It is clearly becoming night, and typically in these situations, you would set up a watch.

In this case, I let him know at this tree house can seal itself up, while still maintaining airflow. We can still maintain somewhat of a watch, but anything that could or would break through these walls would give us enough warning to run away.

And anything that wouldn’t give us enough, we wouldn’t be able to fight, anyway.

After I say something to that effect, he thinks about it and agrees.

He offers to take the first watch, which is worded as if he’s doing a favor to me. Of course, I know this is just him being wary. A natural game played between two parties who are unsure of each other, but still cordial.

In his case, it appears he trusts me, but only to a point.

To help gain more of his trust, I quickly agree and let myself fall asleep. Obviously, while maintaining my awareness.

This is where my abilities that I’ve been training will shine. It will allow me to maintain a baseline idea of what’s going on, even while being inside of a dream.

As my eyes finally close and I move to sleep, I discover an interesting synergy between my awareness ability and my new cultivation.

Normally, it would be like a fuzzy picture of the surrounding area, with things that happen, like sudden sounds or vibrations, appearing clearer.

Now, there’s an aspect of Qi woven inside of it. Uses of cultivation abilities will catch within the picture, as my scan is also active at the same time.

So, when I’ve actually fallen asleep, I’m still able to see the wisp of spiritual sense moving from him to me, probing to see if I’m actually sleeping. For all intents and purposes, I am.

He seems to relax at finding this out, retracting his sense. Next, he seems to look at me with a weird look of gratefulness and confusion. This quickly turns into a shake of the head and a new look of conviction.

Like the way I had acted earlier, people rarely trust others that easily. And frankly, shouldn’t.

Still, I have a great feeling about this guy.

But not just him.

There are so many people out here that one too and can do a lot of good in the world if they have the chance. Whether it’s the money, ability or their circumstances, think all these people want to be better.

To do better for others.

Almost as if responding to my thoughts, I can see his spiritual sense float outside of the tree to do his job. Over the course of the night, he seems to relax more and more, and keeps throwing grateful glances over at me.

It's easy to forget the difference is a safe place at night can do for a person. Considering the injuries I saw on him; it looks like he wasn’t able to find or make such a thing when he went deep into the jungle.

Just because a person is strong doesn’t mean that that they’re a good engineer.

But suddenly he turns alert. Quickly moving to my side, he taps me a few times to wake me up silently. I wake up alert and ready.

He motions for me to stay silent, and my scan picks up what he had discovered. A large bird, like a woodpecker, floats down onto a branch near the tree.

He motions for me to stay silent, and seems to take out a sharp dagger that he keeps ready. He points towards the wall that the woodpecker is on and orients his fighting stance in that direction.

Both of us creep towards the middle of the room, lying in wait in case it comes inside

It is clearly eyeing the treehouse and whether it should peck into it. Not wanting to risk anything, I send an avoidance taming contract to it.

It accepts and flies off.

After a moment of waiting, he relaxes and lets me know it’s safe to relax.

He briefly explains what had happened and what he saw. So, in response, I mix some of the alchemical ingredients that I had stored here to make a paste, to deter any beasts from coming near. I made it from a combination of some poisons from the poisonous part of the jungle, as well as the excrement of a dangerous animal I had found when traveling to the ground of the jungle.

The excrement will make sure that any creatures who would come to this area will avoid the tree, while the poison will ensure that any creature that would be attracted to the excrement will avoid it because of the clear poison.

If we are deeper in the jungle, stronger spirit beasts would just ignore that out of curiosity to find what would do such a thing. Luckily, those types of creatures don’t travel near here. With the main exception being the Panther, of course.

On the note of the Panther, it is once again staying just outside the range of my original taming contract distance. It is clearly still interested and looking in this direction. It seems to have guessed that I must be sleeping at this point in time.

With this crisis past, I head back to sleep and he returns to his watch.

Things calmed down a bit and by the middle of the night we switch and he still stays awake while I’m on watch, but gets some manner of rest.

The next day is pretty simple.

We go out and collect some ingredients in materials, well he kills and helps me take apart any creatures that have beneficial properties to them I can use for ingredients. I use some techniques to store these things in such a way that they’ll last for a long time. It’s a good thing he doesn’t understand the techniques and strangeness of what I’m using to do so, or he would figure out that most of this is outside of the current realm of alchemical knowledge.

It’s still plausible, but would likely cause an even bigger change than what I had done during the trials. Being able to store things away without having to use special Qi treasures is invaluable and is the reason alchemy experts are so valued. Ao Jin seems to realize this, as he comments about how useful it would be to have me around for when he goes on journeys.

He even mentions that he can’t wait until I reach foundation establishment, so I can head out with him as he progresses.

He has a bit of a smile on his face as he does so, reinforcing that he’s looking forward to working with me in the future.

One thing that bothered me a little was that his strength and cultivation level seemed lower than it should have been, with the healing. But then I realized something that is normal in every cultivator’s life, including my own.

He’s holding hidden cards. Some of his likely requires him to store away energy in some manner.

I just cheat through it with a totally different source of energy, mana.

I pivot my mind away from this and back to the absurd amounts of materials hidden within this jungle.

Like the jungles back on earth, there is an enormous amount of flora and fauna diversity in this jungle. Things that are surprisingly hard to find, but easy to if you know what to look for.

Once again, some people know these tricks, but it’s not widely known and across such a variety of plants

We get so much done in the day that we managed to actually fill half of the space in the treehouse by the end of the day.

With this much in storage, he brings up a thought.

“Young Master, I actually have some contacts that would absolutely love to purchase these. It can sometimes be hard to sell things quickly and to a discerning buyer, but I procured quite a few things from them that helped me on my journeys.

“If you’d like, I could get you in contact with them and you could sell these to them. I know they pay an above average price for such high-quality goods and in such a large quantity.”

He leans in close, despite the fact that no one is around.

“They also sell a variety of goods that aren’t normally available because of certain oppressive guilds. Perhaps these could help you as you attempt to get stronger and progress.”

This could be quite the good contact for me. Especially with me being on the bad side of the Alchemy Guild, I’m clear to be blacklisted in quite a few areas. While I may have had some success in other aspects of the business world, in that area, they will put some pressure on.

I’ll probably be using Mei Lin’s family to sell to, as it will show obvious support… but I shouldn’t put all my eggs in one basket.

With this in mind, I quickly agree and a huge smile grows on his face. This will probably help his standing grow in the long run, as he will have introduced a good seller.

By the time we end there for the night and he takes first watch, we seem to have grown a bit more naturally comfortable with each other. He may be extremely grateful and trusted me after healing him, but time and discovering a person’s personality through shared experiences is what builds real bonds.

As I sleep for my portion of the night, I can see with my awareness him delicately holding a weathered drawing of a beautiful young girl and woman. His jaw shakes in sorrow, with tears in his eyes.

Even after this time, it looks like it takes everything for him not to cry out in anguish.

After a while, he puts it away. Returning to his watch, silently.

I’m definitely going to help this man.

I think I should ask more about his situation tomorrow.