The hard work paid off! After a week of cultivation, Krune is already able to use five pseudo energy meridians, which also helped him achieving the 3rd stage of the Qi Condensation. In fact, because he had been in the 2nd stage for a long time, he was already more or less close to this small breakthrough. But then again, without the Myriad Energies Technique, he would still take another month to get there.
But instead of feeling happy, Krune is now facing a huge problem, there is not enough spiritual energy!
As a wisp, he obviously needs more energy than the other races, not to mention that part of the energy absorbed is used for his living. Wisps can be said to eat energy for food, which will inevitably take a toll on his own cultivation. That's one more advantage of the blood and flesh races, all the energy absorbed can be used for cultivation alone while wisps have to spare some of it to keep living.
It's not like Krune doesn't know where to get it, but that implies going further into the Katiu forest. Wisp hunters are not the only ones Krune needs to pay attention to. Demon beasts also know that wisps can help them get stronger. If there is an advantage, then that would be the fact that due to the beasts' low cultivation realm, they still have rather low intelligence.
But the further you get into the forest, the higher their cultivation and intelligence become. Of course, it also shows that their higher cultivation is also due to the higher spiritual energy concentration. Quite a few more wisps are born there instead of the outer sides for the same reason. Unfortunately, a lot of them are eaten before they can leave that dangerous place.
Another problem is that wisps are quite eye catching, so hiding is an issue for them too.
Krune started to ponder about this issue, if he stayed here, it still shouldn't be too hard to get to the 4th stage of Qi Condensation. With five pseudo energy meridians, his cultivation speed has increased multiple times. Not to mention that he has another four meridians to create too! He should be able to get to the next stage in more or less a month.
But the problem is that his time is limited. He still doesn't know if the pseudo energy meridians will give him enough cultivation speed to beat his life span depletion.
After thinking a little more, Krune made up his mind. If he wants to get strong faster, then he can't keep avoiding this kind of issue. Otherwise, his life span, which is already small to start with, will end, and he won't be able even to regret his decision. But before that, he needs to think of a way to get rid of enemies, and the best way is learning spiritual skills.
Krune, of course, doesn't have any skill techniques. If he wants to use his energy for attack purposes, he will have to use the most straightforward methods at the moment. But if there is something good about his three years of fleeing from wisp hunters, that is the fact that he has seen them using all types of skills!
And one of them just so happens to be wind blades. Before, Krune didn't have enough spiritual energy to spare when he was at the 2nd stage. But now that he had a breakthrough, his spiritual energy is more abundant. It should be enough to cast a few of them.
For the next five days, Krune kept creating the new meridians. Also, every time he was back to his peak, he would use his spiritual energy to practice throwing winds blades. At first, it was very clumsy, it could barely reach ten meters and didn't leave behind any marks on the targets. He had never tried it before. So to manipulate the energy of his body to gather the wind, compress it several times, and release it in the form of a blade took quite a toll on him.
But if there is one thing that will never betray you, that thing is definitely hard work! Krune wind blades now could already reach a distance of fifty meters, and if shot at ten or lesser meters of range, he was even able to cut a small tree with two or three blades.
During the time he was recovering his energy for wind blades practice, he didn't simply wait. Krune used that time to create another two pseudo energy meridians. And now he is just two short from the nine possible to achieve with the Myriad Energies technique. Krune didn't feel anything strange about it. He thinks that since he is an energy being, it goes without saying that he should be able to do this much. But if anyone were to know that he was able to create a total of seven energy meridians in just thirteen days, their eyes would pop out from their sockets!
One must know that for any other race, they would take an entire month to create two or at most three meridians. The impressive thing here is the fact that even if it was another wisp, they would at most create five or six in the same period. Krune has no idea how shocking of a feat he has done. It doesn't matter if it is a talent or his vast experience in life and death situations. The fact is that no one has ever achieved this much proficiency in the Myriad Energies technique before.
Feeling that it was about the time for him to go, Krune left the waterfall behind and started his journey into the inner parts of the Katiu forest. Once he gets there, he won't need to be afraid of wisp hunters anymore. After all, the inner parts have Foundation Establishment beasts, and the big majority of hunters are usually around the 5th to the 9th stage of the Qi Condensation. It's rare to find a Foundation Establishment hunter around, and even if there is, they will not risk a battle with the beast of the inner parts. Unless they are on a mission or have some other objective.
Even though Krune made a beeline to the inner parts of the forest, in the last three days, he still got pursued by two hunter groups. Fortunately, there are very few hunter groups with a member capable of putting tracking markers. So those two groups obviously didn't have anyone of this type, and with his rich experience, it was quite easy for him to leave them behind.
Krune now could already feel the concentration of spiritual energy growing the further he went. And from here onward, it will be harder to find any hunting group. In exchange, he could feel the auras of demon beast more often.
One of the good things about being a wisp, is that as an energy being, he could feel other energies that are not part of the environment around him. Even without developing his spiritual sense yet, Krune could feel and pass far away from those beasts. Another thing is that wisps that are not in their human forms don't have a smell to start with, so the demon beasts can't track him.
But that is only for now, the higher the enemy's cultivation, the harder it is to feel their energy. This is basically the disparity of cultivation levels working its wonders, so Krune had to be even more cautious the further he went.
After another five days, Krune finally arrived at the division between the outer and inner parts of the forest. His ability to feel the demon beasts energies is almost gone already too. From here onwards, he will definitely not find any beast under the 5th stage of Qi Condensation easily, and those are just the weak ones.
First, he needs to find a place to hide. The spiritual energy around him is already enough to speed up his cultivation by at least four times. He is planning first to creating the two last meridians and reach the 5th stage before setting off to look for a spiritual vein. Those veins are usually occupied by 7th stage QI condensation beasts or higher.
But even though their intelligence is better than those of lower grades, they are still a far cry from an adult wisp mind. Krune is not underestimating them, but now he is quite confident that as long as he plays well, he will be able to get a spirit vein for himself.
There is one thing that Krune must do no matter what before leaving the Katiu forest, and that is to reach the Foundation Establishment. That way, he can turn into his human form. If a wisp like him dares to step out in his wisp form, it will be a wonder if he can get near to the closest city without being caught.
But things are different when you achieve your human form. Unless the other side's cultivation is much higher than oneself, they will not be able to tell that Krune is a wisp. The most they will be able to see is that Krune isn't really a human but a demon beast in its human form. And a demon beast with a human form is bound to be at a high level of cultivation, so no one will try to find trouble with it.
In fact, demon beasts in human form walking in the streets aren't anything uncommon. As long as they don't cause any ruckus in the city, the guards won't do anything to them. Not to mention that those beasts usually come with a lot of spirit stones from their lairs, and those spirit stones are basically the universe's currency. Different from gold, silver, or copper, spirit stones are accepted everywhere.
If the city guards start to capture or kill those demon beasts, no more demon beasts will come out of their lairs. And the spirit stone available on the markets will definitely fall because of that, so no lord of any city wishes to see that happen.
Krune advanced very carefully while trying to keep aware of the surroundings. At first, everything was going okay. Krune was trying to find a river since if anything went wrong, he could still try to dive into it again to escape. There weren't many trees around him at the moment, so he had to take extra care not to be seen. Of course, by feeling the demon beasts energy, he avoided quite a few battles. Still, he never thought that danger would be coming from above.
"Crowww!"
Krune froze for a moment, and when he looked above, he could see a dark feathered bird diving straight at him. He immediately recognized it, the four-winged demon crow, a demon beast with cultivation that varies between the 5th and 6th stages of Qi Condensation.