In the morning Dave once again joined Xun in the little garden.

Xun immediately said: “I think you are ready to go out on your own now. You should learn a few self-defense techniques and spar with a few other disciples. Completing a few team-based missions would be a good idea to establish your name in the sect.”

“Wouldn't it be a problem for me if other people travel with me and they realize that I'm weird?”

“There are a lot more weird cultivators than there are normal ones.”

“That's not what I meant... youknow, just forget it.”

“Dean Wen came by to hand off your housing token. It is for a small house near the crafting and market district. You can have someone build a better one for yourself later.”

“Thank you, and truly thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping me and Lydia.”

“It was my pleasure. There will be a harvest celebration in Shadowfall next week. You could come by and mingle a little with the mortals.”

“That sounds nice. I'll be there if nothing comes up. With my flying artifact it's not that far away. By the way, why didn't you fly me back to the sect when we first traveled here?”

“I could not take Lydia and had something gone wrong with either of your cultivation I wanted it to happen on the road. I am not particularly interested in turning the sect into a winter wonderland.” Xun said with a raised eyebrow.

Dave laughed awkwardly and said: “I'll head for the library then, better to get my hands on a defensive technique.”

“You should get some offensive ones too. Something focused on ice, since that is what you have an affinity for. I am not even sure if you could use fire-based techniques at all. Might be worth testing.”

“I'll pick a fire and one ice attack technique then. Just to test it.”

Dave said his goodbyes, took Lydia and headed for his new home. It was a small corner-house adjacent to the artisan district. The outside was covered in hardened mud and wooden beams. It looked like a low half-timbered house. It had few windows covered by shutters. Very different from the Ma-clan mansion that had been made in an Asian or Chinese style and entirely from wood. The inside of Dave's house was cozy, if a bit dark. He opened one of the windows and let the light of the morning sun illuminate the inside. He had a hammock, a small kitchen with a stove and a room with a hearth. In the far end of the tiny garden there was a little outhouse. Dave considered for a moment to stop eating entirely, so he would never have to use it. He could probably reach core formation before starving to death, so he left it in the back of his mind as a serious consideration.

After inspecting his house Dave headed for the library to pick out a technique to practice. The library itself was a large wooden building on the main street. It looked to be made in a Chinese style, like all the more important buildings. Dave considered that it was likely that all the others were made in a different style out of necessity and not due to there being two different building styles in this new land he found himself in.

Dave walked in the front entrance of the library and up to the receptionist.

“Hi. It's my first time here and I would like to borrow a technique.”

“Greetings. You can borrow up to two techniques at once and you need to put up one spirit stone as collateral per technique borrowed.”

He thanked her and continued deeper into the library. Finding a room labeled foundation establishment techniques he headed inside and found himself in a mess of thin books and scrolls. There seemed to be no proper organization and they were strewn haphazardly across every free surface. It was a travesty.

Dave started looking for something with ice in the name. It took a while, eventually he found a technique called “Frozen Lotus”. It was a technique that had a short wind-up before it created an explosion of ice radiating outwards from the caster, throwing shards of ice at supersonic speeds. Dave failed to see how it was a lotus, but since it fit his criteria, he picked it and went on to search for a fire-based technique. There were a lot to choose from, but he ended up choosing one called “Rising Phoenix”. It had no wind-up and catapulted the caster high into the air while radiating intense heat, blinding enemies and forcing them to turn away.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

They both seemed simple enough at first glance, so he chose them as his first techniques, since he was unsure about his ability to learn them.

Dave handed the librarian at the entrance two spirit stones and headed for the training area.

At the training area he read the “Frozen Lotus” technique. When he tried performing it the radius of frost and shards of ice were much larger than described in the technique. He also had very little windup, since his qi naturally took to the technique, where it instead was supposed to be gradually transformed into ice qi.

The “Rising Phoenix” technique was a problem. He failed whenever he tried to transform his qi into fire qi. It simply could not be vibrated as the technique described. The best he could do was to catapult himself upwards on a pillar of ice while freezing a large swath of the ground around the pillar. It was still useful, but it was also no longer the actual technique, as described in the book.

Dave spent the rest of the afternoon figuring out novel uses for “Frozen Lotus”, trying different ways to apply it. Such as firing a single shard of ice in a given direction from his body, firing a stream of shards in a direction or removing all the shards and simply freezing an attackers feet to the ground. He was unsure if that last one would work, but it had certainly frozen the ground solid.

He went home to sleep. The next morning he took Lydia and flew out of the sect, using his carpet. It could hold Lydia as well, which was a benefit he had forgotten all about when he bought it. She seemed happy enough while flying. Hanging her tongue out into the airstream.

Dave landed near a creek again. Maybe even the same one from his last excursion. He sat down to cultivate. There was dew everywhere, but he was still worried about a fire, so he used his hands to dig up all the grass in a circle around himself.

Then he sat down to cultivate.

He cultivated for a long time, feeling the bloated feeling signifying a rise in rank again and again.

After two days of uninterrupted cultivation he was at the peak of the foundation establishment realm and before he could prevent it the sea in his dantian folded in on itself and turned into a pepple. His core had formed.

Dark clouds gathered overhead.

Dave mentally prepared himself for being struck by lightning.

Instead of striking him, the lightning struck the land surrounding him.

He just kept his head down and closed his eyes for the inevitable pain.

It never came. The clouds above dispersed and left.

Dave was baffled, chalked it up to his unique physique and made to fly away, but he looked back one last time.

The grass was burned in some spots surrounding where he had cultivated. The burns spelled out: “How did you kill the heavens?”

He stayed hovering there for a while, but he failed to figure out what it meant in connection to him. The heavens were very obviously still alive, since they had sent him a message.

He flew back to the sect, exchanged one spirit stone for gold and silver. Then he went to the bathhouse to bathe in the hot spring, to get rid of all the accumulated dirt and grime. Lydia waited for him outside.

They went for something to eat at a small stall that sold some sort of meat on a stick. It tasted like beef.

He went to the mission board at the market square. There was a group mission for four people in the foundation establishment realm posted and only two people had signed up yet. The mission was posted for the next day and it involved hunting something called Hular, with a bad sketch that looked like a wooly sloth.

Dave signed up and returned to his house to sleep.

He rose early the next morning, washed himself at a rainbarrel and went to the main square for his mission.

His standing and waiting was interrupted by a young woman with black hair and glistening skin: “Are you one of the people that signed up for the Hular mission?”

“Yes, my name is Dave, what's yours?”

“Cheng Jingfei, just Cheng is fine.”

They stood quietly for a while.

“So, what is your specialty? Fire?” Dave asked in his boredom.

“I have several techniques that utilize the sun. To strike at enemies.”

“Sounds cool.”

“On the contrary, it is quite hot.”

Luckily the last two members of their little expedition arrived and interrupted them. A tall fella and a round, stocky man.

“Greetings, my name is Liu and this is Wu. Are you the other two for the Hular mission.” The taller of the two asked.

“Yes, that would be us.” Dave answered.

Together they headed to north. Dave had left Lydia at home to sleep.