Chapter Eleven: Humanoid Demon Beast

  Ziwen Cheng's original name was Peng You Leng Kuai Xing E Ming Ba

  Before I knew it, another two months had passed.

  Today is the day when Liú Yún inspects the training results of his team members. Facing twenty team members wearing their training uniforms, Liú Yún felt a strong military atmosphere.

  "It seems that my efforts have been effective." Liú Yún thought, her calm gaze sweeping across the faces of each guard.

  The team members stood up straight and looked at him with brave eyes.

  "Ziwen Cheng, Tie Lie..."

  As he walked up to each team member, Liú Yún recited their name and then gave a light punch on the chest.

  This punch seems to have a magical power, making all team members think: for this person in front of me, I can go die!

  Back in front of the queue, Liuyun began to announce the new training content.

  "Very good, from you, I saw courage, strength and confidence, saw the temperament that belongs to soldiers. In order to let you experience the cruelty of the battlefield, the bloodiness of fighting, starting from today, you will enter the Monster Forest and begin a 15-day survival training."

  "20 people are divided into two small groups, with Xi Po and Zi Wen Cheng leading each group. There is no food, no weapons, all you can rely on is your hands, body, brain and everything around you. The monsters are the enemy, looking forward to your wonderful performance when facing the enemy. I want to remind you that after entering the monster forest, you will face the threat of death at any time, and everyone's life is entrusted to their teammates. In any situation, it is not allowed to abandon your teammates!"

  The Beast Forest, located northwest of the ranch, is the outer periphery of the Elf Forest. The forest is home to many magical beasts, although most are low- and mid-level, they still pose a considerable threat to humans. However, the magic crystals on these magical beasts are like glittering gold coins to humans, attracting many adventurers and mercenaries into the Beast Forest.

  And the idea of entering the Monster Forest for survival training was actually thought up by two sinister guys, one old and one young, under economically strained circumstances.

  "Xiao Yun, with this period of training, the magic crystal stone has been almost consumed. If you don't go buy some back, the training can't proceed."

  "Uncle, you really don't have any more stock?"

  Liuyun rummaged through Lao Ka's room for half a day without finding anything and asked in dismay.

  He rolled his eyes and Old Card threw a Thunderbolt at Liuyun's head.

  "You stinky brat, I've spent all my wealth on you, and yet you still dare to doubt me."

  "It's not that I don't trust you, I'm just afraid you have a bad memory and will forget where you put the crystal, and it'll all be wasted." Liuyun touched her new hairstyle and smiled awkwardly.

  "But, uncle, I think I can't afford it. Twenty of the lowest-grade magic crystals cost 100 gold coins! My 5,000 gold coins have been reduced to just over 1,000 in these days. This life is unbearable, I need to think of a solution."

  "Then go kill some monsters and get the crystals. This place is close to the Monster Forest, you can kill a few dozen in a day, that's enough." Old Ka said casually.

  "Kill the monster?"

  A flash of brightness flickered in Yun's eyes, "This idea isn't bad."

  Lao Ka's careless remark sealed the team members' miserable fate, and Liu Yun decisively decided to teach them a lesson on wilderness survival.

  The monsters on the outskirts of the forest may not be high in level, but for this group of team members who don't have much combat experience, they are still quite dangerous.

  Considering this, Liú Yún decided to hire Kasulo the Great Magician as a bodyguard for the guards, with a temporary suspension of pay, which made Old Kasulo scold himself repeatedly.

  Before entering the Magic Beast Forest, Old Ka and Liu Yun specially gave a lesson to the team members.

  The old card mainly teaches them how to identify the level, category and attack method of magical beasts, how to judge whether plants, animals, wild fruits and water sources are toxic, and how to send out magic rescue signals.

  Liú yún teaches them how to judge direction in the forest, locate their position, calculate time, protect themselves, camp in the forest and arrange personnel division of labor.

  Everyone listened very seriously, but at the end of the course, Lao Ka and Liu Yun's words almost drove them crazy.

  "This thing, just mentioned edible stuff, I haven't eaten most of it, whether there are side effects or not, everyone has to try to know." said Old Ka.

  "I've never been to the Monster Forest myself, so what I teach may not necessarily work. Everyone still has to rely on their own exploration." said Liu Yun.

  To increase the difficulty of training, Liú Yún stipulated that team members were not allowed to use magic and only brought two crystal stones. The thunder crystal stone was used to release a distress signal, while the water crystal stone was used for healing.

  Later, some team members secretly used small fireballs to start a fire and roast meat. Just as the fire was lit, Old Card suddenly brought a violent storm.

  As they entered the forest, Hippo and his team members were in a great mood, feeling as if they had arrived at a popular tourist destination. Under the towering trees, the ground was covered with various unknown wildflowers, and colorful wild fruits could be seen everywhere. The sunlight filtering through the leaves cast dappled shadows on the forest floor, where beautiful small animals were happily jumping and running about.

  "Don't let your guard down!" Hippos shouted, looking at the team members who were excitedly touring around.

  "Is this really the Monster Forest?" Chi Po shook his head, he always felt that something was off.

  "Card Master said that this wild fruit can be eaten, it seems that finding food is easy." Ah Xiu didn't know when he picked some wild fruit, which looked bright and tempting.

  A few seconds later, everyone discovered the adverse effects mentioned by Old Card.

  "Axu, did you bring roasted sausage?" Wijek asked in surprise from a distance, looking at Axu. "Impressive, after being searched by the captain, you can still hide such good stuff."

  Everyone involuntarily looked at Ah Xiu, while Ah Xiu pointed to his own mouth and only made a series of "yi yi wu wu" sounds.

  "Everyone, don't eat randomly, it seems this is the side effect that Card Master mentioned, sigh!" Xi Bo carefully looked at Ah Xu's lips and said to everyone.

  The performance of the demons was even more astonishing.

  "Wow, what a beautiful pheasant." Before the words had even faded away, one of the team members was roasted to perfection by the flames spewed out by the "pheasant".

  "No way, there really are flying pigs!" A team member looked up at the sky and exclaimed. Immediately, the "flying pig" dropped a bolt of lightning, making him an explosion head.

  "It's still safe for Little Rabbit, right?" A team member who was still in shock exclaimed, "Little Rabbit" lifted its leg and a stream of water shot out from between its legs, turning him into a giant ice stick.

  And so, with the first day gone, Shibbo and his group members were all starving, nervously guarding against a sneak attack by the magical beasts.

  The first time they faced the monster, the young team members all had an insurmountable fear in their hearts. Even if they had enough power to kill the monster in front of them, the deep-seated fear of these creatures made them unable to exert even half of their strength, and could only choose to escape decisively.

  At night, after dispatching two team members to keep watch, Hippo and his group lay down under a large tree. After a day of traveling, everyone felt that their physical strength had been severely depleted. Gazing up at the twinkling stars in the sky, although they were very tired, no one was able to fall asleep.

  "Captain, we can't keep running away like this." a team member said in a low voice.

  "These demonic beasts, the small ones gather in groups, and the big ones we can't even kill." Another team member sighed.

  Besides, most of the edible things that Lao Ka mentioned would cause some problems after eating. By the end of the day, two people had diarrhea, two people had sausage stuck in their mouths, and one person's tongue was numb.

  "The hope of survival is in our own hands." Xibo recalled the words of Liu Yun, saying loudly, "Don't forget what Lao Tou said! Tomorrow, everything will be fine."

  It was just the second day and the team members' luck seemed not to have improved, only starting a new escape.

  After several days, Xi Po and his men were all dressed in tattered clothes, withered and sallow complexion, like wild men.

  Time and time again they were injured, escaped with their lives, and went hungry, until finally these young people in desperate circumstances erupted.

  In a frenzied rush, they tore apart the demonic beast, splattering themselves with its blood, and in their extreme hunger, devoured its flesh raw. After that, the demonic forest spawned twenty humanoid demonic beasts that delighted in slaughtering and devouring weaker demonic beasts.

  Xibo's hand locked on Feng Lang's throat, four teammates grabbed Feng Lang's legs, and with a soft "whoosh", Feng Lang was torn into five pieces alive.

  A bloody rain came down from the sky, soaking five people's bodies completely wet.

  "I never thought I'd be killing a demon beast in this way and getting a crystal stone."

  One punch crushed the wolf's head, and Xi Bo fished out a low-grade wind crystal from a pile of blurry flesh and blood, putting it into his waist bag.

  "Chase me to death? I'll bite you to death!" Ah Xiu said fiercely, gnawing on the wolf meat in his hand that was warm and smelled of blood.

  Extreme hunger made him completely forget that it was a piece of raw meat from a magical beast.

  "Ah Xiu, do you think I look like a high-ranking magical beast?" Zi Wen Cheng said with his mouth full of bloody wolf meat, and used his other blood-stained hand to wipe Ah Xiu's face.

  "Ugh, ugh, ugh! That hateful head, gave us two crystal stones, one for rescue and one for healing, but the crystal stone obtained by killing the demon beast is not allowed to be used, forcing us to eat raw meat." Ah Xiu muttered while nodding.

  "Yes, yes, Lao Tuo is too poisonous." The teammates in the same group all voiced their agreement.

  In the forest, they happened to meet Liú Yún and Lǎo Kǎ who had come for a vacation. Lǎo Kǎ was using fire magic to roast meat, while Liú Yún was lying under the tent, drinking fine wine and biting into roasted meat. This scene left a huge shadow in the hearts of the team members, and everyone's gaze towards the two was filled with sadness and anger, directly leading to more deaths among the magical beasts.

  "Achoo!" Liu Yun let out a loud sneeze.

  "Damn it, those bastards are probably badmouthing me behind my back again. I just brought a tent and had some wine and meat, but when they saw me, it was like they saw the person who killed their father. Sigh, killing too many monsters has made me too murderous."

  "Hey uncle, stop admiring the view over there and go take a look at those little rascals instead." Liuyun shouted from outside the tent before turning over and continuing to sleep.

  "It's still a life of hard work in old age, young people are really lucky." The old man was somewhat emotional, but he flew into the sky to find his teammates.

  For the fresh training methods of Liuyun, Lao Ka is more and more admiring. Although at first glance, there is no particularly big effect, but as time goes on, it can quietly change a person. Temperament, confidence, strength, courage, etc., Lao Ka saw too many changes in the team members.

  This time, the journey to the Monster Forest made him see that one by one, kind-hearted young people, driven by the will to survive, turned into wild and violent monsters, emitting a bloody and murderous aura.

  "Even the most timid person, who is always surrounded by blood, will have a desire to kill." Liuyun said this to him.

  Iverson, Klia and Walker thought they had encountered a group of humanoid demons when they met Hypo and others.

  At that time, they had just escaped from a Flame Cloud Beast's pursuit and killing, and were still in a state of shock when they encountered the Hibbo group. They witnessed with their own eyes several people covered in blood, who killed a Wind Wolf with their bare hands and then ate its flesh raw. The Flame Cloud Beast is the most fearsome high-level magical beast in the Magical Forest, capable of using advanced fire magic and possessing powerful physical attack abilities, equivalent to a dual-elemental master, with strength equal to that of an intermediate swordsman. As novice swordsmen, the three of them had some fighting power, but were unable to withstand the Flame Cloud Beast's overwhelming fire magic, and ultimately fled in disarray.

  After exerting great effort to determine that these people were human and not beastmen, Everson, who had recovered from his shock, told Hippo about the Fire Cloud Beast, letting them be careful themselves.

  So Hippo decisively released a distress magic, facing such a demonic beast, he feared that when the time came for the magic to be released, several of his people would have already died.

  When Kaslo told the news to Liu Yun, the survival training had been going on for thirteen days. Liu Yun decisively gathered his personnel and prepared to withdraw. Each team member received a magic crystal stone for use in unexpected situations.

  As they were about to leave the Wysteria Forest, Flowing Cloud and his group encountered the three Iversons again, along with that terrifying Flamecloud Beast. Klia and Vark had already been severely injured by the Flamecloud Beast, while Iverson was desperately using all his strength to hold it back in order to save his companions. For the trio, death's arrival was only a matter of time.

  "The head, it was that warrior who told me about the Fire Cloud Beast."

  Hippo pointed at Iverson who was fighting against the monster and said. His eyes told Liú Yún that he wanted to save them.

  "Uncle, can you handle it?" Liú Yún didn't want to expose the secret of Kaid's Eagle in front of outsiders, so he asked Kasulo behind him.

  "This... as long as he gets close, you can help me block it. Because this thing is too fast."

  "Form a battle array and rescue the people. Old Ka will lure it over, the Earth group will prepare an ambush, the Light group will prepare the Guardian Light, and the Thunder group will attack with Uncle. The Water group will tend to the wounded."

  When you receive a drop of kindness from someone, repay it with a fountain of generosity. The idea prompted Flowing Cloud to issue the order decisively.

  A bolt of lightning struck the Fire Cloud Beast, followed by four more flashes. The Fire Cloud Beast let out a pained roar and charged towards Flowing Cloud. After releasing the first bolt of lightning, Old Ka began preparing his advanced magic.

  The trap set by the Earth-type group couldn't capture the Flame Cloud Beast, but it made its journey very arduous and it was constantly struck by Thunderbolt attacks.

  In its furious state, it finally approached again and encountered the Guardian Light. When it broke through the four Guardian Lights and rushed in, the continuous lightning strikes had already left it scarred all over.

  "Thor's Wrath!"

  Kasulo finished his chant and let out a soft whoop, a thunderbolt as thick as a water bucket fell onto the Fire Cloud Beast's body, causing it to let out a mournful howl and fall to the ground.

  The heart that was lifted up by the flowing clouds has finally put down.

  On Huoyun Beast, the Flowing Cloud Guard members completed their first magical combat coordination.

  This unexpected battle also made Liú Yún see the hope of realizing his own magical ideas and a bright future prospect.

  "Wow, we've got a delicious meal tonight. And there's also a high-grade crystal." Old Ka took the magic crystal from Huoyun Beast and instructed people to carry away the corpse of Huoyun Beast.

  The members of the Water Squad also treated Kurea and Vork under Flowing Cloud's command.

  Iverson was in shock.

  In his memory, no one had ever used magic like this before, nor had he seen so many magicians fight together, all using primary magic. Although these primary magics were not very powerful, the perfect coordination and remarkable effects represented a brand new concept of magic use, showcasing the creator's genius.

  "Your Excellency, your companions are all injured. Do you need our help?" The question from Liú Yún finally brought him back to his senses.

  "Honorable sir, thank you for saving my life. Down there, Averson, the ones who were injured are my companions Kurea and Vork." Averson realized that the person in front of him was the leader of this group and hastily expressed his gratitude.

  "It's just a small effort, no need to thank me. Under the flowing clouds of Kaido, I appreciate your warning."

  Liu Yun sized up the young man in front of him and shook hands with Iverson in a friendly manner.

  Iverson was about twenty-four or five years old, with a handsome face that had a sense of stability and determination that did not match his age, and his body exuded the strong aura of a high-ranking martial artist.

  "If it's convenient for you, I'd like to ask you to help me carry my injured companion. Once we're out of the forest, I'll figure something else out." Iverson said, looking at his injured companion and then turning to Liú Yún.

  "My ranch is not far from here, if you don't mind, you can go there to rest for a while."

  "Thanks so much!"

  A group of people, carrying two wounded men, left the Magic Beast Forest.

  On the road, Liú Yún learned that Iverson was a man from the Western Kingdom of Xīsī, who had entered the Huǒyún Empire to avoid his enemies. This time, he and his companions entered the Mó Shòu Sēn Lín (Demon Beast Forest) mainly to hunt some demon beasts and obtain magic crystals to make a living.

  It's just that some things are hard to understand, all three of them have the identity of primary swordsmen, and there should be many people willing to recruit them, yet they still have to rush about for a living. Everson explained that it was because the Avenger family's power was too great, once he revealed his face, he would likely be pursued and killed, and his companions would also be implicated.

  He felt the helplessness and indignation in Iverson's words, and Liuyun stopped asking further because he himself did not want to recall sad past events.

  Iverson actually also wanted to ask about the situation of the previous battle, but finally did not speak up.

  Back at the ranch, it was already dusk.

  "Brothers, you can relax tonight! Drink heavily, eat big chunks of meat, and enjoy the glory of returning alive from the Monster Forest! Also, bring out the best things and treat our guests well! Dismissed!" Flowing Cloud shouted to the crowd behind him.

  "Wow!" The crowd behind him cheered and scattered like rabbits. Most people rushed straight to the riverbank, eager to bid farewell to the bloody smell.

  "Xiao Yun, you have to help me deal with this thing tonight. I think my barbecue skills are still no match for yours."

  Patted the corpse of Huoyun Beast, Old Ka seemed to recall the deliciousness of Liuyun's roast, and couldn't help but swallow his saliva. Although Liuyun had taught him with all her heart, Old Ka always felt that he was still far from it.

  "Uncle, I've always told you, don't use magic flames for roasting, use charcoal fire, but you just won't believe me."

  Liú Yún had already passed on all the barbecue techniques from his past life to Old Ka, but the flavor of the barbecue cooked by Old Ka always seemed to be lacking. Liú Yún attributed this to the fact that Old Ka used magical flames for barbecuing, just like using liquefied gas to roast meat. As for what the reason was, he didn't know either.

  A great magician who cooks meat with magic, a group of warriors who know primary magic, and an owner who is completely unreliable. What kind of place is this? And what kind of people are they? Everson was completely bewildered.