The Vermilion Bird or Zhuque is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellation. It represents the element of fire, the direction south and the season of summer.
"So you are telling me that we are on the continent of Vermilion bird that is mentioned in Taoism?" Diana asked Cobalt
"Yes, this is the continent of vermilion bird" Cobalt responded.
"Does the Mythological beast even exists here, or is this land just named after the beast?" Diana asked further.
"Let me tell you about the story of this land missy. The legend has it that this group of land was under the evil curse and monsters ruled the lands filling it with chaos and destruction everywhere.
People were tired of it all and wanted the land to restore its prosperity and get the monsters under control. So they decided to pray desperately to the gods.
One day during the eclipse, when humanity had all hope lost, four beasts descended on this big mass of land from the stars.
They were the Azur Dragon, the White Tiger, The Vermilion Bird and the Black Tortoise.
They all fought the monsters and beasts on the land and restored peace and prosperity here. After that, they divided the land into four parts to make it easier to take care of.
And so the land they took was named after them. They ruled for centuries. They would gather in the centre once every 100 years for a summit. What they did there no one knows.
But at one such summit, no one knows what happened but they Disappeared after that, never to be seen again. Some say they went back to stars, some say they are asleep.
No one knows for sure. But after they were gone, soon another power started to rise on this land, and to keep that power in check another force was born too." Cobalt said.
Diana was listening to it all intently and was surprised to know that myths and legends of the Earth 0 were a reality on Earth 314.
Diana was fascinated by the story and curious as she is, she wanted to find out more. But now was not the time to get carried away.
More than anything she wanted to meet her father first and after that, she will have time to explore and learn more. Or so she thought.
After having tea Cobalt led her to guest rooms to rest for some time while he made preparations for them to depart.
The guest room Diana and Pixel were in were a very simple room with wooden furniture, calligraphy scrolls on the wall and some scrolls as books to read on the small bookshelf of the room.
Diana went ahead and picked up a scroll to read. She turned around and brought it to a simple yet elegant study table, placing it carefully on the tabletop and opening the scroll to read.
The scroll mostly talked about the basics of meditation, poses to use while meditating and how to recognize energy in one's surroundings.
How to feel for your dantian and direct the flow of energy from surrounding to your dantian after flowing them through meridian point. It also stated that using the medication can help fasten the process.
'Medicine to hasten the process of cultivation, that sounds interesting. If I can find even the most basic medicine formula and method of making them I can maybe enhance it to get the most out of basic medicine.' Diana thought.
While Diana was busy reading the scroll Pixel was looking around the room to see what they can use there. She found an alchemy pot in a box with some raw materials and some scripts to make medicine for cultivation in them. Pixel took the box to Diana to show it to her.
When Diana saw the contents of the box she eyes bulged a bit with excitement as she took a deep breath. She looks as happy as a kid does on Christmas morning opening presents. But as excited as she is, it's wrong for her to just use stuff that belongs to Cobalt, who has been so kind to her.
So dejected Diana told Pixel to keep the box away when Pixel showed Diana the lid of the box that had a note from Cobalt with not so elegant writing.
"This box contains stuff for you to study, Use it as you wish. It was sent over by your father for you to play with."
Diana chuckled as she read, finding it hilarious how accurately her father thought about her wanting to "play" with the alchemical process that even masters will not dare do easily.
As much as Diana wanted to play with it though, she had to learn the basics first or she might end up making a mistake she doesn't want to and destroy all the precious herbs in the process.
God knows how much her father had to spend to acquire all this. Diana thought so because she had read some cultivation and elixir or cultivator doctor related novels in the past and so she knew that in a world where it's the survival of the most powerful even basic herbs get sold at a very high price because of their high demand.
So Inorder to make sure to take utmost precaution she cleaned the table first and commanded Pixel to scan and read the medicine making process and analyse them for any error. But even for Pixel to calculate the error part she first has to know the basics about the herbs and medicine and alchemy process. She can't just scan and tell what's wrong and what's not. She smart as she is, she still is a machine and has her limitations.
To their relief though, some manuals were covering the basics about medicine on the bookshelf with some other scrolls on meditation.
Diana took one book for herself to study while she passed the other to Pixel to scan and store data. What Diana did miss though was a white envelope that slipped from between the pages of the book and fell on the floor, slipping under the bookshelf and away from the place where it could be seen easily.
Diana spent the whole afternoon and evening studying the manuals and so went by the time as she soon fell asleep, dreaming beautiful dreams for the first time in a while.
Though it might end up being her last happy dream for a while after she leaves this place to get her papers made and meet another ally. What she didn't know was she had set a trap set for her in motion already when she came to this world on the day she did.