An arrow swished through the air, followed by a hatchet, another arrow, a throwing knife and a variety of other throwing weapons, each of them reaching their marks with impressive precision.

It had taken a little bit to get used to the longbow and adjust it properly, but Edrick was shooting with the same precision as he remembered, it had been a while since he had last shot when he had been given a longbow, it was mostly something that Anoteros had been doing during his younger years, even before truly giving in to his favourite hobby.

Edrick’s father would bring him along on hunting trips, and the old man was similarly a fan of weapons, leading him to often use a bow, crossbow and whatever to shoot down his preys, naturally, wild animals were rather small game compared to people, but the young Edrick had not yet been initiated to the joys of hunting his own kind.

He remembered finding the track and game of cat and mouse to be the most thrilling part, as it was often the case with most things, the hurdles and struggles along the path where often what was most memorable, naturally, this did not apply to everything evenly, but it definitely did to stalking and hunting a prey.

Although Anoteros definitely liked animals and nature, it was a fact that beasts were much lesser than he was, it was much too easy to peel away at their strengths, weaknesses and behaviours, unfortunately, back in the old world, his fellow men were also inferior to him.

A fact that should no longer be in this world.

“Good! You were really born to be bowmaster, in fact, I suspect that you have an incredible aim in general- It’s just a shame that most things are simply not adapted to you” Ku Xing was watching from the side, looking just a dishevelled as she always did, her blood red eyes fixated on the targets.

Although the throwings weapons were too small to fit comfortably in his hands, Edrick had still figured out how to throw them properly, the fact that his arms were longer than normal also meant that he could give them more momentum and do some other weird things.

She also had him switch hands, instead of having his dominant, or right, hand pull the strings, use the left instead, she deemed it important not to overdevelop one arm over the other, it was alright if you were just a soldier but for a cultivator, training your body in such an awfully uneven manner simply wouldn’t do.

Enough were already skipping on training their legs and such in favour of the rest, which was something Ku Xing deemed simply abominable.

Thankfully, her student was not one of those dimwits, and that was especially good since wasting such an impressive physique would be criminal.

“I see that you did not yet begin cultivating Longbowman, did you find out how many techniques you could cultivate without strain?” she asked, watching as he did not lose that much accuracy when using his less dominant hand as his primary, not quite ambidextrous but good enough in her book.

“I have tried Encyclopedia Of Rending and Crack Of Punishment without noticing anything weird” he said, keeping his gaze on the targets.

“That’s great to hear, though why these two in particular?”

“My third wife was very enthusiastic about helping me with them when I mentioned them to her” he said “Especially Crack Of Punishment, in fact, she is quite fond of its effect of heightening pain”

“Huh… Hui, right? Never would have guessed she was so… Appreciative of pain- Crack Of Punishment delivers higher potency when used by an agonist, however”

“Oh, do not worry about that, I am one” another arrow was fired, hitting a bullseye this time, it seemed like Edrick was getting used to the differences when using his left hand to wield the bow.

“Then she must really, really have a high pain tolerance, what about the rest? I can sense that you are making some pretty good progress, that’s pretty quick- Are you considering joining the tournament? Although you are a special disciple, you have been here for even less time than most of the outer disciples”

“Has there not been an influx of outer disciples around the same time I joined?” When Edrick showed up, it had been around the time when many youths would be getting of age and decided to join a cultivation sect or do something with their lives.

“Well yes, but that arrival is less than the one we got earlier in the year, and besides, most end up dropping out and getting kicked out… So, are you joining or not?” Ku Xing asked again.

“I probably will, if my progress doesn’t slow down too much, that is”

“Heh, I doubt most of those kids could do something against you even if they have had more time to cultivate, many ignore it, but one’s natural self without the influence of any energy or way of power is incredibly important, it serves as the basis for basically everything” she explained.

“Same goes for the system, which existence is often ignored or forgotten, but remember, the more you kill, the stronger you get, that is a constant for everyone, and the better your basic self is, the more the boons are valuable” she added, it was indeed true that most seemed to not give a damn about the system, Edrick himself only interacted with it because his was special, but it was true that he did not check much on the regular side of it.

*It is fine, you already focus on bettering your base anyways, and the system skills are all passives anyways*

Probably sensing his thoughts, the Depraved Cultivation System spoke up.

‘Huh…’ that reminded him of the rewards he had gotten lately, those for his regular acts of depravity and those for some of the quests he had completed, although none were of a very high-value.

He had been having some time with that skinny outer disciple that worked as a cleaner in the main building, but all missions involving outer disciples wanted him to ‘take care’ of multiple of them to complete.

Instead, the missions were ones he had completed inadvertently at the bar, as the system had spotted women of other species and given simple quests concerning them, same with gambling, the good stuff required a few more games and such.

Right now, he was striving toward one quest in particular.

*Have your way with twenty-five outer disciples, make sure to leverage your position of authority over them!*

*Reward : One innate ability on top of the usual rewards (The innate ability is decided at random regardless of how successful the system might find the quest’s completion)*

It was relatively easy one, and would earn him another innate ability, Crest Of Domination was very good, even if he left it to be used only on those he deemed worth owning, and Cleansing Elixir was much greater than it appeared, its positive effects was working very well on his wives, keeping them in good health and subtly aiding in their training, and the second effect, the addictive one, was good as well, that skinny outer disciple had not seemed to like their first encounter all that much, but could not help but agree to do it again every time as the finale never left her indifferent.

Edrick didn’t even need to try to persuade her, she did it on her own.

“Elder Ku Xing” he said.

“We are like family, you know? You can a bit more familiar”

“Mother Ku?”

“No-“

“Big sister Ku?”

“Stop that! What did you want to say?”

“I was wondering if you would be willing to instruct my wives as well” he asked.

“Mmh? Sure, I would love to talk to them, actually… And don’t worry, I won’t eviscerate them like I did with you… I’ll keep it to stabbing and cutting…”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep