14

"Grrr..." A low growl resounded through the air as a white tiger stared at a brown haired youth. It cautiously watched for its opponents next move as it paced about the grass.

This white tiger was another species living in the forest near Ruo Chen's house. It fur was as white as snow with dark streaks of night on its back and face, its blue eyes adding on to their flare. 

The brown haired youth was Ruo Chen, he was dressed in an attire similar to what people wore in the military like the green camouflage clothes. As three months passed by, he felt the increasing need to get stronger so he decided to train in the forest where he could fight against animals that were stronger than him.

Meanwhile, Ye Ran was more focused on getting his core to the next stage so that he could store more energy and thus spent most of his time in his room, only ever coming out to eat or to check up on Ruo Chen.

As for Xiao Pang, he transformed into a bird that sat on a tree nearby just in case if the training were to go wrong, he could quickly neutralize the situation with his own powers without alerting the enemy.

"Ignite!" 

Ruo Chen commanded as he pointed his index finger to a formation he had set up. The moment after the command was said, a circle formed around the white tiger in an instant, the searing flames enveloping its whole body.

But Ruo Chen knew it was not enough as their fur was impossibly thick and hard to get through. He had only set up this formation as a way to test out the skills he wrote in the book and also as training for his other elements. Since he had only really been training with dark energy, his other energies were quite lacking and he wanted to at least familiarize himself with those.

The white tiger was not fazed as it blasted a jet of water from its mouth to put out the fire. Being a water type animal, it of course had the ability to control water energy. 

Ruo Chen had expected this and thus unleashed his next attack.

"Bind!"

Ropes of dark energy sprouted his fingers and quickly wrapped themselves around the legs of the tiger. The tiger let out an enraged roar as it struggled against the ropes. Unfortunately for it, the ropes were one of Ruo Chen's most practised moves and thus was way harder for it to escape. Once the ropes had a target, they would never let go.

This move was something he copied from the prodigy Xiao Yuwei called the 'Endless bind'. The prodigy had used this move in the battle against Ye Ran and was thus able to maintain control over the battle and lead him to his victory. However, this move costed a lot of energy to use and was also exhausting on the mind as you have to continuously ensure that it remained its form, unless you wanted to waste your energy if the shape were to go uncontrolled.

It was also super annoying to learn as each rope needed to have a certain amount of energy. If energy was too little, it would dissipate. If there was too much, then the shape would be funny and the ropes would not listen to your command. Especially in the heat of the battle, this small little details make it almost impossible to maintain all ten ropes at once as Ruo Chen could only use four at the moment.

Beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks as he prepared for his final move, he had to finish it now while the ropes were still doing its job. 

"Cough!" Ruo Chen suddenly felt blood spurt out of his mouth as one of his ropes got broken by the tiger.

Endless bind also had a fatal flaw, it was that if the ropes got broken by the target, it would send a backlash to the user. Thankfully, the ropes backlash increase with the power and Ruo Chen's ropes were not at a super high level and his injuries were not the worst. In some scenarios where if the user was Xiao Yuwei, the backlash could potentially cause his heart to stop and die a sudden death. That's why Xiao Yuwei had only ever used the move a few times in his life.

Ruo Chen gritted his teeth through the pain. Fortunately, his preparation of the attack did not get disrupted. There would have been a double backlash if it were the case. In this world, if one's preparation of an attack were to get interrupted, it would also give a backlash to the user. Once again, the stronger the attack, the more powerful the backlash. 

He was already starting to feel faint from the over exertion and had to use up all of his strength for his final attack.

"Pierce!"

His formed a finger gun with his right hand and a dark energy spitzer bullet shot out, going directly towards the tiger's heart. The attack was too fast for the tiger to even see and the bullet pierced through its thick white fur before embedding itself in the heart. The tiger then seized all movement as its jaw hung slack.

Boom!

The bullet exploded inside its body causing its innards to fly everywhere. This was one of the weakness of this white tiger, its outer fur was strong and resistant while its insides were weak and vulnerable. Thus, the explosion was able to blow it inside out.

Blood landed on Ruo Chen's face and his face scrunched up in disgust. He clumsily dusted his clothes before wobbling a bit to look at where Xiao Pang was at. 

"How long did that take?" He asked while trying to regulate his breathing.

"4 minutes." Xiao Pang chirped as it flew down to land on Ruo Chen's shoulder.

Ruo Chen nodded before turning his gaze to the unrecognisable corpse of the white tiger. This was how he had been training for the past few months and he had long grown used to this scene. This type of white tiger were actually growing in abundance and were causing a threat to the balance of the forest ecosystem and in a way he was doing a good thing by getting rid of them.

The smell of blood and the feeling of killing something took a surprisingly short amount of time to get used to, by the first week of hunting, Ruo Chen had already grown indifferent to it.

This made him question himself as to whether he was always like this, so unfeeling to some things that should take longer to be immune to and being emotional to a fault at times. 

But so what? That's just what I am.

Ruo Chen thought as he dug through the corpse to look for the tiger's teeth, they were worth some value and the skin of the tiger was unsalvageable. He let out a sigh as he was only able to find two teeth, both of it was also covered in remnants that he didn't know of.

He gathered some water energy into his palms to clean the teeth before shoving them into one of his pockets. He threw one more look at the bloody mess before turning to leave. Some of the animals could use of a free meal.

As he walked back to the house, he shed of the camouflage clothes that where covered in blood and grime and made Xiao Pang transform into a dog to carry it. Now that it has been over two years since Ye Ran has seen Xiao Pang, the pup had to obviously grow into a dog to avoid suspicions.

Ruo Chen did not forget to take out the two precious teeth in the pockets, he did not know what to do with it at the moment but they were at least worth some money.

As he walked into the house, the house maids quickly greeted him before taking the clothes off of Xiao Pang's back. Xiao Pang then made his way to the couch to rest.

This was already a familiar routine to Ruo Chen and he headed to the showers to wash the smell of blood off of himself. He then changed into a fresh set of clothes, a simple plain white shirt with light grey shorts. Water dripped down of his short brown hair as he made his way to Ye Ran's room.

It had been a while since they actually spent a day together and he wanted to check on his progress.

"Ye Ran, may I come in?" Ruo Chen asked as he knocked on the door.

No response.

Ruo Chen waited for another minute before deciding to head in, unease built up within him as he opened the door. Thankfully, Ye Ran had only been asleep. 

"Looks like you've upgraded your core." Ruo Chen mumbled to himself as he felt that Ye Ran has a stronger presence now. He smiled as he took out one of the tiger tooth he collected and had an idea.

How about I make a tiger tooth pendant for him?

He thought as he placed the tooth on Ye Ran's chest. It looked perfect on him and Ruo Chen hummed happily to himself before placing the tooth back into his pocket. Though he found it a bit strange that Ye Ran hasn't woken up yet. He was usually a light sleeper as he was always on guard, maybe the core upgrade really took a toll on him.

Before Ruo Chen left, he realized that Ye Ran did not untie his hair before sleeping so he gently lifted up his head to remove the hair tie before gently laying his head back down and leaving the tie on the bed side table.

What a good friend I am. 

Ruo Chen smiled as he carefully shut the door behind him.

Unbeknownst to him, Ye Ran had only been pretending to sleep and that a wide grin was now plastered over his once calm face.

How caring...

He thought before shutting his eyes, easing up as the warmth of care spread throughout his body.