Night fell.
From time to time, the roars of beasts echoed through the air.
Camping in the wilderness was undoubtedly a dangerous affair. One had to remain on high alert, vigilant not only against attacks from wild beasts or Demon Beasts, but also from Evil Cultivators.
After eating some Spirit Rice Porridge made with dried meat, Lü Zhong continued his night watch with Xiaoqi.
The evening hours passed quickly, and the night deepened.
Lü Zhong was still maintaining his Qi Observation Skill, a Golden Light Talisman clutched in his hand, ready to be activated at a moment's notice.
Behind him, he could faintly hear the sounds of breathing.
The other three, including Huang Shuyuan, were resting but not truly asleep.
Qi Refining cultivators could not yet go without sleep. Even if they spent the entire night in meditation and Qi Cultivation, their minds would still grow weary. Some rest was necessary, even if it was just a light doze with their eyes closed.
Outside the cave, the moonlight was dim.
Everything was shrouded in darkness.
But in the vision of his Qi Observation Skill, the world was rendered in clear black and white.
With the enhanced eyesight of a cultivator, Lü Zhong could even see the weasels foraging in the night. The movements of the larger predators lurking in the dark woods, peering at the cave, were even clearer.
First, a striped leopard appeared. It watched for a while before leaving without a second glance.
Next, a magnificent tiger, nearly ten feet long, appeared in the forest near the cave entrance. It lingered for a good ten minutes before turning back into the jungle.
'This wilderness is really teeming with life!' Using his Qi Observation Skill, Lü Zhong had spotted no fewer than ten different types of nocturnal animals, large and small. The wilderness at night was surprisingly bustling.
Time ticked by, but no blood-red Spiritual Qi appeared in his field of vision.
Blood-red Spiritual Qi was Demon Qi, something unique to Demon Beasts.
'It's better that I don't see any...' Lü Zhong had no intention of fighting a powerful Demon Beast in the middle of the night.
He remembered that during the Qi Refining Stage, a cultivator's strength was lower than a Demon Beast of the same rank. The reason was that a Demon Beast's powerful physique gave it too great of an advantage in a fight; in a trade of injuries, the beast was almost guaranteed to win.
"Someone's approaching!" Xiaoqi suddenly shouted from behind him.
Hearing this, Lin Zhongze and the others, who had been resting, immediately opened their eyes.
Lin Zhongze summoned his Magical Artifact—a dark red, wide-bladed long spear wreathed in fiery light, clearly no ordinary item. Sanniang, who apparently hadn't bought a Magical Artifact, pulled out two Talismans, one in each hand. Huang Shuyuan, for her part, summoned a Full Moon Magic Ring that shimmered with a faint blue light, which also looked like a formidable Magical Artifact.
Hearing the commotion behind him, Lü Zhong simply drew his sword but did not abandon his post, his eyes still fixed on the outside.
Before long, he saw two Spiritual Energy Balls sneaking toward their position.
"There are people sneaking up on my side too!" Lü Zhong immediately warned.
Just in case, he slapped an Arrow Avoidance Talisman onto himself.
He had drawn the talismans himself anyway, so they cost very little to use. He didn't feel the sting at all.
Besides, Lü Zhong could even get reimbursed by Lin Zhongze afterward, counting it as an expense for the trip.
When they divided the spoils, he would be able to recoup this cost.
And at market price, too, which was basically like fleecing him.
Just then, Lin Zhongze's voice drifted over.
"Fellow Daoist Lü, give them a warning!"
Among the five of them, only Lü Zhong knew any Attack Magic. The others, even Lin Zhongze at the Qi Refining Fourth Layer, could at most use some Basic Magic like the Breath Concealing Skill.
Lü Zhong nodded, understanding his meaning.
He immediately formed hand seals and began chanting. As smoothly as flowing water, he completed the Qingyang Fire Rain Technique in one go.
The fiery light illuminated the wilderness outside, exposing the two figures who had been sneaking up.
Compared to the three Wilderness Independent Cultivators from Fox Ridge Village, these two truly looked like savages. Not only was their hair matted and clumped, but their clothes were also torn to rags, with only some animal hides wrapped around their vital areas.
Seeing the volley of Fireball Bullets shooting toward them, they turned and fled without the slightest hesitation. Their movements were incredibly practiced, clearly the result of long experience.
But no matter how fast their legs could carry them, they couldn't outrun the Fireball Bullets flying through the air.
Lü Zhong gave one of them special attention, hitting him with a barrage.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The Fireball Bullets exploded upon landing, splashing high-temperature flames in all directions and letting out a series of muffled booms.
As expected of a Secret Technique from the Qingyang Sect, the Fire Rain Technique's effect was better than Lü Zhong had anticipated. The man seemed to have learned a Lightweight Technique from Mortal Martial Arts, darting away as fast as a cheetah. Still, under the rain of Fireball Bullets, he was drenched by the splashing flames.
"AHHHH!"
A bloodcurdling scream pierced the dark night sky.
'Another one...' Lü Zhong's expression was impassive as he muttered to himself.
The presence of a cultivator who could use Magic Skills, combined with the loss of one of their own, immediately made the hidden lurkers give up.
With a whistle, the unidentified cultivators on both sides of the cave entrance retreated into the forest in unison.
A long while passed before everyone finally relaxed.
Lin Zhongze walked up to Lü Zhong, a smile on his face. "Hahaha, it seems my judgment is pretty good after all! Inviting Fellow Daoist Lü to join us was a brilliant move. To think we managed to get an expert like you who's skilled with Magic Skills. Otherwise, those wild dogs would have pestered us for a while before leaving."
Lü Zhong gave a modest smile and asked about the origins of these "wild dogs."
"Them?" Lin Zhongze's smile faded as he explained nonchalantly, "The so-called 'wild dogs' are completely degenerate Wilderness Independent Cultivators. They're unwilling to lower themselves to farming, yet they can't bear to leave this Land of Spiritual Energy. So they roam the wilderness like wild dogs, pouncing for a bite whenever they see an opportunity, and running away with their tails between their legs when they fail."
At this, he laughed self-deprecatingly.
"I used to be a wild dog myself. If I hadn't been lucky enough to dig up a century-old Spirit Medicine, I'd probably still be roaming the wilderness now, eating a paste of grass roots worse than pig slop, sleeping in damp, dark caves, and then one day getting ambushed and left for dead, or running into a Demon Beast and being eaten."
After hearing this, Lü Zhong fell silent.
Xiaoqi and Sanniang, however, looked calm, clearly already aware of Lin Zhongze's past.
"Then why don't they return to the Mortal World?" Lü Zhong asked.
Even with just enough cultivation to have succeeded at introducing Qi into the body, one could live as a wealthy patriarch in the Mortal World, with wives and concubines. Why roam the wilderness like a wild dog, with no one to even bury you when you die?
Huang Shuyuan, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up. "Hmph. It's because they can't accept the cruel reality."
She gazed at the full moon outside and said, as if to herself, "Immortality isn't something just anyone can cultivate. For ordinary cultivators like us, even if we train bitterly until our life is exhausted, we might not succeed in reaching Foundation Establishment, let alone becoming an immortal."
The wild dogs roaming the wilderness were mostly those who couldn't accept the fact that they were mediocre.
Instead, they deluded themselves with the fantasy that one day they would have a fateful encounter, a stroke of luck that would let them soar to the heavens.
Little did they know, the wilderness sees new faces replace the old, year after year.