Three hours of running and Scar crouched at Beast Valley's edge, the same place Yang Feng had passed dozens of times on herb gathering missions but had never dared to truly explore. Dawn light was just starting to filter through ancient trees, mist clinging to the ground like reaching fingers.
Back in the sect, Yang Feng lay on his sleeping mat experiencing everything through their connection - the damp earth beneath Scar's feet, the cool morning air against his skin, the weight of the iron dagger at his belt, the sounds of the forest waking up around them.
Spirit beasts moved through the underbrush ahead, their spiritual energy signatures visible to anyone who knew how to sense them. A spirit wolf prowled near a cluster of glowing herbs. A spirit boar rooted through undergrowth looking for spirit grass. Something larger and more dangerous moved deeper in the forest, but Scar wisely stayed away from that.
Start small. Build up. Don't get killed on the first hunt.
The spirit boar was the closest target, maybe thirty feet away, its massive frame pushing through bushes as it searched for food. Body Refinement Stage Five equivalent based on the density of spiritual energy radiating from its body, strong enough to kill most trial disciples but not impossible for someone willing to take risks.
Scar was willing.
He waited in the underbrush, controlling his breathing and staying downwind, watching the beast move and learning its patterns. The boar was powerful but not particularly intelligent, following instinct more than strategy. It had a routine - root around for herbs, eat what it found, move to the next cluster, repeat.
Predictable.
When the boar turned its head to investigate some spirit grass, exposing the side of its skull where bone was thinnest, Scar moved.
He exploded from cover with everything he had, spiritual energy flooding through his meridians and into his fist as muscle and bone and intent combined into a single devastating strike - the punch crashed into the boar's skull with a sound like breaking wood, bone fracturing under the impact as the beast's head snapped violently to the side.
The spirit boar squealed, high-pitched and enraged, and whipped around faster than something that size should be able to move. Tusks like curved swords slashed toward Scar's chest, aiming to disembowel him in a single strike.
Scar threw himself backward and felt wind from those ivory points as they missed his ribs by less than an inch, the boar's charge carrying it past in a blur of muscle and fury. Too close, way too close, one mistake and he'd be dead.
Back in his quarters Yang Feng's heart hammered as adrenaline dumped through their shared connection, experiencing the near-death moment as if he'd been the one almost gored. His hands clenched the sleeping mat hard enough that his knuckles went white.
Scar rolled to his feet and grabbed a fallen branch thick as his forearm, no time to draw the dagger with the boar already spinning around for another charge. He swung the improvised club with both hands as the beast lowered its head and rushed forward, tusks aimed at his stomach.
The branch boomed against the spirit boar's skull and exploded into splinters, the impact jarring Scar's arms hard enough that pain shot up to his shoulders. The boar stumbled but didn't fall, shaking its massive head and refocusing with eyes that promised murder.
Fuck waiting for an opening, Scar thought, and Yang Feng felt the same thought because they were the same person making the same decision.
Scar launched a brutal kick into the boar's exposed ribs while it was still recovering from the branch strike, flooding his leg with spiritual energy as bone met bone with a sickening crunch. Something inside the beast ruptured, Scar felt it through the impact, organs tearing as his kick caved in the creature's ribcage.
The spirit boar's legs buckled. Blood exploded from its mouth in a dark spray. It collapsed with a heavy thud that shook the ground, convulsing once before going still.
Dead.
Scar stood there breathing hard, his knuckles split and bleeding from the punch, his arms aching from the branch strike, his leg throbbing from the kick. But he was alive and the beast was dead, which made it a successful hunt.
His first kill.
Back in High Heaven Pavilion, Yang Feng experienced every second through their connection - the punch that fractured bone, the near-death moment with those tusks, the savage satisfaction of the killing blow. His body hadn't moved from the sleeping mat but his muscles ached like he'd fought, his pulse raced like he'd nearly died, his breath came quick like he'd just sprinted.
The Black Mirror System materialized in both their visions:
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Two percent from one fight. Yang Feng had spent six months grinding for maybe eight percent total progress through normal cultivation, and Scar had just given him two percent in minutes of brutal combat.
This was it, this was how he'd escape the cage of mediocrity and climb to the peak.
Out in Beast Valley, Scar crouched beside the dead boar and cut into its chest with the iron dagger, carving through thick hide and muscle until he found the beast core nestled just below the heart. A sphere the size of his fist, pulsing with concentrated spiritual energy, worth at least ten low-grade spirit stones to the right buyer.
Scar pocketed the core and stood, scanning the forest with eyes that had shifted from prey to predator in the span of one fight. The sun was barely up, plenty of hunting time left before he needed to worry about being spotted.
A spirit wolf howled in the distance, the sound echoing through the trees like a challenge.
Scar smiled and started walking toward it, dagger ready and body loose, because flowers of the greenhouse cannot withstand wind and rain but he wasn't a flower anymore.
He was the storm that would drown everyone who'd ever called Yang Feng weak.
Through their connection, Yang Feng felt Scar hunting, felt the cold calculation of tracking prey and choosing targets, felt the shift from victim to hunter. He got up from his sleeping mat and prepared for his day as if nothing had changed, as if he was still worthless trash at the bottom of the sect hierarchy.
Let them think that. Let Chen Hao keep his inner sect robes and his four-star talent and his elder backing. Let them all think Yang Feng had accepted his place.
By the time they realized the truth, it would be too late.
The strong eat the weak, and Yang Feng had just stopped being weak.