62nd of Season of Air, 57th year of the 32nd cycle

Newt had no idea what had happened. One moment, Puresnow was soaring, cleaving down with her sword, the next she was lying on her back, gasping for air with Dandelion holding her weapon in one hand, her wrist in the other, bent to the point of near snapping.

“That was foolish.” Dandelion’s voice was cold, his glare colder, freezing the ice cultivator in place.

Newt’s mind processed what he had seen, the sword going down, Dandelion pivoting and bending his body, the hand shooting for Puresnow’s wrist, the woman’s speed and inertia used against her as Dandelion disarmed her with his other hand, and finally, slammed her against the ice, kicking up frozen mist as she lay there, staring at the ceiling in shock.

“Disarming her would have been tougher, if she had used a sword without a guard.” Newt took a moment to realize Dandelion was explaining things to him. “I used the guard against her, to wrestle the weapon free from her hand.”

Newt noticed no wrestling. Dandelion grabbed the sword and took it like Puresnow had passed it to him.

“What?” Everlast finally found her words. “Puresnow, what have you done? Master told us Senior Brother Dandelion is the leader and that we are to obey him as if he were her. Senior Brother Dandelion, please forgive Puresnow’s rudeness. I… I don’t know what came over her.”

Dandelion let go of the prone woman, but kept her sword.

“Nothing to forgive. Hotheadedness is normal in youth, just look at Newstar here.”

Hey! Newt frowned, but Dandelion flicked a flake of ice at his head, and it evaporated with a hiss.

“Hot Head,” he explained, yet Newt still crossed his arms. “But such behavior can lead to injuries and even fatalities as we explore this cavern, so I would like to ask you to guard the entrance to the cave, Puresnow.”

The woman, still prone on her back, looked at Dandelion with hollow eyes.

“Unity is more important than numbers, or even strength,” Dandelion explained. “And I am afraid you lack what is needed to play well in this team.”

Suddenly, his voice turned gentler. “That is not to say this is your fault. Our chemistry is conflicting, it causes you to clash with me and Newstar, so it would be best for you to perform a different, no less important role of guarding the entrance and warning us of any potential outsiders or wandering high-realm spirit beasts.”

Dandelion was spewing utter rubbish, and everyone knew it, but that rubbish was Puresnow’s way out with which she could keep some dignity and maybe not get reported by Everlast.

“The three of us can keep going.” Dandelion moved his attention to Newt and Everlast. “You two can tackle the third realm spirit beasts on your own, while we will work together to bring down the fourth realm ones.”

He shot Newt a flat stare. “And before you complain, Newstar, no, I cannot handle a fourth realm frostworm on my own without paying a significant cost. And there is no reason to torture or bankrupt myself when I have friends and allies to help me deal with them.”

Dandelion looked towards the corpse of the third realm frostworm.

“Is there anything inside it you wish to harvest?” he asked Everlast. Newt looked towards her, and he could have sworn he saw a light blush as she shifted her gaze from Dandelion to the worm.

“We could sell the carapace plates for a handful of third realm spirit gems, and we should check whether the core is still intact.” She sounded disinterested, almost like the process was a chore, and Newt wanted to cry that his entire clan had not seen that kind of money in years.

“I’ll work on the carapace,” he volunteered with more enthusiasm than seemed necessary, and Everlast gave him a quizzical look.

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“All right,” she said slowly, then started butchering the frostworm while Newt removed the much smaller plates.

“Newstar,” Dandelion suddenly spoke as Puresnow left their group. “You need to learn how to use your time wisely. Cultivating your realm will take a lot of your time, more with each passing layer. Simple constructs you make will take hours, while more complex ones will demand weeks, months or years to complete, and they will fall apart or decay should you stop before finishing them.”

Newt stopped separating the thick plates from the frostworm’s carcass and even Everlast paused to hear what Dandelion had to say.

“Sometimes, quite often in fact, you must let go of a treasure for those of lower realm, or even for your own, for the sake of greater goals. You need not spend hours carefully dismantling a spirit beast’s corpse if two minutes of reckless butchery will yield a third or even a tenth of the bounty.”

Newt did not understand. His family needed the money. He needed the money to find information about his parents. That was the only thing that mattered.

Dandelion sighed.

“Listen. While it might seem like cultivators live extremely long lives, even for them, time is a resource more valuable than spirit gems. With the right skills, you can convert time into spirit gems very effectively, but the way of converting spirit gems into time is well outside our power. Even Elder Frostgrave lacks the resources for such a luxury.”

Newt hesitated, but gathered the courage to voice his thoughts.

“But I need the money now. How can I pass the opportunity when it’s right before me?”

He could tell by the deep breath Dandelion drew that he was testing the man’s patience, but Dandelion still answered without a trace of annoyance in his voice.

“Let us assume that removing all the carapace from this frostworm takes two hours, and there is an average ten percent chance of finding a core in s spiritual beast after a difficult fight, twenty when it dies without getting to use too many abilities.”

Newt nodded as Dandelion spoke about odds. The youth was not certain about the exact chances of finding a core, but he knew they were slim and the less the spirit beast got to use its power, the greater the odds of recovering the core.

“That means you would need twenty hours on average to gather a core, and about a fifth of its worth in carapaces. Alternatively, you could earn a core in one hour, or less once you become more proficient, and use nineteen hours on crafting something useful to you or for selling.”

Newt nodded. Slowly.

“Shouldn’t I stay in the city and just craft?”

“No, because hunting spirit beasts gives you experience and helps you refine your combat abilities. Training, sparring, and dueling others is also important, however none of those can prepare you for a life or death battle against another man.” He glanced at Everest and added, “Or woman.”

Newt was about to ask about how he was supposed to know which was worth more and whether the worth of certain actions changed with time, when Dandelion started running back towards the depths.

“If you have any questions, discuss them with Senior Apprentice Sister Everlast.”

Dandelion suddenly sped up, and Newt just watched his departing black, inwardly muttering curses. Then he raised his gaze and met Everlast’s.

“Um. Senior Apprentice Sister Everlast,” Newt stuttered. “Do you know what Senior Dandelion was talking about?”

“Some of it.” She nodded and got back to work. Newt thought that was the end of their conversation, but the woman unexpectedly explained her words.

“He is correct regarding cultivation. Master once spent three and a half years locked up in her cultivation chamber, alternating between drawing spiritual energy and cultivating her realm. I heard the sect master had gone into seclusion over a hundred years ago, and she still hasn’t finished.”

Over one hundred years? Newt’s mind spun at the number.

“Beyond the second realm, you cannot advance on the spiritual energy available in the environment; you would waste a ridiculous amount of time, so we rely on pills, spirit gems, or spell formations which gather spiritual energy from across vast distances and refine it for you. You could say that is buying time with spirit gems in a way, so Senior Apprentice Brother Dandelion is technically wrong.”

Newt considered the words, and they sounded like a technicality more than anything else. Still, he continued to listen to what Everlast had to say.

“As for optimizing the use of your time, he is once more right and wrong. Master sometimes brings us out of the sect, to experience the real world and the tribulation of unsheltered life. She claims it would temper our hearts and fortify our resolve.”

Yeah, I don’t need that. Not anymore.

“We also get simple monster subjugation missions from our sect from time to time. They breed and evolve like crazy in areas with rich ambient spiritual energy, and our elders don’t allow us to exterminate them completely, probably to give the new generations of disciples a chance to train as well.”

“Your missions are in icy lands? What are the cold weather dinos like?” Newt asked, changing the subject since he had a feeling Everlast was going in circles and diluting the lesson Dandelion tried to teach him.

“Well, for starters, they have white feathers instead of scales…”