Groves of traveler’s bane covered the forest with bright red fruit. Typically, when something like that glowed in nature, that meant a deadly poison. In the case of traveler’s bane, it meant plenty of driders. The childlike spiderwomen dotted the trees, spun invisible webs cocooning powerful spirit beasts, and gave back to the tree. Their spiritually charged droppings covered the ground in tiny silken balls feeding the trees and smothering saplings. Finally, after countless years the trees produced bright red fruit filled with powerful wood qi. Anyone who partook of the fruit would benefit, but only wood cultivation methods could bring out their full benefit.

In the past, I’ve lost money, rushing to invest, and taking what I could. I’ve invested in bitcoin before without fully understanding what I was getting into. Volatility wasn’t my friend, or it wasn’t a friend to the uninformed or underprepared. I thought I was thoughtful listening to people wiser than myself, but I couldn’t adapt without the groundwork.

That’s why instead of harvesting the trees, I sat on a rock reading through my collection of tomes, whalebone, and scrolls of animal skin. While my system could analyze and translate most of it, most of my collection were fragmented.

Emily sat across from me, turning my scraps of hide over and over, scrunching her blonde brows together. Green eyes flashed to mine before burying back into the material. We had been at it for a few hours now. Even as the Serpent peered at us from thousands of miles away, we worked to better our position with our available resources.

“This isn’t going to work. Every word I’ve read would condemn us to a pyre. Not a single line of this mentions the Prophet once.” Emily said after tossing a three-symbol scrap of parchment onto the unrecognizable pile.

“You’ve said that already. Can any of it be cobbled together into a wood qi cultivation technique?” I tossed a scroll onto the usable pile. While my gains contained all the secret knowledge of the haunted house squatting sects, the secrets weren’t complete. It felt like I had stolen their porno stashes more than anything useful.

The interrogator scrunched her nose in disgust before shrugging. “Not much wood cultivation knowledge is needed near a water qi source. If you want wood qi techniques, then sniff out some hedge wizards and confiscate their secrets.” Emily said.

I rolled my eyes. “I’m done with the inquisition for now. You should be too if you want to keep your head.” I said.

My companion turned away from me. “My transformation was forced upon me.” I waited until she looked back at me and didn’t say a word. My smile was enough. “Those would be my last words before they executed me for being a heretic. If Roland survived, then I’m done.” Emily said.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Is Emily a rare name?” I asked and placed a piece of ripped parchment on the unknown pile.

After going through numerous cultivation techniques, I started to notice a pattern. Cultivation techniques were broken down by realm, qi, and belief. Fortunately for us, the first two points were easy enough to find. Coalescence realm techniques were reasonably easy to come by, and we already knew how to find the correct qi type. Belief was the bottleneck.

Standard cultivation relied upon a specific entity to enhance results. For instance, a few scrolls mentioned the forest king and went on about his history. Many rituals asked an ambiguous forest king and his court’s blessing to partake in the sacred forest rites. This was obviously a demon sect method and, while interesting, wasn’t incredibly useful. The woods around us were old might contain many forest lords and courts of their higher spirits. Though I was tempted to capture a lord if he was wood aligned, the risk of possession was something to consider.

After reading up on various cultivation methods, I found the best way to reach the nascent realm was to gain a spirit for each of the five elements. I already had a spirit of fire and ice and a spirit of neutrality, but neither would help me reach the nascent realm without a triad or demon method.

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Emily stared a hole into her latest scroll. “No, but it won’t be enough.” She threw the scroll into the unusable pile and her face twisted in disgust. “We’re going to have to change how we dress, speak, and cultivate. If we don’t find an excuse to be at our current levels quickly. Someone will investigate. I have a file; our interrogator will write a report and send it to the nearest outpost. From there, it will be sent to analytics who will.”

I interrupted her. “I get it we’ll be up to our necks in inquisitors and lynched by an angry mob or two.” Inquisitor speed is broken. “Alright, if we have to find roles that explain our power, then we should do it quickly. We’re in the foothills of King’s Crown. Do you know of any sects that might take us in no questions asked?” I asked.

She chunked a slip of parchment into the usable pile. “Any sect so brazenly heretical should be snuffed out so it can’t poison those around it.” Emily smiled and fluttered her eyelashes at me. “Of course, this far from the capital manpower is lacking. If we traveled a little further east, we could reach White Mortar city. They have an academy of alchemy there.” She scrunched up her nose in disgust.

“I take it they aren’t the most orthodox of the triad,” I said and snickered at Emily’s expense on the inside.

My companion looked a little troubled at her answer. “They’re borderline heretics and only worship their pursuit of knowledge and immortality. If they didn’t supply the capitol with miraculous cultivation pills, they wouldn’t be allowed to exist.” Her voice continued to heat up. “The fools are far from the Prophet’s grace,” Emily said.

“And yet, I’m sure they’re indispensable. If we were alchemists or even apprentice alchemists, the inquisitors would be forced to look the other way.” I said.

Emily formed a triangle with her hands and said a little prayer. “If you can’t perform even this rite, then even the alchemists will use you as a scapegoat for their more important members. Can you recite a single passage of the book of laws?” Emily asked.

I could have opened one of those books of laws and studied the passages I needed to blend in. Then I might be able to blend in as an ordinary farmer. With the right cover, plundering the treasures of the nearby sects would be much easier. But something about the book turned my stomach.

“So, I’ll have to make myself indispensable quickly; that shouldn’t be too hard. I am quite amazing.” I said.

“You’re barely in the coalescence realm, and without your heretical powers, you aren’t much. All you know is what we taught you, which isn’t much. You don’t even know how to think like an inquisitor.” Emily said.

I thought that was a good thing. While analytics was nice, seeing through the eyes of the indoctrinated disgusted me. No, I could do without their ideology and paranoia.

“Then let’s have a race to see who can reach nascent realm first. You have a fire-aligned spirit right, I’m sure there is plenty of resources in this forest for you.” I said.

Emily sighed. “You would be best suited cultivating in a desert. I’d do better near a volcano. Neither of us is suited for the forest.” Emily said.

I smiled and winked at my partner. “That’s why we’re adapting a cultivation method. But we could also bond with a wood-aligned spirit. Maybe that’s what we need to really make this work. Do you know of any around here?” I asked.

She rolled her eyes and brushed back a lock of blonde hair. “Sure, I know of every spirit on triad because the Prophet speaks to me. I’m secretly a saint now watch as I use my mystical powers to summon a wood spirit.” Emily waved her arms. “Now, just fast for a week, and it will appear,” Emily said in an over-the-top voice.

I tossed my last scroll on the unusable pile. Then I took my time, searched through the usable pile, and built a cultivation technique. My system helped me translate the scribbles into something understandable but did nothing to form the technique. It was a hands-off type of system.

A few achievements were flashing, but little else stuck out on my system page. I wasn’t about to mess with screens while Emily watched. Looking crazy in front of an interrogator seemed like a stupid way to die.

So, I worked to find the secret of cultivation without worshipping a higher spirit, and then it came to me. Why can’t I just bond with a lord or higher spirit and use them? It sounded stupid and practically impossible. The cultivation on the whalebone worked because of my ice qi affinity. Due to the relationship between ice and water, the technique worked. A low to high spirit would work for more grounded cultivation techniques. My problem was the techniques I had to work with. They were built for powerful lord spirits or rituals that relied upon them. But who’s to say a spirit after bonding couldn’t rank up.

While I would still sack a nearby sect if I had the chance, I didn’t want to put my research to waste. So, I smiled a greedy dragon-like smile. This forest was bound to have a wood-type lord. It was vast, and I could sense the thick wood qi in the air. If any forest had a lord-class wood spirit, it would be this one.

Just as I had decided, howls erupted through the woods, with the sounds of pounding feet caught our attention. A wood-thick qi entered my spirit sense range, followed by the forest wolves. I stood up and saw a green-skinned amazon running full tilt out of the woods into our clearing. Her clothes were torn into rags, barely containing her modesty as the wolves nipped at her heels. Bloody red streaks flowed from dozens of bites; her hair was reduced to a knotted mess, and she seemed to be on the verge of a collapse. She was dead; the wolves would either tree her in a drider nest or eat her alive.

I stood up and walked the sleepiness out of my legs. “A dragon’s luck is not to be underestimated,” I said before appearing amongst the wolves with a qi step. The engine of serrated qi buzzed to life as I cut down the wolves. To look on my form was to gaze into the epitome of gallant might. Because nothing got a man moving faster than bouncing green orc titties.