Scorn, or as I like to call him, that royal pain in the ass!

I don’t know which calamity threw that horror on us.

Oh, yes, it’s rumored that he is the only survivor of the massacre of Amoria, but why is he attacking the empire, cutting trade routes, and attacking outposts of the empire?

Amoria was a valid target in this war, and the empire hadn’t done something new to wars. Everyone does the same brutal acts in every war, and they still do! Why should this war be so different?

If the empire didn’t use Amoria in its favor, others would have beaten it to the punch.

His actions are without excuse, and he should stop already.

He’s also attacking our allies! It has become a danger to any small town or nation to ally themselves with the empire now, thus cutting a lot of gold that came to the empire with zero effort.

The weaker nations paid us gold yearly as gifts to ensure that they remain in the good graces of the Solea Empire.

Everything was working to our benefit after we had won the war!

Until it wasn’t anymore. Until Scorn!

One of the most dangerous rogue cultivators in the world today, and it’s us who are his sole target.

At first, the emperor didn’t pay any attention to reports of Scorn’s doings, but now Scorn has become undeniable. He’s become worthy of our collective attention.

When we had received the first reports of him cutting trade routes and stealing the caravans, we’d compensated the traders and sent a battalion to cut him down.

Only one man returned. Scorn had spared him. The man, who had returned with only one message.

(I am coming for you. You will not escape Amoria’s Scorn.)

The emperor and all his advisors, including me as the advisor in alchemical matters, were alarmed after receiving this message.

That soldier was never the same again. He was a shaken mess.

His soldier’s life was cut short. Reports came from the barracks that the soldier was screaming in his sleep about the horrors he’d seen when they had gotten attacked.

The very blood in the veins of his comrades turned against them. Some of them got filled with holes drilled from the inside by their own blood.

Others exploded in a rain of gore, and if you, my dear reader, think this is bad enough, wait until you hear what happened to the decomposing soldiers!

Some soldiers were attacked with something that caused them to decompose immediately.

The surviving soldier would wake up in a cold sweat, touching his face and the skin of his body frantically, fearing that it would have fallen off like what he saw Scorn do to his comrades.

Usually, we would have made the soldier carrying the message tell us everything that happened in the skirmish, but he delivered the message and passed out!

Next, we did the only sensible move in that case. We sent a group of cultivators after him, four of whom were in the Qi condensation stage, and one in the foundation establishment stage.

The foundation establishment cultivator was the only one to come back, a horrified mess like the surviving soldier.

But his message was different..

After being granted permission, he entered the imperial court. He stood there in front of the imperial curtain, scratching his whole body. His behavior alarmed the guards, so they made a wall between the emperor and the cultivator.

Hell, even I felt alarmed; I prepared to cast an explosive concoction that I shouldn’t bring with me to the imperial court, but I like to be ready, plus my devotion to the emperor is second to none; I would give my life to the emperor, so nobody should have any fear that I ever harm his highness.

Back to the cultivator, after scratching himself all over, and looking like a lunatic, the cultivator exploded in a swarm of insects; the insects were about to attack the emperor, but I’ve saved the day. My concoction made quick work of the swarm, lighting them up in flames.

But it almost felt like it was all for nothing, because the events shook his highness. He started getting nightmares; he’d become untrusting of strangers.

He shut himself in, never again speaking to any newcomers.

The military general took over the responsibility of dealing with Scorn from that point forward, and he was the only one permitted to provide reports of the “progress” of the many campaigns aimed at eliminating Scorn to his highness.

He called them progress, but I call them shortcomings.

Scorn is obviously a cultivator, and he’s a powerful one at that.

He isn’t alone, though. He must have had help to thwart all campaigns sent against him. We’ve got to collect more information about the man to have a chance of beating him.

Stolen novel; please report.

Our great nation is in jeopardy, and I feel helpless to do anything about it.

But I promise you, this isn’t the end; that vandal will not take us over, and I won’t stand idle to see our nation undone by him.

I’ll take matters into my own hands, and get ready and join a campaign to take that man down, mark my words. His end will be at my hands.

Some of you might wonder who is the bigger danger to the empire, Scorn or the scars of fate?

The scars of fate are a global phenomenon that the entire world has to deal with.

But Scorn, Scorn is a catastrophe that the empire and the empire only have to deal with, as he targets only us or our allies.

A catastrophe that will get crushed by the empire, mark my words.

Scars of fate and other catastrophes.

By Zhi Zixin.

*****

image [https://imgur.com/XfBSXXC.jpg]

Before returning to the workshop, Seph continued browsing the book written by his teacher, and a chapter title stopped him: "Scorn." He couldn’t dismiss it, and ended up reading that chapter before returning to his master.

The pieces were falling into place. Everything that had happened or was already happening was making more sense now.

Zhi Zixin was a subject of the Solea Empire, but more than that, he was one of the emperor’s advisors.

Scorn went after the empire after he grew older, and was a menace to their interests, taking them down a notch with each operation he did to vandalize their trade routes, or their allies, or their campaigns to take him down.

Scorn came out on top every time!

Was Scorn also the reason Zhi Zixin was now a soulbound to the shabby alchemy furnace in the workshop?

Did Zhi go through with his plan to join one campaign and take matters into his own hands to end Scorn?

A lot of questions. The ghost probably wouldn’t be any help in answering them, since it seemed like he had lost his memory at some point.

He stepped into the portal deep in thought, and came out the other side inside his master’s workshop, only to hear his master’s boisterous and shrill voice, “Welcome back, my pupil. Are you ready to make a new pill?”

“Ready and reporting for duty, Master Zhi. We will make only three pills, and tomorrow we'll continue making the rest.”

“Don’t rush, my smart but hasty pupil. Strength pills are one of the hardest to make. They need maximum heat in many steps, but some other pills don’t need that much heat. Show me what ingredients you've found this time.”

Seph took out the mind-sharpening mushrooms and windchime flowers. Sun had the skittish grasshoppers in his hand inside the net.

“Something isn't right here. Why are there only three ingredients? Also, why did you keep the grasshoppers alive?!”

Seph scratched the back of his head, embarrassed, before saying, “I can’t store living beings inside the sack, so we've thought instead of killing them with a rock or something, that we can bring them back while inside the net instead!”

Zhi looked at him wide-eyed in disbelief before saying with a sense of hopelessness, “A rock! Boy, you didn’t tell me you were that green!” The ghost paused for a second before continuing, "Never mind you did tell me you were this green...” He sighed.

“Anyway, you can use your energy in reverse to suck the life out of the grasshoppers. It wouldn’t work on large targets, like humans or big animals, even a rabbit—it wouldn’t work on it—but it will work on insects, so instead of projecting your energy outward, you try to suck the energy from outside instead, and that will keep the ingredient intact; go on, try it out.” The ghost finally finished by ordering Seph to try out what he taught him.

Seph tentatively took out a grasshopper and imagined sucking its energy, instead of projecting his energy, and it worked from the first try!

“Very good, very good, you seem to have a talent for cultivation, too bad you died and had to become a Yin cultivator; you might have had a great future as a Qi cultivator instead, regardless, you are still missing one ingredient!”

Seph made a disgusted face, before saying, “Don’t you have a fourth ingredient we can use instead? I don’t want to use this last one we've got!”

The ghost looked at him incredulously. “Why, boy? Show it to me. We don’t have time for this, remember?”

Seph tentatively, with a visibly shaking hand, got out the sinister nails from his spatial sack and held them out to his mentor.

“Are you a fool, boy? You're making all this fuss for some nails? What would you have done if we were making a pill from a Cyclops' eye, or the feces of a sinister mountain goat?"

Seph almost puked hearing that. Then he remembered that his stomach is always empty, in part because he never eats, and in part because of his uncanny digestion speed.

“You must be jesting, right?”

“No, why would I jest with you? We've wasted enough time now. Let’s make the pills. They won’t make themselves. In the beginning, you need one of each ingredient, but five nails for each pill.”

“Okay, mentor, which one will we start with? And which pill are we making?”

“As for the pill, we're making deadly cunning pills, self-explanatory. You will gain intelligence from this pill. As for what you start with, it will be the grasshopper and the mushroom.”

Seph nodded in affirmation, but then stopped for a second. This was his opportunity to find out something he had always wanted to learn about. “Ummm, Master, I was wondering, what exactly do we as cultivators use intelligence for?”

The ghost facepalmed and looked at Seph from between his fingers, then closed his eyes again. He thought, I've got no clue how this kid is still alive. He doesn’t know much! But his talent for cultivation is undeniable, and probably his fight prowess as well. The kid has got the talent, and seems to have got the drive to work hard as well. It will be hard for cultivators near his stage to stop him, as long as he keeps working hard.

“Well, I'm not sure why I was surprised that you didn’t know. I need to lower my expectations of you. Anyway, intelligence raises the power of your magical attacks. It also raises the power of soul attacks.”

"Oh... OH! Wait, can I use an attack in front of you, and you tell me if it’s magic or soul?”

“Sure, why not? Knock yourself out.”

Seph stood straight, and made an arc with his hands to the top of his head, then brought his palms together in front of his chest, and whispered his mantra. Shattered into a thousand pieces. His arms are overreaching.

He attempted a palm strike, and the ghostly hand continued the rest of the way that his hand couldn’t reach, and then reverberated with power at the end, which was the overbearing part of the strike.

Zhi Zixin was wide-eyed in astonishment. "Who the hell are you, kid?"