Dave awoke in his hammock. Lydia was sleeping in her crib, which was beginning to look a bit small.

He dressed, petted Lydia, then left for the sect leader’s office. It was still early in the morning when he walked across the plaza in front of the administrative building he could see over the wall, a bank of fog was visible in the distance.

Thanks to a certain squirrel the morning was hot and dry, instead of the wet and cold fog he could glimpse in the distance.

“I’m here to check on the sect master,” Dave said as he walked into the secretary’s office.

“He woke up tonight, yet he still looks haggard, please be a bit mindful.” She said before she let him inside the sect leader’s office.

His sect leader was sitting on the ground on the other side of his low table, leaning a bit further back than seemed safe, he swayed a bit all over the place. His face looked like he had not had any sleep for the past decade.

“How did you endure the soul damage from your tribulation, without temporarily being weakened like I am right now?” The sect master asked as Dave stepped inside his office.

“I did not sustain any damage to my soul. The lightning tribulation entered the space of my soul, but then it dissipated without doing anything.” Dave answered truthfully and shrugged.

“That is such complete horseshit, you become even more incomprehensible by the day.” The sect master said while letting himself fall backward onto a pillow.

“The damage to my soul is substantial, it will take days or even weeks to recover fully. Even should I channel qi into my soul to repair it.” The sect master said from his position on the floor.

“I, personally, never figured out how to grow or change my soul using qi, could you teach me now that you know?” Dave asked the sect leader with a glint of interest in his eyes.

“I can try, but it will not be today. I need you elsewhere. The sect of our dear guest elders has recalled them and changed their name to the Moonless Pond. I want you to investigate what happened. I fear the worst, hence I am sending you, our strongest member. You should still be able to escape should their entire sect ambush you.” The sect master explained in a tired voice.

“What is the worst possible outcome you foresee?” Dave asked to understand better what he might be walking into.

“The worst possible situation is that demonic cultivators have seized control of the sect leadership. It could be mildly inconvenient to catastrophic depending on what type of demonic cultivation they practice.” The sect leader explained while he could barely keep his eyes open.

“When do we leave?” Dave asked the sect master.

“Right now, or as soon as you are ready. Our two guest elders are already waiting in the garden behind my office. I was about to send someone to get you from your home.” The sect leader said.

Dave walked into the adjacent garden and greeted the two core formation cultivators, “Greetings, how are you?”

“My name is Yin Xianliang. My greeting to you senior.” The male cultivator said with a bow and his fist grasped in his hand in a cultivator greeting.

“Don’t be so stiff Yin, we have to travel with him”, she said to her compatriot, before turning to Dave and saying, ”Hello, my name is Jin Meilin and we will be traveling together.” She said while giving him a shallow bow.

Dave returned the bow and repeated the greeting Yin had given him.

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His mind was on Lydia, he had hired Mo to look after her, but he was still leaving her suddenly and without telling her where he was going. He decided to swing by his house before leaving.

“Let’s be off, but first I need to return to my domicil to say goodbye to my spirit beast,” Dave said, before throwing down his enormous sword and climbing on top.

They took off and flew over the sect. Both of the elders hovered above his house as he hurried inside. Mo was already there, watching Lydia. She turned around in surprise as he burst through the door.

“Hello, I must leave with our guest elders for a while. Please watch over Lydia for the duration of my travel and Lydia, behave yourself.” Dave said, before turning around and leaving once more.

He rose back up to the two guest elders and they took off.

While they flew, he experimented with his new sword. They were flying in a loose formation, and he would speed away to test the capabilities of his sword. Increasing his speed until the sword almost overloaded resulted in him breaking the sound barrier in level flight. One moment he was flying normally with the wind whipping past, the next a vapor cone formed at the tip of his sword and propagated along the contour of the invisible barrier that protected him from the air whipping past him.

This small experiment caused him to outspeed his two companions, so he had to circle around and return to them. Gritting his teeth he made that turn as tightly as possible without blacking out, and it surprised him. He could now withstand g-forces that would have previously popped his eyes out of their sockets.

This was only a guesstimation based on how tightly he turned, but the pivot looked almost comically tight without even reducing his speed.

What this implied about fighting at high speed he could not say yet, it was definitely something to consider since he had a lot of ranged attacks it might be a good idea to simply strafe dangerous targets instead of going down onto the ground and facing them head-on.

Normal core formation cultivators could learn a skill to walk on air, it was a lot slower than flying artifacts, but it could give an edge against lower-level cultivators in a brief fight. Simply stepping outside of someone’s attack range in an unexpected direction could give you an opening to exploit.

Dave had to experiment with his running speed, it could be faster than his flying speed on this particular nascent soul sword, then it would still be a better idea to approach on the ground.

Running at supersonic speed, what a thought.

He returned to Yin and Jin and they continued at a comfortable cruising speed.

They reached the edge of the plain, which led into a low mountain range, more of a rocky, hilly expanse. Flying at a low altitude he noticed groups of goat-like animals grazing on the low peaks.

There were few trees and the ones that grew were little more than tall windblown bushes. There was little of interest, yet there were some valleys with strong green vegetation in the middle of this poorly disguised desert. They crisscrossed in the center of the mountain range.

Dave noted these valleys as potential points of interest in the future.

In case he wanted to retreat to somewhere isolated with little chance of encountering other cultivators.

Next came a dry mesa with even less life. There was isolated megafauna, which made him break off from the others to inspect.

It was a gigantic tortoise, the neck was significantly thinner and longer than on a normal tortoise, but it was the size of a small car, so it probably needed the neck to reach sources of biomass, most likely some of the sparse and hardy trees that grew in the region.

A few hours later, Dave gave up on standing on his sword or even sitting down. Instead, he lay down and watched the clouds. He had little fear of crashing into a mountain or something similar, at the low speed they were flying at he would be completely fine. At least he knew that much intellectually, it did not change the fact that he still found himself glancing ahead at regular intervals.

He could probably easily survive skydiving without a parachute, something to consider later.

Neither Yin nor Jin commented on his undignified conduct. Either because strong cultivators were expected to be a little eccentric or because the sect leader had already talked with them about Dave’s oddities. It might even be because they, themselves had benefited from his stay in the crater and they now felt indebted to him.

The mesa gradually gained more and more greenery, until it almost turned into a jungle. With mountains that had flat tops sticking out of the greenery. It had become night by the time they reached there. They continued onwards, with Yin and Jin sitting on their swords and cultivating.

When it became too dark to easily see much of what was below Dave decided to do the same.

In the morning he was roused from his cultivation by Jin calling out to Dave, “Wake up honored grand elder. We have arrived.”