Yin Xiu felt the world twist in his perception as an indescribably wondrous feeling blanketed his mind, in a trance he touched on the most fundamental force in the Nine Heavens. His perspective seemingly shrinking, his limbs disappeared, scales emerged all over his body and his eyes became slitted and ruthless. Soon he found himself completely shifting into the body of a snake. His emotionless pupils staring intently as a small rabbit slowly approached his hiding place underneath a small alcove. Hidden in the shadows, he waited patiently as his prey came ever closer. His muscles tensed tightly, preparing all of his strength to attack as quickly as possible and at the most opportune moment, he struck.
The rabbit let out a high pitched squeal as his fangs sank deeply into its leg, while a dull yellow venom was injected directly into its bloodstream. Quickly letting go, he watched the rabbit run away in panic as its rapidly beating heart was pumping the blood in its body faster and faster as the venom shut down its vital signs. Unhurriedly, the snake followed while occasionally flicking out his forked tongue following the scent of its prey. Soon the snake looked down on the dead rabbit emotionlessly, just as Yin Xiu had looked at the first person he'd ever killed. Callous, cold, natural. The rune in his chest slowly went out and Yin Xiu returned to reality.
Yin Xiu quickly regained his senses, and felt the miraculous change that his body had undergone. He felt more natural, the slight discomfort that came with ingesting such large volumes of toxins seemed to have disappeared. As if he was born with poison naturally.
Hu Meng looked at Yin Xiu in disbelief, "Did you seriously experience enlightenment just by killing that weak guy?" Hu Meng had never seen anything more ridiculous in his ten years of tiger life.
"I believe so, I found myself seemingly becoming a snake hunting its prey. I realized that my mindset before wasn't truly aligned with the Dao of Poison, poison is meant to kill, it's in the very nature of poison to end lives. Sentimentality has no worth." Yin Xiu said expressionlessly.
"Well... be careful, my mother once said that when pursuing the Dao, you can't be consumed by it. Especially for us as Yin-attributed cultivators. There are plenty of unorthodox cultivators that go crazy and murder innocents for no reason." Hu Meng warned with a hint of wariness.
Yin Xiu smiled back and replied "I understand, I don't really feel like I'm a different person or no longer myself, it's more like I've gotten over my guilt completely. At first I was slightly conflicted, but after my trance I realized this is in the nature of all creatures especially those that walk my Dao." Yin Xiu confidently replied.
"Well, that's good at least!" Hu Meng's hanging heart finally fell down as he reviewed Yin Xiu's performance in the battle. 'Yin Xiu didn't disappoint me... if he couldn't handle fighting to defend our territory, then he wouldn't be worth befriending.' Hu Meng's thoughts were quickly interrupted by a pressing matter.
"What should we do with the loot on these guys?" Yin Xiu asked while looking at the two swords, and a strange leather bag that he had removed from Senior Brother Ming's headless body.
"Let's go through what they have, and then divide it up based on what we both need. Anything that's left over I guess we'll take with us to sell when we go to do that task for my mother." Hu Meng suggested, Yin Xiu quickly nodded without any complaints.
"Yin Xiu do you want to take one of these swords to use?" Hu Meng asked curiously. Yin Xiu bent over and picked up the sword used by Junior brother Han, weighing it in his hand before making a few amateurish slashes. Shaking his head in confusion he replied "I always feel like a part of me is saying that the sword isn't the right style of weapon for me... it feels so awkward." Yin Xiu said with a bit of helplessness.
"Every story of cultivators I've ever heard, the protagonist uses a sword to vanquish all the devils and buddhas in their way, but I never expected I couldn't use one." Yin Xiu said speechlessly.
"My mother told me that sword cultivators must have an honest and upright character to make it far in their cultivation. Maybe since your talents lie in poison, you are naturally incompatible with swords." Hu Meng reasoned logically.
"I guess that's the only explanation, well why don't we search the bag too?" Yin Xiu suggested quickly abandoning any lingering sentiments. He had actually heard about storage bags from the old storyteller. It was an item that could store items with much larger sizes than the actual bag. Yin Xiu had always wanted to see one.
"Let me crack the Qi seal, and we'll see what we've got." Hu Meng grinned excitedly which seemed quite ferocious with his sharp teeth on full display. A grayish black strand of Qi sank into the bag, and with a muffled pop the bag was forcefully opened. Hu Meng grabbed one end of the bag with his mouth, and unceremoniously dumped the contents into the snow. They both stared intently as they took stock of what was in the pouch. There were freshly harvested materials from the wolves including fangs claws, and the pelts. A booklet on introductory sword skills from the Azure Cliff Sword sect, a jade box with a slight medicinal fragrance coming from it, a long black needle, two fireball talismans, and around fifteen low grade spirit stones.
"Poor ghosts!" Hu Meng cursed viciously "Can you believe this Yin Xiu! Fifteen spirit stones! What a pauper! The rest of this is trash, the bag is the most expensive thing here!" Hu Meng was so heated he started pacing, and his pitch lowered into almost a growl.
"Hu Meng calm down! Let's check the contents of the jade box at least! It should have an herb in it." Yin Xiu quickly calmed him down before opening the box which immediately released a burning aura directly into his face as an orange and red ginseng appeared in front of him, its roots flickering with occasional flames.
Hu Meng stared at it intently for a moment before saying "This is definitely a Qi refining grade herb, and it's not of low quality. Unfortunately, neither of us cultivate flame techniques, and we think you should need specifically poisons for your organ refinement otherwise, this would be perfect."
"It is indeed a bit of a pity, I don't see any sign of this being a poison." Yin Xiu then turned his attention to the rest of the spoils before quickly resting his eyes on the inconspicuous needle shaped weapon. He picked it up and felt a sense of naturalness completely unlike when he held the sword. It was comfortable almost like his fangs when he experienced his enlightenment, a weapon that fit perfectly with his body. 'How can I not have a way to inject poison?' The more he inspected it the more he liked it. It was made from a lusterless black iron with a simple design. One end was extremely sharp while the other was blunt and slightly wider to make it easier to hold in the hand. It was simple and unadorned, but to Yin Xiu it was perfect.
"Hu Meng can I take this?" Yin Xiu asked. Hu Meng glanced over and nodded directly with an air of casualness. "I would have just thrown it away, so of course."
Delighted, Yin Xiu used it to tie his hair into a bun for the first time since his mad dash in the forest, finally regaining a sense of gracefulness, if you ignored the mess his robes were in. He then glanced at the robes of the two cultivators that were on the ground, which were soaked in blood, before decisively deciding to keep wearing his own.
"Well let's go into the wolfden to see what's inside? None of these things look like they/re gathered from this part of the forest, so whatever the wolves were hoarding is likely still there." Hu Meng suggested with a hint of liveliness returning to his expression.
Yin Xiu naturally agreed, quickly the two entered the gloomy cave, kicking away the bones left behind by the wolf pack, searching around for whatever materials were stashed before the groups extermination by the cultivators.
Towards the back of the cave they found a small mound of dirt that looked somewhat unnatural, glancing at each other Hu Meng quickly dug out two ores shining with a cold light. "Snow-glazed iron isn't bad, it can be sold for a decent amount." Putting them into the bag they searched around a little more before only finding a small stash of meat that was kept fresh due to the cold nature of the environment. Hu Meng placed it into the bag as well before handing the storage bag to Yin Xiu for safekeeping.
"I'll leave this with you to carry, we have a few back home, but they're really inconvenient to carry in our natural forms. Now that you're here it's a lot easier. When you reach Qi refining I'll give you this one, as before then you can't form a connection with the bag to store things." Hu Meng explained.
Finally the duo returned to the clearing outside the cave, "Let's finally get around to what wee came here for, let's search the area for your poisons, and then we'll head back for the night."
Time passed quickly as they scoured the harsh Winter environment. They arrived back outside the tiger's residence with their spoils right before dark. Besides what they had collected in the cave, and from the cultivators, they found four more types of poisonous herbs in the winter area.
A gorgeous blue and white flower with a faint mist rising off of the petals, a sky blue berry, and the last two seemed to be two different plants, that always grew together, one had a black stem that twisted in a clockwise direction, and the other had a white stem that grew counterclockwise, each ending with a fruit of the opposite color glowing from the tip. The white stem growing a black fruit, and the black stem growing a white fruit.