Chapter 136 - Play Thing

"Good, come you beast! Let's see how long you can last against my fists!"

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Ever since Xiao Fang absorbed the Death Reaper energy from the 20 disciples' corpses, he noticed that it was affecting his mood in a negative way. He was already on edge because of it, so seeing the arrogant look on Spirit Beast's face just made him snap. 

The whole situation was messed up. He didn't care that the Spirit Beast was in the Divine Spirit realm. The angrier he was, the less rational he became, and right now Xiao Fang was madder than he had ever been.

Despite all the pain it brought him, Xiao Fang couldn't fight the Spirit Beast without his spirit attribute active.

The elder watched in surprise as Xiao Fang ran towards her Spirit Beast.

'Does he actually think he can win against it?' she wondered.

Since the Divine Spirit Beast wasn't using any spirit techniques, Xiao Fang thought he might have a chance against it. Even if he couldn't fully use the [ True Immortal Lightning Tribulation ] spirit attribute it still increased his cultivation by a whole realm, and his [ Illusory Body ] method also increased his fighting prowess by another realm.

Unfortunately, Xiao Fang was being too optimistic. He was still severely outmatched because his [ Illusory Body ] spirit cultivation was only at the 9th stage of the Spirit Foundation realm, so it was too generous to say that his battle power increased by another realm.

Xiao Fang still had the power of his curse, but he wasn't going to use it because there was no point if the mysterious elder kept healing their injuries.

The beast punched straight at Xiao Fang's chest again, but this time Xiao Fang threw a punch right back. However. Instead of meeting his fist half way, Xiao Fang's body suddenly faded into a mist of qi the moment their fists made contact.

Dodging the fist and maneuvering under its arm, Xiao Fang punched straight into its ribs.

'Not bad,' the elder thought.

A spark of interest suddenly appeared in her eyes, but it only lasted for a second because of what happened next.

The Divine Spirit Beast looked down at Xiao Fang as a smile crept up on its face, it then swung its free arm around, knocking Xiao Fang off to the side. Xiao Fang's body rolled and tumbled a few times, before coming to a stop.

The elder scoffed.

"Why were you acting so tough when your attacks are so weak?"

What she was saying was true, the beast barely felt it. To be more accurate, the punch was equivalent to a child punching a grown man in the gut. Sure a couple of those would eventually start to bruise, but the same trick wouldn't work twice.

Suddenly, the beast fell to one knee, and standing behind him was Xiao Fang.

"My attack wasn't weak. I just didn't strike where it hurts."

In the next moment Xiao Fang's hand swooped in, mercilessly gouging out both of its eyes.

The elder furrowed her brows as a chill went down her spine. There was no hesitation in Xiao Fang's actions at all. It was as if he had done it several times before. She knew doing that sort of thing wasn't something ordinary people could do.

'Whoever that boy is, he certainly isn't as innocent as he looks,' the elder thought.

Looking back at the body that had earlier been knocked to the side, the elder watched as it suddenly turned into another mist of qi.

The thing that amazed her wasn't just his creativity, but the fact that not even she could immediately discern his clones from the real one. The reason he was also able to fool her with his clones wasn't because he was stronger than her, but simply because she was severely underestimating him. His skills were far beyond what an outer court disciple should've been able to do, so she didn't expect him to be able to make such real clones.

Just when Xiao Fang was about to focus back on his spirit attributes, his swordsman instincts suddenly kicked in. In the next moment, he dodged the unexpecting attack. When he landed several meters away he looked back at the spirit beast and was surprised by what he saw.

There were two gaping holes where its eyes should've been, but it still had a large smile on its face. In fact, the smile looked even creepier than it did before.

Xiao Fang knew how much it hurt having his eyes gouged out, so he was surprised that the beast was still able to attack him without even taking a break.

Xiao Fang began to frown, because its eyes were starting to heal back.

"You didn't think it would end just like that did you?" The elder asked.

Xiao Fang had always been told that his blindness couldn't be healed or regenerated, not even by a heavenly realm cultivator.

Just how strong was this elder, and what was her background? Xiao Fang was starting to have more and more questions, but given the situation he was in, he was in no position to start asking questions.

What Xiao Fang didn't know was that the elder wasn't using her own power to heal them, she had been using the power of the ancient spirit pagoda to heal them this whole time. Since the power the spirit pagoda contained was virtually limitless, she could keep healing them for as long as she liked.

...

The fight continued for a few more hours. Any injury inflicted on the spirit beast or Xiao Fang would instantly be healed up by the mysterious elder. So the fight wasn't about strength or technique, instead it was simply a battle of attrition. Unfortunately for Xiao Fang, he was already a little tired before the fight began and his spirit cultivation was 2 realms below the spirit beast's.

Despite all the time that passed, Xiao Fang had only made an insignificant amount of progress with his spirit attribute. Every time they stopped fighting to get healed, Xiao Fang would use that time to make another attempt at his spirit attribute. Eventually, Xiao Fang wouldn't even think about the pain, but still, no matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't do it. However, his rigorous efforts weren't without merits.

Xiao Fang's spirit body began to glow as another layer aura emerged from his body.

[ Breakthrough to the 8th stage of the Spirit Core Realm ]

'I made a breakthrough to the 8th stage already?!' Xiao Fang thought excitedly.

Not only was making a breakthrough a big deal, but he had also restored some of his energy.

Although it was a bit surprising to see, considering how many times his spirit body got destroyed and healed up again, it wasn't too hard to believe. The only thing that was extremely unusual to elder was that his spirit body was constantly getting stronger every time she healed him. She knew the spirit pagoda didn't have the ability to make his spirit body stronger, so the only explanation she could think of was that his True Immortal Spirit Attribute was making him stronger. 

The elder was more interested than she was entertained. She wanted to make Xiao Fang suffer, but now she wanted to know more about him. 

'I don't think I've ever seen eyes like his before,' she thought as she looked deeply into them.

...

'It hasn't even been a month since I made a breakthrough to the 7th stage of the Spirit Core Realm. It seems I already gained a lot more than most people could from this place,' Xiao Fang thought.

With reignited flames burning in his eyes, he jumped back into the fight while pushing his spirit attribute to the max.

The elder was enjoying their fight, even though Xiao Fang didn't seem to be in as much pain as before. Unless he gave up, she would joyfully watch by the sidelines as her spirit beast roughed him up. Luckily for her, it was impossible for someone under the Heavenly spirit realm to completely control the full power of a True Immortal Spirit Attribute. At least, she had never heard of anyone doing it before.

The longer the fight lasted, the less she disliked Xiao Fang. If she was honest, her impression of him had gradually changed over time. Eventually, she was even starting to like him.

'Why isn't he giving up?' she wondered. 'Does he want a spirit cultivation technique that badly? or could it be that he wants to be put into the Tiger class?'

The moment she summoned the Divine Spirit Beast, Xiao Fang knew that he wasn't going to be treated fairly, but he still accepted her challenge. From that moment, he had already gained the elder's respect. However, after many hours of torturing himself to control the spirit attribute while getting attacked by her Divine realm Spirit Beast, he had already proven to the elder that he was worthy of at least being placed in the Insect or Snake Class.

'He might be just a man, but he's a respectable one,' she thought.

She was thinking about telling him to stop, but how was she supposed to explain it to him? Was she supposed to say that it was actually impossible for him to completely control the True Immortal Spirit Attribute, and that she had only set up this match purely for her own twisted entertainment. After putting him through hours of torture, that was the last thing she wanted to say to him.

All she could do was watch and wait for him to give up. However, Xiao Fang hated losing more than anything. He would never put himself in a position where he might think back on a moment and wonder 'what if'. What if I pushed myself a little harder. Since he was here right now, he was going to give it all he had, and if that wasn't enough he was going to keep pushing past his limits again and again till he could no more.

Just from the look in his eyes the elder knew that Xiao Fang wasn't going to give up anytime soon, but she was starting to hope it wasn't true.