Story 1 - Cultivating All Over Again
Goddamn it! Now, I'll have to cultivate all the fuck over again!
A thousand years ago, my American-who-barely-understood-any-Mandarin ass was transmigrated into a Xianxia novel. Even with all the culture shock and the decades of learning I had to go through, it wouldn't have been so bad except this particular novel was one I'd only briefly heard about. I never actually read the fucking story!
What I could grasp though, was that my body's initial owner, as "the girl next door," had likely been destined to end up as one of the main character's braindead wives.
Fortunately, I became neither braindead nor his wife. Unfortunately, I failed my ascension to immortality and died only to have my soul fall into something strange, like a tear in space-time, causing me to return to the beginning of this dumbass Xianxia harem novel!
I clutched my aching head. It had been damaged from the fall that caused my original transmigration.
Was it my imagination or was my thinking very sluggish? Ah! Of course! There would be strange side-effects to stuffing a huge Immortal Ascension Stage cultivator's soul into a tiny mortal's body.
Whatever! This was all that asshole main character's fault! He knew I was ascending that day and yet he decided to ascend at the same fucking time, like the idiotic shit donkey he was. Of course, since the tribulation worsened due to us ascending together, I was struck down by the overpowered lightning strikes. He, on the other hand, had a shield made out of plot armor that protected his ass.
Know what? This time around, I was going to find that insufferable cock mosquito and have him use this lifetime to make up for the death that he caused!
***
The main character and I grew up in the same place, this little seaside village where the houses were made of ocean stone and local wood, and the air scented of saltwater, and fresh breezes. Of course, us being from the same place made my ability to avenge myself easier. I used the tiniest portion of my divine sense, the only thing that stayed with me after my trek through time, to find his location; that of a dilapidated hut.
Ah, right, the kid was an orphan. His mother, a woman on the run, arrived here with him two years before the immortals came to recruit sect members. She died mysteriously a few months after arriving, leaving the child an orphan. Typical story lettuce.
I pounded on his door.
"Open up!" I would have said his original name but I'd forgotten what it was. A thousand years was a long time, after all.
The door opened to a dirty interior that stank of unwashed bodies. A six or seven year old child with messy hair and big black eyes peered up at me. Though young, the resemblance between the asshole and this kid stood out.
I tilted my chin up and looked down at him. Every angle and posture of my body gave me the appearance of an immortal child.
"In our past lives, because of your stupidity, you killed me. So in this life, you need to pay me back. From now on, you're following me as my junior brother and must do whatever I say!"
I turned and took a few steps as if certain he'd follow. When I peered back I saw that he just looked tired and confused, so I stopped. "To say it another way, go pack your things, you're coming home with me."
His eyes grew wide and he slammed the door shut. Oh, I probably sounded crazy to him. Whatever. I'm older, wiser, prettier, and all-around more amazing than him at this point in time, so he can't escape. Muahahaha.
I waited for a while. Honestly, I expected him to straight-up ignore me and take me as a loon, but eventually, he did come out with a bag filled with his worldly possessions. He stepped up to me, reached up, and pulled a dried leaf out of my hair. Ah, wasn't that from my fall earlier? I'd been so angry I didn't even notice. Whatever, I'll pretend it didn't happen. Onward!
I nodded with the haughtiness of an immortal and we trudged back toward my family's large rural farmhouse, picking up small flat rocks along the way.
When I reached the front door, I froze. Shit. My body was only, like eight or nine. I had a large extended family that included brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, and, of all things, parents. Parents I hadn't seen or thought about for a thousand years. Filial piety was a big thing in this world. And I was no longer the Immortal Ascension stage cultivator of my past life, but a child with parents I had to show respect to. Damn it! Why couldn't I kidnap a main character in peace?
Still, I made a quick plan and walked inside and up to my mother and father. For this time period, what exactly was the proper etiquette? Was I supposed to bow? Whatever. I bowed. A rock may have dropped but that didn't matter. One couldn't go wrong in first showing obedience to one's parents in the mortal world.
"Father! Mother!"
They looked behind me at my little shadow then my father said my original body's name, and after a few more pleasantries that showed how rusty I was at talking to mortals and people who I needed to respect as an elder, I finally got to the meat of the matter. Or the super-duper cliche lie of the matter.
"Last night an immortal appeared in my dreams and took me in as her disciple. She also wanted me to accept this boy as my junior brother. After seeing where he's living I can't force my brother to live there. Please allow him to stay with us!"
I bowed again and hoped they'd agree without much effort. And I may have used a little pressure from my divine sense to convince them.
"This..."
"Don't worry. He doesn't eat much and in a few years immortal cultivators should arrive and take us to a sect."
After that, they reluctantly agreed, and through my convincing words and a few more well-timed applications of divine sense, I managed to let him stay in my small room so I could privately teach him how to cultivate.
After I helped the dumbass main character's child form wash up (which included the rocks) and eat (which did not), I brought him to my room and made a space for him and his things.
"We'll cultivate here for now." Reaching out with my senses, I felt the area's thin spiritual energy. Disgusting. "The mortal world leaves something to be desired."
I took out the rocks from earlier, wrote a few rough symbols on each of them with charcoal, and created the lowest leveled energy gathering formation I could remember. It was so low leveled that it didn't even require anything except the formation itself and a few crude formation glyphs.
While I let that gather what it could inside the room, I stared at the little future harem lord. He hadn't said a word so far.
"In your past life, your Daoist name was Bloodsword, but that's the dumbest, most chuuni name ever so I'm vetoing it. Also, your destiny is oftentimes connected to your name, and since, I would rather you not repeat the mistakes you made in that life, it's better to change it. So, in this life, you'll be known as Spring of the Universe Zhenren... no, that title is too good for you at this stage..."
"What were you named?"
Startled by him finally speaking I said, "Fairy Lin." It was my last name in my original life and I kept it so I wouldn't forget the world and culture I came from.
"That's..."
"Shut up. I know it's plain. Whatever. Fine, I'll call you Little Spring, for now, and you can grow into the other one as you age and cultivate."
He scowled and gave me a skeptical look. "Fairy Lin, do you lie often?"
"Are you referring to the lies I told my parents?"
He shrugged.
"They aren't actually my parents so I don't feel guilty. Now, enough talk. It's time you learn to cultivate."
Bloodsword and I had the same master, Fairy Verdant Bamboo, so technically he was also my junior brother back then. But then, like main characters of harem stories often do, he ended up taking our master in as one of his wives making him, as our master's husband, above me in rank. Fuckers, both of them.
But, before those two turned me off to the idea of ever accepting a disciple, I did memorize all cultivation manuals that all my master's disciples learned, just in case.
So, I taught him the breathing technique to help a cultivator sense spiritual energy while planning to recklessly give him the technique he learned in his last life once he succeeded.
Now, what should I cultivate? This was my chance to start over and build my foundations better, stronger, and do it faster.
Although my mind wasn't working quite as quickly, and my memories, now that I lost my cultivation, were a bit fuzzy, I still recalled the personalized cultivation techniques I'd developed in my later years. The one I cultivated previously and the others I'd researched were all flawed in ways I found unacceptable in that they required stupidly expensive herbs or spiritual beast blood to activate my unique constitution. In frustration and boredom, I created a new and perfected one that would theoretically require no external measures while also increasing the speed of my cultivation. Who knew I'd eventually need it!
I sat down to cultivate the manual I'd named, Lin's Fucking Kickass Cultivation Technique, No Peeking.
Breathe in, while moving the external spiritual energy inside the Dantian. Move the energy in a loop through a specific path designed to stimulate and slowly activate my constitution. Bring the energy back to my dantian and exhale the impurities. Repeat as needed.
After a very short time, I paused my cultivation because the area ran out of spiritual energy and I had to wait for my formation to gather it back up again. When I looked over to Little Spring I noticed that he'd fallen asleep. He curled in on himself and shook while mumbling out for his mother.
Well, this was awkward. What the hell was a thousand-year-old monster supposed to do with a grieving child main character? Leave him alone? Pat his head? Murder all of his family members so he can strive for revenge? Oops, that one was taken already.
I sat down next to him and pet his hair like a cat. Well, I was never good with sympathy, but maybe psychology would work better.
"It is okay to be sad. It is healthy to be sad. Live through your grief and grow stronger..."
Eventually, after my speech on grief had repeated a couple of times, his muscles loosened and he slept peacefully.
***
Sitting in our room, I stared at Little Spring, baffled.
"It's been two months already! I'm at the second layer of Qi Condensation, but why haven't you even sensed Qi yet?"
"I'm sorry," he mumbled and refused to look me in the eye. I wanted to call him out on him sleeping instead of cultivating but stopped myself. He still didn't trust me enough. I could tell. Maybe it was because I lied to my body's parents, all the time, or perhaps he just thought I was crazy...
I thought back to how I treated him these past two months, and while I hadn't exactly been bullying him, it probably hadn't been the best experience for him either, with me forcing him to do my chores and me supervising him while huffing with arrogance everywhere I went. But he was responsible for my death, so, whatever.
I grabbed his wrist and sent my Qi into his body. There was something strange about it.
Eh? What was this? Did he have a super rare special constitution of some kind? Of course, he did. He was the main character. It was probably locked or something too by his whatever parents.
Now that I thought about it, I, unfortunately, knew little about special physiques and bloodlines, besides my own (though I'd certainly studied them more than most cultivators). I did, however, know novels.
With a sigh, I asked, "Do you have any keepsakes your parents left you?"
He hesitated for what felt like an hour. When he finally opened his mouth again a loud noise rocked through the village. Well, it was more a voice than a noise as it said, "The great Immortal Flower Thief orders you, insignificant mortals, to bring out your daughters and your food or I'll burn this village to the ground. You have an incense stick worth of time. Tarry and die!"
Huh? Did something like this happen?
Wait? Yes! It did! It was hard to remember things from a thousand years ago but I remembered this guy. Ah, this flower thief was a loose cultivator who was just barely not a demonic cultivator, though what with the things he did he might as well have been.
I looked at the little kid who was shaking in terror.
"Little Spring!"
"Yes!"
"You heard this asshole?"
"Yes!"
"Don't be like him. He's scum, and he commits evil because he can."
"Evil?"
I nodded sagely. "Things like robbing mortals, kidnapping mortals, killing mortals for no reason, and taking a ton of lovers then abandoning or killing them. Though, it's more the taking of a bunch of lovers that's—"
"Fairy Lin!" His face turned bright red.
"And above all else, if you ever dual cultivate with someone, never do it in such a way that you get all the benefits and they get nothing. That's just rude and unfair."
"What's dual cultivation?" He asked as if he was putting up with a senile grandma.
"I mean, it should be something reserved for a cultivator's one Dao Companion, but some people who happen to have a harem of wives or husbands use it with the ones they trust the most..." Just as I was about to go into further details I realized who I was talking to. Fuck. Maybe I am insane since I just started to give the standard lecture on Dual Cultivation to a six or seven year old.
His eyes had grown super wide.
"Right. Forget what I just said. Just know that he's a bad person and I'm going to go murder his ass before he does bad things to the women in our village."
He nodded, face pale.
I stood up and took a step only to realize that my sleeve was caught in Little Spring's hand.
"Don't go."
I crouched down and grinned. "You think I can't win?"
He nodded. "I'm a man, I'll go instead."
Aww. He was so adorable when he was a kid. The fuck happened?
I flicked his forehead and he rubbed it cutely. "For mortals, men are supposedly needed to protect women because they have the genetic strength advantage. But for cultivators, genetic physical strength doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is cultivation and skill. Because I have the highest cultivation in this village, as long as I'm able, it's my responsibility to protect it from other cultivators. And, judging by this ignoramus shit snake's power just now, he's only at the fourth level of Qi Condensation."
I ruffled his hair and pulled his hand away from my sleeve.
"Be good. And remember that you still owe me. If you are to pay me back in the future, you need to grow stronger."
***
After losing the dumbass little shadow that followed me despite my repeated orders to go back home, I made my way to the center of the village. There were already women and food supplies gathered there. The women cried with gut-wrenching sobs and the men waited off to the side, eyes red, hands clenched into fists, shame and horror painting their faces alabaster.
Several men from the village had already tried to kill the evil bastard and, sadly, their corpses lay strewn throughout the square, making people who had seen less than me lose their lunch.
The culprit, a thin man with an odd double chin and a bulbous nose stood on a flying sword, laughing. That flying sword artifact was terribly made, but even Qi Condensation stage practitioners could use it and, frankly, since I currently had nothing of the immortal world, I needed it.
I walked through the carnage, a little smile on my face that was not of the happy variety.
"Daoist Immortal Flower Thief, I presume?"
He snorted. "You're a bit on the young side, but you'll do. Go get in line."
I stood my ground, placed my hands on my hips, and sneered. This guy was the worst so I decided to have a bit of fun with him. "Surrender all your valuables, or die."
He laughed and landed near me. "Little girl, you think you're cute? Huh? Are you trying to throw yourself at me?"
"If you give me your sword now, I'll be sure to keep your corpse intact."
"If you're trying to distract me, then you're doing a piss poor job of it."
Then he turned and grabbed something small that was about to attack him. He threw it off to the side. The crack of a bone breaking sounded in the quiet.
I blinked once and realized that my dumbass Little Spring was trying to kill the bad guy and failed because he had zero cultivation.
"Fucking idiot!"
Time seemed to slow down.
Two options. Go kill dumbass number 1 or go save dumbass number 2.
Because I was a logical person, and because the little main character had plot armor, I chose the first option.
Focusing on Flower Thief, I unfurled as much divine sense as I could without doing too much damage to my mostly mortal body and I threw out an immense amount of pressure on the asshole that to him would feel like I was a hidden master at the peak of Foundation Establishment. His eyes bulged and he prostrated before me. Which was good since he couldn't see the nosebleed I'd given myself while his face ate dirt.
"You were having fun here, weren't you? Gathering food and cultivation 'vessels?'" I wiped the blood off my face with a handkerchief. "Hurting the people of this town, you maybe could have gotten away with it if I'd been in the right mood. And only after you left behind your items and cultivation. But hurting my little brother... That was a mistake."
"Senior! Please forgive me! Let me go and I'll give you everything, even the clothes on my back!"
I chuckled. "Just kidding. I was going to kill you either way."
My new sword had fallen a few feet away from him. I picked it up using my spiritual energy then executed him on the spot. Then I grabbed his storage bag and searched for medicinal pills while walking to Little Spring. I found one that was a low enough level that it worked on mortals and took it out. I then scanned his body with my divine sense and froze. A chill ran down my spine and I regretted my previous choice.
This little idiot was mostly dead. And if I didn't hurry, he'd be all the way dead.
I shoved the pill into his mouth. It melted on contact with his tongue. Without wasting time, I poured a small portion of my spiritual energy into his mortal body to take the healing energy of the pill and move it to the areas that needed the most attention. I used some of my divine sense to put pressure, off and on, against his heart to get it pumping.
A minute passed. Was this it? Did I fuck up so bad that even the plot armor couldn't save him? I grabbed his hand tighter and kept cycling my spiritual energy through him. No! I would not let him die. So what if he was the main character of this novel? So what if in my past life he was a selfish, idiot harem master? So what if he killed me out of malicious ignorance? Right now, this little guy was just a sweet (mostly) innocent kid. He had no clue about any of that. And, without any cultivation, he still tried to protect me. Fucking adorable dumbass.
"Hey. You survive and I won't make you owe me anymore, okay? Okay? Come on, Little Spring."
Something inside his body gave way and — for a mortal — a torrent of bloodline power flooded the boy's system. It traveled through the broken areas, healing and strengthening it. Making him live.
He coughed and breathed in. When he opened his eyes he grabbed my hand in terror.
"No, Fairy Lin! I still owe you. I still owe you. Please don't throw me away."
I grinned so wide that my eyes started to water. It definitely wasn't because I was emotional or something.
"Come here!" I hugged him so tightly that he froze. "Don't worry. I won't throw you away even if you don't owe me."
When I released him his face blushed, then he looked around and paled. I knew the exact moment he saw the body of the flower thief by the horrified look on his face. He turned to me, mouth agape.
"Fairy Lin," he started, his voice high. "You really weren't lying about all that cultivation stuff were you?"
I glared at him. "Do you mean to tell me that all this time you didn't believe a word I said? I bet you thought I was crazy right? Humph! You were sleeping instead of cultivating, weren't you?"
"Ah! No! Maybe?"
I stood up, intending to kill him (but not really), except the boy, after his bloodline was partially released, was faster. He ran off yelling a sentence as one word, "I'llgocultivatenow!"
"Brat!"
I walked after him, ignoring the stares of the villagers near me, and making plans to join the sect early, now that I had a flying sword, a storage bag, and the villagers' fear. That last point was the big red flag that told me it was time to get the fuck out of town.
But I kept walking, my thoughts drifted to the past future and the new future. I felt a little stupid for not knowing what Daoist Bloodsword had been through over the years. He was my junior brother after all, however gross I found his behavior to be, it was a tragic failure on my part that I never learned much of anything about him besides what he cultivated, what I overheard from his many braindead wives chatting on our mountain and whatever juicy sect gossip went about. And now I didn't have the chance to learn more. Everything had refreshed.
But maybe, just maybe, if I didn't fuck up too bad and get my little junior brother killed off, I could raise him as a better, smarter cultivator than Bloodsword. And maybe, by doing so, having to cultivate all over again wouldn't be so bad.
Story 1 Bonus - The Girl in Our Village is Crazy
My mother had died a few weeks earlier and I didn't know what to do. She had been my only family. So, I just lived. Day to day. In our hut. Our ridiculously dilapidated hut with a thatch roof that needed patching, and a bed that smelled like death. But it and the items within it were all I had left.
If not for a kind neighbor who brought me his leftovers every morning, I would have starved. Still, it wasn't enough. I was alone, and tired and depressed. What was the point of living even? Maybe I could find the truth about the people who forced my mother and me to flee for our lives? Maybe get revenge? I cou—
I heard a knock, interrupting my dark spiraling thoughts.
In our village, there was a very pretty girl who had always been a little off and not entirely there. When I saw her at the door, with dirt on her face, a bruise on her temple, and a leaf stuck in her hair, I was dumbfounded. When she said insane words to me about a past life, I was certain the rumors were true. Then she told me to come with her, do what she said and she would become my family.
I slammed the door shut. Not believing her. I waited. She didn't leave. And eventually, I realized that she may be crazy, but did that matter? Maybe I could stay at her place and take care of her so she didn't go around doing too many things that could get her in trouble and in exchange her family could feed and house me.
So, I grabbed my mother's keepsakes and all of my things, shoved them into our worn travel bag then left. I did not look back.
She still had that leaf in her hair when I reached her so I pulled it out. Her cheeks turned slightly red from embarrassment but then she acted as if nothing happened and continued to walk along the path. She began picking up flat stones. Why was she picking up stones? Exactly what was going on in that weird head of hers?
Eventually, we made it back to her place, both of our arms filled. She stilled for a long while before entering and walking up to her parents. Somehow, looking as wild as she did, she still managed to convince them to let me stay. I don't know if they believed her lies about an immortal but they seemed pretty used to her nonsense.
When we reached her room with all the rocks she picked up, she started writing nonsense on them with a piece of charcoal and set them down in a weird pattern that made my eyes hurt a little, probably from how ugly it looked.
Satisfied over her ridiculous rocks, she sat me down and gave me a new name, Spring of the Universe. Or Little Spring. But I already had a name, Wang Mingren.
Well, I'd let her call me what she wanted since she seemed like the type of person who wouldn't listen anyway.
After a little while, she started spouting nonsense about, breathing in and out in a weird pattern to help sense the "spiritual energy" around me. I was too exhausted so I just fell asleep.
The next day I realized that she had no idea how to do any of her chores. I mean, she tried at first but made everything worse so I just took over since I'd been helping my mother do things like this for a while now, though, due to being too depressed, I hadn't done them in weeks. She pretended to supervise me off to the side and said that I did a good job. Even though I knew she wasn't all there in the head, her words made me happy.
Sometimes, I'd hear her humming strange songs and saying random nonsensical, barbaric sounding words in exclamation. When I stared at her, she'd turn her head and act like she hadn't done anything.
At night, she taught me characters and words in the sand. At least, that's what she said they were. I learned them anyway since if they weren't real, then at the very least, we could share a written language. When she was done teaching, she would tell me to cultivate but I mostly just fell asleep while sitting down.
Sometimes at night, when I dreamed about my mother dying and felt that everything in this world could burn, I would feel a hand running through my hair, telling me that it was okay to be sad. It was healthy to be sad. It reminded me that I was not alone. And the pain would ease.
***
After two months of living together, a real cultivator came to our little village. Of all things that could happen, my cheap older sister said that she'd stop him.
Stop him? She wasn't a real cultivator but an insane little girl, so how could she stop him? I tried everything I could to get her to not go and even followed after her, but she somehow managed to lose me.
When I reached the area people gathered and saw the bodies lying around, I threw up. I knew those people. Some of them were even kind to me. And now they were gone. Terror ran through every part of my body. And then I saw her. A little girl half of the evil cultivator's size, hands on her hips, and spouting nonsense. If I didn't do anything, she was going to get herself killed.
I didn't know what possessed me but I ran up to attack him and everything went black.
In a haze, I heard her saying that I no longer owed her. But isn't the reason I was with her today because I owed her from our past lives? Does that mean she's going to throw me away? No! After losing everyone, I finally caught this cheap sister. There was no way I would let her leave me alone!
I wasn't sure what happened but strange hot energy flowed through me and my broken body healed. I woke up, spoke my mind and she hugged me. It was embarrassing.
Then I saw the man who hurt me lying on the ground, headless. Had — had my sister done that?
The blood that splattered her clothes told me it was her. She still might be crazy, but she hadn't been lying about immortal cultivation!
Wait. If all of the nonsense she spoke about cultivation was real then hadn't I wasted two months by not gaining strength? If I had listened I could have been strong enough to protect her instead of being protected by her.
Embarrassed, and not wanting to deal with my older sister while she was angry, I ran back to our house. Then I realized that I left her there to deal with the aftermath and tried to return. We met at the door to the courtyard. After washing up she walked to our room and collapsed into the position she always cultivated in.
I sat beside her and this time when I practiced the technique to sense for the spiritual energy I let go of my misgivings and reached for the crazy unknown.
Story 2 - Golden Fingers, Jade Boxes, and Other Treasures (Part 1)
With a sword in my hand, I practiced long used positions, retraining my nine-year-old body to fight. As I moved, my appearance perfectly matched the description for a beautiful child immortal... at least, I assumed it did. Living in a rural farm area, I lacked any kind of silvered mirror like I used in my past-past life. And I currently couldn't form a water mirror since that was a mid-level spell for Qi Condensation practitioners. It wasn't worth the strain on my body.
Once I finished the familiar set of moves, a duck waddled past me as though I posed no threat. I glared at the stupid duck then sighed. Ever since I managed to collect this shitty sword from Immortal Flower Thief, I'd been practicing to gather more Sword Qi.
I'd been using the sword as my main weapon for a thousand years, so building up a reservoir of Sword Qi was fairly easy. If I had decided to go down the path of a Sword Cultivator, it would be a breeze to advance at first, but I would only ever do that if my current path failed. Sword Cultivators often needed to have epiphanies to advance significantly and I wouldn't reach immortality that way since I already knew too much.
There was also the issue that my body still had a mortal's strength; meaning that, while my mind was excellent, my physical form —once again — limited my advancement. I could still kick the ass of anyone under the 8th layer of Qi Condensation with just these mere skills though. Probably.
And all of this practice was, of course, to facilitate leaving this stupid village for the immortal world. Because, after I let Little Spring get hurt, I realized that I couldn't rely on my divine sense anymore. Once someone noticed that it didn't match my level, I could get my ass handed to me by some dick nugget with a high enough cultivation —though I'd never make it easy for them.
As I readied myself to do another round of practice, the signs of Qi deviation spread through the yard, breaking my concentration.
Little Spring? But he hadn't even reached the first layer. He was also in the middle of chores so how the fuck could he be deviating right now?
I ran around the corner to see my little martial brother on the ground, curled in on himself as he groaned in pain.
Had he tried to advance to the first layer while working? This shit for brains!
I knelt next to him and pushed my energy through his body to steady his cultivation. But I wasn't strong enough and it easily started to go wild.
"Big sister Lin?" He said, voice straining with pain.
"Hush, idiot."
The only thing I could do was pick apart the small amount of cultivation he'd already begun, making it so he'd have to start from scratch. The only good news was that, since he hadn't had much cultivation to begin with —and since I took the time to actually unravel it instead of straight-up destroying it— this Qi deviation did no damage to him. He did, however, pass out from agony.
Since I was there, I took time to really look at the traces of what he'd cultivated before. Something didn't add up.
I knew from my past life that our master had taught him this cultivation technique. She'd even mentioned how incredible it was that he could use it to cultivate so unbelievably fast...
Ah, was that it? Unbelievably fast?! Bloodsword never cultivated this technique in the past, did he? He only convinced us all that he had. That ignoramus fuck donkey.
Then what technique did he cultivate?
I groaned. Raising a main character was harder than I thought. Wait.... am I... am I raising this kid?
That would be negative. Nope. Not me. At most, I was guiding him to the right path, like a good older sister should.
***
I managed to convince one of my cousins, who had been running around doing chores, to help me drag the little dumbass to our shared room and place him on the bed. Then I waited until he woke up. I may have helped him along by poking his cheek which had started to fill out now that he was eating regularly.
"So, you want to explain what happened there?"
His face, which had previously looked deathly pale, flushed a little.
"I was practicing while working, even though you told me not to."
I nodded sagely. "And?"
"And a cat attacked me out of nowhere. I was startled and I messed up."
"That would do it. Listen, there is a reason we cultivate when we are completely alone, or when someone we trust watches our back."
"But I've seen you cultivate out in the open before!"
I glared. "There is a difference between cycling your cultivation method to refill your well and actual cultivation to gain a layer. The first one can be interrupted at any time, but the second one, well, you just experienced that possibility didn't you?"
I glared harder. He looked away.
"When you're breaking through to another small level or trying to break through to another realm, you better believe that you need to be undisturbed. If your concentration breaks at that point, Qi deviation just might kill you or make it impossible for you to ever increase your realm again."
He swallowed. "I just want to get stronger."
"We all do. But cultivation takes time. It is a step-by-step process that will take as long as it takes. There are some things you can do to speed it up, and, once we get to a place where I can gather those things, I'll help you, but I need you to not be a little idiot and use your brain."
He touched his lower abdomen, over where his cultivation spiral had been and blinked rapidly as if trying not to cry. I handed him a handkerchief and pet his head a bit.
"It's okay to cry if you need to. Don't let any asshole tell you otherwise."
He handed me my handkerchief back. "I'm fine. It's just... I spent so many days and it's gone."
I nodded. "You will grow stronger. But, when you're this new to something, you shouldn't rush. Learn properly, or else you'll only end up a half-taught dumbass and then what are you going to do when you're a Nascent Soul cultivator with your own disciples?"
I mean, Bloodsword never took in a disciple, but this child was my family's Little Spring. Who knew what his future held?
But, now that I was thinking of his future, I needed to learn something about his past. Since he didn't know anything about his real past yet, and I frankly didn't care enough about him in my last life to find out, I could only see what he had on him that could give me any clues.
"You remember how I asked to see the items you brought with you several days ago just before Immortal Flower Thief attacked us?"
He froze then slowly nodded. "They're over there."
He pointed to the bag he originally brought with him, which had all his clothes and worldly possessions. I carried it over to him, and he started digging through it, taking out small item after small item and setting them on the blankets in front of him. There were several, obviously mundane items, but there were also three suspicious treasures.
One looked like a white jade hairpin. I was actually familiar with this one since Bloodsword's first wife wore it all the time. She would often flaunt it in front of her sister wives to make them jealous. I seriously didn't know how she wasn't secretly murdered by everyone in that horrible shithole he called his harem. I mean, it was in our sect so the buildings and immortal caves looked nice but every one of his wives were fake princesses or criminal bitches. And all of them feigned as if they were brainless best friends in front of him while they —still brainlessly— worked on undermining each other in the background.
I picked up the hairpin and sent a strand of divine sense in to examine it. Yep, definitely the same one. It even had the same, oddly warm feel to it.
I took out a knife, scratched the back of my forearm, and dropped a bit of crimson onto the jade surface. It quickly absorbed my blood. Then I pushed my spiritual energy into it causing the stick to enlarge, morph and sharpen into a pure white blade.
Little Spring's eyes bulged. He pointed at the sword in shock.
"This is a sky rank spiritual sword. It's much better than my current weapon. When we start our journey to the sect, I'll have to borrow it, but I promise to return it either when I find a new one, or when we enter the sect."
"That..." He hesitated.
"I know this means a lot to you. I'm only using it because, right now, I am the strongest, and I need a good blade to keep us safe."
His face turned bright red. I wasn't quite sure what that was about, but he ended up nodding in the end.
The next item I examined was a sandalwood fan. As I suspected, it was a flying tool, like the one I looted, er, acquired from that dumb death-seeking thief. I put it away after explaining that neither of us could use it at this point as its level was too high.
Finally, I reached out to touch a very small stone bowl. It resembled the bowl part of a mortar and pestle, one that had been used to grind medicinal ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine. When I inserted a strand of divine sense, I couldn't see anything.
That gave me pause. This usually meant that this bowl was so high leveled that I couldn't pierce through what it hid. And, usually, that meant that this item was grade-A-treasure.
If this was grade-A-treasure, then that meant that it had some kind of a bloodline lock on it. Probably. It also meant that I couldn't use my own blood to activate it, and, if I tried, the possibility of a backlash or straight-up death was high.
I took out a clean needle from the storage bag and held Little Spring's arm.
His eyes grew wide.
"Don't struggle. This is a good thing."
While grinning evilly, I quickly poked the back of his arm. I didn't want his little hands to get an infection, since I wasn't about to use one of our few healing pills to cure a tiny stab wound. Then I pressed his bowl against his arm, right below the cut and let his blood drip into it.
And I waited. Nothing happened.
Just as I was about to jerk the item away from him, the world moved. When it steadied again, we found ourselves inside a minuscule world. The sky looked blue and bright, but there was no sun so the diffuse lighting caused everything to appear slightly flat. The ground stretched a distance of over three miles in diameter. A large crystal clear pond took up almost a third of the whole place.
In the exact center of the land, a cute building stood taking up the amount of space a one-car garage from my past-past life would have.
"As I expected," I said.
Little Spring gave me a skeptical look, but I just ethereally waved him towards the building.
I anticipated it being locked somehow but, unexpectedly, he was able to enter it. Cautiously, I followed after him. This place had to be trapped in some way, right?
A pair of black eyes peered at me like I was crazy. I ignored my stupid martial brother and took in the interior of this small first room. It just had a very simple desk, on which rested a candle, a masculine necklace with a soul gem pendant, and two jade slips.
"What are these?" He asked.
"Two choices," a man's voice replied. It echoed with superficial authority and omniscience. "One is power, and the other is weakness. Which would you choose?"
A vein ticked in my forehead. Looked like this place had an asshat in it!
With a wave of my hand, I sent the necklace flying over to me.
"You're not the owner of this place! Get out!"
I sent a vicious strand of divine sense into the necklace.
"What are you doing? Stop it!"
I laughed. "A trapped and weakened Nascent Soul attempting to hoodwink the owner of this place so you can steal his body and possessions?"
"Hey, little owner, little owner. I'm not like she says. She's the one trying to hoodwink you. She obviously has the soul of a pre-immortal and is trying to steal your space!"
I rolled my eyes at his stupidity. I had no interest in this space, after all, the second rule in the Transmigrated into a Novel Club is that you don't go against the main character if you want to live. This includes stealing his possessions because that's a one-way ticket to the next life.
Of course, the first rule of Transmigrated into a Novel club was obvious.
"Let's take a look at these manuals and see which one suits you best."
The Nascent Soul scoffed. "You can't! This space only allows for one person to read one of them. The other jade will disappear after the first one is finished."
"Then I'll just have to read and memorize them both at the same time. That way I can teach them to him at leisure and even correct any errors in their logic."
"You can't possibly!"
"Watch me!" I slammed the necklace down on the desk and centered my mind. Once I was perfectly calm, I split my mind into two and simultaneously sent a strand of divine sense into each jade slip. Then I memorized both scripts, all the way up to Immortal Ascension stage. Two complete inheritances.
The world began to dim.
"Quickly, take her to the spiritual lake!"
And that was when I blacked out.
Story 2 - Golden Fingers, Jade Boxes, and Other Treasures (Part 2)
When I woke again, it was to getting dumped in cold spiritual spring water. I spluttered, then unconsciously started looping my cultivation technique as I absorbed the water into my body as fast as I could.
Gulping it down like a maniac in every way possible, I purified every pore and muscle. Eventually, I became full and woke up from my, frankly, lifesaving trance. I had greatly underestimated the rank of those cultivation techniques. In this particular story, most everything had a rank and a quality within that rank. The rank of these two particular techniques differed greatly. One was Golden rank with a High quality; the other was Black rank with a Low quality.
I went over the techniques in my mind. And I nearly passed out again. My mouth filled with blood.
Fuuuuck, this wasn't good.
After using my divine sense in a way that far surpassed what my mortal body could handle, I had aggravated the difference between my soul and cultivation levels so much that it was causing me to slowly die. I needed to quickly increase my cultivation to at least the pinnacle of Qi Condensation or the dichotomy would absolutely murder my ass.
After some quick and depressing calculations, I only had half a year to live.
I crawled out of the water, looking a lot like a half-drowned cat.
"Are you alright?" Little Spring stared at me with a worried frown.
I nodded as I stormed like a turtle back into the building. When I reached the necklace that held our Nascent Soul interloper, I poked it, hard.
"So, one of these techniques that you're trying to con Little Spring into practicing is a dark path that requires a lot of heavenly treasures, killing, and other unsightly things. It is a strong technique but it would leave him weak to mental attacks and takeovers from souls. It also has the possibility of distorting his personality." And, frankly, I could tell that this was what Bloodsword cultivated in the past. It was also the higher-ranked technique but had worse flaws.
I turned to my little martial brother who pulled out a stool for me to rest on.
Once I took my seat I continued. "The next technique is a lighter path that requires a lot of introspection. It's weaker, and a bit slower to cultivate, but it has minor flaws. Both were made for your bloodline. And both require a large amount of expensive and hard to find materials."
"And which one do you think I should cultivate?"
"Neither. They're both horrible!"
I could practically hear them drop with shock.
"What do you mean horrible?" The interloper asshat said. "These are both techniques above Transcendence rank!"
"They're pieces of shit."
"Then what kind of technique isn't a piece of shit to you?"
"Mine. It's kickass. I made it. It only has one major flaw, which is that it's personalized so much that only I can use it." I shrugged. Well, that and a few other minor flaws, but I wouldn't mention those.
He snorted. "As if I'd believe you created a—"
I began to cultivate in front of him, letting go of the restriction I had to use due to the mortal world's thin spiritual energy, and started pulling in a vast amount of this space's gloriously thick spiritual energy, looping it around my body. Within a few minutes, I created the third layer and was on the brink of creating a fourth. The beginnings of Qi fractals began to show themselves. Then I stopped. The massive headache I'd been ignoring all this time eased a bit. I would have kept going but this little space didn't have that much energy. It might be enough to get me fairly far, but that would just be a waste when it could be used for better things like raising rare medicinal herbs.
"What rank cultivation technique is that?!"
"What I did or did not create is none of your concern." I tilted my nose up haughtily. "And why are you staying in that ball? Why don't you come out?"
I poked him. A very translucent ghost of a middle-aged man flew out. He had black hair with hints of gray at the temples and a pair of downturned eyes. He wore his hair half up, with a white jade crown.
He looked like the typical evil mentor ghost who planned to take over the main character's body. He would either fail in the end or start to befriend him to have him gather materials to make a new shell. Since I never read the book I had no idea which type he was. Maybe the author decided to subvert the trope somehow, and I was way off. Well, whatever. He'd been trapped in that soul gem for so long that he could barely project an illusory image of himself.
What a terribly weak Nascent Soul.
A tug at my sleeve had me look to Little Spring.
"You're getting the floor wet."
"It's just spiritual spring water. It won't harm anything."
He nodded, took off his jacket, and wrapped it around my shoulders. Aww. What a cute kid! He was raised so well. What the hell happened in his past life to make him such a dark gross asshole? I highly doubted that it was just his choice in cultivation technique that changed him.
"So, if I can't use those then could you create one for me?" His adorably hopeful eyes pleaded at me.
I grimaced and pinched his cheek. "Do you think creating a cultivation technique unique to a person is that easy?"
"Please?"
"Once you start down this path, you won't be able to choose again."
Well, technically, he could pick apart his own cultivation and start over again if he needed to but, I wouldn't let him waste my precious time, brainpower, and effort by switching his cultivation technique on me like that. Not if I decided to put in the energy to make one for him.
"I understand."
"And you'll have to trust me completely."
He hesitated.
"Ah! See, you're not ready!"
"No! I'm ready! I trust you when it comes to everything cultivation related."
I stared him down. He squirmed.
"You still think I'm crazy, don't you?"
He shook his head far too quickly. As if I couldn't tell when a kid was lying. "Whatever. This should be enough. Because trusting me with your cultivation technique is like trusting me with your future. It means I'll decide your path until it's time for you to create your own."
His eyes widened. "I'll need to create my own cultivation technique?"
I nodded looking like the beautiful child sage I was... though I may have still been a little wet. "When a cultivator reaches Immortal Ascension, they must decide on their path to immortality on their own."
I wasn't going to tell them because one's own path was their secret to keep, but, for me, my path was Unlimited. It was based on my unique Phoenix constitution. I am the Phoenix. I am the Undying. If I cannot die, then I can do everything I wish unfettered by mortality. If I can do everything I wish, then my future is unlimited. My past path, my present path, my future path. It was my path, is my path, and will be my path again.
Irritation ran through me, and I had the urge to throw something at Bloodsword. But he wasn't here. And would never exist from this point onward.
I stared at Little Spring. "Then I will create for you a cultivation technique unique to you at the Unparalleled Perfection rank."
The necklace dropped to the floor, and the ghost clung to the desk. "What did you say?"
I glared at him. "Unparalleled Perfection rank cultivation technique. Stop being so dramatic."
"You can't just make an Unparalleled Perfection rank cultivation technique! Are you insane?"
"Some people think I am." I stared at Little Spring who conveniently decided to look out the window as if I wasn't talking about him. I turned back to our interloper and began my evil plot. "What's your name, anyway?"
He straightened his spine and clasped his hands behind his back. "Old Master Violet Seal."
"That's a crazy stupid name. You're now, Ghosty McGhostface."
"I don't understand a word you just said."
"It's a very well-liked name style from my past life."
"But I have my own name. It's a good name."
"I don't trust its future history."
He looked so confused that it made me feel all giddy inside.
"Tell you what, you take this new name temporarily, help me help Little Spring become the pinnacle of this world, and I'll make sure you survive as well as endeavor to create a new body for you."
He froze, and his eyes narrowed. I think he realized that if he didn't agree I would absolutely finish the job of whoever attempted to kill him off the first time.
"How are you going to help me create a new body?"
"What? You think I'm going to snatch a random one and shove your soul in it?"
He didn't say anything and floated there skeptically.
"I mean, I did consider it for a hot second but that's just too mean. No, if you're good, I'll teach you how to nourish your soul so you can create a new body. No hurting anyone or stealing anyone else's."
"Can you really give me those things?"
"You realize I was about to ascend before some dumbass interrupted me and caused my tribulation to become ten times more difficult, right?"
"If you're so powerful, then why steal a child's body?"
The urge to throw something grew. "This is my actual body. I didn't steal it!"
I mean, I did transmigrate but it was directly into this body, not as a soul that happened to possess this body, so I always considered it my own. The whatever original owner could shove it.
He sighed. "Do I have to take that horrendous grouping of sounds as my name?"
"Absolutely."
He ground his teeth.
"Just keep reminding yourself that it's only temporary."
He huffed. "Fine! I accept."
And with that, the hidden enchantment I connected to that name attached to him. If he betrayed us, his soul would straight-up perish.
Frankly, it wouldn't have worked except that he was weaker than a kitten from being stuffed in that gem and then trapped in this space. This binding I attached to his soul would only get stronger the more powerful he grew. If he knew about it and wanted to remove it, these next few days were his only chance to do so.
"So, how exactly are you going to create a cultivation technique for him?"
"You realize that cultivation techniques don't just appear out of thin air, right? Someone has to come along and create them?"
"Isn't that obvious?"
"Well, to start with I only need to create the Qi Condensation manual first. And I already have two examples of high-end techniques to work with..." I began explaining the process and the testing, but it flew over both of their heads. Little Spring even looked like he would pass out any second.
With a sigh, I said, "Do you want to know what the difference is between Black rank and Unparalleled Perfection?"
Naming Notes for Old Master Violet Seal:
Lao Zifeng directly translates to Old/Master Violet Seal which sounds similar to Lao Fengzi which translates to Old Codger/crazy person.
Story 2 - Golden Fingers, Jade Boxes, and Other Treasures (Part 3)
That woke them up.
"The difference is that Unparalleled perfection can only exist for an individual. For others, even if they have a similar enough physique, it can, at most, only work as a Black manual."
"So, every Black manual was..."
"Yes. Most all were once techniques tailored to a single cultivator. You see, perfection can only exist in a vacuum. As soon as it's exposed to other things, it becomes lesser."
Ghosty's eyes widened and energy seemed to surround him as he reached an epiphany. I wasn't sure which of my awesome words made him realize something profound enough to gain the approval of the heavens but I hoped he used that energy wisely.
His projection crossed his legs and began to meditate while he absorbed the epiphany energy.
"Now, to start. Little Spring, go sit down."
He did as I asked like the good junior brother he was. "First I need to inspect your body and make a hypothesis."
I used the combination of my divine sense and cultivation to slowly inspect every cell of his body. I could have done it faster, but I couldn't put any more strain on my body for a few hours.
After reviewing the Qi Condensation part of both techniques, I began to make highly educated guesses.
Hmmm. This. No this. Wait. Wasn't this just my cultivation technique but mirrored? No. That would be... just what the dumbass author who wrote the original novel would think of and hide as an Easter egg. Fucking weirdo.
I glared at the author... well, I actually glared at Little Spring who looked uncomfortable and like he was about to cry but my glare was obviously meant for the author.
I ran my spiritual energy through his body in a pathway that was the mirrored version of mine. I could feel the restriction on his bloodline power unravel by a minuscule amount. Anyone but myself, who had created Unparalleled Perfection manuals before and was familiar with Bloodsword's pre-ascension structure from the few times I helped treat his wounds, would miss it. Yep, this was pretty much his perfect Qi Condensation Technique.
I had a smidgen of hope that this would only be the case during this realm.
"You feel this?"
He nodded.
"Can you grab the spiritual energy in this space and cultivate using this method?"
He nodded, determined.
"In that case, this is what you should think while you cultivate. Breathe..."
After I told him, he reached the first level of Qi Condensation within two hours. He could have continued, but I stopped him because I didn't want him to ruin his small space by consuming too much. That was the other issue with Unparalleled Perfection techniques, they needed way more energy for each breakthrough than a lesser technique. But cultivators who practiced them would end up stronger and have a more pure body... I assumed. This was the first time I was cultivating my own technique, after all.
Little Spring also needed to learn what the first level was like. Running through levels too fast at his age wasn't good for him. That, and I felt like torturing him for a few days with the horribly thin spiritual energy of the mortal world.
"Alright. Good job. Now go soak in your spring while doing that, but without taking in spiritual energy. Instead, focus on consuming the water until you feel full."
"Yes, Fairy Lin!" And off he went.
I moseyed over to Ghosty McGhostface. His image appeared more solid, and he opened his eyes only to move back in fright. Ah, I may have been too close to him, but whatever.
"Tell me about the person who put you in here."
He didn't say anything for a while and eventually sputtered, "I can't."
"Okay."
He looked flabbergasted. "Just like that?"
"I know things about this world that you couldn't even imagine. So when you tell me you can't like that, I know you can't." Because the person who put him here was either a True Immortal or beyond, and they were most likely related to our dear main character in some way. Whoever that person was, they were not to be fucked with at our level. "Get ready, because we're about to go traveling, and it's dangerous out there."
"At merely the third layer? You can't be serious."
I raised a brow at him. He didn't say anything for a while, and we both stared out the window at Little Spring who sat submerged in water up to his lips.
Hesitantly, he said, "Are you at least going to tell him that you're dying?"
"Heh, so you found out?" I took out a knife from the storage ring and started walking towards his soul gem, the thing that kept him alive as much as it kept him trapped.
"What?! No. I didn't say anything! I know nothing."
I stopped.
We sat in awkward silence and eventually I saw Little Spring start to walk back from his lake.
"I'm not going to die." I grinned. "Just watch while I become more amazing than anyone, faster than you've ever seen!"
And I would do it using my own strengths.
***
When Little Spring returned, his once tan skin had turned as pale and smooth as a porcelain doll. He was starting to look more like an immortal child than myself!
Whelp, there was no hiding this. We needed to leave this village ASAP.
I had the little main character wear the soul gem with Ghosty McGhostface in it and use his will as the space's owner to move us back into my room. Once I told him that we were leaving for the sect early we started packing up our things and putting them in my cheap storage bag, or into his space depending on the size of the object.
When I remembered my past and the beautiful space ring with literally cubic miles worth of space I'd created for myself, I wanted to cry. I went from that to lugging around a cheap second-hand bag like this that had —maybe— 5 cubic yards. It was so cheap, and well-used, that It surprised me every time I took something out and it wasn't covered in this world's version of glitter.
Whatever! I wouldn't think about the past anymore.
I grabbed one of the stones that I'd used for my spirit gathering formation and a knife and started stabbing it while imagining Bloodsword's stupid face. Huh? This stone wasn't that bad... for something from the mortal world. It had absorbed a bit of the spiritual energy that moved through the formation. Hmm. I wonder.
While I'd never been a sword cultivator who made the sword a part of their cultivation, I did eventually come to understand a few levels past Sword Qi. I couldn't form sword quintessence at my cultivation level, but using Sword Qi with the 'Any Blade is My Sword' mindset was within my level.
I centered myself, breathed deeply, concentrated, and stared at the stone. Then, from a few inches away, I used a minuscule amount of the sharpest Sword Qi to cut the stone while my divine sense peered past the surface to guide the cuts within.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Little Spring peered at me like he thought I was crazy again. I sent him a smirk then blew on the stone. The surface, which had turned to dust under my ministrations, blew apart revealing the phoenix pendant I created.
His eyes grew wide and he practically jumped from his shock.
I placed a strand of my Will within the pendant, so I would know if it broke and walked out of my room. It was early morning, and the whole family had gathered for the morning meal. Some of my aunts looked shell shocked, and my uncles and cousins peered at me with suspicion.
I found my parents and bowed. They shared a look. Ah, they were really good parents. Not too strict or too lenient, and they really loved their children more than they loved themselves. For this reason, and because I had been a shitty daughter who hadn't visited them once since I entered the sect in my past life, I decided to give them something, so, if the family was ever in dire straits, they could contact me by breaking the pendant, and I would help them if I could.
I explained that to them and let them know that my master wanted us to leave for the sect early so that we wouldn't cause the mortals here any trouble.
At first, they refused to let us go saying that we were too young, but I lied and told her that immortals would meet us partway there and we had the great immortal's protection.
They asked me if I needed any money, and I could tell by the look on my other lovely family member's faces that they would get up in arms if I took anything, so I denied needing it. I had the loot from Immortal Flower Thief anyway.
And with that, we left the village. By foot. The last thing I wanted to do was freak people out after their scare the other day.
When I finally took out the flying sword and a spirit stone to power it, I ordered Little Spring to hide in his space and work on his reading and writing. The little idiot refused, believing that the two of us together would be safer. Which, of course, meant that, while I calmly flew the sword towards the nearest cultivator city I could remember, he clung to my back like a scared-ass koala. A quarter of the way there, while we still had light, I decided to stop and make camp... inside the space. Also, because I saw a good tree. Well, good for this low spiritual density area.
I landed and Little Spring left Ghosty McGhostface with me and rushed off to go use a sapling somewhere. Meanwhile, I stared at the beautiful massive tree. Ah, a Verdant King Birch. Perfect for creating low-level formation array flags.
As I used my divine sense to measure a million perfectly sized flagsticks, I took out the jade hairpin and turned it into a sword.
Hehehehe. This was going to be the most fun I've had in weeks!
If one cut can be two, then it can also be ten. And if one cut can be ten, then it can also be thousands.
I raised the borrowed sword above my head. "Thousand cuts!"
The tree shook but didn't fall. Ghosty McGhostface, hiding in his soul gem laughed.
"Hey, I'm not done yet."
I slashed from right to left, moved around the tree, and, once again, made two slices that looked redundant. Then I repeated the process a few more times. Finally satisfied, I nodded. The tree seemed to still be intact.
"You ready for it?"
"For what?"
"This!" I grabbed my million sticks with my spiritual energy and increased the pressure from my divine sense to sever the last few parts that held everything together. As the tree came down around me, I used the last bit of energy I had to make a shield above my head to protect my body from the worst of the tree detritus. My nose started bleeding and I paled, but I managed to pile all of the flagsticks up neatly.
I grinned. "Pretty badass for a Qi Condensation practitioner at the third layer right?"
"Are you trying to kill yourself faster?"
I took out a handkerchief and wiped the blood from the top of my lip. "I know what my body can handle. I may be pushing it, but this is necessary."
I sighed and peered at my dirty clothes. Even though I'd protected my head and body from damage, it didn't prevent the tree gunk and sawdust from floating everywhere and getting into inconvenient places.
I'd need to take another dip in Little Spring's lake. Fortunately, spiritual spring water was self-cleaning and took out stains like a champion detergent, or else I'd be upset. Ah, when could I use the cleaning spell again? 5th layer? Yeah. The 5th layer was pushing it, but it could happen. Thinking about all those days I could have been soaking in hyper-cleaning water instead of suffering like a mortal, I raised my fist to the sky and shook it.
"Ah, Fairy Lin?" Little Spring, who had just arrived asked. He looked like he was slowly approaching a crazy person. "What did the tree do that made you so angry?"
I froze. Let's see. Demolished tree? Check. Angry expression? Check. Shaking a fist at a demolished tree like it had offended me? Double-check.
I coughed. Whatever. Let's pretend this didn't happen.
Story 2 - Golden Fingers, Jade Boxes, and Other Treasures (Part 4)
"Put those inside your space." I pointed to my beautiful sticks then grabbed a few hundred for myself. Once I purchased the right silk and paint I would prepare proper flags.
Since we made such a large disturbance earlier, I decided to be safe and moved our camp a few miles south before settling down inside the space.
We had a nice dinner of Grain Liberation Pills. Little Spring was not happy but I didn't know how to cook, so whatever. Also, eating mortal food would just undo the work the Spiritual Spring Water did, in purifying our body. Of course, when I mentioned that he glared harder and may have pointed to the very obvious large lake filled with spiritual spring water that was free for us to use. I didn't acknowledge its existence.
And why waste time eating when there were plans to make and Little Spring's cultivation method to develop? Preferably in a direction that wasn't just a mirrored version of my own.
Since dinner, lunch, and breakfast for the next few days had been easily taken care of, it was time for bed. Our young and mostly mortal bodies still suffered from exhaustion and we hadn't actually set up a sleeping area yet.
We entered the small building and trudged through the previous unexplored back door. There, we found several bedrooms (all thanks to folded space), as well as a Forging room, an Alchemy room, and an Herb Drying room. There may have been more but these were the rooms I cared about so I didn't bother looking through the rest.
Seriously, this little main character had the best gold finger ever.
The kid thought we should continue to share a room. I complied. I mean, he was still grieving his mother, and he was only a little seven or eight-year-old. I wasn't a total asshole. And it was also less work since we would have to clean the rooms up enough first before we could stay in them. While they appeared clean, I didn't trust sleeping quarters that hadn't had people in them for hundreds of years.
I also didn't trust Ghosty McGhostface, even with the enchantment I placed on him. I set up a simple formation around the room and began my nightly routine of slowly cultivating (while not destroying the space itself) and then passing out on the bed we stole from my house.
***
It took us three more days of difficult travel before we reached the outskirts of Jade Lake City. I would have gone closer, but, when I saw it from above, I froze. My lips twitched. I kind of wanted to cry.
Back in the future, this city was a huge metropolis where cultivators would come to buy or sell items. It had a fair amount of tourism because of the closeness of the beautiful snow-covered mountains, the pretty verdant lake filled with delicious spirit-fish, and a lantern festival that all the lady cultivators interested in romance cooed about.
But this point in time was at least 100 years before it had turned into that sprawling mass. Right now, it was barely a tiny city, closer to a large town, not even a tenth the size it would become.
Right. I would need to buy a map. Relying on my memory of 1000 years ago was a bad idea.
A mile out from the future city, I dropped us to the road where we started the last trek of our journey.
We stopped in our tracks a few streets in, as two cultivators started fighting in the middle of the road. I had no clue what they were arguing about but I pulled Little Spring back to a place where we'd be safe and could still watch. This would be an excellent learning opportunity for him.
One fighter, who looked around 25, had broad shoulders and thick arm muscles as if he were a body cultivator even though he wasn't one. He wore slightly shabby dark blue robes.
The other fighter appeared to be 14 or 15. His well-kept seafoam green robes, fit his small build perfectly.
Both cultivators were at the 6th layer of Qi Condensation.
Blue and Seafoam exchanged blows from the handful of the lame-ass techniques they'd picked up from somewhere. I sighed.
"Okay, Little Spring, you see these guys?"
He nodded.
"They're both really awful."
He tilted his head in confusion.
"You see how that guy in blue is putting all his physical strength into each punch infused with spiritual energy?" As I pointed, the 25-year-old bodybuilder punched forward sending a blast towards Seafoam. He'd put so much physical strength into his punch that he moved forward an inch. "He's a fucking dumbass."
The blue guy tripped and fell face-first into Seafoam's spiritual palm attack. He flew backward several yards but managed to steady himself. Then he coughed up a mouthful of blood. Since the original novel had been a typical Xianxia, one mouthful was considered minor internal damage. And frankly, it was the grossest way to determine damage.
"If the guy really wanted to hurt little Seafoam over there, instead of focusing on increasing his physical strength, he should be focusing on the momentum of the Qi in his body. The faster it goes internally, the stronger his attack will be. All this fucking around with bodybuilding is fine if he plans to become a body cultivator, but doing it now, while he's obviously not practicing a body cultivation art is a pointless waste of time that could be spent increasing his realm."
Blue's cheeks turned bright red. Seafoam smirked and sent another spiritual palm at his opponent. Blue counteracted the palm with his fist, still making the same dumbass mistake.
"And this Seafoam wearing fucker." Seafoam's smirk froze. "He's even worse than Blue. Blue's technique is at least a decent technique with very few flaws for something at their realm. Well, it would be if he wasn't shit at practicing it. Seafoam's, on the other hand, is a palm attack. Which is fine if you're going non-lethal or feel like wasting Qi to bludgeon your opponent to death."
Seafoam sent someone near me a glare and received a spiritual fist to his face for his mistake. He then spat out a tooth and a half-mouthful of blood. Yeah, when I first arrived in this world, it took me a while to figure out how much blood constituted what, but I did it eventually.
"Eh, hitting his face is fine, but if I were Blue, I'd be trying to hit him on his weak points as he's casting that flaw filled palm of his."
"Techniques like this have weak points?" Little Spring asked.
"Absolutely! Pretty much all low-level techniques like these do. For example, Blue's weak point…" Blue paled for some reason; maybe it was because of Seafoam's fierce-looking grin. "Is on his waist, which is why you see him so carefully guarding it, while he's performing the technique. If Seafoam wanted to do some major damage to him, he could easily do so by sending a strong strike right there."
Seafoam ran through several simple hand seals and sent a powerful spiritual finger attack at Blue. This was definitely a better technique than his palm, but it used too much spiritual energy. He'd aimed it at the weak point that he'd finally noticed. It was good that he had since the dumb fucker was about to run dry. Blue also formed several hand seals and blocked the huge spiritual finger from crashing down onto him by building three spiritual barriers. Which was a foolish thing to do as it also used up too much energy. By the time the attack fizzled out, Blue was also running low.
"Well, it looks like the fight is almost over in a tie. But I think Blue could win if he manages to strike him on either his Touwei, Jimen or Shaochong acupoints. That palm attack is a really bad technique."
"Wait, what are those?"
Right, I hadn't taught him about anatomy and acupuncture points yet, so I super oversimplified it. "His head, thigh, or tip of his little finger. But, now that I think about it, he seems to be protecting his right armpit a little. It might be that that's one of his cultivation techniques hidden weaknesses. So if…"
Seafoam sent another glare in our direction and bolted while Blue, looking exhausted, sighed in relief.
Wait a second. Seafoam was definitely glaring at me this time. Had... Had I spoken too loud and been overheard?
Damn it! I fucking miss this world's version of telepathy. This wouldn't have happened if I had it, but it was a higher leveled technique. Wait, wasn't there a simple sound transmission technique I could have used? Shit. Well, it wasn't like I could remember all of the crappy low-level skills that became obsolete at higher levels.
Since the fight was over and I didn't want to get into trouble for interfering in a duel, I grabbed Little Spring's hand and ran in the opposite direction of Seafoam.
During our sprint, I discovered a traveler's store and entered it. No one seemed to follow us, which was good since I really wanted to keep a low profile, and beating two 6th layer Qi Condensation cultivators as a 3rd Layer was just, way too eye-catching.
Since we were in the traveler's store, we picked up some supplies for our journey, including a semi-detailed map of the continent with some of the few spirit stones I had left. Before we left, I asked for directions to the formation store since this city was too small to have a full guild.
The Formation store was in a small yet elegant building. As soon as we stepped through the door, I could feel the environmental control formation cooling down the room to a comfortable temperature. It was a simple level 1 formation, but it had been set up to near perfection.
A female employee stood off to the side. She took one look at us and sighed loudly.
I stepped up to her and smiled. "I'd like to see your supply supervisor."
She glared at me. "And why is that, little girl?"
Little girl? Was she seriously disrespecting me right now?
I put my hands on my hips. "Because I am selling high-quality formation flagsticks and he'll regret it if he doesn't buy me out."
She sneered and heaved her large bosom that was very much a staple for this world. Our dear oversimplistic fuck-brained author must have described the women in this weird-ass world as being, "jade beauties possessing twin peaks with no equal." And he did that for all of them. Every. Single. Fucking. One. As if the concept of back pain didn't exist.
"You'll have to come back another time, " she said, flipping a strand of wavy hair over her shoulder. "Our Formation Supply Appraiser is out at the moment."
Well, since we were here, it would be nice to go get something to eat so that Little Spring could stop bugging me... wait a second. I narrowed my eyes at her. "And when will he be back?"
"I don't know. Come back another day."
"No. I think I'd like to see him now."
After rolling her eyes, she said, "Throw these kids out."
A man at the peak of Foundation Establishment walked over. Shit! I didn't realize there were such high leveled practitioners here aside from the leader of the city. Someone of this level could definitely kill my poor little self, even with all of my past life's knowledge.
Little Spring stepped in front of me and bowed while showing a pained smile.
"Please forgive my older sister, she's... well. You can guess." He pulled out a handful of my sticks and held them up to her. "My formation master gave us these to sell for him since he's far too busy to come here himself. He's a very-very powerful practitioner and if we don't sell them and get back to him in a couple of hours he'll come here asking questions."
The employee sighed with heavy-handed exasperation. "Why didn't you just lead with that?"
He bowed again. "I'm sorry."
"Follow me. Our appraiser will be back shortly."
She brought us into a back room and left us. As soon as she turned the corner, I hugged Little Spring and patted his hair. "Good job."
He blushed, and I let him go.
It looked like he was learning from me and using his brain. Especially since I totally would have thought to bring in a fictional master if he hadn't gotten there first.