I felt a strange sense of grief, as a tangle of thoughts and emotions carried over to me from Flee. ‘I’m alright’ the thought read, yet it sounded almost like an apology.For a few moments, I sat silently, thinking if I should try to find Flee. I could still sense her vaguely, despite whatever it was that was blocking my bond to her. I had sensed her moving towards the Inner sect on her own, and my concern had begun to rise.It wouldn’t be a stretch of imagination if Flee had smelled the pills or herbs on some strong cultivator and had decided to give chase in hopes of snagging a bite. But, something about the message made me think otherwise.I took a deep breath, and turned to look at Ren, sleeping calmly nearby in my chamber.“Can you keep an eye out for her? If she doesn’t want me to come find her, then I’ll respect her choice, but I can’t help but feel a bit concerned.”Ren opened his eyes, regarding me silently for a moment. With a light chirp, the little turtle got up. A tide of

In the before, there was neither sky nor earth. The world was chaos, endless and seamless. But after endless eons of chaos, came an axe. It split the chaos in twain, forming the Yang of the Sky and the Yin of the Earth. Thus the world came to be. Our children bowed to both heaven and earth. To the two that governed the cycle of the world. Yet, there came an interruption, a dispute among our two children upon who was worthy. A familiar story, to both Yuan and I. The formation of the world. Yet, there was more. The half that we’d not heard before. The two split apart, diverging in separate paths. One who would gaze upon the sky, chasing the heavens that lied beyond it. The other, eternally burrowed within the embrace of the earth, waiting to rise and seize the land beneath. The split between Qi and Gu. The cultivation of humans and demons. The cycle, it lies broken, the world split in two halves. Two eyes, larger than mountains, turned towards me. You are not enough. There must

Qi pulsed through my arms and fingers, sweat beading and covering my forehead as I balanced a boulder half as big as me on one of my fingers. I’d walked out and picked the closest boulder I’d found and brought it to my chamber for a test.A brief few moments of testing had shown my physical capabilities far more potent than before, even if I felt wrung out and exhausted after the whole ordeal.I set the boulder down, and punched it, thrusting my Qi out as I did. Where I’d braced myself for some stinging in my hand, I felt the solid rock give away instead, as a small crack ran through it. I didn’t manage to smash through it as I would’ve expected a proper cultivator to be able to do, but the fact that I managed to crack a rock that probably weighed five times as much as me, if not more, was enough to leave me stunned.Tempering the body was a concept I was familiar with, but so far, something like that had been far outside of Yuan’s means, and my own means, needing rare herbs, arts and

I smiled upon seeing Liuxiang, receiving a light smile of my own from him. Stepping aside, I let Liuxiang walk in, closing the doors behind as I walked in.“Thanks for coming so quickly. I’d actually expected you to be busy and take some time, if not just refuse,” I said, watching Liuxiang’s eyes lightly run across my room before returning to me.“Surely senior jests. After what this one had read in that letter, how could this one not rush here? This one has already seen these exploding pills in work before at Taizhou. To be able to improve upon them would provide for a great weapon.”I grinned in reply, happy to have the excitement for drugnade 2.0 shared.“Forgive me for prying Senior, but are those the obfuscation formation Senior had asked this one about?” Liuxiang asked, his eyes turning towards the papers with the barely functional formation stuck on my walls.“Ah yeah. I tried my best, but I doubt it’s anywhere near good enough. I tested and felt it worked well enough for my pu

Su Lin took in a deep breath, grunting as he pulled the heavy cart, reinforcing his arms and feet with Qi. Cao Chen stood next to him, pulling alongside him, as the wooden cart bumped around, getting over the rock blocking it’s path.“Be careful you fool! You’ll throw this old woman off,” the Granny shouted back from the cart she now rested on, going through the packed sack of herbs and her items she’d packed. Zhang rested next to the granny, looking healthier by the day. Life had returned to his body, his limbs gaining mass day by day, as his appetite began to return.Su Lin sometimes struggled to believe any of this was true. That the brother who’d suffered for so long had well and truly returned to them. He turned to his right, as Cao Chen patted his shoulders, and the two returned to their efforts at pulling the cart.After a moment, Su Lin felt a jerk as the cart seemed to lighten itself. The two paused for a bit, as Zhang walked over to Cao Chen, patting his shoulder.“Let me pu