'Ah! FUCK! My head hurts like hell and my body is aching!' Mira thought to herself as she held her head. She then started to sit up to try and get her bearings. She held her head with her hand as she had a massive headache but still looked around her to see where she was.
'I'm in this tiny ass cave, but I don't see Maria. It looks like she has been living here with me as there is a fire bit near the entrance. Also, I can feel that I ate food earlier. Damn, I can't focus on anything with this headache. It feels like I slept for way too long and also my body is aching as well. It seems like my body is pretty much fully healed, I just need to take it easy for a couple of weeks and I should be good as new.'
Mira lifted her head and then saw Maria at the entrance of the cave. Maria was just standing there surprised, but incredibly happy. She started tearing up. Mira noticed that she had a bit of a malevolent aura surrounding her that she hasn't been able to control. Maria's killing intent was constantly seeping out of her body. Mira frowned at this as Maria had obviously killed a lot during the time she was unconscious.
"MIRA!!!" Maria ran toward Mira to hug her but got punched in the gut instead.
"I'm still injured! Plus it seems you've been busy since I've been asleep. Let me guess when I got hurt you blamed yourself and wanted to get stronger? So you went off to hunt like a crazy person. Oh? You are even Stage 2. Looks like you really have been busy." Mira said and Maria tried to interject but Mira continued
"Just so you know, I knew that your plan was shit and would lead me into a state like this. I didn't expect the snake to hit so hard that I almost died. I wanted to provide this experience for you so that you finally understand this world a bit more. If you are a naive little girl, then only death awaits you and you won't even have the chance to join me at the peak. I don't care if you don't want to join me at the peak, but at least you will already have the mentality to survive and become strong before it's already too late." Mira said in a scolding yet caring tone. Mira wasn't mad at Maria as she already expected something like this. She just wanted to correct Maria's mindset. Maria paused before talking.
"Even so it was still my idea--" Mira immediately cut her off.
"Don't give me that righteous bullshit! I'm still alive, you learned your lesson and I achieved my goal. Don't even think about saying that 'If only I had the strength to deal with it.'. Would we have even bothered with it if you could just walk up to it and crush it like an ant? NO! I don't want you to blame yourself, as doing that won't do any good. I also don't want you to try to get stronger to gain my acknowledgment. If you want my acknowledgment, then it will only be based on your character and not your strength, but you need strength to keep your character. People that fight and get stronger to gain acknowledgment from someone else are the dumbest type of people in my opinion. You will never get stronger if you set limits on yourself. Trying to do this is basically saying that this person is your end goal. Everything you do is to try and satisfy them. How can you surpass your limits if you've already placed some on yourself? The next type of person is the type that you especially need to pay attention to. It's the people that want strength to protect those they love. There is actually nothing morally wrong with this and if you are able to reach the peak and say this then good job, but I still think it's foolish. Even at the peak, you can never protect your family 24/7. At some point, they will be away from you or out of your immediate reach. Even if the entire world is frightened by you, there will always be that one person that doesn't care for death and can still kill your family while you are away from them. The best way to protect your family is to have them reach the peak, but for cultivators, that process is not peaceful. We have to temper our mind, body, and soul through life and death scenarios to grow in strength. If they are not meant to reach the top, then they were always meant to die before you."
"You can take this advice however you want. Just don't spout any of that righteous crap at me. I agreed to fight something beyond my means and paid the price. I even lived. Now enough of that. Talk to me about what happened while I was out."
It was silent for a while before Mira spoke in a low voice.
"Thank you."
Maria was shocked at first. This was the first time that Mira has said that to her. She also felt like this thank you carried more weight to it than just taking care of her for the past 2 months.
Maria just made a huge smile and nodded then began to recall everything. From finding the blue and red flower, fighting tons of Rank 2 beasts, and how it's been 2 months since she got injured.
"I'm glad that we fought that snake. That flower that you planted is an Ice-Fire Flower. It doesn't increase one's cultivation even when it becomes a Rank 2 plant, but it is very beneficial for tempering one's body. This would be a great help for breaking through to the Marrow Tempering Stage. I could take it now and probably reach that stage with ease, but I'll wait until it becomes a Rank 2 plant. I'd guess another couple of months and it should be ready. We don't really need to do anything. It just needs to absorb energy until it becomes Rank 2." Mira said with a faint smile. This flower would definitely increase her body's strength by quite a bit.
"Anyway, it'll take a couple of weeks to heal completely, but after I heal we can go out adventuring. I don't have a plan in mind, but the ruins that you mentioned before sounds interesting. We should make that our goal for now."
"Sounds good! I will spend the next few weeks here with you. You just rest up." Maria said.
Like this 3 weeks passed and Mira was finally fully healed. Maria and Mira were currently preparing to set off for their journey. They decided to set off. Regarding the Ice-Fire flower, they decided that they would help supply energy to it. Even though it's a flower it doesn't necessarily need to get energy from the ground as it also absorbs Qi from the air.
They then set off on their adventure. They didn't have a set area they wanted to reach so they decided that it would be best to just circle the Inner region of the forest while slowly getting closer. They had no reason to go looking for beasts to kill, so if they could they would just ignore them, but occasionally they would get ambushed or be forced to fight on their journey. There was just one thing that Mira found extremely annoying.
"All of these fucking Night Hawks!" Mira exclaimed.
Yes, in the week since they started their adventure a Night Hawk seemed to attack at around once a day. Maria said that she was also attacked by a bunch of them two when Mira was unconscious. Maria thought that it might be because they are near the border of the inner region of the forest. The hawks hunt the weaker Rank 2 beasts or stronger Rank 1.
They spent another week running through the forest. Like the previous week, not much really happened. The only 'exciting' thing was getting dive-bombed by night hawks. There was no point in killing Rank 1 beasts and since they weren't hunting for beasts, they hardly ran into any. But at this point in their journey, they came across something interesting.
Maria noticed energy fluctuations not far away from them and they decided to check it out. Maria led Mira to where she noticed the fluctuations and they stopped in front of… something. It looked like an entrance to a cave, but they felt like the entrance to the cave was like a door of some kind. Both Mira and Maria felt this might lead them to the ruins.
They walked into the ruin-like cave. They were excited to find their goal so fast. The inside of the cave was tiny. They had to crouch down a bit and it was only wide enough for one person. After walking for an hour, it seemed there was no end to this entrance. They also ran out of light and it was pitch black. Maria made a small light ball in her hand, but it barely helped. They noticed that all around them was a smooth, black rock. It also felt like they were slowly going deeper into the earth. They kept on walking forward without knowing what they were getting into, but it felt like they might find something interesting.
They didn't know how long they have been walking, but they realized that it was slowly getting hotter. They kept walking as the heat wasn't too bad, but the more they walked the hotter it got. At some point, it got so hot that they needed to strip. They covered their erogenous areas with beast pelts but that's it.
They didn't know how long they walked, but they still crept along in this tiny corridor. They were covered in a thick layer of sweat. After walking for a while, all of a sudden they got hit with a wave of scorching heat. They saw a light at the end of this tunnel. After reaching the light they walked into a massive cave. There was a giant lava lake in this cave. They weren't able to tell if it was a lake of lava or a river. But seemed like a lake.
"I don't know if a lava lake is useful or not, but I feel like you are going to force me into an actual hell this time, Mira." Maria said with a wry smile on her face. This was just like the frozen hell pond, except this, was an actual hell lake.
"You're damn right! I don't know much about lava lakes, but I've heard that flames are great for tempering the body, blood, and Qi. We will just have to try and see." Mira said, but the heat was too suffocating where she was and she wasn't used to this.