Pillar

[Ding! A disciple has broken through the Foundation Establishment Realm. Congratulations to the host for receiving: 20 DP.]

[Congratulations to the host for guiding and helping the disciple break through the first major barrier. Achievement: Breakthrough I (+100% DP gained from Disciple Breakthroughs)]

———

Name: Shu Fanrong

Bone Age: 12

Level: 10

Realm: Foundation Establishment Realm (1 Pillar/s)

Number of Spiritual Roots: 1

Spirit Root Attribute: Frostfire

Talent: 89

———

Glancing at the system panel, and his disciple who had finally regained her eased expression, Liu Feng's legs wobbled.

A wave of relief rushed through his body.

"After 4 days, I can finally... rest."

Liu Feng closed his eyes and fell to his knees, before crashing facefirst onto the ground.

Meanwhile, Shu Fanrong opened her eyes for the first time in 4 days. The clouds of the sky never felt so refreshing before.

She felt a newfound power inside of her body. It was as if she was no longer a normal human—a substantial change had happened within her body.

Shu Fanrong could not wait to tell Liu Feng about her progress, when she noticed his body lying on the ground facedown.

"Master!"

Rushing towards Liu Feng, she heard his snoring and was relieved.

Looking around, she could see gray colored spirit stones surrounding her. The spiritual energy that held the structure in place was within the spirit stones no more. With a simple blow from her, all of the spirit stones turned into dust, swept away by the wind.

She also noticed a couple of herbs on the ground, all wilted and out of essence. Although she didn't recognize the herbs, she felt a trace of the energy formerly contained within those wilted leaves and petals.

"I have troubled Master this time with my sudden breakthrough."

After having gone through many breakthroughs, Shu Fanrong was already familiar with the feeling of breaking through, and thus knew that she had broken through once more. All of the clues pointed toward the fact that her master had helped her by way of providing resources.

She lifted Liu Feng up to her shoulder with her small body. With her cultivation, it was a minor task for her to lift an adult up.

Laying down her master onto his bed, she noticed the master-sized hole on the wall and covered it up with a spare cloth.

Seeing her master's peaceful rest resolved Shu Fanrong's concerns. She sat down on the crude wooden floor, cross-legged inside the hut.

After breaking through, Shu Fanrong felt that this one wasn't like the other breakthroughs she had gone through in the past two weeks.

This time, a large foreign presence emerged inside of her body. She quickly navigated her consciousness to try and find it.

"Ah, right there."

Shu Fanrong found a massive space. In the instant she stepped into the space, she felt a resonance within herself flickering intensely. Taking a deep breath, she examined her surroundings.

A faint mist shrouded the entire space, a few splashes of red and blue popping chaotically. Shu Fanrong couldn't help but to reach out to one of these colors.

When her palm brushed upon one, a warm feeling rushed through her arm. However, it didn't seem to be material, as it simply passed through her hand.

"These colors, I think they're my spiritual energy."

In the outside environment, the red and blue orbs of energy that she saw were separate, never intertwined with one another. However, she had assimilated both of these energies inside her body, intricately linking the two.

"If this is my energy, then this place should be a storage of sorts."

Turning away from the red and blue mist, she found the foreign presence that wasn't present previously.

A massive cylindrical column, standing in the middle of everything.

It was about ten times her height, with an unknown length embedded underground.

Shu Fanrong felt a connection between her and this pillar. However, its relevance was lost on her. She hadn't the faintest inkling what the pillar was for.

"I have to ask Master later what this is."

After exploring for a few more minutes, Shu Fanrong exited the space with an excited look. With all of these upgrades inside of her body, it would be strange for her combat strength not to increase.

As such, she wanted to know how much strength she had gained!

However, with a single glance at Liu Feng, Shu Fanrong knew that her master wouldn't be waking up anytime soon.

"Well, I can move on my own this time, right?"

Shu Fanrong remembered the sensation of punching the spiritual boar and ending its life in one shot. Her fear went down drastically after that.

"It should be fine... Master can just scold me later, heheh."

And thus, Shu Fanrong sneaked out of the hut, careful to avoid the creaky planks of wood so as to not wake her tired master up. She closed the door behind her, wishing her master a good night's sleep—even though the sun still flared its rays onto the blades of grass below her feet.

With a single step, she launched herself into the forest.

Shu Fanrong hadn't learned any movement techniques. With only the sheer strength of her leg, she was able to jump that far.

"Wow, wow! I feel like I'm flying!"

Her eyes glistened. Back when her master was still recruiting her, she had agreed half-heartedly. However, once he had mentioned flight, she was thoroughly convinced!

As the wind brushed past her face and her hair waved through the air, she knew that she had made the right choice by becoming the disciple of a fairy.

"With how fast I'm getting stronger, it won't be that long till I can actually fly!"

She put the topic of flight aside for now in favor of pursuing her original objective, which was to test her improved strength.

"But, I can't fight a boar again. I killed it in one punch last time, I won't be able to test my new strength that way."

Her master had mentioned that they stayed in a place where the strength of the beasts was relatively weak.

"That must mean, if I go farther, I should reach stronger beasts!"

And so, Shu Fanrong departed. With every step, she inched closer to the invisible barrier.

.....

Meanwhile, at a cliff near Kaojin Village.

Jing Hei tapped his foot restlessly, impatience starting to seep into his bones.

He was sending beasts to attack the village left and right, but not only did the hidden cultivator not appear, the incompetent beasts didn't even cause any casualties in the village!

"The situation isn't dire enough. The villagers can clearly handle this level of threat, so the hidden cultivator didn't make a move.

"Well, I have no choice but to do this."

Jing Hei opened up his dimension ring and hesitantly took out two spiritual beasts, one with blazing red fur and one with cool blue skin. The two were twice as tall as Jing Hei.

If Liu Feng was here, he would think that these two beasts looked like Fla*eon and Vapo*eon respectively, if their cuteness factor was reduced to the negatives and their fear factor was raised to eleven.

A powerful aura emerged from the two.

"Blaze Fur Fox, Deep Sea Fox. My precious Foundation Establishment Realm beasts..."

Nurturing beasts were no joke. Jing Hei worked hard to raise these beasts to the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Originally, he had intended to keep these beasts as a hidden card for later when he infiltrated the barrier. However, since the village was still holding strong, he had no choice but to bring them out. How was he to carry out his plan without the cultivator exiting the barrier?

If this still did not work, Jing Hei would not risk going into the barrier and would rather retreat for now to think of another plan.

He took out a pouch and let his two beasts sniff some Enraging Powder, after which he sent them to attack the village.

The Enraging Powder not only took away a beast's rationality, it also took away its survival instincts, allowing it to attack indiscriminately without caring about its own injuries.

Even though Jing Hei thought that the Enraging Powder was unnecessary to deal with the village folk, in the case that the hidden cultivator exits the barrier to protect them, the enraged beasts would be able to delay him for a couple dozen more seconds as opposed to if they weren't enraged.

He watched as the eyes of both the Deep Sea Fox and the Blaze Fur Fox filled with a red tint, prowling towards the village. The earth shook slightly with each step the beasts took.

"Let's see if you can still stand idle with beasts of this caliber attacking the village."

Back at the village.

"And—!"

A villager swung his axe into a boar. It finally collapsed as its eyes turned into a lifeless white.

"Phew, that should be the last of 'em."

As the villager brought the boar into the walls of the village, the atmosphere turned optimistic. Vigilance remained, but a mood of celebration sprouted for now. They had a vague feeling that they were close to the end.

Shu Dashou heard the return of the warriors from inside his house and was relieved. Other than the tusked leopard, they didn't need his help that much this time.

The previous four days were hellish—he was the sole pillar of strength in the village.

Combat was less and less needed as the village turned to a more vegetarian diet. At least this way, they wouldn't need to sacrifice their lives for food.

As a result of this, the once respected former hunters of the village lost their touch. The strength and instincts they once had waned over time, replaced by the various methods of planting a potato.

As such, when the first wave arrived, Shu Dashou was the only one left capable of repelling the beasts. The other warriors could only defend themselves and wait for Shu Dashou to come to their rescue.

In the span of four days, the warriors started to get back into their groove again, and thus the need for Shu Dashou to intervene in every single conflict declined over time, leaving him more time to take care of his wife.

He faced Wen Yingyu, who glanced out the window with a distant look, and sighed. His troubles were not over yet.

All of a sudden, Shu Dashou felt the ground shaking.

He instinctively grabbed his axe and stood up. As he was about to walk out the door, Wen Yingyu reached out to his arm.

"Ying'er, what are you doing?"

"...Are you leaving again?"

"I need to defend our village."

"Can't the others let you rest for a while? Haven't you done too much?" Wen Yingyu couldn't bear watching her husband walk out the door every time the ground shook. The possibility that he wouldn't come back haunted her.

"Everyone is doing their best. I need to do my part."

He knelt down and grabbed her thin hand. With a smile, he kissed her hand gently.

"Don't worry, my wife. I'll make quick work of these beasts."

Shu Dashou stood up and walked out. Wen Yingyu could only watch as the door closed, blocking her from seeing her husband.

The village raised their alarms once more, the mood disappearing in an instant.

Those incapable of fighting have already retreated into their homes, while the warriors of the village ran out and grabbed their respective weapons.

Eventually, all of the warriors stood guard outside of the wall. Even as fatigue grew more visible within their faces, they still had to go out and fight, else there'd be no more home to go back to.

"This, it should be the third wave within the day, right?"

Shu Dashou sighed. "What a tireless bunch of beasts."

He recalled the tusked leopard's unusual behavior. Could this have been incited by someone? Other than that, he could think of no reason that the beasts would attack them without care for life.

"But, so what if it's purposely instigated? Only cultivators would have the ability to do so. Us mortals can only defend as best as possible," he thought.

The ground's shaking got more and more noticeable. It was to the extent that some of the people inside the village could not stand up properly anymore.

The warriors braced themselves. This might be the biggest wave yet.

Shu Dashou took in a deep breath.