I snacked on the dragon skewer for the next hour after we left, and every time I sent the qi into my soul sea and true meridians rather than allow it to grow all of my cultivation seeds. I was already pushing the line for transitioning into level three, and couldn’t risk an effortless breakthrough, like happened sometimes with people that refined their body or mind too much.
Shortly after qi was discovered and qi enhanced sports drinks became a thing, many professional and Olympic athletes started using it, as it helped out greatly during training, allowing them to recover more quickly and boosting their performance in a 100% legal way. Some of the athletes, however, started reporting that they felt like they were on the verge of becoming superhuman. Around the same time China, with the help of the Monk and several other Daoists, Buddhists, psychologists, Doctors, and Traditional medicine practitioners developed the first true cultivation technique. It was found that the same breakthroughs that the monks and doctors were reporting were sometimes occurring in athletes simply because they pushed themselves hard enough that their body automatically refined itself into the next step.
Because I was reaching that point, I was trying not to push my refinement too hard. The others, however, didn’t seem to care, as many level one cultivators, including the two slackers I met in High River, broke through to level two automatically after consuming the dragon meat. While it hadn’t happened to any of the level two cultivators, I could tell that Chu was already at the upper limit of level two and was almost a half step level three like myself. One or two more dragon skewers might push him over the edge, but we would likely be back at the sect before that happened. Of course, the monks didn’t eat any of the meat, being vegetarians if not vegans or fruitarians, but I offered them all satiation pills in case they were hungry.
We eventually reached the center of the realm, with only a few minutes to spare. Many of us had to use movement techniques to speed up, and all of us ran for as long as our refined stamina would allow us to. I used my fake sword flight and Xiao to scout ahead as we traveled, and helped guarantee that no one got lost or fell behind. Three times I had to rescue someone that got too far behind, one monk and two of our disciples, but we managed to make it in time.
We found an empty area near where the qi was gathering and space was starting to distort. From the density of the qi so far, at peak level five levels and still climbing, I could tell that the portal was being created using a level six technique, but for whatever reason the qi at the gathering location was neither crystallizing into a core nor becoming lightning as you would normally expect. I had read a paper that speculated that the portals Nascent souls could create were creating wormholes by sending qi into hyperspace, moving it in a fourth or fifth spacial dimension so that it didn’t compact at that point. The actual portal technique was classified, however, so I couldn’t be sure. That would explain the anomalous behavior of the portal, however.
With less than thirty minutes until the portal opened we decided to have one last meal, offering the other sects some of our food. Thankfully the Chef’s path had techniques for rapidly cooking massive amounts of food, because it only took Shingua fifteen minutes to make a massive pot of stew capable of feeding around two hundred people. I was pretty sure this technique was a mixture of pressure cooking and alchemical refinement, but didn’t know that much about the subject. I would have to look into it in the future. This time she chose to use the Flood Dragon meat, as it was the largest and highest level creature, so I had to feed the snake lion meat instead, though Xiao and the lion cub could still eat it, sharing a small bowl due to the lion not being able to eat solid food very well and Xiao being willing to pick out the larger pieces.
For this he enlarged himself to the size of an eagle. I didn’t know that spirit beasts could grow or shrink themselves, but learned later that all legendary beasts and some non-legendary ones could do it, and that this ability was the source of the shrinking technique humans used. The fact that he could do so when only at peak level one was a bit of a surprise, but I considered it further evidence that Xiao must have legendary blood.
The last of the disciples returned from scavenging what spirit herbs were nearby just as the last of the other sect’s disciples were getting their soup. There had been many level two herbs nearby and someone had even found a level three blue ganoderma in the edge of the woods nearby, a key ingredient in level three pills for refining the immune system.
As we ate I noticed that the three largest sects, the Eternal Flame Sect, the Azure Cloud Sect, and the Chartreuse Peacock sect all looked upset about something, and grew more annoyed the more they ate the soup. They didn’t speak, however, most likely using telepathy to voice their complaints, but from their body language I could tell that they were about to cause trouble for someone.
My three pets went to sleep, so I placed them in my beast pouch. I didn’t want to risk forgetting them in the rush to leave. About one minute before the gate formed, however, the Eternal Flame leader threw his bowl to the side and started angrily walking towards my group. His allies and disciples also stood and approached us, so I jumped up and intercepted him. “If there’s something wrong with the soup we can give you the ingredients so that you can have someone prepare it for you again.” I said.
“It’s not about the damned soup.” he said angrily. “It’s about those demons you work for.” He pointed past me to Chu Van. “You are in league with those demons from the other realm, Earth!” he accused, and Chu looked surprised at the allegation.
“We have nothing at all to do with them!” he argued. “Don’t try to drag us into your war!”
Mishana stood up and leapt ten meters to land beside me. “I have traveled with them for more than half a day, and during that time I have seen nothing which I would consider evil. In fact, they were willing to risk their lives to aid us against the very flood dragon whose flesh you just consumed.” The monks hadn’t eaten any of the soup, as it contained meat, but Shingua had offered to cook them something else once we left the hidden realm.
The disciples of his own and allied sects murmured about how surprising it was that we fed them a flood dragon and commented on the quality of the meal, but the leader scoffed. “Their bravery and loyalty isn’t in question here, bald donkey, nor is their charity. They have used evil techniques to cultivate, and must be stopped.”
“Do you have any evidence of this, or merely accusations?” asked Mishana, ignoring the minor insult.
“Evidence?” scoffed the Eternal Flame Leader. “What more evidence do you need? Only two of the thirty one members of their group have spirit roots, and one of those is an independent!” He flared his qi to prove it, and everyone instinctively protected themselves. Of the White Tiger group, though, only myself and Chu Van reacted instantly. The others were slightly disoriented and had to concentrate on defense. Once they did so it was obvious that the fact that they couldn’t react instantly was because they lacked a spirit root, and therefore the automatic reflex to protect themselves, only a few of them even having a conditioned reflex to do so.
Shingua shook her head to clear the disorientation of the sudden attack, then stepped forward. I could tell she was struggling to ward off his qi, partially because she was only at peak level one and rootless, and partially because he was initial level three with a heavenly fire root. The difference between them was just too vast for her to resist even this. “Our method of cultivation doesn’t require a spirit root.” she managed to say with a bit of effort. The Eternal Flame leader was about to say something when she continued. “That is because we use the roots and talents of spirit beasts to cultivate. Some of a beast’s talent and much of its qi remains in its meat when it dies. It is also in the milk and eggs of some types of spirit beasts. Normally, cooking those ingredients destroys the talent and releases much of the qi, but the Chef’s Path has techniques for cooking those things while preserving most of those talents and qi, or even enhancing them using spirit herbs for seasoning. Like the soup you just ate. The mortals and level ones in our sect eat those things in order to gain the beast’s power, which lets them advance.”
“There.” said a man with in a yellow robe with two sabers hanging on his waist, one on each side. I recognized him as the Golden Saber sect leader, though I didn’t know his name. “They have a reasonable explanation against your poor evidence.” He seemed to not be struggling against the suppression, likely because of the average metal root I sensed in him.
“You need more evidence? How about the fact that their sect was founded mere days after we laid siege to their city? Clearly they were cut off from their allies and needed to lay low. They might have even been cut off from going home! After all, their elders all have backwards names!”
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“If you had bothered learning about the world,” said the Golden Saber leader, “You would know that in some parts of the world, including the regions near the Grand Fire Hall, which the Eternal Flame Sect is an ancient branch of, the locals put family name second. They may be from that region, or one with similar naming customs. That being identical to the custom within the other realm proves nothing.” As he finished speaking the portal started to open, and most of the people looked at it, wondering about going through.
“My word is proof enough!” said the Eternal Flame Elder. “I Blue Phoenix, of the Eternal Flame Sect, hereby accuse the White Tiger Sect of colluding with our enemy. Answer the charges at once or be destroyed!”
The others started to mutter about the fact that he had a Dao name, and what that could mean. I, however realized that it sounded familiar, and knew exactly why he had one. “Blue Phoenix, as in the Eternal Flame sect high elder?” I asked, and his demeanor suddenly changed, standing up straight and exuding dignity. He also lifted the suppression on the others, as it would look bad for an elder to bully juniors.
“So, you’ve heard of me? I am surprised that an independent cultivator is so knowledgeable.”
“I heard rumors that you went through the portal to Earth, but fought two of their level five warriors.”
He nodded. “Three, though two were Buddhist monks.” The portal finished opening as he said this. From the rate at which it was using qi, I knew we would only have around five minutes to exit now that it was fully formed.
“I also heard that they tortured you and drove you insane.”
Blue Phoenix stopped all movement for a few seconds, like he was in shock. “They didn’t break me.” he said.
“No, of course not.” I said, “It was merely a temporary affliction at best. You’ve clearly recovered.”
“Don’t mock me!” he yelled. “I told you, they didn’t break me!”
“I agree.” I said, but he ran at me, faster than even the lions from yesterday could dash, and grabbed my throat to cut off my speech.
“STOP MOCKING ME!” He screamed, slamming me into the ground with all of the force he could. My level two body, even as refined as it was, was unable to withstand the full force of a level three melee attack and several bones broke as I gained a considerable amount of internal bleeding. “I told you, THEY DIDN’T BREAK ME!” he screamed, losing most of what self restraint he had left due to his anger at the perceived mocking. Seeing that I was seriously injured, he released me and turned his attention to the others. “Now, demons, now that your protector is gone, do any of you wish to beg for mercy? I am a benevolent elder. Confess your crimes and I shall be lenient on you.”
I forced myself to stand up, doing my best to ignore the pain while holding my bones together with raw qi via telekinesis. I motioned and the five flags on my body flew around the others, then the seal plate flew into Chu’s hand. The Fire and Metal tokens were still in it, so it couldn’t borrow my roots, but the other three roots should be enough to protect them. Chu realized what I meant by doing this, and activated the plate, protecting our entire group in a middle level four barrier. The plate had managed to fully restore itself since the flood dragon attack. “I can’t let you harm them.” I said. “It’s my job to protect them as long as we are in the hidden realm, and I’m going to do so.”
Blue Phoenix smirked. “Very well, if you want to make this hard on yourself, then I can just bypass the barrier. Do you think that a mere level four barrier can stop someone in the fifth level?” That’s when I realized the flaw in my plan. He wasn’t a level three elder that snuck in here with his disciples by suppressing his cultivation, he was a level five elder that took a new body to cheat death, but only managed to get it to level three so far. That meant that, while his body was only level three and therefore most of his qi abilities were limited to level three levels of power, he still had access to abilities like Portal that could bypass the barrier. He waved his hands and a portal slowly started to open, likely because of the severely lessened amount of qi his new body could channel at once.
The sky overhead started to darken as he did this, and I knew that the world was responding to prevent him from cheating. A few seconds later, a bolt of tribulation lightning lanced out of the sky, slamming him into the ground. Without concentration, his portal quickly collapsed and he was left smoking on the ground. A few seconds later he stood up, the top of his head and left shoulder charred from the impact. “Fine, then, I’ll do this the hard way. Everyone, focus all of your attacks on that barrier. Your combined attacks should weaken it enough to break it, and when you do, slaughter everyone inside of it, pets and all.”
Mishana and the Golden Saber leader both stepped forward. “This humble one cannot allow you to kill those that have done no evil. I urge you to rethink your actions, lest in your anger you commit an evil act against innocent people.”
“I concur,” said the Golden Saber. “There is no justice in wanton slaughter unless it can be shown that everyone killed is guilty of heinous crimes which warrant the death penalty. So far you haven’t proven even a single crime, much less that they are all guilty of capital crimes.”
Blue Phoenix looked at them with sheer rage covering his face. “You dare to stand against me?” he asked, and the others nodded. “Very well. Eternal Flame, Azure Cloud, Chartreuse Peacock, hear this! The monks and swordsmen have decided to side with our enemies. As such, they are also our enemies. Attack without mercy!”
With that command the three sects in question started throwing attacks at our side, fire balls, beams and slashes lashed out at us, mostly at the barrier. Multiple illusions appeared, drawing the attention of the swordsmen, who couldn’t tell if they were fighting an overwhelming army of real enemies or fakes. While our side also returned attacks at the others, mostly slashes of sword qi, the monks were hit with dozens of poison attacks, and were forced to put up Golden Bell barriers as well as use detoxification techniques for the gas that got through before the barriers went up.
With the barrier protecting the White Tigers, the poison gas and fire attacks weren’t able to reach them, but many of the trapped disciples wished to leave and help their allies. Some of them asked Chu to let them join the battle, and in response he altered the barrier to allow talismans and qi to leave it. This allowed the disciples to return the attacks against the barrier at those attacking it.
The independent cultivators, not having taken sides in this conflict, mostly ran for the portal. A few stayed behind briefly in hopes of looting a fallen warrior, but with all of the attacks flying on the field, it only took them a minute to realize that fishing in troubled waters only worked if you left with a catch at the end of the day, and didn’t end up sleeping with the fishes.
I knew I needed to think of a solution quickly. I swallowed a handful of healing pills, knowing that I would likely get malnutrition from just the injuries so far, and pulled out a stack of talismans. If tribulation lightning could injure him that much, maybe it could do even more. I focused on him while holding eight talismans between my fingers, four in each hand, and sent qi into them. A bolt almost as strong as the last one hit him, once again knocking him off his feet, but this time when he got up he didn’t seem seriously injured. “You can control tribulation lightning?” He asked, then smiled. “Impressive. I would love to learn exactly how you learned to do that. Would you like to tell me, or…?”
This time I pulled out a stack of twenty such talismans, almost half of what I had left. When I left here I would try to make at least a hundred of them to carry with me at all timrd. I activated them and a bolt about twice as big as the others fell on Blue Phoenix. This time he dodged slightly and it hit his forearm. His arm exploded, leaving only a stump in front of the elbow. “Not bad, kid.” he said, looking at the stump. “That is quite powerful lightning. So, you use talismans. I doubt you found them in a ruin or hidden realm, at the rate you are using them. Which means you must be able to make them, or know someone who can. Tell me, is it an actual technique, or did you just severely overcharge a chi gathering formation?”
I didn’t answer him. I obviously couldn’t tell a man that wanted to kill me about the Chasing Tribulation manual, especially in front of so many others.
“Very well.” he said, then held up his stump of an arm. “Do you want to know why I’m not reacting to my missing arm? It’s because those at level five don’t need to worry about physical damage.” Suddenly, dirt and plants started vaporizing near his feet and traveling like streams of qi to the end of his stump. There, they came together to regrew what was missing, first the bone, then the tendons, then the muscle, nerves and blood vessels, then the skin. The whole process only took thirty seconds, and I was reminded of how Blood Red Scorpion recovered after consuming that pill, the scene captured by a person with a high end zoom lense and later released to the internet, though that had been a bit faster and hadn’t required organic material from the environment.
While this was no doubt a level five spell, the storm clouds didn’t form this time, likely because its creator didn’t care if you used healing powers. I pulled out twenty more and hit him again to buy myself more time by forcing him to concentrate on healing. Knowing that any damage I inflicted could be repaired, I had to take a different approach. I pulled out all of the Call Tribulation talismans I had left, holding them in one hand and the bottle of satiation pills in the other.
“Surely you don’t think that you can defeat me with those, not after you saw me recover so easily?” Blue questioned, still healing from the second bolt, “Just face the truth already, you have lost. Surrender, and I shall let you live. It isn’t your fault you were unknowingly hired by demons. Even the swordsmen and the bald donkeys were fooled by them.” For a moment I thought that he might actually be serious. If I was any of the independent cultivators that had already fled I might have taken the offer, but I was someone from Earth, someone who swore to protect these innocent people. Someone whose cousin and friend would be killed if he was allowed to return to his sect and report on what happened here and his discovery of the White Tiger’s secret.
“These aren’t for you.” I said, then swallowed the rest of the bottle of satiation pills and focused on myself, feeding qi into the first talisman.
