Mo Dao Zu Shi: Astray

The Calm Before the Storm

My open-world RPG experience (and Pan Heng's navigation training too, of course) better come in handy. - With map in hand, Pan Wukun attempted to navigate her way through the Jingchu region.

A river here. A river there. It's hard to tell which one is which!

Pan Wukun let out a long sigh.

Gee, if only I had map markers leading me to my next objective. Looks like I'm going to have to do this the old-school way. Wandering around from place to place, gathering info from the locals, and hoping for the best. Figure things out from there.

So on the road she went.

The peachwood staff she carved from the peach trees in Xuhou made for a good walking stick, combat staff, and evil spirit repellant.

She rode in the back of farmers' hay carts and paid boatmen to cross lakes. When she encountered merchant caravans, she offered bodyguard services in exchange for food, money, and transportation.

As for getting food on her own, Pan Wukun set traps and used her bow and arrow to hunt animals. As much as she didn't want to kill, hunting was a necessary survival skill here. The first time she had to shoot an arrow at a poor small furry animal and hold its corpse, she stared numbly at her hands splattered with blood before vomiting. Pan Heng didn't even scold her for vomiting all over her clothing. He showed her how to knock animals unconscious with the butt of her dagger, granting them a merciful and painless death. So that made the whole ordeal a little better.

Out in nature, mystical creatures from Chinese mythology roamed the land. It's one thing to view them in books and video games. But to get to personally see them firsthand? Incredible.

Moments like these made Pan Wukun wish her smartphone hadn't gotten fried in that thunderstorm years ago. At least her roasted smartphone made for a great paperweight. Really useful for holding down maps and book pages, especially when it got windy.

Even though there were only hand-drawn pictures of these creatures in books for reference, the experience was still pretty magical.

Atop every mountain she came across, she searched carefully and meditated, hoping to reach out and find Baoshan Sanren. But nothing was out of place and no one answered.

Day by day, her level of cultivation steadily increased with meditation and martial arts training.

Keeping her sword visible on her hip kept potential scoundrels away and easy reach for defense against supernatural creatures.

As a rogue cultivator, Pan Wukun stuck to the remote areas in the region. That way, she wouldn't run into anyone from the five major cultivation sects (plot, stay the hell away). With more resources, if those sects found anything weird, rumors would definitely spread far enough for her to hear about them.

Whenever she managed to reach a village, she requested to stay in one of the villagers' homes, offering them money or helping with chores. Or sometimes, dealing with the local supernatural threat.

It wasn't easy facing supernatural beings alone. Cultivators went out in groups on night hunts for a reason. But the fewer people who knew about her existence, the better.

Besides, within the remote areas she frequented, there was no presence of other cultivators whatsoever.

Xuhou found peace under Pan Heng's protection. Other villages...weren't so lucky.

Without wealth, cultivation abilities, and the protection of a cultivation sect, these innocent people were basically defenseless.

Fuck it. She was better than this. She would not leave them to fend for themselves.