Forest

I'd like to say that after I entered the woods, I knew exactly what to do next. But I just flew, hopping from tree to tree with bursts of Pursuit Arrow to cover the larger gaps.

My mind was quiet, but it wasn't like I was calm. It was more like I was empty, raw. My whole body shook sometimes. I was saved by my beetle body at least. While I was moving with more natural speed than any bug could, I wasn't about to have the same physiological reactions I would have as a human. I could sink into my instincts and just focus on moving.

The Bloody Faced Man entered my mind again. Who the hell was that guy? Why had he attacked? Could I find him? Kill him?

I put the idea of revenge on the 'later' shelf as soon as it came. I wasn't a grand warrior right now. I was a bug with a half-learned technique. A Spirit Beast beetle, but nothing more. I had to focus on at least surviving long enough to learn how to extend my life. I had less than a year left on my timeline.

Once I knew I could survive long enough to grow stronger, maybe I could plan out revenge. Extend my life. Then find the son of a bitch who killed my only friends.

I stopped on a branch and looked around. The woods were lovely, dark and deep. The sunlight streamed through the greenery above, but not enough to remove the soft darkness around me, just making small towers of light where it poked through.

I went to one of those towers, landing on a branch. A branch the size of a bridge.

While I'd gotten used to the size differences I had to deal with now, I still had some moments where I just looked around and marveled. The forest around me had trees larger than any skyscrapers could ever be, branches that stretched for miles, flat leaves as big as doors or pine needles big as spears.

After taking in the beauty of the impossibly large forest, I pulled the back Si Chou had given me off and powered it onto the branch in front of me, opening it up and taking out the book within.

What did it cost Si Chou to have the book made? It felt brand new, the leather crisp, the paper fresh. I pushed it against the trunk of the tree so that it fell open there. There weren't many pages, and the letters were still gigantic, but I had a lot less trouble reading it than the giant tomes he had in his library.

Imagine always trying to read a cell phone screen that is a centimeter from your right eye. Not a great experience. This was better.

The first page displayed a couple of simple things that Si Chou was going over before. One of which was the various cultivation realms. He'd mentioned them a few times, but it was worth reading again.

I was in the Foundation Realm, Level 2 or so. Aka the Noob level. I was able to use Qi to enhance my body and use small bursts of Pursuit Arrow. So I was on the level of a normal Outer Disciple in this world, just a bit stronger than a person from my former life.

Which was crazy. I was a beetle who could beat up a normal person from my former life. And I was still considered weak.

Shaking my head, my horns waving a bit, I went back to reading. Foundation Realm, Profound, Earth, Heaven, then Immortal… There was one more after that, but that was basically becoming a planet buster, so I focused on the rest. Immortal. Where I could stop worrying about my lifespan. But that was way up there.

Best get started then. What else did I have on my plate? Going back to where the only friend I had was dead, where all the friendly faces I knew, where a grumpy but friendly Patriarch sacrificed himself in burst of lightning-

I stopped, shuddering before I focused myself again. Okay, Xaiobo, it's time to get to work.

The book had a couple of other explanations that I had been curious about. I flipped to the next page. Suggestions for how to find the best Qi rich foods, warnings about issues I might run into, like fungi and parasites that beetles were susceptible to. I was sad to say, but of the maybe thirty tiny pages Si Chou had made, a very small amount of them was probably going to remain relevant.

I didn't think I was going to end up entering a rival Sect in the Imperial City anytime soon.

Still, the rest was good. I closed up the book and placed it back in my bag. First things first, I needed to find some kind of home base. Somewhere I could live, train, and get good food. So understanding my environment was a part of that.

I raised my wings and took off in a burst of motion. Time to scope out the landscape.

I was lucky to be in a beetle body. I mean, it had its drawbacks. But it had its joys.

Flying was one. I wasn't as good as a bird, plane, or Superman, but I could zip between trees and over the little valleys between the mountains around me. It reminded me of the first time I read the old Hulk comic books, where he would jump for miles between locations. Pursuit Arrow helped. I wasn't great with it yet, but it gave me a way to at least boost forward.

Changing direction… still didn't end well.

Thankfully, another joy was that I was tougher. I crashed a couple of times, smacking into branches and falling down to the forest floor below. Didn't even hurt.

I also had a lot more stamina, but part of me figured that was thanks to Qi rather than beetle powers, with my training under Si Chou extending that further. It was a good thing too, because the forest was big. Not even big for a beetle, just plain big.

There was a big lake with a few rivers running from it that I considered the 'center' of the woods. All around it were smaller trees, some huge conical shaped mountains, some small waterfalls, and the scent of… cleanliness. Purity. I knew the water couldn't be clean, not really, but it had that feeling.

As well as something else at the bottom somehow… something at the corner of my mind like if I tried to pay attention it would lea-

There were also monkeys. That was interesting. I stopped on a tree to sense them, a troop of brown furred dudes hanging out peacefully around a river leading down to the lake. A couple of little babies wrestled playfully on the rocks, shouting at each other a bit while their parents chewed on nearby fruit. When I got my claws on a lychee fruit and started eating it, one of the monkeys noticed me, but didn't seem inclined to do more than stare.

The lychee was thankfully Qi rich. The whole forest felt that way to be honest. Even more than Si Chou's sect. Which was weird. Why was the forest more full of Qi than a literal cultivation sect?

There were more animals around me. Fish within the lake, some rats running around. And insects, like me. Lots of those. Smaller beetles commonly (How big was I anyways? I was bigger than Si Chou's palm these days). None of the other beetles seemed inclined to bother me, thankfully. I'd gotten used to beetles being territorial bastards in the fighting ring, so getting avoided instead was good.

There were also bees, buzzing about the flowers on the ground and in the trees. Industrious little guys, flying around with a peaceful buzzing noise.

From the lake, I went deeper into the woods. Larger animals could be seen there. I flew over a herd of deer wandering along a path, only to see some wolves trailing after them. In a bamboo grove, a red panda was moving about, chewing on the life around him.

It was after about eight hours of travelling and exploring that I got to a point where I could see more of the area around me.

The conical hills around me carried the forest further upwards, giving me a lot to explore. I used the Lake to orient myself. After a bit more exploring, I found something… interesting.

It was at the base of one of the conical mountains. I approached it by taking an overgrown and beaten up path. At the end, a wall stood. It was old, half destroyed, with a wooden gate that had long since rotted almost entirely away. I hopped upwards and flew towards the gate, landing a bit awkwardly in front of it.

The wall had been defending a temple of some kind. There was a courtyard about the size of a hockey rink, covered in leaves and dirt, with water in some places where the stone was broken or dipped down enough to create pools. Around the edges were buildings. Far across from me, a simple Buddha statue rested atop a stone table underneath a crumbling roof. The rest of the temple was mostly empty, giving the whole thing an odd feeling.

And just to my right, a fruit tree rested, heavy with peaches. I sighed in relief. Damn. This place was… perfect.

I could feel the Qi within the temple, powerful and rich, with an edge of… purity. The temple may have been abandoned, but it still remembered its purpose. I flew inside, landing in the courtyard and looking around.

That was when I felt it. Not with my Qi sense, but all of my more physical ones. Something was there… out of the corner of my eye, I felt something dart past. I glanced at it, but got nothing. Slowly, I pulled my bag off my back, looking around slowly.

What was it? Something that lived in the temple? Not a human, they would have screamed to my senses. This was something different.

Leaves rustled. I leapt backward just as a pair of jaws snapped down where I had been standing, scales flashing in the light. I landed awkwardly but faced the threat.

"...sssssss," A snake slid across the leaves and courtyard stones, eyeing me. It was huge, long as a human leg, and thickly built with muscle, its scales a bright green with black patterns. Its tongue licked out at the air.

"I don't suppose you're sapient?" I asked in my chittering bug voice. "I could use someone to talk to even if they try to kill me."

In answer, the snake sped forth faster than I could believe, fangs flashing out at me. I jumped up, barely avoiding the attack, and landed behind him, before I had to leap back. The damn thing followed me with insane speed and flexibility. This time I couldn't entirely dodge it, its big head slapping me out of the air and sending me flying back.

I landed, only to fly up again to dodge another attack. Damn! The snake moved so weirdly! Its flexibility lets it not just attack from weird angles, but with insane speed. I'd be dodging an attack from the right, only for the snake's body to twitch and suddenly I was having to backpedal.

And it was strong. I was powerful nowadays, more than most animals, but this snake clearly had more gumption than ones from my old world. It felt like… like it was going to ignite? Damn it.

It didn't help that even with Qi powering my body like NOS in an engine, I still wasn't great at dodging from side to side. Beetles liked moving forward, were kind okay moving backwards, and were good with flying up for brief moments. Qi or not, I was still at the mercy of my body's physics.

And I couldn't depend on using Pursuit Arrow for that. I needed control during the fight, not to turn into a fucking pinball before I landed on my back as an easy meal.

If I was a fighter jet blasting forward in one direction after another, then the snake was a helicopter zipping around with ease. My cultivation was the only reason I wasn't lunch.

Fangs approached from the top of me. When I jumped forward, the snake twisted, its whole body spinning around so that its head was suddenly in front of me. I got smashed out of the air again, landing awkwardly.

"Damn!" I shouted, dodging another bite of the jaws from my left by flying up, before the snake's tail swung from the right to slap me aside. I bounced off the ground for a bit, rolling along the stones and getting signals from across my body about the beating I'd taken.

When I landed, feeling like the pinball I'd imagined earlier and getting really pissed off, I got up in time for its open jaws ready to envelop my body, its fangs flashing. I channeled my Qi through me in a desperate move, pumping it through me to let me move faster. I shifted around so that my horns met its jaws. The large snake pushed me back, sending me sliding along the courtyard, leaves fluttering in our wake.

I slammed my claws into the stones, digging them in and holding on as best I could. The snake came to a stop, reptilian eyes glaring at me as its jaws fought to try and get past my horns. I held my horns apart in challenge, keeping it back.

Then I pushed myself at it with Pursuit Arrow helping, and it began to slowly get pushed back.

The snake seemed to give up on overpowering me, instead shifting his body with incredible speed to try and wrap around me. I leaped up and twisted my horns at the same time. Rather than holding the jaws back, my horns now clamped down, snapping the jaws down. I burst my wings open, flying forward into a front flip with the snake's head still in my grip. I twisted and landed, pulling the snake with me to slam him down on his belly.

I couldn't imagine what that looked like, a beetle grabbing a snake by the head and doing a WWE move on it.

While the snake was dazed, I adjusted my grip and clamped down around its neck at the junction just behind its head between my horns and squeezed down.

The snake immediately began to panic. Rolling around and slamming its body against the stones, it tried to get me to let go. I ignored its movement to keep squeezing down, crushing its throat. The snake rose up, then rushed forward, slamming into a podium holding the half-destroyed remains of a temple dog statue.

I landed on my feet and spun around with all my strength, using my grip on its body to bash the length of it against the podium, then flying forward in a burst of Pursuit Arrow, my wings buzzing angrily. My claws dug into the stone beneath me as I held the snake to the masonry.

"Quit," I growled through my mandibles. My Qi circulated through my body, a part of me making it flow through me, giving me strength. When the snake's wriggling body waved around and slapped into my body, my Qi let me weather the storm. I squeezed down, blood beginning to pour from where my horns cut into the scales. In a single powerful squeeze, I chittered out a final cry while challenging Qi through my horns. "JUST STOP!"

My horns sliced through the snake's flesh like scissors cutting a thick piece of meat. The snake's head landed on the floor while the body slid back, wiggling on its own. I staggered back, breathing hard.

"...Beetles… rule," I growled at the corpse.

My Qi flowing through me was lower than it had ever been.

That was my first time using Qi so heavily. Even practicing Pursuit Arrow hadn't caused me that much stress. Forcing my body to fight something so much naturally faster and stronger than me like that required every bit of my abilities. I took a step, then staggered briefly. I forced myself to keep moving towards the peach tree, stopping to grab my bag on the way. I pulled it behind me until I reached the base of the tree. Some peaches had fallen to the ground, a couple of them beginning to rot. I let my instincts take over and began to eat them.

The Qi from the fruit slowly flowed into my body with each bite. I circulated that energy through me, taking it in along with the ambient stuff around me. A perk of being a spirit beast was that I didn't need a cultivation technique to do it. Mid-way through the third peach, I went to a state of rest, my awareness slipping away.

And in my state of rest, I felt my skin begin to split.

---------

When I came back to myself, the first thing I did was grab the snake body and toss it out of the temple grounds. No need to leave it there. I did feel sorry for it though. The poor guy was just looking for food. Too bad for him I happened to make a bad choice of meal.