I bent down, touching the earth. Closing my eyes, I suppressed my Qi sense as the world around me went dark. I hadn’t felt this blind in a really long time. Quickly switching over, I opened my senses for Gu and let them spread through the earth. The various pockets containing the minute energy of death began to reach my senses.

Little pockets reached out to me, alongside a vague blur of Gu that I could not locate somewhere deep in the earth. I shifted my attention, reaching out to different pockets. Little pockets of Qi touched my awareness, flaring like dim and blurry dots across a black canvas. It made it easy to filter out all the noise of Qi and find only significant sources of Qi, like cultivators, or powerful spirit herbs.

I glanced frowned when no matter how hard I pushed, I did not sense the end of the spirit hunt section. We were in a pretty big area then, which made things tough.

I shut off my Gu senses, having sensed the direction some of the spirit herbs were in. Opening my eyes, I began to take a look around. Sheldon was out of the game, but I still had Labby with me, I needed to think about how to go about this. The goal was to find as many spirit herbs and treasures as possible. Getting the Silver spirit lily was of course the best method, but going after it blindly may not be the best method.

I glanced sideways at Labby, who looked back at me, her little pink nose twitching. A smile curved my lips upward as the memories of Labby when I’d first met her came back to me. My own little herb sensor.

“It’s time to hunt for some herbs Labby, as we’d done so long ago.”

“Squeak!”

“Chii~” Twilight chimed happily, her laughter like the ringing of sweet bells. Another word whispered in my mind, jumbled and distorted, yet I could somewhat make the words out.

“Twilight! Help!”

I glanced up, feeling surprised at hearing Twilight’s first words. I smiled, feeling the strangest sense of joy, yet there was a task at hand and not much time to be overjoyed at the event.

“Let’s quickly win this thing,” I announced, as Labby jumped off my shoulder, and off we went.

***

Mists filled the arena, with little pictures that showed each participant in the spirit hunt and their actions, as the onlookers watched in anticipation, and excitement, cheering on the disciples.

Yan Yun stood outside amidst the rows and rows of people watching the fight, dressed as a commoner with her cultivation suppressed as best as she could. She’d managed to make her escape after greeting Lord Zhou with the excuse of needing time to prepare for the upcoming tournament. She took the opportunity to quickly change her clothes, before mingling with the common people that’d arrived to watch the tournament.

She watched Lu Jie running across the fields, his spirit rat sniffing at the air every so often as the two quickly made their way towards the treasures. As she’d feared, the Elders had taken away Lu Jie’s spirit turtle. A beast like that willingly following a disciple without a powerful cultivator being involved was a loophole in the rules that no one had anticipated.

Her eyes shifted sideways, to Li and Lei, separated for now, as the two twins decided to go after any cultivators and beat them up and steal their herbs instead, while they steadily headed towards one another. She clenched her robes in her fists, lightning stirring in her dantian.

After everything she’d seen from Lu Jie, there should’ve been no shadow of doubt left in her heart that the boy would beat her twins in a magnificent way that none would have anticipated. Yet for some reason, Yan Yun could not escape the fears that plague her. What if he lost anyway? What if Lord Zhou did not agree to her plea to take responsibility for the failure of Li and Lei? What if-

“Yan Yun needs to calm down,” Leiyu said from within her Dantian.

Yan Yun nodded, killing the train of thoughts. It would not do her any good to think of the many ways she could fail this, all that she needed to do was hope things worked out. And if they didn't… then she had some difficult choices ahead of her.

A wave of shouts and cheers drew Yan Yun’s eyes to the central image being displayed. Someone had just found their first trial. Through the misty image on display, Yan Yun found a familiar face, running through the forest with silver needles flashing as spirit beasts fell one after another.

“The serpent is powerful,” Leiyu muttered, as she felt her bird’s interest rising.

“Liuxiang’s aura had held me back for an instant, even with the difference in cultivation strengths. It is a wonder how someone like that has to be an outer disciple in the Cloudy Peaks sects,” Yan Yun said in a quiet whisper, watching Liuxiang finish the trial swiftly as he picked up a spirit herb.

The image flickered once more, to another two other cultivators, who’d decided to work together as they braved a different trial, before soon, more and more of them started to find trials hiding spirit herbs of various rarity.

Yan Yun stilled her breath, as she continued to watch. Two hours remained, till she knew what would come of her future.

***

I stood upon a little cave entrance, looking inside as I rechecked what I was sensing, and then turned towards Labby for confirmation. I received a nod from her and then turned back to look at the cave once more. It seems we’d found a treasure.

I began to make my way inside the cave, keeping my guard up to encounter anything or anyone, and blast them with my drugnades. A few minutes later, I found myself in front of what looked to be an odd gate. Glancing at the structure for a moment for any traps I went inside and stopped instantly, noting the Qi that saturated the air. I was used to high Qi saturation due to my spirit herb garden in my room, but this? This was something else entirely.

I walked further in fascinated, and drawn in by the lure of the Qi when I heard a chittering sound. Jumping around I quickly dug around, about to throw my drugnade but something held my hand. I looked up and noted spiders clinging onto the walls, spirit beasts that looked down at me, chittering and clacking, as they watched us silently. Following an impulse, I looked down at my feet and saw a very thin thread running across the floor of the area. Carefully, I stepped over it, keeping an eye on the spider who continued to watch me silently, chittering every so often.

“Labby can hear them. They… don’t seem like enemies,” she said, crackling with purple lightning.

All of a sudden a spider slung down the ceiling and I quickly pulled my guard up once more, ready to launch an attack. I watched as the spider, about as large as my face, jumped down and then turned towards me.

We continued to stare at each other in silence for an entire minute or so, before the spider raised a leg and chittered again.

“Chii?” I heard Twilight speak.

“Click-Clickity-Click” the spider replied.

“What are they saying?” I asked, looking towards Labby.

“Labby doesn’t know…” Labby said, as Twilight continued to chime in a conversation with the spider.

Suddenly, with a jump, the little flower girl jumped down on me and bit my hand.

“Ouch!” I exclaimed as she sucked my blood for a moment. A second later, I saw Qi gather at her petals as she jumped down.

“Wait Twilight, hold on!” I warned, but the little plant went towards the spider about thrice her size, smiling and waving happily.

Rather than nomming on Twilight as I’d feared the spider would do, I watched it carefully pick up the droplet of Qi and then put it in its mouth. Its jaws moved in a way that I had no other method of describing except adorable, which is really weird when the subject of matter is a giant spider.

Tensing once more, I flared my Qi as the spider reached out towards Twilight picking her up. The only thing that held me back was the excited laughing chime that came from Twilight. I watched as the spider put Twilight on its head, before turning towards us.

“Click-click,” it said, before turning around and walking away.

Twilight looked back, waving her hands as she chimed. “Chii!”

I turned to look at Labby who looked back at me with an equally surprised expression. I shrugged and began to follow the spider further into the cave. This whole encounter was strange, but I wasn’t going to say no to being shown around the area. As long as it wasn’t a trap.

I walked further inside the caverns, noting the occasional patch of grass. All of it was spirit grass, brimming with Qi and life within this cavern. I could see this spot being an enviable location to cultivate, with so much natural Qi filling the air.

“Chii Chii~ Chii Chii Chii~” Twilight sang up ahead, chiming, as she waved her hands around, the flower on her head bobbing up and down as she rode the spider. I could sense her happiness from our bond, making me smile as well.

“Click-Click Clickity-Click,” the spider said back, in a way that was vaguely reminiscent of the song, but if so, then the spider was a terrible singer.

In a few moments, the ground beneath my feet was now entirely covered in spirit grass, as the spider took us in front of a door of mud and rocks. A giant mushroom was carved on it, smiling with wicked sharp teeth, like some kind of odd abomination. The spider raised a leg, as Qi began to pulse through the door and the walls around me shook. Dust fell down from the ceiling, as the door moved with a loud groan. Twilight quickly climbed down from the spider’s back and ran up to me as I picked her up.

“Whoa…” I muttered out loud, staring at the inside of the room.

It was filled with… mushrooms. Spirit mushrooms.