The Barren Lands were the most desolate place on the face of the planet, with few living plants or animals at the sea shore, and none found inward, like it was a desolate alien moon, and not a place on Lacrima.

The continent was not devoid of features or color, just of life. In fact, one could say this place was the world's most colorful place, with tens of thousands of small and large trenches and canyons splitting the face of the continent, lakes and rivers of strange colors, even electric blue or green or iridescent yellow or red or pink, as the deep cuts had polluted the waters with untold chemicals and minerals.

The lands were fated to remain barren, as a beam of white sword qi flashed and gouged another 20 kilometers long trench, before being deflected upwards with a dismissive backhand.

"Weak! Much too weak. You would only annoy a Monarch ranked beast, my big mouthed friend. A hundred more strikes, then you can rest one hour, while you cook something nice for me." the Saint allowed in a generous voice.

Pef gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand upright.

'Damn it! I can't even give her goosebumps...' the Monarch muttered inward, in a dejected tone.

'You wanted 22 hours per day training, you got it, Aspirant. I predict you only need a million more sword strikes til you condense your qi and soul into a decent form.' the glove replied in a cheerful mode. The idiot user was finally growing, and quite a bit faster than he knew.

The last hit had pushed the Saint's finger 44 microns. Amazing, even for a normal Legion recruit at 30 years old. Well, not really. Those would already be Saints by now. But given the scarcity in resources and trainers, the user did well enough.

Pef drew a deep breath, and circulated some energy from his fire sprite. The weariness washed away, and his hand became firm again.

More white sword qi enveloped his Tyrant ranked feather, and he swung the weapon twice, then sped away, dodging the counter-attack, then sped downwards, his body durable enough to ignore rocks or water like moving through air.

A crater a kilometer wide appeared at his former location, but he wasn't there anymore, the feather flashing three more times before disintegrating in his hand.

The puppy in his left hand pulsed a confused query, asking to be used and not kept idle. Pef tapped its blade with a fingertip, testing the edge, but it wasn't sharp enough, not yet.

'Not yet puppy. This weak soldier needs more practice.' he sent back, while drawing another feather and dodging the Saint's counter strike, and unleashed four white beams, guiding the last beam to curve a tiny bit and home in after the Saint, targeting her left ear.

An angry howl was heard some 10 kilometers away, as a sign that he had indeed struck her eardrum. The retaliation was too swift and vicious this time, his domain getting shattered and a block of ice spikes hit Pef in the eyes, making him see white stars and cry of a few tears.

Being blind didn't hamper him so much, especially deep underground. He drew a bit more from his Ignited title, using his water domain to clean and then heal the shattered eyeballs.

An hour later, he emerged on the surface after completing his quota, and began cooking the moon meal, his movements already routine. As he was laying the steel trays and heating the stove, a friendly hand ruffled his hair, and helped him by setting the table and the silverware, then infused him with a bit of Saintly healing.

"You actually hurt me, young Pef. Not much, but ears are sensitive, to any sword practitioner." Cellia acknowledged in a bit of impressed tone.

"We use our inner ear for balance, not just hearing. These senses are connected, just like taste and smell, or seeing and touching. Heat sense and proprioception work in tandem too, just like qi sensing and gravity. Only my new Monarch mapping sense isn't paired." Pef said in a soft voice, while his hands worked almost subconsciously to prepare the night meal.

With the glove and knife in his hands, preparing meat over a stove was too easy, not to mention his smell sense worked perfectly.

"You'll get a new one when you ascend to Saint rank. You'll be able to sense and touch divine messengers then, if they get too close." the Ice Saint replied in a wise tone, like she was imparting some profound mystery.

In fact, she was learning every day new things from her apprentice, perhaps as much as he learned from her.

The young Xi had amazing insights in the nature of water and heat, as well as the way people behaved or organized.

Truth was, Cellia was a village witch, of the stone age. Sure she had amazing powers and control over them, but she never went to a school.

Many of the inventions in the new metal age seemed like magic to her, from medicine to the steam engine.

Lucky for her, Artus was often communing with her, and used his oracle skills to comprehend and explain what she seen or read in the new books.

Slowly, she was beginning to waver in her frozen heart, seeing the young man for an engine of change, even more than young Deng had been with his methodical organization of the Patriarchy. The man had created a factory for producing cultivators on the Blue Xi continent, although weak ones.

But Pef, he had created a factory of upgrading cultivators in mere decades instead of thousands of years. At this rate, the young Monarch would have dozens of his own Monarchs soon, and later Saints. If only he had been born a thousand years ago. By now, the worm was already charging his next brain plague, and would soon engulf the planet in another cataclysm.

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The druids would survive, like they always did, behind the Green Veil of their goddess. Vesuvius and Etna had stood for millions of years anyway, and now that they had a Saint, they'll be fine.

But the Xi empires, old and new...she was foreseeing billions of deaths, and was powerless to stop it.

The new entangled qi-antimatter weapons of Arachne and Tangerine might help exterminate the infected and evaporate their corpses, as proven in the Phobia tests, but humanity would still be dead and incinerated.

If only there was a cure. Perhaps, she could simply ask? "Artus says you have a cure, for the Brain Eating Plague." she said as the meal was served.

Pef blinked and stared at her with blind eyes, as he hadn't healed yet. "For some selected few, like my Guardians. If it's a protein bio weapon, like artificial prions or the like. The regular people cannot be saved, not in any large numbers."

They ate in silence, while the Saint mulled over his words. "Shelters of frozen ice can last thousands of years. It's how I've done it before. Hot lava barriers deep underground, or deadly mists like the druids or Arachne use. Underwater cities like in Marinesia, or a divine ranked barrier array like it was in Myrrth. Some people always survive, but there's never been a cure." she explained in a hopeful voice.

Pef ate with slow moves, obvious deep in thought. "The worm has no vital points. No brain and a distributed nervous system. Cut it into a thousand bits, and it would reform or just grow back...while the entire world burns. The deaths would fuel its godling, and that will give it energy to spare and increase the regeneration rate. Correct?" he asked in a calm voice.

"And worse. Every piercing strike would release more plague spores, like its whole body is made only of this plague." Cellia added in a sad voice.

Pef looked up, at the starry sky, then at the Moon. "Take me there. I want to observe our next battlefield." he demanded in a military tone, while his hand pointed at the Moon.

The Ice Saint hesitated for a second, then shrugged. Sure, it was cold out there, beyond the air blanket covering the planet, but her new friend was a Monarch now. He should be fine.

"Keep your shield up. There's no air up there." she explained, but Pef just smiled.

Soon they flew up, on gravity wings, the Saint helping Pef half of the way.

As they left the planet behind them, Lacrima became smaller and smaller, and their speed increased immensely, reaching the distant Moon in only one hour. Pef flew one orbit, while muttering things like trajectories and periapsis, then radioactive absorption and protein decay.

Then in a smiling wide grin, Pef landed on the Moon, jumping around like a child and placing metal plates here and there.

He even placed carefully oriented mirrors, and flashed his white sword qi in front of them, for some reason.

Then, in a last act of madness, he found a deep crater and filled it with water from his rings, and made a huge frozen lake on the Moon. Just to slide on ice, after soul forging some steel blades to his boot soles.

'Ice skating, on the Moon. I've always wanted to do that, even if I don't remember why.' he sent in an ecstatic qi pulse.

'I can see that. And the mirrors?' Cellia asked a bit amused.

'We can flash beams from the planet and bounce them back. Let's fly back to Lacrima's orbit. I want to install some geostationary mirrors as well.' the young Monarch sent in a happy mood, taking off slowly towards the blue planet in the distance.

Cellia sighed inward and began pushing him from behind, increasing their speed 20 times.

Pef was pretty tired already, and the flight through vacuum had exhausted him, even with his shield up.

The Ice Saint was fine, though being far from water wasn't pleasant.

'Perhaps I should choose both rain and snow. They both fall from heavens and are made of water. But clouds are water too. Most of them. Damn it. My crazy friend has explained too much. Now I might never ascend to divinity...' she thought to herself, as she watched Pef flash forge stones and metal, with mirrors, then send them flying at opposite direction of how the planet turned, and thus having them stay in place.

Some 50 such anchored mirrors later, Pef sped towards the surface, heading towards his home continent.

Cellia remained in high orbit, using the deep cold to commune with Artus.

'So, you heard what we talked?' she asked in a wary voice.

'I did Lady Winter. The cure it's a qi method, after all. Possibly after ingesting the Black and Green pills, his glove figured out the profound inner workings of the pills, allowing him to impart the same ways to all the cultivators using the Xi method.' Artus said in a convinced tone.

'And the other thing?' Cellia wondered in a milder manner.

'I value you too much, my lady of winter. I'm not Volcanis, to sell my followers. But he does seem a worthy husband, if you like him even a bit.'

'Hmm. The fire god is not generous a god either, Artus. He still communes with Lady Yuan, the Fire Monarch.' the Ice Saint replied in a cold voice, then dove at speed towards Frigia.

The cold wind didn't answer, busy considering Pef's words, now that orbital mirrors could indeed reflect sunlight onto the frozen domains, and possibly melt the frozen ice and warm the planet.

He decided to wait and see. The prodigal Monarch had water qi after all.