'Fourth level of Qi condensation'
The feeling he got different from when he was in the third stage. His body felt more powerful, more tenacious and even more tougher.
He also felt he could also use Kai-kai kitan for a bid longer as well. His grey eyes held a cold glinter of light. He felt he could fight against most of the strong mutated creatures in the corroded zone now.
Or at least he could escape if he was forced in a situation to fight. As he looked up to the sky and saw the position of the sun, along with the outstretched hand over the earth. He had spent almost an hour breaking through.
However, his clothes were filthy due to the impurities he expelled from his body. But by the time he cleaned himself, he was good to go.
Now the only thing that remained was food and accommodation. For the past two months he had been eating monster meat non stop.
"Will I have to go back to the corroded zone?" He said to himself but seeing he had no other choice, it would be his only choice.
And just like that, the lonely figure of a young boy wearing a brown coat walked casually towards the corroded zones.
***
"Boss, what are we hunting today." A burly man holding a great sword said. The person he was talking to was the leader of the scavenger camp Grey bought the Pills from.
"Don't worry Zuro, let's just wait for the others." A handsome, tall middle aged said to the burly man as they waited for their companions to arrive.
Very soon, the other members of their group arrived and greeted the leader in a respectful tone.
"Good, now that everyone's here we get going. Today we are going to collect more of those blood flowers to make The Pills."
Everyone nodded and soon the party of five went towards the corroded zone.
As they stepped into the zone, any mutated beast they came up against would run away in fear. They were each at least in the fifth level of Qi condensation after all.
As they got to the crimson tree where Grey got the flower petals, they stood in surprise. "Captain, it looks like someone has beat us to it." A young woman with black hair and had a bow on her back said.
The leader of the scavenger camp had a frown on his face but then his expression changed. "Well then, let's go the next blood tree."
They all agreed in a short while, they were at the next blood tree. Some members of the group let out a sigh of relief when they saw that the flower petals were still untouched.
As they were carefully picking the petals, one person mistakenly stepped on one of the protruding tree roots that stuck out of the earth.
The tree shook like it was waking up and some of the corpses on the tree also shook as well. The dead corpses on the tree then fell down.
"Uh... captain... what do we do?" The burly man asked as the corpses fell to the floor.
As if to answer the question, the corpses stood upright with some difficulty. Their dead eyes were eaten up by maggots but you could see the black fog that was in there.
Along with the strange air of malignity and evilness. Everyone suddenly grew alert and clutched at their weapons warily.
When all the corpses that had dropped to the floor were all standing, they emitted a black fog from their dried up body and charged towards the cohort roaring.
All these seemed to have taken a long time, but the interval for each corpse was no less than a couple of breaths.
In the next seconds, the group were fighting against the strange dried up corpses. And although they were more in number, their frail bodied would break down after a few attacks so that gave them hope.
But even that hope was soon crushed when the black fog rebuilt the corpses again. As if reviving them. And not only that, the corpses all had the power of a fourth level cultivator in the Qi condensation realm which made it harder for the group of five to fight against them even though they were all at least in the fifth level.
Only the captain was still calm and indifferent but when he saw the endless revivals of the corpses, a frown appeared on his face and he gave instructions to the members of his cohort.
"Don't try and fight anymore, let's slowly retreat." His voice could be heard by the members of the cohort so they nodded and slowly, they had retreated away from the crimson tree.
Even though they had all fought seriously, they still came out of the battle with several scratches here and there but it was not too lethal.
Very soon, after the members of his party had retreated, Captain also wanted to leave until when the only corpse that had not fallen down from the tree suddenly fell down.
The amount of black fog coming out from the ferocious beast's body was a lot and the malignity in its eyes were shown forth with a red glare.
The mutated beast corpse roared and black fog came out from its mouth. It immediately leaped at the captain, who managed to dodge at the last second.
'A ninth level mutated beast. It must have died trying to break through.' The captain came to a conclusion when he witnessed the corpse's speed which was even faster than his own.
The mutated beast corpse lashed out at the captain with bold ferocity, even cleaving the body of the other corpses in two but it didn't care.
They would be rebuilt back again with the fog after all. When the corpse moved again, the captain felt all the hair on his head stand up and lunged away at the side.
Narrowly avoiding a claw that could have cut his head open. Instead, a single red line was now visible on his cheek through which the black fog attempted to seep in.
'What. I can't battle this corpse. I have to leave before it's too late.' The captain left all stances of defense and instead put all his energy into running away.
He hoped that as far as he was far away from the crimson tree as possible, the tree would have to return the corpse back due to not wanting to severe it's connection with it.
But the mutated beast didn't grant him free passage as he had wanted and instead brandished its claws at the captain once again.