Primordial spark

Dave got up, used the outhouse and decided to never eat anything again.

He started his morning by petting Lydia for an extensive period of time and washing himself in the rain barrel. Then he set course for the main square, where he was going to meet his teammate for the extermination mission.

When Dave made it to the mission square, a young girl was already waiting for him. “Hello my name is Mo Xiuying, please just call me Mo. I will be your companion for this mission. I am in the initial stage of the foundation establishment realm, what about you?”

“Greetings, my name is Dave or Dai Fu. I'm in the initial stages of core formation.” Dave introduced himself.

“Where are you from Dai Fu, I have never seen a face like yours.” Mo asked in her youthful brashness.

“Oh, I'm from the far west, I doubt you've ever heard of my people before. They're just a tribe of barbarians. I left them and travelled here. Dave said while sweating bullets. “That sounds interesting, it would be nice if you told me about your life on the way to the village of Favoured Tree.” She said, pushing Dave into a corner.

He figured that a random young girl could not do much with what he told her. He weaved a tapestry of lies that liberally mixed truth and falsehood to protect his secret. “So your people tamed lightning and used it to power machines and make stones think for you. That sounds... incredible, why are we not using it in the reset of the continent?” She asked with an intense glint in her eyes. Dave distanced himself from her so the wind would hopefully mask his words a little and make them unintelligible: “It's really complicated and a cultivator can do almost everything electricity can do, but better. My people were completely without qi, so we had to figure out a way to do things”, Dave thought a little, then he decided to gamble on her curiosity so she stopped asking him dangerous questions,”I can teach the basics about magnetism and electricity, but I only know the complete basics so don't get your hopes too high.”

They flew the rest of the way while Dave explained high-school physics to her in simple terms.

The shift in the landscape was far more sudden than when flying to the north. One moment the open plain lay under them and the next they were overflying a pine forest. They had of course seen it coming from far away, there was simply no gradual shift with smaller trees, it was instant.

Not far into the forest they saw smoke rise in the distance, they headed towards it. Arriving at the village named “Favored Tree”, they headed for the center of the small gathering of houses before landing and asking for someone to guide them to the elders house. All the normal mortals were very respectful, bending themselves over backwards to not offend their sensibilities.

At the village elders house, they met an elderly man who said: “Several of our young ones have been stung east of here, while gathering firewood. We could not ascertain the location of the nest, but at least nobody has died yet. We asked for assistance since we cannot afford to lose any more of our able-bodied men to giant wasps.”

“We will do what we can.” Dave answered the old man.

They headed out into the forest. Deciding not to fly since it would give them a better chance of detecting the wasps. Dave brought out a piece of meat he had left from feeding Lydia. “I'm going to attract the wasps, you whack them out of the air. This isn't hard, but what kind of techniques do you know?” Dave asked Mo while holding the bone with strips of meat still attached. “I know a wide variety of techniques, but against wasps I will be using fire-based ranged attacks and defenses.”

“Good, because I only know ice-based attacks and frankly, I have yet to learn defensive techniques.” Dave admitted embarrassed.

They headed deeper into the forest. Soon they encountered their first wasp. Mo effortlessly smacked it out of the air with her hand and stomped on the dying creature with her boot.

Eventually they swarmed them, Mo erected a cocoon of fire around them to burn up any wasp getting close.

They found the spot where the wasps were arriving with the shortest interval.

“Their nest must be nearby, look around.” Dave said.

Both looking through the shimmering wall of flames, Mo spotted a gigantic nest hanging from the tree above them. She pointed it out to Dave.

Stepping closer to the tree in question, Dave hugged it and pulled. The tree gave way and crushed inwards. The tree fell, but it got stuck on another tree and failed to topple all the way to the ground. The wasps were now agitated and kept flying into the wall of fire with little success. Dave and Mo went from tree to tree, crushing and pushing them, until they had created a small clearing in the forest, with the intact wasp nest in the middle.

Then it was a simple matter for Mo to surround the nest with fire and burn it to ashes. They hoped that they had gotten most of the wasps.

Wandering around for a little longer, they found no further wasps in the area. It seemed that the task had been completed.

Returning to the village Dave heard loud arguing: “I can not give you that much, we can barely feed our own children with the amount you were asking for in the first place!”

“Old man, you better cough up the meat and grain, otherwise we will take it from your corpse.”

Dave stepped out from behind a house where he and Mo had temporarily paused to listen in on the conversation.

“Why are you threatening the elder of this village?” Dave asked in an exasperated voice.

“Who are you to interfere with Deep Verdant sect business?” The stocky stranger called out.

“We are from the lone mountain sect and this village is under our protection. What are you extorting them for?” Dave asked politely in an attempt to deescalate.

“You dare!” The stranger screamed and attacked Dave. Dave reflexively reinforced his arm as he prepared to take the incoming attack. Instead of feeling a strong impact, he watched the Verdant's disciple's arm bend outwards in an unnatural way and his scream of anger turned into one of surprise, then pain. “They sent a core elder, run Hui!” The other newcomer quickly jumped onto his flying sword and sped away. Dave kicked the downed disciple in the ribs: “What the fuck was this about!”

You know damn well what this is about Mountain scum!” Mo pulled on Dave's clothes: “There has been an ongoing territorial dispute about this village, Favored Tree, since our sect does not claim a tithe from villages under them. The Deep Verdant which is an orthodox sect thinks they can claim this village despite how close it is to our sect.” She said with downcast eyes.

“What do we do?” Dave asked overwhelmed.

“He thinks that we are an official force of elders sent to annex this village. We should hurry back and make that a reality. It will give our sect a stronger negotiation position.” She said with a glint in her eye.

“What about him?”

“We take him with us and let the elders decide. They will likely trade him back eventually.” Mo said while running her fingers through her hair.

Dave grabbed the whimpering disciple and put him in front of himself on his carpet and off they went.

They made it back to the sect and as they crossed over the sect wall, Mo said: “I will go and talk to my grandpa, the other elders are likely going to want you to undergo an interrogation under a truthstone tomorrow, so be prepared for that.”

“I understand, I'll be ready. What am I supposed to do with our prisoner?”

“Take him to the gatehouse, there should be a core formation elder who can keep him contained.” Mo said while waving goodbye.

Dave headed around the sect and to the gatehouse, handed off the prisoner to the first person he could sense was in the core formation realm and headed home. It was yet to even become afternoon, so he grabbed Lydia and headed for a walk outside the sect. At the gatehouse they asked him if she was his registered monstrous beast. He had completely forgotten to assign her to his name. He instead headed to the administration section of the sect and had her registered to his name. She got a red collar to wear, after the clerk slowly explained to her that it would identify her as friendly within the sect. The clerk said that monstrous beasts could often already understand human language in the foundation establishment realm, so it was better to be certain and explain the arrangement to them both. If she harmed anyone inside the sect it would be Dave's head on the chopping block.

Afterwards they headed for a late walk around the outside of the sect. Lydia seemed very enthusiastic about finally being in the wild again after being cooped up for so long.

They reentered the sect through the small gate at the volcano and headed home. Lydia rose to the ninth level of foundation establishment on their walk, maybe it was the fresh air that did it.

Dave went to the bathhouse, got undressed and soaked in the warm water. His clothes finally got a much-needed wash and he decided to buy several sect robes to not stand out with his odd clothing anymore. He also thought that the robes looked comfortable, so he headed for the craftsman district next.

He bought two robes and went home to Lydia who had run ahead of him, which was no longer a problem due to her collar.

That night Dave had a restful sleep without nightmares.