NOVEL NEXT Chapter 13 – A Boring Wait?
Yang Xiu stared after her new master. “Did you see that, Ru’er? One second, he was just standing there, and the next, he’d disappeared. Do you think we’ll really be able to move that fast?”
Her brother shrugged.
Ru’er was the only family she had left, and she loved him dearly. But he’d never been much of a conversationalist. “No time like the present to get started. You ready to take that pill?”
“Listen, Xiu’er, I’ve been thinking. Maybe you should go first.”
Her brother was also one of the frustratingly stubborn people she’d ever had the misfortune to encounter. He’d spent a good twenty minutes arguing with her, insisting he should be the one to take the pill first, and the entirety of his reasoning had been that it was his job to protect her.
She didn’t want or need his protection, but to keep the peace and not keep her master waiting, she’d acquiesced. After that ordeal of getting their order decided, there was no way she would give in again, especially not after her master had complemented her bravery.
“No,” Yang Xiu said. “We discussed this, and we agreed. You are going first. Period.”
Over the next several minutes, he tried to get her to change her mind, but she stood firm, not giving an inch. Eventually, he gave up.
“Fine,” he said. “How should we do this?”
“You should sit somewhat near the fire. Close enough that it can provide some protection if anything attacks us but far enough away not that it isn’t causing you discomfort.”
The weather was nice, a pleasant temperature with just a hint of a breeze, so the fire had only been needed for cooking. Her real reason for wanting him a decent distance from it, however, was to avoid the danger of him falling into it if he had a bad reaction to the pill.
He chose a spot about five feet from the fire. “Hand me one of those water skins.”
“Sit first. I don’t want you to hurt yourself if you fall unconscious or something.”
He grunted before sinking to the ground. She retrieved the skin.
Before she handed it to him, she paused. “Maybe sit in a lotus position.”
“Why?”
“That’s how the cultivators in the stories sit.” She shrugged. “Maybe it helps?”
“Fine.”
After assuming the position and getting the skin from Yang Xiu, he held the pill in his other hand, clearly hesitating.
“We don’t have to do this,” she said. “I believe master when he said we’d still be his disciples.”
“I have no choice. Our new master is counting on me to protect the sect. Our parents counted on me to protect you, but I was not able to. I need strength.”
Before Yang Xiu could object, Ru’er popped the pill into his mouth, took a swig of water, and swallowed. That was so like him, the stubborn idiot.
Concerned, she watched him, and at first, he was visibly nervous, fidgeting, body rigid. But after a few minutes, he calmed down.
“Feel anything?” Yang Xiu said.
Ru’er shrugged. “Maybe it doesn’t work.” He frowned. “Maybe it was just a test.”
Yang Xiu inclination was to rush to her master’s defense, but she checked herself. Instead, she took a moment to truly consider the situation.
“I don’t think it’s a test,” she said eventually. “Esteemed Master Chao went through great effort to build trust with us by explaining everything in detail and making sure that we didn’t make a rash decision. Testing us by giving us a pill that doesn’t work would destroy that trust.”
Yang Ru grunted.
“Besides,” she said. “Why would he make such a big deal about me watching over you if it were just a test. Not only that, but the test would only be for you as I’d see that the pill had no effect.”
Yes. She was positive that she was correct.
“No,” she said. “He clearly expected this to work and for you to be incapacitated.”
Ru’er grunted again.
“Maybe the pill just doesn’t work instantly?” She sat, settling in to wait with her brother.
About twenty minutes later, he tensed again.
“What?” she said. “Did something happen?”
He touched his lower stomach. “There’s something tingling here. It’s faint, but it’s definitely there.”
“Maybe we got lucky, and all the pill does is make you tingle. The master wasn’t sure that there would be pain.”
They weren’t lucky.
Over the next ten minutes, the tingling turned to discomfort. Over the next half hour after that, the discomfort turned to burning and the burning to pain.
Ru’er at first tried to ignore it, to remain his normal stoic self. Soon, though, he was clutching his stomach, bending and contorting as if some position might cause some relief to the pain. He spent almost an hour literally writhing in agony on the ground before mercifully passing out.
It was hard for Yang Xiu to watch, and there were times when she began to question her master. Was the pill actually harmless? Would it kill Ru’er?
She was so intent on watching her brother that she didn’t notice the rustling in the leaves until it had gotten quite close to the campsite.
Benton stowed his latest core, a rank one, and its former body, a rabbit, in his spatial ring where it joined two squirrels and a rat that was bigger than a beaver. None of the battles had been difficult. In fact, he was having fun.
Hunting spirit beasts conveyed a host of positives. The cores were both useful and valuable. The combat experience proved beneficial in integrating his Earthborn consciousness with his new body’s knowledge. And according the Su’s memories, consuming the flesh of the creatures would speed up the kids’ cultivation, if only by a tiny amount. Best of all, his incredible spiritual senses allowed him to avoid any dangerous beasts and prey on the weakest creatures, making the entire endeavor much safer than he’d anticipated.
As advantageous as the trip was, he’d been gone from the campsite a couple of hours at that point, and it was time to return. He started the journey back, whipping past trees and over bushes. Soon, his senses detected a beast, a rank two, and it was much closer to him than it should be.
An ambush predator.
Su’s memories told him that such beasts were typically on the weaker end when it came to actual combat, relying on a devastating first hit being possible due to the advantage of surprise their stealth abilities gave them. Being able to sense its exact location and instead surprise it should make it an easy victory.
Cores rose exponentially in value with their rank, and both a bit of greed and the challenge of taking out an opponent with a higher cultivation level than his previous targets convinced Benton that hunting it was worth his time.
Besides, he’d only been gone a couple of hours. The kids were probably fine. What could go wrong?
Yang Xiu bolted to her feet and grabbed her spear. Someone or something was nearby, and she was positive it wasn’t her master. He moved almost silently, and whatever was approaching made a lot of noise.
With Ru’er incapacitated, it was up to her to protect him.
The noises were coming from her left on the other side of the nearly extinguished fire, and she moved in that direction. She had to keep whatever it was focused on her so that it didn’t go after her vulnerable brother.
Ru’er was going to absolutely hate that she was the one protecting him. She grinned in anticipation of how much she’d tease him about it. They’d both be old and gray before she relented, if then.
If either of them survived the next few minutes.
Maybe she was being a bit too pessimistic. There was no proof that whatever was making the noise was hostile or dangerous. Her master had declared the area clear of spirit beasts, so it had to be some type of normal animal. It could be a deer or something fluffy and friendly.
Her fear was that the most hopeful outcome would not come to pass. As the beneficiary of three miracles—her master saving them from Fang Wei, providing them a feast when they were about to starve, and finally, accepting them as his disciples—she had no call to believe she was due any more luck.
And she was right.
A large greyish-brown boar with long, sharp tusks broke through the bushes. The animal was absolutely huge, about three feet tall and five feet long and outweighing her by over a hundred pounds.
Not the end of the world. She could deal with an overgrown pig.
Her parents hadn’t liked the idea of her going into the forest around their village, so she’d never encountered a wild boar. She had been taught what to do, though.
Unlike in most of the stories she read, boars didn’t attack on sight for no reason. As long as she kept calm and backed away, it should just go away. The important thing was to not make it feel threatened.
“Nice piggie,” she said in her friendliest tone as she took a slow, measured step back.
There. No reason for it to attack. She was being calm and friendly. Only one protecting its young would be aggressive in such a situation and—
Behind the boar, there was more rustling. Her eyes shot to the disturbance. Two small boars stepped out behind their mama.
Shoot.
The mama boar charged.
Something so big shouldn’t be able to move that fast, but it absolutely did. The tusks filled her vision. She was facing death.
Yang Xiu barely had time to think.
Dodge. Stay on her feet. Don’t strike the tough head. Aim for vitals just above the front legs.
She stepped out of the way just in time. The wind from the creature’s passing ruffled her blouse. There was no chance for her to even try to strike the boar with her spear.
The animal slowed and turned back to face her.
“Nice piggie. I swear I mean neither you nor your babies any harm.”
The boar charged again. It was harder to convince than even her brother.
Yang Xiu was ready. Having faced those tusks once already made them just a little less scary.
When she dodged, she kept the spear at the ready. The boar missed. Barely.
She struck. The boar let out a high-pitched squeal.
Success. Partially, anyway. The wound was higher and farther back than it needed to be.
It stopped and turned again. The injury Yang Xiu had inflicted only seemed to make it angrier.
Another charge.
Yang Xiu set her feet, ready to move at the last instant, and focused on her spear.
The boar neared. Yang Xiu moved. She struck with all her strength and had the haft ripped from her hands. The tip stayed in the boar’s body, right above the front leg.
When it stopped next, its turn was lethargic. Blood gushed from the new wound.
It charged again, but it was too slow, listless. Yang Xiu easily dodged.
After two more iterations, the boar fell over, dead. The two babies rushed off into the woods.
Yang Xiu collapsed to her knees, breathing hard.
And that was how her master found her a few minutes later when he just appeared from the between two trees without making a sound.
He studied her for a moment and said, “Had a boring wait?”
Yang Xiu froze. The way her master had phrased his question sounded off. It couldn’t be because she’d killed a boar. Could it? Her master wouldn’t make a pun that bad. Would he?