Looking for the first forest I set on fire is easy, it is near the gate of the city, and is still burning. Walking through its burning woods, looking in every crevice for the egg, I noticed a little disturbance in the fire. The fire all around the mountain is flowing in one direction, as if being sucked.

Following the fire, I found an egg. The size is the same as the one I am looking for, but the color is different. The previous one was white with black dots, and this one is red with black dots.

“Either you've changed, and this one is a completely different egg, or you are dead, either way, i am taking this with me.” I say, as I take the egg and move out of the burning forest.

As I walk out of the fire, I feel the egg vibrate more and more, going back to the fire, it stops.

“What is this, are you cold or something?”

Deciding to not let it suffer, I take out my previous chest scale that still has the fire armor array, take out my forge and create a quick incubator with my scale in it, providing fire to the egg.

The incubator is just a metal cage with some straps, so that I can strap it on my lower back.

Looking back at the burning mountain, I decide to not let this fire live.

This is a somewhat small mountain, so I take out an ax I've done some months ago, augmented with a sharpness array, and cut every tree near the edges of the fire, letting them fall into the fire, and creating a twenty meters gap between the burning mountain and the nearby forest.

After some days of work, I am finally free of my bad karma. As I finish separating the forest, the universe sends a storm my way, raining heavily for the whole day.

Deciding to stay away from the next city, I walk in a straight line towards the Black Forest.

The path is long, but not that dangerous. Thanks to the fact that I have no hurry to get there, I take my time. Cultivating five hours each day, training my body and sword for another five hours. Cultivation is a good way to let the body rest, almost the same as sleeping, so with additional two or three hours of sleep, I am good to walk all night, using the repetition of walking to practice the manual of light ki manipulation.

Two months go by, and i finally arrive at the edges of the Black Forest.

The name comes from the fact that the trees here are so huge and with dense foliage, easily passing seven hundred meters tall, that almost no light can get to the ground.

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As I enter the forest, I can immediately feel a difference in the ambient ki, it is much richer and danse here. It's still far from good for cultivation, but it's better than the rest of the continent.

The encounters with animals that cultivate become more and more frequent.

Given that I've grown into the habit of always keeping two orbs of light orbiting around my body, to help seeing in this pitch dark, dozens of beasts are attracted to me every day.

Some of the more cautious ones keep their distance, but others are dumb enough to try attacking me.

I like it though, they are my main source of food, and their dantians help me cultivate, little, but still something.

Today, as I am searching for a place to make camp for the night, I found a footprint of a five fingered creature, with five long nails that left a deep cut in the ground.

Dimming down the light on my orbs, I inspect the marks some more, and walk in the direction they are going.

After twelve hours of tracking, I finally found the owner of the footprint.

A thirty meters long drake, with vibrant green scales, a big draconic head, and massive tail.

Immediately turning off my lights, my black scales help me blend in the dark.

But apparently it knew of my presence way before I saw it, for at the same moment I realized what it is, I see an orb of green come out of his mouth aimed at me.

The attack is so fast that i can't even dodge, and it hits my chest.

Instead of feeling pain, I see roots grow from the ground rapidly, and bind me in place.

As I turn the Flame Armor on, burning all the roots, I sprint to the drake, pulling my sword out and turning all the fires to the max.

Thanks to all my advances in cultivation, I can now easily withstand seven thousand degree flames, and can turn it up to twelve thousand for some seconds.

I bring my sword down at the drake's head, but he jumps back, and shoots a ball of green energy at the ground, making a wooden spear grow extremely fast, aiming at my chest.

Sending a powerful tongue of fire at the spear weakens it, making the hit only feel like a punch, instead of piercing my chest.

I jump forward, sending fire straight at the drake's face, blinding it momentarily.

Bringing my sword up with a powerful momentum, I manage to hit its neck.

Its scales protect it from the cut, but the power manages to take its frontal legs off the ground.

I bring my other hand down on its face, and over its left nostril, turning the array on the bracelet to the max and sending the flame inside its nostril.

Roar!

It yell in pain, shaking its head to shake me off. But I take one step forward, hug its neck and leg, and throw it to the other side, making it roll on its back.

Holding my sword pointing down with both arms, I jump into the air, and fall with the sword on the base of its neck.

The scales on its neck hold for a brief second, but the fiery sword manages to make its way through.

The smell of burning meat and boiling blood impregnate the clearing.

Placing the whole weight of my body on the sword, I swing it to the side, and cut all the way to the ground, almost separating the head from the body.

Quickly going for where the dantian should be, I use all my strength to cut his belly open, and take the head sized dantian out of his body.

Feeling inside, I can feel that it has two drops of liquefied ki, which is more than what I have, so I am pretty happy.

I don't know a better way to cultivate ki, so all i do is bring it inside my dantian, and fill it to the point of liquefying it, same way as i did the first time. I hope I can find a better way of cultivating soon.

Sitting down to absorb the ki, I get up one day later with four drops of ki to my name and a big smile on my face.

“Thank you big guy, you just saved me years of cultivation.” I say, while walking to the drake's body, and start to peel its skin off.

I should be able to make some armor with this hide. And I want to keep some meat for the journey.

Skinning this beast is a tiring process, the anchor for all the scales makes the hide thick and full of bumps.

And this body is so big that when I finally get to the head and tail, I just give up and cut them off, storing the whole thing in the ring.

Cutting all the meaty parts to eat later, and storing the four femurs, I leav

e a mangled carcass behind, as I keep walking for some hours, to put some distance from the blood.