3, 2, 1, Igni-

I watched as Cass slowly breathed, pulling her Qi in around her. Over the last 2 weeks, she was very close to igniting, just a single push away. Her speech had been getting clearer and clearer, with full sentences, and she had been getting stronger.

That was good. Because she was getting a lot of reasons to gain strength. After that first encounter with the ants, I had started mapping things out. The entire west side of the forest was under attack by the damn things. They moved in numbers, chewing away at the trees, leaves, and other insects, leaving those Qi vacuums in their wake.

I had no clue how normal that kind of thing was for a Xianxia world. I was probably missing something. They didn't feel like they were spirit beasts at least. But sometimes I felt like they carried something, something savage. Something dar-

"Master!" Cass called out to me. That was new, her calling me master. I wasn't used to it yet. I drew my attention to her to feel her Qi was entirely within her, circulating and not a single bit of it flowing out. "I did it!"

"Yes you did! Good girl!" I called happily. The adorable bat girl wiggled happily and let out a squeal that was just a bit too high. "Okay, let's grab some food."

I flew up to the tree, Cass following more gracefully. And as we ate, I began talking to her again.

"Right now my goal is to get stronger, to get more life. But I'm starting to wonder if we have a duty I didn't realize." I swallowed another delicious bite of peach before continuing. Technically, the form of speech we used didn't need my mouth, but old habits die hard. "Those ants."

"Scary," she agreed immediately.

"They are. Ants aren't evil in my experience, but these ones feel wrong. Ants aren't exactly forest killers. They're vicious bastards, but they don't turn the lands they feed on into Qi vacuums. It's counterproductive… demonic." I scratched an itchy spot on my chitin where some dust had covered me, brushing it away. "What to do… What to do…"

Cass hummed. Finally she nodded. "Fly."

"Fly?" I looked over at her. She nodded vigorously, smiling.

Huh. Yeah, she was right. Maybe she just liked flying, which to be fair was awesome. But she was right, flying was the answer. We'd mapped out much of the forest now. Now we could work on getting stronger. I sadly didn't have a magic farm or a superpowered poison doctor teacher, or any of the other fun stuff the Xianxia characters I knew of had.

But I had the forest. The weirdly Qi rich forest right next to a straight up desert of Qi sucking ants.

"Okay girl. Let's fly. And I'll come up with more training exercises… And I think we should spar. What is it they call it? Trade pointers?"

I hopped down into the courtyard and turned to face Cass. "Come on, my disciple. Let's work off those calories, eh?"

Cass looked confused, but still dropped down to join me. After a brief moment, I nodded. "Okay. Begin."

"SCREEEE!" The confusion disappeared, and a look of fierce determination was followed by a burst of noise from her mouth. I jumped forward and over the surge of sound, gritting my non-existent teeth as the reverberations in the air shook through my body violently.

Yeah, a bat using sonics as a weapon made way too much sense. I pointed myself at her and used a burst of Pursuit Arrow to shoot forward, tackling Cass and sending her flying back. She snapped her wings out and stopped herself in the air, spinning to begin gliding around me. She let out another blast of sonic power. I ran despite not seeing anything, only to wince as the stones I had been standing on were hit hard enough to send chunks flying.

When had she come up with this stuff? Or was it pure instinct? Either way, sonic attacks were a smart way to strike. My beetle senses were good enough that I could hear the blasts coming before they launched, but they were obviously invisible, which ruled.

Plus, because they were sound, even dodging the brunt of it didn't stop me from getting hit with the shockwaves that followed. Well, not dodging. More just not being in the same spot when she was firing. I was able to move at above the speed of sound. Another reason the technique was good.

I ran along the floor on my six legs, Cass following from the air like a WW2 bomber, her sonic attacks smacking into the stone of the courtyard. Another burst of Pursuit Arrow brought me towards the Buddha statue in the back of the place, reaching the smiling depiction after running like a bat out of hell, ironically.

I climbed quickly up the statue and up to the head before jumping up to the ceiling above it. Cass rushed towards me as I ran upside down along the ceiling of the temple. Just before she released another blast, I let go of the ceiling, dropping downwards and letting my wings out while the sonic smacked into the ceiling.

Gliding through the air upside down, I ended up underneath Cass, who had time to squeak in surprise before I grabbed her, insect claws digging into fur.

Pursuit Arrow, aiming right.

True to form, my own technique went just a bit too hard, shoving me right but with a lot more force than it should have. Which dragged Cass along. We smashed into the ground with immense force. Desperately, she tried to blast me with a sonic blast, but I used Pursuit Arrow again, sending us up, then to the left in an uncontrolled burst of speed, smacking into one of the walls of the temple.

She finally managed to get me off with a brain rattling sonic attack. I let go of her, landing on my back and snapping my wings to bounce me up into the air and back on my feet to face her. Cass stared at me, looking a bit battered but otherwise okay.

Cass opened her mouth to attack, breathing in, but I burst forward, grabbing her head between my horns. She squeaked, her wings buffeting me as she tried to get me off.

"You went for the attack, but you should have created more distance," I said as I continued to hold her down. Despite her size, it was easy to keep her there. "Still, using your natural echolocation as a weapon was awesome. I think you just need to master maintaining distance."

I lifted her up, flipping in the air and suplexing her in a single move. Cass lay on her back, gasping in shock.

"Done?"

"Grrrr," Cass slowly rose up. Her eyes flashed with some kind of light. I felt her Qi coalesce. And in a single moment, it… exploded.

This time, when she prepared to launch a soundwave attack, it came with speed and violence it didn't have before. I weathered the storm as sonic waves bounced through me, smashing my body.

Cass gasped, surprised by her own power. Which gave me the chance to smash into her like a bullet, sending her bouncing off our peach tree. She scrambled, jumping up and flapping her wings.

She rocketed upwards into the sky, flying faster than ever, smashing through several branches. She twisted, trying to control her flight, only to go flying towards the ground. I caught her by flying under her before she could splatter herself against the floor, holding her on my back as she shuddered.

When I landed next to the peach tree, she tried to get off of me by leaning on it, only for her claws to slice deep into it by accident.

"Wh-What's happening?" Cass gasped. "What happened, why-"

"You ignited," I explained, lowering her gently. "From what I've heard, that kind of thing can be a lot. Especially for those with a lot of potential."

I was kind of bluffing with that. I didn't know how much potential you needed to be able to start throwing around waves of sonic force like bullets before you ignited, but it had to be high.

"Sit down. Focus on your Qi, breath slowly," I said, trying to sound like I knew what I was doing. "From what I remember, your strength, speed, and senses are all enhanced now, but you need to get used to them. I can easily guess why you ignited. I'm guessing this is the first time you ever fought someone?"

"Yes, Master," Cass said, breathing slowly as she laid down.

"...Animals don't spar. They battle for dominance, for food, for territory. Only cultivators spar with each other to strengthen each other. I'm guessing that's why you ignited." I flew up and cut a peach off the tree with my horns, impaling it on my top one and dropped down to hold it for her. "Eat. And smile. This is a great thing, Cass. You're a full on Spirit Beast now. You're doing amazingly, sweetie."

She stared at me. I'd always thought she was very 'aware' for an animal, beyond being able to think with human words. But this awakening made it something special. She gave me a bit of a smile, then hesitantly bit into the peach, eyes closing in pleasure. I wondered, for a moment, what it was like for someone who didn't have the memories of a human to guide them, to suddenly awaken to an awareness of the universe.

How did it compare to what her world had been like before?

I laid down to watch her eat, her eyes looking around between bites.

"After some rest, we can go for a flight. Figure out your new capabilities. Okay?"

"Yes, Master," she said, smiling happily at me.

Yeah… still wasn't going to get used to that.

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Before anything else, with Cass fully ignited now, I had something I wanted to do. After giving her a day to get used to her new strength, we headed out.

We flew east for a good while, over the lake with its strange Qi deep within, over miles of forest, then the line between forest and civilization, where towns and inns could be seen. It took me a bit to orient us the right way. But eventually we landed amongst the remains.

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Jinhai was Si Chou's friend, a gambling drunkard and a bit of a flirt. I liked him.

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"Master's master," Cass said, sounding awed as she stared at the grave before her. It was one of dozens before us, all buried in a field under the sun, on the edges of the forest. "What should I say?"

"Nothing, really," I said, looking across the place. "Or everything. When we talk to the dead, we have to remember the words are often for ourselves. The dead don't have our problems. I would hope they don't, at least."