After Kenny and Alexandra had their fill of the valley gleefully harvesting roughly a ton of biomass for many hours, the two of them had walked back to the town and the town hall.

  “Good news is that I have absorbed the blueprint of the Cur’s flame sack,” Kenny said to Serenity. “Also I can mimic plants to grow biomass that way. Unfortunately, the Curs do not use an oil to fuel their attacks, merely raw Qi.”

  Serenity hummed as she rubbed her chin. “Alright, that’s bad, but not impossible. If you can replicate their flame sacs from generic Qi, then its logical to assume that you can replicate tallow from normal bovine.”

  A twitch of Qi opened a hole in reality above Serenity’s hand and deposited a piece of paper before it sealed itself. Serenity used her finger clad in Qi to write out a note.

  “With the lack of indoor fire, such as stoves or ovens, the meat industry is either going to swing to outdoor gatherings like the summer barbabques or depend on the pet and combat pet industries.” Serenity said as she handed the note to Kenny. “Thus you should go to the livestock farm to the west and consume one of the beasts ready for slaughter.”

  Kenny obediently took the note and stuffed it into his pocket.

  “After that I suggest that you go back home and hunker down for the night.” She said. “Have you tried to Cultivate your Qi yet?”

  Kenny nodded. “Turns out I have the ability to directly burn biomass into Qi.”

  Serenity blinked. “That’s so cheap. Growing stronger through eating. Instead of stealing attributes from eating.”

  Serenity shook her head. “I can see why our Empress would devote resources to this.”

  Serenity leaned over her desk as she scribbled another note in her notebook. Then she reached into another hole in reality and pulled a small book that she handed over to Kenny, it was a green hardback that had the image of a plant growing out of a fire on the front.

  “Ashland Rejuvenation: How to use fire Qi to regrow nature.”

  Serenity hummed, “Usually this spell is used to grow herbs and spices for meals, but this is also the first step to lager scale permanent manifestations of Qi.”

  Kenny blinked, “What, can you manifest hills or mountains to harvest the ores inside?”

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  Alexandra nodded. “Yeah, Seven Guided Arrows use it to manifest ammo for their stronger balistas, also Rose of Blades love to make mountains and smelt them in the giant furnaces.”

  Kenny hissed. “Oh, no. they’re going to hate that no fire in containers thing.”

  “I’ve sent them a runner and they should have a reply by the end of the week.” Serenity said. “I hope they are still alive.”

  Kenny nodded as Serenity looked out the window.

  “Oh my,” Serenity said. “Its far later than I thought. Hurry back to your home and use my note tomorrow.”

  Indeed, it was almost sunset, thus Alexandra picked up Kenny by the waist and darted out of the building.

  The shadows stretched out in profane fashion as they disgorged the horde of monsters. They howled at the sight of humans and leapt at the duo. Alexandra’s sword darted out of her sheath and slashed at the Hens that were coming from the left as Kenny morphed his right hand into serrated claws, capturing three Hens on its barbs and crushing several more. Tendrils lanced out of his claws and wrapped around the Hens that he attacked, crushing them into pulp and forcing the slurry of former Star Spawn into the tendrils and through his arm to land in his stomach.

  Half of the new biomass was instantly burned for Qi, half of that new Qi went to his soul tenant, but the rest of the Qi went to his legs, mimicking what Alexandra was doing and successfully keeping pace with the older Cultivator.

  The city’s cultivators were too busy with the establishment of defenses for tonight to give assistance to two people leaving their assigned area. Kenny did some quick thinking and dropped most of his biomass in large plates of the hardest keratin that he could make and the closest cultivators understood that he was providing materials for walls.

  “Yo thanks!” One of them shouted after Kenny and Alexandra.

  “No problem!” Kenny yelled back just before they left hearing range.

  It was a mere matter of minutes before they were back at the fence that outlined Kenny’s farm, he had absorbed enough of the Hens to replace his spent biomass and even increase his stores. Instantly his back exploded into a mess of wall tipped tendrils, each of them digging into the dirt to keep the wall segments upright before the tendrils detached the walls and pulsed as they regrew the deployable walls.

  “Can you make a digestion pit where I can toss the bodies of the Hens into and you’ll get the biomass when you reconnect to it?” Alexandra asked.

  Kenny blinked and formed a large bathtub that had its insides replaced with writhing tendrils, but when he tried to disconnect from it, the prototype digestion pit collapsed back into the Threads and went back into his stomach.

  “Not yet I guess.” Kenny said.

  Alexandra clicked her tongue and went back to her first plan, it was a mere matter of seconds before Kenny saw a few Hatchet Hens launched through the air and fatally splat against the ground before him, which enabled him to drink up the corpses with ease.

  The two of them settled in for a sleepless night full of bloodshed and a faint hope.