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Translator: Asuka
Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys
Only a short while later, Lu Ye picked up the spoils of the battle and departed from the scene. Two mutilated corpses were left in his wake. Even a Fourth-Order Spirit Creek Realm Master could not withstand more than three attacks from him, much less a Third-Order Spirit Creek Realm Master? From the moment he took the advantage of launching a preemptive strike, they were doomed.
This time around, he made sure to pay close attention and noticed that every time he killed a person, his Contribution would increase by 3 points. That meant that two people gave him 6 points. At the moment, he had accumulated up to 62 points of Contribution!
When night fell, he hid inside a tunnel on the side of the mountain to rest and recuperate. Yi Yi and the tiger each kept a watch on one end of the tunnel as usual to prevent them from being blindsided by an attack.
He had fought three battles today and his harvest had been pretty good. He had not kept any of his spoils of war, using them to exchange for Spirit Pills with the people of Mystic Sect instead. As a result, he received more than 20 Spirit Pills, 80% of which were Spirit Restoring Pills.
Compared to these spoils of war, he felt that the most rewarding thing he obtained was the experience of fighting other people. Even though he had experienced several battles since the day he first entered the Spirit Creek Battlefield, there were often great intervals of time between those battles. It wasn’t like today where he fought consecutive battles within a single day.
Such high intensity battles not only allowed him to quickly examine his shortcomings but also allowed him to enrich and improve his combat skills. Blindly cultivating behind closed doors was not as good as experiencing real battles with actual weapons. That was the experience gained through spilling blood and suffering injuries after all.
Although Lu Ye also suffered some injuries, his injuries were not serious. He first ate some jerky to relieve his body of hunger. Once he filled his stomach, he began to consume some Spirit Pills to replenish the Spiritual Power that he had consumed during the day.
He frequently used both the Sharp Edge Spiritual Pattern and the Protection Spiritual Pattern in battles. Although these two Spiritual Patterns allowed him to exceed the limits of what his current cultivation was capable of, they had obvious disadvantages in that their consumption rate was very high. If he wanted to ensure that he had enough combat power in his future actions, then he had to keep his Spiritual Power at sufficient levels of satiety.
Now that he was in the Third-Order Spirit Creek Realm, his efficiency at refining the Pill Power had improved again. For the time being, he did not know how many Spirit Pills were required for him to unlock another Spiritual Point. Based on his previous experiences, the consumption rate of unlocking his Spiritual Points would only continue to increase in the future. Fortunately, his cultivation efficiency would also improve in tandem. The time taken to unlock each Spiritual Point should not increase by much and might even remain unchanged.
The night passed in silence. The Split Sky Gorge was quiet at night. There were no sounds of battle between the cultivators from Mystic Sect and Nine Star Clan. Seeing as everybody had similarly low cultivation bases, there was an unspoken agreement that night time was generally used to rest and replenish their consumption during the day. The real battles were only fought during the day.
When dawn broke, Lu Ye led the tiger and Yi Yi out of the tunnel and began their hunt. He spent the next couple of days in constant battle, ranging from one or two battles a day to three or four battles a day. Meanwhile, the Spirit Pills in his possession gradually increased. Likewise, his Contribution also increased steadily.
He finally figured out the calculation method of how the Contribution was distributed. From his observations, the cultivation Realm of the cultivator he killed represented the number of points he would receive for his Contribution. That was the basic value. For example, if he killed a Second-Order Spirit Creek Realm Master, then he would receive 2 points of Contribution. If his opponent was a Third-Order Spirit Creek Realm Master, then he would receive 3 points of Contribution… Furthermore, if he killed an enemy who was stronger than him, his Contribution would increase by one base value for each Realm that he surpassed.
To put it simple, he was in the Third-Order Spirit Creek Realm. If he killed a Third-Order Spirit Creek Realm Master, he would receive 3 points of Contribution. On the other hand, if he killed a Fourth-Order Spirit Creek Realm Master, he would receive as many as 8 points of Contribution instead. He previously killed a Fourth-Order Spirit Creek Realm Master when he was only in the Second-Order Spirit Creek Realm. At the time, he had surpassed two whole Minor Realms. Thus, he gained a total of 12 points…
He did a quick calculation in his head and discovered that his calculation corresponded with the Contribution he previously received after killing his enemy. It would seem that his calculation method was correct.
After several days of fighting, he gradually became familiar with the feeling of fighting his enemies in life-and-death situations. His cultivation did not increase any further, but his combat skills had improved significantly, which in turn increased his efficiency in killing his enemies.
Over the past few days, he had tried to see if he could get out of the Split Sky Gorge. He eventually discovered that it was not possible. He did not know how many people Mystic Sect and Nine Star Clan had deployed into this area, but according to his and Yi Yi’s observations, both sides seemed to have deployed almost 1,000 Spirit Creek Realm Masters!
Over a thousand cultivators were scattered throughout this huge labyrinth. He could encounter an enemy at any time and anywhere. Furthermore, the terrain ahead would suddenly narrow again after passing through this labyrinth and would eventually converge into a gorge that passed through the Split Sky Gorge. If he wanted to leave this place, that was the only way out. The Nine Star Clan had placed a huge number of people at the exit of the canyon, so things would end badly for him if he dared to show up there. In that case, he might as well hide out in the labyrinth to kill his enemies.
His whereabouts were exposed after he spent a few days attacking. He could clearly sense that the pressure of Nine Star Clan’s search for him was intensifying. The most obvious sign was that the number of cultivators among the groups he encountered recently had increased. At the beginning, he would only run into small groups of three to four people. However, most of the small groups would have at least five or six people now. There were also some that had at least a dozen or so.
If it was a small group of three or four people, Lu Ye could still win by the skin of his teeth. However, he did not dare to attack if it was a group of five or six people. As for those groups with more than ten people in them, he stayed as far as he could from them.
After the cultivators from Mystic Sect suffered several losses because of this, they also made corresponding adjustments to their arrangements. The number of people in their small groups increased in order to compete against the Nine Star Clan.
Inside the labyrinth canyon, a battle was breaking out. The scale of this battle was not small. Around 20 cultivators were involved in the battle. Both sides had brought ten men each and there were quite a few Fourth-Order Spirit Creek Realm Masters. Even so, the results indicated that both sides were holding the upper hand in the battle as there were casualties on both sides.
When the battle was in full swing, a loud tiger’s roar rang out. The expressions of both parties froze at the sound. Somebody shouted excitedly, “The Mountain Tiger is here!”
It was a cultivator from Mystic Sect.
Lu Ye, who was riding on the tiger’s back and charging toward the battlefield, frowned at those words. He had no idea how he received the moniker ‘Mountain Tiger’. [Isn’t that nickname a little too unpleasant?]
However, considering that neither party in the war knew his name, he could only resign himself to the fate of being known by that nickname.
Lu Ye came charging in from behind the people of Mystic Sect. Upon hearing the tiger’s roar, most of the cultivators from Mystic Sect tacitly opened a path for him. Thus, the tiger’s figure leaped straight into the battlefield and slammed a Third-Order Spirit Creek Realm Master to the ground.
Meanwhile, Lu Ye, who had been riding on the tiger’s back, had already launched himself forward. His long knife slid out of its sheath. The cold light of his blade flashed as he slashed at a Fourth-Order Spirit Creek Realm Master
A Fourth-Order Spirit Creek Realm Master from Mystic Sect had been battling this person. That person had a baby face, which made him seem harmless. When he saw Lu Ye swooping in for the kill, he couldn’t help shouting, “Don’t steal my prey!”
He currently held the upper hand in battle. As long as he had enough time, he would be able to defeat his opponent.
He could not be blamed for shouting. The main reason was that the reputation of the Mountain Tiger had been widely circulated among the cultivators of Mystic Sect recently. It was rumoured that this person would not claim his spoils of war after every kill he made. He was happy as long as the people of Mystic Sect gave him some Spirit Pills in exchange. Another point was that this person was extremely elusive and liked to steal other people’s kills.
Sometimes, he would save the Mystic Sect disciples who were in deep trouble by doing so. Many people owed their lives to him and were extremely grateful for receiving his life-saving grace. On the other hand, he would sometimes launch a sneak attack even though the people of Mystic Sect were clearly holding the upper hand in battle. That would result in him snatching the Contribution that other people had worked hard to obtain. Therefore, the cultivators of Mystic Sect both loved and hated this person.
I finally realized: this thing is very reminiscent of “The Legend of the Great Sage.” Even the name is similar, but at first I did not notice other similarities. However, the further the more. In particular, “Mountain Tiger” which “sounds unpleasant” is almost an exact copy of what was there. Also a ghost companion.
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