6 Months passed by like a flash, daily cultivation and training ate up most of Kou’s time in these couple of months as she continued her hermit-like lifestyle, the only people she ever really held conversations with were Li Zhi - Hei Tian and Xiu Shihong.

Kou had been called up to the podium in the early lessons 3 more times, the first time was after she mastered the second step of Shadow’s Bounty - the second for reaching late Yellow in both body and soul - and the third time without a specific reason she could make out.

Elder Yee was quite satisfied with her - at least that was what her perception told her - Kou had left many of the other commoners behind her, most of them had just reached the middle of the first realm. Of course, there were a few that kept up, in particular, a blue haired boy, his name was Zhang Ling, the boy came from the far east of the empire an area full of swamps and rivers - and was seen following some noble boy around most of the time.

Well - it was just some gossip Kou had caught while passing other students, she showed little interest in these things. The last few months had changed her a little, she was still tense in interactions with others, and prone to skulking around in the shadows.

But she was now able to hold a stable conversation with her friends, and even talk to strangers albeit she still glared at most of them, just out of reflex. She herself had gained somewhat of a reputation, for once people thought she was Xiu Shihongs maidservant as both of them were seen together most of the time.

For the other was “The genius commoner girl” While she was still lacking behind Zhang Ling a bit, she was without a doubt the only commoner girl that was able to somehow keep up with the nobles. Of course, nobody knew that the reason was the slowly shrinking stack of spirit stones she had gotten long before the outer sect had opened their doors.

She had by now used close to 50 of them - leaving her with another 50. She did not just absorb them all but also used some of the stones to buy cultivation pills on the outer sect market, she had also put out a commission to one of the inner sect crafters for a proper set of clothes - more because Xiu Shihong kept bugging her on getting something that was not the outer sect uniform.

The set of clothes was jet to be finished but she had already paid the 25 spirit stones for it.

Cultivating her body to the peak of the first realm hat brought some changes to her appearance as well, her hair was now snow white - while still unruly and scruffy she had grown it out a little more, to be honest, she liked her hair being a bit unorderly.

Other changes were that her sickly complexion was almost gone, her eyes were no longer sunken in and while her cheeks were still a little hollow. Her skin was still not smooth like Xiu Shihongs or the other traditional little beauties that run around - but scars and old wounds from her life on the streets were slowly fading.

The sign’s of what she had been slowly fading - it felt as if her slate had been brushed clean - well.. at least the outside.

As for her art shadow’s bounty? She had completely mastered the first and second step.

The second step was called jumping shadow, - while hunting shadow was active she could instantly jump to shadows around her - this was less like teleportation and more like instantaneous movement, meaning she just did not disappear and reappear somewhere else, but actually moved. Of course, this would eat extra Qi on top of the constant drain from Hunting Shadows.

She was currently working on the third step - it was the last step she could access without being in the second realm, It was shadow step, mastering shadowstep would cut down on the amount of Qi she needed for Hunting Shadows, it also increased the range for jumping shadows and gave her the ability to … step into the shadows - concealing herself. A trick that would make her invisible while also eating away at her Qi resources

But she had jet to get the hang of it, her Qi control was still a little lacking and she would probably only be able to perfectly use the 3rd step after reaching the second realm.

Currently she sat in the small living room of their stone house together with Xiu Shihong - the girl had at some point insisted that the two of them would drink tea together, at first Kou did not like the bidder taste of tea - but over time it had grown on her and by now she quite enjoyed it.

Xiu Shihong had grown a fair bit in just these few months leaven Kou even further behind - the girl had just reached the second realm and was currently stabilizing herself in it.

“Are you still sure you want to do the sect missions alone? I would not mind helping out Kou.” Xiu Shihong had grown a lot easier going with Kou by now - she still sometimes had that amused look on her face whenever Kou was overreacting to something but it was never anything malicious.

“Mh! Will do them alone, I’m growing short on funds… and actually using my abilities on something will further .. understanding, the Elder had told us that we will begin combat training soon… so I should get myself ready.”

She touched the 2 training daggers that she had on her belt, it was just normal steel - but sharpened they would make for suitable weapons “Also the mission I choose is just hunting spiders.. so it won’t be too difficult, yes?”

“I’d assume so - you should take care not to get tangled up - unlike me, you can’t just burn the whole nest down.” That was a good point Kou was lacking attack power, but for a new technique, she needed more sect points - another reason to do missions.

It was just after dusk as Kou was nearing the big spider nest on the side of the mountain, it was a bunch of first realm spider beasts that were living there producing silk. Her job was to kill a few spiders - steal some eggs and silk.

This was not the first mission she did - she had hunted rank 1 spirit boars before, the fight with those certainly was nothing compared to that wild dog that had attacked her. Fighting was easy if you got the drop on your enemies.

Utilizing hunting shadows she jumped from shadow to shadow, the nest was inside the forest - half outside hanging from trees half inside some creek - from the outside it looked more like a silk forest then a nest, countless tiny spiders were moving back and forth - between then there were rat and cat-sized spiders acting like commanding officers - directing the spiderlings as they worked.

None of these were already spirit beasts, a first realm spider would be roughly the size of a big dog - and those were her goal today, the sect mission clearly told her not to go to deep since further inside the nest there would be second realm spiders and Kou really did not want to meet any of them.

Sneaking past the spiderlings outside she entered the nest unseen - using every shadow she could she entered the outer layer of the fortress - it was eerily silent in here - just some times she could hear a hiss.

Finding the egg chamber was relatively easy - the mission had a small map and instructions for everything, apparently, someone in the inner sect regularly posted this mission for supplies.

So there was ample of information on everything - Kou quickly put the spider eggs into the bag - following them she cut loose some of the surrounding silk stuffing it into the bag as well until it was full.

Sneaking in unnoticed and stealing things from the beasts was thrilling! All her senses were on constant high alert her mind was clear and she was finally confident in something - she had always been fast and sneaky, and putting that to use in this way was great fun, and the looming danger made it just even more exciting.

But she banished thoughts about how fun this was to the back of her head she still needed to do the last part of the contract killing a few first realm spiders and retrieving their cores.

She left the egg champer - her eyes darting around - according to the information every hour or so a rank 1 spider would pass here to check on the progress outside and eggs.

She would climb a nearby tree and ambush the spider from above as it approached, Kou really wanted to avoid direct confrontation, Shadow’s Bounty was clearly not that useful in a fight.

Time trickled by and soon the time for the rank 1 spider to show up came - and just like clockwork Kou could hear it before she saw it - the creature was as big as a large dog - 8 meaty legs carried it quickly over the silk covered ground.

The spider seemed completely off guard - it did not check it’s surroundings at all - it clearly was confident that nobody would be dumb enough to infiltrate a spider nest, the creature was just about to check the large cocoon chamber that holds the eggs - as a small creature suddenly appeared in its shadow - the spider could not even screech before two daggers were rammed into its head - killing it in one painless strike.

Kou took a deep breath after killing the first spider, the killing was still not something she was accustomed to even if it was just lesser spirit beasts or animals, she could not see herself becoming coldblooded enough to enjoy this.

Still, with her dagger, she split the outer shell of the spider and dug out the core - placing it in the bag, after which she shoved the spider into the egg chamber to have it out of sight.

Jumping back to her tree she laid low for about another hour - she killed the next spider in almost the same way - jumping into the shadow of the creature and immediately stabbing it in the head, none of the spiders could even react at all and so a fight never broke out.

This was repeated for about 3 times until she had enough for her contract... still Kou remained - jumping back up to her tree to wait, she wanted one more core for herself - those could be sold for spirit stones after all! And having to part with all of the cores for the mission just did not sit right from her, she did want to take one for herself.

This time she had not to wait long, quite shortly after taking the position she could hear it again, the sound of 8 hairy legs moving towards her direction...