A month had passed since we left the Liu Clan, and in that ti, spring had fully taken hold of the land. The world was alive with color, with lush, endless green stretching as far as the eye could see. Hills rolled gently across the horizon, blanketed in wildflowers of every shade, their petals swaying softly in the breeze. The once-barren trees were now thick with blossoms, their colors vivid against the clear blue sky.
The mountains in the distance looked almost unreal, their slopes covered in fresh growth. Birds sang from the treetops, and the scent of grass, blooming flowers, and warm earth filled the air.
But despite the beautiful view, I was focused on sothing else.
I laid a snake, thick as my wrist, onto the grass. The cold-blooded creature writhed, coiling and trying to wrap its tail around my arm.
“Snakes typically beco more active in the spring,” I explained to Wu Yan. “During the colder months, many enter brumation. It’s similar to hibernation, with low activity and conserving energy. But as temperatures rise, they co out to bask in the sun, find food, and mate.”
That last part was a bit awkward to say aloud, but I was here to teach her facts, not skip over them.
“If you’re in an area with snakes, spring’s the ti you’ll start seeing them more often, especially in sunny places or near water sources.”
Wu Yan sat quietly on the grass beside , her porcelain mask tilted slightly as she stared at the snake. The blank eyes carved into the mask gave away nothing, but I had a feeling she was fascinated by all of this. I felt a small flicker of pride at fanning the curious nature of the youth.
“Most parts of a venomous snake are edible, except for the venom glands, the fangs, and sotis the head,” I added, tightening my grip behind the snake’s head. I conjured a translucent jade knife and stabbed just behind the eyes, piercing into the skull and brain.
Then I went through the motions, cutting the belly open, removing the slippery ss of organs, and peeling off the skin. I moved slowly and thodically so Wu Yan could follow along and learn.
Would she use this kind of knowledge often? Probably not. But one day, sothing like this might save her life.
Fu Yating, my “dear” fiancée, sat atop Speedy’s shell watching the entire scene with a blank expression.
“You’re quite gentle with her,” she said.
I smiled and turned toward her. “Well, what can I say? I’m a gentle person.”
We had reached the point where we could joke around with each other. I didn’t find myself contemplating her murder nearly as often anymore.
Maybe it was the pressure of living under the Liu Clan roof, but I rembered her being way more annoying than now.
“Are you the sa guy who sparred with without really holding back?” Fu Yating raised a brow, the corners of her mouth twitching into a knowing smirk.
“I didn’t hit you with full power,” I replied, waving off the suggestion while I chopped the snake at into clean, even pieces.
If I had hit her with everything I had, she would’ve died.
I was just about to say that when I sensed sothing approaching from the southwest, roughly a quarter mile away. Moving at the speed of soone near the peak of Qi Gathering.
Standing up, I put the snake at into my storage ring and warned my companions, “Stay on guard. Sothing is approaching from that way.”
I pointed southwest, and both girls turned in that direction. My finger was slightly off just to test whether Wu Yan would notice.
Sadly, she didn’t.
I knew she had problems with Qi control and even more so with sensing Qi over long distances. But her talent was so overwhelming that I was starting to question my own teaching abilities.
Was I holding her back?
With her condition, holding her back was the sa as digging her grave with my own two hands. Wu Yan was on a tir. If she didn’t reach the highest realm she could within the next decade, she would likely die a grueso death.
I conjured a second jade dagger and focused on the incoming presence. The Qi signature was erratic and wild, too uncontrolled to be a human cultivator.
My theory was confird about a minute later when a squirrel-like monstrous beast the size of a dog appeared standing atop a thick branch. It held a waterlon in its little hands, cheeks puffed out as it munched and stared at us with glossy black eyes.
We stared at each other in silence for several minutes. Then the squirrel finished its snack, turned around, and scurried away without a care in the world.
“Not every monstrous beast is carnivorous. A lot of them don’t attack humans unless provoked,” I explained.
Wu Yan nodded but didn’t ask any questions.
She was a good student. Maybe too good. She never questioned anything I said. A small part of wished she would, if only to show so personal insight instead of accepting everything at face value.
“Still, you should always keep your guard up,” I continued. “So monstrous beasts are smarter than most animals. A few might even hold grudges against humans. Maybe soone hunted their kin, or attacked them in the past. You never know.”
Wu Yan nodded again.
I sighed and pulled out my notebook. Sitting cross-legged on the grass, I began sketching the squirrel-like beast. I already knew what it was, but I was cataloging everything for a book I’d been working on: Monstrous Beasts — Spring Edition.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Or maybe I should call it sothing like Erging Behemoths: A Verdant Treatise on the Resurgence of Monstrous Beasts in the Season of Rebirth.
No, that was too long.
Sothing better would co to mind once the book was finished. Still, I could already imagine so poor scholar in the future having to morize that ridiculous title and suffer through the sa pain I went through researching all of this.
…
A week of quiet journeying passed, with no more monstrous beasts showing up, and we finally approached civilization.
Standing atop a wind-swept hill, I looked down at the sprawling town below. Lianjing Town, also known as the Pill Furnace of the East. Its towering walls were veined with golden inscriptions that pulsed faintly, signs of protective formations humming with quiet energy.
Smoke rose in lazy columns from within the town. The arrays around the walls kept the fus of countless refining furnaces sealed away, but even from this distance, the scent of rare herbs and spiritual fire lingered in the air.
We had decided to stop here for supplies. Compared to most places nearby, it was a small town but still big enough for us to stock up on rations and other necessities.
Everything I knew about Lianjing ca from a few outdated books, probably reports written centuries ago.
“This is Lianjing Town,” I said, “known for being very centered around the art of alchemy. If things haven’t changed much, then the organization running the place should still be the Frieze-Ice Cauldron Sect.”
“You have such a weirdly good mory for the oddest things,” Fu Yating said with a half-laugh.
With my Sky Grade Technique focused on ntal elents and mory, not having a good mory would be like being a poor man sitting on a mountain of gold.
Wu Yan extended her hand toward , and the skin of her palm shifted. A slit opened, thickened, and slowly shaped itself into a mouth.
“Master,” she said, her voice soft and clearly feminine. “How could a town like this develop in such a strange way, where alchemy is everything?”
She had managed to modulate her voice perfectly. No growling, no distortion. She must have trained in secret for quite so ti to get her control to this level.
“Wait, what? You can speak?!” Fu Yating blurted out in shock.
I ignored her and focused on Wu Yan’s hand. She had done sothing truly impressive; connecting that mouth to her lungs and the rest of her vocal system. That kind of internal mastery was no small feat.
She had been practicing in secret. That much was clear.
And damn, I was proud of her.
“Sotis, when ordinary people and less-talented cultivators are cut off from the rest of the world, they find their own ways to survive,” I explained. “There was a ti when the central continent was overwheld by monstrous beasts, and a great barrier had to be erected to isolate the region. Many cities were left in the dark back then, cut off from the outside world.”
It was a simplified explanation, of course. However, unless Wu Yan was seriously interested in studying the full history and developnt of every city, there was no need to go deeper.
“We’ve been around each other for so long and you haven’t said a single word!” Fu Yating continued, almost offended now.
We both ignored her. Only Speedy made the effort to turn his head and glance at the woman shouting from atop his shell.
There were darker sides to this kind of developnt. So powerless cities had resorted to demonic and uncontrollable cultivation thods just to survive the beast waves that had spilled out of the central continent before the separation. They endured like that for hundreds of years. And when they finally reestablished contact with the larger powers, most were wiped out and branded as demonic under a convenient pretext.
Each big settlent had its own history, full of struggle and adaptation.
“So they developed their own way to fight. Alchemy was the perfect tool since most basic pills and elixirs can be made without becoming a cultivator or using Qi,” Fu Yating said.
My fiancée had already adapted to our group dynamics. Whatever shock she’d had about Wu Yan finally speaking, she’d pushed it aside with surprising ease.
“It doesn’t seem likely anymore,” I pointed out. “Now that they’ve reconnected with the major powers and this town is within Blazing Sun Sect territory, they’ve probably gained access to martial techniques and moved beyond obsessing over alchemy alone.”
Fu Yating nodded and turned toward .
“Okay, Master,” Wu Yan said. Her voice ca from the small mouth on her palm before the lips vanished and her palm returned to looking smooth and unmarked.
“You don’t need to call Master. Just Teacher is fine,” I said.
Wu Yan nodded again but didn’t really respond. Her gaze stayed fixed on the distant town.
“I still think their traditions have probably still stayed rooted in alchemy more than martial arts,” Fu Yating added.
“It wouldn’t be the smartest approach, but I could see them doing it,” I said with a shrug.
While alchemy wasn’t very useful in a direct fight, that didn’t an it had no advantages. With enough resources, you could churn out a whole group of below-average Qi Gathering cultivators just by stuffing them full of pills.
As we neared the town, I could already feel the alchemical culture lingering in the air.
Cauldron-shaped carriages rolled by, drawn by strange horse-like monstrous beasts with sharp teeth, cat-like tails, four eyes, and thorny tongues. The roads around the town walls were filled with them.
They seed to have a more welcoming policy toward monstrous beasts, which ant I could bring Speedy along without issue.
At the gates, two guards initially eyed us cautiously. Until I pulled a golden token engraved with black-colored markings from my storage ring. The ink shifted strangely and never seed to look the sa.
Both guards bowed their heads and spoke in unison when they saw it.
“We welco any cultivator from the Blazing Sun Sect!”
They let us through without even checking our identities or belongings. Careless, in my opinion. But it wasn’t like a small town like this could afford to offend a major Sect, not even in minor ways like causing delays at the gate.
Thankfully for them, I was not a raging lunatic.
The streets inside the town weren’t anything special, but they were well-maintained. Not as extravagant as the bigger cities I’d seen, but not poor either.
As we walked through, the scent of strange pills lingered in the air wherever we went.
Despite wandering around for a while, we didn’t find any apparent comrcial district. Most of the buildings seed to be hos with surprisingly large gardens for a town this size. And many of those gardens were filled with precious herbs.
I spotted Bitterdew Grass, which helps with stamina recovery and usually grows near rivers due to its high water needs. There was Drifting Leaf, a mild tea herb that helps with headaches. I even saw Whispering Root, which can temporarily enhance hearing.
I had never seen so many low-tier herbs growing in one place.
So shops had faded signs advertising Cloudmoss, a herb used to reduce sweating in hot weather. A sumr product, most likely.
“This is impressive. I’ve never seen this many pill and elixir shops, not even in the Azure Frost Sect,” Fu Yating said.
Before I could respond, we both stopped in front of one particular shop.
I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.
What the hell?
Alchemy was too much of a commodity in this place.
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