24: Chapter 24 The Qi of Qingyang

"I'm already 28 years old, and I'm basically reaching retirement age. After athletes like me retire, we basically end up just like Uncle Chen, Hu Jun, and Li Guohua—spending every day at the club, teaching students year after year, day after day."

"I've lived this kind of life for over ten years, and I don't want to continue. I told my parents about these thoughts of mine, and that's why they didn't stop me from coming to participate."

I offered no comment on her thoughts.

Instead, I answered her previous question.

"If you want to know how I practiced my archery, you can join our Exploration Team after this exploration operation—if you can convince your parents."

Upon hearing the Incarnation's invitation, Mo Yuemei's eyes brightened, but then she became somewhat dejected, feeling a bit insecure.

She just said dryly,

"Thank you, Captain, for saving me earlier."

The Incarnation just gave a hum and continued forward in silence.

After tracking the monkeys' retreat traces for 20 minutes, sporadic monkey calls gradually drifted out from the increasingly gusty wind.

The two of them walked from the tall, deep forest toward the bright world ahead.

After stepping out of the forest, a huge sinkhole came into view. On the cliff face opposite, there was a massive cave large enough to fit a basketball court. Outside the cave, over a dozen vines hung down from the top of the cliff, looking like a crude curtain.

Dozens of monkeys, large and small, old and thin, were busy inside. The monkey king with white fur lay on a white stone bed, enjoying various food offerings from the other monkeys.

There were also the monkey king's guard monkeys, holding objects that looked like whips, driving the monkey troop to take branches collected from who knows where, "dawdling" as they appeared to be making "spears."

Seeing this scene, both the Incarnation and Mo Yuemei looked grim. If these monkeys were truly allowed to prepare their weapons and pursue them to attack, the Exploration Team might suffer casualties and be forced to terminate this operation.

I instructed Mo Yuemei not to act rashly, then took out my binoculars to carefully examine the cave's situation to see if there were any obvious signs of damage from a meteorite. I found no signs of damage, but I did discover a few smaller, black stones emitting a metallic luster behind the monkey king. I continued to zoom in with the binoculars, and faint patterns flowed on the stones—they were unused job-change stones.

After observing carefully, the number of monkeys and the monkey king's size—this monkey had already reached the size of an adult human. It was definitely a Mutant creature. Those few guard monkeys were stronger than the average ones, but they were still a bit short of being Mutant creatures.

One or two stronger monkeys could be attributed to sufficient food or stronger genes. But adding the four here and the two that were shot, that made 6 guard monkeys, which was somewhat unusual. Moreover, the hands and feet of the other ordinary monkeys were more agile than those of the monkeys I had seen in zoos before.

"Perhaps the feng shui energy field here can slowly improve the physical fitness of the creatures here," Wang An thought to himself.

However, the priority now was to kill that monkey king and obtain those job-change stones.

The Incarnation instructed Mo Yuemei, "If any monkeys attack us, shoot back with your arrows."

Hearing that she had a task, she happily raised the Compound Bow in her hand, signaling: "Leave it to me, Captain, don't worry."

The Incarnation took out his Compound Bow, nocked an arrow, and aimed, activating the skill [Precision]. The intuition it provided allowed him to strike the most suitable pose against the airflow rushing out of the sinkhole. Once the movement was complete, he triggered the release aid.

A silent arrow shot out.

It struck the monkey king right in the forehead, killing it instantly. The other monkeys saw this scene and were still puzzled until one monkey spotted the Incarnation shooting from across the way. Remembering those monkeys that had been killed, they showed expressions of terror and fled deep into the cave. In less than 2 minutes, there was no trace of the monkey troop left.

Beside him, Mo Yuemei had not yet recovered from the shock. One had to know they were on the opposite side of the cave, and the airflow formed by the hollow space in the sinkhole between them severely interfered with the arrows. Even standing there, one could feel the rapid airflow rushing up from the bottom of the sinkhole.

Yet, in such an environment with severe interference, the Captain had actually hit the monkey king's head from forty or fifty meters away with a single arrow. With such distance, such accuracy, and such calculation ability regarding the interference, calling him a master archer would not be an exaggeration.

While she was still in shock, the Incarnation had already made his way to the other side. He tied off the rope and descended into the cave, scanning the area—it was a mess. The smell of monkey excrement mixed with a faint scent of blood permeated the surroundings.

He walked to the stone bed, pushed aside the monkey king's corpse, and found a total of four job-change stones, three of which had not yet been used.

The Incarnation felt somewhat surprised that this monkey had actually collected so many. He quickly gathered them into his backpack, then transferred them from the backpack into his spatial storage.

Mo Yuemei recalled her task and looked around, not seeing a single monkey shadow, feeling somewhat disappointed. Her eyes searched everywhere to see if there were any fish that slipped through the net or any bold ones left.

The Incarnation put away the meteorite and used the Qi Observation talent to look around the entire sinkhole, as well as the changes in the Heaven and Earth Qi of this cave.

At the bottom of the pit, grey earth vein energy mixed with transparent water vapor, surging out toward the outside of the sinkhole. For some reason, the surrounding clear qi was attracted, surging into the sinkhole along with the yang qi from the high sky. This cave, however, was like a swirling eddy in a river; these two types of qi gathered inside the cave, gradually giving birth to a wisp of azure yang qi. The Incarnation discovered that this was very close to the human body—or perhaps not just the human body, but living beings in general. Those unusual monkeys might have become stronger and stronger from constant contact with it.

Behind a large rock, he used the [Qi Gathering] skill to draw that wisp of azure yang qi into his body. Once this wisp of azure yang qi entered his dantian, it slowly sank beneath his true qi, above the lake of essence energy, just like a rising sun. It possessed both the nourishment of clear qi and the warmth of yang qi.

After gathering it, the Incarnation began to record the geographical information of the entire sinkhole—the various terrains, the location, size, and shape of the cave, etc.—to provide to the main body for feng shui research.

Climbing up the cliff, looking at the bow and arrow in the Captain's hand and recalling that one-hit-kill archery, Mo Yuemei's eyes gradually became firm, and her hand holding the Compound Bow tightened unconsciously.

The Incarnation glanced at Mo Yuemei and only said, "Let's go."

Back at the camp, Mo Yuemei excitedly shared what she had seen. Hearing Mo Yuemei's description, Hu Jun and Li Guohua shook their heads repeatedly, saying it was impossible. Chen Zhenhua was somewhat skeptical, looking at the bow and arrow in the Captain's quiver that still bore traces of blood. He had previously seen the learning speed of Wang An's main body and felt that since the Captain was Wang An's junior martial brother, it was truly possible to have such miraculous archery skills.

Mo Yuemei said to Liu Tingquan with some regret: "It's a pity we didn't bring your camera to record that scene."

Hearing is believing, but seeing is the truth.