Book 3: Chapter 27: Elixirs and Cores

Book 3: Chapter 27: Elixirs and Cores

Sen and a weary Lo Meifeng made their way back toward Lifen. Most of the spirit beasts seemed to have decided that the fighting and destruction weren’t worth whatever had brought them there in the first place. For the few that stuck around looking for trouble, judicious use of his killing intent sent most of them scurrying away. The rest were dealt with using jian, spear, and the occasional qi technique. When they finally reached the spot where Sen had left Lifen, he found not one, but a group of three spirit oxen hovering nearby. They weren’t doing anything specific, just being watchful. Sen gestured for Lo Meifeng to wait and approached the oxen. He offered them another deep bow.

“I am most grateful for your assistance,” he said. “Is there anything I might do to repay your kindness?”Trace the lineage of this substance back to the dawn of Nøv€lß¡n★

The biggest of the oxen, the one he’d encountered before, seemed to think it over before shaking her massive head. Sen inclined his head to the group.

“In that case, I will look for opportunities to be of assistance to you and yours in the future.”

The ox let out a gentle moo and then led her companions away. There was a brief moment of blessed silence before Lo Meifeng spoke.

“I’ll probably hate the answer you give to this question, but why did spirit oxen help out?”

“I was nice to an ox once,” said Sen. “It seems the spirit oxen take that kind of thing seriously.”

“You were nice? To an ox?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ll just bet it is.”

Sen ignored that and went over to where his formation was still encouraging everything to look somewhere else. He deactivated the formation and found Lifen curled up and asleep at the base of what was left of a tree. It looked like she had actually eaten the roots because her skin had lost that grayish cast, but there was only so much that unprocessed medicinal roots could do for overwhelming exhaustion. Sen collected the formation flags and scooped Lifen up into his arms. It was a testament to just how tired she was that being lifted off the ground didn’t even make her stir.

“Come on,” said Sen to Lo Meifeng. “I think we’ve probably got a little time. Enough that I can do something for both of you before we get moving again.”

“An elixir. It’ll help,” said Sen.

Unlike Lo Meifeng, Lifen just tipped the liquid into her mouth, and almost instantly went back to sleep. Sen crawled back out of the tent. He figured it would take a little while for the elixirs to really hit, so he might as well make use of the time. There were a lot of dead spirit beasts nearby, and he had a feeling that they were going to need those spirit beast cores before this little jaunt through the wilds was over. He moved out from the camp in a spiral, harvesting cores whenever he came across a dead spirit beast. He made sure to keep them separate from his own supply. While he might find them useful, the vast majority of them belonged to Lifen and Lo Meifeng. He also knew that they were valuable. Maybe even valuable enough for Lifen to start that different life she wanted. He had no clue what Lo Meifeng wanted, but he expected that she liked money as much as the next person. He also made a point not to move beyond the reach of his spiritual sense. As long as he could feel what was happening back at the campsite, he figured that he could get back there fast enough to intervene if necessary.

He was tempted to do a more thorough harvesting of the spirit beasts, but it was a balancing act between gathering valuable resources and using time efficiently. He doubted he was even going to have the time to harvest all of the cores in his self-imposed radius before Lo Miefeng and Lifen were up and about. He was right about that. It only took about twenty minutes before he sensed the two women moving around in the campsite. He made his way back. He found them disassembling his tent and folding up the blankets they’d been sleeping on. He took over that duty and deposited a pile of beast cores on the ground.

“Those belong to you two,” he said.

He could tell that they were still a bit tired and groggy because they both just sort of stared at the pile for a while. Eventually, they went over and started some kind of discussion that seemed almost, but not exactly, like haggling. Most of the cores disappeared into their respective storage rings, but a small handful of the cores were left behind. Sen lifted an eyebrow at them.

“For that offensive formation of yours,” said Lifen. “Wealth is great and all, but not if we don’t live to spend it.”

Sen walked over to the cores and found that they were all either fire or lightning-aligned. They would help fuel that formation.

“You’re both sure?” he asked.

They both nodded.

“Alright. There’s one more core I want to grab,” he said, thinking of that bear-cat, “but I’m more than ready to leave this catastrophe behind if you are.”

“Please,” said Lifen.

“Yes, now, immediately please,” said Lo Meifeng.

Sen suppressed a smile and headed in the direction of the bear-cat spirit beast he’d killed. Lifen and Lo Meifeng followed closely behind.