Jade Dragon Beauty

Shen thought about what the General had said for the next several days. Every day they would set off shortly after sun rise, then land slightly after sun set, killing the Dead in the area before the General created a barrier to keep them safe. Every day the Dead became more numerous, and three days later, as they neared the edge of the wasteland, Shen had helped the other three slaughter over one hundred and fifty Dead, most of them Foundation level. Shen had moved all of the bones and cores to a separate ring that Lu had given her, as she had too many to store in her own ring. She kept the cores from all of them, but only gathered the bones from the Foundation ones. "We are nearing the Necromancer's lair" said the General, "Be cautious." That was the only comment he had on the situation.

That night Shen had to wake up Lu, Danka, and Shoom three times to go out and kill all of the Dead that were attacking the barrier. While one would suspect that this was too much for them, they had managed to keep up with the situation by reclaiming their cultivation, rapidly raising their cultivation as quickly as possible. Shen knew that she would need to lower her cultivation and fix her foundation later, but for now returning to Early Foundation had given her all of the chi she needed to make quick work of them. She had even managed to learn a few tricks for her Divine Sense thanks to advise from the General. She still couldn't stand the slaving bastard, but at least he was acting as a mentor, like he said was his intention.

While Mae and Ponma were taking their time in advancing, doing the best job they could and only being in the middle of Gathering because of that, the others had made impressive progress. The first was Shoom. He had improved to Late Foundation, and had been practicing his Shifting to exhaustion. Last night he had walked up to her and started speaking in a rough voice, looking like a cross between a man and a wolf, and she had almost attacked him from the shock. Since then he only used that form in battle, though he kept his throat shifted as much as he could, as that let him practice speaking.

Then there was Danka, at Initial Foundation. He could now slice up three Dead at a time with a single slice of Sword chi, assuming he could get them to line up. While this wouldn't be that impressive to a trained Soul Blade, to those that were partnered with him it was quite impressive.

Lu was a bit of a mystery. He had surpassed her, now being at Late Foundation, but shouldn't have been able to do so. That was about where he was when they first met. Had he been able to reclaim his lost strength thanks to his technique? He had told Shen that the Space path had a way to expand the Dantian, so maybe it was a side effect of that. Though from what Shen understood of the technique it worked similar to how Star Ore effected the dantians of spirit beasts or people that ate it. It shouldn't have expanded his pressure, just his capacity. Still, he had double the chi that she had, but ran out of it more quickly due to how much chi his techniques used.

"Strange boy." said the General, walking up to Shen after everyone else but her, Danka, and Lu had went to sleep. Lu was practicing by teleporting across the barrier, something that the General was allowing, as he could block things from going through the barrier in that manner if he wanted. "I just can't understand him. His growth is odd and I still keep thinking that I've seen him before."

"His father was the Sect Master." Shen said. "He looks a lot like his father."

"His father, you say?" The Elder smiled. "Quite interesting. That must be it." He pointed to the Phoenix amulet Shen was wearing. "Did you make that?"

"No, a friend of mine did. It's Nascent level, so I couldn't make such a thing."

"Can I see it?" At first Shen wanted to say 'no' and refuse, and could probably do it if she wanted, as that wasn't a direct command, but she nodded and handed it to him. "Interesting." he said, looking it over. "I wasn't expecting to see one of those here." He handed it back to her. "This is a very precious item. Make sure you keep it safe. It could save your life one day."

Shen nodded. "You know what it is, then, Master?" Somehow the word didn't seem so bad if she thought about him as if she was talking to Master Chen.

The General nodded. "I do, though I think it would be best if you discovered that on your own. If I tell you what it is you may reject it or misuse it. It wouldn't be the first time I saw someone do so when given a powerful object."

"Didn't you tell me that you knew I wasn't a coward?"

The General nodded. "Even the bravest person can make mistakes. And only a fool fears nothing. I believe I also said I knew you weren't a fool." A large number of Dead could be seen outside the barrier. "Well, it looks like we'll have to call an end to the conversation for now. Get the others and I'll open the barrier for you. In fact, I think I'll join you myself. If tomorrow goes the way I think it will, I will need to make sure my skills are at their best."

And hour later the General cut off the head of the last Dead before spinning his blade several times to remove the limbs. This battle had included several Late and even a few Peak Foundation Dead, and it was only thanks to the General's presence that they had managed to win. Mae and Ponma had stayed inside the barrier and everyone else's Chi was dangerously low if not completely depleted.

Shoom was laying on the ground panting, having been forced to return to his native form, and had even let his throat return to normal due to a lack of chi needed to keep it shifted. The others were also looking worn out.

As Shen stumbled towards a hole in the barrier Ponma and Mae came out. Mae checked to make sure that she wasn't seriously injured, treated a few minor injuries, and then went to check the others. Ponma was in charge of collecting the corpses, gathering the cores, and burning them, then putting all of the bones into a second storage ring, the last empty one Lu had. "Hey, Ponma." Shen said, then pulled out her Sunder sword. "Just put Metal chi into it and it will cut through their bones easily."

"I don't have any Metal chi." he responded. "or Fire. I was going to ask you to help with lighting them." The last two times they had fought Shen hadn't been so depleted, so she was able to help.

Shen sighed and pulled out her old bracelet, handing it to him as well. "Use that, but make sure you give it back when you are done." He agreed, and Shen entered the barrier. She wanted to meditate a bit so that she would have enough chi to not feel drained anymore, then was going to sleep. Sun rise would be here soon and, if she knew the General, he wasn't going to let something like exhaustion stop him from traveling.

Mae woke Shen up just as the sun rose. Shen stretched and checked her chi reserves. About thirty percent. Without meditating that much, they bracelet had only been able to partially refill her during the time since the last battle.

She stepped outside and sat down, absorbing the chi from the sun. The general had called it Pure Yang chi, and she had to admit that it was about as opposite to the Death chi as you could get based on one method of measuring such things. But to Shen it felt like a mixture of Fire and Light and Celestial chi, the type one got from the night sky. Even during the daytime there was some celestial chi present in the air, but it was overcome by the chi from the sun.

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Mae walked over and handed Shen a bowl of some sort of porridge. "There you go. I know it isn't much today, but I got caught up learning a new technique and almost forgot to make something."

Shen shrugged. She didn't mind eating porridge for First Meal, even if it was the only meal she usually ate. It was nutritious enough that her body could fix the issues with a bit of help from the Self-substantiation technique. When Teacher first taught it to her she thought it would be useless now that she had joined a sect, even if it would have been her favorite technique when she was an orphan. After all, the sect didn't have a food shortage and she got enough food. Once she started working long hours at work she started using it any time the hunger started distracting her, and since the siege began she had used it every day just so she didn't have to take the time to eat. It was simple enough that she could do it any time the task she was working on didn't need her full attention. Now that she had a bit of practice, she only needed about 20% of the food she normally would as long as she got enough water. Some of that was likely from the fact that she needed less energy from food at Foundation, her body automatically using chi to refill her if she was tired.

Mae handed her a glass of water and she drunk it, then handed the glass back for a refill. Mae looked a bit worried as she refilled it from an almost empty jar. "Problem?" Shen asked.

"That's just the last of the water from this barrel, and the ring only has three in it. Once we leave the Wasteland, we'll have at least three times as far to travel through the desert, and it will be even hotter. The Ing chi actually cools things down a lot. I've tried to have Ponma refill the jar by drawing water from the air, but there isn't much of it. Even with Shoom's help cooling it down so that dew gathers on the jar they can other gather a glass of it before Ponma's chi runs out."

Shen nodded. "Then I guess I have my next project." she said, and Mae nodded and handed her the glass.

"I hope you succeed." she said.

Shen finished the last of the porridge and handed her bowl to Mae. "So, you've been studying a new technique?"

"Yeah." said Mae, "I was practicing a Wood based healing technique and Master saw me. He gave me a bit of advise and showed me how he made Life chi, and…" She held up her hand, a tiny ball of Life at the tip of her finger. "It's not much, barely enough to fix a scratch, and I haven't figured out how to make it from Wood yet, just imbue it from what I can sense in myself, but…"

"But it's still pretty impressive." finished Shen. "I'm surprised the General would teach you that. I guess he wants you to be a better healer."

"Yeah, I think Master believes I can be a good one."

Shen looked a bit disappointed when Mae called him that. "Well, he's probably right. The General has probably helped guide hundreds of people on their path."

Mae stared at her. "Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" Shen asked.

"Call him 'the General' instead of 'Master'. When I called him that you looked disappointed, but I've heard you call him that before. So why do you act like I did something wrong when I do it?"

Shen sighed. "I use the word in the same way that I used it with Master Chen, or you used it with Ku and Kyu. He said he wanted me to be his apprentice. The way you use it, though…"

The General called out from the center of the barrier. "Ok, people, time to move out." With that Mae went to gather up everything she had used to prepare the meal and Shen quickly took down her tent. A few minutes later they set off West.

As they flew Shen thought over how to make water. There was very little Water chi in this air, and she suspected that there would be even less in the desert. She needed a way to produce it from a type that existed. The largest type of chi in this region was Death. It was similar to Ice chi, and Shen knew a bit about Ice chi, and could learn more about it from Ponma or Shoom, or even from studying her sword. Ponma could even teach her the Water to Ice technique, which she could use in reverse to make large amounts of Water chi to gather what little water was in the air, maybe even enough to gather the water in the air of the desert.

The problem was that she didn't know enough about Death. She could study it, of course, but she doubted she would be able to figure out a viable Death to Ice technique before they entered the desert and might not have one before they ran out of water. She would need to find another way.

What else existed in the desert? Fire, but that was the worst option simply for the fact that Water destroyed Fire. There was also a lot of sand. That meant large amounts of Earth chi, though it might not be the best purity. But she could work with that. Earth fed Metal, and metal fed Water. That meant that she only needed two steps to get to Water from Earth.

What about the Healing device she had made? It contained Essence cells which could store water chi. She could maybe store the chi in that, though if it was always gathering water that wouldn't matter. Did she have the materials, though? She had used up what spirit metals she had before, making the gathering device. She pulled it out of her ring. It currently had the purity of chi at around 34%, and was slowly increasing that. But that was only a tiny amount of chi. If she disassembled it, she could get those metals back. She also had a Demon core. She also pulled it out. It was full, which meant that she could convert that neutral chi into Water chi by connecting it to the chi cell. Ponma could then use that to produce water from the air.

At least in the wasteland, where there was still a bit of water in the air he could. In the desert, though, it might not be enough.

Lu flew over to her, standing on a sword while exuding an air of extreme confidence, his arms behind him as if he was perfectly comfortable riding like this. It was the style that most people picked up after enough practice. "Thinking of making something?" he asked.

"Yeah. Mae mentioned that our water supplies might not last, so I was thinking of trying to build something to collect the water in the air. The problem with that is that, while it might work here, the desert will have far less water in the air."

"So, you need more and purer chi to make it work?"

"Yeah. I also don't know an actual technique for gathering water from the air, but I can figure that out."

Lu nodded and pulled out two Golden Cores. "These were in Dead that we killed the first day. They were probably demons that wondered into the wasteland hoping to find treasure, or at least a good mining location." He handed them to her. "I hope they help."

Shen accepted them and put them in her ring. "Yeah, they'll definitely help. I'll need to sit down tonight and make something." He nodded and floated away.

Some time in the late afternoon the Corpse mushrooms stopped covering the ground and a few hours later they started to notice other green things covering the ground. This meant that they were officially in the desert and out of the Wasteland. The General ordered everyone to land immediately, though. He showed them the location of a cave and they went inside before he sealed the entrance with a barrier.

Shen was about to ask what he was worried about when he spoke up. "Our path out of the desert couldn't be much worse. Directly west of here is a fort." They started to get exited. That meant Demons, but at least there would be people. The General had said it was bad, though. "The fort it overrun with Dead. Well over ten thousand of them. Most of them Foundation, but I sensed a Nascent among them. The Necromancer must have captured the fort and turned the troops stationed there into puppets. And worse yet, many of the Dead were returning to base, a line of them carrying human bodies he no doubt plans to convert."

There was silence for a few seconds before Lu spoke up. "If we are going to attack the fort, we should do so just after sunrise. The sunlight should lower the strength of the Dead by at least a quarter of a realm if not half."

"Why not do it now?" asked Danka. "There is still light outside."

"We aren't ready, and there are too many." answered Shen. The General looked pleased with her answer. "There are only around three hours of sunlight left, and I doubt we could kill more than a few hundred before sunset, even with the General's help. If they find us, though, they aren't going to let us retreat. We will have to fight until one side or the other is dead, and I want to be as sure as I can be that it's their side."

"Then we go around." said Ponma. "Fly an hour south, then keep going West. They won't see us that way, so it should be safer."

Mae slapped the back of his head. "They are carrying corpses. You know what that means, right? The Necromancer is expanding his army and killing the people in the desert. There are villages and small cities there, plus a few nomadic tribes. Do you want to leave them to fend for themselves?"