I pulled on the sleeves of the silver Daoist robe, marking my position as a junior Outer Sect disciple, frowning. I had gotten used to wearing gowns and dresses, even training in how to move fast in them, and this seemed a bit underwhelming. Boring, even. Still, it was a genuine magical robe, with protections a lot higher than just regular silk.
I wasn't sure if it was strong enough that it would nullify the Mage Armour spell that I had begun religiously casting every morning since that fat bastard managed to crack my ribs with a punch. That had been an oversight. I had also been practising snap-casting Shield when Xiao Li and I sparred, but I was still rusty in casting it instantly. It was harder, as there was significantly less reaction time in "cultivator fights" than what Merildwen remembered in regular fights in her world.
A bunch of the other young women who joined the Sect had similar expressions on their faces until one of the disciples who was issuing us our starting gear said, "Junior Sisters, you can get customised robes, of course, but they generally will cost contribution points."
Ah, yes, awesome. Another currency. Was this my third? Well, fourth, if I counted the rewards program points at the Frolics of the Lunar Bunny. One of the other girls asked him to elaborate, and he explained that there were a number of disciples who studied the art of refining devices, including magical robes. They might be willing to customise the standard robes for remuneration.
From reading the sect guidebook, contribution points were an attempt to both equalise the status of fellow disciples as well as to ensure that disciples had the incentive to perform missions and chores. They weren't generally transferrable but could be used to buy things from the Sect or issue missions to other disciples; the latter would be how we would need to get better robes.
It wasn't impossible to out-and-out pay spirit stones or other valuables to get these services done, of course, but contribution points were what every disciple wanted, so it would be more costly.
The vast majority of the sect were Outer Sect disciples, after all. Not only did you need to pay contribution points for basically everything, from techniques you wanted to learn to most cultivation resources beyond a small pittance, but you also had a built-in deficit every year. This was your debt to the Sect for providing everything else.
The traditional way to pay this off was to either go adventuring, taking missions from the Sect along the way, take a job in the Sect, or have a profession like alchemy or, in my case, talisman artistry. Actually, it was generally a combination of all of the above, as people's desire for more points was generally insatiable. Even Inner Sect disciples who didn't have a deficit and had more generous resources provided would do all of the above, especially adventuring out to "temper themselves."
From what I could tell, missions acted similarly to a famous hidden village of ninjas that I was familiar with in my past life. Anyone could go to the Mission Hall and put a mission up, and whatever payment they offered would be converted into an equivalent amount of contribution points, and the mission would be provided to the sect as a whole. Even outsiders could arrange for missions to be offered, with some restrictions.
As much as I detested more signs of how basic the economy was in the sense that it required multiple types of currencies that were never entirely convertible between one another, I supposed that this system was better for me than the alternative. Otherwise, rich disciples could come in and just buy everything. They'd already be able to come in with huge advantages in cultivation resources that they could buy outside the sect, so a little levelling of the field worked in my favour.
Xiao Li ran up to me and said, "Did you see the uhh... housing accommodations?"
Something about the way he said that made me feel some dread, and I shook my head, "No."
He walked with me to the area we were assigned, and I gaped at my assigned dwelling. It was just a hut. Actually, it was more like one of those conical tipis that the Lakota and Apache tribes used in antiquity. I glared at him, "What the fuck, Xiao Li?"
He rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled, "Ah... well, apparently, there are three ways to get a better residence if you're in the Outer Sect."
I already knew what one of them would be. Contribution points, of course. I sighed, "What are the ways that don't involve contribution points?"
He pointed to a long line of different dwellings that slowly increased in quality, "Firstly, you're invited to join one of the eight peaks. Then you can live there. Otherwise, you have to challenge the occupant of a dwelling you want to spar. And win, of course."
I sighed. I ignored the invitation to one of the peaks part for now. The eight peaks were each led by a Peak Master or Mistress who was at least in the middle of the Core Formation realm, and they were kind of like sects within a sect. Mostly, only Inner Sect disciples or those who were the personal or nominal disciples of the Peak Mistress were invited up to the various peaks.
So, ignoring that option, you could either pay for a better domicile, or if you didn't want to, there were a lot of free options available, but you had to fight for the better ones. Well, this was a Sword sect, after all, so I wasn't sure why I was surprised.
I flipped through to the appropriate place in the guidebook about this practice and nodded. A person could only be challenged once a week, and you could only make one challenge a week, too. I could already see a number of our fellow new disciples knocking politely on doors to challenge their occupants.
I nodded and walked past them. I continued past the swanky tipis, past the single-room apartments and kept going until I found the highest quality accommodations, which was a villa somewhat similar to what we had rented, if smaller. Xiao Li grinned as he saw what I intended to do and nodded. I picked the first villa in a row, and Xiao Li picked the one ahead of me.
Apparently, these villas came with servants, which surprised me, but I coughed and said delicately, "If you'd please inform the master or mistress of the house that Junior Sister Mei Wen is here and hopes to challenge them to a spar for ownership of this dwelling."
The servant looked amused but inclined his head, and he left back into the house. Shortly after, a large man who looked close to two metres in height appeared in front of me, looking down at me with a smirk, "Junior Martial Sister, I am Jiaozi Liu. I admire your confidence, but perhaps you should consider challenging one of the second-tier dwellings. When I beat you, you'll be stuck in that beginner tipi for a week."
I peered at him. Although he looked huge and muscular, he was still in the seventh level of Qi Gathering, so I thought I could take him. Perhaps not with a fair fight, but I didn't intend to fight fair anyway. I cupped my hands in salute and said, "I appreciate your attempts to dissuade me, Senior Brother, but I have my mind set on your house."
He laughed uproariously and thumped me genially on the back, causing me to involuntarily take a step forward. Rather than upset, he seemed fired up, "Alright! Good! Let's go now before all your fellows use up all of the sparring circles nearby."
I nodded and followed along with him. It occurred to me that I had changed somewhat. I had almost become "citified." I noticed this first when I had no desire to go with Xiao Li on his weeks-long hunting expedition months ago, and now I had unerringly walked towards the most luxurious of housing options available. In the past, I would have been stoked to spend a week in a genuine-looking tipi.
I wonder what my grandpa would say if he was looking down on me from Heaven. Well... I think he would be pretty confused, actually. Still, I had zero desire to spend even a single night in a tipi, no matter how large. While the cold and draftiness wouldn't bother me at all, it just didn't suit me anymore. I could do so and even thrive there if I had to, but if I didn't have to, then I didn't want to.
I wondered if Merildwen had also changed similarly back on Earth. I had already noticed that she was a lot more... open to different ideas when we were briefly connected. Where I had discounted romance with the opposite sex almost immediately, she seemed immediately interested in trying sexual things with women and men.
I tried not to think about the things she was doing with my body. I just had to let it go!
When we got to one of the locations set aside for sparring, I noticed that it was more involved than I thought. Liu nodded at me, "So, the rules of sparring between disciples are that we each use a provided weapon, not our spirit tools. The idea is that we're having a debate with our sword skills, not the strength of our treasures."
I nodded. That favoured me, so I liked it.
He continued, "Fatal and crippling attacks are prohibited, obviously. Basically, anything that would cause lasting or very lingering harm is prohibited. Each spar has to be supervised by someone in a higher cultivation realm; in our case, it will be the Foundation Establishment Senior Brother here, as well as staff from the spiritual doctor's wing. This is one of the main ways that they get practice, after all."
He then grinned evilly, "Oh, and also, to prevent spurious challenges, there has to be a bet of at minimum one hundred contribution points and five low-grade spirit stones."
Ah. I only got two thousand contribution points from joining the sect. They provided this initial amount with the assumption that new disciples would use it to get new techniques or cultivation methods. Still, I shrugged, "Fair enough."
I hoped to win the fight immediately, but now I started to consider backup plans if that didn't work. We each sat our personal swords to the side and picked up a provided sword. They were sharp, so some amount of spilt blood was expected, I supposed.
A lot of my spells would be considered prohibited, too. Vampiric Touch was straight out. I could cast Fireball and Lightning Bolt now, but their performance was a bit lacklustre, and they might be considered out of bounds, too. I suppose it would depend on the durability of the person I was sparring with.
The referee nodded at us as we took positions and said, "Mei Wen, Jiaozi Liu... begin."
I didn't move my sword from the guard position but immediately cast the spell Suggestion, saying, "Senior Brother, would you kindly turn around and continue walking forward?"
Suggestion was a powerful spell. You could force someone to do something continuously for the spell's eight-hour duration or as long as you maintained concentration. You couldn't order them to commit seppuku or anything that would harm them, and the suggestion had to sound at least a little reasonable to them.
He froze, blinking rapidly, before making a perfect one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and walking forward. The sparring circles for Qi Gathering disciples were pretty large, about fifty metres in diameter, so it took him a fair bit of time to walk out of the circle with the referee gaping. After Jiaozi Liu stepped outside the ring and disqualified himself, I let the concentration of the spell go.
The referee yelled, "Throwing a match is prohibited, Jiaozi Liu, no matter how pretty your opponent is!"
The tall man bellowed, offended, "As if I would! She used some kind of spell, and I just did it! I didn't even realise what was happening until I was almost out of the ring!" He had turned around and walked back into the circle, shaking his head.
It might not seem that a suggestion causing him to forfeit would be reasonable, but it really depended on how it was worded. If I had told him to leave the sparring circle, that might not have worked. But just to turn around and keep walking? That was fine. At least this first time. I think maybe it wouldn't work a second time on him, though.
I hoped he wasn't going to have some sort of rage explosion on losing, as he was approaching me with a purpose. I readied a Hold Person casting just in case he attacked me. However, he sighed and shook his head ruefully, "You win, Junior Martial Sister. I'm not too fond of abilities like that. I had almost fought myself free of it, I think, but not soon enough."
He asked, "Do you mind using it on me again? I think it's good training."
"Get out of the fucking circle first," the referee yelled, and we both jumped a bit in startlement before we walked over and put our temporary swords back on a rack and reclaimed our weapons.
That he noticed anything was off at all was interesting. By the strict text of the spell, you only got the one "saving throw." After that, you should be considered kind of charmed, and you wouldn't really realise what happened until after the spell ended.
I had noticed a lot of spells that had ongoing mental effects could be fought against, though, so I wasn't exactly surprised. I nodded and said, "Sure. But it might not work a second time. For example, my suggestion has to seem reasonable to you. I phrased it like I did, hoping you'd forget the connection between walking forward and forfeiting the match."
He got a thoughtful expression on his face and nodded, "I understand. Not as all-powerful as I thought, then."
I cast Suggestion again, "Would you kindly hop on one foot?"
He blinked and started hopping on one foot in place. He shrugged and tossed me five spirit stones, saying, "Well, if you can't, you can't, I guess. Here are the five spirit stones I owe you. The referee will transfer the contribution points directly." He seemed to forget that I cast a spell on him while he was under it. I wondered how long that would last.
Would people pointing it out to him cause cognitive dissonance and break the spell? If he was a regular person, definitely not, but the combination of it being a weird suggestion along with him being a cultivator made me think it was possible.
He said, "Well, I will go move my stuff out of your place. I've got to think about who to challenge, myself, too." He hopped on one foot away. He was really strong, so he could hop a ridiculous amount of distance at one time, looking like a demented pogo stick departing the area.
I'd try to keep concentration on the spell as long as possible. For his training, right? I smirked. Not because it was hilarious, of course.
Ooh, Xiao Li was walking up with another man. This one was tall and lean, being a good head and a half over Xiao Li, and he had his Sect robes customised to look similar to that of a scholar.
Honestly, I wondered why Xiao Li was bothering with trying to get a better house. The tournament to get into the Inner Sect was only five days away, and if he joined, then he'd get a villa reserved for Inner Sect disciples, and he wouldn't have to bother with this nonsense.
Still, I watched them get ready to spar. I raised an eyebrow when the scholar selected a slightly curved sabre as a weapon from the rack, but I suppose that wasn't that unusual. I intended to study different weapons here, too.
I didn't think that I would suddenly find that I was a battle maniac if only I could study the sabre or the spear, but I had the idea that it would be easier to dodge and counter other people using these types of weapons if I knew at least the basics of each weapon, so I intended to study the sabre, spear, axe and halberd.
Although, the idea of me swinging away with a giant axe was kind of funny. It reminded me of that anime where the Japanese Self-Defence Forces got isekaied and waged war on fantasy people or something.
I couldn't remember what it was called, as the anime had been rather silly, and I never ever watched it aside from clips on the internet. There was a petite woman in a gothic Lolita outfit with a giant axe, though, that I thought had the hallmarks of Gap Moe.
The fight started, and this one wasn't going to end in an instant, I intuitively understood. The scholar was at the eighth level, one higher than Xiao Li, but from the start, Xiao Li appeared to be controlling the fight. He used Fire Bolt a number of times, not so much as an attempt to incinerate his opponent, which might be against the rules, but to deny an area to him while the other man was manoeuvring, which inevitably caused the scholar to leap away directly into a prepared set-piece attack.
I raised my eyebrows as I watched Xiao Li systematically outclass the older man until, at last, Xiao Li finished the spar with a decisive thrust. He stopped with nothing more than a prick on the scholar, but it was obvious to everyone watching that Xiao Li could have just run him through.
"Winner, Xiao Li!" declared the referee quickly. This guy was less of a good sport than my partner was, and he just threw the sabre on the ground, along with the five spirit stone stakes and stalked off.
Xiao Li didn't seem perturbed and even returned his partner's sabre back to the rack. I glanced at a small wound on his arm and said, "You're bleeding."
He shook his head, "Nah, it already stopped. Look, these robes repair themselves, too. Awesome, right?" And sure enough, I saw that the small cut had already closed, and even the bloodstain was slowly disappearing.
I sighed. There went my idea to abuse Mending and Prestidigitation to repair and clean these expensive magical robes. I figured in a Sect with as much focus on combat as this one; it would have been an easy niche to make money or points without any effort. Oh well.
"You want to head to the Dao Repository?" I asked. This was the location where all cultivation methods, spells, techniques, manuals and even divine abilities that the Sect had were stored and could be exchanged if one had enough points, of course.
The distinction between a divine ability and a spell or technique was pretty fine. They were mostly the same thing, with the main difference being that a divine ability was, originally, the self-developed ability of a human or monster that reached the Celestial Immortal realm. When this happened, and they taught the technique to others, it just turned out to be a bit better.
For example, Zeus' divine ability would probably be throwing lightning bolts. For no other reason than it was the ability he trained when someone else used it, it would be somewhat better than an identical spell developed by someone else, too.
The history of the Myriad Heavens was so long that there were actually quite a few of these freely available, although their quality was as varied as the quality of any spell or technique created by different people.
The very, very strong ones were naturally kept as secret as possible, especially if the Celestial Immortal involved was still alive. Trying to train in the signature ability of someone who was still around without their permission wasn't, generally, wise.
Xiao Li grinned and nodded, "We probably don't need a new cultivation method, but I'm interested in seeing what Sword Arts manuals they have."
The Sect was so large that we had to travel a good forty minutes at our top speed to reach the Dao Repository, which was in the very well-protected part of the mountain.
The Dao Repository was an elaborate five-sided pagoda of at least twenty floors, and an old man was seated leisurely by the only entrance. I had the sudden intrusive thought that this thing wouldn't meet fire codes back home, with only one way to enter and exit.
The old man opened one eye before saying, "New disciples? Well, go on in. Listen to the directions of the librarians, or I'll kill you." Then, with that casual threat delivered, he closed his eyes and went, seemingly, back to sleep.
Xiao Li and I shared a glance before we carefully walked by the old man and entered the building. Although I doubted that they had the Dewey Decimal system here, it was clearly a library, and it was set out in a similar way as to the other libraries that I had been to in this world.
A librarian-disciple spared a brief look at us before saying, "You can only go up to the fourth floor. When you have what you want, bring it down to me. The organisation system is pretty obvious, but if you need help finding something, let me or another librarian know."
"I'm going to go look at the sword arts," Xiao Li said excitedly, and I nodded and proceeded off in another direction. First, I looked around for the section on formations that were available on the first four floors, and then I found what might be considered the primers.
I brightened when I found the exact tome that I was offered to buy for twenty-five mid-grade spirit stones. It was listed as only costing one hundred contribution points. Quite amazing! I opened it and then frowned and realised that rather than the text itself, only a description, along with perhaps the first ten or so pages, were there.
I suppose that was how they prevented you from reading a whole book like I used to do in Barnes & Nobles when I was poor. I used to sit there in their comfy chairs and read an entire novel and then put it back on the shelves when I was a kid.
I was saving a lot of points by not needing a better cultivation method, as I noticed a few high-ranked methods cost fifteen hundred points, and they only included the Qi Gathering and Foundation Establishment chapters.
I got three books on formations and four more on talismans, and I still had eleven hundred points left, so I wandered into the more practical skills area. I was admitted to the Sect with them knowing my predilection for certain types of techniques. The old woman who explained things to me said I wouldn't find any of those types of techniques in the public area of the Dao Repository but that I'd be permitted to see them after I'd been in the Sect for a while.
However, I wasn't to make my practice of this type of technique widely known, nor was I to do especially evil things in order to further my understanding. I could do whatever I wanted with the bodies and souls of those who were my enemies, she'd said, but I couldn't descend into the depths of depravity and genocide villages for materials.
I supposed that's what actually separated demonic Sects from so-called righteous ones. The former had no bottom line. She also requested that, as part of being discreet, I emphasise my skills in another direction. Illusion was perfect, as many illusory techniques could be unearthly.
I already had one illusory technique that was solely a Daoist technique, but I wasn't that great with it. It involved specific sounds, specifically songs being played on a zither or guqin, neither of which I would consider myself to have mastered.
I could perform the techniques to a basic level of competence, but I would love a few other options if only to study the differences between my spells of the Illusion school and the illusions that come from these Daoist spells and techniques.
These were a bit more expensive, but I still got two large tomes on illusory techniques that claimed to remain useful even in the Foundation Establishment realm for six hundred points. I nodded, satisfied. That would leave me a buffer of five hundred points for unexpected expenses.
I found Xiao Li, and he only had two books, and he claimed both of them were Sword Arts. I looked at the top one and raised my eyes. It was fifteen hundred points, and it was called "The Sword of the Carefree Immortal."
That was a pretty frivolous-sounding name for an art that the school valued so highly. I asked him to read the introduction and snorted. It was a forward written by the Carefree Immortal himself:
"A single day lived passionately and free is better than aeons stifled as a slave. All I ask is for one thing: to kill all those who deserve death! Only then will I feel carefree. My sword is the sword to obliterate injustice! KILL. KILL. KILL."
He used three different characters for 'kill' there in the end, just in case you didn't recognise one of them, I guess.
Okay, that went pretty hard, and considering this was the author's pre-requisite to consider himself "carefree", and his name was recorded as "The Carefree Immortal", then I suspected the guy who wrote this killed a lot of people with his sword. I also suspected he was either dead now or existed in a realm beyond merely a Celestial Immortal.
It was ridiculously protagonist-like Sword Art to study, I thought. This wasn't the first time that I kind of thought that Xiao Li acted like a story protagonist, but it was kind of hard to say since karma and good and bad luck were real physical things here.
The only thing that would make it even more protagonist-like would be... no, I stopped myself from even thinking it, just in case. I'd see in a moment, anyway.
We took our books back to the front desk, and I set mine down first. The attending librarian took a look at my stack of many tomes and made a "Tsk" sound, and I realised that he was probably in charge of both bringing me the actual books as well as reshelving these stand-ins, and I had annoyed him by getting a lot at one time.
"Wait a moment," he said and disappeared, taking the stack of books with him. Less than five minutes later, he returned, which shocked me. It had taken me a good hour to browse through all these. He had to have a special librarian Qi ability to move fast in here as well as find the appropriate things.
That made me think that I should have picked up a new footwork technique, too, but I decided against it for now. I hadn't reached perfection in my existing one yet, and from what I could tell, the footwork techniques at my level were all a little bit similar. I'd need a new one by the time I got to the peak of the Qi Gathering realm, though, and definitely after that.
The librarian stacked my books up and said, "Okay, that will be sixteen hundred points. If that's alright, please place your thumb here." He held up a thin jade slate, and I blinked. Did they have magi-tek here? Perhaps. I had already seen some signs of it, but this seemed a straight-up database of some sort if this thing was connected to my "disciple record" and knew how many points I had.
I pressed my thumb on the indicated portion, blinked, and stopped myself from yelping. Something stabbed my thumb. This wasn't the Dresden Files, but I still didn't like just giving people drops of my blood, but I supposed that's how it worked here. I pulled my thumb back and saw that it was already healing. Interesting. Did I heal that fast now, or was that a separate enchantment on the jade slate?
Obviously, every transaction didn't require blood, either, as Senior Brother Jiaozi had left without any such procedure. Perhaps just over a certain amount, then? It was curious.
He nodded and said, "Lastly, here is an oath you must swear in my presence." He slid a thin metal sheet that had characters etched into it. The oath was straightforward and prohibited me from disclosing these techniques to others unless certain conditions were met, like becoming authorised to do so by the school or finding or receiving a different copy from somewhere else while adventuring.
For example, if I bought that copy of the formation book for twenty-five mid-grade spirit stones, then I wouldn't be bound by that portion of the oath and could then transmit the text to whomever I wished. I nodded as this made sense. Otherwise, you'd set your disciples up for dangling oaths that might trip them up hundreds of years later.
I carefully spoke each word of the oath and then took possession of the books, grinning.
Xiao Li sat down his two selections as well, and the librarian looked at the top one and frowned, saying, "This one... I urge you to reconsider. While this is the words and sword art of a genuine Immortal, everyone that I have heard of that spent points on a copy of this regretted it and gained little from it."
I frowned. That was what I had avoided even thinking about—that the librarian would urge Xiao Li to pick a different technique. I gave the young man a side-eye. If he was the protagonist, then so long as I wasn't a fucking harem member, I'd be alright. Perhaps I'd be the plucky female sidekick.
Xiao Li smiled and said, "I appreciate that, but my heart's been made up."
"Very well, that's eighteen hundred points; thumb here and recite this oath," the librarian said with a sigh.
We left and ran back to our villas, and each entered our own dwelling. Mine had a group of four servants, which was a new experience for me. The man in charge said, "Mistress, the only belonging you had in your old domicile was the standard disciple jade slate. It's in your study. If you'd like, I can arrange a delivery of foodstuffs for you."
I nodded, as that would be very useful. "I'll need to go back to Cloudsoar City to get a few things soon." Namely my cat, as well as to dispel the Arcane Locks and explosive glyphs I had left on our old rented villa. I'd like to get our security deposit back, after all.
I fished out the rest of the gold banknotes I had, as well as a small handful of spirit stones, and handed them to the man, "I hope this will be enough for the time being?"
He eyed it and nodded, "It should be enough for a few months. As far as returning to the city, it generally costs a few contribution points to activate the portal. However, if you go very early in the morning, you'll be able to travel for free these next few days, as many disciples will be transported to accommodate testing the new potentials."
I frowned, "That's a good idea. Thank you."
I went into the study and sat down the copies of all the books I bought from the Dao Repository and picked up the slate made of jade. As soon as I touched it, characters started to display on the stone. How very interesting. Just how was this accomplished? I had to know.
It was just a letter telling me to review the information on my "student record" and correct any mistakes if there were any.
My record included my name, physical description, a description of my cultivation method and special techniques that I practised. It was basically what I had written in myself on the form, so everything was correct.
Wait a minute...
Race: Celestial Ghost Cat/Humanoid?
The old lady doing my interview had told me that a few tests involved a species testing device, and I was curious about the readings I was giving off. She had assured me that this school didn't discriminate by only admitting humans as many Sects did, so I was a little curious why they bothered to check in the first place, then.
But where did this come from?
I murmured confusedly, "No longer am I the erofu... I am a catgirl nya." I couldn't help myself and stretched out the vowel sounds of "now" into "nya."
I shook my head. I wasn't even sure how or if I could get this corrected. I wasn't about to say that they had gotten it wrong, and I was really an elf. Because then I'd have to explain what an elf was, and how the fuck was I to do that?
Sighing, I shook my head, picked up one of the books on formations and sat down to read it.