Darkness and silence greeted Fan Zhong as he slowly entered the outskirts of the forest bordering the beach the group had landed on. Although the forest’s central region was sealed within the lockdown formation, according to Wang Qiang, his path would still take him through the dense foliage for at least a few hours. After that a set of rocky cliffs that lined the northern shore awaited him.

Walking between the dense bushes and trees brought a familiar feeling. He remembered the sounds that seemed to come from all directions, the wind that rustled every leaf and branch. Small rabbits and game darted about the underbrush eliciting sharp breaths from his then-frightened self.

The memory wasn’t so old in truth but for Fan Zhong, it felt like a lifetime ago. Taking a slow breath he crouched down to pick up a handful of loose dirt with his left hand. As the coarse earth ran between his fingers he took in the scents and sights all around him.

Like muscles that hadn’t been exercised in a long time his instincts for identifying the different sensations came back slowly as he stayed perfectly still. Wind rushed over the canopy as small birds chirped overhead, flitting from branch to branch. To his left a small rabbit looked around warily, its nervous twitching producing subtle shaking of the surrounding grass.

Gently Fan Zhong lowered his staff into a crouching void gate stance. Every so slowly he took a step forward, moving with the swaying of the grass. His steps seemed to meld with the world as its motions, sounds, and rhythm aligned with a cadence that beat softly in the back of his mind.

Suddenly his mental energy focused as the song of the world crashed around him, the foliage near the rabbit shaking madly. Time slowed as the discordant notes clashed with the melody in Fan Zhong's mind before a harsh drum seemed to beat the chaos into submission. With a burst of speed, the tip of his staff lanced out in an origin piercing palm.

The weapon caused a low boom to echo throughout the forest as it tore through the air and landed directly on target. Almost as soon as it had moved the rabbit found a stone staff impaled into the ground in its path of retreat, just a hair away from touching it. Shivering in fright the creature turned to face him.

Giving the furry creature a gentle smile Fan Zhong bowed to it slightly before pulling back his weapon and scanning his surroundings. He may have not improved in his forestry skills since his trial all those years ago however, neither was he the same person. Whereas once he would have hesitated and flinched back now his strikes were decisive and graceful.

That still left the problems of his movements, however. Normally walking through the wilderness like this was avoided as one could be ambushed by waiting spirit beasts or stumble upon some old battlefield that contained dangerous spirits. That was why most stuck to roads and well-trod paths as they tended to be patrolled and as such avoided by most beasts.

Some ‘wandering’ martial artists took traveling through uncivilized and barren lands as a challenge to their martial prowess and would spend years away from society in order to train themselves in the wilds. However, those individuals were normally battle-crazed, loving nothing more than to fight stronger opponents, and no sane people regularly courted death like that.

Finding stronger foes was all well and good for training. The problems arose when you found a spirit beast that was too strong. Many legends spoke of terrifying Beast Kings that had led swarms of powerful spirit beasts to destroy entire kingdoms. Furthermore, there was the incredibly rare Beast Emperors that stood above even the kings.

It was said that they were as rare as naturally formed heavenly treasures, but could such odds really be relied on when you were tempting fate? Even then those two possibilities didn’t begin to describe all the problems that could occur when traveling uncharted lands. From eccentric crazed immortals that isolated themselves to the ruins of long-forgotten kingdoms that fell in tragic ways no few wandering martial artists had died miserably in such circumstances.

Although Fan Zhong’s current situation eliminated many of those scenarios, heeding tales of caution never hurt. After all, the Wang Clan Leader had mentioned that they didn’t know why these spirit beasts had attacked the island nor why it was happening now of all times. Perhaps the clan members that resided on the island had uncovered some deeply hidden secret about the island’s ability to help with talisman refining or ruins from a previous kingdom.

Overall he needed to find some way to move more covertly or he would fail to meet the old swordsman’s expectations. The immortal would most likely be watching over him to stop anything fatal from happening but judging from past experiences it wouldn’t happen until he had received a considerable beating. Furrowing his brow in thought, Fan Zhong began walking slowly through the forest.

At first, his steps were unsure and he stepped on more than one twig that snapped underfoot. Every time he walked past an animal his acute mental energy let him see how they reacted from several meters away. Signs that he wasn’t entirely incompetent but his technique was lacking.

Minutes dragged on as slowly memories of how to spot the subtle difference on the ground for dry leaves or sticks to step on and how to move his body to stay mostly behind trees and bushes returned. After half an hour of walking Fan Zhong was able to walk right up to a deer and gently run a hand over the creature's fur. Immediately the deer stiffened and a second later it ran away with all its might.

A good start and if he had a year or two to practice the movement could probably become seamless enough that he wouldn’t have to think about it. Now though, it was painfully obvious that he was moving too slowly. During his half-hour moving through the forest, he estimated that the distance he covered was only a third of what his normal pace would be.

Stopping a moment to crouch behind a bush and think about the issue, Fan Zhong idly willed his staff into a brick and spun it on his palm. The runes etched in the center of the staff flashed briefly transparent blue before the stone seemed to liquefy and condense into the square brick. Seeing that caused a spark of inspiration to go off in his mind.

Quickly he reached into his robes and fumbled around in a pouch that was kept on the inner left-hand side of the garment. In just a moment he found what he was looking for and pulled it out to look at a transparent stone that glowed with a soft blue light. A spirit stone from his personal allotment for amenities.

Although he could go to any fan clan branch office and request funds, which would be approved by Fan Shun as long as it was reasonable, Fan Zhong rarely kept many spirit stones on himself. Firstly doing so would make him feel guilty as the clan was in dire straits at the moment. Although he wasn’t responsible directly for that, it didn’t feel like it.

In any event, his actions following that day… made him unworthy to wantonly use the clan’s funds. The second reason was also very personal. Over the years he had known that gambling and drink were vices that clung to him as hard as any man, especially in his sadness and mourning.

That man was who he was before and he was trying to move past that, without the funds the temptations were reduced that much more. The final reason was mostly utilitarian in that he mostly didn’t need to carry many spirit stones around. Xing Zheng seemed to have a nigh endless supply of funds, not surprising considering his background, and he paid for most things the group needed.

Add that to the fact that he couldn’t use them to recover Qi in an emergency yet and carrying around large amounts of spirit stones just didn’t make sense for Fan Zhong. As such he only kept enough on hand to buy the occasional meal or pay small expenses. All of that being said seeing his own magical treasure operate had reminded him of another use his pocket change might have.

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Retrieving a small carving knife from his supplies he found the smoothest and flattest surface on the spirit stones. Focusing his mental energy to his eyes and right hand Fan Zhong gently pressed the knife tip toward the stone. Although it was embarrassing to admit he had to acknowledge that his study of formations and arrays had lapsed over the last few years.

Putting aside the five years he spent in a melancholic state of drunkenness even within the Reclusive Sword Mountain Sect most of his time was dedicated to catching up to his peers in martial abilities. Only during the treasure refinement lectures had his rusty rune inscribing skills even been put to the test. His first attempts had been so miserable he had almost stopped attending the lectures altogether.

Only an intense glare from Xing Zheng and consoling words from Fan Yong had been enough to convince him to continue onward. For months he had stayed up late after sparring sessions to get just a few hours of calligraphy practice in. During that time he burned every single piece he made immediately, determined that no one should ever have to see them.

At times he would pull out the songbook that he had made while training with Fan Cheng in the clan's ancestral training grounds just to stare at the masterpiece he had made for the cover. The symbol exuded a bright outlook of the world, pride in his clan and martial arts, and what they stood for. That single work encapsulated everything Fan Zhong had once held true about his path toward the martial peak.

Now it stood as a testimony to how naive he once was and what had been lost on that day. Once that would’ve crushed him in mind and spirit. With the help of his best friend and teacher, those feelings turned into fuel to push forward.

The old swordsman had guided him and with a few days of work, he had made the array that had allowed him to refine his first magical treasure. By the time they left the sect, Fan Zhong was confident he could’ve inscribed that array in a single day. Now his hands worked nimbly to carve a simple rune into the spirit stone.

What he wanted was something that would mute the sound around him. A trick he had seen the immortal do a few times with a wave of his hands. In his studies, no such array or formation had ever come up but he did know the rune for silence.

Theoretically, there should be a way to form a basic array with just the rune and a power source. With no personal Qi to use, Fan Zhong would have to make do with his handful of spirit stones. He was down to only a dozen after spending some to gift Fan Yong a bottle of his favorite wine.

As he worked the energy density lessons and usage formulas slowly came to mind. Using a spirit stone like this was wildly inefficient and normally the best way to accomplish this would be to make a two-part array. The first would use a spirit stone to power a simple Qi-gathering array that would then store and use energy into the effect rune.

By doing this the ambient Qi of heaven and earth would do most of the heavy lifting playing to the strength that arrays had over formations. Since the desired result was a static thing the inherent inflexibility of most array designs wouldn’t be an issue. All of that was fine in theory but it wouldn’t work here.

Firstly the design would take far longer to inscribe. Energy channels between the two array cores would need to be carved along with the doubling of the needed cores in general. Although Fan Zhong was confident in his abilities to accurately make such a setup given time, that was a luxury his task didn’t entail.

Secondly, the materials he had to work with weren’t great. Spirit stones themselves were unrivaled as a medium for arrays and formations but they slowly dissipated into pure Qi that mixed with the air as they were used. Since that was the case more complex workings like a double core array needed suitable natural treasure materials that could handle the energy density flowing through them.

Mundane mortal materials could work since his arrays wouldn’t be overly strong but every slight error he made while using such a weak foundation would be amplified. Over time that would eventually result in the entire array simply exploding. Not only could that injure him but it could also attract some of the crab-zombies who detected the spike in Qi as it rushed out from the detonation.

That didn’t even mention the colossal waste of time it would be if something like that failed which would leave him no choice but to continue without any array. Considering all of that Fan Zhong went with the simplest, albeit most inefficient, method. He directly turned the spirit stone into a single core array that had a silence rune on it.

With such low power output and energy source, he had no idea how long it would last or if the improvised solution would even work. However, the basic outline of his design would only take a few minutes to test out so little time would be lost.

Slowly as he thought through the process his knife tip pressed into the spirit stone drawing delicate markings that at first seemed like mere scratches. Incredibly uniform and tiny scratches but in the end nothing more. After a minute a shape started to take form as sweat beaded on Fan Zhong’s brow.

In just a few more minutes he finally completed half of the runes that made the greater symbol. Usually, he would have delicate inscribing tools and a calm and serene environment to do this work but nevertheless, Fan Zhong strove to make the layers of increasingly tiny runes perfect. At his best, he could manage to make the inward fractal design of the rune four layers deep.

Trying his best Fan Zhong barely managed three layers this time with the knife and he was unsure if the rune would work. Three was the lowest amount needed for energy to flow properly and for the heavens to recognize a rune to allow its appropriate effect to work. After almost 10 minutes, double his original estimate, it was finished. He took a deep breath and pushed mental energy to his hand that was holding the stone.

Soft crackles rang out immediately as semi-transparent blue lightning arced almost imperceptibly over a few spots on the slowly writhing rune. A single cracking sound made him wince as it seemed like the stone was going to shatter. At the last moment, the sound around the stone cut off unnaturally and a small grayish ripple exuded outward from it.

That gray aura surrounded Fan Zhong and stretched out only a few dozen centimeters from his person. Warily he took his magical treasure and transformed it into a staff before brushing the grass at his feet. All that he could hear was the constant calm rushing of the gentle breeze that was ever present in the forest along with the occasional bird call or small animal.

Smiling with joy he quickly appraised the stone by focusing on a mental rune in his mind. He knew the rough Qi density of a full spirit stone and although his appraisal technique wouldn’t give exact details, as it was meant for refining not measuring spirit stones, the results would be good enough. After a moment he grimaced, noting that the minor effect would only last around half an hour.

Doing some quick math and thinking of areas he could improve, Fan Zhong estimated that he could get the time to inscribe the array down to his original five minutes. Combining his current supplies with the already-made product should give him enough to safely traverse the forest and much of the shore. Smiling slightly he sat down and deactivated the active array, settling into the nook of a tree to start inscribing.

Three hours later Fan Zhong found himself nearing the edge of the forest with one of his array stones tied to the end of his staff via some twine he had on hand for shelter-making. His steps made no noise with the working active and he had adapted to making his body stick to the foliage and shadows well. Like a fish in water, he had easily slipped through the forest with the aid of his array, walking within touching distance of many animals with them none the wiser.

Now he came to the end of the underbrush and what lay before him was a clearing. The grass and trees thinned out giving way to a narrow thin ramp that ran up to a cliff face that loomed overhead. Clear ground stretched for around 100 meters thinning from a wide base at the forest to a narrow path to the cliff.

Standing on the southern side of the clearing about halfway to the cliff was a hulking beast. Insectile mandibles were set upon a mishmash of three human heads pushed together. It stood on all fours with spikes that jutted off each limb at an angle almost like the exotic wrist blades Fan Zhong had seen in catalogs from traders. These were no man-made weapons, however, as they had rough edges that exuded grayish energy.

Currently, that abomination was tearing into the remains of a large deer that had been unlucky enough to cross its path. Just looking at the thing made Fan Zhong’s head drowsy and he had no doubt that the monster had more potent mental attacks in direct combat. For just a moment he thought of using the old swordsman’s emergency talisman.

After all, the monster was obviously stronger than the smaller ones he had faced at the beach, with this one being almost half again as big as a bear. Surely this was something that was too dangerous to handle on his own. On the other hand… he was done relying on others to save him, done being weak.

With steel in his eyes, Fan Zhong pulled two spirit stones he hadn’t turned into array stones just in case he needed them. Smiling wolfishly his eyes flashed a slight golden hue as he started preparing for battle.