Chapter 53

The Strangest Hermit

It has been just about ten days since they've started shearing the massive tree.

Leo sat down and took a swig of the fruit juice, staring at the last layer they had to get through. Yue and Liang were just behind him, but they weren't sitting or drinking juice: rather, they were full-on sleeping.

He glanced at them and smiled--he didn't think they were weak, but that they were simply not accustomed to mindless, physical labor. It wasn't as though he was used to it either, to be fair, but at least he was quite some ways older than them. Furthermore, he found the numbness of such a work strangely calming, whereas for them, it was likely closer to wasting their time, time they could have spent cultivating and growing stronger.

However, they did mention that shearing was helping them, so Leo let it be. Besides, their help was quite useful--after the first two days of them growing used to it, their speed exploded. Combined, they were just about 60% of his own capacity, but he wasn't taking any breaks to keep that up, largely to maintain his image as a 'Master'.

Since the system didn't give him any new quests or opportunities for new Arts or Methods, there were fewer and fewer ways for him to maintain that image.

Standing up, he stretched and resumed chopping--luckily, the last layer was also the smallest. Gone was the grove of overgrowth and thick roots and vines, and all that was left were the last, thinnest bits. The sounds of chopping must have woken up the kids as Leo could hear them tumble their way forward, thinking they weren't caught slacking off.

Leo didn't impose any discipline on them--rather, there really wasn't a need. If anything, the two ought to have imposed some discipline on him. They were both extremely hardworking, and Leo seldom caught them slacking off. Even when they were, it was mostly because it was just a temporary break between two 'extreme' activities.

When they weren't helping him shear, they were cultivating. And when they weren't cultivating, they were exercising. Contrary to Yue's initial cynicism, she'd seemingly fallen in love with exercising with her Junior Brother. For the first few days, she only did it in the morning--but the last few, she'd also joined him in the evenings, working up an appetite before dinner.

Altogether, though their days were full of simple routines, they were hardly boring. They found a rhythm that worked for them, and they stuck to it.

They stopped working some six hours later, having done just about 40% of the remaining job. Leo descended to find the two soaked in sweat and gasping for breath, a familiar sight by now, and sat next to them.

"We should be done by tomorrow," Leo said. "A lot of your day will be freed up. What do you guys want to do?"

"Cultivate, Master!" Liang said. "I feel like I am very close to breaking through."

**

"Huh? You... you're about to break through into Spirit Creation?!" Yue exclaimed in faint shock. Most people who break into the Spirit Creation were at least in their thirties, with a few exceptional geniuses doing so just shy of that decade. To have someone break through at the 'tender' age of 25 felt almost unprecedented.

"Yes," the young man nodded with a faint smile of embarrassment. "The method Senior Sister taught me, and this work has helped me gain some insights. It should still take me a couple of weeks at least, however."

"Haah," Yue sighed slightly. She felt like she was doing extremely well, being just a bit shy from Peak Core Formation, but compared to her 'Junior Brother'... no, it was fine. She was only twenty-two. If she worked hard, she should be able to break through to Spirit Creation by the time she was his age as well! "Congratulations in advance, Junior Brother." it bothered her, a bit, how smoothly 'Junior Brother' rolled off her tongue. The gap between their seniority was growing wider and wider, and yet, she was on the opposite end of it. Somehow. Liang was... certainly unique.

"Thank you!" he smiled sheepishly, his cheeks reddening for a moment.

Yue couldn't help but smile, too--against her innermost desires, this strange Junior Brother of hers was kind of growing on her.

While Liang and her Master carried the cut roots back to the camp, Yue sped off ahead to clear up a bit of extra space. Using the cut vines and roots as fertilizer, they walled off a small area around the pond as a garden. Yue had largely brought the seeds of the medicinal herbs--Sundew Pulp, Silent Lotus, Blood Vine and so on--in part because they would make decent additions to her Master's stew, but also because she wanted to experiment a bit in a sense of seeing whether the herbs would grow any differently in the forest than they do outside of it.

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The patch of flat land was flanked by trees on all ends, and it was no larger than a smaller room, but it was still enough for a 6x10 grid, allowing for 60 seeds to be planted. She'd only brought fifteen, so there would be excess room for whatever they wanted to plant in the future. Though her Master offered to tend to the garden, she wanted to do it herself--at least in the beginning.

However, seeing how much joy he derived from the activities that both Liang and her found quite dull and boring, perhaps that was simply who her Master was--a strange man with strange hobbies, in want of a garden.

The two came just fifteen or so minutes after her, laying down the greenery by the garden's side, and retreating to the camp. It was close to dinner time and the two had gotten into habit of exercising a bit beforehand because the dinner would increase their cultivation a bit more that way. However, this time around, their Master called on them to sit down by the flame, a rather serious expression on his face.

"Today," her Master said. "I want to bequeath upon you two something. It will not be yours forever, just something to help you along on your journey. Liang," he reached into his sleeves and took out something rather tiny, a pebble of sorts with murky, illusionary insides. Just a singular glance caused Yue to become dizzy and nauseous, prompting her to quickly look away. "This is a Seed of Dao," he added as Yue felt her heart leap into her throat. "Study if while cultivating and trying to break through. However, be careful! Staring at it for too long can have consequences."

"Yes, Master!" even the usually easy-going Liang took the small seed with shaky hands. It seemed that he, too, understood the impossible gravity of that little thing.

"Yue."

"Y-yes, Master?" Yue quickly shuffled her knees and faced him.

"This is Wisp of Wood Qi," her Master took out yet another seed, this one closer to an ordinary-seeming one than the Seed of Dao. "It contains traces of True Wood Qi. Capturing those traces and studying them will have monumental benefits to your future cultivation. One day, when you're ready to break through, I will give you Seed of Dao as well, so don't feel too dispirited."

"No, of course not, Master!" Yue took the tiny, wooden-seeming seed with shaky hands as well. Though it wasn't quite as impactful as Seed of Dao, it wasn't all that much behind it either. In fact, both of these were so soul-stirring that, once again, her image of the secluded hermit shattered a bit further.

Outside the forest, these would be considered most guarded inheritances of the Sects. Not even the Sects within the Lower Ashlands, but rather those from the upper areas where Tier VI, VII, and onwards Sects existed. Any chance, however miniscule, to study Dao in any capacity was viewed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that would serve as a kicking-off point for the cultivator and allow them grand achievements in the future.

Rather, these two tiny seeds didn't even have a particular price as no one would ever sell them, or even publicly admit to having them as it would cause an immediate war.

True Elemental Qi was largely irrelevant for her at the moment, but, in the future, as she inched closer to the Soul Ascendance Realm, and especially Nascent Soul Realm, she would be able to do what most other cultivators couldn't--form a Soul at both stages without needing an overabundance of resources to be wasted on her.

She clutched at the seed tightly, as did Liang; there wasn't a Sect in the Lower Ashlands capable of giving them the benefits their Master did. In fact, they'd likely have to go to the Central Ashlands and those vaunted Tier VIII and Tier IX Sects to find these opportunities. But even there, those would be reserved for the Holy Sons and Daughters, the divinely chosen set to inherit the Sects themselves in the future.

"Alright. So, that should eat up your time a little bit now that it's freed up," her Master smiled. Just like with the feather, there seemed to be no pain for him in parting with these times. "Ah, right, almost forgot these. Here," he fetched something else from his robe--though he claimed to not have a spatial treasure, Yue mused that those robes may as well be one considering how many things he was holding inside of them. He took out four tiny pellets, ones that Yue immediately recognized--Basic Qi Pill. Comparatively, it was a downgrade and would even be considered a disappointment if not for the Master's next words. "These should increase your Qi gathering speed by about 40% for two hours. I don't have too many of them, so don't get too accustomed to it. Consider it a special reward."

Her Master, indeed, never did anything in an ordinary way--rather than Basic Qi Pills, those were closer in efficiency to the legendary pellets of the Skyhaven Alchemist Guild, aptly named Skyhaven Qi Pills, which increased Qi gathering speed by 35% but for four hours instead of two. Whenever a bottle of them appeared at an auction, the entire Lower Ashlands would seemingly awaken from slumber in a desperate attempt to buy them. Alas, few could afford the gargantuan price that they went for.

"Okay. You can exercise now. Dinner will be ready soon." the bearded man stood up and silently started preparing dinner. There was a knot in Yue's throat, a knot both blessed and aching, and as she glanced at her Junior Brother, she recognized it within his eyes, too. Almost simultaneously, they both knelt and pressed their foreheads against the dirt. It was nothing compared to their Master's gifts, but they didn't know what else to do--only kiss the dirt and swear within their Souls they'd desperately try and, somehow, pay it back in the future. Even if the debt was taller than the highest mountain and deeper than the bottomless seas, they took it upon themselves willingly--it would be a fuel and the wind carrying them onward.