After getting the core of the Golden Lion, Yan Li kept on going towards the deep of the forest with the goal of finding a third-level creature.

Just a few minutes later, three white flashes appeared by the Golden Lion's body and turned out to be three indoor disciples of Dahuang Palace.

They exchanged a grave look: The Golden Lion was a second-level creature, the equivalent of a Yuan realm martial artist, but judging by the wounds on its body and the traces of fighting here, it didn't cost that person too much energy to kill this creature.

“How come a guy at Lianqi realm could be so powerful?” exclaimed a lanky disciple.

“Let's not forget what he did to Ye Tianyu that day on the Stage, s.h.i.+di Zhou,” said another disciple with bucktooth and sunk-in cheeks, “Ye Tianyu is at Yuan realm, too. You can tell that kid is gifted—one-in-million kind of talent!”

Dai Zheng let out a vicious grin, “So what? The only thing I am sure about is that he must be dead for daring to mess with s.h.i.+xong Lin!”

“Exactly!” s.h.i.+di Zhou echoed, “He deserves that for costing s.h.i.+xiong Lin an arm and a leg. The Lion's body is still warm, so we shouldn't have missed him by much. Let's go get him!”

Dai Zheng nodded, “That's for sure! But we have to do it clean; otherwise if someone found out, even if s.h.i.+xiong Lin had nothing to worry about, it'd still be much of a trouble.”

“That's right!” followed the bucktooth disciple, who then sneered, “However, we can fake some traces here to make people think that he was killed the creatures in the forest.”

Yan Li was still searching up and down for the third-level creatures, not having the slightest clue about the approaching a.s.sa.s.sination.

If the second-level creatures were the equivalent of the Ning Yuan realm martial artists, then the third-level creatures equaled to the Po Yuan realm ones. Normally, the promotion tasks posted by the manager for Dahuang Palace's disciples were usually nothing more than just killing a couple of second-level creatures.

However, since Yan Li built his sea of vigor with nine whirls and was much more powerful than the Ning Yuan realm pract.i.tioners, if not as powerful as the Shen Yuan realm ones, the manager a.s.signed him to the killing of the third-level creatures.

Suddenly, a low growl thundered beside his ear as Yan Li stopped to locate where the sound was coming from and then marched towards that direction.

The sound lead Yan Li to a clearing where, standing in the middle, was a snow white direwolf squaring off with an off-white dark-flame tiger. The direwolf itself was already a size larger than normal wolves when the dark-flame tiger was even bigger than it.

Both the wolf and the tiger were third-level creatures—elite ones

“Jackpot! Two at a time!”

The direwolf and the black-flame tiger were engaged in an intense staring match while roaring at each other, trying to make their presence felt.

Yan Li had planned to let them fight and then take advantage of the situation, but was force to give up the idea as the direwolf was about to retreat now.

“Wait, what is it?”

Yan Li muttered under his breath. After reaching the Yuan realm, he became even more perceptive of his surroundings, picking up every little movement within a one-hundred-meter radius; and now, he heard three people approaching from roughly ten meters away.

Pondering for a second, Yan Li was quick to deck down and use the leaves on the ground as a cover, for the testing forest was poorly lit and the pile of leaves was thick enough to hide him.

Soon afterwards, three white figures emerged and were moving close.

“Indoor disciples!”

However, Yan Li's sight grew cold and alert when he recognized who these people were—Lin Pou's errand boys!

Being a narrow-minded jerk, Lin Pou had every reason to be mad at Yan Li, for he had caused him to lose a big fortune; but having Lin Pou's sidekicks hot on his heels in the testing forest was something worth deliberation then.

“Hope you guys won't do anything stupid, or else…” Yan Li thought to himself as a murderous glow swept across his eyes, because he had learned from his past experience that no mercy should be granted to the people who wanted to hurt him.

Not knowing they had been spotted, Dai Zheng and the other two approached the direwolf and the dark-flame tiger while gesturing to each other, expressions slightly bemused.

They came here following Yan Li's trace, yet now he was nowhere to be seen. But they didn't dare to make any moves, either, since two third-level creatures were right in front of them locking horns, so they lowered themselves down and took cover as well.

The direwolf let out a roar before turning away reluctantly, while the dark-flame tiger howled in pride, announcing his victory in this battle.

After the direwolf retreated, the three indoor disciples looked towards the dark-flame tiger, eyes lit up with a s.h.i.+mmer of greediness.

“s.h.i.+xiong Dai, why don't we take the tiger down together? It should be easy! And its core is worth at least 20 credit points!”

It was tempting, but Dai Zheng quickly shook his head at this idea, “No, we can't. We are here for Yan Li only and we can't blow this up over other trivia!”

“Bingo! They are here for me!” Yan Li's eyes turned a shade darker as he heard them loud and clear.

But he didn't rush to take any action, knowing that even if he could handle all three Ning Yuan realm disciples using his full force, he would still be facing bigger trouble once they managed to get out alive and spread the news, for that killing other disciples was a serious crime in Da Huang Palace. So Yan Li needed an opportunity where he could take them all in one go before he initiated any strike.

As he panned his sight towards the dark-flame tiger, an idea was formed in his head.

Yan Li felt a fist-sized rock on the ground and took it in his hand. Then, with a flick of his wrist, the vigor propelled rock was ejected along the ground and hit the bucktooth disciple in the head with a “Bang!”

“Ouch!” He hissed while springing to his feet, looking around frantically, trying to find out who did this.

An angry growl sounded off as the dark-flame tiger caught sight of them and came flying down their way with a strong scent of blood.

The three of them were quick to react and pull out their swords before moving into positions to have the tiger trapped in a circle.

“Not bad, huh?”

Yan Li smirked while moving in close in silence.

Though being a third-level creature, the dark-flame tiger, black fur dotted with a few fresh wounds, was still struggling to handle the triple attack from the three disciples.

Except for Dai Zheng, the other two were all pretty antsy to kill the dark-flame tiger because if so, they should be able to pick up some credit points and make a decent amount of money out of its core.

“The tiger is giving out! Watch out for its flame!” Dai Zheng reminded them.

“Got it!”

Not only were the third-level creatures more powerful than the second-level ones, they also possessed a special skill which they reserved as a last-ditch attempt, for that it would weaken them once being used. For example, the dark-flame tiger could discharge a dark flame of extremely high temperature.

The dark-flame tiger groaned as more new cuts appeared on its body before spitting out a scalding shot of dark flame.

Dai Zheng and the other two scrambled to get out of the harm's way when all the while a cyan figure shot up from the ground with a blood-curdling intention to kill.