16th of Season of Water, 57th year of the 32nd cycle

  The captain of the airship had a stern face, cold, brown eyes, and kept her back straight. Her most striking feature, however, was a fierce burn, which painted the lower left half of her otherwise pristine face a furious red. Newt wondered whether the injury was like his malnutrition, something the spiritual energy found a part of the body and cemented into his appearance, or if it was a wound she had suffered after she began her cultivation.

  If it was the latter, the wound must have been beyond extreme for the scar to persist through spiritual energy healing. Unaware of his thoughts, the scary woman looked at no one in particular as she addressed the sixty-odd inner disciples.

  “Raptor Mountain group,” she said to everyone, not caring who was going where. “We’re landing in half an hour. Your mission starts the moment you and your guardians depart my ship. Like in other locations, we’re taking in the previous moon’s group and leaving five minutes after touchdown. If you’re late when we return in one moon, tough luck. You’ll have to wait another one.”

  Newt nodded. Missing the airship was the most unfortunate thing that could happen to his team, potentially worse than suffering moderate, healable injuries. The airship did a round trip, sometimes dropping off disciples, sometimes picking them up, and sometimes both, leaving one group behind while taking another back home.

  “Remember that rock formation.” The captain pointed out the window at a distant brown dot. “It looks like a giant perched pterosaur. The ship lands right next to it, and the best place for you to wait for us is atop that rock. From up there, you can see the surrounding terrain and survey the sky, additionally, the three sheer sides make it easier to defend even against a tide of monsters, so perching up there should be the safest location around.”

  She scanned the disciples, her gaze lingering on Newt just a fraction of a second longer than the others, but the gesture could have been his imagination.

  “Any questions?”

  They had none. The mission’s details were simple and straightforward, she had repeated her instructions thrice already, and the first group at the Deadmen’s Ridge had asked the only sensible question there was, “Would you really leave without us?”

  The answer was a brutal, “Yes. I have and I will leave disciples behind, even if they are just a blink late.”

  The remaining time until landing passed in silence. There was nothing to discuss, and when the airship slowed, Newt’s teammates bade their acquaintances good bye. Outside, Newt saw two groups of four sitting atop the brown pterosaur-shaped rock’s head. They appeared travel-worn, their clothes dirty, with one young-looking man’s sleeve torn off, his arm sprouting fresh, pink flesh.

  Like every time the ship landed with a barely perceptible tremor, something mortals would have failed to sense had there been any aboard. Newt’s group was the only one going out, followed by a fourth realm outer elder. The eight disciples gracefully hopped off the pterosaur-shaped rock, their own chaperone leaving a tree’s shade, and the nine of them entered the ship, which, even with all passengers aboard, waited exactly five minutes before departing.

  “Well, I guess it’s just us.” Rose smiled and took a map out of her pouch. In the previous team, her boyfriend had been the navigator, but since she was the one usually staying far from combat, carrying maps and other trinkets had become her job in the new team.

  “Raptor Mountain is that way.” She pointed left of the rock formation, and the group started, their guardian moving only when they lost sight of him.

  It took an hour to reach Raptor Mountain. Eldenroot was a fire-attributed plant, indigenous to Raptor Mountain. The herb was a catalyst ingredient for several niche third realm pills, which increased their potency by ten to twenty percent. A minor herb most large sects would never bother with, while small forces had no need for it. The lack of competition, the ease of harvesting, and relative availability made it a perfect target for the Explorer’s Gate. A ten percent increase to fire resistance pills meant an easier time exploring fire aligned secret realms, and for a force focused on rapidly exploring and conquering secret realms, ten percent was a major improvement.

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  The plant grew on the south side of the mountain, and given its distinctive appearance, it was easy enough to find, but Explorer’s Gate disciples had strict instructions on the size of the plants they could harvest. Those too small had to stay in the ground and grow; those too big were mature plants, protected so they could sprout clusters of flowers and spread the seeds, ensuring future growth.

  As the group climbed the mountain, Newt found it beautiful. Fire energy saturated the air, so strong he was certain it would empower his techniques, while suppressing Rose’s healing. The ambient spiritual energy gave birth to trees and shrubs whose leaves were kissed by red, the veins of their leaves were red, or with reddish-orange lines bordering their edges.

  The flowers all had wavy shapes painted yellow, orange, and red, resembling tiny flames. Despite winter never touching that part of the Savage Wood, the leaves and flowers painted the area frozen in perpetual fall. Amid the sea of colors, a shriveled up, blood-red bush stood out. Creases streaked and crisscrossed the crimson leaves, resembling wrinkled skin of an old man. The stem was lined with thick, bluish veins, which again reminded Newt of a sick, elderly person. The bush stood five feet tall, adorned with clusters of yellowish-white flowers, hanging like long, dirty beards.

  Newt had read the plant’s description and saw the drawings, but seeing it in person was another matter entirely. He could feel old age radiating from the plant. It even had an old man’s smell.

  “That eldenplant is mature, and we are forbidden from disturbing it.” Rose said, uncomfortable in the flame domain. “It’s safe to assume that everything at the foot of the mountain is either too old or too young for us to harvest, we’ll need to climb.”

  Newt glanced up the hill, discomfort stirring in his stomach. He closed his eyes and focused on the feeling, his danger sense was warning him of a distant threat in that direction.

  “The books we read back at the sect mentioned that this is a zone firmly in control of a giant colony of velociraptors, none beyond the third realm, but we should be careful. A large enough pack of third realm velociraptors can pose a serious threat to us.”

  Back when he found that information, Newt understood where that pack of velociraptors he had encountered a year ago had come from. The wounded ankylosaurus had probably passed close enough to the Raptor Mountain, drawing the attention of a small pack.

  That meant that by killing the velociraptor, which was trying to devour the ankylosaurus, he had stopped its advancement. If it had evolved, the velociraptor would have returned, potentially gaining control over the Raptor Mountain, and killing Explorer’s Gate’s disciples.

  The notion fascinated Newt. The world was huge, spanning millions of miles, yet, he killed a pack of monsters close to his home, removing a threat for his distant, future sect. His actions could be considered coincidence, or guided by the hand of fate. Whatever the case, Newt found it amusing.

  That raptor might have in theory attacked his team, had he not eliminated it. As Newt mulled over that thought, his teammates nodded.

  “We should keep our eyes peeled, both for eldenplants and for any signs of danger.”

  Even if Rose had not said it aloud, everyone took their situation seriously, more-so after Newt’s thoughtful look towards the summit.

  The party of four climbed going wide left, before swinging back right, covering the distance hundreds of times the one they ascended. Eventually, two hours later, Jas pointed.

  “Found one.”

  The eldenplant was two-and-a-half feet tall, its red leaves nowhere nearly as wrinkly as the other specimen’s. It lacked the clumps of flowers, as well as the veins, which indicated maturity.

  Rose went over to it, dug up its roots, and claimed three out of five tubers she found.

  The plant had two possible fates. It would either wither and two new plants would grow from the tubers, or the eldenplant would recover and keep growing. Rose tied a black ribbon around the stem, marking the plant as harvested. Nobody should disturb it until another group with black ribbons came.

  Newt’s party continued their climb reaching around two hundred feet above the base before the sun went down. In those hours they had collected twenty roots, and found dozens of plants marked with ribbons or too old for harvest.

  “That was quite a fruitful first day.” Rose beamed a smile. “I can’t believe there were seven plants available for harvest this close to the base. If we keep this up, we’ll be done in ten days. The only question is do we go higher, or do we return to the base and check in a different area.”

  “I say we keep going up,” Obi said, and his sister nodded in agreement. Since Newt had no preference, the group agreed to continue their ascension the following day.