Book 3 Start – Chapter 128: Adventure (Patreon)

First Patreon Post! Hope I'm doing everything correctly.

This chapter is coming out on Roal Road right after this post, I just wanted it up here so the Patreon starts with the first chapter of book 3 as well. All the advance access posts are dropping between 18:00 and 18:05.

“Here it comes!”

Zixin’s sword was drawn and held ready to strike as the sound of rustling leaves and snapping branches was joined by a rumbling of the floor. Every muscle in his body was tensed up as he waited, in suspense, for the beast to draw closer. Next to him, Chonglin, having brandished his spear, audibly swallowed.

Then, with a loud crack, an enormous boar burst out of the thicket and onto the clearing. Its fur was long and tar-black, its tusks longer and sharper than they ought to be and its eyes showed a faint red glow as it charged for them.

When he’d first been charged at like this, Zixin had panicked. Now though, he was calm and collected, knowing he could trust his body as he waited for the right moment.

Three… Two… One… Just as the boar was right before him, he jumped. The enhanced muscles in his legs carried him several meters into the air, easily clearing the boar’s path. Behind him, Chonglin had pushed his spear against a large rock and leapt out of the way just in time.

With a loud crack, the spear’s handle snapped as its blade embedded itself in the boar’s skull. A terrible squeal tore through the air as the beast tumbled and came to a stop. Before it could regain its bearing, Zixin leapt upon the convulsing mountain of muscle and embedded the blade of his sword in its neck. After a few moments, the movement slowed and then stopped.

Zixin drew a long breath of air as he withdrew his sword and climbed off the slain beast’s body.

“Huh… that was a big one.”

“Maybe it has a core to match.”

Chonglin had already drawn out his hunting knife and was walking towards the carcass. Zixin retched as he sat down to rest a couple of paces away.

“I still don’t understand how that part doesn’t bother you.”

“I told you…”, Chonglin answered as he started opening up the beast’s stomach, “…we used to slaughter animals when I was a kid.”

“We were accepted into the sect when you were eleven years old.”

Chonglin shrugged.

“Well, I wasn’t participating. My dad did it. Wonder how he’s doing… how everyone’s doing…”

Zixin remained silent. He’d had the same thoughts about his own family. It was naturally where the mind wandered, now that they were away from the sect for only the second time in their adult lives.

Neither him nor Chonglin were from noble families, so they hadn’t had contact to them at all in their times as disciples. For background-less disciples like them, the sect was supposed to become their new family once they had been accepted. And to an extent, it had.

“Hmm… Once we’re members, I’m sure you’ll get the chance to visit them.”

“Ha… That’s still a couple years off.”

“Which we should be thankful for. I’ll remind you that if we were still outer disciples, this would be my last year. We should be making good use of this time, I heard they’ll work us to the bone afterwards.”

“In Elder Shi’s hall? I don’t doubt it. But I was thinking of becoming an instructor at the Training Hall.”

“You? An instructor?”

Zixin laughed heartily at the thought.

“You’re gonna need to gather some experience first.”

“Laugh all you want, I’ve already signed up to help out with this year’s admittance exam… Oh, would you look at that!”

Chonglin pulled what looked like a dim blue gem in the shape of a ball out of the beast’s chest. Well, it would look like that after they’d wiped off the blood it was dripping with.

“I told you it would be a big one!”

Indeed, the beast’s core was almost the size of a closed fist. Zixin nodded approvingly.

“This might be the largest one we’ve found. What do you think Qiao is gonna say when she sees this?”

“I reckon she’s gonna be happy we caught something but not at all impressed, like always.”

“Ugh, you’re probably right.”

Zixin looked at the beast’s body, standing up.

“You done then?”

“I’ll take its tusks as well. They’re long enough to be useful. The forest can have the remainder for all I care.”

Zixin leaned against a nearby tree, folding his arms.

“Alright, but hurry up. Otherwise, the forest might decide to have us instead.”

Chonglin chuckled as he got to breaking the boar’s tusks out of its skull.

“I don’t think there’s many big beasts left around this part by now. And the ones that are will probably be careful after what we’ve been doing to their brethren.”

In that very moment, as if to prove him wrong, an ear-shattering roar tore through the quiet of the forest.

“Well, I’ll be damned…”

“Come on, that’s our queue to move!”

Zixin was already on his feet and getting ready to run.

Chonglin stood up and grabbed the last spear he had brought.

“Normally, people would mean ‘run away’ by that, but I suppose you’re about to tell me the opposite.”

“Someone from our group might need help!”

“Of course.”

The two took off. Over the past couple of weeks, they had learned to move through the thicket as if they had been born there. The advanced eyesight of their reformed bodies, alongside their increased reaction speed helped them identify gaps and obstacles faster than any mortal could ever have managed. Their improved muscles helped them make use of this information in ways they could only have dreamed off a couple years ago.

Another roar made the air around them tremble, this one closer. The two gripped their weapons harder as they closed in on the position. They burst onto the clearing, weapons ready to strike.

Before them was a humongous bear, standing on its hindlegs. It was almost as tall as the trees surrounding it, its long brown fur was glistening with fresh blood. Its claws were long and sharp like daggers and its monstrous fangs looked like they could tear through metal and bone alike.

And just as they witnessed it stand there in all of its wild, terrible glory, the beast’s legs shook, its body swayed and then it fell flat on its face. The ground shook under its weight.

Right next to where it had fallen stood the figure of a young woman, her silver armor reflecting the beams of the sun where it wasn’t smeared with blood. She approached the fallen titan without hurry and sunk her sword into its throat with practiced ease. Only when its movements had stopped did she turn around to greet the newcomers.

“Look who we have here!”

She drew the helmet off of her head and grinned.

“Two young heroes coming to the rescue.”

Zixin slowly let his sword sink.

“Qiao.”

“Looked pretty dramatic, didn’t it? Well, it was.”

Chonglin had already put his spear away and carefully approached the bear.

“What the hell is this thing?”

“I told you there was still a big one out here.”

“Big is kind of understating it.”

“Well, it sure wasn’t as threatening as it looks.”

Qiao had turned around and was cleaning her blade of blood.

“Slow as a snail and basically just flailing around at random. I guess it was accustomed to ripping its prey apart with sheer strength. By the time it recognized me as a threat, I’d already made its front-legs useless.”

Zixin watched as she went to butchering the bear with even more practice and precision than Chonglin had.

“Am I the only one without experience slaughtering animals?”

Qiao looked back at him.

“No? But I think I picked it up pretty quickly.”

Zixin sighed.

“Not fair.”

“Well, you haven’t even really tried, have you? Anyways, it’s not that important of a skill for a cultivator to have. Once you’re strong enough, you can just bring along someone who does it for you. So just keep training with the sword instead, then maybe you can beat me someday… working together with Chonglin, that is.”

Qiao grinned.

“Tsk… Once I have a core like you, you’ll see…”

“Core doesn’t make you stronger, that’s kinda the entire point.”, Chonglin chimed in.

“Yeah, but how are we supposed to compare to her if we haven’t even finished Body Reformation yet? That does make you stronger, doesn’t it?”

“You’re really not far off, from what I see. There’s not too much you two can change anymore without body cultivation techniques.”

“Well, it’s not fair that we have to compare ourselves to the top genius of the generation anyways.”

“Complain all you need, but if you want to aim high as a cultivator, who else are you gonna compare yourselves to?”

With those words, Qiao drew a beast core the size of a child’s head out of the bear’s abdomen.

“Anyways, let’s head back to camp and get a couple more people over here so we can carry this thing.”

“You want to take the whole thing?”

“Perfect amount of meat to have a feast, after all we’ll start heading back tomorrow morning, otherwise we might miss the disciple tryout next month.”

“Oh yeah, I’d already forgotten that.”

They had been hunting beasts in the grand forest for almost a month straight now. It was a joint exercise with disciples and members from the Serene Plains Sect and the Parting Clouds Sect, a response to the rising beast population in the area that had previously been subject controlling hunts from subordinate sects to the Roaring Thunder Sect.

It had been five years since the end of the war, but while the remainder of the peninsula had been mostly peaceful, the territory of the dissolved Great Sect was still as chaotic as ever, with the newly independent sects inside it all vying for power amongst themselves. Groups were forming, rising and falling, alliances blooming and crumbling, heroes rising and falling, all fueled by the resources previously monopolized by the Roaring Thunder Sect. Spirit stone mines, valleys full of rare herbs, hidden-away inheritance stashes – it was no wonder the beast population had gone unchecked between it all.

If Zixin had been an independent cultivator, he’d probably be in the fray as well, looking for his golden ticket. Even now, a part of him wanted to head out there, to try his luck adventuring, though of course he knew that it was nonsense.

The Three Great Sects and their allies had taken everything of actual value with them already, in reality those people were fighting over leftover scraps. As a disciple of the Lunar Peaks Sect, he had received a part of the spoils of war himself and though it hadn’t been too great because the disciples were not considered primary contributors to the war, it had probably still been more than the average adventuring cultivator would walk away from this chaos with in the end – if they even made it out alive, that was.

“Hey, watcha zoning out for?”

Chonglin’s voice pulled Zixin from his daydreams.

“We’re at the camp!”

…

The evening was spent feasting on the bear’s meat, laughing, dancing and exchanging stories from the different sects. Everyone was happy to finally return from their trip on the next day, after all they’d spent an entire month camping out in the woods by now.

On top of that, an instructor from the Serene Plains Sect who was helping to oversee the disciples had made a trip to the next settlement and brought a casket of wine with him, lightening the mood even further.

After a long, merry evening, Zixin was perched on a large rock and starring at the night sky above them. He too was happy at the prospect of sleeping in an actual bed once more, but at the same time he was feeling some sadness.

This excursion had been the first time he had left the sect since his they had traveled to the tournament. He’d been ecstatic when he had been chosen, since disciples rarely got the opportunity to leave the sect at all, and he’d been even more over the moon when he’d learned that he’d be traveling with both of his closest friends. He’d cherished every moment of it, and it hurt to let go, since he was well aware that an experience like this might not be returning in a long time.

Zixin heard the rustling of steps in the leaves on the ground. He looked up to see Qiao approach him. She was holding her sword, having used it to skewer a big piece of grilled meat, but her expression was somber. She sat down next to him.

“Getting melancholic?”

Zixin nodded.

“Me too.”

She stared up at the dome of stars above them. Zixin did the same.

It was unlikely there’d be another chance for them to go on an adventure like this as disciples, and once they became members, they’d all be juggling their own responsibilities. Qiao in particular could already not spent too much time with them at the sect, since her family was usually keeping her busy.

The Bai Family was pushing her as the next generational genius, perhaps as a way to restore the honor lost in the events around Elder Bai during the war. Either way, a genius like her wasn’t supposed to hang around with ordinary disciples and she sure as hell wouldn’t be seen taking time out of her schedule to do so. They had allowed her to go on this excursion as a way of proving herself outside of sect grounds, but once they were back, she’d need to make up for the time she had lost in training. They wouldn’t be seeing much of her face for a long time.

Zixin’s gaze drifted from the night sky to his friend’s face. Her skin was glowing in the pale white of the moon and the stars, but the warm shine of the fire from the camp reflected in her eyes.

He could see the longing in them, a longing much stronger than his own for adventure, for companionship… for freedom. It was beautiful, in a mournful way, a perfect flower trapped in golden cage, reaching towards the sky in a desperate yet hopeless attempt to escape…

Zixin shook his head. He felt heat rising in his cheeks. When in the world had he developed a penchant for poetry like that? He’d need to get himself checked by the next town’s physician, maybe he’d hit his head without noticing.

Qiao had noticed that something was up and turned towards him with a questioning look. He shrugged.

“I just wish we had some more time out here.”

She smiled sadly and nodded along.

“Me too.”

Then her face cheered up.

“But we still have the entire trip back to the sect before us. The ships that got us here continued on their way after dropping us of, so we’ll have to take the route by land to get back. We’ll head by the Serene Plains Sect this time around, then we’ll swing by the Parting Clouds Sect. From there, it’s still the entire trip down the coast and we’ll be stopping in plenty of towns to see if we can sell some of what we hunted.”

“I thought the spirit cores needed to be handed in at the sect?”

“Of course, but what did they ever say about pelts, claws, teeth and bones?”

She grinned and Zixin couldn’t help but follow her example.

“Sounds like we have a bit of adventure left then.”

“You bet!”

Thank you for reading!

The regular author notes and public polls will remain exclusively on Roal Road btw, it's too much of a hassle trying to replicate them here.