Chương 369: Ghosts of the Mine (XV)

alright. I'm kind of regretting pulling this thing out, to be honest. Rather than it being a 'myth passed down in his family', I don't need to be a psychiatrist or an FBI profiler or whatever to realize something awful happened to him that had to do with this formation. I'm thankful (or offended?) at least that he didn't make any associations with me. We dispersed soon after, as I wondered just how many fires are waiting for us once we get to the world in which Long Tao died.

It's unlikely he'll be recognized, but even that's not out of the realm of possibility; who knows if there are those 'clairvoyants' who can read the heavens and whatnot waiting for us? The dawn came rather quickly, and with it, relentless reports of the kids.

"I achieved Intermediate Mastery, Master!" Dai Xiu reported.

"Yeah, well, I actually reached quasi-Perfected Mastery!" Wan Lan retaliated.

"I, I reached Intermediate, too..." Xing Feng professed.

"Pathetic," Light announced.

"I've reached Harmony!"

"Woah!!!!"

"Really?!!"

"How is that possible?!" harmony? What the hell is that? Isn't 'Perfected' the last one? Nah. Of course it's not. Why would something called 'Perfected' be the last leg of the journey? It makes sense it's not-- --my ass! This world makes no sense! Ah, whatever. We didn't get the luxury of Long Tao's meal, as we just ate some dried jerky and stone-hard bread before quickly packing up and moving.

It was a good and a bad day; good in a sense that we've made far more progress than yesterday, and bad because the reason for that was the lack of Demonic Beasts attacking us. While it was annoying, it was also necessary as I'd bought the damn quest when I saw them just attack us randomly on that day. And yet, the progress has been pathetic.

[Demonic Beasts Hunted: 29/500] I mean, it's not like we were close to the peak or anything, but I was kind of banking on the fact that the beasts this far down would be weaker but in greater numbers, as the system didn't stipulate anything like the 'minimum rank'. Chances are that, further up the mountain, we'd find less scattered Demonic Beasts and more 'territories' of powerful ones that wouldn't have that many, if any. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road.

If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Hope was that we'd make up the numbers in the early leg of the journey, but if it continued like this, there's a good chance I would have wasted 2, 000 points on nothing. And though I'm currently a bit 'flush' with points, it's not the point where I can piss away 2, 000 of them. About halfway through the day, we made it to the edge of the path; the sheer cliff fall even from here was just shy of five hundred feet, give or take a few, and it really was just a flat drop.

The curve in the path was flanked by a thick canopy of trees and shrubbery; though it's clearly a 'path', it was still overgrown with roots that we had to clear since the carriage couldn't otherwise traverse. Luckily--or, well, unluckily for some--we did end up encountering two packs of Demonic Wolves just before the evening and our planned rest stop, totaling in yet another 18 slain beasts, all of whom were taken care of by Xi Zhao and Dai Xiu, with Rayce doing some 'tests', per his words, with the Words.

Once the wolves were cleared up--with the kids having learned to be a bit 'gentler' with the body so that we can actually strip them for materials--we found a small piece of flat land and set up two camps on either end, more so as a protective measure than anything else. Long Tao's dinner was rather simple--minced rabbit meat wrapped up in lettuce-like, crunchy leaf--but... it was a meal. I can't believe I'm eating a proper meal in the middle of some random-ass mountain after eating plain-ass rice for so long.

Life, truly, is good. The next week went pretty much the same, day-for-day--we'd wake up at the crack of dawn, have a simple meal, and resume the upward climb. The mountain itself never changed much, though I did start noticing it thinning out as far as greenery went about four days in. We did encounter a few more demonic beast packs, but nothing to inspire confidence, as it only ever climbed up to 72 out of 500.

On the seventh night, however, something marvelous happened--Xing Feng broke into the Foundation Establishment Realm. Thankfully, Long Tao had done his magic so it stayed within the tent, but, depressingly, he did it so well that the way I learned it happened was actually through the system, and not sensing the disturbance in Qi... [--congratulations, Host. One of your Disciples has successfully broken into the Foundation Establishment Realm during a natural bout of Enlightenment] [Disciple Xing Feng has obtained two new traits: Genius (Legendary) and Dao Prodigy (???)] [As a consequence, however, his Lucky (Epic) trait has been downgraded to Lucky (Rare)] [...] [As Host has directly led the Disciple onto the path of Martial Arts, rewards have been recalculated] [...] [CHOOSE] [Choice 1: Standard set of Rewards, including a random weapon suitable for one of your Disciples] [Choice 2: Special Reward curated specifically for Disciple Xing Feng] Honestly, a standard set of rewards for breaking through into the Foundation Establishment Realm would feel kind of... outdated? I mean, they'd be nice, sure, but I can already make arts for Xing Feng as I see fit. But any time the phrase 'Special Reward' has been mentioned by the system, it truly was special. As such, I chose it.

[Choice 2 made] [...] [Special Reward: Seven-Faced Tie-Chi (???)] [Seven-Faced Tie-Chi (???) -- some call it a weapon, some a tool, some a mystery, and some yet a relic of an Ancient Race that left no traces behind besides this one thing. Though just an ordinary iron ruler on the surface, it can be reshaped into seven functional forms: Sword, Spear, Bow, Hammer, Mace, Polearm, and Rope Dart. The speed at which it can re-form itself depends on the wielder and their understanding of Martial Weapons] [...] [Genius (Legendary) -- once-in-a-generation genius, capable of understanding things at speeds well beyond normal; can more easily evolve and upgrade existing arts and has the chance to naturally discern the weaknesses of others' arts by merely observing them once] [Dao Prodigy (???) -- somebody who naturally induced the state of Enlightenment before reaching Foundation Establishment. They will face little to no obstacles when comprehending Dao, but should they ever falter in the conviction within their Path, they will immediately be rendered an ordinary mortal]