Samantha rose from her sleeping mat as the artificial sun crested the mountain peaks to the east. The dew still clung to the blades of grass of the meadow, making it look like she was amid a small galaxy as they shimmered and reflected the morning rays. The air was fresh and crisp with the smell of wildflowers and pine, each breath she took banishing the lingering sleepiness she felt.

In preparation for the hunt, Samantha did some morning stretches to loosen up the muscles sore from exertion and sleeping on hard earth, taking a few minutes to enjoy the growing warmth under the sun’s light. She knew that she was as ready as she was going to be for today, so after filling her stomach with soup that she had made a couple nights ago, she secured her supplies in the upper reaches of a nearby sycamore tree and left the boundaries of the nexus. She only took her spear and a handful of medical supplies with her, reasoning that traveling light would help her maintain stealth and speed. Besides, if she was in a situation where the minor healing salves and couple rolls of bandages wasn’t enough to get her back to the fount, she was probably as good as dead anyway.

She walked North, keeping the sun to her right as she looked through the forest for signs of a spirit beast’s passage. She noted every odd piece of bark torn from trunks, each paw or hoof mark in the mud, every broken branch or patch of fur that was left behind, and followed the trail that she deemed most recent. She had never been more grateful to be raised in a spirit beast crafting house than at this moment. Being trained from childhood to be familiar with the different types of animals on the floor and how to track them was turning out to be a godsend.

Currently, if her past experience was held true, she was pursuing a solitary Forest Howler, an ape like creature with four arms that made the tree canopy as easy for them to navigate as Samantha could maneuver on the ground. She had seen several other tracks she could have potentially followed, such as the slithering procession of the Mud Adder or the well beaten trail left behind by a herd of River Deer, but the Forest Howler was the most feasible option.

Mud Adders killed prey with quick paralyzing bites. She had no way to counter its toxins and did not feel like being swallowed alive this fine morning. The River Deer were skittish creatures and quick to run away, but if she actually managed to wound one of them the entire group would turn on her and stampede. Even with her enhanced body she wasn’t confident she could survive being repeatedly trampled. The Forest Howler was still a bit risky, but then, there was no spirit beast that was completely safe to hunt either (maybe the Lunar Hare she saw yesterday being the exception). They were typically slower on the ground than they were in the trees, and so long as you didn’t let them get close enough to grapple you and rip you in half, the worst that a Forest Howler could do would be to try and stone you to death from afar. Keeping distance with her spear was her specialty, and with her new reflexes she was decently sure she could dodge any long-range projectiles that it lobbed her way. The only snag in her plan would be if it decided to flee rather than fight, so she planned to have her opening salvo of strikes be crippling blows on legs and arms to slow it down.

Before long, she caught sight of her quarry breaking apart a fallen log and rooting around for grubs to eat. It looked to be close to her height, and each of its 4 long arms rippled with muscle as it easily tore chunks of wood free in its search. The fur was a deep green speckled with yellow, and it hooted softly in frustration whenever a grub escaped the grasp of its sausage-like fingers. Not wasting any time, Samantha focused her spirit upon its form and spent a 3 qi points to inspect it, figuring more information couldn’t hurt.

Forest Howler

This primate is both predator and prey in the Eastern Reaches. Omnivorous, it spends half of its time foraging for berries, roots, and bugs, and the other half hunting other spirit beasts. As an ambush attacker, they prefer to surprise their victims by dropping down from above and tearing them limb from limb with powerful arms. When confronted outside the comfort of their canopy, they can be quick to try and flee above.

Highest Stat: Strength (9)

“Interesting,” she thought as she read, “so the extra two qi points spent gave me an exact value for its highest stat instead of just telling me what the highest stat was. I wonder if spending more points would eventually give me all of its stat values?”. Deciding to explore this line of questioning later, Samantha edged around her target so that she was directly behind it—hopefully taking advantage of a blind spot. She slowed her breathing, her senses sharpening as she watched for the perfect opportunity to strike. She was about to lunge forward with a thrust as it hooted irritably at another large grub, when a black shape rammed into its side with a thunderous buzzing that made the air quake.

Stunned, Samantha spent another 3 qi to inspect the newcomer.

Matron Rock Beetle

This gargantuan insect is every entomophobe’s worst nightmare. Growing up to 5 feet tall and equally wide, these bugs have surprisingly humble beginnings being hatched as small grubs in rotting wood. Growing rapidly from the consumption of dead plant matter, they reach their peak size within 6 months. Their life spans are somewhat short however, most only living to be 1 or 2 before dying or being eaten.

Highest Stat: Resilience (10)

Samantha assumed from the information she was given that the Matron Rock Beetle was returning to check on her nest of grubs when she saw the Forest Howler feasting on her children. As a mother protecting her young, the only reasonable response would be to attack without mercy. This was the story Samantha told herself as the presumably very pissed off Rock Beetle had her mandibles around the leg of the Forest Howler, slamming it into the ground repeatedly as the ape released a piercing screech befitting its name. Samantha debated for a moment if she should count this as a loss and seek other hunting prospects. One spirit beast was already going to be a challenging fight, and if she took on the two and they both turned on her it could be the last mistake she ever made. But as she looked on, seeing the primate recover from its surprise and start driving hammer fists into the beetle’s carapace with denting force, she felt like there was an equally good chance that she could take advantage of their obvious enmity and reap even greater rewards. But she had to decide fast. Three heartbeats passed as she thought, before steeling herself to jump into the fray.

Samantha sprung from her hiding place, focusing her initial efforts on whittling down the defenses of the Rock Beetle. She swung her spear in slashing arcs at the segmented leg joints of the bug, attempting to cripple its movements as the ape began the try and pry the crushing mandibles apart and free itself. Often her attacks would glance off the beetle's thick armor and leave only small scratches, but with time and luck some of her assault landed true and would break through. It helped that the Matron was more focused on killing the one that ate its babies than defending against her.

After breaking the beetle’s second leg, however, it must have thought enough was enough. It whipped its body to the side and struck Samantha with the bulk of the Forest Howler still in its jaws. The impact felt like she had run full tilt into a brick wall, but she jumped with the hit and rolled, trying to minimize the damage as her left side throbbed with pain. A quick test revealed she still had full range of movement despite the discomfort, so she knew it wasn’t a fight-ending injury. The Forest Howler hit the ground a split second after her about 5 yards to her left, tossed after being shaken like a rag doll by the tank-like bug. The Howler rose from the ground and screamed in rage, seemingly not caring at all about the way its right leg was bleeding and bent at a wrong angle. It used one of its right arms to stabilize the side with the broken leg and picked up fist sized rocks with the other three arms. It hurled two at the beetle rushing towards them with hobbled strides, and one towards Samantha, making this battle a true free-for-all.

Samantha twisted her body to the side and leaned out of the way of the deadly missile, a rough edge barely scratching against the edge of her cheek and leaving a thin line of blood in the wake of its passage. Turning her twist into a full turn, she used her momentum to thrust her spear back at the ape, opening a deep cut on the arm that it was using to support its bodyweight and causing it to stumble. Dancing out of the way of the beetle, she took a pot shot at its carapace, leaving only a slight scratch against its iron hard shell as it did its best to smash the Howler into paste. The two broken legs that Samantha had inflicted on the bug earlier slowed it noticeably, allowing the Howler to lift itself up into a small nearby tree to get out of the immediate path of the charge.

The Rock Beetle was having none of that, however, grasping the tree trunk in its mandible’s iron grip and uprooting it in its entirety. The Howler, with no other trees near enough to grab onto to continue evading, chose to fall on the back of the beetle instead and punch down with all its might. The beetle hissed as green ichor began to flow from cracks and holes in its shell, suddenly rolling over and pinning the Howler beneath its heavy body. Samantha took that opportunity to leap up on its stomach, striking at the less-armored underbelly of the bug. Her spear head found purchase at last and pierced deep, causing the Rock Beetle to warble in panic. Samantha held tight to the shaft of her spear as the insect began thrashing, its four working legs eventually succeeding in kicking her off to the side. She took her spear with her as she fell, causing more damage to the creature’s insides as the tip shifted, slid, and was torn out with a small geyser of fluid.

Her improved sphere of perception saved her then, as she sensed an incoming projectile and threw herself to the ground to avoid it. She turned back to the ape with a snarl, dodging yet another rock as it struggled to dig itself out from under the large bug. With a shout, Samantha thrust her spear towards its face, its uninjured right arm lifting just in time to take the stab and spare it from a deathblow. Its luck would not last forever though, as two of its arms were still pinned beneath the now-still Rock Beetle and it could not free itself if it was defending against her strikes. Samantha proceeded to unleash a flurry of thrusts towards the downed Howler, eventually finding her mark in its throat and ending the fight.

Samantha pulled the spear out of her fallen foe and did a quick scan of the area, seeing if their fight had drawn any other unexpected beasts. She panted heavily as she strained her sight and hearing, focusing on her enhanced awareness to see if there was anything out of the ordinary. After a minute of two, she confirmed that the fight really was over and promptly fell on her backside.

The adrenaline crash caused her limbs to tremble, and now that she wasn’t in a life-or-death situation the injuries gained during the fight were making themselves known. She groaned, certain that a solid portion of her body would be black and blue by the time she made it back to the nexus. She checked herself over before moving to finish the quest.

Her ribs ached on her left side every time she took in a breath, but she wasn’t coughing blood so she took comfort in the fact that if they were broken it wasn’t life threatening at this time. The other discomforts and pains she felt were hardly worth mentioning in comparison, so the only thing she could manage with her current medical supplies was cover the scratches and scrapes with her healing ointment. After doing exactly that, Samantha walked over to the corpses to get what she came for: the beast cores. She worried that she would have to perform some grotesque surgery to extract the cores, but was pleasantly surprised when she touched the bodies and received notifications instead.

*Ding* Would you like to claim Rank 1 Beast Core- Mid Quality (Forest Howler)? Y/N

*Ding* Would you like to claim Rank 2 Beast Core- Low Quality (Matron Rock Beetle)? Y/N

Samantha beamed at her luck. Like human cultivators, Spirit Beasts had a level and ranking system. There were 10 ranks of beast, and low, mid, and high qualities within each rank. The higher the rank and quality, generally the stronger the beast, but there were occasionally exceptions if the creature was physically weak but possessed some sort of unique ability. It was difficult to determine the animal’s status at a glance, although Samantha did theorize that she might be able to glean that info if she expended enough qi on her Inspect art. In any case, while these cores were still at the bottom end of the rankings, she still had one beast core more than she originally expected—and a rank 2 at that! To top it all off, she emerged victorious without any major injuries.

She promptly selected yes for both collection prompts and two small pearls of glowing blue manifested in her palm, one slightly larger than the other.

*Ding* Core Quest: Unlock Your Potential – Part 3 [COMPLETE]

Beast Cores, sometimes also referred to as Spirit Pearls, are the remnants of the potential of a fallen spirit beast. This potential, varying based upon the rank and quality of the core, can be absorbed to advance your cultivation.

You have defeated not one, but two spirit beasts in your quest for power! For pushing yourself beyond requirements, the lower ranked core will be raised to match the higher. Rejoice, for fortune favors the bold!

The light in her palm flashed brightly for a moment as she read the notification. And when she looked down, she saw that the beast cores were now the same size. An even larger smile than before stole across her face, and she punched a fist into the air in triumph, wincing slightly as the movement caused fresh agony to ripple through her left side. She closed that notification and received yet another:

*Ding* Core Quest: Unlock Your Potential – Part 4

You have endured the trials in the wilderness with your own power and come out stronger for it. Without true difficulty there can be no growth, and without embracing the bitterness of struggle you cannot fully enjoy the sweetness of success. Do not give undue aid to those who seek to unlock their cultivation after you, for while there is no shame in rising in strength alongside fellow cultivators, each must begin their first steps on this path alone. Survive your return to Yivesh and report your success to the Registrar’s Hall. Accept? Y/N

There it was. The restriction that kept every cultivator in her life from even giving her the smallest hint as to what to expect on this wild adventure. She wondered what would happen if she rejected the quest outright. Would the constraint still exist for her anyway, or would she be one of the only people who was able to help others become new cultivators? Would she even care enough to do something like that? She bet she’d make a killing providing that kind of service, but maybe the message was right. This harrowing journey was as much a rite of passage as an actual pathway to power. Cultivators were meant to be the strongest that humanity had to offer, and if a person wasn’t even willing to risk their life in order to completely change it forever…?

Samantha accepted the quest. Perhaps she was making a mistake and should have erred on the side of altruism instead. Afterall, it’s not as if there was a punishment for rejecting quests or every quest gave a concrete reward. In fact, usually the results of completing the quest were considered the reward--the boon she received for finding the nexus and the upgrade to her Beast Core being exceptions rather than the norm. She wasn’t sure if she would have missed out on anything if she turned down the quest, but a small part of her also couldn’t shake the feeling that this voyage was a crucial step on the cultivation path. To be able to stare into the maw of impossible odds and jump into it anyway, to be able to face down impending death with courage and defiance. If a cultivator can’t stand on their own now, when would they ever be able to?

With doubts and thoughts swirling in her mind, Samantha dug out the Forest Howler Corpse from under the Matron Rock beetle and slung it across her shoulders. "No sense in wasting perfectly fine meat," she mumbled to herself, hardly noticing the additional weight on her back with her enhanced strength. She then began retracing her steps back to the nexus she’d been calling home for the last couple of weeks. What’s done was done, and she had some things she wanted to accomplish before she went home.