Wei Ying adopted by HuaLian

Chapter (30): A night hunt

One night, Wei Ying was jumping from branch to branch in a forest. Then he stopped on one and let out a deep breath as he calmed himself down. The night was chilly but not cold. The moon was also shining brightly above so the surroundings were clear to the eye. There should be nothing that could be a threat to him on a perfect night like this, yet he was feeling a bit nervous because of all the excitement. After regaining his focus, Wei Ying leapt deeper into the forest.

Wei Ying went into the forest all on his own. Of course, he had to get permission from Xie Lian before he could go. It was not easy for Wei Ying to convince his baba to let him go alone, but alas he succeeded. However, in exchange for that, he was fully equipped with all sorts of weapons and protection. On his waist was his sword 'Suibian (Whatever)' which he named like that by accident. There was the sword tassel he got from Mu Qing hanging on its handle. On Wei Ying's left wrist was the small silver bracelet which could turn into a powerful arrow given by Feng Xin. On his back was a pair of a bow and a quiver all enhanced in spiritual power by Hua Cheng. There was also the spiritual weapon of his baba, the white silk band 'Ruoye' wrapped around his right wrist. Then attached on the other side of his waist was a red qiankun pouch filled with talismans, medicinal pills, fireworks that could be used as emergency signals, a book about the types of monsters one could encounter in the forest written by Xie Lian and one that Wei Ying took one scan at and never looked again, and many more various things Xie Lian thought would be necessary for Wei Ying's first night hunt. Even the black robe he wore that night was also specially sewn with protection spells.

Wei Ying thought his Baba was being overly worried. But because he was not allowed to go alone unless he equipped all of them, Wei Ying had everything on his body. Even before Wei Ying got his own sword, he had been accompanying Xie Lian on his exorcising journeys and his Nan-shushu and Fu-shushu would take him on a night hunt every once a while in order for him to gain experience. Hence, Wei Ying had gone on many monster-slaying trips and night hunts as an assistant or an intern but never on his own. Tonight was his first time going on a solo night hunt. Thus, tonight was the night that could determine how strong he had gotten and so he was determined to catch a formidable monster before going back.

Upon arriving on a rather high branch, Wei Ying looked around for a bit then decided to sit down for a while. Then, he took out the monster catalogue written by his Baba and flipped through it again.

"Hah... There's not even one interesting enough in Baba's list... Every recommended monster is a weakling..."

Nearly every kind of existing monster, yaos, ghosts, demons, ghouls were written in that book, but it specialized in describing Malice-ranked or the lowest ranked monsters. Xie Lian specifically wrote that Wei Ying was to hunt only Malice-ranked monsters and must run away immediately or use the emergency firework once he encounters a Menace-ranked, the third strongest or the second lowest. Although it was only one rank different between a Malice and a Menace, the cultivation was largely different. A Malice ranged from having killed only one to hundreds while a Menace had killed a whole sect or more. Such monsters would be far too powerful for Wei Ying to handle. Menace-ranked monsters were not rare in this world. If there were millions of Malice-ranked, then there would be tens of thousands of Menace-ranked. The Savage-ranked had hundreds of them, and only the Supreme-ranked were truly rare. There was only three of Devastation or Supreme-ranked ever existed or known.

"Does Baba think I'm weak..." Wei Ying mumbled to himself as he went through the catalogue while sitting atop a tree branch. In honesty, the monsters recommended by Xie Lian were not weak. Some were even ones that would need even a full grown cultivator to go all out to defeat. However, Wei Ying had only ever gone out on night hunts with Mu Qing and Feng Xin, the two who only hunted Menace-ranked monsters. So he thought Malice-rankeds were all weaklings. Having not found a satisfying type of monster to hunt in the catalogue, Wei Ying decided to go deeper into the forest. Once he took a leap, he heard a rustling noise from behind. Wei Ying immediately took caution and checked where the rustling noise came from. But as there was nothing, he continued to move on.