As soon as Benton left Jin LiJuan, he realized his mistake. He had told her to feed rank one cores to the wolf cub, but she didn’t have any rank one cores. Further, she and her group were days away from the village. Either she’d have to wait to begin following the regimen he desired, or he needed to deliver the cores.
Obviously, he chose the latter of the two options.
He’d given all his rank one, two, and three cores to the Alchemy Pavilion to use in Body Cultivation baths, so he needed to find ten more for Jin LiJuan. Luckily, there was a house set up in the village for the express purpose of processing beasts, and there were likely a thousand or more cores there.
One Quickstep took him to a spot outside the wall, and a second brought him to the house. A few words to the person in charge got him a bag filled with ten rank one cores he needed.
It was pretty late into the evening by the time he got back to Jin LiJuan, where he found her in a camp eating dinner. Needless to say, she was surprised to see him but understood instantly after he handed her the bag.
“Gratitude, Master.”
When he’d talked to her earlier, he’d been focused on learning how the bonding had occurred and what needed to happen next. The situation had to be challenging for the little girl, considering how she felt about spirit beasts.
“How are you feeling about what happened?” he said.
“I don’t know, Master. I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Her little fists clenched. “I hate it, Master. I’m trying not to, but I do hate it so much.”
“You know that you’re tied to it, right? If either of you perish, the backlash for the other will be severe. As you are now… Let’s just say that I would not have advised you to bond a beast if you had asked.”
“I wouldn’t have done it if I would have known, Master.”
“I believe you, Li’er.”
She sighed. “Could I have someone else take care of the beast, Master?”
“No. Absolutely not. However unintentional your act, it is still your responsibility. If you need help, ask, and I will provide you with assistance. But, ultimately, care for the cub is on you.”
Jin LiJuan nodded, appearing wholly unsurprised by his response to her request. “I will, Master. Somehow, I will.”
“Take heart, little one. The situation isn’t as dire as it seems, and there are advantages to offset the challenges.”
“If you say so, Master.”
He laughed. “Come see me when you get back to the village, Li’er.”
Shaking his head, Benton Quickstepped back to the Formations Pavilion and resumed his work, continuing examining each and every inscription. The break caused by Jin LiJuan’s bonding had done him good, though, as he found his concentration renewed. The entire night passed and well into the next morning before something happened to break him away from his task.
Leaning into the habits he formed during the beast tide, Benton continued his practice of scanning with his spiritual sense at least four times per hour. He’d stop whatever he was doing and scan to the extent of his range. Because he’d done it so often, he was able to quickly look up from his task, scan, and return to work in seconds without breaking his concentration. Only in the rare event of the scan revealing something interesting did he not return to work.
Benton definitely found the fact that three Golden Core cultivators were approaching the sect at a high rate of speed to be interesting.
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Jin LiJuan did not sleep well that night. In fact, it was one of the worst nights of sleep she’d had since she had consumed the spirit beast meat that had so injured her.
For one thing, she had a lot on her mind. For another, there was a spirit beast sharing her tent.
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Honestly, she felt that the heavens were conspiring against her to punish her for her act of disobedience. First, she’d had her ability to attain her one true desire, to become a cultivator, destroyed. Then, when she’d regained some tiny aptitude in that regard, it had come at the cost of a promise not to use her power in anger against spirit beasts, which her pure hatred toward made very difficult to uphold.
Against all odds, she’d found herself in a situation where, even as weak as she was, she had the ability to kill one of the heavens-damned creatures. But remembering her promise to Master, she’d somehow, with much difficulty, convinced herself not to do so.
Only to end up bonded to the beast.
Jin LiJuan was not an expert on what such a bonding meant, but there was one thing that she knew for certain. If the beast died, either from natural causes or from her or any other cultivator killing it, there would be bad consequences for her. Her cultivation might be destroyed for good, beyond what even Master could repair. Or she might simply die. For all she knew, she might turn into a beast herself.
Which meant that her life was basically in the hands, or paws, of a creature she hated. If she let any harm come to it, she would suffer. Not only did she have to not harm it, she had to actively protect it. And as she had suspected would happen, Master had absolutely forbidden her from having someone else care for it.
She would have laughed if she didn’t feel so much like crying.
Across the tent from her sleeping mat, the wolf cub had no trouble sleeping at all. In fact, it slept like a baby, which, she supposed, was what it was. She honestly had a hard time seeing it as anything other than a dangerous, evil creature that would grow up to eat other people’s parents.
Maybe it was worth ending her own life to prevent it from ever becoming a threat. But she couldn’t die, not with the huge debt she owed Master and the sect hanging over her head.
She should have called for Senior Brother as soon as she spotted movement inside the wolf’s corpse!
Again, she’d been faced with a major life-altering decision, and again, she’d chosen wrong. The heavens didn’t often give second chances. And it sure didn’t give thirds.
As if it sensed her glare, the wolf cub began to stir.
Senior Brother had been nice enough to use his formidable dexterity and skill to craft an enclosure made of wood so that the spirit beast could not escape the tent or harm her in her sleep. That kindness was the only reason she’d been able to get any rest at all through the long night.
Dawn had broken, though, and it was time to face her new responsibility. She took a rank one core from the pouch Master had given her and tossed it into the enclosure.
The cub stared at the core, hunger written on its face, before looking at her with the most pitiful expression imaginable.
“Go on, then,” she said. “Eat it.”
Jin LiJuan apparently didn’t have to tell it twice because it immediately pounced. Even though the core was the size of a small pebble, the cub’s mouth was barely large enough to fit it inside.
The beast managed somehow, though,
There was no crunch or explosion of light or any other external sign of qi being used. The cub didn’t even really swallow. One instant, the core filled the beast’s mouth, and the next, it was gone.
The result was instantaneous. The cub grew several inches in each direction, looking like it had aged months in seconds.
Jin LiJuan despaired at what her life had become. Instead of killing spirit beasts, she was actively helping one grow stronger.
She really, really wanted to break down and cry.
“Well,” she said, “I guess it’s time to figure out how dangerous you actually are.”
Her instincts told her that hurting the beast was the same as hurting herself, so it was logical to assume that the cub’s instincts gave it the same warning. So hopefully, she could pick it up without it attacking her.
There were way too many ifs and maybes around that idea for her to be comfortable. She needed to test it, and she needed to do so before it got powerful enough to truly hurt her.
“Realize, beast, that if you hurt me, you’ll be hurting yourself,” she said. “Not only that, but Senior Brother already had little patience for you. Believe me, you do not want to get further on his bad side.”
To her complete astonishment, the cub nodded. Like literally bobbed its head up and down just like a human would.
Surely it didn’t understand her, and even if it did in some rudimentary fashion, there was no way it should be able to respond in such a manner.
The gesture was probably just an odd tic or something, one that she very involuntarily had to consider … cut.
Jin LiJuan shuddered. The creature was a hideous, evil, deadly beast. Nothing about it could possibly be cute.
She moved cautiously to the enclosure, which consisted basically of a bunch of pieces of wood tied together with twine. Removing one of the sticks allowed her to also remove a small section of one of the walls.
Jin LiJuan did that and retreated. The cub slowly walked to the enclosure’s exit and stepped out of it into the tent.
It kept its movements slow and displayed no aggression, so she calmly approached it and picked it up. Still, the beast made no attempt to bite or scratch her.
“Okay. Good job so far. As long as you behave yourself, I’ll keep you with me and give you one core per day. Harm me or any other human, though, and you’ll be sorry, no matter the cost to me. Understand?”
It nodded again, and the repetition brought no hint of cuteness to her mind.
Instead, she shivered. The thing’s apparent intelligence was starting to scare her.
Before she could dwell too much on what it meant that the beast could both understand her and respond, she heard something loud and far away.
The noise sounded like explosions, and they came from the direction of the village.