Well yes, Ling Luoying had theoretically figured out a way to get Shi Lianfeng out of his ‘special state’ as MiSi had called it. Despite the multiple warnings from MiSi that the protagonist was probably training and would come out of the state in his own time, Ling Luoying kept searching through ancient texts like a madman. And Ling Luoying had also not found the way to get Shi Lianfeng out of the state. The text that proved most useful to him was a tome of demonic cultivation that had no place in Anlue Peak’s library. But the scriptures were useful, so who was he to complain?
Thanks to the helpful writings of some (hopefully) long-dead demonic cultivator, Ling Luoying figured out his somewhat ramshackle rescue plan. ‘I must be mentally unwell.’ He thought to himself as he hurriedly scrawled down a list of things he’d need to do.
Folding the paper and grabbing the book, he left as discreetly as he could, avoiding the gaze of all the other disciples who were in the library.
-
Ling Luoying spun dangerously, trying to regain his balance and fall anywhere but the roiling river of red something under the boulder he was standing on. He ducked as an emerald green vine swung at his head, tumbling onto the floor and grazing his palms. As if he was playing some demented game of hopscotch, Ling Luoying leaped from boulder to boulder. The target of his expedition was within reach, a brightly flourishing Thousand Ruby Lotus, outstretched crimson petals swaying in the breeze his ruckus was creating. It was a mythical flower, one that bloomed once every one thousand years and was capable of increasing qi flow to an extreme amount, according to his mostly-reliable MiSi. Ling Luoying couldn’t help but snort at the coincidence. A rare remedy that was conveniently there for the protagonist to help himself with? Truly the script of a stallion novel.
Ling Luoying wheezed, spinning this way and that as the furious vines did all they could to prevent him from reaching the precious blossom. He could almost hear their angered screams, trying to ward him away. Using the still very annoyed and uncooperative Qingtao, he hacked and chopped at the vines, sending crystalline shavings peppering his hair and clothes. “Why do all the important things need to be so inconvenient for everyone other than the protagonist to collect!?” He complained, stumbling forward and landing face-first onto the tiny rock the Thousand Ruby Lotus was delicately growing out of.
Ling Luoying pried the lotus out of the crack, roots and all before turning and pointing at the vines in triumph and pettiness, not unlike how he would act when proving his friends wrong, Ling Luoying noticed offhandedly. “Take that, you stu-”
The rest of his sentence cut off into an abrupt shriek as the vines dragged him up into the white-trunked trees surrounding the river. Laughing nervously, he ended up in a cave-like structure up in the trees, the walls made of leaves an odd colour of dried blood. Ling Luoying tried to move back, bumping into something hard and cold. Qingtao in one hand and the Thousand Ruby Lotus’ dark orange stem in the other, Ling Luoying turned and came face to face with not one, but a whole family tree of seemingly sentient vines large and small.
Before he could process his new surroundings or think up a plan, the vines had already creeped across his left arm, circling the lotus. “Hey! Get off!” Ling Luoying exclaimed, waving the sheathed Qingtao at the vines.
“No! Nuh uh! That’s mine!” He yelled, struggling and shaking his wrist as a dull red glow began emanating from the Thousand Ruby Lotus.
“If you absorb it, I’ll make sure you regret it for the rest of your sentience!” He threatened.
Ling Luoying didn’t know if it was his threat, Qingtao or something else, but the vines slowly retreated, slithering away into the shadows. Ling Luoying looked around, wondering why on earth it was so uneventful. “Well, okay?” He said.
Sliding out of the tree-cave, Ling Luoying placed the Thousand Ruby Lotus carefully in his qiankun pouch before retrieving his folded note. “There’s that done. Next is… Fire Scorpion venom.” He groaned, wincing at the thought.
Fire Scorpions were, from his research, widely infamous scorpions with flaming stingers and a tendency to set whatever they touched on black hellfire. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the fire was extremely corrosive and could even burn through whole chunks of spiritual metal and bone if there were enough scorpions to provide fire. “MiSi, are you sure going into a whole nest of Fire Scorpions won’t get me killed?” Ling Luoying asked apprehensively.
[Don’t worry, Host! I have everything planned out! Even if Host dies, MiSi has preemptively bought a no time limit respawner onto Anlue Peak!]
Ling Luoying sighed. “Ah well then. Wait… there’s a shop feature!?”
[Yes, but Host is recommended not to buy anything and save his points, since he doesn’t know what might happen!]
“You’re right,” Ling Luoying said. “We should hurry over to the nest before it gets dark, otherwise it’ll be harder to see the Fire Scorpions.”
As he used his severely lacking qinggong to jump over trees and cross streams, Ling Luoying was silently cursing the stupid stallion novel and moronic system and (obviously) the dumbass protagonist who was stupid enough to follow orders without a single thought of objection in his so-called ‘plot-armour enhanced’ brain.
[Host, I appreciate whatever’s going on in your mind with your hate threats and all, but how about we think about that at a more convenient time? Right now, please focus on not jumping into a tree!] MiSi shrieked, popping up in Ling Luoying’s face as a bright red warning bubble, seconds before he jumped straight into a thick branch.
Finally distracted from his looping and possibly self-destructive train of thought, Ling Luoying rubbed his nose with a groan of pain. [Well, this wouldn’t have happened if Host was watching where he was going.] MiSi sighed.
-
“MiSi, are you absolutely, one hundred percent sure that there’s no other replacement for Fire Scorpion venom?” Ling Luoying asked.
Psyching himself up over the trip to the closest uneradicated nest had done absolutely nothing but make Ling Luoying even more nervous. [Of course, Host. The Fire Scorpion venom is a key ingredient. Even if you were to replace it, you’d have to go looking around for ten more ingredients, and the effect still won’t be as good as using the original.] MiSi told Ling Luoying, pulling up a list of ten other ingredients.
“What the heck are these? I couldn’t get them even if I wanted to!” Ling Luoying complained.
“Divine Starseed, Root of the Primordial Fireflower, the tongue of a Hundred-Eyed Water Demon… the Qiuhai Sect is nowhere near a body of water large enough for that!”
[Which is why it’s recommended for Host to hurry over, grab one before it sees you and run.] MiSi said, pixielike form fluttering around in his face.
Batting MiSi away and getting smacked by its long, vividly blue hair in the process, Ling Luoying grabbed Qingtao, who clanked at him irritatedly. “MiSi, you got a replacement for this?” He asked, gesturing at Qingtao. “It hates me so much.”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
[Unfortunately not. Host will just have to deal with Qingtao. Maybe one day it’ll come to like you.]
Ling Luoying snorted. “Yeah. One day far far into the future, preferably when I’m on my deathbed.”
Turns out getting closer to a nest of Fire Scorpions with a bunch of full grown, very deadly, very large and very intimidating ones guarding it is quite hard, even without the added debuff of a sword that hates your guts. How did Ling Luoying know that? Well, he got to experience the pleasure of first-handedly getting chased down by a horde of them. “MiSi! Do something!” He screamed, running with a juvenile Fire Scorpion clutched tightly in his hand.
[Host needs to calm down and use his surroundings and skills!] MiSi yelled back, fluttering and bobbing in the air like a toy duck in a bathtub.
“Easy for you to say!” Ling Luoying huffed, leaping over the horde and landing behind them.
[Don’t run in the direction of the nest!] MiSi instructed him. [Get on Qingtao and fly away! It’s not that hard!]
“Well it kind of is! That stupid sword’s probably gonna throw me off the moment I get one foot on there! Besides, when would I have time to stand still, unsheathe Qingtao and coddle it enough to let me stand on it!?”
As if in retaliation to all the slander it was facing, Qingtao clanked against its sheath angrily. “See what I mean?” Ling Luoying snapped, skidding past an obnoxiously large oak tree.
Without missing a beat, Qingtao whizzed out of its sheath and flew into the air. “Now it’s gone! Some sword it is.” Ling Luoying complained to MiSi.
Just as the first group of Fire Scorpions caught onto him, he felt a tugging sensation at his collar.
“WHAT THE HECK!?” He screeched, dangling ten meters off the ground on the tip of an indignant Qingtao.
Qingtao quivered in the air for a while before throwing Ling Luoying up and catching him perfectly on its blade. “Woah. Ok fine, I guess you’re not that bad of a sword, even though you definitely tried to kill me a few times before.”
Qingtao spun in response to that, leaving both Ling Luoying and the unfortunate Fire Scorpion he’d captured reeling. “Jeez, I’m sorry! Sensitive much?” Ling Luoying rolled his eyes, patting Qingtao with his spare hand.
[Host does realise that he will have to kill the Fire Scorpion to store it in the qiankun pouch, right?] MiSi interjected.
Ling Luoying groaned.
-
“Stupid protagonist. Stupid book. Stupid sect.” Ling Luoying said pettily.
“Oi, MiSi! Just because I applied for leave to go on an ‘extermination mission’ doesn’t mean you get to cart me off to the other side of the world!” He shrieked.
[Host is being overdramatic. This is barely three hours away from the Qiuhai Mountain Sect.]
Ling Luoying huffed, dragging himself up the viciously snowing mountain with a jagged stick he’d found along the way.
Even after two hours, Ling Luoying had barely made any progress at all. Each step he took up the mountain was met with relentless snow pelting into his face, getting into his lapels and melting there. Just generally being a large annoyance. “How on earth is there even a snowy mountain range here?” He wheezed, wobbling precariously at the edge of a steep drop.
[The Everfrost Glowberry only grows in harsh, icy conditions.] MiSi rattled on and on, sounding very much like a certain all-knowing search engine that used to exist in Ling Luoying’s world.
“These ingredients better wake Shi Lianfeng up, or I’m suing whoever your manager is.”
[Incorrect. I am my own manager.]
“I hope you get bugged.”
Digging his feet as deeply into the snow as he could, Ling Luoying cursed whichever dumbass author decided it would be a great idea to add snowy mountains near a perfectly fine, warm area. It just didn’t make sense! And worse yet, what was with all these ‘legendary’ and ‘mythical’ herbs and flowers. If they’re so rare, why are there so many?
Violently bashing the book and the author seemed to work against the freezing cold somehow, so Ling Luoying did just that, picking at every even slightly incorrect thing he could find. First were the abundance of rare materials (of course a stallion novel author would add in cartloads of stuff like that) and absolute trashy geography (the Qiuhai Mountain Sect was described to be in a warm area that didn’t experience much change in temperature, so what in tarnation was this ridiculous mountain range doing!?).
[HOST! HOST! HOST!] Instead of appearing in its pixie form (it was probably too cold), MiSi started pinging Ling Luoying in the form of bright red warning signs.
“What now?” He groaned, utterly done with the motley quest he’d been assigned on.
[YOU JUST PASSED IT!]
“I’m sorry, I what?”
Ling Luoying paused for a moment to comprehend what MiSi was saying. “Where?”
A flashing, neon red arrow that Ling Luoying hoped was invisible (like MiSi’s text boxes) appeared out of nowhere, pointing at the cliff he’d almost fallen off of earlier.
“You’re joking. Please tell me you’re joking.”
[Host will have to climb down the cliff to retrieve the Everfrost Glowberry.] MiSi stated matter-of-factly, as if it didn’t just tell Ling Luoying to climb down an ice-covered cliff face to get a stupid berry.
Muttering a string of curses under his breath that were entirely unbefitting of a Head Disciple and would definitely get him punished if anyone heard him, Ling Luoying reluctantly shuffled back over to the drop. “That… does not look at all appealing.” He stated flatly.
[Too bad! Host will have to suck it up and deal with it if he wants to live past this week.]
Ling Luoying wasn’t even given time to process where MiSi’s sassiness came from before more text boxes were stuffed unceremoniously in his face.
Ling Luoying wondered how on earth he was supposed to get down to the Everfrost Glowberry. He could see it clearly - a whole patch of it, actually. They were sparkling a soft azure colour, their pale white stalks emitting soft particles that when mixed with certain types of water, became what Ling Luoying knew to be commonly known by herbalists as Snowglaze, a highly useful regenerative salve that could even regrow small parts of the body.
Unsheathing Qingtao, Ling Luoying stabbed it into the thickest pile of ice he could find near the cliff face and tentatively extended an itty bitty sliver of his qi into the sword. He closed his eyes, bracing for impact, arms shielding his face. When nothing happened after a good minute, he calmed down, observing Qingtao from all angles. When he was absolutely positive there was nothing wrong with his sword, he circulated a bit more qi into Qingtao.
There was a sharp flash of light and a mighty boom as everything in a five meter radius was sent flying away from Qingtao, Ling Luoying included. ‘Note to self: do not attempt to try and control Qingtao.’ He thought dazedly to himself as he watched the glowing berries whip past his face.
Huh? Why were the Everfrost Glowberries flying?
“OH NO NO NO NO NO!” Ling Luoying screamed as he realised his delightful situation.
“QINGTAO! HELP ME!” He screeched.
Qingtao remained stubbornly stuck inside the ice, not moving a single centimeter from the position Ling Luoying stuffed it in. Since openly calling for help clearly wasn’t going to work on this absolute wreck of a scrap metal, Ling Luoying used the next best tactic.
“IF I DIE SO DO YOU!” He yelled, watching the dark grey stone of the mountain approach with deadly speed.
He was right. Since Qingtao was his spiritual sword, their souls were technically connected together, except it was kinda worse for Qingtao. If the wielder of a spiritual sword dies, the blade of the sword is shattered beyond repair, but if the sword breaks (which is incredibly hard to accomplish), the worst that could happen to the wielder is a qi deviation.
It seemed like Ling Luoying’s mini blackmail got Qingtao moving, because in a flash he had been reluctantly yanked up to be face-level with the Everfrost Glowberries. “Why thank you.” He said pleasantly as he plucked a stalk of seven.
Qingtao shook him warningly before flying back up to the top of the cliff and tossing Ling Luoying onto the snow a tad harder than was needed.
“Alright MiSi. Now we need to get the-”
[We’re all done now. Host can head back to the Qiuhai Mountain Sect now.]
“What? You gave me a list of all the stuff I would need!” Ling Luoying snapped, gesturing at a horrifyingly long list of a bunch of plants and animal parts that all seemed like terrible pains to acquire, just from the name alone.
[The Qiuhai Mountain Sect has the supplies Host will need to conduct this.] MiSi’s little screen popped up cheerfully, a warm yellow colour.
Brushing aside the new discovery that MiSi could change its text box colours at will, Ling Luoying smiled angrily. “So what was the point of dragging me over here to get these?” He asked through gritted teeth.
[Qiuhai Mountain Sect doesn’t have the venom of a Fire Scorpion. Thousand Ruby Lotuses are too rare for them to just give to you and Everfrost Glowberries are too much of a pain to collect in big bunches. Duh.]
If MiSi’s little pixie form was the one telling Ling Luoying this, it’d already have been strangled back to their main headquarters.
“You better watch your back when you appear again, MiSi.” Ling Luoying warned nastily as he stuffed the berries into his qiankun pouch and bullied Qingtao into letting him ride on it back to the sect.