Groaning till the sleep left it's grasp on her, Qing Shen stretched out of her almost criminally comfortable bed. She had felt a little guilty when Zhang Yong himself carried it into her room on a joke that she wanted a bed made of high quality goose feathers, but she was mollified when she realized he had a talisman for levitating said bed. That, and the fact that the bed felt like a literal cloud.
Her cool blue finally gleamed open as she saw a few specs of blue grains light up in her vision. The reason for how she now had an ability to always see blue dots wasn't lost on her; attributing it to the time when she went without eye protection whilst under the dazzling light of the twelve interconnected talismans. And while Zhang Yong had a few guess to what happened, none of them made sense to her. At least, she had no idea what 'acute retinal mutation via extreme exposure to Spiritual Essence' was.
However, the ability was luckily able to be somewhat controlled. Else she would have to see everything through a haze of nauseating fluorescent blue. It only took a few meaningful blinks, but those tiny, glowing grains left, letting her finally see the details of her room.
It wasn't the most extravagant room, other than the unnecessarily comfortable bed, but Qing Shen wasn't complaining. The room was actually ten times better than the one back in her village. And as she wandered over to the drawer over in one corner of the room she realized that she she slowly grown accustomed to the casual luxuries here in the two weeks she had been stayed already. Still, she was slowly getting antsy as she had only had one job whereas back home she was in charge of an entire field to tend to or some other menial task.
Her mind wandered back to the times when she only had and hour of two to train, but now that she had so much free time, she felt kind of overwhelmed with the need to do something. Qing Shen was so lost in her thoughts that she ignored the figure slowly creeping up on her. It wasn't until they had thoroughly wrapped their arms around her and squeezed tight.
Qing Shen thrashed by reflex, but a cheerful voice broke all thoughts of violence, "Got you, Sister Shen!"
Qing Shen felt a little embarrassed as she carefully removed the forceful hugger. "Good morning to you too, Sister Ling."
The black haired girl happily complied, and skipped up to stand in front of Qing Shen with her arms crossed, a small pout on her face. Over the past couple weeks, the newest maid had trouble fitting in with everyone else. However, it was Li Ling who pulled the country girl along, proclaiming that they were friends as soon Qing Shen was ready to walk again.
Perhaps it was due to the girl looking so panicked when Qing Shen last saw her before blacking out, but the blonde felt a bit more comfortable with the excitable Li Ling than anyone else. It was just another mystery about the villa that allowed such a carefree and happy girl to make those fragile smiles.
Still, Qing Shen sighed, putting that thought out of mind, and readied her ability to endure as she noticed that her friend was about to speak.
"You're always waking up so late, and then spending the rest of your day playing. I wanna play too! Let's switch roles today; no one will know!"
"Everyone will know…" Qing Shen said, smiling at how the girl described her training as playing. Sure, she had calmed down from her usual schedule to get back up to strength, but it still was harder than any regular person could bear. "Besides, I'm not playing."
Li Ling huffed at the correct information. "I refuse! I'm bored, you're bored, everyone's bored! Except maybe little Yong, but he enjoys making things explode and studying like a nerd! You need to go and do something other than go to little Yong's room and train! Why don't you join me in my work?"
"I'm sorry, what was that about the Young Master?" Qing Shen blinked in confusion. Talking with Li Ling was fun, but it was an exercise in patience that was directly opposite of her mother.
"Little Yong is the only one having fun!" Li Ling pouted as they continued their walk down the villa's corridors. Qing Shen nodded amicably to some maids that they passed, but most only smiled and returned to whatever task they were doing. No one stood out to help her from the ball of energy that was Li Ling.
"I think what Miss Qing was trying to ask was why you're convinced that I enjoy explosions so much." Both girls nearly leaped to the roof in shock at the sudden intrusion to the conversation behind them. Qing Shen was a little worried that her friend was in trouble, and Li Ling didn't help when she bounded over and engulfed Zhang Yong in a hug.
"Good morning, little Yong! Did you get back from your training just now?"
Zhang Yong looked as comfortable as Qing Shen felt, and quickly pried himself out of her grip with a few talismans that he liberally used. The happy girl didn't seem to mind as she was paused for a second, made to uncontrollable be itchy, and became covered in some type of oil slick before being cleaned seconds later. Qing Shen was busy marveling at how many different effects she saw Zhang Yong's talismans use.
"Yes, it's nice to see you too, Sister Ling." Zhang Yong ignored the pout from the black haired girl for probably not using some nickname she had tried to force onto him. "Now, if you're done messing with Miss Qing, I'd like to borrow her for a couple seconds."
Li Ling seemed to think over something for a second before her face morphed into one of express excitement. "Okay! But only if you let me take her out with me today; she's been inside for two whole weeks doing nothing but training. She has to be bored doing the same thing everyday!"
"Li Ling, it's a perfectly healthy thing to have a routine that one carries out everyday. Miss Qing doesn't need help in your job to scout the nearby woods; she'd be overkill for anything living there." Zhang Yong countered easily.
"Actually," Qing Shen interjected, a sudden itch in her bones telling her to go and do something different spurring her into action. "If you don't mind, I would like to accompany Li Ling. I have been feeling a little trapped lately."
"Oh, I hadn't noticed…" Zhang Yong admitted while fumbling with his pocket for a second. He pulled a bottle filled with thick black ink a second later holding it out to her, "You can go wherever you wish, but be sure to be safe. Li Ling, take her to the armory before you leave. I know that there'd be little that could hurt a late step Meridians Opening cultivator nearby, but if there is a chance that a Half-Corrupted Beast or, an immortal forbib fully Corrupted Beast then I want you two to be prepared."
"Yes sir!" Li Ling saluted while practically vibrating with excitement.
Qing Shen smiled at her friend's antics, taking the bottle of ink in her hands the second later. She felt the Spiritual Essence roil inside her Meridians, and pulled on the energy, letting it coil between her muscles, bones, and skin till it rose out unseen and began to wrap around the bottle. Her concentration held firm for a few seconds till she felt the distinct sensation of her Spiritual Essence finally sticking to ink in the bottle and abruptly stopped. Any more would just be uselessly dangerous.
Zhang Yong watched happily as the process took place. Then he took the now Essence infused bottle, said a small thanks and left. Qing Shen was abruptly ripped away by Li Ling grabbing her by the arm and dragging her towards the armory.
It didn't take that long to arrive at their destination. With Qing Shen's strong body and Li Ling's near perfect memory of the villa, they only took a few minutes to arrive at the rather small shack in the middle of a random courtyard at the southern edge of the villa. Qing Shen had no idea why the defenses of the place where most of the weapons of the place was in a easy to get to area, but she had put aside her sense of rationality a couple days ago when Zhang Yong kept trying to make a talisman that would somehow cause him to harness the power of lightning for energy.
The shack itself was only a several tens of chi long with simple white stone walls bordered by thick wooden pillars. There was a single door to enter the shack with an odd handle that had a small vertical, rectangular hole on the handle cast in metal. Li Ling smiled as Qing Shen's confusion and brought out a small metal key that was then shoved firmly into the small hole.
"Little Yong is really smart." Li Ling began, failing to hide a hint of a smile; she still hadn't turned the key, still inserted in what Qing Shen assumed was a lock. She had never seen one so small that wasn't taken off the doors it held closed, but she was only left in wonder as Li Ling finally turned the key with an audible click.
Qing Shen watched as the shack lit up with a thousand different lines and shapes that squirmed like angry snakes on the shacks walls and ceiling. In the little time that she had been there, she had seen how Zhang Yong could create and correct the tiniest of squiggles on talismans, giving comments that made absolutely no sense to her. She had witnessed how he used premade metal strips to speed up the process of making hundreds of the same talisman without effort, even if they were weaker than the ones made by hand. Now she saw something that outdid everything else.
"He turned the shack into a talisman…" Qing Shen breathed incredulously. The various symbols shifted and swam along the sides of the shack as it creaked a groaned like it was waking from slumber.
The planks that made up the shack shifted, sliding and opening up aound the entrance like the maw of a gigantic beast. Before Qing Shen even had a moment to understand what was going on, the door fell backwards, shifting into the opened shack like a tongue. Then, the opening slowly grew around them as if it were a snake engulfing them into its hungry belly.
Qing Shen knew not how much time and effort went into such a creation, but she could appreciate the magnificence of such a spectacle. The barren walls shifted to show hundred upon thousands of weapons and armors that wouldn't look out of place on a army. Crates full of Zhang Yong's mass produced talismans littered the floors, and were stacked up to the ceiling that looked as if it were a couple Li away.
The only problem with the current developments in front of her was why Zhang Yong need so much weaponry.
"Well? What are you waiting for? Go and pick something!" Qing Shen was shocked into action as she looked at the cheerful girl picking up bags full of talismans like candy. She nearly had to suppress her shock as she noticed that all the talismans that Li Ling was choosing from were ones labeled with 'highly explosive'. In fact, why were there so many crates labeled in the same way?!
Shaking her head, Qing Shen decided she would endure this grandiose moment. She wandered down the isles, looking over each weapon on the walls till one caught her interest. In the end, she found a long, wooden pole that had a few lengths of string wrapped around several spots on the pole to serve as handles. On one end of the pole was a studded bit of metal while the other end was held by a heavy blade that curved beautifully like a silver crescent moon. Without knowing it, Qing Shen had already grasped the weapon in her hands, feeling that it held quite a bit of weight to it.
She gasped as the weapon probably had to weigh hundreds of catties for it to even register to her new strength. While she had a few lessons in swords, Qing Shen never felt attached to the weapon like her friend, but this one just screamed at her to use it. Now she finally understood what it must have felt like to him.
"Wow, you like them exotic, huh?" Li Ling chimed in from behind her. "I think little Yong used two names to describe that weapon, but I'm pretty sure he said it was a 'guandao'."
"A guandao?" Qing Shen tasted the name on her tongue, "Does he also know how to use it?"
Li Ling laughed as if she had heard an amusing joke then began to brag like it was her achievement, "Of course he does! Little Yong is a genius; he knows how to use every weapon in here!"
"I see…" Qing Shen did not see at all. She had no idea how someone would have the time to commit to learning every single weapon in this monster of an armory.
"Mmmhmm! Now take these!" Li Ling pushed a few talismans into her hands, pointing at one with a sphere drawn on one end and explaining, "Those are shield talismans; they're really useful, so I gave you ten. They'll break after they get hit a lot, but you can move while you have the shield on." Then she pointed to one that had an image of flames encircled by a red oval. "These ones are my favorite, they just sent a fireball in the direction you point it in. Doesn't really do anything other than shoot a ball of fire that does what fire does best: burn. Don't expect any explosions, though." She pointed to one that looked like a series of lines extending from the centerpoint, made with red ink. "These ones do cause an explosion. Just slap it on to whatever, activate it and three seconds later… boom! They're quite fun!"
"Right…" Qing Shen seriously wanted to sit down with Zhang Yong and ask why he thought it was a good idea to give this girl something that could cause explosions and light things on fire. "So how do we go about scouting the area?"
"Wait, I wanted to give you the lightning and cutting talismans!" Li Ling cried.
"Yes, as wonderful as that sounds, let's get moving."
"Boo, you're being boring!" Li Ling pouted once more, and Qing Shen was tempted to give in to her as the black haired girl was in possession of things that were very explosive. Luckily, her friend recovered and just left it as is. "Meshy, we're leaving now! Set to defensive and hidden mode please!"
With Li Ling's random shout the walls glowed once more, and contracted down and around them. Qing Shen watched as the walls split apart to avoid them while she stood stock still, waiting for this to end. She had no idea when she was going to get used to things like this, but she sincerely hoped that it happened soon.
As they were finally making their way out of the villa, Qing Shen asked the question that had been on her mind since they had left, "Hey Sister Ling, who was Meshy? Do they protect the armory?"
"Huh? Oh, Meshy is the nickname I use for the armory! Little Yong calls it something else, but I can never remember so I use something else!" She winked as if it was as easy as that.
"Its sentient?" Qing Shen gasped.
"What? I don't think so, little Yong always used a weird word to describe it; 'arty fish-something-something or something,' I think. I'm not really too sure, but if you really want to know you're not going to find out by asking little Yong." Qing Shen nodded along with Li Ling's logic. Asking Zhang Yong to explain something was like being tutored by a royal scholar while you're an infant deer; there was no understanding even when at your smartest.
"Well, here we are!" Li Ling gestured around them as they came up to the entrance of the villa. Though, to call it just an entrance would be unjust in Qing Shen's eyes.
There was a small courtyard decorated in a creek that split it diagonally, and had a ornate wooden bridge along the pathways. Trimmed trees and bushes stood bravely beside the smooth, stone pathway that led from the courtyard's door to the ones that led to the villa's main housing. Small birds flitted through the trees, chirping away as frogs croaked nearby in the creek. The smell of fresh morning dew still hung blissfully in the air while a few maids tended to various plantlife.
Qing Shen placidly waved at them, still making a note to get to know more of them, while Li Ling led her to the front doors. However, before they could leave, Qing Shen froze as a pair of green eyes barred her from moving any further.
Standing in front of the redwood double doors was a woman in a pristine filly outfit. Li Ling, however, reacted much differently and hurriedly ran over to the woman and gave her a rib-cracking hug that Qing Shen had to suppress a wince for. She could hear something creak dangerously close to breaking underneath all those frills.
"Hello, Ling. Are you off to fulfill your tasks?" The head maid spoke warmly despite her stern face.
Li Ling's death embrace seemed to get tighter as her smile increased. "Yep! Sister Shen and I are going to go and blow things up!"
Li Ling's mother quirked an eyebrow in Qing Shen's direction, and the blonde felt a need to defend herself from being considered the same as Li Ling, "I'm not going to blow anything up. Just to protect her if she gets into any trouble."
"Then I will thank you when you get back." She said coolly, turning her attention back to her daughter. "Be safe."
"I'm the safest person here!" Li Ling's assurance assured no one, but it was good enough as head maid Li nodded slowly.
Li Ling took wordless acknowledgement and released her mother while running over to the closed gate. She hurriedly waved Qing Shen over as she struggled to open the heavy doors on her own. With a sarcastic roll of her eyes, the blonde hurried over to her friend.
It wasn't long after she did help that the doors swung open freely. The only problem they had was when Qing Shen's newly pilfered guandao slid free from the makeshift rope that tied to her back, the girl almost lost her foot a sit fell to the ground. For a second, she wondered if she needed to carry it in her hadns for the entire time, but that was easily solved when Li Ling used what she called a sticky talisman to cause the weapon to stick vertically to Qing Shen's back with the blade pointed away from her body and to the ground.
The two then took to a sprint to the nearby forests as there was only a dirt pathway that led from the gate. Everything else was just verdant trees that surrounded the villa for hundreds of Li in every direction. Still, Qing Shen paused to glance back at the villa and find that Head Maid Li was patiently staring off in the direction they had ran off in.
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It wasn't long before Qing Shen found herself lost. Not that that caused her any specific problems, but if it wasn't for the knowledgeable Li Ling, she definitely wouldn't have found her way back to the villa. According to the same mischievous girl, they were apparently tracking some tiger that had gotten too close to the villa as its tracks were seen several times throughout their scouting trip.
The whole thing went over Qing Shen's head as she had seen none of those signs until a confused Li Ling pointed them out. And when the black haired girl had tried to explain how the tracking worked, but Qing Shen felt like she was listening to Zhang Yong again as Li Ling would often make up random words to explain things that she did know how to actually explain.
Still, that didn't mean that Qing Shen wasn't having fun. Even if she felt a little uncomfortable at the moment; she still thought that she was having fun. In fact, now that she had tasted the freedom of running free, and felt the burn of her legs as they ran without end, she was thoroughly convinced that staying inside and constantly doing the same thing was definitely not her.
She was busy planning when next she would go out, or maybe asking to be trained in her guandao, when she felt Li Ling slap a talisman onto her. She saw as a bubble made of hundreds of blue grains coalesced around her before something collided with it, creating a disturbing crack. With her enhanced body, she processed her surroundings much faster than Li Ling who had reacted on instinct.
A pack of silver furred wolves trailed menacingly in the surrounding trees and bushes. They weaved throughout the foliage expertly like wraiths the moment before they descend on their prey. Glowing red eyes with flecks of orange burned through the shadows the trees cast, and their dangerously sharp fangs frothed with maddening snaps interspersed between angered growls.
Qing Shen briefly glanced down to whatever hit her shield and found the limp body of one of the wolves, its neck bent at an awkward angle. She then suppressed a shiver as she realized how close she was to death. If that shield had been any later then she would've been too lost in her thoughts to appropriately respond, and the wolf would have easily ripped her throat apart even if her body was much stronger than normal.
"It's fine," Li Ling was much more composed in the situation, her happy grin still on her face. "They're just a couple of wolves. Let me get a fireball talisman. That should scare them away, but I guess it's me protecting you now?"
Qing Shen nodded, letting the one with actual experience lead now. She realized that just because she was stronger than normal people, she was just as vulnerable in the case of a sneak attack. While putting the task to see if she could remedy that at the back of her head, Qing Shen felt that she should put her full attention on the current situation.
It might have been her imagination, but something just felt off about how riled up the wolves were. Only because Li Ling hadn't commented on anything, she held off.
Then Qing Shen felt something click in the back of her head. She knew it was when her vision shifted to showing her grainy blue dots, and got ready to switch it off as it appeared. Then she paused, horrified as something about what was happening made sense. She still saw the grains of blue in her vision, but there wasn't as many as she saw at the villa. Instead there were little grains of dull orange around each wolf's head, drawing in the blue grains of the surrounding air.
Many things happened at once. Qing Shen moved her hands to the pack that held the shield talismans, and yanked as many as she could out before leaping towards the confident Li Ling. Li Ling's smile never faded in the slowest perception that Qing Shen had, and in a fluid motion, she had grasped a fireball talisman that was pointed into the sky, not to harm the wolves and only to scare. The wolves moved at the same time, swarming the two girls with their greater numbers, gnashing, clawing and biting with maniacal glee.
Four wolves slammed into Li Ling's shield as she finally realized that something was wrong. They fell over, dying in the same way the first one had, but the fifth wolf shattered the barrier in a crazed display of bites and slashes. Qing Shen was luckily nearby, and in the heat of the moment, had thrown guandao its blade boring into the unsuspecting wolf a second after it broke Li Ling's shield.
The seconds she bought for Li Ling was enough for the girl to reach into bags around her waist, pull out another shield talisman as well as several explosion talismans. The girl worked fast in the serious situation, easily slipping underneath the blood crazed lunges of a couple wolves while she slapped an explosion talisman on one of the ones that flew overhead. When it landed, it merged back into the pack to attack again only to drag two others with it when it burst apart in a blast of misplaced air, heat and weaponized bone that speared into the weak tissue of its surrounding pack.
Qing Shen was having a much worse time as her little to no battle experience caused her to overreact to everything. Her first mistake was when she panicked to save Li Ling, and threw her weapon. While this did save her friend, she was now weaponless, and surrounded by several more wolves.
She fumbled around as two wolves slammed into her shield, grabbing hold of two random talismans that she had to spare a couple seconds to figure out what they were. Her distraction served as the ample opening for the wolves to come crashing through her shield in renewed fervor. Qing Shen yelped in fear while her leg whipped up by pure muscle memory.
There was a crack, and Qing Shen barely felt it as one of the wolves was sent careening into another, killing it instantly and knocking its companion away. She barely had enough time to process that yes, she did indeed cave in the chest cavity of the wolf with a kick and barely felt it, before more wolves were attacking her. In a fit of adrenaline and renewed confidence, Qing Shen lashed out with a series of disorganized punches and kicks.
As unorthodox and in a slight panic as she was, Qing Shen still continued with her strategy to hit things till they died. More often than not, she was fairly effective as the wolves basically threw themselves onto her deadly fists and sharp kicks. However, as she began to slow down from the sheer exhaustion of continuous, strenuous fighting, small knicks and scratches began to fill up her arms and legs.
Despite having the obvious advantage, Qing Shen still didn't know the eaxct strength she needed to effectively use her strength. More often than not, this led to the girl overextending, and caused her to expend even more energy to stay safe.
Then, a wolf got its jaws on her leg. Qing Shen was quick enough to kill it a second before her leg was thoroughly broken between its jaws, but the jagged teeth still carved deep furrows into her thigh that bled tauntingly. She stifled a scream of pain as fire ran up her nerves, and realized that she had shield talismans that could be used.
Hurriedly, she slapped one onto herself and began wrapping a healing ointment coated cloth around her thigh, mentally thanking Li Ling who had the foreknowledge to bring it. Even in the chaotic brawl, the cool ointment felt heavenly on her leg that felt like fire was coursing through her veins. Still, the wolves were relentless and she was forced to burn two more shield talismans before she was confident in moving again.
This time she grabbed a fireball talisman, and, without caring for the surrounding vegetation, shot it at the area with the largest aurora of orange. The bright red ball flew forth, blooming like a brilliant lotus as it latched onto everything in its path. She watched, astonished as verdant green forest was now turning into a raging inferno.
Smoke and confidence choked her lungs, causing the girl to hurry away from the growing fire. Heat lashed out on her skin even as she was forced to step close to the raging flame a few times too many, and her crusade against the mad wolves only spurred them to attack her even more.
In the madness, the wolves stupidly threw themselves at her even if they missed and fell into the flames, dying in a few garbled howls. Qing Shen then only had to deal with wolves coming from one direction as the flames dealt with the rest. However, in a roundabout way, Qing Shen did escape their encirclement. It was a sobering, small victory, but one that the girl could heave a sigh of relief in. She confidently limped through the rest of the wolves over to where her weapon was; sending deathblows via kick and punch as she moved.
Finally, she found where her weapon was after killing through the seemingly unending tide of ferocious beasts. She also found Li Ling, still dealing with her fair share of wolves, but doing a phenomenally better job at it. Her clothes were ripped in several places and scratches littered her; however, the girl just seemed exhausted even as she kicked a wolf with an explosive talisman towards a group of them, killing three along with it.
Qing Shen hobbled over to her weapon, hoping that it would allow her to keep most of them at a distance while she killed them, and yelled over to Li Ling, "I'm here to help!"
"Shield talismans?" Li Ling yelled over the howls of wolves without turning her attention away. Qing She had to reorient herself at how calm and calculated her friend was in times like these.
"Six." Qing Shen replied succinctly, swinging her retrieved weapon in large sweeping arcs. While she had been trained in the sword, she still had some knowledge on the basics of weapons. She knew that the guandao was much heavier, and, with her impressive strength, simply swinging it around would create the most damage despite her inexperience with it.
Normally, bringing a weapon one is unused to in a life or death fight would be just asking for death, but with Qing Shen's slowly growing natural instincts and the guandao's quality, the wolves in the paths of her swings were like crops being harvested. None could step close as she swung her blade around erratically with only a little sense to continue her momentum.
Teamed up with Li Ling's excellent battle sense and explosive talisman might, her and Qing Shen finished off the rest of the wolves before they even knew it. Both of them heaved heavily as they collapsed to the ground in sweaty exhaustion. Li Ling was barely lucid as she wasn't a cultivator, and had used up too much of her Spiritual Essence to operate so many talismans. This only made the situation worse as the fire nearby was sending smoke into the air and sapping their breath even further.
Qing Shen, while also exhausted, was debating on how to get out of the forest with her friend barely able to move when it happened. The fire began to die down. She had no idea if her ability to see the weird blue grains, and now disturbing orange grains, affected her in any way, but all she felt was the areas around her eyes were sore. On a side note, she had discovered that she could just barely see the orange grains through foliage and solid objects.
This meant that as the fire died down she was able to see the cause.
A large, lumbering figure held up by four massive paws. The ground shook slighly with every casual step the beast took, and claws at least a chi long tore long furrows into the dirt with every step. Its glimmering fur was an angry yellow mixed with stripes of disgusting orange and red which it made only more menacing as a line of red, hot fire traveled down its spine to the base of its tail. The forest fire surrounding it jumped up and into the beast's mouth, past long yellowed teeth from the surrounding trees and bushes as if overjoyed to be consumed by the beast.
Qing Shen felt her heart drop as it marched calmly through the flames and stared at her with baleful orange eyes. A much thicker aurora of orange grains surrounded the beast as if to dare her to compare it to the pitiful wolves. Except these grains oddly looked more structured, like they were translucent, orange veins. Though, that only made it seem much more imposing.
Then Qing Shen realized why her gut was uncomfortable the entire time they were there; the tiger that Li Ling had been stalking the whole time was, in fact, stalking them.