-*She died to make me better.*- I know it, I feel it, the would should acknowledge how epic that little ball of snark really was.

Need to find a quiet spot. Not to mourn, not to vent, but 'cause I need to Get Gud so I can leave. I got some tailor shit to work on, apparently. Not sure how being a silk maker helped me up my element handling ability as much as my janky Devourer Consumer Salad Dressing on Pizza with a 2-liter of Diet Soda ability, but I've done some amazing shit with silk. So need to stop sleeping on that. Apparently.

-*Jade Pearl is here to escort you to the capital so that you can get your reward for helping protect and save the city of Golden Rivers,*- First Fist informs me out of nowhere. I pull off his wooden coin and eat it.

Shush, I'm thinking. I need a food source, some materials to rebuild my --. I'm going back to where I killed the quack. There was that forest where a random chunk turned into someplace else. There's definitely Qi and elemental bullshit happening there. Go there, take down some trees and plants, check regularly for the changes, and see if I can't ride one somewhere else.

Genius. Big brain moves. I'm figuring this shit out. Took me a while, but I got there eventually. Where the fuck was it and where in the hells am I right now?

I reorient myself based on the shape of the tree, which got fucked up, 'cause the town is even more sucky as an identifier. I look around the ruins to see that they keep rebuilding the shit sloppily. I don't know if they're just slapping stuff together in a Good Enough until the threat clears and they rebuild, or if this place was honestly a tourist trap that saw no action until I came here on my vacation. Either way either I go this way and find the Quack Forest or I just shift myself until I find it. I got time to think, food in the bank even if I have to redo the farm, and a house to redecorate to keep me occupied between training sessions. Just need a place for my anchor.

I get bored flying and stop near a picturesque lake with reeds in the muddy shallows and bamboo in the trees turning the area into a sexy meme missing a water clock. I touch down, find a spot that looks perfect for a little shrine, enter my void, walk into my kitchen and stare blankly at where my stove is supposed to be.

-FUCK!-

The whole reason I stopped was to eat and make more food with what I had on hand stashed away in my jade. I forgot the dick nugget stole all of my shit. I'm so chill I'm not even hungry, that's a lie, but I really just wanted to decompress before my nap. Fack fack fack fack! I shift over to my farm, remember that I never cleared it and it's full of half-eaten or trampled produce, and get pissed off all over again. I was coming to the farm to replant as a distraction for not having a kitchen. And I can't even rage nap. I don't have a bed because --. FACK!

[Feeding Successful x10]

[Successful Use: 49/100]

[Qi 1000 x10]

[Karma 10 x10]

[Current Condensed Qi: 1,831,774/23,765,228]

[Current Qi: 236,054/5,831,400]

[Current Karma: 95,060,913/107,27,5977]

[Max Will: 9,579,451]

[Mortal Wallet: 10E,26K,228P,154R,179Da,155De,105k]

[Spirit Wallet: 0Dr,0Ph,0Th,1199Di,126Co,10526St]

I unbank all the hair and roots, just dumping the shit on top of my trashed fields, and rage eat down to the dirt, pulling up the plants I do find above ground and eating them. I ate way more than ten things, but I don't know what it's counting as Qi items. I could check the logs but I'm saving my reading for the quest boards.

I dump energy, focus, and Will into redoing my farm, but better! I pose, forelimbs on my sides, tipped back so I can do a perky hands on hips pose before dropping back to all six and scuttling back to my house while the plants, fully formed instead of having to grow to maturity, already start producing. I set an auto harvest to pick the random bullshit I dropped, realize I'm still dumping effort into bank shit, then head into the kitchen to work on more bank shit.

I liked my kitchen store aesthetic. It was nice to come into the kitchen and see the veggies and fruits that were going to go into the food I made, even if I used bullshit bank bug magic to just plop the shit into pots sometimes. But maybe I cut back on volume? Get baskets of produce sitting around the perimeter in front of racks of stuff drying --.

Did he take my drying shit, t00 --. Of course he did.

So... Fish, salt, did he empty the smokehouse? Wait. I never set up the smokehouse, did I? No, I was using Broadband Chicken's smokehouse. Was it on auto or nah? I will Broadband's smoke house behind the house, away from the front and on the other side of the kitchen so someone would have to make an effort to actually get to it. Well, anyone but me.

-*So... You figured it out?*-

Anyone but me and the emperor. Fack. I take a deep breath, plastering on a fake smile as I spin to face the eyeball standing in the main room just in the entrance.

-*Oh, hi~,*- I start the smoker and toss some veggies and fruit in for the lolz since I'm missing the salt and sugar for the brining. Can I make a cellar?

-*I sent Jade Pearl to Golden Rivers to retrieve you,*- the emperor informs me while slowly floating through the area. -*He'll take you to Calypso.

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-*It's a moon, yes, a literal moon. A small planet someone I trust owns. Your reward for a job well done is going to be standard exorcist training,*- he continues and I'm kinda pumped until I remember that I yeeted Jade Pearl, this fucker killed my dog, I'm trying to sneak away, and just because he arranged it doesn't mean I'm actually going to get this super cool sounding training. -*It should help you deal with any other undead threats you run into and help you build temporary safe zones. This way if anything locks onto your energy you can use wards and talismans to keep people safe instead of planting a bullseye on them with your barriers.

-*Sound good?*-

-*Yes, actually.*- It really does. But I'm not gonna do it. -*I'm gonna try to figure out more of my quest board stuff so I can actually do combat stuff. I think I accidentally into bank stuff so I'm worse at combat?*-

-*Almost literally impossible, but sure,*- the emperor stage whispers, the eye widening briefly before he looks up into my empty rafters. -*Yeah, no, I'm gonna see if I can't get you a bounty reward from Golden Rivers for helping with the displaced population. They really did take everything not nailed down...*-

-*Dude, the stove had to be heavy enough to count, and they took that shit, too,*- I point out. Like, I'm pissed and impressed still. -*How? Where did he put it?*-

-*I think one of the people you helped was The Magpie, a kind of Robinhood. He takes really expensive shit from people who have lots of shit and uses it or the funds from fencing it to help people who don't have expensive shit, working his way from the bottom up.*-

-*I'm not some rich asshole taking advantage of and oppressing the needy!*- Offend! All the offend!

I got robbed because the emperor thinks I'm cool? Or because I'm a bank bug? Did Woodcock just "down with the banks" me? That shitbird! I helped! Oh.

I hard stop as I remember that the whole reason the town got fucked was because I faced my tribulation there. But it's not like I picked the place on purpose or new how bad it was gonna be. Wait, did he figure it out? Is that why he was such a bitchy asshole? No, I kept accidentally-ing us more work. What the fuck was all of the Golden Rivers bullshit?

I wonder what White Silk is doing?

I sit and groom while wondering if she'd be the kind of person to brush my silk every day. I think I might like that, but I can't be sure until someone does it. I'm cleaning my forelimbs after combing through my silk when I notice the emperor watching me and I can't for the life of me remember what we were talking about. I go back to grooming as I go over what I do remember.

Reward for helping the town. Request for a reward for helping the town by getting robbed.

-*Why'd that fucker rob me?!*- I remember, jumping to my feet, angry and indignant all over again. Then confused. -*I let them in my bank and First Fist thought this place was a sanctuary? Da fuq is a sanctuary and why didn't he believe this was my void?*-

-*Sanctuaries are kinda like when someone makes a quiet room then leaves it open for public use,*- the emperor explains, stopping in a corner of the kitchen caddy corner to the front entrance and staring at the ground. -*You should totally make a cellar so you can still have your shit out as decoration but no one takes it on a run through.*-

-*... Not gonna lie, but that sounds badass,*- I admit before informing him about my plans for decorating the kitchen with drying racks and baskets instead of the crates and barrels I had before.

-*Don't hate it,*- he admits and I hate how much we get along. When he's cool he's cool, but the rich kid that commits war crimes because he can afford the fines thing is a turn off. -*Don't forget to head to Golden Rivers to talk to Jade Pearl so he can relay it to Broad Heron. I'll leave you to it.*-

It feels like he knows I'm pissed off and he's trying to give me my space, and I don't want that to be true, 'cause then I'd be taking advantage of his understanding and how much he cares. Fack. I could ask for some time to myself for a bit, but I have a feeling that if I give him a heads up he'll just say n,o and I won't be able to stop him stopping me versus him thinking maybe I'm gonna do something, and then waiting for it to play out.

-I don't like that I can't just shroud myself and feel stealthy,- I mumble out loud remembering that he can track me through my scale shed.

I get to work shifting the edge of the room from wood boards to stone foundation for a series of low heat, fire-essence scripts what for drying things, ending the line back into a section of thatch that can be pulled up to reveal a small tunnel, because fuck humans, hunans, and cultivators in general, I'm bite-sized. This is more for aesthetics than for function, and I can always carry a small deep basket or drag a bag out of the depths.

-I could have hanging baskets,- I toss into the aether, imagining the heat rising and pooling around the roof, and having a bunch of flats of produce up top being kept dry and slowly getting preserved, so even if I don't catch them in time I might have more dried shit. -Imma do that.-

I get to work converting some of the wood, unused or recycled, into sticks, twine, and woven baskets before I remember to set up my stove. This time I replace the middle of the floor with more stone, same as the outside walls, but then surround this new space with stone pillars that have metal rods crossing over the burners. I can hang pots, put them directly on the burner, or just hang stuff over the heat.

I'm hungry, tired, shaky, and I need to find something to eat from inside my bank interface that isn't the produce I have for cooking. When's the last time I ate non-god, not food, that wasn't just condensed Qi? To the tools! The second I filter my menu I'm greeted with a shitty wood and paper fan that makes me want to cry. It's so crude I know it's a Persephone tool or some really shitty cultivator's crappy forging, and I want to keep it until I find out which one.

Fack. Stealth attacked in the feels. Food! The other F-word! Um... There's suits of armor I don't remember, but one set I do remember. A red dragon rider of fantasy military armor with cape taken from the body of the General's Son. I don't remember the kid's name, or the general's, but I remember they were both dicks.

I let the armor drop to the ground, curl up on top of it, then think of it while nodding off. I get hungry when I use too much energy, consuming or cycling energy helps curb my appetite, so if I focus on this while sleeping I auto eat? I hope. Usually I just got trash dumped on me, but I really need to up my game, and this piece of badass looking pretentious Edge Lord art feels imbued and enchanted, so noms?