“Damned boots!” Struggling to rise on limbs that trembled from exhaustion, Terra tore at the mud covered lacings the offending footwear. Her feet were never shaped right for human boots. Now that her pursuers knew exactly what she was, hiding her true features no longer held the same priority. The distant crackled of some Technique and the faint whooping shout that her trail had been spotted drove a fresh wave of adrenaline through her.
She squeezed every last drop of Qi out of her Dantian, doing her best to ignore the hollow, burning sensation as she forced it more empty than it had ever been since it was formed. Between the adrenaline and the meager burst of Qi, the boots were wrenched free and left behind to house the random small critters of the forest.
It was the least she could do after that very same forest would have to witness one of its cousins, one who had the blood, however faint, of Beasts running through their veins, be captured, enslaved, and forced to serve as a Furnace for so-called ‘righteous’ cultivators.
Free of their leathery confines, her furry feet flexed. Toes gripped the uneven ground and she half sprang, half ran. Neither jackrabbit nor human, though mostly the latter. Even having been masquerading as a human for nearly two decades now, her legs remembered how they should work. The proper way for her to run. Not like a human ran. It was more a series of leaping strides.
The cries and hollers of victory turned to shouts of anger as she widened the distance. Still, her heart sank. She was at the peak of Qi Condensation. The thin, vaporous Qi that normally filled her Dantian had yet to ever be compressed into a drop of liquid energy. Her cultivation technique was too human and her Beast blood, however thin, would not cooperate with it.
So, every stride further from her hunters was just a delay. Even if she fled and hid today, tomorrow, for the next week, they would be able to find her. If not them, then someone else. She’d been outed fully. Before it was ‘that cripple’, or ‘the weird one’. A cultivator not much stronger than a mundane Mortal. Poor. Desperate. Often malnourished. Orphaned young, abandoned by all. At the least, none who’d realized her Beast blood had given her up before.
Until now. Who had it been? Thaddius, her usual contract handler? The innkeeper’s daughter from a year ago, who’d had a… healthy curiosity about her Beast features, after walking in while Terra bathed? That was the last time Terra had risked staying in any town, anywhere. Perhaps someone entirely unknown to her, having noticed her without her awareness.
It didn’t matter. She was discovered. Before, perhaps, suspected. Cultivators though, even cripples, even weak ones, even the poorest rogue ones, were dangerous enough that she’d avoided more than a rude question that was easily denied. Her face, she knew, was not one to draw men’s attention. Her skin was subtly patterned with the armadillo scales of her other parent. Especially with the rough life she’d lived, it looked like she’d been scarred or branded at some point. Besides, she always kept her features mostly hidden.
Never staying anywhere too long. The world was massive. Avoid the sects, the clans, the cultivator houses. Avoid the big cities and towns. Avoid major trade routes. Stay to the edges. Always picking up the scraps, the desperate and penniless being employed by the slightly more desperate with at least some coin to spare. Always, always trying to find a way to cultivate to the next major realm.
Trees passed by in a blur. Rather, she passed them by, moving at speeds she’d never done before except for the rare jaunt in the deep Wilderness when she was losing her mind suppressing her nature. Her eyes strained to map her journey, avoid obstacles.
Never stop moving.
But, as with all things with time, she wore down. Her movements slowed. Strong leaping strides became a shaking, hopping jog. That became a stumble, the stumble into repeated falls. The tenth or so time she fell, the ground collapsed as she struck it. A short fall to the soft leaf litter of the forest became a much longer one which terminated abruptly when her head hit stone.
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What in the- is that sunlight? HISSS! Wait, wait, not just sunlight, but a chunk of the ceiling freaking collapsed. My normally pristine and clean, fully sealed cultivation chamber was now filled with billowing clouds of… of… dirt. BLECH! Oh god there were roots, and moldy leaves and…
Oh shit, is that a person?
Alright. Ok. Stay cool. Just a, just a marble here. Certainly not a cultivation pill that had just finished stepping into the Nascent Soul realm, draining all of his Qi and leaving himself incredibly vulnerable. No sir-ee! Definitely not that!
Maybe the person would be dead. Yeah. Yeah yeah, that was a heck of a drop, and they’re not moving. Oh god though, would some squirrel come in and eat me instead?
At least I was pretty confident I could probably overcome the Will of a squirrel. Not the body I was hoping for, but I really just needed to survive long enough to consolidate my Nascent Soul and start working out how to, uh, make an actual body. Like, a human one. Immortal Chittering Squirrel was NOT going to be my badass cultivation name. No. Freaking. Way.
Frantically, as frantically as someone can be when they’ve been doing nothing but cultivate and dicking around with Qi for somewhere between twenty years and maybe… ten thousand… could be- hey, get off my case, I didn’t form my Spiritual Sense until a few months ago, alright? Before that it was all just, whatever touched my skin! Anyways, better see if I can consolidate my Soul with, uh, a total lack of panic! TOTAL LACK OF PANIC! WHO’S PANICKING? NOT ME!
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The most feared Beast in the Wilds groomed his unassuming and undeniably adorable face. Many a mighty Beast and Cultivator alike had fallen pretty to his innocent features, ears that flicked just so, tail fluffed to utter perfection. His grey was accented with a slight tint of reddish fur here and there, contrasting with the delightful cream color of his belly.
He was Death, incarnate. His very chitter sent chill through the hearts of all, even the microscopic life forms that futilely struggled to take root in his superior flesh. A struggle no less futile than that of a mere Mortal attempting to cleave a mountain with a single blow.
Master Chittering Squirrel was a Beast like no other, of the highest quality. If he did not so carefully restrict his aura, the pressure would destroy all life for miles. Even these noisy, utterly un-cute Cultivators at the mere Foundation Establishment realm, would be but faint impressions left behind. So great was his presence. Alas, thought they were clumsy, ugly, moved as if they had only just grown their limbs this morning, and whooped and hollered like the most obnoxious apes, he refrained from exerting even the tiniest hint of his presence.
For now that the seal was broken on the Immortal’s cave and the defensive Formation finally broken, his annoyance at being forced to wait two thousand years to crack this nut forgotten. The rich, dense smell of absolutely pure Mundane Qi… nay, Crystal Mundane Qi, flooded his sensitive nostrils. Oh, the wait, it was indeed worth it. For while Master Chittering Squirrel was indeed powerful above all others, he was also an old fogie pre-Ascension Immortal who’s Soul was consumed by a minor Beast squirrel at just the wrong moment after his powerful human body was destroyed in combat.
His opponent never found him and failed to finish him off, yet the then Immortal Suppressing Fist became fused with a minor Beast who’s body could never be truly refined to much above the lowest level cultivator. Releasing his all crushing aura would crush his own fluffy self as well! Oh! Lament! Lament for his loss!
But lament only for a moment, for he would now have not only the accumulated Qi that the mysterious Ascendant’s work had slowly gathered these past two millennia or more, but also the knowledge he could sense resided within.
An inheritance from an Ascendant! On the nights where he dreamed the most boldly, or after he gave into the craving for Blissberries, he dared to even hope it was an inheritance from a True Ascendant! One who’d ascended beyond even the Heavens! A god even to those who dwelled in the Heavens itself! Ah!
No, no no, he dared not even allow himself to consider the most miniscule chance of such a ridiculous dream. No. First, to enter the chamber before that, dare he say it, filthiest of all filthy Cultivators awakens from their well earned concussive state. Second, to absorb the inheritance. Third, to flee, suppress his aura to the fullest, and find seclusion to process the Qi and the knowledge. Then, perhaps, he would be able to refine this body of ultimate pettableness into something worth of once again being called Immortal. Immortal Thundering Chitter! Immortal Chittering Death? Immortal… eh, there were only so many things that sounded good with ‘chitter’.
His chittering laugh went unnoticed by all but one being as a grey and cream colored, with the slightest blush of red, blur streaked into the opening made by the collapse.