On the otherside sat many old people, including at the end of the hall, the patriarch who seemed to be in his 50s. Though in Jie Shu's eyes he should be around 130 years old if you looked at his qi density within the dantian.
Jie Shu's action of kicking in the door seemed to make most of the men with white hair frown, but when they saw the constant gathering of spiritual energy they couldn't help but smile, since he was pretty much courting death.
Qi deviation, a state where qi get out of control. That's what happens when you don't control qi or spiritual energy properly, and doing it properly and not losing your descendants while speaking or anything else would be highly dangerous.
"Son, why are you no longer within the qi gathering realm?" The patriarch asked.
Jie Shu however looked at him, looked around "I abolished it," These words shocked the entire hall "Now give me a bunch of rejuvenation pills, you people in the boonies do have those, right?"
The patriarch stopped drinking his tea, and asked "Why did you abolish your cultivation?"
Jie Shu however didn't think it was a big deal to drop from qi gathering to body tempering "Because the cultivation technique was trash, now. Do you have rejuvenation pills or not?"
From the side, an elder said "Yes we do have rejuvenation pills young master, have you forgotten that they are redily purchaseable at streets stalls?" He was annoyed at the fact Jie Shu nonchelantly disregarded the problem of him abolishing his cultivation base.
"Ah, that's good," Jie Shu said with a slight smile "So, let's see... If I carry the 7 towards the 4th dimension and then consider the speed of my tempering... I'll be needing 324 pills minimum, the more the better."
"This number," The patriarch said "It's possible, though it'd be a bit irratating to gather. Tell me, why do you need that many pills?"
Jie Shu frowned "If I told you why, you would stop me, so... I'll tell you after I've done the procedure." There was obviously a bit of distrust and disdain in his voice.
Another old man, obviously with a bit more power than the others "First young master, I must ask... Are you going to do a pill bombing?"
"Will you give me my goddamn pills if I answer you?"
"Yes, first young master."
"Then yes, I will be doing a pill bombing, it's the best I can do in the boonies." Jie Shu didn't even try to hide his disdain now.
The old man gave a wry smile as he looked at everyone around him, it was obvious everyone else didn't know what a 'pill bombing' was "Do not worry, a pill bombing is an old procedure from before the appearance of the 'Bane of men'. It is safe, and not that dangerous."
He gave Jie Shu a knowing wink "I'll make sure you'll get your pills first young master." Jie Shu couldn't help but see the old man in a positive light.
He looked at the old man's cultivation '5th realm foundation. That's good for the boonies, if I look a bit closer...' Jie Shu's pure will forced spiritual energy around the elder to inspect his intricacies 'He seems to be using a sub-par cultivation manual.'
"Hey, old man. What do you want more, a better cultivation manual of the same element as your own, or a technique?" Jie Shu asked, someone who could get to his level at the age of about 170 with his trashy cultivation technique was talented.
The old man smiled, and then said "If you honestly think you have something like that, I'd hope to gain the former."
Jie Shu stopped for a moment "I've got a few that I'm willing to give you; 'Divine flame art', 'Flame of scourges manual', and- let's see 'Flame of calamity art'." Jie Shu listed some cultivation techniques which the system would designate as 'D-rank', 1 rank below what he had given to the nine betrayers.
The old man laughed "I'll choose one of the three after you get your pills." Obviously thinking that it was a joke.
"Whatever, come find me if you want one." Jie Shu took it as him being stupid, and left, though the patriarch was about to call him back, the door had already been slammed shut.
The patriarch though, just sipped his tea a bit louder than usual. His first son had always been a trouble maker, it just seemed like he had more of a backbone. He also seemed healthy enough, though it did seem like he had some mental problems.
The patriarch didn't know of pill bombing, but he was slightly surprised by the fact that the supreme elder had helped his son in his goals. The supreme elder was famously not willing to help anyone.
While the supreme elder told his servant to get Jie Shu his pills with a small smile 'It's good that the younger generation has learned to take some risks, if the old don't help the young grow a bit, of what worth would we be?'
'Oh, who am I fooling?' The old elder thought 'I just like that someone else also dares to take some risk like me in my younger years.'
Back on the otherside of the door Jie Shu was walking with a smug smile, but then stopped 'What's my next avatar going to be?' This was a big deal. If he didn't get one like his previous, able to become every weapon, what weapon should he use? Would he need to create his own weapons? Or should he have someone else forge them?
After some contemplation, Jie Shu decided to learn of forging techniques.
But when? Where? And how?
These were momentary thoughts, with the answer clear to him 'I'll just burn a few sects to the ground and steal their manuals like usual. Though, I'll need to be a bit careful since any records destroyed are automatically put into the book of oblivion.'
'Let's get rid of all these useless thoughts, swords are common, so I'll be able to kill some cultivators and steal their swords.'
After coming to this conclusion, Jie Shu stretched a bit and looked at what the weird panels thought of his current progress.
[Body tempering, mortal (1%)]
'Looks like what I see as a small bit of progress is less than 1% to these panels.' Jie Shu wondered if he had went beyond this 'Mortal' stage before he went into qi gathering.
Jie Shu knew that he would get to that stage even if he hadn't before, since he was now being challenged to reach that level. If he did that, he may not have needed to do something as cowardly as surpressing the flower from taking his life force while breaking through to the 9th petal.
He hated failure, he especially hated being challenged, and then failing.
He walked, and then asked the sheep horn girl "Do I have a sword?" When met with her nod, he pondered where 'Probably in the place I was sleeping, pretty obvious it was this body's room.'
Jie Shu walked back, tracing his steps, passing the courtyard, and then entering his room. He quickly did some looting, looking through drawers, opening anywhere something could be hidden.
He quickly found a few things, including a sword, a pill, and some sub-par clothes.
Jie Shu didn't recognize the pill, but that didn't really matter. He popped it in his mouth, as both poison and medicine was useful to him at the body-tempering stage.
Instead of having his body take in the effects naturally like most would, he took in spiritual energy and corroded the physical pill and was only left with the spiritual parts, which was indeed poison.
But energy is energy, the poison was used just like the spiritual energy and imbued into his body.
This was not pill bombing, that was an entirely different method most could do, but most wouldn't survive.
Jie Shu found it a trivial matter, as such, he just walked it off.
Jui Shu looked through all the clothes he found, and he found one that was white and golden. This fit his new cultivation technique best, at least that was how he thought of it.
With his new sword he could use 'Sword rush', since it was more focused on sword skills than qi, though qi could be used. If he used qi he would be able to do it without a sword, but right now he had only the spiritual energy around him.
Jie Shu wanted to make sure Blade rush actually worked how he wished it too, so he went back to the courtyard.
Then he explored around, and he saw a training ground, with people to rob!
'No, Jie Shu, you're exploiting them, you can't rob them right now.' Jie Shu controlled his impulses, with a bit of difficulty. In the end, he pickpocketed a few people training of their pills.
Ending up with 3 low quality ones, so he popped them all down the hatch. He did the same as the poison previously provided, since they had a lot of impurities which were detrimental to him. In the end, he spit out the left-over impurities.
He took a more common 'Grass scarecrow' for himself. It was a type of herb that quickly regrew after being cut, then some excentric cultivator changed it's properties to her heart's content before selling them.
Sadly, she died on the streets, alone. Since her creations were copied, and she was sabotaged since she hadn't grown to her peak state yet.
Such was the way of cultivation.
Nobody recognized him, since the first young master was mostly a loner who rarely made public appearances "Wait, where's my pill?" The girl whose name we don't know yet looked at Jie Shu, filled with suspicion at the fact he had eaten pills he shouldn't have been able to get.
Jie Shu took his thievery as a wee bit of trolling and tomfoolery, and a learning experience for them. He was such a nice person, wasn't he? He didn't kill them all and burn this place to the ground, yes, I know, he's a saint.
As such, he showed no reaction as two others also realized that they had lost pills. But then he saw more people look at their own pills, people he didn't know had pills. Or they had them in irregular places 'I don't need it... I don't need it... I don't need it... I-I need it!'
After a wee bit of tomfoolery, Jie Shu had eaten 12 pills. All rejuvenation pills. Why did this place have so many? Jie Shu wanted to know too, the people here had clothes, weapons, and cultivation bases of a certain level where this many people shouldn't have pills.
Of course there were more he could steal, but then he'd be revealed. And Jie Shu had a little PTSD from his younger years, which he didn't want to remember.
Now he actually used his scarecrow as a sandbag.
He readied his blade from 2 meters away, and then he rushed forwards. When he arrived at his target, he passed by, and he slashed three times. Going from a normal grip to a back-handed grip, then back to normalcy.
These three went against the chest, when he was on the other side. He twirled and slashed for the neck, then he quickly stabbed where the heart should be.
Jie Shu turned around while he made a back handed grip again, he ripped it out roughly.
He jumped backwards slightly while also adding a little rotation fowards, then put his foot on the back of the scarecrow, and then did a frontflip.
Jie Shu's sword then cut the scarecrow in half from the hips.
He turned around and looked at his handy work, there were giant sword's width holes in the scare crow's chest, the head was laying on the ground, and from head to just above it's hip it was cut in half.
"It's good enough for a new body tempering stage, but for the old me, this is so bad." Jie Shu felt ashamed himself for a moment, thinking that everyone around him was looking at him with contempt for his extremely trashy sword martial art.
But then he remembered that this was the boonies, and that most people wouldn't be able to make this kind of attack even in Cental, he was comparing someone of almost a thousands years, to someone in his mid-teens.
They were all in awe and filled with a tiny bit of fear instead of disdain, which didn't matter too much really, he disdained himself, and that's all that matters.
-Written in the 27th of december, 2022.