It took a week until his leg had healed completely. He had applied the balm daily and at first it had been effective, but as soon as the wound had started to build new skin, the balm had become close to useless. The skin was still slightly tender to the touch, but it was a lot better than permanently worrying about infection.

In the meantime, he had gotten a lot of things done. He’d worried about water at first, since the lake was the only source of water he knew and he didn’t want to have another encounter with the snake again, but he could sneak to the waterfall instead.

Food had been surprisingly plenty. The crater was less wild nature than a curated paradise, filled with medicinal plants, nuts and fruit trees. And besides the dragon, the squirrels had been the largest animals he’d encountered.

Even shelter had been easy. The walls of the crater were full of smaller caves that let him rest with a small fire to keep him warm.

The more he thought about it, the less he felt like the entire trip was a punishment and more of a way for his uncle to push him to cultivate faster through the ranks.

The situation had let him focus on crafting tools. He’d been a city boy, but he watched enough documentaries about the stone age that he had some rough idea that if you bashed stones against each other well enough, you’d get something close to a cutting edge. With a bit of luck, he could create a simple cutting tool, which he fastened to a stick to create a hatchet. While it wasn’t as simple as a Minecraft crafting table, superhuman strength and dexterity got you most of the way.

He was able to create a prototype bamboo spear. It was nothing more than a piece of wood sharpened to a point, but with the help of Mo Li Bei, he was able to treat it with a paste to harden it until it was strong enough to poke trees without breaking the tip.

But that was only step one of his plan. After all, he didn’t want to hunt the snake himself.

He created multiple miniature spears from some smaller pieces of wood. With the hardening treatment, the tiny spears felt more like solid metal needles instead of soft bamboo, and he hoped it would be enough.

Additionally, Mo Li Bei forced him to collect a variety of plants for alchemical purposes. He learned some creative techniques to create basic tools like fashioning a pestle by using acid to melt a hollow space into solid stone.

In the end, he could fashion a variety of tinctures and poisons, which he stored in handmade leaky clay bottles. He was already awaiting the day he could afford a spatial ring with glee, since a week of work had produced enough things that he could barely carry everything.

The last step would be to convince the local squirrels to join him on his divine quest to slay the evil dragon overlord.

The critters had watched him while he had been crafting and recuperating and he’d cracked any nuts they brought to him. It was important to build rapport.

He’d asked the last pair that had visited him to gather the squirrels for a discussion. Over the next half hour, the place in front of his cave filled with more and more squirrels. They were in the trees, bushes, and on the ground. Hundreds of tiny green eyes were following him.

Joseph gulped. He felt like he was doing a presentation in school but had forgotten the PowerPoint slides. At least he could remember some famous motivational quotes.

“So, you all know me at this point. You all also know the dragon who claims the lake.

“That snake is an asshole. You know it. I know it. When you found a better nut cracker than him, he threw a hissy fit and killed one of your friends.

“Now we all live in fear whenever we want to get a drink. Even if the waterfall is somewhat safe, as soon as he finds out where we get our water, he’ll try to cut us off again. But in the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”

The squirrels nodded.

“I want to remove him. If he doesn’t play nice with us, we don’t play nice with him. But I need your help. He’s a strong, big dragon and I’m a weak human. But together, we can do great things. You might be small, but you are many. You lack the claws or teeth to pierce his scales? I’ll build you weapons to poison him. We don’t need to fight fair. We just need to overwhelm him. I know it sounds scary. But the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The squirrels looked at him in confusion.

He sighted.

“I’ll build you a nut cracking tool in exchange.”

The squirrels cheered.

----------------------------------------

Days later, Joseph was standing in a miniature military camp. He’d overdone it by quite a bit.

Everything was broken down into multiple stations. First, the squirrels arrived and got their equipment: a standard issue hardened bamboo spear and a helmet made from nut shell. It had started as a joke when he had tried to create a helmet from one of the nutshells, but the squirrels liked the idea so much that they started to gather the shells by themselves.

To be fair, the helmets looked cute on the critters. With two tiny ear holes and a chin strap, the design reminded him of soldiers from Hollywood war movies. When he showed them how to apply war paint, the squirrels had gotten into that too.

After the squirrel had been equipped and painted, they were off to basic training. Joseph had no idea what a proper military bootcamp entailed, but he had tried his best.

First, he had cleared a large area from debris, forming a rough training area. He had shown the initial batch of squirrels some basic trusts and blocks, simple moves he wasn’t even sure made any sense.

In the end, he wasn’t really sure if there was anything besides thrusting with the pointy bit to mastering the spear. Sure, he knew that you were supposed to support the thrust with your whole body instead of just your arms, but beyond that, he had no idea.

He had made up a few extra blocks, parries and thrusts because the squirrels seemed to be enthusiastic. It also looked really fun to watch ranks of tiny squirrel soldiers perform thrusts in unison as if they were a group of ancient Shaolin monks. That made him wonder if Shaolin monks were real now, but he’d save the tangent for later.

After they had learned that the pointy bit goes into no hole, because it makes its own holes, they were off to the parkour track. Joseph had outdone himself. It had all the elements he knew from the movies:

It started with a bamboo vertical wall. At first, the squirrels had jumped over it, so Joseph had raised it even higher. It was still an easy element until he forced the squirrels to run the track with their spears. After all, a soldier takes his weapon everywhere.

Next, he had added a classic obstacle course consisting of hurdles to pass over and under, ramps and barriers. It transitioned into a set of monkey bars, which were so popular with the squirrels that he was forced to build a second set.

The balance beams and sand pits had been somewhat of a waste of time. The balance beams were too easy, and the squirrels used the sand to clean themselves instead of feathering their jumps.

The ropes had received mixed reactions, some squirrels loving it, while others despised them.

He ended the track with the classic mud under barbed wire, replacing the barbed wire with thorny plants. It was the hurdle that made the squirrels struggle the most, but watching their tiny butts wiggle comically while crawling made him unreasonably happy.

The last part was actual combat training between the squirrels. They were surprisingly agile and strong, sometimes moving fast enough that he had trouble following them. Their fights had a grace that he hadn’t expected, as if the squirrels were naturally starting to understand something about spear fighting that he didn’t get.

Some of the best combatants somehow could split pebbles with their wooden spears, which suggested they were slowly developing their own martial art. It was fascinating to see how it slowly developed. At first the squirrels used the efficient and straightforward moves he had taught them.

But the longer they trained, the more they incorporated swirling arcs, twists of their furry paws to spin the spear and other flourishes. While the moves were often not the fastest choice, the specific ways they were moving their weapons somehow enhanced the impact.

Joseph tried to copy their moves, but it made no difference to him. His strikes were as strong as before, which was still a lot compared to a baseline human, but they lacked the extra oomph.

Mo Li Bei had an explanation for him. Cultivators could use their meridians to move Qi inside their bodies in certain ways to enhance their movements. It was the first type of Qi utilization he could learn.

The spent time had another effect on him. He could feel his meridians slowly forming, like an itch on the inside similar to a sleeping foot that was slowly waking up, fresh blood forcing its way through stagnant arteries. The entire experience was slightly uncomfortable, and it was the first time he ever wished to be able to scratch the inside of his bones.

Feeling for his meridians was surprisingly easy. It was like a limb he had forgotten that it existed. While he couldn’t move the meridians themselves, he could feel their positions where they connected and crossed. And if he concentrated really hard, he felt like he could even move the tiny bits of Qi that were naturally filling them.

Mo Li Bei taught him some visualization techniques to accelerate the process, but so far it hadn’t borne fruit. The old ghost told him not to worry, after all his meridians were tiny, hair-thin things instead of the cable sized energy routes spanning his body.

All in all, he felt ready for the encounter. He had trained his army as best as he could, had advanced his cultivation ever so slightly and concocted enough poison to kill a herd of elephants.

He only hoped it would be enough.