Chapter 11: Outstanding Talent, Kobolds
Translator: Lordbluefire
Lu Yuan flipped his right hand and retrieved the Blacklight Alloy Sword from his battle tattoo space.
The sword’s body reflected a bright light under the scorching sun.
After that, Lu Yuan stretched his body and cautiously got near the graystone beetle.
When he arrived roughly about 20 meters from the graystone beetle, the graystone beetle’s chewing motion suddenly stopped. The two antennae on its head trembled a little before it turned its body.
After it saw Lu Yuan, it was startled.
Lu Yuan was also startled.
The senses of this little thing were a little sharp.
Both parties mutually glanced at each other. After the air fell silent, the graystone beetle began to make shrieking noises that sounded like ‘ji ji’. With its eight short legs, it lunged toward Lu Yuan.
The graystone beetle was the size of a small dog, almost as tall as Lu Yuan’s knee. However, its mouthpart was extremely menacing and somewhat frightening to look at.
After all, this was a bug. In his previous life, Lu Yuan had never seen such a huge bug before on Earth. It also wasn’t an aberration.
However, because the current Lu Yuan had strength, he naturally wasn’t nervous.
When the bug charged toward Lu Yuan, it wrenched its menacing mouthpart open and tried to bite Lu Yuan’s thigh.
As the Military Fist and Military Swordplay that Lu Yuan practiced had evasion techniques, he only needed to take a sidestep and easily avoided the graystone beetle’s bite.
After that, the Blacklight Alloy Sword in his hand chopped out, slamming into the bug’s head.
Ka!
It felt like the Blacklight Alloy Sword had slashed into a rock. A heavy sound echoed out as the sword body was stuck in the bug’s head.
This was completely different compared to the might of the bow used by that catfolk.
Lu Yuan understood that this was probably the difference between genetic armaments and common weapons.
However, he was poor and couldn’t afford genetic armaments, so what other solutions were there?
The graystone beetle’s strength was extremely great. Lu Yuan had injured it with his slash, but it could still emit a sharp screeching sound as its body squirmed violently.
The powerful force almost made Lu Yuan unable to hold on to his sword. When the sword was finally tugged out from the wound, the graystone beetle lunged toward Lu Yuan again in an attempt to bite him.
Moreover, the distance between them was very close. Lu Yuan could even see the interior of its mouthpart clearly.
He immediately jumped back quickly.
Ka!
The mouthpart closed in a snap before Lu Yuan’s leg.
Lu Yuan was so shocked that cold sweat drenched his back.
What he saw regarding monsters on the forum post and the monsters he encountered, in reality, was different, alright!?
The strength in the tiny body of the graystone beetle was even greater than him by a little.
Was this a monster from the Land of Origins?
Luckily, he didn’t enter immediately right after he awakened or he would definitely die in a terrible manner.
The wound caused the bug to be angered. Seeing that Lu Yuan had evaded its attack, it lunged over once more.
The attack pattern of the graystone beetle was very simple. After observing it for a while, Lu Yuan could easily avoid its attacks.
When he evaded the attacks, he would also leave behind more wounds on the bug’s head.
He slashed the bug a total of five times before his sword penetrated the thick armor on the bug’s head, completely piercing its brain.
The graystone beetle shrieked and fell onto the ground as its eight short legs continued twitching.
Death.
Lu Yuan stared at the dead graystone beetle and heaved a sigh of relief.
This type of life-and-death struggle was different from training in a martial dojo. Lu Yuan’s forehead was now covered in sweat.
Luckily, it was ultimately a lifeform with no intelligence, so the difficulty wasn’t too great.
At this moment, there was a flash of white light in the bug’s dead body. The white light gathered before it and formed a thumb-sized white-colored crystal.
Looking at this, Lu Yuan’s eyes brightened as he revealed a smile.
This was one of the most attractive items in the Land of Origins.
After a monster died, its life energy would condense into a crystal known as a spirit crystal.
Not only were spirit crystals easy to absorb, but they were also used as the basic currency in the transactions between different races. Their value was very important.
Basically, all monsters would drop spirit crystals. The only question was the number of crystals that would drop.
For weak monsters like the graystone beetles, one spirit crystal was already considered the max number.
In the past, Lu Yuan had seen some information about it in the newbie forum.
For a tiny spirit crystal like this, probational gene fighters would take about 10 minutes to half an hour to absorb it. It would then grant an ordinary person a few hours or even up to a day’s worth of cultivation.
Lu Yuan picked the spirit crystal up.
He contemplated for a while. Currently, he didn’t have any other use for this spirit crystal, so he might as well choose to absorb it to check out its effects.
However, he had to find a safe place first. After all, he wouldn’t be able to move for at least ten minutes, so things could be quite dangerous.
He decided to handle the bug’s corpse first.
Lu Yuan made use of his alloy sword and cut pieces and pieces of thick graystone armor shells from the bug’s corpse.
These were forging materials and could be sold for money outside.
After collecting the graystone armor shell pieces, the graystone beetle no longer had any value. Lu Yuan then left here.
Not long later, he found a remote cave under a rocky hill.
He entered the cave and only took out the spirit crystal after he sat down.
Holding the spirit crystal in his hand, he began to circulate the Spirit Qi Guiding Technique according to the information he had read in the forum.
A moment later, the spirit crystal transformed into wisps of spirit qi that were absorbed by Lu Yuan. They passed through the white mist and finally fused with the genetic chain. At this moment, a small segment of the genetic chain at the most-bottom layer lit up once again. It was roughly equivalent to the progress he would gain if he cultivated hard for one hour.
Lu Yuan: “…”
Lu Yuan, who had just closed his eyes, opened his eyes again as he stared with some dumbfoundedness at the crystal powder in his hand. He then fell into a daze.
(That’s it? Just like that? Didn’t they say it would need at least ten minutes?)
(This…could it be that there’s a problem with my concept of time?)
Lu Yuan was a little stupefied.
He discovered that his situation seemed to be different from what was described in the forum post for newbies.
The forum stated that a newbie needed a few days to absorb spirit qi, but he could absorb spirit qi the moment he closed his eyes.
It also stated that one would need at least 10 minutes to absorb a spirit crystal, but he completely finished the absorption in just a few breaths of time.
After some contemplation, Lu Yuan finally understood.
That shouldn’t be a mistake because back when he first absorbed spirit qi, he completed that in a short time too. There was no need for any preparation.
(Could the term ‘outstanding talent’ be referring to me?)
Lu Yuan felt joy in his heart.
(Wait a minute…)
At this moment, Lu Yuan’s eyes brightened as he seemed to have thought of something.
Others needed ten minutes at least to absorb a spirit crystal, so they naturally had to store the crystals first and absorb them after finding a safe location.
However, he was different. He could absorb them in the span of one or two breaths.
Didn’t that mean that he could hunt monsters while he absorbed the spirit crystal they dropped?
If this was the case, wouldn’t his growth speed be much faster than others?
Not only so, but the spirit qi in the crystals could also replenish the spirit qi he consumed.
Right now, he didn’t need to consume spirit qi, but after he recorded and engraved a gene, the genetic battle techniques he could use would surely require a large amount of spirit qi.
Didn’t this mean that he could replenish his spirit qi as he used them?
A perpetual motion machine?
For a time, Lu Yuan had a few bold thoughts in his mind.
Wasn’t his talent a little awesome?!
After that, Lu Yuan calmed his agitated heart state down and left the cave as he continued to hunt.
With the combat experience from earlier, Lu Yuan now had a general understanding of his current strength.
It was quite relaxing for him to deal with a graystone beetle with his current strength. He could also fight two of them if he pushed himself. However, he would surely have to run if he encountered three.
He continued searching for prey, planning to find isolated graystone beetles.
Luckily, the Graystone Forest was very large and the population of graystone beetles here was immense. Hence, there were naturally a few bugs that wandered around alone.
An hour plus later, Lu Yuan had found and hunted seven graystone beetles.
After defeating them, he absorbed the spirit crystals, and the amount of spirit qi he obtained was comparable to cultivating hard for a night.
This cultivation speed was about ten times quicker compared to his original speed.
Also, this was merely the start. As his strength improved, the speed of him hunting the graystone beetles would become quicker and quicker. The improvement to his cultivation speed would also increase.
Chi!
After a few exchanges, Lu Yuan pierced the head of a lone graystone beetle with a sword.
He then proficiently picked up the spirit crystal on the ground and started dissecting the graystone beetle.
Just when Lu Yuan was planning to leave, he heard the sounds of footsteps echoing behind him.
He turned his head and saw two kobolds that were wielding long blades and clad in black leather armor. They were walking toward him from outside the stone pillars.
These two kobolds also started when they saw Lu Yuan.
They quickly tightened the grab on their weapons and turned to check out the surroundings.
After discovering that no one was around, the two kobolds exchanged a mutual glance. The smiles on their faces grew malevolent when they looked at Lu Yuan.
“Look at what we discovered? A lone human!”
“Human, what do you think we should do?”
Lu Yuan looked at the two kobolds who were gradually moving closer. He frowned.
In the past, he had anticipated that such a situation might occur.
After all, this place was very chaotic. After a gene fighter died, all their gains would fall out of their battle tattoo space. Lu Yuan might even encounter humans preying on other humans.
Hence, Lu Yuan had tried his best to look for remote places to hunt monsters.
He was very aware of his own capabilities. His current strength was still a great distance away from those seasoned gene fighters.
However, he didn’t expect that despite him being careful, he would still encounter enemies.
“Hehehe~ Human, obediently stand there and don’t move. My blade is very swift. I won’t let you suffer any pain.”
One of the kobolds smiled maliciously as he waved the blade in his hands.
The other kobold also smiled very widely, licking his lips.
“I actually hope that you can resist us, so we will find this more exciting and enjoyable.”
Lu Yuan stared at the two kobolds and grinned.
“My friends are nearby. There are only two of you guys?”
Upon hearing this, the footsteps of the two kobolds paused as they suspiciously glanced at the surroundings.
“Your friends…”
One of the kobolds didn’t realize what was going on. As he spoke, he discovered that Lu Yuan had run tens of meters away.
A moment later, he roared in rage, “Damnable humans, he actually dares to trick me!”
“Chase and kill him!”
Lu Yuan grinned as he turned back to glance at the two kobolds.
“This little lord has remembered you guys, just wait for my revenge!”
Actually…
Lu Yuan felt very unbearable.
When he saw the equipment on the kobolds, he instantly knew he wouldn’t be able to win against them.
Since he couldn’t defeat them, he could only run.
To think that these two kobolds really behaved like dogs as they kept chasing him.
At this moment, Lu Yuan had a headache.