The Quest for Immortality

Their opponent was a Second Grade Primary Rank monster.

Its skin was crimson, engulfed in flames, adorned with long fangs, sharp black claws, and fiery eyes tinged with reddish-brown. Its movements left trails of fire behind — this was a Fire Demon Wolf, a fire-series monster beast.

The strength of the Fire Demon Wolf wasn’t particularly weak or overpowering. Among Second Grade Primary Rank monster beasts, it was fairly average.

In Mo Hua’s eyes, it was no big deal.

But for these novice Tai’a sect hunters, dealing with it was extremely challenging.

There were five of them, including ”Little Wood” Ouyang Mu, and each of them wielded a yellow-red Spirit Sword, engaging in close combat with the Fire Demon Wolf.

The Tai’a Sect excelled in sword-casting techniques, and the quality of their Spirit Swords was remarkably high.

Complementing their sword-casting craft, the swordsmanship they practiced closely resembled body cultivation techniques.

With robust physical bodies and razor-sharp Spirit Swords, paired with the strength of body cultivation and the Sword Qi of swordsmanship, they demonstrated considerable combat power in true battles.

Although they lacked the ability to use superior Taoist skills or Sword Control techniques like spiritual cultivators or sword cultivators who relied on power accumulation,

Their martial-arts-like swordsmanship was swift in execution, with flexible moves and fluid transitions between offensive and defensive maneuvers.

In close combat, they had a significant advantage and couldn’t be underestimated.

Senior Brother Ouyang Fengfeng practiced this type of swordsmanship.

Previously, during bounty missions, they relied entirely on Senior Brother Fengfeng’s ability to hold the offensive and defensive fronts on his own and confront Sin Cultivators head-on.

This gave Senior Sister Murong and the other spiritual cultivators the opportunity to cast spells with ease.

However, these Tai’a sect ”junior disciples” were nowhere near comparable to Senior Brother Fengfeng.

Not only were their cultivation levels, swordsmanship, and combat experience inferior, but even the quality of their Spirit Swords lagged behind considerably.

Especially ”Little Wood,” who was clumsy to the point of appearing completely clueless during a fight.

When he shouldn’t have acted, he rushed forward with a stab, revealing a fatal flaw in his own defenses, which the monster exploited.

When he should’ve made a move, he hesitated, failing to strike, thereby squandering crucial opportunities.

The other Tai’a sect disciples were barely passable.

But even that was just ”mediocre” at best.

They relied on their foundational cultivation and youthful vigor, daring to fight and kill recklessly.

Their timing and coordination amidst the advancing and retreating, the attacking and defending, were crudely handled.

They were far inferior compared to Situ’s team.

And not even as sharp as Hao Xuan’s skillset.

At this level, it was clear they couldn’t possibly kill the Fire Demon Wolf.

Sure enough, after a short exchange, the Fire Demon Wolf feigned a flaw, luring two Tai’a sect disciples to attack.

Then it unleashed its demonic power, flames surging from its body. Taking advantage of the pair’s eagerness for merit, their lack of restraint, and inability to shift tactics, it charged forward with explosive speed, transforming into a streak of fire, disappearing into the distance.

The principle of not chasing a desperate enemy was at least something these Tai’a sect disciples understood.

Moreover, this was happening inside Refining Demon Mountain.

And their spiritual power was nearly depleted as well.

The group sat cross-legged where they were, replenishing their spiritual power as they vented their frustrations:

”It escaped again!”

”We’ve tried so many times, and it always manages to evade us.”

Someone turned to blame Ouyang Mu, ”Wood, you keep making mistakes, too many errors. If not for you, we’d have killed this Wolf Demon already.”

Another chimed in, ”Did you even pay attention to what we told you?”

”If you keep being so useless, how are we supposed to bring you along into the mountains next time?”

Ouyang Mu kept his head down, feeling ashamed, and said nothing.

One disciple grew enraged, ”At least try to speak up!”

”If it weren’t for your brother...”

”Enough!” A slightly taller disciple interrupted, ”Talking about it now serves no purpose.”

The angry disciple swallowed his words, though his frustration was evident.

”If this keeps up, we won’t capture a single monster, nor earn any Merit Points. It’s simply a waste of time...”

Though he didn’t explicitly name names, everyone knew whom he was referring to.

The atmosphere grew tense.

Mo Hua shook his head slightly.

Granted, Little Wood indeed lacked experience, his swordsmanship was rough, and his repeated mistakes dragged the team down.

Yet their team’s overall strength was limited, and their monster-hunting lacked any solid strategy. Even without Little Wood, replacing him with someone of equal strength wouldn’t have enabled them to kill the Fire Demon Wolf either.

In a failed hunting attempt, placing part of the blame on the weakest link was inevitable.

But entirely blaming Little Wood was rather unreasonable.

People often conveniently shift their own faults onto others, thus failing to recognize their own shortcomings.

That said, this was the Tai’a sect’s internal affair, and Mo Hua saw no reason to intervene.

Afterward, the five Tai’a sect disciples searched around the mountains for a while, but the Fire Demon Wolf was nowhere to be found, and the twilight began to settle. Left with no choice, the group decided to return.

On the way back, the other four disciples cast looks at Little Wood filled with varying degrees of resentment.

Ouyang Mu merely kept his head down, quiet and subdued.

Mo Hua watched them descend the mountain without interfering.

By the next day, Mo Hua returned to the mountains to practice Sword Control as usual.

Around midday, after resting atop a tree for some time, he unsurprisingly spotted Ouyang Mu again.

Ouyang Mu’s party was still five people, but this time, his companions were no longer the same ones from the day before.

It wasn’t clear whether Ouyang Mu felt too guilty about hindering his previous teammates and voluntarily swapped groups.

Or if those four were fed up with him being a drag and decided not to include him anymore.

Mo Hua sighed softly.

Their target seemed to still be the Fire Demon Wolf.

But for novice monster-hunting teams, trying to hunt a Second Grade Primary Rank monster beast was a formidable challenge to begin with.

As expected, they failed again.

Although all five were inept, the entirety of the blame would inevitably fall on the weakest member.

Ouyang Mu endured another round of scolding.

But his wooden personality and inability to articulate himself left him helpless.