"This tastes familiar... "Zhang thought as he ate but couldn't quite straighten out his thoughts.
After a hearty meal, Zhang poured out the sack of things that he had scavenged off of the bodies of the cultivators slain by the Snow Sloth and began asking Wenji about their uses. He felt there needed to be a sense of trust within their group so he did not even think of hoarding all of the treasures to himself.
Rather than hiding things, since Wenji would definitely be more knowledgeable than him regarding the uses of the treasures he figured he should ask her because knowing the uses of the treasures would be much more beneficial to him than just lugging around a whole sack full of them.
"These ones here are fire talismans that will instantly ignite whatever they are stuck on once a bit of essence is poured into them." Wenji said as she picked up on of the red colored talismans.
"These scrolls here will summon stone soldiers who will obey the summoner's every command, they are comparable to fragment realm cultivators."
"These are Frost talismans that will instantly freeze what they are stuck on."
"Oh, this copper plate here is able to block a single attack from a core realm cultivator, once a day." Wenji said as she held up an ordinary looking copper plate.
Once they had gone through every item that Zhang had collected, although Zhang insisted that Wenji takes half of the treasures in the end she only took a few talismans and told him to keep the rest, which served to improve her image in Zhang's mind even more.
While stuffing the loot back into his sack, Zhang realized that he had totally forgotten about something. He had forgotten to attempt to store things away into the black ring that he wore, he knew that he could withdraw things out of it like the gold coin that he had previously taken out. But he was not sure if he was able to put things away.
So while Wenji was busy cleaning the dishes, Zhang sat on the ground and imagined all of the things within the sack in front of him disappearing and reappearing within his clan's tomb, which is inside the black ring.
After a few attempts, a small pile of things appeared within the space within the black ring while Zhang's sack was emptied.
So with his things safely stored away and with the night growing colder, Zhang walked into the large hut that Wenji had constructed and sat down. As he sat down he suddenly realized that there was only a single hut and without counting the pups there were two people. That was when his heart began to beat quickly and his mind began to spin.
"We-we are sleeping together? In the same hut?" He thought as his gaze left the inside of the hut and focused on the otherworldly beauty playing with the pups outside. Generally, men and women do not even stay in the same room together alone let alone sleep in the same place, especially those who have only known each other for a short amount of time.
When accounting for the number of times that Zhang and Wenji had met each other, Zhang couldn't even imagine what was going to happen.
But of course, it did because not long after Zhang entered the hut, Wenji, and the pups made their way in too. Before long they were both snug underneath two separate beds of leaves while the pups curled up to stay warm. Silly as it was, Zhang could not fall asleep as his heart raced every time he saw the beautiful girl lying not too far from where he was.
So for most of the night Zhang was wide awake and only was able to fall asleep once fatigue truly got the better of them and sent him to the land of dreams.
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Once the sun rose and the dreams ended, with a decent supply of food at hand, Zhang and Wenji decided it was time for them to actively go hunt Demonic Beasts for the tournament. Their plan was having the pups track down fragmented realm demonic beasts and hunt two or three a day until they both end up with thirty pelts since trying to go for elementary realm or higher demonic beasts would prove to be very dangerous with only the two of them and the pups.
With the pups taking the lead, Zhang and Wenji departed from camp and walked off into the forest.
"Keep your eyes out for any signs of movement." Zhang whispered to Wenji who was walking beside him. Not only did they have to keep an eye out for demonic beasts but they also had to keep an eye out for the other contestants of the tournament.
After they had walked a considerable distance from camp the two pups caught the scent of something and began to quicken their pace, leading Zhang and Wenji through thick underbrush. The vines and bushes eventually became so thick that Zhang had to use his sword to hack away at them to create a path.
Before long the group arrived in front of a hillside with a total of six small caves cut into its side. Peering inside one of the caves, Zhang could see something curled up in a brown colored ball.
With a bark, Little Red and Little Blue charged toward one of the caves but before they could get very far out of from the tree line, the creatures living in the caves awoke and made their way outside.
"Diamond Tooth Rats… They teeth are as hard as diamonds so be careful to not get bit." Wenji said calmly as she pulled out a dagger that was hidden behind a stash that was tied around her waist.
Perhaps it was because of the terrain within the forest or the number of predators because demonic beasts such as Diamond Tooth Rats generally live in massive hordes, but there were currently only six.
"Use the Frost Talismans." Wenji said as a blue colored talisman shot out from her hand.
Breaths later a similar looking blue colored talisman also flew out of Zhang's hand toward one of the Diamond Tooth Rats.
Since they were currently outnumbered four to six, Wenji was attempting to freeze some of the rats to ensure that Zhang and herself would not be overwhelmed once the battle began.
Had they not run into Diamond Tooth Rats but instead something stronger then he would have instantly fled while gripping the jade slip used to teleport out of the forest in his hand.