Chương 28: Chapter 27

The upper slopes of Crimson Peak had little interest in being climbed. The trees had mostly disappeared several ridges below, replaced by granite, low mountain shrubs, and narrow shelves of soil clinging to cracks in the stone. Wind came across the exposed slopes hard enough to punish careless footing, and many of the gathering trails had ended long before Ling Tian reached this elevation. That was precisely why he had come.

Ling Tian pulled himself over the lip of a granite ledge and stood without needing to recover. The climb had been steep enough that the original body would never have attempted it, but a month of regular food, training, and controlled Earth Qi accumulation had changed what qualified as difficult.

Ten original-deposit equivalents now rotated together inside his Dantian as one stable reserve, and although Ling Tian still had no useful comparison against actual cultivators, the improvement over an ordinary mortal was no longer subtle. More importantly, his copper was running out. The two silver coins hidden beneath his tunic remained untouched as emergency reserves, but food, ink, paper, household supplies, and replacement stationery had steadily consumed his ordinary spending money.

Ling Tian could have broken one silver and postponed the problem. He preferred fixing cash flow before inconvenience became emergency. Hence the upper mountain. He adjusted the frayed gathering sack over one shoulder and shifted the ugly, pitch-covered bronze sword across the other. The weapon remained sealed and continued serving admirably as the world's most suspiciously durable stick. Ling Tian had stopped expecting that situation to resolve itself. He closed his eyes and opened spiritual perception.

The surrounding mountain unfolded gradually around him. Earth dominated the ridge, dense enough that Ling Tian could distinguish solid bedrock from fractured slate and shallow soil without much effort. Wind cut sharply across the exposed peaks, while weaker traces of moisture and sun-warmed Fire Qi occupied the background. He filtered those out. Verdant Qi remained. Most of it was useless. Moss, grass, mountain shrubs, and a few stubborn trees produced broad but unremarkable signatures.

Ling Tian ignored them and searched for the dense concentrations that usually marked medicinal plants. He moved slowly along the ridge. Several signals appeared and were rejected. One belonged to a thick patch of moss. Another came from an old shrub whose root system spread surprisingly deep into the mountain. Neither justified climbing down a dangerous slope. Then something stronger touched the edge of his perception. Ling Tian stopped. He shifted his attention east. One compact Verdant signature sharpened.

Then another. Then several more overlapping beneath it. Ling Tian opened his eyes. Roughly thirty meters away, a black-rock overhang sheltered a narrow shelf from the worst of the wind. Thorny brambles covered most of the approach, making the entire location look useless from a distance. His spiritual perception disagreed. Ling Tian narrowed the filter until the surrounding vegetation faded. Five concentrated signatures remained. Crimson Starpetals. Probably.

The rhythm was familiar enough that he trusted the identification. That alone justified the climb. Then he noticed something beneath them. The deeper signal carried Verdant Qi threaded tightly with Earth, dense enough to feel almost metallic. A fragment of the original Ling Tian's memory surfaced: his father describing a dark root that favored mineral-rich stone and appeared in body-strengthening medicines. Blood-Iron Root. Ling Tian's interest sharpened immediately. Crimson Starpetals were valuable.

Blood-Iron Root was the kind of plant Auntie Mei would probably hide beneath the counter before discussing price. Ling Tian studied the terrain before allowing himself to think about money. The approach crossed a section of broken slate and one narrow crevice, but the darker stone to the left appeared stable enough to support him. Manageable. He started forward. The first gap was less than two meters.

Ling Tian cleared it easily, landed on the opposite slab, and continued toward the overhang while keeping the bronze weapon balanced across one shoulder. The botanical signatures grew clearer with every step. Five Starpetals. Definitely. The Blood-Iron Root beneath them felt even larger than he first estimated. Excellent. Ling Tian had almost reached the brambles when another presence entered the edge of his perception. He stopped. The new signal had been nearly invisible beneath his Verdant filter.

Ling Tian widened his attention. Something occupied the ravine to his right. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Large. Alive. And much denser than any ordinary animal he had encountered on Crimson Peak. Ling Tian slowly turned his head. The wind shifted. Wet fur. Old blood. Damp earth. And the unmistakable musk of a very large animal that had spent enough time in one place to consider ownership settled. A low vibration moved through the stone beneath his feet.

Something was approaching. Ling Tian backed away from the overhang rather than moving closer to the herbs. He expanded his perception only far enough to check the immediate terrain. The route behind him remained open. A narrow crevice blocked part of the left side. The eastern edge dropped sharply. Not ideal but not trapped. Then the animal stepped out of the ravine. Ling Tian stared. Calling it a boar felt technically correct and practically misleading.

The creature stood almost as high at the shoulder as the doorway of his shack. Dark-gray muscle packed its enormous body beneath coarse fur, while a ridge of metallic-looking bristles ran from neck to rump. Several scraped against one another as it moved, producing the faint sound of iron dragged across iron. Two heavy tusks curved from its lower jaw. Its eyes were small, red, and accompanied by enough spiritual pressure to remove any doubt that this was an ordinary animal.

The original boy's memories supplied the name. Ironspike Boar. Spirit Beast. The boar stopped perhaps twenty-five meters away and lowered its head. One hoof scraped backward across the slate. Stone cracked beneath it. Ling Tian immediately revised several assumptions. Strong. Heavy. And apparently capable of damaging rock without trying particularly hard. The animal exhaled through its nostrils, releasing a plume of steam into the freezing air. Ling Tian remained still.

A month earlier, there would have been nothing to consider. He would have left immediately and hoped the boar valued its territory more than pursuit. Now retreat was still the safest option. It simply was not the only conceivable one. That difference deserved caution. Ling Tian watched the animal rather than himself. The front half carried most of its mass. Heavy shoulders. Thick skull. Shorter legs relative to the body.

The build suggested tremendous straight-line power but probably less impressive maneuverability once it committed to speed. Probably. The unknowns mattered more. Ling Tian had never fought a Spirit Beast. He did not know how durable its hide actually was, whether the metallic bristles possessed some active property, or whether the beast could deliberately manipulate Qi. His ability to damage granite proved only that he could damage granite. Stone did not charge back. The rational choice remained withdrawal.

Then the boar shifted sideways. Not toward Ling Tian. Toward the overhang. It deliberately positioned itself between him and the medicinal plants. Ling Tian understood. Territory. The Starpetals and Blood-Iron Root were probably not incidental to the beast's presence. If Spirit Beasts could sense concentrated ambient Qi, an area supporting valuable spirit herbs would make an excellent place to establish ownership. The boar snorted. Ling Tian glanced toward the hidden plants. Five Crimson Starpetals.

One mature Blood-Iron Root. Enough value to solve his liquidity problem comfortably. His gaze returned to the boar. Then, against his better judgment, another category entered the calculation. Meat. A great deal of meat. Ling Tian stared at the enormous animal and immediately recognized the direction his thinking had taken. There it was. The beginning of stupidity. Assign monetary value to the danger, then rename greed analysis. He exhaled slowly. The herbs were valuable. The animal was potentially valuable.

Neither fact reduced the possibility of being gored through the chest. Ling Tian tightened his grip on the tar-covered bronze weapon. Fear had already arrived. His heartbeat was faster, his shoulders tense, and every useful instinct in the body understood that the creature in front of him could kill him. Good. Fear was doing its job. The goal was to keep it from being promoted into panic. The Ironspike Boar scraped the ground again. Its shoulders lowered. Ling Tian's eyes narrowed. That posture was different.

The animal was preparing to charge. Retreat was becoming less straightforward. Ling Tian could turn and run now, but if the boar committed before he reached the broken terrain behind him, presenting his back would solve none of his problems. He moved the bronze weapon into both hands. The Earth Qi inside his Dantian continued its slow rotation. Ling Tian allowed the familiar reinforcement to spread through his legs, spine, shoulders, and wrists without forcing more than he could comfortably control.

No dramatic surge. No desperate flood. The month of training had taught him one thing worth carrying into an actual fight: unfamiliar danger was the worst possible time to abandon procedure. The boar lowered its head farther. Ling Tian studied its body. If it charged, he would not contest the charge directly. That would be idiotic. The creature's mass was its weapon. Let it commit, move outside the line, then attack while it was still managing its own momentum. Simple concept. Unverified execution.

Ling Tian shifted his stance slightly to give himself open space on the right. The boar stamped once. Then launched. Slate burst beneath its hooves. Ling Tian had expected violence. He had underestimated the speed. The huge animal accelerated across the plateau with enough force that the ground vibrated beneath him. Its heavy body compressed behind the tusks, metallic bristles rattling as twenty-five meters of distance began disappearing far too quickly. Ling Tian did not move. His instincts objected strongly.

He ignored them. Too early and the beast could correct. Twenty meters became fifteen. The boar's movement clarified as it approached. Its shoulders drove forward with every stride while the rear legs supplied explosive force from behind. It could still alter direction slightly, but the faster it became, the more its own weight seemed to narrow those options. Good. The model survived first contact. Ten meters. Ling Tian tightened both hands around the weapon. Seven. The smell became overwhelming. Five.

The ground shook beneath his bare feet. Ling Tian watched the shoulders rather than the tusks. Three meters. Now. He planted his left foot. Earth Qi settled through the leg as Ling Tian shifted sharply to the right, cutting across the edge of the boar's path rather than throwing himself blindly away. The beast thundered past. One tusk missed his ribs by less than an arm's length. Air slammed against his tunic as dark fur and metal bristles filled his peripheral vision, then vanished beyond him.

Ling Tian heard the hooves change. The rhythm broke. The boar was trying to stop. He turned. Its front hooves tore long trenches through loose slate as the massive body fought its own momentum. The rear half swung slightly sideways before the beast corrected. Exactly what he had hoped for. Not helpless. Not even close. But committed. Ling Tian had perhaps a second. He moved. The bronze weapon came around in both hands as he planted his feet behind the boar's shoulder line.

Months of improvised practice beside the waterfall had reduced the motion to something familiar: force beginning at the ground, traveling through the legs and hips, then through the torso and shoulders before reaching the weapon. The boar's flank filled his vision. Ling Tian discarded the skull immediately. Too thick. The shoulder carried too much muscle. The metallic ridge along the upper spine looked like an invitation to learn why it was called an Ironspike Boar.

He aimed just behind the shoulders, below the worst of the bristles, where the heavy torso transitioned toward the rear body. Earth Qi reinforced the entire kinetic chain. Ling Tian swung. The bronze scabbard struck. The sound was nothing like hitting stone. Granite cracked. This produced a deep, wet concussion of flesh, bone, and metal powerful enough to travel through Ling Tian's hands and into his shoulders. The recoil shocked him. For the first time in weeks, an impact felt genuinely heavy. His wrists held.

His elbows held. His shoulders held. The force drove through his spine and legs hard enough to fracture slate beneath his feet. Pain flashed across both palms. Then the Ironspike Boar collapsed. Its rear legs folded beneath it. The enormous body crashed sideways onto the plateau and rolled once, spraying shattered stone as the front legs scrambled for purchase. Ling Tian immediately jumped backward and raised the bronze weapon again. The boar screamed. One rear leg kicked uselessly. The other barely moved.

The first strike had worked far better than Ling Tian expected. Which made the next conclusion important. The Spirit Beast was still breathing. Still moving. And judging by the way its head twisted toward him, still extremely interested in killing him. Ling Tian tightened his stance. The first test had produced a result. Now he had to survive the second.