Druidic Cultivation | Fourty-Seven

“Ah! Eh- Uh… Hello there, Senior Bai. Fancy running into you here, I was under the impression that you were not pledged to the God Tree.” After his initial bluster, Feng Jiao did his best to recover and make his face the picture of innocence. So long as one adamantly stood firm in the fact that they were innocent, the enemy should always believe that they meant no wrong! It was the only logical move to make. Unfortunately, judging by the malicious smirk on Bai Fu’s face, it was not going to do him much good.

“That was certainly the case going into the tournament, Little Jiao.” Too familiar! Not good! “Who would have imagined that, during the fights, I’d be violated by a junior and robbed of my innocence? It wouldn’t be very ladylike of me to just get man-handled so thoroughly and never see the man again, now would it?” 

Luckily for Feng Jiao, before he was required to reply and as he was standing there choking on his spit, Elder Nufang began speaking to the crowd of children.

“Good afternoon, little pledges. Each of you are here because you were selected to join the God Tree Grove, one of the fastest rising Sects of our kingdom. Usually, our group would step into a nexus shortly after the tournament ended and be on our way. Unfortunately, we missed the window for teleportation and, in order to open a new one any time soon, we’d have to pay an exorbitant cost. These things happen from time to time.

“Instead, we are to caravan across the land to your new sect. The God Tree Grove is pretty far away and we will probably arrive around the time the nexus opened again, the summer solstice, but this way we can save on hotel rooms and gain real world experience. We’ll be on the road for about five months time, give or take a week. If you’re wondering why I didn’t have you stop and buy traveling supplies, that's because roughing it in the ‘wild’ will be your first lesson and experience. We’ll stick to the road and venture off occasionally for hunting. Let’s go. Junior Bai Fu, walk and talk with me.”

The look Feng Jiao received told him that this wouldn’t be the last he saw of Bai Fu but, for the time being, he was relieved to be done with the conversation. His friends, old and new, began buzzing with excitement about traveling across the country. Only Xin Lee had seen a large amount of the countryside before, having traveled with his father on beast subjugation missions in his past.

“Don’t worry ladies, stick with me, your Senior Brother Lee, and I’ll make sure you’re fed and sheltered while we travel.” He talked a big game and was a little boisterous but Feng Jiao felt his knowledge of beasts, hunting, and camping would be invaluable. Although Jiao was unsure how he’d managed to secure so many friends, and male ones at that, but he was glad. His father had preached the benefits of having brothers in arms and connections before.

The group of children ushered their way out of the gates slowly, joined by a few escorts from prominent families who’d been notified of the journey. Some of the wealthier ones had tried to send servants as well but Senior Nufang was having none of that, only those who could help hunt or fight were welcome to tag along. There would be no deadweight and even those who came as hunters and guards were not allowed to attend to their family’s junior. 

“I’m so excited, Jiao. What do you think the sect will be like?” asked Duan Cao from where she was squeezing Jiao’s hand off to the side. Although she was outwardly excited, Jiao knew she was also internally nervous about leaving home. What child wouldn't be? Even Jiao, a nearly immortal tree who lived for a questionable amount of time, before reincarnating into a fetus, was apprehensive about leaving his home behind him.

“It should be large, larger than Willow Mountain City even, and constantly bustling. The God Tree Grove is known for being primarily female, so there will be many girls for you to befriend, as well as exporting medicines and herbs. It should be a cultivation paradise, at least for those of us that come from smaller towns. Don’t worry too much, we’ll do well there even if we are probably the youngest children there.”

The group of children marched, using the term loosely, for four or five hours until the sun started to dip. With an hour or so left until sunset, Senior Nufang told the children to elect a leader to dull out tasks like hunting parties, guard, cooking, and general camp set up. None of the children seemed too eager to be in charge of all of that and, until Xin Lee elected himself hunting leader, nobody stepped forward. Having spoken up to lead that specific subsection of chores, other children stepped forward pretty quickly to volunteer for tasks. 

Xin Lee ended up in charge of those who were willing to hunt for dinner, Wang Jing went with him as a hunter, Duan Cao volunteered to cook under another, older, girl. Feng Jiao ended up setting up tents and the like with his cousin, Feng Lou. Although Elder Nufang hadn’t warned them that they were trekking across the country to the sect, a large portion of the children were unaware that a teleportation nexus was the norm and brought camping supplies for the journey anyways. Those that didn’t had to set up their own shelters and would either buy a tent at the next stop or attempt to make one from scavenged skins and materials. 

The group managed to find a flat land off from a road but close enough to a forest to hunt. With a wave of her hand, three tents appeared around Elder Nufang for herself and her two fellow elders whose names Feng Jiao either had not heard or did not remember. While they set theirs up their luxurious super tents, Jiao, Lou, and four other teenagers had the task to clear space and set up the group’s tents, with girl’s tents on one side of the campfire and male tents on the other. Jiao took advantage of the downtime to forcefully drain Qi from the grass and other plants under the tents, slowly filling up the gaping whole in his chest that was his Wood dantian, as he’d taken to calling it.

Although he was unsure why his Qi pool had relocated from his head to his chest, Jiao was finally willing to accept that it shared almost no similarities with the ‘Mana Pool’ of his old world, apart from storing energy. Thus, he began referring to his two energy storage areas as his lower or Yang dantian and his upper or Wood dantian. The Yang dantian was slowly filled every time Jiao cultivated in accordance to the method Aideen, who had been sleeping ever since the tourney, taught him but the Wood dantian needed to be constantly filled from leached Qi from surrounding plant life.

“Little Cousin Jiao.” Lou’s voice popped Jiao right out of his concentration as he was setting up the frame for yet another tent, simultaneously draining the surrounding grasses and trying to make a mental connection with the not-so-distant trees in the forest. Jiao jumped a little bit from shock, bringing a slight smile to Lou’s face, before calming down and looking at his older cousin.

“Before he left, my father gave me a package for you. I’ve been waiting until you woke up to give this to you.” Feng Lou handed Jiao a wrapped parcel before walking away to start setting up another tent. Jiao eyed the paper-wrapped box for a moment before storing it away in his ring with a slight pull on his Qi. He would have plenty of time to check it that night so, for now, he got back to work. Only moments later, however, he was interrupted yet again.

“Big Brother Jiao, do you have a second?” Duan Cao’s voice was much more calming and quiet than Lou’s and, combined with the fact that Jiao was slightly more vigilant after having been snuck up on by his cousin, he did not jump this time. 

“What’s on your mind?” Slightly resigned to the fact that Jiao was not going to have any peace for the time being, Jiao stopped concentrating on his Wood cultivation and turned to talk to his friend. It seemed that Jiao was going to have no shortage of friends for the time being but Cao was always going to hold a special place in his heart as the first friend he made in this world, she was someone he would not mind making time for.

“Earlier, when you were talking to the old man, you bought me a robe. I know that it was probably fake, but it was very pretty and you didn’t have to do that. Um, anyways, I grabbed the underrobe afterwards for you. The fabric is really smooth and, um, I thought it might help incase you.. Uh. Burn your clothes off again? Anyways! Here!” Cao handed Jiao the thinner under-robe, apparently made of fire-resistant silk, before shuffling off.

Once again, Jiao stored another gift away for later. He looked around at the other children who were still in camp, trying to determine whether or not he was good to start cultivating again and let his concentration lapse. After deciding that nobody seemed to be looking in his general direction, he began pulling in Wood Qi once more. 

With his body on autopilot setting up tents, Jiao observed the way the Wood Qi would enter through his Acupoints, invisible to his eye until that point, and work its way through his meridians toward his Wood dantian. Although each strand of Wood Qi was different from the last, as each blade of grass had its own Qi signature, the process that he carried over from his previous life seemed to slowly smooth away at the Qi before it stored it, allowing it all to blend together in his dantian. When he got to the sect, Jiao intended to try and locate a wood aspected cultivation technique to run alongside his Yang technique, if for nothing else than to keep the Qi more uniform and potentially strengthen it. 

Mentally grinding away at the trees in the distance, Jiao was finally able to reap the benefits of his larger cultivation base and connect with one forcefully. Draining the oak tree was a lot like trying to drink a thick soup through a small straw, mentally draining and almost not worth it. At the rate he was going, it’d likely take him nearly 30 minutes to drain a tree down to its minimum levels of Qi without killing it, but it was still much faster than trying to leach from smaller plants.

Naturally, just as he was getting into it, the hunting party decided to return with dinner. The camp got loud, Wang Jing and Xin Lee came and grabbed Feng Jiao to head over to where Duan Cao was getting ready to cook, and his cultivation came to a pause for the time being.