One of the cultivation fics I love the most since attenpts full on uplift and tries to use scientific method upon cultivation
Words: 40k+
Link: https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/18578
Chapter One: Greeting From The New Age
"Incoming transmission" The analog crystal flashed quickly, as the message was printed in the long strip of paper in lines of dots and dashes. The sound of the ink roller tapping onto the paper strip had been a constant sound for the last two hours, the camp was bustling with activities and preparation for the confrontation.
"145 li ahead, 43 degrees to the North" Luo Xun shouted, his hand held on to the long strip of paper with the coordinates that had just been spun out from the telegraph. The device was a wonder for communication, substituting the various Message Transmission arts that couldn't function after a dozen li. Best of all, it didn't require a high-ranking cultivator to operate and could be used by any grunts trained in code translation.
The signature dots and dashes strip of paper was quickly being translated from Mou code into proper coordinates - vital information for his battalion. Their pathfinders and spotter squads had been dispatched earlier in the day, with the hope of finding the enemy encampment and destroying them before they could respond.
"Adjust firing coordinate, 145 li, 43 degrees North" the Captain hadn't missed his shout and quickly issued order for the men. The bulky artillery pieces - all thirty of them were quickly turn toward the ordered direction, and the firing angle adjusted toward the given coordinate.
Those cultivators of the Blood-Dao Sect had taken refugee inside the thick foliage of the ancient forest, think themselves safe from the guns and tactics of the Revolutionary Army. "Foolishness of the highest order, but what can you expect from sect disciples. Bunch of arrogant idiots acting all high and mighty just because they are from a powerful sect" Luo Xun thought as he inspected the strip of paper coming from the telegraph "Defensive formations, strength estimated at Fourth realm" he shouted again, secretly hoping that they would all burn under the incoming artillery fire.
He had lost his parent to cultivators seeking to feed their blade, and he was damn sure not going to hold back against those damn bastards. Luo Xun was determined to commit his best, given his training in the Revolutionary Military Academy.
"Load the guns" another order was issued, as the breech-loading cannons were slowly reloaded by a group of men in uniforms. "Prepare the formations, order 2-1-1" another order, and suddenly, ninety-six spell flags were thrown into the sky by the ordinance officers. From those flags, the sky above the camp was lit up by the complex lines of Qi reaching for each other - the telltale signs of a formation matrix. Slowly but surely, they weaved into a complex mesh of three formations before settling into position right above the guns.
"Fire" the shout was the signal for the artillery officers, as they settled into their duties, ready to smash apart the enemy's camp. With a single swift motion, the bombardment barrage had begun, with the leading 1-chi howitzers firing. And soon after, the remaining artillery opened fire, passing through the reinforcement formations, lit up the sky, and streaked toward their targets at an astonishing speed.
From the camp, Luo was holding his ear while watching the fireworks "Go, you magnificent bastard, take down those damn assholes" he murmured.
"Reload" another shout, and the group of men was back at work again, carrying the heavy ammunition for the artillery barrage - every single one of them were professionally trained, and were at least First Realm cultivator.
"Fire" The thundering sound of cannons blended with the shouts of officers and soldiers, combining into a symphony of sounds. A well-oiled machine, an instrument of death indeed. And through it all, the soldiers march on toward their future - a future where they won't be oppressed by the whims of Sects and Cults.
"Who do those damn peasants think they are to challenge us?" Feng Shinyue was pacing around in his room, occasionally roaring - his red robe had been stained by dust, but it was an amazing piece of spell-work, so of course, it hadn't been damaged. His blade was floating around the Feng's young master, eager to bathe in its owner's bloodlust and anger. The blood on the blade was still fresh, and it was greedily absorbing those blood - after all, how could it evolve into a proper weapon without bathing in blood? Even with limited sentience, the blade's first instinct was to drink the blood of opponents that it felled - the perfect weapon for the genius of the sect.
It's not hard to figure out why the supposed prodigy of the Blood-Dao Sects was angry - after all, his group had suffered some grievous loss against some random rebel's army. Out of the four thousand disciples he had brought with him, more than half are now unable to fight, and a quarter had already perished - putting him at the command of two thousand disciples at the very best.
"Two thousand useless idiots that can't manage to fight an army of peasants" If the defeat had been to another sect, like those buffoons from White Cloud Peak, he wouldn't be that angry. Sure, that would be bad, but understandable - the fact that they were not fighting against another sect but only peasants mean that the defeat only sting further. Feng Shinyue had already finished off a dozen idiots in a fit of foul mood to shut them up and re-establish his control.
Worse still, his reputation among the Elders of the sect must have been shot to dirt once this news got out, and it's hard to imagine what punishment his Master would administer once his mistake was known. The Blood-Dao sects don't tolerate failures and weaklings, even if he was supposed to be one of the foremost prodigies of the sects. This mistake would surely damage his reputation and paved the way for that Cheng bastard to climb the ranks and earn favors from the Grandmaster.
"Where did they get ahold of those infernal weapons? Did we miss the interference of some automata sects?" His handsome features scrunched up as Feng Shinyue remember the clash - even at his cultivation realm, fighting those contraptions was a pain at best. He had gotten tied up when he was attacked by two of the flying automata and couldn't spare his attention to assisting the ones under his command "Damn them, ungrateful dogs, biting the hand of its' owner. Don't they know that their existence was owned to us?"
"But at least now I won't have to worry about that anymore." Under the protection of the forest and the high-grade defensive formation that he erected; it would be impossible for them to fight their way here. It was not a cheap formation, and the fact that he was forced to use the formation was something that only inflame Feng's anger - with the same amount of spirit stone, one could probably buy a dozen high-quality Qi pills.
"Young master Feng" an old man - one of his most powerful retainers, a Fourth Realm blade master; burst into his tent, shouting frantically. He had specifically ordered them to not disturb him, so this must be an important new "You need to come out and see this, now."
"Huh, what?" With his superhuman speed, it only took several seconds for Feng Shinyue to come out to see what the commotion was about. The camp was blazing with activities as disciples turned from their duty to look at a particular part of the sky. It was at that moment when he realized what was transpiring - the powerful energy signature from above could be felt from here, and they were crossing the sky at an alarming speed. "Brace for an attack" was all he could shout before the first projectile impacted against the defensive formation.
The shockwave released from the attack was deafening, and the defensive formation comprised of one thousand and twenty-four spell flags crumpled in seconds, spelling the doom of the encampment as the following shells arrived at their position only half a second later. Within the camps, aside from the rare Fourth Realm cultivators, none could even formulate a response to this attack.
First realms cultivators die instantly once the shockwave hit - their organs liquified from the sheer pressure, and Second Realms are burnt alive by the resulting fireball from the formation clash. But it was the rain of artillery that took out the more powerful Third Realm cultivators - an endless barrage of enchanted spirit-stone-based artillery pieces took them apart with an almost impossible speed. Men and women who could easily destroy a mortal city in a day were now turned into charred corpses by the powerful explosive. Their spells and martial arts useless against the uncaring barrage of explosion and heat - after all, who in their right mind would blow up a spirit stone?
Only the Fourth Realm cultivator could respond to this endless artillery barrage - and even then, their responses were nowhere near enough to stem the tide of the battle. If this one-sided slaughter could even be called a battle. Blade slicing artillery shells apart, magic weapons made from tainted blood, and sacrificed mortals; quickly destroying the shells before they landed. Not that it was particularly effective - after all, they do not understand the mechanism of these weapons and assumed that it was like any magical weapons and treasures. "Destroy them and they would fall to do any damage"
Sadly, that philosophy didn't apply to the volatile mass of spirit-stone contained by those shells. Even if you destroyed the casing of the shells, it would still explode. Among a dozen Fourth realm cultivators, only three were smart enough to deflect the shells, creating a safe zone for themselves. The rest? Either buried under the layer of molten dirt and stone or desperately trying to stay alive using everything at their disposal.
"Deflect them" Feng instantly reacted once the first fireball hit and transmitted the message to his fellow remaining Fourth Realms. His blade sang as it streaked around the thirty-year-old genius, projecting a barrier that deflect any incoming shells.
Not that it was effective when the giant air-bursting howitzers shells exploded above them, releasing streaks of molten magical metals at speed exceeding that of a flying sword by several orders of magnitude. The barrage continued for several minutes - several minutes of what could only be called hell, as the surviving cultivators desperately struggle to stay alive.
In the end, only one managed to make it out alive by activating his ancestral Emergency Teleportation Talisman, but not before he suffered grievous wounds. Feng Shinyue managed to escape to Blood-Dao Sect's headquarter, but suffered grievously in the process, nearly dying on the treatment bed even with the help of pills and direct Qi transfer.
"The genius of the Blood-Dao sects suffered grievous wounds while trying to put down a rebellious peasant's army. Four thousand dead, with eleven Fourth Realms among the casualties"
Where there are human, there would be gossip, and the information spread across the kingdom, reaching even the peaks of White Mountain and the Moving Temple. News about this defeat was spreading, and even with their might, the Blood-Dao sect couldn't do a thing about it.
This information prompted a storm among the Sects that considered themselves to be "owners" of the Azure kingdom - after all, who would swoop that low to ambush a Fourth Realm cultivator and a group of mostly outer sect disciples? Judging from the scale of the attack, it must have been someone from the Fifth realm, a sect Elder at least. But who would violate their unwritten treaty? Was some foreign Sect looking for a way to gorge themselves on the rich resources of the Azure?
They refused to believe the possibility that a rebellious peasant army could have done something like this - after all, eighty years ago, even the Azure kingdom army consisted of only mortal and First realm cultivators; with the rare officer reaching the Second Realm. They couldn't advance that much in such a short amount of time, even if the late Azure Emperor himself lead them in battle. The real powers behind the throne were always held by the Sects and Cults after all, not the emperor or the various noble lines.
To see a group of cultivators, even if they are only Outer Sect disciples be smashed so thoroughly could only mean that there was interference from other cultivators. Meaning that someone was willing to break the Unwritten Accord, that is, seniors directly assaulting the young generations.
And that means war is on the horizon.
AN: So this is my second story, and the first story written with cultivation in mind. I wanted to explore the combination of cultivation and scientific ideas, but there seemed to be little on that front so I resorted to writting my own. Not sure how frequent I would update this, but I hope that I could do it regularly.
Any contribution of comments would be appriciated, given that I'm still new in this writting business, and I'm an ESL to boot. I'm not Chinese, just a guy who read a lot of xianxia novels - so some of the terminologies would be mangled, or mess up, but I'll try my best