Ithilix was the first of Jie's friends to rise above the water's surface and take in a gasping breath before a secondary wave swallowed her. She rose out again and Pan Tian broke through second. Jie didn't see Xue, but the massive plant monster was stirring and there was no time.
Jie swung herself from her branch with incredible force, stepped on the air using her lightning step, and launched herself like a cannonball at the enormous turquoise bulb itself.
Taking out your vines doesn't seem to stop you, so let's see if you survive this. Jie thought as she gathered power for a dragonfist around her right hand.
She hurtled toward the monster as it stirred and its tentacles retracted close to its body... then it shot downward, vanishing into the water with a tremendous splash. Jie felt it race away as the water above it bulged. She growled as she landed in the mucky swamp water where it'd just been and chased after it.
The massive, fleshy bulb burst out of the water a hundred or so meters away and its snake vines rose up into the air once again. Jie glanced back at her friends and saw all of them alive and fighting the horde of plant monsters. For a moment she hesitated, unsure whether she should return to their side and try to defend them against attacks from the incredibly long vines that could come from any direction or if she should continue pursuing the monster to finish it once and for all.
But she remembered how close it'd been last time she'd focused on defense. Jie didn't know if she could repeat the miracle she'd just performed a second time when it was still so new to her... there was really only one option.
Jie felt a snake vine slithering under the water, racing toward her, and leaped toward it. It exploded out of the water and snapped its jaws shut on empty air as Jie landed on its thorny vine for a body and ran along it at full speed, using lightning step to act as a platform when there was no safe area to place her foot upon it.
The snake vines roared, countless numbers of them racing toward her. Two of them stopped just short of her and exhaled a cloud of purple acid that boiled the water and dissolved the smaller plant monsters in an instant. But, using her incredible speed, Jie leaped over the cloud, kicked off another vine, and plummeted toward the base of the glowing bulb where the snake vines seemed to be coming from as two dragonfists formed around her hands.
An instant before she hit it, a shimmering field of turquoise energy surrounded the plant monster.
Jie's dragonfists slammed into the turquoise qi and held pressed up against it for a heart-stopping moment as the two conflicting energies screamed against one another.
Dragon lightning qi snarled, crackled, and roared against the thick layer of turquoise qi and exploded. A huge spray of murky water erupted around Jie as the force of the explosion sent her flying backward. The bulb shifted back slightly with the sound of snapping roots but already its snake-like tentacles readied themselves to strike.
Jie formed a lightning step platform under her feet, sideways in mid-air, tensed her legs, and launched herself back at the base of the monster as she cycled a dragonfist on each hand.
Jie's dragonfists slammed into it again and its qi armor shattered like glass as she blew a deep hole into its body. The snake vines spasmed and screeched in unison and Jie hammered the same spot with her dragonfists again and again. She blasted her way through the creature and continued to dig through it with her deadly attacks as it roared, shrieked, and flailed. Sap and green plant matter sprayed her from head to toe, crackling against her qi armor as she hit it again and again and again.
"You will not hurt my friends! You will never hurt them!" Jie roared as she slammed her dragonfists into the plant monster's insides even after it had stopped moving except for the way it shook with every powerful blow.
Finally, the fact it was no longer moving sank in, and with a last, powerful attack to make absolutely sure it was dead, she stopped. Jie stood panting inside its body as swamp water funneled in through the opening she'd made. Flowers and moss covered her body and continued to grow and bloom from its sap. She tore a chunk of it out of her hair and flicked it into the murky water before wading back out of the creature.
Jie climbed up out of the water and onto one of the now lifeless tentacles of the plant monster as fetid water dripped from her body. She looked out across the grove at her friends. They were all still busy fighting the smaller plant monsters but her friends clearly had the upper hand now.
So, Jie sat down and cultivated, doing her best to ignore the mud and other muck clinging to her skin and hair as she focused on replenishing her qi.
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She'd only regained a small portion of her qi when she felt her friends drawing closer and opened her eyes to find all of the glowing lilies and lotuses gone. She'd felt her friends collecting them all but it was still a surprise to see the grove so much darker. Though the bulb at her back still lit everything beautifully, the stagnant water glimmering with its reflection.
"That was incredible, Jie," Pan Tian said.
"Yes, without you we surely would've died," Ithilix said.
Xue clambered up onto the plant monster and scraped plants and moss off his muzzle between sneezes and hacking up balls of plant matter like hairballs.
"I'm just glad we came through alright... we're lucky I made my finger of light technique work that way... I've never done that before," Jie said as she scraped off another handful of vegetation from her skin and flicked it into the water with a splash.
"That's not luck. That's the entire point of engaging in life or death battles. So you can break through your limitations and emerge enlightened. Well... that and the loot," Pan Tian said, "I think this thing was a grove lord. A pretty incredible find. No way we're getting all that into our storage rings without spending too long chopping it up... but my auntie told me that after you kill one, you can climb into its bulb and refine its energies."
"So, shall we cut open a bit and go in? Do we have time?" Jie asked.
"Well... you did kill it... and save our lives in the process, so... it's yours, and I doubt it'll take you long. I've seen you cultivate. It would be insane to let this go to waste," Pan Tian said.
"I wouldn't have known there was a grove without your help," Jie said, "and your potions are probably the only reason we haven't been eaten by something. Like those students. And, if it weren't for Ithilix we would've missed the way to the first plaque--"
"Damn Chen family," Pan Tian grumbled.
"And without Xue, I would've lost both of you in the first trial and I don't know how I would've killed those ghosts," Jie said, "we're a team."
Her friends smiled and Xue puffed his chest out with pride before coughing up another ball of plant muck and licking it off his fangs.
"Thanks, Jie," Pan Tian said, "I guess it's just that the strongest cultivator in a group often takes everything and leaves everyone else the scraps. That's not even talking about the selfish ones. And, you really did earn this kill. But, if you want to share, I won't say no."
"Neither will this one," Ithilix said, "you can use this one's spear to cut us a way inside, Princess."
Jie took Ithilix's spear and it thrummed with power as she pressed the blade against the large, fleshy bulb and cut a long gash. A single line, so the energy wouldn't leak out too much. Then, she handed the spear back to Ithilix and pushed her way inside, forcing the thick flesh of the bulb apart and squeezing into the dense energy inside.
The energy made her skin tingle with a dull burn, but she ignored it and helped Ithilix in, grabbing her hand and pulling her inside. Ithilix gave a muffled scream.
"The energy is so dense it hurts!" Ithilix said.
But, the hive girl sat down and started to cultivate as Jie pulled Pan Tian and then Xue in. Both of whom hissed as they entered the dense energy, but they too sat down and started to cultivate.
Then, Jie did the same. Every breath sucked in enormous amounts of qi. Not unlike the cultivation chamber. Jie greedily absorbed as much as she could as she refined it into dragon lightning qi. Her dantian rumbled with thunder as she spun it into extremely refined qi and then stopped it all at once so it exploded. The process was much faster as the plant monster's energy was already incredibly refined.
The bulb contained an enormous amount of energy as every star required exponentially more than the one before. But Jie's dragon lightning qi was so dense and highly refined that it didn't increase her cultivation by as much as it otherwise would have.
Even so, she soon broke through into the ninth star of the Expert rank and still had more to cultivate even with her friends absorbing it as well.
Jie felt new strength flood her dantian and body as impurities boiled out of her skin. She felt odd for a moment as though her body had shifted into... something else. But, the sensation lasted only a moment.
Probably just a side effect of such rapid advancement. Jie thought.
Jie felt a little guilty as she consumed vastly more of the dense energy than her friends, but she felt them break through one after another, which helped ease her guilt.
Jie continued cultivating, drawing in enormous quantities of qi and refining it into dragon lightning qi. She rapidly progressed through the ninth star as her friends broke through once again.
Jie felt herself reach the peak of the ninth star and grew excited as she raced toward the threshold to the Elementalist rank.
Only, just when it felt as though she should break through... it felt as though she slammed into something instead and a sharp jolt of pain impaled her body.
Jie gritted her teeth against the pain and frowned as she continued to cultivate, believing that perhaps it simply required more force to break through into the next rank.
But, while her qi continued to grow, so too did the spike of sharp pain within her dantian. It felt as though she were being stabbed repeatedly from within. Like an angry goblin was trying to cut its way out of her dantian.
Jie tensed against the pain and kept cultivating with her friends until they absorbed the last of the energy. Something which came with a sense of relief for Jie as the pain had grown beyond excruciating. Cold sweat clung to her skin and her breaths came in short gasps.
Jie opened her eyes. The bulb's glow was gone now, though she and the others all radiated a softly fading turquoise glow. Their cultivation had each soared by leaps and bounds with such a massive infusion of energy.
Pan Tian and Xue had both gone from the second star of the Expert rank to the fourth while Ithilix had progressed from the third to the fifth star of the Expert rank. Jie gave them a smile, trying to hide her pain as best she could. Thankfully it was fading now that she'd stopped cultivating.