Now she was back home.. And it was a little lonely actually... Nobody was here to speak with, no baby bear squealing or loud laughter, everything was quiet. Kou stood in front of her little tree cave and glanced downwards.

Her golden eyes lost a little of their shine as she stood there but after a moment of melancholy, she slapped both of her cheeks and shook her head! "Time to move!" That's right, she would move her place of residence away from here. She wanted a stone cave similar to the one Xiong had, they were so much more sturdy! Once she started her alchemy again she did not want to set off another forest fire, she was pretty sure that the more powerful denizens of this island would not be too thrilled about her burning everything down.

For the last time she entered her little den to get everything that was still inside out of it, her bed that was a giant pile of furs and hides - it was soft but smelled a bit stuffy, so she took the time to air them out, it was due time, then she cleaned everything else up, all the bits and pieces that had any value to her and had not yet been placed into her cloak.

She also filled up the room she had dug herself properly again, she wanted to leave things just as she had found them, it would be disrespectful to the tree if she left another big hole underneath it after already burning it slightly. And so about half an hour later she was ready everything was back to how she had found it on the first day she had come here. It's been a long time already while she had made quite the progress in her cultivation she missed her friends, but to make the way back towards the sect she would have to get a lot more powerful.

Turning away from the hole in the ground she glanced towards the mountain that rose above everything else on the Island, it was enormous even taller then the sect mountains, she did not know how far up Xiong's lair was, but it was clearly in the upper area and it was not a place Kou could get to on her own.

Still, she wanted to get close to the mountain, maybe finding a cave at the mountain foot or a bit further up would be nice!

...................

The foot of the mountain she had said, finding a cave she had said. This mountain was a big bully! One would expect a mountain to gently slope upwards but no! At the "Foot" of this mountain the wall vertically up! And no matter how far she went back and forth she could not find any caves, it was as if the mountain itself was resting on a plateau

Therefore Kou currently found herself glued to a wall her toes and fingers using any cracks she could find to make her way upwards, this was not fun. Even Elder Gui's mountain climbing runs were preferable to this! Cursing to herself Kou continued her climb. A flying treasure would be great, but her cloak only carried an abundance of money and low-grade weapons with it, it was a treasure even the elders in the sect would lick their fingers for, a treasure that was utterly useless for Kou currently, in fact, she would actually exchange a few of those weapons for common climbing pickaxes.

Just as she was about halfway up the platoo she heard a shrill scream behind her, glancing over her shoulder her eyes widened a giant eagle had his eyes on her! The creature was as big as a carriage, with majestic appearance it looked very proud and fierce and was actually in the middle of the third realm! It was a formidable foe for Kou and it already was taking air for a devastating charge towards Yun Kou, the creature was so fast that it actually created a sonic boom!

Kou naturally had little time to react, her ice starting to glow icy blue she had no time to think of any big strategie so she simply created a bunch of ice spikes that shoot out of the stone wall in the time it took a coin to drop to the ground. While Kou did not actually think to much about it the move was genius! It was just like a hedgehog! When someone came charging, put it in front of many spikes!

The Eagle that hat a look of confidence and amusement in his eyes as it charged down suddenly lost that confident smirk, putting his everything up to stop his charge he barely managed to avoid the spikes but not without both of his feet getting impaled by Kou's spikes! The creature was confused, it knew most of the creatures that lived here and none could do things like this! When it saw the tiny Kou struggling on the wall it looked very easy pray to him!

He had underestimated Yun Kou! That was a great mistake! Yun Kou jumped up on one of the spikes her eyes still glowing icy-blue, the spike shot forward and Kou ran using the spike as a ramp she jumped!

The Eagle was currently busy finding back its balance mid-air and was almost standing still with his wings flapping widely so Kou had no problems landing on it's back, the wind spear appeared in her hands and she put it against the creature's neck, just above his spine, she used some force so the tip of the spear was penetrating the thick skin.

"Well, that did not work out as you had expected right?" Her voice was taunting and ice-cold, this beast had underestimated her and now it would pay the price! But the Eagle was catching his wits and suddenly most of his thick feathers turned hard and sharp, cutting Kou's feet and clothes on the process, Kou winced but simply leaned forward just a little bit, putting some more weight on the spear tip so it penetrated a little deeper. "If I push down a little more it will cut your spine, after that, you'll be lame from the body down, what a great majestic eagle, falling down to his death." The Creature stiffened slightly and its feathers became soft again.

"Fly me up and I let you go." Kou hummed while taking her time to take some of the creature's feathers for herself still pushing the spear against its neck, luckily for Kou and the bird he understood her, and did what she wanted, therefore the effort she had to spend for the rest of the climb was exchanged with a few shallow wounds and cut-up clothes.

Flying on the creatures back was quite comfortable, and it's feathers turned hard and rigid like steal once pucked out, they were as sharp as treasures and would probably fetch a good price so Kou took a few more under the whining cries of the bird. Once they had arrived at the top of the plateau Kou stomped her food down, her eyes glowing once more as Ice spread from her foot increasing most of the creature, it was not enough to harm it but was good enough for Kou to get away before he could move again.

Jumping down she glanced at the bird a smirk on her face. "Well, hopefully, you come back when I need to get up next time!" The creature was gritting its beak and cried out hatefully towards the quickly departing Kou as if yelling "This is not over!" ... How dumb he was... Kou turned around and the vicious glint in her eyes turned colder, the ice around him thickening.

"Well, I guess you want to stay even longer on ice."

.........................

It was already quite a bit colder here, but no snow she would have to climb even further up to find snow. With her gaze directed at the now gently rising mountain she moved forward, while her steps seemed leisurely she moved so fast that a mortal would not be able to keep up anymore, for her that was just a light jog, for a mortal she was so fast that she almost seemed blurry now!

The view from here was quite good and she was not too far away from the light - lake too, she could actually oversee most of the Northern side of the forest like this including her old home area and the nearby lake of light - there was also an area resembling a swamp nearby that she had actually never gotten to!

Just for another moment did she dwell on the view before continuing on, she would not climb any higher than this, for now, she pretty high and the mountain was just starting, there was bound the be some cave around her for her to make her home out off.

There was very little vegetation up here just a few trees here and there, the side of the mountain was overgrown with moss, fallen trees and a whole bunch of big boulders actually made for a serene and calm appearance - A large menhir caught her interest, there actually a fair bunch of them around so it was a nice spot for a lunch break.

Jumping up the large menhir and sat down and closed her eyes, with her inner sense she scanned the inside of her spatial storage while curling herself up inside of the cloak, it was so comfortable! While she was little faced by nature and temperature with her current cultivation the Cloak made it so that it was nice and cool, the air seemed clearer and everything seemed nice.

Just her ears were pointing outwards from the cloak making for quite the cute view from the outside too bad nobody was there to look at it, while she was curled up a bird wing appeared in front of her still hot and tasty! The cloak was amazing freezing things in time so she could have a warm meal whenever she wanted too.

Kou was happily munching away as suddenly the ground shook, or to be correct the menhir she sat on shook! Kou quickly jumped away and blinked in confusion as the menhir slowly stood, it had small stubby legs and its rocky surface slowly formed into an archaic male face.

"Ohhh, I'm aaawaaaake, whaaaat, yeaaar, is iiiiit." He spoke very slowly and his gray eyes slowly opened and looked down at Kou.

"Ohh, a tiny one...Haaave I disturbed you?" The stone creature seemed awfully like a sleepy old granddad, it was oddly fitting and Kou found herself relax slightly as the creature sat down again glancing at Kou with a sleepy gaze.

"Oh, I... don't think I've seen one of your kind around before, how curious." Now that he was slowly waking up his speech became quicker again, Kou found herself taking a small step back before sitting down on the ground, it was not polite to stand like this when the other person was sitting after all.

The old stone had this kind of grandpa aura that made one be polite to him it was not threatening at all but still it was hard not to be polite, it was this kind of aura! The Stone continued to curiously look at Kou. "Mhh, Aren't you polite, here have some candy." A stone arm formed out of nearby rubble and with one swish of his arm, a small bottle with colourfull pills appeared in the creature's hand before it hovered over to Kou to land in her lap.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Thank you...Gramps." Kou lowered her head slightly, to be polite those "Candy" Were all grade 2 or 3 pills it was quite the treasure, form the little Kou knew already she could tell that those pills were actually really expertly created their purity was very high!

The old stoneface leaned forward. "He, from the way you are looking at those, you seem to understand some about pills, good girl." His voice seemed happy now, obviously over being called Gramps. Kou was adorable after all and she had a certain effect on adults even with her careful personality, there was no creature in the world that could not appreciate something cute after all.

"So what brings you here little creature?" The old stoneface leaned back and started to rock back and forth as if he was sitting in one of those old people's chairs.

"Looking for a Cave to make my home," Kou answered truthfully, the stone just had given her quite something so she was sincere. "I'm Kou, I'm looking for a new place to train myself and alchemy." She felt that saying her true goals here might be very beneficial as this stone had just given her huge benefits

For a moment she contemplated the weirdness of those words but if a bear could be alife and a man, and if she could grow tails as she grew in power why was talking and walking rock person weird? Actually it was not all that weird at all!

"Oh, a new neighbor Mhm! I'm Shí mià." Kou blinked slightly at his introduction, whoever named this one stone face was very lazy indeed. "And how very curious that you are training alchemy, as you can tell by the pills I just handed you I'm actually rather provident in Alchemie, so much so that our Master had me help him many centuries ago...

And den the Stoneface started to talk about his Master, on and on and on, for a short while it was interesting enough, but quickly Kou's ears tilted down and her eyes started to gloss over as she stared at the stone face expressionlessly.

While he was talking her own mind was running, if the rock was good at alchemie it would be pretty good if he could teach her a little, maybe she could ask after he was done with his speech.

About an hour later.

He was still not done and Kou's left eyebrow had started to twitch nervously about 5 minutes ago until she finally interrupted him. "Senior, I really need to find a place now, many thanks for your story it was very interesting, I shall come back another time, please excuse me." She lowered her head and dashed away from him, better bring some distance between herself and him quickly or he might just call her back..

After the dash she found herself far far away from the old rock, it was a little rude going like that but for the sake of her mental health it was the only thing she could do, even the elders back in the sect were not that chatty! Calming her breath she looked around, she had run quite far and under her was now that swamp she had seen before, looked very eery all the way up here already so she was not to keen to climb done and explore it further..

........

After a few more minutes of searching, she finally gave up. "Well, if I can't find a cave, I just have to make one..." With a flick of her sleeve a large two-handed sword appeared in her hands, it was a fair bit longer than herself and rather heavy for a mortal. For her, it was just a bit awkward to use but that was fine she wanted to work out a little anyway.

Using the sword she started to carve out her new home from the rock, it was exhausting and hard work even for her as the rock was rather unwelcoming, meaning it was very very hard and even with this big sword she had to work really hard.

It did not take to long for the blade to bend and crack, but Kou just threw it out after it was impossible to use for digging anymore summoning forth another blade. She was using treasures worth multiple spirit stones as expendable shovels! Every other cultivator back in the sect would pale in jealousy and anger if they saw this!

Slowly her cave took on form, she carved out one big central room with two smaller rooms attached to it the stone rubble that she had cut out she simply piled up next to the entrance of the cave, the big room was for her cultivation and living room one of the smaller rooms for storage and the other for Alchemie, she even tried her hand at stone carving, while she lacked the proper tools she was at least able to make a crude table and chair and a decent fire pit for her furnace, finally she went about furnishing the place.

While many cultivators would not care about a bed or such things Kou still brought out her big comfy bed made out of hide and fur in one corner of the room, she also placed some of the pretty furs around as carpets and such, finally out of a fancy she she placed some random weapons on the walls... While it was still pretty ...gray everywhere at least had a homely feel to it now and Kou liked that more.

"Nobody here to pay rent to, hehe."

Finally, she threw herself into her bed and curled up yawning. "Time for a nap..."

It had been some time since she had a dream. Cultivators rarely really slept, they stayed in a meditative state and never really lost their consciousness, never drifted into the dreamworld, sleep was something mortals did after all, and just like many human cultivators would slowly stop eating and drinking they also stopped sleeping.

Kou had half spirit blood, so she benefited greatly from eating other beasts cores, but the benefit she got from eating their meat was now so minuscule that it made no difference between eating it or not, but Kou still ate, because it was tasty! And Kou still slept because it was nice to simply turn off sometimes, but she still rarely had dreams with her sleep very light.

But today she found herself in a dream world of clouds, big white and fluffy clouds everywhere, they were bouncy too! And Kou laughed! Jumping from one cloud to the next, sometimes feet sometimes face first, as she bounced off of them to the next, it was fantastic fun for someone like her that loved moving around quickly.

The fun continued for some time until she came across a giant spire of ice, it just pierced thought the cloud ocean, there were fiery chains surrounding said spire, they were hot, so hot that Kou could barely look at them without losing her eyebrows to the heat.

She backed off a little, what a curious thing, the chains were so hot but the crystal-clear ice was not melting all that much! And the little that melted seemed to freeze back just moments later, it looked like an eternal struggle between the ice and fire and clearly the fire had the upper hand, the Ice could not expand or move, it was fully restrained by the fiery chains that firmly looked it in place.

The chains crisscrossed at some point and there Kou could she a shape in the Ice! Carefully Kou inched closer, this was a dream after all! So there was nothing to be worried about right? A fluffy white head poked out of the clouds, two ears twitched and two golden eyes blinked as she stared at the person?

She was...very pretty, to say the least, her skin was like soft jade glistering in the light, her face seemed without a single blemish, her long hair fell down her back in a cascade of silver. She looked just like a fairy! None of the senior sisters she had seen until know could compare at all to that beautiful female in front of her.

The only wrong thing about the picture was that the female was bound, the fiery chains burned her pale skin pressing her tightly against the Ice, surrounding the woman were many sealing symbols merged with the ice. It seemed like both ice and fire were here to bind the woman and not each other!

Kou did not dare to get any closer as she stared at the woman intensely, suddenly the woman opened her eyes, a red light suddenly trained the clouds as if the sun was just about to go down! But it was not the sun, it was the ladies glowing eyes, red and cold like a ruby were they captivating and at the same time revolting. It was like being suddenly confronted with a wild beast that while caged still instilled the basic fears into the mind.

Kou tried to back off but found herself stuck in place with no way to escape, but .. the woman was still bound! How powerful was she that a simple glance could freeze Kou in place even after being sealed like this! Goosebumps spread all over Kou's body and she felt like this might be it... before she remembered that this ...was in fact just a dream.

An Illusion of the woman appeared in front of her, gently cupping her chin to direct Kou's gaze upwards, the ruby-red eyes were still cold but the woman spoke...a language Kou could not understand, Kou tried to shake her head but she couldn't. She could see the frustrated gleam in the Illusions eyes as she pushed Kou back into the clouds, while Kou could not understand what she said, the expression the woman had clearly said "Next time."

Suddenly she woke up. sweat was running down her back and she was out of breath, she felt how her spiritual sea was in turmoil and quickly sat up crosslegged to enter meditation calming her raging Qi down. She was momentarily disoriented her glazy eyes wandering back and forth in confusion before she remembered what had happened earlier.

It took her about half an hour to calm down.. the mark on her shoulder was burning even more than before, clearly, this "Dream" came from it, and Kou found herself scratching at it once again just to be disappointed by it remaining as it was. Letting out a frustrated and angry growl she stood up.

"This stupid mark is even interrupting my nap time... curses!" She stomped her left foot before dashing outside, she would find someone to fight to relief some of the stress!

....

The poor target of undeserved retribution was a mountain dweller, Resembling a human somewhat. long bushy brown hair was covering him, he looked a lot like an ape that walked on two legs with a straight back, just more massive and armed with a club. An early 3rd realm beast whoms name Kou did not know nor care to know, the poor creature had suddenly been assaulted by a small white something!

"Poor" might be a little too highly speaking.

He himself had just finished off a early 2secound realm beast a twoheaded deer, after chasing it around gleefully for about an hour. It was his lunch, never would he have expected that the smell of blood would land him into a predicament like this!

Kou was having her own morbid fun right now, she was not out for an outright confrontation she simply dashed around the beast, every time it could not keep up with the girl anymore Kou would cut it with her daggers. She was already at the final step towards the mid 3rd realm! While calming her energy she had found out that the dream had left her empowered, which was the whole reason she had to calm her energies in the first place!

It was a bit worrying, to be honest. She quickly outgrew her techniques and equipment! She had not a single 3rd realm treasure now any advanced techniques, and while she had not mastered her current techniques fully yet, she was very close!

But there was nothing to be done about that, she had no way of getting any more techniques, maybe she could just ask Xiong, or try her hand in creating something new herself...

Well, not having any idea how to start with that she still had the divine power from her blood, forming ice like she could be pretty much better then most techniques anyway, maybe she could create some proper techniques with it at some point...

It spoke for the progress she had made that she could engage in such idle thoughts while fighting with a beast that was technically on the same level as herself, the Beast was overwhelmed unable to even land a hit, slowly it lost its cool.

"Mhm...And.. there it comes.." The creature was very similar to the ape beast she had found in the jungle so it probably had the same types of attacks anyway, and indeed it had, Qi was gathering in its throat and suddenly it roared and a shockwave expanded around it. But Kou was already out of its radius - standing on a nearby rock she tilted her head slightly to the side while brushing a few loose strands of hair out of her face.

Dashing forward she ended the creature in one swipe, it's head flying off. This one was not for eating just it's core would prove useful and Kou was finally calm. "Atleast I'm way stronger than a beast of the same rank.." She mumbled that was in fact not all that normal! Only the strongest cultivators could compete with a beast that had the same rank as them!

Using the core she just got she would surely be able to enter mid 3rd realm...