Zhen Yinglong
This mountain is such an unusual place. It has some kind of aura that makes it pleasant to be here. I feel my body filling with energy, and my skin becoming cleaner and more beautiful. Maybe it's just my imagination, but that's how it feels. I even thought it might be the Black Pearls, a few of which hung around the perimeter of the mansion, but they don't give this effect. At least, I've never experienced this before.
Elder Mei approached and exchanged a few words with Xia Tao. He asked Li Meiying to show me around, and then he left with Mei and Lin Qing.
As we walked and Li Meiying showed me the surroundings, she asked in a slightly venomous voice, "Sorry, can you remind me of your name?"
"Zhen Yinglong" I replied.
"So, Zhen Yinglong, could you tell me why you decided to stay with us?"
"With you? As far as Ye Chen told me, you're not a representative of this place either? And you just asked to stay here for a while?" Seeing her face darken slightly, I continued, "But why not answer the question. Honestly, it's just very comfortable here, and I feel like I'm in the right place. So I decided to stay."
"And how long will you be with us?" she asked.
"I don't know, maybe a couple of days, maybe a week. And if I find something I like here, I might not want to leave at all," I said, glancing in the direction Xia Tao had gone to annoy this girl.
"One more question, you're from the inner circle, if I can trust your clothes?" - her voice became even more syrupy.
"That's right" I replied.
"You have a highly competitive environment, right? And the distribution of resources depends on internal ranking? Pills, useful herbs, skills, and so on?" Oh, even a quite reasonable question.
"Yes, that's right. Resources are distributed once a month, and those at the top of the rankings get the majority. You climb the rankings through battles, and I must boast, I'm in the top 10%," I boasted. Although if I put in all my effort, I could actually break into the top 1-2%, but I deliberately hold back, otherwise, my growth would be suspicious. Overall, I'm doing great. I train hard, and I'm talented! And the fact that I've absorbed a couple of hundred students has nothing to do with it — just minor details.
"I'm asking because there are no familiar training places here, and you won't be able to cultivate at the same speed. Maintaining your ranking will also be challenging. Are you sure you should stay here for long?" she asked.
Oh girl, you're too simple to piss me off like that.
"Oh, don't worry. Rankings aren't everything. Who knows, I might find something more important here. Tell me, haven't we met before?" I was genuinely curious. She frowned slightly and thought for a moment.
"I'm afraid not. Although you might have seen me when I was shown the inner circle. I'm one of those who get a tour" she said proudly.
"Oh, so you're not as simple," I paused for a second and continued, "as you look." Haha, the changes in her expression were simply delightful. Eventually, they showed me the pond, the student fortress — or rather, what was left of it, just ruins with no intact sections. There were no students around. Two buildings for students, several forbidden areas, one of which, I understood, the goose ran into, and a strange tall building near the pond, which also turned out to be forbidden. Returning to the mansion, we waited for someone to show me where I could stay.
Xia Tao
Mei called Lin Qing and me to follow her, saying she had something interesting to show us. A few minutes later, we were standing at the foot of the mountain where we live.
"Mei?" I asked after we had been standing there for about twenty seconds in silence without moving.
"Hmmm" Mei ignored me and started walking back and forth on the grass, slowly as if she were listening to something. Lin Qing and I exchanged glances and waited for Mei to finish whatever she was doing.
After a minute, Mei stopped. "Do you feel anything unusual?" Mei asked.
I tuned into my senses, then spread my spiritual energy and found nothing except a few animals in the vicinity.
"Other than a couple of birds and small animals, I don't notice anything" I said, turning to Lin Qing, who was sitting on the grass with her eyes closed.
"Nothing unusual" she opened her eyes with regret.
"That's what I feel too, but there's one nuance. I flew to the central city of the outer sect for some errands and noticed on my return that several other disciples were heading towards our mountain. I decided to follow them. There were four of them. They slowed down about half a kilometer from our mountain, descended from their travel clouds, and began traveling on foot towards the mountain. Their intentions were probably not good — maybe scouts, maybe robbers, maybe even from local gangs. We haven't been very visible in the outer circle and live a rather secluded life, so maybe someone decided to test our strength. The point is, four intruders were heading towards our mountain, and from the way they moved, they seemed to be quite skilled, not random passersby. And when they reached this place, they died."
"How?" I asked.
"Remember I mentioned I wanted to show you something interesting?" Mei asked.
"Yes" I said, still not understanding where she was going with this.
"I wanted to show you how some plants mutated due to the influence of the animals that drink from our pond and eat some strawberries, which leave their droppings in various places, thus providing interesting fertilizers. I wanted to show you plants that didn't exist in nature before. We have unusual trees that grew very quickly, thick and covered in vines. I'll show you later. They're just unusual, although now I'm not so sure.
So, it happened like this: those four guys entered this clearing where we're standing, and within a few seconds, the grass you're sitting on just sliced them into ribbons. Not a drop of blood remained. In fact, I found only this" she showed us four rings. "And when I examined the grass more closely, I found this" she pulled out a bundle of another 20 rings, "all of them in one place on the side, obviously moved there by this same grass or some animals."
Lin Qing and I listened with wide eyes. I had heard of aggressive plants that can devour people, animals, even minerals, but those are extremely rare and highly dependent on circumstances. Or plants that live in symbiosis with certain races. There are no elves here, at least none that I know of in this world, but I have heard of clans and sects living in symbiosis with plants, even using them in battles, though it's hard for me to imagine how that's even possible.
"Weren't you afraid we might meet the same fate as those poor souls?" I asked.
"No, Master. I had already brought a couple of students here, and overall, I found out that our students frequently walk these routes without any problems. I also conducted a series of experiments that will be extremely interesting to you. Wait here" Mei said, and disappeared.