NOVEL WEB Ch.35: Tracking
In his past life, finishing his tasks had always been more important than anything else. This was different. In these two years, there had always been someone who was saying that he needed to watch out for himself, that he didn’t have to rush, all of those things.
From below the sugar, he ignored the screaming and wailing of that dirty thing.
Mine, mine. I won’t share them. They don’t need to care about anyone else. They’re mine, their care is mine. No one else can have it. No one else can have Shi Yue.
The desire was crawling up, scratching away at his insides, reaching out for conscious thoughts.
Then he felt the heat on his chest and the desire quieted down. With a slow, distracted movement he lifted his hand up to the place where the soul crystal was placed inside his robes. It always just gave this gentle reminder when he felt like falling into patterns that were bad.
It was warmth he wanted, but the ways of his last life had given him the opposite. If he wanted to feel it, then he had to stay low and learn until he found out how to gain it.
The soul crystal hadn’t fully interacted with him yet, but it was always there to call out for him. He really liked it a lot.
“Xie Yi?”, Shi Yue called out only after the boy had stared staring into nowhere for a solid twenty seconds. Yao Ming frowned at the behaviour but Shi Yue just watched it, waiting until he saw that some light had returned into the dim red eyes.
He had decided on this with his own master, the sect leader. There is no trying to drag someone out of the darkness if they aren’t trying to crawl out themselves. If the child got stuck in his thoughts, then he was supposed to wait for a while and see if he could free himself.
It probably was the figure that he had heard crying back then, when he had peeked into Xie Yi’s mind. Too deeply lodged to let go. Even now, still calling out for Xie Yi.
“Yes?”, Xie Yi answered finally, blinking hurriedly like something was caught in his eye or he was trying to stay awake. After blinking away, the brightness returned fully. “Sorry, I was distracted.”
“It’s alright”, Shi Yue soothingly muttered, then stood up. “Follow us, we will put you on the right track.”
Yao Ming’s definition of ‘on the right track’ would have likely led them right into demonic beasts, but on the other hand, Shi Yue’s definition was dropping Xie Yi off in the middle of a small clearing, explaining that they’d stay out of sight and then vanishing alongside the younger cultivator.
Xie Yi blinked while looking around, awkward. He had an idea where they were - just because that was where he would have been to follow someone - but with his weakened, childish self, he couldn’t sense them.
Xie Yi lightly shook his head to clear it of unnecessary thoughts, then began to look around. Finding spiritual and demonic beasts up until a certain level could be done by simply searching for the remnant aura, but normal beasts didn’t have those.
Just like a tracker, he had to watch out for their prints or any other signs of them living close by.
Shi Yue hadn’t made it too easy, but not too hard either: From where Xie Yi was standing, a fine line of hoofprints in rather large size was leading from one side of the clearing to the other.
With the three-clawed hoof, identifying the beast wasn’t impossible. Because they were heavy, their feet had left marks enough on the mossy underground. Xie Yi squatted next to them, following the trail with his eyes.
There were too many to be just one, so it might be a pair of mates or maybe a younger pair of siblings still sticking together. Two of them would definitely be too harsh on him, but just because the marks were still together, that didn’t mean that he had to worry.
There was always a chance of them having split up or the prints just coincidentally leading to the same direction, so he wasn’t going to make any quick judgement before he had a better overview of the situation.
With a slow breath, Xie Yi went through the chant to lower his presence and then continued to cloak himself in an invisible fog of energy. He wasn’t out of sight, but his scent would be hidden. Now he just had to move quietly.
In this part of the forest, the shrub grew thick, noises sounding everywhere when squirrels and rabbits darted from place to place.
At some point of time, Xie Yi had decided to move mostly over the thick branches of the trees. Most animals and beasts here didn’t care for the usually small creatures climbing around in the trees and wouldn’t care to watch out for them. This was a pretty good position for him to approach. Only when he lost sight of the trail did he climb down to check.
After a solid three hours of tracking, Xie Yi started to feel the strain. Tracking was a completely different level from just wandering around while following two cultivators. The constant process of using his energy was taking a toll on him, as well.
Xie Yi pulled a face. The beasts would continue moving, but he had to stop. He had to hope they were resting somewhere, too, and not yet too active. He needed a few minutes break.
Making himself comfortable between a nest of branches, Xie Yi began to fish out his leather bag filled with water and gulped it down slowly. If he came across a creek, he should fill it up to always keep it as full as possible.
Food wasn’t too troublesome. He still remembered a lot of edible fruits from his last childhood of being thrown into mountains.
After really just catching his breath, Xie Yi went back to climbing around with a wistful sigh. He missed his beast partner. He missed being able to walk on air. He missed literally any convenient travelling method and the ability to just blow up a whole mountain ridge rather than painfully searching for a single beast.
Now he had to sit on trees and crouch, always watching to make sure that nothing he didn’t like would find him. Being constantly careful was starting to wear him out faster than any physical exhaustion.
The boy pulled at his black hair in pure annoyance. Useless! Weak! He hated being a child! Why couldn’t he grow faster?! If he was the seventh or eighth level at least it wouldn’t be so goddamn unbearable, but this was torture! It was slow, just slow!
He ruffled his hair until his scalp was tingling in complaint. He could be patient if Shi Yue asked him to be patient, but just being it because he had to manage his own, very limited strength was an experience he hadn’t had in a long time.
Despite his rough gestures, he stayed perfectly quiet, following the trail for another two hours with a very sour face.
At long last, near a quietly bubbling river, he found the sole figure of the boar-like thing.
It did look a bit twisted compared to normal boars; the three-clawed hoofs were much larger and the legs thicker, the sharp teeth growing out of its mouth in all directions. With how messy it looked it was easy to miss the smaller horns that grew alongside its forehead and down its nose like spikes.
Xie Yi stopped and took a moment to watch the beast drink water and then settle down.
The second trail had forked off into another direction quite some time ago, so it was likely that there really was only one. He still needed to carefully plan.
He didn’t have bow and arrows - not that they would be of any use - or any other weapon for ranged combat.
It would be best to challenge it right in the open field since its dashes were almost fully straight and he could evade better if he had space. As for his own strategy on attacks, he needed to get a chance to attack the areas behind its legs, the eyes and the belly.
Belly was mostly unlikely and dangerous, eyes also meant he would have to stand right in front of it. The legs were his best bet. If he could manage to reach behind the left front leg, he might even have a chance of stabbing right into its heart.
Xie Yi scanned his own body.
Right now, he could use spells to enhance his body and strength, some simpler binding spells - those wouldn’t work well on it - and some special moves for his sword.
Others would have to worry about what could be made of their limited spells, he had to worry about what of the spells he knew, he could endure.
In the worst case, he could strain his body and do something to greatly enhance his sword - it would be like a knife through butter. That wouldn’t be good for him, but it was a plan B.
Xie Yi humpfed and stretched his limbs one last time, then made his way down the tree. There was no reason not to make the first attack a sneak-attack and try to get a one-hit kill.