Lying in Wait

"No, no, no! Just feel the energy, I know three year olds who could have sensed at least something by now!" Al whined for the third time that hour.

They'd been at this for half the day and had nothing to show for it. While the Nine Brilliant Suns Technique was truly a divine cultivation method with the benefits it provided, it was incredibly difficult to begin cultivating. The technique required cultivators to sense the energy radiated from the sun and draw it into one's body. If not properly controlled, it could burn through the meridians and essentially cripple them. The suns energy wasn't meant to be tamed and to do so required an exceedingly meticulously level of control.

Julian let out a sigh of frustration. He never was one to sit still and concentrate for this long. Probably because there was always something he had to do, mainly finding his next meal!

"This isn't working, I don't even know what it is I'm supposed to be feeling for!" Julian yelled kicking over some rocks in anger.

Truth to be told, Al was no less frustrated. It truly took for granted that it had been surrounded by geniuses of the highest class since birth. Everything came easy to them, and Al had never put much thought into how different cultivation could be for less talented practitioners.

Al thought for a while, letting out little hums trying to recall any off hand comments the flaming idiot had said over the years that could help. Finally, Al remembered something, "Isn't there a Volcano somewhere near here? I swear that I passed one somehere over this way."

Julian nodded and climbed the nearest tree. Upon reaching the top, he looks around until he sees the massive mountain directly south of him. He gulped as he realized how deep in the forest he was, though he was confused on why he hadn't ran into any other demonic beasts.

Al picked up on his thoughts and scoffed in disbelief, "If you would open your eyes and look at the tree your standing on, you'd know. I guess I'll have to teach you to be more observant if I want you to survive long enough to help me."

Ignoring the dig at him, Julian looked down and saw 3 claw marks slashed deep into the tree. It all clicked in his mind at that point, they were still in the armored bears territory.

"It's actually called a Rock Bear, and as long as we're in its territory we should be safe thank to you delivering such a big meal to its door step. How did you think I knew where to lead you earlier, its markings were on a lot of trees you passed." Al explained.

"It must be sleeping after eating such a large meal." Julian realized.

"Obviously," Al snorted before continuing it's earlier thought, "I do hope you haven't become too comfortable here, because we need to reach the top of that volcano if we want any hope of you starting your cultivation."

Julian looked confused, "What happened to 'perceiving the energy from the sun', it'll take days to reach the volcano. Wouldn't it make since to make some progress here before we risk heading anywhere else?"

"Do you think we're going sightseeing?" Al voiced in contempt, "If you weren't so slow in learning this method I wouldn't have even suggested it. What you need is a more clear example of the energy you need to refine. The man who gave me that technique often visited to get some healing pills for his disciples. I remember asking him once what he was doing to them that required a Divine grade pill, and he said it needed to be at least that strong in order to clear their lungs from smoke inhalation."

"Divine grade?" Julian eagerly inquired. Al had explained some basics of alchemy and combined what he'd already heard, he knew pills were divided into tiers and grades. Mortal pills encompassed 1st through 3rd tier pills. These pills are the most common you'll see and in fact Julian had once heard the king of Vestand himself once attended an auction that held a high-grade 3rd tier pill. Earth pills included 4th tier through 6th tier pills. Julian had never heard of anyone owning any Earth pills, but rumor has it that there exists an Earth Grade Alchemist in the Cloud-Dwelling Sect. As for Heaven pills, he'd not heard of them until Al had told him about them, but they included pills in the 7th through 9th tier.

"Did you really think alchemy stopped at heaven grade," Al asked looking at him like a he was a fool, "Alchemy is a never ending road, even I wouldn't claim to know everything about alchemy. Don't think to much about that know, it's still quite a ways away from you."

Al continued its previous train of thought, "Anyway, he'd told me that some of his less talented disciples needed a little bit of help sensing the energy from the sun, so he would take them to a volcano since it's energy was extremely similar to the suns energy and in much closer proximity making it easier to get a feel for what your looking for. I do remember him saying that he was glad that it was only to get them started, because otherwise he wouldn't be able to afford raising them."

Julians eyes bugged out and said, "Wouldn't I also suffer from smoke inhalation?"

"Of course not, We don't have that kind of luxury to abuse pills of that quality so we will have to camp a little further out." Al replied easing Julians nerves.

"While this may not be as fast, it's still way better than continuing as we are," Al explained, "Plus, we should be able to collect some ingredients along the way."

Julian perked up and asked, "Will we be refining pills?"

Laughter echoed in his head for a couple of seconds, "Of course not! We don't even have a furnace to use. No, we are collecting these ingredients to sell. While Alchemist are know to be extremely rich, the truth is that most of their money sinks right back into ingredients so they are also know as the profession that burns the most money."

Julian looked depressed at that. He'd been looking forward to not being poor anymore and was desperate to not have to worry about his next meal.

Shaking his head to clear his mind, Julian steeled himself and carefully exited the Rock Bear's territory making his way towards the mountain. Mt. Cinderdrift was a volcano located directly in the middle of the forest, thus being directly between Amber City and Cloud-Dwelling Sect. While its mostly inhabited by demonic beasts equivalent to Qi Condensation cultivators, it isn't unheard of for a foundation establishment level beast to appear every now and again before being hunted down by the Cloud-Dwelling Sect.

As he made his way thought the forest he was more and more thankful for Al. With the sparky spirit's wealth of advice, he was smoothly closing the distance between himself and the volcano.

"Stop!"

"What? What's wrong!?" Julian asked in panic. Al didn't reply and seconds ominously passed before he heard it say, "Head over to your right."

"The right?" Julian questioned, "But, the volcano is straight ahead."

"If you know that, don't you think i do!" Al snapped at him, "There's a fight over to your right."

Julian felt stupid as he asked, "Shouldn't we be heading... away from fights? I'm not even in the 1st stage of Qi condensation. What could we possibly hope to gain from watching some beasts fight?"

"Not just beasts," Al refuted, "Cultivators fighting beasts. In fact, sounds like a Mantis demon."

Julian mouth fell open, "That's even more reason not to go!"

"Don't be so cowardly within danger exist opportunity, besides it's not like you have to announce you've arrived. They're gonna be so caught up in fighting, they won't even notice you. In fact, this could be a good opurtunity to observe what real cultivators fighting looks like!" Al finished.

"I still don't think we should..." Julian tried to convince Al but was cutoff, "Plus, if your lucky you could get some supplies from the cultivators. After all, most cultivators keep up to a months provisions in their storage ring."

The sound of food made Julian perk up, but had to ask, "What's a storage ring?"

Al let out a loud sigh of frustration, "what does it sound like foolish child? It's a ring that stores. A storage ring! And since these belong to cultivators they might have some other good things in them as well."

Julians eyes sparkled at that. He wasn't opposed to a bit of robbery. He giddly ran towards the direction Al pointed out and soon could hear loud fighting. He came upon a bush he could hide in and got his first look at the situation.

There were three people standing across from a praying mantis that was almost 12-foot tall. There were two men and one woman a little bit older than him all dressed in the same style of robes. The oldest looked to be around 20 and had a large broadsword almost as big as him. He was littered with cuts but they all seem to be superficial. The other man's injuries were much more severe. His robes were in tatters, and he had a large gash across his back that was bleeding profusely. He seemed to barely be holding on to a dagger in a reverse grip and seemed like a swift breeze could topple him over. The girl wasn't injured in the slightest, though that could be from her standing behind everyone. She dint carry any weapon but seemed to have multple little balls that she seemed to be urging the injured man to take.

'That's the symbol for the Cloud-Dwelling Sect!' Julian thought silently so only Al could hear.

"Please Senior Brother, take the pills!" The girl cried desperately. The man merely shook his head, "It wouldn't do anything other than quicken my death. Don't you remember, I already took a healing pill earlier. Anymore and it would only poison me."

The girl cried as she clenched the pills in her hand, "There must be something! I can't just be useless here."

"It'll be okay Junior Sister," the oldest man soothed, "We just bit off more than we could chew. The sect should have seen our distress signal and be here soon."

'Shit!' Julian cursed, 'It seems reinforces are already on the way. I should leave while i still can."

Al scolded in his head, 'Wait just a minute, I still don't hear anyone close yet. Even if I can only use your poor hearing, it should be more than enough to know when to leave. The mantis is getting ready for a big attack , if they live through it we will leave, clear?'

Julian reluctantly nodded his head and watched as faster than he could keep up with the mantis' blade like arms swung down. The oldest man swung his broadsword with surprising swiftness and smacked one of the arms away. The mantis' other arm continued unopposed and even though the man jerked his head away, it still sliced open his forehead.

Blood quickly started pouring down the man's face and clouding his left eyes vision. He retreated by jumping backwards in order to clear his vision. Of course the mantis wouldn't let that happen and winded his scythe like arm to cut the man in half, but instead swung it down to the right and clashed with the younger man who's dagger had been closing in on the mantis' unprotected side.

Clearly caught off guard, the younger man couldn't react when the next slash took his leg off. With a scream of pain the man toppled to the ground as blood splurged out from his severed limb.

"SENIOR BROTHER!" The girl screamed and made a mad dash towards the man, scooping up his dagger and throwing it at the beast. Her tactic worked as the knife luckily sliced open an eye on the mantis and it tumbled back in pain.

The girl took a defensive position directly in front of the man and was joined by the older man. The girl pulled out a blood red whip. The older man seemed to have tied a piece of cloth around his head and headed his broadsword in a ready position.

The younger man wailed in pain and cried out, "Just leave me! You two can escape while its eating me, I won't blame you unless you join me as it's dinner!"

"Oh shut your whining Alexander!" The older man laughed, "Reinforcements are coming so just save your energy and try not to bleed out too much."

The girl spoke in a serious tone, "My cultivation might be lower than yours, and I may not be much of a fighter, but I promise I'll protect you Senior Brother!"

"Dahlia..." Alexander choked out with emotion. He saw both of them charge the monster before his head started teetering in and out of consciousness from blood loss. The last thing he saw was a man with his head wrapped grab his hand.

Hoping help had arrived he managed to slur out, "H..elp t-t...hem..."

"Sorry." Was all he heard in response, and Alexander finally passed out.