Days passed by quickly, blurring together as Sun continued to push further and further south through the wilderness.

He kept an exhausting pace, even with his strengthened body, carving his way through untamed forests and mountainous terrain was a struggle. At the end of each day he wanted to collapse, but instead climbed into the trees above him and secured himself on the branches.

Such precautions were next to useless against a spirit beast but it was still better than sleeping on the ground where he would look like a free meal for anything wandering nearby. Despite his tiredness, he barely slept as his paranoia and anxiety were constantly pointing out rustling in the bushes or a shadow in the corner of his eye.

Each morning he expected to wake up only to find he’d been trussed up by one of the sect’s outriders or have his father standing over him like a wrathful god. And each morning he awoke free was a relief, yet also heightened his fears, for nothing good could last forever.

For all that, he was making good time along his journey. As he moved south, the temperature continued to rise, and he found himself missing the familiar bite of cold on the wind back in the north. The forest around him also changed slowly, shifting away from predominantly pine and coniferous trees to deciduous trees like oak and maple.

The thick canopy of leaves overhead offering shade that protected him from the malicious heat of the day.

Although the days became increasingly hard to differentiate as his exhaustion accumulated, Sun maintained his sense of time by keeping track of his supply of food pills. Food pills were a basic product of alchemy that even novices could learn to make and could sustain a person for a day.

They were often used as rations for the outriders or for sustenance by those in closed door cultivation for long periods. Sun didn’t understand how people could eat them for so long as they tasted like nothing and he was getting sick of them after only a week. Not to mention, the months or even years an elder might stay in isolation cultivating.

After nearly two weeks of travel, Sun crested the top of the mountain he’d been climbing and looked down in awe. Below him, beyond the mountains, was a seemingly endless expanse of arid desert. Internally, he cursed at whoever had drawn the map in the archive, as there had been no signs or notes that there was a desert here. The space had simply been left as a large open spot and Sun had assumed it would be grassland or prairie.

Now, instead of dashing through an open field, he would have to trek through a barren dust-covered wasteland. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as his headache grew. He needed to restock what he could and prepare for the next leg of his journey.

He spent the night on the mountain before descending, trying to catch up on as much of the sleep he’d lost in the past weeks. He enjoyed looking up at the stars this high up, closer to the clouds than the earth itself. Despite this, the stars seemed dimmer than he was used to, but maybe that was a trick of his mind, the stress and tiredness getting to him.

The next day he hiked down the mountain and crossed into the desert beyond, continuing south. The heat he’d noticed as he traveled rose even further with no trees overhead to shade him or rivers to cool the air.

He wrapped a part of his robe around his head to cover his eyes from the sun’s glare. In order to negate some of the desert heat, Sun moved his qi through his body, channeling heat out to keep cool. He marched through the day, and when night fell the temperature plummeted, and he altered the movement of his qi to warm him from within.

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He was glad that his ancestors had been so pragmatic when it came to developing qi techniques. As a martial sect, many of the techniques the disciples were taught were meant for combat and using fire to defend oneself or to annihilate their enemies. However, when their sect had moved into the deep wilderness of the north centuries ago, their ancestors had also developed techniques to aid in the survival of their outriders, who patrolled the region for months at a time.

And, luckily, these techniques used barely any qi, meaning Sun could use them just fine. Although he lamented his inability to use something like a movement technique, which would have cut down his travel time by a huge margin. But like most powerful techniques, he lacked the qi to use them.

But it seemed that he wouldn’t have to worry about that now that he was beyond the mountains. For all the elders might be angry at his escape, they wouldn’t send an outrider this far south just for him alone.

He was also relieved he hadn’t encountered any spirit beasts on his trek. For all the danger they posed to humanity, especially in the far flung wilderness near the sect, spirit beasts were a rare breed. It takes a lot of effort and skill for an intelligent human to awaken their qi, and so it is even rarer for a base animal to achieve the same feat.

Unfortunately, those that do awaken can be thought of akin to top grade human talents and seem to have an innate disposition to cultivating their powers. This makes even the average spirit beast a terrible threat for villages and towns, worse still if they gain an intellect and reason.

As Sun pondered the luck he’d had in his journey, he looked out to the horizon and saw something strange. At first, he thought he was seeing a mirage caused by the desert heat and his own exhaustion. But, as he grew closer, he saw it clearly stretching out across the land like a great stone serpent bathing in the warmth of the sun. A road.

Of course! He thought. This close to a city, of course I’d find a road!

Although the map he’d read wasn’t the most accurate, his travel should have put him somewhere slightly to the east of his destination. Now he could simply follow the road directly to the city.

As he approached the road, he scanned the horizon for carriages or people, but found none, which was to be expected. Sun had hoped to find some companionship for the end of his journey, to learn about the city and its people as much as for idle conversation. Weeks alone in the woods had left him starved for companionship, or at least to be in the presence of other thinking people. Unfortunately, it seemed he would have to make the last leg of his journey alone as well.

When he reached the road, however, it wasn’t as he was expecting. Instead of cobblestone or thick slabs of stone over compacted earth, the road seemed to be a single long stone path, as if it had been carved out of the earth rather than built. The sun had bleached the road to a pale gray and faded yellow lines marked the center with white lines at the sides.

Sun knelt down and examined closer, seeing small imperfections in the road, as if countless pebbles had been melted together and poured onto the ground. In fact, that’s probably what it was, Sun nodded to himself, he knew senior disciples could melt stone with their power and could likely recreate the effect. However, he questioned if such a cultivator would lower themselves to the level of building a road through the wasteland.

Then again, if he was paid well, Sun would take that job as well, so maybe he shouldn’t put it entirely out of mind.

Sun was pulled from his thoughts as he felt a rumbling through the road, starting quietly and slowly growing in strength.

He straightened and whipped his head around, searching for the source of the rumbling. Perhaps a herd of animals was coming to trample him or a spirit beast was beginning its charge?

As his head swiveled on his shoulders, he caught a gleam on the horizon as the sun’s light reflected off something in the distance. Sun stared incredulously as a massive form sped along the road towards him at a speed he couldn’t fathom for a creature that size.

It was a great hulking beast with metallic scales and crawled across the earth at unparalleled speeds. As it got near, he heard it begin to roar like a strangled bull that hurt his ears as the light reflected into his eyes, nearly blinding him but he couldn’t look away, nor could he even move.

He stood in frozen terror as the beast bore down on him before a whine and squeal echoed over the road. Surprisingly, the great creature slowed to a halt until its gaping maw and bared metallic fangs were mere feet from him.

Sun could barely hear a rumbling purr over the sound of his heart beating in his ears, before the rumbling stopped and he consigned himself to his fate.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

Only to be shocked again as the side of the beast’s head flew open and a man crawled out and began to yell at him!?