The Phoenix Aspect

C0020: The Dark Forest

The pages in the old man's diary that had been glued together contained information about a small cave the old man had discovered. According to the journal, it was on his last trip into the Dark Forest that the old man had stumbled across the small cave. Just after entering the small cave he had heard the sounds of people close by, not wanting to share his newly found treasure he quickly left the cave, upon leaving he erected a powerful ward to prevent anyone else from discovering the cave.

Unfortunately for the old fellow, he ran into a group of unsavory mercenaries, who upon seeing that he was all alone, attempted to rob him. Fighting his way through their ranks, he was severely injured.

Looking at the last pages, Jayde could see that the brown substance that had glued the pages together was old blood. These pages must have been his last entry, thought Jayde, but once again the old man had come through for Jayde, not only did he leave a map to the cave, but he also mentioned that he had found a small horde of dwarven dark gold.

In his diary he also mentioned that he sensed something extraordinary in the cave, he theorized it was some sort of divine treasure or artifact. Jayde was really excited that she had a lead to the dwarven dark gold that she needed as well as some kind of treasure.

Jayde was especially pumped up about her new adventure into the Dark Forest, not only was she going to collect the herbs that she so desperately needed to advance to the copper stage, but she would also be gathering the herbs required to earn points, and now she was only going treasure hunting.

Early the next morning Jayde set off for the Dark Forest, after exiting the tunnel, she followed the overgrown path, and soon entered an area that she hadn't explored before.

Moving cautiously, but with a modest speed Jayde made significant progress, she was headed to the cave that the old man had left a map too, but it wasn't long before she encountered danger.

Facing her was a taurussoos, it was a large bull type creature, with massive horns on the side of its head, it's skin was three times thicker than an earth rhinoceros, it had four large ivory teeth sticking out of its mouth, and worst of all it was notoriously bad-tempered. The only good thing according to the old man's notes was while it was quite vicious it was slow moving.

The taurussoos attacked, it lowered its head and rushed towards Jayde trying to impale her. Jayde reacted immediately, swiftly leaping away. Jayde spun into a low crouch, withdrawing her sword, she waited, tense, watching for the taurussoos to spin around.

Jayde channeled her fire magic through her body, as her fire magic flared her body was surrounded in dancing flames. Channeling her magic into her sword, Jayde's sword was soon encased in a fiery orange aura.

The taurussoos eyed Jayde warily. Jayde feinted to the left, the taurussoos charged. Jayde burst into action, Jayde knew that the taurussoos' head was too hard, keeping low her sword flashed in the sunlight, as Jayde aimed for the taurussoos' ankles.

Scarlet blood arched in the air, as Jayde's swords slashed across the taurussoos's ankles aiming for its tendons. The taurussoos' bellow filled the air.

Leaping away from the taurussoos, Jayde hit the hard ground shoulder-first, she rolled — and flipped to her feet. f**k, I missed, Jayde thought as she saw the taurussoos spin around to face her. Moving incredibly quickly the taurussoos charged her. Jayde leaped and hit the ground on her right side, then using one hand she flung herself up. She landed skidding on the dirt ground on her feet.

While Jayde was moving quickly, she, however, wasn't fast enough, and the taurussoos crashed into her side. The mighty blow tossed her across the small clearing, and she crashed into a trunk of a large tree. Jayde heard the sound of a crack —from the tree, thank the gods, it was not her bones—and she slumped to the ground, her magical shield faded.

If this had happened before awakening her magic, she would be dead. Her magic-strengthened body, however, was more robust now. She gasped for breath, forcing herself up to her feet, and called her magic, raising her fire shield again.

Her fire magic enhanced her senses—including her sense of pain—the sudden shock cleared her mind. Jayde's side throbbed where she’d been struck. But she couldn’t stop. Not with a taurussoos charging her again.

She flashed to the side, ignoring her pain, desperately Jayde leaped onto it back, condensing all her fire magic into her sword, and using all her strength she plunged the sword down into the back of the taurussoos.

Absolutely furious that some puny human had hurt it, the taurussoos went mad, bucking and smashing into trees, Jayde tried to hold on, but was finally dislodged from the taurussoos back.

Landing hard on the ground, Jayde was winded but had no time to catch her breath, quickly rolling away from the deadly hooves that were about to smash her head, Jayde backflipped onto her feet. Turning to face the raging taurussoos, Jayde brace her legs slightly apart, eyes narrowed in steely determination, wiping the blood dripping from her mouth with the back of her hand, she prepared herself to face the beast.

The taurussoos eyes were shaded red, swirling with madness. Steam billowing from its nostrils as it charged towards Jayde. Without a moment's hesitation Jayde stepped forward to meet it attacks, gracefully dancing out of the way, she stabbed her sword forward, directly penetrating the taurussoos eye, using all her strength, she pushed the sword through the eye socket directly into the brain.

Quickly flashing away, Jayde watched the taurussoos as its front legs collapsed, then the rest of the body fell to the ground with a mighty crash.

Seeing that the taurussoos was finally dead, leaning slightly over Jayde braced her hands on her bent knees and tried to catch her breath. The fight was a lot closer than she expected, these spirit beasts were really tough. This taurussoos was only a level two ranked beast, Jayde was now starting to understand why most people avoided the Dark Forest.

Jayde by now was disheveled, her clothes were covered in dust and grass as well as small splatters of blood, blood splattered her face, but Jayde was satisfied with her accomplishment. Wearily Jayde sank to the ground, retrieving a healing potion from for spatial ring, Jayde lifted the bottle to her lips and gulped the bitter-tasting medicine. Almost immediately the throbbing pain in her side started to subside.

After catching her breath, Jayde walked up to the taurussoos, taking out her sharp dagger she skinned it, then dug out its spirit stone. After spending a couple of hours butchery its meat, she then stored everything in her spatial ring.

Taking out one of the gourds filled with water, Jayde washed the blood off her hands and face, she then quickly moved away from the carcass, she wanted to far away from the body before predators were attracted to the smell. It was nearly sunset, moving swiftly she soon found a place to make camp.

With the old man ward stones, Jayde was able to set up a simple ward that would protect her from the beast in the outer perimeter. After getting a campfire going, Jayde took out some of the taurussoos meat, adding some spices and salt, Jayde used a sharp stick to skewer the meat, she then placed the meat over the fire to barbecue.

After a month of just eating elven wafer bread, Jayde was sick and tired of it, so she thoroughly enjoyed her hard-earned barbecue.

Tired from her first day in the Dark Forest, Jayde made her way into her tent and fell asleep.

For the next ten days, Jayde continuously moved in the direction of the small cave, collecting herbs that she needed. When Jayde came across any herb listed on the inter-dimensional market, she would carefully dig it out the whole plant, being careful not to damage the roots, and then replant them into pots she had whittled out of wood.

She had a plan — that as soon as she could afford to — she would purchase the herb garden upgrade available in the Pavilion and then replant these herbs. Exchanging herb on the inter-dimensional market was a sure-fire way for her to earn points, at least until she could start to take on missions through the inter-dimensional mercenary board.

Thankfully from the old guy's notes on herbology, she had picked up quite a bit of knowledge about taking care of herbs, and to her delight, she had found that she had quite the green thumb when it came to growing things. Jayde also found a strange sense of peace in dealing with her plants, in the federation she had never had the opportunity to garden as she discovered that tending and caring for these plants soothed her soul.

At the last river she had camped at, Jayde was lucky to have found over five dozen lily pods. Lily pods were one of the treasures of the Dark Forest, they were a type of plant, that grew in the rivers and lakes of the Dark Forest, no-one knew where they came from, but legend says that a visitor from the Upper Realm brought it with him when he visited the Lower Realm.

Lily pods were shaped like a gourd, with a plug at the top of the lily pod, which you could open and close. The liquid contained inside the lily pod was filled with spiritual water, not only was this spiritual water great for replenishing a person's qi, but it also had a mild healing effect and could help with one's cultivation. Jayde had discovered by accident though that the most exciting benefit of the lily pod, was that if one were to place a cutting of a plant within the pod, the plant would quickly start to produce roots.

Jayde had spent two days at the river edge, making herself a couple of shelves from trees that she cut down, then opening fifty of the lily pods, she had decided to keep ten lily pods for herself to use, she made cuttings of all the herbs listed on the inter-dimensional market. Since she had read in the old man's herbology book that the 'plug' of the lily pods was in actual fact the seed of the plant, and if returned to water it would reproduce, Jayde threw all the plug lids back into the river.

When not busy with tending to her plants, and building shelves Jayde spent her time quietly sitting on the river bank fishing. In the evenings she would grill some fish over her campfire while watching the spectacular sunsets.

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During the next ten days besides from picking herbs, Jayde ran into quite a number spirit beasts. At the beginning of her adventure, the creatures were quite challenging to kill, and each battle was drawn out, with Jayde sustaining quite many injuries.

Through her daily battles, Jayde's fighting prowess was increasing, and she was also becoming more familiar with her fire magic. It had been difficult initially for Jayde to rely on using magic during combat, as it was something she was really unfamiliar with, but now she had started to trust in her magic, and combined with her martial skills she was finding that she longer struggled with the spirit beasts. With her daily usage of her fire magic, her cultivation was growing in leaps and bounds, and Jayde could feel that she was approaching the threshold of the barrier to the second rank.

That evening after Jayde had made camp, Jayde contacted Isha. She was worried that she would have to delay her cultivation as she was still two weeks away from the cave. Jayde asked Isha if she could use the Pavilion to breakthrough again. Getting his confirmation that it would fine and that she wouldn't be breaking the rules, Jayde set her mind at ease and went all out in the next two days to reach the barrier.

It was on the night of the twelfth day that Jayde felt that she could finally make her breakthrough. Teleporting directly to the Pavilion, Isha opened up the small initial room that she had used previously for her to enter. This time her breakthrough was easier and quicker. After advancing to the second rank, Jayde exited the small room.

Walking over to Isha, Jayde then retrieved all herbs and spirit stones that Isha required for making the potion to heal her dantian from her spatial ring. After handing the items, Isha left to concoct the potion needed. Jayde then walked over to the screen on the wall and activated the inter-dimensional market. Selecting the herb section, Jayde managed to make over twenty trades with the herbs she had available.

While waiting for her trade goods to arrive via the exchange system, Jayde spent that time transplanting her seedlings in the lily pods to the newly vacated wooden pots. Using some of the spirit water she watered her new plants, as according to the herbology book she had read this would speed up the growth of her plants.

After she spent some time sorting out her spatial ring, the inter-dimensional market pinged her that her goods were ready. Collecting just over a hundred Qi gathering pills, Jayde immediately traded these for points. Jayde also managed to sell some of the skins, beast blood and spirit stones that she collected.

As alchemists were rare in many dimensions, Jayde was able to earn a considerable number of points, and while spirit stones were not that valuable, the beast skins and beast blood were pretty valuable as they were used to create magical rune scrolls.

Once Jayde had completed all her trade she was pleasantly surprised to have found that she had earned herself two hundred and twenty-five points, and including her five points saved she now had two hundred and thirty points.

Since Isha still had not returned with the potion to repair her dantian, Jayde decided to purchase more body modifications, looking through the list available, she chose the healing upgrade for fifteen points, the bone strengthening upgrade for ten points, the body strength modification for fifteen points and finally the skin toughening for ten points. While a bit expensive Jayde thought it was fifty points well spent.

Selecting to have the upgrades installed immediately, Jayde walked into the medical bay and climbed into the medical pod. Two hours later all the DNA modifications Jayde had purchased were completed successfully, and Jayde started to fell a bit more like her old self.

With her new modifications, Jayde's body natural healing ability had increased by twenty-five percent, her bones by fifteen percent, her physical strength by twenty-five perfect and her skin had toughened by twenty percent.

Jayde was happy to find out that her skin was still soft and supple after the skin strengthening, it was just a lot tougher making it more difficult to cut. After testing out her new body, Jayde was thrilled with her new physique, and with the increase in her magical abilities due to her breakthrough, her fire spells were twice as powerful as before. Jayde also noticed that she could maintain her fire shield for much longer now as well, and she could release nearly triple the number of fireballs.

After leaving the medical bay, Jayde found Isha waiting for her hold a glass flask containing a bright green liquid.

Giving Jayde a once over, Isha smiled slightly. "Ah I see you have been busy," he said handing over the flask to Jayde. He had noticed how much Jayde physique had changed and was startled that she had managed to accumulate so many points so swiftly.

"Take this potion quickly, as the effect will fade soon, but be prepared it will be painful when your Qi pool expands," he said cautiously.

Holding the flask in her hand, Jayde took a deep breath, then lifting the bottle to her lips she quickly drank it all. To say that it tasted vile would be an understatement. It was the most disgusting thing that Jayde had ever had in her entire life — and that was saying something as once when she was stranded on a planet during a mission — she had eaten raw voles — a small stinky ratlike creature.

Isha had not been lying about it being a painful experience, as soon as the concoction was absorbed, massive cramps hit Jayde dantian, the pain became so intense that Jayde felt like throwing up. A sudden weakness overcame Jayde, losing all her strength in her legs, she had no choice but to lie down on the floor, while Isha looked on sympathetically.

Gritting her teeth and holding back the bile bubbling up into her throat, Jayde tried to breath her way through the pain assaulting her.

Cold sweat dripped down her pale face, the muscles and tendons on her neck stood out sharply as Jayde gritted her teeth to stop herself from screaming. Lost in the throes of pain, Jayde lost track of time, as she tried to just make it through the next wave of pain. Since Jayde had her eyes closed just concentrating on getting through the pain without screaming, she didn't realize that vast amounts of Qi energy flowed and danced around her, slowly sinking into her skin without her being aware of it.

After what felt like an eternity, just as Jayde thought that the pain would never end a massive tremor hit her dantian, then suddenly.

Boom!

As just like that all the pain vanished. Still feeling too weak to stand, Jayde rolled onto her back and just lay on the floor —panting — trying to gather her strength. While lying on the floor, Jayde was curious about what changes had happened to her dantian. Concentrating she let her consciousness enter her body, and directing her mind to her dantian she had a peep at what changes had occurred.

Her dantian was no longer the size of a small child's fist, it had nearly doubled in size, and the color had changed from that awful grey color, it was now a soft shimmery gold, what really amazed Jayde was that her dantian was almost three-quarters full with pure Qi energy golden liquid.

Not only had that dreadful potion of Isha's upgraded her dantian to the copper stage, but it had also absorbed and converted the Qi around her. While the price she had paid for what she had just gone through was awful, Jayde was really satisfied with the results.

After fifteen minutes, Jayde had recovered enough to return to the Dark Forest, after bidding Isha goodbye, she returned to her camp just as the sun was rising.

It had been a long but fruitful night.

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