Chapter 26 - Effect of Martial Arts & Hunting the Crossbow

In the combat room inside the teleportation station.

Han Sen and Qin Xuan were engaged in a fierce battle, exchanging blows after blows. She had already learned the acceptable degree of damage she could inflict on Han Sen without leaving him all bruised up after their training sessions, but at the same time, she applied enough force in her strikes to make it challenging for him to defend.

During the battle, as they fought, Qin Xuan noticed that Han Sen's movements were different from usual, with more power and technique than they would normally have. And this is considering that his fighting technique is so good that she learns from him while they fight. Even so, the blows he used were different from the norm, and they hurt a lot.

At a certain point in the fight, Qin Xuan accelerated her movement and exerted more strength and intention, as she became angry for being hit in the rib by him. But no matter what she did, it seemed that she couldn't reach him, always feeling like there was a shadow, hitting an illusion of him constantly. As the fight continued, her anger grew and she only realized even more that whatever Han Sen was doing, he was improving with each passing second.

"What martial art is this that you're using?" Qin Xuan stepped back from him after realizing that she couldn't hit him anymore without using a higher level of force. She was interested in knowing how he had changed so much.

"From th Ares Martial Hall, it's called Illusion Dance. It's cool, right?" Han Sen smiled tiredly and enjoyed the feeling of practicing this martial art. It really seemed like he was dancing with his opponent, but Qin Xuan hadn't even noticed that. And it was even better not to rely entirely on what he already knew, but to practice something new.

"How long have you been learning?" She squinted her eyes, as she had never seen him make any of these moves before. This means that he had been learning in secret for a long time and only now came to reveal it, to shock her.

"Three days." He didn't want to say 'today' because it would be too much.

He had also modified this martial art and increased its movement potential, as well as improving footwork. This made the theory stick well in his head, but he only started putting it into practice at the beginning of the fight with her. He did this with all the other moves as well, except for Ghosthaunt, since he hadn't had a chance to get close yet.

"You're telling me that you've been practicing a martial art for three days and have already reached such an advanced stage? I didn't know you were such a liar." Qin Xuan hated lies, and although she wasn't absolutely certain if Han Sen was telling the truth, she used her own sense of judgment.

Starting a martial art was not easy, and mastering it was almost impossible in a short time. Although he had not mastered it, she felt that Han Sen was very skilled in this art and was definitely close to reaching an advanced level.

"I can't do anything if you don't believe in me," Han Sen shrugged, as he couldn't do anything about her stubborn personality. At least not yet.

"We stop here for today." She also got annoyed with the fact that he didn't admit the lie and wanted to stop here. And seeing how he was still indifferent and didn't stop her from leaving, her anger rose even more, 'I'll make you pay next time, Han Sen!’

Seeing her go, he calmly went back to his dressing room as if nothing had happened.

"Should I tell her that I'll only be back in a few days?"

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"I think it's around here," Han Sen was looking strangely at the map in his hand, trying to see if he was getting closer to the right place. He was in a stone jungle, a few kilometers away from the shelter.

His search now was exactly for the two Beast Souls that Qin Xuan told him about, the crossbow and the bolt. He was now in the place where there were some Two-Headed Snakes, which liked to hunt small animals in a nearby area and returned to the rocks here. The stone forest was not that big, and it was only called that because of the large amount of rocks around, which was larger than in the rest of the grassland (biome).

While he was checking if he was in a suitable location, since the map could very well be wrong, he heard a slithering noise and immediately threw the map back into his backpack. Already equipped with his armor, he took out the two daggers from his belt and stood still where he was.

Hissss!

As soon as he heard the noise coming from the left, Han Sen swung his Ant Dagger towards the creature approaching him.

Slash!

"SSSSSSS!" With a hiss of pain, the Two-Headed Snake had just lost one of its heads as it fell to the ground, blood splattering from the bloody neck that remained.

With nearly two meters in length and fifty centimeters in thickness, the snake looked deadly with its spines on its skin and sharp gaze, which was now filled with pain. The other head of the snake had fallen far away, but it seemed to still have some life as its eyes stared at Han Sen menacingly.

Hisss!

With an attack coming towards him, Han Sen saw as if the snake was moving in slow motion, so slowly that he could relax his position and just wait for it to die by his dagger. But that's not what he did, as he used a new martial art called Spirit Blade and attacked witth a slash before the snake arrived. As if by magic, the snake's head fell while its body continued to fly towards him.

Thud!

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• Two-Headed Snake Killed •

• Two-Headed Snake Beast Soul Gained •

• Eat Two-Headed Snake meat to randomly gain zero to ten Primitive Gene Points •

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"These enhanced martial arts are really something else..." Han Sen praised the ability of the new martial art and picked up the body of the snake that flew towards him.

The cut didn't seem perfect, but being able to cut before the enemy arrived was already a good skill in itself. If he himself weren't already a genius, he would have to cry just thinking about getting good at this art with the help of the system, which cost more than anything.

Putting that aside, Han Sen quickly summoned the new Beast Soul he had obtained. With the usual display, the Two-Headed Snake's soul appeared before him and soon transformed into a beautiful crossbow.

With the ancient European style, the crossbow had two mouths to be able to fit the bolts and shoot them simultaneously. There was no reloading system and it was probably done manually. The stock was plated in a metal of the same color as the snake's eyes, and the entire design was satisfactory. Not to mention its size of 50cm and weight of approximately 3kg.

"Now, let's look for your Mutant variant, which should be even more beautiful..." Han Sen was not satisfied with what he already had in his hands and wanted to hunt for an even more powerful beast soul. Besides being cheaper in EXP to improve, he would also obtain mutant meat to eat.

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After killing his 43rd Snake today, Han Sen was looking at the stone jungle in a rather depressing way now. No matter how much he searched, the thing he wanted wouldn't appear at all. He even tried the strategy of spreading the snakes' blood around the area to attract some kind of larger predator and have a mutant snake hunt it. But even that didn't work.

Observing the landscape and deciding whether to leave or not for today, he saw that a giant black eagle was flying through the skies and suddenly descended towards a Two-Headed Snake. With just one swoop, the giant eagle quickly arrived in front of the snake and its mortal claws extended, sharp and ready to decapitate any creature.

"Mutant creature?" Han Sen looked suspiciously at the eagle. But when he saw that it had killed the snake very easily, his suspicions were confirmed. Size was not always power in the jungle, hence his doubt. "Although I didn't get the snake, I might as well hunt this other creature. Hopefully, it will be something more useful than the whip and halberd I've won before.”

When he was ready to descend and kill the eagle before it flew back, his senses caught a sudden movement in the grass behind the mutant creature. With a smile on his face, he eagerly waited in place and what he had been anticipating the most happened.

Emerging from the grass like a flash of light, a three-headed figure jumped out and intertwined its body with that of the eagle, which didn't perceive the threat until it was already too late to fly away. Squawking and struggling, the eagle used all its strength to break free from the grip of the snake. In response, the snake used its three heads to bite different parts of the creature and force it to surrender to death.

"This would be the divine reward for all my patience?" Han Sen, watching all of that, grabbed the whip, which he complained so much about being useless, and waited for the right moment.

As the fight progressed and the eagle began to lose its strength, the snake became even more fierce and bit various parts of its body, causing it to shed more blood and die even faster. The eagle, despite being fierce in the air and a great hunter, unfortunately was losing this battle on the ground.

As soon as he felt that the eagle was at death's door, Han Sen ran like a flash of light and appeared a few meters away from the deadly fight. Swinging the whip, he felt the full extent of that thing stretch out, and the tip went towards one of the snake's heads.

WHIP! CRACK!

With a loud snap, one of the snake's heads was whipped and blood began to trickle from it, with no sign of major damage. But Han Sen didn't care about that and threw a small knife with all his might towards the eagle's head. Due to the sudden shock, the other heads of the snake couldn't react in time, and the knife easily pierced through the creature's head in its grip.

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• Black-Striped Razor Eagle Killed •

• Black-Striped Razor Eagle Beast Soul Gained •

• Eat Black-Striped Razor Eagle meat to randomly gain zero to ten Mutant Gene Points •

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Obtaining the new Beast Soul, Han Sen smiled as he threw two more daggers towards the snake, quickly halting its advance. One purple streak and one blazing streak flew towards it in no time. However, with a swift movement, the snake freed itself from the dead eagle under its grip and evaded the two daggers, which missed it. Han Sen simply smiled as he saw the two daggers meet behind the snake.

“K-bo-”

BOOOM!

With smoke and dust everywhere, Han Sen shook his arms trying to get rid of it all. Some rocks hit him during the explosion, but he defended himself well thanks to his armor.

"Who would have thought that my second dagger didn't just contain poison, huh..." After the strategy he used in the theft of the Bloody Killer, Han Sen didn't know whether to be very happy or very surprised with the ability he noticed in his second throwing knife. The poison was indeed poisonous, like any other, but it had a pretty cool and 'explosively amazing' capability.

In the first time he used it, he did it by accident. Always carrying a bit of highly explosive gunpowder with him, he decided to test it and the explosion was a real success with the Bloody Killer. But after calculating the radius of the explosion and the destruction it caused, he realized that the gunpowder wasn't all that. That's when he decided to test it again without using the gunpowder and it turned out that the explosion happened again, meaning there was something in the poison of the Blue Mouth Snake that reacted to the fire of the Red Salamander.

Not hearing the death notification, Han Sen walked up to the site of the explosion and, as the dust dispersed with the wind, the body of the snake was revealed there, riddled with holes or rocks that couldn't penetrate. It was so close to death that it was pitiful.

"I'm sorry, man. Law of the jungle, you know..." Han Sen grabbed the mutant halberd he had, once again one of his gains from the mutant beasts he hunted before, and cut off the three heads of the snake.

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• Three-Headed Snake Killed •

• Three-Headed Snake Beast Soul Gained •

• Eat Three-Headed Snake meat to randomly gain zero to ten Mutant Gene Points •

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