Chapter 5: Super Gene Immortal Chapter 5
After hiding out and finishing both eggs Lux managed to get his Sacred-Blood Geno point count up to 24. He had even eaten the shells of the eggs which had netted a final two points to bring him up to his current total. Unfortunately, Lux's obscene luck with getting beast souls seemed to have not taken with the young obsidian dragons and he was left wondering what the beast soul would have been. But with the Sacred-Blood spear now in his possession, Lux made his way back towards the shelter with confidence as he scavenged random plants and even managed to hunt a Mutant creature on the way. It had been a small bat-like creature and netted Lux a full ten Mutant Geno Points, bringing his total up to 19 in that category. The Mutant Beast soul that he got from the bat was actually his first Pet type beast soul.
All in all, Lux took just shy of nine full days to return to the Shelter. And much to his surprise, not only had Son of Heaven and his gang escaped relatively unharmed, Son of Heaven had somehow managed to get his arm reattached which was crazy to Lux.
After checking in on his still developing Swift Mantis and confirming that was indeed still a limbless stump, Lux decided that he had better check his dead drop and head home. He wished that he had a way to dead drop beast souls as well, but beast souls could only be transferred from person to person as far as he knew. There wasn't a way to store them outside of a person's Sea of Soul.
Su Xiaoqiao was good at delivering on his end of the bargain. Lux found stacks of cash in the dead drop and a note that if he had any mutant or higher corpses that the prices were going up in the area for some reason. Lux shook his head at that, He wouldn't be selling mutant or Sacred-Blood creature meat until he'd maxed them both out. And both types were hard to come by.
After making sure all of his business within the shelter was taken care of, Lux teleported out of the 1st sanctuary. Arriving at the teleportation station he felt something was wrong the moment he stepped foot out of the teleporter platform.
"I knew I'd catch you eventually!" a familiar female voice rang out from just beyond the exit.
Qin Xuan in her military garb was standing there looking triumphant.
"Did you think I'd let you get away without any punishment?" she said haughtily.
Lux was kind of confused. He really didn't know what Qin Xuan was talking about. What had he done that deserved punishment? And how could it be that he was so deserving of punishment that this chick would actively wait for him at the teleportation station. Like how many days had she just been camping out around the teleporters to make sure that she could talk to him? Was she secretly a Yandere that was really into him? This chick was acting pretty obsessive over him now that he thought about it.
"Qin Xuan, I'm not really in the mood to entertain you. Son of Heaven just dragged me across the first sanctuary on a hairbrained scheme to steal eggs from a pair of sacred-blood creatures that he tried to feed me to. And I blame you for being the one to instigate it!" Lux said hoping to guilt trip her into just leaving him alone.
"That has nothing to do with me." She said flippantly, "Take this and come with me." She threw a bundle of fabric at Lux which he caught instinctually. Looking at the bundle he soon identified it as a military combat suit, used in training rooms and such.
'Fuck this bitch is about to beat the shit out of me isn't she?' Lux thought to himself as he followed Qin Xuan.
"This is hardly a fair fight woman!" Lux said as she guided him into on of the facilities combat training rings.
"What you think you can beat me just because I'm I a woman?" She half yelled.
"No! I think you just dragged me here to beat the shit out of me and its completely lopsided because you are maxed out on every geno point type and almost maxed on Sacred-Blood. How am I supposed to fight back?" Lux was exasperated. This woman was looking for any reason, even ones she was making up herself, to justify attacking him.
Sure, Lux had a decent number of higher grade Geno points than anyone would suspect, but it didn't compare to the power that someone who was maxed out on Ordinary, Primitive, and Mutant Geno points on top of probably have a Scared-Blood score in the seventies or eighties. Qin Xuan could mop the floor with Lux literally and she knew it.
"If you win I'll leave you alone for good…" Qin Xuan said teasingly, "I might even go have a word with Son of Heaven and tell him to leave you alone."
Lux gave her a deadpan stare, "How the hell would I actually accomplish that? You are almost maxed out, probably have half a dozen Sacred-Blood beast souls, and if that wasn't enough. You probably practice a Hyper Geno Art that makes you even more powerful. No way I can beat you."
"Oh just shut up and put on the freaking combat suit. I won't use any beast souls. Get. In. The. Ring!" She made it clear that this was not an optional ass-whipping.
'Fuck what is wrong with this culture?' Lux questioned in his head. Like seriously, there were other military members around and they just didn't give a shit that one of their own was about to put the beat down on a civilian.
Lux didn't give the bitch the satisfaction of going into the changing room. He just stripped right in front of her and put on the combat suit. He'd thought that that would get some sort of reaction, but no one even commented on the fact that he'd changed right there for all to see.
Not a minute later they were standing within arms reach of each other in the ring. And somehow Qin Xuan had the temerity to look angry at him. As if he was the one in the wrong here.
"You start." She spo-
PAP!
The instant that Qin Xuan said start, Lux did just that, putting a jab straight into her face with as much explosive speed as he could muster. He had half expected her to dodge, but his jab landed square on her nose and she staggered backwards looking absolutely shocked by what had just happened. She had been completely unprepared for that attack. She was so used to being treated like a lady by the guys who sparred with her normally that she was utterly flabbergasted by the attack more than hurt. And she kind of just stood there looking at him after that in way that left Lux questioning his decisions in life.
"Umm… haven't we started already? Sorry, I thought you said start." Lux had acted on purpose to catch her off guard, but it had felt like he punched a brick wall. He was not looking forward to the actual start of the fight after that.
"Yes, we started, continue." She said looking utterly pissed off. Especially because the moment that she finished saying continue Lux struck again with every bit of speed that he could muster and caught her in the nose once more.
Though his punch didn't actually do damage, Qin Xuan fell to her knees clutching at her nose. Even with the difference in physical power between the two of them, getting socked in the nose was painful. Lux's minor victory however, was short lived.
Qin Xuan looked up from her position and murder was in her eyes as she sprang into action. Moving faster than Lux could react. What happened from then on was a one-sided beatdown. Lux discovered that not only was Qin Xuan MUCH stronger and faster than him. She was also much better trained, which wasn't really saying much. Aside from a few bar fights and schoolyard brawls Lux hadn't really ever done much in the way of fighting. He knew enough to hold his own against the average person, but that was nothing when pitted against a trained fighter.
Qin Xuan proceeded to kick the shit out of Lux for about fifteen minutes while he desperately tried to fight back and just continually failed. But by the end of the beating he felt like he was learning to predict her moves even though they were blisteringly fast and skillfully executed.
"Ok, I'll see you next time!" Qin Xuan said as she hopped out of the ring.
Somehow, Lux felt like he'd only managed to further entrench Qin Xuan's seeming infatuation with him. She was definitely planning on dragging him here to beat the shit of him again. Lux quickly changed out of the combat suit, wincing at the bruises and feeling like he had a cracked rib as he changed back into his normal attire and headed back home.
-
Qin Xuan somehow had only gotten more pissed at that stupid Han Sen, Ass Freak, Asshole. Even beating him up hadn't really helped all that much. She didn't know what exactly it was about him that got under her skin. But anytime she saw his tall frame and handsome face, standing there like he's the master of the world around him, she just felt the need to do something about it.
After taking a quick shower, she headed over to the video monitoring system to delete the evidence of their rendezvous in the ring. She could not have it getting out that Ass Freak of all people had actually managed to hit her. Not once but twice! She still wasn't sure how he had managed to do that. But there was no way that she was risking letting Manli see it. She would never hear the end of it.
Pulling up the timestamp of when they had their fight, she watched the beginning of it a couple of times and just couldn't understand how she had let him hit her in the face. His punches were pretty fast, faster than she would expect from a nobody without a backing. And he was strong enough that she was pretty sure he was maxed out on Ordinary and Primitive Geno Points, and probably had a few Mutant points as well, though she wasn't sure how he could have managed to get ahold of them.
After watching the video, a couple of times Qin Xuan felt a small bit of trepidation at what she was concluding. It was like Ass Freak was a natural born assassin. Those first two hits were not a coincidence or because she hadn't been paying attention. He was somehow able to attack while keeping his intent completely hidden. That explained how he had managed to get all the Ordinary and Primitive Geno points, he'd been alone and hunting through ambush tactics. It would also explain him possibly getting ahold of Mutant or two.
At first, she had considered, upon discovering the hidden intent, that perhaps he was a trained assassin. But after watching the entirety of the fight and the beatdown that she put on him, Qin Xuan realized that he was a pretty terrible fighter. Below the level of a compulsory education graduate actually. If he had been trained in assassination, his hand-to-hand combat would have at least looked like he was trained. It looked like all his fighting had been taught to him by drunken children.
After one last watch through, which just served to reignite her desire to beat him up again, Qin Xuan deleted the entire section of the video. As the station master, Qin Xuan was able to do this without repercussions or permission. One of the only people at this station with such authority. Only the actual commander of the station was higher, and he wouldn't care about this anyway.
-
Lux had no clue that Qin Xuan was practically fiending for him in her own way. He was pretty sore from the beatdown. But nothing that he couldn't handle, and by the time reached home, he was already mostly back to 100%.
He had dinner with his mother and Han Yan, giving them a highly edited version of what he had been up to for the past half month. Before going to his room, doing a bit of Jade Skin practice, and going to bed.
The next morning saw Lux heading out of the manor, though right now he wasn't heading back into the 1st sanctuary. Today he was heading to the Martial Hall. The beatdown yesterday had woke Lux up to the fact that he really didn't know any martial techniques or arts. The Martial Halls were sort of like distribution centers for martial arts and hyper geno arts. But just like colleges back in his old life, they were expensive as hell. Though he guessed that it was a little different, you couldn't develop superpowers by going to college. The Martial Halls may be expensive, but they granted actual power to those willing to pay.
The planet that Lux now called home was called planet Roca, and the most famous/prestigious of the Martial Halls on the planet was the Ares Martial Hall. Named after that old god. The owner of the Ares Martial Hall was a celebrated war veteran who had opened the Martial Hall when he was force retired from the military because of injuries sustained in a battle somewhere out there in space. The owner, who everyone called "Old Devil" would give people lessons personally if they paid enough.
Lux was currently quite flush with cash. Sitting pretty at nearly ten mil in hand, Lux was fairly certain that he could get some lessons and really kickstart his martial arts skills. He might even be able to pick up another powerful Hyper Geno Art.
Entering the Ares Martial Hall, Lux soon found himself in front of an attendant.
"Can I help you with anything young man? We have classes of all levels, elementary, intermediate, advanced, and even Special classes for the discerning customer. We have a large variety of martial arts for sale, hand to hand, weapon skills, and even a selection of Hyper Geno Arts. Elementary Martial Arts classes are ten thousand dollars, intermediate 100k, advanced 1 million, and special classes are 10 million per class." The owner of the place himself was giving this spiel and Lux only realized that he was talking to The Old Devil when he saw that other people were avoiding the guy and he spotted the name tag.
"Umm… can I see a list of your classes and the physical requirements?" Lux asked.
Many of the martial arts were literally designed for people who had superhuman strength at certain levels, and attempting to practice a martial art that required too high a level of performance for your level of strength was a complete waste of time. Though with his uneven distribution of geno points and practice of the Jade Skin Hyper Geno Art, Lux was fairly certain that he could perform above what his 'stats' would indicate. So, he was definitely going to need to do the physical fitness test to see where he was at. He was definitely stronger than his canon counterpart by at least a little bit. Lux's level of attainment in the Jade Skin Geno Art was already greater than Han Sen's would have been by a good degree anyway.
"Sure, young man." The Old Devil said, handing Lux a data pad with a list of the available martial arts, Geno Arts and the physical requirements across the board.
After giving the list a perusal Lux found a couple of martial arts that would fit him very well. Lux was looking at two different martial arts in particular actually. Ghosthaunt, which was basically a grappling and takedown martial art mixed with misdirection and rapid strikes. And The Seven Deadly Thrusts, which was a martial art entirely dedicated to spear wielding. Lux was planning to eventually learn martial arts that utilized at least, Spear, Sword, Dagger, and Bows. Those were the most common weapon types out there as far as beast souls went, so if he learned martial arts to use all four of those weapon types adequately, he would be pretty well set.
"I'll need to take the physical fitness test before I decide." Lux said to the Old Devil, "But here is what I want to learn." Lux handed the data pad back to the old man with Ghosthaunt and The Deadly Thrusts highlighted.
"Aye, you've set a high bar for yourself. The fitness tests cost 10k though." The old man held out a card reader.
With a sigh, Lux paid the fee. It was overcharging by a long shot. But at least the results weren't publicly available like using one of the military testing facilities would be.
After a short battery of tests the Old Devil looked at Lux strangely, "I'm kind of confused as to why you wanted the fitness test kid. Being so close to maxing out your sacred-blood Geno points puts you way ahead of the requirements on these martial arts."
Lux coughed at that. He really hadn't realized how strong he already was. Shouldn't he have been able to put up more of a fight with Qin Xuan if he was at that level? Granted, Lux was only this strong because of the freaking Jade Skin Hyper Geno Art and he had no frame of reference. Qin Xuan was also practicing a high-end Geno Art and she actually was nearly maxed out on Sacred-Blood Geno points, so she was several steps ahead of Lux.
"Sorry, I just wanted to be sure." Lux stammered out, "I'll take both of the martial arts though."
The Old Devil's smile sharpened, and he held out the card reader once more, "that'll be 2 mil."
As high as that price was, Lux was fairly certain that to him they were worth more than that. Martial arts would be the foundation of his power after all. Can't skimp out on foundational skills and knowledge. So, he gladly swiped his card and paid the huge cost.
With the bill paid the old man straightened and smiled once more, "Young man. I can tell that you are destined for great things, great things I tell you. Come, you'll first need to memorize the martial arts and their katas. Once you have them memorized, we can begin actual practice. The package you have purchased comes with a private room here in the Ares Martial Hall to practice and learn in a tranquil environment. We also offer a selection of teas and various drinks. For an extra charge of course."
The old Devil kept trying to upsell Lux as he guided him into a private mini dojo area and before activating a hologram that would give the instructions for both the martial arts. With that Lux found himself alone to start learning.
The hologram was of the Old Devil himself, demonstrating the katas, and showing the forms while explaining the movements in excruciating detail. It was actually a lot higher quality than Lux had really been expecting. The mini-Dojo had sensors that watched as Lux copied the motions and would correct his form when he was doing something wrong. Automated teaching was actually quite practical and a great use of advanced technology in Lux's opinion.
At the rate that he was learning, Lux was fairly sure that he would be able to start physically practicing both martial arts and starting the real training within a week, maybe less depending on how much [Machine Learning] sped up his learning curve.
Lux spent the next two weeks practicing at the martial hall for around ten hours a day. The Seven Deadly Thrusts was something that he picked up incredibly quickly, it was a comprehensive spear art, but with [Machine Learning] and dedicated practice, Lux was truly gliding through the learning of it. Ghosthaunt was a little more troublesome. It wasn't something that he would be able to safely use in direct confrontation in a real life and death fight at this point. But he was fairly certain that with at least another month of training he would become proficient enough to use it directly in combat.
Name: Lux Luxor
Title: The Immortal
Traits: [Adaptive Regeneration] [True Sight] [Machine Learning] (3/9)
Skills: [Genoverse Common: Super], [Jadeskin: Primitive], [Ghosthaunt: Ordinary], [The Seven Deadly Thrusts: Primitive], [Intent Concealment: Innate], [Hand To Hand Combat Mastery: unranked], [Weapon Combat Matery: unranked], [Martial Arts Understanding: unranked], [Hyper Geno Arts Understanding: unranked], [69 More, See Full List*]
Active Buffs: [Satiated], [Quenched], [Shapeshifting Type Beast Soul Nurturing], [Poison Beast Soul Enhancement], [Arrow Type Beast Soul Enhancement], [Recovery Enhancement], [Pet Type Beast Soul Nurturing], [???], [???], [???], [???], [???], [???], [???]
Deleted Debuff log: See list…
Lux looked over his personal system. Over the past half month his skill list had been popping with new skills left and right. [Machine Learning] seemed like a snowball rolling down a mountain. The more that he learned, the more that it did for him. Accelerating every aspect of learning, even helping with ingrained muscle memory. He could stop practicing at all and still get better at everything that was a skill. Though the Mastery and Understanding skills would take absolutely forever without him actively seeking out new information on the subjects. It was actually scary to think about how much he would be able to achieve if given a couple of years with unrestricted access to every Hyper Geno Art in the Alliance. He would probably be able to create the best Hyper Geno Arts in existence once he got ahold of that much information on the subject and just spent a while letting [Machine Learning] churn through the data for a while.
It had been half a month since he'd been in the 1st sanctuary, and Lux figured that he had better get a move on hunting Mutant creatures. It would be so much easier to do now. Between his Sacred-Blood spear, and his new martial arts, Lux was confident in solo hunting mutant creatures. Perhaps even ambushing a few Sacred-Blood creatures would work out as well if they weren't too sturdy to be taken out quickly. Maybe he would go back to that cave and see if the other Obsidian Wyrm was still there?
Making his decision Lux sent a few messages out, letting his mother and sister know that he was going to be in the Sanctuary for a while and making sure that the Old Devil took him off the scheduling for training for the foreseeable future since he was going on a long hunting expedition. Mutant and Sacred-Blood creatures were not common after all. At least not anywhere near human occupied lands in the 1st Sanctuary. The oceans had tons of mutant and Sacred-Blood creatures, but that was because it was basically impossible to hunt in the ocean for most humans.
Going to the teleportation station, Lux was happy that wasn't accosted by Qin Xuan again. Hopefully she was out on a hunt, and he wouldn't run into her until he could smack her down to size with his new Kungfu moves.
Once in the Sanctuary once more, Lux checked his room to make sure nothing had gone wrong and found the Swift Mantis to still be nothing more than a green stick but steadily making its way to becoming a Sacred-Blood creature. Lux wasn't to sure about letting it evolve all the way to Super, he wasn't sure that he would be able to actually kill the thing once it got there. But, having a Super knife would be better than not having one, and it wasn't like he was going to have too much trouble with Sacred-Blood creature hunting now that he was equipped for it… Maybe he had made a mistake in not choosing an Armor first...
With a shrug Lux headed out of the shelter. He didn't actually really need a Super armor Beast Soul. His immortality guaranteed that he would survive, even though he could still get hurt. And [Adaptive Regeneration] would ensure that he wouldn't be permanently crippled even if he was damaged beyond belief. Lux wasn't sure how fast his healing speed actually was, but between all of his buffs, [Adaptive Regeneration] and immortality, he wasn't really concerned with much except possibly losing time.
Once Lux was sure that he was alone and deep enough into the woods outside the shelter to not be observed, he donned his black beetle armor and headed back into the mountains, hopeful that he would run into a few mutant creatures that weren't too large. That was an issue with obtaining Geno Points. The Geno Points were seemingly randomly distributed throughout a creature and unless you could eat the whole thing in a reasonable time frame you were very unlikely to get points from a single serving. The smaller the creature, the better when it came to getting Geno Points. That was also why he didn't care to return to the cave for Obsidian Wyrm, it would take months to eat a creature of that thing's size.
Actually, now that Lux was thinking about it, he wondered if there was a Hyper Geno Art that could allow him to digest food as quickly as he ate it. If he could literally eat his own bodyweight in a single sitting it would open up options for hunting things that normally wouldn't be on the menu just based on how big they were.
Heading deeper into the mountains, Lux was glad that his buffs made him not have to worry about food or water. It meant that he didn't need to carry rations and meant that as long as he didn't eat or drink, he didn't actually need to use the restroom. He had no idea how that was working, but it was pretty nice to not have to poop or pee all the time and much safer while traveling in the wilderness.
Lux had not been having a lot of luck on this hunting trip though. Fifteen days passed by Lux killing the occasional Primitive creature and feeding it to his Mutant Three-Eyed Cat pet Beast Soul. He wasn't sure how much he would have to feed it until it reached the point where it unlocked its combat mode, but he was also quite interested in what the effects of his buff would do for it. The Three-Eyed Cat behaved quite a lot like a super affectionate kitty whenever he summoned it, and it helped pass the time as he search for Mutant creatures to hunt.
The time spent had not been a total waste, however, he had taken advantage of being able to practice both Ghosthaunt and The Seven Deadly Thrusts martial arts on the various Primitive creatures that he encountered. This let Lux get some real-world experience in the skills which was causing them to advance even faster than before.
Lux was in the middle of feeding the Three-Eyed Cat, whom he had decided to name, Asteroid Destroyer 9000. But that was too long for normal use so he called the cat Aster for short. Anyway, as he was seated on a nice stump and having Aster do tricks while he fed the kit strips of meat he suddenly dismissed the cat back to his sea of soul.
The reason for this was a guy screaming for help. Lux turned towards the source of the of the screaming and decided immediately that it was not his problem and turned to start fleeing what was coming.
"Buddy! Please help me! I'll pay even!" the guy who was yelling for help was bringing up the rear.
Lux didn't have time to even waste his breath. Whoever this dude that was asking for help was, he had somehow managed to piss off a herd of Mommo beasts. Essentially cows, if cows were the size of elephants and weighed around a dozen tons with hide that rivaled armored vehicles in toughness. Even with the guy asking for help, there was literally nothing that Lux could actually do to help in this situation. He was just as boned as this guy was. Even though these creatures were only Primitive Rank there were over a hundred of them and all they would need to do is roll over on him to end the fight. Sacred-Blood Armor or not, Lux would be in for a bad time with one of those things crashing down on him.
"Buddy please just slow down and help me!" the guy yelled.
"I'm running for my life just as much as you are right now bro!" Lux yelled out as he kept sprinting for dear life.
Then he spotted hope for salvation. A tall cliff face with large green vines hanging down and possibly within a reachable distance. Lux, already sprinting for dear life half ran up the side of the cliff before grabbing hold of a vine and nimbly pulling himself up even higher onto a large rock ledge that jutted out of the side of the cliff.
Lux turned to see the guy who had started this ordeal making his best effort to replicate Lux's feat. The guy reached the cliff face at a similar dead sprint and managed to get hold of a vine but he was climbing too slow. The Mommo beasts would turn him into a pancake in a few seconds at the rate that he was climbing.
"Hang on!" Lux yelled down at the guy and grabbed hold of the vine he was climbing, hoping that it would sustain the strain. Lux started hauling the guy up as fast as he could.
A few seconds after Lux started hauling the guy up, the Mammo beasts at the front of the herd crashed into the side of the cliff with a thunderous boom of their armored hide slamming against the cliff face. But luckily Lux had managed to get the guy up high enough that he was out of harm's way.
Only moments later, Lux managed to haul the guy up onto the ledge. The guy immediately flopped down on the ledge breathing heavily and looking like he couldn't believe that he was still alive. His face torn between crying and shouting for joy.
"Bro, what the hell did you do to piss of an entire herd like that?" Lux asked as the Mammo Beasts started viciously headbutting the cliff. They were obviously trying to get to the guy. He could feel the tremors in the stone beneath his feet with every impact.
"No idea man, they just got mad at me… I swear I have the worst luck ever." The man said after he caught his breath and pulled out a pack of stupidly expensive cigarettes from his pack, "But you saved my life brother, I will remember this and forever be in your debt. Names Lin Beifeng by the way. When we get back to the shelter let me treat you to something good."
"Sure… I'll hold you to it if we get out of here alive." Lux said, pointing down at the still clearly enraged Mommo beasts.
"Never got your name there buddy." Lin Beifeng said after taking a long drag on his cigarette.
Lux hadn't been in his armor at the time Lin Beifeng showed up, and putting it on wouldn't have been ideal while fleeing from elephant sized monsters and climbing a cliff face, so Lux couldn't give him the name Lux. The guy was obviously wealthy though, so maybe Lux could get some benefits from being associated with him as his 'real' self.
"I'm Han Sen. Nice to meet you, Lin Beifeng." Lux held out a hand for a shake.
After that the two them pretty much just started chatting. And Lux almost couldn't believe how lucky he was to have been the guy to save this guy's life. Lin Beifeng was not just wealthy. He was like one of those top 1%ers of the top 1%ers kind of wealthy. The guy had arrived in his shelter after teleporting to the 1st Sanctuary and immediately bought up Mutant beast souls of all types as his starter gear. Mutant beast souls could sell for as a small spaceship depending on the kind. It was the highest beast soul rank that was available for sale, Sacred-Blood beast souls tended to not be sold for something as paltry as money, they were like strategic political assets in the right people's hands.
"So how far is Glory Shelter from here?" Lin Beifeng suddenly asked.
Lux laughed at the question, "Sorry buddy, aunt got a clue."
Lin Beifeng looked stunned for a moment, "Wait… you are not from Glory Shelter?"
"Steel Armor Shelter." Lux corrected, "And honestly, it's about two weeks away from here. I've been out here on an extended hunting trip."
"Shit! How did I end up in the range of another Shelter?" Lin Beifeng looked utterly distraught by this newfound information.
Looking down at the herd of Mammo Beasts that were still trying to get at them up on the side of the cliff face Lux turned to Lin Beifeng, "Seriously bro, what did you do to make them so mad? This doesn't seem like normal behavior."
"Well… I may have… killed one of the younglings." Lin Beifeng said sheepishly.
"Well, looks like we are going to be here for a while then." Lux said sitting back.
"Umm… Brother Han Sen… would you perhaps be willing to spare some water? I lost my canteen somewhere along the way." Lin Beifeng did indeed look parched.
Lux just threw him his water bottle what he only had with him out of habit, "Keep it." he said, "You can pay me back sometime."
The pair remained trapped on the cliff face for nearly eight whole days. And the herd showed no signs of getting bored of their attempted revenge on Lin Beifeng. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, it rained in that time and allowed Lin Beifeng to fill up the canteen. And he had enough rations on him that it would still last for a while, but Lux was pretty sure that they needed to risk climbing the rest of the way up the cliff to get away from this situation.
After a brief discussion, the two of them started climbing. After they had been going a good while, the Mammo Beasts were pretty far out of sight. They had climbed so high that they couldn't even hear them anymore, and yet the cliff was higher still. Lin Beifeng's strength waned and Lux ended up having to pull him up to another rocky shelf where he decided to just wait for another couple of days before going back down to see if the Mammo beasts had left.
"I'm going to scout farther up." Lux said, gesturing up the sheer rock face, "See if there's a better option than just waiting for the beasts to leave."
Lux then started climbing up the cliff once more. Glad that his physical fitness, along with a healthy dose of [Machine Learning], compounded into making him way better at rock climbing than when he'd started this climb. At the beginning of the climb up here the vine cover had been pretty thick and made climbing a breeze, up here the cover was sparse as hell and Lux was struggling to find purchase as he went.
Soon enough, Lux hit a ledge that was significantly larger than any he'd encountered before, like a giant's step on the side of the cliff. As soon as he crested this ledge he immediately went flat against the stone and scanned the area with his heart pounding. There was a freaking huge nest up here.
Once Lux confirmed that there was no creature around the nest he approached and found a single egg at its center. The egg was massive. About three feet tall. It was a dull yellow color with brown flecks across its surface.
Lux approached the egg and wondered exactly how he should deal with it. He checked his pack and found that he had a long straw that meant to attach to his canteen like a camel-pack. He shrugged and figured that he could just use that to suck the contents of the egg out from a small hole. Then he could seal the egg back up with a bit of tape once he was done so that he could continue later without the egg going bad.
Course of action planned, Lux carefully drilled a hole into the top of the egg with a knife and stuck the straw in. Gulping down as much as he could. It was actually quite a delectable treat. Raw egg usually doesn't taste like much, but this thing had savory flavor that made it easy for Lux to drink enough that his stomach felt like it was going to burst.
[Sacred-Blood creature Stormbirds egg eaten. 1 geno point gained]
The odd voice of the sanctuary resounded through his mind just as he could drink no more. Lux smiled and quickly sealed up the egg before making his way back down the cliff to where he had left Lin Beifeng.
"So did you find a path out of this mess? What took you so long up there?" Lin Beifeng asked as Lux returned to the ledge.
"No, there's a big ledge up there, but the cliff face beyond that is polished smooth like a freaking mirror. Theres a Sacred-Blood creature up there and I was feasting on it, that's what took so long." Lux said with a shrug. "I'll go check again tomorrow morning to make sure I'm not missing anything."
"It's alright, we still have a decent amount of food and water left." Lin Beifeng said chuckling a bit and not believing for a moment that there was a sacred-blood creature up there free for the feasting, "Probably the best to just wait and climb down in a few days."
With that the two of them huddled up on the ledge and slept for the night.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone