"Both worlds, advancing side by side."
That was the strategy An Jing and the Sword Spirit had arrived at after their discussion: "If I run into danger in the Huaixu Realm, I escape into Another World. And the same goes in reverse."
"In the Huaixu Realm, I need to escape the possible pursuit of the Tianyi Demon Sect, the searches of the Red Armored Guards, and the possible tracking of the Extramundane Demon."
"I need to raise my strength quickly, leave the deep mountains, return to the towns within Great Chen's borders, change my identity, and hide myself."
"And in Another World, I need to reach a populous place as fast as possible to gather information, determine the language of this world, observe how they behave, imitate their customs, and then conceal my identity and blend in among them."
"I still have a piece of Spirit Jade on me, and an Ink-Jade Skull that could serve as material for trade. I don't know how much they're worth, but they should be enough to settle in for now."
"Still, the weapons of Another World are very dangerous too—those gunpowder weapons and spirit-light guns... I'll have to move carefully."
"If possible... should I capture someone alive first?"
"Or wait for the right moment and lend the locals a hand..."
With the plan set, all that was left to do was wait for the rain to stop.
"What a pity."
Peeking out from the cave mouth at the churning gray-purple rain clouds outside, An Jing rubbed his belly and said regretfully, "I was going to head into the mountain forest to see if I could find something to eat, but now it looks like I'll be going hungry... hm?"
Suddenly, An Jing heard the clip-clop of hooves not far off, drawing near from the distance toward the cave mouth.
The hoofbeats were indistinct, muddled amid the sound of rain and thunder, but An Jing, who had already set foot on the path of cultivation, could pick them out clearly. He rose at once, activated his Mysterious Step, and soundlessly slipped behind a large rock at the cave mouth.
Then he saw two tusked beasts, pig-like yet not quite pigs, charge through the acid rain, two great tusks thrust out, and take shelter in the cave.
These tusked boars stood about three and a half chi tall, with tough black-brown fur that not even the Killing Aura acid rain could corrode.
Even so, the two tusked boars were loath to be washed by the acid rain. The first thing they did upon entering the cave to escape the rain was shake their bodies, flinging off those corrosive droplets and showing off their powerful muscles and thick layers of fat.
"Oho, this meat."
An Jing praised it inwardly, a greedy glint in his eyes as he unconsciously swallowed a mouthful of saliva. "I never expected to have such good luck..."
"Is this what you meant by 'your luck won't be bad,' Sword Spirit?"
"Those are Dangkang."
In the Divine Sea, the Sword Spirit had quickly seen through the true forms of these two strange beasts. "They're a kind of auspicious beast. Their innate talent lets them speed the growth of plants and crops, and they can even manipulate spiritual plants—guarding the forest or bringing a bountiful harvest. In our day, they were protected auspicious beasts."
"With bloodlines this thin, these two can only be called lesser spirit beasts—and even so, their strength isn't low. An ordinary Inner-Breath Martial Artist truly would have no way to handle them."
"This is your 'Destiny Pattern.' However good the luck, you still have to fight and hunt to earn the right to the harvest."
"As it should be, but... Sword Spirit."
Auspicious beast or Dangkang or tusked boar or giant wild boar—whatever they were, right now An Jing had only one simple thought in his heart: "Can it be eaten?"
"If it can, is it tasty? How do I cook it?"
The Sword Spirit was concise and to the point. "Yes. Tasty. Roast it."
"Understood."
So, while the two tusked boars were still shaking the acid rain from their bodies, behind the rock, the hunger-blinded An Jing had already silently gripped his Jade Ritual Dagger and condensed a Blood Qi fiend sword.
A quarter of an hour later, An Jing's simple fire had been set up.
He had dealt with the two tusked boars in just three breaths.
In the first breath, he used Mysterious Step to leap out from behind the large rock, then unleashed Armor-Penetrating True Jin in a burst and ran his sword through the eye socket of the left tusked boar, straight into its brain.
In the second breath, the other tusked boar sensed An Jing's attack and let out a Dangkang-like cry. At that strange beast roar, several dark-brown plant roots shot out from the back of the dead tusked boar, snaking toward An Jing's arms and ankles.
In the third breath, An Jing pushed off with his toes. His body, as if weightless, trod upon the roots and floated up, while the fiend sword in his hand traced an arc through the air and slashed from the side across the neck of the second tusked boar as it charged at him.
When An Jing landed, the head of the second tusked boar fell at just that moment, spraying great gouts of deep-purple blood.
"Your Martial Technique is already perfected, and you're not far from becoming a flawless grandmaster."
Seeing An Jing so easily dispatch these two tusked boars—whose strength was around the middle Inner Breath stage and enough to give an entire hunting party of Martial Artists a headache—the Sword Spirit couldn't help but praise him. "An ordinary Inner-Breath Martial Artist who runs into you will simply be slaughtered with ease."
"An Jing, was your past life some grandmaster of the Martial Path? Or perhaps some Sword Immortal?"
"My Martial Technique is just so-so; it's only that the Imperial Heaven Art is far too well-suited to assassination and ambush."
An Jing dispersed the fiend sword in his hand and began using the Jade Ritual Dagger to cut the flesh and skin of the tusked boar.
While picking out the bones and removing the innards, An Jing explained, "The Abyss Stake to lurk and hold my breath, Mysterious Step for the surprise attack, True Jin for the burst—and on top of that, the Destiny Pattern's divine ability, Condense Qi into Weapon. With a sword sharp enough to cut iron like mud in hand, I'd have the confidence to assassinate even someone at Inner Strengthening."
"Just two tusked boars with the bloodline of an auspicious beast—could they be harder to kill than Manor Lord Yao?"
As for his past life, An Jing was a bit unsure himself. "Honestly, is my Martial Technique really that good? I always feel like it's a level an ordinary person could reach too... In the martial arts school, couldn't all the junior brothers handle it easily?"
"They might even be faster than me. My talent for Martial Skill is pretty ordinary."
"Ordinary?"
The Sword Spirit scoffed. "Just who are you comparing yourself against? How could your level be ordinary?"
"I don't remember."
An amnesiac sword and an amnesiac man chatting about the past could naturally only leave things unresolved. But before the topic had even ended, An Jing had already, with very deft movements, gutted and dressed an entire tusked boar.
Next came picking out the bones and removing the innards.
An Jing took, one by one, the most prime parts of the tusked boar: the boar loin, the boar legs, and the boar fat.
The boar loin was the meat along the spine, the most fragrant and tender for roasting; the boar legs, once deboned and smoked, were easy to carry as reserve rations; and the boar fat from the waist, once rendered down and stored, could serve as a reserve of grease.
As for the other innards and scattered chunks of meat, An Jing had neither the time nor enough carrying capacity to take them, so he could only toss them aside.
"In any case, an ordinary person definitely couldn't be as deft as you."
Watching the whole process, the Sword Spirit said with certainty.
An Jing looked at his own hands and felt the same. "Come to think of it, though—how did I even come by this skill?"
Never mind.
After removing the innards and sorting out the boar meat, An Jing used stones from around the cave to build a stone stove, lit a fire with the tinder and fuel he carried, and began to roast the meat.
The tusked boar's flesh and blood were purplish-red, giving off a special fragrance that grew even fresher once it was cut and bled.
While skinning it, An Jing had discovered that the tusked boar's back skin was actually not tough at all—on the contrary, it was quite soft. It was only that a kind of peculiar plant root was parasitic on its back; the roots intertwined and coiled to form a thick, tough layer of plant armor that could block the corrosive rainwater.
This armor was alive—even now, it was still slowly wriggling.
These tusked boars, by virtue of their ancestral bloodline, had the special ability to control plants, and could command them with their cries.
In the jungle, even An Jing would have found them troublesome, but fortunately, to avoid the acid rain caused by the warship's descent, they had taken shelter in a cave without plants, leaving them only some symbiotic plants on their own backs to control.
Chapter 61