Chapter 43: Weird Names.

Like many others, I woke up after my daily one-hour sleep and decided what we were going to do for the day and, more importantly, what route we should follow.

I walked up to a tree and cut it cleanly with a cutting saw, then pushed the upper trunk with a gentle motion, throwing it a few meters away.

I ran a finger on the surface of the trunk with a small smile and said, Smooth."

I opened the map that Xueruo gave me and laid it down on the smooth surface. I mumbled increasingly loudly until my target came out, her annoyance finally taking the better of herself.

"Can you please stop making those annoying noises? The ghost girl asked.

I glanced at her, then fixed my eyes back on the map. "You can choose not to listen inside the green thing, you dummy.

"I know, but you clearly don't know what you're doing; why are you just looking at that map? She replied.

"Well, as you can see, we're very far from where we need to go. I said, pointing somewhere; as for where I was pointing, I wasn't entirely sure.

These people really need to step up their map game; maybe I need to make a guide on map making because this thing doesn't make any sense.

Why did they write some dumb poetry lines on it?

I was ready to forgive the animal drawings. Now that I've met that dragon, I'm ready to accept the possibility that there might actually be some enormous animal big enough to warrant being drawn on a map, because at this point nothing could surprise me anymore, but the poetry is where I draw the line.

"Of course we're very far; the seed was in the opposite direction of the capital, but we have already passed New Moon City; we're closer than ever. She said, putting a finger on what I assumed was where we actually were on the map.

How she could ever read this thing was beyond me.

"Anyway," I interrupted, "the problem is this Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Range that is right in front of us.

She raised an eyebrow. "What's the problem?

"Well, first of all, who the hell decides the names of things around here? I said, not really expecting an answer, but the fact that none came meant that it could have been anyone; the people of this world really needed some imagination. And second of all, there are probably ten thousand beasts in that area that would be dangerous to traverse.

"It would be that dangerous for you; it would teach you a lot. She replied.

"But it would be for the children; I'm not putting them at risk; the only alternative is taking this route around it. I said, tracing a different route over the map with my finger.

"It shouldn't be a problem for them either; they're at the third stage of the elementary profound realm now, right? She asked, but she should know better than I did; the differences in level still made no sense to me.

Sometimes, this world seemed to have been created by some guy who played too many video games but had a penchant for murder.

How the thing was divided into levels instead of being a linear improvement was beyond me. The realms made sense, though, but the levels were weird.

Profound energy had an effect on altering reality based on the intent of the wielder. It was obvious that high concentrations of it would result in drastic changes to the body. When it reached a certain concentration in the watershed, it seemed to cause a chain reaction, but there was no such reaction between levels as far as I could analyze; they just got stronger without biological changes.

This is just one of my many unanswered questions.

"Yeah, it took them less time than it took me to reach that same level; my new absorption runs are way better than the old ones. I replied, confirming her words.

They earned my trust, so they earned my runes, exactly like the ones that I had in my veins, the newest and upgraded model.

They were pissed that it made their effort to cultivate passively redundant, but such was life; technology would always replace effort in any field.

"I see," she muttered, looking at me with the same narrowed eyes she gives me every time I talk about the absorption runes, surely while grinning her teeth that she had to put in effort to cultivate instead of being like a plant.

It shouldn't be that much of a problem for them to keep up then," she continued. "You won't be searching for trouble anyway, and with your and my senses, combined with your runes, it shouldn't be a problem to evade the more dangerous foes."

Well, you're the expert here, so if you're sure that we can do this safely, then I'll trust you. I said as I looked at her that I knew that she was a tsundere, but she wouldn't try to put the kids in danger.

"In the worst case, I'll eliminate the threat. She replied, but those words reassured me that no danger would arrive.

I had yet to find a more dangerous thing than her; even the Red Dragon's aura paled in comparison to the cold feeling of danger that passively radiated from her when I pissed her off too much.

Like when I use loud music to get some privacy.

"Alright, we'll go through the mountain range," I announced. "I'll ask the kids if they're okay with this as well."

"Wait," the dangerous girl stopped me as I was moving to the children's tents, "do you have any of those runes for attack?"

I thought about it for a second: "I've only specifically thought about things to immobilize an opponent, but to really attack something shouldn't be difficult; it's easier to destroy than to create, after all."

"Good, I don't want to waste my energy when you can deal with the threat. She replied impassively, shooing me away with her hand, as if she would actually stay there instead of just returning to the green world.

"See you later, princess. I said as I reached the siblings, who seemed to have just already woken up, probably from the noise that I caused when I launched a tree away, which, when I thought back to it, I could have used a less destructive method to get a table.

"Hey kids, had a good sleep? I greeted her with a raised hand.

Yes, teacher, but what was that loud noise? Zhu replied, confirming my idea.

I internally debated whether to discuss my destruction of a big tree to make a table, but soon realized that it was a bad idea. "Not important; I wanted to ask the two of you something.

Xue replied nonchalantly; he seemed to have somewhat gotten over his initial fear of me. "What is it, teacher?

After I explained the situation and how we could take the fast route by going through a dangerous area instead of spending potentially months taking the long route, I could see a conflicted expression on Zhu's face.

But her brother showed no such hesitation. Sure, teacher, if you think it's safe, then I'll follow you!

"Xue, calm down; don't you remember about that place? I heard that even cultivators die there all the time. The girl calmly said back, taking a more analytical point of view.

"Yeah, but the teacher is strong! The boy replied.

She mumbled something along the lines of, "Yeah, I guess so. That I picked up only thanks to my enhanced hearing, before the girl showed a slightly reluctant expression and asked me, "Will it be dangerous?

I smiled and replied, Probably yes; that's why I'm asking what you think."

She looked at me intently for a few seconds and said, "Then I'm okay with it."

"Really?" I said, slightly surprised by her choice after her clear reluctance in the face of a clearly dangerous place.

It was called the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Range; that thing was ominous just as much as it was ridiculous.

"Well, you think that we have enough chances that you think that it's okay to go through there, or you wouldn't have asked us otherwise, so I'll trust you. She replied.

That melted my heart.

"Thank you, Zhu; I'll take care of the two of you to the best of my ability. I said slowly, forcing myself to calm down from the sudden emotions.

Someone who trusted me enough to put their safety at risk. It had been a while since the last time I had someone like that, and just those few words brought back too many happy and painful memories.

Happy, because those were the happiest times of my life, and painful, because I will probably never meet the people in them again.

I retreated to my tent for a bit before we resumed our journey.

It was relatively safe; there were a few beat attacks here and there, but most of them were from things at the Nascent Profound level, or the lower levels of the True Profound at most. It wasn't difficult to project enough feelings of danger to send them scurrying away, especially since I could use my very ominous master as the source of that dangerous feeling.

That, coupled with my cultivation on a higher level than theirs, was enough to activate their survival instincts, which was always funny to see.

More than once, I had seen a beast suddenly stop in their tracks whenever I brought out my pocket master before running away in the exact opposite direction.

But luck was never eternal.

A beast was in front of me, one that wasn't deterred.

A week had passed; we were now almost in the inner parts of the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Range, so meeting one of those beasts was most probably inevitable.

Who the hell gives places these dumb names? They seriously needed to become more concise, or at least think about how people can make fun of those names, because this was the TT Beast mountain range.

The Titty Beast mountain range

I was probably going insane.

The bloodthirsty thing kept growling at me; it looked like a mix between a wolf and a bloodthirsty wombat. This thing is so cursed that it's probably not going to be anyone's favorite animal, that's for sure.

At least it wasn't as cursed as the Sun Bears back on Earth, but I fail to imagine something more cursed than that.

"Jasmine, protect the kids; I'll deal with this. I stated that my back was as straight as a spear, so much so that it completely ignored that I had no idea how I was going to actually do that.

"You're sure? It's at the peak of the true profound realm, higher than you, and not by little. She replied with a raised eyebrow, but she had already positioned herself in between the very ugly thing and the kids.

I looked at it; it looked at me.

It was so romantic that I almost didn't react when it jumped at me, screaming like a banshee.

Almost.

But unfortunately for it—very unfortunately indeed—it had decided to attack the wrong place.

Because it had attacked our camp for the night, and if there was one thing that I was, it was paranoid.

The moment its feet left the ground to sprint at me at breakneck speeds, faster than any train back on Earth, I activated all of my preparations.

The forest surrounding us lit up, every inch of every tree in a range of tens of meters glowed by the power of my runes.

In an instant, I started to feel some of the energy in my body left and was used to power the very complicated runic matrix around us.

There were multiple copies of every rune; their effect compounded when used at the same time, increasing its power linearly for every single rune, and there were thousands of them, many thousands.

As if in a symphony, the runes that I needed activated with just a single thought of mine, thanks to the many control runes that were connected to each other and to myself.

I had definitely gone overboard, but that didn't matter because this feeling was incredible whenever I activated it.

I could feel, see, and smell every single part of this area. I could feel the impact on the ground when the thing jumped and the friction its motion caused with the air.

And I could especially feel it when that friction stopped.

I looked at the thing, completely immobile mid-air except for its flailing limbs in a desperate attempt to escape, the effect of thousands of runes stripping it of its kinetic and potential energy, removing completely its motion.

I turned back to look at Jasmine; she just looked confused.

The energy drain wasn't that bad; it was the worst at the beginning that I had to stop it, but now the only thing that my runes had to keep fighting against was the force that was trying to bring it to the ground.

"You know, Jasmine, fighting might be fun after all."

Then I flung the thing hundreds of meters in the air in a random direction.

hello my beautiful people, my exams went, i had two of them in the same day and i haven't slept in days, i live on caffeine.

please leave a comment cause i always love to read them.

And the stones, obviously

Love you.