Valerio stirred awake surprisingly gently, an unexpected calm taking hold of his mind. Just a second after, his eyes bulged open as he recalled the pain of pushing past his mental limits.
'Wait,' he paused, 'why don't I feel any pain?'
Valerio immediately sat up and dove into his soul sea to inspect for damages.
'Did I injure myself so much I'm numb to the pain?'
Valerio appeared in his soul sea expecting to see the once calm lake in distress, yet it… wasn't?
From birth, all children were taught about the different types of attacks you could face, with the most dreaded being soul-related attacks. This was mainly because soul-type injuries were almost impossible to fully heal without a reliance on external treasures, and it had to be noted that a simple treasure would not suffice. Such a treasure would have to either be higher in plane than the person with the injury or be crafted by an expert in alchemy.
The soul sea was just as pristine and calm as it was before, the only difference was the small lily that was gently resting in the middle with its once-vibrant shine dimmer.
If Valerio's image could facepalm, it would have.
It seemed obvious now that the exceedingly tranquil aura of the lily must have had healing properties; otherwise, how else could his soul injuries heal and the lily become dimmer simultaneously?
As Valerio was shaking his head, lamenting at how long it took him to connect the dots, he willed his consciousness out of his soul sea.
He had just risked injuring his soul for an escape pod.
How was he gonna use an escape pod, if he wasn't alive?
'I can't make such a dumb decision again.' he thought.
He couldn't afford to get into another situation like this.
What would have happened to him if the soul lily hadn't healed him?
How many more times could it heal him?
He couldn't afford such risks.
Valerio slotted the philosophy to the back of his head, 'Live first, worry second.'
He stood up and surveyed his surroundings, everything looked identical to before. The enormous redwoods towered to the skies, small patches of grass grew to the left, the only difference was the small crater to his back.
But seeing the crater again seemed to have a panic take hold of him as Valerio frantically willed Spiritual Lu into his ring to inspect its contents.
'Huuuu,' Valerio exhaled as he felt a massive weight being lifted off of his shoulders.
The pod was indeed there. For a moment an irrational fear of the pod not being there had taken hold of him, but sure enough, there it stood in the middle of his void ring. With its hulking size and special materials, it overshadowed everything else in his spatial ring.
Having taken care of everything, it was time to decide his next course of action. Valerio was stuck between cultivating before leaving the clearing or directly searching for shelter. Though food and water were important, he needed to find shelter.
He wasn't willing to quasi-injure his soul to bring his pod out for shelter. He needed to find a settlement. The issue was that there wasn't a direction with a higher probability of finding a settlement than a random direction.
Cultivation allowed for the environment to be changed or adapted to fit different needs. There were environments which were death zones to some but heavenly for others, due to a difference in affinity. For example, though a fire cultivator would struggle in an icy mountain, a volcano would be ideal for them, not only would the environment be comfortable but the fire Lu density in the atmosphere would be much higher, increasing their cultivation speed.
Another issue was the fact he was unsure as to whether the planet he was currently on was populated by humans. There were races the humans didn't get along with, the prime example being beasts. There were many issues between the two races, they hunted each other for benefits and the humans had "tamed" beasts on many occasions.
All of this was important but ultimately Valerio didn't have a choice but to search, and so he broke out into a jog, moving opposite to the remains of the once tranquil lake.
If he was going to move in a random direction, it was definitely away from the chaos he'd caused earlier.
Unfortunately for Valerio, his chaos had already been discovered by a pair of twins.
"Ava, it's over here!" shouted Eve as she ducked and moved underneath a fallen redwood tree, its bark covering up her entire vision as if a wall meant to block outsiders from the clearing behind it.
Eve quickly found the same spot and entered the clearing, preparing herself for a multitude of scenarios. Alas, nothing could have prepared her for what she saw inside.
Devastation.
Absolute and utter devastation.
The clearing was filled with redwood branches strewn around, the perimeter was covered by walls of fallen redwood behemoths. It looked as if the redwoods had been drawn towards the centre of the crater, yet couldn't move past a specific circumference, thus falling on top of each other in a circle.
Ava and Eve stood next to each other, unable to fathom the cause of the chaos in front of them. The Ying Yang Redwoods had withstood the test of time and natural disasters, yet they were now being uprooted like simple trees.
Who knows how they may have reacted if they had known it was a First Planer in Tier 7.
"Eve, wha—what happened here?" asked Ava trying her best to mask the trembling in her voice.
"I–I don't know" Ava mumbled, still stupefied by the sight in front of her.
"Let's go have a look deeper," she suggested while pointing towards the centre of the crevice.
The twins' footsteps disturbed the eerie silence that had taken over the clearing. It was as if every living behind had fled in fear of something... or someone. Though this was a scene that could be found in nature, it only occurred under one condition.
In the presence of an overwhelming apex.
Amidst their fear, all smaller creatures would cease their movements, trying to avoid detection. The same silence hung in the air now, a testament to the wildlife that had either fled or perished in the wake of whatever had happened here.
It felt as though the land itself was holding its breath.
Soon enough, Ava and Eve stood at the edge of the now-dry lake, their brows furrowed in confusion. On the other side of the lakebed, a circle with a five-metre radius stood untouched. Surrounding it were almost perfectly placed twigs, as if something had prevented them from moving into the circle, creating a distinct boundary that seemed almost unnatural.
How could it be that such a perfect circle remained undisturbed amidst the shattered surroundings?
Ava leaned over the crevice and let gravity take hold of her, falling into the dry lakebed and breaking off into a sprint towards the other side. As soon as her body was at a 60-degree angle off the edge, her feet hit the side of the wall as she ran down the lake. Without losing her momentum, she directly ran up the other side of the lake, arriving on the other side.
Eve followed.
They walked towards the small circle a few meters away.
The circle was quite odd, they had first thought that it was the eye of whatever storm happened here. They had then thought that it was a formation eye, but it wasn't that either.
It looked like someone just arranged a circle of twigs.
"No, it was a person," Ava muttered as she stared at the circle.
"There are footprints here, look." Ava pointed towards a set of subtle, half-worn footprints leading out of the clearing.
Eve's eyes slightly widened, 'could it have been a human that caused this?'
"Let's go," Ava whispered as they began following the trail of footsteps.