Jia and Eui sat snuggled up next to each other in front of an open fire, roasting the remains of the slain beast after storing away the valuable parts like the tusks. Jia rested her head on Eui’s shoulder as she watched the excessively large cut of meat rotate on their makeshift spit.

“I wonder if it will taste like pork. It had a pig head, so that makes sense right?”

Eui sighed and shook her head.

“It’s going to taste like shit, like every other one we’ve tried.”

Jia grimaced, but she knew it was true. They barely needed to eat at all anymore, but Jianmo had encouraged them to eat magical beasts often—it was one of the least distasteful options their self-proclaimed master had given them to feed their cores. Unlike their previous masters, Jianmo insisted that feeding their cores was fine—especially after she’d discovered that Jia had her own core balancing out Eui’s.

Unfortunately, the meat of magical beasts always contained trace elements of corrupt essence. It was simple enough to remove the corruption with a bit of meditation, but nothing could be done about the foul taste that seemed to overpower all other flavors that the meat might otherwise have had. After two years of living off of it, Jia still hadn’t gotten used to the taste. Still, it was a much better alternative to consuming the souls of the living, or intentionally absorbing attacks of the corresponding element—Jia was still a bit numb after catching that oxbearpig-thing’s lightning.

Another advantage of eating the beasts they killed was that Heian could partake as well. Despite their spirit-daughter’s lack of a physical form, she didn’t have any trouble consuming the flesh of magical beasts and converting it to essence—especially a xiantian creature like this one. She was, however, an incredibly picky eater. Prompted by the thought, Heian chose that moment to manifest herself in cat form and approach the cook fire. Heian’s cat form had grown significantly over the previous two years, owing in part to the robust diet of essence that Jia and Eui had been feeding her. She was much larger than any street cat that Jia had ever seen, but still not the size of a fully grown mountain cat, let alone the enormous bulk of the greater spirit that she had spawned from. Eui shouted as Heian sniffed at the cooking meat.

“Not that one!”

Eui waved at Heian and gestured towards a larger pile of raw meat off to the side.

“The cooked meat is for us! You can eat the raw stuff.”

Heian hung her head, her voice—an odd mix between Jia and Eui’s that they’d long since learned to parse as uniquely hers—ringing out in their heads.

“I want.”

Eui let out an exasperated sigh.

“Why? What difference does it make to you if it’s cooked or not? You’re just eating the essence anyway!”

Heian looked between Jia and Eui, then back at the cooking meat.

“Want same.”

It was hard to argue with that, and they were trying to get Heian to act more human. Jia immediately thought of a compromise.

“You can eat the cooked food with us if you promise to do it in human form.”

Heian mulled it over for a while, pacing in a circuit from the campfire, to the raw meat, to Jia and Eui, then back to the campfire. Heian’s command of human language was improving, but very slowly. She could speak in sentences, but she still preferred smaller fragments supplemented by body language and the occasional pulse of emotion. Her training still had a long way to go, but she hadn’t shown any sign of trying to subsume Jia or Eui—and they doubted that she ever would. After several circuits, Heian came to a decision and padded over to Jia and Eui before transforming into a little girl and sitting across their laps.

“Dinner.”

Jia smiled down at Heian and stroked her long, slightly curly hair. She tended to speak aloud when in human form, though still in fragments.

“Good girl! It’ll be ready in a few minutes. It’s got lightning essence, so I think you’ll like it!”

Heian grimaced and kicked her feet.

“But air!”

Eui scoffed, but joined Jia in pampering their adopted spirit-daughter.

“Just eat around it like you always do. I know you can. Now sit up, your hair is a mess—as always.”

Heian grumbled irritably, but complied with Eui’s directions. Her human form was much the same as it had been two years ago, resembling a little girl somewhere between the age of five and seven. Her long, black hair fell in loose curls all the way down to her ankles, and it was invariably messy whenever she manifested—Jia suspected that she did it on purpose so that Eui would comb it.

After a grooming session and a family meal—which tasted as bad as Eui had predicted—the three sat in silence by the fire, Heian napping with her head in Eui’s lap as Jia looked on with envy. Eui grinned and poked Jia playfully in the cheek with her tail.

“Feeling jealous?”

Jia crossed her arms and puffed out her cheeks indignantly.

“No! Well...maybe a little. Okay, yes.”

Eui snickered before leaning over and kissing Jia gently on the lips.

“There. Does that make up for it?”

Jia blushed and nodded, eliciting another round of cackling from Eui.

“Ancestors, you can be so cute!”

Jia looked away, her eyes drawn to the crackling fire as she cleared her throat and tried to change the subject.

“Ahem—so, what are we supposed to do now? I don’t think we’re ever going to find a destruction core, and I’m starting to doubt we’ll ever find civilization at this rate. I mean—where even are we!? It’s been nothing but forests and mountains swarming with magical beasts for two years. I became an adult in the middle of nowhere!”

Eui chuckled before smiling suggestively at Jia.

“You certainly did.”

That comment set Jia back to blushing furiously again, but before she could offer a retort a third voice called out from behind them.

“Oooh! I don’t hate naughty girls, but have some discretion in front of the children!”

Yoshika started, nearly waking up Heian before turning to face Jianmo, who had appeared out of nowhere behind them.

“Do all Xiantian cultivators get some perverse pleasure out of startling people like that? Would it kill you to simply approach normally and say hello? Anyway, what we do together is our own business, and you know as well as we that Heian isn’t really a child.”

It was already awkward enough that Heian was technically privy to Yoshika’s most intimate moments without Jianmo making jokes at her expense. Heian was at least vaguely aware of the concept of privacy and would stay hidden within Yoshika’s soulscape during such moments. In her usual manner, Jianmo simply threw her head back and laughed, before sitting down and helping herself to a large helping of meat—the raw stuff.

“Mmm! Xiantian grade—not a bad find! I bet you got a perfect quality core out of this one.”

Yoshika sighed. It was always like this with Jianmo—she loved to pretend she didn’t already know.

“You probably saw the entire fight, didn’t you? You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t been watching us recently.”

Jianmo had a distressing habit of dropping in unannounced and observing them for a few days at a time. It made Yoshika feel paranoid, which Jianmo considered a bonus, if anything.

“Haha, so I did! It wasn’t too bad, except why didn’t you use that sword intent technique of yours to chop off its head from a distance?”

Yoshika was used to being drilled like this, and had already prepared an answer.

“The Earth Rending Sword Art can project a wave of qi that carries the properties of the blade it was channeled through, including any ki used to empower the strike. Unfortunately, if that ki is Destruction element the wave of qi will abruptly explode the moment it leaves the blade. Without the element of Destruction, we wouldn’t have been able to harm a xiantian beast.”

Jianmo nodded along smiling.

“Well you’d better fix that, then! That’s a great combination to have if you can get it working. Just keep trying!”

Yoshika frowned—that was easy for her to say when she wasn’t the one getting a blast of annihilation to the face.

“We’ll keep that in mind. Is there a real reason you’re here, Jianmo?”

Jianmo grinned before speaking around a mouthful of food.

“Is it not enough for me to want to check in on my cute disciples—or is it disciple? You’re always so cagey about your cultivation method.”

Yoshika gave Jianmo a pair of flat, unconvinced looks. She relented quickly.

“Oh alright, fine! I don’t hate that cold gaze of yours, you know. I’m here to tell you that your journey has nearly reached its destination! Isn’t that lovely?”

“I wasn’t aware we had a destination. We’ve been lost for two years and you’ve completely refused to help us find anything other than bigger monsters to fight.”

Jianmo rubbed the back of her head and chuckled demurely as if accepting a compliment.

“Well, you’ve grown, haven’t you? You should be happy! Thanks to my training you’ve gotten stronger in those two years than most would in a hundred years!”

“What ‘training’!? You left us stranded in the wilderness and just told us to master the techniques we already had available. You haven’t actually taught us anything the entire time!”

Jianmo looked affronted.

“Not true at all! I told you how to feed your cores without crossing any of those boring ‘boundaries’ of yours, I informed you of the importance of collecting as many techniques as possible, I cleared up those false notions of petty ‘mortality’ you’re still clinging to, and I made sure that you had a never ending supply of magical beasts to test yourselves on!

“You know I don’t hate ungrateful brats, but even my patience has its limits!”

Yoshika’s tone was sardonic as she retorted.

“You don’t have any patience at all.”

“I didn’t say they were particularly high limits! Look, the fact is, I already set you on the right path in our first encounter way back. There’s not a whole lot left for you to do except follow it. Where my instruction will really start to matter is after you’ve broken through.”

Yoshika huffed with exasperation. Of all the teachers she’d had, Jianmo might be the most frustrating by far.

“Fine, but—”

Yoshika cut herself off as her mind rewinded back to something Jianmo had said. She’d almost missed it.

“Wait, what was that about the never ending supply of magical beasts?”

Jianmo blinked at her, then shrugged.

“Oh that? Every time I came around I made sure to herd all the magic beasts in the general vicinity into your path.”

That was why there had been so many!? Yoshika had thought she’d stumbled into some kind of terrible no-man’s land unnaturally filled with magical beasts, but it was just Jianmo messing with her.

“Ugh, I hate you.”

Jianmo just giggled. If there was one thing Yoshika appreciated about Jianmo over her other teachers, it was the fact that she was informal to the point of being completely unflappable.

“Rude! Maybe I should just let you keep wandering instead of pointing you in the direction of civilization.”

Yoshika suddenly sat up at attention, eliciting a low grumble from Heian, who otherwise continued to nap blissfully.

“Civilization!? There’s a city nearby?”

“Well, I’m not sure I’d call it a city. More like a large village or a small town. You’ve arrived in the territory of those barbarians you were looking for—well, former barbarians, I suppose. Hard to get a grasp of the shape of the world after ten thousand years when everyone wants you dead, hahaha!”

Jianmo had Yoshika’s full attention.

“Yamato? We made it? Where’s the town? What’s it called? Are our friends there?”

In her excitement, Yoshika pulled a piece of jade out of Jia’s sleeve where she’d kept it tucked away all that time. Sadly, the speaking stone remained as silent as it had for the previous two years. Jianmo shrugged as Yoshika put the speaking stone away sullenly.

“Probably, yes. It’s just a few miles southeast of here. I don’t know, and I don’t know. I’d have been happy to just let you pass it by entirely to stumble into the first town that crosses your path naturally, but this place is interesting.”

Yoshika cocked her heads curiously.

“Interesting how?”

“Well, they seem to have enshrined a local deity there. Not a real one, mind you. A lot of places around here have spirits enshrined that way. What makes this place interesting is that it’s a person instead—and not just any person.”

Jianmo pointed at Jia’s body—specifically at her heart.

“It’s another person with a Yang-aligned demonic core.”