DC 69

The first thing that Feng Jiao did was scout out the field. Although it was said that disciples went missing at night, nobody had ever vanished in broad daylight. Due to the lack of vegetation, Feng Jiao was unable to use his spiritual sense in the way that he was used to. Whatever was eating up the plants seemed to consume the roots as well. Trying to spread his spiritual sense without the use of plants around him to augment it did little to nothing for him and he quickly gave up on that. 

Eventually, Feng Jiao went back and told his friends to stay safe for the time being and that he was going to go look for help. Although he’d only been in the sect for a short amount of time, there were a couple of people he could try to talk to. Eventually though, there was only one choice that really made sense. 

By the time he’d returned to Tan Sai’s cabin, the sun had already peaked in the sky and started its descent. Although he didn’t mind walking, especially having done almost nothing but for the last few months, Feng Jiao couldn’t help but envy the few disciples and elders he’d seen fly overhead while walking around. Although most disciples were grounded like him, there were a few with the ability to ride their sword through the air or with flying beasts to ride. He even saw one elder walking on the air like it was a road built just for him. Feng Jiao couldn’t even begin to fathom what level of cultivation would be needed for that, but he knew that one day he would surpass it.

After knocking on the door to Tan Sai’s workshop, Feng Jiao only had to wait a short amount of time before the door was thrown open. With her herbal scent assaulting every inch within Feng Jiao’s nose, Tan Sai stood before Feng Jiao with her smock on, covered in various juices and scents.

“Sister Feng, how nice of you to seek me out. Did you want to eat breakfast together?” Making a futile attempt to straighten her smock, Tan Sai asked with a smile on her face.

“Senior Apprentice Tan, it is well past noon. How could I possibly be looking for you to eat breakfast?” Funnily enough, Tan Sai seemed just as confused by Feng Jiao’s response as he was by her lack of an ability to tell time.

“Strange, lunch then?” 

“Actually, I came to ask you for help. What do you know about the Rat Field?” 

“You want to eat rats for lunch? They are a little gamey for my taste, but I guess meat is meat.” 

Feng Jiao decided to gloss over her very food motivated mind and explained his friends situation to her after being invited into the workshop for a cup of tea and, thankfully not rat, some meat jerky and crackers. As he continued his story, Tan Sai’s mood got worse and worse.

“They go too far!” She slapped the table and shouted angrily. “It is one thing for them to target me for not letting them have my mountain, it is another for them to blatantly bully new disciples for refusing to join them. The sect has strict rules about not forcing disciples to join alliances if they don’t want to.”

“I agree that something has to be done to them, but first I want to see if I can resolve my friends issues. The thing is, if we can manage to get rid of the pest then the fields will become bountiful once again. Once that happens, as long as my friends can finish their mission then the sect will have no reason to take the field back. The Radiant Gardens will have helped them out instead, and we will have more land to grow herbs in.”

“Oh! I’m sure that they would be very upset, we could even install some of my torches there, as long as you can guarantee that your friends are trustworthy. Although it doesn’t seem like the Radiant Gardens would be able to buy them over. Then again, they are men and men can’t be trusted.” After bouncing back and forth for a bit, Feng Jiao felt a bit weird about here saying that men couldn’t be trusted. Although he was sure she was basing this opinion on something in her past, he couldn’t even correct her. Even he was still pretending to be a girl, so for him to say that she should trust men would be a joke.

“Okay, I decided that I will try and help as long as they give me at least a fourth of the field to grow the things that I need. With that much more space, I’ll be able to grow more herbs for my research. There are a few plants I need that don’t grow very well with this elevation. Huhuhu, I’ll even have access to some guinea pigs- No, men! Men to help to test various incenses. Kekek.” Although her help was conditional, so long as she could come through, Feng Jiao was sure his cousin would agree to cede the land. 

Even if it was just for the method to keep away the constant harassment that would accompany them getting their own plot of land, Feng Jiao was sure that Feng Lou would be willing to pay the price. With enough spare income from the plot of land, they could even petition the sect to repair the Shifting Formation that used to be used there when it was part of the Outer Sect. ‘With that, then.. Huhu, yes this should work out well.’ Feng Jiao thought to himself. 

“If what you’re saying is correct, then whatever creature this is has a very good method of stealth. It’s likely that the elders who initially went to investigate who ranted about not being pest-controllers were just unable to find the beast. As such, they punished the students to try and save face and acted like they never made any attempts. Even if it was only a single Outer Sect Disciple that went missing, there is no way that they wouldn’t at least look into it. 

“With that being said, the Outer Sect Elders are usually around the Foundation Establishment stage. Although they couldn’t break through and become Inner Sect Disciples or Elders, they should at least have some vague understanding of spiritual sense. Since that didn’t work, we will need to use less conventional methods of detection. We also can’t ignore the fact that the creature was able to kill those disciples silently, be it using venom, a stealth attack, or some sort of mental attack.” 

Tan Sai started to rant about various things that we would need to prepare for and before long she was rushing around her workshop and pulling out various cases and bottles. Feng Jiao saw that she was busy and decided to start work on his end. Although he wasn’t able to find Duan Cao or Wang Jin that day, he was sure that they would understand why and decided to dedicate his time to helping resolve his cousin’s issue. 

Unable to locate Bai Fu, Feng Jiao realized she must have left the mountain and was surprised she was willing to walk through the piles of beast feces necessary to leave. Regardless, he left to go and catch his friends up on the plan and told them to be ready the following night as it was too short notice for Tan Sai to get done what she needed to. 

Feng Jiao then walked toward the area where Outer Sect Disciples sold their work, looking for a decent weapon to use. He wasn’t arrogant enough to assume that he would be able to kill anything barehanded if it was able to assassinate people of a higher cultivation than his. Before too long, he found himself in an area that didn’t look too dissimilar from the bazaar where he’d met the man who sold him the drake egg. 

Thinking back to the egg, he couldn’t help but shake his head. Throughout the months that he’d carried the thing across the country, he’d tried various methods to try and elicit a reaction from it to no avail. It seemed like it really was just a super dense rock, destined to sit in the corner of his ring for all time. 

Before too long, he found himself in front of a row of amature smiths, each peddling their wares. Though he had no contribution points to spend, Feng Jiao decided to see if he could work something out with the smiths anyways. Before too long, however, he found himself cursing.

“Who was it that told me that my coin wouldn’t have any spending power in the sect? I should have known my fellow disciples would still have use for silver and gold.” Regretting that he’d spent all his coins before leaving Willow Mountain City, not for the first time since they’d stopped in many locations on the journey over to the sect, Feng Jiao couldn’t help but feel remorse. Checking his ring mentally, he found that he still had a few coppers and a silver coin left while the cheapest spear he’d seen was going for at least five times that. 

Eventually, he found himself in front of a strange stall. The person who was in charge of the stall had cyan colored hair and thick glasses, wearing a maids outfit rather than the sect robes. Looking around, Feng Jiao realized all of her products were cleaning supplies rather than weapons. High quality brooms and mops, dusters, rakes, hoes, and even custom cleaning rags made of beast fur. If you could think of it, it was being sold there. 

After looking around, Feng Jiao found himself drawn to a bucket filled with brooms of various lengths and thicknesses. Finding a broom that was about two meters long and of a reasonable thickness, Feng Jiao asked how much she was charging for it.

“Ten silvers, no discounts. Before you tell me how expensive that is, know that I know the value of my products.” Seemingly used to being called a scam artist, the girl responded in a voice that was neither fast nor slow, with almost no emotion.

“Right. Would you be willing to trade for beast skins and such?” Feng Jiao didn’t hold much hope, but he’d collected a lot of decent quality furs and what not while hunting for food the past few months. She decided she could yield so long as she decided the value of the traded products was at least three times the price of what he wanted. 

After looking at the stack of various furs and leathers he provided, Feng Jiao ended up leaving with a lighter inventory ring. On the other hand, he managed to acquire a few hoes, a shovel, and a new broo- No, scratch that. A new, high-quality, two meter long shaft for his spearhead and an unrelated brush (broom end) to be attached to the first stick he found.