With the cleaning out of the way, it was time to gather information.

  Back at the Forest Tortoise inn, he didn't use divine thread on the rooms of other disciples to respect their privacy. But Baiyun had much less restraint here.

  He needed as much information as possible, and the people here were likely criminals guilty of severe crimes. Not to say the WanLing court never convicted innocents, but he had no attachment to the people here.

  With a thought, divine touch extended into the the ground and into the neighbouring rooms. Their contents rushed into his mind as he mused. Most of the rooms were in the same state as his, barren with only few pieces of furniture. But one was strikingly well-furnished.

  A luxurious bed lined with the softest silk, tables and chairs carved of fine ebony wood, cabinets and shelves bursting with rare ingredients and treasures. All manner of beast parts were scattered across the room, some carefully packed into containers and jars, while others were thrown around carelessly. Even the walls and floor had been repainted to hide the grungy stone.

  Odd...

  Baiyun could sense no one was nearby with a combination of divine touch and rabbit hearing, so he decided to head out to investigate a little. He replaced the mole's cauldron with an upside down wooden bowl despite its protests. There was no telling if someone might steal his cauldron in a place like this; he couldn't leave it in the open unlike before.

  The door swung open with a creak as he snuck from room to room, scanning them with divine touch.

  Hm. Aside from the occupied ones, most rooms had been furnished in some way, various beast parts gathered as well.

  Baiyun quickly figured out what was going on. It seemed the inmates here hunted invading beasts and used the scavenged parts to buy commodities for themselves. He remembered light spirit Yue previously mentioned a war with the Beast Continent was brewing, so he supposed this was WanLing's way of motivating them to fight better.

  With that figured out, he decided it was best not to linger and returned to his room. The door shut behind him as the arid breeze rushed in.

  Unpleasant as it was, without glass or curtains the tainted air was unhindered. Baiyun wondered for a moment if he should stuff the square hole with rags as a makeshift air filter. It wasn't as if he could see anyway. Both the mole and rabbit should be fine with that arrangement, given they were both underground dwelling animals.

  Though... he had a sudden thought as he stared at the rabbit. His eyes lit up with excitement as he grabbed it, rushing to the window as it squeaked in alarm.

  "What do you see outside?" he asked it. "Tell me!"

  While the rabbit couldn't directly transmit imagery to him with soulsense, he could simply ask what it saw! Why didn't he think of such a simple workaround sooner? He was suddenly reminded of how inflexible he was with mortal senses.

  This had already backfired on him twice, back when the spider attacked in the servant caverns, as well as when he failed to notice Fei An stalking him into the forest. He really needed to work on it... a bad habit from his past self that relied on immortal senses for every situation.

  "Huh?" the rabbit tilted its head in confusion.

  But after a little nudging from Baiyun, it obliged and began to describe the distant scenery.

  Its limited speech was somewhat unclear, but he showed it visions to confirm their accuracy, then adjusted them until the rabbit was satisfied. Slowly and after much prodding, he began to get the picture.

  An endless sea of gravel seeping into the ocean as far as the eye could see, sediment leeching into the waters beyond and tainting it grey. The stony beaches were lined with countless dead fishes yet not a single fly could be seen. Copious amounts of grime and silt clung to them as if they were trying to blend into the gravel; it was evident the fish had been preserved for a long time.

  Lone cows trudged across the tainted land and grazed on the gravel beneath, their bodies lumpy and distended. They walked like puppets and swayed with every step as if they would topple at any moment.

  Distant spirals of brown rock twisted and swirled into towering trees, with glassy amber leaves and fruits akin to fists of rock. Giant salamanders with mottled brown skin clung on tightly to the trunks, their eyes darting as rings of multicoloured pupils pulsed. One of them had swallowed half an armoured corpse, the legs twitching as it chewed.

  A few black bamboo trees jutted unevenly out of the gravel, surrounded by large fields of translucent grass that were as crystalline as glass. Blades would clink into each other as the breeze brushed by, the unearthly sound of thousands of wind chimes echoing as the air grew turbulent.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Incoherent and utter nonsense.

  Baiyun could not make sense of the habitat all. It was clearly artificial, the result of countless species thrown into a place they did not belong. He almost doubted the retelling; he wished he could simply see the sight with his very eyes.

  Rabbit was miserable after being prodded for nearly an hour, so he decided to placate it by passing it one of the sweet potatoes from the servant garden.

  "Not enough..." it whined.

  As for what he would do in this empty room while waiting... he still had Qinghe's alchemy textbooks to chew through.

  It was still far from night, but he laid down his body to sleep and reached divine touch into his bag, stealthily reading the next book without the notice of the spirits. His eyes lit up as they finally began to cover the topic of world cauldrons. Qinghe did say they were an intermediate topic!

  While he had first hand experience using one, it was all improvisation on his part. This would be his first time actually reading up on them.

  He memorised all sorts of strange idols that could be placed on the offering pillars of world cauldrons. Hm... with how the idols mainly operated off formations, it did seem arrays and alchemy were strangely intertwined in this world. He was once again reminded of how he wanted to find a chance to study formations, a field he did not dabble in his past life.

  Even as the cries of beasts accompanied brutal clashes of weaponry far in the distance, he turned page after page, losing himself in the world of alchemy once more.

  Hours passed.

  Orange light peeked through the window as sunset approached. Baiyun could hear bustle in the distance as inmates returned to the building, but he continued to read.

  It was nearly night at 7 when a knock finally came to his door, firm yet gentle.

  With divine touch extending beyond the door, Baiyun sensed a few details about the knocker. While he couldn't extend his senses onto the person without being caught, he noticed the shoes of the person were gigantic.

  The knock came from the upper half of the door, and he could hear faint breathing all the way from the ceiling with the rabbit's ears. It was almost as if there was a gorilla outside his door.

  Baiyun opened the door gingerly.

  Immediately, he felt the presence of a towering man looming over him. An abdomen as wide as a round table yet without fat and brimming with muscle, each leg as large as Baiyun was. Even hunched from the ceiling with a lowered head, the man who stood over 2 meters tall was no less imposing.

  There was no sound of hair waving in the wild. From the bald head and the monk robes the man donned, it seemed this was a Buddhist monk.

  "Greetings, young man." the deep voice was strangely gentle.

  Baiyun somehow felt the monk's smile, but it quickly faded.

  "My word... for a child to be mutilated so and sent to this hellscape..." the man muttered. "I have never seen a punishment in WanLing so cruel and barbaric, even for the worst of crimes. Tell me, what happened exactly?"

  A monk here of all places... Baiyun felt a strange dissonance from the unexpected kindness. Was this really an inmate sent to fight to the death for terrible crimes?

  Retelling his story was somewhat of a pain, but he saw the chance to make an ally and obliged. He summarised the events of the hunt, explaining that his injuries were from the mantis.

  "Spring Delusion Mantis... that can't be a good sign. If the Beast Continent is finally making their move... I fear we might lose many comrades." the monk mused. "And the Thousand Winds Clan... they truly live up to their overbearing reputation. To throw an innocent child here so heartlessly..."

  Baiyun didn't know what to say.

  "I suppose there's someone here you'd find quite interesting in that regard but..." the monk began.

  "And who would that be?" Baiyun asked.

  "Haha, you'll find out soon enough." the monk chuckled. "Life is no fun without surprises. "

  What type of annoying answer was that? Baiyun felt somewhat irritated.

  "Oh, and excuse me for the lack of manners." the towering man suddenly said. "I'm a humble Buddhist monk who goes by the name of Stone Lobster, if you'd please. I'd ask for yours in return but..."

  "Stone Lobster?" Baiyun raised an eyebrow.

  The monk laughed.

  "Here, we prisoners are not allowed to share our actual names." he said. "Each of us starts off nameless until we garner enough infamy. Then, the other Death Soldiers will come up with a code name. Before then, we make do with temporary names."

  "That's a strange system." Baiyun frowned.

  "It truly is," the monk nodded. "It's always the name of an animal, be it Songbird, Viper or Hermit Crab. Just don't end up on the bad side of the soldiers, or you'll end up like Pig or Roach..."

  Odd. Baiyun wondered what sort of reputation the monk had to be codenamed "Stone Lobster". It wasn't a beast he knew of, so there was little he could conclude.

  He must have had quite the strange look on his face, because the monk suddenly let out a deep sigh.

  "To fight fire with fire, to send beast against beast... Those authorities at WanLing no longer see us as humans, but disposable animals. I supposed the nicknames are a result of someone's twisted humour, to reflect that every thought."

  Baiyun nodded slowly. He had seen plenty of sects that dehumanised their disciples as tools of war, let alone actual prisoners.

  "Buddha asks of us to treat all life as equal and exercise compassion. The mortal monks abstain from flesh and avoid the harm of animals. The practitioners who embark for immortality forgo even that of plants and subsist solely on qi." the monk said. "Being sent here to end the life of innocent beasts... it is quite the unfortunate fate for me."

  Stone stared into air with a forlorn gaze. A moment passed before Baiyun spoke.

  "Were you accused of a crime and sent here unjustly?" he asked.

  He did not think much of it previously, but there must be many other imprisoned because of clan politics, much like him. At least from surface impressions, Stone did not seem like a twisted individual.

  "That..." the monk's face grew strained. "No... I am not innocent. For the crime I committed, my punishment might even be too light, though I would have wished to atone in a different manner."

  Baiyun was struck by how quickly Stone's attitude changed, the giant man's presence shrinking away.

  "Young friend. Please do not pry... I implore of you."

  Baiyun nodded. Everyone had their own weight to carry. He too was not innocent, despite how he described the incident to the monk.

  The monk was silent as he led Baiyun further down the hallway, the two of them leaving the rabbit behind.