CHAPTER 46: PREDATORS OF THE GRASSY DESERT (PART 1)

’That was the sect, wasn’t it?’

Theo thought to himself, catching just the outline of the settlement as he raced past it.

According to the schedule others would expect of him, that would be his stop.

His entire trip to Visteria, the purchases he made there, and the connection to the Serene clan he just so happened to make there were all for the sake of his spirit stones project.

And now that the materials for the artificial crystals were on their way to the sect, Theo should be there, waiting for the delivery to start his project, right?

Wrong.

Sure, getting the salt and sugar was necessary for the production of the crystallines that could serve as a nucleus from which the spirit stones would be born.

But when it came to the actual manufacturing of said stones, Theo never planned to let it take place at the sect grounds.

In fact, he couldn’t allow it to happen anywhere near the sect, if anything!

’Once the production ramps up beyond a certain level, the mana the formations will suck out will create a void,’ Theo thought as he continued to run with the wind.

Quite significantly, however, as soon as he passed by his sect, Theo switched his efforts from maintaining his rush to gradually slowing his pace down.

The production of the spirit stones couldn’t happen anywhere near the sect. Not only because of all the eyes the wholesale of those would attract, but also because of the new mana currents said production would set in motion.

And by all means, the sect would profit far more from sitting upwind to those, rather than sitting at the dead center where the winds from all around the world would clash.

This simple reasoning, however, was one of the chief reasons why Theo decided to scout the wildlands ahead of starting the production of the artificial crystals.

’It would do us no good to bring forth a disaster upon a barbarian community by setting the production,’ he thought, finally grinding down to a speed a cultivator of his level could actually reach. ’It will be much easier to just take those winds and offer them as a tribute or trade of some sort.’

Even though the rush of the run was now dying off along with Theo’s speed, his lips curved up into a smile.

’Presentation is often the sole difference between a boon and a con, after all!’

Soon, Theo ground to a complete halt, only to find himself in the middle of what could only be described as plentiful nothingness.

No matter which direction he looked, there were no signs of civilization, not even a single hint of it.

No roads, no ruins, no marks of cultivated land.

A complete emptiness of human intervention, filled to the brim with purely natural activity.

The plain Theo found himself in stretched out as far as his eyes could see in, quite literally, every direction he looked. And save for an occasional bush or a small, lonely tree, this steppe of high grass turned out to be pretty much uniform...

Or so it would be, if not for just how much life brimmed in this supposed desert of grass.

Small rodents, insects, a plethora of predators big and small—they were all there—one simply needed to know what to look out for.

And there, amidst the myriad of animal tracks, Theo spotted an element that sent a shiver down his spine.

’Monster tracks.’

He thought coldly, his body tensing up a bit.

For the old Theo, it was a word associated with the terrors of the bedtime stories, limited to the great battles fought in the past to free the lands from the tyranny of those magical creatures.

The new Theo, however, reacted in the same way but for a whole different slew of reasons.

For him, monsters weren’t just a tale of the past, of the time when humanity had yet to claim the apex spot in the local food chain. For cultivators, monsters were a real threat they had to contend with—a truth all the more viable out there, at the fringe of the kingdom’s reach.

The cold sweat that ran down Theo’s spine was born out of the mixture of the two—the tales his parents scared him with in his original past, and then the few experiences he had fighting those very monsters as a young and averagely strong cultivator.

Still, while this fright was as real and as instinctive as it could get, it was just a momentary thing, quickly reined by logic and suppressed by Theo’s confidence in his current self.

’Just a few moments ago, I was worried about accidentally killing scores of people simply by running into them,’ he thought, shaking his head as he finally picked up the pace and started to roam around the steppe, searching for something, anything that would strike him in it.

’With the modern magic at my fingertips and a cultivator’s level of mana to leverage through glyphs, why should I ever be worried about something as simple as mon...’

SWISH!

Theo’s cultivator’s instincts kicked in, pushing his spine to bend as he leaned as far back as he could...

Still, not fast enough.

The arrow came out of nowhere, cutting straight through the tall grass and then sliding across Theo’s chest, cutting both his robe and his skin alike.

’Fuck!’

Sharp, burning pain exploded over Theo’s upper ribs. His mind overloading, Theo lost his balance and fell right into the hiding embrace of the tall grass.

Taken off-guard, Theo reacted purely on instinct... Which, in this particular case, proved to be slightly problematic.

His mage’s instincts led him to unleash a defensive glyph he had deeply ingrained into the back of his head.

His cultivator’s instincts, however, made him drive his spiritual energy through his body.

The defensive glyph was a simple, magical barrier made so that its energy could be used to dampen the inertia of anything thrown at it.

Ta-tap!

Two more arrows came rushing, striking Theo’s barrier, only for their inertia to reverse and amplify through the overload of mana feeding into Theo’s glyph.

The arrows bounced off Theo’s shield...

Then, with just this tiny stimulation, Theo’s glyph broke, rendering him defenseless in the face of further attacks.

But...

With his mana rapidly coursing through his flesh, what was supposed to be a sliver of it necessary to create the glyph turned into a current that flooded the glyph’s structure. And with the tickle of the arrows striking against it?

The glyph shattered, unleashing all the world’s mana it managed to gather along with all of the mana Theo accidentally fed into it.

BOOM!

Released from the hold of Theo’s will, the mana from his broken glyph decayed into the purest form of raw energy. And with only Theo’s flesh and the earth below his feet boasting enough mana to suppress its influence?

All of that energy transferred into the air, turning into a simple yet effective shockwave.

The grass flattened, bent and broken by the rapid winds. Some rocks flew up into the air, turning into deadly projectiles. The winds gained speeds capable of knocking an adult man out cold.

But as the tall grass in which Theo’s attackers hid flattened away, he finally managed to lay his eyes upon them, only to realize one sorry truth.

’This shockwave won’t be enough to deal with them,’ Theo thought, taking the unplanned release and accepting it as a small, happy accident. ’And that means...’

He gritted his teeth as the reality of the situation struck him.

’This is going to be annoying.’