battling in an equal state with the ape. He used all of his basic sword moves to perfection and moved by using phantom steps. He did not leave any trace or sound during his movement.

Kai moved like a ghost in the battle with the ape, and it also started acting more recklessly. The ape stopped using its gravity field ability, and Kai took the opportunity.

He used his phantom step to immediately appear behind the ape, used his will manifestation on the sword, and slashed with his full power at the neck of the ape. The defense at the neck is very weak, and the sword easily passes through it. Blood splattered on Kai as the head of the ape was severed, and its body slowly fell to the ground.

*THUDD*