Demon beasts aren’t actually demonic. Not in an Earth-western sense, at least.

They’re actually just cultivators. After a fashion.

See, like any other strand of evolution, sometimes the variety of life gives rise to individual creatures capable of taking in a type of ki and making use of it. The edge this gives results in better breeding chances and offspring more likely to have that particular ability. The rate is much lower than with genetics as far as I can tell, so most of a given pack of whatever is largely normal animals.

But if one of the ‘lucky’ creatures stumbles upon an area rich in their attuned ki, they tend to stick around for the benefit it gives them. And if there’s enough of it, they start to mutate. Usually getting bigger and more aggressive. They also quickly step beyond the ability of mortals to handle, as ki-saturated hide laughs off most mere physics.

The warped beast isn’t demonic yet, because it’s still working with ki and chi. The two haven’t blended yet. But when they do, well.

Yellow Fang cultivators have to form a foundation in our spirits to constrain our Qi. To give it a boundary to flow within so that we have time to knead our will into it. Otherwise, the Qi would fight and likely overpower our Chi, sending us into a pained rage until we’re put down or manage to cope with everything that made us us being replaced with our affront against Heaven and Nature.

Usually by taking the newfound power and destroying everything until we’re put down.

Which is what demon beasts do.

Supposedly some of them chill out after a while, settling down and claiming expanses of land to tell everyone to fuck off from, but that’s not terribly relevant right now.

Because I was part of a subjugation squad sent out to the Sandvine Marsh in order to cull the warped boa population to avoid having an incident where one managed to ascend. And we were late.

Well, we arrived as scheduled and the main squad wasted no time in performing their duties, so it’s less that we were late and this giant fucking snake didn’t have the courtesy to wait for us.

It’s angry, it knows we’re here, and it’s powerful enough that it cracked a thick tree to bring brother Yu down to its level when he was peppering it with arrows. He’s fine. So far everyone’s fine. But holy fuck is that a big snake and it’s radiating desire to eat me. Us.

Okay snake data. High sensory qualities largely attached to tongue, nose, eyes. Boa, a constrictor type. Might not care about that at this size and speed. Scales are thinner at the face.

Qi data. Brother Sung called it a Silt Strangler. Probably uses silt qi, which I don’t know anything about. Assumptions. Similarities to water qi but with more stealth and abrasive qualities.

Best course of action. Hide while seniors handle it. They’re literally trained for this and I’ll probably just get in the way.

Secondary plan, I have seasonings that lean spicy. If it comes for me despite seniors’ efforts, I throw them up its nose and pray.

Tertiary plan. Running. If everything goes wrong, run away. Survival 101. Reserved for snake being distracted and/or seniors instructing me to or falling.

Holy fuck that’s a big snake.

I kept my profile low and my hand on my spiciest seasoning jar as I peeked out to watch my senior brothers’ battle.

Sung Shu with his feathered spear was holding the beast’s attention, having stabbed it several times when it turned to the others. Yu Jung had found another vantage point to rain down arrows. Li Ku, Eit Kai, and Po No were more mobile, punishing the serpent’s movements whenever it failed to maintain its guard.

The sheer professionalism from my fellow disciples awed me almost as much as their prowess. I was a principled man. I wouldn’t have been able to force myself to toe the line of the sect if I wasn’t. But this learned trust in each other that they demonstrated was something beyond my current self.

For brother Sung to take such an immobile stance against a beast who was shoving the very soil of the marsh around was nigh suicidal. But he held it because he trusted the short sword wielders to prevent a wide lashing motion that would end him.

Brother Yu knew he was completely outclassed, but instead of retreating, even after having his first perch destroyed, he dutifully pelted the snake’s face with arrows, keeping it too pestered to focus on formulating a new response.

The swordsman trio must have known that a single lapse from Sung and Yu would result in a feint and a brutal riposte from the snake, but they continued to strike every opening they saw, confident that the snake couldn’t focus with their peers holding its attention.

The battle took most of an hour, with my martial brothers holding the advantage the entire time, before the snake had finally been weakened enough for brother Sung to spear its brain and finally kill it. Even then, they didn’t relax their stances until the great snake finally stopped twitching.

“Sister Hua! How many have we lost!” Sung called out as the others slumped in exhaustion.

Senior Hua led the rest of the junior squad back into the area before answering “I found four bodies, and junior Guang is unaccounted for.”

“Junior offers his deepest apologies!” I called out as I rose from my hiding spot. “I panicked and ducked behind this tree and did not see the retreat signal. Once I had a wit back, I thought it wiser to remain still than to flee blindly.”

All six seniors stared at me as I bowed from just outside the carnage zone. Yu was the first to speak as my fellow juniors snickered at my misstep. “Brother Guang, what is that pouch you’re holding?”

“My second thought was that, should the serpent turn on me for my blunder, I might have a chance of fleeing if I threw my ginger root powder into its nose, so I had it at the ready while I hid.”

“Come here, brother Guang.” Senior Sung ordered me. I obeyed, naturally. I had genuinely fucked up by not having the presence of mind to spot the direction of retreat and had no illusions that I was due leniency in the wild.

“Were you watching the battle?”

“I was, senior.”

“Did it occur to you to offer aid?” he scowled.

“It did, but I saw how precarious the balance of the fight was and did not wish to risk disrupting your suppression.”

“So you just stood there!? Cowering like a mortal?!” he roared at me.

“Yes, senior.” I admitted without hesitation. There was no justifying oneself to a cultivator, after all.

He gestured to the other juniors to gather up to watch and asked them “What was Brother Guang’s biggest mistake here?”

“Cowardice!” “Weakness!” “Tactical incompetence!” and a few other answers I couldn’t make out came back over me and I had to put effort into not taking them to heart.

“Wrong!” Sung shouted over everyone. “Guang! What was your biggest mistake?”

“Losing sight of Sister Hua at the critical moment!”

“Wrong! That was your second biggest mistake! Your biggest mistake was not volunteering for this detail sooner!”

I was still facing the water beneath me as I blinked and could feel all the other juniors do so as well.

“Senior?”

“You may have lost your wits briefly on first contact with a grave threat, but your instincts and reasoning were nearly flawless! Fleeing the battle in the wrong direction could have cost you your life as it did the corpses that sister Hua retrieved. Distracting us while we fought could have cost everyone their lives. You realized this and refrained from doing so. I doubt your ginger would have saved you if the snake had turned on you, but it’s a far better plan than running without a distraction at all.”

His presence softened slightly and I looked up to see the senior squad all chuckling approvingly. “Let this be an example for the rest of you. Until your blade can cut the hide of a demon beast, think like brother Guang if you stumble near a fight with one unless you want everyone involved to die painfully! Save the glory seeking for when you can handle the beast yourself!”

That was... Not what I was expecting. I’d have to ask one of the seniors about the flouting of the ‘individual power’ dogma that he was doing. Even inside the sect I’d found nothing to indicate that cultivators were capable of that.

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As we resumed the much less eventful culling duty, it occurred to me that there was probably a schism in the sect that I wasn’t aware of. One that I’d probably accidentally picked a side over.

Not a comforting thought in the least.

---

I sat comfortably in my meditation closet and calmly, silently screamed my brains out over the revelations of the last few months.

I hadn’t just ‘picked a side’ in the sect schism. I’d personally revitalized a side.

The Sect Master, along with several of the senior Elders, had apparently founded the sect with the intent of trying to actually harness the force multiplier of cooperation. Reasonable enough, sixth degree selfishness and all that.

But because of the nature of cultivators- literally. The way that cultivation works for most people- most of the disciples who rose to the rank of Elder over the near-millenium of the sect’s existence were a bit more shortsighted. A betrayal or peer failure here or there tainting them against cooperation and toward beastial justice.

The Sect Master, slowly finding himself outnumbered, had seemingly given up hope that cultivators could cooperate and had shifted tactics to a more traditional attempt to minimize wanton predation among the ranks.

Some holdouts still existed, of course, but they were largely self-contained. An Elder teaching a squad of pupils the benefits of teamwork, the pupils sharing some notes with juniors, most of whom didn’t have anyone they could trust enough to test it out. Normal cultivator nonsense.

And then one day, for no reason at all, mortal servants started cooperating to gain access to the primers.

Taskmasters were already incentivized to maximize servant efficiency, and the pattern I’d left in my wake was more efficient than the previous dynamic, so the taskmasters themselves were implicitly on board with the change and forcibly turning them against it had to be done all at once, which wasn’t feasible with how the system was set up.

On top of that, despite being literal commoners, the ascended servants, like myself, were fully capable of competent cultivating. Because of course they were. It’s literally just a form of menial labor done with the soul for the first entire tier. And being dissuaded by peers just wasn’t a thing for them. Noble born cultivators had an entitlement to them that could be kicked out from under them.

Commoners? We grew up expecting to get the shit beat out of us. Having kind-of free medical care provided after we got walloped felt like we were being catered to, not oppressed.

My own situation? As the ‘spearhead’ of the rise of servant-ascendants? Apparently I’d just missed that I was the target of every bullying campaign that could reach me because I thought this shit was normal!

Senior Tun taking exception to my volunteering? He didn’t care about my rank. He was pissed that I thought myself worthy of trying as a commoner. Managing to put him on his ass clarified to him that we were cultivators not noble and peasant, and he had a breakthrough while I was out on the subjugation.

Elder Tong coming in and trying to mindwhammy me? Rumor had it that he was hoping that I’d beg him to hand me to Raka, but because I didn’t actually say I wanted the position, he couldn’t pull it off within the rules.

Meanwhile there were murmurings that if I managed to make it through to the Soul Core tier, it’d prove that noble blood wasn’t inherently superior like many believed. And if the steady trickle of common borns behind me managed as well, that it’d prove the Sect Master’s original vision valid and spell the doom of the more selfish Elders.

Which, y’know, would be great if the shorter vision of said idiots allowed them to do anything other than a violent purge and overthrow of the thousand-year-old Sect Master.

Okay, screaming done for now. Answers time. Because just inviting Raka to pill furnace me is a whole lot of not happening.

I’m still not attached to the sect itself, and the plan of fleeing as soon as I’ve got a good opportunity and enough strength to make it on my own hasn’t waned once. But now I know that the current soft power of the sect despises me and wants me displayed to dissuade other peasants.

So how to cripple them?

I was already a lesser soft power in the outer sect on account of everyone assuming I was deliberately running things with my dinner meetings. I had all of the peasant-born ears and a healthy chunk of the sensible noble-born ones as well, though I’d never found something to do other than enjoy the company.

I was already taking my sweet time cultivating, making sure to lay each step of my foundation as stably as I could instead of rushing things. That meant that I had more time than otherwise because a sudden slowing in my growth would have telegraphed that I was buying time.

I had my notes on foundations and natural chi flows. I had my beginner rank Calligraphy. I had my blacksmithing that was a half step into proper beginner rank. I had my herbs and farming skill. I had the introductory manual for the Talisman arts thanks to my pay from the subjugation detail.

And I had the eyes of both allies and enemies among the Elders keeping each other at bay as long as I didn’t rock the boat too hard.

So of course the best plan I could think of was to capsize the boat entirely.

---

“Ah! Senior brother Tun! I’m honored that you accepted my invitation!” I greeted my guest at the door.

“Brother Guang.” he inclined his head in greeting. “Your humility is truly inspiring. The honor and pleasure is mine.”

I blinked at his earnestness before smiling. “That is high praise indeed from you, senior! Come, the food is nearly ready!”

He cracked a smirk as he took a seat and I laid out the table. And then said with a sigh “I do apologize for my behavior before our last spar. It was unbecoming of me as a cultivator and as a man.”

“And that makes one.” I smiled back as I started pouring the tea.

“One?”

“One time since arriving here that I have received an apology from someone who took offense from me. You are truly a man of noble heart, brother Tun.”

His eyes widened and his shoulders relaxed like a weight had been removed. “Thank you, brother Guang.”

I courteously didn’t mention the tear in his eye as we savored the tea’s aroma together.

When he was past his gnawing demon completely he took a drink and smiled again. “Is this the value of the Sect Master’s teachings?”

“I must imagine they are similar in some ways.” I nodded. “There are only so many paths of camaraderie to articulate, after all.”

He blinked for a moment. “You aren’t the Sect Master’s pupil?”

“I am merely an outer disciple in his sect. Though the rumor amuses me to no end despite the trouble it brings.”

He paused, processing the truth as I presented it, before laughing uproariously.

“Brother Guang is a giant among ants to bear the weight of the rumor with no truth to it!” he eventually declared. “I am glad I thought to discard the jealous thought that you defeated me due to superior backing! I would have died of shame had I accepted it and learned its falsehood.”

“Oh? You are not angry that the rumors deceived you about me?” I smirked, already profoundly glad I thought to start my plan with him.

“Bah! I’ve seen enough other young masters lose their composure and their lives over lies they told themselves. The blow to my Face stings, but it’s covered by the rumor anyway. And brother Guang is not a fool, so I still believe you have a stratagem to capitalize on it and prove my defeat was fair and valid.”

“Oh, you inferred that much then?”

“Most have, under false pretense. Several of our fellow disciples are pulling their hair out trying to predict when you will make a move, or if you have already and we missed it.”

“Oh!” I perked up with a grin. “That makes it easier then!”

“It does?”

“Oh yes. If everyone’s looking at my actions to catch a subtle move and I make an obvious one, how many will dismiss it as a blatant decoy?”

Brother Tun stared at me with a dull shock before nodding. “Far too many, and they’d dismiss any suggestion that the obvious move could be important. But what move could you make that the more levelheaded eyes would dismiss as well?”

“I’m going to submit a lesson to be added to the servant incentive list. A simple manual on the nature of foundations.”

“How will you come by these teachings?”

“I already have them. Nothing more than personal observations and some hearsay analysis, but enough to impress someone who’s never had a tutor.”

“Ah. Clever. Nobody would think twice about letting a mere outer disciple’s musings get to them. Which raises the question of who you want to notice and how offering it to the mortals will get it there.”

I smiled wickedly. “That it does.”

I turned my attention to the coals that were finished cooking the meal and started removing the leatherleaf-wrapped morsels while Tun tried to figure out what my angle was. It wouldn’t do to treat him like an idiot and explain my whole gambit.

“You have me lost, I fear, brother Guang.” he admitted as I finished setting the table. “All I can come up with is that you simply wish to help your former peers.”

“That is the surface truth, yes.” I smiled

He continued puzzling with only a brief distraction to compliment my cooking until finally catching the conceit that he’d called out himself.

“Brother Guang, may I see these musings of yours?”

“Certainly!” I handed him the manuscript I’d left within reach for exactly that question.

He read through it with the eyes of a man who’d realized its potential worth while we ate, and I enjoyed the show as he realized what the rest of the ploy was.

He reached the end of the barely hinged ramblings that best conveyed my comprehension and stared at me as though trying to find the words.

“How many families’ secret foundation arts have you stolen to know all this?”

“Not a one. Those insights are just from my study of the primer available for the servants.”

“There’s no way that’s true.”

“Well, I suppose my attempts at communing with the heavens may have left my mind more open than most, but I assure you brother Tun. I’ve had nothing but my own soul and that primer to work with.”

“Nobody will believe you. I believe you and I don’t believe you.”

“Should make a fine salve for all the bruised Face in my wake then, yeah?”

“The noble houses will kill you for this. Hell, my own father might kill you with how you described the entirety of our own foundation’s advantages.”

“As opposed to the seat of honor they’ve been preparing for me if I make it to my first tribulation.” I chuckled dryly. “So, if you don’t report it immediately, how fast do you think anyone will notice?”

He stared at me before grinning widely and taking a large bite of the boar calf that he’d been politely eating. “You’re a madman brother Guang, but you’re absolutely right! I’ll keep your secret and spread word that the common born aren’t to be needlessly antagonized.”

“I’m glad to hear that brother Tun. Pickled ginger for your palate?” I segued into focusing on the bonding of the meal, having concluded the scheming for the evening.