Chapter 14: Heading to the Stone Forest

Sila ran pass the west gate of the town. He passed a meadow full of lovely pink slimes who didn’t show any hostility towards Sila who was a part of the slime race.

Nah, actually, they weren’t hostile mobs in the first place.

Every monster which spawned near the Town of Beginnings was a non-aggressive mob. Even if Sila passed through a herd of slimes and found a group of wild dogs, they still wouldn’t attack him first.

As he had heard from Lucy, the aggressive monsters could only be found after a player entered the forest zone.

Stone Forest was a part of the western forest area. It was an extremely infamous area in which all trees within a one-kilometer radius were completely petrified. It was also a habitat of the Great Millennium Ape who was considered to be too strong to be a monster living on the Island of Beginnings. Thus, the Stone Forest was always a forbidden area of the Island of Beginnings.

Sila had been running for a day until he finally reached the fringe of the forest. From here on out, the monsters would be aggressive. He decided to rest for a bit. He ate a steamed bun and circulated the Intermediate Qi to alleviate his fatigue.

He was quite certain that once he entered the forest zone, he might not be able to take it easy and to circulate his qi to rest anymore.

Actually, Intermediate Qi allowed the user to be able to circulate qi even while running. It just required a certain amount of concentration to do that. As Sila still wasn’t used to doing so, he thought it would be wiser to play safe and just rest for now.

Sila had cultivated for two full hours and realised that it was dusk already. Considering his vision would be getting worse at night and the fact that he didn’t know the exact remaining distance, he changed his mind to stay here for the time being.

He was playing it safe. Although his ability was definitely higher than a run-of-the-mill new player, this was the first time that he had gone this far from the city.

With that in his mind, Sila traveled back for around one kilometer to avoid the attacks of wild monsters and then lit a fire.

He had already finished circulating Intermediate Qi, so he didn’t feel tired at all. Sila took this opportunity to further polish his hidden weapon skills. He prioritised practicing hidden weapon over training his qi purely because of his teacher’s words:

‘You’ll know the reason when you confront the Great Millennium Ape. Just be sure to give it your all. To tell you the truth, the current you is no match for it. You’ll need to use your wit.’

Sila interpreted the words ‘use your wit’ as he definitely had to rely on the hidden weapon art he had been taught. It might even be a key factor for him to win against the Great Millennium Ape. If it was that case, it would be pointless if his hidden weapon couldn’t hit the target.

Sila dedicated himself to keep firing knives. Currently, he could only fire one at a time. Well, since it was only one, he could fire it quite quickly and strongly. It was also soundless and there was no need for him to flick his hand anymore since he could directly use Intermediate Qi to forcefully fire it.

Formerly, Sila had tried to strengthen the knife with Qi of Little Tiger, and then he discovered that it was very hard to do so.

Not only was circulating qi into object a hard task to do in the first place, firing qi-strengthened object was also insanely difficult.

Although it was true that the more qi he put into the object, the more power it could display; there was a big problem, which was that object would also be harder to handle and control. Thus, Sila’s qi-strengthened knife had never hit the target even once since he had tried.

Even so, Sila kept practicing and practicing until it was finally morning. Now, his qi-strengthening knife could hit the target once out of ten tries. Well, Sila didn’t mind that. Since currently, if it was about firing the normal knives to a target within five meters, he would never miss the target.

‘Even if each normal knife can’t cause much damage, it should be okay if the target gets hit by many of them, right?’

Sila stood up before heading into the woods, this time for real.

During his run, one random idea popped up in his head.

‘It’s somehow uncool for a Wuxia like me to run like this. I better ask the teacher to teach me qinggong next time.’

Well, soon enough, Sila discarded the unnecessary idea since he was already entering the forest zone. He had to move faster while being more careful.

***

Sila was running in the forest for more than a day. Although he did encounter some monsters, he always avoided them being in a fight in order to save time. When they attacked, he would evade and use that chance to flee. It was actually easier than he had expected.

Well, the weird thing was, the deeper he went into the forest, the fewer monsters he ran into. In fact, in his current location, not even one monster could be seen anymore.

The system notification rang.

[You have entered the territory of Monster Great Millennium Ape. You cannot use Return Scrolls for the time being.]

Sila looked around. He was too focused on running into the forest to not notice that the trees around him were all petrified.

It seemed that he had arrived in the Stone Forest already.

Once he noticed that, he stopped running. His teacher had told him that the Great Millennium Ape had subordinates. Thus, Sila raised his awareness and walked slowly, step by step as he didn’t want to accidentally end up surrounded by a herd of apes.

It was a bit unexpected that he couldn’t use Return Scrolls (Invitation Cards were counted as Return Scrolls), but it didn’t mean much to him since he didn’t think of returning until he had finished his quest anyway. It was just that, he would have to get out of this area before using the Invitation Card to the Bamboo Hut on the way back.

Even at night, the Stone Forest wasn’t darkened. There were glowing mosses attached at the trunk of the petrified trees. Thus, Stone Forest shone with dim lights, creating a mysterious atmosphere.

Sila went deep into the center of Stone Forest. It was a clear field with a big rock in the middle. On that rock, there was one tree rooted into it.

The tree shone brightly, and on one of its branches, there was a peach which was dozens of times larger than a typical peach.

‘That should be a Millennium Peach,’ thought Sila.

Sila looked left and right. He didn’t spot a single monster. Therefore, he was more careful whilst gradually climbing up the rock and tree to pluck off the peach.

Here was the highest point of the field, allowing Sila to see all nearby surroundings. However, even with that, there was still no sign of monsters.

Sila plucked off the peach and put it into his inventory. A system sound alarmed.

[You have gotten the Millennium Peach.]

Sila sighed in relief, since he had thought something would happen as soon as he got the peach.

Now, if he was an ordinary player, he would quickly find a way back by now. However, for Sila, he still had one more quest—taking down the Great Millennium Ape.

Ironically, as if it knew that Sila was thinking about it, the specific notification sound could be heard by Sila.

[Monster Great Millennium Ape, Level 500 Squire Rank, has appeared.]

Sila turned his head to look at his opponent walking out from the sea of petrified trees. It was a big gorilla with golden fur. It was walking leisurely towards Sila.

However, in the next second, the golden gorilla dashed towards him at high speeds as if it was a shooting arrow, contrary to its bulky body.

Sila knew he couldn’t guard against this attack head on. Thus, he evaded by jumping down the rock, heading toward a clear field.

Nevertheless, the giant ape used its feet to lightly touch the ground, changing its direction to Sila’s current location without even the slightest decrease in speed. This action made Sila realise one fact.

‘The Great Millennium Ape can use qinggong!’

Sila suddenly felt he was in a horrendously disadvantageous position. This fact meant it would always be faster than him.

Within the attack range, the Great Millennium Ape raised its foot that was glowing in red to attack Sila. Sila immediately sensed that he shouldn’t block it, so he quickly circulated Qi of Little Fish and dodged slightly to the left.

The Great Millennium Ape’s foot hit the ground, causing an explosive sound. The dust dispersed around, indicating the severity of its attack. Sila felt glad that he’d made the right choice not to guard against it.

‘It can use qi too. This will be troublesome.’

The area was still filled with dust, but the Great Millennium Ape ruthlessly charged through the smoke to attack Sila once again.

Fortunately, Sila already had anticipated its attack. He concentrated Qi of Little Tiger into both hands. When he saw the Great Millennium Ape’s glowing palm coming, he leaped forward and raised his left palm to block it.

The Great Millennium Ape sneered at Sila’s foolish action of blocking its attack with a bare hand. It accelerated its own pace to clash with Sila’s palm.

The explosive sound of qi clashing together could be heard. Both qi negated each other, making Sila and the ape lose their balance.

The Great Millennium Ape was stunned. It was overconfident in its qi.

Sila was quicker to regain his stance and was already raising his right hand to strike its forehead.

Sila firmly believed that his attack would be able to kill the Great Millennium Ape. He was very confident in his Qi of Little Tiger. No one had ever survived from the hit at a vital point ever since he had used it.

Nevertheless, the giant ape utilized the impact of the previous collision coupled with qinggong. It gently kicked the ground, leaping backward.

With the Great Millennium Ape’s action, Sila’s attack was wasted like throwing a stone into a lake. Some of the force he put into his attack returned back to hurt him, causing him to spit out blood.

This was another reason why there weren’t many players choosing qi type. If you made an error in using your power, part of that power would return to damage yourself.

Sila quickly circulated Recovering Qi to chase away the pain. Of course, he didn’t wish to be completely healed. Just physically stable enough to perform next movements would be fine.

The Great Millennium Ape saw Sila spitting out blood because of his failure in using power. It instinctively knew that this was its best chance.

It charged forward again. The gap of several meters between two sides immediately closed into one meter. It didn’t even care to circulate its qi as it was fully aware that just hitting Sila to cause him more injuries would do the trick.

In a fight, range is a very significant factor. Now that the Great Millennium Ape was able to control the range at its will: if it wanted the distance between it and Sila to be far, the distance would become far; if it wanted the distance to be short, the distance would become short. Sila was totally in an unfavorable position here.

In this exact moment, Sila finally understood why his teacher told him to practice the hidden weapon art; It was his only method to attack in long range.

If Sila possessed Qi of Little Turtle, he could use this chance to firmly guard himself, causing the Great Millennium Ape to hurt itself. However, since he didn’t possess it, and his ability regarding defense was significantly lower than that regarding the offense, he decided to utilize his prominent point by attacking instead of blocking.

Sila completely ignored the Great Millennium Ape’s charging. He firmly stretched his hand out as a blade, and then counterattacked by piercing it toward the Great Millennium Ape’s heart which was the vital point that the ape would need to guard if it didn’t want to die.

The giant ape was shocked. Due to its hastiness, it didn’t strengthen its body with qi at all. Although Sila’s hand didn’t seem to strengthen with qi too since it wasn’t glowing in color, based on the previous collision, the ape discovered that Sila was able to conceal qi. Hence, it comprehended that this time, this hand of Sila must also be fused with qi as well. If this bare body of it clashed with a qi-strengthened hand, although this human would take some damage, it would undoubtedly be the one to die.

With that thought, the Great Millennium Ape used qinggong to withdraw from the area of impact again. However, this time was not exactly the same. It began to notice that there was one knife on Sila’s stretched out hand.

In a blink of an eye, that knife disappeared mysteriously.

Later, it could hear the sound of a dagger stabbing something nearby. It was stunned while fumbling its forehead, only to find that there was a knife pierced deep into its skull.

The wound was bleeding. The Great Millennium Ape collapsed and later turned into light.

Sila breathed a sigh of relief. Just now, he had swiftly fused the Qi of Little Tiger into a knife. Although the amount of qi he put in wasn’t much, he hurriedly fired it. Surprisingly, the knife accurately stabbed the target.

Sila gained a little more understanding on the usage of the qi-strengthened hidden weapon. Previously, when he had been practicing, he was too focused on raw power and put too much qi into a hidden weapon, so it was difficult to control the trajectory. However, with his current ability, if only the qi he put into it wasn’t too much, he would still be able to fire the qi-strengthened hidden weapon accurately.

This was the correct answer of qi-strengthening hidden weapon’s usage method: Putting in the most qi whereas causing a minimal effect on accuracy.

The cornerstone of hidden weapon was precision, not severity.

With the body of the Great Millennium Ape dispersing as a light, Sila felt something wasn’t right. Well, at that time, he didn’t know what was wrong. The most important thing for him to do now was to recover. Thus, Sila immediately circulated Recovering Qi.

However, the next alerting system sound made him panic.

[Monster Great Millennium Ape, Level 500 Squire Rank, has appeared.]

[Monster Great Millennium Ape, Level 500 Squire Rank, has appeared.]

[Monster Great Millennium Ape, Level 500 Squire Rank, has appeared.]

[Monster Great Millennium Ape, Level 500 Squire Rank, has appeared.]

……………

[Monster Great Millennium Ape, Level 500 Squire Rank, has appeared.]

A voice telling the appearance of a large number of monsters could be heard inside Sila’s brain. At this moment, Sila finally realized what had been wrong; Just now, when he had defeated the Great Millennium Ape, there was no sound telling him he had received the experience or money.

More importantly, with this system notification, Sila could realize one fact:

‘The Great Millennium Ape I took down previously was just a mere minion...’