"Hey... I'm getting kind of nauseous after rolling in this ball for hours. Can you let us out?"

Xiuying spoke up as they rolled slowly towards the village.

"Then how will we be safe? What if we get attacked?" Yingyi scowled.

"Now, now. You disciples have indeed been cooped in here for too long." Shi Xin said. "As for safety, I can still assure that."

With a crystalline sound, the ball split into halves before Shi Xin stashed them into his storage jade. He took out several sets of armour, willing them to conform to each of the disciples.

A strange feeling washed over Mei.

She was surprised by how light it felt. Conveniently, the stream was next to her, so she peeked at her reflection.

Staring back at her was a lithe figure clad in shiny white gear, armoured from head to toe! So cool!

Mei instinctively tried to pose, before hurriedly stopping herself, remembering her sectmates were right beside her. Phew. That was close.

The mushrooms looked at them curiously, before leading them towards one of their abodes.

"Praise the Ant Queen!"

"The Ant Queen is the best!"

"Our creator! Our saviour!"

The moment they entered the house, the disciples immediately saw a group of little mushrooms before a statue of an ant with a massive abdomen, surrounded by smaller ants and eggs.

Chanting in soulsense, they happily ran around the figure.

"Uh. What are they doing?" Mei asked the mace mushroom.

"Hm? They're just offering prayers," it said.

"Her divine power scares the evil humans and moles away!" a little mushroom shouted.

"Yeah! Death to them all! Evil!"

Mei: ...

The two big mushrooms shifted uncomfortably.

"Little ones... we have guests." dagger mushroom said.

The little mushrooms finally stopped, running over to the glass sphere.

"Hi! Huh?" one of the little mushrooms hesitated. "Ahhh, humans!"

They ran off, hiding behind Mace and Dagger.

"Please excuse us..." Mace said to the disciples with soulsense.

"These humans have seen the error of their ways after the Ant Queen spoke to them." Dagger said. "They're good now."

"Humans can be good?"

"Yes, little one."

...what the heck?

Mei kind of wanted to punch the mushrooms.

"Sorry about that," Mace said.

After a lot of pestering from the children, Mace finally took them into one of the rooms, Dagger staying outside to supervise them.

"What was that about anyway? The ants are making you worship their queen?" Liu Qiang said.

"...I suppose you could say that," Mace said, after some hesitation. "Don't think ill of them for it. The ants truly worship their queen as a deity, they do not mean to deceive us. And... in a way, they truly did create us. Our great ancestor was conceived by chance in the fungal gardens the ants tend to."

Ah. So it was like how random stuff would just gain sentience for no reason in the stories she read? To think of all things would turn out to be the case.

Actually, since they were like spirits in the sense they weren't reincarnators, did that mean they could possess other stuff and switch bodies? Like how Su Qing was possessing his puppet?

...wait.

Mei turned her head looking all over the room.

Where the heck was Su Qing?

Ahhh! This was the second time she forgot about him again!

At least it wasn't her fault, right? Since her friends and the elder spirits didn't notice. Should she ask Shi Xin for help?

"Blah blah blah, establish trade, blah blah blah..." the grey spirit blabbered.

Yeah whatever, not important to her. She wasn't getting a cent anyway.

Mei didn't think Shi Xin would appreciate her disrupting his business deal... was she really going to wait until they were done? It didn't seem like it would end anytime soon.

...screw that!

She walked over to the door and unlocked it. Hearing the click, Shi Xin briefly looked over before continuing his talk.

Taking that as a green light, Mei walked out of the room and shut the door.

Heading out, she sat beside the stream.

She wanted to find Su Qing, but what was she even going to do with the elder spirits? At least, from their soul contract, she could tell the little spirit was perfectly unharmed. Did he run off to have fun or something?

At this time of the day- actually, what time was it even? She had no idea.

The village seemed strangely desolate, with not a single mushroom in sight. There weren't even lights, for the mushrooms didn't have eyes. On that note, there weren't even windows on the houses, only doors.

The only sign anything even lived here was the occasional sounds she heard, mostly faint metallic clanging. Were there a lot of blacksmiths here?

It was strangely lonely.

Oh wait. That meant no one was looking!

Mei immediately began making all sorts of poses with her wooden axe. Hua! Ha! Tua!

Hehe... she wished she had a sword.

Suddenly, from a distance, she heard a cheer with soulsense.

Gahh? Someone was appearing now of all times? She quickly sat down, pretending nothing happened.

Across the stream, she saw 3 little mushrooms on a small wooden boat, adorned with a carving of an ant's head as a figurehead. It was a rather crude boat, evidently made by the young mushrooms.

As they passed by, the mushrooms dropped a big rock in front of their boat, blocking it.

...well, that was one way to have an anchor.

"Hello!" one of them said. "I haven't seen you around, where are you from?"

"Eh?" Mei said aloud.

"You're a weird mushroom! I can't sense your soul properly!" another one said.

What?

As the mushrooms hopped around, asking her various things curiously, Mei stared at them in a confused manner. Suddenly, while she was about to reply in soulsense, it clicked.

The armour!

That weird feeling earlier was from formations within it obscuring her soul!

"Hey, this mushroom is funny. Why isn't it talking?" the first mushroom said.

Hm... that mushroom had a weird spot on its cap. Mei decided to call it Spotty.

"Maybe it's a newborn mushroom?" the second said.

Gunky.

"No, it's too big to be a baby mushroom." Spotty said.

The third mushroom didn't seem interested in talking... Mute.

"Maybe it's one of those mushrooms that works in the ant nest, outside our village?" Gunky said.

"Oooo! That must be it! Hey, hey, is that true?" Spotty jumped up and down.

"Uh..." Mei started. "Yes?"

"Whoa! So cool! I want to work for the ants too!"

What a convenient excuse.

"Hey! Mei Xiu!"

From behind, she heard Wang Wei shout.

He along with Liu Qiang had come out as well, running over. So the other two were actually interested?

She remembered Xiuying's parents were merchants but wasn't Yingyi just a peasant like her? Hmm... tho he seemed rather ambitious, from how he scolded her for being lazy.

Was he thinking of becoming a merchant?