Devouring the Heavens (ATG)

Chapter 40: The Hunt: Breakfast and Bugs

A/N: Fuck me I'm terrible at chapter names.

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Seeing that it would be dawn in just a few hours, Shane decided against sleeping and instead pulled a large, cushioned, wicker chair out of his storage and summoned Dusty and Coral onto his lap.

They both shrank down into tiny little guys and he lovingly ran his fingers across the two different yet equally satisfying surfaces while his little pets let out contented whines.

"You girls have worked so hard today, have a nice little rest okay. I'll keep watch for a while" Shane cooed and withdrew a luxurious blanket before wrapping them in it.

By now, his storage was full of almost every single daily necessity you could think of and in most cases, there were multiple copies.

Even back on Earth, Shane had always had stood by the creed that 'money was for spending' although, it was probably just a way for him to justify his bad habit of buying anything that took his fancy.

It didn't help that Shan Long had never seen or used currency in his entire life in the forest, lowering Shane's sensibilities towards money even further, and so, a lot of shops in Floating Cloud had their entire stocks bought up by him on a whim.

He had also recently been training ways to store things from a distance using a combination of his Profound Energy, Will and Spirit Sense for research purposes and had 'accidentally' ransacked one of the large, uninhabited courtyards near Xiao Lie's for absolutely everything that wasn't bolted to the floor.

Meaning he had a few tables, chairs, beds, sofas and even garden furniture in there along with a multitude of other things. Nothing much on the 'profound' side of things but enough to be able to live comfortably wherever he went in the future.

As he pulled up a transparent blue window and browsed through his jumbled inventory, he couldn't help but lament the organisation of it. 'No wonder I have multiple copies of everything, slightly different things don't even stack! It's like the town storage from BDO all over again! What do I have to do to unlock the sort function?'

A soft snort and a small movement from his lap pulled Shane from those vexing thoughts. 'Really good sisters, who would have thought a bird and a snake could be so close.' He thought to himself as he fondly gazed at the little beasts curled up around each other in his lap.

Shifting a little in the chair, Shane closed his eyes and then spread his spirit sense out to the maximum, the surrounding hundreds of meters of forest, immediately forming a faint and fuzzy image inside his mind.

Deciding that this could be a good opportunity to attempt to learn parallel thought processing, Shane urged his Will to fortify the image in his mind and support him in scanning for any abnormalities while another part of his mind split its focus and various things started popping into existence around him.

It took a few minutes before anything happened and at first, a single table appeared nearby, then a small wood-burning stove next to that, then bowls of ingredients and utensils appeared on the table one by one

Over the next couple of hours, Shane, as if in a trance, using nothing but the external manipulation of his Profound Energy and Elemental Energy, slowly prepared a rice and meat porridge for breakfast. All while still seated in his chair with his eyes closed, keeping vigilant watch for any dangers approaching the campsite.

Sensing movement from inside his tent, Shane awakened from that semi-meditative state that he assumed was similar to some sort of enlightenment for cheat characters, opened his eyes and smiled wryly. 'I truly am ripping off Disney a lot aren't I..'

What he had just been doing had absolutely looked like a live-action version of a cross between the mop and broom scene from Fantasia and the living household items from beauty and the beast.

Though Shane no longer had misconceptions about how difficult and abnormal what he had just achieved was, that didn't mean he would stop training himself or utilising advantages, just because he might stand out too much.

Controlling things from a distance like using telekinesis was something he had always dreamed of ever since he watched Silar in heroes, years ago. There was also the force choke!

Childish delusions aside, at least the breakfast was nearly done

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Not long after, the tent flap moved and Qingyue, clad in her blue and white combat robes stepped out into the clearing.

With her long hair tied up into a crown of braids that circled around the top of her head and held the rest of her hair straight against her back, she looked both heroic and valiant.

Those magnificent eyes of hers lit up as she caught sight of the pot of hot porridge that was casually stirring itself. Shane drank in every detail of her form and each small change of expression with a soft smile, she always did seem to love the food he cooked for her.

The next thing Qingyue noticed was the barrier still around the two kiddo's tent and a mischievous smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

She was about to send her Spirit Sense inside when she felt a gust of wind lifting her into the air and before she could react she was already inside her husband's warm embrace.

Within seconds, the two little beasts had settled on top of her lap, two warm arms encircled her waist and a blanket that emitted a faint heat and smelled just like him was wrapped all around them.

Shane buried his face in her hair and inhaled deeply as she purred happily and turned into a puddle on his lap.

He lowered his head and breathed a puff of hot air into her ear. "Good morning my mischievous little fox spirit."

"Don't you go looking in there. I, your husband is right here and you were going to peep on another man." Shane said and grasped her chin, turning her head to face his own, their lips almost close enough to touch.

Qingyue went into a slight daze, why was it that her husband looked even more handsome today? Really making people envious to death.

"Be careful Yue'er, I might get jealous," he whispered, his close proximity, warm breath and husky voice causing her to feel hot and dry all over while her lips parted faintly in anticipation.

Shane leaned forward slightly and took her bottom lip between his own, nibbling lightly before retreating and then doing the same to her top one, slowly alternating between the two. She shivered involuntarily but still let him do as he pleased.

He pulled back again and saw her gazing intently at him, her little lilac tongue darted out and wetted her suddenly dry and lonely feeling lips. Shane chose that very moment to lean forward again and plant his whole mouth over hers, kissing her deeply.

Their tongues tangled together until they ran out of breath and Shane broke the kiss, gazing into her beautiful blue eyes and placing their foreheads together as a bad smile spread across his face. "Plus, don't you think it will be incredibly funny to see how awkward they are when they realise she won't be able to walk properly?"

Qingyue's eyes widened, her grin becoming larger by the second and not long after, sonorous laughter could be heard throughout the clearing.

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Time passed comfortably within each other's embrace, the light of dawn had spread across the horizon and the breakfast had long ago finished cooking yet there was no movement from the Xiao Che and Lingxi.

Shane, deciding it was late enough, infused some Wind Energy into his mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle.

The barrier around the two absentees tent fluctuated, its dome-like shape becoming faintly visible for a second before the whole thing popped like a soap bubble.

Of course, he didn't need to do anything of the sort, the barrier was formed from his own profound energy after all, but who doesn't like some theatrics from time to time?

Hushed whispers followed by a pained hiss could be heard from within the tent before returning to silence. Only after another few minutes did a rather sheepish looking Xiao Che, who was scratching the back of his head appear from within.

He looked over to the chair that Shane and Qingyue were sharing only to freeze as he caught sight of the mirth in their eyes and the shit-eating grins plastered across their faces.

'Truly too similar.' He thought to himself as a blush crept upon his face, combined with that pleading expression in his eyes, he looked rather pitiful.

Thankfully, Shane took pity on him and waved his hand causing another barrier to appear around the tent, just in time too.

*Pffffft* "Hahahaha!" Shane burst out laughing "Look at you brother Che! It's only been one night and you are already a henpecked husband!"

Shane recalled the beasts and stood up with his wife in his arms as the blanket and the chair disappeared into his storage. He handed Qingyue a few 'vitality pills' and patted her buttocks to send her towards Lingxi.

By the time she had entered into the tent, Xiao Che's face had already turned from blush to completely red with anger and embarrassment and his features darkened. "You may be my brother, but today, I your father will fight it out with you and see who is a henpecked husband!"

Without another word, he rushed towards Shane, who adopted a loose stance and calmly deflected the wild yet extremely precise flurry of fist, elbow and knee strikes without the use of any Profound Energy.

To outsiders this might look like a rather fierce exchange between hated enemies, however, both had huge smiles on their faces and were enjoying it immensely.

Shane deflected an overhand right and grasped his brother's shoulders, delivering a swift knee to the midsection while whispering in his ear. "So how was it?"

Caught off guard, the kid was about to instinctively answer, when Shane suddenly crouched, twisted his body and Xiao Che's world spun upside down.

*Bam* "Uff! ...It was amazing, I asked her to marry me." Xiao Che landed hard on his back but still had a sunny smile on his face as he dazedly replied.

Shane was stunned for a second but soon picked him up and gave him a bear hug "That's my brother! Now go get some breakfast and take some to Lingxi, we are moving on in 15 minutes!"

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When the promised time had passed, Lingxi finally left her tent and unlike how Shane expected her to react, she unexpectedly remained completely unfazed and only wore a happy and satisfied expression on her slightly rosy face.

Who would have thought that even when teased, except for an almost permanent blush, she would remain as calm as floating clouds on a spring day, unfettered by everything.

Shane could tell from this difference in her demeanour that a weight had been lifted from her shoulders and he was sincerely happy for the two of them.

She had even started to radiate slight vibes of confidence and maturity in the way she carried herself, which he approved of greatly, the skittish Lingxi was cute but a little too naive for this world.

They soon packed up the camp, via the incredibly efficient way of storing everything directly in Shane's inventory and moved on to start another day of hunting.

Everyone had advanced at least a small realm and what better way to get used to new strength than with some combat practice...

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Like this, another two days quickly passed.

Due to the strong Spirit Senses of Shane, Qingyue and Dusty as well as the minimap, hundreds upon hundreds of herbs had made their way into his inventory, including at least a few dozen that were equivalent to Nascent Profound and even a handful of True Profound Realm ones.

This time, he would keep and cultivate a large number of those herbs, flowers and grasses, in the same way, he had been growing the Profound Tobacco plants.

Shane would need to prepare many good Spirit Teas and Spirit Wines for the weddings but he would also need his own stash to take to Frozen Cloud, the larger the better.

Who knew if he would be able to grow those plants outside, in that Frozen Tundra without killing them off. Perhaps if he could create a greenhouse from overlapped sheets of pure, sealed, Ice Energy it would work

Thoughts for later.

Also, call him paranoid, but something was telling him that they wouldn't have a lot of things in the way of luxuries over in that Ice fortress and his tongue would never allow him to stop making Spirit teas, let alone his wife.

Naturally, the corpses filling his inventory had also increased manifold and there now quite a few Spirit Profound and even many True Profound carcasses in there.

Of course, Coral's contribution could be attributed to most of those. With her increase in cultivation, so too had her speed, flight range and strength of aura grown, allowing her to lure back many more strong beasts from all over the forest.

The Nascent and Elementary profound corpses piled up in Shane's storage were also now too many to count. These woods were truly infested by large groups of low-level Profound wolves, felines, rodents and to the girl's abject horror, insects.

A swarm of thousands of dog-sized ants crawling towards you as that chittering sound steadily grew to become the only thing that one could hear, was not something that anyone in their right mind would want to experience.

Qingyue, with a disgusted expression on her usually calm face, used swaths of Ice Energy beyond her realm and froze them in droves with extreme prejudice.

Shane basically just went along behind her with eight tendrils of profound energy extended around him, and nonchalantly stored them all away.

There were a few near misses during these days and some slight injuries here and there but the only one that was in any way comparable to the one suffered by Xiao Che was actually received by Shane himself.

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It happened on the eve of their third day in the woods.

The thinning trees at the edge of the forest and the beginnings of the vast rocky mountainsides had finally come into view, rousing everyone's adventurous spirits.

A few hundred meters of uneven ground, dotted with boulders as big as a full-grown man, gave way to a cluster of densely packed natural stone pillars that were casting long shadows down the mountainside, courtesy of the last few rays of the evening sun.

Above those, were huge rolling slopes of whitish-grey rock that seamlessly inclined into several steep, snow-capped peaks. Past the forest of gigantic stone pillars and around halfway up the sloping stone was a visible indentation, a cave.

Easily defensible and out of the way of the elements, it was the perfect place to stop for the night. As long as any possible occupant could be evicted.

As the team of four exited the forest, all of them, without exception, gazed upon the impressive sight in front of them with unconcealed awe and they continued onwards quietly, only the sounds of their breathing and footsteps could be heard.

When Shane had passed through here before, he was of no mind to appreciate the view and only saw this 'small' mountain range as an obstacle, one he needed to overcome as quickly as possible.

Only now could he afford to take a moment to fully appreciate the magnificent sights in front of him.

The view was no doubt breathtaking, not enough for Shane to drop his guard or his Spirit Sense for that matter, but enough to not notice the slowly building feeling of unease in his heart until it was almost too late.

He had originally chalked the increasing sense of foreboding up to generally feeling comparatively small in front of such impressive and sobering examples of nature but then he realised another key factor.

It was way too quiet...

Shane raised his clenched fist as a signal for the group to pause their movements. The other three assumed battle positions but remained silent, knowing that hand signals signified the need for silence.

He dialled back his spirit sense from all around and using a strong mental image, with a generous application of his Will, focused on intensely combing over the sections of the mountainside, in front of the group, section by section.

Under normal circumstances, the area of coverage of Shane's spirit sense could be compared to the illumination of a bright light bulb, however, what he was now doing could be compared to the condensed beam of an extremely focused spotlight.

Usually the 'light bulb' would illuminate a circular large area, with him as the centre, where things would become more indistinct and harder to focus on, the further away from him they were.

However, this new application dubbed 'the beam' would intensely comb over a narrow area of just a few meters wide, that extended from himself to his Spirit Sense's maximum range, and relayed everything within back to Shane's mind in perfect clarity.

Now that his Spirit Sense was hyper-focused, he could feel a very slight ominous presence mixed in with a dab of almost illusory killing intent, hiding within the rocky pillars ahead. It only took him a minute or so before he managed to locate it.

The presence was there, vertically attached to the hidden side of one of the larger, flatter pillars, completely stationary and defying gravity as it did so, a predator lying in wait.

Shane gulped, it was just several tens of meters ahead of the group, and with its aura almost completely concealed, he would have had trouble sensing it before it came within range of the minimap.

He somehow doubted that the 40m warning distance that the minimap provided would have saved him from a tough battle that he absolutely didn't want to take place, if only for his own mental wellbeing.

Fortunately, they wouldn't be ambushed and all was laid bare in front of Shane's 'makansap...' Special Spirit Sense Beam Cannon, although he really really really wished what was there, wasn't there.

The roughly 15m long body was composed of many different segments the size of dustbin lids with dozens of blade-like feet jutting out along its length and two pairs of long and sharp mandibles, reminiscent of barbed short swords and likely containing a strong venom, that were affixed to the head.

It was an incomparably terrifying-looking Centipede at the Earth Profound Realm.

Suppressing a violent shudder, the few meters of air around the group thrummed as it was suffused with his power.

A localised and bastardised wind domain that blocked most of their auras, sound, scent and was also imbued with a richer amount of oxygen than the surrounding air, came into existence.

The extra oxygen in the air would help their minds sharpen and allow their bodies to feel more energised with the added effect of allowing them to remain calm.

Although the effects were basic, the pseudo domain was incredibly useful for the current situation and it wasn't even particularly draining on his reserves.

All of the Wind energy influencing the surrounding air was technically still part of him and he also had the small world to compensate, making the running costs negligible.

Shane beckoned them to come closer and the four of them huddled together, however his eyes never left Qingyue's, knowing she would have an important part in the battle to come.

"Okay so here's the deal"

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A/N: Try DxD Aspect of Greed if you have the time. Looks like it's going to be an interesting take on that world, but be warned the MC has no qualms about anything and likes to go balls to the wall.