PtM Book 16 - Chapter 30: Pirates

A month has passed, and I'm back in action. Thanks everyone for your patience. Three chapters this week, the plan is to finish posting Book 16 by the end of the month.

--

Cha Ming returned to hunting fiends for a full three months after completing his deals with the Tier 3 Raging Tide Sect, the Tier 3 Storm God Clan, and the Tier 3 Purple Sieve Sect. It was busy work, jumping around, and every second he wasted in getting there meant more lives were lost. Ideally, he’d have more sects helping him out, but some things were best done slowly.

Perhaps it was because of guilt that he did this, but Cha Ming spent a lot of his free time helping those that had suffered at the hands of the fiends. He was careful not to give them too much – leaving a treasure behind, for example, might invite the greed of others – but he did what he can. And his soul felt better for it, and that white seed inside his spiritual seed began to grow.

Eventually, Cha Ming was able to work in a bit of training into his routine, since the personal teleportation formations saved him much time, even after his monthly deliveries to each sect.

Three months passed by in a flash, and finally Cha Ming received the message he’d been waiting for while talking to Sect Master Raging Tide. “I was speaking with some of the nearby Tier 3 sect masters and mentioned our collaboration,” Sect Master Raging Tide said. “They were intrigued by your altruistic offer for aid in fighting the fiends and were wondering if you could pay them a visit.”

Cha Ming recognized the subtle message for what it really was: implicit permission from the Tier 2 sects that he could proceed with what he was doing. No doubt the Tier 2 sects would find a way to benefit indirectly from his plans in the long run, but for now, they were content to see him expand inside their sphere of influence.

Similar things happened with the Storm God Clan and the Purple Sieve Sect. The Clan Master of the Storm God Clan was most straightforward; he invited Cha Ming to a feast, introduced other clan masters and sect masters directly, and suggested that they collaborate over a larger area under the same system.

As for the Purple Sieve Sect, they asked for permission to share information about the reward agreement with other sister sects. Cha Ming was more than happy to let them do so.

Another three months passed, and in that time, Cha Ming established agreements with half the Tier 3 sects reporting to the Xuan Dao Sect, the Soaring God Clan, and the Violet Mist Sect, the Tier 2 sects overseeing the territory he was operating. Once the system was ironed out, the other Tier 3 sects and clans made overtures and began discussing large-scale resource trading for finished goods from the Heartforge Realm. Finally, nine months after his initial contact with Sect Master Raging Tide, Tier 2 sects began engaging Cha Ming directly to collaborate, bringing all their subsidiary sects under one large umbrella, greatly simplifying the entire process.

After that, it became a simple matter to discuss directly with new Tier 2 sects. Most of them were enthusiastic – after all, these were free resources, and if things got out of hand, they would at worst return to the previous arrangement. They were obligated to kill fiends either way.

Some sects were not as receptive, and outright banned Cha Ming from approaching their subsidiary members. These were the southern sects, where the fighting was hardest. Cha Ming respected their wishes, but at that point, he had 22 out of 28 Tier 2 sects under his umbrella. Regardless of what these Tier 2 sects said, they would not stop him from fighting fiends in their territory.

Implementing the system was easy, but there were naturally complications. For one, Cha Ming was not the only one who had chosen to implement such a system. The demand for craftsmen in the Heartforge Realm was at an all time high, and Cha Ming was forced to search further out in Heartforge City to secure enough craftsmen to fulfill his orders.

The greatest problem, however, was pirates. Cha Ming was now making a fortune simply through sheer volume of trading with all the sects. And when you had a realm treasure to carry everything around, you didn’t need to hold back as much as normal merchants.

Cha Ming had learned a few tricks over the years, so he took great care in showing everyone that he kept everything inside this mysterious realm treasure, and explained that it was a soul bound treasure and that all the goods stored inside would be destroyed should he perish.

But that didn’t stop the most daring of pirate groups from trying.

“Get him! Don’t let him escape!” The shout came from the leading ship in a fleet tailing after Cha Ming. These were genuine Chasewind Flying Ships, which made them extremely fast in the Chasewind Plane’s high-wind environment.

There was a total of twelve personal class ships in this group and one corvette-class ship not far away. This was their flagship, and their pirate captain, an early law-stitching cultivator, was present.

Stupid spatial fragility, Cha Ming complained to Huxian over their bond as he flew. Stupid pirates and their stupid flying ships. How did their shipping industry even survive the destruction of their teleportation networks?

I don’t think it did actually, Huxian said. Necessity and no teleportation kind of forced them to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

The spatial fragility on the Chasewind Plane ran back tens of thousands of years. As such, it wasn’t surprising to find advanced flying ships. But the lack of teleportation and large spatial instabilities, combined with the emphasis on arial supremacy, had made pirates an inevitable criminal element. Even Tier 2 Sects could only force them to lie low and not completely eliminate them.

I know all that, Huxian, Cha Ming said. I just hate getting chased around by pirates, Cha Ming said.

Well, you did paint yourself as a massive target, Huxian said. You’re constantly trading in bulk and flying between cities all the time. You’re basically a flying gold mine. Organized crime would be stupid not to try anything.

… fair point, Cha Ming said. I’m just bitter about it, that’s all. This was the third time this particular pirate group had decided to cause trouble for him. And this time, they weren’t casually probing him – they’d brought everything but the kitchen sink.

This is what I get for not giving them a five percent discount in exchange for picking things up in one central location, Cha Ming thought. He was now intensely regretting his decision.

Pirate ships were fast, but fortunately their attacks weren’t very lethal. They were trying to capture him, since all his hard work had paid off, and they knew they needed him alive if they were going to get anything.

Cha Ming was using all the evasive tricks he knew doing his best to find a breakaway point. It took time to initiate teleportation hops, after all, and in that time his ship would be defenceless. He needed to time it just right.

Alas, they’d learned he was a Dao God in their last exchange and no longer thought him a fragile Daoist. A lightning spear pierced through his main sail and another smashed into his secondary mast. His ship came crashing down near an ironwood forest.

Instead of miniaturizing the ship, Cha Ming directly stored it inside the Clear Sky World – partially to make a show of his realm treasure, and partially because he might be able to repair it. He then assumed lightning form and flew into the forest filled with two-hundred-meter tall premium ship-building trees.

The forest was Cha Ming’s element, and he could find no better place to hide. His posture changed slightly as he flung himself from branch to branch, clinging as close to the trees as possible to obscure his presence.

The Savage Deity Battle Arts were fresh on his mind, and now that the situation was dangerous, he easily reverted back to his survival instincts.

How long until you get here? Cha Ming asked Huxian.

Fifteen minutes, if I’m lucky? It wasn’t as quick as he was hoping for, but there was no helping it. Spatial tunnels were delicate work, and if Huxian’s luck was bad…

Half an hour then, Cha Ming sent. I’ll see how long I can hold out.

Pirates were a cold-blooded lot, and these pirates, the Crosswind Pirates, had killed countless innocent people. They were used to terrorizing straggling ships and pillaging small cities and sects – but a fight in the wilderness like this? That was new to them.

The first twelve ships descended atop the ironwood forest, and the cultivators inside said ships used their built-in formations to enhance their senses and scan the forest. Unfortunately for them, Seventy-Two Transformations combined with the Savage Deity Battle Arts made Cha Ming extremely difficult to locate.

The corvette-class ships arrived a few minutes later. Hundreds of pirates jumped out on single-cultivator vessels called Chasewind skimmers. These were the elites of the Crosswind Pirates. As the criminal equivalent of a Tier 2 Sect, they naturally had tens of thousands of cultivators hidden within their mysterious lair.

Their captain did not come out on a skimmer – such a vehicle would be too slow for a wind cultivator of her caliber. Cha Ming caught a glimpse of her through the forest canopy, and during their brief clash of auras, Cha Ming decided that it would be unwise to cross blades with her.

I just need to wait, Cha Ming reminded himself. Once Huxian gets here, I’ll be fine. Besides, Cha Ming had gotten out of similar situations before – nine times so far if you only counted pirates. Cha Ming was convinced that the pirates had spies in the sects, which was why they knew that he’d just completely a trade and still had many more to complete before he returned to the Heartforge Realm.

The skimmers were agile and able to maneuver through the forest without crashing. Their pilots were mostly late and peak rune gathering cultivators, though there were a dozen or so half step law stitching cultivators and a handful of initial law stitching cultivators present as well. Any less of an entourage would be a dishonor to Captain Crosswind, an early law-stitching cultivator.

I need to pick my targets carefully, Cha Ming thought. They don’t all use wind techniques, and some might be able to tie me down. Also, they use long spears and javelins, but neither of them are lethal. They’re all about entanglement, stunning, and live capture.

The pirates were not actually looking for Cha Ming but laying down a net. Each skimmer left behind a thin stream of green smoke. One stream was useless, but enough of them would form a net that would make it difficult for Cha Ming to escape.

The best way to deal with such a situation was to be proactive, so Cha Ming picked a natural interception point and waited. The creatures of the forest were silent. They knew death was on its way and wanted nothing to do with it until it was time to fight for leftovers.

Cha Ming sprang off the bottom of a branch the moment six skimmers flew past him. He used Savage Deity Rush and Clockwork Blitz to close the gap in an instant and pressed down on the pirates with his Savage Deity Aura.

The peak rune gathering Daoist he targeted didn’t stand a chance. His qi shields shattered under the Savage Deity War Staff’s crushing weight. Then his entire upper body followed, after which Cha MingHis ChaCh stowed his skimmer, sprang out to the neighboring skimmer, then proceeded to do the same to the next pirate.

Cha Ming repeated the process a third time and sent a destruction-qi laden dagger at a fourth skimmer to cripple its wing. This would give the pirate captain a choice: abandon the slow pirate and reduce morale, or leave others behind to protect him.

He sprang away without hesitation and used Claddings of Light to wrap himself in darkness. He used Golden Boots of the Clockwork Dragon to speed away then melted into his surroundings. Then, a few seconds later, he became the wind.

Several more skimmers answered their comrades’ distress signal and passed Cha Ming’s incorporeal and invisible form. He did not attack them right away but waited for the third wave before sending out the Clear Sky Brush to paint a nigh-invisible silver thread of metallic ink.

Two skimmers were destroyed before the string snapped and Cha Ming launched himself at them. This time, he killed three and crippled the remaining ship before rushing away and melting into the wind once again. Yet a trick was only a trick until others noticed it. A domain swept through the woods, and judging by its strength, it could only be Captain Crosswind.

Things just went south! Cha Ming shouted to Huxian as he evaded blasts of wind energy attacking him via Captain Crosswind’s Domain. It was an extremely effective move and forced him out of hiding.

“There he is,” Captain Crosswind said when he was forced to materialize. “Get him.”

Cha Ming snarled as he summoned the Clear Sky Brush and began to paint. Since coming to the Chasewind Plane, Cha Ming had secured several wind-based ink materials for a reasonable price. Others, he’d transplanted into the Clear Sky Realm for accelerated growth.

He used these materials now to paint a web of blades in the trajectory of incoming skimmers. He painted them directly – they were simpler than animals or trees or other complex creations, and his skill was now sufficient.

The skimmers closing in on him crashed into the blade net. Several of the pirates were directly decapitated, but others lost limbs or their skimmers.

Cha Ming naturally didn’t stick around. He used up a charge from his boots and took on lightning form again and crashed into another skimmer. He painted a few additional wind blades smashed two skimmers apart with his Savage Deity War Staff, then shot towards the next nearest batch of cultivators. Since it wasn’t possible to run away – not from so many strong cultivators – he would kill as many as he could.

The pirates noticed his strategy very quickly. Since he wasn’t going to run, one initial law-stitching pirate and three half-step law-stitching pirates stepped up. The law-stitching pirate summoned his law projection, while the other three tried to force half-complete law projections into existence.

The three incomplete law projections were of wind, ice, and fire. One tried to enforce separation, another spontaneous ice shard creation, and the other blistering suffocation. All t here were legitimate threats, but Cha Ming could only focus on the complete law projection. This pirate shared a law projection with Captain Crosswind. Its name was the Crosswind Law Projection.

A shearing rule enforced itself in the immediate area. Tiny pockets of opposite winds appeared and threatened to tear Cha Ming apart. Fortunately, Cha Ming had powerful defences. His flesh regenerated whenever cut, and none of them managed to damage his bones.

Cha Ming knew tangling with these stronger cultivators would only slow him down, so he continued smashing apart weaker pirates with his heavy staff, painting blades of wind that joined together into larger wind blade whirlwinds that ravaged the weaker cultivators that arrived on the scene afterwards.

Alas, Cha Ming was surrounded and had no time to unleash Descent of the Five Sovereigns. He had a few other tricks up his sleeve, but without a limit break technique, there was only so much he could do.

“Surrender, and your life will be spared,” the initial-law-stitching pirate said when Cha Ming stopped to catch his breath. “We do not have a habit of killing fat sheep we can track down later.”

“Like I’d believe that,” Cha Ming said. He turned to lightning and flashed behind the captain’s back, but the moment he appeared, he took a wind blade to the face, and his body was cut in half. “Seven heavens that stings.”

The Crosswind Law Projection reasserted itself and dug into his flesh. Dealing with law projections was tricky business. He couldn’t use the Clear Rune Arts in this kind of situation, because while Grass Rune Steps were useful in the wilderness, taking on Grass Rune Form would inhibit his Savage Deity Battle Arts.

There was also Sand Rune Form. In theory, it was possible to use Sand Rune Steps to escape through the ground. Unfortunately, he was still working on this technique and was more likely to trap himself than anything else.

He could use wrappings of runic binding, and he had a few paintings he could summon and sacrifice to buy himself more time. And if everything went terrible wrong, he could escape to the void and hope for the best.

Unfortunately, that was when two more law-stitching vice-captains arrived alongside Captain Crosswind herself. The woman had a vicious crescent-shaped scar on her face, smooth green hair, a common color on the Chasewind Plane, and merciless eyes.

“I’ve already asked for his surrender, Captain,” one of her vice-captains said.

Captain Crosswind raised her hand, then spoke a few quick words. “Blood binding technique. Wind awl prison.” Her crew immediately scrambled to execute a group technique. The weaker members coughed up blood that gathered upon the three-vice captains and flew at Cha Ming. Bloody veins appeared all over his body.

The wind cultivators in the pirate group channeled their wind qi through an initial law stitching artifact the captain took out. It was an awl with a broken chain. The spear-like hooks dug into Cha Ming’s flesh, restricting his ability to transform, while the blood veins wormed their way into his qi pathway, restricting his cultivation.

“You have been extremely problematic, Clear Sky,” Captain Crosswind said. “How many times has it been? Four times now?”

“Directly, three,” Cha Ming answered. “Probably closer to five if we count proxy attacks.” Speaking hurt, but he refused to give her the satisfaction of a silent glare.

“The first failure was our fault,” Captain Crosswind continued. “We were woefully uninformed and kicked an iron plate. But the second time, you refused our honest offer for protection. And now you see the result of your repeated rebuttals.”

“All I see is a lot of dead pirates and broken skimmers,” Cha Ming said. He’d killed about thirty of the hundred who’d come and had damaged ten other ships. Ten of the downed skimmers he’d confiscated, eight he’d destroyed. The rest he’d simply abandoned.

“Yes, that is indeed what I see as well,” Captain Crosswind said. “Which is why I’m sure you’ll understand when I take great pleasure in extracting treasures from your person.”

“Aren’t you afraid the sects will hunt you down when their deliveries are affected?” Cha Ming asked.

“Do you think you’re the only one from the Heartforge Realm to descend?” Captain Crosswind asked. “They’ll find a replacement. As for the sects, our lair is impregnable. They wouldn’t dare risk their precious ships to attack us.” That was unfortunately true. No matter what, he couldn’t let them take him there.

Her words also made Cha Ming aware of a greater trend: now, just about everyone knew about the wardens from the Heartforge Realm. Cha Ming had never considered what would happen if a contestant simply vanished. Did their territory get reassigned, or did that depend on if they’d been killed, or the nature of their demise?

“So what will it be, Clear Sky?” Captain Crosswind asked. “Would you like to offer us a gift to try improving my mood, or will I need to drag you back to our lair for a bit of tender love and care?”

Fortunately, that was when Huxian’s voice popped back into his head. I’m here early! Wait a minute, what’s going on? Did these guys just leave a valuable modified ship in the middle of nowhere with no guard to speak of?

Huxian, I’m kind of in a tricky situation, Cha Ming said. But Huxian ignored him, and Cha Ming was forced to bear a wrenching pain as the captain sent a ball of wind blades straight into his chest.

“Drop dead,” Cha Ming said when she let up. “I’m not going to give you anything. Just go ahead and kill me. You won’t get anything out of this except enemies.”

Captain Crosswind’s eyes narrowed, and her own law projection overlapped with those of her vice-captains. The crosswinds generated increased several-fold, and Cha Ming’s flesh began suffering heavy damage as even his bones chipped and cracked under the intense punishment.

“What a tenacious body you have,” Captain Crosswind said. “It bleeds like any other, but it heals so quickly. I think I might have seen one demigod with a body as strong as yours, but he was from one of the four great god clans.”

Come on, just a little longer… Cha Ming thought. He instructed the Clear Sky Brush to paint obvious death traps for her minions, and as predicted, this immediately caught her attention.

“I can appreciate a bit of retaliation, Clear Sky, but you insult me with these tricks,” Captain Crosswind said. “No matter. We will take you back to our lair and I’ll make a personal project of it. If it takes ten years, then so be it.”

Is that a customized initial-fusion-grade engine?Huxian said through their bond. I can totally work with this! And these stabilizers –  they’re huge but if I used only used two of them, then used the others as research materials… Cha Ming couldn’t help but grin, much to the captain’s displeasure.

“Wipe that smirk off your face,” Captain Crosswind said. She summoned a second ball of wind blades in her hand and lowered it onto his shoulder. The constant destruction and regeneration of his flesh and bones depleted a good amount of his divinity.

“This is nothing,” Cha Ming said. “I’ve been through much worse.”

“Then this will be pleasurable for the both of us,” the captain said. “Pack him up and take him away!” She turned her back, and the vice captains moved to obey.

That was when her ship blew up.

An explosion consumed a quarter of the corvette flying above the ironwood forest and send it plummeting to the ground. Cha Ming used the opportunity to fill his body with destruction qi and summon his destruction domain. He did not have a refined domain control technique for his destruction runes, and neither did he have fine control over his destruction qi. What he did have was a domain that channeled his four runes of Dismantling, Breaking, Eruption, and Splitting and was good at breaking just about anything apart.

It was as close as you came to a law projection in a very small area of effect. Everything within it started to come apart. The destruction qi in Cha Ming’s body broke down the red veins of blood suppressing his cultivation, after which he then summoned the Clear Sky Carving Knife and coated it with a Destruction Edge to slice apart the wind hooks suppressing his transformation abilities.

His movements were too fast shocked everyone present, and when they finally realized what was happening, he used his Savage Deity Aura stun them. He then threw the destruction qi laden dagger at one of the vice captains, forcing him to use his law projection to defend.

Cha Ming blasted through the hole in their defences using Savage Deity Rush and turned to lightning at the last second. He simultaneously activated his Golden Boots of the Clockwork Dragon for time acceleration and Claddings of Light to flash-blind them.

This wasn’t quite enough to escape – one of the vice captains was able to fill in the gap in their defences – but Cha Ming was able to resole this by sending out his Wrappings of Runic Binding to immobilize him and create a true opening.

Everything was chaotic and moving too quickly and taking it all in was impossible. Cha Ming therefore chose to directly summon a portion his Yin River Battlefield painting. His qi stores plummeted as his surroundings were filled with painted souls and artificial death.

Upon seeing the souls emerge, the pirates unleashed the only universally effective method – spiritual attacks. But these could not affect a painting, and neither could they affect Cha Ming, whose soul was now safely protected at the center of his inner world in addition to Blessing of Tenacity and his soul protecting artifact.

“If you think that’s enough to escape, you’re dead wrong!” a voice said from behind him. Cha Ming tried to take on lightning form but fell to the ground as chains of wind wrapped around his arms and torso. An early law-stitching cultivator was simply too difficult to deal with.

The captain moved to retrieve him but pulled back at the last second. Half a dozen void blade grenades exploded in the area she’d just vacated.  Huxian appeared beside Cha Ming and slashed at the chains of wind with his own personal carving knife forged from folded space.

Cha Ming, knowing what was coming next, pulled his Yin River Battlefield back into the Clear Sky World. He and the fox both vanished and appeared a few thousand meters away.

“Do you need to jump so far?” Cha Ming asked as cuts opened up all over his body, including his bones. “My body can’t take it.”

“She is an early law-stitching cultivator you know,” Huxian said. “And even with space being a huge mess, she can still teleport a kilometer or two without a problem.” They hopped again just as a familiar Crosswind Law Projection appeared.

“So. What’s the plan?” Cha Ming asked.

“Run a ring around them and fly back to my portal,” Huxian said. “The simplest plan is often the best plan.”

“Is your portal even safe?” Cha Ming asked.

“It’s pretty hard to find, but you make a good point,” Huxian said. “We’ll need a secure location in the long term,” Huxian said.

They teleported continuously, and every time, Cha Ming could feel his divine energy pool diminishing. But it was as Huxian said – the Captain was simply a superior cultivator, and a speedy wind cultivator at that. That they could even escape at all was impressive.

“There’s a mist-covered lake that way,” Cha Ming said, pointing in the distance. Huxian adjusted course, and they soon found themselves surrounded by the spirit-devouring mists that made the place infamous.

“This place is perfect,” Huxian said. He threw out a cube, and the cube expanded in three dimensions, creating a maze made of spatial glass.

“That looks expensive,” Cha Ming said.

“It is, and I spent about a month making it,” Huxian said. “But we’re talking about trapping an early law stitching cultivator, and I’ll be lucky if this keeps her here for five seconds.” They immediately teleported away, and just as they were leaving, they heard a crashing sound and an angry roar. A few short hops later, they appeared on Huxian’s void ship. Now that they had time and an artifact, Huxian was able to execute a longer jump.

“That’s a pretty big engine,” Cha Ming said, noting the new addition on the deck. “Is that weight going to be a problem?”

“It’ll slow us down slightly, but it’s worth it if I get a custom Chasewind Engine,” Huxian said. “The demon lands have zero technology, Cha Ming. You’ll need to introduce me to some shipwrights around here.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Cha Ming said. “But it might not hurt to shop around. Maybe Longshen, Tianlong, and Petros have some good options?”

“Naw, you have the Azure Tempest Sect, and they’re known for their ships,” Huxian said. He executed another long distance void jump, and Cha Ming caught his first good glimpse at void space past the initial chaotic mess. Space here was completely shattered and broken, and what should have been a solid interface was half-blown apart.

The remnants of the barrier between the void and the Chasewind plane floated in the void and cut apart anything that dared approach them. Piercing through that initial turbulent zone required an impossibly high level of skill or an extremely durable body.

Outside this zone of initial turbulence were floating pockets of material debris that had yet to corrode. There was also quite a few demi planes that were latched onto the planar membrane like leeches on a bleeding beast.

“Is that where the fiends come from?” Cha Ming asked.

“Nope,” Huxian said. “Fiends are spontaneously generated. They pop out of nowhere when realms are dying.”

“Strange,” Cha Ming said. “What about the demi planes?”

“Hm... let me think. How would I explain this to a mortal… have you ever worn a woolen sweater?” Cha Ming suddenly understood how Godking Heavenbind must have felt.

“Of course I have,” Cha Ming said. “But... wait, demons have woolen sweaters?”

“It’s a time-honored tradition,” Huxian said. “Anyway, this plane is like a woolen sweater, and those demi planes are like pieces of lint. They’re attracted to the plane because it’s rough and staticky since its damaged. Those portable gold mines can’t latch on to a perfectly healthy plane.”

Cha Ming frowned. “Huxian?”

“What?”

“Are you planning on exploiting these demi planes for resources?” Cha Ming asked.

“It’s a work in progress” Huxian confessed. “The only problem is getting past the turbulent layer safely. Also, there’s a strong possibility that a demiplane is a dud even if you do bridge the gap.”

“You’re going to start prospecting on an interplanar level!” Cha Ming said.

“And what’s wrong with that?” Huxian asked.

“Nothing,” Cha Ming said. “Nothing at all. Good job.”

They flew up to a relatively clear zone in the spatial debris where Huxian slipped back through, bringing them back onto the Chasewind Plane near a glowing gray circle. Several layers of spatial formations had been laid down already, making it impossible to find for people who didn’t already know about it. Huxian handed Cha Ming a key and a homing beacon.

“There. We’re back. Now we just need to camp here for a few days until I’m good enough to keep tunneling through the void to a safer location.” The fox didn’t stay to chat but locked himself in his cabin.

Cha Ming felt shivers through their bond as Huxian began healing the significant damage he’d taken to get here just a little earlier. He did not enter the fox’s cabin, but he did send a silent stream of vitality over to the fox’s way.

The past year had been very difficult for Cha Ming, but nowhere near as hard as it had been on Huxian.