Generous Sacrifice

Seth gripped the hilts of the onyx blades tightly in his hands. He had been itching to test out his newfound strength on something, and a horde of rat-like creatures stumbled upon him. There was a man on one side, and hundreds of beasts on the other. One had black daggers, and the other side had claws and fangs in the hundreds. The winner was already obvious, but there was one variable. The other side had a second stage ascended level beast poison. Seth could feel little pressure emanating from the creatures, so it either meant that he was much stronger than before, or the beasts were weak.

"These should be at some high stage of the mundane level..."

The creatures launched themselves like a violent tide of flesh, and Seth dashed forwarding with as much strength as his body could muster. He threw his fist at the closest creature to his location and turned his dagger hold into a reverse grip.

"Come at me, bitches!"

The creature had its face smashed in and the one next to it was instantly paralyzed by the poison. Seth did not have as much strength as someone who had surpassed the realm of physical superhuman strength and had unlocked Qi, but with twelve stat points in strength, he was more than enough for the fleshy creatures. The ant beasts needed more punches due to their tough shell like something covering their bodies, but these rat thingys had no protection at all. One punch alone was enough to deal with them.

"All that's left is a yellow suit and a bald head, hehe."

His fists mutilated whatever creature he touched, and the ones that avoided his punches and tried to attack were cut down by the onyx blades. The small slashes they received were minor cuts that weren't enough to kill them, but the sheer amount of poison pumped into their black blood from that one strike was enough to paralyze them in place.

'I'll come for you guys later.'

Seth focused his attention on the active ones and grinned. It felt good to be stronger than something. To push your weight around and kill which ones you wish to. He had been pushed around quite a lot while on earth. The hospital, his customers, the police, the darn government. But here, he was unrestrained. He had the potential to grow powerful. He could become the strongest cultivator there was! If it was what he wanted to do, then here, what was stopping him?

Seth shook those thoughts out of his mind as he cut the face of yet another abomination open, and narrowly escaped a tail whip from another. He could move his body to his will as much as he wanted to, as hard as he wanted to, and as fast as he wanted to. This was the power of a first stage cultivator in the body awakening tier!

Like a sharp, poisonous, spiteful tornado, he decimated the few dozens of creatures before him. Each and every rat like creature either fell to his fist, or to his blade, and in less than thirty minutes, they were all dead or paralyzed.

"This is a way better tactic than letting the beast chew on your arm first."

Since he was done with the standing beasts, he turned around and grinned at the fallen, paralyzed ones instead. Beasts could not usually feel fear, but seeing this human stare at them like a three year old kid would glare at a new toy was especially unnerving.

***

"Yuck..."

Seth waved his daggers around, splashing black muck at the beast corpses littered on the floor. He had finally killed each and every beast that generously offered themselves up in sacrifice for him to test out the extent of his new abilities. Of course, he also took their Qi shards, and was going to try absorbing them.

"Absorb."

_ring_ring_

_ring_ring_

[Name: Sethren Serpent]

[Level 1] [Race: mortal]

[Tier: Body Awakening tier]

[Stage: 2]

[Strength: 12]

[Agility: 11]

[Qi: 405]

The black haired guy raised a brow in confusion and tilted his head slightly.

"Just five?"

The last time he had absorbed a Qi shard, he received ten points. But now, he could not absorb a stage one beast of the mundane tier's Qi shard and a stage two only gave him five points.

"It must be because I'm no longer at the mundane tier..."

If he were to be at the mundane tier, then he would have been able to grind and absorb as many Qi shards as possible since he would be on par with them, but he was at the Body Awakening tier, second stage no less, thus he surpassed them in strength. But since when did that stop anyone from killing them just because they could? Seth was strong-ish now, and since he was a bit stronger than the mundane tier beasts, he would continue to hunt them and absorb their Qi shards. After all, he had till tomorrow's afternoon to complete his daily quests, didn't he?

"A few tiny drops can eventually fill a barrel.... wait a minute, did i say that right?"

Anyways, he had a few dozen more Qi shards to absorb before he continued going deeper into the cavern, didn't he?

***

Lee Chun Hua and Xin Minxia had just made their way out of the caverns, when the younger woman abruptly came to a complete stop, her mouth agape and her eyes wide open.

'H... He's gotten stronger yet again...'

She had kept her aura sensing ability at its peak all around a kilometer wide distance from herself. Though this was mostly to keep alert of the vastly powerful creatures, a quarter was meant to spy on Seth's aura. And right before her metaphorical eyes, he had advanced tiers once again.

"Mundane tier yesterday afternoon, and the early stage of the Nascent Body realm this morning.... This guy... This guy is a genius worthy of my arch rivalry!"

Chun Hua was so fast at cultivation, that she far surpassed her peers. It was only the thousands of seasons old elders, and her father that were above her. Oh, and there was Xin Minxia, another cultivation giant, but the lecherous lady's 'perfectly ordinary cultivation methods' were rather questionable. She needed something to hope for. A goal to reach. And Seth,... Seth was perfect. A cultivation genius of her level, someone she could compete against. Xin Minxia had a worried look on her face as she stared at the figure of Lee Chun Hua mumbling to her self.

"Are you okay, Junior Sister Chun Hua?"