[Last Emperor] Chapter 15 - Effective Plans Laid Out (Patreon)

This was it. Enough time had passed since the Zarfu incident without anything else threatening his life. The system had begun to gradually give less and less rewards for basic workouts in short amounts of time. Giving him larger ones for larger, more complex and difficult tasks.

He wondered if he had messed the system up by dedicating so much time to his 10,000 repetitions plan.

Not that it mattered anymore.

What was important was what was about to happen next. An entire plan he had created in his mind to not only gather a ton of Qi Exp, but to test his new found strengths, gain a large source of food, and even get a better lay of the land.

All in one fell swoop. There was not a single part that Tao Zi hadn't planned for and considered. He just needed to execute to perfection. Margins for error were slim out there.

Tao Zi had stopped going out of the cave without a plan. Either he exited and rushed to accomplish his goal of gathering resources and food, or he did not go out at all. He didn't need a clone of Zarfu to suddenly appear looking for his head. Regardless if it was for revenge or just for the thrill of the hunt.

It was simple.

Step one. Distract the HellHound and mess with any orcs out in the wild by burning one of the underwear. Set it on far a distance away from where he planned to go and run like hell. Step two, find a group of Chimps returning to their camp. Study them, take out a few and return to make his final adjustments to his assault on their base.

Couldn't be that many chimps anyway. The forest was empty of them most of the time except for certain areas. Even then, they were in medium size groups due to the fact that they were much weaker than anything else out there individually.

Tao Zi shook his head. He'd been standing directly in front of the boulder for some time now. He pulled out a black martial arts headband he received during one of his later rewards. It did nothing. Just a regular headband he received for doing more pushups than he cared to count.

He tied it on his head. Closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Let's do this!

Tao Zi pushed the boulder out of the way and stepped into the blazing sun beaming onto the forest. It was hot outside of the cave. He hadn't even noticed the weather change, temperature regulated enough that it stayed the same where it was cool or scorching hot out there.

It didn't take long to get his plan in motion. He pushed the boulder back into place marveling at how much of a beating it had taken already. Hundreds of scratch marks covered the exterior. The HellHound had been coming back every few days. Trying to carve out the boulder as much as it could before growing bored or tired and leaving.

Got to change the boulder into another one when I come back. This one is almost done for.

Tao Zi began to run as fast as he could away from the cave. Starting his plan in earnest. He did not stop for anything until he was satisfied with how out of the way he had gone. The spacial ring pocket seemed to ache in his hand as he pulled out an underwear, placed it on a stone, and then set it on fire.

He did not wait to see if it started blazing. The smell alone without burning should be enough to affect anything that would hunt him the way Zarfu did. Adding fire to the mix was only to make it more potent over all. Even if it did not last as long.

Just enough for him to finish his task.

Tao Zi put his head down and ran as fast as he could. Taking a loop around the area in case the HellHound or whatever else that was attracted by it would go straight there. It did make the process longer, but that was a sacrifice he was willing to take currently for his own safety.

He continued until he felt like he was in the clear. Closer to the cave than he planned to be, but otherwise it was going as planned. Now was time for the second portion. Tao Zi pushed deeper into the forest, searching for any chimps that he could.

It was much more difficult than usual to find anything at all. No hunting groups or parties gathering wild vegetables and roots. Almost nothing that would have caught his attention from a distance. But he found them nonetheless.

A group of three that was busy throwing stones at each other for no good reason. Large stones as big as Tao Zi's fist. He watched them laugh and dodge them until a stone hit one square in the dome. It collapsed immediately. The other two rushed to its side and tried to get it to wake up. Going as far as picking it up and trying to make it stand up.

Said chimp was dead. Cracked skull.

Tao Zi gulped. That could have been him had Zarfu not missed ever so slightly. Just inches away from killing him—

Focus! No time to think about bullshit like that. We need to do this perfectly for a massive reward and a chance to get large amounts of Qi Exp. I bet there will be a large reward for clearing out a Chimp camp. Or any camp at all right?

It didn't take long for the chimps to finally decide to pack the dead one's body on a sled and hull it back towards wherever their camp was. Pushing through the trees and brush away from the cave's direction and deeper into the forest. Somewhere Tao Zi had not tried to go toward yet.

He followed as silently as possible. Not that he needed to considering the sheer ruckus they were making. He was surprised something hadn't found them and ripped the remaining two chimps to shreds already. It was only a matter of time.

It didn't take long before Tao Zi started seeing other Chimps.

Some standing around, others playing and fighting, a few in groups talking in the rudimentary level language they did have. It seemed like the first steps to what civilization could potentially look like. If it was filled with cannibals that ate each other and wanted to hunt him for their next meal.

Tao Zi crouched low as he saw them break through the forest into what appeared to look like a large clearing. He couldn't see much from his angle, so he made his way closer. Doing his best not to step on anything and alert the few that were around.

He approached the thickets and moved it out of his line of sight slightly—

Only for Tao Zi to freeze up. He watched as hundreds of chimps came in and out of a cave. An entire camp was placed outside with rudimentary tents made of hides and leaves that was mostly destroyed. Like they were trying to copy what they had seen without fully understanding what the purpose of what anything was.

Though they did understand the campfires well enough.

He found the two he had been following walk straight to a larger chimp. One that had a large cleaver in hand and cut up meat around him. They threw the dead chimp onto the large stone that was being used as a table. The butcher chimp didn't take even ten minutes to finish his process, skinning, cutting, gutting, and everything else that was required. Throwing everything into the piles behind him, the same piles that had flies and bugs flying around them in a storm.

Tao Zi felt nauseous just watching the filth they were living in. Everything was nasty beyond compare.

He shook his head and snuck out of the area and headed back towards the camp. No chimp noticed him. Tao Zi noticed subtle differences that made him far more in control of his body. Things he hadn't until this expedition. Whether it was the Qi or reaching the next stage of body tempering, but it changed him in ways he could not explain exactly.

The system pinged him as soon as he reached his cave entrance—