A brilliant morning awaited Dave as he rose from his hammock. It was springtime and all the flowers were in full bloom. There were pots with flowers all over the artisan's district. As he took care of Lydia, petted her cute little head, he thought about what he had to do next. No feeding was required for Lydia, since she was above the core formation realm and no longer required sustenance. His mind constantly went back to the problem he had discovered yesterday with his domain. There was no way anyone had figured out a way to survive without oxygen, maybe if the sect had been near the ocean. This time his need was less esoteric so the librarian might know something, but he deemed it to be unlikely.

If he was right in his assumption that the liquid that was falling from the sky in his domain was liquid nitrogen and oxygen then he might be able to sustain himself by dunking his head in the mixture. Breathing liquids was possible based on what little he knew and liquid oxygen still had its chemical properties. His anti-freeze technique might make it possible to survive by “drowning” in a pool of the oxygen, it would not be pleasant though, so he was hoping for an alternative.

Going to the library, he was thinking about how to formulate his question to the receptionist or a librarian. His question had to be precise and without any mention of modern physics, so mentions of oxygen were out of the question. Even the language failed to accommodate oxygen, the closest approximation would be: “The part of air that keeps you alive.” Dave hoped that they would understand, before he had to pull out such annoying explanations.

At the library he asked the receptionist: “Do you have a technique that lets you survive without breathing?” She waved over one of the wandering librarians and asked him the same thing. The librarian nodded and brought Dave to a spot in the formation establishment section. There he showed him a technique called “Rock coffin”, an earth-based qi technique that entombed the caster in a shell of rock. “This technique removes the need for drawing breath inside the rock. We are unsure why that is, but this is what you asked for.” The librarian explained to him.

Dave left the library and headed back to his home with the technique in hand.

After saying hello to Lydia and talking a little with her, he settled in to study the technique. The part of the technique that dealt with the summoning of rock from underground was easily separated from the part that kept the caster alive, since the summoning was going on entirely externally, while the important bits all happened inside the caster's body. It seemed that qi was used to revitalize a person's cells before they could perish from a lack of oxygen. This would lead to a buildup of carbon dioxide in the blood stream, which was then also expunged using qi. The entire thing was fairly complicated for a technique and it was clear that a genius had developed it using several years of study and testing. All for a little rock cocoon.

Dave stole the parts of the technique that he needed and tested it alongside the antifreeze technique. They worked together, but just barely. The sweeping ice qi had a nasty tendency to rip his other constructs into pieces, with a little less control it would have been impossible.

Leaving the sect again to test it was already on his mind. However he had a responsibility to Lydia, so he spent the entire morning playing with her and talking to her. She was adorable. Tucking her into bed, he left her at home and hopped on his carpet and flew out of the sect again.

Finding the spot he had ruined was easy. The entire landscape had been decimated a few hundred meters in every direction, it was like a giant burn-scar on the landscape. Settling down in the middle, he prepared himself for the coming test. He cast his techniques and activated his domain at full power. The world went dark and cold. It was raining again. It felt incredibly uncomfortable, however it was now survivable. It rained and rained. The oxygen and nitrogen mixture never went above his knees, presumably because it flowed over the boundary of his domain and evaporated there. It was a surreal experience. Flecks of ice were forming everywhere and he had to move around to prevent himself from becoming stuck. Dave decided to cast his ice shard to see how his domain would handle it. Instead of forming a shard, the casting was interrupted and a thick beam of ice formed in the casting direction, even without having finished the qi construct. It was like trying to manipulate plasma with chopsticks. He could point it in a general direction in the hopes that it would not backfire, but anything more than that was impossible.

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Stopping his testing, he headed back to the sect. Arriving at the sect entrance, he gave the guards a wave and headed back inside.

It was time to retrieve one of the cribs he had commissioned and to have a tailor create a baby-carrier for him. Once he arrived at the doorstep of the woodworker's store, it was a simple matter of gathering the cribs into his spacial ring and paying the good man for his work.

Next, the tailor was a bit more complicated. Dave had not seen any backpacks in this world, so he would probably have to explain the entire concept from the ground up. Heading inside, he saw a large assortment of ceremonial dresses and robes being displayed near the entrance. The tailor itself was sitting behind the counter and was working on something. Dave approached him and said: “I need your help to create a system of straps to comfortably carry a baby. I'll show you how it's supposed to work. I would also like to commission a few bags that follow the same principle.”

“Oh, that will cost you quite a bit of money, at least a spirit stone. I usually do not take special orders.” The tailor said, as he slowly stood up from behind the counter.

“I think you'll be far more interested once I explain the specifications and principles behind the bags I want to commission. Can you get me a few thin leather straps for a demonstration?” Dave said. When the tailor came back with the leather Dave proceeded to explain how a backpack should look and how the same principles could be used to create a comfortable way to carry a baby.

“While this will not change much for disciples with a spacial ring, this will almost certainly revolutionize traveling gear for mortals.” The tailor said, after he had understood how a backpack should look and work.

Dave left him there to mull over this new idea and returned home to lydia. On the road home he noticed a group of androgynous-looking cultivators, who all bowed deeply as he passed them, surprising him. He was still mulling over that encounter as he stepped through his own doorstep.

Lydia was waiting for him on the ground in front of the door. She had managed to crawl and roll her way over from the hammock.

Dave pulled out the baby-crib and carefully put her down into it. The inside had been padded with fabric filled with feathers. Sometimes individual feathers would be sharp, poke through and get stuck in the skin of someone laying on the padding. Luckily Lydia was at such a high realm that they could no longer penetrate her skin, even as a baby.

A few days passed without anything happening and he fell into a routine of raiding the library for information on ice techniques. One day there was a knock at the door.

Dave hurried over from the table and opened the door, in the doorway a disheveled scribe stood and said: “The sect leader wants to speak to you in his office.”

This prompted Dave to rub Lydia's head in her crib and hurry outside. Getting onto his carpet and flying over to the sect master's little garden took only a minute. Hurriedly he knocked on the door to the sect master's office.

“Come inside, Dai Fu.” Came the sect leader's voice from the office.

When Dave entered the sect leader's office, the sect master did not hesitate and immediately bombarded him with words: “We lost contact with our scouts around Favored Tree, we think a large-scale effort to occupy the area is underway. I would like for you to head out and suppress the main force of their invasion, while I and several other elders scout it out, then head for their flank.”

Dave thought it over for a moment before nodding. Then he turned around, headed outside, deployed his carpet and set course for Favored Tree.