Li Xi approached rapidly using the Shunshin no Jutsu. The Mountain Ape, having already experienced Li Xi's power, uprooted a nearby thirty-meter-tall tree with a 'crack.'
Holding the massive tree, it swung horizontally, leveling everything within a thirty-meter radius. Countless trees were sent flying, and Li Xi's offensive momentum was halted.
Li Xi attempted to attack again. The Mountain Ape treated the tree like a baseball, smashing it down with relentless force. Each strike shook the earth, was unstoppable, and carved deep gashes into the ground. As soon as one tree broke, it would grab another. The forest was abundant with trees.
Li Xi dared not block such attacks. He still felt a dull ache in his chest from accidentally blocking one earlier.
"I can't break through," Li Xi retreated to his original position, frustrated. It wasn't that he couldn't win, but rather that every move the Mountain Ape made was a powerful technique, and Li Xi had weaknesses in all aspects except strength. For instance, the Mountain Ape's speed was faster than Li Xi's, which was truly unreasonable.
"I won't fight anymore, I'll just keep running."
Li Xi turned and fled. This had been going on all night. After realizing the extreme difficulty in killing the Mountain Ape, Li Xi's only remaining option was to run.
He had tried other methods. Besides brute strength, his strongest attack was the Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu, which the Mountain Ape had swatted away with a single palm.
The remaining attack methods were not even worth mentioning; they couldn't even penetrate its defenses.
"Little Fan, does this dragon's blood count as a Kekkei Genkai?"
[I don't know, Master.]
Possessing the Kaguya Clan's Kimimaro's Shikotsumyaku, Li Xi naturally thought of absorbing the dragon's blood. Kekkei Genkai, in essence, were fixed segments of inherited genes. As Li Xi understood it, dragon's blood should also be viable.
However, this was merely Li Xi's speculation, and he hesitated to try it. What if the dragon's blood wasn't a Kekkei Genkai? That would be disastrous.
But the Mountain Ape behind him clung to him like a stubborn burr. Even after being wounded by Li Xi, it relentlessly pursued. If this continued, not only would Li Xi struggle to return to Cardo City, but even eating and sleeping would become difficult. Even with military rations to sustain him, Li Xi's sanity would eventually crack.
"No matter, I'll try it first. What if it works?"
With that thought, Li Xi took out a small silver pot from his spatial ring. As soon as the small silver pot appeared, the Mountain Ape behind him roared and accelerated its approach.
Li Xi also pushed his speed to the limit, maintaining a not-too-distant proximity to the Mountain Ape.
He then took a small sip from the silver pot. The dragon's blood had no腥味 (xīngwèi - fishy or bloody smell); instead, it had a sweet aroma. It felt like tiny steel balls in Li Xi's mouth, which he swallowed in one gulp.
As the dragon's blood entered his stomach, it felt like a bomb exploding within him, with countless streams of energy surging through his body. Li Xi felt as if he were ignited from the inside out by a raging fire, with two jets of hot air shooting from his nostrils.
Without delay, he formed hand seals and activated the Kimimaro's Shikotsumyaku. As soon as it was activated, the unruly energy within his body found an outlet and instantly flowed towards a certain part of his body. In a short moment, the energy from that sip of dragon's blood was subdued, and Li Xi felt a slight increase in his physical strength.
This increase wasn't just in raw power like Tsunade's strength, but a comprehensive enhancement. Even his speed had slightly improved.
"The Kimimaro's Shikotsumyaku really works."
Seeing that his assumption was correct, Li Xi began to drink greedily. The small silver pot wasn't large, containing only about a bottle of mineral water's worth of dragon blood. In a few gulps, Li Xi consumed it all.
If that small sip earlier was like a bomb detonating in his body, then this was an atomic bomb. His entire skin turned flushed red, as if he had opened the final, deadly gate of the Eight Inner Gates.
His hair stood on end, making Li Xi look like a giant broom.
He barely managed to activate the Kimimaro's Shikotsumyaku, guiding the energy contained within the dragon blood to his Dantian.
The wild and unruly energy was immediately subdued and began to systematically strengthen Li Xi's body, from the tips of his toes to the strands of his hair. Every inch of his skin, every cell was being reinforced.
It felt as though inexhaustible strength was constantly surging within him, accompanied by an unbearable itching sensation emanating from his bones, making Li Xi want to tear himself apart and shatter every inch of his body.
"Aaaah!"
The intense discomfort caused Li Xi's speed to drastically decrease. He let out a loud cry, threw his head back, and turned to charge at the Mountain Ape.
With empty hands, he rushed towards the Mountain Ape. The Mountain Ape, seeing Li Xi's flushed red body, paused for a moment. However, seeing Li Xi approaching slowly despite his condition, it swung its hands like swiftly moving sedans, sending Li Xi flying with a single blow.
Li Xi's body struck the Mountain Ape, breaking countless bones and shattering more trees. He flew like a batted baseball for over a hundred meters before crashing heavily onto the ground.
For a normal person, such injuries would be fatal. However, under the restorative power of the dragon blood energy within him, Li Xi's wounds healed completely within a few breaths. His bones realigned themselves. He shook off the dirt and stood up, charging at the Mountain Ape again.
Seeing Li Xi, who appeared perfectly fine, the Mountain Ape couldn't believe it and swatted him away again. Li Xi's body fractured once more, but within a few breaths, he stood up, completely unharmed.
Each attack from the Mountain Ape was a precious opportunity for Li Xi to temper himself. Every peerless weapon, before being forged successfully, must undergo tens of thousands of blows to be considered qualified. Li Xi was currently using the Mountain Ape's power as a forge.
Originally, with the system's help, Li Xi could have gradually strengthened his body step by step. However, he was being pushed to his limits by the Mountain Ape's relentless pursuit, forcing Li Xi to take a risky gamble.
After countless intense blows, the itching sensation within his bones finally subsided, and the surging power began to wane, but a permanent strength remained within Li Xi's body.
The Mountain Ape caught up and swung its paw, expecting to send Li Xi flying a hundred meters away as before. However, when its paw struck Li Xi's body, it was like hitting a mountain peak buried a kilometer deep. Li Xi did not budge.
As the Mountain Ape was stunned and about to swing again, Li Xi directly grabbed one of its fingers and exerted all his strength. The immense power caused his body to sink a meter into the ground, with his entire waist submerged.
"Watch my Great Whirlwind."
Li Xi transformed into a high-speed, diamond-tipped drill. Grasping the Mountain Ape's finger, he began to spin the ape around. The Mountain Ape's hundreds of tons of weight were like an elephant being lifted by an ant. In just a few breaths, Li Xi had spun it several times.
The centrifugal force of the hundreds of tons of body moving at high speed was too great. Li Xi could only maintain the grip for three seconds before having to let go.
The Mountain Ape was flung hundreds of meters away, crashing to the ground with a resounding boom, like a small earthquake.
If anyone had been able to look at Li Xi in the moonlight, they would have seen tiny scales covering every inch of his skin, and his eyes had become vertical pupils.
Seeing his attack succeed, Li Xi was about to pursue and finish off the Mountain Ape when a pain from countless breaks throughout his body surged through him.
Li Xi gritted his teeth and grunted. After taking just one step, he couldn't hold on and collapsed heavily to the ground.
Li Xi had been able to lift and spin the Mountain Ape's hundreds of tons of body several times. Even with the residual energy from the dragon blood assisting him, it far exceeded Li Xi's physical limits.
This exhaustion was the best proof of that. Lying on the ground, Li Xi worried that the Mountain Ape might return to attack him. He forced himself to retrieve a bottle of Intermediate Holy Water from his spatial ring and drank the entire bottle. The pain in his body eased significantly, but the weakness persisted.
By the time Li Xi could sit up, he heard the sounds of the Mountain Ape fleeing. It turned out that the Mountain Ape, seeing that the dragon blood it had been pursuing was eaten by Li Xi and that Li Xi had just defeated it, became fearful. If not now, then when else would it run?
Leaning against the dirt pit he had created with his spinning, Li Xi coughed intermittently and spoke fiercely in the direction of the fleeing Mountain Ape, "Next time we meet, you'll be my summoned beast."
After a night of battle, Li Xi had fully recognized the Mountain Ape's strength. With such a tough hide, if it had armor, it would be invincible. Over-level challenges would be commonplace, and it could directly charge through a million-strong army.
Thanks to their fierce battle, surrounding beasts and monsters had long since fled. Li Xi was able to relax for over two hours. The sky was about to brighten, and no danger occurred.
When his body recovered enough to move, Li Xi burst into laughter. Although this adventurous act was a risky gamble, the outcome was unexpectedly good.
Li Xi held out his palm. His slightly darkened skin was instantly covered with tiny scales. With a thought from Li Xi, the scales disappeared.
A dagger suddenly appeared in his right hand, and he stabbed it towards his left. However, without Li Xi's conscious control, tiny, rice-grain-sized scales automatically appeared at the point of impact, blocking the dagger's attack.
Li Xi applied a little more force, but the dagger still could not penetrate the scales to pierce his palm.
"With these dragon scales, even an advanced warrior couldn't break my defense. If I stand still and let those below level three attack, they'll exhaust themselves before they can hurt me."
This was the first ability Li Xi gained after absorbing the dragon's blood: a powerful passive defensive scale. Even without Li Xi's active control, upon sensing an attack, the scales would automatically appear defensively.
After testing the defensive power of the scales, Li Xi looked into the distance. His normally ordinary eyes instantly transformed into vertical pupils. The distant mountain peaks, which had been invisible moments before, were now as clear as if they were brought right in front of Li Xi's eyes, allowing him to even see the red backside of a monkey climbing up.
This was the second ability Li Xi gained: super-long-distance vision. Not only that, but these eyes also possessed a powerful dynamic-capture capability. Simply put, they could slow down the perceived speed of what he saw, which would be highly beneficial when fighting high-level beings. He never expected to acquire this ability through dragon blood before even awakening his Sharingan.
After experiencing the changes in his eyes, Li Xi formed hand seals.
"Fire Style. Great Fireball Jutsu."
Li Xi exhaled a super-large fireball with a diameter of seven to eight meters. The target tree he chose was incinerated in a single breath.
Li Xi speculated that the dragon's blood must have originated from a fire dragon or a similar creature, otherwise, it wouldn't have amplified fire-attribute jutsu so strongly, increasing it by almost double.
While these enhancements were significant, the following two were the most important.
One was a further twenty percent increase in Li Xi's strength, building upon his current base. Don't dismiss twenty percent as small; it depends on Li Xi's base strength. Initially, Li Xi believed his strength was inferior to the Mountain Ape's, considering its sheer weight and the advantage of raw power. However, as they truly fought, Li Xi realized his own strength was actually slightly superior to the Mountain Ape's.