The beast had a beast’s head and a man’s body. They were covered in fur as well. “What can I do for you senior?” I asked out loud with a small bow as the beast landed on log. Its claws dug into the rotting wood as it looked at me. I felt something stir within me.
The beast gave me a feral grin. “I wasn’t sure, but the call of my blood never lies. To use me for cultivation, disgusting.”
“Water Running Over The Rocks,” I said its name out loud as I recalled the beast I had wounded in the past and used its blood to make Refined Beast Essance.
“Yuan Zhou. We parted last time after you did me a grave injury. Bow your head and your death will be quick and painless,” it said.
“Even if Aoyin wants me captured alive?” I asked out loud, hoping to make the beast hesitate in the battle to come. If it was forced to pull its punches, then I would have an advantage. The fact that its face twisted into a sneer showed that my words struck true.
“Perhaps, but what is life without some excitement. I am the child of Whirling Flames From The Heavens. If I catch you first, he will not be able to say anything,” Water Running Over The Rocks said. That was probably the beast immortal, or a rank 8 beast. Either way my opponent wouldn’t hesitate once we started fighting. I wondered why he wasn’t attacking yet.
He was weary of a trap. I had managed to escape him once before. I could tell he wasn’t going to let that happen again. Leaving a minor wound was nothing compared to using its blood for my cultivation. That kind of insult was immense. There was no greater insult that I could think of in cultivator circles. It was the equivalent of saying that a sentient’s only use was to provide or be resources.
I also needed to kill him as well. It was one of my last remaining tasks I needed to complete before attempting to cross over the first bottleneck. I had no idea how I would hunt him down in the future. Last time I didn’t have my gun and our cultivation was much further apart. I was an annoyance, but not someone to hunt down. Water Running Over the Rocks had most likely felt his blood be used to create Refined Beast Essance, which would have hindered his growth and weakened him. I could only imagine the rage that he experienced once he realized what I had done.
This also meant that I wouldn’t be able to escape. It could sense me, much better than I could sense it. Being in tune with his blood meant it had a much easier time sensing our connection than I did. This meant I had to fight no matter what. And he was clearly enraged enough not to want to escape either or drag things out in a battle of attrition.
The other consideration I had, was that we were still near the Blood Forest and the demonic cultivators. While Water Running Over The Rocks didn’t want share me, there was still a huge risk of our fight being sensed and people heading out to check on what was happening.
With one fluid motion, I pulled out my gun from my spatial ring. The beast moved to the side to strafe my position. The rotted log he had been standing on exploded into splinters from kicking off it, and the ground was torn up as he circled me. I could barely keep up with him, as I kept turning and aiming the gun.
I pulled out another rank 5 bullet and the needed spirit stones ahead of time to fire a second time. I made sure to conceal my movements to the side of my body. I kept turning to face sideways and aim with my right hand and made sure to keep my left behind and to my side.
I also pulled out a flash bang as well. No matter how much I hoped, hitting with my second shot would be incredibly hard. Especially a fatal hit. I pulled the pin of the flash bang and let it fall down the rock behind me.
Leading the target, I fired the gun. Water Running Over The Rocks Immediately came to a halt and rushed towards me the bullet missed him and exploded in the grassy swamp in the distance. I was already reloading as the beast closed the distance between us. I brought up my gun. The flashbang went off. Water Running Over The Rocks quickly turned to the side to dodge my expected shot. Its senses had been on a hair trigger to avoid any bullets.
I fired my gun for real this time. The beast managed to raise its left arm up to try and block. The bullet hit its elbow and blew its arm apart. I was already leaping backwards as I reloaded a third time with another rank 5 bullet.
My ears hurt as a roar was unleashed. Water Running Over The Rocks lived up to its name as it leapt over the rock I had been on in pursuit of me. Its arm had come back, but the beast looked starved. Shapeshifting was a powerful way to absorb and counter damage. This was why higher ranked beasts were a nightmare to fight. They were incredibly difficult to put down.
I retreated across the swamp as the beast pursued me. I kicked off a denser clump of grass and reversed directions. I fired a third time. The beast dodged. I hit the beast in the side of his chest, blowing away a large portion of flesh.
It didn’t stop heading for me. I swapped my gun for my sword, as we raced by each other. I noticed the wound I had given the beast was already healing. I turned my blade to use the flat side to block and used my left hand to brace against the back.
The blow from its claws was a feint. It opened its mouth and a barbed tongue shot out, piercing me in my left arm. I swung my sword up to cut the tongue, but it had already retracted. We both landed on the ground in opposite directions, taking a moment to recover. While Water Running Over The Rocks was a much higher rank than me, it had taken much more damage.
Guns weren’t common weapons, especially one this powerful. Best investment I had ever made. My left arm was going numb, and the wound was leaking a purple substance that was frothing outside of my body. Poison, of course it had to be poison.
I put away my sword and reloaded my gun for the fourth time in this fight. It had been a mistake not to use the rank 6 bullet in my second shot. I suspected the only reason I was standing right now was due to my insane cultivation. I could feel my cultivation shaking, but it was too dense to make quick progress. I could sort it out later, the first thing I needed to do was win this fight.
I rushed forward again. Water Running Over The Rocks hesitated for a moment, before rushing forward as well. If I had been the beast, I would have retreated to recover. But it probably saw how I hadn’t gone down from its attack. It was wary of my traps, which gave me an edge. It also might be much more wounded than I thought and was afraid I would survive and get away somehow.
That was the nice and frustrating thing about an enemy who hated me. They weren’t willing to retreat so I could finish them off, but they weren’t willing to retreat which made them much more dangerous in their desperation. I had no idea how much the Refined Beast Essance had impacted Water Running Over The Rocks, but it was probably much more than I had assumed since it was willing to fight to the death.
We quickly closed the distance, and I held off on firing. The beast’s nerve broke first as it dodged at the last moment. I fired a fourth time, hitting it in the hip. “Ahhh!” it let out a scream as it fell into the soggy grass. Its right leg barely staying attached. My left arm had a hard time moving, and reloading with one arm would take way too long. But getting close was a bad idea as well. In close combat, I was greatly outclassed.
I stayed at a distance and began reloading my gun with one arm. It took ten seconds, an eternity in cultivator combat. This time I put in the rank 6 bullet. I was going to end this. Water Flowing Over The Rocks had healed enough to stand back up just as I finished reloading. I rushed forward and fired for a fifth time. The gun kicked back in my hand massively.
This time I got it in the chest. Half the beast just disintegrated, with legs, arms, and its head all flying in different directions. I put away my gun and pulled out my sword. Its head was still alive and trying to shift into a rock to hide. I stabbed it five times, making sure I could spot no more energy.
I reached down and pulled out the rank 6 spirit stone from its head. At least I got something in return besides a wound. I put my sword and the spirit stone away, checking over the area. I didn’t feel anything in my blood. In fact, I felt calmer, and something seemed to unclench inside of my body. I took a deep breath and let it out. I had won. No one else was around, and I should get going.
As I traveled, I inspected my arm. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t terrible either. Physically my entire arm and part of my shoulder had gone numb. The wound was leaking purple pus. In terms of my cultivation, it was holding togeather, but the area I had been hit felt much shakier. The connections between the motes weren’t as strong as they could be. The fact there were so many connections and the number of motes was so high in my body was the only reason they hadn’t shifted.
Like trying to compress water, it wasn’t easy to compress when there was no air to squeeze out. The same was true for my cultivation. It was so dense, that what would have shredded any other stage three cultivator was just a serious wound for me. Thankfully the surface damage where I had been pierced hadn’t wrecked my cultivation either.
I would need healing and soon. Waiting until I got to Imperial City would take far too long. I had no idea if my body would process this poison over time and recover, or if it would leave a lasting injury. The real problem was where to go?
Going to another sect was a huge risk. But they were the only ones who would be capable of healing me. I had no doubt word had spread about the Cloudy Moon Sect’s destruction. Before I could have leveraged the fact that I was the disciple of the Sect Leader to get some face from other sects and conduct business deals, like for the diving suit. Now my connections weren’t nearly worth as much. My master was dead, and my sect had taken a heavy beating.
While it would probably hold onto its status as a mid-ranking sect, it would not be easy and take millennia to fully recover. The time frame needed was astronomical, but that was how long it took to get high ranking cultivators. While the death of lower ranked cultivators didn’t mean much, the death of the elders of the sect was a huge blow, since that was the primary source of prestige and power a sect had.
As I traveled through the forest, the sun was out at least, and it wasn’t raining. I poked my body, the numbness had stopped spreading as well as the effects on my cultivation. But it wasn’t decreasing either. The wound was only oozing now, and not frothing.
I felt tired, mentally, emotionally, and physically. This ongoing fighting and escape were wearing me down. I winced from a sudden spike of pain from my left arm and stumbled on the ground.
“Dammit,” I muttered out loud in frustration, but didn’t slow down. I tried to think if there were any sects on my path that I could stop at and request aid, but none of them were strong allies of the Cloudy Moon Sect. Which brought me back to the issue of leverage and connections. The risk of just being killed, or not treated properly and robbed, was very high.
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Regular poison, my body would have easily resisted. The problem was that this poison was infecting my cultivation as well. I poked the wound with my right hand, purple puss mixed with blood oozed out. The pain was getting worse as well. I tried to think of anything I could do.
That was the problem with cultivation medicine, it was its own branch separate from regular medicine. It would take a while to get to a city, but my best bet was to travel by express carriage and not keep running. While running was faster, I needed to rest, and try to let my body naturally recover. I poked the wound again, it wasn’t coagulating.
I could feel my bones bend as my left arm flopped uselessly about. The venom was turning my insides into mush or trying to at least. My cultivation was becoming more bendy as well, which was really bad. There was some give and take with the connections between motes, but the risk of my cultivation shifting would create a disaster. Even a small shift would be a nightmare to correct.
The pain was getting worse but was still bearable. Beasts and demonic cultivators working togeather. Of course, they were. Demonic cultivators prayed primarily on other cultivators, so there wasn’t a huge need to hunt beasts like regular cultivators might. I had no doubt this was something the higher ranked cultivators already knew.
After a day and a half worth of traveling I finally took a long nap in between some rocks. It was hard to get any rest with the pulsating pain coming from my left arm. I didn’t have any sleep aids either. I just had to tough it out, close my eyes and get what sleep I could.
When I woke up, the pain was a lot worse, my arm had puffed off, and felt like a water balloon. The wound was leaking a trickle of fluids. I kept it exposed to let things drain. It was tempting to try and deflate my arm, but the risk of doing permanent damage was very high. As for my cultivation it was stretched to the limit and gave me a pain deep in my soul.
I reached a road, and hesitated. I needed to get a proper rest, and I couldn’t focus on traveling myself. If the demonic cultivators caught up with me, they caught up with me. I couldn’t handle any more wilderness travel. I kept stumbling, and the risk of me tripping and injuring myself more with my condition was not trivial. It was a struggle to keep my eyes open and resist the pain coming from my left arm and shoulder.
Traveling along the road, I had to take two naps, before I reached the city. I snuck in over the walls instead of going through the gate. I checked and there were no formations or arrays active. If I was found by the sect in control of the city, I would be in much greater trouble than if I declared myself, but I couldn’t risk the demonic cultivators.
I didn’t stick around, and immediately purchased an express carriage and two decoys. I also arranged for another two decoys the following day. I had experience in this from my first journey out of the sect. The Astral Plane had apparently been easy mode. It was easy to get my way by throwing rank 1 spirit stones at people and telling them to shut up and hurry up.
Once I was in a carriage, I let out a sigh of relief. While it was uncomfortable and bumpy, at least I could lay down and really focus on my injury. I had gotten a lot of cloth as well from the city. I carefully cleaned the wound with water. My entire left arm and shoulder were in terrible condition.
I really wanted to deflate my arm, but I resisted the urge. Ten days after I had been wounded, my arm had deflated slightly, and my cultivation had stabilized. Instead of purple puss leaking out of the wound, it was regular puss and blood. I burned the rags during the occasional stop while traveling and slept most of the time in the carriage.
No mortal medicine would knock me out, so all I could was endure. I made sure to eat and drink quite a bit, but the problem wasn’t physical, so much as spiritual. I could sense a very faint taint in my arm and shoulder where the poison had lingered. My only hope was to pay for a consultation from the Imperial Sect and hope they could fix me. I knew it wouldn’t be cheap, but I had absolutely no good idea on how to handle such a wound myself.
I thought back to Healer Meihui. She would have known what to do right away. This was why cultivators didn’t fight each other. The risk was too damn high. The gun had been a great equalizer, allowing me to fight three stages above my own, but it wasn’t enough. It allowed me to win, but I did not escape unharmed.
The cost to fix such an injury would be immense, combined with my cultivation would create even more of a headache. I didn’t know my body had that much fluid it could leak, but with the strength of my cultivation, I was still alive.
Thankfully there were no more demonic cultivators coming after me during my trip to Imperial City. Hiding out in their base had stalled the search long enough to buy me time to escape. I had been worried they might try again, but the infighting had saved me. Another reason why demonic cultivators rarely gathered in large numbers. It wasn’t just the outside risk, but the inside risk as people demanded benefits and were willing to fight for them.
While a carriage was a half to a third of the speed of a low ranked elder, it was more than enough once I had enough of a head start, combined with the decoy carriages I hired. At the second city, I had left one carriage I entered outside of the city and snuck back in to take another carriage I had arranged. Little things like this to throw off any pursuit were key.
Rank 1 spirit stones were that valuable to me, so I was more than happy to spend them in order to not fight. That was one big lesson I had learned over all the events I had just gone through. Fighting was a nightmare, and I wasn’t cut out for it.
I had no illusions about my actual skill or combat ability and the gun was the great equalizer. If it wasn’t burning massive amounts of money with each shot, then it would actually be quite useful. There was no spray and pray strategy.
That was why I never seriously considered combat and killing other cultivators as a serious economic factor in my cultivation. Sure, hunting low ranked beasts had been possible, but I considered that aggressive farming more than anything else. Hunting people wasn’t even a last resort. Sapient beings were too much trouble to deal with.
A month into my trip, the pain I was feeling every moment of every second of the day was immense. I was actually sweating while in the carriage. For me to sweat as a cultivator in the third stage was a sign that something was wrong. My arm and shoulder were Jello. I had taken to carefully wrapping both of them up to help provide some stability from any shaking in the carriage. Each bump was like a thousand glass shards being shoved into my body. The wound had scabbed over, but still leaked with fluids and blood occasionally.
The good news was that my hand hadn’t been impacted as much as the rest of my arm. I couldn’t use it at all, but I was hoping the damage would be less. I hadn’t been idle in my carriage ride either. I had tried to expel the poison from my body through meditation. That only strained my cultivation. If I was in the fourth stage, then I would have had a much easier time expelling the poison. But I was still stuck in the third stage.
My only hope was to get Elder Xu Xiaoli’s support in resolving this. I had no doubt she would be interested in looking at my cultivation with everything that had been done. I also needed to speak with her about the shares of my business in order to get a good deal to finish off the third stage of cultivation. I had no doubt she would scam me for quite a bit, but I was incredibly desperate. That desperation only grew with each day that I suffered in pain.
Three months into my trip, I had lost any hope that I would be able to handle this injury myself or that it would somehow go away. I carefully checked once every day, as I rewrapped the bandages around my arm and shoulder if the injury was increasing or decreasing. While it had gotten a bit better at the start, my recovery seemed to have plateaued currently from around the one month mark.
The fear of being crippled and losing my ability to cultivate was very real. Whatever treasure I would need to heal myself would be incredibly expensive. At this point I was willing to pay anything to make the pain stop. While I knew that just folding like a wet blanket was a terrible starting point in any negotiation, I was at the point where I wanted to rip my arm off to stop the pain.
Each heartbeat was a pulse of agony. Despite all the water I was drinking, my urine burned on the way out and came out in a dark red color. My eyeballs felt like they wanted to explode out of my skull. The lack of sleep and the constant shaking of the carriages compounded these issues. My teeth felt like they were trying to twist their way out of my mouth. I had no idea why my teeth hurt, but they did.
At the nine-month mark, I was ready to die. I had reached a tranquil Zen type mental state after suffering for so long, and then the pain got worse, and it was broken.
That was when I saw a beast approaching the carriage. “Halt,” I cried out in a broken raspy voice. The carriage came to a stop. I pulled myself up and staggered out. The rank 1 beast rushed out from the very tall grass that surrounded the road. I got my sword out and cut it down. I felt weak and tired, but I had to keep going. Just swinging the sword made me feel like my body was going to explode into a thousand pieces and never recover.
I put my sword away and thrust my hand into the beast’s skull, ripping the spirit stone free. I put it away in my spatial ring and then had the driver poor water over my good hand to clean it off. I then got back in the carriage. We set off again.
This was a fate worth than death. Every second was agony. Even the simplest of things, was incredibly exhausting now. I felt like I was regressing. Even though my cultivation and body remained stable, the pain just kept getting worse. I was too strong to die, but too weak to heal.
If I didn’t have a strong chance of resolving this at Imperial City, I would have probably just given up at this point. I was strong, and liked to think I had mental strength. But I was being ground down, like a rock beneath the tides and wind. I could resist pain. I could ensure the boredom of cultivation.
But I couldn’t resist constant pain with a lack of sleep. Each day was another crack in my sanity. I felt it wearing away. I could only focus on my breathing so much, when each breath hurt just one iota more than the last.
We finally made it to Imperial City after a year of high-speed carriage traveling. I had paid for maximum speed and no breaks. If there was a break, I wouldn’t have been able to last. After entering the outer portion of the city, I paid for a rickshaw to the analysis building that I had first met Elder Xu Xiaoli in.
Finally, I felt a sense of relief. After so much suffering and exhaustion, I was hopeful that a solution to my problem could be found. After reaching the building, I was escorted to a waiting room for the Elder to be available.
She showed up after half a day. I didn’t mind. I was looking for her help. I stood up when she entered and bowed deeply. “Elder Xu Xiaoli, this cultivator asks for your guidance on how to resolve a wound,” I said as politely as I could. I had to keep reminding myself to not overly beg or make any demands. She was not an elder off my sect. She supported me on a whim and some benefits, nothing more. Here I was asking for her help, I could not afford to offend her.
“Hmm, your arm, how interesting. A poison I am guessing. Remove the bandages.” I removed the bandages and there was no waste basket so I put them in my spatial ring. I then realized, I shouldn’t risk leaving them out and it would have been an insult to leave them behind to be cleaned up. I mentally patted myself on the back for avoiding such a simple mistake. The elder came over and put a single finger on my arm near the wound.
I could feel her checking my cultivation and my injury. “How interesting. The Liquifying Poison is fatal to all those below the fifth stage of cultivation.” She removed her finger and then looked over me once more. “How long?” she asked.
“About a year, elder. I got the wound just after leaving the Cloudy Moon Sect,” I replied. She nodded at that.
“Normally the cure is to use your understanding of the Dao and your mastery of energy to expel a poison from your physical and spiritual body. But someone of your rank, should have died. Your cultivation has become even more complex since I saw you last. Creating a suction vortex. Three paths of cultivation.” She shook her head and was silent as she looked over me. I tried to keep the pleading expression off my face, but I knew I was failing.
“Well there are three options, well four, but each of them have drawbacks.” She was silent again and it took all my willpower not to say anything inappropriate. After a small stretch of silence I could tell she was waiting for me to speak.
“Please Elder, what options are available. I would be honored by your guidance,” I replied and pulled out the rank 6 spirit stone. Just getting a consultation at this level required payment. She plucked the spirit stone from my hand and nodded.
It was frustrating to be put in this kind of position, but anything less would have been an insult to someone of her position. She had no obligation to help me. The fact she had four different options to resolve my condition spoke to her experience and knowledge. I had been hoping she would have just explained my options, then charged me for implementing one of them, but she clearly wanted to squeeze me every step of the way.
These elders truly were shameless, but you didn’t reach a high level of cultivation by giving handouts and being nice. You did it, by maximizing every opportunity you got in order to advance your interests. I couldn’t even blame her, since I had suspected something like this would happen.