Puren Ning was still terrified. Not daring to move at all, she remained with her head pressed against the ground, listening as noises began emanating from the direction of the mountain. It sounded like the creature was making them, strange syllables shooting from a bestial mouth. The fact that the girl couldn’t understand a single word it was trying to say didn’t reassure her in the least. A beast that was unable to speak was less powerful than one which had the capability, but regardless of relative power, it was still more than enough to immediately kill Puren Ning, who hadn’t even managed to break into the cultivation world’s ranking system.

A thump from slightly ahead of her and to the left drew her attention. Daring to glance toward the source of the sound, she was able to make out the beast flailing its limbs wildly, the stick it had been holding laying on the ground where it had fallen. The creature began to step back and forth, circling the area. Seeing this, Puren Ning immediately froze, lest she draw the ire of a powerful creature searching for something of interest to it.

With her new vantage point, she could watch as the thing moved more and more erratically, pointing at various things with no rhyme or reason to its actions. Eventually, it moved over where the stick had fallen, stepped on it, and fell on its face. After this, there was no more movement.

For Puren Ning, the fact it wasn't wrecking havoc was a good start. After the time it took to make tea though, she began to suspect it was more out of the creatures having fallen asleep than it's having an kind of true benevolence toward her and her kind. Moving slowly as to not either startle the creature if it were awake or wake it otherwise, she nudges herself forward on her knees up to the prone form.

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After what remained of the time it took for a stick of incense to burn, Puren Ning reaches the body laying on a dead patch of grass. Plantlife wilting away and dying in proximity to a creature that had managed to assume the general shape of a human through its own power was concerning, primarily due to the implications about what nature of power had allowed this transformation, but there were a few more benefits to pulling in a potentially demonic beast compared to letting such a creature roam the farmlands untethered. Mustering her courage, Puren Ning picks up the fallen stick and pokes the beast with it.

Remaining motionless and prone on the ground, the creature makes odd noises. However, it did not respond aggressively, so Puren Ning remains brave enough to repeat the poking six more times. Each time, the noises come from the beast, though at slightly different pitches each time, the sound growing higher with each repetition. Finally, it grabs ahold of the wood, face still on the ground.

That was the opening Puren Ning was waiting for. Pulling the stick over the beast’s back, she drags its arm over to where its other flopped-over limb lay, moving the entire body along with the limb. Surprisingly light, the entire beast flips over onto its back, face no longer in the dirt. Now, having gotten its attention, the girl places her knees on the ground, and her forehead similarly. This time she is more aggressive with her greeting.

“I am called Puren Ning, and I hope that you are a benevolent beast who might protect my home!”