Chapter 44: Chapter 43 - Spending a Month Hunting and Cultivating
Judging that hunting spirit beasts, in addition, to cultivating within the sect is the best means in improving her strength within the next two months, Dana reaffirmed that this decision is the best option currently available for her.
Thus, without delay, Dana soon found herself travelling towards the outskirts of the sects territory, before finding a quiet area suitable for her to change into her Frost Wyvern form away from any possible prying eyes.
Picturing the Frost Wyvern form within her mind, the cracking of Dana's bones sounded, as Dana's body gradually changed, replacing the former human figure stood within its place a hulking Frost Wyvern, which loomed over her previous human appearance.
Dana felt the world around dramatically change, in which the former large trees which originally towered over her seemed many times smaller within her current form, Dana stretched her much larger body, before releasing her large wings, her full wingspan being fully displayed, as she prepared to launch herself for flight.
Dana propelled herself off the ground, as she was soon flying within the skies, ascending high enough within the air to decrease the chance of another cultivator spotting her, Dana flew directly towards a known area for spirit beast within the Xinghai Continent.
The destination she is planning on going to is full of various beasts within the Xiantian Ranked, within there even being a few Core Formation Beasts, but at the moment Dana cannot compete with these beasts, thus her concentration is purely focused on the Xiantian Beasts.
For this trip, she plans in getting a large enough supply of cores for her return back to her sect, in addition to using her human and beast form to hunt beasts, as it is the most suitable place for her to train the newest martial skills she received.
There was a Town near the habitat of Spirit Beasts in which she has full attention on using, as it could prove a useful place for buying some things which may prove useful towards her, as it is after all near an area with many strong spirit beasts and spirit fruit, thus there could be some things suitable for her.
Not to mention having a cosy bed in a peaceful environment would much more pleasant, compared to sleeping in the wild within her beast form, where there is always the potential risk of cultivators spotting her, not to mention her having to be vigilant throughout the night in case she is ambushed by another spirit beast treating her as its meal.
At the moment Dana could safely say she could compete with a beast at the Fourth-Ranked Xiantian level maybe Fifth in some fortunate circumstances, such as the opponent's attribute suiting her such as it being a fire attributed beast, in most circumstances her element will be vastly stronger than these sort of beasts, as after all she does contain a Rare bloodline, not to mention the water and attribute are natural enemies of the fire attribute, so unless the beast contains a superior bloodline than her, which again is very unlikely, it will end up in an extremely disadvantageous situation against a beast similar to her.
Therefore, in the next month then went as a routine for Dana, she found herself hunting within the Forest, putting herself up against spirit beasts in both her human and beast form, using the battles to refine her new martial skill [Earth Quake Fist], it allowed her to progress within the martial skill at a rapid pace, allowing her to already have an adept mastery of the skill, which would normally take a normal geniuses within the Xinghai Continent eight years of practice.
This was of course not only accomplished by battling spirit beasts but Dana's superb talent within the Earth Attribute as a result of the Earth Wyrm which is greatly attuned with the Earth Attribute, even though it still couldn't be compared to her Ice Attribute, she still progressed much faster within any Earth Attribute skill than a genius within the Earth Attribute can accomplish.
Dana also finally comprehended the Third Stage of the Ice Lotus Arts, allowing her to finally use it as a martial skill which can be used within combat.
The first few stages focused on purifying the Ice Attribute, allowing her talent within it to further improve alongside enhancing her control of the Ice Attribute.
The Third Stage was an attack-type martial skill called [Ice Lotus Strike], which forms Ice Lotuses to launch towards her opponents, which upon contact will detonate, this skill may not be intimidating if it was just one Ice Lotus, but the scary thing about this skill is the stronger her cultivation and talent within the Ice attribute increase the more Ice Lotuses she can create, in addition to increasing the overall power of the detonation, can you imagine a large number of Ice Lotuses launching at your opponent?
This will give them no opportunity to even counter the attack by launching their own attack to diffuse hers, as there will be too many for them to deal with, this gives them no choice at all but to be hit by at least one of the detonations caused by the Ice Lotuses, which will no doubt create injuries on an opponent, no matter how skilled they are this martial skill will leave them no time to retaliate.
Other than refining her martial skills, Dana also cultivated with the many cores she gained the spirit beasts she killed, and within this month she managed to advance her cultivation to the peak of 9th Rank of Houtian Realm, extremely close into breaking through into a Xiantian Cultivator.
Now Dana has some assurance that she can at least become a Xiantian Ranked Cultivator before going into the secret realm, but she still felt that this cultivation speed wasn't enough, so she hopes that the Blaze wyrms will be enough of an edge to provide her with the means to defend herself against the horde of greedy cultivators from other sects.
And not to mention the secret realm itself, as it's not exactly a safe place either and is filled with many dangers including powerful spirit beasts alongside deadly trials which cultivators can attempt in order to receive great rewards, but with the risk of losing their lives.
Therefore, Dana knows full well that her current strength is currently not enough to make her be able to guarantee her survival, which for Dana thought is unacceptable for her lay her life on the line by hoping she will be 'lucky' throughout her entire time within the secret realm by having no mishaps befall upon her.
As she doesn't want to have a reliance on this factor.
Other than the improvement of her cultivation and martial skills, the last month was rather uneventful for Dana the time she spent within the Town was peaceful, with for once she wasn't provoked by anyone.
Well, it was going peacefully until she ran into a bunch of screaming young cultivators who were being attacked by a spirit beast, upon seeing her their eyes lit up with hope, but this was instantly squashed when they saw her cultivation.
One of them suggested to use Dana has a meatshield whilst they got away from the beast they provoked, this came from a cowardly young man which obviously had some affection for the two other members of the group, which were two pretty young girls.
Thinking she was now going to leave this group of fools to die for even thinking of doing this to another individual, by placing their problems onto them, she was actually surprised both of the girls, instantly refused, which actually caused Dana to admire them, as not many cultivators within this world are genuinely kind people like both of them.
The young man seeing they couldn't be persuaded soon ran away leaving them and Dana behind, believing that they might be two pretty girls he was courting but would he risk his life for them?
No, as everyone in this world is instinctively selfish, unless you are of course a saint in which puts the values of others before themselves, but these kind of people are by far the minority of the world.
Seeing the young man left, both girls previous image of him was destroyed, but they felt resolute in their decision as they wouldn't be able to remain with a good conscience if they left Dana, but surprisingly their deaths didn't come and instead they saw Dana slaughtered the beast with ease, causing them in being incredibly shocked.
As they looked upon Dana's cloaked figure, it suddenly became very 'manly' in their opinion and lovestruck gazes were emitted from both of them.
So why was it no longer peaceful for Dana since then?
Well, both girls ended up following her everywhere and Dana didn't have it in her heart to refuse them as she saw they both genuinely kind people and people with this kind of personality were rare within this world, and as she had not made any real friends since coming here, she enjoyed her time with both girls.
Eventually, they found out about her real appearance and gender, which to Dana's surprise she detected disappointment within both girls for some reason, but this soon disappeared and was replaced by determined look as if they accepted Dana regardless of her gender, much to the confused look of Dana who didn't notice why both of them were experiencing such a strange mix of emotions upon seeing her appearance.
But, the month in the end rather ended well for Dana as she found both girls were famous disciples within their sects and were also going to the secret realm within a month, which greatly pleased Dana at the thought of having some sort of ally within the secret realm, thus they quickly arranged to meet within the secret realm a month later.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
dox991
dox991 If you're wondering the purpose of two girls for the secret realm, I will just say as they already have experience in going within it before.
Even though she may receive information from books etc, it still doesn't compare to real experience, thus they could prove useful for Dana and not hold her back to much as there cultivations arn't low either.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone