Devouring the Heavens (ATG)

Chapter 39: The Hunt: Lessons and Advances

A solemn mood hung in the air of the campsite, only the occasional sounds of chewing and cutlery touching chinaware could be heard, as out of place as they were in the dense forest.

Shane and his group sat in sandalwood chairs, at a sandalwood table and ate a freshly cooked and well seasoned dinner out of porcelain bowls. What was even the point of having an inventory if you couldn't travel in comfort?

Today, the dinner was prepared by himself and Qingyue, while the two kids took a small rest in their tent. Piping hot meat stew, made from the thigh of Spirit Profound Beast, some forest vegetables and fluffy white rice.

Simple, sure, but delicious and nutritious nonetheless.

Despite the downcast expressions of Xiao Che and Lingxi, not a single morsel was wasted from anyone's bowls, causing him to inwardly nod in approval.

Another of Shane's survival lessons for travelling outside: Always eat real food when you have the opportunity because you never know when you will next be able to.

He was clearly aware that the energy and stamina regeneration of a well-fed body will be enhanced greatly compared to one that is artificially sustained.

That, and real food also obviously tastes better than dried rations or pills. Good tasting food can lead to satisfaction. Satisfaction leads to contentment and contentment helps to relieve stress, which will subsequently affect mental well being in a positive way.

In extended situations of imminent danger, mental wellbeing is usually the first thing to suffer. Not that cultivators are alright in the head anyways...

Shane put down his chopsticks and sighed contentedly. He would never get over how amazing everything tasted in this world and was simply unable to comprehend how or why cultivators beyond a certain realm, basically chose to go without food for their entire lives.

He dabbed the corners of his and Qingyue's mouths with a napkin then patted her on the head with a doting smile. "Would you mind clearing this up, my dear?" She hummed and he stroked her cheek affectionately. "Thank you."

The atmosphere changed as Shane removed his hand, his warm smile slowly disappeared, replaced with a serious expression and he calmly stood from his seat. "Follow me"

He then turned and walked into his and Qingyue's tent without looking back, two uniform pairs of slightly hesitant footsteps followed along in his wake.

-

When the two Xiaos passed the flaps of the tent, they were greeted by a stony-faced Shane who sat in a high back chair.

Two stools were placed in front of him and he gestured towards them "Sit."

Shane locked eyes with Xiao Che and then moved on to Lingxi for a few seconds then back to Xiao Che. The kids squirmed under his gaze a little but didn't look away.

After a minute or two, Xiao Che couldn't take it anymore, he was the one who suggested letting them fight against that beast at the [6th of Nascent Profound] and finally opened his mouth. "Brother Long I'm sorry, I shouldn't have suggested"

"*Sigh* Don't apologise to me, I am not angry with you." Shane rubbed his temples and some of the sternness left his expression.

"You almost died today Brother Che. IF, and it's a bloody big IF, you managed to get out of there, at the very least, you would have had a crippled leg for life." Lingxi shook and grasped at a corner of Xiao Che's clothing with a pale face.

"Listen, kid, I am not angry with the fact that you insisted on testing yourselves against a beast that was higher than the level of strength I recommended for you to face.

No, fortune favours the bold after all

I am disappointed at the fact that because you were confident of her victory, you let your vigilance slip in favour of watching Lingxi make her move.

Despite the fact that a cornered beast is at its most dangerous, your eyes were glued to her from the moment her figure entered your vision.

I am disappointed that you took such a fatal wound from a beast you were previously treating as little more than a mild inconvenience, even when it had a sword stuck in the base of its skull." Shane ran a hand through his hair and continued.

Little Lingxi may be beautiful as a flower and that move was indeed mesmerising but ask yourself this. Can you still look at her if you or she are dead?" The colour drained from the kid's face and he desperately grabbed for her little hand, holding it tightly.

Lingxi had started to blush a little at Shane's compliments and Xiao Che's bold action until Shane rounded on her, eyes glowing and brows furrowed in anger. The poor girl jumped up, like a frightened rabbit, her back straight in her seat.

"And You! Let us not even mention the fact that you abandoned your weapon. You neither confirmed whether the beast you had stabbed was dead nor did you check the surroundings for any lingering threats before you ran to his side.

Without your weapon, you would be as good as dead if you had to face anything above the [1st of Nascent Profound] alone but that wasn't the worst part, oh no.

Despite the fact that I was already there, you panicked...

I taught you both basic first aid, so you know what blood loss can and will do to a person and how to prevent it." Shane's voice rose with every sentence spoken.

"He was clearly injured, clearly in a tough spot and instead of assessing the situation calmly, you let your emotions take hold of you and went to jump into his arms.

That is no worse than killing him!" He thundered, causing Lingxi's pupils to shrink to the size of pinpricks, she shivered with fear and her eyes began to turn red.

Shane sighed again, all the anger leaving his face to be replaced with a gentle affectionate expression and he got up to rub her little head a few times.

He wasn't aiming to make her cry but he needed to scare them both a little bit or the same could happen in the future when he wasn't around to save anyone.

Unfortunately, he had to cut it short before she started the waterworks, one of Shane's three glaring weaknesses. 'Aiya women's tears really are a legendary class weapon.'

The other two being puppy dog eyes from cute little creatures and Qingyue.

Shane had to give it to the girl, although there were a few sniffles, she stubbornly refused to let any tears fall. Compared with the timid girl of just a few weeks ago, she really had come a long way.

"What did I tell you before about responding to a serious injury?" He softly asked her.

"W-wasting time is w-wasting life."

"Good girl," Shane said as he caressed her head one last time. *Flick!* "Owww!" She held her forehead where a red welt was already beginning to form.

"That will be your punishment Lingxi. As for you Brother Che" Shane flashed a bad smile at the kid.

"Let's say you have to follow all of Lingxi's whims for the rest of tonight as punishment for worrying her so much. Ah, don't worry, I will put a sound barrier around your tent."

Lingxi's eyes flashed with a strange light and turned a little moist for a different reason, she even licked her lips seductively, causing Shane to do a double-take, thinking. 'This little vixen actually changes her face really quickly'

"Before that, I want to give you the 'pellets' made from that Wolf you killed." Shane flicked his wrist and two translucent white 'pellets' with a faint herbal fragrance and four almost transparent 'vitality pills' appeared on his palm.

"You should both be able to make it to the peak of the [2nd of Nascent Profound] with those pills and you have two choices.

You can take them here and I will help you to assimilate the energy quickly or you can take them alone in your tent and help each other, although it will take much longer that way" Shane winked at Lingxi, knowing it was her decision but at the same time, not really giving her a choice.

"Here! Big brother Long, we will take them here!" She practically shouted while swinging his arm about in desperation. Shane just chuckled. "Very well."

"Thank you Big Brother Long! Quickly, quickly, let's start now!"

He ruffled her hair strongly and smiled. "Fine, but you best not dare tell your grandfather how bad it was today or I'll skin you both alive."

"I want another one of those deserts when we get back," said Xiao Che with a smirk.

Shane's eye twitched before he pulled the two kids up into a bear hug and they all laughed a little. Qingyue, who had been eavesdropping with her Spirit sense, chose this moment to enter through the tent flap and join them.

She hopped on over to him and wrapped around one of his arms like a snake. "Husband~ I want one of those desserts too"

Of course, Shane was aware of her 'watching' them and in fact, he had spoken so much out loud for all of their benefit, including his own.

Truthfully, he wasn't sure if his wife or himself would be able to remain calm if the other was injured that badly and although, he didn't think either of them would panic to the extent of Lingxi today but their combat strength would surely be affected negatively

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A few minutes later, Shane and Qingyue's tent had been cleared and the floor covered in a nostalgic pile of hide furs.

Xiao Che and Lingxi were sitting next to each other in the lotus position while Shane crouched behind them, a palm on each of their backs as he guided the energy of the pellet to help them break through.

Qingyue sat close by in her own little bubble of the purest blue ice as she absorbed the 'pellet' Shane had created from her [5th of Spirit Profound] kill and a couple of 'vitality pills' made from the corpses of True Profound beasts.

Due to their relationship, and her position on his companions' list, the 'pellets' that 'Bestowal' created for Qingyue were extremely potent and contained a huge amount of profound energy. Meaning that Shane would not be surprised if she smoothly made it into the [4th of Spirit Profound] from the peak of the 2nd.

After a quarter of an hour, two *Peng* sounds were heard in his mind as the pair in front of him advanced to the [2nd of Nascent Profound]. Over another quarter of an hour, their energy, aided by the 'vitality pills' rose and then stabilised around the peak of that realm.

Xiao Che and Lingxi opened their eyes, excitement and gratitude radiating off of them in waves. Shane raised a finger to his lips and ushered them out of the tent and through his sound-insulating wind barrier.

In the clearing they both checked their cultivation realm and found that it was still completely stable and he just smirked at them before waving his hand to erect a similar barrier over their tent, saying goodnight and heading back inside his own.

Thinking about how he was getting more and more skilled with manipulating and guiding energy inside of others and how he could stabilise their realms immediately after a breakthrough, it really did have some mind-boggling prospects for the future.

'Holy Shit, I really am almost as much of a cheat as Qingyue.' Shane glanced over to where his wife was basically using a localised version of the Frozen Cloud Domain as a cultivation abode.

Inside a tent.

In the middle of the woods.

While still being at the 2nd *Peng*, no scratch that, the [3rd of Spirit Profound] and shook his head. 'Almost.'

Shane felt a familiar pull on his consciousness and stepped towards the sphere of ice placing his hand on it and feeling the energy welcoming him.

He took a step further, entering inside, only to find a completely nude Qingyue standing there with a smirk on her face. "Husband we should 'cultivate' to get the most out of the 'pellet' i swallowed"

Shane's clothes disappeared, his spear already standing tall at the thought of partaking in the peerless feast in front of his eyes.

Dusty could keep watch for a couple more hours...

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A very refreshed looking Shane wearing just his pair of Black with crimson veins, chunni shorts, exited his tent in the middle of the night.

Leaving behind an exhausted Qingyue, now akin to a pile of mud at the peak of the [4th of Spirit Profound] and with a silly smile on her face, he headed towards his two cute beasts.

There was a small temptation to peek inside the barrier around the tent of the two Xiao's but it would be so much more fun to find out in the morning.

Shane snickered to himself, Lingxi would never let this chance go, especially when he had even used his storage to drop a single bed from one of his spare rooms in there and stolen away all their other sleeping things.

With Dusty in her largest form and using her body to directly encircle the camp, it was easy to find her and coral, although, never did he expect the scene to be so incredibly Kawaii that he almost prayed to the goddess to give him a camera.

Coral was spread out on her back along Dusty's huge snout with her wings hanging off either side. Tiny embers floated in the air, surrounding the two and every time the cute snek breathed out, the birdies' wings would flutter, causing those sparkling cinders to flutter around in the air like a cloud of fireflies.

He was almost at loath to wake them up and only did after spending a few minutes watching them in silence while his near eidetic memory saved it all into an album in his mental palace...

Leaning back against the crook of Dusty's neck with Coral curled up in his lap, Shane was hit with a wave of nostalgia and once more reminisced his first few weeks in this world as he again did something just a little crazy.

Using his now much more powerful Will and Intent, he grasped the two swirls of refined energy within his Profound Veins and forcefully compressed them until they merged together.

This time, there was no burning pain, mental strain or prickly feeling in his veins and the energy merged smoothly.

It was possibly due to the energy swirls only being composed of beasts at the [3rd and 6th of Spirit Profound] or may be attributed to his increase in Body Cultivation Realm since the last time he pulled this trick.

Either way, this result was preferable as the energy requirements for his advancement increased, discovering and using cheats like this would become of paramount importance.

He triggered the absorption of the now merged pill inside his veins and the cyclic energy transfer, which was totally not dual cultivation, once again started making revolutions between the three of them.

Just an hour or two later, and they were done. The first thing Shane noticed was surprisingly not the enormous white and crimson bird, now far far bigger than him, somehow giving him the puppy dog eyed look with an eyeball the size of a dinner plate while still trying to lay across his lap.

Nope, it was the god awful smell and sticky, oily feel of impurities on his skin, signifying that he had finally broken through to the Spirit Profound Realm in Body Cultivation.

After washing all of those off, he checked their gains and although Coral had once more reverted back to her preferred size of a large peacock, he got the feeling from her through the bond that she wanted to surprise everyone another time.

Though he also suspected that was only a secondary reason, the main being that she wanted to continue to sit in his lap and be spoiled.

No matter, he would surely fly through the sky on her back very soon.

Overall, the night was very productive, Shane himself had advanced to around halfway through the [6th of Spirit Profound] and his Body Cultivation had surprisingly reached the 4th.

Dusty had somehow broken through into the [7th of Spirit Profound] and Coral had come a long way to the peak of the [4th of Spirit Profound].

All in all, it was a rather stressful first day as Xiao Che's potentially fatal wound had worried Shane more than he would like to admit but there was no denying that the day was still immensely profitable.