The night passed slowly for everyone in the camp. Mira gathered Maria and Vulcan at the entrance of the camp.

“Don’t disappoint me!” Mira said as she very slightly nodded.

“Bye-Bye, everyone! Remember to accomplish the goal that Mira set for you! I look forward to seeing it!” Maria yelled at them to make sure they understood the importance of their reward.

“We surely won’t disappoint you! We will make sure to become strong!” Alicia said as she saw them off.

“Bye Miss Mira, Maria, and Vulcan! We will make sure to not disappoint you!” The rest of the women said.

Mira, Maria, and Vulcan then walked away from the camp. As soon as they left, Alicia gathered everyone together.

“I know that everyone might be a little lost without Miss Mira, but I believe that we are able to fend for ourselves now. I know that our training won’t be the same with Devil Instructor Mira, but as long as we follow the routine that she set for us then we should be able to get to the Organ Refinement Stage without much issue. Marrow Tempering will be more difficult, but Maria told us how to break through to that stage with what we have. The Qi Condensation Realm is when we can start feeling more at ease while living in the forest. So no matter what, if we want to survive we need strength! And if we want to continue living after Mira comes back then we need to make sure that nobody dies! We also need to hunt for our own food and find our own materials. Maria gave us a decent amount of rations, but we can’t rely on them this whole time. What we need right now is strength though! Let’s get to training!” Alicia tried to encourage them. The women didn’t lack encouragement, but Alicia just wanted to reaffirm it.

“Yeah! We need to at least be able to live in the forest without everything being able to kill us! We can barely be qualified to kill a Low-Stage Rank 1 magical beast. It still takes us, multiple people, to do that. We need to not only gain strength but practice our sword skills and maybe try to find our elemental affinity if we have one.” Some other women commented while everyone else nodded and walked back to the training grounds.

These women don’t know much about running a village, but everyone here understands each other and is in the same situation. Nobody will do anything about greed or pride or anything stupid like that. Especially with the threat that Mira gave them before she left. Even if someone took charge here and tried to run everything, they wouldn’t be able to make decisions for the whole group. The main thing right now is to keep everyone motivated enough to reach Qi Condensation Realm before Mira comes back. Even if they don’t, the threat of death from every magical beast in the forest along with Mira threatening them is more than enough motivation for now. All they have to focus on is getting stronger and surviving, not running or leading a village.

***

Mira, Maria, and Vulcan left the camp and walked far enough that they can’t see it anymore before Maria decided to speak.

“Mira, why did you decide to stay here for so long? Do you really plan on making something like a personal army?” Maria asked as they kept jogging their way through the forest as they talked.

“Well, I guess you could say that they would be something akin to insurance or if someone really pisses me off. I could also see potential in those women. Individually they might not be anything special, well for now at least, but together they are quite formidable. They all had their lives ruined by the same people, used by the same people, had similar lives before they were ruined, and get strong for the same reason. You couldn’t find a group of people like that very often. They don’t feel they deserve more because of their background or experience. With just a push they can live for themselves while supporting each other along the way.” Mira explained and Maria was a bit surprised.

“Do you think all of them will be loyal to you? Also didn’t you say that you don’t like people that live for other people? Why is okay if they do?” Maria continued asking as she was really curious about this.

“I don’t know if they will all be loyal in the future. That’s why I made it so that it is either all or nothing. It’s either all of them or none of them. They should be able to keep each other in check because of that. Nobody wants to die because someone else made a mistake. So either none of them betray me or all of them do. Well, that’s my theory at least. And they don’t live for me or want my acknowledgment. I am merely someone that holds their life, death, and fate. They live for themselves. They want strength so the past doesn’t repeat itself and to be happy. Me acknowledging something is me not beating the shit out of them.” Mira explained to Maria while Maria was taking a mental note of everything and replaying the past 3 months in her head. It was a great experience, but something that she never would’ve been able to do.

Mira let Maria’s thoughts run wild for a couple of minutes before speaking again.

“Anyway, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this part to your family. In return, I will answer one of your questions with complete honesty.” Mira threw a bomb at her. Maria knew why she didn’t want her to share this information with him. This is supposed to be a secret army. It wouldn’t be a secret if everyone knew about it, they might also plan to get rid of her before something terrible happens. Also, Maria couldn’t refuse this kind of chance. She thought for a while. Thinking of every question that she has had in the last few years. After a while, she concluded that there is only one question that encompassed everything she wanted to know.

“Who are you, really? You’re definitely not a little girl that is around 11 years old. You know too many things. It also feels like I’m talking to someone with many years of experience.”

Mira figured this might be the question and had already prepared her answer.

“Well, you aren’t wrong. I might even be older than your grandma. If I were to make a long story short I’m not from this world. This body is, but my mind isn’t. My soul is in a cycle of reincarnation. Every time I die, I keep my memories, but my soul is placed in the womb of some random woman who just got pregnant. It’s supposed to be a form of torture because I refused to be some asshole’s slave. I’ve had 10 lives. Some I killed myself, some I died of old age, others I was killed in. A lot of worlds didn’t have cultivators and I was only able to become a true cultivator in my previous life.” Mira said and Maria didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know how old Mira’s true age was. Also, she didn’t think that reincarnating could be a form of torture. Maria couldn’t picture being born in different worlds with her memories intact was that bad. 10 different lives definitely sound like a long time though. Mira seemed to read her thoughts and decided to correct her.

“You’re probably thinking that being reincarnated after dying is that bad, right? At least I get to live, right? That isn’t necessarily the problem. If you know that if you die, you will just get put into another body then what happens to your mind? You treat death as a reset button. The only thing is that you feel like you can’t really live either. Your body grows old as your mind doesn’t. If I live a long and fulfilling life, then my reset button activates and now I have to restart again. How can I live a fulfilling life if I get reset in some random place and can’t go back to that thing that was fulfilling? Not to mention, in the cultivation world you lose all of your progress you made. It is a slow torture of the mind.” Mira corrected her thoughts. Maria still didn’t understand it but felt like that it wasn’t as simple as Mira made it out to be. It might also affect people in different ways.

“Enough of that. Let’s continue our journey through the forest. Our main goal is the ruins. We found a lava lake that not only helped us tremendously but also birthed Vulcan. If the ruins don’t have something like that then I will be very disappointed. But I get the feeling that this ruin is something special.” Mira said and they continued their search for the ruins.

It didn’t take them long to enter the inner regions, but when they did there was a sudden change in the atmosphere. Like this part of the forest was only for the strong. They felt that there would be no Rank 1 magical beasts here. Only Rank 2 and up. No wonder the Night Hawks sit right outside of the Inner Region. If a Rank 2 magical beast is coming to the inner region from the outer region then they must be on the weaker end of a Rank 2. The three of them stopped for a minute to scan the surroundings. Nothing here was out of the ordinary except for the atmosphere. There was a feeling that everything here would be a battle. But with this much danger, there are bound to be benefits that come with it. They then started their journey in the Inner Region of the Dark Moon Forest.