Aimless Ascension

Gale was ready to leave for the town with Xiaolin and Wang Li in the morning. Sadly, he forgot that today he was supposed to show the secret lair he was building to Shi Jun and plan for the few other things he needed building.

The woman decided to stay till he was finished too, as they were eager to know the later part of his story throughout the journey. However, Gale had other work as well.

He needed to make a tour around the mountain range to find Shi Fan and buy a bulk of pure crystal for Xiaolin. Without pure crystal, her progress had completely stopped. Although he feared for her second calamity, he couldn\'t just leave her spirit arts stranded.

Finding Shi Fan would be a bit problematic in this great wilderness, even though he got the general direction from Twilight, and where to leave a message in case he couldn\'t find him.

However, his job didn\'t end there. There were two more tasks before he could enjoy himself at the festival. He had taken a commission from Sun Ziang to make him a long read. Gale still hadn\'t gotten around it yet.

Well, not his fault. The guild was inefficient in delivering all the tools and items to him.

Gale planned to complete it by tomorrow and take it to the noble son. He needed to have the great healer to look after his disciple for once, just in case he missed something on her condition. His work on the longread should be enough for the favour.

Lastly, he had to find a very difficult girl to find and give her a pass as well, just in case she would like to visit. Gale didn\'t have high hopes of succeeding in that.

"Looks like it\'s only the two of us, elder sister," Xiaolin said with some regret.

"And Vale," Gale added as at that moment, a white furry dog came in with a cheerful little boy on top of him.

"Woof!" Vale yelled in agreement.

"And me, me," Rong\'er joined too.

Wang Li picked up her babe from riding Vale and turned to Gale.

"Why does it feel like you\'re deliberately wanting to go alone," she asked. "Is it because you don\'t want to share the latter part of your story?"

Gale smiled awkwardly. "I already narrated Linlin a part of it," he said. "As for the later part, I don\'t think a carriage is a good place for it."

Moreover, Gale wasn\'t sure if he would be able to control himself if he went over that part. He had talked to nobody about it; absolutely nobody; feared to admit his pain, ashamed to admit his weakness, his inability.

"Safe journey," Gale said after them as they climbed into the carriage. With Vale around them, he barely had to hope for a safe journey.The hound would make sure it was a safe journey even if it weren\'t.

Besides, it was broad daylight and Gale had given his disciple enough artifact to protest herself and her elder sister till Vale could deal with anything that came their way.

Still, Gale felt bad leaving them alone on their journey. So after they left, he decided to follow behind the carriage from a distance in the sky.

His instantaneous speed was obviously higher than the courage, he flew through the lonely road just to be sure that there were no bandits or minions of noble pricks there to do anything fishy.

Gang Rui would have been fine for the job, but Gale was more efficient. It took about half an hour and Gale was mostly relieved. He didn\'t meet up with them on his return, simply flew away towards the mountains.

***

After scouring the mountains for a few hours, Gale could\'t find Shi Fan, nor the girl he was looking for. Still, his journey was worthwhile as he found many herbs that would be useful to help Xiaolin in her journey.

Of course, he barely knew only a few things to make, like that herb shake and a few other similar drinks. His convincing words were enough to make Xiaolin believe the drink was great for her recovery and health.

But honestly, that was merely the herbs. His efficiency at handling Qi hadn\'t let him bring harmony between the ingredients at all.

He always felt it funny whenever Xiaolin made that face when he made her ingest the awfully disconcerting drink.

\'Fool girl, still believes the more unnerving the taste the better the herbal quality is.\'

Putting his delight at her dumbness aside, Gale really needed to find a good alchemist to make some great elixir and pills to help cultivation. If the first calamity equalled copper, the next one should be equalling Iron, which should be even more disastrous, considering it had been his most painful advancement.

Besides, all great master shower their disciples with pills and elixirs. With Xiaolin\'s peculiar physique, most elixirs would work on her, though he needed to guide it in a particular direction.

Gale left a written note for Shi Fan to see if he was still in the mountain range. In case Gale couldn\'t contact him again, then he would have to look for other ways to buy pure crystals.

That would be time-consuming, considering pure crystal was one of the rarest resources for practitioners. The price hike was for a reason.

Gale came back flying, deliberating over those thoughts. He didn\'t notice a fair maiden creeping under him at first pace, at first.

It was only the third time that his name was echoed in his ears, Gale turned to find the girl.

"Sumei," he called, dropping down to land before her as a delightful expression spread on his face. "It\'s been a while since I have seen you."

"What were you thinking so carefreely, mysterious farmer expert? I was waiting for you to hit a tree, but you somehow always dodge them, even though you can\'t hear my call."

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