Wang Suo and Zheng Shude stared in disbelief at the three massive carcasses lying on the ground, while listening to Li Zhuo endlessly boasting. He went on about how the mantis stalks the cicada unaware of the oriole behind, how playing hard to get works, and how thrilling yet effortlessly calm it was to be used as bait—and so on and so forth.
In the end, Wang Suo and Zheng Shude finally figured out the truth: Li Qiu and Li Zhuo hadn't lifted a finger at all; they had merely retreated forty paces. And just like that, thanks to Li Qiu reading the situation and standing aside to enjoy the scenery, they had netted three pieces of prey. It was utterly astounding.
Any one of these three beasts, if placed in Xujiawa, would have required three to five adult hunters to surround and kill, usually leaving some of the hunters injured.
Yet Li Qiu had obtained all three without breaking a sweat, making it hard for them to believe. Previously, Wang Suo and Zheng Shude had only witnessed Li Qiu's sheer audacity in pulling off something from nothing; now, they had seen him hunt down three large beasts—a tiger, a leopard, and a wild takin—with a smile and zero effort. They couldn't help but admire their big brother Li Qiu with absolute devotion.
Only Li Qiu knew that his heightened senses were entirely due to practicing the Azure Wood Formula. Thanks to sensing that tiger in time, he and Li Zhuo might otherwise have ended up as a tiger's meal. This made him look forward to the Azure Wood Formula with even greater anticipation.
None of the four could have carried away any of the three giant beasts whole; they were simply too big and too heavy. So the four divided the labor and butchered the beasts with knives. They harvested: two takin horns, takin hide, tiger skin, tiger bones, tiger gall bladder, tiger whip, leopard skin, and leopard gall bladder, which they split amongst themselves. Li Zhuo took the tiger and leopard gall bladders; Wang Suo took the tiger and leopard skins; Zheng Shude wanted the tiger bones and tiger whip; and Li Qiu got the takin horns and leopard skin. Everyone was thoroughly satisfied.
That night, the four of them feasted wildly. Lacking wine, they made up for it with meat—tiger, leopard, takin, and roe deer meat. They ate to their hearts' content, relishing the meal and feeling full of hope and longing for this expedition.
As night fell, the four packed up and built a roaring campfire to keep other birds and beasts away.
Zheng Shude picked up his saber to take the first watch, but Li Qiu stopped him, insisting on taking the shift himself. Zheng Shude had no choice but to relent, telling Li Qiu to wake him at the fifth watch for the shift change. Li Qiu agreed and let the matter rest.
Li Qiu slowly walked over to the giant tree Zheng Shude had found earlier. The tree was about ten zhang high and thick enough for four men to embrace. Every three paces up the trunk, Zheng Shude had driven wooden spikes to make climbing easier.
Li Qiu took a deep breath, grabbed the branches and wooden spikes, and climbed upward smoothly, effortlessly, without a single hitch. Reaching the top, by the moonlight, he saw that a thick, horizontally extending branch had been covered with twigs and leaves, with a makeshift canopy built over it. He climbed up and sat down, preparing to enter meditative cultivation.
Li Qiu first calmed his mind and reflected on everything that had happened today. He felt that the Azure Wood Formula was truly miraculous, which was why he had fought to take the night watch in the first place: it had miraculously allowed him to sense the tiger and leopard, saving his life. With such immortal abilities in hand, he could foresee any future danger in advance and turn misfortune into fortune.
This sensory faculty was wondrous. Whenever Li Qiu closed his eyes and sank his Qi into his dantian, he felt as if he could "see" very far—not with his physical eyes, but perceiving things roughly ten zhang away, which was about seventy paces up and down. Yet carrying the two takin horns had been surprisingly easy, even though together they weighed forty to fifty jin.
In other words, after practicing the Azure Wood Formula, Li Qiu's physical strength had increased. Furthermore, whenever Li Qiu felt tired, running just a single micro-cosmic orbit left him feeling refreshed, clear-headed, and completely energized, with not a trace of fatigue. All of this was thanks to the Azure Wood Formula, so Li Qiu eagerly began his cultivation practice.
Just as before, Li Qiu sat cross-legged as the manual instructed, with his hands clasped below his abdomen, eyes half-closed, entering a state of peaceful tranquility—neither thinking, looking, listening, nor moving—and directed his Qi into his dantian.
A short while later, he felt a wave of heat rising from his abdomen. Only this time, the heat carried a hint of bluish Qi, cool and refreshing, which balanced out the warmth perfectly.
Unlike the ordinary heat, this blue Qi did not dissipate after completing one micro-cosmic orbit, but returned to the dantian instead. When Li Qiu ended his session, the blue Qi unexpectedly vanished without a trace.
Li Qiu found this trace of blue Qi fascinating, wondering why it disappeared whenever he stopped his practice. Assuming this session would be as time-consuming and arduous as the last, he looked up at the moon and saw it had set a bit lower, realizing only two hours had passed. So he tried another micro-cosmic orbit. As he began his practice, that trace of blue Qi appeared once again.
The blue Qi followed the path of the micro-cosmic orbit through all four limbs and bones, leaving Li Qiu feeling wonderfully comfortable all over. Finally, when he finished his session, the blue Qi vanished once more.
Puzzled, Li Qiu pondered this for a long time. Suddenly, catching sight of the canopy overhead, he had a flash of insight and thought: "Of course! It's because of this giant tree. What I practice is the Azure Wood Formula, and wood and trees are fundamentally one. I suppose that blue Qi comes from the giant tree itself. The more trees there are, the more blue Qi there will be. If I cultivate in the mountain forests from now on, won't I get twice the result with half the effort?"
In thinking this, Li Qiu was taking things somewhat out of context. The foundation of cultivation, most importantly, was drawing Qi into the body—guiding external spiritual Qi into oneself to form spiritual power. One uses this spiritual power to temper the physical body and forge the divine sense. Upon entering Qi Condensation Level 1, a cultivator can retain a portion of that spiritual power within the dantian and begin practicing basic spells.
Li Qiu's ability to sense the tiger and leopard could not yet be called "divine sense"; it was merely the embryonic form of one.
Cultivating in a giant tree had its benefits, but an ordinary tree remained an ordinary tree. Even a tree hundreds of years old was still ordinary, and while it might occasionally harbor spiritual Qi, that Qi was mottled and impure. Thus, it held little benefit for high-level cultivators.
Since Li Qiu had not yet reached Qi Condensation Level 1, this trace of spiritual Qi was naturally crucial to him. Once he attained profound mastery in the future, he would naturally disdain such mundane things.
Great mountains and rivers generally possessed a certain spirituality, and towering ancient trees generated a trace of spiritual Qi by absorbing the essence of the sun and moon. People living immersed in this spiritual Qi for long periods tended to live long lives, which explained why inhabitants of mountain forests were often long-lived.
Believing he had grasped the key to cultivation, Li Qiu ignored his exhausted body and resolved to perform a third micro-cosmic orbit.
As he began his practice and forcefully pushed his Qi, a sensation of being watched suddenly surged into his mind. Instantly, his breath fell into chaos, his internal heat reversed, and Li Qiu felt a tearing pain through all his meridians. A sweet, metallic taste rose in his chest, and with a gasp, blood spewed from his mouth. His vision went black, and unable to hold on any longer, he slowly lost consciousness.
......................................
Li Qiu slowly woke up, feeling as though every bone in his body had been shattered; he couldn't muster an ounce of strength. He could only roll his eyes and saw the moon was about to set, making him realize he must have passed out for about an hour.
The agonizing sensation of his meridians reversing was an experience Li Qiu had no wish to repeat. At that moment, he remembered the culprit behind his "deviation": that sensation of being watched.
Li Qiu shivered with a sudden chill. The fact that something had been watching him while he was practicing cultivation left him profoundly unsettled. Not knowing what sort of creature was making mischief, he just wanted to drag it out and banish that haunting feeling.
Li Qiu closed his eyes and sank his Qi into his dantian, bypassing the micro-cosmic orbit to focus solely on that strange sensory perception. Fortunately, even with his body injured, the perception returned right on cue.
Li Qiu scanned every blade of grass, tree, insect, mouse, and snake within a ten-zhang radius, but found nothing amiss. Yet that damned sensation kept tangling around him, refusing to dissipate. With no other choice, Li Qiu had to let it go. Unable to continue his cultivation practice, he simply sat cross-legged and slowly regulated his breath.
The moon finally sank below the horizon. Li Qiu sat cross-legged regulating his breath. Over at the nearby riverbank, several bonfires crackled as they burned dry wood. Li Zhuo, Wang Suo, and Zheng Shude were each sleeping soundly against a fire, occasionally snoring or muttering in their sleep. None of them noticed that down by the riverbank, the tethered White Wolf suddenly snapped its eyes wide open...