Chapter 7 – Snow Spider’s Silk

At the moment when the giant boar began to move, Lia looked at it directly and took a deep breath.

“Iyah!”

Seeing the boar coming closer quickly, Lia extended her hands and shout briefly before swinging them.

Immediately after, a strong blow attacked the boar from a side, causing it to lose the balance and fly to a side.

Crashing in a tree, the boar took a moment to recover its bearings before looking doubtful at the place where it was hit.

Unable to find anything wrong, the boar shook its head before looking to Lia again. Taking a step back, the boar put strength in its back legs before propelling itself forward, this time even faster than before.

Seeing the boar running towards her, Lia took another breath and swung her hands in direction of the boar again. Feeling something instinctively, the boar paused briefly before jumping backward. Immediately after, a strong blow cut through the place where the beast was before, hitting and destroying a few plants nearby.

The boar, feeling the blow where it was before, impulsed itself with even more strength towards Lia, reaching her in almost an instant.

Surprised by the speed of the boar, Lia jumped back awkwardly trying to avoid it and swung her hands with even more strength, hitting the boar again.

Flying due to the hit, the boar stood again, this time clearly more injured and angrier than before. Fuming strongly, the boar sprinted once again, pointing its tusks forward and prepared to use them to cleave through its enemy.

Seeing the beast approaching, this time more enraged, Lia swung her hands again flustered, trying to send the giant boar flying again. Unexpectedly, the boar used its weight to fix itself in place, only pausing briefly due to the hit before continuing the attack.

Captured unprepared, Lia panicked and extended her hands forward trying to stop the charge by forming a small membrane a few centimeters before her. Regretfully, once the boar impacted with it, Lia was sent flying backward due to the impact, rolling a few times in the ground before stopping and coughing heavily.

The boar, noticing that its prey was yet alive, prepared itself to kick the ground again and charged forward.

Looking at the fight from a side, Aiden could no help but frown witnessing the pitiful state of Lia.

Furrowing his brows, Aiden forced himself to stop from interfering, remembering to himself that Lia had the necessary means to face the beast alone.

Still in the floor, Lia rolled at a side awkwardly seeing the boar charging towards her, narrowly avoiding it. Staggering, Lia stood up and tried to hit the boar once again, only for it to avoid the hit and charge against her.

This time prepared. Lia avoided the blow jumping to a side and attacked again while the boar passed the place where she was an instant before.

Receiving the blow, the boar was sent stumbling again, only to recover its bearings swiftly and attack again.

For a time, the forest was full of sounds from clashes and destruction while two beings’ shadows ran and moved from place to place destroying the peace of the forest.

Half a day after, both Lia and the boar were facing each other separated for a few meters. The two of them were panting heavily while drops of sweat fell from Lia’s face.

Even though both of them were in a tragic state, a careful inspection revealed that both the Boar and Lia didn’t have any heavy injury. Though the boar had been hit a few times, apparently its hide was enough to resist the blows without taking too much damage. For her part though, Lia had a few scratches is her body and her dress but nothing more. A white silk could be seen below the broken parts of the clothes.

Seeing the state of Lia, Aiden sighed helplessly before shouting at her.

“Lia! Why are you only hitting it!? Had you forgotten what I taught you!?”

Surprised, Lia looked towards Aiden briefly before making an expression of understating. At that moment, the boar grasped its enemy’s distraction and jumped forward with all its strength in an intent to end the fight.

Hearing the movements of the giant boar, Lia didn’t doubt to jump backward, closely avoiding the boar’s charge. Then, touching a tree, Lia used it to impulse herself to the right and distance herself from the beast.

Seeing it, the boar proceeded to chase after her without hesitation. Lia, noticing the boar after her, continued avoiding it and running through the forest, using the trees in the surroundings to block the sight of the beast and flash to the right and the left constantly.

For the next few minutes, Lia and the giant boar looked like a cat chasing a mouse; with the boar doing its utmost to catch Lia and she doing the same to avoid it.

But this only helps to make the giant boar even more enraged. Seeing its prey avoiding it, again and again, the boar looked more and more angry for every second Lia dodged it and used more of its strength to continue the chase. Feeling this, Lia could only continue doing her best to dodge, squeezing every muscle of her body to produce more strength.

After a few rounds more of pursuit, Lia, looking out of strength, finally stopped. Using a tree to support her body, Lia panted heavily before looking to the boar.

Completely enraged, the boar didn’t doubt before charging to Lia. Inclining its head, the beast pointed its tusks forward planning to use them to pierce the body of the girl.

However, a second before the tusks pieced Lia, she suddenly smiled.

“Haap!”

Tugging with all her strength, Lia shouted before jumping to a side. At that moment, the sound of the air being cut resounded in the place. The giant boar, feeling the danger, tried to move to a side unsuccessfully due to the momentum of the charge, and felt countless threads wrapping around him, sealing its movements.

Looking around the forest, countless white threads could be seen tying the boar while hanging from the trees in the surroundings. Paying a bit more of attention, one could notice that the white threads were the same object that Lia used to hit the giant boar and protect herself from the charge from the beast at the beginning of the fight.

The identity of the white threads is snow spider’s silk. A silk produced after refining the threads of a demonic beast, the snow spider.

The snow spider is considered a pretty strong demonic beast with the capacity to attain the spirit materializing stage at adulthood. Due to it, the silk of snow spiders is a relatively rare and expensive material. It is because once a snow spider is hunted, the silk extracted from it is sold to powerful sects and clans to use it to create treasures and clothes for their members.

In reality, Aiden only got it purely due to luck. In one of his missions, Aiden was tasked to catch a group of bandits in the surroundings of the town. When Aiden captured them and got the information about their hideout from some of their members, he unexpectedly found this treasure between their spoils.

Holding the end of the thread in her hands, Lia tied it through the neck of the giant boar before pulling with all her strength to kill it.

Feeling the threat to its life, the boar began to struggle and roar furiously trying to escape from its bindings.

Putting strength in her hands, Lia pulled even more and resisted the boar’s struggles. Feeling even more threatened, the boar roared with even more strength, the only difference being that this time its voice sounded desperate.

Struggling for other ten minutes, the boar finally ceased to move. Seeing it, Lia finally released the thread before laying in the ground and panting heavily.

A few seconds later, the sound of clapping could be heard from a side. Walking leisurely, Aiden smiled briefly at Lia before speaking.

“It took you more time than I thought but you were able to do it. Congratulations on your first fight Lia.”

Seeing the smile on Aiden’s face, Lia could no help but smile too and exclaim excitedly.

“I did it! Hahaha! Thanks, young master!”

Smiling to Lia, Aiden observed the fight scene and spoke again after thinking for a bit.

“As I thought, the snow spider’s silk is the perfect weapon for you. Umm! At the end of the day, it is a kind of thread, making it very compatible with your spirit. I think that before the spirit materializing stage this silk is more than enough for you.”

Pondering about it briefly, Lia nodded and explained about her experiences.

“I think so too, young master. When I use the thread I feel a strange connection with it. I think the reason is because of my spirit; after all, my spirit form is also a thread, so it makes easier for me to use the silk.”

The reason because Lia was able to use the silk so proficiently was precisely because of her spirit. Though people below the core fusing stage could not infuse energy in objects, it is well known that tool spirits possessors tend to be able to use objects related at their spirits very easily, granting them an advantage against others spirits in the lowers stages. Of course, that advantage is less notable the higher the cultivation level is.

After the core forming and core fusing stages, cultivators cease to focus on expanding their pools of energy and begun to focus in understating their spirits. The next cultivation stages are known as spirit awakening, spirit deciphering and spirit materializing; the three of them known like the understating phase, where the focus is to comprehend the mysteries locked inside the spirits. A peak spirit materializing cultivator can live until 300 years compare at the 150 years of a core fusing one.

Allowing to Lia rest for a moment, Aiden spoke after she recovered a bit of her strength, signaling to the place where they found the boar.

“Let’s go, I think I found something interesting there.”