"The Azure Cliff refining art? Is this from the Azure Cliff Sword sect?" Yin Xiu was shocked.
Hu Meng was noncommittal however "Those guys will venture into the forest quite a bit, but they overestimate themselves too much for my liking. It seems almost like as soon as they enter the Qi refining stage they journey into the depths just to die." Shaking his large head he continued "My mother is very strong, but even she refuses to venture too deep. I think this booklet must have been picked up off of one of those poor souls that overestimated themselves. Just like that fool that led to your situation."
"You mean the one that was being chased by that massive bear?" Yin Xiu quickly understood.
"That's the one, that bear is a member of a clan that lives in one of the deeper winter areas, called the white-striped tundra bear tribe. If I had to hazard a guess that cultivator heard the rumors of a special ore that is sometimes found in the forest called snow glazed iron. It is pretty popular to make low grade flying tools. So, they went to try their luck, and ended up getting themselves, and your group of travelers killed."
Yin Xiu absorbed this in silence for a moment before answering "It seems before I'm sure I can bear the risks, I shouldn't explore places rashly."
Hu Men nodded with a sage expression "Ah, young one the way to prosperity lies in knowing your strength."
Yin Xiu chuckled, and then asked curiously. "Hu Meng what is your current strength?"
"Well, if correlated to the human system, I'm around a mid stage qi refining cultivator. I'm rather young to be at this strength, as I'm only ten years old this year." He said with a hint of complacency, before continuing "Well to be fair, we spirit beasts don't have to do the body tempering stage that you do, as we are more often than not already born with powerful enough bodies to cultivate. The real difficulty lies in awakening higher intelligence." He sighed, "Personally the only reason that I can speak at my current level is due to my bloodline. If not I would just be slightly smarter than a regular tiger."
"I see, so is your cultivation technique passed down from your mother?" Yin Xiu asked with intrigue.
"I wish..." Hu Meng's head bowed slightly with regret. "Spirit beasts will naturally receive a bloodline inheritance if descended from powerful ancestors, and my mother cultivates a metal based technique, as she was born with a high degree of the White Tiger bloodline, but I am a mutant... I'm not sure if it has something to do with my father or something my mother encountered while pregnant, but she won't tell me why I came out so different." A profound uneasiness was in Hu Meng's voice when he mentioned this, before he seemed to shake off his melancholy, and looked at Yin Xiu with bright eyes.
"Now that I think about it we're really quite similar, I can't cultivate my clans technique because of my inherent affinity to shadows, and you are cultivating some mysterious poison technique. Maybe we can help each other and both work together to create our own techniques." Both Hu Meng's and Yin Xiu's eyes brightened instantly as they thought of the implications of this development.
"I certainly don't have any objections, well to create our own techniques I think we'll more than likely need to find some other techniques to reference. Maybe when I finish my body refining fully and have to do those tasks for you mother we can search around. Also we need to develop a better understanding of the cultivation world itself." Yin Xi voiced his thoughts contemplatively, "I know there are nine heavens and we're in Tempestuous Heaven, but other than that I'm kinda in the dark."
"Hmm... I've heard my mother mention Primal Heaven and Abyssal Heaven, as both of them are controlled by factions of Spirit Beasts, she said that Abyssal Heaven is covered in huge expanses of oceans, with the Black Tortoise and Kunpeng clans holding dominion. Primal Heaven is predominantly covered by large tracts of dense forests with the Azure Dragon clan in charge over there." Hu Meng explained as far as he knew.
"What about Tempestuous Heaven?" Yin Xiu asked curiously,
"I'm fairly certain our own heaven is extremely difficult to gain control of completely, as there are quite a few death zones that only the truly strong can venture into. The forest of the four seasons included. My mother refuses to speak much about what's inside, but sometimes I feel inexplicably frightened when I look towards the depths. It might be due to my instincts, but whatever is there isn't something I can contend with." Hu Meng shook his head warily.
"Maybe when we're truly strong we can go in and find out." Yin Xiu stated with optimism, "Okay let's look at the body tempering method and see what is most feasible for me." Yin Xiu then read the technique aloud.
"The Azure Cliff Refining technique uses various medicinal ingredients to strengthen the body focusing almost entirely on the hardness of the body."
Hu Meng interjected "Just from the description it doesn't seem to be that suitable for you, Hardness is inherently yang, and you are a yin attributed cultivator. If you cultivate this it will almost certainly make you go crazy."
"Go crazy?" Yin Xiu asked in disbelief.
"Mmhmm cultivation is dangerous, there are all kinds of ways to die just by cultivating itself. Whether it's Qi deviation, heart demons, or a shaken Dao foundation. All of it can be either fatal, or it'll cut off any hope of advancing. So, we have to take our technique creation very seriously Yin Xiu." Hu Meng warned gravely.
"I understand", Yin Xiu calmed down, and read with more intensity trying to glean something from the only technique he had available to learn from.
"To refine the skin like stone, use a mixture of silver root grass, and two-faced ganoderma with a small amount of Qi infused water to make a paste, evenly coat it on the skin reciting the mnemonic, only the earth is eternal, while absorbing the medicinal ingredients. Depending on the quality of the ingredients used in this step the sooner your skin refining can be completed."
"Hmmm... well the only thing I think I can potentially copy with this is the paste idea, which I'm fairly certain should still be usable except I should likely change the plants used."
"Oh yeah Yin Xiu, what characteristics did your muscle refinement lead to." Hu Meng inquired with interest. "We should base your skin cultivation on what your muscles have already undergone."
"Good question! Should we do some tests Hu Meng?"
"Sure, how about you punch that tree and see if it is strength related." He suggested.
Yin Xiu nodded and got into a passable horse stance as he punched forward with anticipation shortly followed by, "Ahhhhhh!!" Yin Xiu's hand swelled up as he tried not to scream. In disbelief he stared at the faint mark in the wood with an indescribable expression.
Hu Meng holding back laughter quipped "Not strength based it seems" Before reigning in the emotions on his tiger face. "Hmm when you threw the punch it seemed like your arm was a lot more mobile than I was expecting. Maybe see if its flexibility that was enhanced?"
Yin Xiu quickly did some basic stretches finding it to be true, his body could contort itself extremely easily, as if completely naturally.
"This is quite interesting, maybe when it's time to make weapon techniques, and skills I can utilize this flexibility to the extreme. I'll try out various weapons when we go to the cultivator market in the future." Making this decision, Yin Xiu continued. "Hu Meng, we've figured out the main area that I want to improve. Maybe my flexibility should be the focus for skin refining as well, as I noticed that my skin was stretching uncomfortably while I was testing my flexibility earlier."
"I agree. So, what we need to do is find some more poisonous materials, and use them to make a paste, and try to see which ones will improve the flexibility of your body. Also maybe we won't have to worry about the mnemonic if your physique takes effect and refines it for you." Hu Meng suggested.
"Good point" Yin Xiu said in approval. "I think we can find the poisonous materials fairly easily. I've developed an interesting ability to pinpoint poisonous materials from my physique."
"Alright, lets go look around in this area, as it's under my mother's control and we won't get in any conflicts. Its an autumn area though, so there'll be less plants growing, but I think you pretty much wiped out the summer area you were originally in."
Yin Xiu nodded in agreement. Then one man and one tiger searched all over the area surrounded covered in falling leaves. Quickly finding their first target; a strange gray vine with small hooked thorns running down its stem, with a few small clusters of dark gray berries interspersed around the plant.
"Do you have any idea what this called Hu Meng?" Yin Xiu asked as he quickly plucked off the berries.
"I have no idea. To be honest I only know of a few relatively common herbs with healing properties." The tiger answered nonchalantly.
Yin Xiu sighed then quickly regained his composure "We should look for more information once we leave the forest in the future too. It'll be a good idea to know some more common poisonous plants, so it'll be more convenient to try and possibly use them in the future."
"Lets not experiment with these yet, until we have gathered a decent amount of different types, and we'll test their efficacy once we have enough to experiment." With their goal set they picked up the pace and searched the area for an afternoon before returning to the Mountain peak that Hu Fang cultivates.
At the base of the mountain Yin Xiu and Hu Meng stared at their harvest. They had several clusters of the dark berries from the thorn covered vines that they ended up collecting several plants worth, a few strange gnarled roots covered in twisted cracks with a black gas occasionally seeping out, two beautiful red fruits that looked almost bursting with juice, and the same berries that Yin Xiu had found in the summer area that caused hallucinations.
"Well, I think we can rule out the hallucination berries. Which leaves us with three options." Yin Xiu stared at the three leftover plants, and asked with a strange expression, "Should I try to eat them all, and see what happens?"
Hu Meng also hesitated slightly before nodding "I don't have a better option. I can't eat them."
Yin Xiu steeled himself before popping one of the berries from the thorn covered vines, and quickly felt a burning feeling in his throat, clearly showing the corrosive properties of the berries. In comparison to some of the other poisons Yin Xiu had digested it was rather mild. After several minutes the poison's effects slowly passed as the leftover toxins were stored in Yin Xiu's muscles.
"I think this one should work." Yin Xiu finally managed to squeeze out. "The corrosion should act to soften the skin which if paired with another material that increases toughness, it could potentially combine the two aspects resulting in flexibility."
"I'll try the red fruit now." Yin Xiu deliberated briefly before decisively avoiding the sinister looking root shaped plant.
Picking up the fruit he took a large bite, and the skin of the fruit burst open in his mouth, with a wonderful flavor.
"This one is delicious! I could eat ten ackkkk.." Not long after he said that his body started to visibly heat up, and his blood almost felt like it was on fire. His skin turning a scarlet red color with steam rising off of his body.
Hu Meng jumped up in surprise before he paced around anxiously as he watched his first friend writhing around. When the red coloring faded, Yin Xiu finally managed to stand up.
Hu Meng circled around sniffing him before being reassured by Yin Xiu that he was fine.
"Yin Xiu, why didn't you have these exaggerated reactions before when you were developing your physique?" Hu Meng was seriously confused.
"Well in my experience, my body has to overcome the poison itself once before developing a resistance to it. You more than likely were watching me eat plants that I had already eaten once before. The effects also don't completely disappear after the first time. The effect is just weaker. If I had to guess I think it relates to my personal strength, and the grade of the poison that I ingest. If I eat something that's too strong I believe I'll just die anyway... Speaking of that, the first fruit I ate I can guarantee was not something I should have lived." A look of fear appeared on yin Xiu's face as he remembered the pain and terror of that experience.
"I just survived off of luck. Also after my body was acclimatized to it, it was still stronger than any of the other poisons I've had so far... Anyway I'm pretty sure the red fruits are at least Qi refining grade herbs, as they really hurt." he chuckled mirthlessly before looking at the ominous roots, and asked "So, do I eat the plant or inhale the gas?"
"That's a great question." they looked at each other before Yin Xiu reached out and bit the end off of one of the roots which quickly made his skin turn a strange slate gray, before resolving itself a few minutes later. Rubbing his still stiff face and neck Yin Xiu confidently stated "It seems like type of paralysis."
Hu Meng nodded with a bit of excitement "Isn't that the toughness we were thinking of earlier? We also don't have any Qi infused water, but what if we used the Juice from those red fruits? You said they're likely Qi refining grade herbs."
Yin Xiu mulled over the idea and quickly agreed. Moving quickly they created a small makeshift bowl by having Hu Meng hollow out a rock with his claws. They then took a long stick forming a makeshift mortar and pestle. They ground the berries from the thorn-vine, and the ominous root into a slurry before mixing in the juice they squeezed from the red fruits. The concoction looked quite scary as a strange paste that was predominately clack with specks of red throughout appeared in the end.