Once the battle was over, I brought the Burning Ice cultivators back to the Misty Mountains, but only to put them in charge when I brought out a much larger team, making sure all of them got some experience against demonic cultivators as I attacked any base I could find.
It was a dangerous move, but I had to. The moment the first group was destroyed, the other hidden groups revealed themselves, hastening their plans.
Luckily, my increased abilities meant that I was able to set up bases of Forest Dance across the wilderness between the kingdoms, providing me with enough Qi to spread my detection formation, allowing me to catch those groups before they could succeed.
Uprooting the demonic cultivators was a risky task, but the Providence reward was worth it. There were two benefits to it. First, it strengthened the Burning Ice Symbol significantly, which allowed me to poke and prod its structure without fearing whether it would be destroyed.
The ability to touch it without fearing total destruction finally allowed me to reverse-engineer its structure, helped by the latest batch of abilities I had received.
It was an interesting mixture of painting, calligraphy, and other things, but to my surprise, it was made of not paint, but some kind of crystallized essence. The reason it was able to grow and recover was because of it. It wasn't exactly a living thing, not even as much as a random tree, but it wasn't exactly an object either.
More interestingly, the more Providence it collected, the faster it absorbed the surrounding Qi, which made its function as a spiritual pillar far stronger. Its providence was being drained continuously, but it clearly had a limit, which was below the collection as the martial artists continued to hunt the demonic cultivators.
Either the damage it sustained slowed the transfer, or the one that designed it never imagined it transferring that much Providence at once.
Regardless of the reason, it allowed me to see the interaction between Providence and Qi over the symbol. It was fascinating. The Symbol gathered Qi, and Providence … for the lack of a better term, held it together by acting like external strings.
It was an interesting process. I still didn't understand how it was achieved, but it allowed me to adjust the alchemical trees I had created, increasing their ability to connect with the martial artists.
Once I enhanced every alchemical tree — which directly strengthened the martial artists and improved their land reclamation speed — I decided to finally follow the path created by the providence, deeper into the misty mountains.
But, not without some preparations. The first thing I did was to gather all the teams that had been hunting demonic cultivators. Without me, I was afraid of them being driven into a trap. I didn't want them being followed to the base.
And, without me to put the blocking formations, it was too likely.
Once that was done, I had spent a day refining batches of poison, reinforcing the defenses of the Zaim Kingdom and Markas in particular…
And, started a long trip…
It was an interesting experience. The flying ship cut through the mist like a blade through silk, with a silence that belied the potential power. I had nothing to do but gaze out, formations allowing me to see through the mist further than I could have with my own eyes, its shifting and swirling blanket unable to cut my view.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
It was the first time I was going so deep, and the sight of didn't fail to impress me. The deeper I got, the more interesting it got, along with the density of Qi. Said density wasn't enough to supply my ship unless I established some truly huge formations, but it was enough to enhance the wildlife.
There were forests of spirit plants, with hordes of savage beasts, far stronger than the ones that were found inside patrolling the area. Their strengths were significantly higher than I expected. Some of them could challenge Foundation Establishment cultivators alone … and that was without including their habit of attacking in hordes under the control of the mist.
No wonder sect cultivators were reluctant to explore deeper, and let the itinerant cultivators sacrifice themselves instead.
If there was one big disadvantage the Qi cultivators had, it was endurance, something I understood even better after the latest burst of techniques I had received. Once their Qi depleted, it took somewhere between days to weeks to recover — and for certain Golden Core cultivators, it might even extend to months depending on the spirit vein they could access.
"Let's enjoy the ride," I said to myself soon after, enjoying the untouched depths of nature. Soon, a lake appeared, its waters a deep, iridescent blue that shimmered like liquid sapphire, filled with wildlife. The surface of the lake was smooth and unbroken, reflecting the pale light of the moon that struggled to break through the clouds above.
It was beautiful enough that I stopped to set a camp, watching the faint outlines of creatures swimming beneath the surface, graceful and serpentine.
I wondered if any of them was the elusive dragons that the cultivators and martial artists alike loved to refer to. I was tempted to explore, but I already had too many things to worry about to spend time on it.
Maybe on a day when I could enjoy the Freeloader System. For the moment, I limited myself to watching them from a distance, captivated by their glimmering scales.
Then, I continued my travel, slower than I would have liked because I wanted to conserve Qi, and a dark forest replaced the lake. It was a scary location, its trees twisted and gnarled, their branches reaching out like skeletal fingers. The air above it was thick with an aura of decay, and the beings that filled it were equally horrifying, moving in with a slow, deliberate pace, confident nothing would touch their poison-filled bodies.
The forest was a place of nightmares, yet it was still natural rather than some kind of demonic experiment gone awry — as far as I could tell from such a great distance. Ironically, I was even more tempted to dive down and explore, curious whether my Alchemy could unravel all its secrets.
But, I was a man with a mission. The ship continued to fly, leaving the forest behind, and the mist thickened once more, hiding the world below in its swirling depths. I leaned over the railing, enjoying the strange beauty of the mist.
Yet, as I continued to go deeper, I noticed a shift. It took a while for me to realize what had changed. It wasn't the air, nor it was the Qi.
No, it was the Providence that changed.
The difference was impossible to miss. After one point, it stopped being a calm, steady presence, and started churning like a storm.
"No, not a storm, but a caged beast," I uttered, feeling a chill in my soul. I had always known that whatever going on in the mist was not normal, but to give that feeling.
It scared me, enough to make me consider whether this trip was a good idea in the first place. Luckily,, before I could change my mind, I had drifted to one area.
A snow-covered volcano. It was enough of a visual clue that I didn't need to check the Providence clue back to the center. As I approached, I let the spectacle wash over me, impossible yet awe-inspiring. It stood defiant against the landscape, a massive, jagged spire thrusting upward, piercing the sky. The volcano spewed out magma constantly, yet the snow and ice sustained their presence despite the heat.
As I got closer, I could see the signs that the magma was fresh, as if it had been dormant just weeks ago … an interesting timeline that overlapped perfectly with the timeline of my little project.
I wanted to observe more, if it wasn't for an unexpected development. A huge flying ship, radiating with power, appeared from behind the mountain. Good thing, I didn't need to guess about their intention.
The giant ray of Qi attack targeting me was enough of a clue!