9 Chapter 9 – Night at the Snowcape Demon Mountain

He realised it's not the time for him to relax. The battle made loud noise and the blood from the serpent will attract more demon beasts. He needs to leave now.

He looked at the serpent and sighed thinking "If not for the serpent is poisonous, I can use it for cultivation."

He slowly walked away from the place of battle, looking for a place to heal and recuperate. After searching for a while, he found a small entrance the height of him near a rock protruded area. He bent down to walk inside, activating his blazing flame first; ready to attack the moment if there was any demon best living here.

He relaxed after realising the cave was empty other than some demon beast bones. It was a dark cave, and it looked like the cave was empty for a long time.

He went out again to collect some branches to light the cave and to keep himself warm from the cold. He closed the entrance with some tree branches and leaves. He ignited the fire and then sat nearby to heal his wounds. Thankfully he still had the healing pills with him.

While he was healing, he started thinking about the battle. It will take him two days to heal himself and get back to full health. So he decided to analyse his battle and the technique in the mean time.

He realised he has been lacking in many aspects like movements, defending. He recalled how he stepped on the branch while trying to hide and how it made the serpent realise he was there and sneak an attack on him. He clearly had no sense of surroundings and he realised he needed to be more careful when travelling in the future.

Then he started to think about the blazing flame fist, which was supposed to be a simple close range fist technique, yet he was able to change it into a flaming ball and make it to a long range battle technique. He wondered whether he can change the fire Qi into any other shape other than fireball. He calmed himself down and thought that he first needs to understand his limits on how much fire Qi can he utilise in a battle. So he started to form the fireball and tried to increase the size of the fireball and make it more concentrated by injecting more Qi.

Time passed by and soon night came. He healed 30% of his injuries, if everything goes well, by tomorrow he should be able to heal to reach about 80% of his full health.

He looked at the fireball in the size of a football above his hand and he felt satisfied. Currently, this is his limit, forming fireballs the size of football on both his hands. He was about to try some other way to manipulate the fire Qi, when he heard a sound coming from the entrance of the cave.

He turned around to look at the entrance of the cave, and found it was open and there stood a Dark blue coloured Lynx with deep yellow eyes. It is the size of a male lion; it looked at him as if ready to pounce, showing its canines. Zhu Xuan thought "What shitty luck, another ninth level demon beast ."

He threw the fireball in his hand at the lynx. It side stepped inside the cave to avoid the fireball.

Zhu Xuan took the chance and bolted outside, while throwing the other fireball behind him, knowing the lynx would attack him from behind. The lynx stopped and sidestepped again to avoid the fireball, which gave him enough time to go out, and run to a distance.

He didn't want the fight to happen near the cave since this is the only safe place he found and he need to stay there to recuperate.

He ran about 100 meters, when he felt a chill in his back. He sidestepped and rolled around and flinged a fireball to the place where has standing.

Lynx avoided the fireball, and moved fast to attack him again. It was too fast, and the darkness of the night favoured it. Zhu Xuan can only find it when it is close by, from the sound of its movement and the light from his fireball. He had to make quick movements in a moment's time to avoid its sharp fangs from ripping him apart.

He knew he is in a pinch. Darkness and the speed of the lynx made a deadly combination and it started to give him too much pressure. He is already injured while the lynx is attacking with everything it got.

Again he heard a sound, he tried to move but the fangs came down on him too fast. He tried to block it using his hands.

Lynx flashed past him with its bloodied fangs. Zhu Xuan felt pain in his and he saw a chunk of flesh was missing from his hands and he was bleeding profusely. He knew he had to finish this fight soon or the blood loss will affect him. He stopped and looked around him cautiously with fireballs on both his hands, waiting for the lynx to attack him.

He heard a sound behind him; he turned around and flung both the fireballs at the same time towards the lynx to make sure it won't escape towards the side. He formed a fire on his fist and met it head on, and punched it in the face.

Lynx flew few meters from the punch and fell down injured in its head.

He didn't give it a change to regain its footing and he threw himself onto it. He started attacking it with blazing flame fist.

It retaliated and swiped its four legs. He got injured in his chest, with deep claw marks, blood flowing from it. He ignored the pain and threw a punch at it face. A crunching bone breaking noise was heard and the lynx felt disoriented. He didn't give it a chance and flung his other hand in its face and pounded it to death.

Zhu Xuan got up and roared towards the sky. He looked bloody and fierce.

He calmed down after few moments, he took the dead lynx and put it on his shoulder and walked slowly towards the cave. He again closed the entrance of the cave. He didn't light the cave this time. He knew the light was what attracted the lynx and it will most possibly attract some other demon beasts.

He took some healing pills to stop his bleeding and heal his injuries. Then he moved to the lynx's body and started draining the blood from the lynx into a pot. He collected the blood and drank it.

He felt like his insides were burning as soon as the blood entered his body. He immediately sat down and started to meditate using the mantra, concentrating himself on healing himself, and purifying his blood using the demon beast blood as a stimulant.

After it took a time of incense stick to burn, he opened his eyes. The blood flowing from his injuries already stopped; he felt powerful even though he is injured form the battle.

He thought "Even though it's a bit painful to absorb the demon beast blood directly, it's very effective. I'm only a step away from reaching the fifth stage of bone purification."

He looked at the dead lynx, tore a piece of its meat and used his fire Qi to cook it and used some spice on top of it. He tore the meat and ate it. It tasted bad, since he couldn't fire for a long time and also his first time cooking, but it's better than nothing. He ate the full meat and he felt full.

He collected some more blood again and drank it. He sat down in meditative position to cultivate to make a breakthrough.

Night slowly passed and it was almost morning. Suddenly, Zhu Xuan opened his eyes to see he was covered with more impurities mixed with blood.

He finally reached the fifth stage of body purification. He felt his blood was rushing inside his body filled with power and he felt he became stronger than before and he also felt light. If the lynx or the serpent came at him now, he could kill them easily.

He reorganised himself, got up and walked out of the cave. He looked into the direction of Qinglu City and said to himself he is one step close to returning to the city.