So much for feeling free when flying... when "bodyguards" were chasing after her.

Well, she sort of appreciated her concern, but she was doing this for the sake of adventure!

While she didn't say anything, the disciples must have seen the look on her face.

"Um, if you're uncomfortable with a guy catching you, we can leave it to these two sisters over here."

Huh, she didn't even think of that. Well, not that she'd let anyone catch her if she fell...

But since it would get rid of three disicples, Mei nodded anyway and shooed them away.

"She still looks quite unhappy about this..." Mei heard one of them whispering to the other with soulsense.

She decided to pretend they weren't there as she flapped higher.

Before long, she broke into the canopy, landing on one of the branches.

It was as if she stepped into a world of leaves. All around, all she could see were huge leafy branches stretching into the distance.

From the now setting sun, orange sunlight snuck through the ocean of leaves, orange spots of light dotting the surroundings.

Various grasses, ferns, even shrubs coated the upper side of the gigantic branches.

As the sound of birdsong and scuttering echoed, Mei stared around in awe. She never thought it'd be this beautiful up here!

Suddenly, she felt something bump into her. She turned around and jumped in fright. A giant green ant!

The ant didn't even turn to look at her, nonchalently continued its path as rows of its siblings followed.

"Those guys are Jade Weaver Ants! They're harmless, so you don't have to be scared of them!" one of the girls said.

She grabbed one of the smaller ones, smiling as it squirmed.

"See?" she put it back down.

"Right..." Mei said.

She wasn't looking for a tour guide!

Grumpy, Mei turned away, crossing her arms. Suddenly, she had an idea! She suppressed a grin as she suddenly hopped off the branch, willing her qi to push her away as fast as possible, while flapping with all her might.

"Junior sister?" the two of them cried out in alarm.

Mei stuck out her tongue at them as she flew further and further away with surprising speed.

The two girls took off and flew after her, almost instantly catching up. Gah! They were way too fast!

Just then, a strong torrent of wind blew past, instantly blowing Mei off to the side, several times faster than before.

"Ahhh!" she cried out.

Everything was racing past her in a blur, and looking down made her feel sick in the stomach.

Even the two "bodyguards" were left in the dust.

Was this really a natural gust of wind? Mei looked closer and realised a few mischievious wind spirits were blowing her away gleefully, their laughter like wind chimes.

If it wasn't for her actually wanting to escape this time, she'd be rather upset. In the distance, she saw the heaventree seemingly disappeared, making her do a double take. Shouldn't she be able to see it at this distance?

Come to think of it, she never questioned why the tree wasn't visible from the whole sect from how big it was. Weird...

"That's enough, put her on the ground! Those two humans are catching up, and we'll be in trouble if they report us to the elders!" one of the spirits whispered.

"Okay, let's make a run for it! They won't catch us if they're fussing over her, heheh!"

Seriously? How did they suddenly get even faster?

Mei suddenly smiled smugly at the two spirits.

"W-what? Why are you looking at us like that?"

"Sorry!" she grinned, teleporting away.

"Wait! Noooo!"

...

Now back at the tree, Mei laughed to herself.

She imagined the two girls shouting at them, asking where she went, then sending them to the elders to be punished.

Okay... now she felt a little bad. But it was their fault for doing something so reckless anyway!

Thinking of that, Mei immediately shrugged off her slight guilt.

By now, she had already dropped her leaves, so she tried to pluck off some of the huge leaves right at their source.

"Hnnn!"

Using all her might, she grabbed a leaf, arching her back backwards. Darn... why were the leaves so tough?

She remembered Wang Wei even cut up some of the fallen leaves to use for his alchemy. Were spirit plants only super tough when alive?

Helpless, she decided to give up. She looked around and decided using fern leaves instead wasn't really worth it.

Now that she looked closely, there sure were a lot of those huge green ants, huh?

Wait, some of them were carrying around leaves they had bitten off!

Mei ran over to one of the ants with leaves.

"Hey, can I have this leaf?" she asked.

The ant ignored her. Mei realised she couldn't really sense any thoughts from it and bit her lip in frustration. It was another dumb spirit beast?

She decided to try tugging the leaf away from the struggling ant, but its jaws gripped like iron.

Mei teleported back to another branch with the leaf. Hehe. Teleportation was way too powerful.

If she became rich in the future, would she be able to teleport this freely too?

She collected several more leaves in the same manner before flying further up.

A strange sight caught her eye as she flew, a huge pillar of white wrapped around the trunk of the tree.

What was that? Mei flew on top of it and poked it in curiosity.

A heartbeat?

Was this a ridiculously huge snake?

She felt the muscles beneath move and jumped off in panic. The wind became turbulent as the massive creature moved, finally, showing its massive head.

Mei froze. A dragon?

Wait, why did it looks so familiar? This was... that dragon from the auction?

What was it doing here of all places?

She trembled as its massive eyes trained on her, feeling like a tiny ant.