High above the endless forest canopy, two people and one mushroom cow flew across the sky.
After Qingxue's persistent, bordering on relentless, arguments about the "priceless value of soul-healing milk" and "irreplaceable spiritual beast resources," Alexei had caved and brought Bessie along. The mooshroom now trailed ten meters behind the flying sword, dangling from a lead rope. Her hair had been styled by wind resistance into a magnificent slicked-back look.
As for what they'd actually packed from the treehouse, the list was short:
128 MC-ified silkspore logs, 24 MC-ified mycelium blocks, 64 MC-ified cobblestone, 128 regular cobblestone, 7 wheat, 1 lead rope (currently in use), 64 wheat seeds, 36 leather, 1 enchanted fishing rod, 20 enchanted books, 8 iron ingots, 1 demon core (wind aspect), 2 spider fangs, 2 spider venom sacs, and 1 bed
That was it.
It wasn't that he didn't want to bring more, his treehouse had chests full of materials. But his inventory simply wouldn't allow it. He'd even broken down his iron bucket into ingots just to make room for the enchanted books. He'd considered using Qingxue's spatial pouch to carry extra supplies, but that plan died the moment he learned it had less than a third of a cubic meter of storage space. Barely enough for some spirit stones and pills. Definitely not enough for even one enchanted book.
"Your storage situation is pretty dire," he'd commented.
Qingxue's response had been delivered with great dignity: "Cultivation requires no dependence on external objects."
The fact that she'd turned her face away while saying it somewhat undermined the philosophical weight of her words. He had decided not to press the issue. Poverty was poverty. No shame in it. He'd been eating bread and mushroom stew for weeks.
---
The treehouse itself remained mostly intact. Only the beds were missing. Everything else stayed exactly as he'd left them. It was his first real home after transmigrating, after all. And it was right next to his spawn point. Who knew if he'd need to come back someday?
The infinite water source outside had been deconstructed and filled in with regular mycelium soil. No point leaving that active. God only knew how many monsters would spawn around it.
One last look at the treehouse as they'd taken off, and then they were gone.
---
With nothing to do, boredom set in hard.
They'd been flying for about half a day now. Thirty minutes ago, they'd finally crossed over the jagged cliff walls that marked the edge of the Silkspore Basin and entered the airspace above the proper Demon Beast Forest. Looking down, the Basin appeared exactly like what it was: a massive impact crater, bowl-shaped and stretching to the horizon in every direction. The entire thing was carpeted in dense vegetation, broken only by the occasional glint of water or exposed rock.
From up here, it looked beautiful.
Alexei knew better. Every square meter of that forest contained something that wanted to eat him.
"Good riddance," he muttered.
He turned his attention to more important matters: annoying Bessie.
The mooshroom was still dangling from the lead rope, swaying gently in the wind. When he pulled out some wheat and held it up tauntingly, she immediately started kicking her stubby legs in a valiant but futile attempt to close the ten-meter gap.
It was adorable. Also hilarious. This was, frankly, the most entertainment he'd had all day.
Qingxue felt one of the arms wrapped around her waist disappear and glanced back to see what he was doing.
Then immediately regretted it.
The golden helmet on Alexei's head caught the afternoon sunlight and reflected it directly into her eyes. After just a few seconds of looking, her eyes started watering.
"Alexei," she said, squinting. "You should take off the armor. We could fly faster that way."
He paused mid-wheat-taunt. "Why?"
"It's too heavy."
This wasn't an excuse or exaggeration. His full armor set weighed approximately thirty thousand kilograms. If she hadn't advanced recently, she might not have been able to carry him plus the cow plus all their supplies for this long without stopping to rest.
"Oh." Alexei had the grace to look embarrassed. "Right. I forgot about that."
Typical teenager logic: Why would I think about how my choices affect other people?
But to his credit, he fixed it immediately.
Some shuffling in his inventory, a few items getting moved around, and suddenly his armor was gone. After the deconstruction, his inventory gained 4 iron ingots, 13 gold ingots, and 7 leather pieces.
Qingxue still couldn't figure out the limits of his abilities. Weight seemed irrelevant, he could hold a thirty-thousand-kilo armor set. Storage capacity appeared to follow some rules, but she couldn't determine what they were. The most interesting part was that it clearly wasn't a treasure or a cultivation technique. It felt more like an innate ability. A bloodline talent, maybe, though that raised even more questions about what exactly he was.
Innate divine abilities were rare, maybe one in ten thousand cultivators had them. And most of those were minor things like enhanced senses or elemental affinities.
But this was on another level entirely.
"Better?" Alexei asked, settling back against her with his arms wrapped around her waist again.
"Much better," Qingxue said, and meant it.
Hard angular armor pressing into her back: uncomfortable.
Normal teenager who weighed a reasonable amount: significantly better.
The sword picked up speed now that it wasn't hauling an extra thirty tons of metal.
---
Elsewhere...
High above the Demon Beast Forest, heading in the opposite direction, an old man piloted a flying coffin. His robes were stained and patched, his beard was unkempt, and his general appearance screamed "hermit who stopped caring about hygiene sometime in the previous century."
He'd just left the forest when he encountered another cultivator heading toward him.
The young man was dressed in expensive robes. His face was gaunt, his cheeks hollow, with a greyish-yellow complexion that suggested serious health problems. Dark circles hung under his eyes, giving him the look of someone who had been indulging in certain activities far too much and was now paying the price.
"Old man," the young man said, his voice carrying that particular whiny quality of someone used to complaining. "Why'd you call me out here so urgently? I just acquired several young ladies from mortal families. I haven't even had time to enjoy them properly yet."
The old man's expression soured immediately. Disappointment and anger warred for dominance on his face. Of all his descendants in the Ming family, this grandson had the best talent and the most potential. And he wasted it all on debauchery.
"I summoned you," the old man said coldly, "for the matter of the half-demon."
The young man blinked. "Which half-demon?"
"Which one do you think?" The old man's tone could've frozen water. "The one being groomed for the banner ritual."
"Oh." The young man's face went through several expressions as he dug through his memory. "That one. Right. The fox woman."
He vaguely recalled seeing a portrait decades ago. The half-demon had been beautiful enough that he'd spent several sleepless nights fantasizing about her. Then he'd been told she was off-limits, and he'd lost interest.
But if memory served, wasn't she supposed to be stupidly powerful? Last he'd heard, she was at Nascent Soul peak. By now, she was probably one step away from Dharma Aspect realm.
Meanwhile, he'd been stuck at Spirit Condensation peak for years, his cultivation base built almost entirely on pills rather than effort.
"You want me to bring her back?" He tried to keep the skepticism out of his voice. "With what? My charming personality?"
The old man reached into his robes and pulled out a pearl. He tossed it to his grandson.
"I've already dealt with her. She's heavily injured, less than ten percent of her full strength. She won't recover for ten or twenty years at minimum. You can go with confidence."
The young man caught the Soul-Anchor Pearl, and his eyes lit up with an idea that no grandfather should ever want their grandson to have.
If she was injured and weakened...
The old man saw the expression change and immediately crushed that train of thought. "Rein in those disgusting thoughts right now. The sect has poured a century of resources into that half-demon. She's the key to everything. If anything goes wrong with her while she's in your care, I won't be able to protect you. Neither will the family. The sect will destroy us all."
The young man tried to look offended. "I'm not that desperate. She's just a half-demon."
"Good. See that you remember that." The old man's expression remained severe. "And don't forget to stop by the outpost near Verdantree City. Mobilize some backup. Don't try to do this alone."
"Yes, yes, grandfather." The young man waved dismissively.
The old man stared at him for a moment, clearly debating whether to say more, then turned and continued on his way toward the Ghost Sect headquarters.
Only after the old man's figure disappeared over the horizon did the young man's false smile drop.
Mobilize backup? From the outpost?
What a joke.
He knew about the Aureate Summit Sect. Everyone in recruitment circles knew about them, they were infamous. A backwater third-rate sect that had failed to advance to even ninth-rank status after several hundred years of trying.
Poor as dirt. No pills worth mentioning. Techniques that were probably stolen or outdated. How strong could their combat power possibly be?
And here he was, cultivated by his family with preferential resource allocation, enhanced pills... He could overturn that entire pathetic sect single-handedly without breaking a sweat.
Worst case scenario, if things went sideways, he had the entire Ghost Sect backing him. What was some no-name garbage sect going to do? Challenge them?
A strange grey gleam flickered in the young man's eyes as he changed course.
Besides, according to the intelligence officer who monitored the Aureate Summit Sect, their Third Elder was also supposed to be a beauty. But since they couldn't risk affecting the half-demon's mental state, they'd had to leave her alone.
Well, that problem was solved now, wasn't it?
He'd just take both of them back together.
One half-demon for the banner ritual.
One elder for personal entertainment.
His grandfather didn't need to know about the second one.
The young man smiled and accelerated toward Verdantree City. This was going to be easier than he thought.