Longwei had been walking for hours, and his hands were beginning to tire more than his feet. He had been stroking his beard to maintain an air of scholarliness, because that is what sect elders do, but with his cultivation mostly reset even such a simple task proved tiring. Humans were made for walking a thousand miles a day, not combing the same distance with their hands.

'I am fortunate that my first contact with this strange world's spiritual energy was through a healing fruit. Had it been anything else, I would surely have perished from my wounds even after adapting my cultivation base to it.'

He smiled and reached down beside him to ruffle the spirit beast's mane. 'Whether intentional or not, the healing fruit they provided had saved me. I suppose that means I owe this spirit beast my life.'

'Although I still have questions. For instance, how did I remember this spirit beast? This is clearly a different world, and I am certain luxios did not exist on Yongyu.'

Longwei felt as if some long forgotten memory was trying to claw its way up from within the depths of his mind. But alas, it would not come to him.

There was the sound of movement above, and Longwei looked up to see a fairly large black and white bird nestled within a tree. 'Star… Star-something. Wind Dao, friendly.'

Of course, the pokémon was a staravia, but Longwei's memory was not intact enough to know that.

'Again my memory teases me with spotty information. Perhaps such creatures were present on Earth?' He shook his head. 'No, that is a spirit beast. Earth had no magical powers, so no spirit beasts. I know that for certain. Then… fictional creatures, like from stories?'

He brought a hand to his chin and nodded to himself, satisfied with that answer. 'I had lost most memories when I appeared in Yongyu, and what little remained was scattered and hazy. It makes sense I would only vaguely recall these beasts if they were from a work of fiction on Earth.'

He chuckled quietly. 'So, Xu Hao remains on a mostly dead Yongyu, likely in the body of a cicada and fearing for his life in a burrow, while also possibly being unable to remember where his artifact vaults were due to the damage I inflicted on his soul. In exchange, he sent me to a work of fiction with friendly spirit beasts aplenty. How kind of him. I suppose I'll have to repay him by burning his soul in blightfire for a mere 444 years. I will find him even if I have to scan every inch of the planet, even if he's entirely forgotten his past lives, even if his new life is a just one—'

"Mraw!"

Luxio brought his attention forward where he saw a break in the trees. 'It seems we are here.'

Longwei stepped out of the treeline with Luxio wearing a smile, but then had to suppress a groan. In front of him was no town, but instead rolling grasslands. He hoped the town was simply hidden behind the many hills that obstructed his vision, a hope that was reinforced when Luxio kept walking ahead, not stopping as he had. 'Please don't be too far.'

The man and spirit beast walked, and soon they crested the top of a nearby hill. The smiling Longwei once more suppressed a groan when he saw how far he still had to walk.

At least the sight was beautiful.

From his vantage point on the hill, he saw grasslands that stretched out for hundreds of miles, interspersed with the odd clumping of trees, ponds, and small rivers or streams here or there. The entire place was teeming with life, and none of the spirit beasts seemed to fear being seen from afar like those of his world were prone to. His weakened vision wasn't quite good enough to make out most of them, but there were a few closer by that he recognized. He saw families of bibarel and their smaller children lazing by a pond together with families of floatzel. He saw groups of those star-something birds and many other flying species that he couldn't quite recognize soaring through the skies. He could even see a group of luxios in the flatlands, their black and blue coloring making them quite easy to see within the seas of green.

In the far far distance were a number of mountains, each of them of an impressive height and worthy enough for several sects to establish themselves on. One mountain stood out from the rest, however. It stood out so strongly, in fact, that Longwei felt that it might possibly be even larger than Yongyu's largest mountain. So impressive was its height that its summit could not be seen beyond the mask of blue atmosphere and fog flowing around it, and so impressive was its length that it seemed to divide the very world in half. It looked as if a god had chosen to rest on the planet and remained slumbering even now.

But Longwei did not have to travel to the peaks of Mount Tai to find civilization. In the nearer distance was a road running east and west through the grasslands. Its length was impressive, seeming to stretch beyond as far as he could see, signifying to all that it lead to a great civilization. Luckily for Longwei, the nearest village was not too far away. He only had to walk several miles to reach the road, and then follow it to the right a few miles more to reach what looked like a farming village.

He looked up, quickly measuring the distance the sun had traveled without looking straight into it like a fool. It was a little after midday now, and he had arrived in the forest at early morning. After a bit of guesstimation, he concluded that he could probably reach the village before nightfall so long as he kept a steady pace.

A twinkle of light from the distant road reached his eyes. 'Wait, are those…' Longwei squint his eyes, trying to make out the objects moving in the distance. His brows shot up when he saw also saw a much longer metal object moving in the distance, snaking through the middle of the road seamlessly. 'They are! Those are motorized vehicles! And that's a train!'

Longwei's face lit up with joy. He was no longer in a technologically primitive world! Sure, the wonders of Qi lead to many magical tools and techniques, but modern Earth technologies granted a level of convenience that only the powers of flight and telekinesis could compare to. Or, well, that's what he thought Earth technologies were like. His memory of Earth was distant and hazy. Every white stone looks like a jade when viewed from far away, especially in a fog.

Luxio looked up at Longwei, clearly expecting something from him. Longwei gave the top of her head a good ruffling in approval. "Good job disciple, excellent work! It seems you know your way around the lands handily, this senior is most impressed!" She preened in response, holding her head high. "And it seems we will have time to reach the village before nightfall, provided there are no distractions. The heavens favor us!" He snapped his fingers once and elegantly pointed into the distance. "Let us be off!"

And so the two continued their march that would certainly take the rest of the day. During it, Longwei busied himself with mentally reviewing what he had learned so far.

Earlier in the forest, Longwei had verified that this world's energy was much, much different from Qi. His initial observation had been correct: the energy of this world functioned similar to lightning. This alone changed so much.

Qi was like water. It flowed wherever it could, with or without man's go-ahead. Because of this, a cultivator's meridians had to be designed much like a series of rivers or pipes to direct the Qi, while the dantian was like a reservoir to contain dormant Qi. The cultivator then had to constantly manage the flow's direction and the pressure of these pipes to ensure Qi bent properly to their will. This was where the saying "defy the heavens" came from—cultivators were forcefully bending the very energy of the world to their will.

But this new energy was much more intuitive. All he had to do was signal where he wanted it, and there it would go as if it were an eager servant. It would shoot through the very material of his dantian and meridians in order to reach its objective, then it would remain there and glow until either its expendable energy was spent or it was willed to return early.

The contrast was entertaining to Longwei. He could only imagine the heights one could ascend with a heavenly energy so compliant.

However, there was a problem. Longwei's cultivation was designed for Qi, not this new energy. He now needed his cultivation to be designed like Luxio's. Her meridians were solid like wires, and her dantian contained a towering grid that housed her dormant energy.

He had also used his spirit sight on Willow and saw that the dormant spirit tree seed had the same problem as him… plus a much different, much more significant problem. Willow's soul was dark, a sign of heart demons at best and demonic possession at worst. He would have to put off growing them until that's resolved. Especially since their souls still had a bridge to one another.

'Alas, I cannot cultivate as things are. The energy has nowhere to rest within my hollow dantian, and what little I have is forced to linger in the walls most uncomfortably. Any more and there would surely be problems. I need to find a way to construct grids within my dantian like those within Luxio. Without a functional dantian, there is no cultivation.'

(~)

Longwei had continued ruminating on his discoveries for some time, even playing—experimenting with the energy. So deep in thought was he that he hadn't consciously noticed that night had fallen or that he had reached and begun walking alongside the road.

A deep rumbling approached his position, breaking him from his thoughts. Longwei tensed, habitually reached for his spirit sword that was no longer attached to his hip, and turned around to gauge the threat. A light shone through the darkness, and Longwei dove away from the attack! "HAAH!"

His knees and elbows scraped against the dirt, but the pain was minor. Longwei quickly rolled into a standing position, putting up a combat stance and fixing a glare as he faced the assailant just in time to see the truck pass him by without incident.

Luckily for Longwei, the driver was ignorant to his presence and thought it was just a buizel messing around by the road. He had not noticed the old man covered in blood jump away from the road even though said old man was walking alongside it at a healthy distance rather than on it like a maniac. Unluckily for Longwei, he himself had remained ignorant to the assault on social norms he was committing by planning to enter a village while covered in blood. Luxio, meanwhile, simply stared at her human, shocked and confused over why he would dive to the floor.

"I suppose we shouldn't expect couriers to stop for every old man on the side of the road, hmm." Longwei mused calmly, stroking his beard in a very scholarly manner as if nothing had happened.

"Mmmmmmra." Luxio replied, not buying it in the slightest.

"Quite so, indeed."

(~)

Longwei stepped past the village sign, finally entering the farming village proper. "And it seems we have arrived at precisely nightfall, exactly as this senior had predicted. Hmm, yes." Nightfall had already arrived some time ago.

A wave of relief traveled upwards from his feet when he stepped onto a packed dirt pathway, his body rejoicing at finally being on a level surface. Longwei allowed himself a moment of rest while he surveyed the village proper.

Where before he was trudging along an uneven pathway of grass and trodden dirt that seemed to form naturally along the side of the small highway, now he stood on a dirt road that had been maintained to remain level. A four-foot tall wooden fence was all that separated him from the farmland to his right, the barrier seeming more for decoration than actual obstruction. The fields themselves were packed with growing crops, but Longwei couldn't tell what was growing with it being so dark nor could he see anyone working the fields at such a late hour.

'Hmm, I sure hope it's humans in this world.' he thought to himself, growing a bit concerned. 'Last thing I want is to be treated like an exotic spirit beast. Or a demon.' Luckily the language on the village's welcome sign that he had passed was in English, so that gave him some confidence. He took solace in the fact that he'd at least understand their monologues as they harvested his tears for a beautification pill or turned him into a pill furnace.

Longwei was about to turn around and go down the hermit route, but then he saw a young human boy in rough clothing standing on a driveway to one of the farmhouses. 'Oh, thank the heavens. I won't be made to kowtow and slap myself 10 times for daring to not have already turned myself into a pill furnace for the alien Young Master XAEXii's hatchday.'

Longwei began walking towards the boy, hoping to ask for directions to an inn with available rooms. But as Longwei approached, the boy set his backpack down on the driveway. He then reached in, grabbed a handful of rotten food, and threw it at the house. 'Oh?' The handful of rotten food flew like stones and splattered against the garage door, producing a series of rather loud bangs. A light from inside the house's first floor turned on almost immediately.

The boy went to throw another, this time aiming for the second story windows, but his aim was thrown off when the lights to the driveway and front door path engaged simultaneously, causing the projectiles to land somewhere on the roof. The front door shot open immediately after, and a brunette young lady no older than 20 stepped out, still in her pyjamas. "What's going on?!" She saw the boy and her expression flashed with recognition. "YOU!" she growled, pointing at the boy with hatred in her eyes.

Neither she nor the boy had noticed Longwei just outside the driveway, his form still hidden in darkness.

"You suck!" the boy squeaked out, throwing a rotten fruit at her but missing significantly. "And your brother sucks too! Naa-nanaa-nanaa-naaa!"

She turned her head back into the house. "Dad! That brat is here again! He's throwing stuff at the house!"

"WHAT!?" a gruff voice from further inside the house bellowed.

She glared at the boy. "Kid! You better apologize before my dad—!" Her head moved away just in time to avoid a handful of muck that sailed passed her, landing somewhere in the house.

"You can't do anything to me—" A bloody hand reached out from the shadows, gripping the boy's shoulder firmly. "—eek!"

"Junior, you dare!?" The girl and boy froze stiff. "How shameless can you be!" Longwei boomed with the practiced authority of a sect elder.

The boy's head turned back in jerky motions. The first thing he saw was the blood-stained hand that had dug tightly into his shoulders, preventing escape. Next was the terrifying elderly figure attached to it, wearing white clothes drenched in blood. The figure was taller than anyone the boy had ever seen in person, so tall in fact that the lights from the driveway only reached up to its blood-covered neck.

"I-I, h-he, a-!" the junior stuttered in fear, unable to get a coherent sentence out. Longwei sharpened his glare and slowly leaned forward, allowing the light to reach his face.

To Longwei, he was simply giving an arrogant junior a stern dressing-down. To everyone else, a blood-soaked ghost/grandpa had suddenly emerged from the darkness, blaming the boy for something.

The boy's eyes welled up with tears. "Th-th, I ah-!" Absolute terror took hold, and in the face of absolute terror there was only one thing such a young boy could do.

He fell to his rear and covered his face with his arms, crying loudly. "H-hel, HELB! HELB MEE!"

"What in tarnation is going on out there?!" A middle-aged man wearing a blue night cap that had a fuzzy white ball on the end poked his head out the door. "HOLY THREE LEGGED GIRAFARIG DANCIN ON A GARCHOMP!"

He slipped passed the girl with urgency, his physique born from working the fields his whole life revealing itself even underneath his loose blue and white striped pyjamas. "DIVER, WAKE UP!" A blue-and-white ball flew from his hand into the air, where it popped open mid-flight. A beam of blue light shot outwards from the object and coalesced just above the ground. In the span of a single breath, an orange weasel-like spirit beast with a cream underbelly—a floatzel—took shape and stood in the walkway.

"Dad! H-he's bleeding!"

The man locked eyes with the floatzel and pointed at the old man covered in blood. "Diver! Get the man inside! Hurry!" he ordered, then rushed over to the boy on the floor and began looking the kid all over. "What the hell did you do this time Tony? What the HELL did you do?!"

"I'mb- I'm sobby! I-I dib'n-!"

The floatzel rushed to Longwei's side, placing a hand on his back to keep him standing upright. "Zel! Zel!" it said urgently, ushering Longwei towards the front door of the two-story house. The young lady only spared the following Luxio a glance before moving to help Diver bring Longwei in.

'Ah, this reminds me of my first day in Yongyu. I wandered into a village wearing nothing but underwear and encountered an old farming couple who were being harassed by a cunning fox. They welcomed me as family after I chased it off, and from there my life began anew.'

Longwei was brought into a well-lit living room, furnished with the usual couches, low-height table, and television. The two sat him down carefully on a couch but seemed at a loss what to do next, the girl visibly in a panic and the floatzel eyeing the front door nervously.

Longwei cleared his throat, getting their attention. "Ah, if you were worried for my health, I believe I have mostly recovered. Although, I have not had the opportunity to clean the wounds…"

The girl blinked. "R-right! Clean the wounds! Disinfectants!" She rushed off through a lit hallway, leaving him and the nervous floatzel behind. The sound of drawers and cabinets opening and closing echoed through the house. "Got it! Them! Have them!" She rushed back with a mound of items held in her arms, expertly moving in such a way that nothing fell off. She brought the items to the living room's center table, then grabbed a spray bottle from the pile. "Disinfectants!" she said with conviction, then took Longwei's hand and sprayed the entirety of it.

A series of heavy footsteps approached. The man entered the room, the junior from before clinging around his chest like a baby monkey. "Elizabeth, what're you—oh right! Disinfectants!"

"Disinfectants!" she echoed.

Luxio rolled her eyes from her seated position beside the couch, knowing Longwei wasn't hurt nearly as bad as the fussy humans believed. She had already given him an oran berry! He's all better!

The dad went to a different room and returned without the boy. He glanced at the floatzel and pointed behind himself with a snap of his fingers. Diver nodded and walked off, presumably to keep watch over the boy.

The father carefully removed Longwei's bloody robe and shirt and set them aside, revealing Longwei's incredibly toned and currently incredibly bloody form. He then grabbed a bottle and joined his daughter in practically drenching Longwei with medicinal spray, causing more of the dried blood coating his body to moisten and drip onto their couch.

The father pointed to the pile bloody clothing. "Take these to the washer, then watch over Tony!" The young lady took the clothes and ran off deeper into the house.

'I hope I don't have to worry about this world's pathogens.' Longwei thought as the man finished wiping away the blood and switched to bandaging him. 'Hmm. I also hope I haven't just doomed them and this world with an alien disease. Then again, as a high-stage cultivator my body would have been devoid of any mundane pathogens at the time of my arrival. The only one in danger would be me.'

Longwei was beginning to look like a mummy with the amount of bandages wrapped over him. 'Well, I suppose it's time to make my move. If the amnesia card worked the first time then it will probably work the second.'

"Ahem." Longwei cleared his throat. "Thank you for your help, kind sir. I'm afraid I don't quite know what happened—"

The man spoke up, cutting Longwei off. "Don't talk. Conserve your energy."

That response would have been treated as an insult in Yongyu. A mortal telling a cultivator what to do? They are courting death! Longwei's own disciples would have been fighting one another for the honor of delivering punishment upon this arrogant mortal.

No matter how hard he tried, mortals were always treated as lesser to cultivators. At least he managed to get cultivators to stop killing mortals on the spot over perceived offenses such as "He looked at me" or "They were in my path, and their family weren't grateful enough that one of their own had the honor of being killed by a powerful cultivator so I killed them too."

But Longwei had always aspired to be better. Before him were people who saw a stranger in need and immediately sought to help. What sane individual would react to such kindness with hatred?

Longwei gave heartfelt smile. There was good in this world. And his tolerance of them was proof that he was a good, humble, heavenly and blessed person too.

Just like he had in Yongyu, he would lean on this kindness to begin his rise to power. Once he held the power of the heavens, he would find his way back to Yongyu. And then, then he would do what was only right. For all the destruction and suffering he caused, Xu Hao would face judgment.

Luxio huffed and rested her chin on a pillow that she took from a couch. These other humans were so fussy! Her human hadn't freaked out like this, he just ate the oran berry and was all better! Sure he screamed a lot right after he bit in, but… he got better? And when he got better, he moved on! That's what you do when a problem is not a problem anymore, you move on!

Now she had to lay there, waiting as these other humans kept putting those weird clothes on her human. His first clothes were better! And why didn't they just clean him with water? Isn't the point of cleaning to get rid of the smell, not replace it with something else? And what did they mean by disinfect, he wasn't even poisoned! She would know if he was!

Luxio huffed again, already fed up with these other humans.

Her human scared that smaller human real good earlier. He's just like her, scary when he want to be. No wonder he could tell how talented she was! She had felt it coat the area back then—the scary zone. It didn't effect her because she was a friend, but she knew it was a good one! Well, for a human at least. She could just tell!

(~)

"I assure you, Mr. Farview. The boy had not harmed me. I had a very unfortunate experience when I was in the forest, although I can't quite remember anything before that."

At least they were letting her human talk now. She got real angry when that other human told him to be quiet earlier. If her own human hadn't looked okay with it, she might've just zapped that mean man! She could if she wanted to! And she could beat up that floatzel too, easy!

"I suppose that boy's not mean enough to do something so terrible. But still, kids can be pretty stupid, so you can't blame me for making sure." He shook his head. "And, well, you did have a nasty bruise on the side of your head, so I'm not surprised you can't quite remember what happened Mr. Longwei."

"Ah, my family name is not Longwei. I had flipped the order when I spoke, it seems. I am Longwei Sun."

She knew he said it backwards when he told her in the forest! She just knew it! Her instincts told her it was backwards and they were right! That means she knew her human better than other humans did!

(~)

Luxio gnawed harder on the rope they gave her. What was her human doing?! He's been staring at that glowing box for so long now and keeps clacking that board! It's sleep time! Go to sleep!

"Ah, Luxio. Was I keeping you up?" her human turned and said to her with a smile, mollifying her slightly. "Apologies. There was much I had to look into, you see. But I suppose it can wait until the next day." Her human set aside his cleaned robe, then turned off the lights and got into bed, everything below his head wrapped under the covers. "I was getting tired anyways. Goodni—"

Luxio jumped onto the bed and curled up next to her human, taking up almost as much bed space as him.

He chuckled and pat her head. "Goodnight, Luxio."

"Goodnight, human."