Yun Jieshi had seen these specks of light before, when he had been running along the neck of his daruan past the fog earlier.
However, how he saw them now compared to back then was a little different. He didn't know what he had thought them to be before, but now, after taking his time to take note of the subtle pulse to them and their locations, he drew conclusions.
'They are like… little glares - as if several items are reflecting the light above. Yeah, they can't just be lights. It might be that my eyes are seeing them differently from what they really are,' Yun Jieshi thought while squinting.
He didn't know where this thought came from, but he believed it. His own suspicions only entertained him up to the point where he judged the lights to be unnervingly identical to each other except for, perhaps, their size; even that aspect roused his suspicion though.
All these pulsing lights began after a distant, dark gap cutting across the Lower Southern Plateau like a thick line of ink. It must have been a treacherously deep trench.
The spark of light closest to Yun Jieshi was roughly ten kilometers away (counting from beyond the trench) and yet it was slightly larger (not brighter) than the one double the distance further away. But then, there was a cluster of these lights bunched together somewhere even further away. It was hard to see.
Something eerily similar to the fog that had been obscuring the rock pillar Yun Jieshi was born on hid the sureness of his incredible sight past a certain point.
'Is it unreasonable to think that these… lights are calling to me? To some extent, they might be precious items with an alluring luster, begging to be found,' Yun Jieshi thought, and he made his tail scratch his chin. The intimate scratch was abruptly disrupted when realization struck him like lightning. 'Wait. If they are precious items, could it be that…'
Those lights bunched up far away. Could they be a collection of stolen treasures? Perhaps a trove belonging to a certain Imp King?
But the Imps lived in a cavern, didn't they?
'Maybe my eyes can see through that cavern? I don't understand them fully, after all,' Yun Jieshi thought. He touched his eye, throbbing with hope.
"Little curiosity born on the Precipice of the Lower Southern Plateau," the old, sagely voice said. Yun Jieshi sighed disappointedly. There would be no expansion on the power in his eyes.
Still, the seed of this idea urged the Discount Sage, to increase the size of his daruan so that he could see further and perhaps catch a glimpse of what these objects looked like without obstructions, but he decided against it.
'Even if it works, the Jade Imps aren't the only things that live in this place. I might attract the attention of something that won't be so stupid as to mistake me for a Sage.'
And thus, Yun Jieshi had his ruan shrink. As soon as he was on the ground, he sat down and drew a little map on the snow, marking where he had seen the sparks of light in relation to the gap and their fellow lights. He memorized their positions, but he knew he would have to draw many more references as he went on.
'This will be my mission for now, I suppose – finding the nature of the lights and investigating that great bunch of them,' he thought.
He sighed and looked at the sky. The eight-pronged source of light high above was pleasant to look at, a glowing gem with restless appendages that dispensed the light of day. But as mystical as it was, it didn't manage to tear him from his concerns.
Yun Jieshi retrieved Bei Jun's scale; the one he got as a deposit. He had stuffed it into his sack with the Shuang Fingers.
'Might as well eat this one too,' he thought and he chomped down on it.
Like before, it took a few moments before the effects of the scale registered on his body. Yun Jieshi grew taller immediately and the sensation he had felt before, a pleasant tugging at his appendages and a feeling of sweet control, graced him. He took a deep breath, enjoying the short-lived sensation.
When he looked at himself, he was pleased. His silvery-blue fur had grown a bit thicker and his body was firmer. The skin on his face, hands, and feet was now rougher – mature.
'Hmm. Did I grow by the same measure as last time?' Yun Jieshi thought.
That was indeed the case. Yun Jieshi had grown by 24 centimeters, reaching a height of ninety-three centimeters. (He had been 69 cm before.)
There were boons beyond just the height, of course. Yun Jieshi had gained more mass, and he truly felt like his body was his own now. Even controlling his naughty tail was easier. He was able to direct it as easily as he would his toes.
He didn't feel any stronger, oddly enough. Yun Jieshi found it hard to explain it even within his own mind. He felt all the strength that had been bottled up within his tiny body finally flourish in this bigger one. He could express it without feeling as though it were foreign now.
It was a good feeling.
It carried Yun Jieshi long after he decided to pick up his sack and ruan and set off on his journey up North.
Adjusting to his new weight was a little challenging with the changes in his environment. Yun Jieshi found it hard to travel as easily through the trees as before.
It took a bit more heft for the branches to heave him, he found. Soon, he switched to running along the ground.
The switch allowed Yun Jieshi to measure just how quick he was on his feet. His legs were no slackers now. They might have belonged to a less Sagely monkey somewhere in this bizarre world.
Yun Jieshi became the wind as he raced across the rugged, snow-covered ground. Sometimes he had to leap over fallen trees and sometimes he had to use them as bridges to avoid terrain that had sworn vengeance against sprinting lubbers.
Just three kilometers from where Jieshi started, the ground seemed to thaw and form a dangerous marsh that swallowed some of the odd trees he saw to the canopy. The marsh seemed alive. Some of the visible waters caked with mud hissed warm vapors. It would have been nice to linger, but the little monkey felt uneasy. It was like something deep within him warned him of things under the mud and water, waiting to prey on a clueless fool like him.
With the haste afforded to him by the improvements to his supernatural body, however, Yun Jieshi was soon out of the wetland.
The ground kept rising and dipping as it pleased past that point. Or maybe it could have been the ice-lathered snow flexing its fluctuating rhythms. A bit of digging told Yun Jieshi that the latter was more truthful; it was all just ice. The queer rivers – some frozen, some close to freezing – cutting through the rises acted as further evidence.
Nothing living could be seen from these rivers, but on that front, Yun Jieshi didn't trust his sight.
He remembered that Bei Jun and his school of fat fishes dwelt in a body of water that somehow hid them as long as they were under its surface. That must have been the fish's doing, now that the little monkey thought about it. Another one of Bei Jun's magics.
An hour later, Yun Jieshi appeared in a strange plain with plants that looked a lot like frozen dandelions. They were as tall as he was, some even taller. They bobbed inflexibly as he pushed through them, and some shattered when he swatted them away too harshly. The bulbs on their tips – frozen ray florets – fell onto the snow with muffled thumps or shattered on meeting hard ice.
It was an annoying thing to look out for, especially with how large the field of them was ahead of him.
Yun Jieshi soon found that he wasn't alone in this field, however.
He had crossed over four hundred meters in the crowd of these 'flowers' when he spotted a small turtle scaling up the stalk of one of them; it must have weighed no more than his arm since the stalk could carry its weight without bending or cracking.
The turtle's skin was ivory, and its tiny eyes were a pretty hazel. Its shell was yellow, with patterns of what might have been ladybugs.
Yun Jieshi thought it was an illusion when he saw one of them move.
It wasn't. The patterns did indeed crawl along the turtle's shell.
The little monkey gaped and remained transfixed on the scene, watching the turtle until it reached the frozen floret – its goal. The creature opened its mouth wide and hissed a hot breath against the floret until only the pretty, azure color of it remained, liberated from the ice. Then, swiftly, as though it feared something would appear and steal its meal, the turtle ate the ray floret in a single bite.
Why was this so… satisfying to watch?
'But isn't there something else that would be more satisfying?' a thought crossed the little monkey's mind.
He thought he too would be content if he killed the turtle, deshelled it, found a fire to roast it over, and devoured it whole. But there were several problems with this impulsive thought.
'I can't go about killing animals here already, especially ones as strange as this. Where would I even find the fire to cook it?' Jieshi thought, and his spirits darkened. 'Besides, I may miss meat, but the Shuang Fingers are enough for now.'
After a couple of seconds, Yun Jieshi laughed at himself.
'Since when were fruits enough for me? Am I becoming like dad?'
It was funny indeed.
He had resolved to leave the turtle alone and be on his way when he noticed something strange. Once it was done enjoying its meal, a wind whipped up around it, littered with snowflakes. It had a harsh spin, but it was a perfect standard of clockwise rotation.
'What is that?' Yun Jieshi asked himself as his pupils were glazed over by a whipping light; it was a magical highlight.
There came no answer to his question, and the wind around the turtle died unceremoniously.
'Hmm.'
The little monkey blinked, shrugged, and continued past the turtle. It didn't seem to notice him.
There was no need to bother with things he couldn't figure out on his own.
Past the field of 'dandelions' of a kind, the little monkey's surroundings seemed to become normal for another kilometer or so.
He was surprised when he didn't see another animal. They were rather scarce, he found.
Only a great population of trees grew, frozen but strong. They refused to crack or lose their leaves.
Yun Jieshi could have written a poem about their resilience.
His inspiration was shattered by something loud, however.
It started as a massive boom, like the detonation of a bomb in the distance, and then several trees flew high and up before crashing dozens of meters away. Some were aflame and some spilled smoke into the sky, charred.
Yun Jieshi was taken aback.
'What the…!'
A fierce reddish-gold glow sparked in the distance and then two angry, loud voices cried out, arguing.
The source of the voices was revealed to Yun Jieshi before he could try to find them on his own.
He couldn't even begin to understand what they were.
Indeed, they were entities unknown.