I decided against staying in the sect, it was not a good choice at least for now. Because of a few reasons…
First thing was, that the treatment of the Outer Disciples was horrible. They got nothing, not even food, and were required to get it themselves, and were basically a working force tasked to bring in logs and fill massive water vats. Though this is acceptable and normal for most sects to build the Outer Sect Disciple's bodies and muscles with hard work, I didn't really need that.
Since, I was actually exempted from it, after all, I'm the son of the Sect Master's best friend. Or former best friend since Ling Cao's father passed away long ago.
So there was no point in me staying here for now.
The second big factor was the few disciples laying on the ground in front of me, groaning in pain.
Several of the disciples somehow knew or were affiliated with the very person that inflicted many of the injuries upon Ling Cao. They came in to curry favor with the 'Yong Master' as they called him. But unfortunately for them, I wasn't the same person.
I didn't kill any of them and made sure to have them all lightly inflicted by a hallucination-inducing poison, this way they'll probably all have a different story to tell when they wake up.
I didn't want to be revealed so soon, once I'm discovered I'll probably be targeted, and right now I can't guarantee my safety.
Thus, I had to leave the sect, even if momentarily.
As I walked out of the sect's gates, the same two disciples that guarded the sect's entrance.
One of them mocked as he looked at my leaving figure.
"He probably got bullied out of the sect, again, humph."
The other, which was surprising said, "is that so…he feels slightly different. Something had changed about him, I don't really think he got bullied."
Good observation skills…
"You must be dreaming anyway, our turn is almost over, I'm hungry where are we eating today?" he said and the conversation immediately switched and became more mundane.
Good, I didn't want anyone to know about my current disposition so I left for the mountains.
I needed to get more powerful and to do so, I'll need to gain physical strength first. With the damage dealt with this body, trying to do martial arts is tantamount to suicide.
Right now, the body I'm hosting is probably nothing more than the skin on bones right now, and heavily malnourished. So, I needed sustenance, a good deal of it, and a lot of physical training.
I headed up to the mountains and began hunting for food. First things first, I needed to find a good hunting area. Start slow, anything from rabbits to birds to small prey is good as a start, then I'll need to figure out a way to hunt even bigger prey and then rebuild my body.
I spent a few days on the mountain at first, making a small shelter to retreat back into once it was night time and when it was the morning I moved around all over the mountain to check the traps I had made and if I had any prey in them.
The result of the first day was atrocious, nothing but broken traps and no prey, I had to make sturdier traps and so I worked on that for the night.
On the second day, I managed to get a hold of a couple of wild rabbits; they made a pretty decent meal.
On the third day, I understood more about where the rabbits usually hang out and got even more wild prey.
Then, day after day, I focused on nothing but eating.
A few pills would easily sustain me from hunger for a long while, however, satiety pills are useless to build muscle. Thus meat, from hunted animals is the best source.
However, right now what I'm doing right now was nothing more than recovering this body back to its original form, nothing more.
After a couple of weeks of the same regime, I managed to gain a good mass and felt my steps heavier and my body in a far more comfortable state.
It wasn't perfect, but it was ready for the second part.
I had to leave the mountain area for now, because rabbit meat was no longer enough for me.
To build my body even further, I'll need to get more feral beasts, creatures that also cultivate. Since their meat is imbued with heavenly Qi, they would offer higher quality food and I could use that to bolster my muscle mass building.
The area I headed to next was a bit far away, a forest type of area where more wild animals lived. And among them were obviously Demonic Beasts.
The demonic beasts are annoying to hunt, they're fast and smarter than their normal animal counterpart, far more agile, and far more ruthless and brutal.
For the cultivators of the Ancient Sect, the hunt of Demonic Beasts was something of a normal occurrence. The Sect Would task the Disciples to hunt for these beasts in return for some pills. Either to lower their population or to obtain something from their corpses.
As for me, I need the meat, the demonic cores are pretty useless for now, I can't use them for anything since they're mostly used for pills to cultivate heavenly Qi which I don't really need.
So I went to the forest and began a mass hunt of the monsters within it.
Day after day, creature after creature, I could swear I had tasted every type and bit of every demonic beast in this forest.
Normally, this food would kill any cultivator since it was not fit for eating and was highly toxic, but for me, the more toxic the better and it only increased my hunger for it the more I ate.
At one point I feared that I might actually shoot past the weight I had decided to stop at and begin my training, but thankfully with a bit of restraint, I managed to help myself off from being a glutton.
After a month of weight gain, I began my first day of training.
My body was feeling more relaxed now that it was not hungry and malnourished, and with the movement technique of the Old Man Gin, I began my practice.
The first few days were slightly difficult since I needed to adjust the movement technique from scratch due to my current and older body's difference in stature and disposition. But once I got it, I began working out like mad.
Doing the movement technique in the morning to bolster my ability to maneuver around enemies and to train my lower body's muscles.
And then by the evening, I would practice the Fist of Roaring Qi to enhance my upper body strength.
And this continued for a couple more months.
In these months I gained a great deal of understanding in both the Fist of Roaring Qi and in the Movement Technique of Old man Gin. I'm now able to apply the movement technique while walking normally, as for the Fist of Roaring Qi, I could only see the effects as the entirety of the forest area I'm in was razed to the ground.
However, there was one thing that was annoying me, it was a small prick I felt in the back of my head every week or so. I thought it was a mosquito at first, but it seemed to continuously happen every week, then every five days, and now this has been the third day and I'm already feeling it again.
It wasn't something to worry about for now, but I might as well keep it in mind, I don't know this whole thing about possessing another body, but I'm not an idiot, and already figured out that a body that wasn't supposed to be hosted has been hosted and for a pretty damn long period of time.
So, this might be some side effect of this possession.
Now that I'm confident in my ability to protect myself I judged it was time for me to head back to the sect.
Though I didn't need the outer sect, the inner sect should have far more opportunities, and since I didn't have my Lord of Lords pagoda with me, I needed more materials to rebuild my arsenal and my tools.
