Is that a Wisp?

His hard work had finally paid off! After a week of consistent cultivation, Krune was already able to use five pseudo-energy meridians, which helped him achieve the 3rd Stage of the Qi Condensation Realm. In fact, because he had been in the 2nd Stage for a long time, he was already more or less close to this small breakthrough. Then again, without the Myriad Energies Technique, he would still take another month to get there.

But instead of feeling happy, Krune was now facing a huge problem. There wasn't enough spiritual energy!

As a wisp, he obviously needed more energy than the other races, not to mention that part of the energy he absorbed was used for keeping his existence. Wisps can be said to eat energy for food, which would inevitably take a toll on his own cultivation. That's one more advantage of the blood and flesh beings. All the energy they absorbed could be used for cultivation alone while wisps have to spare some of it to keep living.

It's not like Krune didn't know where to get it, but that implied heading deeper into Katiu Forest. Wisp hunters weren't the only ones Krune needed to pay attention to. Demon beasts also knew that wisps can help them become stronger. If there was an advantage, then that would be the fact that due to the beasts' low cultivation realm, they still had rather low intelligence.

But the further one got into the forest, the higher their cultivation and intelligence became. Of course, that also showed that there was a higher concentration of spiritual energy in that area, allowing for their higher cultivation. Quite a few wisps were born there instead of the outer sides for the same reason. Unfortunately, a lot of them were eaten before they could leave that dangerous place.

Another problem was that wisps were quite eye-catching, so hiding was also an issue for them.

Krune started to ponder over this issue. If he stayed here, it shouldn't be too hard for him to get to the 4th Stage of the Qi Condensation Realm. With five pseudo-energy meridians, his cultivation speed had increased multiple times. Not to mention that he had four more meridians to create as well! He should be able to get to the next stage in a month or so.

But the problem was that his time is limited. He still didn't know if the pseudo-energy meridians would increase his cultivation speed by enough to be greater than the speed of his life span depleting.

After thinking about it a little more, Krune made up his mind. If he wanted to become stronger faster, then he couldn't avoid this kind of issue. Otherwise, his life span, which was already small to start with, will end, and he wouldn't even be able to regret his decision. But before that, he needed to think of a way to get rid of enemies. Naturally, the best way was by learning spiritual skills.

Krune, of course, didn't have any skills. If he wanted to use his energy for attacking, he would have to use the most straightforward methods at the moment. But if there was something beneficial he could obtain from his three years of fleeing from wisp hunters, that was the fact that he had seen them use all types of skills!

And one of them just so happened to be wind blades. Before, Krune didn't have enough spiritual energy to spare when he was at the 2nd Stage. But now that he had achieved a breakthrough, his spiritual energy had become more abundant. It should be enough to cast a few of them.

For the next five days, Krune kept creating the new meridians. Also, every time his energy had reached its peak capacity, he would use his spiritual energy to practice throwing wind blades. At first, it was very clumsy. It could barely reach ten meters and didn't leave behind any marks on the targets. He had never tried it before. So, manipulating the energy of his body to gather the wind, compressing it several times, and releasing it in the form of a blade was quite a burden on him.

But if there was one thing that would never betray anyone, that thing was definitely hard work! After hundreds, perhaps even thousands of attempts, Krune's wind blades could now reach a distance of fifty meters, and if shot at ten meters or less, he was even able to cut a small tree with two or three of these blades.

During the time he was recovering his energy to practice throwing wind blades, he didn't just wait. Krune used that time to create two more pseudo-energy meridians. Now, he was just two short from the nine possible to achieve with the Myriad Energies Technique. Krune didn't feel anything off with what he was doing. He thought that since he was an energy being, it went without saying that he should be able to do this much. But if anyone were to know that he was able to create a total of seven pseudo-energy meridians in just thirteen days, their eyes would pop out from their sockets!

One must know that, for any other race, they would take an entire month to create two meridians, three meridians if one was lucky. The impressive thing here was the fact that even if it was another wisp, they would at most create five or six meridians in the same period. Krune had no idea how shocking of a feat he had achieved. It didn't matter if it was pure talent or his vast experience in life and death situations. The fact was that no one had ever achieved this much proficiency in the Myriad Energies Technique before.

Feeling that it was about the right time for him to go, Krune left the waterfall behind and started his journey into the inner parts of Katiu Forest. Once he got there, he wouldn't need to be afraid of wisp hunters anymore. After all, the inner parts had Foundation Establishment beasts, while most hunters were usually around the 5th to the 9th Stage of the Qi Condensation Realm. It's rare to find a Foundation Establishment Realm hunter around, and even if there was, they wouldn't risk battling a beast from the inner parts. Well, unless they were on a mission or had some other objective.

Even though Krune made a beeline to the inner parts of the forest, in the last three days, he was still pursued by two hunter groups. Fortunately, there were very few hunter groups with a member capable of putting tracking markers. With that said, those two groups obviously didn't have anyone of this type, and with his rich experience, it was quite easy for him to leave them behind.

After some time, he could now feel the concentration of spiritual energy getting stronger the further he went. At some point, he found it hard to see any hunting group. In exchange, he could feel the auras of demon beasts more often.

One of the good things about being a wisp was that, as an energy being, he could feel other energies that were not part of the environment around him. Even without developing his spiritual sense yet, Krune could feel and move far away from those beasts. Another thing was that wisps that were not in their human forms didn't have a smell to start with, so the demon beasts couldn't track him.

But that was only for now. The higher the enemy's cultivation, the harder it was to sense their energy. That was basically the disparity of cultivation levels working its wonders, so Krune had to be more cautious the further he went.

-------

After five more days, Krune had finally arrived at the division between the outer and inner parts of the forest. His ability to feel the energies of demon beasts was almost non-existent at this point. From here onwards, he wouldn't find any beast under the 5th Stage of Qi Condensation that easily, and those were just the weak ones.

First, he needed to find a place to hide. The spiritual energy around him was already enough to speed up his cultivation by at least four times. He was first planning to create the two last meridians and reach the 5th Stage before setting off to search for a spiritual vein. Those veins were usually occupied by 7th Stage Qi Condensation beasts or higher.

But even though their intelligence was better than those of lower grades, they were still a far cry from an adult wisp's mind. Krune wasn't underestimating them, but right now, he was quite confident that as long as he played his cards well, he would be able to secure a spirit vein for himself.

If there was one thing that Krune must do no matter what before leaving the Katiu Forest, that was to reach the Foundation Establishment Realm. That way, he can turn into his human form. If a wisp like him dared to step out in his wisp form, it would be a miracle if he could get near to the closest city without being caught.

But things were different when one achieved their human form. Unless the other side's cultivation was much higher than oneself, they wouldn't be able to tell that Krune was a wisp. The most they'd be able to see was that Krune wasn't really a human but a demon beast in human form. And a demon beast with a human form was bound to be at a high level of cultivation, so no one would try to find trouble with it.

In fact, demon beasts in human forms walking in the streets weren't anything uncommon. As long as they didn't cause any ruckus in the city, the guards wouldn't do anything to them. Not to mention that those beasts usually came with a lot of spirit stones from their lairs. Plus, those spirit stones were basically the universe's currency. Unlike gold, silver, or copper, spirit stones were accepted everywhere.

If the city guards start to capture or kill those demon beasts, no more demon beasts will come out of their lairs. And the spirit stones available on the markets would definitely dwindle because of that, so no lord of any city wished to see that happen.

Krune advanced very carefully while maintaining vigilance over his surroundings. At first, everything was going fine. Krune was trying to find a river since if anything went wrong, he could still dive into it to escape. There weren't many trees around him at the moment, so he had to take extra care not to be seen. Of course, by feeling the demon beasts' energy, he avoided quite a few battles. Unfortunately for him, he never thought that danger would be coming from above.

"Crowww!"

Krune froze for a moment after hearing that. When he looked above, he could see a dark feathered bird diving straight at him. Fortunately, he recognized the demon beast. It was a Four-Winged Demon Crow, a demon beast with cultivation that varied between the 5th and 6th stages of the Qi Condensation Realm.