chapter 27

At the end of day one, the group set camp, they didn't know how far the camp is and decided to pace themselves.

"NEVER GO OUT ALONE! We don't have anyone strong, we'll have three of us stay on guard and swap halfway through the night, is that fine?" A fairly strong man spoke, unlike the rest he was not a weak crafter but used to be the strongest in their town.

However, he had lost his right arm fighting a monster, a testament to how strong he was even against a monster he only lost an arm, not his life. He was tall and muscular but older maybe fifty or so.

He naturally became the leader since while he couldn't fight too much he was still better and had more experience than the artisans.

"I.. I'll volunteer to stay up first, if that's alright sir Hamar" one of the artisans meekly raised his hand, and with his courage emboldened, volunteered to stay up.

If any monster was spotted then he would need to warn everyone and possibly fight it off.

"Perfect, courageous man aren't ya, anyone else? Since there's fifteen of us, let's say three people should stay up." Hamar praised the artisan who willingly volunteered but scowled at the rest. Not that he blamed them though, they were not fighters.

The group was silent so Hamar pointed at two randomly and told them they would stay up, then he pointed at another three and said halfway through the night they'd switch.

After all the administrative problems were solved, the group got into working on their crafts, drinking, and chatting. They had a little while before the sunset and they would go to sleep.

Halfway through the night, in the near pitch darkness, the three selected for the latter half guard duty were whispering when suddenly a swooshing was heard!

The group looked up and saw something flying in the dark, their hearts started racing and they quietly woke Hamar up and reported what they heard and saw.

"Probably a bat, but to be safe I'll stick with you for the rest of the night, good thing not waking everyone up" Hamar approved of their actions and grabbed his sword walking out of his tent.

Above the skies, Hou flew out in the middle of the night. In addition to training his flight, he was also testing controlling his body. He had set up the blood dome and left his body to move away from his inner world.

He had decided to check how far the group coming to join were now and he would bring them back himself to start working.

Hou activated his eye parasites and saw through the pitch darkness, seeing a group of fifteen or so, he could see some outside but most were in tents.

'At this pace it'll take another two days, I'll bring them back tommorow, maybe I can make a rough saddle for Da so they can all ride on top, no I don't think I have the crafting skill for that. Tommorow I'll see them myself with flight and ask if they could make a saddle'

Hou thought for a while, making up a plan for tommorow.

The night passed in the group of artisans and nothing occurred it seems whatever they saw was nothing.

"We'll go a little further today, everyone start packing, by midday I want us moving!" Hamar shouted, making noise to wake everyone up.

Just as midday was approaching and everyone was starting to move a figure was seen in the sky.

Bright red hair reflecting the sun, the miasma around him seemed to disappear letting the sun illuminated his beautiful red hair and green leaf wings.

It was Hou, flying towards them with Da in his hands just about pushing the wings to their maximum. Even when Da was shrunk he was still heavy, Hou used his symbiote as the same time to make sure he wouldn't run out of miasma qi, the effect this have was miasma disappearing around him while sunlight glowed from his torso.

Hou stopped flying and started to glide downwards towards the group, they all had awed faces with their mouths gaped.

Even Hamar was dumbstruck, he had seen those with symbiotes but they were rare and the vast majority could only make you stronger. This was a completely different experience he had never seen before.

Hou landed softly greeting the group of shocked travellers,

"Hi nice to meet you all properly, any of you artisans? More specifically carpenters and blacksmiths? And don't worry I'll make sure you're taken care of" Hou quicky added on his last point, reasoning that if any artisans left it would be because of bad conditions. He shook his hands showing he had no I'll intentions.

Hamar shocked his head and reached his hand out towards Hou.

"Well I'll be, you don't seem like a bad guy, hopefully we all made the right choice to come to you!" Hamar greeted Hou with a bright smile and a rough handshake.

Hou took his hand and gave a firm squeeze.

"Yes there are some crafty fellows here, to what ends you askin' the question?"

"I saw you guys were making slow progress, last night I actually flew nearby, hopefully I didn't scare any of you. I wondered if you could make a large saddle with area for you all to sit on, for this guy" Hou gestures towards the dog he had in his hands.

He let him drop and then it let out a mist and grew massively tall, taller than the trees around.

"Well I'm sure we could do that, but what about compensation?" A carpenter stood up, the one who volunteered initially.

"To clarify I know you will protect us and we should help you but we'll have to rush if you want to do it fast, not to mention procuring the materials" The young artisan quickly clarified to not potentially anger Hou.

"Well there's no need to worry about materials, I'll help with that but otherwise I'm sure you will be pleased, I'll give you sect contributions points!"

"...Sect contribution points?"