The air whips through my robes as I fly ever further from the Desert of Desolation. Far below, the landscape is covered with lush forest. I've been traveling for weeks on my flying sword, only resting at night to cultivate on the lessons of the heavens.

After the constellation of the goddess Vritas fell, I watch the stars with expectation and dread. Not all of the stories told through the constellations are dreadful. Some are of noble figures. The Knight, in particular, fills me with anticipation. Should he walk Gaia, then there is hope that the Abomination could be held in check.

Still, as the days and weeks pass, no signs of further disturbance can be read in the stars. The gods continue to plot, the Knight dances in confusion, and the empty spaces, where the Abomination and Vritas fell from, continue to watch with unseen eyes.

As my nights end, I take to the sky once more. The Jungle of Blooming Paradise is far to the South of the continent.

In my past life as grandmaster alchemist of the Violet Sword sect, I had seen maps of the continent of Gaia. I'd seen the landmarks that divided the immortals' sects, showing their claim on the land. But, it's a different experience to look down from the sky than it is to look down on a map. The worst thing that can happen is that I intrude and become a target.

Were I an ascended immortal, I could phase shift and wrap myself in the chi that pervades the world. In the act, I would become invisible to the eyes of mortals and immortals alike. Little more than a shimmer in space. But, with my soul stone cracked, I leak chi and cannot hide in the spirit world.

I wonder at the wisdom of my plan. I already possess a profound soul well. Were I to ascend now, I would be comparable with a middle-tier ascended immortal. An impressive position for any immortal. But, I know that I only have this opportunity once.

If I reach the Jungle of Blooming Paradise, I can harvest soul stones from the powerful beasts of the jungle. By refining the soul stones, I can take in the beast's lifetime of cultivation in a very short period.

The thing that stops cultivators from becoming enormously powerful through this method is the shallow depth of their soul wells. Most of the essence of the beast is lost because the cultivator's soul stone can't contain the enormity of it. But, my soul stone is orders of magnitudes deeper than common cultivators.

Still, there will be challenges. Damaged as my soul stone is, It will be like a sieve that the essence will have an easy time escaping. I'll find a balance. But, I will have to focus on sealing my cracked soul stone while I refine beast cores.

First, though, I have to reach the jungle.

Time passes as I draw closer to my destination. And, before I know it, a hurdle stands before me.

They come at me slowly, they're lower immortals like I am. Their means of flying are flying swords, and I can tell that the quality of their swords is inferior to my own. Still, there are seven of them, and they come from multiple directions.

I can see the sneer on the face of the first man as he flies at me.

"You've trespassed on the Undying sect's territory. State your affiliation or forfeit your life!"

I don't even slow my movement as I push out with my spirit body at the man.

He recognizes my action and his face hardens.

"You're courting death!"

His soul body extends out to meet my own. But, the difference in our soul wells is obvious.

An alarmed look comes over his face as he feels his soul body get crushed under the weight of mine. My projection continues to slam into the immortal's body and cast him flying from his sword.

He has the presence of mind to reach out to his sword, but I settle my soul body onto it. He falls freely while I pull his sword back to myself. I sever the attachment between the man and his sword and hold it in my hand.

My flight path continues while the immortal slams into the ground with concussive force. He'll be fine. But, he won't be moving for a while.

The other six immortals rage as they throw curses at me. The distance between us grows as their flying swords can't keep up with my own.

Even for my victory, cold sweat drips down my neck. If an ascended immortal should be in the area and come to join the hunt, I'm dead.

I fly on endlessly. And, as they fade into the distance, I know that I'm still not safe.

Night and day pass as a blur as my eyes and other senses watch the horizon with dread.

Half a week passes and I think I'm safe. But, my expectation is not realized. Another group of cultivators comes from the horizon ahead of me.

I turn from my path and fly with haste only to find another, smaller, group of lower immortals with the same tabard as the Undying sect from before. They've set the ambush.

Smirking faces can be seen as I rush on towards the smaller group. They think that numbers will be enough.

Flying forth, I careen into the mass of oncoming immortals. I weave chi around my body as armor and hold my stolen sword, refined ki extending the blade.

I would have preferred not to kill them. But, I don't have the luxury of avoiding blood feuds at this moment.

The first man to meet me is a young immortal. His face is jubilant for participating in this group hunt. But, his soul well is little more than formed. How he can even ride a flying sword is beyond me. He lashes out with a ki-laced sword and I meet it.

The two blades are like a knife meeting warm butter. The ki I lace my sword with has channels of spirit space allowing ki to flow, mostly unrestricted. His ki is a brittle structure of folded and compacted chi.

Though both are energy swords, his might as well be a regular metal sword. Mine cuts through it like nothing. And, as the sword passes, it cuts into the cultivator's shoulder, chest, and out the other side. The look on his face is one of disbelief.

Rage fills the faces of the rest of the Undying sect immortals. But, I'm already continuing my attack.

Not only is the ki I lace my sword with far more dangerous than their own, but my soul well is a sea of energy. My empowered body is exploding with chi. My speed and strength cut through the few immortals with little effort.

On their faces, the rage and hate are replaced by shock and fear. But, it's too late for them to run. And, I'm done playing pacifist. It wouldn't turn them away from their hunt. Nor will a blood feud, most likely.

As pieces and droplets cascade from the sky as a torrent, I hear the chi-laced curses of those behind me.

I don't concern myself with the Undying, their moniker proven false. All I care to do is escape.

The days continue as a sinking sensation comes over me.

On the horizon, the chi forms a tidal wave. An ascended immortal is coming.

Rather than try to flee, I take my place and hover on my sword.

A pill finds my mouth. Not a cultivation pill. But, an augment pill. The Unrelenting Spirit pill. With the medicinal chi of this pill, my chi will replenish itself many times faster than it would otherwise. Most immortals, should they get one, would only have a common pill. But, I crafted several superior versions of this pill.

Just having chi regeneration won't be enough to survive an ascended immortal. But, I hope that a few of my tricks will be enough.

Still, I'm sweating and find it hard to breathe in the face of such danger.

The immortal who brings a tidal wave upon me stops some distance away from me as he examines me.

He looks at me as if examining excrement.

"Immortal," he says. "You intrude on the Undying's territory. You kill our men. And, you think you will be allowed to escape?"

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I merely watch him.

He seems to be thinking.

"What sect do you come from that makes you so arrogant as to act in such a way?"

I continue observing him.

He starts to chuckle.

"You think yourself free to refuse my questions. But, you are mistaken. I will not kill you as you killed my people. You will learn the price of arrogance the hard way."

As he flies at me, I raise my sword to meet his own. Whereas mine had been superior to the lower immortals, this ascended immortal's ki is overwhelming in its power. Still, my sword doesn't break.

My soul well feeds, seemingly, endless chi into the sword and my limbs.

The ascended immortal's face distorts with surprise. But, he recovers and lashes out with his soul body.

Chi explodes as it is compacted between the union of our furious collision.

I'm holding out against this titan. But, only barely.

His surprise turns to glee as he feels my spirit relent, the recovery of chi insufficient to meet his power.

My mind is calm, though dubious about whether or not my plan will work. I pull from the spirit space I've hidden in my soul body a net. A complex weave of aether and spirit. It's large enough for my purpose.

While he seeks to overwhelm me with pure strength, I extend the weave around the body of the ascended immortal.

"W-What are you doing?" he cries as he tries to push away from me.

Despite his efforts, he's trapped in a pocket of reality that I just barely escape. It wraps tight around the figure and I spend some effort sealing the borders.

I look through the weave in reality to see the ascended immortal striking, vainly, at a net that he can't touch.

I could leave him here. But, should the Undying sect discover the net of spirit space, they'd have a new reason to hunt me.

I absorb the net back into my soul body and feel the presence of the ascended immortal in my soul. He's raging. But, he has nothing to break.

It's an odd sensation to carry another life within one's soul. And, it strikes me that I've done something uniquely dangerous in the cultivation world.

The act of defeating an ascended immortal as a lower immortal, even through trickery, is not a feat that many in the history of Gaia have accomplished. The ones that have succeeded in accomplishing such a feat are rarely left alone.

I'm just fortunate that there were no witnesses of the method I used. And can only hope that I have not incited the wrath of the Undying sect's patriarch.

Whatever the case, I continue my flight.

In the weeks that follow, I see no more of the Undying immortals. The defeat and presumed death of an ascended immortal convinced them of the futility of facing me.

In my soul, the ascended immortal has ceased his raging and settled into the lotus position. He's cultivating the spiritual energies that pervade the spirit net. Were there no cracks in my soul stone, I think I could cut off the energy that he absorbs. But, as the situation stands, he is like a parasite within me.

The simple solution is to drop the net and abandon him. But, I'm reluctant to abandon the weave for someone to find. His absorption of my chi is limited by what naturally fills the net. So, he's not a great burden on my cultivation.

If I want to take care of him, I'll have to ascend. But, I'm not ready to do so.

As the weeks pass, the forest gives way to a lush jungle. I may not be in the heart of the Jungle of Blooming Paradise, but I've reached it. From here, the beasts will grow in strength.

This jungle is one of the last true domains of beasts in Gaia. Every other part of the land mass has been conquered by humanity. Only here can spirit beasts roam freely and beast cores be found in abundance.

I fly onward, my senses scanning the jungle for prey. I don't have to wait long, but it's not prey that I find. Rather, a giant bird hunting for its meal.

The avian looks like a condor with white feathers. Its beak is stained red from a recent kill. While golden talons look ready to tear my flesh open.

I brandish my stolen sword and face the bird's dive.

"Ungh!" I groan under the weight of the onslaught. My body barely maintaining its balance on the flying sword.

The talons claw with primal chi at my presented sword while its deadly beak pecks down on my head.

I feel the spirit body that I present to defend myself tear and bleed as if it were a living thing. The white-feathered avian seems proficient in eating souls.

I project out with ki onto the blade, the aether formed channels fueling it with incredible energies.

One of the talons of the bird is bitten into before sliding off.

With a cawing screech, the avian cries its agony and rage. But, my sword continues. Another talon and then the whole foot is cast to the wind.

More agony than rage now fuels the screech. But, the avian isn't done. It manifests primal ki into its beak and brings it down upon my head.

Barely in time, I retreat from the battle and look at the bird flapping its wings, foot missing. Rage boils over the creature and a great wind, unlike what I'm used to, stirs up. The gale of blade-like wind leaves lacerations on my soul body and cuts into my flesh.

I raise my sword overhead and warp space and chi to create a projectile slash. As I bring it down, an arcing slash of condensed space and energy cuts through the gale and meets the body of the bird.

It takes a moment for the bird to realize its death. But soon, the split halves of the avian tumble from the sky to the jungle below.

I'm breathing heavily as I fly down to find the body of the bird. A tree collapsed under the weight of one-half of the creature while the other half fell on the open soil of the jungle floor.

Finding the soul stone is no issue. Its energy signature is recognizable in the absence of the avian's spirit body.

I reach out with my own spirit body and pluck the soul stone from the creature's torso.

Pulling it back to me, I force the blood off and hold a cracked soul stone of considerable power. I can tell that this beast's core is many times more powerful than a common human lower immortal's core. The avian must have spent many years refining it.

And now, it's mine.

I stow the beast core in my cosmos ring and continue flying deeper into the Jungle of Blooming Paradise.

Soon, I find another target. Or rather, targets.

Massive monkey-like creatures, such as I've never seen in my life, have spotted me and start throwing things at me. Their aim is skillful and the force of their projectiles is tremendous.

I fly down to meet the monkeys. These are the males of the tribe out hunting.

I unleash my soul well and fly at the nearest monkey. It catches my sword strike and slaps out with its other hand. In a moment, I'm thrown through one tree after another. Splinters fall as rain and, finally, I come to a dazed stop.

I stand up to find the monkeys have gathered around me. And I realize that this isn't going to be as easy as I had expected.

My sword still in hand, unbroken, I raise it to face a charging spirit beast. The monkey seems to be laughing as it raises its arms high over its head, ready to slam them down on me.

I don't try to bear the attack. Instead, I rush forward, only to roll to the left as the arms come down. Right as I come to my feet, I thrust my sword into the monkey's kidney. Aether flows through my blade, creating an expanding pocket of space.

The torso of the monkey pops like a bloody balloon and the beast falls to the ground.

The screeches of the surrounding monkeys are laced with chi and I feel blood trickle down from my ears. With effort, I force myself to face the next in a series of repeated beatings by the gang of chi-empowered beasts.

Minutes become an hour as I dance between the jumping monkeys. My body is bruised and battered. My soul body throbs as chi escapes it through wounds created by the beasts.

I pull my sword free of the chest of the last monkey, the ki flaking as it falls away from the blade.

"Hah….Hah….Hah…." I pant as I recover from the assault of the monkey clan. It was not easy. But, I made it to the other side.

I look out on the expansive battlefield and sense hunger. The other beasts have caught the scent of blood in the air. And, have come to join the feast.

Hurriedly, I begin ripping the soul stones from the slain. More than a dozen of them in total.

I can't help but feel that my profound soul well is only so compared with humans. The spirit beasts are fathomless to my human mind in their raw power.

I can face them as a peer and even surpass their gathered strength. But, these are the equivalent of lower immortal cultivators. The depth of power a beast lord, equivalent to an ascended immortal, could manifest is more than a little scary.

Sensing the encroaching beasts have tired of waiting for their feast, I take to my sword and rise to a moderate height in the sky. I'm not ready to face another avian spirit beast.

Quickly, I spot a ravine that I hope is unoccupied.

I extend my awareness into to crack in the earth. It's void of any spirit beasts. Though, should I intrude on one of the beast lords' territory, I can only hope for a quick death.

I float down and see it empty.

The soil is shorn from the wall of the ravine and I choose a space to begin my work.

My soul body extends out to carve rock and dirt from the wall. It all tumbles down to the broken floor of the ravine.

A cavern forms as more and more dirt flows out from the hole. Deeper and deeper until I hollow out a chamber. The soil of the roof, walls, and floor is compacted beyond what is naturally possible.

I stand at the center of my new Immortal's Cave. This will be my new home, at least for a time.

I think of the Immortal's Cave that I lived in during my time in the Violet Sword sect. It was very similar to this one. Only, I had an array of jewels to cultivate in.

A smile crosses my lips as I open my cosmos ring to dump out a large pile of black sand. I didn't leave everything behind when I left the Desert of Desolation.

The process of folding chi and layering it with aether consumes me as I create a much smaller array of spirit glass than I'm used to. What I lack in size, I'll make up for in quality.

I resolve myself to continue refining the quartz crystal into higher-quality spirit glass in the coming days, weeks, and months. But, I settle for making the array viable for now.

After a day's work, I complete my task.

What I've created is not even a flower of life, let alone a garden. It is but a seed. A seed of spirit into which I sit as thought.

With my resources established, I take out the soul stone of one of the monkeys I had defeated. The avian can wait, its energy being considerably more potent than the lesser beasts.

I hold the beast's core out before me with my soul body. To a mortal, it would appear to be levitating. But, it's merely an extension of myself.

The cracked soul stone before me, I feel the chi seeping out from it. Wisps of chi that I can absorb. But, I'm not intending to absorb the energy slowly.

I create a channel in my soul body between the beast's core and my soul stone. As soon as I do so, something stirs in anticipation.

My other parasite, the spirit vine, craves this new source of sublime energy. Its tendrils spread out from its center in my soul stone and pushes through the channel. It penetrates the beast's core and begins to guzzle up the energy with a voracious appetite.

I receive a few scant motes of chi throughout the process. But, it's apparent who gets the lion's share.

I don't concern myself though. The vine is only so hungry. And, though a few beast cores will be lost to it, I'll get my share.

The refining process carries on and it takes the night to process just one of the stones.

I put the heavens out of my mind as I consume my harvest over the following half-dozen days.

With the avian's soul stone refined, I feel a new variant of the chi of life. Primal chi. It makes me feel powerful and bestial. But, I know that allowing my shen, my consciousness, to be dominated by the beasts is a recipe for disaster.

All the same, my dao experiences a shift. Not a hunger for sustenance. But, a craving for dominance and territory.

I feel certain now. This jungle is mine.

Thinking of the prey that fills my new territory, I depart my Immortal's Cave.

The hunt begins anew.