I did not feel any hurry to catch up to my guards. My fight had given me the knowledge that I could escape anyone that wasn't immortal, and if an immortal wanted something from me I had different problems.

So, I decided to take my time to appreciate the untamed nature around me. Something I had never seen in my old world. But here? The moment we left the grain fields surrounding the town behind, only a small road remained as a sign of civilisation. As I walked along the large, grassy fields I couldn't help but wonder why. Normally humans sculpted the world around them wherever they went, but here, only a few dozen miles from the city I only saw a road?

Something about the nature of qi, or the world itself seemed to force humans not to do so outside of their direct living space. Several possibilities came to mind, either the road was well travelled enough nature never had the time to reconquer the road - doubtful considering I had not met anyone after setting out several hours ago - or the road was special, built to last in the wilderness.

Finding out which of the two theories was right, if any, should be easy enough to find out though. Sending my aura in the ground beneath wasn't something I normally did, mainly because of two reasons. One, I didn't see the point. Two, aura needed to be significantly more concentrated to move through solids, so I’d essentially cripple my cultivation speed by doing so. I knew how to do it though, having long since tested something so potentially useful. A small part of my aura formed into a concentrated spike and stabbed down somewhere along the road.

Qi. The road was filled with fake qi intent. Qi intent similar to what I sometimes used in my clothes. Interesting. A little bit of prodding later, and I couldn't help but laugh. The qi essentially worked as a weedkiller. All plants wanting to take root on the road would have to survive the qi first. Which also meant plants rooting on the road would probably be either poisonous, resistant to poison, probably valuable or all three.

With that mystery solved I started walking again, lengthening my stride to catch up before night. As I walked, I resumed cultivating. After all, cultivation was the most useful after a fight. Being as far from other humans as we were now, I expanded my aura outwards, using the higher concentration of qi near the ground to my full advantage. My new aura cylinder went about forty metres up into the air and had a radius of roughly one and a half kilometres. Perhaps I should think about building a facility deep in the untamed nature, just to make use of this phenomena? Doing so in a city or town seemed like bad form, and would probably make sure lots of angry cultivators ended up on my doorstep, but who'd complain if I did so somewhere else? No one.

With one part of me walking, the other cultivating, a third used the perception my aura granted me to look for possible threats. Watch the sheer density and diversity of life all around me.

I saw normal foxes using the waist-high grass to stalk rabbits, a pack of wolves hunting a lone deer. Hundreds, if not thousands of rabbits nibbling at the grass. Ants hunting other bugs, or rearing aphids. Rabbits hunting foxes. Wait! My attention focused on the strangely large rabbit. It actually seemed to be stalking one of the smaller foxes around! Strange. I continued watching with interest. Yes, that rabbit stalked a small fox. But how did it want to kill that fox? Seemingly sensing my question, the rabbit formed a large horn of qi on its forehead and pounced.

A small application of qi later, and the rabbit sailed over the fox, obviously confused. I didn't cost me anything to help my friends relative out there, and the sheer confusing the rabbit looked around with after missing was worth the little qi I used. I laughed a little, before moving on. I never knew so many beings lived around me before. To be honest, I never looked for them before either, so I wasn't all that surprised. I continued watching as small rodents were either out hunting some of the millions of insects inside currently inside of my aura or nibbling on some plants. Watching those small rodents being hunted by other, slightly bigger rodents. Small birds pecking up seeds, a small ferret-like creature hunting a rabbit.

Wait, ferrets ate and hunted rabbits?

Intrigued, I focused on the ferret and rabbit duo, watching as the ferret killed its prey by clinging it its back. Interesting. Perhaps I should expand my search for a cat to species of similar size? Like that ferret.

Of course, just getting a wild animal wouldn't work, I’d need a child, one that could still be trained. My attention swept through my aura, searching for holes in the ground for burrows, and searching these burrows for my new pet. Sadly I didn't find any within my aura. Yet, I would continue to search.

There! A strange ferret hunting for fish in a small lake, right next to the road. And an old rabbit burrow filled with six small ferrets on the opposite side of the road. I left the road, making my way towards the burrow, uncaring of all the animals I scared while doing so. I was the biggest predator around, they were right to fear me.

I observed the small ferrets in their burrow, debating which of those I wanted. Sadly, I didn't see a white one, which would have been my first choice. So the one that looked the most beautiful then. Which meant I had to dig them up first. Aura mainly ‘saw’ qi, but you could also ‘see’ everything in contact with qi through it.

Thus, living beings were easily visible - especially cultivators - as their qi seemed to wear an impression of themselves like I wore clothes. Not so much these young ferrets. They were nearly devoid of qi, and only had a very vague idea of themselves at the moment.

I arrived at the burrow but didn't see a second parent anywhere near, protecting the spawn. I shrugged, that really didn't matter to me, one of those ferrets would come with me in the end, one way or the other.

Moments later, loose soil and six small ferrets babies were floating in front of me. They were crying for their mother with all the strength they could muster, but I ignored that. After releasing all the dirt, I started carefully inspecting each of my prospective pets, their fur, teeth, their smell and their claws.

They were vicious little things, trying to bite and scratch me whenever I inspected one of them more closely, but I ignored that too, they were too weak to even hurt my skin. So I took my time.

In the middle of my inspection, I felt something start gnawing at my leg. Looking down, I saw the big ferret had returned and was happily, or perhaps angrily trying to eat my leg. I ignored her after seeing she couldn't penetrate my skin either, she was just trying to defend her young, no need to get angry over that, so I returned to my inspection.

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Ten minutes later I had decided. My new pet was the second smallest of the litter, had a soft brown fur like her siblings, but I liked her fur the best as it felt softer. She had a cute white spot of fur under her little maw too and was currently glaring at me with a surprisingly human expression. She was no white cat, but good enough.

I allowed the other five ferrets to return to the ground, landing them next to their mother. Who immediately herded them away from me, obviously smart enough to know I would keep her last, still pitifully crying child for myself.

As the small family of ferrets took off, I set my pet on my shoulder and took off into the air, the ferret secured to myself with a little bit of qi.

I had taken quite some time to choose her and had some catching up to do. While doing that, I sorted through my memory of the small skeletons I saw inside the burrow, noting what I needed to properly feed my new pet.

Small fish, all kinds of rodents, probably rabbits considering I saw another ferret hunt a rabbit earlier. But that ferret had looked different. Perhaps these plains had several ferret species living in them? Mine probably liked water, considering I saw her mother diving earlier. Something to think about when we arrived back in town.

My pet ferret quieted down a few minutes into the flight and curled herself up into a small ball. She probably was exhausted from the racket she and her siblings made earlier and needed to sleep that off. Still, I checked if she was warm enough, it wouldn't do for my new pet to die now. As I flew, I snatched one of the smaller rabbits, disabling the power of gravity attacking it until it was near enough to be killed and snatched up by hand.

With me flying, I didn't need all that long to catch up to the caravan and soon landed near the outer edge of the camp, noting the sun was about to set.

“I see you have returned mistress.” One of the guards said. “Targo is waiting for you near your tent.”

“I see. Thank you. Keep up the good work.” I said.

I made my way towards the biggest tent, my ferret still on my shoulders and the rabbit floating next to me. I would not touch that!

“Welcome back mistress. We prepared a report for you to read at your leisure. And why do you have a dead rabbit floating next to you?” Targo greeted me.

“My new pet will need something to eat.” I answered.

“Your pet?”

I just indicated to the small ball of ferret still sleeping on my shoulder.

“I see. Why a mink though? I thought you wanted a cat?” He asked.

“Minx? She’s a ferret, no minx. It does sound like a good name though, thank you.” I answered. “And the town didn't have any cats, I looked. But a ferret is good enough.”

“Your “pet” is a mink. Not a ferret.” He said.

“Are you sure? Because she looks like a ferret to me.” I said.

“Mink live near a body of water and are very good swimmers. Your pet is most definitely a mink just by looking at its fur, ferrets have stripes and far less fur.” He explained.

“I see. How come you know about ferrets and mink?” I asked.

“Ferrets are sneaky little thieves. They are one of the most common beasts, simply because they steal everything they can get their thieving little hands on. They steal everything from small knives to powerful cultivation resources. Every one of us probably had to deal with a ferret beast sometime in their lives. You probably didn't, but you aren't a normal cultivator. Most of us need to make do when we just ascended.” He explained.

“But my little Minx here wouldn't steal anything, would she?” I said.

And took the ferret - mink - from my shoulder and cuddling her against my chest.

“We will see. Have fun with that thing. But remember. She can't have a name until she’s a cultivator.” He said.

“Yes yes, now go do guard stuff. You can keep what you got from the big guy's minions to yourselves.” I said. “See it as a bonus for a fight fought and won.”

“Thank you, mistress. I'm sure the others will be delighted.” He answered, leaving me to my own devices.

All in all, I was quite happy with how today panned out, I reflected. I won a fight, got myself a long-needed pet, and we finished nearly sixty kilometres of our journey. Wait. Sixty kilometres? That felt way too far for empty land without any settlement in between, but I knew for a fact that I did not pass any human dwelling today.

Well, I also saw no significant body of water except for that small lake, but weather around here was wet enough a simple well should suffice. So, something different. What though? The forest. There was no forest around here, only wide, empty plains filled with normal animals. It should be enough for a settlement to be founded in my old world, but in this one, perhaps one needed more than food to attract more people. Mainly cultivators, as they were the main source of fighting power this world had. Not all that surprising, considering I could probably take on a small army of mortals all by myself.

So, towns would only be near locations with plentiful qi, valuable resources or both.

Food was grown and hunted locally, meaning simple farming villages would be few and far in between if they existed at all. Which meant small villages in the middle of nowhere would be very suspicious. Something to keep in mind should I ever find such a village.

If the map I bought from the old man was right, then we should reach the next town on this road in two days if we didn't get delayed anymore. No need to worry about that now though, we had enough food for a month, and there were enough animals around us to stretch that nearly into the infinite.

After laying my ferret - mink - down near the rabbit, I turned my attention towards the report. All cultivators I had met thus far had been warriors or fighters. They fought individually, without any thoughts of their allies. Naturally, I had my guards train as a group, protect each other's backs, train how not to get in each other’s way, to do attacks of opportunity against another's opponent, all the good stuff.

I would have liked to help them more than a simple command to do stuff, but I had no idea what worked best for cultivators, and they had more than enough free time for lots of sparring and figuring things out without me.

So, now I had to read through the fight’s report and see what I could glean from it, suggest improvements if I found any. Doubtful, but knowing how to best fight in a group was useful, even for me. As I read, another part of me continued pulling ever more qi towards me, storing it a very large spiral around me until my meridians had space for more.

Storing qi like this was a little risky normally, but had the added benefit of speeding up my people’s cultivation speed even further, and I judged it worth the risk of my power being found out.

Another part of me considered how to tame my ferret, no my mink. Her mother had been quite smart, so getting her to do what I wanted shouldn't be too hard. After all, I had qi at my side. I only had to start her cultivation and make sure enough qi gathered in her pretty head to make her even smarter.

How to make sure of that though? By doing so myself. Just give her packets of memories, instructions. All that qi would naturally gather inside her head, where she could process it further. Knowledge of human speech, gestures, what I wanted her to do when I did certain gestures.

Where she could pee, where not. What she was allowed to rip into and what not. All the stuff that took ages to teach a pet normally.

Now, I didn't want to overwhelm her small brain, so the first packages would need to be small. Something simple, that made her forget I stole her from her family as soon as possible. Food. The way into the heart of any animal.

I took the rabbit back, glad my pet was still sleeping and started cultivating with nearly all of my attention, only keeping a small thread of attention on my surroundings and pet. She’d wake up in time, and would need to approach me for food. A perfect plan.