A massive beast crashed through the wilderness, leaving a wide swath of destruction in its wake. Animals and magical beasts fled for miles as the creature rampaged—its very existence bringing ruin to everything around it. The thing’s head resembled that of a twisted, carnivorous boar with a long snout, long pointed teeth, and a vicious pair of tusks. It had an upper body like a bear, with short brown fur, powerful muscular arms, and razor sharp claws. Finally, its lower half had an equally muscular pair of legs ending in the hooves of an ox. The enormous monster's shoulders were visible above the surrounding trees, and its eyes gleamed with the intelligence of a recently awakened xiantian beast.

Jia watched as it tried to sharpen its tusks against a particularly massive tree, only to reduce the thing to splinters. The boar-headed beast huffed with annoyance, causing bolts of lightning to strike at random all around it—most likely the cause of the trail of devastation Jia and Eui had followed to find the creature.

“You were right, Eui—it’s Lightning element.”

“We’re going with my plan then?”

Jia scowled. Eui’s ‘plan’ was usually luring a monster out so that she could ambush it. They’d yet to encounter anything that could stand up to the destruction element, including xiantian beasts, but things tended to get skittish as soon as they sensed Eui nearby. They had figured out that if they kept their domain suppressed, it was usually simple enough for Jia to lure them out for Eui—Jia just hated being bait.

“Yeah, alright. I can probably handle the lightning attacks anyway.”

The beast whirled on Jia as soon as she entered its domain. Magical beasts were fiercely territorial, and though they gained intelligence at the xiantian levels, they still weren’t particularly smart. The monster bellowed angrily, and Jia sensed the mana in the air coalescing into an attack—the beast controlled its divine essence instinctively to perform rudimentary sacred arts. Jia anticipated the attack and braced herself as lightning bolts began to rain down on her position from high above. Jia’s layered defences bled as much of the power off as possible before the bolts smashed into her. The shields helped a little, but rudimentary or not, these bolts still contained the power of divine essence behind their strikes. The bolts blasted through, leaving a crater of molten earth around her as they struck. It reminded Jia of the tribulation she had experienced two years ago, but much less powerful. Using her experience from that trial, she allowed her core to absorb most of the lightning’s power, leaving her mostly unharmed after that assault.

The creature didn’t seem too happy with Jia’s survival. With a mighty squeal, the beast charged, ready to gore, maul, or simply crush her to death. This was exactly what Jia had been waiting for, and she turned to run, leading it towards Eui’s position. The monster was fast, though! Even as she pushed her lightning steps to the limit, the creature flashed from place to place the same way that she did. It wasn’t fair for something so huge to move like that!

It had nearly caught up to her by the time she made it to the trap that they had laid for it. Its footing was disrupted by a huge quagmire of deep mud just as Eui erupted from the treeline, using her Path of Heavenly Ascension to power her flight towards the enormous monster’s head. It reeled back in fear of the deathly aura that surrounded Eui, but its size and the mud worked against it as it tried to dodge her strike. She passed closely above the monster, striking at its neck with one of the swords Jia had looted from Yan Zhihao so long ago. The beast braced itself to receive the attack—probably planning to rely on its xiantian level sturdiness—but it was no match for the superlative destructive power of Eui’s Six Arms of Asura.

The beast staggered as Eui’s blade tore open a massive furrow on the back of its neck, blood pouring from the wound. The monster squealed urgently as it tried to turn and flee—amazingly still alive even as its head hung on by a thread. Before it could extricate itself from the mud, Jia cast a stone pillar that Eui could use to change direction and strike at the monster again. This time, she flew beneath it, preparing to use her blade to finish what she’d started and behead the beast.

Jia saw the beast recognize its own impending doom, felt the fear radiating off of it, and knew that this was the most dangerous moment in the fight. A beast’s instincts were dangerous, especially when fully cornered. Jia sensed the beast channel every ounce of its power into one of its enormous bear-like paws, and time slowed down as Yoshika accelerated her thoughts with Absolute Awareness.

The creature had already begun to swipe its claw towards Eui’s body with speed that rivaled Jia’s Lightning God Transformation. Yoshika could make it pay for the attack with its arm, but that would require Eui’s body to take the attack head on—unacceptable. Instead, she stretched her domain out and crushed it down against that of the monster. Though it had more raw power than she did, it wasn’t nearly as experienced controlling its domain, and she suppressed it easily. The lightning ki infusing the monster’s claws flickered out as it was flooded with the corrosive energy of Corruption of the Fetid Bog. Without the power of lightning to enhance it, the offending limb appeared to completely halt within Yoshika’s accelerated perception. Satisfied with her prediction of what would happen next, Yoshika allowed her thoughts to return to normal.

The final blow was mercifully swift as Eui’s blade sliced through the last layers of flesh and bone keeping the xiantian beast’s head attached to its shoulders. It toppled lifelessly to the ground, and the light of life slowly faded from those far-too-intelligent eyes. It still made Lee Jia a little bit sick to watch it. Xiantian beasts had intelligence, and would eventually complete their evolutions into fiends given enough time. Yet, though it had the potential to become a person, there was a reason that fiends weren’t present on the human continent. A beast that had known only violence for its entire life wouldn’t change just because it had gained intelligence. If anything, recently awakened xiantian beasts would often become more violent, as they began to purposefully seek out creatures to devour in order to feed their cores.

The creature they had just slain would have eventually been killed by another similarly powerful monster, or it would have become a calamity that would have been put down by cultivators after wreaking untold havoc upon civilization. Or so said their new teacher at any rate, but Jia’s experience hadn’t done anything to prove the eccentric demon wrong. Every magical beast she’d ever encountered had immediately tried to kill her, and this one was no different. Jia’s reverie was interrupted by an excited shout from Eui.

“Got it!”

While Jia had been spacing out, her girlfriend had started butchering the slain beast without a second thought and now held up a brightly glowing purple sphere.

“I think this one might finally be a high grade lightning core!”

Jia’s ears perked up at that.

“Really!? Let me see!”

Rather than bothering to approach, Yoshika simply inspected the core herself, running a bit of lightning essence though it as she sensed the power within. Jia nodded excitedly.

“I think you’re right!”

Eui held the core out to Jia and smirked.

“Great! Now why don’t you come over here and stash it away?”

Jia eyed her gore-splattered partner warily. Eui was sometimes altogether much too comfortable with the bloodier aspects of cultivation, and while Jia could admit that there was a certain dangerous charm to Eui’s blood-soaked look, that didn’t mean she was inclined to share it. Jia produced a makeshift talisman that she’d made from scavenged materials—tree bark and beast blood, specifically—and held it out towards Eui. With a bit of focus, Jia isolated the essence of water within her domain and channelled it through the talisman to activate the spell inscribed on it.

The spell was one of the first that Jia had ever seen—or a replication of it. Conjured water coalesced around Eui and swirled around her body, sweeping away the blood, dirt, and grime from their extended stay in the wilderness. Once Eui was clean, the water dispersed harmlessly into the air, leaving Eui soaking wet—Jia hadn’t quite figured out how to leave the target dry yet.

Eui coughed and sputtered as she tried to shake the water out of her hair.

“Ugh, damnit Jia, a little warning!?”

Jia giggled and shook her head.

“You knew I was going to do it.”

Eui shrugged as she made her way over to Jia and handed over the beast core before wringing out her hair.

“Yeah, but it’s the principle of the thing. You don’t just make a girl wet without proper warning.”

Jia blushed brightly at the lewd implication. The two girls had spent the better part of two years mostly alone together in the wilderness and they had...explored, a little. Jia was still a bit sheepish about matters of sexuality and Eui was merciless in her teasing—though she was careful never to truly cross any of Jia's boundaries. Eui gave her a knowing look and grinned.

“Thinking naughty thoughts again?”

Jia turned away to hide her blush and stammered out a retort, trying to change the subject.

“Y-you’re the one who was—anyway, I was just thinking that we’ve been stuck out here for almost two years now.”

Eui sobered a bit at that, scratching the back of her head with a sigh.

“Yeah, something like that. I guess the continent is a lot bigger than we thought.”

After the descent of the gods, Jia and Eui had escaped from the academy using a form of Steps of the Stalker that Jianmo called ‘spirit walking’. They hadn’t realized how far they had gone, nor had they realized that Jianmo’s idea of ‘freedom’ was to just leave them to wander the wilderness, hopelessly lost. With no clue where they were, or where they were going, their plan had been fairly simple—head south. Yamato dominated the southern coast of the continent, so in theory if they kept moving south they would eventually reach the one civilization that wouldn’t be outright hostile to them. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but after almost two years of travel they hadn’t managed to find either civilization or the coast.

Jianmo wasn’t particularly helpful, either. She—or sometimes he—would come and go as she pleased, offering them training advice or giving them some vague task to complete. For example, it had been Jianmo who told them to try to find a high quality xiantian grade beast core in each of their elements. They’d finally managed to get one for Jia, but a destruction core seemed like a completely hopeless prospect. On top of that, Jianmo’s idea of instruction was—much less formal than they were accustomed to. Jia could still remember the first ‘lesson’.

“Okay! First of all, forget everything that anyone has ever told you about cultivation. They are all wrong.”

Yoshika stared blankly at Jianmo. She didn’t doubt her power or knowledge, but at the same time, it seemed a bit too audacious of a claim. Jianmo simply threw her head back and laughed.

“Oh, don’t give me that look! I’m sure your instruction so far has been passable for this little island, but I saw that sloppy spirit walking technique of yours. I don’t hate clumsy little darlings, but your foundation needs some serious work.”

Yoshika sighed, shaking her heads.

“Fine. Does that mean all of our manuals are useless? Or that we should forget the techniques we’ve already learned?”

Jianmo scoffed.

“Of course not! In fact, you should learn them all! The more the better! Quantity will become a quality of its own as you approach the xiantian breakthrough.”

Yoshika frowned thoughtfully.

“I thought there was a limit to the number of techniques that a spiritualist could learn before their meridians became too crowded.”

“See? This is what I mean when I say you need to forget everything you think you know! There’s no hard limit, it just becomes more difficult to open new meridians the more you have. Difficult doesn’t mean impossible! So what if it takes you a bit more time? What is time to an immortal? You should learn and master every single technique you come across before your breakthrough, it will form the foundation of your knowledge when it comes time to develop your own sacred arts.”

Yoshika found herself getting a bit lost.

“Sacred arts? Like that one Master Ienaga used to split the earth and kill that demon Dasheng?”

“Exactly! They are applications of divine essence, but you won’t need to worry about them for a while. What you need is to collect as much knowledge and power as possible before your breakthrough. Beast cores by the hundreds, every technique you can get your hands on, and lots of hands-on combat experience! Let’s call that your first assignment, master all of your manuals and get your hands on a high quality xiantian core for each of your elemental affinities.”

“Wait, what about elemental balance? Isn’t it going to mess up our breakthrough if our elements are unbalanced?”

Jianmo snorted derisively.

“Balance? What’s that? Can you eat it? Sounds fake. Forget about it! Easier, harder, shorter, longer—you’re immortal! None of that matters. If it’s hard, rise to the challenge, if it takes a long time then take your time!”

Yoshika grimaced.

“We’re not actually immortal yet! Our lifespans are a lot higher now, but only xiantian cultivators are truly immortal. Also, don’t we have a time limit? How long can we actually afford to wait before opening your master’s tomb?”

Jianmo shrugged and waved her hands dismissively.

“Ehh, don’t worry about it! I don’t hate worrywarts, but don’t stress the little details like that.”

Jianmo’s dismissal was the opposite of reassuring, but she moved on before Yoshika could protest.

“Anyway, once you’ve mastered those techniques we can move on to the second lesson. Bye for now! I’ll check in now and then to make sure you’re still alive!”

And with that, the eccentric demoness vanished without a word, leaving Yoshika alone and lost.