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She then crossed her arms and lectured in a monotone voice, "Stella, why are you in such a bad mood today? The Patriarch is recovering, and we have Douglas here to rebuild what was lost in the Dao Storm."

Stella scowled over her shoulder but then her eyes widened. "Diana, why is there a snake around your neck?"

"Mhm?" Diana hummed until she remembered the tiny black snake. "Oh, this little guy? Not entirely sure. He was sleeping on Larry's back and then took a liking to me."

"He's so cute!" Stella ran over and extended her finger. The snake cautiously approached but reeled back and tried to hide behind Diana's neck. "Hey, why is it scared of me?"

"Maybe because you have a fat squirrel on your head." Diana rolled her eyes as Stella reached up and felt the soft white fur of Maple.

Ashlock witnessed how Maple appeared out of nowhere and perched himself on top of Stella's head. Somehow, the squirrel seemed weightless, so Stella rarely noticed when he decided to sleep on her head.

"Maple, when did you get here?" Stella grumbled, "And why do you keep running off? Where were you when the Dao Storm hit?"

Ashlock was glad the squirrel didn't seem to mind people doubting him, as Maple didn't react to Stella's words and continued to sleep. Likely recovering from the monstrous ability he had unleashed on the Dao Storm.

He was still unsure of Maple's full capabilities as that attack on the Dao Storm had been the closest to him actually getting a glimpse of what he could do.

"Aww, what a majestic squirrel—"

Stella grabbed Douglas's outstretched hand by the wrist, keeping it firmly in place. The giant man still wore his black wooden mask, so his expression was indiscernible, but the gasp of surprise told Ashlock that Douglas hadn't expected such a strong reaction to his innocent gesture.

"If you touch a single hair of Maple's," Stella warned, "don't blame your death on me."

Maple watched Douglas lower his hand to his side, and then seemingly satisfied, the squirrel closed his eye.

Would Maple have really killed Douglas? "Hey, Maple. I know you can hear me. I know Douglas and Diana aren't in the mutual pact, but please don't kill any of my sect members for small transgressions against you, okay? Their survival and growth directly benefit me."

Maple sprawled out on Stella's head with his limbs far apart but gave Ashlock a thumbs up. With the murderous squirrel under control, Ashlock realized that Larry was still missing.

Expanding his spiritual sight, which now covered most of the mountain peak, he saw the massive spider crawling up the mountainside at a sluggish pace.

"The brute must be hungry," Ashlock mused. Larry had been confined to the cavern for some time and couldn't go hunting. "Well, I need him to help translate for me up here, as I don't want to waste Qi while I'm recovering. He can go hunting after."

Communicating with Larry required only a tiny bit of Qi compared to controlling a slab of stone with telekinesis and accurately writing out a message.

Douglas rubbed his wrist. "Stella, I apologize for trying to touch your pet."

"No apology necessary. I should have warned you earlier since you two haven't been formally introduced." Stella pointed up at the dozing squirrel, "This is Maple. He emerged from a rift leading to a hellish dimension, where a monster with an eye many times the size of our Patriarch lurked. He may appear cute, but he might be the strongest one here. Also, he is not my pet."

Maple, indifferent to both insults and praise, continued sleeping. Sometimes, Ashlock wondered if he had a pact with a mythical squirrel or if Maple was actually a sloth in disguise.

Douglas removed the black mask from his face and, taking Stella's warning seriously, examined Maple as though he were a ticking time bomb.

Stella shifted her focus from Douglas to little Kai, the snake wrapped around Diana's neck. "Have you named the snake yet?"

Diana hummed in thought, "I don't think I should. It acts strangely friendly, like the Patriarch's other pet, so it might already have a name—"

Just then, Larry crested the side of the mountain peak, and Ashlock informed him through the tether about the grass snake.

"Kaida," Larry declared gruffly, drawing the attention of the girls and Douglas. "He is the newest guardian under Master's eternal guidance!"

Stella took a moment to translate the words in her head before gasping in understanding, "So the snake is called Kaida, and is Tree's pet like you?"

Larry slowly crawled closer and huffed a plume of ash from his mouth, "Mistress, I'm far from a simple pet like that small snake that can do nothing but look cute. I am Master's faithful servant and part-time executioner!"

"Sure you are," Stella rolled her eyes.

"Forgive my question, but you can understand the spider... ahem, I mean Larry?" Douglas asked. The man tried to maintain his composure, but Ashlock could tell he was bewildered from watching the two speak in a language he couldn't understand.

With pride, Stella practically stuck her nose in the air and switched back to the common tongue, "Of course, I can! The Patriarch can only communicate via the ancient runic language, so I learned it."

There was a brief pause as Douglas processed the information. He looked between the squirrel, Stella, and then Larry and eventually just shook his head. "The Ashfallen sect continues to surprise me." Douglas nervously chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck, "Is there anything I can do to help? You mentioned something about a runic formation."

"Ah." Stella's joy instantly vanished, "Yes, our runic formations were destroyed in the Dao Storm, and I tried to fix it myself."

"Formations?" Douglas seemed surprised, "You had two up here?"

Stella reluctantly nodded, "There was a smaller personal one that my father used when he was still alive. It was constructed of high-quality stone and strengthened by runes to withstand stage ascensions up to the Nascent Soul realm."

Douglas whistled in appreciation, "That must have cost your family a small fortune to have built."

Stella shrugged, "No idea. It was here when I was born."

"Right." Douglas glanced around, "And where was this other runic formation?"

Stella gestured with her chin toward Ashlock, "I replaced the entire courtyard surrounding the Patriarch with premade portable Qi gathering arrays."

"Huh? Why did you do that?" Douglas rubbed his chin.

"Well, long story short, there was an incident with lightning... the first of many," Stella smiled at the memory. "Tree got knocked out, but I saw he was recovering slowly, so in desperation, I sold everything left in the pavilion of any worth and went to Darklight City to buy those portable formations."

Ashlock felt a mix of warmth and shock, knowing what Stella had done while he was asleep. The thought of such a young girl venturing into the city alone to sell items belonging to her family to create the Qi gathering formation that had surrounded him broke his heart. Although it had been beneficial, he still cursed the lightning for causing such a situation.

Douglas furrowed his brows, "Why didn't you just hire an earth cultivator to create one for you?"

"I was about ten years old at the time and terrified everyone was out to kill me," Stella sighed. "Also, it wasn't like I bought them all at once. I went down there and bought a few, brought them up here, laid them around Tree, and quickly realized I needed more. I only stopped once the old man at the shop started giving me an odd look, and I ran out of money."

Douglas walked over and began inspecting the remnants of the central courtyard. "Bloody hell, you filled this entire area with them? That must have cost a fortune." He then bent down and picked up a stone shard. "And low-quality materials as well. No wonder it didn't survive the storm."

Stella shrugged. "Actually, that formation has been in disrepair for years. People kept coming here to fight, and they destroyed a bit of it each time. Honestly, I had been debating replacing it with something more proper, but I lacked the funds to do so—" Stella raised her fingers weighed down with golden rings. "—but now I have the wealth of hundreds of people stored in these rings."

If there was one thing the Ashfallen sect had, it was now a vast wealth. Of course, it wasn't sustainable income, but it was a sizable bounty they acquired after slaughtering hundreds of Evergreen and Winterwrath cultivators.

But if they wanted to hire many mortals and buy materials to create things, they would need a more reliable source of income, and Ashlock was still betting on alchemy to be the Ashfallen sect's main export.

That was why he wanted to keep pushing ahead for the alchemy tournament despite all the risk. Obtaining a top-tier alchemist, he could keep within the sect and have teach Stella or maybe Diana would be very beneficial.

And who knows, perhaps the alchemist tournament of Darklight City could become a yearly event that brings in more wealth and talent to the city.

Douglas's eyes lingered on the many golden spatial rings on Stella's finger and then grinned. "Well, it just so happens I am for hire!"

"We already hired you," Diana said flatly, petting little Kai's head. "You belong to the Ashfallen sect now."

"Ah..." Douglas paused. "Wait, we never discussed pay!"

Then he quickly added when Diana frowned, "I won't demand any pay for spending a few hours building that tunnel, but if you want me to repair or build a runic formation, I will need at least a few dragon crowns for my efforts..."

Ashlock realized that Douglas's words were true. They had somewhat bullied the man into signing an oath without ever discussing the benefits or pay.

"Pay?" Diana raised a brow, interrupting Ashlock's musing. "Why would a member of the Ashfallen sect need payment?"

Douglas's expression darkened. "I need payment. I have mountains of debt and beast cores to buy! Why else would I come and join your sect?"

Stella pulled one of the spatial rings free and tossed it to Douglas, who fumbled and almost dropped it.

"That should pay off your debts, and we will need to work on your beast core addiction," Stella said seriously, glancing briefly at Diana.

Douglas put on the ring around his pinky finger and closed his eyes. A small glow of power emanated from the ring, and Ashlock could tell the man was searching its contents. Finally, his eyes snapped open, and he gasped, "Is all this for me?"

"Sure," Stella shrugged. "I think it's rather pathetic you care so much about some wealth anyway when you are now a member of the Ashfallen sect. Diana and I have grown tremendously in cultivating without needing dragon crowns or spirit stones, although that might change soon now that our pavilion has been blown away..."

Ashlock suddenly got a terrible feeling that he had been spoiling Stella a little too much over the years with free cultivation resources and gifts. Had he acted like a rich parent and spoiled his child rotten?

"I don't know what to say," Douglas spoke slowly. "This is more money than I have ever seen in my miserable life. How can I repay you? You want to repair the runic formation, right? I can do that right now!"

Seeing Douglas so appreciative of her gesture, Stella seemed to cheer up. "That would be much appreciated, as trying to reach the Star Core realm without a runic gathering formation is a futile endeavor."

Stella then crossed her arms. "However, I want you to teach me about runic formations."

"Teach you?" Douglas rubbed his chin. "I can do that."

***

What followed was Diana relaxing on a bench under his shade while Stella and Douglas stood over the runic formation that Stella used to use for cultivation before the silver lines were destroyed.

Douglas got down on one knee, placed a palm on the formation, and closed his eyes. "I will return the runic formation to its original form first and then explain its function."

Ashlock saw the hard stone covered in deeply engraved lines that were chipped and damaged seemingly morph into a watery, clay-like substance and then ripple as the engraved lines were wiped and redrawn.

Once the runic formation looked new, Douglas opened his eyes. "Alright, the best place to start an explanation about runic formations is naturally the runes, also known as words of power. They are basic instructions that heaven understands. Depending on your goal for the formation, you will merge various arrays that are small collections of runes."

Douglas then pointed toward the outer edge of the formation. "Since this is a super basic Qi gathering formation, it's simply one massive Qi gathering array using the runic word for 'gather.' However, most of the Qi gathered by the array replaces the Qi inside the spirit stone lines."

"Why would the Qi be used by the array?" Stella asked while Douglas brought out some spirit stones from the golden ring Stella had just given him.

"Well, you can't write words of power in the dirt with a stick—heaven only recognizes instructions provided through intent, also known as Qi, which the spirit stones contain."

Douglas injected some of his own Qi into the spirit stone, and it melted from a solid into a liquid, now resembling mercury. "Although the formation could gather twice as much Qi for you to use for cultivation, the spirit stones within the formation would need replacing regularly. So it's a cost versus performance thing."

Slowly, Douglas brought out more spirit stones and filled all the grooves with the silver liquid. The grooves didn't look that deep, but Ashlock was surprised by how many spirit stones were needed to complete the formation. Such a small formation had gobbled up handfuls of spirit stones already, and it still wasn't complete.

While Douglas was hard at work using his earth affinity Qi to transform the solid spirit stones into a viscous liquid, Stella was busy studying the runic words.

"Hey Douglas, what's the difference between this and the ancient runic language?"

"Oh, that old language?" Douglas mused. "I am using a more streamlined version of that old language here. Fewer lines are needed to convey the same message to heaven, so it's cheaper, and runic formations using the new version can also be more compact."

"Does that mean I could make my own runic formations with the ancient language, then?"

"Absolutely, those old runic masters are obsessed with it," Douglas replied. "Runic formations that use the ancient language are ideal if you have a lot of wealth and room to work with, as they connect with heaven better and are therefore more efficient. But the language is mostly dead, and few bother to learn it, including me."

Douglas then returned his focus to the Qi gathering formation full of spirit stones. "Stella, come place your hands on the formation and activate it. All you have to do is direct heaven's will toward it to get the cycle going."

Stella nodded and got down on her knees beside Douglas. She then placed her hands on the formation and closed her eyes. A moment later, the entire thing lit up with a silver glow, and through his spirit sight, Ashlock could feel the Qi in the area gravitating toward the formation.

And as he focused more, he could see that the silver lines absorbed around half the Qi that gravitated toward the formation while the other half hung around within the formation's circumference as if there were an invisible bubble.

"Perfect, you can take your hands away now," Douglas directed Stella, and she complied by standing back up and looking at the active formation.

Douglas then summoned an artifact from his spatial ring. It looked like a soldering gun with a hole in the top. "Stella, this artifact lets you carve out lines in the stone, and then you put a spirit stone in the top, and the artifact converts it to liquid." The man then pushed the artifact into Stella's hand. "Why don't you try it? You could rebuild whatever formation you want around the Patriarch. I can direct you."

Stella gripped the artifact in her hand and gave Douglas a weak smile. "Thank you for this, Douglas—"

"No, no," Douglas shook his head. "Thank you for taking me in and helping me start a new life."

The man tapped the golden ring on his pinky. "The funds in here are more than enough to pay off all the debts that have been weighing on my mind for over a decade."

Stella's smile grew a bit. "That's nice. Then I hope you don't mind helping me cover every inch of this mountain in a Qi gathering formation for Tree?"

"Err, that might be a bit much—" Douglas started.

But he was swiftly silenced by Stella's excitement. "Of course, that would just be the start. Can we create defense formations? Ideally, ones that can deflect lightning and pesky Dao Storms. Ooo! How about one that increases the growth of trees? Is that possible?"

Douglas just let out a long sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. Ashlock could feel the man's pain, but Stella raised some good ideas that he hoped they would implement over the next few days while he was out of action.

It was going to be a hectic week—Ashlock could already tell.