“So, this is the Bluebranch Forest?” the youth looked around him. He was once again surrounded by trees. And by god, he hated this. He, Yu Nanhao, and Fang Mingkong were still on the dirt path that was carved through this forest.

With an arrow resting on his bow, he kept an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. As Yu Nanhao lead the group through the forest, the youth asked him, “So, this is Bluebranch Forest? It’s exactly opposite the Yellowleaf Forest.”

Surprised, Yu Nanhao asked, “Ah, are you from Yellowleaf Town?”

“Not really. I’m just a nomadic cultivator.”

“Are you non-affiliated as well?”

“That’s right! You guys too?”

“Yep,” Yu Nanhao nodded and looked at the map again.

“Have you guys ever tried for a sect?” The youth looked at the two.

“We have,” Fang Mingkong replied to him, “sadly our aptitudes are too low.”

“Oh, sects come to recruit members in Bluebranch City?”

“Heavens no!” she laughed softly. “They open their doors for recruitment once every ten years and people flock there just to get a chance at entering the sect. If you’re not talented enough, you fail. If you’re barely talented enough, you become an outer disciple and if you have decent talent, you become a core disciple.”

“Does being super talented net you the core disciple spot?”

“No, even if you’re super talented, you might become a sect elder’s student but you’ll still stay as an inner disciple. You need to have a certain amount of contributions towards the sect. But there is a way to bypass that.”

The youth asked with a deadpan face, “Is it money?”

“Bingo!”

“Fuck! Why does an eastern medieval period have pay-to-win bullshit too?”

“Pay-to-win, huh? That’s a very apt way of describing the situation.” Fang Mingkong rolled the words in her mouth a few times and found the phrase very novel.

“You want to use it? Go ahead.”

“I will.”

“We’re here,” Yu Nanhao announced. The other two stopped chatting and looked ahead. He pointed at the red mark on a tree and said, “We’re going to head inside the forest from here. Keep your eyes peeled.” He then looked at the youth, “Since we’re also going to be hunting Deviant Beasts, cover us with your arrows. And we’re going to be needing your help for the Featherblade Crows.”

“Gotcha!” the youth nodded and checked his quiver. 24 arrows. He had a full sheaf. And if he just used his physical strength to draw the arrows, they wouldn’t break after the first shot.

“So, first we try to find the plants and then the animals. And be careful when trying to gather leaves from the Hypno Acacias. If you breathe their flowers’ fragrance, you will fall asleep. We do have pills that will wake up but nothing preventative.”

“Are we going to split up to gain more ground?” Fang Mingkong asked.

“No. That’s a dumb idea, especially in the forest.”

“I like how this guy thinks. You should try to gain a long-standing partnership with him,” Jian Gong’s satisfied voice echoed in his mind.

The youth agreed, “Yeah, me too.”

“Then we should get going, no?” Yu Nanhao rolled the map up and put it inside his robes.

“Got it,” the other two nodded.

“Then let’s head out.” Yu Nanhao lead the way with his sword drawn followed by the youth in the middle with an arrow on his bow and lastly, Fang Mingkong who used chains.

“Holy shit, that’s metal as fuck!” the youth exclaimed quietly, “You use chains!”

“Yeah and?” Fang Mingkong raised an eyebrow.

“You got to teach me how to use them after we’re done before this is over,” the youth looked at the chains dangling from her hands in awe.

“O-Oh, yeah. Sure,” caught off-guard by the youth’s enthusiasm, she agreed awkwardly. Even though the lower half of his face was covered, she could tell just from his eyes that his feelings were genuine.

“Shut the fuck up, you two!” Yu Nanhao hissed at the two. He looked serious unlike the cheery man from before. He was taking this seriously.

“Alright, alright.” The youth calmed him down and focused too. As they walked over to a known grove of Hypno Acacia trees, their path was surprisingly unhindered.

“Alright, guys. We’re here,” Yu Nanhao announced and they all looked at the grove of trees in front of them. The trees looked like normal acacia trees with widespread branches and a crown of leaves that looked like a cylindrical pyramid except for their leaves. They had a shade of yellow and green in a psychedelic pattern.

“What the fuck do you mean ‘cylindrical pyramid’? How does that make sense?” Jian Gong scolded him.

“I don’t how to describe it! What else am I supposed to say?” The youth tried to defend himself as he got close to the leaves.

“How about the words ‘wide cone’?”

The youth went to say something but decided not to and focus on the task at hand.

“Be very careful not to inhale the flower’s aroma or it’s a trip to la-la-land!” Yu Nanhao warned again as he carefully picked the leaves off and stored them in a space ring.

“You have a space ring?” the youth asked without much shock. Unlike Yu Nanhao, he just shoved the leaves inside a sack he brought.

“Uh, yeah? T-The Myriad Merchant Troupe gave it to me to store the ingredients,” Yu Nanhao didn’t think too much of it.

“Cool.” The youth dropped it right there but Yu Nanhao turned around and saw how the former was storing the leaves.

He couldn’t help but ask, “Oi, are you going to carry it like that? Isn’t that going to cause problems when you’re going to fight?”

“Of course,” the youth's eyes curved into crescents, “but don’t worry I’ll just put it away and then fight it.”

The youth kept an eagle eye on things as the other two collected leaves. The grove of trees was dense. The dense mass of Hypno Acacia trees made his eyes hurt. The psychedelic patterns and the blinking eye was really mind-bending.

“Hold on, did that tree just blink?” Years of training archery at the Li Clan had helped him use his eyes for accuracy. He had seen the whites of an eye and the black pupils close and return back to a leaf.

“Now, I’m not well versed in botany, but I’m pretty sure trees aren’t supposed to blink or have eyes, for that matter.” “You two, wait.”

Both Yu Nanhao and Fang Mingkong stopped in place at his words. The two looked at him, their eyes saying, “What happened?” The youth raised his hands and gestured them to backpedal slowly. The two looked at one another and did as the youth asked. Once Fang Mingkong and Yu Nanhao were beside the youth, he nocked an arrow and aimed at the tree. He drew the arrow and fired. The arrow whistled forward and into the leaves, but instead of the one specific leaf he was aiming at, it hit the leaf at the surface of the tree’s crown.

But that didn’t matter. He expected that the leaf would be pierced and the arrow would strike the odd leaf behind it. The leaf did get pierced. But it resulted in the blood spurting, the leaf shaking, and an animalistic screech. The entire tree began making sounds as soon as the screech was heard.

Ape-like sounds sent shivers down the three people’s spines. In front of their eyes, the leaves from the tree leaped down to the ground, leaving it with bare branches. Fang Mingkong yelled out, “Herb-Shifting Monkeys!”

The youth immediately sent three more arrows flying. All of them pierced three monkeys, who dropped to the ground. The monkeys’ fur was the color of the Hypno Acacia leaves, and their texture made it look like their bodies were covered with leaves. Their eyes were angry, blood vessels looking more prominent against the whites of their eyes. They were furious at either having their peace destroyed or their plans to lure the stupid humans.

They immediately began rushing toward the three humans with fury. The three of them got ready to fight. “I’m going to start putting real power in these next few arrows. So, it’ll take a bit more time.”

“Then what kind of power were you putting in before?” Fang Mingkong shot back.

The youth disregarded her attempts to mock him and drew the bow to its very limits, adding a small amount of Qi to both the bowstring and arrow. He let go of the bowstring, and the arrow flew toward the monkeys with a high-pitched whistling sound. This time when it pierced a monkey, it didn’t stop and went through its skull to pierce another behind him. Two down, 23 more to go.

“I see what you were talking about,” Yu Nanhao mumbled to himself before rushing forward with his long sword.

“Fuck this!” Fang Mingkong also whipped her chains around and rushed forward. Yu Nanhao dodged the claws of monkeys and countered with a slash of his own. Fang Mingkong’s chains wrapped around the neck of one monkey, and with a flick of her wrists, the chain whipped around and slammed that monkey into another.

The youth covered their backs with his arrows though he couldn’t use his piercing shot that way. Unsurprisingly, trying to protect someone while also trying to get two erratic monkeys with one arrow was hard. By then, they had already killed off more than half a dozen monkeys, and the remaining stragglers were intimidated enough to run away while making various monkey noises and screeches, probably vowing revenge.

Fang Mingkong and Yu Nanhao panted slightly as their foreheads were covered by a thin film of sweat. The youth looked more relaxed since he didn’t move around as much. The monkeys were numerous in number, but all of them were at the 2nd or 3rd Stage of Qi Refinement. So, it wasn’t a problem for the three people who were all around the 7th or 8th Stage.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” The youth asked.

“Not at all,” Yu Nanhao replied with slightly labored breathing. “It would’ve been worse if they were stronger, but let’s not dwell on what ifs.”

“What’s next on the list?” Fang Mingkong asked.

“Uh…” Yu Nanhao brought out the commission paper from inside his robes and read them again, “Well, we only got the Hypno Acacia leaves, Mingkong. We still have 50 Magenta Jackal Flowers, 50 claws of Firetear Wolves, 50 bottles of Featherblade Crows’ blood, and 50 Yellowneck Weeds.”

She groaned, “Well, let’s get going.” She was going to tell the youth to come along as well but turned around and found no one. She looked around and saw him gathering his arrows out from the monkeys.

“Well, we’ll go after he’s done.”

“Aren’t you going to skin these monkeys?” he asked the two. “The pattern’s really going to sell well in the market.” Even after the Herb-Shifting Monkeys died, their furs that mimicked the psychedelic yellow and purple of the Hypno Acacia Trees stayed the same.

“I’ll tell you what –” Yu Nanhao offered, “I know a good skinner as well as someone who’ll fetch us a good price from the Myriad Miscellanies Merchant Troupe. So, I’ll keep all the monkeys inside my space ring, and we’ll split the money according to our kill count. Is that alright?”

“Fine by me. Saves me the-” he grunted and pulled out an arrow from one of the monkey’s skulls, “-hassle.”

“Alright then,” Yu Nanhao stepped forward and began putting the monkey corpses inside his space ring one after the other. Once the youth and he were done, they collected the rest of the ingredients. By the shore of a nearby pond, they found numerous clusters of Yellowneck Weeds.

“This makes things easier,” the youth told Fang Mingkong.

She scoffed in response, “Easier? Take a closer look.” The youth frowned and followed her eyes. Near one of the clusters of Yellowneck Weeds, on the pond, were lily pads and lilies; amidst these were a cleverly camouflaged green snout and closed eyes.

“Pointed snout… it’s a crocodile,” Yu Nanhao said grimly. “Try not to get close. It’ll be more aggressive and-”

“It’s at the 6th Stage of Qi Refinement,” The youth completed his sentence. “Give me one of the monkeys from your ring, Yu Nanhao.”

The latter didn’t know what the youth was planning but still decided to trust him. He sent some Qi into his ring, and an Herb-Shifting Monkey materialized in his hands. He handed it to the youth, who grabbed it by its legs. And taking out Flame Bite (he named the fire-attribute and water-attribute daggers he got from the village inside Yellowleaf Forest) and made a vertical incision from its chest to its stomach. After it began to bleed, he threw it into the middle of the pond.

With a splash, the monkey fell limply into the water. Its blood diffused into the water and dyed it red. As soon as the waters rippled, the crocodile near the shore reacted but so did all the other predators inside the pond. While the weaker ones chose to avoid the fight, the stronger ones, including the crocodile, all made a beeline toward the monkey’s corpse, further invigorated by the scent of blood. A furious fight began to develop in the middle of the pond, with water splashing everywhere.

The youth smirked at the other two and went forward to collect the weeds. With the troublesome enemies, all embroiled in a fight against themselves for a corpse (which is all but ruined by the fight), it was very easy to quickly collect 50 samples of the weed and leave before things got messy.

“Alright, so we have one more herb before we have to tackle more Deviant Beasts. Do you guys want to do the herb first or fight first?” Yu Nanhao asked.

“Herb,” The youth replied.

“Fight,” Fang Mingkong replied. They looked at each other and smiled even though their eyes weren’t.

The youth tried to reason with her, “Listen, we ought to try and finish the commission first. Let’s not do anything that’ll create variables before we finish everything.”

“Variables?” Fang Mingkong snarled, “What kind of ‘variables’? Oi, I don’t know if you know, but the commission paper specifically says that the required level for this commission is the 7th Stage of Qi Refinement Realm. They wouldn’t say that if there was a threat exceeding our strength.”

“Say, aren’t you too conceited about your strength?” The youth asked again. “People stronger than we die because of carelessness.” He looked at Yu Nanhao with disbelief, “Is she always like this?”

“Mingkong likes to fight. Nothing wrong with that,” Yu Nanhao shook his head. “Though this time, I’ll agree with our friend here, Mingkong. The commission first.”

When Yu Nanhao said this seriously, she stepped down quietly. Yu Nanhao comforted her a bit, “Don’t worry; you can fight the Firetear Wolves. I’ll tone it down then.” Fang Mingkong said nothing, but it was obvious she had brightened up.

The youth narrowed his eyes and pointed at them back and forth, “Say, are you guys…?”

“Oh no, no,” Yu Nanhao hastily waved his hands and denied his implications. “I mean, I want to be, but Mingkong’s playing hard to get.” Fang Mingkong glared at him, and Yu Nanhao promptly closed his mouth.

“Alright then, on that happy note, shall we continue forwards?”

“After you.”