Harry’s Shelter, Great Demon Law Forest:-

Shin woke up on his ultra-comfy bed.

It had been a year since he came to this place of wonders. Now he and Harry were 20 years old and his sister was 13 years old.

If anyone else knew that he was living in the Great Demon Law Forest, they might have pitied him.

But that would only be if they didn’t know where exactly in the forest he was living.

Because this place felt like heaven to him since the very first day. And that feeling didn’t show any sign of decreasing.

Sure, this place wasn’t as huge as the palaces he was used to. Nor was it as royal looking.

But this place left all of those palaces in the dust solely based on the level of convenience and perfection that he felt here.

Compared to the finely crafted EVERYTHING over here, the so-called “Royal” palaces looked like ancient caves.

Those places weren’t half as comfortable.

And then there were the godly artefacts! Or “Technologies” and “Machines” as Harry used to call them…

Well, you can call them whatever you want, but they were some of the most peerless things Shin had seen.

They had amazed him on the first day. And, somehow, continued to amaze him even after an entire year.

He had asked Harry about them a few times. About where they came from and how they worked.

Unfortunately, Harry either didn’t tell him or whatever he told them went over their heads.

But he knew one thing, these things were somehow able to function without a shred of qi in them. Something that he never thought was possible.

And the last time he asked Harry, he got to know an unfortunate thing.

These were old relics from the past.

And Harry had been barely maintaining them for a long time. Even he didn’t know when they would break down. But according to his rough estimates, this stuff only had a few years more left in them.

Shin was greatly saddened by this knowledge. But he knew that he must not depend on such conveniences for long. It would only make him weak.

That said, he was going to enjoy using them until he just couldn’t do it any longer.

Only a fool would give up on such good stuff!

“Hey, Elder brother! How long do you plan on sitting around staring at the wall?”
Qing was already awake and was about to leave the room when she shouted at him.

Haah…

Shin felt like no one respected him. Even his sister used to openly diss him if she got the opportunity to do so.

He knew that everyone around him referred to the two of them as monsters. Monsters in terms of cultivation.

That’s why they were even targetted by their sect elder.

But if one were to ask him, he’d say that his sister was the true monster.

He was quite a shy person who got scared very easily.

But his sister, on the other hand, didn’t have any of those bad qualities. She was much smarter and bolder than he could ever be.

Even though she was a girl, her intelligence, coupled with her cultivation talent, had put her above several older men.

‘If I keep thinking about this stuff in the morning, my sister’s going to kill me this time.’

And with that thought, Shin hurriedly got dressed and went into what he referred to as “the room that was the most heavenly of them all”, aka, the washroom.

‘Such nice and clean floors. Such a pleasant scent of lavender.

If not for the fact that the bed is a little too big for the door, I’d rather sleep here...’

And then he turned on heavenly artefact number one, the tap.

Such bliss! Such clean flowing water that was something that he had seen only in rivers, was flowing in this room. And that too with just a movement of his wrist!

And just as Shin washed his face with the beautifully scented potion that Harry referred to as a “face wash”, he felt the urge to go for the number two.

Normally speaking, though this was something necessary, it wasn’t something that he looked forward to.

It was because, after doing it, the place would stink. And if the place wasn’t cleaned very quickly, the dried-up stains would be pretty difficult to remove.

This was something that higher level cultivators didn’t need. Since their bodies never let such impurities collect. But Shin and his sister were far from that level for now.

Thankfully, there was an artefact here for that too!

All he had to do was sit, sh*t and press a button. And all the contents would be cleaned up on its own.

‘All the people back in Wangxiu would be so jealous of me!’

After some time, Shin finally exited the washroom after taking a nice relaxing shower. There was a bathtub as well, but Shin preferred the flowing water of the shower more.

That was when Qing finally stepped into the room.

“Ah Elder brother, you’re finally done with the bath?

Come and have your breakfast before it gets cold.”

Today’s meal was a simple one.

Two fried eggs from a wild chicken-like bird called a roostnix along with four roostnix sausages and eight pieces of toast. (Cultivators at lower stages tend to eat a lot.)

Qing, who had already eaten her food while he was in the washroom, sat down near him.

“Say, brother, do you think that people exist that use some energy other than qi?”

This had been her favourite topic recently.

The existence of the people called “Mages”.

Neither of them had met them. Nor had Harry.

But Harry only told them about the mages and their “mana”.
He had apparently found old books that contained knowledge about people from another region who wielded powers similar to the cultivators but instead of qi they used something they called “mana”.

The mana wasn’t as powerful and omnipotent as qi (which did reduce their excitement), but because of these limitations, the mages’ civilisation was much more advanced than the people at Wangxiu.

According to what Harry had told them, they had various of these “technologies” as well, but theirs were powered by that mana.

They had lights that could stay on in any weather without flickering and carriages that moved on their own, all powered by the so-called mana.

They too wanted to try using this mana, but as they quickly found out, due to their extensive use of qi, they couldn’t even detect mana, much less use it.

Harry also could not use mana since he was a mortal.

“Of course, they must exist! Has Harry ever lied to us?”

(Harry: “Yeah, about that...”)

“Yeah, if you think about it, the fact that people who can manipulate other energies exist is much more believable than a mortal who can defeat high-level cultivators like flies.”, said Qing while smiling.

“And we have a live example of such a person right before us.”

Shin replied and both of them started laughing at the absurdity of it. Shin laughed so hard that he almost ended up choking on his food.

After this, they stopped talking till Shin finished his food.

After breakfast, the next item on their daily routine was their daily practice fights.

The three of them had together cleared out a pretty large area near their place to serve as an arena of sorts.

These two had even made several charms to ward off most of the demon beasts that came nearby. And, naturally, they constantly needed to improve the level of security with the ever-evolving beasts in this forest.

The reason for building this out in the open was simply that they caused too much destruction while fighting.

It was easier to fix this open arena than if they had an underground arena.

Their fights used to be so destructive so often, that the fighting only had ended up expanding the area to its current size.

Their fights usually lasted for three hours at once. Unless some beast appeared or they did something to stop the fight.

Thankfully, they had been getting better at this stuff. So, the expansion rate of the arena had reduced along with many other problems that they used to create early on.

Once they had shot several attacks towards the main base, only to miss it by a little bit, and ended up getting long lectures by Harry along with other punishments…

Making the arena outside had one more advantage of sorts. They could get more practice at resisting the miasma.

In their base, as Harry had told them, there was some artefact that kept detoxifying the miasma. (Courtesy of the system, of course)

But they couldn’t get stronger if they couldn’t resist miasma.

So, after getting completely exhausted from all the fighting that they did, they took a break of an hour.

They rested back in their rooms and did breathing exercises to restore their qi.

And since it was already lunchtime, they had a scrumptious meal with Harry.

Shin was amazed by the thing that Harry had called a clock.

It was one of the first things he had seen that could move on its own without any mystical energy. (Harry did tell him about its functioning, but Shin was too busy in his dreamland, creating fantasies on how it worked, to pay attention.)

It was only because of how accurately this thing told time that their days were so properly planned out.

And now, it was time for task two of the day!

Namely, meditation for two hours.

This was necessary for cultivation. And for this purpose, they had an underground room.

Cultivation was a delicate thing. They could not risk accidentally absorbing any bit of miasma into their bodies.

Because if any miasma got in, it would react violently with their internal qi and might even cripple them or worse…

But, as usual, their cultivation room was much more comfortable than the ones they had back in their sect.

That place didn’t have any temperature control, like the air conditioners present here, nor was there much pest control.

Just imagine, you’re trying to meditate during the summer months while sweat keeps pouring down your body when a fly starts buzzing in your ear…

Shin had seen many people fail at breaking through just because all the sweating cause a very itchy rash to appear on their back and all the momentum they had gained to breakthrough got wasted just because they badly felt like scratching the itch.

This place did have its problems.

One of the biggest ones being that if they didn’t control themselves, they might end up falling asleep instead of meditating due to the soothing cool temperature inside.

But other than that, there were more advantages to this kind of cultivation chamber.

Here, they could concentrate more on cultivation than how hot or cold the temperature was outside. And this had greatly improved their cultivation speeds.

Now Shin had reached the peak of the Mortal Realm while Qing had reached the intermediate stage.

He was now as stronger as those seniors that had tried to kill him, who had been one level below the current him.

Cultivation in this world contained three Realms: Mortal, Limits-Shedding and Immortal.

Each was divided into nine stages which were further divided into three groups of three: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced.

So, Qing was on Mortal Realm Intermediate level 1 while Shin was on Mortal Realm Advanced level 3.

Normally, cultivators would read the peak of the Mortal Realm at around 50 years of age. And even with Shin’s prodigious speeds, he would have reached it at least when he reached 30 years of age.

But it was only due to the high level of comfort and training they received here that their talent was able to bloom to its full extent.

All those old farts back at their old sect would have been puking blood if they saw their progress.

After cultivating, when the two looked at their levels of cultivation, even they ended up laughing themselves.

Now, they had a quick snack in the kitchen and rushed outside.

Because now was the time to go for their daily hunt!

They had been getting better at it. But they had to keep putting efforts in, otherwise, the demon beasts would easily surpass them.

But thankfully, they had grown strong enough that Shin’s “fertiliser” incidents rarely ever happened.

They stepped into the forest with their senses sharpened to the maximum.

The monsters had become much smarter than when they started all those months back. So, if they didn’t keep alert, it wouldn’t take seconds before they became prey.

Several of the beasts had even started copying their martial arts somehow. Those were the ones that had to be killed the earliest. Otherwise, it would become very problematic in the future.

Thankfully, Harry usually took care of them on his own.

His movements were usually too fast for anyone or anything to catch.

So, his techniques could not be copied.

But even after all this, the beasts they faced weren’t exactly weak either.

And during their daily hunting, including this one, they did have to put their lives on the line several times.

All in all, their hunts lasted about 2 hours every day.

Today was no different and after the hunt, Shin rushed to the washroom to clean up.

He had another “incident” near the end of the hunt.

As for his little sister, she couldn’t stop laughing at his reaction.

After this was done, they again rested for some time after depositing their preys in the storage room.

And just as these guys were getting back up, Harry rushed into their room looking all a little out of breath.

“Ah, you guys are up!

Well, prep up. We’ll be getting some company in a while...”