Snake

"Tch, why does sect leader always send me the most difficult things to fix?"

A slouching woman stepped inside, her large, jade green snake slithered along her arm, sticking out its tongue repeatedly. It glanced around familiarly with its cold, icy blue eyes. The slithering creature glittered with a burning fiery orange glow under the flickering lights.

Her cold, dark cave was illuminated by bright, highly decorative lanterns, masterfully crafted with magic so that their lights would never go out. It was very spacious, large enough to fit more than twenty people comfortably. It was very sparsely decorated and mostly served the purpose of being a quiet, secluded area, perfect for an anti-social craftsman.

The heavy wooden door slammed behind her, echoing loudly around the cavern. Dust was swept up by the wind, the specks glowing bright red. The outer side of the door was covered in grass, camouflaging the space from any malicious intruders.

Although the camouflage was technically for intruders, craftsman Bai actually put it there so that she could prank unsuspecting disciples that came walking by. After a while, they started to realize what was happening and picked different routes. She was a bit disappointed but kept the grass on the door just in case...

Small rocks clattered as she walked into her crafting room, on the far side of her cave, with her twilight blue boots, her untied hair fluttering messily behind her.

Craftsman Bai holed herself into her den containing only a shabby table and the broken sword.

She sighed and was curled into a ball on the floor, an old habit. Craftsman Bai did not care that the ground was dirty or that she would mess up her clothes. She only cared that rolling on the floor was a comfortable way to think through her frustrations. Her dark navy robes were scrubbing the grimy floor, muddy and wrinkled.

Her snake slithered about and softly poked her with its head, feeling that the floor was too cold. It didn't get an answer and could only curl up, disheartened.

After a few hours, craftsman Bai made a few attempts at fixing the jeweled sword, but she really did not know how to fix it without completely reforging the blade! She looked over it many times, but could never figure out what material it was made out of. However, she noticed one thing. That sword looked like the one that Sect leader Yun had used before he made the sect, a relic from the bloody war!

She set it aside for the time being, it's not like the sect leader had given her a time limit, right?

Her head ached. There was no way that she would try to fix it again soon...

Craftsman Bai took out some other materials from her spatial ring, an item that she had crafted many years ago, and started crafting using her wood fire abilities.

Ah, procrastination at its finest.

"Senior brother Zhixu!"

"Look what we found!"

"This, it would only be impressive if it were glued on your forehead! Hahaha!"

"W-what do you mean? It's cool!"

Deep in the forest of Yun sect, a small group of adventurous boys climbed the tallest tree, avoiding their studies. Sitting high in the canopy, ice-cold clouds brushed against their faces, leaving droplets of water, as they pointed to a jade-like snake scale.

It was a dull green, but it shimmered beautifully in the sunlight, giving off the same feeling as an expensive piece of jewelry. The edges were distinctly a bright golden color.

"..."

Zhixu pursed his lips at them, disappointingly. He found nothing strange about it. Of course there was a snake scale, they lived in trees. If not in a tree, where else would it be? In the ground?

After sitting in the frigid canopy for so long, he stood up, about to climb down from the tree. However, he didn't get far.

Just then, the wind whistled loudly and thousands of leaves flew into the sky!

The boys sat frozen like statues. Their long hair was blown all over their faces and leaves tried to enter their mouths.

"Hey, hey, what's with that wind!?"

"Dunno! Maybe some sort of demon came out of the ground?"

"Maybe it was some kind of dragon!"

"Haha! No way!"

"You guys...look over there."

As they were joking, Zhang Zhixu froze and his eyes opened in shock. He was looking around, unlike the other boys and he could see that hundreds of leaves burned in the air. The whirlwind of green instantly into turned black dust, falling onto the dewy grass.

The boys covered their noses after the scent of smoke entered their lungs.

A large portion of the forest turned as black as fresh ink. It was like a blanket, covering every inch of the green foliage with darkness.

"W...what happened...?"

"I don't think this is good..."

"...Was that some sort of demon?"

"Stop joking around!"

"I'm being serious!"

A group of five boys scurried down from the tree and ran back to the sect without wasting any more time, completely spooked.