I practiced placing effects on the paper, but it wasn’t until the thirteenth one that I succeeded. The symbol I drew was a simple gathering formation, and when I put a tiny bit of qi into it it started to exponentially drawing in increasing quantities of qi, and within three second the paper had burst into flame. I modified the formation to not feed qi into itself, fixing the cascade and essentially only allowing it to run when someone else was adding qi. I also put a cap on the qi it could gather, so it couldn’t go above late level one in density, and therefore shouldn’t ruin the paper. I may not be an expert in formations, but I knew the basics due to the similarity between techniques and formations as well as working with Liza on a few projects, techniques having a much more flexible structure but usually a less durable medium.
Once I verified that this idea worked, I added a light technique to it with the sun as a symbol. The first dozen talismans I did this with heated up and burnt, but eventually I realized I needed to remove all heat from the sun from the equation. Once I did that a bright white light came from the talisman any time that qi was added, and used so little of the user’s qi that even mortals could use it.
It was almost time for me to meet Mike, though, so I left my room. Five was in the hall cleaning, so I went over to her. “Hello.” I greeted her and she stopped cleaning in order to talk to me, bowing it greeting. “I have something I want you to test for me. You can keep it, but I’m leaving for a week and want to know how well it worked when I get back, okay?”
She nodded her head and I pulled out talisman number twenty six, my first success. “Wow! A real talisman!” she said, and I realized that for a level one cultivator like her just the paper it was made of was several day’s wages. She would probably need to work a week to buy this from a store if she were an independent cultivator, and several months at her current allowance as a slave.
I nodded. “So, I just need you to hold it and touch your qi to it.” I showed her how, and a bright light came out of the paper, blinding her and causing her to drop the paper.
“Sorry about dropping your qi lantern, master.” she said rubbing her eyes.
As my eyes recovered far more quickly, I picked the paper up and, once she was no longer seeing spots, handed it back to her. “It’s yours now, not mine. I designed this talisman to not need much qi, so you don’t need to put that much in it. In fact, it might use so little that One and Two can use it, as I taught them to focus qi as well.”
“Really? Even though they aren’t cultivators?” I nodded. “Wow, that’s nice. I’ve never heard of magic items that mortals can use.” That gave me an idea. While her not knowing about them didn’t mean that they didn’t exist, it likely meant that they were luxury goods at worst. That might mean that I could earn money through selling them. I wasn’t sure how I would distribute them, though, and I wasn’t going to discuss it with Five right now. Maybe I’d ask Mike for his opinion later. He seemed to know the luxury goods market better than I did, as he was essentially selling luxury pets.
I said goodbye and, after notifying the manor guards that I would be out of town for a week, in case anyone wanted to talk with me, I left for the North gate. I didn’t know if Xo, Cha, or one of the others might want to talk and didn’t want to seem like I was avoiding them.
When I arrived I saw Mike standing there with several disciples, chatting. “Oh, hey Ke…” he caught himself, “um, sorry, I don’t think I got your name.”
“Li Kev.” I said. “Late Level Two. Currently working as a guard for a business man in town.”
Mike nodded. “Ok, then, Mister Li. These are the sect disciples. I’m still missing a few, but most of them are here. Disciples, Mister Li here is an acquaintance of Elder Taylor, so make sure you treat him with respect.”
“Sir, yes sir.” they all said in unison, like they were answering a drill sergeant. I guess Mike’s military history had influenced his training regiment for them.
Mike motioned and a kid that couldn’t have been over eighteen came over. “Mr. Li, this is Ben Harlow. He’s Elder Taylor’s direct disciple.”
I nodded and bowed before shaking his hand, and he bowed in return. “It’s good to meet a friend’s disciple.” I said, and Ben agreed.
Just as we finished speaking, two other apprentices ran up to us, then stopped to pant heavily. “You two went to the pleasure district and wasted all of your money, didn’t you?” Asked Mike, and both of them looked ashamed, bowing their heads. Mike sighed. “Well you almost didn’t make it in time. If you were any later I was going to send Ben out to get you.” They nodded and apologized, then bowed again. Mike shook his head. “Please tell me you at least got something out of it and didn’t just waste your money. You two need to save money for cultivation resources, and instead you probably wasted all of your stones.”
“Well, technically duel cultivation was a training exercise, so I kind of spent my money correctly.” said the first guy.
Mike looked at the second. “I was, uh… making new friends?” he said unconvincingly.
Mike shook his head. “Meaning you lost it all at the dice table. Again.” The apprentice nodded in shame.
“Look, you two were some of the first that joined after the sect was formed, but you are the last two that are still at level one. The rest of the disciples from the first group are at least level two, and some are even middle level two. At this rate, these others from group two are going to get to choose a partner before you.” Mike was probably using a variation of the rapid cultivation method the USA uses with its troops to get them to level two. It seemed to be working a bit better here than it did on Earth, but maybe the local density of qi, the use of spirit food in their diets, or the pills they used were helping them train faster.
The two newcomers bowed and apologized once more, and Mike ordered everyone to start heading out. Mike floated off the ground, using either the flight or improved flight technique, but because I was supposed to be a local I pulled out my sword and jumped onto it. Several of the others saw the blade and seemed impressed by it. The only other person to not walk was Ben. He was in the initial third level, and motioned to a bag on his waist, causing a large green horse to come out of it. The horse appeared to have fine grass for hair, except in its mane and tail, which were thicker blades. I noticed that the sound of its hooves on the stone pavement sounded strange, and looked at its feet only to see that they were made of some type of hard wood instead of keratin, including having bark on the outside. “Interesting horse.” I said, floating beside the animal while keeping pace with it.
“She’s a grass horse.” he said. “not quite a pureblood, but the last mortal ancestor was probably four generations ago.” He petted her neck and she closed her eyes, moving her head to push into his hand, but staying on course. “Late Level Two, but I’m having her practice hiding her cultivation level right now. It’s useful when sneaking up on other spirit beasts, and I want to return with her to the mountain where I caught her before winter to find her a mate.” When he said that she seemed to understand and get excited at the idea. I realized that, if she was going to gain human level intelligence at level three, she probably had chimpanzee level intelligence right now, so she might actually understand his speech to some degree.
“Does that mean that in a year I can buy a colt?” I asked.
Ben shrugged. “Maybe. That mostly depends on how pure blooded the male is. There is a huge demand for strongbloods in the sect, and she has the purest blood of all of the horses, so if her mate has a strong enough bloodline all of the foals will be sold within the sect.”
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“And why does bloodline purity matter so much?” I asked. “It doesn’t with humans. Sure, most people with spirit roots have at least one parent with them, and some families have special physiques, but that’s all. Is it that different for spirit beasts?”
“Oh, definitely.” Ben said. “The purebloods sometimes have dozens of adaptations for their spirit root. Some are like the grass hair or wooden hooves Jane has, but some are things like enhanced speed or strength or durability, or even special techniques and spells. Their offspring with mortals lose many of those traits, with weakbloods getting none of the physical changes, just the spirit root and a few of the spells and techniques. That’s why we sell them to mortals, because to them even that much is impressive. For us, though, those will quickly be surpassed by their human companion, so they have little worth. Better to sell them to a mortal where they’ll be cherished than to keep them in the sect where they’ll be looked down on.”
I nodded. “I take it that ‘Jane’ is your horse’s name?”
Ben nodded. “Yeah. It’s because I caught her in a rain forest. When I get her a mate, I’ll call him Tarzan.” He then realized that, as far as he knew, I was a local who had no knowledge of that story. I stopped myself from laughing at the pun and therefore blowing my cover. “Oh, forget it. It’s a joke from my home town. Mike and Randy get it, and that’s good enough.”
I floated beside the horse for a few minutes, slowly growing bored by how slow this was. I was about to fly up and ask Mike if I could scout ahead, when Mike flew down and addressed the group. “Pack of Thunder Wolves up ahead. Looked to have about a dozen half bloods and two or three dozen weakbloods. Who wants to try and capture them?” Several hands went up, including Ben and the two that were getting scolded earlier. It was getting pretty dark out here, but it was likely that most or all of them knew the Heat Vision spell, and could see in the infrared, thus being able to work in the dark.
Mike selected a team of five which included Ben as the leader and I flew up to stand beside him as the five man team went forward to face the forty or so wolves. I joined Mike in the sky to watch them. When the humans were about one hundred meters from them the wolves noticed and started growling. The cultivators simply drew their weapons and kept walking. The wolves grew louder and more agitated, their growls sounding like rolling thunder, until the group got within fifty meters, at which point they ran at the humans, the halfbloods quickly taking the lead. The cultivators halted their steps and, when the beasts were about twenty meters from them, running across a patch of ivy, Ben released his wood qi. The vines responded by trying to grab the legs of six of the wolves. While one managed to dodge the vines and one managed to pull free before they were fully captured, four wolves had their legs entangled and were pulled to the ground, where the vines started to grow over them.
One of the cultivators held up his hand again, and an ice spear condensed in front of it. When they were about ten meters away he fired, and the wolf barely dodged in time, receiving a gash along its side.
Ben used the power again, this time only capturing two of them, and the other six halfblood thunder wolves clashed with the remaining four level one cultivators. The one that had fired an ice spear didn’t have the time to fire a second, and the one he had wounded had chosen to attack him, along with a second wolf. While the group of wolves had originally included three halfbloods at level two, Ben had specifically targeted them, and managed to capture two of them. While the remaining one pushed back a cultivator that was barely managing to hold on, Ben pulled a wooden club from his bag and ran at the wolf swinging. There was a cracking sound as the club impacted the wolf’s skull and the wolf flew backwards a few meters, collapsing onto the ground and quietly whimpering, blood leaking from its mouth and nose.
The others clashed with their own wolves, but with Ben being so far above them in level he was able to make quick work of them. The only fighter to get in a significant hit against the halfbloods was the water wielder, who jumped backwards to avoid the other two wolves until he landed in a rain puddle and motioned towards the puddle. The water flew at the faces of the two wolves and the uninjured one inhaled it, which caused it to start coughing to prevent drowning. The injured one shook its head and threw the water off, only to have what water was left on it freeze. While this didn’t injure it the sudden cold distracted it and made its nose more sensitive, so when the water mage punched it in the nose it started to whimper and back off.
That’s when the weakbloods arrived, swarming the cultivators. One of the Level twos that were caught in the vines roared in anger and several large bolts of lightning jumped from its body, causing the vines to explode. Rallied by this action, several of the weakbloods, presumably the ones that had inherited the ability, activated their own version, though the bolts were considerably smaller. Still, should they hit any of the cultivators they would be shocked, stunning and disorienting them similar to being shot with a taser.
The group charged at The cultivators and qi started flying. Three of them only knew how to use basic qi attacks like qi blasts, but Ben send large amounts of wooden debris flying at them and the water mage sent bolts of qi which acted as water, what resulted when you made water qi into a qi bolt. Several of the weaker wolves were hit and either stopped their attack for now or were injured, but the level two wolf only became annoyed.
When the level two neared them Ben jumped in front of him, swinging the club in a wide arc. The wolf dodged backwards and the club missed him, and he fired lightning at Ben in retaliation. Ben caught the bolt of lightning on his club, then swept his foot in front of himself, creating an arc with quickly formed a barrier above it. The wolf didn’t notice this fact, however, and tried to lunge at Ben again, only to hit the barrier. Ben motioned with his club and a dead branch flew from a tree, throwing the wolf into a tree. The wolf struggled to stand back up with several cracked ribs, which gave Ben the opportunity to uppercut it with his club, making it flip over backwards and whine loudly threw its broken jaw. Ben left it lying there and ran into the numerous level one weakbloods, pulling many of them away from the others. Within a minute the rest of the wolves had either been defeated of fled.
With battle over, Ben went over to check on the others. I landed beside a man whose arm was pouring blood from a bite wound and handed him a blood and a skin pill. He nodded in thanks and pulled out the surgical kit to stitch the wound closed. Once I was finished I started towards the wounded animals to do the same but Mike stopped me. “Treating their injuries is a great way to bond with the animals, so you should let the recruits do it unless they ask for help.”
I nodded and put the surgical kit away, then started looking for dead wolves. After all, the can’t be trained as pets once they were dead, and I could use their blood and skin to make talismans if nothing else. I collected four bodies, the most notable one being the one who had taken Ben’s full power club swing to the head and had died from severe brain trauma. I would pay them for the bodies if they wanted me to, so I would have to tell Ben about it.
The other cultivators came forward to treat the wolves and, after they had collected all of the survivors, Two level two halfbloods, nine level one halfbloods, and twenty one level one weakbloods, putting them in special bags, we left the scene. I asked Ben about the bags and he said that they were a special variation of spacial bag that allowed you to place living beings inside as long as they either agreed to it or you could overpower their will. That was one reason why they wanted to earn the wolves trust, because it was far easier to store willing creatures. Once inside the bag they would quickly lose consciousness, only to regain it when removed from the bag.
We continued towards the base, encountering two groups of spirit beasts, boars and ravens, and one group of Vrooshkin, with the other cultivators taking turns fighting them. Mike and I handled the Vrooshkin pack, as they were far too difficult and dangerous to train, making the recruits unwilling to fight them unless they had to. The group only had one level three members, which Mike quickly killed, so we didn’t have any trouble finishing the pack off, even going so far as to make sure that none escaped.
Mike wanted to just take the cores of all of them, as they were useful in many potions, but I told him about how I might be able to turn their skins, blood, and cores into talisman paper and we made a deal for him to receive half of the paper I made from them in exchange for the bodies and my work converting them. I told Ben about the spirit beasts and he mentioned that the bodies weren’t worth much, as the market at the base was flooded with level one spirit beast materials, with the hides being used in some clothing. While the bones might be useful, no human would eat the meat of a carnivorous creature, as they tended to have parasites and diseases which could effect cultivators, so the meat could only be fed to other carnivores. Vrooshkin meat, on the other hand, was worthless, as no one wanted to risk one of the spirit beasts catching their illness and becoming demonized. I paid Ben ten spirit stones for the bodies and he distributed one stone each to the others, keeping six for himself, as he did the most in battle including killing the level two beast.
