Year 11, Day 44

Fiery Mountain, Blazing Tree

“You're doing it wrong.” The exasperated flaming spirit looked at all the other humans that sat around his new fiery sister: “You pull the flames, you call them with your mind and heart… What you guys are doing is trying to dominate something you have no way of dominating. You are fighting a battle without even knowing what is your enemy and if it even is your enemy…” With a flick of his finger, a small flame appeared in his hand: “-see this?” He motioned to the flames with his other hand: “You wanna do this-” With a single thought, the flame in his finger shivered before it expanded, easily taking three times the size of the flaming tree they sat around. Incredibly, there was no extra Qi to the expansion of the flame, the same amount of Qi used to make the small flame was still the same when the flame grew to thrice the size of the 100 feet tall tree that was his sister Flare. “Fire spreads. It wants to spread, and you are containing it inside your narrow thoughts and heart, let it burn.”

With a dismissive gesture of his hand, the flames immediately died down, only the flickering embers that were left behind could be seen floating for a few seconds before they too disappeared. Fiero kept floating about 5 feet from the ground, looking down on his “students” that were the few members of the Flareburn family that wanted to learn from a Fire Spirit. The others who didn't want to learn from someone weaker than them (Cultivator Pride or whatever you wanna call it) simply worked on making their new home around the volcanic rocky mountain made out of lava and flames. Fiero could feel his brother Ahteus helping the humans, alongside Da Huren and the other Earth Cultivator known as Anku- he was a very easy guy go get along with, he was also pretty silent… Fiero doesn't know if the guy could, in fact, talk at all.

“Uhm, Branch Master Fiero, can you explain to us again?”

Fiero nodded- After all, explaining and teaching others was a good way to learn too.

Green Roots, Pink Petals

Root took a sip from his tea as the old man before him did the same.

“So, I've asleep for a long, long time… So long, in fact, that I don't even remember many things.” Root hummed softly, his eyes gazing upon the endless green all around: “So, that is why I've asked for this meeting-” In an instant, his focus went from the surrounding area back to the old man before him, his eyes peering and seeing through him deep to his soul: “-Tell me, Elder Ránshão, what date is it?”

“Excuse me, Patriarch… Dates?” Elder Ránshão paused for a split moment: “Such a thing has… gotten very complicated, even the powerful cultivators have passed, either dying in this world or somehow leaving this world. But there are still some scholars that try to unveil the mysteries of the past to guide the choices of the future, and although I do not have such scholars in my family, I do know where they reside.” The elder looked around for a moment before asking the tree spirit before him: “May I have something to write on? Draw on?” To his surprise, the Patriarch simply pulled Qi from the world around them and it started to spin and weave, in a single moment the movement of the weaving also turned into a thin sheet of pale snow white paper. He was given the paper and a small thin wooden quiver? “A pencil, to draw with.”

Root was easily able to make such products by bending and moving wood and weaving it together. The pencil he made was basically solidified charcoal surrounded by wood.

Elder Ránshão started to draw a rough map of the world he knew as Root also used [Root of Knowledge] on him- with his consent -to understand what he was trying to do. Root easily saw all the locations Elder Ránshão wanted him to see while also respecting his boundaries and not looking through his every memory. As the older man knew, he has lived his entire life in the Coazin Continent, moving from region to region of the continent as he and his family follow the fire cloud that would change pattern every 100 years or so. The region Root lived in was called the Fhenzi Region, he lived specifically in the Demonic Fields which was also part of the Endless Desert. This region known as the Demonic Fields was called that because of the sheer amount of Demonic Beasts that gathered here for reasons unknown. The sheer expanse of the deserted lands brought once the Drought of Death started made the rest of the Fhenzi Region known as the Endless Desert. The Fhenzi Region also had a few other noteworthy locations-

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The Canyon of Many Voices was this long and deep gash in the lands that looked like a jagged line cut in the earth, within the canyon Wind Qi and Earth Qi behaved weird. The Death From Below and its relatives lived around that region.

And at last, but certainly not least, the Splitted Twin Mountains. The Splitted Twin Mountains was right in the end of the Fhenzi Region and the start of the mountainous Raohna Region, the Splitted Twin Mountains was just like the name suggested, these two mountains of the same appearance and size that had this long gash in the middle of the two that cut through them and made this long line that was used as an entrance and exit of the Fhenzi Region. You can also enter the Splitted Twin Mountains to find the Twin Mirroring Dead Lakes in both of them, which is this crystal clear lake inside both mountains that always have the same amount of water within them, no matter what.

Leaving the Fhenzi region you'd enter the Raohna Region, a mountainous region that is wide and wild. The Raohna Region has a lot of petrified trees and caverns in their mountainside. This region was home to some cultivation families such as the Icerose and the Heavender family and smaller families or clans that used Beast Cores for cultivation, they normally were rather weaker than the Cultivation families, which many times made them subordinates or servants of the Cultivation families. The Raohna Region didn't have many defining features besides the two highest mountain peaks that were home to the two powerful families, the Icepeak and the Thunderpeak, you can guess which family lived on which peak.

The Raohna Region was, technically, still inside the Fhenzi Region- How? Well, the Fhenzi Region seemed to almost hug the entire continent, from the Patriarch's memory, the Fhenzi Region was the main region of the Coazin Continent, so much so that many scholars fought and killed each other to determine if everything was the Fenzhi Region…

(Scholar 1: Wait, everything's Fhenzi?

Scholar 2: Always has been.)

Regardless of that, many scholars of different families agreed that the expanses of the Endless Desert across the other regions were also “part” of the Fhenzi Region, which gave the name itself- “Fhenzi” means Endless. So, if you are in a desert, you are in the Fhenzi Region by sheer technicality, even though said desert is also in another region at the same time.

You can see why some scholars killed each other, right?

“Huh… A giant lake.” Root couldn't help but feel amusement- Beyond the Raohna Region (Which literally meant Mountain Region), was the Laonni Region, or the Lake Region. The defining feature of this region was this enormous lake that- if Elder Ránshão's memories serve him right -was the size of Earth's Pacific Ocean. Within the lake there were various small islands, and in those islands, many mortals and immortals lived. The Laonni Region was home to, however, only one powerful cultivation family… The Aquinas. “Amphibian humans.” It was interesting how Qi has made the humans of this world adapt and evolve to have a greater affinity to their own respective type of Qi. Elder Ránshão didn't have a lot of knowledge about the entire Coazin Continent, since the Fire Cloud wouldn't pass through the Laonni Region, instead turning around and going back through the Raohna Region and back into the Endless Desert of the Fhenzi Region.

Lately, the Fire Cloud had taken the path of going through the Fhenzi Region, into the Raohna through the mountains (not taking the Splitted Twin Mountains path), back into the Fhenzi Region, going through the Canyon of Many Voices, going around the entire deserted land, then coming through the Demonic Fields from the north and going south towards the Raohna Region once more.

While the two aforementioned regions- Raohna and Laonni -are south of the Fhenzi Region, there are more regions up north. Three, to be specific. Elder Ránshão knows about them mostly due to the fact that 100 years ago, the Fire Cloud used to move through them regularly. They were the Gaonni-Haonni Region, the Kollani Region, and the Veloah Region. All were hugged and within the Fhenzi Region that spread all across until the end of the Coazin Continent. The Gaonni-Haonni Region was home to the two powerful families that had become one, the Silvan and Enkian family, known as the Silvakians or Silvan-Enkians, depending on who you ask. The Gaonni-Haonni region was a weird one, it had these many rocks and mounds of stone that spread around the entire region, this region was also the only one to have this enormous petrified black forest! Various trees that looked like they were made out of obsidian- That was the home of the Rottenwoods, the forest was known as the “City of Dreadful Ash”.

The Kollani Region was… weird. It was this long and flat region of white sand. Whatever is built on top of it sinks down the sand, forever to be lost. Nobody even dared to cross it, taking the long route around the circular disk of white sand in the middle of the endless desert of the Fhenzi Region. Many believed that there were many treasures buried within the white sand…

The last but certainly not least region was the Veloah Region… To describe it with one word, the Veloah Region was a rich region. From the memories Elder Ránshão had of it, it was a region that was prosperous even under the constant heat of the sun and under the Drought of Death. The name itself was self-explanatory! Veloah (Prosperity) Region was home to many, it was the most populated region of the Coazin Continent! Many powerful cultivation families lived in the Veloah Region, with many cities that housed many Demonic Core Cultivators too. It was around that region that the Great Core Fall also happened, which was the event where many cultivators had grown greedy for the core of the Demonic Beasts. They used every single core they had an affinity to, and unknowingly had their souls consumed by the Demonic Souls left behind in the cores, becoming very powerful demonic beasts that destroyed the entire Veloah Region.

But, from the ashes, a family grew. A family known as the Gollan Family, they were Golden Qi Cultivators and the ones that created the Golden Greed Guild of Merchants who went from region to region selling their fares to everyone who paid. These merchants were many times the reason families were able to resist the Drought of Death and keep going until the Boundless Bountiful. The Veloah region is also home to many other families due to the prosperity of the region itself, them being the Gloomrose Family, the Okinno Family, Esurpo Family, Koriando Family, and many others.

Root pulled himself out of the sheer amount of knowledge that the old man Ránshão had, shaking his head a little as the knowledge settled within him.

Thanks to the new knowledge he had, he now knew that he was- quite literally -the center of the continent.