The Immortal Kobold

The return to the port town was rather uneventful after he left the tyrannosaurus to deal with the alpha Lightningfury Ape, while its pack had vented their anger on a small patrol of halflings. The return ride was, in fact, quite relaxing due to how tired his unwilling mount had become. While the creature had been imprinted on its rider from an early age, getting smashed into a jelly by pissed off primates had revoked whatever loyalty it had had with its former comrade. Still, once the adrenaline had worn off the raptors movements had become somewhat listless.

The adventurers back home were thrilled at the sight of one of the halflings mounts captured alive, the mercenary guild offered Xing Lei quite the bounty for it. While he was first loathe to sell the beast, one look at its lifeless eyes told that the realization had finally sunk into its brain on what had happened. Currently it had been refusing food or water, not even attacking those around it, the beast just seemed to want to wither away without its rider. Thus selling it proved more advantageous than trying to rekindle its spirit.

After a thrilling fight Xing Lei stayed home for awhile focusing on the needs of his mate and wife, the thrilling fights had rekindled his passions and he had every intention of returning to the jungle depths as soon as possible. While tempering himself with such challenges was a good thing in his mind, he also needed to see if he could find any clues to the tribe. With a zone of rank five beast territories out in the wilds, there stood a good chance the tribe laid somewhere beyond.

While Xing Lei was focused on his family the town had slowly been expanding, his former wall house was now some distance from the front lines. Xing Lei and Osilliaice still travelled outside the walls to train their bodies, more so the latter though. Xing Lei's rising skill in [Spirit Foundation] outclassed many of the beasts that prowled the edge of the growing town, as these were mostly rank one or two they really offered him no challenge or worth. Osilliaice and Al.u.s.triea benefitted greatly from this renewed fervor, Xing Lei's returned passion saw both the hunt for tempering solution and his eagerness at home return to their former glory days.

A little while later Osilliaice was the first to break into the [Spirit Forification] stage after Xing Lei, her tempering trial was passed with distinct ease due to her constitution. That evening had been a celebration before he was forced to review just how qi would affect her body. The path to a lizardman, or in this case, woman's body was distinctly different from his original or even current kobold form. In fact, rather than gathering just behind the navel and lower gut lizardfolk's dantian actually formed around their heart. When he pushed his qi tentatively along her path way he was greatly shocked by just how resistant her body was to the energy in the air. Like tar it crawled through her body, unable to be forced at even a calm relaxed pace.

This revelation shocked him greatly, but also made him realize how narrowly he had avoided a dead end. Had he not stayed as a kobold and took the Lizardfolk path his cultivation would have, for all intents, been crippled. Well, not completely, Osilliaice's pathways could still channel qi it was just agonizingly slow! While Lizardfolk lived longer than kobolds, he'd likely been an old man before he got half way to his goal. Still, this left to question what he could bestow her. Naturally like himself, she favored the spear so a cultivation that supported that was a must, but not alot of them favored a yin base, using yang instead shouldn't prove too troublesome but finding out it was problematic or incompatible with her slow cultivation would be a tragedy.

Xing Lei sat atop their modest home, staring into the sky. Al.u.s.triea and Osilliaice, asleep. His eyes swept across the stars each one a potential, thousandsnof techniques he'd claimed in his past life, only a fraction of which he used himself. The rest taken from rivals and enemies over centuries of conflict and conquest. It was not that he lacked options to provide for his mate but what would suit her best? There had to be one that supplemented her weak qi veins.

Then of course was Al.u.s.triea. Glancing down at the roof he wondered how his elven lover would react to qi. As a mage it would be reasonable to expect that she might be able to handle the circulation of qi much better than a base warrior but first her body tempering would have to complete. She had plenty of time so rather than race time it was more an order of priority. Then there was the manual to give her... she favored ice magic so a heavy elemental yin art would likely be taken as a fish to water.

Sighing, Xing Lei stood up and hopped forward, his steps brisk and light as his figure flickered across the darkened roof tops, quickly reaching the newest outer wall and slipping past its guard like a shadow. The jungle beyond still was active. Halfling tribesmen darted amongst the bushes looking for unwary guards but tonight they became the prey. Xing Lei was a reaper, passing unseen and leaving a trail of bodies that stretched into the twisted plants. For the last few weeks he had been rushing out pushing his speed to search for the Blackscale lizardfolk, asking around town had been fruitless, adventurers and explorers had no sight of any such unless one counted the dark scaled lizards the night time raiders rode.

Thus a lone kobold had been picking a route and rushing out to explore as best he could, with only a few hours before the sun rose his range was limited, still he would kill any of the indigenous he came across, burning villages and war camps that he stumbled across. It was still a mystery how these short humanoids gave the town such trouble. Knowledge of the terrain and those over grown lizards were certainly difficult trump cards but while adventurers weren't at his level they shouldn't have had this much trouble. Something was going on behind the scenes that kept both sides in a faux stalemate...

Ultimately whatever secret existed between the halflings and the town was immaterial to him. Surely there was some power or tyrant wanting an ancient treasure vault out in the jungle who enlisted the tribes to keep the unknowing adventurers away. Glancing back, his gaze fell on the mansion that sat high on the hill over the town, Xing Lei would bet his cultivation the elf was the one in question. Sighing to himself he darted off into the darkened jungle, he had had his fill of elven crap, unless that pompous twit directly interfered in his search or his family he was content to let the charade continue.

This night seemed to be like the rest, as the moon slid towards the canopy in the distance and the opposite horizon started to shine, Xing Lei found no trace of the Lizardfolk battlegrounds. Just more jungle, more halflings and some higher rank beasts to be harvested when he got home. Standing atop a branch, he looked into the distance. Could he have been wrong? Was the tribes battlefield truly on the northern continent? No, that land was where the greater civilized kingdoms existed, hiding a reptilian battle royale under all their noses? Hardly possible.

Xing Lei punched the near by tree, his scaled fist cracking the sturdy bark and making the majestic trunk sway violently. He needed to get beyond the rank five area. While the rank four beasts were proving more challenging, that was more due to hunting packs and flocks on his own. One on one the beasts were much like the tyrannosaurus rex and the Lightningfury Ape, they had great strength but none had truly awakened a consciousness. Rushing out again, the kobold thrust himself into that danger zone, determined more than ever to find what he sought this morning.

The jungle of this continent seemed endless, sailors who had charted the shore line did reveal there was other lands further in, just they were unreachable by sea, one had to traverse the jungle and its primordial beasts. What should lay beyond it was a mountain range surrounded by swamp land. Sailors had spoken of great winged beasts that flew amongst the storm clouds that choked the peaks but other than claiming they were huge none had gotten a good look at what they were.

While Xing Lei was focused on the destination, his body in the now was deftly weaving around a dire tiger, the great beast could easily rival an elephant in size, its thick blue fur was stripped with white highlights. Each claw and fang resembled finely crafted curved daggers that came ever so close to tearing open the kobold and spilling his guts upon the jungle floor, yet always at the last second he would twist and launch a counter strike, often recovering by dancing away to cradle his hand.

Usually when monstrous beasts took to a certain color, it often spoke of an elemental affinity, the forest Lord he had killed just after his rebirth had a green tinge which spoke of a light wind affinity. This brute of a tiger was a pale blue which explained the deep cold his scaled fist withdrew from in each strike. This bastard likely had an ice affinity... but how such could be here in a sweltering jungle made the kobold truly curious, this was the last place one would expect an ice affinity to manifest.

As the kobold dodged and weaved around the big blue feline it made him think about alternative factors, could there be an artifact or monstrous beast in the area to so warp the local biology? As a spear materialized in his grip he dodge the latest lunge of the great beast and countered by driving the glowing mithril weapon deep into one of its ferocious eyes, plunging into the skull and the brain behind dropping the cat with a whimper. Xing Lei yanked the weapon free and glanced in the direction it had likely come from, it was worth investigating...

Collecting the rapidly freezing corpse, Xing Lei rushed off in the direction that most likely was the tigers path. The trail was somewhat easy to follow as the tiger had frozen much of the earth it had traversed, its ice affinity had not been controlled at all and leaked freely into the environment thus affecting the plants it had brushed against. The trail itself was rather winding, the large feline obviously was one of the bigger rank four beasts of this territory, it had travelled a great distance ending at what looked like a cave opened into the very ground itself.

Xing Lei eyed the hole with some wariness, the underdark was the home of the drow, did the dark elves have a city beneath this untamed land? Could the beast be an es ape from one such city. Frowning inside his mind the kobold hovered by the edge of the looming cavern, his yellow eyes narrowed seeing the animal bones that littered the entry. The Ice Tiger was certainly this holes Master, its food was literally all in the area. The thing that caught his attention however was one skeleton in particular. Larger than most of the others, this one was very much bipedal with what looked like a draconic skull and thick tail bones...

While such a set of remains could certainly be a kobolds or a lizardfolks, it was not telling enough to be his tribes. There were those redscale lurking out there and like the halflings, there could even be a primitive tribal group further in. Still, it was the first sign of something akin to himself and his mate. Shaking his head he dived into the cavern looking for more clues, perhaps the dead reptilian at the entrance had companions that did not make it out, or had salvageable gear, either way Xing Lei would find out.