“I couldn’t have picked a better combination if I tried,” Kiara said. “I have the Garden Soul element, which pairs up beautifully with my Plant Spell school, and I have the Sylvan Bloodline that gives me a couple of useful abilities around growing and strengthening plants.”

“So, you’ve always had the resonating bonus thing all along?” I asked.

“Apparently. I never noticed the increase, but I haven’t really been around people since the world ended.”

“Understandable. Well, we should all get going, don’t want to waste that amazing buff timer. We just need to keep an eye out for those natural treasures. If they are anywhere, it would be in an Essence Wellspring,” I said as I stood up from my chair.

With the agreement of the group, we left my portable smithy. We wouldn’t have much more room in it if we gathered any more people. It was feeling a bit crowded now.

Once everyone was outside, I closed it up, and we went on our way. As we traveled, I split my focus and kept working on clearing my Heart Meridian. It only had twenty-five percent to go before it was done and I would be a rank seven Body Cultivator. Only one more to go, expand my Dantian enough and I would step into the realm of Energy cultivation.

We were fortunate that most of the creatures in this Wellspring were nocturnal. We didn’t get held up much over the first two hours of travel. The further we traveled, the smaller the trees became. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but as we went, the average tree went from being twenty feet across two around fifteen. This told me we were probably getting close to the edge of the Wellspring.

After those first two hours of travel, Magnus managed to pick up the scent of smoke in the air. It was faint at first, but as we continued, it grew stronger. The wind was blowing to the south today, so we swung north to find the cause of the smoke. We needed to know if it was a forest fire, someone camping, or some kind of monster before we could continue. We didn’t need a forest fire to sneak up on us.

It took nearly another half an hour before we ground the source of the smoke. Among all the nearly Identical Giant trees that were practically clones of each other, one stood different. This tree’s craggy bark was an ash grey. In the depths of the crags there was a faint red glow, like coals in a banked camp fire. The needles on the branches looked blackened and withered, but still clung to the branches. Pine cones decorated the tree like Christmas ornaments, some opened fully, some partially open and giving off a shimmering glow from within, and some still fully closed.

I used Identify on the tree

Smoldering Giant Pine

Hp:1000/1000

Defense: 30

Congratulations, your skill Identify has increased.

Identify Rank 9

Even with an Identify of Rank 9, I got little information out of the tree. It had an astounding amount of hit points and a solid defense rating, so it was fairly resistant to being cut down. But aside from the smoldering part of the name, I knew nothing else about it. I really needed to raise my Identify skill.

Kiara approached the tree and started casting her Analyze spell. Green light flickered over her fingers and transferred into the tree. The grey tree flickered green for the briefest of moments before the green light flowed back into her fingers. As the light settled and disappeared, Kiara took on the thousand-yard stare as she read the resulting prompt.

Once Kiara finished reading it, she smiled and shared it with the rest of us.

Smoldering Giant Pine

Genus: Gigantea

Family: Pinaceae

Properties: Fire Resistant, Fever inducing, Anti-Microbial

Summary: This tree is a mutation of the Giant Pine Tree. After absorbing copious amounts if fire aligned Essence, this tree underwent a transformation and is now perpetually burning. Although it smolders forever, the tree loses no health and is thriving, no longer requiring natural fires to germinate its seeds. This new species will propagate itself rapidly, overtaking and out competing its former brethren.

“Well, this is defiantly what we are looking for,” I said once I finished reading the results of the spell. “Your Analyze spell definitely provides a lot more information than my Identify skill.”

“That it does. It can provide more specific information once I harvest different parts. When I Analyze a whole plant, I get general information on the whole plant. Once I remove part of it, it can tell me potential uses for that part,” Kiara said.

“So, the next question is, what parts do we harvest? I don’t relish the idea of eating tree bark or wood, and I don’t know how to distill the Fire Essence, so eating it is my best option right now,” I said.

“The pine cones should be good,” Magnus said. “The fully open ones might have already lost their seeds, but the partial open ones should have plenty. I think we should harvest some branches too. It would make for some great crafting materials.”

“You’re right,” Kiara said, “But, how are we going to get it without burning ourselves?”

“I can summon Ember and let him collect the pinecones,” Rowan said. “He is literally made of fire, so he wouldn’t get hurt from touching the tree.”

I reached out to touch the bark. The outside was quite warm, but didn’t cause me any damage just from touching it. I pushed further and dug my fingers into the cracks like I was going to climb it and felt it sear into my fingertips.

-2

“Ow,” I cried as I pulled my hand away quickly and stuck the tip of my finger into my mouth. It had blistered quickly. It was only two points of damage, but it felt like touching my old cast iron pan right after cooking with it.

I cycled my Ki through my Dermal Meridian and healed the minor damage. Once I healed it, I activated my armor technique and jammed my fingers right back into the tree. My fingers felt warm, but there wasn’t any searing pain anymore and even leaving them there for a couple minutes, no damage made its way through my Ki scales.

“Ok, here is the plan. We can have Ember collect the pine cones and bring them down here. I will climb the tree as well and chop down several of the branches. We can’t pass up the opportunity to have unique crafting materials like this. With my armor active, I’m protected from the Tree’s heat, so it’s best if I do it. Any objections? No? ok, let’s do this.”

As Rowan began summoning his fire dragonling, I cycled my Ki through my Bone Meridian for the extra agility boost and scampered up the side of the tree like a squirrel. I could sharpen the points of the armor on my boots like crampons that let me dig into the bark and gave myself some small claws to make gripping with my hands easier. In next to no time, I was up over fifty feet and at the first layer of branches.

“Stand back, I’m about to start chopping,” I called, safety first and all that. I stood on a thick and solid branch and prepared to chop through the branch to the side of the one I was on. I wasn’t stupid enough to chop on the branch I was standing on.

I pulled out Dragon’s Fang. It was the strongest axe I had. The fire aspect wouldn’t help me much here, but I ran my Ki through the Sharpness binding to help me get through the tree’s solid defense.

After close to ten minutes of chopping away at the two-foot-thick branch, I finally heard a groaning, snapping sound and it slowly gave way and fell to the ground. The branch was a good hundred feet long, and with some trimming, would fit in our storage rings. Since we were here, I took the time to chop through several more branches, spending almost two hours harvesting the wood from the tree.

When each branch detached from the tree, it gave off a burst of heat that would have singed my eyebrows if it wasn’t for my armored goggles. In order to save on my Ki reserves, I only reactivated my armor right before the branch would give way. The technique would only last five minutes at a time unless I reinvested the thirty points of Ki into it. But if I canceled the Technique before it timed out, I reabsorb most of the Ki used to create the armor. I always lost some as it puffed back into the air and broke down into essence, but it was better than nothing. I needed to figure out how to just make a portion of armor at a time. It would make it more versatile and waste less Ki when I didn’t need the full thing on.

Once I finished chopping through enough branches to give us plenty to work with for a long time, I looked down and saw a good-sized pile of pine cones and Kiara was using her soul-bound axe to chop through the branches into manageable pieces, each around ten feet long.

Looking down at the fifty-foot drop, I cycled Ki through my legs and pooled some at the bottom of my feet before stepping off and falling straight down. I flexed my knees on impact, a ring of golden yellow power blasted out around me. It all absorbed enough of the impact t that I didn’t suffer any damage and could stand up and step out of the small crater I formed.

“Show off,” Magnus said with a laugh. I took a few minutes to refill my Ki pool while the rest of the wood was processed. We gathered everything, including the pine needles, thinking they might be useful for alchemy or something.

I picked up a pinecone and peeled back its covering to expose the small kernel like seeds. Instead of being a pale yellowish color, they had more of a warm ocher color and felt warm to the touch. I used Identify on it.

Smoldering Giant Pine Seed

Natural Treasure

Tier 1

This Natural Treasure is filled with low quality Fire Essence. Consuming all the pine seeds in one Pine cone will progress a cultivator’s Body Cultivation by 1%.

“How many of these pine cones did we get?” I asked.

“About fifty. The rest already dropped their seeds or were too immature,” Rowan answered.

“Well, it’s at least enough to get me halfway to my Elemental Body. I just need another 40% worth of Fire and ten percent worth of Earth. I’ll wait until we stop for the night to take some. We don’t know what it will do to me, so better safe than sorry.”

I put all the pine cones into my storage ring for later and we all collected the wood pieces. As I tried to pick up the first one, I used my Identify on it.

Smoldering Giant Pine Log

Quality: Exceptional

Rarity: Rare

Durability: 50/50

Weight: 1,470 lbs.

Traits: Infused with Fire Essence

We managed to cut down five huge branches and managed to get a lot of wood out of it. The branches were nearly a hundred feet long. The biggest piece, the section closest to the trunk, was the one I tried to lift. Even squatting and using my legs, I barely managed to lift most of the log. It wasn’t until I cycled my Ki through my muscles, boosting my strength to a whopping twenty-seven points that I could fully lift it off the ground for long enough to put it in my inventory.

That first log was ten feet long and about two feet thick. It gradually reduced in size and weight as we progressed towards the end of the branch, but by the time I finished loading them into my storage ring, I was too tired to calculate how much wood was in my ring. I had to sit down and rest. My Stamina was down to almost ten percent of my max. Straining that hard really drained.

This wood held the same property as the Embersteel we got from the Dungeon. With it being Fire Essence, it was compatible with both Ki Formations and Enchanting. With this wood available, I might have to replace the handle for Dragon’s fang with this. It has more durability and holds the same Fire essence. It should make a more powerful version of the same weapon.

With frequent breaks to refill stamina, Magnus and I both managed to collect all the logs. While we picked them up slowly, the others managed to trim off the side branches and store them for smaller projects. We didn’t let a single chunk of wood go to waste.

I drank some water from my Eternal Well Canteen. I pulled up its stats to check the Ki levels in it.

Eternal Well Canteen

Quality: Above average

Rarity: Uncommon

Durability: 30/30

Weight: 2.5lbs (full)

Ki Effects: uses Water Ki to attract and condense water, filling the Vessel with up to 1 Liter of water.

Consumes 4 points of Ki per 1 Liter produced

Ki pool: 12/20

I topped off the canteen’s Ki pool. it was better for it to be full as much as possible for when I needed a drink. We took a thirty-minute break after all that work before continuing on. I used that time to top off my Ki pool and work on clearing my Heart Meridian even more. It was close to completion; I could taste it.

In this environment, it didn’t take me the full thirty minutes to finish clearing my Heart Meridian. With the passive clearing I was doing for a couple hours, and this concentrated clearing, I managed to finish it in twenty-five minutes.

Once the last percent ticked over to completion, my heart shuddered in my chest. For a panicked moment that seemed to stretch out into eternity, my heart did not beat. For that eternal moment, I hung in limbo, afraid I did something wrong and I was about to die. Another eternal moment passed and my fear grew.

BOOM!

Without warning, my heart beat once. It reverberated hard, deep in my chest.

BA-BOOM!

Forever passed by in another moment before my heart beat again, with even more power.

BA-BOOM!

BA-BOOM!

BA-BOOM!

Before long, my heart was hammering in my chest with the speed and power of the Taiko Drummers. I could feel my blood rushing through my veins, making my entire body vibrate. I felt like I was going to shatter from the intensity. I coughed up black, foul-tasting blood. I had pushed my advancement too quickly; I didn’t give it enough time to process through my body’s elimination systems and I was paying the price for it.

I fell forward and vomited a tide of Black blood, all the weakness and impurities built up in my circulatory system being expelled in one long wave. My body wracked with pain as it expelled everything out of me it could.

After what felt like forever, but was probably only a few minutes, the buzzing in my body eased. My heart rate returned to normal, but it felt like it beat harder, with more vigor than it did before. The black blood finally stopped pouring out of my mouth and I could take a breath and spit out the remaining horrifying taste.

I opened my eyes and saw Magnus holding Kiara back. She had a panicked expression on her face as she tried to reach me, probably to render aid. But Magnus knew what was happening. He went through it himself before ever meeting me. He knew I was fine. Better than fine, actually. My constitution would be six points higher, my health regeneration speed would go up, and… and… I can’t remember what the other benefit the Heart Meridian gives. I pulled up the Prompt flashing in the corner of my vision.

Congratulations,

You have opened your Seventh Meridian, the Heart Meridian. Opening this meridian will have several immediate effects on your body and possibly more effects will appear as you progress

+6 constitution

+30% stamina regeneration

30% health regeneration

Right, it was my Stamina Regeneration that received an extra boost.

I pulled up my status and looked at my new Stats.

John Baker

Sapient (Human)

Cultivation Rank: Body 7

Strength 23

Dexterity 19

Agility 19

Constitution 26

Endurance 25

Intelligence 23

Wisdom 22

Health points: 130/130

Health regeneration: 34/day

Stamina: 325/325

Stamina Regeneration: 33/minute

Ki: 200/225

I could now heal thirty-four health per day. That was over one per hour now. My Stamina Regen finally caught up with my improved stamina pool and would fill from next to nothing to full in under ten minutes, and now having one hundred thirty health was nothing to sneeze at for now, but once I cleared my last meridian and fully expanded my Dantian, all my stats deriving from my attributes would practically double. Just a couple of quick steps away, and I would be a beast among men.

Shaking my head and then getting back to my feet, I swished my mouth out with water and looked at everyone around me. Concern in most of their eyes.

“I’m fine, I promise. I just rushed clearing one of my meridians and it had an unfortunate side effect. Trust me, I’m better and healthier than ever before. I think we are done here now, so we should get moving once more. Colorado won’t get any closer standing around,” I said.