She had tried to ascend. It was probably instinct, but the baby had tried to become immortal. She wasn’t even at the right rank to ascend, but that’s what happens when you're a child of a Primordial I supposed.

But she had no Dao, nothing to ground her and that had almost killed the poor child.

I walked, cradling her against my chest as I did so. She was sleeping, for now. But she’d wake up eventually. That was good.

It was a strange situation I was in. I never wanted to be a father before this, and even now, I still don’t. But this child needed someone to look after her, if not for my own safety then for hers.

She needed me.

“That damned monkey,” I muttered under my breath.

He should have taken her and raised her himself, but no, he’d left her to me. I don’t know why, probably some God-Imperium reasoning, something I was too weak to understand.

My theory was that he would somehow interfere. I didn’t know why or how, but I assumed leaving the child in my hands was the best option, at least for now. If the child had stayed with him, there may have been some risk.

Not to him directly, but some type of political risk. It was the difference between watching a criminal run away and participating in the crime. He had merely traded favors with me, each favor given for something in return. Officially, he hadn’t helped me or aided me in any regard so there were no karmic ties between us.

That left his hands clean of all misgivings. Well, that and his strength. If he were a weaker being complaints would surely be brought up, but since he’s Sun Wukong, The Monkey King, I doubted anyone would dare to oppose him with little disregard.

That or he was lazy.

I frowned. It could be the latter, but I hoped it wasn’t.

The child turned in my arms.

She opened her eyes and blinked at me. We’d been walking for about an hour, and because of our size, we’d only made it about fifty feet from where I had first stood.

That was fine, it was just a walk after all.

“Awoo,” the baby yelled.

I’ve thought of a name.

Oh boy. Here we go. She took a moment to focus and her face squished in concentration.

“Nai,”

“Nai?”

She nodded.

“That’s acceptable,” I replied.

The baby- Nai, smiled and cooed. It was adorable.

“Do you know what you tried to do Nai?”

Nai nodded.

“You tried to ascend in immortality, without a dao.”

Nai nodded again, seeming a little worried this time. She had that confused look that babies had when they were unsure of what was going on.

“You’re a child, barely a newborn right now. You’re not ready to face the world, alright?”

Nai nodded her big head bobbing up and down in effort.

“Good, now check this out,” I said pointing to the distance.

I put her back onto my shoulders and she held firmly onto my head, and then I jumped. The forest shrank beneath us and we soared over the green leafy floor. We soared past the trees and the vines, peaking into the deep blue sky above.

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I kept an eye on her aura. Accidentally ascending into immortality was a dangerous thing. It normally happened to strong individuals who were all but ready to leap into the sixth rank. But with Nai, it had been different.

She had seen a fundamental truth of reality and had tried to understand it. It was the metaphysical equivalent of staring into the sun. See too much and you’ll see nothing, know too much and you won’t know yourself. The ego would crumble, the soul would evaporate and your very consciousness would fall apart.

That was one of the many reasons humans needed a dao. Even beasts and insects needed their own methods to push into the depths of reality.

We glided down and landed smoothly on a tree branch. A nest of ravens occupied the branch a few feet over and a caw of surprise came out from the birds.

I was about to scare them off or soothe them myself, but then Nai held up her hand.

One of the ravens hopped out of their nest and walked over to us, lowering its beak to eye level.

“Awoo,” Nai yipped.

The raven looked deep into her eyes… and nodded.

Interesting. This wasn’t just communication using auras, this was a beast thing. The raven had recognized her as something beyond itself.

The raven turned around and tottered into its nest and snuggled up with its mate. We walked past the pair and went down to the floor. Then we stepped into the beasts’ domain.

The world flickered and suddenly all the divine beasts could be seen. I watched them occasionally but this was the first time I had visited their domain. Domain might have been a bit of a stretch, home should I say.

They had taken to the place. I watched as they bartered. That was a little strange, bartering was a despicable human behavior, but they did it anyway. They even had stalls and shops and… were those merchants?

Why would they need merchants?

I frowned.

This was weird. I walked with Nai, our bodies wrapped in an illusory array.

“No! No! This is not right! One qi berry cannot be worth three feathers of a phoenix. That is too much to give for so little!”

“I will give you three, no more!”

There was a groundhog arguing with a phoenix.

“What’s going on here?” Another phoenix chirped.

“You dare to spit at our Firey Fowl Clan? We will burn your lands and scatter seeds elsewhere if you dare!”

I studied the ongoing trade. The qi berry was small, barely anything worth staring at in terms of qi, but it was concentrated with laws. Yes, it held mainly fire and wind laws and would be a gift for most phoenixes to nurture.

I’d known stuff like this would happen. The array was eating the laws these creatures provided, studying their nature, and tossing out laws in return. It was growing.

“Nonsense, our Fiery Fowl will give you three and a half feathers no more! Asking for anything else would be extortion.”

The groundhog frowned, then smiled.

“It’s a deal!”

The phoenix dug into his wings and pulled out three full feathers and one half of one, each of them being holy treasures from a tenth-rank being, and traded them for the berry.

The berry contained fire laws and so did the phoenix’s feather, but the difference between the two was notable. Even with deeply explored laws like fire and lightning, there were so many variances and so many nuances in their forms.

Did the fire burn, rejuvenate, heal, destroy? Phoenix fire burned away the old and withering. It was a fire that would burn down forests, only to provide them with more life than they’d ever seen the very next day. If a phoenix burned an old man it would hurt him, but it would burn away at his old age and rotting flesh, leaving behind a youthful man.

Phoenix fire burned away things like rot, age, weakness, and disease.

I’d once seen a sixteenth-rank phoenix. It was the very nature of change, burning away the void itself and creating countless realms as it flew by. I had been dying then, wounded from a grievous battle, and though its flames hadn’t touched me, my injuries burned away and I was made a new, just from seeing it pass in the distance.

And that was all from a distance. The fire laws the berry contained were that of ash and heat, fire that would come from a dragon’s mouth.

It was a good trade for the phoenix, though I didn’t know what the groundhogs would use the feathers for. They studied the laws of connection, things like time and space, what good was-?

WHAT

DAO?

The damn beast had a dao.

How? Beasts were different from humans. We needed something to tether our souls, a purpose to tie ourselves to, and that was our dao, our meaning.

For beasts, it was more of a law, The Dao of the Jungle. The desire to be the strongest, strength for strength’s sake. It was their way, their power.

Beasts didn’t live for any other reason, but to live.

And yet…

I stared at the little bundle of dao within the groundhog’s mind. Yes, the dao of wealth. The merchant’s dao. It was there and it was blooming.

Connections. Laws that connected things, that was what the groundhogs tended to study. They varied, of course, space, time, qi, and portals, but this one was taking up a dao.

Trade also connected people I suppose.

I watched the area, witnessing multiple other groundhogs come by with similar daos, not as strong as this one, but budding in their own way.

I wondered if they knew. Some beasts had daos, it wasn’t a new thing. But those beasts were rare. You’d hear about them in folktales and myths, beasts who fell in love with a human or became human themselves.

You’d also hear about men who became beasts. That was more common actually, The Dao of the Jungle appealed to a lot of humanity. I myself had mimicked insects, ripping away my emotions and desires and becoming almost machine-like in my existence.

But this, this was a human dao and they had taken to it willingly, if unknowingly. I’d have to speak to Lin Tai about this.