Chapter 15 Back to 'Civilization'
One perk that I had actually predicted encountering after my ascension was the interest to be garnered from rulers after they heard about my dinner techniques. Because really, some guy is famous for making meals taste better just by being there. What ruler isn't going to be interested?
And as word spreads in their circles that I'm amiable by default toward anyone wishing to invite me to dinner, meeting with the ruling classes is likely to be as simple as being known in the area.
Thus, finding myself sitting in the dining hall of the court of Frost was entirely explainable. Bai Fa Nushi had heard of me on several fronts, including the return of her bell, so she sent me an invitation to meet me in person and enjoy my nature as Wancan.
Being Frost spirits, I hadn't taken their cool manners as anything odd as we ate. Small talk was pleasant, but reserved, and I tempered my demeanor appropriately as I shared stories of my travels at request. After all, it is the host's place to set the tone of a meal, and a guest's to abide by it.
The little smiles and shifts of shen as I spoke were enough proof that they were enjoying the meal as much as I could hope.
But the inevitable shift to politicking arrived nonetheless. I noticed the shift in the Frost princess' neck and noted that she'd actually taken almost half again as long to bring up business than I'd predicted.
"I notice an oddity in your tales, honored guest." she smiled like it was an offhanded thought. "You do not mention taking spoils beyond foodstuffs."
"A measure of caution along my path, little more." I answered easily as she let the implications hang. "I am merely approaching what the mortals call Bronze Core strength, despite my aptitudes making my reputation rival some approaching Gold Core. So instead of hoarding everything I come across and risking the Earth taking notice, I've taken to letting the spoils be divided by those protected by Heaven's dominion."
"You do not lament the loss of strength you impose on yourself?" The chiming of her voice had a hint of steel in it.
"I spare a moment of regret regarding a few things. But I've never found dwelling on lost opportunities to suit me." I admitted.
"I see..." she trailed off with a tone that indicated that she, at least, liked where she was about to take the conversation. "Brazen in your caution and unbound by others' rules."
A shudder that had nothing to do with the cold rippled through the rest of the attendees.
I set myself in a polite attentive stance to subtly announce that I wasn't intimidated while I waited for her to continue her thought. Which she noticed with a tiny swirl of her lips.
As I wasn't a mortal, she wasn't wearing a proper human glamour, instead existing as a humanoid snow flurry. Nothing abnormal in my experience. Most spirits preferred to wear their own skin to dinner, something that I found endearing, as a beholder of many beauties.
"I understand that you've aggravated the Administrators to the point that they wish to bind you to the demands of a court."
"Your highness is well informed." I confirmed with a grin.
"How did you manage that, by the way?"
"By knowing how to file paperwork correctly without reliance on them, primarily. At least a handful of the Administrators have grown used to being the only ones capable of affecting change, so my skill at sifting through the unstated processes and navigating fees and bribes leaves them feeling encroached on."
She nodded at the unspoken extrapolation of the setup. "And you've accepted a lesser obligation to ease their worry and avoid subjugation. So it istrue that the proposition is a free court."
"Your highness." one of the braver functionaries pleaded. "Please reconsider."
As befitting her standing as the reigning spirit of the Frost court, the cold glare she shot back was the stuff of poetry before she recomposed herself.
"I have considered at great length. The consequences are of minimal concern to me despite their severity."
Ooh boy. That was a sentence that meant business if I'd ever heard one.
"Guang, I should like to contract your services as a mercenary." she continued, eliciting groans from her underlings.
"I am willing to hear out your request, at least." I responded neutrally.
She gathered her breath for a moment before asking "What rumors have you heard regarding my title?"
I thought back and came up empty, having not asked why she was the 'princess' instead of 'queen'. "I fear none have had the gall to slander your highness with rumor on that matter."
"My mother, the Frost Queen. She ruled well. She was the first ruler of the Frost." Bai Fa Nushi's voice wavered slightly as she spoke. "She bore me and raised me well, while being the only ruler the Frost would ever need. I was trained, honed, and let free to find my own path. As I should."
The bile in those three words told me the story far more elegantly than words themselves could.
"Then the demonic incursion began. A great tear in the sky, fracturing it and allowing the accursed Demonic qi into the world. We won, of course, or we wouldn't be here. Nuwa found stones that could repair the sky, and under Heaven's guidance, the world was saved. The cost was high, and though I've asked everyone who fought at her side, I only know that my mother fell to the corruption."
She steadied her churning form again with a deep breath.
"So, other than being assured that she contributed greatly to our victory, everything of her was taken from me by the incursion. Even her name, lest dwelling on it corrupt me too.
"The world was in chaos, of course. Demons, demonic spirits and demonic qi had destroyed the infrastructure and turned us against each other. The Frost was lost without mother. I stepped in and did my best. But this is not my throne."
She stopped again, visibly restraining herself from striking the table in pain.
When she regained her composure, she shook her head. "I took it knowing the Frost needed me. I reassembled the court and set it running according to Heaven's protocols and decrees. But I never took my mother's title. Because I knew that my place is elsewhere. And when I had everything running well, I selected a replacement and left to continue following my own path."
A wry chuckle rolled out of her and she gestured at the functionary who'd pleaded with her.. "A mere decade later, Dongchuang there found me. He'd been looking for seven years because it only took three for the Frost to fall apart. I put it back together and made a spirit who'd worked with me the entire time my successor, so that they wouldn't let everything fall apart again."
She fell silent for a long, angry moment.
"Thirty-four times." she eventually announced. "I've entrusted this throne to others thirty-four times. The longest they've held it together was fifteen years. Now, nobody will even consider taking it, as they've all decided that it must be mother's blood allowing me to reign."
She levelled her gaze at me. "I want you to take someone, anyone, from my court and train them to rule. Then I want you to let them return and take this throne, and if possible take me with you so that I can't be dragged back here even if the entire Frost court collapses."
I sat back to consider as Dongchuang started pleading with her to care about the consequences that she'd been tending to for at least seventy thousand years.
There were the immediate politics to account for, of course. I still hadn't found a way to navigate securing myself against petty functionaries without provoking the bureaucracy's collective paranoia. Taking a pupil for the sake of returning them to their original court would be an interesting angle.
Then there were the politics of what everyone familiar with the situation would call conspiracy to destabilize a court. I could empathize with her position, but I didn't exactly have a lot of company in that.
Then there were the logistics. The ruler of the Frost had to be a Frost spirit. Lower courts could fudge things and let other types of spirits rule, but there were bylaws accounting for the sympathy principles of rulership.
Hmm... Frost spirits being so callous compared to the spirits of other courts was probably the result of sympathy from her frustration at her position.
"Ah! That would actually work, I believe!" I interrupted Dongchuang's latest pleading.
"Oh?" the Frost Princess's tone swirled to hopeful.
"I do believe that I could train and hone a Frost attendant to overcome the error the rest suffer from. The difficulty of the task would not be small, and it would be a matter of decades at minimum, but if my path does not lead to an abrupt destruction, it should be within my talents."
"Please!" Dongchuang was suddenly exasperated. "It's plain as the clear sky that only her bloodline can rule!"
"Did you know that the sky is only blue due to an illusion?" I retorted without a thought, returning silence to the room.
"So you are confident, then?" Bai Fa Nushi asked calmly after a moment.
"In the task itself, yes. Not so much in the face of the ancillary difficulties."
"I should think that taking on tutelage tasks would ease the worries of the courts."
"Somewhat, yes. But as I'm sure you've learned, many of the courts are filled with those who'd see it as me seeking to poison their systems to my own ends."
"Ah." she replied slowly. "You require a way of allaying the fears of the most foolish, lest they snowball beyond your talent."
"Regrettable, but accurate. And even the less foolish will worry at a potential ruler navigating the paperwork in my manner."
"For those, I would accept lessons myself." she laughed humorlessly. "Thus encouraging them to support my replacement to escape their fear."
I turned my lips to the side as I pondered that angle. "The Administrators and Bureaucrats are aware of your displeasure with the arrangement?"
"I've brought it before them at length." she confirmed. "Whether they recall it or not I cannot say."
"Then it should be their idea to assign me to train your replacement!" I smiled.
Dongchuang caught on first and groaned, eliciting a truly malicious grin from Bai Fa Nushi. "I can arrange for them to have that thought with some ease."
"Excellent! That settles the difficulties beyond the task nicely and replaces them with something much more manageable."
"Wonderful! That leaves the matter of compensation, then. To begin with, I should like you to accept my Shuangjiang Zhi Zhong that you so courteously left for the Administrators to return to me."
I raised my eyebrow as a lesser spirit brought forth the silver handbell. "I have no reason to refuse, though I should like to know the interest in parting with it again so soon."
"A court with all of its power in one place is a court ill-positioned for aggressors. There are no Frost spirits who do not know and fear me, so ordering them about with natural contracts is redundant. Further, the more mortals see the bell and know its name, the more mortals will empower the court."
"Defensive positioning as well as faith harvesting." I nodded as I accepted the artifact. "I thank you for the lesson, gracious host."
"The court shall thank you in turn for allowing the association through your use of the bell. I expect similar gifts from other courts to find their way to your hand as well, as interest in profits exceeds concern for your precarious position." Her shen flickered with something in the direction of irritation, likely exasperation with the politics.
I, meanwhile, blinked as the implications of her phrasing lined up. "Such arrangements as the false shegong are deliberate matters on occasion, then?"
She smirked. "How else are we to spread our Face to the mortals we're forbidden to interact with?"
That made sense. I probably wouldn't mention to any other cultivators that the artifacts they 'stumble on' were probably planted there for the sake of heavenly political power plays. The fact that I didn't need to worry about such roundabout methods myself, not having agreed to the restriction and focusing on intrinsic strength instead of harvesting worship.
Sure, the bureaucracy didn't approve of me cultivating like a mortal, but there was no room for them to impose that as forbidden either. They were trying, but I'm a bit too good at paperwork for that.
"How else indeed? Would sharing stories by way of travelling storytellers be a viable avenue?"
"If we could speak with them, yes." She shifted in false resignation. "As things sit, leaving records of our stories is the only approved way of getting them to the singers, and the singers rarely enter the areas we can tread to leave records."
"Hence the focus on leaving artifacts for the cultivators who can survive to claim them." I nodded along. "Such a shame. I'd love to hear more of the world's rich history as kept by the Earthly courts."
"Well, I suppose I can spare a copy of some of my own records for your studies. And if you happen to share them with those on your path and take on the name Gushi Yuan, I wouldn't be bothered in the least." She snapped her fingers and another servant came forth with a spatial ring on a tray, which I accepted and did not immediately check.
I'd learned from my early interactions that the spirit courts, heavenly and earthly alike, counted that poor form. With the revelation that circumventing restrictions included clandestine artifact redistribution, it made sense.
I spared a moment to wonder at the stories from my prior world and whether any of the artifacts in them were actually 'stolen', or just reported that way to the bureaucrats.
"I'm not sure I'll take the name, but I'm likely to garner a reputation for spreading the tales, at minimum."
"Oh? The rumors that you're aiming for the title 'Of Many Names' is incorrect then?"
"More 'misinformed'. I've looked at the title with interest a few times, but I'm not interested in diluting my focus overmuch to attain it. If there are twenty names that are fitting for me, I'll celebrate when it happens. But passing hobbies aren't enough for a Name, to me."
She let out a chuckle like ice cracking. "To wear six and insist that they are each fully fitting. Little wonder you fear the Bureaucrats' ire. Classifying you must give them migraines."
"It does. Which is part of why I classify myself for them." I grinned. "Which will include a bit more 'tutoring' going forward. I'm sure the mortals need it."
She shared my grin at the addition to her toolset to get the Administrators to turn to me. "You are heading to the Eastern continent soon, yes? I've heard their empire is suffering from a lack of proper rulers and some mismanagement of their farmland. You ought to do well there."
I smiled my approval at the suggestion. It wasn't exactly ideal to take a long term, high profile job like that, but it wasn't a bad idea either.
Provided the cultivators involved could be placated without being murdered. That'd just make it tedious.
---
Comparing travel methods used by mortals to those used by immortal spirits was, I felt, a wonderful way to become disappointed in all parties involved.
Take the crystal sleigh that the Frost court sent to invite me to and from dinner. A wonder of collaboration between the Travel court's spatial spirits and the native icy influence of the Frost. It could cross ridiculous distances, leaving the area of The Three Continents entirely, to deliver me to Bai Fa Nushi's dining hall and back in a single night. A wonderful, abrupt trip that served to connect the seemingly infinite distances between the seats of the High Courts that ruled over the more local branch courts.
Sure, they required such immediacy of transport to allow the Bureaucracy's paperwork to get ignored in a timely fashion, but for pleasure travel, it was useless. They were Immortal, properly, and they were so accustomed to immediate transit that they rarely thought to take the scenic options and enjoy their immortality.
Mortals, meanwhile, used things like ships. Simple, waterborne vessels pushed along the water via sails and a fascinating indirect negotiation with the Winds. Even at the swiftest, it took entire days to travel the distances between the myriad islands of the Three Continents Oceans. Plenty of time to be working the sails and the wheel full-time and still enjoy the sunrise, the sunset, and the unending dance of the waves.
And because mortals were mortals, they complained about the time it took them to travel as it deprived them of time to do things they deemed 'important'.
Or, at least, the self-obsessed ones did.
"Thank the heavens!" one such self-important noble declared as we pulled into dock. "My skin was starting to chafe from the salt in the air."
It wasn't that the past week taught me why so many cultivators just browbeat people into respectful silence. It was that I was questioning my commitment to 'not starting the fight'.
After all, he literally couldn't threaten me in a way I cared about, so getting pissy about how very punchable his face was would be akin to admitting that I cared about him, if only to the degree I cared about a mosquito in my face.
And a mosquito was not worth dealing with whoever cared more about him.
"Good old Imperial soil!" he continued, as though he thought he'd die without yammering. "You're in for a treat, immortal! The Empress herself is a cultivator as well, and she's ensured the finest treatment for any who show her due deference! Women, wine, even access to the best auction houses in the world! And I can tell you'll fit right in! I've got an eye for these things!"
I raised an amused eyebrow. Initially he'd been disparaging that I joined the trip and "put them all in danger", as it was well-established that cultivators and those with the potential to become cultivators attracted sea monsters.
Then I dealt with a serpent that thought I'd make a good snack and his tone 'miraculously' turned around.
"Truly! I've yet to be wrong about someone's fitness to enjoy our fine Imperial accommodations! Say! I'll be held up in paperwork limbo for a few days, why don't I introduce you to the customs retainers? They're very well trained in keeping dignified cultivators from being waylaid for too long."
"Customs retainers? There's enough paperwork to require a dedicated servant to handle it?" I engaged despite my disdain. He did have useful information, after all.
"Oh, yes and no." he waggled his head a bit. "One of the chief ways that the Empress accommodates so many cultivators is in keeping track of where they travel so that appropriate resources can be allocated to their pleasure. Most cultivators find that it's a small price to pay for the conveniences, so they hire retainers."
Ah, an attempt at a surveillance state. "I'll take a look at the paperwork myself, for at least the first several outposts, I think. But if one of the retainers would be interested in sharing the details of the position, I'd pay him respectably for it."
"How interesting! I don't believe I've ever heard someone of your esteemed strength deigning to file their own paperwork!"
"You also said that about surrendering the spines of the serpent."
"I know! You are swiftly becoming one of the most interesting men I've ever spoken with!"
Oh please no. I don't want this guy hanging around me more. "I just don't like leaving things to people I haven't trained myself." I shrugged.
"Ah! You've suffered from incompetent underlings then! Truly an unforgivable crime, that. How is a man supposed to focus on presenting his wealth and power if he has to keep whipping the servants for failing their tasks! It's preposterous! Why, I had this tailor once..."
And he's back to ranting about things he should be flogged for. On occasions like this, I bothered to regret my overtrained situational awareness. Even willfully ignoring him, his every squawk made its way into my memory.
I hadn't ever flagged a memory for removal before this week. But now, if somehow I needed to lose some memories, I knew which ones to start with.
"Master cultivator, sir." A seaman bowed in a near-grovel as he interrupted the endless windbag. "The captain asks to speak with you in private before we dock."
"Thank you, Qing." I smiled easily. "I'll go handle that now. Better to be done than caught off guard, after all" I supplied a philosophy to minimize the offense the noble would take.
"He's in his quarters, sir."
I politely escaped to the captain's cabin and found the grizzled man of half my age at his desk. Not that anyone could tell at a glance, with my body being tempered to an eternal prime, and his wearing his labor openly.
"Ah! Master Guang! Thank you for humoring me." he rumbled with a cheer to him.
"Of course, Captain Lung! You're due no less with your hospitality."
We shared a cheeky grin for a moment before I added "And my ear greatly appreciates the break." which sent him into a full laugh as I sat across from him.
"I hear ya. A good part of my agreeing to take you on was figuring that either you'd kill him or we could toss him overboard if we got attacked."
"I'm sorry that I didn't know that was the plan. I'd have fought closer to the ship." I laughed with him.
"Ah, it's fine. I must say, out of every cultivator I've ever taken aboard, you're the only one I'd actually like to see again. Also the only one that hasn't threatened any of my men."
"Overwhelming strength is no excuse for poor manners. I often wonder at how this isn't a common understanding."
"I couldn't say, even if I thought I'd survive saying it." he shook his head in lament. "Anyway, I talked it over with the lads, and they wanted to thank you for distracting the distinguished mister Yulan well enough that they could get their work done in peace. Whatever saint you stole your patience from must have been on the verge of enlightenment."
I let myself laugh at the comment. "I won't lie and say he didn't strain me, but it wasn't enough to need compensation."
"Maybe not, but the men were quite insistent. We talked it out, and decided that the spines you gifted us will serve you better than us. We wouldn't be able to get anywhere near their proper price without being struck down for the audacity, after all."
I blinked at the offer. Blue serpent spines weren't terribly rare, as far as cultivator-sought resources go, but a set of eight like I'd managed to harvest for them would still fetch a good price at a mortal auction house.
"Empire cultivators are that stingy?" I asked incredulously.
"I wouldn't call them stingy, per se, no. We'd still get a good price, but split it through a crew and it's only a week of good booze, even with the ship not needing repairs. The lads argued that you already gave us a week of better food than we'd a right to and a week of reprieve from our honored passenger. They just felt bad accepting the spoils on top of that."
A quick bit of calculation and my esteem for the empire's cultivator population took a hit. Not a severe one, but with what a decent craftsman could do with the spines, the finder's fee should be enough for a week and a half of booze for the crew at least.
"It's truly a shame that you can't get a proper price for them. But I can accept your reasoning, on the condition that you accept a small box of seasoning to make up the difference in values. It won't set me back at all, and I tasted your gruel."
"Ha!" he barked a laugh. "If that's your demand to accept our gratitude, I can agree to your terms!"
He handed over the ring with the spines and I produced a miniature chest of spices that would last them most of their next trip through the islands if they used it properly.
"And I meant what I said earlier. If you need a ship to travel on and I'm in port, it'd be my pleasure to ferry you again."
"I'll look for you if I need a vessel then! Company aside, it's been a wonderful time aboard."
Seafaring men were among my favorite mortals. They stared death and madness in the face often enough that they warmed up to treating me like a person faster than more secure professions.
Disembarking was a much busier affair than on any of the islands I'd stopped at, not the least because each of the crew had to be signed into the paperwork before they were allowed to actually get on with unloading the cargo properly.
I elected to allow the noisy noble and his small entourage to finish their paperwork entirely before moving with the flow to reach the desk myself.
"Ah, you would be the cultivator that the captain reported, yes?"
"Yes. What information would you like?" I smiled, which seemed to unnerve him.
"To start the process, your name and core rank. With that I can direct you to the main office where they can get you set up with the basic accommodations and sort out what extra resources should be allocated for you."
I chuckled. "I am called Guang, and I'm roughly at Pure Stone, seventh or eighth rank."
He raised an eyebrow, so I added "My foundation doesn't have distinct rank bursts, so I can only tell with precision by matching a punch with someone."
He blinked. "No surname?"
"I had it trained out of me during my youth."
His brow furrowed, then he did his best to hide shock and horror as he realized something. "Would that make you 'Guang, called Qu Mo Shi', then?"
"Yes, that is one of my acquired names."
I kept a pleasant, neutral expression on my face as he started turning white. He wasn't the first to respond to the exaggerations of my escape with abject terror, so I was able to keep my exasperation in check with ease as he tried to restart through his stammering.
"I am so sorry for doubting your existence, your excellency." he finally spat out, clasping his hands together in a plea for mercy.
"That's quite alright, mister?"
"Fa Ling, of Nu Yan province."
"It's quite alright mister Fa. I'd disbelieve the rumors myself with how they've grown exaggerated. Take a breath and steady yourself. You haven't offended me."
He worked himself down, looked at his paperwork, and quietly muttered "Do we even have paperwork for visiting gods?"
"I will attempt to act as just another cultivator, so rest easy." I said calmly instead of collapsing in laughter like I wanted to.
He finished composing himself and filled out an ornate intake slip and directed me to the office where some lovely ladies hid every indication that they were bothered by yet another cultivator entering other than the way their shen flinched viscerally enough that I was surprised normal cultivators couldn't tell.
One accepted the intake slip and balked for only a moment before inviting me to wait in a lounge that would probably look fitting in a brothel while they got someone dignified enough to speak with me.
I accepted the complimentary wine and relaxed while evaluating the three other cultivators in the lounge. One, a lecher that neatly explained why the women were so good at pretending not to despise their job, was drinking heartily and griping to one of the women cozied up to him about how he'd been treated on his trip. Another, a woman with icy white hair, was glaring at him with disdain strong enough that I predicted a fight as soon as they were no longer observing hospitality. And the last was calmly sitting as though he was cultivating, though subtle flickers of his shen told me it was a thin pretense and the lecher would do well not to engage him.
Which, given the nature of rowdy lechers, left only one inevitable interaction while we waited. One that came as I waved off a superficially flirtatious offer for 'something more filling' after refilling my cup.
"Yeah! See, this guy knows how to relax!" the lecher gestured at me. "What's your name, friend? I'm Hui Ko!"
"I go by Guang." I humored him.
"Ha! Nice to meet you! Man, after having nothing but men to look at for a month, this is like heaven, isn't it?"
"Do you ever shut up?" the woman snapped. "How do you even cultivate with a mouth that never closes?"
"Want to find out, beautiful?" he waggled his eyebrows like he was confident she wouldn't or couldn't punch him.
The grinding of teeth from her told me that it was not a matter of choice that his face remained unbroken.
"I've never been to this part of the world before." I interrupted the boiling rage before he said something else. "You seem like the sort who knows who's who in the province."
"Am I ever! The Hui are the most powerful family this side of the Bleeding Dragon! I've worked with everyone you could ever need to go through to get what you want! Make it worth my time and I'd be happy to introduce you to them myself!"
"If I find myself with a goal, I'll certainly seek out that generous offer." I smiled emptily. "For the present, I'm just seeing more of the world and doing odd jobs for fun."
"Hit a blockage, eh? My uncle had the same problem a few decades back and lucked out while setting up a trading outpost system. Had a thousand-year ginseng fall right into his lap!"
"How fortuitous! He was suffering from a phase imbalance then?"
Both the lecher and the woman blinked at me. "Damn! That was quick! Yeah! He'd built up too much Wood qi and it was ripping up his Earth qi faster than his Fire qi could settle in, even with extra focus on developing it! The ginseng cleared that right up and he's been keeping a better handle on it since!"
"Good for him!"
"You some sort of specialist in imbalances then? Damn, your blockage must be something nasty! Say, how'd you suggest someone who keeps suffering Yin overbalancing adjust their cultivation? I've got a nephew that can't keep progressing without a really tedious sun-dependent meditation."
"The body generates Yang best when performing strenuous activity. A minor circulation while hunting or fighting can overcome minor imbalances. He might also benefit from changing where he cultivates. If he found a ki-rich cave or such, he might just be pulling in far more Yin than he's accounting for."
"Young master Hui, your papers have been finished." one of the attendants announced quietly.
"Great! And I'll mention that to my nephew, see if it helps him out! It's been nice to meet you!"
"I'm honored to meet yourself." I smiled and returned to my drink as he left. The waitresses' distress eased off significantly as the room adjusted to the quiet.
"You don't have a blockage, do you?" the quiet man asked after a long moment.
"No, quite the opposite." I admitted. "I just like wandering and enjoying the world more than sitting in a cave."
"You said you are Guang? The patron of the Fang?"
I paused in my drink and cocked my head. "Patron?"
"Oh, okay. I started to think you were someone else for a moment."
"You may be placing me correctly, I am the Guang who walked the mountains clean. But this is the first I'm hearing anyone calling me the Fang's patron."
He blinked for a moment and changed tact. "Well, I did only hear of you third-hand, so it may be rumormongers twisting their respect as worship. But the way I heard it, you stepped down from heaven to cleanse their ranks of the unorthodox that were festering and eliminate the demonic sects nearby, and they adopted you as a patron for it."
I chuckled with a sinking feeling. "That's a more fantastical version than any I've heard yet! Thank you for sharing, fellow taoist. But no, I was born a mere mortal farmer and was recruited for having a scrap of talent. The revival of the schism and the resulting civil war were incidental to my audacity in not wishing to die."
"And the demonic sects?" the woman asked, good humor in her voice.
"There was only one. The other rival was merely unorthodox. With significant assistance from the Earthly spirits, I peeled the demonic qi blighting the mountains out to prevent a recurring demonic incursion. Little more."
"So who fought the Ravenous Demon Blood Dragon? Or was that fabrication as well?"
"No, it was on the battlefield. But to say I 'fought' it is a horrible exaggeration. I just kept running and dodging it for long enough that reinforcements managed to arrive and handle the Fist Master."
"You outran the Ravenous Demon Blood Dragon technique?" the man gaped. "Long enough that it mattered?"
"Only barely." I waved off his awe. "'Not Dying' is a specialty of mine that includes more evasive maneuvers than I have names for."
"Esteemed guest, we are ready to assist you with the processing." one of the functionaries broke the ensuing silence after a moment, and I stood to follow her.
"It has been a pleasure speaking with you." I disengaged formally instead of snubbing the other cultivators in their homeland and received polite partings in return.
What followed was a mild blur as I spoke with one Milan Kurina - a noble of significant local rank - about the information the Shan Taiyan Empire wanted about cultivators in exchange for catering to them before being browbeaten into surrendering goods. Most of it was benign enough, Core tier, Rank, primary resources consumed - mine being 'none' baffled the poor woman - and the like. Simple stuff so that the folk in charge of the infrastructure could predict demands and have the needed goods on hand, within reason.
I was informed that beyond Bronze Core, the empire didn't even pretend to have everything a cultivator could need. Which rather made sense, it was astounding that they claimed to be able to support every Stone Core they hosted. Claiming more would be tantamount to suicide by being caught in a lie.
Then the interesting part started. The polite request that I, as well as any other cultivator, agree to aid empire personnel if I happen across them having difficulty. The chief examples were if I came across a transport being accosted by a demon beast or a brigand squad. Sensible enough. I couldn't imagine it was sustainable in the long term, but inviting cultivators to supplement security measures to make sure their own goods get the same treatment was clever.
They were even circumspect in confirming which artifacts I carried from the rumors. Not particularly fearing them being stupid enough to set thieves after my sword or staff, I admitted to carrying them, but neglected to inform them of the Frost Princess' bell. That one not only had history to it, but had formed its own spirit long ago and didn't like being used as bait.
Province Lord Milan never properly relaxed, but did clearly find me off-puttingly affable as she mistook my cooperation for trust. And the look of choking on a lemon that broke through her composure when I politely declined to be put up in the local palace, as I intended to simply roam the city until my paperwork was done was beautiful.
After all, it'd technically be more offensive to accept the offer and never set foot in the room than to admit my intention to not pretend to sleep. And it wasn't like I was saying that I was bothered by the spying. I even asked what manner of guide was most convenient to mingle and enjoy the culture in order to reassure her that I was fine being watched.
It was late morning of the following day when we were both satisfied that I knew enough of the rules that I wouldn't cause a scene, and I departed with a guide that carried himself like a warrior despite the functionary outfit.
He proved a fine conversationalist as we walked, even filling me in on the nature of the empire's primary enforcement tool - a type of martial arts that was likened to 'external cultivation' that didn't grant proper longevity like tempering one's soul, but was significantly easier to scale out for the empire's needs.
For one thing, it was pure skill. Which meant that the vagaries of soul attunement and energetic phase management were completely removed from the dynamic. Thus, any mortal of fit body could practice and become respectably strong in it.
For another, it was pure skill. Which meant that the occasional rowdy cultivator was likely to simply get blindsided by their own strength being repurposed.
Baisho was only slightly bothered that I complimented his superiors for the cleverness. More so at my suggestion of sparring sometime.
We stopped for lunch at a restaurant that he thought highly of, and I was treated to the proprietor speaking with an irritated woman who, instead of berating the man, was walking him through a recipe.
Listening in as we sat, my esteem for both grew a little. The proprietor had apparently suffered a complaint about the dish and the woman, a chef by the sound of it, was helping him figure out what went wrong.
Given that she wasn't hiding her shen, which flickered stronger than mine by a good deal, I was both suspicious of her motives and impressed that she deigned to talk with him herself.
The meal was nice, an overcomplex citrus-based sauce drizzled on small strips of fish, and a downright impressive vinegar mix in the accompanying rice.
It was only slightly spoiled at the end by the very loud intrusion of a pompous fuckwit and a group of thugs.
"You dared serve this Bo poisoned food! Now you'll pay for it with your business!"
Baisho groaned that his recommendation was under attack as most of the patrons started beating a retreat.
"It wasn't poisoned, you insipid buffoon. You're just allergic to shellfish." the woman shot back.
"You dare imply this Bo has such a weakness!" he postured.
"Everyone already knows it. You're the only one you're fooling. Now get out of here before I eat you."
Bo, along with most of the restaurant, balked at the threat. Unwisely, he recovered by yelling "Seize her!"
The rest of the patrons finished exiting as his goons attacked, and I sat back and finished my food while enjoying the scene as she pulled out a sturdy wooden spatula and started laying the thugs out on the floor and tables. She didn't have a discernible style, which I found odd, opting instead to flail about like an untrained mortal, but with enough force that there were absolutely broken bones as the thugs fell.
It was over as I finished my meal, and the idiot realized that I was there as he panicked. "Cultivator! You're charged with keeping the peace!" he yelled.
"I'm not a fucking cultivator!" she yelled as she stalked toward him. "And I am keeping the peace you pathetic, tasteless clump of puddle mud!"
"And you've got the wrong of it anyway." I spoke up to save him by distracting her. "Cultivators are requested to assist empire forces in keeping the peace. You brought thugs, so there's no call for me to do anything here."
The woman, having finally noticed me, started to turn back to him slowly with a truly malicious grin.
"However, out of basic civility, I'll offer one distraction to her to give you time to leave in peace. Ma'am, would you care to join me and my guide for tea?" I pulled out one of my boxes to entice her away from killing a noble.
She paused as the idiot gaped, then sighed. "You know what, sure. He's not worth it."
She sat down across from me as the men left conscious in the room stared at me, and I started boiling a pot of water with a minor flame technique I was fond of.
"What are you doing?" Bo demanded.
"He's saving your life. Go away before I change my mind." she snapped for me, finally causing the noble to catch a clue and flee.
"Neat trick." she gestured to the flame.
"Thanks. It's a favorite of mine." I smiled easily. "I'm called Guang."
"Bu Keneng De Hua."
"A pleasure to meet you. And thank you for the show." I added the tea leaves.
"Already? That's a really neat fire trick if it's already up to temp."
"It really is. But I also have a water technique to make sure it spreads properly."
"Neat."
I poured the tea a few breaths later and she appreciated the aroma with composure fit for a mortal court, not vocalizing her approval, but showing it in her face. We drank in silence, the bustle outside not bothering to intrude so soon after an uproar, and when she was done she nodded.
"Yeah, that was much more satisfying than killing that idiot. Thank you."
"Thank you for the company. Sharing a table with someone with taste always improves my tea. Two such, even more."
"I see..." she raised an eyebrow that could have meant anything for all I could read her manners, but her shen flickered positively. "It's been lovely, but I should leave before that idiot comes back. Thank you for the excuse not to kill him."
"You're welcome. May your travels be peaceful, Bu Keneng De Hua."
Then she left, and I did my best not to worry about the implications of interacting with nobility in my first three free-roaming hours in a new nation.
It boded poorly enough for my time here that 'my best' wasn't terribly effective.
Chapter 16 jumping around
"Esteemed Immortal. You requested to be informed when a Bone Frog was reported in the Bloating Corpse Fen." the guard captain, Fui Lee, addressed me with a medley of emotions. He hadn't yet adjusted to me treating him and his men like people, or to my penchant for working alongside the common farmers.
It had only been a few months, but that was plenty of time for me to slip into a pattern, and Province Lord Milan was as gracious a host as I could expect. I'd inquired about farmland that had been reporting difficulty and set up shop in the town to the slowly abating fear of the locals.
"I did indeed! One is pushing its boundaries then?" I answered without breaking my stride alongside the mortals.
"So it seems. My men can be ready for mobilization on the morrow."
"Excellent! I'll join you at dawn, then!" The parts of the frog were of little interest to me, but it had been far too long since I had a proper fight, which meant that backup was a wonderful plan. And letting them see what my real fighting style was would go a good way towards assuaging the delusion that their skill could take me out.
Sparring with them occasionally had given a few of them the impression that I was weak for a Pure Stone cultivator. Preventing them from doing something stupid with that delusion was a courtesy.
It truly feels impossible some days to overstate my disdain for politics.
The evening passed uneventfully after he departed and I chose to indulge a touch of theatrics by lounging in a tree overlooking their assembly point an hour before they started assembling. Something about the way the Fui was obsessed with presenting a front of extreme professionalism whenever he knew I was around just made me want to mess with him by catching him berating a subordinate for speaking their folly.
I was careful not to be noticed overhearing them discussing the bounty offers that were apparently circulating. But it seemed that more than one cultivator was offended that a 'self-proclaimed god' was in their land. And I hadn't even made them look like idiots yet.
So as the dispatch squad of fifty men and women stood at the ready with their captain warning them yet again that slovenly behavior would not be tolerated no matter how much I encouraged it, I tossed ten apples to be impaled on the front row's spears, visibly raising Fui's blood pressure.
"It looks like everyone is here, then." he ground out through clenched teeth. "Let's get going then."
"Quite right!" I agreed, hopping down with half an apple. "Best to get there before a wagon gets intercepted!"
That was something that amused me a great deal. Shipping used wagons despite the empire's funding allowing for spatial rings. From what I'd picked up in rumors, the reasoning was that, as they were relying on cultivators for emergency aid, the wagons acted as signals that there was something that called for protection where a squad moving with a spatial ring could be mistaken for a simple redeployment.
I wasn't convinced that it held up to scrutiny, but it was funny that the Empress apparently thought of the cultivators in her land like semi-trained guard dogs in need of conditioned symbols to do their job properly.
I kept myself largely professional for Fui's benefit through the three day journey. A little ribbing and teasing could do him good, but doing more than prompting anxious stress release would genuinely endanger his men, and that was still the opposite of the point.
As we reached the edge of the fen, however, another cultivator was arriving from another direction and met me with a glare.
"You're here for the Bone Frog?"
"I'm here for a good fight." I answered with a smile. "I wouldn't mind handing over the corpse if you're looking for the core."
She looked me over and raised an eyebrow. "You're barely peak Pure Stone and you think you can handle a Bone Frog by yourself?"
"I do, yes! Though the imperial forces here are legitimate backup in case I misestimate the frog's strength."
The subtle offence that other cultivators took from me being honest about my own strength would never stop being funny, if only because so few of them knew why they were offended by me not insulting them.
"I am Shu Lu. I'll accept your offer of softening one of my quarry."
"I am Guang. Pleased to meet you, honorable Shu Lu." I bowed slightly as her strength demanded now that we'd exchanged names.
"The purifier I've heard about?" she sneered.
"Rather likely. Shall we?" I cut off the line of questioning for now as the guards finished redistributing the weight of the wagon so it could come with us. Conveniently including ensuring each of them had their full set of javelins and spare sword on hand.
One thing I completely understood their envy of cultivators over was how Shu and I both had water-striding techniques that saved us the irritation of being knee-deep in putrid stillwater. I'm sure that my matching pace with them was seen as patronizing, but I wasn't kidding about actually wanting their backup. I figured I had good odds alone, but there was no need to gamble just to sate my battle lust.
"So, 'purifier'. Do you have a way of pinpointing your prey, or are we going to use the guards' search pattern?" Shu said as we crossed the half-hour mark of wading.
I grinned. "Hey guys! I'm looking for the Bone Frog around here. Mind pointing the way?"
"What? Who are you even tal-" she trailed off as the water below us and the air around us started very subtly, but pointedly, flowing in the same direction, ahead of us and to the left.
"I'm on fairly good terms with most Earthly Spirit courts." I answered. "Thanks, guys!"
"You've incorporated southern Hanoutu druidism into your dao?" she asked as we resumed walking.
"Not quite, but their teachings should get a devoted student appreciably close to my relationship."
"What do you do differently?"
"I share dinner with them and respect them within their rules. Word spreads from there."
"How do you share dinner with spirits?"
"Well, I invite them to manifest and treat them like any other guest. A mortal or cultivator could simply invite them to share in the essence of the meal and start a similar relationship."
"Mortal or cultivator? What are you, then?"
"Ascended spirit. If your drain on the land is little enough that the Earth won't strike you for it, the trick is remarkably easy to stumble upon."
"Oh?" she sneered. "Do tell."
"Mortal men have mortal souls, mortal bodies, and mortal minds."
She fell silent at the implication that it really was that simple for several minutes. Then she shook herself "There must be a catch to it or the elders of my family would have ascended long ago."
"The catch is that in ascending, you're no longer protected by Heaven's laws, so the Earth is free to smite you if you draw its ire."
She snorted. "A likely story."
"And the only one I've got. If you want to discuss ways to lie about it, I'm all ears."
She was in the midst of giving me a challenging glare when we were interrupted by a menacing croak that rippled the water by several inches.
"Oh goodie!" I grinned as Jinghua Feng Ren appeared in my hand. "Back in a bit!"
Trusting the guards, at least, to set themselves up to assist me if I screwed up, I threw myself into the clearing with the massive frog and locked eyes with it. Malicious green light glimmered in the pupils, reflecting its ability to see through illusions by looking for the shen of its targets. Its mottled red-brown skin writhed as it turned slightly to face me fully and the dozens of human-femur sized bony spines sticking out from its hide rippled with their own power.
The impulse to charge it and try to end the fight immediately was put down as quickly as it rose. The most lethal trick these beasts possessed was why they were named 'Bone Frogs' instead of the more visually apt 'corpse frog'. And while technically my bones weren't mortal, their trick worked just fine on cultivators.
It croaked again and launched its green-barbed tongue at me with impressive speed. Not enough for me to fail to sidestep and slice along its length, but still impressive. Sadly, the thing was sturdy enough that my slice did almost nothing, starting my face peeling back into my battle grin.
A second launch of its tongue was met head-on by my spear, and I had to jump back to avoid getting the caustic blood spray on me as my spear ruptured its target.
The beast's angered croak after it retrieved its tongue was an oddly pitiable sound compared to the rage of more iconic predators, but the existential threat in the tone was respectable nonetheless. Then the tongue, healed of the stab wound, shot out at me again and met my spear again.
"Yeah, I know it doesn't stay out of commission." I chuckled as the slimy eyes narrowed at me. "Nice try though."
Its cunning wasn't great, by all reports, but it seemed to realize that I was a threat instead of just prey, and its throat swelled menacingly with a deafening croak. Then it belched out a truly unnerving amount of black-grey smoke that stank of disease and death.
Then it jumped. My eyes couldn't track it through the plague cloud filling the area, but it was hard to miss the sound of that much air displacing at once.
I drew my Flowing Spirit path around the edge of the clearing and sharpened my hearing to catch where the frog was aiming to land so I could stay opposite of it.
Before the sound of the frog, I caught the whistle of large darts and decided to be a third of the way around the clearing instead of where it was trying to herd me.
The boosh of it landing brought flashes of memory I'd thought lost to youth and my grin widened as I shot an Air Thrust over the oncoming surge of water. I'd worry about the memory later. For now, I had to keep this thing at a distance if I liked my bones in their proper place.
Keeping my distance proved almost too easy, even as I kept reminding myself that it was necessary. The damn thing just moved too slow to keep my full attention, even compared to the mortal martial artists. Its attacks were fast enough, but moving its bulk had full breaths of delay that gave my mind time to drift. The fact that it drifted at all was probably a result of its allure finding odd corners of purchase, but it still soured the fight for me.
Upon realizing that I -somehow- wasn't enjoying a fight, I shot another Air Thrust at it, listened for its takeoff, and tore a clearing breeze through the area.
Now exposed in midair, the frog was quite an impressive sight, bone shards floating around it, ready to pepper the area and futilely corral me into its landing area where it could try to add my bones to its hoard.
Being able to see its trajectory properly, however, it was a simple stomp and an earth technique to raise a hardened stone spear through the fen soil where it promptly landed as I vacated its attack range.
The frog's landing was poor, and my stone spike ruptured its gullet and gave it immense trouble in turning around to get a look at where I was. Instead of toying with the disappointment, I moved above it and threw my spear down through its brain before landing in a tree to watch it stop twitching.
Looking around, I saw that the mortals had been waiting past the plague cloud, at the ready if I'd bothered to lure the frog to them, and Shu was staring at me with an unreadable expression.
I took a few calming breaths and focused on my body and mind. I was feeling far more agitated than a disappointment should have left me, so I suspected I was affected by the toxins I'd dismissed as I breathed them.
Sure enough, I found an honestly elegant medley of Death-adjacent qi trying and partially succeeding in forcibly seeping into my system. So I took a bit to sort it out and memorize its composition in case I wanted to tinker with the concept later. Plagues weren't my style, but I might wind up giving pointers to someone that used them.
"You are a strange one, Guang." Shu finally stated as I finished expelling the disrupting qi. "Daring to stay within the plague cloud, even with a protective artifact, is more folly than I've yet seen."
"Yeah, but if I start denying demon beasts their advantages, it stops being a fight and turns into a butchering. Like so." I grumbled at the impaled frog. "Harvest away, by the way. That plague mix means there's nothing I could do to make the meat taste good."
"So if someone were to declare a feud with you, you'd just let them build up their forces?"
"Oh no. Sapient threats I treat like threats. Beasts don't have much more than cunning, however, and it'd be a shame to deny them instead of face them properly."
"I'd heard you played at being as meek as a mortal, not that you crave battle." she asked in a backwards fashion as she started carving through the rancid gullet.
"I fancy myself civilized, so I act like it when I'm not fighting. If you happen to find yourself near a farm I'm tending, you're welcome to ask after tea or dinner." I smiled, burying the rest of my irritation. This was a cultivator that wasn't stabbing me yet. That was worth something, even if the frog I came here for wasn't.
"Say, you seem to be looking for cores for cultivation reasons. If you've got a lead on a beast that'd be a better fight than this guy, I'd be happy to offer aid."
She stared at me for a minute before shaking her head. "One of the Hui is paying me well to collect cores for him. I'd rather keep the commission to myself."
I let myself chuckle. "That's reasonable. Do keep me in mind if one of your quarry threatens to be tricky. I'm thankfully bereft of political conflict, so I've been growing antsy too swiftly for my taste, so I'd count it a boon."
"If a beast seems likely to give me trouble, I'll look for you." she agreed with a small smile that I took to mean she understood the sentiment.
And the dance of emotion on Fui's face helped my mood immensely. I'd head back to the farm at my own speed instead of tormenting him further, but it was still nice to watch him realize that he'd marched all this way for what amounted to nothing.
---
Ling Huyin had started adjusting to travelling life. It had taken most of a decade, and she still despised it, but being on the run from the Fang that now controlled the entire eastern region of the continent did force her to adapt.
The first years were the roughest. Master Raka was very skilled at forcing the behavior he could tolerate, and she'd encountered that skill every time she started losing her temper with their lot. She'd only just started going months without biting reprimands when they encountered the hut.
As they studied the bastard Guang's notes on fertilizer, it became clear that he wanted them to think he was going south. The Hanoutu lowlands were well known for their poor soil, and the extensive study on fertilizer was a glaring cue that he was preparing to go there and present them a remedy.
Neither Ling nor her master felt that such an obvious lead was likely to be what he'd hidden in the scrolls, but they hadn't been able to glean more than that.
So they tried tracking the merchants he traveled with, only to find a dead end in the form of an entire town slain by a beastmaster.
With that second indicator that their quarry had business down south, and word of disputes between the southernmost Druidism temples and the north Hanoutu beastmasters stinking of Guang's meddling, the two of them raced south to try to extract and kill him before he could escape.
Ling had initially worried about her master's plan to offer their aid to the beastmasters. They were a sect of cultivators that had a long-established hatred of traditional cultivation, and instead tied themselves to demon beasts capable of fending off most incursions that the Fang and Fist had sent south over the past centuries.
Raka, however, had shown her why he was more feared than even the former Fang sect master. He never raised a fist to cow the beastmasters. Instead, he appeared before them and spoke.
And the beastmasters listened.
He stayed with them while sending Ling to hone her stealth and hunt out the rebellious druids that were openly declaring that Guang's ascension meant that their meditations on the world were granted the Heavenly Mandate to rule the land despite the beastmaster's strength.
Two years of infiltration and assassination, and Guang was nowhere to be found. Everyone she interrogated was certain he'd blessed them with victory, but none had met him directly.
But the worst part was the fertilizer.
The druids' primary claim to legitimacy was an asinine argument about being able to produce more food for the demon beasts than the beastmasters who ruled the land.
Proving them wrong was trivial. Using Guang's studies.
So it was that she and her master stood overlooking Snarling Fang City, having thwarted the rebellion and established allies for themselves, and felt their victory ring hollow.
Guang had never set foot here, but his methods won the day.
"We must not make the mistake of giving the smith credit for the kills of his blade in the hands of a warrior." Master Raka finally announced cryptically.
Ling meditated on his words for a long moment before finding the relief he offered. While the teachings came from the man who killed her family, they were not his methods.
They had used Master Raka's methods, armed with Guang's teachings.
"He never would have supported the beastmasters." she nodded. "It's a blow against him using his own strength."
"Quite right. We have reclaimed a measure of our time in this hunt."
Right! Four months of studying Guang's nonsense and losing his trail had sat poorly with both of them. Taking those teachings and using them for their own ends would ease that dissonance somewhat, instead of letting it fester as one of Guang's poisons.
"I still desire to never touch another wagon of soil in my life."
"On that, we are agreed." Raka admitted with the faintest sigh. "The rumors indicate that he has been sighted in the islands of the northern ocean."
"Is he seeking to shelter in the Shan Taiyan Empire?"
"With how much more oppressive they are than the Fang was, I doubt it. But I have sent a message their way to warn them of his methods in case he goes there. For now," Master scowled like he'd been fed oversteeped tea, "There is another hut."
"Must we spend time on them? There was no clue within the first, and it led us the wrong way."
"And now we know that he will leave false leads, so he'll leave genuine ones mixed into the next several. He played this type of game with me extensively over tea. His other foes who stopped listening fell for his traps with far greater regularity because they lacked his warnings."
Ling slumped. "So if we catch up to him without having studied his huts, we'll run face-first into traps that his huts will warn us about."
"Just as that first hut has now warned us that the huts themselves will likely hold traps if one is seeking him. Yes."
Ling accepted her master's wisdom on the matter, and kept her further complaints to herself.
It would be worth it when they found the insufferable bastard and she got to peel that stupid smile off his face.
---
"Let me make sure I'm understanding this correctly." I sighed at the cultivator I'd managed to offend without speaking to. "Your complaint with me is that I'm not hoarding resources, thus freeing more to assist you in your cultivation. But because I'm not putting on a big show about being better than you and feeling pity for you, that generosity feels like a slap to the Face, even though I'm literally just saying that my dao does not require those resources."
"You are devaluing the treasures that elevate me! If you cannot learn their value and treat them with respect, I shall take your head!"
"Spend a season with a merchant, and you'll know more about value than you do now." I answered. "The logger does not pay for timber. The farmer does not pay for rice. Neither are reduced in value by this."
"You would lecture this Zheng on value!" the idiot chose his grave and drew his blade. "You court death!"
I took a long look at his attendants, all mortals that had been listening and trying to figure out what was wrong with their boss for most of an hour. I looked at the teahouse proprietor, cowering in the back of the room.
Then I looked up at the man who was clearly expecting me to flip the table at him and begin the fight.
"Really?" I asked with an exasperated sigh. "You want to drag me back into killing cultivators with a fucking cliche?"
The idiot blinked and I slowly stood up and gestured for him to follow me outside. "I mean, I understand wanting to kill me, but it's never going to work. Not when you're only this much stronger than me. I'm not walking around being called the deathless immortal for nothing. This fight would barely be a polite greeting to death after my previous relationship with it, not courtship at all."
I swayed as he lunged from behind me and tutted. "Wait until we're outside. I want a formal witness to tell your family what happened. That way when they hunt me down, it'll be because they're as stupid as you, not because your servants lied to make you look good."
"You Dare speak of the Zheng family like that!"
"They raised you, right?" I asked rhetorically as I stepped outside. "Ah, Fui Lee! The Zheng family requires an impartial witness for a death in the family."
The guard captain's temple throbbed as he registered that the young master was almost to the point of spitting blood. "Very well. What is the offense?"
"To my understanding, he's upset to the point of chopping off his nose over my share of the region's resource allotment."
"The offense is your refusal to put treasures in your eye! You devalue everything thusly!"
"Yeah, however that's different. I've already demonstrated my skill, but he's too blind with rage to notice that he's already lost, and seems to be counting on his offense to carry the match. I won't be sparing him."
Fui sighed and backed up. "I have heard the offense and recognize this duel as valid. You may begin."
Zheng's blade came for me again, and I swayed out of the way again, then stepped into his guard and jabbed him in the throat.
At Bronze core, he really should have had enough fights not to make mistakes like that, but I'd discovered that Empire cultivators were shy on raw experience, even compared to Fist and Spire cultivators.
Vines erupted from the ground around me in response to his qi flaring and tried to grab onto me. I danced around them and kept myself inside his guard just to make him realize how profoundly stupid this fight was. His uncle would be worth fighting, but not him.
Trying to escape me, he tripped on his own vines and I grabbed his sword and slammed it through his throat and into the ground.
Entertainingly, he didn't die immediately, so I decided to let him have the chance. "Take that out and you'll bleed out. I can patch you up enough that your family's methods can save you. Just admit that you and your treasures are worthless, and I'll spare your wasted life."
"My family will hunt you to the ends of the earth!" he gurgled.
"And you'll still be dead." I deadpanned. "No amount of retribution will put your soul back in your body. Admit you're worthless and you can join the hunt. Or die of blood loss while clinging to your pride. Your choice."
I watched his anger fade as he realized that he wasn't making it out of here without playing to my tune, and fear overtook him half a breath later.
"I, Zheng Hurin, and all of my treasures are worthless!" he cracked with plenty of time to spare.
"Well done! Now you can drop your complaint against me." I pulled out some surgical needles and larger steel rods to help me close the worst of the damage. "Hold still. I never got the anesthesia recipe."
Pulling the pooled blood away with a technique I stole from the Fang medics, I saw why he wasn't dead. I'd only barely nicked the artery with how he'd been falling. A simple arterial wrap, a bit of sewing to close his throat back up, a dose of a coagulant I hadn't used nearly as much since my escape from the Fang, and the bleeding stopped filling up the cavity.
"Be thankful for my days of actually courting death. I'm only good at this because people as skilled as you thought you were kept trying to kill me over real offenses." I chuckled. "Now, make sure you don't exert yourself over anything, get back home quickly, and they should be able to finish fixing you up enough to meditate yourself good as new."
"I thought you weren't going to spare him." Fui asked as I stood up.
"I didn't. Now that he's seen the face of death and admitted that he's worthless in front of it, he'll have to reforge his identity if he wants to grow any stronger." I grinned despite my still-niggling feelings of discontent. "It's a poor murder that leaves a corpse."
"So you planned to barely not kill him with that blow?"
"Oh, no. I've never fancied myself an expert murderer. He lucked out in only needing his relationship with value to die." I laughed at the man's irritation with my answer. "Cheer up! This is probably the last you'll see of me!"
"What?"
"Harvest has finished, I'm done with my hut for the season. It's about time for me to roam more. As long as you don't get caught predicting my actions, you'll probably live the rest of your life without seeing me again!"
"Weren't you looking for a tutor position?"
"I've got an eye open for it, but I'm not going to go tell a noble that they're raising an idiot and to pay me to fix their kid. There's tact in these things. Nah, I'm going to focus on fixing up some farmlands and let nobles think it's their own idea to ask me for other insights." I chose not to point out that I'd never mentioned that to him or his men.
The look on his face as he realized that he'd been over-vigilant on that matter was a wonderful flavor of indignant frustration. Pointing out his misstep would spoil it.
"Do feel free to mention it to anyone who asks." I finished instead. "And have a nice trip to explain to the Zheng patriarch why his son has a hole in his neck."
"I'll do that." he gritted out and I waved and started a stroll.
It was kind of odd. I actually didn't want Zheng Lao or Zheng Nima hunting me down because even if they were inept in direct combat, they were still both Silver core cultivators. But now that they were all but guaranteed to come after me for dickslapping their nephew/son, I was less uneasy about them.
Which made sense in one way. Now I knew where they stood, instead of having them in that hideous nebulous space of 'they're cultivators, so they'll either want my head or my help'.
And given how steady imperial politics were in every rumor mill I'd tapped, that also meant that a third of the northern imperial cultivator families would be implicitly on board with killing me, just because the Zheng had good standing. Nowhere near the Hui, but then, nobody had standing near the Hui.
The Imperial Family dwarfed them by a factor comparable to how they dwarfed everyone else in this part of the empire. Which left them in an unenviable position if anything started going wrong. After so long maintaining their power, the Empress expected them to also control the antics of the lesser houses.
And despite being famous as a wastrel, Ko, whom I met briefly, was afforded the full respect of his family's position for having lived up to that expectation. His nephew had been making progress, according to the rumors, so that was an incidental mark in my favor when they decided on joining the Zheng and do away with me.
After all, one man would always look far easier to deal with than whatever the Zheng pull on with their standing. Dramatically enough that I wouldn't even really blame them.
And it wasn't like I personally ruined families for trying to kill me, so they might not suffer much for it.
Catching myself musing in circles, I decided to visit the 'requisitions office' that I'd determined at length to, in point of fact, be little more than a cultivator observation outpost. The Empress did a wonderful job of hiding their real job inside the requirements of delivering cultivation resources, but this wasn't my first life being surrounded by eyes.
"Ah! Master Guang!" the attending noble appeared with impressive speed. "Can I help you with anything today?"
"I'm done with the field, and I promised I'd let you know before heading off." I smiled warmly. "I also figure it's polite to warn you that the Zheng are likely to ask after me with pointed intent."
"Oh? Did something happen?"
"Normal cultivator nonsense. It'll be resolved between them and me, but they'll likely come here to find me. So where's a good location for a Face duel? Say.. South of here?"
The man stared at me, blinking in confusion. "A- Are you asking me where I would like you and the Zheng to fight?"
"Asking for your input, at least." I smiled. "It seems courteous to repay the hospitality I've received from the Shan Taiyan imperial forces by at least hearing out which stretches of land are most convenient to run an offended Silver Core cultivator through."
"To the south, you say?" His recovery was impressively swift.
"Yes. I hear there's a dry, arid territory around there. Seems like a good land to study next."
"Ah, the Scale-scrape barrens. Yes!" he lit up. "I cannot personally recommend spending any time down there. The ki is thin, outlaws have been using it to hide from imperial forces, and if I'm being honest, the dust in the air is just unpleasant against the skin. But if you've your own reasons to be down that way, I suspect that Province Lord Lung would thank you to simply avoid any of his established cities in your fights. And if you manage to take out an outlaw base, all the better."
"The ki is thin enough that it's worth mentioning?" I blinked. That was promising in a backwards way.
"I cannot confirm, myself, naturally. But every report I've heard from Lung's offices states that the cultivators who station themselves there for security consideration complain at length about the thin ki and how it's aggravating to try to cultivate while they're between calls for aid."
"Wonderful! I haven't had a depleted region to work on before! Would you mind pointing out the requisition office that Lord Lung is likely to hear from fastest? It'd be rude to give him a heart attack by delaying news of my arrival when I get there."
The noble - Tai! That was his name! - blinked at me before catching up to the fact that I expected the Zheng to come in aggressively with about the same speed as news could travel. "I'm sure he will appreciate the courtesy. Let me get the map out and I'll gladly point you to his main requisition office!"
"Thank you! And if the Zheng do come to bother you, I will be heading there so that they can catch up to me. I might get caught up along the way, but they shouldn't have to wait long for my arrival if they're particularly angry."
"Might I ask what you expect them to be angry about? You seem sure of their response."
"Oh, I stabbed the heir in the neck and made him admit that he and his treasures are worthless."
Tai stared at me, mouth agape, for almost a full minute before a servant appeared with the map and I realized part of my discomfort.
I hadn't been fucking with people hard enough to baffle them. Now I could get on fixing that.