“So, which way should I go?” I asked.

She took out a device that looked like a compass, “That way.”

I made the legs of my Twentytacle Trap propel us in the direction she pointed in. There would be no way for me to control all twenty legs at once if I didn’t have Control at level eight. Still, it took a lot of concentration to get all of the tentacles to move properly. Good thing I was getting better at it over time even without Control leveling up.

“How long will it take for us to get out of the forest?” I asked. I had seen this forest from the sky before, but I hadn’t been paying attention to its size back then. I tend not to pay attention to those types of things when falling to my death.

“If we keep going at this speed, it’ll probably take about a day and a half,” she said.

I pursed my lips. A day and a half at this speed?

“But if you went faster, it would take a lot shorter,” she said, “It took me half a day to get here.”

I believed her. She was slower than the centipede, but that wasn’t saying much considering it was as fast as a bullet train. Chen Wei wasn’t much slower than it, meaning she could also go about as fast as a bullet train, or at least many times faster than my vine car.

We passed countless monsters. Most of them ignored us. The ones that didn’t got a clump of vines to the face.

I had to take little breaks every once in a while. Because of this, sleep, and a couple other complications, we exited the forest three days later. “Finally,” I said when I saw a small town in the distance. My eyes moistened a bit. Chen Wei noticed, “Is something wrong?”, she said, worried.

“No. Nothing’s wrong. It’s been too long since I’ve seen a village,” I said.

“Do you want to visit it?” she said.

“You know what? Let’s.”

The village was protected by a stout and short wooden wall. A normal human could climb over it. I stopped a long way away from the front gate, not wanting to scare the villagers with the Twentytacle Trap. I glanced at the trap. I couldn’t bring it into the village, but I didn’t want to leave it here either, where anybody could find it.

New Cultivator skill unlocked : Wither

Wither cannot increase in level.

Wither has reached level MAX.

How convenient. How many of these skills were there anyway?

“By the way, can you do me a favor and not tell anybody about my plants?” I said.

“Yes, Grandmaster Jin,” she said. She wasn’t much fun to talk to after she went all “Grandmaster Jin” on me. I was starting to regret showing her my plants. I tried to act casually but she kept using formal language.

The Twentytacle Trap shriveled up and withered away. The Protect on top didn’t wither but instead cracked into dust. Just out of curiosity, I tried using Wither on a plant I didn’t control. Nothing happened.

We walked up to the village. I let Chen Wei lead the way.

There was just one person guarding the gate. “Welcome, fellow daoists,” he bowed, “to the Red Seed Village.”

I started to bow as well, but I stopped when I saw that Chen Wei wasn’t bowing. She gave him a light nod before walking past him. I followed behind her. “Grandmaster Jin.”

“Yeah?”

“Would you like a new set of clothes? If you don’t mind me saying, your current clothes look odd,” she said, looking up and down my body.

The clothes I had been wearing did look very out of place in this world. Looking around, the people in this village were wearing what I thought of as a poor man’s traditional chinese clothing. I was wearing a white(but mostly brown from dirt) shirt and blue jeans. Definitely nothing like the clothing in this world.

“Um,” I looked away uncomfortably, “I don’t have any money.”

“I’ll pay for it,” she said eagerly, showing me a small pouch. Something within the pouch clinked as it moved from her waist to eye level.

I debated letting her pay for my clothes and decided I needed to fit in better. “Thanks.”

She led me to a small gathering of shops at the center of the village. Seeing them, she grimaced. “Sorry about this sir. As I feared, the clothes here are going to be a bit shabby.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. She gave me an apologetic look, “No really, I don’t mind. Actually, can you just choose something out for me? Just make sure it fits.”

She came out with a beautiful long red robe with embroidered black lions and mountains. She also got a robe for herself. I went into an alleyway, looked around for other people, and dropped a seed to the ground. A thin wooden box surrounded me and I changed into the red robe. The box dissolved into sawdust.

I walked out from the alleyway. I grinned, “Do I look the part?”

“Yes.”

“...” Is that all this girl can say? “Is that a red chair?” I said, pointing to a red chair.

“Yes.”

“Is that over there a restaurant?” The smell of fat frying drifted towards me, carried by the wind.

“Yes, do you want to go?” another tinkling sound came from her wallet.

“Yes please!” The thought of eating meat again overpowered my better judgment. I grinned shyly, “I’ll pay you back when I find the chance.”

We walked into the restaurant. It was filled with the smell of a busy kitchen, making my mouth water even more. The restaurant was people talked and ate loudly while the waiters ran around trying to keep up. A panting waiter approached us, “How many?”

Chen Wei held up two fingers and said, “Give us the second menu.”

The waiters face lit up, “Right this way, please.” He walked us to a separate room and shut the door behind him, all of the noise from the main room disappeared, blocked by the door and walls. He handed each us of a menu, bowed, and left.

I could read the menu, but I couldn’t understand it. It listed a bunch of dishes that I knew nothing about, so Chen Wei picked them for me. The waiter came back in a couple minutes. Chen Wei ordered everything.

The wait time was surprisingly short. An appetizer came immediately and more food arrived as we finished the appetizer. The main dish came not long after. I cut into the thick chunk of meat. I don’t know how they did it, but the whole thing was cooked evenly.

I lifted a piece of the mystery meat to my mouth and took a bite, the seasoning and juiciness of the meat burst in my mouth. It was perfect, by far the best I’ve had in my life.

I swallowed, savoring every second of it. My first bite of meat in this new world, it reminded me too much about the meals of my old world. The corners of my eyes moistened. I sniffled. When had I become such a baby?

“What’s wrong?” she seemed genuinely concerned.

The back of my wrist rubbed both of my eyes. “Nothing. Nothing at all. What is this from?” I asked.

“A black king bear. It’s a very strong animal, but it’s weaker than the animals in the White Dragon Forest,” she replied.

“Are the animals in the forest that powerful?” I asked.

“Undoubtedly. Surviving in that forest is supposed to be an almost impossible task. People flood into that forest every day and many of them die. I was only in there for half a day and I almost died,” she said.

“Huh? Why do they go in then? Even if there are precious herbs there, it can’t possibly be worth it.” I said.

“But it is worth it, if you’re really desperate,” she replied softly.

We ate in silence for a long moment. “Why were you so desperate to find that flower?”, I finally asked.

“I mentioned I was from the Blue Fire Sect?” she said.

“Right,” I confirmed.

“The Blue Fire Sect used to be a huge sect, one that owned multiple schools and a large section of the Grand Flames City. Eventually, the founding members died and the sect came under assault by the other sects of the city. Now I’m the leader of the sect, the weakest sect leader in the entire city. I can’t rebuild the sect unless I become more powerful.” she said calmly.

“Why don’t you wait a bit longer? Why the rush?,” I asked. She was only nineteen years old. She still had so much time to get to the next stage. She didn’t need to risk her life in the White Dragon Forest.

“I’ll probably be assassinated if I don’t reach the seventh stage before I turn twenty,” she said.

From everything she had said before, each stage was incredibly difficult to pass. I put my head down and a hand across my forehead. I breathed a deep sigh, “Is that even possible?”, I asked.

“Honestly? Probably not,” she sighed with me.