Getting the cultivator out of the crater was significantly harder than Alexei had anticipated.
For one thing, she was completely dead weight. For another, he wasn't exactly built for heavy lifting. And for a third thing, he kept slipping on loose dirt and nearly dropping her.
"Why," he grunted, hauling her up another few inches, "didn't I train more when I was in Russia?"
The universe, as always, declined to answer.
By the time he finally got her to ground level, he was sweating. He took a moment to catch his breath, then looked back at the crater.
Evidence. He needed to hide the evidence.
If that grey mist thing had tracking abilities, he was screwed anyway. But if it didn't? Then covering their tracks might buy precious time.
He spent the next ten minutes filling in the crater with dirt blocks, smoothing over the disturbed earth, and generally trying to make it look like a heavenly tribulation hadn't just happened here.
It wouldn't fool anyone who looked closely, but from a distance? Passable.
The treehouse was only about thirty minutes away at a normal walking pace.
Alexei's pace, while dragging an unconscious cultivator through the forest, was considerably less than normal.
The silver lining was that the tribulation had scared off every living thing in the area. He didn't encounter a single monster, not even an oversized bug. Just eerie silence and the occasional crack of a branch settling.
An hour and twenty minutes later, drenched in sweat and questioning his life choices, he finally made it back.
The grey mist in the sky had gotten noticeably more solid while he'd been gone.
He dragged the cultivator inside the treehouse, lowered her onto his bed, the only bed, because he'd never gotten around to making a second one, and immediately went back outside.
The mooshroom was still grazing peacefully near the infinite water source.
"Come on, Bessie. Inside. Now."
He used wheat to lure the cow into the treehouse. It followed placidly, mooing once as it squeezed through the door.
Why bring the mooshroom inside instead of leaving it in the shed next door?
Simple: the treehouse, especially after being MC-ified, was way more defensible. And based on what he'd seen of the grey mist's attacks during the tribulation, it shouldn't be able to damage his walls at all in the short term.
He spent another few minutes tidying up outside, erasing footprints and drag marks, making sure nothing screamed "CULTIVATOR HIDDEN HERE."
Then he ducked back inside, sealed the entrance with MC blocks, and let out a breath.
The outside world's sounds cut off instantly, leaving only the quiet interior of his treehouse and the soft breathing of his unexpected houseguest.
"Well, that was exciting."
The mooshroom chewed its cud.
Now that the immediate crisis was over, Alexei had time to assess the situation.
He approached the bed, half-expecting the cultivator to suddenly wake up and attack him for presuming to touch her.
She didn't. She just lay there, her breathing shallow but steady.
That was... good? Probably good. Steady breathing meant she wasn't dying.
He knelt beside the bed, trying to remember literally anything useful from the mandatory first aid course he'd taken in high school and immediately forgotten.
ABC. Airway, Breathing, Circulation.
Airway seemed clear, she was breathing without obstruction. Breathing was happening, albeit weakly. Circulation... he had no idea how to check that beyond "is she bleeding profusely?" and the answer appeared to be "not externally, at least."
Her face was pale, almost bloodless. Her lips had a faint blue tinge that definitely wasn't normal. And when he checked her pulse at the wrist, it was thread-thin and irregular.
"This is bad. Why did I think I could help with this?"
Her white fox ears twitched slightly, and he jerked his hand back on instinct.
Was she conscious? Semi-conscious?
"Hello? Can you hear me? Blink once for yes, twice for no?"
No response.
"Okay, so either you can't hear me, or you're refusing to answer because you think I'm an idiot. Both valid."
He sat back, running through his extremely limited options.
Option one: Do nothing and hope her cultivator healing factor kicked in.
Option two: Try to give her water or food, hope she didn't choke.
Option three: Attempt some kind of first aid he'd probably do wrong and make things worse.
"Why is this my life now?" he muttered.
The mooshroom mooed sympathetically.
He decided on a combination approach: make sure she was comfortable, try to keep her stable, and hope that her body would heal itself given time.
First priority: check if she was too hot or too cold. Shock victims needed to maintain body temperature, right? That was a thing?
He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead.
Warm. Definitely warmer than normal. Not quite feverish, but elevated.
"Okay. You're running hot. That means... cooling? Or is that for regular fevers only? God, I should've paid attention in health class."
He looked around his treehouse for something that could work as a cold compress.
His eyes landed on the white stockings he'd taken off earlier and tossed in the corner.
"...these will have to do. They're clean... ish. Don't judge me."
He dampened them with water from his infinite source, wrung them out, and gently placed the makeshift compress on her forehead.
Her expression didn't change, but her breathing seemed to even out slightly.
He checked her over for any obvious injuries, like broken bones, bleeding, anything he could actually address. Her robes were torn and scorched in places, but beneath them, her skin seemed intact. No visible wounds beyond some bruising.
The real damage was internal, he realized. Spiritual veins, qi sea, whatever cultivators had that made them superhuman. All of it was probably wrecked from the tribulation and the fall.
He tried to give her water, carefully tilting her head and letting a few drops fall into her mouth. Her jaw was clenched tight, he couldn't get her to drink without forcing it, and forcing it seemed like a terrible idea. Feeding her MC food wasn't any easier; with her teeth tightly shut, he simply couldn't pry her mouth open.
"Okay, new plan. You just... rest. Do whatever cultivators do. I'll keep you safe."
He glanced at the sealed entrance.
"I really hope you're worth all this trouble."
---
Outside the treehouse, far from Alexei's ability to sense, the situation was developing.
The grey mist had fully reformed by now, pulling itself back into a vaguely humanoid shape. It hovered above the crater, or rather, the filled-in spot where the crater had been, with what could only be described as frustration.
"It was here," the mist said to itself. "I saw her fall right here."
It descended, its formless body pressing close to the ground, searching for any sign of its target.
Nothing.
Even the crater was gone, filled in and smoothed over as if it had never existed.
"She couldn't have gone far."
It expanded its divine sense, sweeping outward in a wide circle.
Still nothing. The sense couldn't penetrate far in this densely forested area, too much interference from the trees, the ambient spiritual energy, the lingering effects of the tribulation.
And worse, it couldn't smell blood. Its current fog-form didn't have proper senses. It couldn't track by scent, heat, or any of the useful things a physical body could do.
It was reduced to physically searching.
---
Inside the treehouse, less than a kilometer from where the grey mist was still searching, Alexei climbed to the second floor to check on his crops.
The wheat had turned golden, ready for harvest.
He broke each stalk, collecting the drops: sixteen wheat total, plus twenty-one seeds.
He replanted all the seeds immediately, no point wasting farmland, then headed back downstairs with his haul.
Fifteen wheat. Which meant five loaves of bread if he crafted them. The extra wheat he tossed to the mooshroom, which had been eyeing the remaining crops downstairs.
"You're spoiled, you know that?" he told it. "Most cows don't get hand-delivered snacks."
The mooshroom mooed contentedly and munched its wheat.
He stored the bread in his chest without eating any. He'd already tried it once before, and honestly? It tasted like whole-grain bread from Earth. Nutty, wheaty, and aggressively healthy-tasting. The texture was coarse, grainy when you chewed, like eating compressed cardboard that happened to be nutritious.
Not terrible. Just... adequate.
Though paired with the mooshroom's mushroom-scented milk, it had a certain rustic charm. Like camping food that you convinced yourself was good because you were hungry and outdoors.
With nothing else immediately demanding his attention, he found himself at loose ends.
He'd made the decision to hole up in the treehouse for the foreseeable future. No exploring or risk-taking, just survival mode until either the grey mist gave up or the cultivator woke up and could explain what was going on.
He glanced at the bed where she lay unconscious, her breathing still shallow.
No change.
She hadn't moved.
"Nothing I can do about that."
He pulled out his fishing rod, the one that was getting close to breaking from overuse, and eyed his treehouse interior.
He usually fished from the stool by the water source, but that spot was too far away. If something happened to her, he wouldn't see it in time. And after coming this far, he wasn't about to let anything happen now, not when he intended to see this through to the end.
New plan: set up a temporary fishing spot.
He grabbed his iron bucket, filled it with water from the infinite source, and set up a new water source right beside the bed, close enough that he could sit comfortably while fishing.
"This is peak efficiency. Work smarter, not harder."
The mooshroom, which had followed him upstairs out of curiosity, mooed skeptically.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, cast his line into the bucket, and settled in.
This was the life. Sort of. If you ignored the unconscious cultivator, the murderous evil spirit outside, and the general situation of being trapped in a death forest.
"Could be worse," he muttered, watching the bobber float on the water's surface.
His fishing rod had Lure III, which was frankly overpowered.
In-treehouse fishing times had dropped dramatically. Fastest catch came in around six minutes. Slowest took maybe twenty, if he was unlucky.
Compared to his early fishing days when catches could take forty minutes or more, this was paradise.
Plop.
He reeled in another cod, and tossed it in his inventory without really thinking about it.
Plop.
Another cod.
Plop.
Leather boots this time.
"I already have a full set," he muttered, deconstructing them into four pieces of leather. "But I'll take it."
---
Thirty minutes passed in silence.
On his third cast after the boots, the bobber dipped, but instead of the usual smooth pull, there was resistance. Something good was on the line.
He reeled carefully, and watched as an enchanted book materialized from the water.
Before it could phase directly into his inventory like most items, he reached out and caught it in his hand.
The book was small, bound in leather, glowing faintly. Text shimmered across its cover.
[Enchanted Book:
Protection III
Fortune I
Smelting I
Efficiency IV]
Alexei's eyes widened.
"Holy shit."
This was, without question, the best enchanted book he'd ever fished up. Not even close.
Protection III reduced all incoming damage by 12%. That was the difference between surviving a hit and getting one-shot by basically everything in this forest.
Fortune I increased drops when mining ores. More resources per block mined.
Smelting, a mod enchantment, gave you the smelted product directly when mining ores. No furnace needed. Just mine iron ore and get iron ingots immediately.
Efficiency IV increased mining speed dramatically.
Three of those four enchantments could go on a pickaxe. This was basically an endgame-tier tool waiting to happen.
His excitement lasted approximately five seconds before reality set in.
"Right. I can't use this," he sighed, tucking the book into his inventory. "This is like finding a legendary weapon in a game when you're too low level to equip it."
The mooshroom mooed sympathetically.
"Thanks, Bessie. You get it."
He cast his line again, trying to recapture the peaceful fishing mood.
It didn't quite work. His mind kept drifting back to the enchanted book, the cultivator lying unconscious, and the grey mist outside hunting for them.
---
Time passed slowly when you were trapped indoors with nothing but your thoughts.
For Qingxue, trapped in her own barely-conscious state, time passed even more slowly.
She'd been aware, distantly, of being moved. Of lying in what felt like a bed. Of someone moving around nearby.
She couldn't move, speak, or even open her eyes.
All she could do was exist in a state of vague awareness, her shattered spiritual veins slowly, agonizingly beginning the process of rebuilding themselves.
And worry.
The grey evil spirit was still out there. She could sense it, faintly, its presence like a cold pressure at the edge of her perception.
If it found this place...
She couldn't fight. She couldn't even warn the mortal who'd helped her.
All she could do was lie here and hope that whatever hiding spot that mortal had chosen was good enough.
---
Outside, the grey mist was having the worst night of its existence.
It had searched everywhere.
"Where did she go?" it hissed to itself.
The elder controlling it, hundreds of kilometers away in a hidden cave, was equally frustrated.
Qingxue was critical to the Ghost Sect's plans. The Hundred Ghost Banner needed a primary soul, and her half-demon nature made her perfect for the role. They'd been manipulating her "luck" for years, feeding her treasures through "coincidences."
And now, right when they were about to collect their investment, she'd vanished.
The eastern region was unstable. Multiple sects were showing signs of forming alliances, preparing to move against the Ghost Sect's territory. Without Qingxue as their trump card...
"This is a disaster," the elder muttered, blood trickling from his nose as maintaining the grey mist for this long strained his split soul.
The mist continued searching, growing more desperate by the hour.
Then it saw something odd.
A figure shambling through the forest.
It was humanoid. Its movements were stiff, jerky, like a puppet with tangled strings. It wore strange clothing, a blue-green shirt and dark blue pants that looked like nothing from this region.
A corpse puppet?
The mist descended.
Corpse puppets were the domain of the Three Souls Sect, their allied organization. But this one was clearly a failure, it moved too slowly. Even a normal human could outrun it.
"Why would a failed puppet be here?" the mist wondered aloud.
The thought of sabotage crossed its mind immediately. But no, that made no sense. The Ghost Sect and Three Souls Sect had complementary interests. No conflicts. And the Hundred Ghost Banner plan was top secret, even Qingxue herself didn't know she was being groomed as a soul vessel.
The mist formed a rough approximation of a frowning face as it thought.
The zombie, meanwhile, had spotted it.
Or rather, had spotted movement and decided that movement meant target.
It raised its stone sword, crudely carved from ordinary rock, and shambled forward.
The mist didn't even bother moving.
Corpse puppets were physical. The grey mist was spiritual. Physical weapons couldn't harm it any more than you could punch a cloud.
Let the thing swing. It would tire itself out before... WHAM!
The stone sword connected.
And the mist exploded backward, blasted over ten meters through the air before slamming into a tree.
"WHAT?!"
---
Hundreds of kilometers away, in his hidden cave, the elder screamed.
Blood erupted from his mouth, nose, and eyes simultaneously. His body convulsed, spiritual energy going haywire, as feedback from the mist's injury tore through him.
"How..." he choked out, clutching his chest. "How is this possible?!"
The zombie had hurt the mist, which meant it had hurt him, because thirty percent of his own soul was split off and maintaining that connection.
"Was that sword a soul-attacking artifact?"
It was impossible. Soul-related techniques and treasures were legendary-tier rare. That's why the Ghost Sect had operated so freely, nobody in this backwater region had the tools to counter them.
But now... something existed that could harm him through the mist.
The zombie raised its sword again.