Wudang: Legends Of Qi Earth 137 Orcon Forest I : Of Poison And Catalysts!

Alex's turn from skinny but muscular pubescent boy to seriously gorgeous naked lady with hair and eyes so red they looked like blood, not to mention her hair was all-over the place, wrapping around every single person in the cabin. Then she looked at them with a smile and gave a wave before she said.

"Y'all better hang on."

And then she waved a hand, using her hair to destroy one part of the Airship and letting the rush of Air drag her and every other person on board out and straight to the ground. The sound if the wind rushing past their ears was defeating, but all in all everyone was still safe and somewhat intact as Ébié led them all to the ground, a ground that as it approached, they all quickly noticed was an Expansive forest that instead of being green, was the cloying purple of poison and decay.

They weaved through the trees, their bodies covered and protected by extremely long and soft red hair that stretched forth from Alex's possessed body. They all made it to the ground safely and without any sort of injuries, Ébié quickly vanished, just as quickly as she had appeared and Alex was left curled on the ground, trying to catch his breath as his body tried to re-acclimate itself.

Apart from Xiao Mei who was a returning student, every other person on the airship were new students, so basically there were really no veteran students here to take charge except Xiao Mei, and also no teachers as the airship was supposed to deliver them to the school before they had a chance to meet up with any teachers. So for the moment they were all unsettled whilst staring intensely at the boy who just changed into a woman and back into a boy in mere seconds. Anya and Xiao Mei hovered over Alex Ashe coughed and disgorged his breakfast, the last time this had happened, he had passed out so the effect of Ébié possessing his body wasn't felt in such a way.

But he's gotten stronger since then, especially his body; which was why he was able to resist the feeling of passing out, but in the end having your body change gender and shapes, was not easy. This wasn't an illusion, and compared to Nezha who was still make and had more control over his abilities than Ébié who was female and was a recently born spirit, it stands to reason Alex would be under a lot of discomfort once he gets back into his own form.

"What just happened?" Alex asked in between deep breaths, as he leaned on Anya who supported and raised him up.

"What just happened? We're cursed that's what! Why is it that every time we're in an Airship or away from the sect some terrible shit always happens to us! It's not fair!" Alex looked up at a complaining Louis and couldn't help but shake his head, though to be fair, the boy was right.

"Xiao Mei? Where are we?" Anya asked as the rest of the students drew closer, most of them were in the open Dantian realm, with a few reaching the peak of the true essence realm, and only three people were in the true element realm, one of which was Xiao Mei, who also had the highest cultivation level and experience here.

Xiao Mei took a look around, the forest in front of them had purple leaves, it was vibrant and lush and had the same amount of humidity you would see in a rain forest during spring. Few clung closely to the leaves as sap leaked out from it's bark, subsequently expunging tiny wisps of purple vapor from itself.

Xiao Mei opened her eyes wide in shock as she crouched down, and then shot upwards, her body easily going last the hundred and fifty foot tall tree line, to have a wider and unobstructed view, for a moment she was suspended in the air a platform of ice in the shape of a snowflake appearing underneath her feet, and then it disappeared and her form covered in most moved done through the trees in a speed that barely any body around could follow.

"All of you! If you have any sort of antidote for poisons, or a spell or skill to raise your resistance to poison, then I urge you all to take it now. As for those of you who are Alchemists, keep your eyes open for any herbs or materials that can be used in forging antidotes and maybe a few healing potions and pills, we're all in extreme danger." Xiao Mei said as she walked towards Alex who was slowly getting back to himself, tough the questioning look on his face more than showed he had no idea what was going on.

"Please Lady Zhang Xiao Mei for eh Wudang sect, my name is Tang Lin, I'm pretty sure my expertise in poison is lot more than anyone here. I can see that our current environment is heavily saturated with poison, but from what I can see it doesn't seem to have any sort of harmful effect, from my observation it looks like this poison in the air needs a catalyst to come into effect, but if there's no such catalyst in sight why worry so much?"

Xiao Mei looked at the young man who was talking, his silky black hair, pale skin, purple eyes and skin tight black clothes more than proved his point. This twenty or so looking guy was from the Tang sect, and with the way he carried himself amongst the other disciples of the Tang sect, it was obvious he was the leader. His deduction wasn't wrong, in fact it was completely accurate, but Xiao Mei was annoyed, he was arrogant. This was a place completely foreign to him, how the hell would he know that a catalyst isn't around.

"This is Orcon forest, it stretches for almost 70 kilometers in every direction from the center, the catalysts for it's poison is every single thing in it. By now we've all inhaled the poison, but if so much as a bark from a tree or a thistle or thorn scratches you, then you'll be dead in minutes, and every second will be agonizing. It is believed the poisonous humidity of the forest itself isn't that dangerous, and a couple of hours in open air or with the proper antidote will neutralize it's effect quickly, but everything here, the animals, the demonic beasts, the biology itself produces this dormant poison, and the catalyst to trigger it is contact with them, mostly you have to get injured and any part of them exposed to your blood stream or skin will trigger the poison. So Tang Lin, the catalyst can't be seen because it's everywhere and everything you see, so please be careful."

The revelation she just gave was enough to put things in perspective for a lot of them, Tang Lin bowed in thanks as he went back to his fellow sect members and started taking precautions. Every other person did the same, some even putting on armor and clothes that completely covered every exposed inch of skin. But Alex knew it might be futile, everything was a catalyst, which means if a tiny speck of dust or pollen got into your nose or mouth or even your eyes, then that's game over for you. Alex turned to Xiao Mei and asked.

"So what do we do now? Where do we go? Will the Academy send someone for us or can we reach them?" it was a lot of questions, but Alex rather get it out of the way and hear her answers.

"The poison humidity of this forest might be harmless without a catalyst, but it's quite capable of blocking any and all sort of communication. No amount of messages we send will get through the blanket of poison over the forest, however the Academy borders the forest from the West. The sun is almost directly over our heads meaning it's close to noon, so I can't exactly tell which direction is west for another hour or two, and compasses don't work here so put yours away Louis." She said, much to the embarrassment of a red faced Louis who sneakily returned his pocket watch like compass into his clothes.

"But we can't stay here, the crash site of the Airship is about three kilometers Northwest from here, fires don't last long in this forest, it's too humid that if you have enough control over the wind and water element, you'll be able to pull out gallons of poison in a second.

But none the less the area of the crash is on fire, and the wind might blow the ash our way, and that's a catalyst I don't think anyone wants to deal with, plus the magical and demonic beasts of the forest would have heard the crash, they'll be on their way here and they're choke full with poisons that would give even the head of the Tang sect pause.

So for now let's go south of here, for another hour until we get our bearings, once we do we can start making our way east and hope to the gods that we're closer West than I think, because we can't move too fast through the forest for fear of triggering the poison,

Hopefully we're really close to the academy, we might be able to meet other students training here, or if we're really lucky, teachers that can get us out with any sort of transportation artifact.

Now every one keep yourselves fully covered, including your mouth, nose and ears, for those of you that can, use your Qi to cover your eyes or wear shades that can prevent any sort of residue from getting in. And reign in your energy, the worst possible thing that can happen is to get into combat with any demonic or magical beast. Because quite frankly the least powerful of them is at the true element realm or 3rd circle magical beast, and those are just the minority. So keep up! And be silent."

Chapter end