He did not venture deep. He stayed near the edge, moving with a slow, deliberate pace. This was a new environment, with new rules. His first priority was not to hunt, but to learn. He shimmied up a massive, moss-covered tree, settling himself on a thick branch that gave him a vantage point over a small, sun-dappled clearing. And then, he waited.
He waited for nearly an hour, his breathing so slow and shallow as to be almost nonexistent, his presence melting into the background. His patience was rewarded. A small creature, no bigger than a house cat, hopped into the clearing. It was a Stone-Skinned Rabbit. Its fur was the color of mottled gray granite, and its most prominent feature was a pair of long, powerful hind legs. It began to nibble at a patch of glowing blue grass, its nose twitching, its ears constantly swiveling.
Aryan consulted the encyclopedia in his mind.
Stone-Skinned Rabbit. Equivalent to the first layer of the Qi Condensation Realm. Herbivorous. Primary defense: incredible speed and a hide as tough as rock. Weakness: the soft underside of its neck.
It was the perfect first test. A fast-moving target with a specific weak point. A brute force attack would be useless. It required precision.
He did not draw his sword. He did not prepare the Gale Palm. He remained on the branch, twenty meters away, and slowly raised his right hand. He took a deep, silent breath, and channeled a minute thread of Qi into the tips of his index and middle fingers. He drew a thread of Qi from his dantian, pulling it through the refined channels of his arm. He folded the energy, compressed it again and again, the process smooth and silent. He shaped it not into a needle, but into a perfect, vibrationless point a tiny, portable void. It was a testament to his weeks of silent practice.
He waited for the rabbit to turn, exposing the side of its neck. The moment came. The rabbit paused its chewing, raising its head to sniff the air.
Aryan's eyes narrowed. His fingers flicked, an almost imperceptible movement. The needle of Qi shot through the air, silent and invisible.
The rabbit froze. Its ears stopped swiveling. Its nose stopped twitching. For a second, it remained a perfect statue. Then, it simply rolled onto its side, a tiny, almost invisible hole weeping a single drop of blood from the soft fur of its neck. There was no sound, no struggle. Just a clean, instantaneous death.
The System Panel appeared, its message brief and clinical.
[Low-Level Spiritual Beast Slain. Reward: 2 SP.]
The reward was negligible, but the confirmation was invaluable. Aryan dropped silently from the branch, landing on the soft moss without a sound. He walked over to the rabbit and knelt, examining his work. The entry wound was tiny, a perfect, cauterized puncture. His control was absolute.
He methodically skinned and cleaned the rabbit, his movements practiced and efficient. He gathered a few dry twigs and, using a simple fire-starting technique that involved vibrating Qi in his fingertips to generate heat, he lit a small, smokeless fire. As the smell of roasting meat began to fill the small clearing, he sat with his back against a tree, the simple steel sword across his lap.
He had passed his first test. He had proven that his quiet, meticulous training could be translated into lethal, real-world efficiency. The forest was vast and held dangers far greater than this simple rabbit. He could hear them now, a guttural roar in the distance, the shriek of a predatory bird. Fear was an inefficient emotion, a waste of energy.
What he felt was the cold, sharp thrill of a successful hypothesis. The first data point had been logged. The laboratory was open, its subjects were plentiful, and he was eager to continue his research.