It has been more than two months since Alyx Bell left the Old Plum village, his family, and many friends behind.
He was a Cultivator now, or at least he was working towards it, living in the Myriad Beasts Sect. Some time has passed, a few weeks to be exact, since he was on his own, and he had already settled into a daily routine.
He woke up early in the morning, sometimes even before sunrise, washed his face, straightened his clothes, and went off to work.
The Sect gardens where he toiled for most of the day were quite a ways away from his little village in the Ancient Ironbark Timberland, requiring him to take a daily 20-minute run, or wake even earlier and walk for a good hour. He preferred the former.
When he left his humble home, most Disciples were still sleeping and so he quietly jogged along the soft forest path toward the west. On his morning run, he passed many other Disciples, most of them going to the same destination as him.
Cool morning air reinvigorated his body and removed what little bit of drowsiness still remained. His breathing was steady and strong, precisely as the Elders taught him, allowing him to energize his body efficiently even without the use of Qi.
In all this time, he didn’t even finish the first refinement of his Soul despite doing it every day for as long as he could. Time wasn’t a problem, quite the opposite. He always had more time on his hands than he knew what to do with.
The problem was his weak Soul. His young mind quickly became overwhelmed by prolonged sessions of deep concentration and meditation, and he had to stop before he could completely complete a cycle. It was two steps forward, one step back kind of situation.
But after speaking with his Senior Brothers working beside him, he came to realize his experiences were quite normal. Actually, some people even made three steps forward, and two back, making them waste even more energy in their advancement since the path taken was the same in both cases.
Speaking with Chity Boru, his new friend, he discovered most Cultivators struggled at the beginning. Che Erie was the same, having difficulties with the first steps of Foundation Building Realm.
The only one who didn’t complain was Gerald, the weird friend. He wouldn’t give him a straight answer either, and his speech patterns sometimes didn’t seem right, almost as if he came from far away. His word expressions were also odd at times, especially the metaphors he used.
But that wasn’t what concerned him. No, Gerald became a completely different person after joining the Sect. He didn’t take a job and instead spent all his days either in the library, going out alone and hunting for food, or being stuck inside his home for days. He even began building a wall around his house, almost as if he tried to shut himself away from the world.
He was honestly getting worried for the guy, especially after he appeared to have completely misunderstood the Elder’s instructions. He could just hope his friend didn’t sustain some unrepairable damage to his Cultivation, especially after getting struck by the Formation on the first day.
Even when they had their chats around the fire in the evenings, Gerald appeared distracted and many times mentally absent as he just stared into the flames, completely ignoring their calls. His Qi was also all over the place, swirling chaotically and seemingly at random.
There were some spikes sometimes, almost as if he was preparing for a battle, and other times it became still like that of a dead person. It was odd and unnerving, and he just hoped it wasn’t permanent.
But now it was enough of that. He had arrived at the Sect gardens where they grew many important herbs and reagents for pills.
The most important of them all, the one they had entire plantations of, and also the one requiring the most care, was the Spirit Lilly.
A delicate purple flower, it was the main ingredient for nearly all potions and elixirs that concerned the Soul and were monumental to the growth of any Sect.
Every Disciple working there got a special token that was authorized by the Elders, combined with their own Qi, to create a key to allow them a brief opening into the formation that was otherwise always active around the plantation.
The dome-shaped invisible barrier spread across many kilometers of varying mountainous terrain, from lush valleys to frozen mountain peaks.
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The herbs inside had different requirements for climates in which they thrived. Some demanded heat, others preferred cold. Some grew in the water while the next ones required hot dry sand.
The plants, as Alyx had quickly learned, also had various effects on each other.
For example, the Ice Phoenix Magma Flower required extreme heat to grow, and sucked it all from the environment, making an icy desert around itself. However, that was exactly the perfect environment for a Blazing Ice Berry which produced immense heat during its growth and required cold not to wither and die.
Countless such interactions had to be memorized for the hundreds of combinations of plants growing there. The Elders were even trying to combine many of them, increasing their potency or resilience to the elements, or just straight up boosting their yield.
Alyx always carried with him a small notebook, carefully recording every trick he had ever learned. The Elders were constantly trying to optimize the herb growth and relations between them, and such actions brought them greater profits while at the same time minimizing the energy required to change the environment with complicated and expensive formations.
On the first day of every month, and as such, he had only seen it happen once, the Formation on the mountain had to be replenished, and he saw a Grand Elder pour out an entire sack, easily thousands of Spirit Stones, to power the thing for just another 35 days.
Compared to his measly pay, they were literally burning money.
But such thoughts had no place in his mind. He grabbed his hoe and went to work. Dirt had to be softened and weeds pulled out, and new terraces had to be built on the mountain slopes for new growth.
While magic could theoretically be used to do the same work much faster, the ground itself was locked in place, preventing any magical manipulation to prevent unwanted disasters. A single rouge Disciple could undo months of work if he was allowed to rampage over the land for just a minute.
They couldn’t afford such things to happen, even if it was just a one-in-a-million chance. You never knew when an enemy spy might manage to sneak in.
Alyx Bell hoisted his hoe up and brought it down beside a blooming Spirit Lilly, its purple flower releasing a calming aroma that soothed his Soul. He brought the hoe up again and brought it down, toiling under the sun with a smile.
Soon would be time for his meal. Working on the herb plantation brought some benefits with it, such as getting most of the food needed for the day there. He could as such save quite a bit of money, and his pouch was steadily filling up.
He didn’t yet know what he would need money for, but it was better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
He heard way too many horror stories from his Seniors Brothers about some Cultivators who lived extravagantly and were always broke. And when something happened that would be a minor inconvenience for others, it became a disaster for them. And when you had to borrow money in the Sect, they said, that was the beginning of the end.
They told it in lots of scary details that made him shudder. But he wasn’t a wasteful man at all, and besides, he was here with a mission. He was searching for his lost older brother. He had joined the Sect before he was even born, more than 15 years ago, back when his father was still alive.
But one day his old man just disappeared after going on a hunt.
Some said he had met a powerful beast and died in battle, while some spiteful pricks told stories of his mistress with whom he had ran away. Whatever it was, his mother said, his older brother never once wrote from the Sect after that, even as they sent many letters to him.
Now he had the opportunity to find his brother and confront him, to come to the bottom of the question that bugged him for a lifetime. Why didn’t he reply? Why did he also completely abandon them? They lived difficult lives, his mother and him. Surely even scraps from the Sect could help them immensely.
Alyx sighed and continued digging. It was not yet time. He had to be patient. If he wanted to find his brother among the countless people on this mountain range, he first had to become someone, at least step into the first Realm of Cultivation, the Foundation Building.
Nobody would care for the problems of a Mortal, he knew that much. Even his Senior Brothers told him to just forget it, that it wasn’t worth the effort. He never even met the guy, and they were basically strangers in all except blood.
But Alyx was a stubborn boy, as stubborn as he could be!
Well, maybe not as stubborn as Gerald, but he came close. Second in line to the throne. He would do whatever it took to find his brother! Or, at least do his best and try. He was thought to be a healer by his mother, and she always said you always at least had to try.
Some people couldn’t be saved, but with him around, at least he could diminish their suffering. Take Gerald for example, he didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he was ready to give it a go.
Alyx Bell smiled and wiped the sweat off his brow. He hoped his friend would stop sulking around and become the energetic man he once was. Besides, staying indoors all the time wasn’t healthy!
He didn’t know why, but working in the sun always left him feeling much better for days to come, and his sleep was absolutely perfect too. Especially since joining the Sect, he had been feeling better than ever.
The food was great, his coworkers were too, and even the Elders, though sometimes a bit short-tempered, were usually kind enough to answer his questions. Two at a time. Anything more than that they would become agitated. Push it to four and they would lash out. If you still didn’t take the hint and shut your mouth, punishment was in order.
Alyx personally never experienced it, but he had heard stories of some extremely dense Disciples who couldn’t take a hint. Those didn’t last long in the Sect even if the Elders weren’t involved in any way. Just another way Rogue Cultivators came to be.
Alyx lifted his hoe and brought it down, letting his mind wander.
“Strong body and mind, and you can leave your worries behind…” It was something his mother used to say. He just smiled and continued his work, as a good worker should.