Jack could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins, a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead. His heart rate had spiked, and he quickly switched to a defensive stance— In that moment, he knew. This was the feeling he had been chasing for, and now, he had finally found it. In this moment, his life or death would be decided— and he finally felt what it meant to be alive.

The next instant, an unnatural looking red-furred wild boar that easily cleared four feet, with extremely dense leg muscles that resembled those of an oxen— burst out of the clearing with a sharp, protruding horn jutting out of its forehead. Its eerie milky white eyes gazed in their direction, a distance of merely ten meters separating them— before charging straight at them.

Lv. 2 Twilight Boar Detected.

“Shoot!” Jack called out, snapping James from his reverie. He let the arrow loose a few seconds later, and Jack watched it whistle through the air to strike where the boar had been… a few seconds ago.

“Damn it,” James muttered under his breath, barely missing his target by a few inches.

“Scatter!” Jack followed through with another command, though he himself stood rooted at the spot. James had already broken into a sprint after missing his shot, and after hearing Jack’s command the other two split in opposite directions.

Jack’s pupils dilated, adrenaline running through his veins. The boar approached with a loud grunt, the distance closing with its every subsequent step. He had prepared for this moment all his life, but nothing could truly prepare a man for the day of reckoning- either he had it in him, or he was just a pretender.

Five meters was all that separated him from the boar, but he still didn’t move.

‘Wait,’ he thought with gritted teeth, grip on his sword firming. He took a deep breath, feeling the light blue energy that emanated from below his navel- a translucent orb of energy that rested in his body, but not in the physical sense. He felt the energy and directed it- as if he had repeated the motion hundreds of times, the Qi obeyed him without question, flowing through his chest, into his arm, and from his arm to his sword. It enveloped his sword in a light blue sheen, shimmering under the rays of the sun- and even more miraculously, the process was almost instantaneous.

Four meters…. Three meters…. Now!

Jack sidestepped out of the way in one clear jerk, violently slashing his right arm in a downward slash, the movement made more out of intuition and timing than visual confirmation. Jack felt his sword’s qi reinforced edge easily tear through sinew and bone as if it were butter, a splatter of red blood drenching his leggings and nearly completely soiling them.

The boar squealed with a painful, loud squeal, one that could easily be heard in the nearby vicinity.

The boar’s own momentum was too much to handle, continuing forward for a few meters before halting in his tracks.

Jack turned around just as the boar tipped over to the side, crashing onto the ground and dyeing the grass with its bright red blood.

He exhaled a breath he himself didn’t know he was holding, his tense figure slightly relaxing and the Qi Blade dissipating at the same time. This was his first tryst with true death, and he had prevailed. Real combat was so different from his training, that his efforts almost seemed like a farce. There was no elegant swordsmanship needed or required, no wide flourishes and dramatic leaps- a second, that was all. Everything was decided in a second. His sword struck true in that second without flinching, and that was the only thing that mattered.

Where others saw a threat, he saw an opportunity. Now, it was time to see if the risk was worth it.

“Whoa!,” Jack exclaimed, taking two steps back in quick succession as the boar’s carcass burst into ethereal blue flames, identical to the one that had changed his physiology from ‘human’ to ‘cultivator’. The flames then rushed towards him, too fast for Jack to resist- once again enveloping him in its comfortable grasp, while the boar's carcass itself remained unharmed.

Human [F-] has reached level 2! +5 Free Points Received. +1 Qi Pool

Class: Swordsman has reached level 2! Skill Unlocked: Qi Pulse [Lv. 0].

Qi Blade is at maximum mastery and cannot be upgraded further.

Name

Jack Fletcher

Age

28.6 Years

Race

Human [F-]

Level

2 [25%]

Class

Swordsman (O) Lv. 2 (12%)

Cultivation

Initiate I

Talent

-

Skills:

Inspect, Qi Blade [MAX], Qi Pulse [Lv.0]

Equipment

[F-] Bastard Sword

STR

6

CON

6

DEX

8

AGI

9

PER

8

WIS

7

INT

9

WIL

7

QI

10/11 [29:33]

FP

5

TP

25

Jack felt another flood of information rush into his head, but this time the process was much faster and painless. A golden light had enveloped him, bringing him warmth and comfort- he guessed it was the reason why he felt no pain.

“Select 5, Constitution,” Jack thought to himself, and the ethereal blue fire around him burned brighter. Jack felt as if his body were being refined- bones growing denser without losing mass, muscles contracting instead of expanding, more compact and efficient, and skin being coated by a blue sheen that disappeared a second later- though he knew the effect would remain.

“How truly interesting,” Jack muttered, taking a second to marvel at the changes his body had undergone in a manner of seconds. The reason why he had immediately taken the decision to invest his points into Constitution was because he did not believe the threat to be over. This magical power had to come with strings attached, and the boar would no doubt have gone through his organs if he flinched, but it was hardly the smartest creature around.

Thankfully, he had a way to find out.

“A gun salesman, he says,” Andrew’s skeptical voice rang out from behind, but Jack paid him no attention. This new skill was substantially harder to cast- while the Qi still obeyed his command, it was janky. As if he was attempting a feat after reading a guide manual, with no real experience. His right foot pulsed with blue energy visible to others, and Jack felt his Qi deplete at alarming rates.

Hurriedly, he slammed the foot into the ground, and a pulse of light blue energy with him as the epicenter was released in every direction, easily for a few dozen meters.

It was hard to describe the sensation, but for a second or two Jack could feel the pulse of the earth. He could feel what the earth felt, the small insects crawling on the ground, grass slightly shifting with a light breeze, and finally, three sets of fast moving footsteps that disturbed that natural, beautiful, rhythm.

“Incoming!” Jack screamed, pointing eastward. “James, ready your arrows! Sarah, stand next to me and hold that spear out! Andrew, stay behind Sarah and finish off anything that impales itself on Sarah’s spear!”

Andrew was the first to move, while both James and Sarah remained standing at the spot- staring at the bloodied boar in shock.

“Fucking move, guys! You have the same powers I do, use them for fuck’s sake!” Jack screamed again, and that snapped them out of their reverie. James hesitated for a second, but moved forward anyway- realizing that with those muscular boar legs, he was unlikely to outrun them.

Sarah complied as well, running forward with her spear pointed forward and lining up next to Jack.