“As I’ve told you, my name’s Jin. This garden right here is my territory. You won’t need to worry about invading monsters. I can’t claim to have seen everything in this forest, but I don’t think anything can get in here.” I said.

After a while, I had decided to put one thousand nine hundred mana into a single plant. The result was a plant so big it dwarfed even the twentytacle traps. I had planted a total of four of these. Nothing I had seen were even close to being able to take them down.

“I’m Xing Chen Wei, but just call me Chen Wei. I’m a cultivator of the fifth stage of Dao Formation. I’m also from the Blue Fire Sect of the Grand Flames City,” she said. It was my turn to feel stupid. After she finished with saying her name, I didn’t understand a word of what she said.

A cultivator of the fifth stage of dao formation? A what of the what of what?

She also said something about a sect and a city. I took note of the names, but I didn’t know what they were.

“Am I supposed to drink this?” she asked with her hands around the mug I had handed her.

“Yes. It’s called orange juice,” I said.

“Is it orange juice or is it called orange juice?” she asked.

Fair question. “It’s orange juice. It’s juice that is orange. But it’s also called ‘orange juice’.”

“Does it have any special properties?” she asked.

“Other than tasting good? No.” I replied. The initial shock of meeting another human was starting to wear off.

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She brought the mug up to her lips and took a small sip.

“Sweet and sour?” I asked.

“Sweet and sour,” she confirmed, “but mostly sweet.” She was petite and wore a simple blue shirt and shorts. Upon closer inspection, she was beautiful.

“How did you make this chair?” she asked.

“You saw me. I just did, more or less,” I replied.

“I choose more,” she said.

“I planted it,” I said.

“I’ve never seen that before. Are you an alchemist?” she asked.

“An alchemist? No. What do you mean?” I passed high school chemistry with an A, but that didn’t mean I knew anything about chemistry.

“A person who takes care of herbs and precious plants,” she said.

“A gardener?” I asked.

She looked like she thought I had centipede eggs in my brain. “A person who sells pills and salves.”

“An apothecary?” I asked.

“No! A person who takes care of herbs and precious plants and sells pills and salves!”

“Oh I see. Go on.”

“They burn their plants in a caldron and-”

“An arsonist going through therapy?” I’m not an idiot, but from the look she was giving me, I was starting to feel like one.

“No! Let me finish! It’s a person who burns their plants until they become pills and salves.” she was breathing heavily at this point.

Oh of course! That makes perfect sense. “That makes no sense. How does that work?” I asked.

“I don’t know, I’m not an alchemist. They have their own dao to follow,” she said.

“Well, I’m not an alchemist. I’m a cultivator.” I patted myself on the chest proudly.

She leaned forward across the table. “I knew it! I knew you had to be one if you survived in this forest. Which stage are you on?”

“What are you talking about? Are there stages for cultivating plants?” I remembered the levels, maybe she was talking about those. Levels and stages were quite similar, after all.

“Cultivator. Of plants, you say.” she raised her eyebrows.

This girl didn’t believe me! Did she think all of the things I’ve done with my plants were parlor tricks?

The garden around me rumbled to life. All of the Twentytacle Traps unfurled to their full size, no longer hiding themselves from Chen Wei. Vines previously tangled up with many others untagged themselves. A single giant vine extended into the sky, with a blade at its tip more than two stories tall. “Of plants, I say.”