Chapter 5: Predator in Bloom
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The forest was not a teacher.
It was a crucible.
For weeks after absorbing the Gravemaw Lynx's spirit ring, Tian stayed silent, unseen, and unannounced. No celebration. No delusion of power. He understood better than most what it meant to gain a little strength in a world full of monsters: you just became a more expensive corpse.
He was still a six-year-old.
Still without a clan.
Still alone.
But now, he had a plan.
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🗺️ Day 1 to Day 30: The Passive Phase
Tian didn't hunt.
He observed.
From high canopies and cave mouths, he sketched movement paths of spirit beasts. Marked their range by how often they crossed moss-heavy stones. Studied claw marks left on trees. Counted how many times they returned to the same watering hole. It was repetition that betrayed them.
And humans too — he began spotting them. Not often. Once every ten days. But they came:
Mercenary trios looking for easy kills.
Spirit Master apprentices testing their courage.
Smugglers trying to tame minor beasts.
Tian never revealed himself. His silencer, even without another ring, let him suppress his spiritual aura enough to appear like ambient energy. His scope let him watch from kilometers away.
The forest couldn't see him.
Not unless he wanted it to.
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🛠️ Day 31 to Day 90: Engineering Survival
He needed tools.
Tian began crafting traps from bones, vines, spirit beast sinew. He learned that the brambleback toad's tongue, when dried and wrapped into a spring, could act as a natural trip-tension wire. He hollowed trees to form echo tunnels, relaying sound without metal.
He made:
Pressure mines using exploding fruit + venom sacs.
Rope snares that crushed necks instead of suspending.
Bone darts soaked in sap that made blood coagulate and turn black.
Crude caltrops, soaked in paralyzing hornet fluid.
And he laid them in paths he never used himself.
To kill, but also to study reactions.
Every time a beast triggered a trap, he didn't rush in to harvest.
He watched from scope.
He timed recovery.
He measured rage vs. confusion.
He made charts in mud, memorized blood droplet density per minute.
And when he did approach a fallen beast, he always had his gun summoned.
One kill, one bullet, one postmortem study.
Tian didn't hunt for food.
He hunted for patterns.
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📈 Rank Progression: Day 91 to Day 180
Cultivation was slow. It wasn't like in novels.
He didn't sit under a waterfall or atop some qi-gathering array.
He lay in dirt, still as stone, breathing cold wind, letting his spirit power spiral in microcircles. Each pulse, microscopic. Each breakthrough, internal.
It took three months to go from Rank 10 to 12.
Then another month to push into Rank 13.
His gun remained the same in structure, but his spirit core stabilized. He could summon the gun for over 20 minutes per session, up from the early 5–6 minutes. His bullets now regenerated twice as fast.
But more than that — he could begin tweaking them.
Soul Rot wasn't a single locked skill. It was a corruptible template.
He made modifications:
Burst Rounds: Fired 3 in 1 second, each with reduced rot but higher impact.
Delay Bombs: One bullet lodged in flesh, triggered 3 seconds later.
Sleep Tag: Rot spread with a sedative wave. Didn't kill. Just numbed willpower.
Most failed. Some backfired.
But a few?
They became part of his arsenal.
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🔍 The Shift: Month 7
He found a corpse.
A human corpse. A young man, maybe 15. Robed, scorched, torn. Claw marks shredded his chest. But the strangest part?
He had no spirit rings — and yet he had a spirit power of Rank 21.
An internal cultivator?
Maybe. But that wasn't what caught Tian's eye.
It was the belt pouch. Inside it — a fragment of a spirit beast bestiary. Burned, missing pages, but still readable in parts.
He devoured the information.
> [Entry – Dreamshade Gecko]
Type: Illusion / Poison
Habitat: Fog Nest Swamps (Mid-Zone)
Estimated Age: 1,000 – 4,000 years
Notes: Uses gas to scramble spiritual sense. Ring ability includes paralysis, status confusion, mental chaos.
> [Entry – Abyss Owl]
Type: Spectral / Mental
Estimated Age: 2,000 – 3,000 years
Notes: Targets willpower. Confusion gaze. "Corruption" ring class effect.
Perfect.
He had a new target.
But before that — he needed more edge.
Something beyond guns.
A secondary weapon?
No — too clumsy.
He needed mastery over his own body.
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🥋 Physical Training Begins
Tian remembered One Piece.
Rokushiki.
Kaido.
Seimei Kikan.
Rokuogan.
Fictional, but the principles applied.
Tekkai (Iron Body): He mimicked it through isometric resistance — contracting every muscle until they shook.
Geppo (Sky Walk): He jumped from high trees, midair-twisting using gun recoil to reposition.
Soru (Speed Dash): He practiced breaking friction zones underfoot — moving like a flash step, fueled by spirit energy bursts in calves.
Rokuogan (Final Impact): He tested concentrated palm strikes using recoil feedback to amplify body vibration through the wrist.
It was experimental. Dangerous.
He passed out multiple times.
Broke bones.
But each injury taught him limit.
Each breakthrough added to his AVATAR potential — when the gun was summoned, his strength, speed, and technique scaled.
Not just raw stats.
Skill application.
He wasn't just learning to fight.
He was learning to kill with style.
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🧑🤝🧑 The Human Threat Grows
By Month 9, things changed.
He wasn't the only one in the Outer Zone anymore.
A group of spirit masters set up a rotating patrol route — maybe 6–7 members, Rank 15 to 30 range. Their uniforms bore a crimson fang insignia. Not Spirit Hall. Not empire.
Rogues?
Cult?
Didn't matter.
What mattered was their behavior:
Captured young beasts and drained them for energy.
Interrogated lone travelers, then killed them anyway.
Marked trees with reverse spirit formations.
Tian observed. Catalogued. Measured spirit fluctuations.
He learned to walk between their patrol cycles.
He even looted their camp once — leaving no trace.
But it was only a matter of time.
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☠️ The First Kill (Human)
It came in Month 10.
One of the cultists separated from the group to relieve himself.
Tian waited until the man's pants were down, spirit power lowered.
No witnesses.
No sounds.
BANG.
Neck.
Spirit rot activated.
The man couldn't even scream.
His death lasted 4 seconds.
Tian dragged the body, stripped it, burned it, scattered ashes, covered scent with skunk-bark sap.
There was no body left.
Just silence.
And Tian?
He leveled up to Rank 14 that night.
Not because of the kill — but because his spirit finally learned how to erase karma.
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🧩 The Plan Emerges
He couldn't hide forever.
Sooner or later, someone would notice.
Sooner or later, he'd need to move deeper — or get stronger.
He opened the bestiary again and reread the Abyss Owl entry.
"Targets willpower… ring class effect: Corruption."
That's what he needed.
His bullets could rot and poison.
But now, they needed to break concentration.
Scramble casting.
Wreck the flow before it began.
That meant targeting the mind.
Abyss Owl would be next.
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But he wouldn't rush it.
He had 2 more months to prepare.
Trap blueprints.
Anti-flight strategies.
Night vision ambush positions.
This wasn't just a hunt.
It was an assassination.
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[End of Chapter 5 – To be continued in Chapter 6: "To Kill a Thought"]