Capítulo 36: Icy Penguins
He had already created eighty-seven layers of protective qi around his body thanks to his cultivation technique and diligent cultivation. A normal cultivator's attack wouldn't hurt him in the slightest and maybe only break a few of his protective layers.
As he activated these layers and positioned himself into a stance with his qi sword, the penguins' attention was fully on him as they slowly raised from the water.
Lester could hear the battle behind him as gusts of wind would make his robe flutter in the wind. It was already quite windy near the ocean, the battle behind him didn't help in that regard. But he wasn't too worried, He knew that Blue Dragon could at least hold off the penguin behind him.
In a matter of a second, the icicle penguin lowered their heads and pointed their icy horns towards Lester, who was also quick to react.
"Swoosh!" The ice horns were sent towards Lester at tremendous speed, however, he wasn't slow either as his footwork was quick to move him to the side as he used his qi sword to break an ice horn, whilst dodging the other two.
The ice horn exploded in a cold light leaving behind a strange icy mist, which slightly touched his arm breaking away a few layers due to the sheer temperature.
Lester was in awe as he noticed the power of this attack. A head-on collision should break more than half of his layers!
An average cultivator still trying to reach the Root Core Stage would be completely defenseless against such a creature.
"So this is the level that these creatures are reaching now huh?" Lester thought to himself as he wasn't surprised at the prowess of these creatures but rather disappointed at the strength humans possessed at the moment. He could only hope for there to be an improvement sooner rather than later.
Wasting no time, Lester moved forward as he held the qi sword on one hand and with the other raised it above his head making a few qi needles appear and by lowering his hand he ordered them to strike, which flew at a tremendous speed similar to the ice horns that came for him earlier.
The penguins were no snails as they quickly moved to the side, however, as the penguins dodged and separated from one another Lester who had locked on to a lone target, charged and sliced with complete control. Lester had cut the throat of a penguin leaving the head hanging on by the small amount of fat and flap of skin that still connected the body and the skin. Almost immediately after the cut happened the beast fell to the sandy ground like a bag of potatoes.
Lester had no time to celebrate though as just as soon as he sliced and jumped back two ice horns were flying towards him once more.
"Swoosh!"
"Shoosh!"
"Damn!" Lester raised his qi sword once more, cutting through one, and as it was about to cut through the other, the qi sword broke apart immediately upon contact, and so did the ice horn which exploded into an icy mist once more sending Lester back.
Still, unharmed Lester looked towards the penguin with a smirk, "Want to play the long-range game? Here we go!" he spoke as he raised his hand and several qi needles, this time bigger than the previously thrown ones appeared above him.
"Die!" He lowered his arms quickly sending the barrage of deadly qi needles towards the penguins.
The penguins frantically moved to dodge as the needles pierced their legs and some of their abdomen which was full of fat, and didn't seem too life-threatening.
"Humph!" Lester brought both of his palms together in front of his chest and separated them quickly, and as the two palms moved apart, in between them an orb created from qi appeared.
"Time to see what this qi bomb can do!" Lester murmured as he quickly threw the qi orb in front of him towards a penguin which already seemed hurt by a needle.
"Boom!"
Upon impact, there was a loud explosion, which made sand and dust fly towards the air.
Feeling quite exhausted Lester could tell that the second penguin was gone for good, but as he was about to look around for the third he felt an intense pain on his side.
"Bang!" he was thrown far to the side right onto the edge of the beach as his robes became wet. But most importantly his layers had all shattered and his right arm was feeling quite numb after the impact.
As the waves slowly crept towards the sand unbothered by the battles, it made Lester's body and robe quite wet by these calm little waves. Looking up he saw the last penguin looking towards him with its black eyes, looking cold and deadly. An Ice horn slowly materializes above its head.
"Shit, I need to move fast." Trying to move his body upwards he found it quite difficult as his body felt so sore it was painfully difficult to move the slightest inch.
His heart was beating quite fast, he didn't know if he was shaking from the cold of the strike or the fact that he was a little too careless and got himself into such a situation. He was ridiculing himself in his mind for getting so complacent. He knew some of these qi manipulations drained him of too much energy, especially since he had not reached the Rooted Core as of yet.
Blue Dragon was still occupied with his battle which he was slowly taking the upper hand, as Lester looked back towards the penguin he heard a feminine voice, "First Ghost, rise and assist me!"
Suddenly, behind the penguin a greenish figure began to materialize, half-real half spectral. The figure was a few heads taller than the penguin as it slowly materialized to look like a strange gorilla with four arms and eight eyes. Lester felt like he was familiar with this beast but he couldn't exactly put his finger on it.
Raising both arms the ghost smashed towards with two fists towards the penguin which it towered.
"BANG!" The sheer strength of this beast was extraordinary as it made the ground shake slightly after the strike.
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
Continuing in its barrage of attacks the half spectral gorilla was a scary sight to behold. Lester stood up slightly as he noticed a figure on the side.
She wore a black veil over her head and a featureless mask that covered her face. Her robe was also black as she gave off a very ominous feeling. The only hint of color she possessed was the miniature silver chains that she wore around her body like accessories.
As soon as Lester noticed this woman everything was now falling into place and he finally understood why he felt such a familiarity with this strange spectral creature.
The woman who just came to his rescue was called the Nine Ghost Lady. She was a cultivator from India that got her hands on a very interesting cultivating technique that allowed her to call upon ghosts to aid her in battle.
Lester could tell she was above Blue Dragon in strength but not at the second root.
Lester found it interesting how society was now ranking the Rooted Core Cultivators. There weren't any exact maximum number of roots that the world was aware of, and therefore in the meantime, each root was taken quite seriously as there were three stages in each.
The First Root was divided into Low, Mid, and Peak Rooted Core Cultivators and similarly with the later roots, and this woman in front of him was clearly at the peak of the first root, whilst Blue Dragon was at the earliest stages.
"For someone not at the Rooted Core to fight against three beasts comparable to Early First Root Cultivators, I'm rather impressed… Your cultivation technique is quite powerful huh? Be careful… Although these beasts are a huge threat to us humans, there are some of those of our kind that will still do anything for greed… Some secrets are best kept hidden, especially when you're not at the peak." Lady Nine Ghosts spoke emotionlessly towards Lester as her ape-like ghost began to disappear into nothingness.
"Noted. Thank you for your assistance." Lester spoke a little embarrassed, but with even more fire to improve. Despite having a large amount of knowledge, his power was still not at the level it should be to protect all of this knowledge.
Looking at the corpses of these penguins, Lester's attention shifted towards Blue Dragons' battle, which was reaching the critical point. Blue Dragon was slightly edging due to his intelligence, however, the physical toughness of the penguin helped it keep up thus far.
"Should we help?" Lester spoke as he looked towards the Nine Ghost Lady as she shook her head.
Blue Dragon was in his full transformed form as the huge snake battled the penguin. It was truly a strange sight to see. There were parts of Blue Dragon's scales completely frozen, however, the cuts on the penguin looked deep and blood was being lost quite fast.
The fight did not progress much as the blood loss of the penguin was too much, and as they were about to clash once more, the penguin succumbed to the injuries and flopped over.
Being quick, the huge three-eyed snake opened its mouth and bit down on the head of the penguin, completely cruising it sending blood and brain ooze all over. Raising its big head the snake opened its mouth slightly which still held on to the mangled head of the penguin as it fell deeper into its neck and further down its throat as it was clear that Blue Dragon was eating it.
Months ago, this scene would make Lester shake in fear or even lose consciousness due to the gore, however, with his new mental fortitude and experience, he wasn't bothered.
Transforming back to the handsome cultivator he was, Blue Dragon walked over towards Lester and the Nine Ghost Lady.
"Thank you for your assistance Nine Ghost Lady and…" Blue Dragon looked towards Lester with a very different look.
"Black Seed,"
Blue Dragon nodded, "Thank you Black Seed, sorry for my ignorance earlier."
Waving his arms Lester smiled, "You're fine, you were just worried for my safety, I get it."
Jumping in, Nine Ghost Lady spoke, "So how do we separate these creatures, they should be extremely valuable…"
All three agreed. Lester did not need the corpse so he decided to take three of their cores, leaving the corpse of the three he took the cores of to the Nine Ghost Lady.
Blue Dragon took everything from the penguin he defeated as he was confident in using it to help him progress.
Exchanging goodbyes all three went their separate ways.
Estado de energía semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Piedra de
Poder