TRUE TO MY word, I was up early the next morning and out into the wild scouting as soon as the Bloodmoon set. It didn’t take long to track down another giant boar which I quickly killed and slaughtered for the community to enjoy.
By daybreak I had returned to the bunker to find Jim already assembled with the soldiers, ready to assist with building the wall. I handed the boar over to the civilians to prepare while I t with Harris to discuss the plan.
“So what exactly do you have in mind?” he asked, folding his arms and looking at sowhat skeptically.
I then went on to describe roughly the idea of using logs to make the wall itself and his eyes suddenly lit up with recognition.
“Ah, a palisade,” he said.
“Is that what it’s called?”
He grinned. “You’re going to put my skills to the test, but yeah, that can work. So long as we have enough trees. A circular defense wall half a mile wide?” He let out a whistle. “That’s going to take a lot of damn trees.”
Harris then went on to explain exactly how the wall or palisade would be constructed; from the length of the logs, how deep they should be buried and how they should be lashed together and braced. He even went on to detail how they could erect steps and a parapet behind the wall once it was erected.
“That all sounds great,” I said. “I’ll get to chopping trees while you guys dig the trench.”
The next few hours went by in a flurry of activity. I got them started on digging the first couple hundred feet of trench for the foundation and after handing over the cultivation book to Kelsey for her to study from, I took my axe into the forest to chop down trees.
It was a nice change to use my axe for sothing other than killing. It reminded of my first days of cultivating at Master Edrik’s place, using the labor as a ans to progress my Body Refinent. I did the sa here, but instead of chopping re logs, I was chopping down entire groves of trees, three and four at a ti.
I hauled them all back to camp and placed them in the waiting trench while Harris and his n lashed them together. While back there, I gave them another push digging the trench itself, using my axe to send tons of rich earth shooting into the air as I dug down ten feet or more.
I took advantage of the free lemonade as the soldiers all stopped to watch work, cultivating it to advance my Muscle Strengthening. One of them clapped on the shoulder and called an excavator on nitrous. I wasn’t completely sure what that ant, but Kelsey assured it ant I was kicking serious ass in their eyes.
We broke for lunch after having completed about 500 feet of wall and I joined the rest of the community for a feast of wild hog and rice. Jim reintroduced to the community and let them all know what I was providing in terms of security and everyone rewarded with another dose of free lemonade to cultivate.
Oddly enough, Jim didn’t ntion Richards and his demise.
But no one seed to care much either.
We got back at it after lunch and completed another 500 feet of wall before calling it quits for the day. Most people retreated into the bunker to sleep, but I stayed up to check in with Kelsey and her studies before turning to the sword to conduct studies of my own.
There were still hundreds of Shuras I had yet to read, much less morize and digest, so even though I was dog tired, I got in a couple of hours of reading before drifting off to sleep under the stars.
* * *
The next couple of days went by much the sa, only the more we got the hang of the process, the faster it beca. A thousand feet a day beca twelve hundred and then fifteen hundred, steadily increasing. Harris proved himself a capable construction manager the entire ti and gave direction on just how many logs to bring back and when; all to optimize the process and reduce down ti. By day three we were just past halfway completed, but the production slowed a bit as I had to travel further and further away for fresh stock of trees each run.
The landscape was slowly transforming before my eyes. Where dense forest once stood, now there were acres of stumps. I supposed I’d have to get to removing them at so point, but I could already envision the areas I had cleared becoming even more space for expansion or even farmlands if I could expand the barrier further.
That got itching to get on to my experint and by day five I made an announcent.
“You’re all going to need to take a quick break this morning,” I said to Harris. “I need to chop down sothing besides trees today.”
Harris looked at funny. “What do you an?”
I grabbed Threja’s sword and then whistled for Kelsey who was reading from the cultivation manual as usual. She’d been studying each day, the sa as I was each night and now it was ti to put both our sets of new book knowledge to the test.
Kelsey hobbled over to , her cast already removed from the day before. She wasn’t walking perfectly yet but she was walking.
“What’s up, Max?” she said, looking up at .
“Ti for your next big lesson,” I said with a smile. “We’re heading back into the wild today. And be sure to bring your monkey wrench.”
* * *
Kelsey and I made our way into what was left of the forest and after about an hour were far enough away for to begin to pick up traces of larger spirit beasts. True to my expectations, all the forest clearing had driven most of them deeper into the surrounding wilds, which was a good sign to .
It ant I could trust the wall was already doing its job of keeping the community safe. But I was paying a price for it though. Not a day went by when I didn’t hear Jian Yi’s voice nagging in the back of my mind, demanding to know where the hell I was.
I was already three days behind schedule for my return and had likely another two days yet to go.
Hopefully Gui Zu and Zu Tien were managing, but I couldn’t stay any longer than that. With the forest cleared and the wall nearly finished, perhaps I could even leave the rest up to Jim and his n to complete.
That was fine for the wall, but this part I needed to make sure of before I left them to return ho.
I had to know if I could make this sword stronger.
As I walked with Kelsey, I quizzed her on her cultivation knowledge and was surprised to find she had a good understanding of the various ridian points and locations already. But a bigger question still remained.
“Have you been able to actually feel any of them yet?”
“What do you an?”
“Can you feel energy flowing through them? Like a hot and cold sensation.”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. I’m visualizing them in my head like you said but it’s hard to tell if I’m really feeling anything or just fooling myself.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Frenzy works a bit different than Qi. We’ll do sothing this morning to really see if it’s working or not.”
“What’s that?”
I grinned at her. “We’re going hunting for bait.”
* * *
We arrived at just the kind of spot I was looking for––an open area of tall grass just like the one I took a rest in on my way in from the city. After scouting through the grass for a while I spotted my quarry. Using my axe to clear the grass, I exposed a hole in the ground that was about a foot across.
“What the heck is down there?” Kelsey asked, staring into it warily.
I grinned at her. “Not sure. Just be ready to kill whatever cos out of it.”
“What?!”
My words did exactly what I thought they would, sending Kelsey’s heart racing with uncertainty and fear, but her Fla activated to produce only Frenzy.
“Visualize the Eighth, Fifth, and Second pri ridians in that order,” I said. “Over and over again. Visualize a stream running through them. A stream stemming from the heart of your inner Fla.”
“Okay,” she said, not letting her eyes off the mystery hole.
From years of being in the field, I knew exactly what type of creature the burrow belonged to. Nothing strong enough to kill her, but enough to give her a damn good fight I hoped.
“Get ready,” I said.
Kelsey nodded, choking up on the grip of her wrench.
Collecting a fistful of dry grass, I ignited it with a tiny zap of lightning and threw it down the hole. Thick smoke billowed outwards, followed by an agitated growl and snarl. A second later a creature the size of a large dog dashed out of the hole and charged straight for Kelsey.
It looked like sothing crossed between a badger and a porcupine, a thick hide of quills bristling as it charged at Kelsey with jaws snapping and snarling.
“What the hell is that?!” Kelsey scread, her voice shrill with fear.
“A Quill Rat!” I said. “Kill it before it kills you!”
For a second I thought she might run, but as her fear hit the candle of her Fla, her Berserker side kicked in and her cry of fear beca a scream of rage.
She charged right at the creature, wrench held high.
It snarled back at her and shot a handful of toothpick-sized quills from its hide.
I winced as they struck Kelsey dead on, impaling themselves across her body.
“Ahhh!!” she cried. “Son of a bitch!”
I sensed her pain and to her credit, she dug down and used it to fuel her rage. Kelsey swung at the Quill Rat, digging up earth as it deftly avoided her untrained strikes. The frustration of not being able to hit it caused Kelsey to scream again.
“Focus your rage,” I said. “Concentrate on the ridians I said. It will help you to hit it.”
I could see her mind splitting focus as she tried to concentrate on doing ntal math while simultaneously dancing about to avoid the Quill Rat’s snapping jaws. She slipped up and the thing caught her on the back of her calf, chewing through her jeans.
She scread again as the material of her jeans turned dark with her blood. I resisted the urge to jump in and help her, my Fla filling with a fear of a different kind. But sothing like [Bloodlust] must have kicked in as her Frenzy surged and Kelsey swapped the wrench to her off hand to hit the Quill Rat with a backwards chop.
The creature went flying like it had been punted for a field goal, the result surprising even Kelsey herself. She didn’t let up as it hit the ground so thirty feet away and capitalized on its stunned state to finish the job with a final slam to its head.
Whack!
Kelsey stood there breathing heavily as she looked down at the bloodied creature, her soul a mixture of fear, rage, and pain.
All of it producing decent amounts of Frenzy.
“First, Fourth, Second,” I said as I ca to stand by her, giving her the ridian sequence for [Pain Soothes the Frenzied Fla]. “Focus on where it bit you. Feel your Frenzy soothing the wound.”
Kelsey nodded, still breathing heavily as she closed her eyes to concentrate.
I studied her as she tried to manipulate her Frenzy. She was probably still far away from even detecting Frenzy much less channeling it, but I could sense her Frenzy shifting within her, even if she couldn’t sense it herself.
“You’re doing good,” I said. “Do you feel anything?”
She let out a sigh, shaking her head. “I don’t know.”
“It’ll take ti,” I said, looking down at the dead Quill Rat. “Nice job though. You hit that thing like a truck.”
“Yeah,” she said, picking out quills from her forearm. “Must be the Frenzy working. That thing hurt like hell though. My mom’s going to be pissed when she sees my leg ssed up again.”
I chuckled. “Let’s get you cleaned up. We’re going to need a lot more of these.”
I bandaged Kelsey’s calf with so of the healing salve and gave her so more to apply to her skin to deal with the small puncture wounds left by the quills. Luckily a Quill Rat ranked as only an F-class monster, sothing even a mortal human could survive. Albeit not without injury given the circumstances.
After a quick rest, Kelsey said she was feeling better and I could tell the salve as well as the diffuse Frenzy in her body was already doing its work.
We hit up three more holes, flushing out Quill Rats for Kelsey to kill.
She got more proficient with each one, both physically and in focusing her Frenzy. Watching her had eager to give her access to the orb so she could keep practicing all this on her own like I did, but she needed martial training as well.
That I could definitely fill in as a teacher for her.
The Path of the Frenzied Fla was a solitary one, but when it ca to actual fighting skills the Fla was agnostic. I myself had to self-learn my axe techniques from a book, but I could teach Kelsey the sa directly. The wrench would do as a close approximation for now, but later I would have to bring her back a proper axe from Master Edrik.
We flushed out a couple more rats with giving Kelsey the very basics of the Axe Techniques in between. I had to admit, it was a new yet familiar sort of fulfilnt I was getting from instructing Kelsey. It reminded of my ti with Ren, Rho, and Yi Fu when I was teaching them their handler trade out in the wild. I got so engrossed with Kelsey being so keen, that we spent a good hour going over basic forms long after we killed our last rat.
“Okay ti to put these to use,” I said after checking on the ti. It was getting just past noon and we still had a while to travel before sundown. We headed back in the direction of the bunker, but I made a detour towards so more heavily forested terrain.
I found a clearing that was surrounded by sufficiently high trees and set the bludgeoned Quill Rats in the center while we scaled a tree to wait.
“What exactly are we waiting for?” Kelsey asked once we were both safely perched on a thick bough so thirty feet off the ground.
“Sothing big enough to matter, I hope,” I said as I ran my hand along the edge of Threja’s blade. “Small ga like those Quill Rats don’t normally find their way this deep into big predator territory. Once they sll that blood it should be like ringing a dinner bell.”
I could sense a bit of fear rise up in Kelsey, but it was imdiately suppressed by her Fla.
“You did good today, Kelsey,” I said. “Your mom’s probably gonna have my ass again for getting you beat up, but I think it was worth it.”
Kelsey laughed. “I hope so. Those damn quills itch like crazy.”
“Trust , it will be,” I said. “Just keep focusing on those ridians I told you and your Frenzy will heal your body back stronger, skin thicker too.”
That reminded of my own cultivation training that I still had yet to get to.
The building of the wall had definitely aided my Muscle Strengthening, but I still had to hone my Reflexes and Body Hardening with real combat. Killing whatever would co for the Quill Rats would certainly help with that. But I had new techniques to master as well.
I found two new advanced forms of [Iron Skin] and [Iron Core] to master. One unsurprisingly called [Steel Skin] which required to be Stage Ten in Body Hardening and [Diamond Skin] which didn’t have much information under it at all, save for needing vast amounts of Frenzy to maintain for even a second and even then in only one small location at a ti.
I also found a section that perhaps hinted at the hidden strength inside Threja’s sword. Although it had more to do with what her sword was made of rather than the weapon itself.
On Corrupted Steel
Only Corrupted Steel may resonate with one’s strength, for it alone can withstand the full might of the Frenzied Fla. Be it through an inscription of shuras or a killing blow, the Steel will retain the resonance of thy Frenzy and in ti may even manifest its own.
That had to be what happened with Threja’s sword—decades or even centuries of her channeling her Frenzy through it and killing things. But could I strengthen it further? I wouldn’t know until I killed whatever ca looking for the rat at below.
“Hey, is that how you learned how to fight?” Kelsey suddenly asked, pulling out of my thoughts. “Killing small animals with a monkey wrench?”
It was my turn to laugh now. “Not exactly. But close. When I get back from the city, I’ll bring you back a proper weapon to train with.”
“When are you taking ?” she said.
“Huh?”
“To the city. Don’t forget you promised .”
I smiled at her. “When you get good enough to speak so passable Yee maybe.”
“Hey, stop moving the goal post.” She gave an over-the-top grimace. “That wasn’t part of the deal and besides you haven’t taught any Yee yet.”
That was indeed an obstacle we’d have to overco at so point. The language barrier between the two tribes of Terrans was going to be massive. And I supposed I’d have to have more translators than just to overco it.
“I guess we got so ti to kill,” I said. “Repeat after .”
I began speaking in Yee, giving Kelsey the most basic of phrases to morize.
‘Hello’, ‘Yes’, ‘no’, ‘I don’t understand’.
Just like with everything else, Kelsey absorbed the new knowledge like a sponge, her mind eager for more. After a while she shifted gears on again.
“Tell what it’s like there,” she said after a while.
“Again?”
“Please.”
I’d already described the place to her a dozen tis already, but I guessed leaving the bunker was still an unrealized sort of dream for her. Her version of freeing the Earth maybe. To be free of the demons. I indulged her once more, describing not just the city but my friends and family back ho.
I was just about to tell her how Gui Zu lost all his teeth when a faint snapping of twigs drew my attention. I cut the story short and motioned for Kelsey to stay quiet by pressing a finger to my lips before pointing in the direction of the disturbance.
Slow seconds went by before the sleek black coat of a giant panther erged from the underbrush. It had to be the size of a horse, with eyes that sparkled erald-green in the shade of the thick forest canopy.
Nice, I thought. Just what I was looking for.
The panther was clearly a spirit beast, although perhaps not as powerful as I was hoping. A low C-Class at best, but still hopefully strong enough to test my theory. Slowly, I stood on the tree branch as the giant panther began tearing into the Quill Rat carcasses below, its large fangs making short work of the creatures as their quills attacked its face posthumously.
I readied Threja’s sword, wielding it in both hands.
“What should I do?” Kelsey whispered.
“Just hang back and watch the show,” I said. “This shouldn’t take long.”
I was just about to drop down to dispatch the panther, when a flash of movent caught my eye. Sothing the size of a bus ca tearing through the forest like a freight train, whole tree trunks snapping in its wake with the sound of thunder.
It took half a second to even comprehend what I was seeing, but when I finally did my mind ca undone. There, locked to the hindquarters of the panther, were the massive jaws of the largest snake I’d ever seen.
It was alabaster white—an albino with piercing red eyes, its body thicker than the trees surrounding it. It unhinged its jaw to swallow the panther whole, taking more of the giant cat into its maw with a second forceful bite. The panther roared in defiance, whipping about to claw at the snake’s giant head, but the thing could get no leverage on it.
The snake thrashed about, its three-foot-wide body slamming into more trees and breaking them as it slamd the panther into the ground. After two or three slams the panther finally grew still.
It all happened in barely a few seconds, the stark violence of it all igniting my Fla with Frenzy.
I cultivated it imdiately, preparing my body for what would co next.
This had to be another B-Class spirit beast at least, perhaps even an A-Class by the intelligence hiding behind its demon-like eyes. Kelsey hadn’t said a word, but the jackhamring of her heart said it all.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered. “Plan stays the sa.”
I was killing this thing no matter what.
I readied Threja’s sword, raising it high above my head for a devastating [Three Log Chop]. I leapt off the tree branch with a mighty cry, pulling the sword back further to strike.
Then suddenly I was jerked backwards, like sothing had grabbed out of the air.
The world spun as I rotated with the montum of my backswing and a second later I faceplanted hard into the underbrush below.
Wham!
I roused, seeing stars, still trying to figure out what had just happened.
“What the hell…?”
I flipped onto my knees, disorientated, looking about for where the sword had gone. I reached for my axe but couldn’t find it either, both weapons hidden in the deep underbrush sowhere.
Before I could even get to my feet, the ground shook beneath as the huge body of the snake began to unfurl. The giant anaconda rose up, towering two stories into the air as the length of its body stretched behind it so hundred feet or more.
It fixed on with its demonic eyes, its forked tongue flickering.
Frenzy filled my soul as the challenge of fighting this thing rose up inside , my hands balling into fists. Finally, after all these weeks, I was able to truly cultivate, finding a monster worthy of my Fla.
I let out a gleeful laugh and the monster reared back with a hiss.
“Bring it on!” I shouted as I sized up the towering pillar of scales, muscle, and fangs. “Sword or no sword. You’re about to die.”
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