Chapter 33

Returning Home

 

It took exactly 4 weeks for them to return, to the hour of day. And when Uncle ran off to meet them, I was attacked by 5 cultivators who wanted to rob us of the Grade 3 and 4 herbs. As well at try to capture and tame me.

I'm curious how well my Blood-Rune mirror shield spell would have protected me, but not enough to let anyone have a chance to succeed.

So I captured them, robbed 2 of everything and 'recruited' the other 3 as slaves. Two of them enthusiastically volounteered, after hearing how much my bitches came back with after a single selling/shopping trip. The other one really had no choice. At that time it was either I do, or he dies. I hope Karma is okay with my decision.

Now I'm preventing the risk of another such interruption in case there's someone who secretly tracked them to me. By rushing us a few hundred miles into the forest. In half an hour.

. . .

Zo Ro) 'That should be enough to lose anyone who had been tracking us. Now it's your turn for the slave seals. One at a time, lie down and hold still.'

After I finished on '1', '5' had a question.

5) "I've never seen anything like this before. How does it work?"

Z) 'It's a different Unique Ability from the one I used to subdue you all.'

1) "You mean you have TWO Unique Abilities, Master?"

Z) 'Of course not. I have four I can currently use. Now it's your turn.'

By chance, '4' woke up at this time.

4) "Urgh. What happened?"

Z) 'I injured you in self defense. Badly. You were dying. I couldn't heal you without making you my slave first. So when it was time for the five of you to decide whether to take a Celestial Vow of silence or become my slave, I had to make your decision for you. Two of your friends volunteered to become slaves as well. The others chose the Vow and were let go. I hope you're not upset with me for doing so.'

4) "Of course not, Master. But how bad were my wounds?"

Z) 'My 10 fire Qi arrows that hit your back dug in far enough to strike some of your vital organs. And one of them severed your spine. Even if by some miracle you had survived without my help, you would never walk, or even feel your toes again. The healing process uses up a lot of food though, so I also gave you 4 or 5 months' worth of Nutrition paste.

4) .."But I can feel my toes just fine."

Z) 'Yes, that's becaauuse of my healing doing its job. One moment, I'm finishing her slave seal now.'

. .

Z) 'Putas, it seems my paws are unclean. Of course, the only way to clean them out here in the wilds is with your tongues. Do any of you want to clean them?' All four wolf girls enthusiastically volunteer. I only have 2 to clean, so I make them do a game of chance for their rights to do it.

It seems as though their conditioning is working like I had hoped, but faster than I expected.

Z) 'Okay first thing, if any of you have anything that can be used by another to track your position or movements, destroy or bury it now. That includes what I took from the others, so go through the junk pile here. Kara? (empties out a bit from her ring) Second using that Ability, such as when placing the slave seals, puts a lot of strain on me. So you'll have to guard me until I can rest enough to fly us back home. I know some of you are better rested than others, take this into account when choosing shifts. Third, you (points at '4') are too injured for any duties, so just rest for now. Last for now, let's all introduce ourselves. My name is Zo Ro.' I skip listening to the ones I already know.

1) "I am Go Rong."

5) "My name is Bai Miti."

4) "And I am Hao Long."¹My knowledge of chinese isn't EXACTLY zero, but it's close enough that conversation is impossible. Still I do know from reading cultivation novels and such that Bai means 'white', and Long is 'dragon'. The rest is just gibberish to me, so making some puns here like usual ;P

Z) 'Nice to make your acquaintances. Kara, give them each an armor from the ring I gave you.'

. . .

I wake up late that evening well rested from the Magic use. It's been over three months since leaving little bunny Hun Ni on her own, and I'm a bit worried over her. So I average our direction back as between the first direction we came from to find the bandits, and the direction from getting them to the forest edge. Then adjust a bit for having to track their movements. Then get us flying at a good speed, around 600 mph (960kph).

Our current jouney will take a few hours though. I tell my slaves they can discuss among themselves. But warn them not to inform outsiders about my Abilities, even by accident.

. .

Z) 'How about we discuss yourselves? What do you enjoy? What are you good at? What techniques do you study?'

K) "I have high wind affinity, and use the gale steps movement technique. I'm also good with swords and okay with bows."

Z) 'So does that gale steps allow you to step off from the wind?'

K) "Not until I reach Mastery with it."

Z) 'Then you'll need about a discussion of what wind -is-.²Everything is made of little tiny bits called atoms, some of which stick together like with glue or interlocking pieces. Those are solids such as stone, metal and bones. Others flow around like a mass of crawling bugs. That's liquids like water, oil or molassass. For air, the bits fly about and bounce off each other, something in-between a cloud of gnats and a game of billiards. The average momentum these bits bounce around with is directly related to their temperature. With wind, some of the movement of these bits is in a particular direction. When they hit a wall, or a basic ship's sail, this pushes against it to cause motion. But like Newton said: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So when wind flows past something it creates a reverse push. You can see this for yourself. One of you take out a parchment, hold it in your hands so it curves back down under its own weight. Now blow across the top. Good, see? The negative pressure of the wind blowing past pulls it up. This is how birds fly, their wings are a little bit in the same shape. Now, there's a maximum speed the bits fly around at, this is called the speed of sound. If I remember right, it was 1234 kilometers per hour, using the measurements of Earth, or 343 meters per second. Any faster than that, the air reacts about the same as if it was water. And even a commoner can run on water if they line up some boards to step on. So if you move your foot faster than 343 mps, you can push off of the air itself. Jumping while in the middle of a jump, a double-jump.(you can skip the mansplaining) . . All that is just off the top of my head. There's more I could've said, but I don't think it fits in the context of explaining to a complete layman.'

U) 'Now you know what it's like to live with him.'

. . When Kara was finally able to close her muzzle, she broke down in tears. Her tail, formerly mine, furiously wagging with boundless joy.

K) "THANK YOU MASTER! THANK YOU THANK YOU! I finally reached Mastery because of your lesson!"

Following this, Rong mentions having a lightning based attack technique: Lightning Palm. And Dare a fire type, Flaming Snake Whip. After two more quick lessons, both reached Mastery of their techniques as well. Rong even improving on his in two different ways. One making it significantly more powerful, but needing both hands. The other can be thrown like a Dr*gonb*ll attack.

That was a productive 30 minutes.

But we're reaching the end of twilight and our mountain is not yet in sight. The moon's phase is halfway through waning gibbous, so moonrise will be about 2-3 hours³remember, when from MC's perspective, same hours as you're used to. Anyone else's POV, their hours are 120 minutes long after sunset. If we keep going, we could blow right past it by a thousand miles before I can even see it. Even my darkvision is not infallible. For now.

So for now, I drop us back down into the forest.

We quickly prepare a wild meal, some root types like potatoes and some carrots, some flavoring herbs, a few mushrooms, some of which are tossed away by a poison Barrier. No onions though, that's a poison to us carnivores. And of course a few critters to roast. With a cooking fire making good work of them. I had not had a good fresh-cooked meal in a long time. The bandits' skills lacked in some areas. And the manual dexterity of a fox, a bun and a tiger lack in others.

As we were eating, a few insects came a-buzzing, so I threw up a Barrier to keep them out. The pitch is too low to be anything I'm familiar with. But as we progress eating, the buzzing continuously becomes louder.

And louder.

Trying to ignore it isn't helping. So I check things out. Of course, everyone besides Uncle tries to lead the way.

"Allow us, Master."

It turns out to be hornets.

The size of plantains. That explains why they sound closer to kazoos than honeybees.

Z) 'Annoying.'

I toss a formless mass of Qi to the wall of insects trying to invade my Barrier. And into this Qi, I apply my full understanding of gravity as well as the 'weight' of my will. Each of the large hornets crashes into the ground in a squirming heap.

Since I only flexed this newfound muscle for a second, they reform the swarm in little time.

A few seconds later I use fire Qi to burn off their wings.

Z) 'Seems I have a good affinity with gravity as well.'

Dare) "Master is even more amazing every day."

Z) 'Stop, that's damaging to my humility. Anyway, it looks like they were hornets rather than bees. Not sure if they'll have honey, but I don't plan to stay long enough to find the nest. Put out the fires, we'll continue when the moon rises.'

. .

A few minutes later we set off. Then about an hour later we finally see our mountain looming ahead.