Chapter 34: First Fight
"Whew, I finally made it." Shi Li couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief as he wiped off the sweat from his forehead. He then looked at the sky, noticing that the sky was already a light shade of orange.
"The sun's going to set soon. I should hurry up and start a fire." With a plan in mind, Shi Li started to head inside the Forest of Ruin. At the moment, he didn't know the dangers that lurked within the forest.
...
After a while, Shi Li went inside by a significany distance, making sure that he was somewhat close to the outskirts whenever he needed to run away from a monster he couldn't handle. As of now, he was currently in a place littered with plants and trees. He hung his knapsack filled with food and water on a sturdy branch of a nearby tree and then grabbed the sword from his back.
Shi Li then headed towards a nearby tree and positioned himself in front of it, letting out a despondent sigh.
"Although not bringing an axe would allow me to practice Flame Slash again and again to the point of easily executing it, I kinda regret the fact that I didn't bring any hammer." Shi Li then gripped on the hilt of Sundering Flame tightly as he channeled all of his strength towards the tip of his sword.
"Flame Slash!"
Bang!
Within seconds, an orange sword light was manifested from the sword and shot out towards the tree in front of him. While this sword light headed towards the tree, Shi Li noticed that the sword light was more fierce compared to the sword light created by the Flame Slash technique whenever he used a wooden sword.
"I should create a sword that enhances the attack power of the five elements sooner or later," Shi Li muttered as he looked at the cut the slash did on the tree, ending him up to click his tongue. "With the slash, I've only cut a quarter of the way through the trunk. Anyways, I should use this chance to fix my mistakes on executing the technique and make it closer to how Senior does it."
And so, Shi Li started his crazed slashing session, where the only slash he made was the Flame Slash. As the sun continued to set while the sky turned dark, Shi Li still continued slashing, gradually making his movements more efficient and fluid, allowing him to let out more strength when compared to before. Even when the moon and the stars were already showing up as the sky turned dark, Shi Li continued to cut more trees as he became more and more proficient with the technique, shaving off the needed time from a few seconds to only a second or so.
...
A few hours have already passed since Shi Li started his mad tree cutting session. The moon was already high up in the sky, with the starts surrounding it glistening ever so beautifully, giving the forest a tranquil vibe. Combined with the sounds of insects here and there plus the sounds of rustling leaves, the sight was definitely beautiful.
At this moment though, a fire was started in the center of the clearing Shi Li made by cutting multiple trees with his incessant slashing. He ended up going too far and cut all of the trees within a 20 meter radius, making him more vulnerable to ambushes since he wouldn't have any nearby protection.
Then again, he didn't let the cut logs go to waste, building a shabby yet stable small wooden house out of the logs he cut a few meters away from the fire he made. Seeing that he still had a few more logs to spare, he took two of them and made a solid wooden hammer to use. Since forging also tackled how to handle wood whenever making hilts and such, Shi Li, with his incredibly monstrous aptitude after being improved by the red pearl, was able to use and carve wood on the level of a woodworker that had a few years of experience.
In other words, he carved the living shit out of the logs, creating a beautiful hammer that had a shaft 1.5 meters long, and a hammer head that was half a meter in length and half a meter in diameter, making for a somewhat scary hammer to use for training. It was considerably heavy as well when compared to the training hammer he used, which suited his current strength of 42 ren.
Since it was the first weapon he crafted, Shi Li pondered for a bit before giving it the name 'Wooden War Hammer'. Of course, after reading a lot of novels in his previous life, he had tendencies to name things like Hammer of Eternal Damnation or God Wood Mjolnir, but since this was the first hammer he crafted, he knew that simplicity is key.
To an outsider, it would look like he was having a nice vacation within the Forest of Ruin but think about it, this is the Forest of Ruin. No sane person would ever think about taking a vacation within this forest.
While Shi Li was placing his knapsack and his Wooden War Hammer inside the wooden house he built, a somewhat loud rustling noise could be heard coming from tens of meters away. Shi Li stood in place and listened attentively to the noise, noticing that the noise was getting closer and closer to his clearing. Shi Li thought that the animal or beast might have seen the light coming from the fire, attracting its attention.
With that, Shi Li came out of the wooden house and grabbed Sundering Flame from his back, gripping it tightly with both hands, ready to unleash hell on the possible beast that dared to intrude his territory.
"Come!" Shi Li shouted inwardly as the beast that intruded on his territory finally showed its face to him. It was a wolf, but it wasn't any ordinary wolf. The color of its fur was slightly silver at the ends while two fangs could be seen protruding out of its jaw, giving a weird yet menacing look. It stared at Shi Li as if it was its prey, ready to take action.
Shi Li tried to recall this type of beast from his memories but then remembered that he didn't read about beasts in the clan library. Having no choice, Shi Li searched through Tian Zhenfei's unsealed memories and found out the exact type of wolf in front of him.
"A Blood Wolf. Not to mention, a Blood Wolf that has just entered the first rank."
Blood Wolves, they were wolves known for their ability to suck blood from their enemies and heal their wounds with the sucked blood. Most Blood Wolves were Rank 3 Beasts, characterized with the ends of their fur being crimson red and the two fangs being crimson red as well.
The Blood Wolf in front of him didn't show any hint of crimson on its body, making Shi Li sure that it was only a beast that just entered the Rank 1 level.
Without hesitation, Shi Li dashed towards the Blood Wolf with all of his strength. Of course, the Blood Wolf charged as well, opening its jaw to reveal its sharp teeth towards Shi Li.
"Finally, I can live a life just like those protagonists in the xianxia novels I've read!" Shi Li was elated to finally experience the awesome fights the protagonists had.
"Flame Slash!"
But all of that was ended with just this slash.
The orange sword light didn't show any mercy and it cut the Blood Wolf in half. You heard me right, it cut the Blood Wolf in HALF.
The wolf's blood easily spurted out of its body, seeing that it was cut in half. The brain, the ribs, heart, lungs, everything was cut into two large parts.
Although there was a lot of blood in front of Shi Li's field of vision, he didn't gag or vomit at all. He took all of it without any hint of fear.
Of course, the reason behind this was because...
Shi Li didn't expect to kill the wolf in one slash.
"Shit."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
TrueDawn
TrueDawn Well that was anticlimactic. I wonder how it would look when he fights Rank 2 beasts or higher.
If you want to support this novel, please buy me a coffee (donate) through this link:
http://ko-fi.com/truedawnuwu (By donating, the novel gets an advanced chapter)
You can also support the novel by voting for it :) Every power stone motivates me to write more.