Yu was still groggy as she sat on the couch, facing the wall with Ai was sitting behind her. Having the girl braid her hair had become their new routine. While Ai could not go hunting, Yu had felt that she wanted to participate and feel useful and helpful. So, two months ago, Yu had asked her if she could come up with a better way to manage her hair in the wild besides a single tail, which was all Yu knew how to do herself. Ai had jumped at the idea and ever since she had provided a nice braid that kept her hair together and out of the way at the same time. It was a special kind of braid that started at the her hairline and somehow braided all the way down while still against her scalp until it reached her neck and then kept going until ended a bit before half-way down her back.

Apparently it was a nice look because the first time she had worn it, Zhao Minge, the only ride she accepted down the mountain, had nearly fallen over himself after seeing her. She had tried not to laugh… She really had. Ever since, she noticed he had been blushing more, stuttering a little, and not been able to look away from her for more than few breaths before glancing again. Yu pretended not to notice, but she took it as a positive and decided to keep wearing it for its usefulness as much as its entertainment value.

At the moment though, Yu did not find much funny. She had gotten very little sleep the prior evening, unable to stop her mind from racing. In fact, she was still struggling with what the tag had told her about the… “knife.” After reading the description and gathering her thoughts, Yu had removed the tag and immediately destroyed it. Then she had placed thing in her ring and hadn’t even looked at it since.

She could not help but feel that that kind of item… wasn’t meant for someone like her. Yu almost wished she could forget what she had seen. She didn’t want to know what it was any more and wished she had never asked.

Yu jerked as she was shaken from her thoughts by a pat to her shoulder from Ai. “Done,” the girl whispered. A tiny squeak from Si Fei followed, letting everyone know she approved.

Taking a shaky breath, Yu forced a smile on her face and looked over her shoulder at Ai. “Thanks!”

Ai nodded with a small smile, got up from the couch with her bond, and went back into her room, waving at Li and Lu who had only just finished getting ready. Lu clearly looked nervous and unhappy, the complete opposite of her bouncing and beaming sister.

Today would be third Day 7 that Yu would take Li out to the forest. As she had her own responsibilities, Yu had kept day 4 to herself. In her opinion, Li was ready to hunt on her own, but she wanted to stick with Yu a bit longer. And with Lu now, she felt the twins should be able to go together without her as a chaperone after two or three more times. Assuming the large girl was willing to go out again after today. Yu hoped so, because otherwise she didn’t know how Lu could afford to stay in the sect. There just weren’t enough non-hunting missions.

And, of course, none of this took into account the need to be above the twenty thousandth rank before the six-month mark. Li would be fine as she had already started challenging others. But Lu… she really didn’t like fighting. She just wanted to work with beasts and be left in peace. Yu had no idea how that would work, either at the sect or in real life, but she wished it could for Lu’s sake. She wasn’t scared into passivity like Ai – she was just… caring. And if Yu was any judge, she was getting even more so the greater time she spent at the beast pens and farms.

As if reading Yu’s thoughts, Lu groused, “I wish I could just earn enough from the farms.” Then suddenly beaming, she added, “The supervisor there says I could make an excellent beast doctor. He offered to take me on as an apprentice if I keep doing well and am able to stay at the sect after a year. It’s not an official profession they teach here, but elders can take on apprentices if they want to.”

Yu had heard of beast doctors. Her city had had a few, but she had never interacted, nor done material research on them. “I think that would make a great career for you, Lu – especially with your Wood Affinity.” Yu told her, smiling. “And a good goal too. But you know what you have to do to reach it, right? To stay in the sect. And what do you have do to stay in the sect?” Lu’s smile faded and she slumped, but she nodded. Thinking of something, Yu added, “Look at it this way, even if you do take that path, you’ll still have to fight off predators and defend your herds or whatever. It’s not like beast doctors just sit around staring at beasts all day every day. They have to get stronger so they can provide better care.”

Lu looked Yu as if she had two heads. Confused at the reaction, Yu asked, “What? It’s true.”

Li laughed. “I don’t think my single-minded sister ever thought of that way.”

Yu shrugged and asked the girls, “Ready to go?” They nodded and she said to herself, “I hope Jin Kong can carry all four of us.”

***

They landed at western most landing area of the grade 1 beast area for the sect’s forest, per Yu’s request. The large brown eagle had had no issues carrying the four them. Of course, Lu had spent the entire ride grilling poor Zhao Minge about his bird friend. She had apparently wanted to learn all she could manage to squeeze out of him about the feeding and care of large raptors, despite it being short flight down the mountain. The young man loved talking about his eagle companion, so they had hit it off. Yu was excited for Lu to have met a kindred spirit, but for some reason she had had a small twinge in her gut when she saw them getting along so well. Concerned she was ill, Yu had checked herself with her water diagnostic skill but found nothing wrong. It hadn’t lasted long, but she’d monitor it.

Leaping off the eagle, the girls waving goodbye to the boy and his bird. Then Yu turned to the twins and said, “All right. Li knows the drill by now, so follow her lead. Basically, the rules are: try to be quiet, do what I say, and don’t be reckless and run off by yourself. I’ll be there to help and make sure you don’t take any serious damage. But I’m not fighting for you so expect to get scratched or bitten. I’ll do the tracking since that takes a while to learn, but I’m only going to demonstrated how to kill prey once. After that, you’re on your own. Any questions?” Li shook her head very quickly while bouncing in place. Lu thought about it, but shook her head. “Okay! In we go.”

Since they were staying in the grade 1 area, Yu felt no need to put on her armor. She did take out her bow and quiver though. After strapping the latter to her thigh and nocking an arrow, she turned around and let them into the forest.

As they entered, Yu started quietly speaking about how to move silently. She tried to teach them about heel-to-toe stepping, pointed out things on the forest floor that would make noise when stepped on, about how rubbing up against things disturbed the area, making their passing trackable, but also how much noise it made in the quiet of the forest.

Li, possibly assisted by her Wind Affinity, was able to step lightly. However, she also disturbed a lot of the flora. Lu was something of a clumsy oaf when it came to walking quietly, but managed to avoid leaving traces in the plant-life. She had known about Li’s issues from their two previous hunts together, but seeing it in contrast to Lu’s made Yu wonder if affinities had a bigger impact on normal day-to-day life than she had known.

Shaking the thought loose and putting it aside for later consideration, Yu continued to lead them deeper into the grade 1 area. They were going very slowly, as Yu and Li had done their first time.

Yu stopped, but said nothing, looking at Li. The girl looked back but immediately started searching the area. Then spotting what Yu had, she quietly walked to what was a pile of scat against a tree on the forest floor. Lu walked up loudly behind them.

“Can’t you be more quiet?” Li hissed softly.

Yu exhaled. “Easy, Li. So tell me what we’re looking at.”

Li crinkled her nose by examined the disgusting brown pile. Out of nowhere, Lu whispered, “Brown-spotted Elk.”

Yu felt her eyebrows rise as she turned her head to look up at Lu. Li asked skeptically, “Wait. How do you know that?”

“Partially digested berries and leaves tell me it’s a herbivore. Shape says deer or elk. As the sect’s forest only has so much variety, the size tells me mid grade 1 Brown-spotted elk. Can’t tell age beyond that it’s too big to be a calf.”

Yu smiled and nodded at her and then Li. Then held her finger up and mouthed, “quietly.” Then she started pointing out some hoof prints that pointed in a direction which Yu quietly followed. Every once in a while, Yu would point to more prints, as well as disturbed or broken bushes and plants, as well as a few clumps of fur.

Lu was really struggling to walk quietly so it did not surprise Yu that they never managed to catch sight of the elk. She had heard it a few times before it ran off from the racket the large girl was making.

Yu stood up straight and turned to them. “Okay. We’re not going to catch that one. Lu, you’re really too noisy to hunt. So here’s what I propose: Li, you see if you can stalk and hunt that elk. If it’s female, feel free to take it down yourself. Remember, surprise is your ally. With your daggers, you need to target where?”

“Neck or leg tendons,” Li answered.

Yu nodded. “Good. If it’s male and has a rack of horns, come back. Do not attempt to kill it on your own! Understood? I don’t want to be closing holes in you and luck shot to a vital area could be fatal.” Li bit her lip but nodded. “Go ahead then. Lu and I are going to spend some time working on silent walking.”

Li took a deep breath, mumbled to herself, “You can do this,” and silently jogged in the direction of their prey.

Yu turned back to Lu. “Let’s see if we can’t get you at least started on it. You’ll never get into melee range if you scare off everything before you can even see it.”

***

Thirty minutes later, Yu asked, “Have you ever thought about switching to bow and arrow?”

Lu was slumped on the ground, leaning against a tree. “They aren’t very useful in a fishing city, so I’ve never even held one.”

“That’s okay. You’re definitely improving with walking. And you’re a natural when it comes to not creating a trail. It’s just your feet seem to be attracted to every loose object on the ground.”

Sighing, Lu said, “Does it really matter? It’s like I need to move silently to protect my farm.”

Yu blinked at her. “And how are you going to be able to learn the skills to protect that farm if you get expelled?”

Lu slumped even more. “I don’t know.”

“My bow is way too small for you or I’d offer to try training you with it. Hells, it’s almost too weak for me now. I’m surprised it hasn’t broken already.”

Yu whipped her head to the left when she heard the cracking noise of something approaching. She waved Lu to stay behind a tree as she also moved back. She half-drew her bow, ready to use more strength if needed. Then she heard what sounded like humming and laughed, letting go of the tension and returning the arrow to her quiver.

“I heard you two talking, otherwise I would never have been able to find my way back,” called Li’s voice. “I got completely lost. Now come and help me with this thing.”

Then a blood-covered Li came stumbling into the area Yu and Lu were standing with a moderate-sized elk over her shoulders.

Yu ran over it and easily lifted it off her with a little help from Qi. Yu carried it near a tree dropped it on the ground with a thump and flying leaves and dirt. Yu ran back to Li, holding her hand out to check for injuries but the girl held up her head. It didn’t get me.

Nodding, Yu turned back around. Examining the carcass, she saw that there were multiple slashes along the rear legs, all but one too high or low to cut a tendon. Then she looked at the neck and saw it was cut side to side. It was mostly a clean cut with partial tearing.

“I know, I know,” Li said, panting. “I missed the tendons and the neck wound has tears. I messed up. I get it.”

“Not messed up,” Yu assured her. “You just panicked a little with it being your first time entirely alone.” Li nodded, not denying it. “Believe it or not, I completely panicked my first time fighting a beast. It was a low grade 1 Stone Dog and I ran away. So believe me when I say, I understand. Besides, now that you know you can do it, you’ll be calmer next time. Trust me.”

Lu walked over and looked down at the dead beast. Yu looked up into her face and saw a mix of emotions. “Lu?”

She gulped. “I mean, I guess I knew it logically. I eat meat after all. But seeing it like that. It’s different.”

Yu nodded. “Well, I need to dress this.”

Li immediately turned around and walked away. “I’ll just be over here.”

Yu sighed. “It’s fine if you don’t want to learn. You’ll just have to pay a butchering fee to whoever you sell it to. For us that’s the Alchemy Market.”

Yu took one of her ropes from her ring, tied it just above the rear knee joints of the elk, threw the other end over a tree branch, and pulled it up to hang at her head height.

Using the already existing neck wound, Yu made sure to slice the large arteries and drain whatever remained of its blood. While she waited for that, she watched Lu. The large girl seemed to have let go of some of her reluctance and had started looking analytically at the carcass.

“Want me to walk you through the dressing of the beast?” Yu asked her.

Lu thought for a bit and nodded. “I think it will help me. I can learn more about how their bodies work.”

Thrilled, Yu smiled widely. “Great! Well, the first step is always to drain…”

***

Five hours later, the three of them sat around a small fire, three very small pieces of beast meat on sticks held over the flames. Occasionally, Yu would drip a bit of salt and few other spices and some sauce onto the meat. She had purchased these from a cooking store in the central city’s market area. At first, she had thought to learn to save silver, but put it aside quickly recognizing the time to learn hoe would cost more and probably be of lower quality.

“You’re getting a lot better at walking, Lu,” Yu said, trying to encourage her. “It’s definitely noticeable. In a few weeks, you won’t even recognize yourself.”

Li was wiping blood off of her twin daggers. She had managed to kill four grade 1 beasts. Lu hadn’t contributed to the hunting itself, but she had taken charge of the dressing with Yu’s supervision. She had let her borrow her dressing kit and would probably continue to do so until they could afford their own.

“Split the points between you two. I won’t take any until Lu pays off her rent,” Yu said.

Lu opened her mouth, but Li beat her to it. “Fine, but I only need forty-five, so everything else goes to Lu.”

Yu nodded at that, thinking it logical.

Once again Lu opened her mouth, and once again she was cut off. “Don’t argue!” Li growled. “That’s why we’re here. Once you have enough, we can split down the middle. There’s no way I’m letting you abandon me. And do you know what our grandfather would say if you came home having been expelled?”

Lu closed her mouth and slumped. Then she nodded silently and looked back into the fire.

Yu reached forward and poked at the meat. Satisfied she told them it was ok to eat and they did. It wasn’t bad.

“Wow. This isn’t bad at all,” Li said, clearly surprised. “Why didn’t we do this my first time?”

Yu had learned a lot since that day so long ago that she had crisped black her first Stone Dog meat in the forest outside her home. Yu half laughed and half shuddered at the memory. That meat had been so awful.

“Normally I’d just bring the rations you and I had before since they’re easy to eat on the move and really affordable. This is your only free meal in the wilds from me. Enjoy it while it lasts,” she said grinning.

Li grumped and Lu smiled a little.

Looking at the sky, Yu judged they had a few hours left before dark and they would be forced to return. She stood up, starting to kick dirt onto the fire. “Well, let’s see what else we can find before it gets too late. The more we hunt, the sooner you make your thousand points.”

The others rise and just they started helping her bury the fire, Yu froze, tilting her head sideways.

What’s that sound?

Having seen Yu react that way before, Li froze and whispered to her sister to do the same.

“Something’s coming closer,” Yu told them. “But… it’s a bit strange.”

Yu took out her bow and ran to take cover behind a waste-high bush. The twins huddled next to her and they waited, the noises now obvious to them all.

"Is that yelling?” Li asked.

A few breaths later, Yu nodded. “It is.” Then a moment later she said, “It also isn’t coming closer any more. I think they all stopped, willingly or not.”

Lu shot to her feet but Yu reached up, grabbed the back of her robes, and yanked her back down with Qi-infused strength.

“What are you doing?” Lu said far too loudly. “Someone might need help!”

“You never just go running off, ever,” Yu scolded. “What if they don’t need help? Your crashing around could disturb their fight. Worse, what if there’s a lot of beasts? Are you prepared to fight three or four of them? How about ten?”

Lu opened her mouth, clearly upset at the idea of leaving people who might need help, but nothing came out. After a few breaths she closed it, looked reluctant, but she nodded a moment later.

“Stay here. I’ll check it out. If there is something you can do, I’ll either call or come back.”

And without waiting for a response, Yu moved to the left, staying crouched and behind the bushes. She followed the sounds but made sure to stay opposite the wind’s direction, as well as moving from tree to tree and bush to bush. The roaring of multiple beasts was obvious by then, but so were the calls of humans.

“Run, Xifeng!” yelled a boy’s panting voice. “I’ll distract them.” That was followed closely by a crashing sound that was very familiar to Yu. It sounded like a few of her Lightning Affinity skills.

“No!” a girl yelled back. “There’s too many and they’ve gone mad.” A whooshing sound was followed closely by pained scream.

Damnit! Yu thought to herself. She approached a tree, leaped up to a branch she believed strong enough to hold her weight. Then did it again and moved along that branch towards the noise. Only a few breaths later she saw movement through the leaves accompanying the racket the disciples and beasts were making. She saw two… no five disciples. Three were down, two leaking a good amount of blood. Of the two that were up, one was a girl with yellow hair and she was on a knee. Her tucked leg was also bleeding from a gash, but it didn’t look horrible to Yu. The last was a boy, also yellow-haired, standing ready with lighting crackling along his fists.

There were seven beasts, Wind Wolves Yu realized, surrounding them – two were clearly dead or close to it. Five were circling, occasionally leaping forward for a quick sharp bite or clawed swipe.

Looking at the area, Yu nodded to herself, figuring out her plan. She took her bow out, nocked a weighted arrow, and fired at the wolf closest to her in a single motion. The arrow struck in the ribs and entered halfway up the shaft. The wolf dropped like a rock and didn’t move again, its heart split. She then dropped down to the ground, landing in a crouch about five paces from the largest wolf. Yu pointed at it and a lightning bolt cracked right into its face.

Then she did the same with the next closest, and the next after that. It was then that the wolves got over their surprise. The second largest raised its maw to the sky and howled. Yu turned around and sprinted away, easily hearing the padded paws and panting breaths of the many wolves chasing her.

Yu replaced her bow with her hook swords in reverse grips as she ran away. When she got close to where she had left the twins, Yu let them know. “Incoming!” she yelled. “I’ll distract them, you attack.” And then Yu slid to a stop, ducking just as wolf flew over her, banging into her still elevated braid.

A flash of silver was followed by a yelp and the wolf landed poorly, tumbling over itself, its left foreleg missing. She turned back to face the rest of the pack when she saw a few short silver hairs slowly float down in front of her face.

“That damn thing cut my hair!” Yu screamed.

She heard laughter from her left when a figure in black and white shot across her vision from left to right, a gust air quickly following, blowing her poor loose hair strands all over. Another wolfy yelp followed, along with a spray of blood.

Yu was so angry she didn’t even swing her sword at the next wolf who charged at her. She just punched out, glaring at the creature that had ruined her braid and all of Ai’s hard work. She hadn’t let go of her sword however, and the crescent blade smashed into the wolf’s skull so hard it crumpled inward and divided entirely in half to the chest.

Blood sprayed all over Yu as she slamming what remained of the wolf to the ground with a bone-shattering crash. Yanking her sword up, she looked around and saw four wolves, three dead, two by Li, one by herself. A fourth was whining and limping away without its foreleg. Yu glared at it, cracking it in the side with another lightning bolt. Then she spat a ball of lightning at it and it was down, shuddering until it stilled from damage and blood loss.

To the left, Yu heard more crashing causing her to whip around, only to see Lu, staggering backward with her staff, pointing at the last wolf. It had its jaws clamped around the end of it, yanking it back and forth. Tears were falling from her eyes, as she fought to hold onto her staff. Li started to run over but Yu ran to her and held her cross the middle.

“She needs to do this,” Yu whispered to her. Li pushed against her arm lightly, but stopped after Yu wouldn’t let go. “Let her learn.”

Li nodded and both of them watched Lu fighting the wolf and herself. It was obvious to Yu what had happened by the positioning. Rather than using her staff as a bludgeoning weapon as it was designed, Yu had tried to poke or jab at the wolf, attempting to make it leave. She clearly had not yet fully accepted what she would have to do. She also was so distraught that she couldn’t take her eyes off it and did not see Li or Yu watching.

Lu pushed and pulled, finally managing to make it let go after a massive yank upwards. But she went right back to jabbing at it again, saying as much to herself as the wolf, “Go! Run!”

Yu sighed, knowing what she had to do. “It won’t run Lu,” she called. Lu jerked and looked over. The wolf took the opportunity to leap at her. Out of instinct and training, Lu pulled in the staff and swung it horizontally. The wolf bit into the middle and the weight pushed it towards her. The girl and wolf both tumbled to the ground and rolled over until Lu lay on top. The wolf’s legs scrabbled against her torse and waste, tearing at her robes and skin beneath. But she didn’t seem to notice. Her weight and strength pressed down upon the staff, which was across the wolf’s throat. Yu’s heart wrenched at the crying Lu who was forced to hold it down by the neck. Yu knew that the girl was so close to the wolf that she could smell its breath, hear its chocking whimpers, and see it weakening and dying.

“At this grade, they don’t run,” Yu told her, walking forward to stand right next to her. Then she crouched down and spoke right into her tear-streaked face. “They hunt and eat and kill. They don’t understand mercy, nor offer any. They don’t care that you love them. They don’t care that you want them to live in peace. This is a beast. A demonic beast, and it wants. You. Dead. It wants to eat you and become strong from that act. This is our world, Lu. Your world. Wishing it isn’t will only get you and your loved ones killed.”

Then Yu reached forward, placed her hand on the staff over the wolf’s neck, and pressed down hard all at once. There was a cracking sound and the wolf went limp. She placed her hand on Lu’s shoulder and sent healing energy into her, closing the wounds she probably still hadn’t consciously been aware of. Then Yu, got up, gestured to the crying Li to go to her sister and walked away, a single tear falling down her own cheek.

After walking far enough that she couldn’t hear the sobbing cries behind her, Yu leaned against a tree and took a slow shaky breath. She hoped she had done the right thing. She believed she had, but there was always doubt. Wiping her face, she marched onward, as she always had and hoped she always would.

Yu ran her fingers through her now lose hair and then tied into a tail while she picked up her pace and ran back to where the other disciples had been. She found the boy tending to the girl’s leg, while she tried to tend to one of the other downed boys’ head.

Yu ran to them, saying only, “I’m an Initiate healer. Let me help. Stop touching him, you could be making it worse.”

Then Yu went to the one she thought likely dead, or closest to it of all of them. She touched the body, checking for a pulse. After a moment she slumped. It was too late. The girl was gone…. Had been gone for a while. The large artery in her leg had been severed.

Yu stood and moved to the next, which is the one the girl had been trying to help. Yu shoved her hands away and gave him a once-over. He was alive, but unconscious. Her simplest diagnosis skill told her that he had a concussion from a blow to the head that was still bleeding. She healed the external bleed first, along with a few others that had not stopped already, and then focused on his head. Thanks to her training with Elder Mi over the three months, Yu had gained a better grasp of her grade 2 healing skills. Unfortunately, in this case her training told her she was not familiar or strong enough to heal his head without risking making it even worse. He had swelling his brain and she was nowhere near sufficiently competent to take on an injury like that.

“You!” she shot, jabbing her finger at the boy. “Your friend here has a really bad head wound and I can’t help him. You’re well enough to carry him to the travel area. Call for help and get a healer to look at him immediately upon arriving. Tell them he has a fractured skull resulting in a brain bleed on the left frontal lobe.”

Yu was thankful for her healer uncle who had made her memorize a number of books on human anatomy. It was one of three reasons she was considered an intermediate healer, rather than a novice. The others being she could use both Water and Wood Mana and that she was clearly more practiced than a novice.

The young man just stared at her, not helping. “Now!” Yu yelled in his face.

He jerked backward, but stumbled to his feet. Instead of lifting the young man, he pointed at the girl he had been helping by bandaging her leg. Poorly. “What about her?”

“I’ll help everyone else. This boy’s going to die if you don’t get him to healer immediately. Get moving!”

And then Yu ignored him and moved to the last prone disciple. He, sadly had also died, although in his case it was from a claw across the throat. He hadn’t lasted more a few breaths after the fatal strike. Interestingly, his body was quite a bit stronger than Yu would expect from this group. She looked up to see the young man gone with the injured one, so she went to the girl and undid the terrible bandaging job.

“Hello,” the girl said. “I’m Nang Xifeng. Thanks for helping. Umm… both times I guess.”

Yu just nodded, focusing on purifying the leg wound of infection. It appeared to be only injury from what she could tell. That done, she healed the tares throughout the tissue, slowly working her way from deeper all the way to surface, ending in her skin as she had been taught.

“You got lucky,” Yu told her. “It was close to a large ligament in the knee joint. You would have needed a major healing and probably been off your feet for at least a week.”

Yu saw her pale and nodded. “I figured that might hit home. I thought I recognized you all from our Introduction class every Day 1 morning. You always sit to the left of the room, with your…brother is it?”

“Cousin.”

“Cousin. Given how close we are to the first payment being due, and the fact that you couldn’t fight off low and a single mid grade 1 wolves, you’ve got yourself in a bind with points. So you all got together came down here and trying to earn some assuming you would be protected with the help of that stronger young man with his neck slashed. You all figured he’d protect you, so you took on an entire pack of Wind Wolves thinking you’d get a bunch of the points all at once. How close to the truth am I?”

The girl gaped at Yu with mouth hanging open. “Right,” Yu muttered. “Sometimes luck is better than power.” Then clearing her throat, she continued, “Your leg’s fine now. You should eat an extra serving of meat at all your meals for a few days to replenish yourself. You’ll feel a bit weak, but otherwise you’re good to go.” Yu glanced at the girl’s hands and sighed. “As you don’t have a storage ring, I’ll take their bodies back up and you can do whatever you need with them after I submit them along with my report to the healing center.”

Yu grabbed the only ring there, a plain copper one from the finger of the strongest young man. She placed their bodies and dropped weapons into her own ring along with the wolf carcasses, helped the girl to her feet, and walked back to Li and Lu, hoping she would be forgiven.

She was pretty sure she couldn’t take any more bad news today.