When the young soul sent its Qi energy into its surroundings, it felt something peculiar. It felt as though its surroundings were expanding but in some regard remained stagnant. “Hmm, this feeling, it’s weird. Difficult to describe. Oh well, let’s see what I can sense around us?”

“What are you doing? Muttering to yourself, if you have any questions then ask me.” Rosanne, thinking that the new soul was doing something stupid, decided to take a look.

“Huh, me, I was trying to use my Qi energy to see if I can sense anything. When I did send it out I felt something strange. What about you? Can you sense anything?” It asked Rosanne, pondering whether the feeling was just him.

“What do you mean, of course I can’t sense-wait actually I can feel around us! I can almost see it, what did you do?! The only time I have heard of something like this is when talking about a powerful Cultivator. How did you do this?! You’ve just started!” Rosanne said overwhelmed by the shocking event that has just unfolded. She could feel the surrounding area so clearly that it was as if she could see it even though it was a mere few meters in every direction.

“Why are you so shocked? Did I do something wrong? Are we going to be found and killed? I don’t want to die!! I just started living!! Don’t let me die yet.” The terror evident in its voice. It was worried as though something bad could happen due to what it had chosen to do. If it were able it would have been crying at this point.

“Can you please just shut up? You’re not going to die, if you don’t shut it I might kill you myself” The new soul was silent as soon as her threat was heard. “Good, now this is something new to me so I can’t explain much. It doesn’t appear to be problematic so we don’t have to worry. Can you expand that out a little bit further, say a few meters or so? It should give us a good estimation of what’s going on around us.”

“Hold on, you don’t really know much at all do you?” It appeared to be somewhat delighted by this information, noticing her constant unknowing of the subject.

“It’s called modesty, maybe you should learn some. It will make being stuck in here with you easier.” She actually had no idea on what to do in this situation, she didn’t want the new soul knowing this though. If she let this slip, not only would she be embarrassed but she knew she’d never hear the end of it.

“Uh huh, Of course it is.” It said sarcastically, it was sceptical of this but it chose to not call her out, at least not yet. It then used its QI energy to expand its territory. It didn’t know how large a meter actually was so it just decided to expand until it felt it was enough.

The young soul injected its Qi energy into its surroundings and expanded its reach, it soon found out that the further it tried to expand its reach the more energy it required to do so. The reasoning was because it was expanding in a spherical radius. The energy it required to infect the next “layer” increased due to the distance growing larger.

As the soul was expanding its territory, the beasts in the surroundings felt a change. An increase in energy in that area. The beasts followed a chain of command of sorts, with the stronger beasts ruling on top and the weaker beasts at the bottom. But the beasts in that area were relatively weak in comparison to other beasts. The most powerful beasts within their area was a pack of wolves. The area of increased energy was largely attractive to any beast within the area and became known to all. Each beast was rushing to get to this power first as if to claim it for themselves.

Rosanne noticed that something had entered into their territory, she thought something didn’t exactly feel right. She decided to take a look, she became shocked when she looked into how much they had expanded their reach. “What have you done?! I said a few meters, not a few hundred meters. For god’s sake, do you even know how big a meter is?”

“Well no, I don’t know. I just kept going until I thought it was enough. Anyway, what were you doing all this time?”

If Rosanne had a body, she would be face-palming right now. “Of course you don’t. I mean, why would you? Anyway, we have a problem and it’s your fault. We have a lot of beasts coming this way and we don’t want them to find us. We have to do something.”

“But but… There is nothing we can do at the moment is there!?” It said in a panic and then suddenly from seemingly nowhere “Idea!!”

“What is it?” As soon as Rosanne heard this she had a bit of hope.

“We pray to the God of the dead that we live.” It said in a serious tone as not to alert Rosanne to the fact it was making fun of her until a few moments later.

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“UUURRRGGGHHH… I would kill you if I could!” She was furious. It wouldn’t stop mocking her even in this kind of situation. But at that moment she heard a howl.

“AAAAWWWWOOOO!!!!”

It was a long howl that seemingly signalled the inevitable arrival of the wolves, the top of the food chain in that area. “AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!” Rosanne and the new soul both screamed in terror. “What do we do?!” Screamed the soul. The pair were in such a panic that if they had the ability, they would be running in circles.

Upon the arrival of the beasts, a battle broke out. The conflict contained Wolves, Monkeys, Birds and even a few Mice. Although the battle had just begun the advantage was clearly with the Wolves. Their advantage was that they were a pack and had the ability to work together if need be. One or two would attack an enemy, cornering them and allowing waiting Wolves to ambush, securing the kill with little effort.

The waging battle lasted an hour or two before the surviving beasts fled. They knew they couldn’t win. It was a long and bloody conflict but in the end the Wolves secured the victory.

Using the rights that they won in battle, they claimed that land as their home. They marked it as their territory and licked their wounds.

When Rosanne and the new soul realized that the wolves were not going to do anything to them, they calmed down. “It seems like they haven’t noticed us. I think we are safe for the moment. Now what are we going to do? Oh right, you didn’t answer my question. What have you been doing up until now?” It was curious as it hadn’t notice her doing anything in particular. “Were you trying to figure out what to do, now that you don’t exactly know anything?”

“Excuse me, I have been cultivating to give you energy and-“ She froze. “What do you mean I ‘don’t exactly know anything’? Of course I know what to do, I mean why wouldn’t I? I’ve cultivated before, I’ve done all this. What makes you think I don’t know anything?” She was flustered. Knowing she had been called out but too embarrassed to say it.

“Oh, I don’t know, how about how you’ve been surprised too much and you even said that you haven’t even heard about a gem with a soul before.” If there was a corner, Rosanne would be squatting there drawing circles.

“Anyway, you need a name don’t you. I can’t just call you ‘you’ or ‘it’. Are you even a boy or a girl?” Rosanne said, trying to draw the conversation elsewhere.

It was at this moment that the impression of the person who first held the gem became prominent. “I think I’m a boy. Yeah, that feels more comfortable.” As soon as the decision was made the souls voice became a bit more masculine, but it was still the voice of a child so he sounded like a ten-year-old boy.

“Well, in that case I’ll call you Mort, which is short for Mortimer. It also happens means death, as you’ll probably be the death of me…” She was muttering the last part so Mort was unable to hear her.

(Author’s note: Mort is actually French for ‘Death’.)

“Mort huh, so my name is Mort now. Suppose it is better than ‘you’ or ‘it’.” While Mort wasn’t showing it, he was actually rather excited with his name.

“So what are we going to do now?” Mort asked Rosanne curiously.

“Well for now we’ll wait and come up with some ideas. If you think of something, come talk to me about it first, don’t just do it. We don’t want something like this to happen again, do we?” Rosanne was speaking threateningly by the end of it as she didn’t want to go through something like that ever again.

“Of course I will, I promise I’ll do that so please stop looking at me like that.” He was feeling the pressure under Rosanne’s glare. You have to remember that it hasn’t even been a day since Mort was ‘born’. How could he withstand the glare from someone who has lived for decades with more than one life threatening experience?

But neither of them knew the properties of their Qi. It was one that infects something and lays claim to it. While the effect is immediate on things with no consciousness, it will still affect things with a consciousness, it will just take longer. So when those wolves were resting within Mort and Rosanne’s territory, the ‘Dungeon Qi’ was being absorbed by them, slowly infecting and laying claim to them. Making them become a part of the territory and a part of Mort and Rosanne.

Authors Note: Sorry for just posting edited chapters recently.