Chapter 143: Dark Apparition The attributes dropped by the 2-star beginner-stage gale leopard included: Wind Force*10 Blank Attribute*12 Wang Teng picked all of them up! Without a doubt, even if it was just a 2-star beginner-stage star beast, the attribute bubbles they dropped were more than a 1-star star beast. Then, he took some materials from the leopard’s body. Wind was a mutated element. If you compared this star beast with another star beast of the same level, the materials on its body had a higher price than those from a normal element star beast. Its claws, teeth, skin… the last time he came to the Xingwu Continent, Wang Teng had learned some dissection skills from Yang Fei. After a few days of practical experience, he got more and more skilled at it. He was able to dissect a beast quickly without wasting much time. The area inside the space ring was equivalent to a huge truck. It could fit many things. Thus, Wang Teng didn’t hesitate. He stuffed all the things he obtained from the star beasts into the ring. This was all money! He must not waste them! Wasting was atrocious! When the space ring was full, he would find a place to hide the lower-priced items so that he could come back and take them another time. Finally, he checked if there was any star core or star bone. Although it was rare for a low-level star beast to have a star bone, Wang Teng didn’t overlook any of the beasts he killed. He would only give up after he had completed his inspection. As expected, there was no star bone, but there was a pleasant surprise. The beast had a star core! It was a 2-star wind element star core! What a massive gain! Wang Teng happily kept the star core and left this place. … In a certain part of the Dark Mist Forest, Wang Teng met three 2-star earth armor pigs. There was nothing to say between a human and a pig. They started fighting without a second word. Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh. Wang Teng didn’t use his Shooting Star Spiral right away. He shot six flying daggers out first to hold back two of the earth armor pigs. Then, he dashed towards the last one. Fire Kirin Sword Skill! The moment he attacked, it was the perfected stage Fire Kirin Sword Skill. After these few days of practice, his Fire Kirin Sword Skill had reached the perfected stage. Its power was many times stronger than before. There were some differences between Force battle techniques and foundation battle techniques. It could mainly be split into the foundation, small achievement, big achievement, perfected, presence, and conscious stage. There was no presence enlightenment stage after the perfected stage. It went right to the understanding of presence and conscious. These last two stages consisted of powerful lethal stances derived from the battle techniques. These stances exceeded the realms of battle techniques. For instance, one could derive sword presence and even the sword conscious. When you attacked with your sword, the powerful presence of your sword would bear down on your opponent and the conscious of your attack would cut through the air. The battle technique was heightened to another level. However, if you wanted to understand the presence and conscious of your skill, you needed to have extremely high talent. Among a few hundred martial warriors who practiced sword skills, there might not even be one who could understand the presence of the sword. Conscious was even more challenging to understand than presence. That was truly the exclusive right of real talents. Among a few thousand martial warriors who practiced sword skills, there might only be one or two that would reach the conscious stage. Wang Teng had an advanced stage sword skill talent as well as a high enlightenment attribute. This was why he was able to upgrade his Fire Kirin Sword Skill to the perfected stage so quickly. He even felt a faint hint of ‘sword presence.’ At the moment, he was standing at the threshold of the presence stage. His other battle techniques had also reached the perfected stage, but they didn’t show any inclination to reach the presence stage. Squeal! The earth armor pig grunted. Contrary to its appearance, its fat body was extremely agile. It stomped its hind leg on the ground and jumped to the side, evading Wang Teng’s attack. Do you think you can dodge? There were no changes in Wang Teng’s expression. He remained calm as he twirled the battle sword in his hand. His actions were smooth and natural, like flowing water. He turned the direction of his sword and aimed it at the earth armor pig’s body. The sharp sword slit opened the earth armor pig’s scales immediately. Next, a scorching fire Force invaded its body. The earth armor pig let out a roar of agony. Then, it slammed into the ground. At the same time, Wang Teng controlled his six flying daggers and moved them below the two earth armor pigs. He pierced their abdomen with the daggers and ground their organs. Weak point! If you wanted to kill star beasts, you needed to find their weak points. This would save you time and energy. Earth Force*6 Blank Attribute*5 Earth Force*8 Blank Attribute*4 … Wang Teng picked up the bubbles before bending down to take the materials on the earth armor pig’s body. Then, he left. … Boom! A giant python was hanging on a big tree branch that needed five adults to hug it together. Its thick and fat tail swooshed towards Wang Teng. A 3-star advanced-stage star beast! As he went deeper into the forest, Wang Teng finally met a powerful 3-star star beast. Of course, after killing many 2-star star beasts, he had successfully advanced to 3-star soldier-level martial warrior. If not, he wouldn’t dare to tackle this 3-star star beast. -star advanced-stage star beasts were the most powerful presence in the outer circle. They usually occupied an entire area and proclaimed themselves the king of their territory. They were extremely strong. Ordinary 3-star martial warriors could be in trouble if they met one of these beasts. However, Wang Teng wasn’t afraid. When he saw the giant python slashing its tail at him, he didn’t dodge. Earth Force surged out of his body and congregated into a shield in front of him. Earth Element Shield! Bang! The giant tail smashed onto the Earth Element Shield. Wang Teng held his ground and observed the changes in his Earth Element Shield. One second, two seconds… Crack, crack! The Earth Element Shield persevered for five seconds under the impact of the giant python’s tail. In the end, it shattered into pieces and turned into tiny dots of light. Then, it dispersed into the air. By that time, Wang Teng had already shifted his body and appeared in another location. “Hiss~ Hiss~” The giant python slowly wriggled its body on the huge tree. It turned its triangular snake head at Wang Teng and looked at him with a sinister gaze. “Have a taste of my most powerful attack!” Wang Teng spoke to himself. He held the battle sword in his hand, and the fire Force surged out of his body. It congregated on the battle sword. A few seconds later, the fire Force had almost turned solid. Flames burnt furiously! Sky Cremating Sword Skill! Cremation! The sword slashed through the air. The sword light roared at the giant python like a fire dragon’s breath. “Hiss!” The giant python seemed to have felt a strong sense of danger. It raised its head and hissed towards the sky, letting out a ray of ice blue light from its mouth like a fountain. Boom! The ice blue light merged with the sky full of flames. The giant python was engulfed in the roaring flames. It kept making shrill cries. Its huge body slammed down from the large tree trunk. It frantically rolled on the ground in an attempt to put out the flames, but it wasn’t of much help. Boom! The trees around the two were all broken. The place was a huge mess. The giant python’s struggles grew weaker and weaker as time passed. Now, it only wanted to run away, leaving a long brunt mark on the ground. It kept moving until it was unable to crawl anymore. It had lost all its vitality. Ice Force*35 Blank Attribute*30 Beginner stage ice talent*20 35 points of ice Force. My ice Force is finally at the 2-star level!?Wang Teng was elated when he felt the changes in his body. His five normal elements Forces had already reached 3-star. It was good that his ice Force had reached 2-star. It wasn’t lagging too much. There are still 20 points of ice talent! Wang Teng looked at his attributes panel. Beginner stage ice talent (33/300) Erm… it looked like he still had a long way to go before getting to the intermediate stage! On the other hand, he had 20 more blank attributes. All the blank attributes he got from killing the star beasts were used to raise his enlightenment. Recently, he had saved some of his blank attributes, so he had 125 points left. Wang Teng walked over and looked at the burnt corpse of the giant python with pity. The scales of this giant python were destroyed. What a waste! He didn’t expect the last stance of the Sky Cremating Sword Skill to be so powerful. Even a 3-star advanced-stage star beast was unable to resist it. All he could say was—terrifying! Wang Teng sensed the corpse, and a smile appeared on his face. He retrieved a star core from the body of the giant python. A 3-star star core. It was worth a lot of money! He examined it properly before placing it into the space ring. As for star bone, there was no point thinking about it. Until now, despite killing a few hundred star beasts, Wang Teng didn’t find any star bone at all. … Time passed slowly. It had been a month since Wang Teng came to the Dark Mist Forest. At this moment, the moon hung high in the sky, and it was late at night. Wang Teng sat cross-legged on the crown of a huge tree. He was counting his spoils so far. Wang Teng’s primary purpose of coming to the Dark Mist Forest this time was to gain experience and improve his combat ability. When he was facing the star beasts, he didn’t just kill them to get their attribute bubbles. He was practicing his battle techniques too. Phantom Ice Fist, Moving Mountain Blade Skill, Green Gale Claw, Earth Element Shield, Folding Waves Sword Skill, Sky Cremating Sword Skill, Steps of Gale… He left no one behind! Now, all his battle techniques had reached the perfected stage. He also finally understood the sword presence of the Fire Kirin Sword Skill. However, he hadn’t even hit 10%. On the attributes panel, it showed that he was only at 5%. His scriptures were improving tremendously too. Force skill scriptures only had the foundation, small achievement, big achievement, and perfected stages. His Red Flame Scripture, Deep Ice Scripture, and Earth Loess Skill had already reached the perfected stage. His Wind Soul Scripture was the only dark-level scripture, and he had comprehended it to the big achievement stage. However, he would still need some time before he moved it to the perfected stage. Spiritual realm enlightenment was shocking once he started his cultivation. For martial warriors that didn’t have high enlightenment, it was tough for them to reach the big achievement, much less the perfected stage, for their scriptures or battle techniques. Their speed of cultivation would be very slow too. However, for those talents with high enlightenment, practicing scriptures and battle techniques was as easy as eating and drinking. Wang Teng spent one month to reach this state. It seemed really fast, but compared to genuine talents, he might still be a little slow. The advantage of raising his scripture to the perfected stage was that his speed of extracting and refining his Force had become faster. Talents were able to cultivate really quickly while normal martial warriors lagged a long way behind. This was the reason. Besides this, Wang Teng spent some spare time practicing his Gun Kungfu. He purposely looked for those fast and agile star beasts to test his skill. The effects were not bad. He just needed a lot of bullets. Gun Kungfu (small achievement 25/100) Gun Kungfu was hard, so he only reached the small achievement stage. Next, he looked at the changes to his enlightenment and spirit. Enlightenment: Spiritual realm (15/100) Spirit: Spiritual realm (5/100) These two attributes were even harder to increase. Fortunately, he had blank attributes, so he could use them. These all increased his combat ability. As for materials, Wang Teng’s space ring was almost full. “Sigh!” Wang Teng couldn’t help but sigh. He stretched his back and laid down on the crown of the tree, gazing at the bright and shiny moon in the air. His mood was excellent. He was a 3-star martial warrior now. Even more, he was a 3-star martial warrior who had five equally powerful element Forces. Even if he met a 4-star martial warrior, Wang Teng would have a chance to fight with them. “School is starting soon. I should go back,” Wang Teng muttered to himself. Just as he was thinking about this, he sat up abruptly and looked in a certain direction. There’s a movement! Wang Teng moved his body and hid behind the leaves. He concealed the aura around his body and remained dormant. He didn’t expose himself at all. The sound of footsteps, the rustling of the leaves… The movement from afar was coming closer and closer. Who are they? Why are they in such a hurry? Did they meet a star beast? No, if they really met a star beast, why is there only the sound of human footsteps??Wang Teng frowned. All kinds of thoughts flashed past his mind quickly. … “#￥%!(Hurry up and leave!)” A shout was suddenly heard. It was filled with panic. The Xingwu Continent language! Wang Teng understood the meaning of the shout. At the same time, he confirmed that these people weren’t humans from Earth. Also, it was obvious that they were in trouble! Wang Teng didn’t have much compassion towards native Xingwu Continent citizens. Hence, he continued hiding and observed them. A few figures were running frantically in the night. Soon, they came close to Wang Teng. One of the figures was extremely tall and bulky, almost three meters in height. However, the other person reached only 1.3 meters. These two people were two extremes! The other three people looked no different from normal humans. Giant! Dwarf! The information of these two races appeared in Wang Teng’s mind. Giants and dwarfs were two directly opposite races in the Xingwu Continent. The giants were generally at least 2.5 meters in height, and all of them were bulky and muscular. They were natural frontline soldiers. The dwarfs were the exact opposite; they never grew above 1.5 meters in height. They were small and were known for their speed. They were natural assassins. Interesting. This should be a martial warrior team! Wang Teng was just thinking about this when he heard a scream of despair. One of the people from this small team suddenly got dragged into the dark and dense bushes at the side. Everyone only saw a black shadow flashing past. What is that??Wang Teng’s expression changed. He immediately became serious. He didn’t even see it clearly either! Spiritual Sight! Wang Teng immediately activated his Spiritual Sight and scanned his surroundings. Where did it go? His eyes moved quickly. The first time, he didn’t see anything. When he observed around him again at a slower speed, he finally noticed something abnormal. A ball of black light was hiding behind the bushes. It almost merged with the dark night sky. If the black area didn’t have a faint glow around it, Wang Teng wouldn’t have noticed that something was wrong even if he were to look at it a few more times. A black Force glow? He was flabbergasted and puzzled. … “Don’t go!” The other people were astounded when they saw their companion being dragged into the dark. Someone wanted to help his friend, but he got pulled back. “Alert!” A lady’s voice was heard. The group immediately formed a circle. They had their backs to one another as they kept a vigilant eye on their surroundings. All the sound seemed to have disappeared. Even the chirps of birds and insects couldn’t be heard. There was dead silence. “It must be a dark apparition!” “We won’t be able to escape. Death is the only route left. We must fight with it. That way, we might have a chance to live.” “Damn it, why’s there a dark apparition here?” “This is a serious matter. One of us must remain alive to deliver this piece of news.” The group kept talking while looking for any changes. Dark apparition!??Wang Teng was stunned. This was another new term. He had no idea what it was. From their tone, this dark apparition sounded terrifying. Its appearance must be grave since they wanted to deliver the news back. Is that black light the dark apparition? Wang Teng had only looked away for one minute. When he turned back to the area again, the black ball of light was gone. He was so shocked that he felt cold sweat on his body.