Having decided that after the harrowing experiences of his last mission, he would take a few days to rest, Gu Jin found himself ambling through the sections of the archives available to outer disciples. There was a wealth of information to choose from, but he found himself gravitating toward records of the flora and fauna that had been encountered in recent years.
What he found was an eclectic array of information, with some beasts seemingly vanishing from the barony for decades at a time only to suddenly reappear with dozens of sightings in the span of a month. Entire groves of trees were known to migrate through the Ancient Devil Forest, but after the loss of multiple disciples attempting to map their routes, the sect deemed the endeavor too dangerous to continue a century ago.
Reports from the lands closer to the sect itself were slightly more stable, with a few dozen species having relatively constant ranges, and it was these that Gu Jin spent the most time reading, finding them to be the most interesting.
He read records of amberscale pines that coated their trunks in resinous armor that no mortal axes could pierce, and rained hails of wickedly sharp metallic needles on anyone foolish enough to try.
An account from an outer disciple detailed how they had been able to complete their mission sooner than expected by utilizing new routes through the Grey River Marsh that had opened up after a group of marsh mandrills ascended to the soldier realm and began threatening the local bladetail beavers, which had led to reduced flooding.
There was a grove of prismleaf persimmon growing a mere hundred li from Harvest Square Town, their glass leaves creating dazzling displays in the light, and the sight of their branches laden with fruit tempting more than one unwary traveler to approach, only for the trees to shatter their own leaves into a deadly cloud of glass.
Flocks of cloud-drinker pelicans were a common sight around Lake Tawei, and records showed that a mere decade ago they had experienced an unexpected population boom and begun roaming further and further inland, causing droughts, until their population was brought under control by a group of inner disciples.
It was fascinating reading for Gu Jin, and he soon thought to contribute his own sightings from his time outside the sect to the records, but was disheartened to realize that the clandestine nature of his most recent mission left him with little he could safely record.
But a solution was easily apparent to him, and soon it became a plan; he would simply need to venture out again and find out what wonders and horrors the barony had in store.