Around three hours before sunrise there was a knock on my door. I answered the door to find Ben standing there. “We’re about ready to leave.” he said. “Do you have all of your things ready?”
I nodded. “I need to put away my beasts, but that won’t take long.” I responded.
Ben nodded. “In that case, let’s go to meet the others.”
I nodded and turned off the array, then told all of my companions to come to me. They ended their meditations or sleep and opened their eyes, then started coming to me. The lion cub wasn’t particularly pleased at being woken up. She preferred sleeping through the night and cultivating during the day, but the array had provided her with too good of an opportunity to cultivate, with better qi densities than even her home realm, causing her to stay up late to try and take advantage of it. Not that her home realm had night and day, but her people usually laid out on the plane outside their cave and cultivated in the sunlight, and when they grew too exhausted to continue, they would return to the dark cave to sleep.
The others were fine with being woken up, however. Xiao was from a forest area, where it never got very bright and he would sleep any time one of his parents returned to the nest to cover him and his siblings so that they could have proper darkness. The snake had lived inside the roots of a large tree, where he could just move his head into a dark area any time he wanted to sleep. The puppy was the most used to the situation out of all of them, as he was born on Ilarya and lived his whole life with a proper night and day cycle.
After putting them in a beast bag so that they could go back to sleep, I checked that I had all of my belongings and followed Ben to the gathering area. As I walked I went over the things I wanted to accomplish while I was here. I met Randy and made sure he was okay. I did as the ambassador wanted and suggested the idea of them working as mercenaries, though Mike didn’t seem too interested in the idea. I also covered for the official reason for my visit by discussing getting livestock with Mike. The ambassador would need to talk to him about the last two, as I had done everything I could unless I wanted to buy a few animals myself. I had loaned them all of my jade slips and they had made copies of all of them, in case any of their people wanted to study them, though I wasn’t sure how good the copies were. That should cover everything I wanted to do here.
What about other goals that I had on this world? I had gathered a lot of jade slips with information. I hadn’t gotten many good techniques, but that would need to be done in High River or another city and not here. I had gotten everyone pets. Of course, that wasn’t everything as far as gifts went. I also had the occupational books, though I felt like those weren’t quite good enough, as they were only average quality for the most part and weren’t proper cultivation manuals. I had Human Slag and Chasing Tribulation for proper cultivation manuals, but none of the others would be a good fit for Human Slag and I wasn’t too certain about giving them a copy of Chasing Tribulation. I was less concerned about them having it than the people here, as the people of Earth wouldn’t really care that we had a cool new cultivation technique. Or, rather, it wouldn’t cause political or societal issues on Earth if it became widespread, as cultivation wasn’t the driving force of our society. What concerned me was that it was a fairly complex technique and I wasn’t sure if any of them would be willing to go through the trouble of developing True Meridians and a soul sea, much less start using cultivation seeds.
Here, however, leaders were always cultivators, and even nobles were usually cultivators, with those that weren’t having family that were. Here, might made right and the only thing keeping society from collapsing was the fact that the truly powerful cultivators, the level sevens and the one level eight cultivator, didn’t get involved in other’s affairs, preferring to stay in permanent closed door cultivation while drawing on all of the resources the sects they founded could feed them. There were, however, enough level five and six cultivators that were willing to force you to do things their way that everyone had to obey.
Thinking about how cultivation level controlled your place in society on this world reminded me of Ji Cha. He was a nice person, and a skilled business man. Earth would probably benefit greatly from dealing with him, as he could get us the techniques we needed. The only issue was that, due to his limited cultivation which was stuck at the peak of level one, his place in society was severely limited. To have any real influence on his family affairs or in the city he would need to reach level three, though to control the branch family he would need to be level four, as the current head of the branch was one of two level four cultivators in that branch, the other one being on the city council.
High River was a city-state governed by a group of level four cultivators, with a single level five Lord sitting at the top. He, however, preferred to spend his time furthering his cultivation, allowing the council to run the city and only interfering when the resource supply was interrupted or their was a serious problem. The last time that had happened was over one hundred years ago when the Eastern Gate sect had provoked them into a war resulting in the sect losing their last level five cultivator, the city Lord completely destroying the elder’s soul for his transgression. Since then no one had bothered them outside of a few minor bandit groups and demonic sects, even then only attacking the people in their territory such as the villages under their control, and not attacking the city directly. These were all things that the head of the city’s military and the city guards could deal with.
With the importance of cultivation rank in society, I would have only one option if I wanted Ji Cha to be as useful as he could be to both me and Earth. I would need to help him advance. There was an issue with that, however, in that if it was something that was easy to do, he would have already done it himself. I would need to think outside of the box which most cultivators were stuck in. That was essentially what the White Tiger sect had done, and they had found three ways for no-root people to cultivate, and had used it to build a sect.
The first method, the Chef’s path, probably wouldn’t work. While the Ji family were teaching their kitchen staff the technique, they simply couldn’t get enough high quality spirit beast meat to make it viable. He had likely been eating that food for his entire life, and it hadn’t helped him advance. Maybe, if I could arrange for Mike to bring him some meat once per week and he could make sure that it was prepared properly, he could break the bottleneck, but I wasn’t sure about that. He would likely need something stronger, or at least different. Still, I would see if I could bring a tael of flood dragon meat back with me so that he could try it. With as strong of an effect as it had on the disciples, with many level ones breaking through because of it, it is possible that it could let him break through to level two as well. That wouldn’t be a long term solution, but it would allow him to continue his cultivation.
The second method likely also wouldn’t work, but because he was getting too old. The Manual Laborer’s path was an almost pure body cultivation path. It required that one push their body to the absolute limit in order to better refine the body’s systems. The problem with that was that his current limits were probably far below where they had been when he reached the limit of his cultivation. If he had followed the path then, he likely could have forced a breakthrough through sheer willpower and determination, but as he was now, it is more likely that he would reach his body’s limits in a way that wasn’t related to his refinement. While I had thought of him as being in his seventies before, now that I thought about it he actually looked to be in his seventies. Which meant that he was likely around one hundred and forty or one hundred and fifty years old. His cultivation had likely hit a bottleneck around one hundred years ago, and he hadn’t been able to power through it yet. That means that it was a very stubborn bottleneck.
That just left the Beast Tamer’s path, the one that I saw as containing the most ‘outside the box’ thinking. Rather than try to find a way for him to reach that level with his current spirit root, we let another creature surpass him, and then, through their bond, help him past the bottleneck. I just had to find an appropriate pet.
The man spent most of his time indoors, on top of being old, so a pet that was too difficult to take care of wouldn’t really work. Furthermore, it should probably be cheap to keep. The bond also grew faster if one shared a spirit root with the beast, so if I could find one with a gold root that would be best.
“Hey, Ben.” I said when we arrived. “Do you know of any spirit beasts that are cheap and easy to raise and have a gold root?” He gave me a confused look. “Oh, I know someone who has a gold root and got stuck in his training, so I was thinking that he could maybe use a spirit beast companion to break through. I thought of the Chef and Manual Laborer methods, but the Chef path isn’t really viable without a stable supply of high quality spirit beast meat and the manual laborer one wouldn’t really work for him.”
He nodded and thought for a few seconds, then smiled and nodded. “Actually, I know someone who can help you.” He said, and walked off to find the person. A minute later he returned followed by Shingua. She had a lion walking beside her, but it looked half asleep.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Ben told me that you might want to buy one of the beasts I collected from the hidden realm.” she said, and I nodded. “In that case, here.” She held her finger near her beast bag and something appeared on it. She then lifted her finger to reveal a tiny insect the length of the end joint of my index finger. “This is a Treasure Caterpillar. I caught several hundred of them in the hidden realm using the Swarm Control technique and swarm contract. Primarily, I plan on using them as a food source for spirit fish and birds, however I prefer them to other spirit insects because when they reach level two, they metamorph into a Treasure Butterfly.”
“That kind of fits my request.” I responded, a bit confused. “Sure, they are low maintenance, and eat very little, but do they have a gold root?” If they did, then it might make sense to get one.
“Well, some of them do. They are born with either a gold, silver, or gem root, and when they are born will seek out that material, so that they can eat it and reinforce their body. They are called Treasure Caterpillars because they can sense that material from several li away, and will crawl towards it until they reach it, even though it takes days. This means that if you see one in the wild and follow it you will be lead to that material. Sometimes mortals will even breed them and let the eggs hatch in the wild so that the caterpillars can be followed to valuable deposits. I found these guys in four different places in the hidden realm, so they must be a common insect there.”
“Where exactly did you find them?” I asked. I wanted to make sure that they were actually capable of what she said they were.
“Two groups were found in the black sands on the banks of creeks we crossed over. One group was in the rat cave, and one group was on a large rock that had small rubies in it.”
“That makes sense, then. Tiny amounts of gold is sometimes found in black sand, the rat cave had iron and copper ore, so it might have silver ore too. I have heard of silver and iron being found in the same vein.” Both acanthite and argentite, the most common silver ores, are silver sulfate, and occurred near iron deposits, like iron pyrite, which is a sulfide. “Of course the rubies were the gem type. I’m guessing they are sometimes found on emeralds, topaz, beryl, and even jade deposits as well.”
Shingua looked surprised at my guess. “Yes, they are. As well as a few others. Not many people knew that. Though they don’t really like jade, they can eat poor quality jade if they have to.” I couldn’t explain to her how I knew it, but all of those types of gems had significant amounts of aluminum in their chemical makeup, meaning that the ‘gem root’ was likely an aluminum root. These could prove quite useful.
“So, how much do you want for them?” I had seen the swarm contract technique in the beast tamer guide, but hadn’t bothered learning it. If she was willing to sell them, though, I would be willing to learn it.
“A stone each.” she said, then immediately went on defense. “Now, I know that seems like a lot for such a weak spirit beast. They can only help boost your healing rate and make you a bit more flexible, so they aren’t popular, but if you can get your connection to the swarm to a high enough level you can sense valuable materials, and might even get special roots. Plus, when they turn into butterflies, they sometimes gain the ability to sense iron or copper, which makes them even better.”
I nodded. While they sounded like the perfect spirit pet for Ji Cha, I also wanted to take some back with me to Earth. While they would make an interesting creature for the people of Earth to study, and likely bred fast enough that they could meet any demand, they might even be introduced into nature within a few years. This would kickstart the spread of spirit animals there by providing spirit animals as a food source to many creatures, though I likely couldn’t make a huge profit from them the way I could with something like silk worms. “That description makes me think that they could be valuable, but the price still sounds like it is a bit much. I need to use a large number of them to get the power, correct? Plus, I doubt they live that long. How old can they get? Six months?”
Shingua, nodded, looking a bit ashamed. “Three, actually, but the butterflies can live six. Though, since your contract is with the swarm, and that will grow larger as you feed them, the age of the individuals don’t matter that much.”
I pretended to think about it, then nodded. “How about half a stone each? I want twenty of each type, so that’s still thirty stones.” She thought for a few seconds, but when Mike called for us to leave, she nodded.
“Fine. I’ll give you a bulk discount.” She motioned to bag as she started walking and I held up my hand, hurrying to stand beside her so we could talk as we traveled.
“I haven’t actually learned the Swarm control technique or the Swarm variants of the contracts yet, so can you give me a few hours to learn them? I’ll pay you and take the caterpillars when we get to High River.”
She nodded. “Okay, then. I’ll talk to you again when we get to High River.” she said, then ran off to where Ben was. He was following on his horse, but after she said a few words to him he stopped and helped her onto the back of the horse. After that they rode to the back of the group and followed them as they traveled towards the city.
I, instead, stood on a sword and flew above them. I could have just flown with a normal technique, but I wanted them to think that I was just learning the technique. So far no one had questioned me as to my ability to fly, as it was common among the elders of the sect, but among the general cultivator population flying without a tool or artifact was a sign that either you had a heavenly root if it used elemental qi, or that you were high level and could just use less efficient methods like telekinesis. That was fine for Randy or Mike, who were in the fourth level, but for someone like me who was at the peak of the second level until a day ago, it wouldn’t make sense that I could do more than levitate for a few seconds or a minute.
As I flew I pulled out the jade for the beast tamer guide and started looking over the section on swarm animals. I had to be sure to not put too much of my attention on the book, as I often did, as that would cause me to lose control of my sword. If I didn’t focus on reading the slip, though, I wouldn’t be able to learn the technique very well. It was like trying to read while driving, both actions took too much attention. Several times my sword started to go out of my control, but I would notice that and correct it, only to miss entire paragraphs of text. I would then search for where I had stopped reading, only to lose control again because I was focusing too much on the search. I considered just landing and walking with the others, as I was certain I could walk and read at the same time, as I had been doing so with books since middle school, but wanted to try and challenge myself. If nothing else, this would help refine my brain, and improving my ability to multitask could be useful later. After about ten minutes I managed to find a balance where it was closer to listening to an audiobook while driving. I might miss part of the text, and I doubted that my understanding would go past the first layer, but I should be able to learn enough from viewing the jade in this manner that I can use the technique with a bit of trial and error.
By the time the city was in sight, with the group only stopping twice to deal with wild beasts that wanted to stop us, one pack of Vrooshkin and one pack of Oak Boars, I had learned the technique well enough that I was certain I could use it to control a small group of insects. Once their numbers grew to more than a hundred or so, I might lose control, so I would need to better learn the technique before then, but for now it would be good enough.
When the others stopped to wait at the city gate Mike landed and I did the same. While Mike went to the head of the line to talk to the guard, I landed beside Ben’s horse. “I think I’ve learned the technique now.” I said, storing my sword. I pointed to a group of ants nearby and made a quick servant contract with a hundred of them. I had them quickly form the symbol for ‘control’ to demonstrate that I could control them, then ended the contract. As they weren’t spirit animals, nor did they have a use like poisonous insects or honey bees, there would be no point in keeping them as servants, so I released them as soon as I had proven my point.
Honestly, I was able to form the contract without them even putting up a decent resistance, as their minds were so weak. That was part of the Swarm contract, that they followed my will as a group, with little to no individuality. This allowed each of them to resist less, but also limited the influence I had on their actions. Unlike with a smarter beast like the lion cub, I couldn’t just give them an order and expect them to obey it. My orders were more like suggestions to them which they would tend towards wanting to do, but might not do immediately or in the way I wanted. Even with mortal ants being so weak minded that I could effortlessly turn any single ant into a mindless puppet, as a swarm I could only make them think that there was a scent trail in the shape of the character so that they formed a line in that shape and walked along it endlessly. That was enough in most cases, however.
Shingua pulled out the sixty caterpillars and I gave her thirty stones, then she transferred their contract to me. I could then make them think that it was time to sleep and store them all in my bag. I warned Xiao that they weren’t meant to be food, as he might try to eat them if I didn’t do so, but with the contract he might not do so anyway. Still, as he was under a companion contract and not a servant contract, he didn’t have to obey me. He just knew that I would be disappointed in him if he did so, so he would refrain from doing so.
I had nursed one of the Oak Boars back to health, an early level two half blood, so they had allowed me to keep it. It would be given to the Ambassador, along with a beast bag and an Average grade copy of the manual so that he could manage the beast, as a way to show that they could procure wild beasts that might be useful to us. Of course, that was just to keep up appearances. As soon as I returned to the estate I would need to find the Ambassador and give him the gift so that he would have an excuse to go and meet with Mike. That would allow me to set up the barrier to give them privacy in their ‘business dealings’, which would allow the ambassador to speak candidly with him, giving him the ‘for the homeland’ speech in an attempt to recruit the White Tigers. I already knew he was going to fail, but Mike might agree to a few things that the Ambassador wanted, so the meeting was still necessary.
