At that moment, a fox and a lone wolf stared at each other. For two weeks, the wolf had been prowling around the small territory of Zhen Len.
Zhen Len was not someone who sought unnecessary conflict. He always avoided direct confrontations, especially if a soul beast over 100 years old crossed his boundaries. In general, he simply ignored them unless they trespassed the borders he had carefully marked or lingered for more than a month at their edge.
That rarely happened, because most carnivorous and solitary soul beasts avoided conflict in unfamiliar territory. They usually lived as nomads, moving from place to place, so they left quickly. Unnecessary fights carried lethal risks, so only a few truly aggressive creatures were exceptions to that rule. In those cases, Zhen Len did not hesitate. If they challenged him, he eliminated them.
Thanks to the Eye of Truth, he could easily take down soul beasts under 800 years of cultivation with a single shot. They then became food that helped him improve his cultivation for weeks or months, depending on the size of the soul beast. Almost nothing was wasted, because Zhen Len, from his two past lives, hated wasting food except when he was forced to eat raw vegetables or anything that tasted like them.
He kept examining the lone wolf, which was about 500 years old. Although it hadn't crossed the territory's limits, it hovered around them with an irritating persistence. When they locked eyes, Zhen Len felt the hostility and resentment the lone wolf held toward him.
That left him confused, because he couldn't recall ever encountering a lone wolf. If this had been a normal situation, Zhen Len would have waited one or two months before acting, watching from a distance to see if the wolf decided to leave on its own. If it didn't, he would have let out a warning cry, joined by his brothers. If the wolf still didn't retreat, that would be its death sentence.
But this time he couldn't wait. He was about to reach the 100-year cultivation threshold and couldn't allow any nearby threat that might interrupt him at a delicate moment and end his life or that of his brothers.
The wolf, on the other hand, had already determined that there were no other strong soul beasts in the area. After many days wandering the territory's edges without encountering resistance, he felt confused. His instinct told him the creature that claimed this domain was powerful, but when he saw Zhen Len the soul beast that had marked the territory and noticed he hadn't even reached 100 years, he became furious. He had wasted time being cautious when he could have simply taken down the fox in front of him and claimed a territory with little competition and plenty of prey.
With resolve, he charged straight at the fox, who appeared to be the leader of the others. But just as he was about to attack, Zhen Len's eyes and the gem on his forehead changed color, red turned to purple.
It was then that the wolf's instinct sent a desperate warning. He tried to stop, to flee. But it was too late.
The Eye of Truth shone intensely, and a beam of purplish light, thin as a laser pointer, shot out at high speed straight at the wolf's head. At that very instant, the lone wolf charging confidently at his prey ended up crashing into the ground, as if he had tripped over a rock while running.
Zhen Len calmly approached and confirmed that he was unconscious. Without hesitation, he raised a claw that began to emit a milky jade glow. He activated the Mysterious Jade Hands technique from the Tang Sect and slit the wolf's throat with a single clean swipe.
After making sure the wolf was dead, he called his brothers. They ran excitedly toward the body, knowing that if they helped drag it, Zhen Len would give them each a leg as a reward.
For them, the meat of a soul beast over 100 years old was a delicacy, far superior to the meat of beasts under 10 years or even those that had just reached that age except for pigs and boars, which were their favorites regardless of cultivation.
And so, while they dragged the body of the defeated enemy, Zhen Len returned to the flat rock and continued meditating.
After four days had passed and they had eaten nearly half of the 500-year-old lone wolf's body, he felt extremely full, as if he wouldn't need to eat for a couple of weeks. He could sense that he was ready to cross the 100-year cultivation threshold at any moment, but he had to wait three more days because it took Zhen Len a week to refill the Eye of Truth with spiritual power. Even though, thanks to the Eye of Truth and the Purple Demon Eye technique, he progressed twice as fast since the Eye of Truth could absorb at dawn an amount of energy equivalent to 150% of his two eyes combined 100% was used for recovering and increasing his spiritual energy, while the remaining 50% was automatically used to enhance his body, although there hadn't been many noticeable changes.
But setting that aside, when Zhen Len used the Eye of Truth to launch an attack, it no longer allowed him to see through it with his eyes closed, nor to see fire elements around him, nor to vaguely sense the intentions of other soul beasts for a couple of days, which made him feel uncomfortable, as if he had lost a part of his body. That's why he only used it as a last resort.
Seeing that the night was almost over and dawn was about to begin, he repeated the same thing he had done when he became a 10-year soul beast. But this time, the preparations were a bit different. He would not only use the Mysterious Heaven Skill and the Purple Demon Eye already easy for him after years of near-uninterrupted practice but also employ other cultivation techniques. It would be very difficult to focus on all of them at once, so he would rotate through them.
The Mysterious Jade Hands technique, the elemental fire meditation technique he developed over a couple of years based on the Mysterious Heaven Skill, mixed with his fire element affinity, memories of mastering the fire element heart, the use of ultimate fire in his past life, and the Eye of Truth, which allowed him to see the fire element particles around him even though he didn't meet some of the requirements, which were either having a genius-level elemental affinity or a decent affinity plus a high cultivation level and strong spiritual power.
Another, more traditional method, would be to reach the Spirit Domain Realm, which made it the most difficult of all. But already possessing that much spiritual power, why would anyone bother practicing a technique that was like pouring drops of water into the ocean?
After all, being primarily based on the Mysterious Heaven Skill, even if it served a different purpose, namely enhancing fire elemental power by absorbing environmental particles the rule still applied that the best time to practice it was when the user was weak, to form a solid foundation.
Leaving those two techniques aside, the last one he would use would endanger his life and cultivation. But it was a risk he was willing to take if he wanted to skip thousands of years of cultivation and evolve his bloodline into a Spiritual Fire Fox King.
He had even stored a huge amount of meat from soul beasts over 10 years old and planned to eat it to obtain the soul power and nutrients needed to practice the 1st Level Body Penetration from the Body Sect's Body Forging technique.
This technique consisted of destroying the body and reconstructing it much stronger. But to do that, it was necessary to use elixirs or healing herbs that fortified the body. The first level of the technique is the most painful of the four, because one must pierce every part of the body with soul power and then condense the essence blood core.