DC 70

I've let you guys down, once again. I wish I could say that I was going to get better at this, but I've been in a really hard place both mentally and financially recently. I've had a lot of headaches, heartaches, and walletaches pop up since buying my house with my wife and I find it really hard to just sit down and write for you guys. I managed to get a chapter together for you guys today though, so I hope this doesn't disappoint you too much.  

Although it might seem contradictory for e to suggest this, it would likely be the better decision to cancel your pledge to me until I manage to get back to where I need to be with my writing. Should you choose not to, I thank you whole heartedly and apologies that I cannot be the writer that you all deserve. 

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“So, that is the plan.” The next day, Feng Jiao finished catching everyone up on what he and Tan Sai had brainstormed overnight. Thankfully, maintenance day was over and all the shift formations were back online, so he didn’t have to do nearly as much walking.

“So, just to clarify, you want us to kill the monster that is capable of silently kidnapping and killing Condensation level cultivators, keep the land for ourselves, and declare a sort of cold war against the Radiant Gardens? Sounds good to me, I guess.”

“No, cousin, not kill. We are going to capture it with Xin Lee’s treasure.” Feng Jiao clarified.

“As long as it isn’t on the level of a Core Formation beast, we should be fine. But if the elders couldn’t find it, it would probably be much stronger than that, wouldn't it?” Xin Lee tinked with a leather talisman in his hand, likely the treasure his father helped him prepare. 

“If the beast was really that strong, it would have kept ravaging the sect rather than hiding away in this corner. On top of that, it would hunt disciples throughout the day instead of just silently taking them at night. Whatever it is, it is likely an assasination type beast which is why it’s capable of killing above its level. At most, I theorize its foundation level.” Feng Jiao was confident that the beast wasn’t too much stronger than them or it would even hunt them in their cabins at night, which he did not mention for fear of scaring them or jinxing it.

Although ferocious beasts did not follow the same stages of cultivation as humans, they were classified similarly to make it easier to understand. Instead of steps , however, the beasts were merely into grades inside of realms. For example, a beast that had just awakened its ability to cultivate would be a low grade mortal beast, or a low grade one. One that had established its foundation would be a low grade two beast, then mid grade, and finally high grade. Although some beasts were occasionally referred to as peak grade, that wasn’t really a classification so much as it was saying they could progress to the next stage at any time. 

When Feng Jiao learned about these different classifications, he couldn’t help but sweat. The banded python he’d killed during his family competition was several leagues higher than himself and, were it not for the fact that he stumbled upon it while it was still trying to form its core, he likely would have died. Even with it at its weakest state, he still would have died from being poisoned with its venom were it not for the high-grade spear that his grandfather had gifted him, or his low poison resistance from years of eating various plants as a child to learn their qualities. 

Luckily the stars had different plans for Feng Jiao. He’d managed to survive his encounter with the large beast and profit from its misfortune. To this day, he still was unable to figure out why the Feng Family elder had declared his prize a low-grade copper inventory ring when, nearest he could tell, it held far more interspatial storage area than anything its grade had any right to.

As Tan Sai and Feng Lou went over the various traps, both physical and herbal, they planned to set for the beast, Feng Jiao continued to admire his spear. Although the blind man had told him that the spear-head was of low-quality, it was still much better than the other weapons he’d seen his fellow disciples with. The old man had told him that it was made of high-quality metals but turned out poorly due to being a rush job. Not being an idiot, Feng Jiao could tell that his grandfather had watched him fight beasts with his staff back on his home mountain and likely had the leaf-bladed spear made in a rush due to Feng Jiao shortly leaving for the family competition. 

Although he scarcely knew his grandfather, and wasn’t even sure that his grandfather was even related to him, Feng Jiao couldn’t help feel some sort of companionship toward the man. After spending who-knows-how many years as a tree, with only Aideen for company, Feng Jiao found himself enjoying the concept of a family as a human. 

Feng Jiao plucked a spare piece of straw away from below the spearhead, wondering how he’d managed to miss it before, as he looked up and tuned back into the now-ending conversation.

“Alright then, let’s get started.” Feng Lou and the squad left to start setting up various traps, pitfalls and the such, anticipating a larger beast. Although they had no clue what type of foe they would face that night, they were willing to put in potentially useless effort by building traps that may or may not work out. It would cost them only a few hours of manual labor and could potentially save their lives.

Seeing that nobody asked for his help, Feng Jiao climbed onto the only structure around, the rickety wooden shack that his friends were all sharing, and started cultivating. The sun had just gotten directly overhead and, throughout his experimentation, he’d discovered that the cultivation mantra Aideen had provided for him worked best in a three hour period centered around noon, or whenever the sun was directly overhead. 

Conversely, the more he worked on his wood cultivation method, he found it easiest when the moon was overhead and full. Although he’d yet to try and cultivate during a new moon, he was sure he’d find it almost useless without the second one up there as well. As such he’d spent most of his night, apart from the three hours where he purified essence according to the method he was building, studying the various cultivation methods he’d stolen and slowly formatting his current technique to match his tree martial spirit to the best of his ability. 

Even while he worked on it, he found minor inspirations in the memories that had flooded his burned husk moments before he died after his tribulation with Aideen. After noticing these pieces of information embedded into his very soul, he realized that had he survived the serious injuries he’d sustained, he would have been able to properly cultivate as a tree and would have eventually evolved again. 

There was a minor nagging whenever he accessed those memories that demanded he keep cultivating until evolution, one that would likely have had a much larger mental pull if he’d still been a tree instead of reincarnated as a human. It was likely the same subliminal message that led most spiritual plants to cultivate, an instinct that would only be realized after making a certain amount of process naturally or living for a certain period of time. Unfortunately, none of the books he found in the Sect’s library addressed sapient plants at all, let alone their instincts and thoughts. 

Feng Jiao kept refining the essence he absorbed through the sun and surrounding air, slowly purifying it although it already felt like it was as pure as it could get. At times like this, he wished he had the ability of Astral Insight, so that he could view his spirit and figure out what was going on with Aideen. She hadn’t appeared in his dreams in months, but he could still since she was there. Just as he’d been able to feel her presence before his awakening, he knew that Aideen was still within his spirit and he just had no ability to communicate with her.

More than his desire to receive the next steps of her cultivation method, he missed and was worried for his closest friend in all his lives. The ten years without her before his awakening, felt empty and bland to him. It was only after she returned to his life, appearing through his dreams to talk to him and sharing his senses throughout the day, that he found purpose in life again. A purpose outside of just escaping the cycle of reincarnation, an actual reason to live that wasn’t just to not die. 

There were only a couple more weeks until the summer solstice once again. He’d used the ritual to force an Astral Insight in the past and would use it again to check up on her. Since the last time, he’d found several more herbs that were more closely related to those he’d used back on earth and hoped that they would allow him to extend the amount of time he spent during introspection, or at least allow him to better interact with his spirit. 

Unlike when he absorbed essence from the surrounding plants, Feng Jiao was unable to absorb essence without being in a meditational position when taking from the Sun and Moons. After feeling a drastic decrease in the amount of essence he was absorbing, Feng Jiao opened his eyes to see that a few hours had passed and his friends had finished erecting a few barriers, pit falls, and spikes. They wouldn’t do much against an intelligent foe like a human, but hopefully they’d help tip the scale against the beast that inhabited the field they were supposed to be farming.

With a scowl, Feng Jiao plucked out a few more pieces of straw that he once again somehow missed. He gave it another once over, suddenly annoyed by his powerlessness to strip a broomstick and wondered how he would ever be able to take full control over his own life if he couldn’t even get that right.