Two months had gone by, during which I reorganized a significant portion of my stored memories. The skills and techniques I had access to were more than even some Sky Realm Cultivators. Probably. I didn’t actually have an opportunity to absorb the Soul of one, just countless Spirit Realm Souls.
During the long days of meditation, I was attacked. As the guys said, I attracted a lot of attention from wild beasts, and it wasn’t rare for an entire pack of creatures to throw themselves at me.
Monkeys, apes, snakes, tigers… They all tried attacking me for the tiny chance at the opportunity to taste my flesh. I knew that Essence had a certain smell to it, a certain attraction, but I didn’t think it was that powerful. For the beasts to be just throwing themselves at me almost every single day, the aroma must have been maddening.
It seemed true what they said, about beasts going wild and becoming aggressive. I noticed that as time went on, the attacks increased in both size and frequency and well, it didn’t go well for them.
I used my staff and blasted the bastards. They disrupted my meditation, and though they couldn’t really hurt me, it was too distracting to continue, so I stopped.
Oftentimes when the group of four came back to the camp, the soil around it would be covered in fresh corpses and blood. After it happened for the fifth time in a week, they politely asked me to move further away when attacks happened.
I had no problem with it and obliged. I was actually getting closer to reaching the Eighth Layer. With all the Golden Core creatures that threw themselves at me, though not much of a boost individually, were quickly adding up. I just needed one more Spirit Realm beast to complete my Cultivation of the Eighth Minor Realm.
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Two entire months had gone by since the start of the hunt, and needless to say, Astarion’s promise of finishing the job early had gone up in smoke. The group of hunters also received a notice from the city, urging them to complete the task.
Gale looked with frustration at the weeks-old letter telling him to hurry up. He had read it so many times already yet it didn’t change anything. How was it his fault the work was slow? The valley was huge!
He mentally kicked himself for using his connections to get the job. His failure would reflect badly on those people. The pay was good, that was true, but it took way longer than he expected and they still didn’t have any good leads.
They found traces of combat quite early, but those traces just ended. They had been wandering ever since, running through the jungle like headless chickens with nothing to show for it.
They were directionless and getting increasingly desperate, so much so that they began combing large swaths of land in hopes of finding something.
And the efforts bore fruit as they did indeed find something. A large dark hole in the ground. Better yet, the land around it carried clear signs of a struggle, with massive scorch marks and broken pillars that told of the battle that took place there just recently.
“A monster from the Underdark?” Astarion asked as he stared into the abyss below.
Gale scanned the ground with spirit sense, hopeful, but then shook his head. “It's a shallow cave with a dead end. This should be the guardian beast’s lair. Though looking at it, it seems like it had been abandoned for some time. It's likely it had moved elsewhere.”
“Or died…” Astarion murmured with a frown.
Gale sighed and flew down towards one of the massive voids in the greenery where the blackened earth and melted stone prevented nature from taking over. The charred imprint was dozens of meters across, and three times as long. It was almost as if someone used a beam of energy to sterilize the ground.
“Let’s hope that’s not the case. That would be really bad if it happened. Like really, really bad.” He said.
The guardian beasts were not cheap to raise. And they had to be raised from a cub. Trying to tame an adult one was impossible since they were already ingrained in their ways. The guardians could be taught this place was their territory and stick to it.
Other beasts would begin to roam and fight for better spots, so the valley would quickly become a battleground. They couldn’t allow that, and as such great care was given to raising those beasts.
If one of them died… Gale clenched his teeth at the thought of it. People were hoping it was just a small hiccup, but it would make sense that a guardian died from the increasingly aggressive actions the creatures there took. Without an alpha to keep them under control, the strongest members would begin fighting for influence.
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The valley was rich in resources, and everyone wanted to take the best spot for Cultivation.
“This is bad, really bad…” He murmured as he examined the melted stone and glass, the rare patches of sand turning into an opaque crystal.
It was bad enough if a guardian beast died, but where was the evidence? Bones? Blood? Pieces of flesh? There was literally nothing. He refused to believe nothing would remain after such a battle.
“Guys?” I heard a call and turned. It was his wife, Bai, carrying something large. He cursed under his breath and ran to meet her.
“Ow, shit…” Astarion blurted out as they met. Gale was right behind him and winced, similarly wanting to swear, but held himself back that time and took the piece he was given.
It was a scale. A shimmering metallic luster of deep green and emerald hues, its size half that of a person.
“This is just the first one I had found, but there were others. Come, I can show you.” Bai urged. She pulled Gale by the hand and he followed, with Astarion and Fen not far behind.
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I had just finished bashing in the skull… I mean killing a monster with my magic staff like the proper wizard I was when the group returned. I instantly knew something was wrong from their somber faces. They didn’t even acknowledge the pile of corpses around me.
I shrugged and gestured to Tiny to bring them closer, before sitting down and focusing on turning them into Essence. Every little bit counted. If they wanted to die and donate their hard work to me so much, who was I to refuse them?
My energy spread and encased the pile of flesh, pulling tiny specks of Golden Essence out of their flesh and bones, and combining them into bigger orbs. I wasn’t feeling hungry recently. I barely ate anything the last couple of months, only absorbing pure Essence as it came to me.
Meanwhile, the four debated animatedly over a map.
“So maybe it went like this? Turning back around and going this way? Back towards the middle?” I heard Astarion say.
“Maybe? But it worries me how we barely found anything. What kind of creature killed it? It had to be a huge monster, to consume it so utterly that only a few scales remained.” Gale replied.
“It had to be. Remember how large the imprint was? And how the nature already begun reclaiming it? It had to have taken it months to consume it all.” Fei said.
“Could it be a Sky Realm beast?” Bai chimed in.
“Sky Realm?!” Astarion exclaimed. “We can’t take that, we’d be dead before we knew it!”
“Relax, we just need to confirm it. We’ll have to report back either way, so if it's too strong for us, that’s their problem to deal with.”
And so on, and so forth. They debated for a long time, discussing if they should follow the trail they found. Supposedly it pointed at a swamp in the middle of the Valley of a Thousand Mountain Peaks. They wanted to go there and scout the place out.
“Gerald?”
[Hmm?] I stopped what I was doing and stored away a Golden Essence Orb, before shifting my attention. Gale came.
“I know we said you had to stay with us, but this might be too dangerous… We spoke about it, and since we can’t guarantee your safety anymore if you want to leave, we are not going to stop you.”
[Ah? Oh, is that all?]
“I… guess?” Gale answered, slightly confused.
[But you just found a lead on the monster, right?]
“We found something, that’s right. Whether it is the monster we are searching for or another dead end, we aren’t sure.”
[Then it’s settled. I’m definitely staying with you.] I replied.
“Even though you know it is dangerous and you could die?”
[That is not a concern of mine. I’m going no matter what.]
Gale nodded somberly. “Alright. Then be ready, we are leaving tomorrow at dawn. Get some rest today because we won't be stopping for quite a while.” He said and then frowned as he looked at the pile of half-refined beasts with their guts and blood spilling everywhere.
I smiled and nodded at him before tipping my wizard hat. He just nodded in return.
“Well then…”
He turned around and left, rejoining his team to continue strategizing.
[So… A swamp, huh? Did you hear that Tiny?] I turned to my stone friend. [You won't be able to come, sorry. Mushy ground is not suited for a big guy like you.]
The golem stared without replying.
[Yep, it sucks, but that’s how it is. I wonder if we’ll find the monster they are talking about. I hope we do, I could use another Soul. I just need a big one. One more Soul and I can advance to the next Minor Realm. Oh, I can’t wait!]
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We ran.
We ran through the jungle, across rotting logs, below half-collapsed pillars, and past dense thorn-infested thicket. We ran like the wind, fast as a gale, with a literal Gale at the front, when the man suddenly stopped.
“What is it?” Astarion asked. We came to an abrupt halt so everyone turned to him questioningly, me included.
“There’s…” Gale frowned and turned his head to the side. I felt a pulse of Qi spread from his chest that scanned the area. He did it a few more times and a frown formed on his face, deepening with every pulse.
“There’s people ahead.” He finally said. “Golden Core.”
A few mouthed voices of surprise and then glanced at me. I just shrugged, clearly just as clueless as they were.
“Let’s go, but keep back a little. We don’t know what’s going on.” Gale finally said and we resumed our jog.
Not long after we heard them, the unknown group, as they laughed and joked among themselves. They appeared as carefree as they could possibly be and when we actually saw them, the group frowned even more.
The people there were young. Most of them were in the middle of Golden Core, with one even at the Second Layer! Only two were at the peak, and there were about twenty of them in total.
“Hey!” Gale shouted, his voice amplified with Qi, and flared his Aura. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
The group of youngsters, well, they were decades, if not a century old, but they were still young according to Cultivation standards, and so they froze and shut up after getting shouted at by someone way above them.
All eyes turned to the oldest guy there and he nervously stepped forward. Gale approached him and they exchanged a few quick words which for some reason infuriated Gale even further. The guy then handed over some papers and Gale just gave them a glance before throwing it all back and stormed away.
“Damn greedy bastards!” He cursed under his breath as he came in earshot.
“What happened?” Bai asked.
“The damn higher-ups opened the valley again! Without warning! A week ago no less!”