The wet, metallic scent of blood hung heavy in the air of the dark room, but Wan Lihan didn't have a single second to look at the middle-aged tyrant's decapitated corpse.
As he stepped over the body, dragging the spatial pouch and the stolen cultivation book into his grip, a sharp shout echoed from the dirt road outside. The heavy commotion and the sound of the collapsing Tier 1 chain had woken the neighbors.
"Guards! Murder! The slave boy killed his master!" a voice shrieked through the night.
Lihan didn't hesitate. His survival instincts, forged from eight years of abuse, kicked in instantly. He sprinted out the back door into the pitch-black dark. His body was still slim, emaciated, and bone-skinny from years of starvation, but the newly unlocked 2nd Layer Qi inside his core cultivation gave his legs a sudden burst of physical speed. He bounded over fences and broke through the brush, running blindly away from the town until his lungs burned.
He ran for miles into an unknown, rugged wilderness until he stumbled upon a small, rotting wooden house swallowed by overgrown weeds. It was completely abandoned. Exhausted and bleeding from his broken slave collar wounds, Lihan collapsed onto the floorboards and fell into a heavy sleep.
Six hours later, the morning sun broke through the cracked ceiling. Lihan woke up, his stomach growling with a fierce, painful hunger. His body desperately needed nourishment to sustain his new Qi.
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Looking around the dusty corners of the abandoned house, his eyes caught a frayed, wooden hunting bow leaning against the wall. He picked it up, stepped outside into the quiet forest, and quickly spotted a wild boar digging through the roots of an oak tree. Lihan pulled back the string, aimed as best as he could, and released.
Twang.
The arrow flew wide, thudding uselessly into a tree trunk. The boar snorted in alarm and scurried into the thickets. Lihan lowered the bow, his expression flat. His aim was completely unpracticed. He couldn't rely on weapons he didn't understand.
I need a different way, he thought silently.
He walked back inside the abandoned house, searching the debris until his hand locked onto a heavy, rusted iron sword buried under old rags. It was dull and chipped, but it had weight. Gripping the hilt, Lihan went right back out into the woods to hunt.
This time, he didn't stalk the prey from the ground. He climbed up the thick branches of a low-hanging tree, hiding his slim form within the dense leaves right above a natural animal trail. He sat perfectly still, breathing softly, waiting with the patience of a predator.
An hour passed. Finally, a heavy wild boar walked down the trail, stopping directly beneath his branch to sniff the dirt.
Lihan didn't blink. He gripped the rusted sword with both hands, channeled a thread of his 2nd Layer Qi into his legs for an explosive downward drop, and plunged off the branch.
Slash!
The weight of his falling body, combined with the raw physical force of his Qi, drove the rusted blade straight through the boar's neck, piercing its vital organs. The beast collapsed onto the dirt with a heavy thud, dead instantly.
Wiping a splash of blood from his cheek, Lihan hauled the heavy boar carcass over his skinny shoulders, dragging it back to the abandoned house. He used the rusted sword to methodically chop the meat, built a small fire in the stone hearth, and began to cook. As the scent of roasted meat filled the room, the fugitive rogue cultivator took his first real breath of freedom, his mind already calculating how to survive the hunt that was coming for him.