Chapter 2 - Blood harvest

Outside a very large forest, a group of people was getting ready to set off into its depths, inside one of the caravans that were built to take the forest paths, some guards were warily eying the silent young man lacking any signs of hair, his muscles were lean, and his demeanor was calm and observant, making them suspect that he was definitely a cultivator.

"Would you like some tea?" Shuya was seldom nervous, but something told her this young man was dangerous still, she was a person who often took risks, and knew that if this man came out of the forest unscathed, he could perhaps be an extra assurance if she could convince him to come along.

After she received nothing but a raised eyebrow in response she gestured toward the pot of tea brewing on what looked like a mini stove made out of some strange metal, the man simply nodded before drinking the still-steaming tea immediately after it was poured into his cup.

He looked at the teapot, seemingly unaware of the surprised look the merchant was trying to conceal, before pointing at the pot and attempting to pronounce the word tea in the foreign language in the way she did, with only mild success.

...

Lu Shuya was both intrigued and reassured as the young man made no attempts to leave after they started to head into the forest, while she had been teaching him to speak some basic words, as well as learned his name.

Chāng Haoyu, a young man with glossy pale skin and clear black eyes seemed to be able to understand many things she taught him naturally, making her confident he hadn't lost his memories, but rather simply spoke a different language.

When she sat in a meditation position, in an attempt to ask him if he was a cultivator, some clarity appeared on his face, but his response confused her.

"Yes, and no."

"...What do you mean?"

The young man paused for a while, before looking around for something, and finally giving up and to her great surprise, started carving into the expensive wood table with his nails, after a few drawings and some non-verbal communication, she understood.

He had a spiritual root but didn't cultivate, she suspected this meant that his strangely sharp nails and lean, but athletic appearance came from some type of special constitution.

...

Chāng Haoyu

I learned many important things already, like the name of this world's currency, what they called cultivators and so on, but what interested me most was the reason they went into this forest, apparently some valuable flowers were spotted here recently, which could heal wounds and help in cultivation.

I still didn't really know any cultivation exercises so it's not as though I was interested in using the plant for medicinal purposes.

I intended to see what I could extract from this plant, in the past when extract was used on plants, I simply received a message telling me there was nothing to extract, but I had a feeling this would be different.

I also learned something else that interested me apparently, the reason this flower wasn't removed originally was that any who attempted to remove them would be assailed by blood-qi, as it would violently self-detonate and launch its pollen everywhere.

The reason Shuya dared to harvest this flower anyway was apparently that they had some powder that would cause the blood-qi to cool almost to the point of freezing, making the flower capable of being safely transported.

...

A few days into the forest, three of these flowers were found by a scout hired by the caravan.

During this time a few beasts were encountered at first, the guards were cautious of the spiritual ones, but after we encountered a spiritual bear and they watched me slam it through a tree, they seemed much more confident.

My language skills while still not enough to confidently make a sentence had improved greatly at this point and the caravan's guards which were scared to approach the flowers radiating some type of dangerous power were relieved when I told them I would check it out.

Shuya handed me the cooling powder they had obtained and I approached fairly unafraid, after all since the body reconstruction process destroyed or removed the things I carried the most I had to lose if one of these flowers managed to hurt me was my dignity.

Squatting down I observed the red pulsating plant with faint red light dancing around it, but after finding nothing suspicious I carefully touched it with a single finger and activated extract.

The flower quickly shriveled up and lost its color, making the caravan slightly fearful.

[Talent extracted: Blood harvest]

Refine and condense blood qi and remnant life force from blood and use it to recover chi, supplement cultivation, or heal wounds.

A dangerous smile played on my face for a moment, but I restrained it before anyone had seen.

I had asked many questions about cultivators during our travel and learned that a few rare cultivators had special abilities called Talents.

They could vary from changing the distance you could see, to manipulating the fabric of space. these things were nothing but myths for most mortals though.

I attempted extract on one more flower, but after it shrunk no new messages appeared after that, I sprinkled the powder on the last flower and dug it out by its roots as I was supposed to before handing it to a slightly scared Shuya.

As we continued on our journey, I had already reconstructed my body with the new talent which gave my aura a more dangerous feeling and after I had used it on the blood of some spiritual beasts, I noticed blood-qi being expelled from my body that was too impure for cultivation

There was also blood-qi stored in my spiritual sea, which I still wasn't able to use, and blood qi mixed with remnant life force which was hovering in and around my body like bright red energy, like the energy I had seen around the flower before, only I decided to withdraw this energy inside my body so I wouldn't become too noticeable.

For the next few days, we continued to discover these flowers and moved in the direction where more could be found, during this time I had been attempting to open my spiritual sea, as I had learned was the first step in cultivation.

Then finally as the caravan came to a stop having arrived at its destination, and I was making one last effort to open my spiritual sea a sudden feeling of expansion and uncontrolled power was accompanied by...

Pain?