Their Qi has been liquefied and that only could mean, that without planning and because of coincidental circumstances or even on an accident … they became Qi masters! And that was not all. For some reason their Qi was thicker than normal and even the Dantian that should have shrank several times was basically the same size as before!

But it didn’t make any sense! When any gas liquefies its volume significantly decreases and the same concept applies to the Qi of the practitioner – when person becomes Qi master, the Qi in their system condenses and, while Qi pathways remain almost the same, Dantian shrinks to the current volume of the liquid Qi in it. That is also the reason why Qi masters have such hard time to increase their Qi amount – there is simply nowhere to store it and Dantian almost doesn’t enlarge after that as well.

In a way the process is exactly opposite to the beasts – when they grow in rank, their Qi cores grow, but human Dantian shrinks when Qi liquefies. In both cases the being grows in strength, but the process differs despite the source, Qi, being the same.

The other difference was how humans and beasts could use their Qi. While beasts mostly grew in physical strength, increased their resistances and physical skills, after becoming Qi masters, humans would learn how to manipulate Qi, even bringing it out of their bodies, strengthening their weapons and armor or using in alchemy, medicine and other fields. Only few freaks with unending patience like Nick and YunYun were insane enough to try and learn Qi manipulation while still being Qi practitioners and it was generally considered a useless practice because time invested was not worth comparing to the time spent what it would take to achieve the same after one became a Qi master.

“How is this possible … my Dantian … it’s the same as before. I think … it might even be bigger!” YunYun exclaimed in shock.

“I don’t understand! When the gas type Qi condenses, it shrinks in volume and our Dantian should have shrank as well.” Nick thought out loud, “Except … all three of us were connected during the process and our bodies acted like … communicating vessels?”

“What is that?” YunYun asked.

“Well … I’m not sure I can explain it clearly.” Nick did his best to remember the long forgotten classes of physics. Even though he studied well, he didn’t pay much attention to other subjects than his beloved languages and sports – the exact sciences that his father loved was not his cup of tea at all.

“The basic idea is that if you connect three barrels with tubes at the bottom and fill one with water, it will flow to the other two and in the end all three of them would be filled to the same level.”

“Does it mean that we have the same amount of Qi that a rank six beast does?” YunYun asked as her shock increased.

This concept was unbelievable. Rank six beasts had almost infinite amount of Qi stored in their cores and their bodies, but the amount of Qi humans had was laughable in comparison – what made them strong was the ability and skills to manipulate it.

“I don’t think we have as much Qi as King Kong or Snow. Look, even if Bambi has grown, she still looks small compared to the two of them. It might have something to do with her unintentionally sharing her Qi with us when raising in rank. Still, we probably have more Qi than any other person we know.”

“But why did it became golden? Didn’t it have to become green? You know – mixing golden with blue …”

“All of these are just guesses.” Nick replied, “But it might be that our Qi got purified in some ways. If we think about it – why Qi in the beast bodies is so different from ours? Not only it can liquefy becoming part of their tissue when they grow, but it can crystallize as well becoming their core and later increase in size. I haven’t read about human Qi crystallizing – may be it is because it’s not clean enough?”

“Does that mean we will have cores soon?” YunYun panicked a little. It was weird to imagine a core forming below her navel in a size of a large mango.

“I don’t think so.” Nick shook his head, “We are humans after all and Qi in our bodies is in some strange aura-like capacity, even when it’s liquefied.”

“Ahh! I don’t understand.” YunYun jumped up, “Shall we test how much stronger we have become?”

Nick’s eyes lit up as well and both of them started to dart around the meadow like two lightning bolts and when the three beasts noticed that, they became shocked. But soon they realized these two young humans have grown in rank as well, the only pity was they didn’t grow in size.

Nick and YunYun ran around for a while and the playful King Kong soon joined them trying to catch them to throw in the water. Unfortunately for him he was not able to catch these two slippery weaklings at all.

“Rawr!” Snow’s loud roar shook the trees and water on the lake again. If those three continued like that, soon nothing would remain from the lush grass on his meadow.

The three stopped and understood what he meant. Nick scratched his head in embarrassment and apologized while King Kong did the same while scratching his butt.

“Alright.” Nick grew serious, “What do you say about checking the spot where Bambi got injured? I want to see which monster could be so cruel.”

Others agreed, but they decided to postpone it for one day. Snow and King Kong would go out to eat, while Nick, YunYun and Bambi will stay behind and get used to their new abilities. Of course, Nick wanted to bring his wristbands a bit in order and restock their water supply as well. Neither of them were hungry and, after washing up, they started to test their growth.

Just before the sunrise the three beasts and two humans dashed through the woods. Bambi and Snow were running in front and from time to glanced behind at the ‘slow’ trio who did their best to not fall behind. This time the ‘big lump’ King Kong was in the same category of slow creatures as the two humans. He didn’t like it very much, but fortunately for him they soon got to the spot Bambi hid after loosing her pursuers. The road that previously took over two hours they effortlessly covered in around twenty minutes.

Nick and YunYun could only sigh at the great difference between the Qi masters and practitioners. While they could be compared to most Qi masters before, it was mostly because of their skills in Qi manipulation and not the physical abilities.

“Alright, lead us along the route you escaped. Be careful and stop at a safe distance before reaching the spot where you got in the trap.” Nick instructed, “It is better to stop sooner so no one notices us – may be those bastards have created new traps around that area. You three have better senses than we do, so be on your guard.”

For the next two hours they continued to run towards west. It was clear that the panicked doe had lost the attackers long ago, but in her fright she still continued to escape until got to the small cave. Nick’s guess was that she probably knew the location from long ago, otherwise it would be almost impossible to find such reclusive place on accident.

At some moment Snow suddenly stopped and growled almost inaudibly. Other four stopped as well and sharpened their senses. Nick and YunYun couldn’t hear or smell anything, but judging from the reaction of three beasts, there was definitely something in front of them.

“Good. Since we are dealing with humans, me and YunYun should check …” Nick didn’t manage to finish when he saw displeasure in the three pairs of eyes, “Alright, but you are huge, so do your best to stay hidden. I really don’t want to remove poison from any of you again.”

The five of them stealthily moved forward and both Nick and YunYun immediately understood why the beasts were dissatisfied with his idea – they were much more stealthy and unnoticeable than the small humans! For some reason it was not possible to see even the huge King Kong when he didn’t want to be seen and Bambi’s golden fur had long turned gray-brown and if someone was not right beside her, she was practically invisible.

Snow’s skills were even more remarkable. While crouching to the ground, his fur transformed in the color of leaves, moss or rocks depending on the surface he was stepping on and even in such position his speed didn’t slow down at all.

Around ten minutes later Snow stopped and attentively watched one spot in the distance. Nick saw a large deer, may be even rank four, lying on the ground in unnatural position, but Snow was watching a spot around fifty meters to the left from it.

Soon Nick saw two human bodies hidden between leaves. He couldn’t discern their faces, but it seemed as if they had approached from the side. The tiger definitely had chosen the best route so the ambushers couldn’t notice their group.

Just as Nick wanted to praise his skills, Snow pointed his nose to the side and they made a large loop around the obvious trap and discovered another. During the next thirty minutes they traveled around the large valley and saw a total of eight such groups. Their bait always remained similar, only ranks of those deer differed. Snow evidently was not for the first time here and had already observed these people carefully thus knew their positions.

Nick beckoned the group to retreat and then shared his own thoughts.

“First of all, I really don’t like the positioning. Look at this!” He drew an octagon on the ground, “You see, they have set the bait in a strange manner, forming this figure. It might be a lucky coincidence, but judging from their positions these people most likely have made a formation and, to put it simply, humans are capable of using formations in the same way as alchemy – it can empower them a lot, in addition, the formation most likely is not to kill, but to capture the target. Did you notice how no one had any notable weapons? I think there are multiple traps, similar to the one that Bambi got herself into.”

“Next,” Nick continued, “They are using deer that are even level four! My guess is they found Bambi on accident and thought it was a great opportunity to make you a bait as well. Was it so that they found you somewhere else and drove you this way?”

Bambi nodded with surprise in her eyes, but Snow and King Kong were not surprised at all. This human could read their minds, what was there to be surprised about?

“Thus you falling in that trap was accident and only your incredible tenacity let you escape. Another guess I have is that they have changed the poison on those spikes after your escape to a more effective one, because if you could escape, how could they hold their target here, even for a while. And for them to use such manpower, formations and quality of bait only indicates to one thing – they are trying to catch the strongest predator in these mountains!”

At this point everyone looked at Snow with complicated gazes. Indeed, he was the strongest one within hundreds and most likely thousands of kilometers. But Snow just snorted and raised his head proudly.

“And that is why they are still waiting for you all this time and are even confident you will arrive sooner or later!” Nick slapped the ground in realization, “They are betting on the arrogance of a rank six beast who will come and ‘show’ them who the real ruler around here is!”

Snow suddenly fell deep in thought. Indeed, it was not simple.

“You see, the trap where Bambi fell in is not the only one. My guess is that there are not only several, but may be even tens of them here. They have prepared this for a long time and are not in a hurry at all.”

“But they can’t stay there forever.” YunYun shook her head.

“You are correct.” Nick and the beasts nodded, “These people have incredible patience, but they have to leave from time to time to eat and answer nature’s call as well. How long could a Qi master stay like this – a day, two?”