35 Chapter 34: First lesson.

In the middle of a forest—well, not exactly the middle, as we were still relatively near the city—we walked in the direction that Jasmine had pointed me to.

A smile found its rightful place on my face as I inhaled the nice-smelling and fresh air of the forest, something that the stink of the city couldn't even vaguely compare to.

This world didn't have efficient plumbing after all, so it was inevitable, and I couldn't help since I didn't have the slightest idea how plumbing worked beyond pressing the button to flush the toilet.

It was fortunate that I had contacts with the princess of this empire; they were bound to find a way to make their cities less stinky, especially with the freaking magic that they had at their disposal.

One step at a time, me and my two new children followed the road, and I pondered what exactly led me to this moment.

Was I too hasty in adopting not one, but two children right before going on a trip in the dangerous wilderness? Absolutely.

Fortunately, I had a pocket knife in my hand that could protect them should a dangerous time ever arrive. I hoped that would be the case at least; everything would be alright, maybe.

And these were popular roads; I doubted any strong beast that had an alternative would live near an area where humans would usually go through.

I had brought a couple of weapons in case I really needed to defend the kids, but I was thinking that just picking them up and escaping would be a better defensive plan, especially since I wasn't exactly keen on putting myself and them in danger.

I raised a hand and stroked my nonexistent beard in a motion that I had kept in muscle memory since my old life; there still wasn't even a shadow of a real beard.

I had waited years to grow a luscious and glorious bear, only for it to be taken away. What a pity.

As I mused over completely pointless stuff, I heard a thud coming from behind me.

I turned to look, sharpening my senses to see if there was any threat, but I only saw that the girl, Zhu, had fallen to the ground face first, and I was in time to see her brother try to help her up hurriedly.

"What happened? Are you alright?" I was worried.

"Yeah, don't worry, Master, I can keep going." She replied, I could feel some anxiousness in her voice, but why?

I briefly scanned her; the soles of her feet were irritated by the poor material her shoes were made of, and her ankles were red from the friction as well.

My eyes widened, and I scanned the boy, finding him in the same situation. Were they like this before we departed? If that was the case, then how come I hadn't seen it when I scanned them earlier?

It couldn't have happened during our walk; we were going slowly and we were barely a couple of kilometers away from the city.

Kilometers.

Fuck.

"Don't worry about this; we're going to take a break now, okay?" I asked with a soft voice, realizing my blunder. I had spaced out and didn't realize that what was a few seconds of travel for me was a titanic distance for them.

"No need, Master! Please don't worry about me; I don't want to get in your way!" She replied, her brother only holding her close; his expression clearly indicated that he was more than okay with my proposal.

"Nonsense, we're going to rest, and I'm going to make some better and more comfortable clothes for the both of you, and we can also have a meal. What do you think about it?" I asked, trying my best to give off an approachable feeling.

I wanted them to trust me; I had seen far too many signs of abuse on their bodies. They needed a break, and having an adult that they could trust around would make a great difference.

"Yes, Master." They both replied, their voices a bit stiff, but while I could see that the girl had an embarrassed expression, the boy seemed grateful, which was more than enough for me to know that I made the right decision.

Taking care of children was completely outside of my area of expertise; I had never even babysat; forget about actually raising kids; I would have to wing it as I went by if I wanted to give them a good environment to let them grow strong—strong of character mainly, but a strong cultivation was useful as well.

For example, with strong cultivation, I could easily spot a more or less sparse opening among the trees even when it wasn't in sight.

I took the girl in my arms as if she didn't weigh anything, which was exactly the case from my point of view; lifting her was the same as lifting a pen.

She shrieked, "M-master, please put me down!"

"I've seen your feet; you can't walk." I turned to the boy, who wasn't in much better condition, but he seemed to handle it better. "Can you walk for a little more?"

"Yes." He replied briefly, looking me straight in the eyes for the first time since I'd met him and giving off a nice feeling.

I didn't understand it, but it wasn't negative, at least.

We got to the small opening I had sensed, and after taking out a few chairs to let the kids rest, I demonstrated another reason why high cultivation was useful. I did a light chopping motion with my hand on the lower part of a tree, casually unleashing the equivalent force of a kilogram of TNT, cleaving it right off.

Right as the tree started to fall, I gripped it with my hand, sinking my fingers into the trunk. A couple of runs later, it was dehydrated and ready to become firewood.

I had always desired to have a bonding experience around a fire in a forest, but this might as well be the best possible chance to understand whether I had made the right choice in taking them in or if it was a big mistake that I would have to pay for.

The kids looked at me with a puzzled expression on their faces as they curiously looked at my actions as I easily and speedily chopped the log into small pieces with rapid motions of my bare hands.

With a grin on my face, I took my place on one of the chairs and threw a few of the chopped logs in the middle of the circle I had 'coincidentally' made when putting down the chairs.

A rune later, the logs were on fire.

"Oh!" The boy exclaimed, his eyes shining, as a fire appeared from nowhere with a snap of my fingers.

"I believe we have a lot to discuss, don't we?" I said, making myself comfortable after flicking another round of runes all around the place.

Better safe than sorry; these would alert me if anything came nearby.

The kids squirmed, seemingly uncomfortable from being under my gaze. They seemed terrified of the poor things, and I couldn't blame them; to them, I was a big and strong being that decided to take them away.

As much as they hoped that I would take care of them and give them a better future, they probably still held the very real fear that I was tricking them for some reason—at least that's what I thought.

Then again, maybe they just had bad experiences with cultivators like me. My eyes fell on the bandaged arm of the girl.

It was healing well, but that had been deliberate blunt trauma; someone had hit her repeatedly.

"We do?" Asked the boy tentatively.

"Yes, first of all, we should do some formal presentations, right?" I asked rhetorically, "First of all, I am the Doctor, but you can call me Teacher if you want; I don't really like Master."

"Obviously," came a voice that made the children jump in fright, "I'm the only real Master here."

"That is Jasmine; she's roughly your age; she is cocky, but deep down she's a softy," I continued. "She likes appearing from behind people to scare them."

She looked at me with a narrowed gaze that promised vengeance, but I had seen that same look so many times that it had lost all meaning when coming from her. "I'm not a softy; I'm your master, and you better pay your respects to me. Don't give your disciples any weird ideas; I'm not like them."

"Yeah," I waved her off, "Thanks for keeping an eye on the rear while we came here, by the way; I appreciate it."

"Hmph." She hmphed and disappeared as if she'd never been there in the first place.

"Don't mind her; now, could you introduce yourselves?" I asked.

The charade with Jasmine seemed to have calmed them down, all according to plan. The boy was finally able to let go of his fear, for now at least, and trusted that if I wanted to injure them, I would have already done so. "I am Xue."

"And I'm Zhu; we are siblings." The girl followed, emboldened by her brother taking the lead.

"Nice names." Maybe they had a meaning, but I had no idea which one. I should study a bit of this world's literature, but there is so much stuff that, at this rate, I would never have the time for that.

"Thank you, Teacher." Zhu replied with a small smile; she seemed happy at the compliment, and so did her brother.

"No problem, now, on to more important things," I followed, reorganizing my mind and deciding what should be the more pressing matter right now, and soon came to a conclusion, "I want to make something clear; if either of you ever feel any pain or discomfort, I want you to tell me, are we clear?"

My voice wasn't harsh in any way, but it still seemed to affect the two, making them stop looking at me in the eyes in favor of the more interesting ground.

"Yes…"

"Good, now, what do the two of you want me to teach you?"

Point two of the extensive list of two things that we needed to talk about seemed to confuse them.

"Um, What does that mean?" Asked the girl, sounding uncertain.

"It means what I said: I am a cultivator, yes, but first of all I'm a researcher and a doctor; cultivation is just a useful byproduct of my research." I explained.

"Byprowhat?" Mumbled the boy.

Oh right, children, easier words, "I've learned a lot of things, and those things made cultivating much easier than it is for most people, but it is not the thing I focus on the most."

Runes automated the whole thing, and the more I learned about runes and the whole profound vein network, the more seamlessly they worked, making the whole thing even more efficient.

While others needed conscious effort, I just needed to exist as the energy in me kept getting denser and denser by the second.

If I could teach these two kids about my runes, they would rapidly become small monsters, but I needed to make sure they would use them wisely. I was no longer naive enough to not realize just how valuable my runes were.

The ones in the cards were only very basic stuff to store and pass around knowledge; my cultivation runes were on an entirely different level of complexity and intent.

The girl's head tilted to one side, seemingly uncertain. "Then, what are you going to teach us?"

"That depends on what you want to know; I'm going to teach you the general things, then you will need to decide your path for yourselves. I can teach you to be doctors as well, but it might not be what you want to do." I explained, and I hoped that this was the best way to go forward.

Physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics—the more general part—were things that I had almost completely adapted to the laws of this universe; they didn't differ too much from my own, fortunately.

I probably should also teach them what little I knew of psychology and philosophy, since it was necessary to mold them into good and strong people.

"You can take your time, but the sooner you decide what you want to focus on, the sooner I can make a plan to specialize your education." I continued.

"Teacher," the boy, Xue, called for my attention, his eyes sharp and glinting with evident willpower. "I want to protect my sister from harm, to never be bullied again, and to never be hungry again. Please teach me to be strong."

I smiled. That wasn't a speech a kid his age should make, but it's exactly what his situation brought him to; he led a life that brought him to follow a stranger into a forest in the hopes of becoming stronger.

It was admirable, honestly; when I was his age, I was only thinking about how to have fun and play with my friends.

He was definitely stupid, but admirable nonetheless.

"Good." I turned to the girl, waiting to see if she had any special requests for me.

I would have to teach the boy everything about the network of profound veins, the properties of intent and its role in shaping cultivation, and how to manipulate the substance the veins were made of.

Those were still works in progress for me, but the few certain conclusions I reached were enough for now.

"I..." the girl mumbled, "I want to protect Xue, to not be a weak burden, but I don't know..."

"That's fine as well; take your time; this is an important decision. For now, we should start the first lesson, don't you think?"

The two nodded, their expressions suddenly eager.

I stood up, and with a "kind" smile, I said, "Never follow strangers in isolated places again, okay?"