Chapter 37: Rottenwoods

Life in this endless desert was a nightmare, but Jhin De Zhi knew that the Boundless Bountiful was coming… It would take a few more months, but it was coming and the opportunity to survive for the mortals was getting closer and closer. Not many people truly knew why it happened, but for some reason nature died quickly and would stay dead for 5 years, in the 6th year it would return in such a strong and endless amount that it was like nature resurrected from beyond the grave. This period lasted a whole year, and many cities would take this as an opportunity to get as much food as they could to survive.

Jhin De Zhi was a cultivator. More specifically, he was a Gold Qi Cultivator, and to cultivate he needed gold. Gold was not really useful for cultivators unless their source of cultivation was gold! Mortals loved gold and riches, while Cultivators valued treasures that could help them get stronger… Well, gold was useful for many things, so many cultivators did carry gold with them wherever they went to buy things from cultivator merchants, majority which were from the scattered merchant group known as the Golden Greed.

The Golden Greed appeared many years ago! They were a group of merchants that would sell their fares to mortals and cultivators alike, ranging from many items! From food, grains, meat, to even cultivation resources like Beast Cores, Crystals, and even rare Nature Qi cultivation resources for the poor Nature Cultivators.

Really pitiful things… While many other Cultivators suffer - a list of them is literally on his back.

Many families, from the Flareburns who are doomed to follow this cloud wherever it goes.

The Aquinas - or Amphibians, as people like to call - who are doomed to live underwater because the Water Qi corrupted their bodies so they can only breathe underwater but cannot stay underwater for long periods of time, leading them to live an amphibian lifestyle.

The Rottenwoods, a poor family of Nature Cultivators that have been driven to desperation, creating a cultivation technique that turns Death Qi into Nature Qi, requiring them to murder things and eat their rotten corpses to cultivate.

The Heavender Family, a family "blessed" by the heavens with the famous Lightning Qi Cultivation Root, have to live atop of the most dangerous mountains to cultivate because of the constant lightning storms that plague that place, even their babies are all exposed to lightning strikes the moment they are born! Jhin De Zhin had the unfortunate luck of meeting a Heavender, and their bodies are covered in lightning scars from head to toe, and they are really powerful, although there's not a lot of them…

The Silvan family is the most fortunate family and alongside the Enkia family they have a perfect alliance. The Silvans are born with a Wind Qi Cultivation Root while the Enkias are born with a Earth Qi Cultivation Root, making them the only two who have a lot of Qi to go around. They formed an alliance about 200 years ago, and with that alliance they agreed that their children would marry one another and together they would survive this death trap of a world… Seriously, the amount of things that happen here are fucking stupid.

"Jhin De, we're getting closer to the Rottenwoods city of Dreadful Ash." His assistant and little brother, Ghun De, smiled while looking up from his seat at the front of the carriage. Alongside him, there were other six carriages full of products that would attract the attention of thieves, demonic beasts, and rogue cultivators alike, but with a team consisting of five Core Exaltation cultivators (three of them being Earth Qi Cultivators, one being a Water Qi Cultivator, and the last one being a Dark Qi Cultivator), and one Pale Core cultivator - him - he was pretty confident that they can easily protect the merchandise.

"Good eye, little brother-" In the horizon, across the endless yellow sands and the occasional gray rock or boulder, they could see a dead forest of black stone trees. Due to their cultivation technique, the Rottenwoods needed Death Qi, which was why the majority of them just hunted down Demonic Beasts would let their bodies decay and rot by the side of tree, and eventually the trees began to absorb the Death Qi, turning the tree into this obsidian colored rocky tree that emanated this dark and dreadful aura. "-...are those the Rottenwoods? Why are they walking away from their own home?" In front of his convoy stood a group of various cultivators with dark, long, scraggly hair that stretched until it reached their waist. The majority of them were skinny, extremely skinny to the point where their muscles were almost non-existent!

They were a scary bunch, scaring even the Weight Carrier Beasts that they had. These big, buff, and furred brown beasts with these long scales on their back that stretched until the tail, where a long forked spike stood. They are calm beasts, eating anything that they are given, and they are able to easily carry five to ten times their own weight!

But if frightened, they can become very dangerous beasts.

"Use the calming treasure!" Jhin De Zhi was obviously always prepared for this kind of scenario. The Calming Treasure - as it was called - was this small pot that, once opened, would release this sweet and calming scent that would stop the beasts from fighting and destroying things. Immediately after his order, the large pot was opened and this small cloud of pink-green powder emanated from it, calming down everything in a 60 meter radius around it. "Ah…" Sighing as he felt his nerves calm down and his mind think logically again, Jhin De Zhi waited until the Rottenwoods were close enough, and he saw their entire sect and family moving together as one in a very slow pace. Alongside them, a small child held this weird little glowing ball that, as they got closer, looked more and more like a small green bunny.

"Greetings, Rottenwoods family." Bowing to show respect - but not too far, so as not to show submission - Jhin smiled with friendly intentions: "It is a surprise to see you and your family so far away from your home… Are you in need of transportation? We do have space in our convoy, if that is not what you desire, I am willing to sell a few of my Weight Carrier Beasts for you, under the right price, of course." Jhin's morals were based on one single thing: Money. Money was his God, and gold was his God's words!

"Ah, good to see you again, little golden boy." Only one person was bold enough to call him by that nickname… Frowning a little before a forced smile grew on his lips, Jhin De Zhi looked at the only person there who didn't have black scraggly messy bed hair. In fact, she had WHITE scraggly messy bed hair! "Ah, Elder Rottenwoods, it is good to see you again." He was deeply afraid of this old woman, not because she was strong in cultivation levels - she was a Core Formation cultivator after all, seeing as Nature Cultivators do have a harder time cultivating - but because of this old woman's terrifying connections.

She was the only one Jhin knew that had a sister-sister relationship with the Lady of the Golden Hand, the richest merchant of the Golden Greed guild of merchants, and if Jhin De Zhi disrespects her, it could end really bad for him!

"Indeed, it is good to meet you again… We do have a need for transportation, my family is well known for our… Physical atrophy." Eating rotten corpses wasn't healthy for one's body… Who knew!? Please note the sarcasm. "We are willing to pay you 1000 golden pieces for your troubles, of course."

Jhin's eyes had a momentary glint of gold as he heard that - you see, he's only not the richest merchant under the Golden Greed guild because of his cultivation root, where he consumed gold like crazy to cultivate. His greed guided him to many business opportunities, and many such granted him much power, but his cultivation had to be accelerated a lot and his foundation wasn't the best it could've been… "Only a thousand?" Jhin De Zhi lifted his eyebrows in indignation: "Does our convoy look so cheap to you, Elder Rottenwoods, we still haven't reached the Metalbourne Family nor the Haze Family-" The Metalbourne Family relied on Iron to cultivate, and they would always buy chunks and chunks of Iron to cultivate, giving him a lot of gold! "-and-"

Before he could finish his sentence, a bag of gold was thrown on his face. It didn't hurt, gold would never hurt him, but it was heavy.

"Did I ever say the total pay was a thousand gold pieces?"

'…not exactly? I mean, you did imply it.' Jhin simply shaked his head, making the old woman grin. Jhin De Zhi simply sighed and asked: "So, where do you want to go?" He expected that they wanted to move closer to another family's land, maybe somewhere with plenty of dangerous beasts, but he did not expect the answer.

"Well, follow this little one here." She pointed at the… green bunny? "He will lead us where we need to go, a place where nature endures.."

…oh, the age has finally hit her, huh?

With a loud *bonk*, he was hit in the head by a tree branch.

Of course, you readers would know that this little bunny was one of Root's lesser children. So, how would this one child guide an entire family of Cultivators to him? Well, the answer is simple. The same way he is connected to them, they are connected to him, which is why they always know where he is! Once full of Nature Qi they created by converting sunlight into Qi, they will try to either disperse it in the atmosphere, or find Root to deposit the Nature Qi into his roots, which was something the wise Elder Rottenwoods understood.

There hasn't been a Nature Spirit for many, many years… So many that Elder Rottenwoods had only ever heard about their existence from her own great-great-great-grandfather who was also a Nature Cultivator. He told her that Nature Spirits are their only hope for a good future where they don't need to eat rotten food nor kill for a stable and easy form of cultivation. They are born from either greater spirits or Nature Qi being in one place for so long that a Nature Spirit is born. But to see one… It meant that a greater spirit gave birth to it! She analyzed the little thing from the day it was found by one of her young sect members, the little boy eager to show her the green rabbit he found that had fallen from the sky. She was able to learn two things - it released Nature Qi after being in the sun for a few hours, and whenever there was Nature Qi circling it, it would try to move in the same direction, always.

She never let it go far, but it always floated towards the same direction each and every single time, which was like a beacon of hope for her and her family, and after careful analysis and voting, they decided to move from their home and together go to where the small spirit tried to return to.

It was their only hope, after all.

-Author Notes-

Like real life seeds, Root's children seeds can enter a state of Cryptobiosis!

Cryptobiosis is a metabolic state in extremophilic organisms in response to adverse environmental conditions such as desiccation, freezing, and oxygen deficiency. In the cryptobiotic state, all measurable metabolic processes stop, preventing reproduction, development, and repair. When environmental conditions return to being hospitable, the organism will return to its metabolic state of life as it was prior to cryptobiosis.

Meaning, while this seed was being carried by the wind when he released a lot of them - from chapter 3 - which took a lot of time for it to reach the Rottenwoods. It was, after all, fate.