Baiyun grasped a branch and vaulted over a cluster of thorny shrubs into a clearing amidst the forest.

The endless canopy above parted and let moonlight bask the earth beneath. Without the veil of leaves from the vying trees, the grass here was tall and vibrant.

A giant beetle towering 5-metres tall sat peacefully, its mossy black shell glimmering under the brilliant night sky. A lone horn as tall as a grown man jutted from its forehead, its pointed tip blunt yet threatening. Its body was exceptionally rotund; if one were to look at it from a bird's eye view, its body would appear to be a massive horned circle.

Baiyun slowed his steps cautiously but it did not seem to care even as he approached, seemingly asleep.

A Blackhorn Beetle! He didn't know what he would first find in the forest, but it was peaceful like the guides had said.

He realised something strange. The town's population seemed to mostly consist of aging mortals, yet anyone who could venture into a forest this dangerous was certainly a cultivator. Who exactly wrote that guide?

In any case, this was one of the opportunities he hoped to find.

Blackhorns were peaceful herbivorous beetles that relied on their mighty shells to fend off predators. The young ones would be protected by adults before their shells hardened, before being chased off to fend for themselves in adolescence.

Entering the Foundational stage was part of their growth cycle, but much like human cultivators, they needed rare essences for major breakthroughs. Adolescent beetles would raise a unique spirit plant known as the "Blackhorn Root", sitting atop the plant for years and protecting it until maturity, before consuming it and breaking through into adulthood. It was a luxury only spirit beasts could afford with their ability to survive off qi alone.

Baiyun sent out a thread of divine sense and probed the root beneath the beetle, then nodded in approval. It was full of earth essences that would greatly enhance his physique, far beyond the rock ginseng pill from Martial Elder Guan Qiang.

He paused to listen for the centipedes and their scuttling through the leaves. Good, they were about to catch up at any moment.

Baiyun revealed the ring between his teeth and squatted. The barrier struck the ground as he jumped, launching him 6 metres into the air instantaneously!

"Ack-"

His vision suddenly blacked out as the blood rushed away from his head. Baiyun's body was disorientated and briefly stunned, but thankfully, his soul was separate. This body was far too fragile...

Baiyun puppetted his body with soul and braced himself for impact as he shot towards the beetle. The spherical barrier slammed into its shell and bounced into the air before fading, letting him land atop its shell safely.

The beetle seemed to stir for a moment, but it settled down. Meanwhile, the centipedes charged into the clearing!

Baiyun grinned. He took out a metal pan and a ladle and smacked them together loudly.

BANG BANG BANG BANG, BANG!

The beetle raised its head in a confused manner. The centipedes charged at it, climbing up its shell fearlessly to hunt Baiyun down.

Baiyun almost laughed as he swung the pan and smacked the climbing centipedes back down.

The beetle was angered. It flapped its wings violently, launching Baiyun and the centipedes away!

Baiyun grunted as the force sent him flying into the canopy of a nearby tree. The branches scratched his arms, but he grabbed onto them like a monkey and hung on.

A centipede smashed into the branches right beside him and was dazed; he picked it up and tossed it upwards towards the shell of the beetle, where it clung on instinctively.

Baiyun had a brief moment to think with the centipedes now dazed and scattered.

It seemed the beetle had little fear of the centipedes, which made sense. A sedentary creature that behaved more like an oversized boulder was unlikely to have many encounters. Besides, the blackhorn root was far too precious to the beetle for it to be frightened off by just a few centipedes.

He suddenly thought of an idea and reached a hand into his bag for the artefact bow. If he nailed the centipede to the beetle with a silver arrow, he could splatter danger pheromones all over it! Any centipedes he lured over would prioritise attacking the beetle instead and if it slaughtered enough, they would even call upon a warrior centipede.

But he shook his head. Ying Shi lent him the bow for the expedition, not for him to sneak off and use it for his own gains. For the sake of integrity, it probably was best not to use it unless a life-threatening situation came up.

Baiyun thought a little further about his hasty plan and realised it had its share of problems too. If a warrior centipede was lured over, he would have to stay far away until the carnage was over. Afterwards, even if the centipedes took no interest in the blackhorn root, an opportunistic spirit beast would probably take the root before he returned.

Tsk.

It was clear he wasn't equipped for the job, so there was no point in wasting time. Baiyun decided it was best for him to move on and look for another opportunity. He would return tomorrow with more preparations against the beetle.

He leapt down from the tree before he could attract the attention of more canopy wolves, then ran off as fast as he could.

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Baiyun turned around briefly and frowned. It was really annoying how much the centipedes lagged behind him. He wondered if he could simply wrangle one of the centipedes and hold it in his hands while he ran. If he used ropes to tie their mandibles shut and around their legs to a convenient handle... hm, that might be a surprisingly viable idea.

But before he could follow through, Baiyun suddenly turned his head towards the skies.

Perhaps it was the subtle change in the sound of wind, for reasons unknown, he felt like something was ominous.

Baiyun reached his divine thread 12 metres above and felt a present rapidly descending! His eyes constricted and he immediately activated the ring, summoning the barrier! There was no mention of a nocturnal airborne predator in the book!

The sound of rustling leaves and snapping branches echoed as the entity swept down, smashing straight through the canopy/ A shower of leaves fell from above as it landed beside Baiyun.

"Hey!"

This voice... Fei An?!

She stood before him with a grin, patting the dust and debris off her robes.

"What are you doing here? How did you find me?" Baiyun blurted out.

Outside the sect, he could freely use divine thread! How did she detect him without alerting him? Could it be that the people of this world invented a unique tracking technique? A qi compass wouldn't have worked on him as a servant physique did not emit qi.

"Wait, don't get mad at me! I know you don't like to talk to me but... you're entering a very dangerous area!"

Fei An waved her hands frantically as she spoke, averting his gaze. Baiyun did not realise it, but he was staring at her so intensely, it was as if it could bore through stone.

"Answer me."

"Okay, okay! Calm down! I'll explain everything!" Fei An said. "So back in town, I heard this weird sound in the middle of the night! It was like... Ting, ting ting! So I looked out of the window, and I didn't expect to see you outside, running about!"

Baiyun's face went blank. Was that the sound of the Thousand Will barrier bouncing?

"So I climbed on top of a roof to see what you were up to. But I didn't expect you to rush out of town! I didn't want Ying Shi to get mad if something happened, so I decided to follow you. But I have this feeling that you have crazy sharp senses, so I didn't use qi sense. I just followed the bull's path since you were following it too."

"When you entered the dark forest, I just listened for your footsteps and flew quietly. And when the centipedes started chasing you, I just left a qi mark on one of them and followed that!"

Baiyun smacked his head mentally.

To think such a simple trick got him! If he had scanned the centipede thoroughly with divine thread, he would have likely sensed her mark. But he was focused on directing the thread in the path he ran to detect any incoming threats. Threading senses greatly increased their range, but this was their main disadvantage compared to aura fields.

Perhaps Fei An was smarter than she looked.

"Anyway, you shouldn't go deeper into the forest! Haven't you heard of beast kings?" Fei An said.

Baiyun was aware of them.

Spirit forests often formed above "qi faults" where large amounts of qi would leak from underground world veins and burst to the surface. But the further away from the fault, the thinner the qi. The qi-dense centre of the forest would be dominated by the mightiest beasts monopolising the qi. This resulted in an onion-like structure, where every layer further to the outside would be populated by weaker and weaker beasts.

Artificial qi faults known as Qi Towers could also be created by drilling massive holes kilometres underground, something powerful sects often did.

"I'm not going that deep into the forest," he said.

"That's not the point! To begin with, you shouldn't even be here! You're not invincible just because Ying Shi gave you some artefacts."

Baiyun shrugged and continued to trudge deeper.

"Hey! Don't ignore me!"

Fei An furrowed her eyebrows and pouted as she chased.

Hah... To think his plans to sneak out in secret would be foiled on the very first day. How unlucky could he be? Baiyun sighed.

At the very least, he now had a free bodyguard. He certainly wasn't going to complain about some extra security.

Hm?

He paused. Where had the centipedes gone? They should have caught up by now. Baiyun turned around and retraced his steps.

"Oh? Are you finally listening and going back? I can fly us back to town, so we don't have to walk forever!"

Fei An spoke excitedly and waved her arms as she floated into the air.

Baiyun didn't reply, but found his answer shortly in the beetle clearing.

The centipedes were pinned to the ground by a hail of arrows that struck everything indiscriminately, dotting even the grass and treetops. The beetle seemed unharmed and was surrounded by fallen arrows that bounced off its shell.

Baiyun sighed deeply.

"W-what?" Fei An said. "Why do you look mad at me?"

Mad? He was just mildly annoyed.

"I was using those centipedes to scare off the beasts!"

"Ah! Erm, I thought your eyes were so scary that the beasts just stayed away..."

...

Baiyun slapped his forehead. He decided to take back what he thought about Fei An looking smarter than she looked.

"It's okay! I can figure something out!" she said.

Fei An waved her hands and dislodged the arrows from the dying centipedes. With another wave, a powerful swirl of wind tossed them into the air along with a storm of fallen leaves.

A maniacal grin spread over her face as she pulled out a shortsword, disappearing into a flash and rushing towards the floating centipedes! With swift motions blur to the eye, she quickly bisected each centipede head to tail with consecutive slashes.

Fei An continued to swing her blade and gutted them, digging out their entrails and tossing them aside.

Centipede blood splattered everywhere but a barrier of wind around kept her spotless. But it also had the unfortunate side effect of flinging blood everywhere, so Baiyun took cover behind a large tree.

"Almost done! Now to clean them!"

Fei An used one hand to anchor their position in the air, then used her other hand to summon a tornado of wind that wrung out any liquid remaining from the exoskeletons.

"There!"

Fei An dispelled the wind and caught the empty husks as they fell.

The massive beetle stared at her and shifted restlessly as if worried, but remained seated on its precious root.

"Hehe! Now you can wear them as scarfs! They shouldn't be too heavy either, since I gutted them!" she said cheerfully.

Baiyun's eyes twitched.

...how exactly had this child been raised? He would like a word with her parents.