Immortal Druid

There had been many additions to the Touch Grass Sect over the years, and somehow, against all reason, I had become responsible for nearly all of them.

The forest no longer resembled the wild sanctuary I first stumbled into. Treehouses connected by rope bridges stretched across entire canopies. Spirit beasts traded polished stones and carved wooden tokens like merchants in a mortal city. Some genius squirrel had even invented the concept of debt, which immediately caused three separate incidents involving gambling, stolen mushrooms, and a raccoon insisting he legally owned a riverbank.

I regretted teaching them economics.

Still, life had been peaceful. Peaceful enough that I had grown used to it.

Every morning brought something new. I attended the lessons, whenever I could. Zhen Ai held literary lessons beneath the ancient cedar groves, forcing bewildered beasts to recite poetry while correcting their grammar with frightening precision. Jia Ping taught history like she was personally offended by ignorance. Mab instructed cultivation in ways that usually left half the spirit beasts unconscious and the other half spiritually enlightened. Tao Wolong constantly dragged me into whatever nonsense he was planning, while Roo remained perfectly content eating grass and occasionally headbutting people he liked.

I visited Guo Yimu, Xing Ning, and Li Ming whenever I had the chance. The forest was lively now. Warm. Chaotic in a strangely comforting way.

Except for the occasional cultivator arriving to challenge the Touch Grass Sect to a duel for one ridiculous reason or another, there truly was not a dull day.

Ten years had passed since the sect was founded.

One of the largest additions to the forest had been Jia Ping’s workshop. Calling it a workshop was underselling it. The place looked like a deranged fusion between a physician’s clinic, an alchemist’s laboratory, and a torture chamber designed by someone with too much curiosity and not enough ethics.

I leaned against one corner of the room while experimenting with a glass apparatus filled with swirling strands of qi and mana. The two energies refused to behave properly together. Mana moved like flowing wavelengths, smooth and continuous, while qi behaved more like tangible particles colliding against one another. Every attempt at combining them caused violent instability inside the chamber.

It was fascinating.

Nearby, Xing Ning sat stiffly on a wooden stool while Jia Ping shamelessly poked at his arms, shoulders, and neck with the concentration of a scholar examining an ancient relic.

Xing Ning looked deeply uncomfortable.

“M-Miss Jia Ping,” he muttered as she squeezed his forearm again, “must this truly happen every single year?”

“It absolutely must,” Jia Ping declared without mercy. “Your mother agreed to annual examinations, so you will endure them with dignity.”

She pressed her fingers against his wrist, eyes gleaming with academic obsession.

“Honestly, I remain amazed every time I examine you. Your body resembles a spirit far more than a living human. That constitution of yours borders on ghostly.”

Xing Ning visibly paled.

“Sage Wo Li,” he said desperately, turning toward me, “please save me from her—”

“I feel bad about your weird situation right now,” I replied while carefully rotating the glass sphere in my hand, “but suck it up. It’s for your own good. I mean, there has to be a reason why you gained that body, right?”

“It probably has something to do with his origin,” Xing Mei said calmly.

Xing Ning blinked.

“Mother?” he asked nervously. “What do you mean by that?”

Xing Mei stood nearby with the composed elegance she always carried herself with. Despite her status as Sect Leader, she had never missed a single one of Xing Ning’s examinations. The amount of maternal concern she showed bordered on excessive at times.

Jia Ping immediately straightened.

“What do you mean by his origin?” she asked sharply.

Xing Mei hesitated for only a moment before answering.

“My son… does not have a father.”

The room became quiet.

“One day,” she continued evenly, “I simply conceived him.”

I stopped turning the apparatus in my hands. Inside the glass chamber, the unstable mixture of qi and mana abruptly spiraled out of control before I hurriedly stabilized it. I slowly turned my head toward her.

“So,” I said carefully, “a magical baby?”

Jia Ping’s jaw nearly dropped.

“That is impossible.”

“It is the truth,” Xing Mei replied calmly.

Jia Ping stared at Xing Ning with growing awe, as though she had just discovered a legendary scripture walking around in mortal form.

“The strangeness of fate…” she murmured. “Xing Ning is a Shén.”

I blinked and turned toward Mab.

She sat on the far side of the workshop beside an open window, quietly painting a portrait of me for reasons I no longer questioned. In her current spring form, she possessed flowing emerald hair woven with tiny blossoms that shifted color whenever light touched them. Her brush moved lazily across the canvas while she listened to the conversation with mild amusement.

“Mab,” I asked, “do you know something about this?”

Without looking up from her painting, she answered casually.

“Makes sense.”

That was not reassuring.

“The two Shén were destined to draw toward each other eventually,” she continued. “They are siblings. Dawn and dusk.”

Her brush glided smoothly across the canvas.

“Dawn is always older. Dusk is always younger.”

Xing Ning looked increasingly alarmed the longer she spoke.

“The two are destined siblings tasked with one responsibility,” Mab said. “To expand the world itself. Grow more islands. Stretch the oceans farther. Create new lands. Things like that.”

Silence filled the workshop.

I stared at Xing Ning.

Xing Ning stared back at me.

Then he pointed weakly at himself.

“…Me?”

Mab finally glanced up from the portrait.

“Yes.”

Xing Ning looked moments away from fainting.

I could not blame him.

Jia Ping pinched the bridge of her nose so hard that I genuinely worried she might crush it. “Mab,” she said with exhausted fury, “you possess knowledge stretching back into the ancient eras. The least you could do is allow someone else to preserve history properly. I am begging you to let me record these things.”

Mab continued painting without the slightest concern.

“It sounds bothersome,” she replied.

“That is because preserving history requires effort!”

“Yes,” Mab agreed calmly. “Which is why I do not wish to do it.”

Jia Ping looked moments away from committing violence.

Meanwhile, I remained focused on the strange reaction occurring inside the glass apparatus in my hands.

The mixture of qi and mana suddenly pulled toward one another like opposing magnetic fields. Thin strands of silver and pale green spiraled through the chamber while I guided them carefully with my thoughts. Whenever the two touched, a third substance emerged briefly between them.

That mysterious energy felt… different.

Not qi.

Not mana.

Something higher and heavier.

I still did not fully understand why qi and mana were fundamentally different despite both being forms of power. Mana flowed like waves, abstract and fluid, while qi possessed distinct density, almost like tangible matter. My spells always became weaker when powered through qi, yet they lasted much longer and maintained greater stability.

Why?

What exactly was the difference besides structure?

I narrowed my eyes at the chamber.

There had to be meaning behind it.

Behind me, Xing Ning still looked dazed. “Wait, I have a sister?”

“Technically,” I replied while continuing my experiment, “something like a soul sister.”

I paused.

“And you’re her soul bro.”

Another pause.

“…Actually, that sounded way worse out loud.”

Xing Ning looked deeply disturbed.

“This is my first time hearing of these Shén,” said Xing Mei. “What exactly are they? Creating islands? Expanding the ocean?”

Jia Ping immediately answered, “Classified.”

Mab answered at the exact same time. “They are a special destined existence that continuously reincarnates throughout the cycle.”

Jia Ping whipped toward her in horror. “MAB!”

Mab ignored her completely. “The Willow Order has protected them for a very long time,” she continued casually. “Every generation possesses two. One male. One female. Dawn and dusk. Just like I said. Don’t make me repeat them, or are just deaf?”

Jia Ping looked like she wanted to strangle an immortal spirit.

“You cannot simply reveal secrets like this!”

“I think it’s better they know,” I argued.

What was the point of hiding it anymore?

Xing Ning literally was one of the people involved.

It became painfully obvious why the Willow Order kept information regarding the Shén restricted. Any existence capable of altering reality itself would become the target of every lunatic cultivator in existence.

Then a thought struck me.

I slowly lowered the glass chamber.

“…Wait.”

Everyone looked toward me.

“If the Willow Order knows about the Shén,” I said carefully, “then the Dark Order might know too. I mean, the things that happened to Xing Ning so far cannot be a coincidence, right?”

Jia Ping’s expression darkened. “That is possible. They used Xing Ning as a vessel for that immortal, after all.”

I grimaced.

“I still have no idea if the possession actually succeeded or not in gaining the powers of a Shén or something. I killed the immortal before I could tell the difference. To be fair, that was the first time I fought an immortal, so I can’t really say what’s there normal standard is like, or for that matter, how does a Shén fight?”

Xing Ning immediately looked horrified again.

“Please stop saying things that casually.”

“No promises.”

Xing Mei remained surprisingly composed.

“What makes the Shén so special?” she asked.

Jia Ping exhaled slowly before answering.

“They possess the privilege of creation.”

The workshop grew quiet.

“Once mature,” she continued, “a Shén may create something from nothing through pure expression of power. Their energy is a higher form born from the union of qi and dimensional energy. Two representations that form the foundation of existence itself.”

She pointed lightly upward.

“The Origin.”

Then downward.

“And the Source.”

I froze.

My eyes slowly lowered toward the glass box in my hands. Qi. Dimensional energy. Mana. The strange third force swirling between them. Suddenly, both energies inside the chamber dipped violently. Something materialized.

I stared at it and screamed.

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!”

Everyone jumped.

I nearly dropped the apparatus while staring into the chamber like a lunatic.

“I JUST MADE BREAD!” I shouted. “I FREAKING MADE BREAD!”

I threw open the glass container. Inside rested a perfectly ordinary loaf of sliced bread wrapped in clear plastic packaging straight from my memories of Earth. The entire room went silent as I pulled it out.

“This is freaky.”

Jia Ping snatched the bread from my hands and examined it like a priceless artifact.

“What is this transparent material?”

“Plastic.”

“What is plastic?”

“Pure environmental disaster.”

I immediately shoved more qi and mana into the chamber.

“Okay, okay, okay,” I muttered excitedly. “Let’s try something harder.”

The energies collided again.

This time the drain was much harsher.

My mana reserves dropped sharply while my qi churned violently through my meridians. Sweat formed on my forehead as the third energy condensed inside the chamber. A rectangular object appeared. It possessed black glass, metal edges, and a smooth surface.

I slowly lifted it.

“No freaking way…”

It was a smartphone.

Everyone stared blankly as I swiped across the screen.

“It even works!”

I immediately switched to the camera app and pointed it toward them. Xing Ning looked confused. Xing Mei remained graceful. Jia Ping appeared spiritually offended. Mab calmly continued painting.

Click.

The photo appeared on the screen.

“Whoa,” I breathed. “This is really cool.”

I turned toward Jia Ping.

“Am I a Shén now?”

“That makes no sense,” she replied instantly. “There can only be two Shén within a generation. One man and one woman.”

I swallowed slowly while staring at the phone.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, “but this is pretty cool.”

Then inspiration struck.

“Oh my god.”

I shoved more energy into the chamber. The drain this time was catastrophic. My mana reserves instantly dropped beyond half while qi nearly collapsed through my channels. But it worked. A heavily glazed donut appeared in my hand.

The frosting gleamed beautifully beneath the workshop lights.

I stared at it with trembling emotion.

“…You beautiful bastard.”

I took the biggest bite imaginable.

Sweetness exploded across my tongue.

The glaze.

The softness.

The utterly unhealthy amount of sugar.

My eyes watered immediately.

“OH MY GOD,” I mumbled through tears. “IT’S BEEN SO LONG.”

I clutched the donut like a sacred treasure.

“I MISSED YOU SO MUCH.”