Mu Gaoying

Five hundred or so year old tree yao (sometimes also called a tree spirit or tree demon) who has cultivated to human form. Never does anything that doesn't benefit him in some way and incredibly greedy for spiritual power.

• 6'2, very tall
• Broad shouldered
• Wavy shoulder length hair parted to the side, often adorned with a metal ornament
• Dark, laughing, mischievous eyes that can turn piercing with no warning
• Has a mole above and between his brows
• Wears dark colors and fine embroidery
• Sometimes appears and disappears in a swirl of leaves because he's a dramatic bitch
• Can emit dark green-black energy when using his powers, depending on exactly what he's doing

• Extremely greedy and opportunistic
• Often sneaky
• Seems jovial and easy to get along with but is actually always weighing the pros and cons of any given relationship or situation and will disappear the moment it stops benefitting him
• Only cares about himself
• Very sllippery; can talk his way out of most things and will brute force the ones he can't
• Despite this, is not particulary prone to unecessary violence; he's more a thief than a murderer.
• Doesn't get angry or lose his cool often but can be vicious when he does
• Confident in his power and abilities but also realistic about them
• Not afraid of many things but prudent and doesn't take unnecessary risks
• Laid back about most things not involving spiritual power because he doesn't care
• Despite all that, he's not lazy; he will do the work to get the prize, as long as he wants it
• Will be helpful if it gets him what he wants

• Quite powerful for his age; higher than average cultivation level
• Can attack with roots and leaves or pure energy
• Capable of creating sturdy shields and arrays
• Very good qinggong
• Teleportation, can take people and objects with him and can store items as necessary in another space
• Well-versed magically because he's studied many esoteric and ancient texts
• Can absorb the spiritual energy of other beings
• Has the ability to fade into the background/hide his spirit signature and become inconspicuous
• Long-lived
• As a tree, his mortal enemy is fire

• Chinese tallow tree; first 150ish years of his life were spent as a tree cultivating toward human form
• Stayed pretty lowkey once he achieved that, looking for easy ways to increase his spiritual power and often succeeding
• Slowly amassed more and more spiritual power over the years, not always or even often in ethical ways
• Actually did his best not to acquire a reputation and has mostly succeeded
• Has sweet-talked various sages and experts into letting him read their magical texts and learned a great deal as a result
• Signed up for this champion bond thing since he sees defeating monsters and absorbing their spiritual power as essentially an all you can eat buffet

• Zhang Zhiwei: Weird modern transmigrator he got paired with for this champion thing