Returning to the cave, Archer[Quinn] was covered in cuts and bruises all over his body. They were healing slowly, but rather than use blood from his blood bank or the one from his small flask, he decided to let his body heal naturally as he didn't want to cause suspicion.
Fast healing could be explained via Qi, but not at the speed Archer[Quinn]'s body would heal after consuming blood. Doing this would make him feel hungry for later, but he would always consume some blood from the blood bank without having Chris notice, so that wasn't too much trouble.
Besides Blood now needed to be rationed, otherwise Archer[Quinn] would be feasting on the closest human next to him, and he was sure Chris wouldn't want to be a volunteer, not without an explanation first.
"Another one added to the pile." Chris said, as he placed the clear crystal on the table. Now there were five crystals of the same clarity next to each other.
"Don't worry, " Chris said. "You did all the work and got beat up for them, you can keep the crystals. Besides I have no need for them anyway. I have my demon tier weapon." He said, putting an emphasis on 'demon' and making sure Archer[Quinn] had heard him.
He did this often, as if he was gloating about the weapon, he thought that Archer[Quinn] didn't believe him due to him being jealous.
Archer[Quinn] had given up trying to convince him otherwise. There was no way for him to really explain how he knew it wasn't the case. Still, he was glad Chris had been a nice guy, so far at least.
Between the two of them they had collected five legendary tier crystals, which was above a rank of any gear that Archer[Quinn] had, especially since his emperor tier equipment was only good for defence and not much else other than that.
The planet was a gold mine for high level tier beasts, so far he hadn't met anything under the emperor tier.
'I wonder what they will do with this planet after defeating the demon tier beast?' Archer[Quinn] thought. 'Since now the families are in an alliance, will it go back to the way it was before, where different shelters belong to all the leaders on a single planet, and there would just be a routine tax? Or maybe this planet and the others were too close to the Oregon[Dalki].'
As days passed it always felt like the big threat over their heads was getting closer, whether they wanted to admit it or not. Building new shelters and sending a force out to protect them wouldn't be the best of ideas.
"You did really good Archer[Quinn]." Chris said as he sat down next to him and started to go through what went well and what had gone bad, on their latest outing.
So far Chris had been helping Archer[Quinn] learn the second form of Qi. Archer[Quinn] knew how to use it, but using it in battle was a different story, and the way Chris made Archer[Quinn] know this was by pitting him up against legendary tier beasts.
It was strange at first, as Archer[Quinn] realised that he would have to quickly shift his Qi over to different areas of his body during a fight more often than before. There was only a limited amount of Qi one could have, and using a weapon while also enhancing it with Qi would use up quite a lot.
It was critical to have absolute control of how much you would use and where you would use it. Archer[Quinn] was learning fast, faster than usual, although Chris never told him that. The reason for the fast learning was because controlling the Qi in this manner was similar to him using the shadow.
Usually people would struggle with controlling two forces at the same time, it would be like trying to separate your mind into two, or when one learnt the piano making their left hand and right hand do different things. These skills to do well would take years but Archer[Quinn] was learning fast.
However he was unaware of this because his fights with the legendary tier beasts had been tough, tougher then he had expected. When fighting, Archer[Quinn] did use his body to its full extent, speed, strength and stamina, but he didn't use his shadow nor vampire powers. Not because he was worried about Chris, but because Archer[Quinn] himself wanted to get better at using Qi, and thought this was a great way to do it.
He managed to still defeat the beasts, but not without getting quite badly hurt in a few scuffles here and there, which was why he was in the condition he was in now.
Right now, Chris would analyse everything he had done in the fight, telling him what he should have done differently or what he could have improved on. Even though Chris said he was a bad teacher, honestly Archer[Quinn] had never been taught better by anyone else. It was perfect and allowed him to focus on the correct things each time.
After taking everything in, Archer[Quinn] wondered how he would implement this second stage of Qi with his current set of abilities.
'The hardest part of it all will be when using the shadow. Controlling two different things and thinking of the fight is hard enough, but then using the shadow. Is it even possible?'
The problem was, he didn't really have the time to practice it either.
"Alright, I think that's enough for today. We should rest up, we have a big night tomorrow." Chris said, as he went to his own bed of leaves and went to sleep.
The next morning, Chris was already awake before Archer[Quinn]. Or at least Archer[Quinn] couldn't see him in the bed next to him. Usually Archer[Quinn] would be the one to wake up first due to him not needing much sleep in the first place.
The sound of something passing through the wind was heard, similar to when one would swing a fast skipping rope. Trying to check out what the sound was, Archer[Quinn] stepped out of the cave and could see that Chris was standing on top of the rock and facing the waterfall.
He had his Demi-god tier weapons in his hands, and were swinging them against the waterfall. The strikes from his weapons were so clean that it cut through the stream of water perfectly, there were no droplets of water. Even though he was attacking the waterfall, it continued to flow as if it was never hit by anything, uninterrupted.
"Oh, you're awake!" Chris said with a smile looking over at Archer[Quinn]. "I thought I would warm up for today's event."
'Warm up?' Archer[Quinn] thought. For all the times they had gone out before, Chris had never warmed up once. Why was he warming up now?
With a great jump, Chris managed to leap across the pool of water created from the waterfall and landed on the land beside Archer[Quinn]. Seeing things like this had become normal for Archer[Quinn] and he had to remind himself that the man in front of him had no skill[ability].
He was a superhuman and wasn't even a vampire.
"Your face looks confused. My disciple, don't you trust your teacher?" Chris spoke with the great smile he usually had.
"My wounds are all good, so if you want to go out hunting we can." Archer[Quinn] said, not too bothered. He was getting a little bored of hunting legendary tier beasts. He would have left in the middle of the night by now and tried to find a way back to the others if it wasn't for the fact that Chris still hadn't explained or shown what the third stage of Qi was.
Whenever Archer[Quinn] would bring it up, Chris would just mention that it was too soon to talk about it. In Archer[Quinn]'s head this didn't mean he wouldn't teach Archer[Quinn] the third stage, just that he wasn't ready. He kind of liked this feeling of being a student, in the end Archer[Quinn] was only seventeen and he hardly got to experience this in his life.
He had grown up too fast to enjoy those parts of life and just appreciate the quiet moments. In addition, there was someone that Chris reminded him of - Odom[Vincent]. When Odom[Vincent] left the system, Archer[Quinn] never thought he would feel strange without him, but it did affect him and he did feel slightly lost.
"Of course. Even I'm going to have to warm up for what we're going to do today." Chris said. "Today is your final day of second stage Qi training. Me and you are both going to hunt a Demi-god tier beast."
To be continued....
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