Chương 63: Gathering

Jianyi turned to Miyao, who walked beside him as they and Shuhua, Jun, and Hong traveled a road that took them away from the sect.

"How come you always learn more things about Lu Shan?" he asked curiously.

"I told you that my family is more scholarly oriented, right?" She looked at him for confirmation and continued as he nodded.

"When I wrote to my grandmother and recounted the events from the test on our first day, she started to research him and his family. She is relentless when it comes to people who have threatened her family—and in her mind, his attack was a threat and not just the act of a stupid, entitled boy…" Jianyi nodded.

"Protecting one's family should come before all else." He thought for a moment whether that was true and it should come before revenge, but quickly came to the conclusion that it was true. Fortunately, these two objectives were not necessarily in conflict with each other. Miyao nodded non-committally, her relationship with her family—specifically her grandmother— not easy.

"I guess. Anyway, it seems that Lu Shan's mother spends most of her time as a recluse so that she does not form karmic bonds with others. It is unclear where this extreme interpretation of her beliefs comes from." It was Jianyi's time to shrug. Since the last duel, he had not really interacted with the other boy. He had seen him in lectures, but there had been no conversation, not even eye contact. In his mind, he was done with the other disciple, and his family history was of no concern to him.

What was much more interesting was the mission they had just embarked on. Well… it maybe wasn't the most interesting of merit missions, it was just about gathering some herbs in a forest about one and a half days from the sect, but it was a nice change from the routine he had fallen into over the last few weeks. He would, of course, always be disciplined about his chores, lectures, and training, but that didn't mean that he necessarily enjoyed every single aspect of them.

So getting out of the sect with the group of friends seemed like a great reason to shake things up. It had been almost two weeks since he had his cultivation breakthrough to stage two of the Qi Gathering Realm, and he was still adjusting to the slight changes to his body and mind since then. He didn't think of himself as terribly vain, but he had to admit that the slight growth spurt and clearing of his skin were benefits, too.

The power gain was probably nothing compared to the cultivators in higher realms, but to him it felt truly magical, and he could only imagine how much better prepared he would be for his next fight with evil demonic cultivators. With this new experience, he was wondering whether the man he had fought in the manor where the demon had resided had actually been in the Qi Condensation Realm or rather just a few stages above him in the Qi Gathering Realm. In the end, it didn't matter.

What mattered was that he felt great and couldn't wait to continue on the journey to the next realm. Elder Sun had tried to manage his expectations, saying that every stage, and even more so every realm, was harder to achieve than the previous one, but for once, Jianyi decided not to worry too much about that and just hoped that from now on he would rapidly climb the ladder of ascension. If the Heavens willed it, his powerful cultivation technique would ensure that his foundations were strong. He turned to Shuhua.

"How many merit points will we get for this?" She smiled at him.

"Five points. The mission is considered a bit easier than the last one, but it is farther away. The number of contribution points depends on the amount of Silver Willow Bark we bring back. Apparently, there is a fever going around in the city and the sect alchemists have agreed to help out, but were caught out on their supply of the ingredients." That seemed fine to Jianyi.

He hadn't even asked when Shuhua had suggested the mission; he had made quite a few points with his test results over the last couple of weeks, and with his win in the duel against Lu Shan, he had also stopped the bleeding of merit points to him. By now, he was in the top third on the leaderboard, and should he perform well in the mid-year assessment, he would progress even further.

The only requirement he had had to go on the mission was that there was clarity on leadership in the group, and Shuhua had agreed to lead them after everyone else had approved. Not for a second had Jianyi desired that position. Clarity on leadership was important, but he knew his strengths—and managing people's feelings and morale was not one of them. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. They had also spent a bit of time further refining some of their team tactics.

Nothing sophisticated, but he had asked Minghao for some of the fundamentals and relayed that to the team. He felt that they were better prepared and stronger than the last time. The only slight caveat to his happiness right now was the need to sleep in the wilderness. He was not looking forward to that.

Wilderness turned out to be a rest site along the road with a well-used fireplace and a hip-high wall to keep the worst of the wind away from them. It wasn't that bad. Given his ample experience cooking for Elder Sun under the tutelage of Minghao, he took over the responsibility to cook dinner. It wasn't much, but he made a stew with meat, garlic, ginger, and turnips.

Minghao's recommendation to pack a few spices was extremely helpful, and the dish was well received; not the best he had ever done, but given the circumstances, he was satisfied with it. A full day of travel had left them not necessarily exhausted but tired enough that they agreed to a single-person watch rotation. After having prepared dinner, Jianyi was allowed to choose his shift and selected the last one.

To make sure he was at peak performance, he cultivated for half an hour before he settled down in his small tent. It took a moment to fall asleep as he processed some of the experiences and sights of the day, but eventually he drifted off in a dreamless slumber—only to be woken after what felt like only a few hours. It wasn't Miyao, though, who had the watch before him; no, it was Hong shouting for everybody to wake up and that they were under attack. Jianyi rolled out of his tent and jumped to his feet.

What he saw made the blood in his veins freeze. A huge boar was charging their rest site. Its head reached to Hong's chest, and its hide was covered with rock-like protrusions. Based on his lectures on the beasts in the Empire, this was a Stone Boar. One of the most common spirit beasts in their region, still—it shouldn't have been this close to the road. Then he saw behind the attacking boar two smaller ones. A mother with two piglets—she would not easily back down.

He raced forward, spear in hand, to Hong's side, the others in various degrees of alertness. Without techniques, this would be a difficult fight, and he knew that neither Hong nor Jun had any at this point; both were frantically gathering points to be able to eventually buy cards from the sect—but that didn't help right now. Which left the girls—and him. He attacked across the small wall, while Hong did his best to dodge the ivory tusks of the murderous beast.

His attack hit, drew some blood, but the wound was superficial. Force of the Forest would help. He inhaled in the way he had practiced so many times by now and pulled up two cards. Bolt of Fire. Verdant Mending. By the Heavens! Force of the Forest was not among them. He could either wait another breath… No, no time! He chose Bolt of Fire and pulled qi through his Celestial Core Card and directed the card forward, into the face of the angry beast.

The card turned into a red streak that hit right below the boar's eye, and the beast shrieked in pain and panic. The bristle-like hair that covered the non-stone patches of the beast's hide smoldered, and it almost looked like a flame had caught and threatened to do even more damage. The stench of the burned hide and bristles filled the air. The beast shrieked once more and turned in the direction of the piglets—both easily as large as a medium-sized dog—and herded them ahead of her in her flight from the scene.

Adrenaline was pumping through Jianyi's veins, and his breath was ragged. Despite the fight only lasting for seconds, it had been the most terrifying situation since his last mission with Elder Sun. Miyao and Shuhua had arrived, and Hong relayed the whole episode, even though the others had been right behind them and seen everything. It seemed to calm him down.

Having directly stared into the eyes of a spirit beast that weighed likely as much as their team combined would be stressful for anybody on their cultivation level. Shuhua looked at Jianyi with a hard-to-interpret expression on her face.

"You… you used fire. I…" Jianyi grimaced. Fire was her affinity… and he had just revealed that he had a dual affinity. Jun clapped him on the shoulder, grinning.

"Great job, Jianyi! I didn't really believe I would ever meet a dual affinity cultivator. If I had known you were one..." he seemed distracted, staring into the distance. Shuhua seemed to have calmed down.

"We should probably stay on alert, in case the beast comes back, but given that she had piglets with her, it is unlikely, I guess." Everybody nodded, and they settled in, all looking out into the wilderness surrounding them. There was a moment of silence, then Jianyi cleared his throat.

"I didn't tell you about my affinity because I didn't want it to be widely known. My teacher recommended I keep it to myself. I would appreciate it if you didn't talk about it back in the sect." He felt awkward asking this of them and thought about whether he should reveal that the demonic cultists were searching for dual affinity cultivators.

"Why?" Miyao asked.

"Isn't this a good thing?" That helped him decide, as he didn't want to lie.

"Apparently, demonic cultivators are looking for dual affinity cultivators, so it is safer to not catch their attention, especially as long as one is as weak as we still are." Surprisingly, Shuhua smiled at him now, apparently relieved.

"Your secret is safe with me." She looked at the others.

"With all of us!" The others asked lots of questions about his dual affinity, which he tried to answer to the best of his abilities, but in the end, it wasn't that different from a single affinity, just more powerful. They stayed up until the next morning, when they packed their gear and returned to the road. The boar had not returned, and Jianyi was anxious to have revealed a part of his secret.