The Redmaw Mountains was a long chain of tall mountains, so big that it’s generally divided into a few sections. There’s the northern part, the southern part where it’s nearer to the Dark Forest Town.

“Alright, split up. Remember, shout if you encounter anything too massive. The elders will quickly come over. Do not engage!” Elder Ke said, and then the groups then split up. The Eastern Redmaw Mountains had been separated into routes and each group would travel along that route, and defeat the beasts along the way.

Sister Ke-ying looked at the team, and said. “Alright, let’s go. You, newbie, will travel in the middle. I’ll be in front. You two at the end.”

Mingwei nodded, and looked at the two pinnacle 3-star realm disciples. They honestly didn’t inspire much confidence, but maybe they’d be lucky.

Their path took them up the hills, and they had to walk through thick, tall woods. Mingwei was alert, and his eyes looked at all the trees. Fruits. Plants.

There’s so many kinds of fruits and herbs! Things he had never seen before!

“Your eyes are looking everywhere, newbie. Are you nervous?” Another outer disciple asked.

MIngwei just nodded. In truth he was just looking at all the herbs! He was so tempted to pick them up, but he didn’t know what they did. Generally, the vegetation’s star-rating wouldn’t be very far from the beasts that lived in the area, so if this area had 3-4 star beasts, the vegetation would generally be similar. So, Mingwei as a beginning 3-star cultivator may be too weak to handle the herbs.

Still, now he wanted to find some Herbal Tomes and scrolls. Surely there are pills that can be made from all these plants!

“Spotted a 3-star gator.” Sister Ke-ying said. “Alright Outer Disciples, prepare for combat. I’ll stay back and help if anything unwanted happens.”

The other outer disciples all happily took out their weapons. “Finally!”

“You two stay with me.” Sister Ke-ying pointed to Mingwei and another Outer Disciple who was still in the early-3 star realm, and they both nodded. He wasn’t eager to fight anyway. Still, a fight was happening, and Mingwei would get to watch 8 Outer Disciples at the 3 star realm, fight against 1 3-star Gator.

The Outer Disciples attacked first. All 7 outer disciples had used Holding Stance, and then used one full powered Longbow Heavy Stab, all with 5,000 Qi. Each of them dealt 36,000 Core Toughness, so the Gator was instantly killed.

“Good job, good job.” Ke-Ying clapped. “Alright, let’s harvest it for materials, then we can go.”

Mingwei paused. 5,000 Qi was more than one-sixth of the middle 3-star disciples, if they met more than 6 3-star Gators, they’d be out of Qi!

Sister Ke-ying led them on how to cut up the gator’s innards to harvest the Qi-Beasts’s Qi-core. Then she and the rest of the disciples extracted some of the useful organs. Mingwei observed that their methods were good. Quite refined, and Sister Ke-ying clearly had a lot of practice with these Qi-beasts. About 15-minutes later, they were done and moved on.

“Next!” They proceeded to find 5 more 3-star Gators, and the disciples all killed them in a single Heavy Stab.

“So, brother Mingwei, you practice the Defense style?” The other 3-star Outer Disciple asked.

“Yes.” Mingwei nodded. “It was the method I was given.”

“I think only Elder Qing practices the Defense style. The rest of us practice the offensive form, for more power.”

He nodded. There really wasn’t a need to respond to that.

“But strategically, the defense style has an advantage in a long-drawn battle. Though in most cases, the gap between the realms were so big that it’s difficult for a method to make a difference.” The other outer disciple said. Mingwei nodded, that was a very observant comment. Indeed, it is very difficult for an entry-level 3-star to even hope to challenge a pinnacle 3-star what more a 4-star.

Looking at Qi-output alone, a pinnacle 3-star is 80% of the strength of a lower-4-star. And a pinnacle 3-star is about a few times as strong as a lower 3-star like Mingwei. Reality is, they were still going to get whipped.

That said, in later stages, the Qi-output no longer is the limiting factor. Techniques and skills that are able to make the full use of one’s Qi-output is often the limiting factor. Consider the Longbow Heavy Stab, which has a Qi Output Limit of 5,000.

That meant, for a 4-star cultivator like Ke-ying, who would probably have a Qi-output limit of about 45,000, the Heavy Stab as a technique is quite obsolete, and so the elders would have taught her a superior skill, or, developed an upgraded version of the Longbow Heavy Stab that can use more of her Qi Output Limit.

“We’re almost out of Qi.” The Middle 3-star disciples complained. “We’ll need to take a break.”

“Alright. Shall we head to the designated rest stop?” Ke-ying said.

Thankfully, despite Mingwei’s concerns, the rest of the hunt was quite uneventful. He was quite sad that he didn’t get to see a 4-star Giant Greenduck, but apparently a few other teams did.

“Ah, did you attempt to fight?” Elder Qing was rather happy to see him.

“No, Elder Qing.”

“Good. It’s far too strong for you at this point. Perhaps if you ever, ever feel like fighting QI-beasts, you can consider the Northern Redmaw Forests, where there are lower-tier 3-star beasts, and 2-star beasts.”

Mingwei bowed. “Thank you for the advice, Elder.” Well, as a cultivator, there’s really no need to fight beasts unless one is missing particular cultivation resources.

After all, moving up the cultivation levels in honesty doesn’t require anything more than gathering Qi and forming the layers. An ascetic monk with the right mindset and comprehension can reach pinnacle 9-star, just as easily as a worldly traveller who slays thousands of Qi-beasts. The resources and exchange with other cultivators help to just speed things up by expanding one’s knowledge and comprehension.

This was meant to be a learning experience, for the new outer disciples. But Mingwei’s past lives had seen greater beasts. In fact, some of them had even seen the massive 9-star servants of the Devourer Dragon, so much so that these foes just look like small fry. Still, Mingwei’s past lives had not seen forests or mountains that are so ‘rich’ with Qi-beasts.

Back home, they would consider themselves lucky if a mountain had 250 Qi-Beasts. Here, just one small segment of the Redmaw Mountains had more than a 1,000 Qi Beasts.

“You look like you’ve learned a lot.” An outer disciple came, she’s a lady. “I’m Yangmei, of the 387th batch.”

Mingwei bowed. “Junior Brother Mingwei greets Senior Sister.”

“Tell me, Junior Brother, what secret recipes or methods do you possess?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, no one in their right mind would be an alchemist unless they know something we don’t. Like Elder Qing, she apparently inherited a secret set of healing pill formulas, that’s why she pursued the healing arts. Her role as an alchemist is just a corollary outcome. Therefore, you must know something. Cowards would just learn defensive and escape moves, not enter into the deadly field of poisons and pills.”

“Uh.” Mingwei frowned. Should he give out some strings at this point, use it to win over some people? “Maybe I do happen to know something...”

“AHA I knew it.” Yangmei had a smug look on your face. “So, what’s the special pill that you know? Healing? Special Qi-Gathering pills?”

“Uh... runes?” MIngwei just had to go consistently with the story that the elders have. Now that he’s lying, he might as well go all the way.

She frowned. “Oh. Runes?”