Will was standing in front of his two roommates who had almost been kidnapped. Both had solemn looks on their faces after he'd asked if they knew who those bandits were. It had been a few seconds now. After a few more, Xu Lanhua finally spoke.

“Yes, we know who they are. It's a long story. But I suppose you ought to know it.”

She sighed, before continuing.

“I am the wife of a man named Li Rencai.”

She smiled slightly as she thought of her husband, before her smile faded into the same look as before.

“But Li Rencai also has a concubine. Her name is Duodibunu Lili.”

Will felt like he got whiplash. That name was actually wild. It meant something like “many enemies no effort beautiful strength”, which, when he read out like that, sounded like the name of some shitty magical girl anime or something. He was also a bit surprised he could tell what each “li” meant considering they were pronounced the exact same way. The limitations of the Automatic Universal Linguistic Knowledge Database Accessor were honestly a bit confusing. He knew they were consistent, that was certain given where it came from, but since he didn't know what ruleset it was consistent with, it just felt like what it told him was random sometimes.

But back to the name, Will honestly was a bit annoyed. How the hell is Duodibunu Lili an acceptable name and Will wasn't? Why the fuck was her family name four syllables? Its meaning wasn't even an object or concept or action, it was a fucking declaration of how easy it is for someone to fight a bunch of enemies. Or that they don't even try when they see a lot of enemies. It didn't even make sense because it was a self-referencing statement used as a surname!

The given name was kind of cute at least. It was like the usual spelling of Lili with the first character repeated twice but the second was replaced with a word about strength. The cuteness was ruined by the surname Duodibunu, but whatever.

Sarah also chimed in, letting out a light chuckle which really made Will annoyed when he thought of how much she'd laughed at his name.

His face was visibly cycling through different emotions in real time, so Xu Lanhua waited until he was done to continue.

After a few seconds Will's expression stabilized on acceptance and she sighed and spoke again.

“I don't know if it's because she resents having to be a concubine to a simple merchant with her status or what, but for whatever reason, she seems to have it out for me.”

Will listened intently.

“But it wasn't a real problem until recently as she usually just stayed to her own corner of the house.”

Will was a bit annoyed at how casually a house big enough for someone to stay in a corner of it and barely be seen was mentioned, but he brushed it off. He could probably afford one for himself, anyway, considering what he had in his storage rings.

Xu Lanhua continued.

“That changed when Rencai went on an extended business trip. Just a day after he left, almost everyone in our employ started trying to force me out of my own house. They'd make loud noises outside my room at night, they'd spill things on me, they'd shove me from behind, and all the same things happened to Yingran. The two guards and the coachman you've met were the only ones that didn't. The only ones that stayed loyal… or more accurately the only ones who weren't approached.”

She sighed.

“But though they weren't approached, they managed to overhear things from the ones who were. As it turns out, everyone had been bribed and/or threatened to get me and Yingran to leave. And then there was the other thing they heard. That it was all on behalf of Duodibunu Lili. So we left. We packed our bags and set off towards Dragon Flame City, where my husband went for his business trip.”

She gave a wry smile that didn't reach her eyes.

“I suppose you can see how that ended up.”

Will felt bad for her. He was already going to protect them anyway just for the free ride, but now that he had the story, it felt like a real quest.

But that didn't actually answer his original question.

“So, um, who wewe those guys?”

He pointed at the corpse of the deceased blind first bandit.

“My husband is a good man. And a good man like him refused to let crime fester in the city he called home. And that made him a lot of enemies. These people” she waved at the corpses strewn around them, “are a notable group, well-known in less than savory circles. Or were, I doubt they'll be doing anything of much note like they are now.”

She laughed a genuine laugh, happy to see the nuisances dead for good. After a bit, she calmed down and continued explaining.

“They were a group that specialized in kidnapping. If that was all, they wouldn't have been special, though. What was special was their cultivation. It obviously wasn't anything grand, but with all eight at that same level, they were pretty good at their work.”

Will had calmed down a lot after hearing all that. That meant there wouldn't be an endless stream of them coming, right?

“So we'we safe now? All the bad guys dead?”

Xu Lanhua gave him a slightly awkward but mostly apologetic look.

“As I've said, my husband made a lot of enemies.”

Tears appeared in the corners of Will's eyes.

But crying wouldn't help him deal with this situation. Only crying while doing something else would. And Will had a great idea. They wouldn't have to worry about people coming after them if the people couldn't reach them.

The highest level that could be sent would probably be foundation establishment. And he knew of something that could chase down an old monster like the Sick Freak.

The Super Snake. The fact that its body wasn't in the pile meant there was a good chance it was still alive. If he could use it as a mount, and have it bring them all the way to Dragon Flame City…

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It was a dangerous plan. It was an insane plan. But he felt like it could be a working plan.

But if he just relied on the array trick, if they ever encountered another array the thing would veer off course and destroy everything. Not to mention the horde he'd end up bringing along with it.

No, he needed to do something better. He needed to tame it. And he felt like he might just be able to leverage his abilities to do it. And if he could buy a manual, even more so.

As it turns out, saving two people with relations to a merchant capable of stamping out crime from a city from people trying to kidnap them was a big change in fate. He'd also killed eight people while doing it. His points were almost as high as they were when he bought the basic spiritual energy gathering array.

So he went to the Information Manual Exchange Marketplace, turning and pacing around the room so as to not worry and confuse his roommates.

Knowing what he wanted, he was able to refine his search very precisely. He first excluded anything with requirements worse than green. He had it only show manuals related to beast taming. He had it only show manuals that would work on the super snake. Then he had it only show things he could afford.

There was only one manual that showed up.

‘To Tame A Titan: Colossal Lightning Snake’

That… sounded cool as hell. And there was also a whole series! Will would definitely come back and check the others out someday. But that was for later. He looked at the entry for the manual and went down the requirement list.

Storm qi, purple. Spiritual energy stored internally, purple. Suitable beast corpses, blue. Knowledge of the Colossal Lightning Snake's language, purple. Compatible method of removing impurities, purple. Sufficient control over lifeforce, purple. Colossal Lightning Snake, green.

He bought the book immediately and embedded it.

From what he read from the ‘about the author’ blurb, the author of this book really liked animals and beasts of all kinds. He ended up taming so many that he was offered a book deal, where he'll get a bunch of points for each taming method he puts up on the market, and the cost to buy each thing is lowered a bit. He now goes around from universe to universe learning how to tame everything there. Will thought he was awesome.

But there was still a taming method. It was very complicated. Basically, it was about using storm qi and a bunch of other stuff to give it a chance to become a Stormbringer Serpent, and then offering it a beast contract. The beast contract is even customized to the Colossal Lightning Snake, allowing it to have an easier time. It all seemed incredibly easy!

Will stopped pacing and turned to face the two people in the room with him, his joy palpable.

They looked at the child, confused why they were so happy all of a sudden when literally nothing had changed.

“If we could go fast enough, could we not outwun evewyone they send?”

Everyone, Sarah included, was lost. How would they outrun everyone? They had a carriage and horses and nothing else. Li Yingran finally spoke up.

“Yeah, but how would we do that?”

Will smirked mischievously.

“Giant snake.”

Everyone was confused. Li Yingran spoke again.

“Giant snake?”

Will nodded.

“I'm gonna tame a giant snake I found in the eviw wightning forest.”

That sounded like an awful idea. Xu Lanhua spoke.

“Um… how?”

Will smiled triumphantly.

“By levewaging storm qi and a variety of othew things to allow it to become a Stormbwinger Serpent.”

They didn't know what that meant. Sarah took the chance to speak.

“Hey, Will, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Yeah, sure, I remember. How the fuck would you tame that?”

“Ah, almost forgot about that one. Well, if you're sure the book's trustworthy then go right ahead.”

Will smiled, confusing his roommates again. Xu Lanhua spoke.

“Um…”

Will asked a question.

“You don't think there'll be anothew attack tonight, wight?”

Xu Lanhua scoffed.

“I doubt it. We should have at least until tomorrow.”

Will gave a thumbs up.

“I'll be back soon with a giant snake.”

The two nodded, unsure, as Will rushed out the door.

Running full speed, Will made it to the forest in only a minute. He didn't hesitate and headed inside. He'd been keeping his map up to date even after he left the forest, so he was able to run in a straight line through the unmapped territory to reach the Sick Freak's mountain in only two hours. Then, he kept going past it.

He didn't find the snake. Luckily, he didn't have to, as the snake found him instead. It slithered towards him quickly, intent on eating him.

Following the instructions Will used its language to communicate.

“~Stop!~”

It meant stop, but it sounded more like “ssss”.

The snake stopped. This human just spoke its language. That didn't happen normally. It decided to allow the human to speak for now and decide whether to eat it after.

“~I want to make a deal with you.~”

Will emptied a few rings of beast corpses.

“~You can snack on those as we talk.~”

That settled it. Human gets to live. It began eating as it listened to the human.

“~I'll help you grow into a Stormbringer Serpent if you'll form a contract with me.~”

The snake liked the sound of that. Not the contract part, that was somewhere between negative and neutral, but the Stormbringer Serpent part sounded great. If it was true. It swallowed its current snack and responded.

“~Prove you can do it first.~”

The snake, well, it sounded like a snake. It wasn't really saying words, he just understood the hisses. Will nodded.

“~Of course.~”

Will came over and started following the directions for what to do with the storm qi. He had to make another ouchy tunnel on the left hand, which hurt, but he'd gotten pretty used to hand holes at this point. He basically just had to send in storm qi in specific amounts in specific places.

After fifteen minutes, he was done, and his meridians were almost empty. Now it was time for the impurity removal. He gave the black gas the signal, and the impurities were removed. The black gas he'd gained was a lot more than he had before. Even so, it didn't feel like anything was wrong.

With the impurities removed, it was now time for the arrays. The book had a three array designs that came with it, and each had to go in a specific spot. They came in the activated form in the book, so he just exported them into the right locations. It used up pretty much all of his remaining points, but that was expected.

With the arrays in place, the next step was a contract. The snake was already prepared.

“~I'm guessing you want the contract now?~”

Will nodded.

“~Yeah.~”

The snake could feel the effects, so making a contract was the obvious choice.

“~Go ahead.~”

The contract was weird in that it didn't need a physical medium. One just needed to have a clear mental image of it and it could be used. And embedding gave him the clearest image possible.

As Will touched it, the snake felt the contract. It accepted it.

Will smiled. Now he just had to finish up.

He dumped a bunch more corpses from his rings.

“~Eat these.~”

The snake complied. Obviously. It was free food.

As it ate, Will controlled the lifeforce within it. The contract made it so the lifeforce wouldn't fight back against his control. While draining the lifeforce from the beast corpses the snake had just eaten, he moved the lifeforce in the patterns shown in the book. He was down to only half of his beast corpses by the time he was done.

Now it was time for him to ask for stuff.

“~So, I have these two humans who keep getting attacked by other humans, and I wanted your help going fast enough that none of those other humans can catch up.~”

The snake made a little hiss before speaking in full hisses.

“~I can do that.~”

This whole “taming a giant snake” thing turned way easier than he'd expected. Though he knew how it would go since he had the book, it was still surprising how it was really as simple as the book made it seem.

“~Can I hop on your back?~”

“~Sure.~”

Will hopped on the snake's back. He checked his map and pointed in the direction of the village.

“~That way, please.~”

The snake knew where Will was pointing through its spiritual senses, so it headed in that direction. They reached the edge of the forest in minutes.

“~Okay, here's the plan. You hide here for now. I'll whistle when it's time. When I whistle, you should quickly head over to my location without breaking anything or hitting anything. Okay?~”

The snake thought it was a bit convoluted, but overall didn't really care that much.

“~Got it.~”

Will hopped off and ran to the village. Once there he headed to the inn and knocked on the door of the room.

Xu Lanhua opened the door and let him in.

“Welcome back.”

“Got the snake.”

They stared at him.

“I got the snake. We can wide a snake.”

Li Yingran spoke.

“Wait, really? Just like that?”

“Yep, just wike that.”

Xu Lanhua spoke.

“So what now? Do we just leave our stuff behind and hop on a snake?”

“I can put the stuff we need in a wing. Then we send the coachman and guawds back with the cawwiage.”

It made sense. They didn't need a coachman or guards when they were riding a giant snake. Li Yingran spoke.

“I guess we go to bed and then wake up and ride a giant snake in the morning.”

“Yep.”

And so everyone tucked in for the night again.

—

Will woke up an hour past sunrise. He was woken up by his roommates getting ready. He got out of bed, then headed downstairs. They apparently served breakfast, so he felt he might as well have some.

Heading downstairs, he met with the guards and coachman. He felt he should probably explain things to them.

“They awmost got kidnapped and we'we gonna wide a giant snake now so you can go back home.”

They didn't really seem to get it. Well, whatever. One of them will explain it when they come down.

Breakfast today was scrambled eggs, it seemed. It was decent. Not the worst scrambled eggs he'd had. Eventually Li Yingran and Xu Lanhua came downstairs and started breakfast.

As he'd expected, they explained the situation to the men in their group. They still didn't know what the “giant snake” thing was about but it didn't matter all that much. They had their orders.

Over the next hour, everyone packed their things and Will put the luggage they were taking in his storage rings. He had Li Yingran and Xu Lanhua follow him to right outside the village, closest to the forest.

Then he whistled, and the snake came slithering.

“~Ready to go?~”

Will replied.

“~Yep, all set.~”

Li Yingran and Xu Lanhua both stared at the kid, incredibly confused. Were they… talking?

Will pulled out a rope from a storage ring, and tied it around all of their waists so no one fell off and died, and helped everyone onto the snake's back.

The snake started moving, slowly picking up speed as it headed in the direction Will pointed it towards, down the only road other than the one they'd come in on. There was also a map in the luggage that he had embedded and was keeping an eye on to make sure they went the right way. They only stayed near the road for a short while before Will decided to just point the snake in the direction of the destination and ignore the roads. Of course, Will also made sure to keep updating his map as they went.

The snake did something that made it feel almost like they weren't moving. Though it was pretty obvious they were moving very fast if one just looked up. Overall the ride was pretty comfortable.

And it was fast. The city they should've only reached after a month was reached in just a day.