Immortal Druid

Hermit Sage Forest had become my paradise.

I woke up slowly from my magically induced sleep, my consciousness rising together with the sap flowing through the ancient tree I had merged with. It was still a weird feeling no matter how many times I did it. My body had become part of the trunk, roots spreading into the earth while my senses drifted with the forest itself. Then, once I released the phytokinesis, I separated from the bark like a man climbing out of warm water.

Honestly, it was amazing.

I stretched lazily atop the thick branch and leaned back against the trunk, staring at the clear morning sky above the sea of leaves. Golden sunlight filtered through the canopy, dancing across my face as the wind brushed against my skin.

“Now, this is awesome…”

I felt like an absolute bum, but the ability to relax whenever I wanted was one of the greatest victories of my life. No schemes. No fighting. No cultivators trying to murder me for breathing incorrectly. Just peace.

I took a deep breath.

Fresh leaves. Damp earth. Wildflowers. Tree sap. Animal shit somewhere in the distance.

Nature.

Isolating myself and playing the seclusion card had genuinely been the best decision I’d ever made. The Dark Order was basically finished on this continent, at least for now, so I could finally loosen up a little. Sure, there were probably still countless terrible people in the world, but that wasn’t my problem anymore.

They just better pray they never found me.

Or worse, that I suddenly woke up one day in the mood to go on a crusade.

“BLOW JAB! BLOW JAB!”

I nearly died choking on my own saliva.

I coughed violently and looked down from the branch, only to witness the horrifying sight of a kangaroo shadowboxing beneath my tree.

“BLOW JAB! BLOW JAB!” Roo shouted energetically as he punched the air with frightening seriousness. “THE HEAVENS SHALL TREMBLE BEFORE THE SUPREME FIST OF THE BOUND SKY STRIDER!”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“Hey, Roo,” I called out weakly, “isn’t it still too early for your shenanigans?”

The kangaroo immediately pointed at me accusingly. “MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS, WO LI! A TRUE MARTIAL ARTIST DOES NOT REST!”

“You should do your business somewhere else,” I argued. “You’re disturbing my rest.”

“But this place is perfect!” Roo declared proudly. “YOU’RE HERE!”

“…That’s your reason?”

“OF COURSE!” He puffed out his chest proudly. “YOU ARE MY OBJECT OF INSPIRATION! THE MIGHTY WALL I SHALL ONE DAY OVERCOME!”

I regretted asking.

“BLOW JAB! BLOW JAB!”

I rubbed my forehead. “Who even taught you that? I mean… shouting your technique names is cool and all, but…”

“I THOUGHT OF THE NAME MYSELF!” Roo announced triumphantly. “IT’S COOL, RIGHT?”

I immediately shook my head. “No. Just no.”

Roo froze.

Then his ears drooped.

For a brief moment, I almost felt guilty.

However, the kangaroo recovered with terrifying speed.

“IT’S FINE!” he shouted while throwing another barrage of punches into the air. “I STILL THINK IT’S COOL!”

Right.

I’d almost forgotten the horrifying level of optimism this creature possessed.

“BLOW JAB! BLOW JAB!”

“Still,” I muttered, “you really don’t have to shout it every single time.”

“But the cultivators who keep challenging me always shout their techniques!” Roo defended himself passionately. “I CAN’T JUST YELL ‘WAY OF THE BOUND SKY STRIDER’ EVERY TIME I JUMP AT THEM! THAT TAKES TOO MANY SYLLABLES! A TRUE FIGHTER NEEDS VARIETY!”

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“How about,” I said carefully, “you just change the names of your moves instead? Please. For my sanity.”

“NO!”

“WHY!?”

“BECAUSE THEY REPRESENT MY FIGHTING SPIRIT!”

Oh my god.

I inhaled deeply, trying to maintain inner peace.

It failed.

“How about a spar?” I suggested instead. “You can unleash your fighting spirit somewhere productive.”

To my surprise, Roo suddenly became serious.

He crossed his arms and shook his head firmly. “NO. I AM NOT YET STRONG ENOUGH TO CONTEND AGAINST YOU.”

I blinked.

That… was unexpectedly self-aware.

Roo nodded respectfully toward me. “BUT THANK YOU FOR WISHING TO RECEIVE MY BLOW JAB.”

“No!” I immediately shouted. “I don’t want your Blow Jab!”

“Your fear is understandable.”

“I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE BLOW JAB!”

“Many warriors fear the Blow Jab at first.”

“STOP SAYING IT LIKE IT’S SOME LEGENDARY TECHNIQUE!”

Roo merely smiled wisely, like a grandmaster overlooking the ignorance of mortals.

Ugh…

This was exhausting.

“Do you at least have other moves?” I asked. “Maybe you could shout those instead.”

Roo suddenly gasped.

Then he nodded sagely, eyes narrowing with enlightenment.

“INDEED,” he declared gravely. “I SPOKE OF VARIETY… YET I HAVE ONLY BEEN USING BLOW JAB.”

“…Please don’t invent more.”

“I SHALL CREATE AN ENTIRE MARTIAL SYSTEM!” Roo proclaimed to the heavens. “THE AGE OF THE BLOW JAB HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN!”

I seriously considered merging back into the tree and pretending I was dead.

Roo suddenly inhaled deeply, his entire body tensing as though he were preparing to unveil the pinnacle of martial arts.

“FOOT JAB!”

He unleashed a sharp kick forward.

The movement was surprisingly clean. It was fast, compact, and efficient. His balance was solid, and the force behind the strike actually stirred the grass around him.

“Not bad.”

No.

NO!

It was not time to be impressed!

“FOOT JAB! FOOT JAB! DOUBLE FOOT JAB!” Roo shouted while unleashing a flurry of kicks into the air with enough force to crack the earth beneath him.

I held a hand over my forehead.

Should I cast a spell on this guy?

Or maybe hit him with my staff?

N-No. That was too much.

That would just be animal abuse at this point.

Besides, I’d feel bad considering how earnest Roo was about his training. The guy genuinely believed he was building the ultimate martial system.

Unfortunately, that martial system sounded like the fever dream of a drunken boxer.

Roo suddenly spun around and planted his tail into the ground for balance. Then he twisted his body violently and thrust his backside backward with explosive force.

“BACK SHOT!”

I stared at him in horror.

Okay.

OKAY.

This guy had to be doing this on purpose.

“There’s no way…” I muttered weakly.

“BLOW JAB! BACK SHOT! FOOT JAB! BLOW JAB! BACK SHOT! FOOT JAB!” Roo roared as he chained the attacks together with terrifying enthusiasm.

The forest trembled. Birds fled from the trees. A nearby squirrel looked spiritually defeated. Yeah. I was done with this kangaroo.

Before Roo could unveil whatever horrifying technique came next, I activated Nature’s Stride. Spiritual energy flowed through the roots beneath the forest floor, and my body dissolved into green light before reappearing several kilometers away near Zhen Ai’s residence.

Peace.

Sweet peace.

“Godfather!”

I barely had enough time to register Tao Wolong’s voice before the boy descended from above like an excited monkey. He leaped down from the treehouse gracefully and rushed toward me with his arms spread wide open.

I sidestepped calmly, and stuck out my foot.

The boy tripped instantly and crashed face-first into the dirt.

“Godfather!” Tao Wolong complained while lifting his head from the ground. “That was unfair! You dodged!”

“You were just too slow,” I replied shamelessly.

“That’s because you cheated!”

“Winning is winning.”

Tao Wolong puffed his cheeks angrily while dirt clung to his face.

Meanwhile, Zhen Ai peeked out from the treehouse above us.

“Master Wo?” she called out in surprise.

I waved lazily. “Yo.”

Her eyes brightened immediately.

“Are you here to learn your characters?”

I winced.

Right.

I had completely forgotten about that.

Some time ago, I’d asked Zhen Ai to teach me how to read and write properly in this world. Unfortunately, I’d also discovered that procrastination was one of humanity’s greatest inventions. Living peacefully in the forest had only strengthened my desire to do absolutely nothing productive.

Sadly, Zhen Ai remembered.

And now I was trapped.

Of course, it wasn’t like I was completely illiterate. Xing Ning had taught me a bit before, enough that I could recognize common characters and painfully stumble my way through simpler texts if I concentrated hard enough. Basic manuals, signs, amateurish nature memoirs, and easy textbooks were manageable.

The real problem started once the writings became more advanced. Historical records, cultivation theories, scholarly essays? Those might as well have been encrypted scriptures to me. Worse, the recent memory loss that had been quietly stacking over time was starting to make everything unreliable. Sometimes I’d forget characters I swore I learned yesterday. Other times, I’d read an entire paragraph only to realize moments later that none of it stayed in my head. It was frustrating in a way I didn’t like thinking about too much, because for the first time in a long while, I couldn’t just brute-force my way through the issue.

The lesson began shortly afterward inside the treehouse. Tao Wolong joined us enthusiastically, though mostly because he enjoyed mocking me whenever I struggled.

Which happened often.

Very often.

“This character means mountain,” Zhen Ai explained patiently while writing the symbol onto parchment.

I stared at it blankly.

“…Why does it look like a dead spider?”

Tao Wolong immediately burst into laughter.

“Godfather is stupid!”

“I can hear your future ass-whooping approaching,” I informed him calmly.

Zhen Ai sighed softly. “Master Wo, please focus.”

“I am focusing.”

“You’ve been staring out the window for the last five minutes.”

“…I was contemplating the philosophical meaning of the character.”

Tao Wolong pointed at me dramatically. “Liar! You were watching a bird!”

“It was a very interesting bird.”

Zhen Ai pinched the bridge of her nose. “Alright. Again. This character means water.”

“…That’s three squiggles.”

“It symbolizes flowing streams.”

“It symbolizes my suffering.”

Tao Wolong laughed so hard he nearly rolled off his seat.

Honestly, I knew this shouldn’t have been difficult for me. My stats were absurd, and my memory was far beyond ordinary humans at this point. Memorization itself wasn’t the issue.

The problem was that the language system felt fundamentally… wrong to me somehow.

Whenever I tried focusing too deeply on the written characters, my mind drifted strangely. The Voice of the World constantly translated meaning directly into my consciousness, bypassing the need for proper literacy. It was like my ability had spoiled me rotten.

Or maybe merging with trees lately had genuinely started messing with my brain.

That was also possible.

“Master Wo,” Zhen Ai asked carefully, “are you alright?”

I blinked and realized I’d been staring at the same character for several minutes.

“…Yeah. I just zoned out again.”

“You’ve been doing that often lately.”

“I know.”

Her expression softened slightly. “Perhaps you should stop using your strange sleeping method so much.”

“…Probably.”

Tao Wolong leaned forward suspiciously. “Godfather sleeps inside trees.”

Zhen Ai looked at me.

I looked away.

“…It’s comfortable.”

“You sound like an old forest spirit.”

“That’s because I’m evolving.”

“You’re devolving,” Tao Wolong corrected confidently.

Traitor.

Eventually, after another painful hour of my intellectual destruction, I finally gave up.

“You know what?” I sighed while lying flat on the floor dramatically. “I surrender. Reading is overrated.”

“Master Wo…”

“Instead, how about you read me one of those history books the Willow Order sent over?”

Zhen Ai crossed her arms. “Next time, you must work harder on your characters.”

“Yes, mom.”

She rolled her eyes immediately.

Meanwhile, Tao Wolong puffed up indignantly. “Mother! Why are you always so easy on godfather?!”

I reached over and ruffled his hair aggressively.

“Because I’m charming.”

“You’re lazy!”

“Also true.”

I sat up slightly and gestured toward the books.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s just learn history.”

Honestly, it was embarrassing having someone else read to me like this, but lately my attention span had been genuinely terrible. I kept finding myself drifting into trances without realizing it. Sometimes, when the wind blew through the trees, I almost instinctively wanted to merge with the forest again and sleep for days.

That probably wasn’t healthy.

The tree-merging ability was fascinating, but the more useful an ability was, the more careful you had to be around it. I’d learned that lesson already.

Zhen Ai eventually opened one of the thicker books and began reading aloud.

“The origins of the sect system,” she read calmly, “remain heavily debated among scholars. Some historians argue that nations came first, requiring powerful cultivator organizations to defend their borders. Others insist the opposite is true, that sects existed long before nations and that rulers merely formed governments around already established cultivator powers.”

I rested my chin on my palm while listening quietly.

“The earliest recorded kingdoms often relied upon nearby sects for military support,” Zhen Ai continued. “However, this relationship created unusual balances of power. In many regions, sect leaders held authority equal to kings themselves. Some nations prospered under this arrangement, while others became little more than puppets beneath immortal clans.”

Tao Wolong tilted his head. “So… who was stronger? Kings or sects?”

Zhen Ai smiled faintly.

“That question,” she said, “has started wars for thousands of years.”