Chapter 29 - The two strange sisters

"So, how old are you?" Jack asks Leah but she coldly snorts at his question and ignores him.

"Where is your house?" Jack asks Leah again, yet again she replies with a cold snort. He tries a few more questions but she replies in the exact same manner each time leaving Jack quickly frustrated and unable to do anything so Jack turns his attention to the little girl that's still wrapped around his arm.

As they have been travelling on Sleipner, the girl has not let up her grip on his arm sometimes licking his bite wound in her sleep. It's a very odd situation for Jack to be in as he hasn't had to deal with kids this age in sometime plus there's the fact that she is able to wrap him up in vines that he can't escape from.

Getting an idea for something to ask Leah, Jack asks her "Why does Mai seem to like my blood?".

Leah frowns at this question but she truly doesn't know the answer either, "This sovereign does not need to tell you lowly human the reason why but to humour you, I will answer you" as she finishes speaking, Jack can feel a slight prick on the back of his neck as a drop of blood flows out before the opening is quickly sealed as if it never existed.

The droplet of blood is floating in the air before Leah, the blood itself looks like nothing out the ordinary just a red droplet. Leah inspects it visually while frowning, she isn't able to see anything special about it. Touching it yields no results and taking a quick look to Jack to make sure he isn't watching; she consumes the droplet of blood.

Almost immediately she is able to sense something strange about the blood as it's absorbed into her body, the barrier that she feels towards the next stage of her cultivation has loosened slightly while a strange qi quietly integrates into her body causing it to become slightly purified including her qi. She is shocked that this small drop of blood is able to cause all of these changes within her body but she doesn't show it.

"Your blood is infected with goblin poison, maybe that's why she likes your blood" Leah responds while pretending to spit out the blood, a vicious glint enters her eyes upon looking at Jack, if she is able to harvest all of his blood then her cultivation should progress by leaps and bounds perhaps even breaking directly into the next stage instead of taking 100s of years.

She pushes these thoughts out of her head because that isn't something that she would actually do, shaking her head she returns to normal and loses that vicious glint in her eyes, looking away from Jack she is able to see Drakon looking at her with a serious expression. Coldly turning her eyes away from Drakon, she returns them to Jack and then her sister.

"Oh, the goblin poison, maybe that's why I feel slightly better after losing so much blood" Jack replies light-heartedly, he doesn't truly believe her reasoning because Sleipner and Fenrir both submitted to him upon tasting his blood too. He's secretly hoping that he will get a prompt from the little girl saying that she has submitted to him.

"So, you two don't really look like sisters" Jack wants to continue so he asks her this question that has been on his mind.

"We're not really sisters, I found Mai many years ago and after being unable to find where she came from, we just started calling each other sister…"

"You're not really sisters… so that's why you look so different, I was waiting for you to wrap me up in vines at some point too" Jack jokes with her, she gets angry but just blushes slightly and doesn't respond.

The group continue on their journey, Jack continues to tease Leah sometimes while Mai sleeps wrapped around his arm, Drakon and the cavalry are just left to watch this comical situation play out.

Back in the village, Jessica has finished in the tailor and is quietly awaiting Jack's return when she brings out the flute and starts to play, it's quite rough to begin with but quickly returns to her melodic style causing the whole village to be engulfed in the sounds of this flute.

Jessica's vision shifts to the luan birds that are still just randomly flying around the region, they're high in the sky currently giving a great view of the whole region, the barrier that stops movement from region to region is clearly visible. This barrier will stay until someone unifies the region or something else happens to cause it to terminate early, region travel is possible within system cities but it's very restricted.

The luan birds shift slightly and their vision is now on Dragon – Phoenix Village's area, the village is coming together quickly, it has only been a week or so since they started to seriously develop it but there are already roads, buildings, farming area and even the goblin village with soldiers riding back and forth between the two villages.

There are numerous wolves hiding within the brush near the goblin village almost acting uncontrollably but they're suppressed by the soldiers quite easily. The goblins are still just getting their village ready or digging within the big pit they have started; a huge amount of the poisonous substance has been gathered not too far away looking like it's slightly moving about.

Jessica's vision shifts to the mining village, not much has change there except several houses have collapsed from the sword light and subsequent fire, Amber is within the streets madly whipping at all of her people causing Jessica to start to laugh at this ridiculous sight: a single woman with a crazed look whipping a group of 20 rough and tough looking men and they're all cowering in fear.

Jessica tells herself to make sure to never get on the other side of the whip while her vision yet again shifts, this time it's on a strange grouping of ice that is not too far away from Dragon – Phoenix Village, the ice that was used to seal the strange doorway that Jack found.

Her vision lingers on the ice for a few moments when she can feel her mind slowly being drawn towards it as though some sort of darkness is taking a hold of her consciousness. Her vision focuses on the ice as it appears closer and closer, suddenly a dark hand can be grabbing towards her. The luan birds make a loud flapping sound as Jessica is drawn away from the dark hand, suddenly she feels entirely weak and powerless as her mind races to figure out what was going on.

She isn't able to figure out any answers with her limited knowledge of cultivation and will ask someone about it in the future, this area is very close to the village and if it was able to draw her consciousness away from high in the sky like that it's likely to be very dangerous. Jessica steadies her mind and her vision shifts again, this time it's to the kobold village area.

Two of the kobold villages have already packed up and are heading towards another village, Morax's village where DeeYo is located while the remaining kobold village is in the midst of gathering all of the resources, Jessica isn't entirely sure what's going on but she can feel herself drawn to somewhere close by and quickly spots Jack riding Sleipner.

Jessica quickly lets out a smile, she wants to yell out to Jack to let him know that she can see him but upon looking closer, is able to see two new women that are close to him. Instantly her mind starts to race with trying to work out where these two women would come from but she isn't able to work it out, Jack said that he was going to capture a kobold village not find two new women.

She feels stifled because she already said that Amber was an option for Jack but he wasn't happy with that it seems. Her mind starts to get agitated as her concentration slips and her vision fades slowly back to her own, the flute playing has turned quite wretched with feelings of jealousy and confusion intermixed in the melody.

Putting away the flute, she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly to calm down, "Little chick, why am I not enough for him? Is it because I won't let him do what he wants?" she talks to the little chick that is peering out of her shirt, looking at her with a puzzled expression.

"I can't let him do that stuff because it will ruin my cultivation and stop me from getting strong, he is going to be stronger than anyone, I can feel it within my heart that's true but I have to be there next to him when he gets there!" Jessica finishes her sentence almost yelling with tears developing, bearing out her heart to the chick that is still just looking at her puzzled.

Taking a few more deep breaths, she strokes the little chick's head letting her emotions settle, the little bird letting out a few cute noises which causes Jessica to smile, her vision looks around the tent that she currently shares with Jack her gaze landing upon the pillow that Jack uses, she just wants to climb into bed and cuddle with the pillow.

"No, I can't be useless, I have to keep up with him" Jessica mutters as if she is deciding on a course of action. She adjusts her seating position as she starts to quietly cultivate within the tent, her cultivation method is vastly different to Jacks as she cultivates the Phoenix Empire cultivation technique.

This cultivation technique will at its peak allow people to transform into a phoenix, enhancing their bodies and allowing people to almost become immortal but very few people have cultivated to that stage, it's plenty powerful at the lower stages allowing partial phoenix transformation and special flame controlling skills but everyone dreams of arriving at that upper stage.

Jessica's body is slowly engulfed in a white flame, the same type of flame of Jack's second flame. Strangely the room doesn't increase in temperature almost as if this flame doesn't exist, but if you were to touch the flame engulfing her body you would quickly find yourself losing that body part.

This lasts a few moments before the flame disappears, frowning she tries again and the same process is repeated except this time the flame engulfing her is much larger, previously it was like she was seated on a campfire now it's like she's sitting within an industrial forge. It's so large that a hole has developed on the tent exposing the daylight giving her a majestic appearance, her red-blonde hair shimmering in the light as it dances about in the flames.

Suddenly her clothes start to burn away, her mind is concentrating on cultivation as she needs to control this flame, the first stage of her cultivation is controlling the temperature of her flame. If she masters controlling this giant flame, she could move onto the second stage which is forming shapes with the flame.

Her clothes slowly disappear into nothingness including the black iron wool underwear that she had been making within the tailor, her body isn't covered with anything and that includes the little bag the chick is usually sleeping within.

The little chick is hovering within the white flame that is engulfing Jessica and if one were to look closer, they would see the little chick's eyes are closed as if it is also cultivating within the flame. It truly is cultivating because it's a little phoenix chick, it has been sleeping within Jessica's bosom because she has a massive amount of phoenix qi within her body that slowly leaks out allowing the Phoenix chick to slowly absorb and get stronger otherwise it will take 1000s of years for the chick to gather the same amount of qi.

As the two of them continue to cultivate like this, we return to Jack who has been riding with Leah and Mai. Jack has continued trying to ask questions to Leah but very rarely gets an answer, he doesn't take it to heart and just asks the most mundane questions.

"Do you know what that tree is called?" Jack asks Leah, she doesn't even snort at him anymore she just directly ignores him.

"That tree is called Joseph" a small voice can be heard coming from Jack's lap, looking down Mai has her eyes partially open as if she's still incredibly sleepy while yawning still.

"Sleepy-head is awake, your sister was worried I did something to you, hurry up and tell her you're fine" Jack speaks to Mai not forgetting to tease Leah still.

Mai stretches her body and peers behind Jack at Leah who is eyeing Mai with very cold eyes, angry that she is put in this situation. Mai almost immediately shrinks back down into Jack's lap hugging his arm again, looking up at him somewhat pitifully.

Jack starts to laugh from this reaction and teases Leah again, "Looks like your sister has a new favourite".

"Mai why did you run away to this smelly foul-mouthed human?" Leah asks blushing after hearing Jack's words.

"Sorry elder sister, I just smelled something really good and couldn't help myself, I know you wanted to avoid humans right now because it's that time of the year…" Mai replies while yawning and nestling into Jacks armpit.

"Mai! What are you talking about?" Leah almost shouts, her head becoming bright crimson.

"Time of the year?" Jack questions aloud towards no one in particular.

"Yeah she has been grumpy because she has been trapped in this region to become something called a 'region beast' and earlier she was talking about how annoying it is that her breeding time is happening while trapped here because this region doesn't have the item to suppress her.." Mai tries to explain but she's suddenly cut off as an energy bolt from somewhere hits her on the head.

"MAI SHUT UP!" Leah almost screams.

"Ow that hurt….. Sister you should mate with this man, his blood is so yummy" Mai says while rubbing her head.

"MAI!"

"Sister you said that any man that mates with you, you will be with them forever so if you and him mate then that means he will be around you and me forever and I can always have some of his yummy blood" Mai explains and licks Jacks bloody wound on his bicep.

Jack has no idea what to say this is a conversation between the two of them about him, that they're having while he's sitting in between them. He scratches his head and doesn't know what to say so he picks up on one of the few things Mai mentioned that weren't about mating or his blood.

"You're the region beast?"

"She is actually a cute little sable, you should see how pretty she looks" Mai says between yawns, closing her eyes again.

"A sable? What's that? Can I see it?" Jack hasn't travelled very much in the northern hemisphere before and hasn't actually seen a sable before, he has heard about them before but 90% of his animal knowledge is Australian animals.

"NO!" Leah loudly exclaims and disappears from the back of Sleipner, appearing in a tree with a bright red face above the group before disappearing into the distance. Jack furrows his brows at this reaction, he hopes that he didn't annoy her too much.

"She's really cute…" Mai says before drifting off into sleep again. 'You're both really cute when you act like this' Jack mutters inwardly before the group continue their travels to the kobold village that is now within their sight.

DeeYo has organised the first kobold village and is just about to set out towards Dragon – Phoenix village when he spots Jack riding with Sleipner and upon greeting him as "Dragon Lord Sir" finds out that there are another 3 kobold villages joining the procession soon.

DeeYo feels renewed respect for Jack as he was able to subdue another 3 kobold villages so quickly, he feels justified in his decision to submit to Jack even if he is currently very weak there is potential to become great.

Jack leaves DeeYo to handle all of the kobolds while he discusses with Drakon about what to do, he isn't sure about going back to Dragon – Phoenix village with Mai still attached to him and Leah undoubtedly following from a distance. They decide after a round of discussion that it doesn't really matter, Leah will be able to find their village easily and Mai seems to be able to detect his blood from a distance.

The village isn't strong enough to stop nearly anyone from attacking it if they decided to and there might be a benefit, if Leah decides to stay around the village then they will have an extra layer of protection. Jack agrees with this view and instead of waiting around for the kobolds, Jack decides to leave Drakon to handle everything while he heads back to the village with the cavalry.

Jack, Mai and the two heavy cavalry make their way back while Leah follows them unseen from a distance, quickly making their way to the village where Jack feels that he will have a problem of introducing the two new girls to Jessica but he isn't too worried as she has never been jealous of other women before and even wants to push him onto Amber, little does he know what's waiting for him…