Chapter 151: The best wingman.

Chapter 151: The best wingman."How many?" Lee asked.

"I’d say ... nine." Xiao Lian said.

"Hmm ... that was also my guess." Lee said, "The only way to win now is to see who’ll kill more."

This was a mini-game they invented after spending almost two months in Thiraxis world. Before attacking a pack of dreadtalons, they guessed how many were there and the looser was the one who had to loot their claws.

There was no deeper meaning to it than to make the hunting process a bit more fun and, to be honest, neither actually cared for the result. Both Lee and Xiao Lian weren’t particularly competitive and both the claws and the roots they found would be split equally after the training exercise was finished.

A day ago, they came across the largest water body on the Serrakar Plateau, at least so far. It was a quarter mile wide river with slow and dark waters. Unfortunately while the water was sweet and tasty, it was full of palm-sized fish with huge razor-sharp teeth.

Lee made the mistake of happily jumping in to take a swim the moment they arrived, and was rewarded with tens of bleeding wounds as a result. The next morning he was fine, as usual, but both decided to monitor the river for some time in case more dangerous monsters hid there before crossing it.

Obviously they didn’t simply sit at the bank and stare at the water. They traveled upstream, killing dreadtalons and picking roots, well, on a rare occasion they managed to find them, and feasted on the delectable green raptor eggs.

They just had lunch when another pack came out the forest a couple hundred yards further away and went for a drink. Before charging in, both had the regular discussion that resulted in a harmless bet.



"I’m going left this time!" Xiao Lian shouted, and dashed forward.

"Not fair!" Lee laughed, and followed.

Xiao Lian’s attacks were much more effective compared to his and lately the guy was learning how to blow up two dreadtalons in one hit. He managed to do it only once on an accident, but that didn’t stop him from trying to replicate the feat. That was the reason he now went for the side where the beasts were kind of closer to each other.

As expected, Xiao Lian’s choice didn’t matter, because the moment dreadtalons noticed the attackers, they tried to encircle them. Seeing that Xiao Lian got annoyed and furiously blew up the closest one.

Lee didn’t fall behind and stabbed one in the neck, and with a deep thud the dreadtalon’s head partially separated from its body. Lee was long used to his attacks being less effective than Xiao Lian’s, but that wasn’t the point of the competition.

After he began to practice this move, Lee was thrilled to learn that the more he spent elemental energy, the better it felt.

Although addictive, it wasn’t like the feeling after drinking alcohol that resulted in a hangover afterwards. Somehow it allowed for the elemental energies within to calm down, but at the same time to grow more potent after a session of meditation.

More importantly, Lee was certain that by utilizing elemental particles this way, he wasn’t aging like regular elemental warriors normally did.

Initially he was afraid of such side effect, but after few experiments he was pleasantly surprised. And even if he could’ve been mistaken at first, then now, after days and days of employing the new skill, he still had the same skinny boy’s body that arrived to Thiraxis world a couple months ago.

"Dreadtalons!" Xiao Lian and Lee heard a girl’s voice right after they began to slaughter the beasts.

After throwing a quick glance toward the tree line they saw three female disciples charging out and rushing their way.

After the first few days there wasn’t much contact with other disciples. When they met any, apart from the Edward’s incident, of course, usually all interactions were rather civil. On some occasions, though, there were fellow disciples who tried to compete for dreadtalons or the rare herbs.

It never came down to actual fighting, though, but sometimes Lee and Xiao Lian got cursed to their sixth generations for them daring to set the eye on the pray the older disciples considered to be theirs.

Later some older disciples got upset because of the killing speed the two displayed, similar to how now the three girls stopped in their tracks half way, staring at the bloody shower raining over the dismembered corpses.

"Oh, no!" Lee heard Xiao Lian whisper when they were already cutting off the claws.

"What is it?" Lee asked, but a closer look at the three girls provided the answer.

The three were slightly worn out, but it was only the impression their clothing left. The way they held their weapons and how they moved clearly indicated they weren’t pampered madams from rich families.

One of them was Qin Yujian, the girl with four braids whom Xiao Lian liked, and now, realization that he had committed the horrible crime of allowing himself to kill her dreadtalons, threw the boy’s mind in chaos.

"Stay cool, breathe." Lee instructed, guessing his predicament.

Ignoring the fact that the two groups eyed the same dreadtalon pack, both boys were covered in blood and looked unpleasant to say the least. In addition, they disposed of the beasts in a bloody fashion, loudly cheering all the way.

From the side anyone could figure them to be violent sociopaths, and that wasn’t the impression someone would want to leave in the eyes of their girl of dreams.

"Stay calm! Don’t say anything!" Lee commanded in hushed voice. Then he turned to the three girls and said, "Sorry about that! We didn’t notice you were preparing to attack these! You see the cliff a mile further upstream? It’s highly likely it’s inhabited by the black raptors. They are smaller and a bit harder to kill, but usually they live in bigger packs."

"You’re suggesting that because you already cleaned it!" The tallest girl, around the age of eighteen, said.

She seemed to be the leader of the three, although Lee couldn’t remember seeing her before. With how impressive Qin Yujian’s performance was during the competition last year, it was hard to think many female outer disciples were stronger than her.



"Not really." Lee shrugged, and went back on cutting off dreadtalon claws, not intending to go into further discussion. Then he added, "Sorry for how messy we look. Few days ago Xiao Lian invented a new move and we’re still polishing it."

He said it casually, making it sound like Xiao Lian was coming up with new combat skills every other day. Hearing that, not only the three girls, even the youth in question gawked at Lee with wide eyes.

"Looks like they have other plans. Let’s go!" Lee said to Xiao Lian few moments later when they were done looting dreadtalons. He smiled toward the girls and waved, saying, "It was nice meeting you!"

"Lee! There’s Qin Yujian!" Xiao Lian whispered when they were twenty or so yards away.

"I know." Lee grinned in return, "I can’t let you mess up things if you want to have a chance."

"What?" Xiao Lian was confused.

His younger friend was good at many things, but to know the way around ladies certainly couldn’t be one of them. More importantly, they simply left! While he wasn’t good with words, they could’ve at least tried to make a conversation, maybe camp together for the night ... but to leave ...

"Trust me." Lee said, "I’m the best wingman you can dream of!"

He actually never played the role, but knowing how naive and pure Xiao Lian was, Lee didn’t want to let the boy mess up from the very start. He’ll have the whole life for that.

Xiao Lian was still confused, but his heart began to race when the youngest girl, probably around Lee’s age, shouted, "Wait! Let’s check out the cliff together!"