'Somehow, I thought this would be much easier than this

'Are you mad? This is a thousand times faster than I had even imagined, do you think creating original techniques is that easy? I know that these scrolls come from another fictional world of yours but these Qi utilization patterns are groundbreaking, they are the only reason why you are even able to form a basic technique like this in such a short amount of time, I know for a fact that if the others in our world knew about this-'

'They will go to war for it, yeah, I already got that when you talked about the Primordial Elements'

'These are even more valuable than the Primordial elements, can you imagine what would happen if these scrolls got out?'

That image immediately made me sit up straight as I imagined the horror that would follow.

The Mod that I had installed on this world before all this was the Avatar mod, the same one from that cartoon about bending the elements.

When I first realized that I was in this world, I thought it would be easy for me to use my unnatural brain to create a cultivation technique for my meridians using the eight types of bending scrolls that I had piled up in my chest and then mashing it together with the Cultivation techniques I had picked up from the other world. Turns out, I was only partially right.

While I am indeed able to formulate a cultivation technique using all the resources I have access to, my brain also tells me that I will need a whole lot more Cultivation techniques from the Xianxia world if I am to make a technique that would actually help me advance to the level I want to be at. Then there is also the problem of my Elemental Affinity.

Somehow, even though this entire world is created from my Minecraft save, I am still not given the privilege of its owner and am not considered the Avatar. So that means that I can only use one bending type and with training, its subtypes.

But what the idiot said is also true.

Normally, it takes a Cultivator to reach the Element Realization realm until he can even begin the basics of manipulating his element, but if they had access to these scrolls that I have, even a novice Cultivator of Qi Establishment realm can easily control the elements, although they would have to completely destroy their fundamental cultivation and start learning the Bending techniques before Cultivating again to get the maximum benefits.

'Now that you have a basic technique established for all the possible elements you can think of, you should get yourself an Elemental crystal to check your elemental affinity. As you are a Dual Elemental thanks to my Lighting attribute Meridians combining with your own, you will need to modify the technique to accommodate whatever element you turn out to be. Once we find out your Elemental Affinity, you can learn the bending techniques first, once you master them, we will begin your cultivation in full force to get the maximum benefits. We can worry about obtaining more techniques for you to develop your technique further once you complete the Body Refining stage and enter the Qi Establishment stage.'

'And how am I going to get an Elemental Crystal to begin with? While it is a fairly common item sold in the markets of the Empire, I refuse to leave the southern part of the continent and go out of the Death Qi zone until I am at least at the level of that thug that Royal prick sent after us all those months ago'

'I know that, even I am not keen on going out of this possible safe zone of ours until you are strong enough to defend us both. Fortunately, I have an idea as to where we can find an Elemental crystal, and possibly, a few cultivation techniques as well to make it easier for you'

I felt the Idiot pull a memory to the forefront, revealing a massive map of the continent while I felt him point me towards where the portal we built for the Nether was situated, just a few hundred Li away from the Flood Dragon Burrows and located on the banks of a massive Lake that was at least 18 Li in diameter, that means roughly 9 Km. This lake also happens to be the only source of freshwater for thousands of Li across all directions which makes it the best hunting spot for my food, although it is now redundant thanks to my access to the Overworld where I could get as much food as I want without any problems.

I then felt him point eastwards where I could make out the presence of massive ruins which was probably a massive city once upon a time.

'This place is called the Forgotten woods, but before the Death Qi disaster, this place used to be a massive city thriving with life, this was also the previous Sect grounds of the Volcanic Dragon sect which has now shifted all the way to the North and settled on an island that is in the middle of the Sea of Death.'

'Oi, don't tell me-'

'This place once used to be the commercial hub of the Empire with a lot of the goods that the Nobles enjoy coming from here. When the disaster happened, the Sect and the Nobles were the first ones to escape using the limited supply of Skyships that this city had access to, leaving behind thousands of civilians to die, although some of them did manage to escape and have since isolated themselves in the boundless woods to the north-west, due to how much of a hurry the Sect was in during the evacuation, there is a high chance of precious materials and manuals being left behind in this place, including Elemental crystals since most of the disciples of the Sects at that time were chosen from the common populace and trained according to their elemental affinity

'……So basically, you are asking me to go Dungeon crawling again'

'Yes, that is, if you want to even start cultivating because you and I both know that you cannot simply cultivate any element you like, and the only way to know your element is to be like the rest of the humans on the continent and use the Elemental crystal to learn of your element'

I slowly made my way towards the chest in the corner and emptied out all of them into my storage followed by me taking out all of the enchantment books I had in the corner of the room on display. You never know what you might need when you are Dungeon crawling.

Once I was sure I was sufficiently prepared, I headed out towards the portal and entered the Nether, I did not waste any time and immediately got to the other portal and headed straight towards Xianxia land.

'Okay, so right now, we are still in the Yin forest and I can only think of two ways to head to the forgotten woods. Either we travel by sea, which is difficult but possible since I have a boat with me, the other option is to go through the Flood Dragon Burrows.'

'……I think we should take our chances with the sea'

'You have a point, but here is the problem. The Sea, in its entirety, is roughly the size of the Yellow sea from my old world, which is 350,000 square Kilometers, that is roughly 1.5 million square Li, and then, the distance from shore of the Yin forest to the shores of the Forgotten woods is 500 Km, that is 1000 Li, I don't know about you but I think my hands would fall off if I tried to row the boat for such a long distance.'

'That would be a much better fate than what would happen to us if we go through the burrows, the Flood Dragons are notorious for holding a grudge for all of eternity and they are incredible trackers. I have no doubt that they will immediately realize that it was you who entered their cave and will stop at nothing to kill you'

'Hey, I don't have a scent for them to track me remember?'

'Oh I remember, you don't have any scent, but since you rummaged through the belongings of those Skeletons in that room you must have already been marked by their Qi and thus will perpetually release their scent for at least a few years, and since this scent is the product of death qi, it is impossible to get rid of'

'…..I still say it is better than rowing a boat for hundreds of kilometers'

'..Suit yourself, you suicidal idiot'

I grinned as I finally managed to convince the idiot and headed off towards the Flood Dragon burrows. I am not going to lie, I was feeling afraid of what would happen, but I am also a little desperate to get my hands on an Elemental crystal and start cultivating. It is already nearly a year since I arrived in this world and I have yet to even gain a little amount of power to protect myself which is driving me to desperation because if there is anything I have learned in my life, it is that Reality never misses the chance to kick you while you are down and I can definitely feel it rushing towards my downed form right now.

It took me a couple of days until I finally arrived at the burrows, but then, I felt that something was wrong.

The forest was dead silent. Now the forest never was as noisy as a regular forest due to the presence of Death Qi making it impossible for all but the few most resilient animals to survive, but there was still some noise to this forest, but now? It was completely gone.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Then, I felt another Red flag rise when I found the entrance to the Burrows to be completely empty and without any guards, something that should be impossible given that this was their nesting grounds.

Something is going on and I don't know what.

Suddenly, I sensed the idiot's Qi flare as he shouted.

'Look out'

Then, I passed out.

----------------------------------------

'…..ex!'

'…..LEX!'

'ALEX!'

I jolted awake as the scream rang out in my head, my eyes scanning my surroundings in a strangely calm way as my mind worked overtime to figure out what was going on.

'..Chusheng, how long was I out?'

'Nearly two hours, I've been trying to wake you but because of the Qi suppression formation on the ground I've been unable to use my Qi to wake you up forcefully'

'What happened?'

'Flood Dragons happened, I told you this was a bad idea, they somehow knew that we were coming and laid out an ambush'

'….How is that even possible? We spontaneously decided to take this route and this was not planned at all'

'I don't know but that is the truth'

"Ah! You are finally awake, I was starting to get bored"

I looked to the source of the voice.

A man wearing somewhat crude clothes made of some kind of leather with his coat having white fur that glistened in the light. But the thing that stood out the most was his appearance. His entire body was covered in scale-like patterns while still managing to look like normal human skin while two horns jutting out of his skull with his hands having claws and small fin-like protrusions from his forearms.

So this is what a Flood Dragon looked like once it reached the level of Elemental Soul Awakening?

The man stayed silent all the while I observed him as he kept looking at me with an amused look.

"Have you observed me enough?"

"Who are you?"

"Isn't that the question I should be asking? You were found near our burrows after all"

"I was heading towards the Forgotten Woods"

"Really? Even though you have no Cultivation you were still brave enough to go through this place which is infamous in the Human cities for the fact that my Kin love to kill anything alive in this area?"

"I am not afraid of you"

"Of course, you would not be afraid of us, after all, how hard could it be to bypass our defenses a second time?"

Those words immediately gave me pause as I felt dread rise, all the while the Idiot in my mind was desperately trying to use his Qi to protect my body somehow if this Flood Dragon decided to kill me.

"…..What do you mean?"

"Don't try to lie, we know that it was you who infiltrated our home four months ago, quite an ingenious plan. Distract the older and much stronger members of my Kin to go and investigate the explosion which also held minor Qi signature thanks to ground powder from Spirit stones while you infiltrated our home, possibly to kill off our people and burn us at the roots by killing off the infants and the helpless females that were too tired to fight back due to just giving birth"

There were new mothers in the den at that time? Must have missed that chamber while I ran for my life.

Suddenly, the amused red eyes of the Flood Dragon changed to a much colder look while an unnatural light entered them and his claws started to shine brightly as he brought them close to my face.

"Now, here is the question I want an answer for, why didn't you do that?"

"….I don't know what you are talking about, besides what proof do you have that it was me?"

He laughed coldly as his claws started to close in on my face as he spoke again.

"Why should I give you any proof, but fine, I will be the better man and tell you, you reek of the scent from those skeletons in our decoy room"

Decoy room? What the hell?

"Hehe, yes, that was a Decoy room with those skeletons and useless artifacts kept there as a bait for anyone that tried to attack our people"

"….If it was a decoy room, why was there a formation there which sapped the energy from the treasure of the Great Seas Sect to send it to your newborns above it?"

"The Treasure was also a decoy, it was a lifelike imitation made by the most skilled Dwarf in the Demonic Beast Capital. The real treasure is elsewhere and is indeed being used for something important, as for the formation, that was also a decoy, while it would look like a crude formation to extract Qi from the gem, it actually hid a different formation in itself that would have instantly sucked anyone dry of their bodily fluids should they have tried to take the decoy, as for the infants, they were indeed real but hat room was also covered in hundreds of formations that would instantly kill anything that is not a Flood dragon"

….What the hell? These things are way too cunning and scary.

"Now that you have finally accepted that you had infiltrated our home, tell me, why didn't you try to take the treasure when you had completely cleaned off the rest of the room. You even took the clothes off the skeletons without any shame"

I felt heat rush to my cheeks at the reminder. It was one of my most shameful moments where my instincts as a gamer took over and I directly cleaned out the room in its entirety.

"…..I may kill demonic beasts for my own needs and reasons but that does not mean that I enjoy it, and there is no way I am going to carry the weight of causing a genocide, no matter the species"

The Flood Dragon looked at me strangely before he moved his claw away from my face. A weird expression came on his face as he mumbled.

" You are a strange human"

"….That's it? You believe me that easily? I could be lying?"

"No you were not, I was using a technique that is inherited by all Flood Dragons to read your mind, while it may not be able to read too much into your mind and it becomes useless when used on someone who knows how to shield their mind with Qi, I can still easily tell if they are speaking the truth or not"

I stayed silent as I watched the Flood Dragon who had his hands crossed with an expression on his face that said he was thinking about something deeply.

"…Very well, since you are no threat towards our people, you may go"

He snapped his fingers as the formation below me deactivated and I felt the idiot immediately flood me with his Qi, forming a protective cocoon as the Flood Dragon laughed.

"There is no need for you to be so afraid. Since you mean us no harm, naturally we will not cause harm to you"

I remained suspicious the entire time even when I saw a Flood Dragons, this one was in its serpent forms with shorted horns and scales that lacked the same kind of colors as the other, bigger ones, marking them as a youngling, came to me with a small bag that the Humanoid one took and gave to me.

"Here, because you have entertained me so much today, take this as a gift. It is one of our most sought after delicacies in the Demonic Capital"

I took it and made it disappear into my storage, I will check this later to see if it was poisoned.

"Space Qi? Quite intriguing, a topic for another time perhaps. Goodbye for now"

I followed the younglings that guided me across the burrows and out of them and then retreat back into their caves.

The moment I saw the youngling retreat, I made a break for it as fast as I could without even looking back.

----------------------------------------

(POV Flood Dragon)

Watching the back of the human who was running for his life, I felt amusement at his actions.

Truly, such a strange human.

A human who showed mercy to a race of creatures not of his own, a concept that is heavily frowned upon by the rest of his race, although most of that philosophy comes from the teachings of that bastard of an Emperor from over a thousand years ago.

I ignored the shadows that started to wiggle and solidify into a strange-looking dog with deep red markings across its back and flames flickering in its mouth.

This was a Freybug, a subspecies of the Hellhounds that guards the Demonic Capital and is particularly good at manipulating the shadows and fire.

"…..My lord, I still don't understand why you decided to let him go, he clearly stole from you, even though most of the things lost were mere trinkets that is still a slap to your face"

"How often do you see humans that are willing to put aside their prejudice for the Demonic races and think clearly?"

"……"

"That is an answer enough. Besides, This is me expressing my gratitude for him trying to spare my Kin despite the fact that he did not know it was a decoy"

"Since My lord has decided to forgive him for breaking into the burrows, can I stop following him now? I mean no disrespect but following him and his strange activities for the past four months has nearly caused me to go insane with boredom and his stupidity"

"Hahaha, okay, you can stop following him now. In fact, since I have determined that he is not a threat, I don't think we need to keep track of his activities anymore. I might as well get back to the Capital."

"As you wish Lord Julong"