Jack is currently within his tent; he needs to cultivate currently because his mental state is unbalanced. An important part of his cultivation method is keeping the elements within his body in equilibrium, the sudden messages indicating that something major happened but he isn’t able to actually investigate what happened as there’s no method for long range communication nor should he rush out personally.

Maurice mentioned that the scholar’s researched another job change stele; this is unimportant because there’s currently no need for any further jobs. They have barely settled in with the current job roles and given it’s a civil position, it’s acceptable to wait even if it’s another prospective exciting change waiting.

Jack is splitting off portions of his qi, letting it travel along the veins within his body strengthening them and storing them within his forehead, the stars feel as though they can accept an unlimited amount of energy or perhaps it’s just because the quantity and purity of the qi currently is poor. As he is doing this, unknown to him a shadowed person appears by the tent entrance holding a small needle.

Jack can sense something strange within the tent and opens his eyes peering towards the entrance of the tent, the shadowed person rushes out holding the small needle in a position to stab into Jack’s skin. They suddenly see Jack’s eyes open and almost immediately trip over their feet before falling to the ground, it’s Mai.

She was trying to be sneaky and take a drop of blood while Jack was cultivating but didn’t expect him to sense her approach, before Jack can notice the needle, she puts it away and picking herself up off the ground giving Jack a furious look, as though he was in the wrong for making her trip over.

Mai crosses her arms not losing the furious look towards Jack, “I’M BORED AND HUNGRY” she almost yells towards Jack.

“Where have you been?” Jack ignores her words, this is her first day within the village so he’s curious as to what she has been up to, as to her being hungry he can guess what she means.

“Doing stuff but now I’m hungry so I came back”

“Doing what stuff?”

Rolling her eyes at Jack she asks him, “Don’t you think the plants outside are pretty?”.

“Where did those plants come from?” Jack asks, he has many questions regarding the plants but no one seems to know where they came from, they just appeared all of a sudden.

“Do you only know how to ask me questions? Those plants are pretty and I’m going to find Jessica she tells me special things” She runs out of the tent before he can even respond to her, leaving him scratching his head at the conversation they had.

He does think they’re pretty but there’s a lot of Australian looking species of plants, it doesn’t make sense for them to appear here for many reasons but one of the most important reasons is that Australian people don’t spawn on this continent.

His blood is safe from the vampiric little girl for the time being so he returns to his cultivation, settling his mind and making some progress towards the next stages of his cultivation. Stage 0 and Stage 1 can be summarized as the ‘Vein Opening’ stage, Stage 3 is the start of ‘Qi Condensation’ which is the start of having qi flow outside the body such as Defensive Barriers.

He is able to make qi already flow outside his body but that is strictly limited to the fireball skill that was acquired from the demonic sheep, it only allows him to throw a fireball or hold it within his hand in preparation for throwing it. In the future he will need to gather a lot of techniques as his cultivation technique, Yang – Yin Dragon Phoenix Myriad Arts lacks them or perhaps he hasn’t found how to unlock them yet.

While Jack is cultivating and thinking about the above, Leah is currently searching within the region near Dragon – Phoenix Village, she doesn’t trust leaving Mai alone within that village for too long but this is an important matter, frowning while looking over an ancient map she can be heard muttering, “It matches but it doesn’t make sense”.

There’s the legend of the buried empire within the Plains of Sorrow but it should be just that, a legend. Leah has one of the very few ancient maps of the ancient Phoenix Empire capital, this map was passed down through her family line because her ancestors were part of the ancient Phoenix Empire, they were sent away prior to the empires destruction and luckily survived.

The ancient Phoenix Empire capital was raided by the supreme beings that led the assault on the Phoenix Empress and her empire simply because she was a powerful female empress that didn’t want to take on a husband, many supreme beings considered it a competition to see who could acquire her first.

This is ancient history and no one is actually sure what happened, perhaps only those supreme beings and the phoenix empress actually know what happened if they’re still alive. Leah has found many landmarks of the phoenix empire buried deep underground, she gathers her power and sends it directly downwards into the dirt.

*BOOOOOM*

A huge crater appears 4km in diameter where at the bottom the top of a statue can be seen, leaping down into the pit see looks over the revealed part of the statue and can see that it’s in the form of a bird, a swan which was one of the great generals of the ancient Phoenix Empire. Looking at the map, she is able to see the position matches where it should be in comparison to the other landmarks.

She is about to leave this area when a man wearing a red-robe appears, standing in the air looking down coldly upon her as though she is lower than him. He looks like a typical playboy, pampered as though he always gets what he wants.

He has a sly grin towards Leah who is forced to look up at him, “Girl what are you digging for? You look like you need a man to teach you a thing or two” the man then suddenly flashes as he disappears from his spot and appears before Leah.

Leah was well prepared for this; she has slipped some needles into her fingers and is patiently waiting a moment to strike. The man sensing something is wrong stops his approach and flashes back to his original spot looking at the very calm looking Leah with cold eyes.

Leah meets his gaze with her own cold gaze before launching a needle towards the man, the needle disappears as it flies through the air faster than can be seen. The man’s arm flickers as he intercepts the needle studying it suspiciously but his brow developing some sweat upon seeing the needle is covered with a very potent poison.

The man is glad that he didn’t approach her more forcefully but now he is rather angry that this woman would challenge him, first one of his sect mates was seriously injured by the people from Frozen Cloud sect and now this woman he randomly came across on the plains area could seriously poison him.

“Have you seen signs of the Dragon or Phoenix in this area? I need to acquire them to heal my friend” the man’s expression shifts from a sly sinister one, into a genial and nice one as though they’re two different people.

Leah’s thoughts start to race, the only phoenix that should be located within this whole world is the phoenix at that man’s village, her face starts to blush slightly after thinking about that man but how can this red robed man know about that tiny little phoenix chick. “NO!” she shouts not allowing the man to notice her shifting expression.

The two just stand there for a few moments staring at each other coldly, the man has a gentle expression on but his eyes contain hatred whereas Leah doesn’t show anything but getting slightly annoyed at how long this is taking, she releases her full power aura for a split moment.

The red-robed man immediately spits out a mouth full of blood as he flees into the distance, far away from Leah. He is currently within the Earth Realm; it might be the lower Earth Realm but it’s still the step above the Saint Realm putting him above almost everyone within this region.

Leah coldly snorts at the man’s reaction, storing away the needles and leaving the region but not before looking at the direction the man left in, he is part of a group that is also trapped within this region for now so they will most likely run into each other again.

One of her roles as the region beast is to ensure the safety of the region and while she doesn’t know what sect he is from; his attitude is enough to tell her that they will be a problem in the future. Letting out a slight sigh, she makes the decision to find out what sects are currently within her region and finally goes to the next site on the map.

Within the region, many people were able to detect this sudden burst of aura unsettling many of them, many of them considered that they were the strongest being within this region but upon sensing this aura they know it’s not true, many of them ordering their influences to research who it was and what’s going on in the region.

On a hill near Dragon – Phoenix village, the blue robed person is cultivating but is interrupted by the burst of aura, feeling the pressure greater than them in the upper Earth realm, an invisible barrier is released from their body that covers the hill and extends to Dragon – Phoenix village, no one is able to detect the barrier but Jack’s eyes do flash with a rainbow tinge for a moment unknown to all.

The barrier is simply to block off long range probing from high level beings, it will not impact anything within the village and the inhabitants will be unaware it was even placed unless they are above the Saint Realm. The blue robed person then returns to cultivating, a tuft of long dark blue hair can be seen appearing from below the mask.

Jack is unaware of everything going on outside the village, he is cultivating and feels like he will be able to progress to the next minor stage of his cultivation when he is interrupted by one of the soldiers informing him that a lightning scaled horse can be seen from the distance with no one on it.

Jack is confused at why there would be no one on it, orders all the soldiers to gather to greet the horse and ensure everything is ok. Jack mounts Sleipner and joins the soldiers in waiting for the horse.

“AHH HELP ME!” a strange voice can be heard coming from the lightning scaled horse as it comes closer allowing people to see what’s going on, it’s Drakon’s horse that he was using prior to Jack leaving the kobold area. DeeYo is currently tied to the saddle, he is far too small to proper be seated and seems to have slid down the side causing him to be stuck to the side of the horse.

Jack orders the soldiers to let DeeYo down, the goblin falls to the ground whereupon he swears that he will never mount one of these horses again. “Dragon Lord Sir!” he jumps up quickly and turns to Jack.

“Speak!”

“Dragon Lord Sir, several kobold villages got worried when they saw we were gathering all the other kobold villages in the local area. They thought we were organising a resistance against United Goblin Town and were going to leave their small villages to fend for themselves…” DeeYo explains the situation to Jack as best as he understood it.

It appears that word quickly spread around the kobold village area that 4 kobold villages joined together and were going to travel to a different region. Many of them wanted to find out what was going on and sent people to inquire but were told to meet with a representative at Brown Burrows Village.

The other villages sent their leaders to Brown Burrows Village where they met Drakon, they weren’t happy that Drakon was non-kobold but upon seeing that DeeYo was respected by Drakon they felt they should inquire what was going on.

Drakon didn’t want to speak with them and just told them to submit. DeeYo was more diplomatic telling them that the ‘Dragon Lord will provide safety for them all’ and talking up a big game trying to get them to submit, many of them were sceptical that Drakon and DeeYo were affiliated with this ‘Dragon Lord’.

DeeYo wasn’t sure about how to prove this to them but Drakon let out a Dragon Breath, the dragon might filled the village causing all the kobolds to tremble in fear and collapse on the ground. That’s what caused all of the prompts to appear suddenly for Jack, the 7 kobold leaders and a single goblin leader kowtowed towards Drakon for their disrespect and submitted at the same time.

Drakon then orders all the newly submitted villages to gather their city heart, population and things to prepare for moving while sending DeeYo back to Dragon – Phoenix village on his horse with several valuables to inform Jack of what is going on and why the group is taking so long.

Jack looks at the valuables contained within a small bag, mostly just some grasses and herbs including one strange looking orb that Jack pulls up the information for:

[Innate Purple Gold Ore]: Grade: Gold, Description: Can be used in forging Gold grade equipment to enhance its elemental compatibility.

Jack puts the ore orb away not knowing what to make of it, forgetting that he needs to find special metal for two purposes currently; Maurice needs certain ore for ‘Aeros’ and the special quest from the NPC in the crystal room.

“Good Job” Jack tells DeeYo, the goblin has a slight smile on his face upon hearing this praise and kneels to show his loyalty. The group return to the village where Jack needs to inform Hilda and Bane about what’s going on, they need to find where to re-establish the kobold villages as soon as possible.

The discussions don’t last long because they had already discussed it earlier whereupon they separate and handle their respective tasks, Hilda is responsible for city planning while Bane is in charge of the ‘human’ resources. Jack is left with nothing to do so he carries the bag of valuables to his tent to go through it in more detail.

As he passes through the forest area outside his tent, he is starting to enjoy the fresh crisp feeling that it provides while he takes deep breaths of all the pleasant smells that are coming from all the plants. Touching a couple of the plants he can feel that they’re full of vitality, as if they’ve been growing here for years in great conditions.

“Don’t you hurt my pretty plants!” a voice can be heard above him, looking up at a branch on the willow tree he can see that it’s Mai.

“I’m not hurting your pretty plants”

Mai smiles at Jack because he said that the plants were pretty but she starts to sniff the air, jumping down next to Jack and grabbing the bag of valuables DeeYo left with Jack, she starts to go through all of the little grasses and herbs.

She pulls out a tiny single blade of grass that has a black and gold stripe its entire length, her smile grows bigger as a green glow gathers in her hand. Suddenly the blade of grass starts to float as it appears slightly larger before finally splitting in two, a massive wave of green energy spreads throughout the area as all the plants start to sway in joy.

Jack looks at Mai in shock, finally the green energy glow subsides as the two blades of grass settle into Mai’s hand. She is looking pleased with her result and hands one of the blades to Jack where he brings up the information of it:

[Demon Suppressing Grass]: Grade: Stage 3 Medicinal Grass, Description: A type of grass that has absorbed Demon Qi and Demon Suppressing Qi. Can be used as an ingredient within a pill or raw.

Jack isn’t sure what’s so special about this grass, he’s more shocked about the abilities that Mai has just shown him. He wants to ask her a question when she sticks the blade of grass into his mouth, instantly he can feel two types of energy enter his body.

He has already experienced demonic qi so that’s nothing new to him but Demon Suppressing qi is new to him, a golden glow can be seen spreading throughout his body. He wants to circulate and gather the qi within one of the stars on his forehead but there’s not enough, the demon suppressing qi easily integrates into his body.

If he were able to investigate the interior of his body, he would find that his bones now have a tiny golden stripe on it that will slowly develop into Demon Suppressing Golden Bones. This is all something that Jack doesn’t know about; he is able to integrate the demonic qi within his existing forehead star as his expression turns serious to Mai.

Mai is just looking at him with a big smile, licking her lips. Jack lets out a sign and holds out his arm holding back the questions he has; the little girl runs over and stabs her little needle into Jacks arm before sucking on the blood drops that appear.

“So, can you explain what happened?” Jack asks the girl after she finally stops sucking on his arm and lets out a yawn.

Zeeksi

Accidentally have been calling Fenrir, Fafnir so that's my bad and will be changing that in previous chapters.

Easy to get those two names mixed up when norse mythology isn't a big part of my life.

Wasn't feel great today so chapter isn't what exactly what I had planned, Thank You for everyone still reading and if you're new to reading Thank You for checking out my story, I hope you have enjoyed everything so far. I'm hoping to have some action focused chapters over the next couple.