The First Lesson on the Road

At first light, Lu Yuan had already traveled ten li from Maple Leaf Town. The gray cloth bundle on his back was small, but its weight made his shoulders ache. Inside were the mixed-grain flatbreads his mother had cooked overnight, the seventeen Copper Soul Coins his father had tucked in, and the notebook wrapped in oilcloth.

The mist had lifted, leaving nothing but wild grass on either side of the road. The wind carried the raw, animal smell of the wilderness.

He kept walking, turning a map over in his mind. It would take seven or eight days to reach Nuoding City, and he had to cross Wild Rat Slope. Bristle Rats lived there: low-level Soul Beasts that traveled in groups and feared bright light and pungent smells.

At noon, he gnawed on half a flatbread by the roadside. It was hard enough to make his jaws ache. Soul Power circulated through his body, following the few meridians he had barely managed to open. Rank two was too weak. If he ran into a Soul Beast, he would have to rely on something else.

That afternoon, the road narrowed. Earthen slopes rose on either side, covered in waist-high wormwood. The wind howled, and something seemed to be burrowing beneath the grass.

He had reached Wild Rat Slope.

Lu Yuan swept his gaze around. Thirty paces ahead and to the left stood a gray-white rock face. Several clumps of rat-repelling grass grew at its foot, their leaves gray-green and their smell sharp enough to sting his nose.

He quickened his pace.

Halfway there, the grass on his right rustled wildly. It was not the wind.

Seven or eight gray shapes darted out, each the size of a house cat, their stiff fur bristling and their little eyes red. Bristle Rats. The one in the lead was especially stocky, its front teeth jutting out, drool dripping from them.

The rats spread into a semicircle, blocking his path.

Without a change of expression, Lu Yuan kept walking toward the rock face. Ten paces to go.

The lead rat kicked off with its hind legs and charged straight at him! The others sprang after it, seven or eight gray shapes moving with astonishing speed.

Now.

Lu Yuan suddenly twisted sideways and lunged for the rat-repelling grass. He sent all his Soul Power into his right palm, not to attack, but to "vibrate"-imitating a technique he remembered, he made his Soul Power vibrate at high frequency and slapped it hard against a cluster of leaves!

Puff!

A pungent smell burst out and spread in a fan. The rats in front froze at once, shaking their heads wildly.

Lu Yuan seized the chance to dart to the rock face and press his back against it. The afternoon sun shone obliquely across the gray-white stone.

He crouched, picked up a sharp-edged shard of limestone, and forced the last of his Soul Power to his fingertips. Aiming at a smooth hollow in the rock face, he flicked his wrist-

The shard scraped across the rock with a piercing screech. At the same time, he adjusted the angle, directing reflected sunlight squarely into the lead rat's face.

A dazzling spot of light.

Already dizzy from the smell, the beast suddenly found its eyes flooded with light. It let out a shrill scream, turned, and fled. The rats feared light, and with the smell stinging them too, they descended into chaos at the sight of their leader fleeing. Squealing, they burrowed back into the grass.

A few breaths later, all that remained on the slope were a jumble of claw prints and the lingering pungent smell.

With his back against the rock face, Lu Yuan let out a stale breath. His palms were slick with sweat, his Soul Power was exhausted, and his temples throbbed.

He grinned.

It worked.

He did not rush off. After waiting a while to make sure the rats had retreated far away, he went to where they had gathered and crouched for a closer look.

A patch of grass had been trampled flat. He parted it at the roots, and his eyes lit up.

Several stiff gray-brown hairs lay half buried in the soil, their tips glinting faintly like metal. He carefully picked one up and placed it in his palm.

It was two inches long, thicker than a sewing needle, and cool to the touch. He gently touched its tip with the last trace of Soul Power he had left.

Hum...

A faint fluctuation of Soul Power came back, rough and chaotic. It was completely unlike the gentle, lingering Soul Power of plants; it was fiercer, more primal.

"Shed Bristle Rat hair," Lu Yuan murmured. "Its energy structure is unstable. It can serve as a comparison sample."

He took a small bamboo tube from his bundle-he had taken it from beside the kitchen stove at home, where it had originally held salt. He carefully placed the stiff hairs inside and pushed the wooden stopper in tight.

His first sample from the wild.

He looked back to the west. The road behind him had disappeared beyond the hills, and Maple Leaf Town was long out of sight. A wisp of pale cloud at the edge of the sky had been dyed light gold by the setting sun.

One sleeve of the clothes his mother had sewn was longer than the other. The Copper Soul Coins his father had given him pressed against his shoulder.

He had chosen this road himself.

He put the bamboo tube away and slung the bundle onto his back. The road ahead was still long, and Wild Rat Slope was only the first hurdle. He needed to find somewhere to spend the night before dark, preferably near water.

He set off east again. His shadow stretched out behind him, falling at an angle across the wild grassy slope, small and straight.

He left the rock face and rat-repelling grass behind. The wind rose again, carrying moisture from a distant river and a faint, sweet animal smell, like an animal's den.

Lu Yuan's nostrils twitched, and he stopped.

His gaze swept over the grass beside the road. In several places, the grass had been flattened in unnatural patterns, not by the wind. It looked as though it had been trampled repeatedly.

Something often traveled this way.

He crouched, rubbed a little soil between his fingers, and brought it to his nose. The sweet animal smell was stronger, mixed with the sour stink of droppings. It was not from Bristle Rats; their dens smelled drier.

The illustrated guide in his memory flipped through its pages. Likes damp places, sweet animal smell, den near water, fixed routes...

An Iron Claw Badger? It was possible. They lived alone, were highly territorial, and habitually took the same route to drink. Adults were among the more troublesome Ten-Year Soul Beasts. Their sharp front claws could shatter stone, and they held grudges.

He looked up at the sky. The sun was sinking in the west; in two hours at most, it would be completely dark. The ground ahead lay low, and a silvery ribbon of water gleamed in the distance. It should be Wild Rat River.

The Iron Claw Badger's den was very likely in an earthen bank by the river. If it went to drink in the evening, then this road...

He tilted his head and listened. Apart from the rustle of grass in the wind, there was no sound.

He could not keep going straight ahead.

Lu Yuan stepped back a few paces, left the path, and pushed into the wormwood on the right. The grass was thick and hard to walk through, but it let him avoid the animal trail that might have been marked. He stepped where the grass roots were densest, leaving as little trace as possible.

After half a li, the wormwood thinned, and a rocky flat appeared ahead. The stones varied in size and had been worn smooth by rainwater. Moss grew close to the ground in the gaps between them.

It should be safe here. The rocky ground would not easily retain scents or footprints, and it was not the sort of place an Iron Claw Badger liked.

He found a hollow sheltered from the wind among several large rocks and set down his bundle. His Soul Power had not recovered, and he was weary and exhausted. He took out the remaining half of the flatbread and slowly finished it with cool water from his bamboo tube.

By the time he finished eating, it was completely dark. Stars appeared one by one, more numerous and brighter than those he had seen in Maple Leaf Town. The Milky Way hung diagonally across the sky like a hazy mist of light.

Lu Yuan sat leaning against a rock, looking up at the stars. The night wind in the wild was cool, scraping against his face like fine sand. In the distance, an unknown insect chirped, its song rising and falling.

Only now did loneliness truly well up, pressing heavily against his chest. There was no mother to fuss over him, no father silently keeping him company, and no experimental plot in the backyard, bordered by broken roof tiles.

There was only him and this unfamiliar wilderness, with all kinds of Soul Beasts hidden within it.

He drew a deep breath of icy air and pushed his feelings down. Pulling his experiment notebook from the bundle, he opened it to the flyleaf by the faint starlight. The Blue Silver Grass bookmark lay quietly between the pages, its leaf giving off an extremely faint, almost invisible glow in the dark.

His fingertips brushed the bookmark. He turned to a blank page, bit his index finger, and quickly sketched on the paper with the bead of blood that welled up.

He was not writing, but drawing: a simple map showing the rock face, the rat-repelling grass, the rats' route, and the angle of the reflected sunlight. Beside it, he noted: Bristle Rat hair samples collected. Energy texture rough; conjectured to be related to an affinity with earth-attribute Soul Power.

When he finished, he tore out the page, folded it carefully, and tucked it into an inner pocket. He closed the notebook and wrapped it in oilcloth again.

Knowledge had to be recorded. This was how he conversed with the world.

The night deepened. The insect calls grew sparse, and the wind died. Darkness swallowed the rocky flat, leaving only the faint sound of the distant river flowing.

Lu Yuan hugged his bundle, curled up in the hollow among the rocks, and closed his eyes. He did not dare sleep too deeply, keeping his ears open for any sound around him.

Yet his mind began planning for tomorrow of its own accord.

He would set out before dawn, avoiding the peak times when wild beasts were active at dawn and dusk. Following the river downstream, he could leave Wild Rat Slope in half a day. Then...

Then he would head toward Nuoding City. The city had a Soul Master Academy, a library, more knowledge that needed to be verified, and people and matters he might encounter that would be far more troublesome than Zhao Shi and Qian Xiaohao.

But he had to go.

He tightened his grip on the bloodstained page in his pocket, its rough texture brushing his fingertips.

Sleepiness crept over him like cold river water, submerging his consciousness bit by bit. Before he slipped completely into darkness, his last thought was:

I have the sample. I'm on the right road.