My Journey to Godhood as a Caterpillar

Chapter 54: An unexpected but pleasant surprise

Yun Jhin stuck to the ceiling like a spider as he waited for the people inside the cave to leave, but the signature inside the cave wouldn't move at all, it was actually stationary from the moment Yun Jhin sensed it up till now, and almost 2 hours passed!

Yun Jhin realized that the one inside was either cultivating or waiting for something since there was no other way the dragon caterpillar decided it was time to enter directly regardless of consequences, after all, there was an extremely low chance of him to be found out.

Yun Jhin entered the spacious ice cave and looked around, seeing heaps of herbs and bottles with special body refining liquids of different colors ranging from white to black, rainbow-colored, etc.

Inside an exquisitely carved cell stood a woman with an extremely pale complexion, she had two long ears and wore nothing but a see-through green dress, she was shivering and the cute sneeze from before should have come from her.

The woman looked around with a strange look on her face, as Yun Jhin took a better look at her, she had deep forest green eyes and her lithe figure was something that most men would appreciate, her chest area wasn't big but not small either, she had a special natural aura around her that kept her body from freezing as it seemed she didn't have a high cultivation base.

From what Yun Jhin could infer she was at most a peak earthly realm practitioner, as he observed her better and confirmed her characteristics he realized that she was a nature spirit!

Nature spirits looked just like elves but were different, their souls and bodies were different, they weren't good at cultivation as a race, but they were special as their blood could be used to cultivate strong bodies, most of the time these type of race would be found accompanying the tree-huggers known as elves.

Nature spirits were a rather rare species as for every 10 elves born from the world tree there would be a 1% chance for a nature spirit to be born, nature spirits were kind in nature but that was because 90% of the time they were taken care of by the elves if nature spirits were handled wrongly they could transform into evil spirits that devoured souls and flesh, their body enhancing ability would increase by a lot but their reasoning would be lost, they would also get a huge boost in cultivation base to the point that the nature spirit that Yun Jhin was currently looking at could break through to the 7th stage of the king realm if she transformed.

Nature spirits were darlings of the world tree that gave birth to the elves, however, due to their weakness they were exploited by the elves, and in some instances where they were almost bleed to death, they transformed into such beings razing down the elf villages.

Yun Jhin continued to observe the nature spirit in the cell and realized that she wasn't mistreated in any way, she just looked quite lonely, the nature spirit in question was sighing as she looked around and muttered to herself:

"That feeling I had... that almost inexistent life force, was it just me?"

Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he looked at her, Nature spirits had the best ability to detect life force, it was quite a feat to detect his life force while he used his stealth techniques by feeling alone, after all, she couldn't use her soul force yet, she wasn't even a heavenly realm expert.

Yun Jhin thought what to do about her, he couldn't aggravate her or she would become a mass-murdering evil spirit, the best way would be to fool her and kill her quickly to use her body, but she was a bit too weak for his tastes, she would need to atleast break through to the peak stage of the heavenly realm before she could be of use to him, in the end, the higher the cultivation of the natural spirit the better body refining it would give.

Yun Jhin calculated that with the amount of blood a natural spirit at the peak stage of the heavenly had, he could refine his body to the max rank of 7500, but nurturing her to that state would be very hard, natural spirits had a very hard way of breaking through, they didn't need normal energy as other cultivators did, they needed destiny, they needed to rob others of their destiny and due to their mostly meek nature they wouldn't be able to do so, that's why they were stuck at low cultivation bases.

Most of the time they would leech 1% of the destiny of their most loved person due to the way they attached to them, Yun Jhin eyes started to sparkle as he thought about it, his destiny was immense, so big that it couldn't be quantified, after all, he reincarnated for thousands of lives so the combined destiny resides in his soul after he fused his former lives memories.

If he could make this natural spirit woman think that he was her most loved person, she would be able to seep some of his destiny, he didn't care about it, destiny was a fleeting thing that he realized how to control at this point, he could even get it back in double after he slaughtered and ate her.

But first, he would need to create a scenario so that the natural spirit would believe him, he slowly walked inside the cave making himself look as shifty as possible, the natural spirit's eyes started to glow as she looked at Yun Jhin, she waved at him to get his attention.

Yun Jhin's eyes widened in surprise as he saw her and approached her slowly, making sure to dodge any traps or formations along the way, he approached her cell and looked at her in the eyes, the woman blushed as she saw under Yun Jhin's hood, he made himself look a bit more handsome than normal using his ki technique.

The woman whispered to Yun Jhin:

"Stranger, I'm sure you aren't from the Stone Body sect, I don't feel their technique life force changes on you, you must be an outsider, how have you got here?"

Yun Jhin smiled to reassure her as he approached closer and said:

"I have come with one reason, but the moment I saw you I got another one."

The woman blushed, most natural spirits were pretty weak when it came to romance, after all, even their closest kin, the elves, treated them quite badly and separated them, most likely this spirit was sold to the Stone Body sect.

Yun Jhin hand went between the bars of the cell and held her hand as he said:

"To be truthful with you, I came to steal some body-refining herbs from these people, they have a monopoly of them and they supercharge the price when it comes to outsiders, I'm a free spirit and I don't want to join their sect, fortunately, I have a stealth technique that let me wander in here."

The woman frowned as she heard his explanation but it did make sense for her, as a natural spirit she looked down upon thievery killing and other such stuff, even though she knew sometimes these types of things were needed that didn't mean she wouldn't look down on such people.

However, she ignored that part as she was really starved of freedom, she had lived here since she was a little girl and even though the people that came around to chat with her were nice, she felt that they were pretty cold inside and that they didn't mean what they said, Yun Jhin gave her a good vibe, something that she could trust, only if she knew Yun Jhin was only putting an act up what would she think?

Yun Jhin walked towards the cell and opened it up as it was controlled by a formation, the woman started to smile as she jumped out of the cell like a bunny, she walked towards Yun Jhin and held her hand towards him as she said:

"My name is Mariela of the fifth natural spirits tribe, would you give me the pleasure of knowing your name?"

Yun Jhin gave her a big smile as he accepted her handshake and responded to her:

"Yun Jhin, anyways, first let me get ahold of some of these herbs before I take you out, could you wait for a few minutes?"

Mariela smiled to Yun Jhin and nodded at him then waited in a corner to make herself look as unsuspicious as she could, her antics were pretty cute considering she was hiding the wrong way making her whole body visible and only a part of her face was hidden.

Yun Jhin shook his head as he opened his spatial bag and filled it with body refining herbs after he made sure he got enough he waved towards Mariela and said:

"Come and jump on my back, my stealth technique needs you to be near me so it can cover both of us."

Mariela didn't think anything about his request as she jumped on his back quite easily, Yun Jhin and Mariela both turned transparent as they walked away from the cave, but at the entrance, they met with a couple of disciples who were chatting:

"*Sigh* why do we have to entertain that natural spirit, couldn't it have been someone else?"

"Man she is quite a beauty, I don't understand why don't you like to chat with her."

"She is quite beautiful indeed, but she is pretty bland and boring, we can't even touch her anyway, why would I look at a doll in a cage and talk with it?"

Mariela's eyes widened as she listened in to their conversation, she realized that her feeling was right and that they didn't truly care about her, even though she suspected that it still hurt her, she recognized the people that were walking towards the cave and knew that they were the people that she thought of as friends.

Mariela's tears started to dampen Yun Jhin's cloak but Yun Jhin ignored it as he whispered to her:

"It's ok Mariela, I know they aren't your true friends, but I guess I could be your friend."

Mariela stopped crying after she heard Yun Jhin's words, she didn't know what to say as she heard what Yun Jhin told her, never in her life did someone say that he would be her friend so readily and easily, she was flustered as she kept tight on Yun Jhin's back.

Yun Jhin kept her tightly on his back as he said:

"Don't move much or there's a chance my stealth technique would be broken, after all, I didn't get to have much training with two people at once."

This was of course a lie from Yun Jhin, if his cultivation base was high enough he could stealth atleast 20,000 people with him.

Yun Jhin kept dodging and weaving away from the disciples who were either walking, talking, or selling their wares around the sect grounds.

Suddenly his stealth technique broke at the entrance of the sect making the two guards look at him in suspicion and apprehension, one of them shot him with a fireball that made it's way to Mariela on his back, but he took the brunt of it by jumping face forward it, he gritted his teeth as he ran away.

The duo at the entrance didn't recognize Mariela as they were lowly guards, they just found Yun Jhin weird and they were spooked by the way he suddenly appeared in front of them, that's why they attacked randomly out of fright.

Mariela looked at Yun Jhin's singed clothes and realized that his arm was pretty burnt up, tears started to well up in her eyes as she realized that she saved her without another thought, even though the two people at the gate were weaklings in Yun Jhin's eyes, the fireball would have been fatal to Mariela.

She hugged his back really hard as she used her special healing talents to resolve the burn that was on Yun Jhin's left arm.

The burn started to fade away, Yun Jhin could have healed it himself but that would mean spoiling the plan. Yun Jhin sighed as they finally got away from the sect location and let Mariela down on the ground, he flexed his arm a bit and smiled towards Mariela and said:

"Thanks for healing me Mariela, good job!"

Mariela stopped sniffling as she cleared her eyes and said with a trembling voice:

"You wouldn't have gotten hurt in the first place if you didn't save me, I'm sorry!"

Yun Jhin patted her shoulder and said:

"No problem, after all, how could I let such a beautiful woman to be kept in such a cold and lonely cell? You are free now you can go wherever you want, do you want me to get you to a nearby city or?"

Mariela shook her head as her green colored eyes looked at Yun Jhin's and she said:

"Mister Yun Jhin if you wouldn't mind, could I accompany you from now on?"

Yun Jhin laughed heartily as he hugged her and said:

"Of course you can, how could I refuse such a beautiful lady?"

Mariela reciprocated the hug, she herself wanted to give him one but she was pretty awkward when it came to such interactions, she was glad that Yun Jhin took the lead and hugged her, it made it easier for her to hug him back.

Yun Jhin looked at her in the eyes as he said:

"I'm going into closed-door cultivation in a nearby cave 500 kilometers from here, that's the plan, jump on my back again, and let's go!"

The woman nodded as she jumped on Yun Jhin's back and Yun Jhin started to run at quick speeds towards the cave, after a while of running he finally reached the cave and entered it.

He let Mariela down gently as he walked inside the cave and put down some formations, Mariela looked around herself checking out the cave and it's surroundings then she walked towards Yun Jhin and said:

"I can wait for you to cultivate, however, can I stay near you? I'm quite scared of such types of locations."

Yun Jhin understood where her fear came from so he sat cross-legged on the ground and patted the spot beside him then told her:

"You can stay near me then, don't worry I don't bite."

Mariela laughed at his joke and sat near him, Yun Jhin took herbs out of his bag as he started to use them for his cultivation, he would from time to time make pills and eat them, som herbs were better eaten raw, and he would meditate and do breathing exercises to absorb the energy into his body.

Then he would do physical exercises to temper his body, the cave had a waterfall inside of it, he would meditate under the waterfall whenever he felt like it, and Mariela would look at him, most of the time, however, she would snuggle near him when he meditated.

She even met the sleeping baby dragon that she found extremely cute, and she couldn't wait for him to wake up.

She was a pretty hearty girl, she started to slowly fall in love with Yun Jhin and the simple lifestyle they had, whenever she was hungry Yun Jhin would go out and get her some food, Nature spirits didn't eat meat so he had to get her some weak herbs, the ones that he had were too strong for her and her body would explode if she used them.

Mariela looked at Yun Jhin as he finished the mountain worth of herbs that he stole from the Stone body sect, his body rank now reached almost 4,000 and he broke through the 8th stage of the ki cultivating realm as well. Mariela was happy for him.

She gave him a quick peek on the face as she blushed, her pink lips moved into a smile as she ran away shyly further into the cave, she beckoned him with her hand to go towards their living quarters that Yun Jhin created, even though he didn't need sleep as an advanced cultivator that could replace it with meditation, she needed sleep from time to time, so he made a bed for her.

Yun Jhin slowly followed her deeper inside to the cave and reached the living quarters, the natural spirits naked body invited him to the bed, the dragon caterpillar was ready to share his destiny with the natural spirit's.

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