Haiyang awoke the next morning to the sounds of the forest. In his burrow, he could feel the new wood qi his little tree produced. He eagerly started to absorb all of it. Slowly he stabilized his taiji symbols turning them into imprints.

Haiyang had no real idea of time in his burrow so he didn’t know how long it had been. He just cultivated peacefully stabilizing his symbols. When the wood qi ran out his right leg was complete and some on his left. The more he cultivated and the more he stabilized the harder it got for each new symbol. Each new symbol brought much greater strength though.

He walked outside of his burrow finding it to be noon. He scanned his surroundings not seeing anything of noticeable change or any present danger. He tried to find a path he could take but everywhere looked the same. All he knew was that north lead back to the city and south lead deeper in the forest.

With his claws, he made small arrows in the soil. There was one pointing to the city and the other pointed south but there was a big x on it. He was not about to accidentally walk deeper into the forest due to some bad mapping.

He considered all his options and chose to head east. He took a deep breath and marched off going east while slightly south.

Haiyang walked and walked towards the southeastern direction. He was constantly looking behind him, around him, and even above him. His cautiousness was too an unbelievably large degree. His eyes and ears were fully focused on the smallest of movements and the smallest of sounds. He even had his small qi area up.

After every few meters, Haiyang would mark a tree with a small arrow pointing back towards the burrow. The last thing he wanted to do was get lost.

Two hours passed after Haiyang left his burrow. He walked almost three kilometers before stopping. He started to turn back but was quickly stopped.

In his qi area, he felt the tiniest bit of wood qi not blend in with the rest. It was slightly stronger and was south by only a bit. He started to run towards the source.

He ran almost six meters before he found it. Behind a tree was a small blue flower bud. It gave off pure wood qi that seemed to be on an equal level with his spirit tree!

Haiyang examined it and dug a tad into the ground around it. He didn’t want to hurt the roots and damage the growth of the herb. They weren’t very deep and to move it was a possibility but he was scared.

It would be terrible if he ruined the herb by mishandling it. So he came up with a different plan. He marked the tree with a herb character. For every meter, he would mark the tree with an herb character. He did this till he was back on his original path.

Every few meters above the arrows he would write the herb character. He started to sprint back to his tree careful to mark each tree.

An hour passed of continuous running before he made it back to the clearing. He almost sprinted to his burrow but stopped dead in his tracks.

Standing in the tree ten or so meters off the ground there was an owl. A meter tall, brown feathered, black beaked, green-eyed owl. It didn’t carry the normal demonic beast like aura but Haiyang could tell that it was a peak of the second rank strength.

It wasn’t the aura that scared him but it was the owl’s ability to fly. He was scared, he wanted to run away but he didn’t know if he could find another tree. He took a deep breath steadying himself. His eyes shone with slight viciousness.

Slowly he walked around the tree staying just outside of the owl’s eyesight. Once he was there he readied a seal and inched closer to the meditating owl.

Somehow he got within ten meters of the owl. If he moved any more than the owl would no doubt notice him. He raised his right paw, aimed then fired the seal off towards the owl!

The seal flew increasingly closer towards the owl. Its eyes snapped open and the owl let a loud ear piercing shriek. With a flap of its wings, it flew a few meters up completely dodging the seal.

It glowed green for a moment with small bits of wind starting to swirl around its wings. Then it flapped the wins hard sending forward two long crescent shaped blades of wind.

They were sharp, fast, and cut through the air. They flew toward Haiyang not slowing down.

In a matter of seconds, they crossed the ten-meter difference reaching Haiyang. Sending yang qi through his legs into the ground. Using its the explosive force he jumped to the left.

A second later the blades struck the ground hard. They left two long gashes in the earth.

Haiyang stood there dumbfounded for a moment. He didn’t know how to react to that type of power. He shook his head trying to wake himself. When he came too another set of blades were already flying towards him.

Quickly he did the same thing and jumped to the left. This time he didn’t stop moving by sending out three continuous paw strikes into the air aimed at the owl. With each paw strike, a small seal would fly out. One went straight towards the owl, one went below, and the last one went above.

The owl made a few small blades that shot toward two of the seals. Easily the blades cut through the seals dissipating them. The owl flew to the left avoiding the last seal.

It flew quickly down towards Haiyang. When it was within a few meters the owl flapped its wings toward each other. Two gust of wind that gathered at its wings collided! As the two gust blew a small tornado formed which shot towards Haiyang.

Haiyang tried to jump away using all his strength but the suction force of the wind was too much. He couldn’t beat it and was sucked into the center of the tornado.

The winds were like blades and constantly attacked Haiyang. They cut into his fur, his skin, his muscles. The cuts weren’t major but they bled and hurt like hell.

He started to lose more and more strength the more he got hurt. He had to escape so he started to shoot out bursts of yang qi.

A few well placed burst disrupted the tornado's pattern causing it to slow down! Soon the entire thing stopped and allowed Haiyang to jump out.

He was cut and bloodied, he shook and panted. He was dazed and could barely stand.

The owl let out a long call before diving bombing toward Haiyang with its claws readied.

Haiyang didn’t know what was happening he just heard an owl call and looked up. Just staring at the owl dew closer faster and faster he didn’t move. Soon the owl was right on top of him!

His arm moved by itself and a seal slapped right into the bird’s lower leg. It’s balance shifted causing it to fly right by Haiyang harmlessly.

The owl crashed into the ground digging a long trail into the dirt. It flapped its wings flying up into the air. This time it didn’t look like it was going to come down. It’s left leg hung limply.

Haiyang woke up from his dazed state starting to use his wood qi to heal all of his wounds. Staring daggers at the owl he started building up seals in his paws.

He sent out six paw strikes toward the owl surrounding all of its potential escape routes.

The owl used a few wind blades to cut through three of the seals. It dodged right avoiding the last of the three. Which it then flapped its wings sending out two long crescent wind blades towards Haiyang.

Haiyang ran forward dodging the blades not looking back at the damage. He ran up the spirit tree using wood qi to help him climb. After a certain point, he jumped up and off sending out three paw strikes. He released many seals some big others small.

Once he landed back on the ground he sent more seals with a higher variety of sizes. Then he ran a few meters and sent out more seals. He kept moving and sending out seals for a few minutes. He constantly cut off the owl’s escape routes.

The owl tried to dodge and cut the seals but soon it got overwhelmed. Once seal hit it’s wing causing it to fall out of the sky. It flapped its good wing in a struggle but still crashed down hard.

Haiyang rushed toward the owl trying to end the battle.

The owl let out a screech sending out fast wind blades toward Haiyang.

Him being hurt made it hard to dodge so he leaped to the side and the blade hit his side hard. It cut through his fur, skin, and muscles leaving a giant bloody gash!

Haiyang wobbled for a moment before striking the owl’s other wing and the other it’s working leg. Its movements were now completely sealed.

With flaming claws, Haiyang struck the owl’s head.

Letting out one more hair raising call it died a fiery death.

Haiyang cut open the head and pulled out a small green gem with a much deeper color than the wolves.

He walked over to his burrow and marked the direction of the little plant. He went in placed the core in the treasure chamber then moved to his cultivation chamber.

He sat down and focused solely on healing his wounds. He especially needed the large gash healed.

Haiyang didn’t know how much time passed but it felt long. His qi was pretty much gone and some of the symbols on his left leg finally stabilized from the battle.

He thought about the battle and how it could’ve been avoided if he was here. He needed a way to guard the tree when he leaves. He had to leave to go find better spirit trees, but he also couldn’t keep fighting. He combed through some of the unlocked techniques from the immortal but for the first time, there wasn’t a clear answer to his question.

There was no quick way to do this. All of the techniques needed a lot of studying to get results. He saw formations but without materials or experience, there was no way to set them up. There was a guard type magic but to learn how to use that would take too long. He couldn’t waste time on techniques when he needed a higher cultivation base for the competition.

He took a breath and stopped thinking about it. He meditated trying to gain back some lost qi before falling asleep in his chamber.