Seth regretted not taking the time to learn basic barrier arrays. However, it was too late for should-haves. Kneeling to the side of the most injured folen, he used a couple spikes of ice to pin the paws nearest to him to the ground. It's whimper of pain was almost lost in the gentle breeze blowing through the forest.

  "You ready to heal?" Seth asked Mal.

  [Ready! Heal!]

  Seth smiled and cast his healing, getting a feel for the creature's anatomy. It wasn't too different from what he imagined a dog would be. Other than the extra lung. After ten seconds or so, he felt Mal twist the magic, and activated his qi sight to observe the process.

  As he watched, he lost himself in the magic's flow. Something about this process called to him. The way it took what he made and usurped it through the most trivial adjustments captivated him. Even though he barely sensed the decay qi, the effect was undeniable. As the healing completed, the folen woke up, all fight gone from its eyes. The healing had created a massive tumor, and even to his inexperienced eyes the creature had weeks to live, if not days.

  He looked at the other folen, and to his surprise, it was still alive. He left the 'healed' folen to assess his next victim.

  "Can I try?" Seth sent to Mal, not able to keep the excitement out of his voice.

  [Food?]

  He sighed, then took some of his more pure qi and gave it to Mal, who chirped in his head.

  [Thank you. You heal.]

  "Can you help if I have trouble?"

  [Yes.]

  "Thank you."

  With that, he focused his attention on the second folen and started healing. He felt the connection to the beast, to the way its body wanted to be. Then he started repairing it. In the middle of that repair, he pulled the tiniest speck of decay qi and injected it into the process. The magic destabilized, and Seth scrambled to hold it together. Why is it so easy for Mal to... The thought trailed off as he mentally facepalmed, then scrambled to remove the decay qi and undo the damage he had done.

  Part of Mal's magic is operating on instinct, and the instinct is to make more of him... Fortunately, the beast still had life-threatening injuries, so he had plenty to work with. This time, instead of trying to use the decay qi to create a cancerous tumor, he tried to make the cells more... him. It still destabilized the magic, but this time, he had a path forward.

  Sweat trickled into his eyes, and Seth blinked to clear his vision. The drain on his qi was larger than it had been when Mal had done the technique. Still, it was working. As he exited his healing trance, awareness of his surroundings came to him like a thick fog clearing. He leaped back when he realized the folen was staring at him curiously, without a hint of aggression. He felt a tiny connection to it, like a piece of him was inside the beast. It didn't cultivate like Mal's tumors did, but at least he sensed it.

  The folen sprinted away. Even as it left Seth's sight, the connection still tugged at him. He shook his head and looked around. The area now had a tent set up and a fire going. Therus was sitting on a chair, eating some of the stew that was cooking over the fire.

  "Did it go well?" Therus asked.

  "Yeah... how did you set this up so fast?"

  "I wasn't fast. You've been in a trance for the last three hours."

  Seth blinked, then shook his head like it would somehow transform three hours into three minutes. After a moment, he walked over to the fire and sat on the ground. He has the right idea: bringing a chair. Next time.

  "So, you save any food for me, or am I on my own?"

  "Of course. You're cooking next meal, though."

  "Of course."

  Therus handed Seth his bowl of stew, and he started eating. As dangerous as the forest was, he'd prefer to be out here than back in the sect. The already oppressive atmosphere had grown even worse over the last several weeks, a noxious mix of fear, desperation, and greed. The dangers out here were simpler.

  As he ate, he struggled to avoid using his qi sight. Therus was keeping an eye out, and he needed to acclimate to the environment. If only I had done that sooner.

  "So, you good to keep going, or do we need to rest for a while?" Therus asked.

  "I'm good, but how long do we have until lightfall?"

  "A few hours. Figured we could comb this area for a few items on my list."

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  "You think some are close?"

  "The pack of folen makes me think a few were close. They're fond of trithorn carnations."

  "Well, I'm ready to head out whenever you are."

  Seth set up a minor concealment array for the small camp they had set up before heading out. This time, Seth made it a point to rely on his sight first, saving qi sight as a last resort. He wasted energy jumping at shadows, but it allowed him to calibrate.

  They kept walking for another thirty minutes before Therus called them to a stop. Then, he stopped in front of a tree to kneel before a bush of glacier blue flowers. Therus hand crept toward the flowers, then darted in and grabbed three. He leaped backward as three seven-foot long thorns erupted from the ground, nearly spearing him. They proceeded to encase the small bush of flowers. The thorns wiggled in place for a few minutes before retreating into the ground.

  "You want to try grabbing a few?" Therus asked, a grin on his face.

  "Why don't we take care of the thorns?"

  "Because the flower loses its alchemical properties if the thorns are too badly damaged."

  "Interesting," Seth said, scratching his left cheek. "What triggers the thorns to come out?"

  "Touching the flowers and large enough concentrations of qi. The amounts in our body are fine, but higher realm cultivators can't approach without the thorns leaping out to protect them."

  Ah, that sounds annoying. Seth thought it over for a bit before nodding to Therus. He was confident he could at least defend himself, even if he couldn't completely evade the attack. He crouched and crept forward, taking care to not step on anything that would crunch underfoot. Five feet away from the bush, he paused and took a deep breath. Then another. Relaxed, he launched himself forward to grab a cluster of five flowers. In a blink, his right hand was around the flowers, and he launched himself upward to get clear of the thorns. Just in case, he prepared to activate his barrier.

  It proved to be unnecessary, as the thorns were a quarter second too slow to catch him. After landing back with Therus, he handed over the flowers and resolved to let Therus deal with picking strange plants.

  As they settled into a rhythm and Seth's eyes adjusted to the forest, he allowed part of his attention to wander to the folen he had 'healed.' He couldn't feel it as clearly as he could when it was closer, but he knew it was still out there, alive.

  "Mal. After you heal someone, are you able to still feel where they are?"

  [No. Food?]

  "Later."

  [Mean. Stingy.]

  "Yeah, I am."

  The next two hours passed in silence as Therus picked more plants. They hadn't run into any more dangerous animals, and they returned to their little camp right before the light truly fell. They started a fire, and after Seth set up an alarm formation alongside their hiding array, they went to bed for the night.

  The next morning greeted them with more shifting shadows. Without saying a word, they broke camp and once again searched the forest. He tried to orient himself, but with no clear landmarks, he had no idea where he was. Somehow, Therus still knew exactly where they were in relation to the edge of the forest.

  "My home has lots of thick forests. Not quite as dark as this one, but dark enough. Reminds me of home," Therus said when Seth asked.

  "That explains a lot. My experience in the wild is far more limited."

  "Really? I thought you said you were homeless before coming here."

  "Yeah, but I was homeless in a city."

  "Like the sect compound?"

  "Like the sect compound, except surrounded by buildings that are hundreds of feet tall. And dirtier."

  Seth caught an unnatural stillness in the distance and activated his qi sight. A beast that looked like a giant boar patrolled the forest at the edge of his vision. He tapped Therus' shoulder and pointed in the boar's direction.

  "It's our lucky day. Normally, giant boars wander in small packs, but this one seems to be alone."

  "Is this actually just called a giant boar?"

  "It's what the beast is named in the sect library. None of your special healing on this one; I need to have as much of the boar usable as possible."

  "Understood. Want me to fire ice shards at it to rile it up?"

  "Yes, though try to keep the damage to the head as much as possible."

  "Yes, sir," Seth said, giving a small mock salute before materializing two ice spikes as long as his forearm. He launched those at the boar's eyes, followed by a barrage of needles infused with ice qi. The boar startled at the last second, and the ice spikes ripped into the sides of the boar's face. The boar bellowed in rage, shaking the trees in the area and completely ignoring the ice needles. Then, it charged at Seth.

  In its headlong rush, it either didn't see Seth preparing another move or didn't care. Seth took this opportunity to try something new with his ice. He focused on the qi, trying to blend the shards into a solid sheet like he saw Elise doing. The first hurdle he found was that qi costs didn't scale steadily with distance; but exponentially. In the end, all he could do was form a sheet of ice that extended ten feet from him in every direction.

  Against most enemies, this wouldn't be a big deal, but against the boar... When the boar was almost on top of him, Seth threw himself to the side. The boar lost its footing on the ice and started sliding toward Therus, who had been behind Seth the whole time. The boar, not able to recover its footing, was helpless as Therus stabbed it in the head with his spear over and over again until it died.

  Now that Seth had a chance to examine it properly, he felt his chest tighten. The boar was at least ten feet tall and about twenty feet long, with tusks thicker than his thigh that sharpened to needle-like points. He tried to think about how he would fight one up close, but with his current skill set, he didn't have any good ideas. Another weakness to deal with.

  Once they confirmed it was dead, Seth let the magical ice fade from the area, and Therus started working on breaking the beast down. Seth didn't know if the boar had any family that would be coming to try to help, but he didn't want to risk it. It seemed Therus shared his concern, his motions sharper and more focused than normal, as if he knew he were racing against some timer.

  When Therus was halfway through breaking down the boar, distant roars echoed through the forest. Did boars roar? He looked and saw shapes in the distance that didn't match the normal swaying of the shadows. Then, he heard a roar from another direction. He turned and saw more shapes moving in. He activated his qi sight, and his stomach dropped.

  Fourteen giant boars were rushing in from three different directions.

  "Therus, do you care about damage to other boars?"

  "No. Do you think you can hold them off, or do you need help fighting?"

  "Should we be fighting at all? I count fourteen of the things."

  "Fourteen? There shouldn't—"

  A deafening roar cut off Therus as the circling boars began their rush toward them in earnest.