Jungle Time

Under the moons, Heian Ciemnosc's figure stood with a straight back, and the long Monster in his left claw appeared like a beautiful scenery. If it wasn't that the latter bled from where the former clutched, it would naturally be one, but it could only be an imaginary notion now. Slowly, Heian Ciemnosc turned his head to look at Little Ish, who walked forward, still confused, when she saw him stare at her. When she arrived 5 meters before him, she stopped and looked at the eel-like Monster in his left claw. It was the first time she saw Heian Ciemnosc's dark claws up close... and in action.

“Imperial Teacher? I thought you said there were no dangerous Fauna around?” Little Ish said and asked as she looked and sensed the Monster’s energy fluctuations. She could tell they were definitely above the First Step, from which she felt the difference between being among her people and out in nature, facing a Fauna that only wants to eat and grow strong. However, beyond that, she felt a strange link —?— in the air, as if upon seeing her, the Monster somewhat recuperated its cool.

“I lied,” Heian Ciemnosc casually mentioned before changing his darkest eyes to stare at the Monster. It was an eel-looking fella with a thick middle body and a thin, nearly gum-like tail. Its scales were interchanging between bluish and a mix of yellow, orange, and pink. It was over 500 meters long. It created an enigmatic scenery when looking at the ground from above. Its head was over 2 meters in diameter, and its eyes stared back at Heian Ciemnosc. It was dying.

Its eyes trembled, but they were not afraid, only slightly saddened. When Little Ish came over, it had become irritated, but after smelling the familiar scent on her to its killer… it became tranquil. They trembled because it was losing all its strength, and only a few seconds remained before its consciousness faded, along with its whole life. Heian Ciemnosc looked at it as its neck squirmed and started convulsing.

“You fought nicely. But let’s end it now, rest.” Heian Ciemnosc calmly spoke as he slowly let the Monster’s head down. It didn’t emit any sound and only looked at Heian Ciemnosc before letting out a whimper right before its eyes dulled and after its head rested a couple seconds on the ground it was born in. After the Monster made its final noise, its eyes lost all signs of life. Little Ish’s small mouth opened for no reason. She gasped slightly and slightly frowned, not understanding what she was feeling - right now.

“What is it, Little Ish?” Heian Ciemnosc turned and looked at her with his left claw enshrouded in bluish and red blood. The little girl started tearing up uncontrollably. Her backhands and wrists cleaned her eyes a lot, but no matter how much she reasoned with herself, she couldn’t stop letting out tears. Heian Ciemnosc looked at her and walked over. Little Ish managed to lift her head to say a few things…

“I don’t know! I just felt strange when it was dying when it died!” Little Ish continued sobbing, this time even harder, as if she could finally accept it through talking. Heian Ciemnosc’s nature reading started, and as it began leaving him baffled, Little Ish continued. Her voice slightly trembled as it became incredibly soft, “It was like I could feel everything it thought and felt! It's respect for you. Knowing its children would grow up elsewhere, and the honor of fighting against an opponent like you… It didn’t see you as an enemy, but as… like… boohoo!”

“There, there…” Heian Ciemnosc skipped a long stride, landed on his right foot, and brought the overwhelmed little girl into his chest. Holding her in a little embrace, he entered fatherly instincts mode and rubbed the back of her head and upper back. Little Ish started bathing his uniform with her watery eyes as he kept consoling the learning little rat. Heian Ciemnosc spoke to her after a while with a soft voice, “It is a strange thing. You had nature reading right there, but it wasn’t yours. It came from your innate Art. Delve into these emotions. Tomorrow, you will fight alone and see more deaths of either Fauna or Races.”

“You can be weak here but can’t be so when you’re alone… Okay, maybe a little. But not when you are, or can be, in danger. Understood?” Heian Ciemnosc’s words halted what little sobbing she had left. Little Ish wasn’t a stupid, dumb girl. She was a little royal princess, and if she didn’t have her mother’s pride and confidence, she would’ve been her daughter until she died, loved and cared for, and also hidden from the dangerous world. But she isn’t just a daughter.

After she became startled by his sudden praise and the discovery of her innate Art, she was just as baffled as he initially was. But as he spoke word by word, she understood more and calmed down. Realizing what those previous sensations were, she felt like she had to work even harder and that she wasn’t just another Azure Dragon’s Bloodline with the same capabilities as everyone else… And their future Empress.

Rustle, … Little Ish lifted her head and looked at her personal Imperial Teacher, feeling that courage and hot-bloodedness yet cold rationality she longed to have like her mother during times like these. Letting her arms wrap around someone’s waist some more, she looked up in understanding and hugged her teacher some more before letting go. She picked his big, pale right hand and walked to the sleeping tent. After 15 minutes, they returned and started meditating, sitting cross-legged beside each other.

They had their palms together, their middle and index fingers semi-intertwined, and their pinky and ring fingers intertwined. Their thumbs were crossed as they closed their eyes and kept their hands at their Dantian region’s level. Without wasting time and seriously spending it meditating, they spent time until it was time for the next session, where Pou would arrive, Heian Ciemnosc would teach them, and the little girl would begin her daily adventures in the jungle, completely alone.

. . .

Time passed.

In the mornings and when they were inland, Heian Ciemnosc taught Little Ish for a couple hours before spending more time teaching her and Pou together. The damn serious and intense young lady had a weakness for little girls, just like Heian Ciemnosc discovered after constantly dealing with one himself. Pou reminded Heian Ciemnosc of Sakura and Fengli, but he didn’t miss them that much since he brutally massacred their civilian armies in Mini Warlord at least twice a day. As for the others, they took turns. Violet was always challenging him at least 10 times daily.

Nevertheless, Pou and Ishyy became besties in no time at all, especially with Pou spending half her practice time with the little girl, who threatened Pou and helped her improve a little faster. Nobody wanted their dear little partner to become much better than themselves when they worked hard to achieve what they spent ‘some’ effort to understand. Thus, both girls boosted the other’s determination to do even better than they had planned.

To Heian Ciemnosc, nothing was better for improvement and progress than competition and a little rivalry, or lots of it. In this case, it was only competition, but that was enough. They had him as their teacher. Their lessons became more complex and demanding as time passed, with Heian Ciemnosc aiding Little Ish everyday with his dual cultivation method and sometimes extending that little help to the young lady.

When half a year passed, the girls were already so used to each other that they didn’t need to prepare beforehand to practice their di-methods together. They picked up what the other intended to do with a glance and an energy fluctuation. As for Heian Ciemnosc, after some months, he occasionally brought them to rivers, lakes, and even springs to train them in other ways. They would have to lay their skin bare to his darkest eyes, but it also consisted of the harshest training they experienced under his guidance.

From resisting currents from rivers or waterfalls crashing against their bodies without any energy, and sometimes with Heian Ciemnosc, their respectable teacher, increasing the magnitude of such nature’s features, to manipulating and involving themselves in the flow of rivers, changing lakes into fountains, and even creating bridges with the rivers’ waters and sometimes columns streaking into the sky.

These things they only saw nature Herself do, which only beings and existences should be able to do. They were doing it themselves! It took them over 8 months to accomplish this and spend all their Power and Energy. But when they could finally do this, still with their teacher’s guidance, they felt their understanding of the Water element increasing to its peak! The girls’ relationship simply enrichened nonstop as time went, with Little Ish even ‘forcing’ Heian Ciemnosc to let her sleep in the sleeping tent while he continued hunting for some bacon of any class and cultivated his way to the Hana-Saga realm.

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On the other hand, individually, Little Ish was having the ‘puberty hit’ of her lifetime. Pou was already a mature young lady, and Heian Ciemnosc was Heian Ciemnosc. Only Little Ish was going through changes, and her daily livelihood with them and her people showed this even more. And all of this started from the first day she spent in the jungle, thoroughly alone.

An hour after Heian Ciemnosc left her, Little Ish was still in their camping spot. She only departed after more than an hour went by, resulting in her nerves not leaving and her mentality remaining shaky. However, as the little girl embarked on her journey and began her first trip within the borders of ‘her’ jungle. She immediately met danger. Heian Ciemnosc watched from high above the sky as she found a large-toothed rabbit with luminous yellow eyes.

Red eyes would be fine, as they represented craziness and bloodthirst for some… but yellow, glowy, sick-like eyes? It immediately struck Little Ish mentally. It wasn’t a silly Creature, however, as it immediately lunged at the ‘big’ pray that was 3 times its size when noticing the little girl’s mental state, troubled. Little Ish received two long but superficial gashes. One on each forearm before falling backwards and starting a chasing sequence.

The little one ran for a dozen kilometers before becoming tired. Little Ish was forced to stare back at her predator. Its yellow eyes still raised a disgust and to flinch in her heart, but she kept her fists up and operated her body tempering Art method to its fullest. The large-toothed rabbit didn’t stupidly bare its teeth at her to be struck away. Instead, it jumped at her, kicking towards her and standing in a stalemate. However, the Creature faced physical pain while Little Ish’s brightest, cutest aquamarine, azure eyes glowed with sudden fieriness!

The rabbit wanted to find a way to drill its teeth into the little Human-like specimen, but Heian Ciemnosc’s little apprentice was the least afraid of melee combat! Without letting the Creature’s teeth get close to her, Little Ish finished the incessant bouts of melee clashes after managing to land another hit on its lower stomach, sending it flying up and crashing against a thick tree with many vines falling on its body, effectively trapping it for some time.

While the rabbit crashed and became snared by the vines around the tree, Little Ish dashed to another three and grabbed a piece of bark from it with her pure nails penetrating through its structure. She charged at the large-toothed rabbit and impaled it in the air before kicking its lower body again, sending it flying against the same tree it crashed before. Lastly, just as its body bounced back and was gripped again by those vines, the same bark from before stabbed its left limb and cut it off its body.

The rabbit’s body fell, but the little girl rushed towards it, jumped, not depending on her slow floating speed, and landed a long kick strike on its Dantian region. At the same time, her hands grabbed its pair of teeth, nearly more than half its body length, and broke them in halves. She took the longer sections before using them with her palms against the broken sections to stab its body. The rabbit was helpless, still dazed from the previous bouts and quick movements.

When its own teeth stabbed its neck and brain, its sickly, luminous yellow eyes looked at its killer with understanding. Its body twitched some more before a breath escaped its bloodied, smallish mouth, covering its white fur with red that sometimes squirted onto Little Ish’s face and shoulders, bare from her new, old-fashioned training attire. Little Ish then floated down and left the rabbit’s corpse alone until it no longer moved for 3 minutes.

She then boned it and cut its fur off its pelt to make a secret recipe she stole from seeing her teacher cook. The rest, she created a few tools to defend herself… or assassinate. She wasn’t oriented to that combat profession, but it was the best she could do if she faced someone on the same level as hers or stronger… This rabbit was 2 stages below her but had much more experience than the sheltered but not ignorant little royal princess.

Heian Ciemnosc read the rabbit’s natural age before it was found by Little Ish, finding it to be 400 years old already and quite the bloody motherfucker. After falling to his little apprentice, the Fauna understandably lost one point against her. Heian Ciemnosc had already cleaned this jungle zone off its Second Step leader, but there were some peak First Step Fauna still around. They wouldn’t target Little Ish, but she would have to run if she moved into their land.

Even then, after the large-toothed rabbit, Little Ish would still face another 2 rabbits, each with a different specialty. Her first day wasn’t difficult, but it was bound to be exhausting. She had just started, but she found some intricate Creatures whose subspecies were no small thing. When she encountered those rabbits, Little Ish ran at first and then faced them, wanting to expose their capabilities, but these rabbits were much older than her, and their experience was equal to the first one she killed.

Little Ish killed the first rabbit without her innate Art’s transformation, not even partially. The second rabbit was killed after her right thigh was chomped thrice, and her body was struck several times by its long, strong ears. The last and third rabbit had thick legs, whose attacks dislocated her waist twice, nearly putting her out and causing darkness to spread everywhere. However, she used her right hand’s index, middle, and ring fingers to stab the third rabbit’s face and neck altogether.

Little Ish’s right hand swept laterally, but the rabbit’s attempts to dodge her attack made it worse for itself as its forehead broke open before forcing her claws down its neck, opening a large wound to reveal its convulsing insides. Little Ish couldn’t believe it. Even more, as the third rabbit was just one stage below her cultivation base. The next thing she saw was its quivering body and a sudden scent of fear strongly emerging from it.

The little girl’s eyes suddenly widened as she realized something, and then, she stabbed again, cutting its head off its body. Its luminous green eyes looked at her silently for a few seconds before dulling. The situation left Little Ish shaken, but with the previous experience from her teacher’s doings, she only rested for five minutes before starting with its carcass. She then turned and walked back to the camping spot, where Heian Ciemnosc ‘barely’ arrived on time with his Ornament to see an exhausted Little Ish with her arms and shoulders hanging, head low, but bright eyes a tiny wee bit stronger!

And that was her first day ‘on the job’...

… Now, 11 months have passed. On this day, Heian Ciemnosc decided on letting the girl explore further into the jungle, but still not too much. The Kingdom might be of a Middle grade, but Heian Ciemnosc was far from the Second Step’s peak. If he entered the deeper regions, he might find Fauna with a cultivation base well above the Spirit Magna realm. His cultivation base had increased again, but feeding his nonexistent Spirit Bosom as it linked with his Dantian Link was stupidly demanding. He already knew Elena was midway to the Spirit Magna realm while he was still stuck in the Dantreulity realm 8th stage. Although he was nearly bloating towards the 9th.

Another reason for his cultivation base slowing was that he was more busy now than last year. Adding that to the harshness of feeding his nonexistent Spirit Bosom, it was a combo working like magic against him. It didn’t help that the little girl was a talented monster and had not only broken into the Spirit Formation realm already but was in the peak level of the 9th stage! She only needed a few days at best before gaining a chance to breakthrough.

Little Ish had been complaining that her cultivation base was bloated for several days now. And now that Heian Ciemnosc decided to accompany the girl so she could continue training in the jungle, he would help her break through another stage within it. Her realm breakthroughs had been at the Palace while breaking through stages happened either at the Palace or in the jungle. She was now used to such danger and grew used to it.

Currently, they walked through the jungle and had already gone past the zone she’s been in for nearly a year. It was the year’s last month, and she had grown a little taller. Still, her figure remained delicate and slim, but her body tempering Art method had become stronger again after breaking into the Spirit Formation realm. She carried her thin, new, old-fashioned training clothes in a backpack she made out of an eel-like Preternatural.

It was over 200 meters long and could bury itself in the dirt, unlike the Monster Heian Ciemnosc killed, and was on the same level as her. The reason she decided to make her backpack out of its skin and organs was that she killed it without using her transformation Art method and was a Preternatural! Everyone knew these guys were the big boys and girls of all Fauna, but she killed her first, at the same level, at 12 years old!

Little Ish contentedly carried the luggage around with her teacher flying beside her, sitting cross-legged. She didn’t know why, but she felt in a better mood whenever Heian Ciemnosc floated or flew cross-legged like this. The little apprentice believed her personal Imperial Teacher to be more enigmatic and capable each time she traveled with him or met him like this.

Rustle- step step step! Whoosh, whoosh-!

Suddenly, from the sides, rustling noises and steps sounded behind the thick butches leading to the south. They were approximately a kilometer away. Little Ish could only halt her steps and frown as her 200 meters Spirit Sense range couldn’t even reach a quarter of the distance, while Heian Ciemnosc looked at it with narrowed, indifferent eyes, simply darting his eyes to the left as he faced the west.

…