*BLARING ALERT NOISE*
"SHUT IT ALL DOWN! WE’VE BEEN INTERCEPTED! AND IT’S COMING FROM YOUR SIDE, FROM WITHIN THE SECT!" The diminutive healer lady screams into the transmission.
"DAMMIT! KILL THE CONNECTION AND RAISE THE SECT BARRIER! NOT EVEN A FLY GOES IN OR OUT!"
Suddenly the feed gets cut off, and I assume (or hope) that I am the one at fault. I had only tried to see how the noise suppression formation for Liliam worked with my branch-tentacles, when I instead stumbled upon a meeting I probably should have not attended. Instead of the noise suppression formation, I had touched the formation responsible for monitoring and relaying information remotely from this place to somewhere else, hence my interception of the whole conversation. Lingfeng did say that someone had been keeping an eye on me, and guess some of the surveillance had been done through the formations installed into the house.
There was one thing that bothered me though. Emotional suppression formation? Have I become some sort of emotionally stunted marionette because of these guys? It would make no sense...I mean, I have been out of the house on a constant basis...unless...it’s not something that gets “cleaned off” that rapidly. I never did spend a whole day or more outside of this house. I should test that out. I wonder which of these runic circles is the one responsible for the emotional suppression?
Let’s see...there's like 10 layers to this thing, as far as I can see. So many overlapping formations? Won’t that blow up? How did they even get this thing to work? It must have been done by some Grandmaster in Formation Arrays.
Which one of these is the Emotional Suppression one? I know that the fourth is the communication formation and the third is the house monitoring one, but what about the others?
Let’s see...deactivate the first one.
*Bzzt*
Ok, what did that do? I only heard a buzzing sound and that’s that.
What about this second one?
*Worblworlblfuzzt*
Another one with no obvious function?
Third?
*SSZZZparkle*
Sixth then?
ARGH! did it just get hot in here? Is that an air conditioner formation?
What about seventh?
BBBBRR! Ack...ok so that’s the cold version of the same thing.
Eighth?
EEK! WHO TURNED OFF THE LIGHTS? Ok, so that’s a darkness generating rune? WTF? Why would you even install such a thing!
What about ninth?
Hmm...no obvious effect...what if…
"My name is General Butts Mc’Kracken Von Spearhol and I have climbed the Everest naked!"
*Fizzlehurr*
Ok, so that’s the layer that acts as the lie detector formation.
Then the last one must be…
*powerdown fizzle*
*...ｍу ħ𝔢α𝐑Ｔ 𝐰Ｉ𝔩ℓ 𝓰ό Ｏᑎ ᵃη𝔻 𝕠𝔬𝓞𝓝... *
ARRGH! Turn back on faster, you damn formation! Ok so that’s the noise suppression layer. Man, Liliam is a fucking terrifying beast! I wonder if that voice of hers can be weaponized somehow. If only it did not hit the allies just as hard as the enemies! Maybe we could use her as a musical suicide bomber? Is that even a thing? BomBard-ing a place?
I have to do something about her, I can’t just continue cohabitating with such a pain in the ass. I do not want to have to keep that silence formation active all of the time, it’s just unnatural. Once activated, the room becomes dead-silent, and is creepy.
I plug a couple of cotton swabs in my ear as makeshift earplugs and then brave the current once more by entering the girl’s room.
*...𝐀𝐧𝕕 sᕼＥ'Ş 𝐜ŁᎥм𝐁ＩＮģ 𝕙є𝐑 𝓈Ｔ𝐚ⓘгʷᗩЎ 丅ό ᕼ𝕖𝔼Ⓔ𝔞α𝐕ｅ𝓔乇η*
"LILIAM! GOT A MOMENT TO TALK?"
"Aw, Hi Trina! What’s up, roomie?" Liliam fortunately stops her screeching.
"Liliam, we need to have a talk about your singing. I am not going to beat around the bush, I think you sound terrible!"
"AH!" She gives me a shocked look! "EVEN YOU, TRINA? WHY CAN NOBODY APPRECIATE MY ARTS? I PUT SO MUCH EFFORT INTO LEARNING NEW SONGS EVERYDAY!"
"Look, it’s not about that. You sing off-key, off-tune and off-beat. Your tempo is all over the place!"
"HUH? Key? Tempo? WAZZDAT?"
"Wait, what kind of musical training did you get? I saw you playing your Zither quite well!"
"Aw, silly, I had no training, nobody was suic...I mean willing to teach me, so I just picked the zither and learned it on my own!"
"You’re self taught? And you can play that well? Well...color me impressed. No, I mean about learning the music notes and all of that. There had to be some sort of manuals available for you to read, right?"
"Huh? Manuals for music? There's even such a thing? I thought everybody just learned how to play by just...playing?"
Man, I should have seen this coming. I keep forgetting I live in Retardworldia. Momma System is a real bitch! Seriously, Timmy, people CANNOT be this fucking stupid! I KNOW I’m not some heavent-sent genius, so why is everyone behaving like a derp?
Timmy: You might not be acting like a genius from YOUR point of view, but what about theirs? Do not forget that even back on your Earth, people lingered in the “retard” range for thousands of years as well! It’s the same thing over here. Your “normal” “average” or “obvious” is not the same as theirs!
But these guys have FUCKING CLONING! And Teleportation! Flying swords with Antigravity! And there obviously is some way to videochat at remote distances, based on what I just saw from that conference just now. Not even Earth had such advanced Technology available.
Timmy: Pfft...HAH! As far as YOU know!
What?
Timmy: Stuff like that used to be available on Earth too. Those things just got lost throughout the ages after the Players were done with their vacations, because there was nobody left that knew how to operate the things properly.
Since how long have “players” have been coming to Earth? Why has nobody noticed their presence?
Timmy: Because you just call them by different names like Gods or Ancient Aliens or more recently, Celebrities. Earth used to be quite a nice Civilization-building themed holiday resort, but has been degrading ever since they let the technology levels run rampant. I do not know what the local Admins are doing with that place anymore, but what I AM certain about is that it nets THIS planet a whole bunch of potential customers after their Earth vacation time is over. I blame it on the anime, games and novels from that place. You’re in the same bucket with them, you know, Mr. Isekai “Destined Hero” wannabe!
Soo, when you say Ancient Aliens from Earth you mean…
Timmy: Players. Did you think the Pyramids built themselves? All Playermade.
Then, is it the same for the native-american temples from groups like the aztecs and the incas?
Timmy: Playermade.
What about the revolutionary minds like Michaelangelo, Tesla or Einstein?
Players with mindwipe accounts like Jin.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The Illuminati?
REAL! And Players!
Smartphones?
Refurbished Tech from crashed UFO’s, hence Player-Tech ripoffs. Damn Chinese have learned to copy anything!
FUCK! So, is there no authentic Technology that got invented only by the Earth out there?
Timmy: Not that much. Technology like this got discovered by others in your Universe or outside of it WAAAAAY before Earth even existed as a planet by itself. Earthlings are just latecomers to an already ongoing party, mate. It’s even worse here on Pangerra, since they are stuck in the middle ages, and will probably remain in the same “period” for many years to come if Momma System has her way.
Speaking about Pangerra, don’t you find the gap between the low and the high end of the tech spectrum a little bit too much?
Timmy: Not at all! Afterall, all of those incredible things you just mentioned are done from the locals point of view via “magic”. They see no need to actually explain why certain things actually happen, but rather feel content to just use the things that they can use, and leave it at that. They are all at “User Level”. It’s like pushing the button on a smartphone to open an app. YOU don’t take time to analyze the way the 1 and 0’s or electrons go through the circuit board, LED’s and the processors of the brick when you push open that app, you just expect it to work. Same deal here. If the Demonic Cultivators want to clone someone, they just use the Cloning Recipe or Ritual, and the System does the actual work in the background for them.
Well, that certainly was another dump truck of info I probably was better off not knowing. After being hit by the reveal that even Earth was just another entertainment facility for the otherworldly beings, I realised that I was indeed suffering from some sort of stunted emotional response. I should have panicked more or been a lot, lot more angry. Instead I just felt ”oh yeah, figures” flatline about everything. The suppression formation was obviously still affecting me, even after I had shut it down, so this most certainly was some type of lingering effect that I had to get rid off over a longer period of time.
I thought that I would take my mind away from the whole thing by resolving the problem that I had come to fix in the first place, namely Liliam.
I spent the next half an hour giving Liliam the abridged version about the singing notes, while also drawing it on a paper and demonstrating it on the zither. I was never much into music, but I still remembered my basic grade school Do–Re–Mi–Fa–Sol–La–Si or the english version of A, B, C, D, E, F, G.
I also depicted the notation system for sheet music to her, albeit in a very, very blurry fashion, since I had not used that stuff in over 20 years.
It was during the time that I was demonstrating the notes for her, that I stumbled upon what might be the root cause of her problems.
"Liliam...I think something is wrong with you. Do me a favor, will you? I want you to just turn your back on me, and then tell me when you hear me playing a note."
After going through the whole sound range on the zither, something became very obvious. Liliam was frequency-deaf. She could not hear between certain ranges of frequencies. It was even weirder, since it was not plain hypoacusis. It was more like selective range deafness, which made no sense. It was almost like an intermittent discading of noise information that occured between certain ranges, like on a sinuous curve.
I had no idea how she was able to play the zither so well, when she could not even hear half of the notes. When I asked her, she said that she just “felt” the vibrations, which might explain how she was partially compensating. But it was still creepy as hell!
"Liliam, I know that this will sound weird, but can you put your head on my lap for a few minutes? I want to check something out."
"Ugh...k?"
After she hesitantly placed her head near my dantian, I extended my branch-tentacles then I began poking around inside of her ears to see if anything was wrong. When I got to the Ear meridian, I found a very, very strange sight. The meridians inside had been torqued by some unknown force, and were looking like a rubber tube that had been twisted around itself several times. The blockage was not total, but it was constrictive enough to explain the strange hearing loss.
"Girl, did something happen to you while you were a child? Some sort of ear infection or head trauma? Your Ear Meridians are all twisted and weird!"
"Eh? How did you know? I had some nasty Earclog sickness back when I was 5, but it went away after I was taken to some healers and they poured some weird hot oil down my earholes. Why, what’s that got to do with anything?"
"It has EVERYTHING to do with it! Your internal ear got damaged during that time! You can’t hear about half of all the sounds in the world!"
"Huh? Realy? But I can hear you speaking just fine!"
"That’s because my voice is within the “audible” range of your hearing. Here, let me demonstrate."
I grab the zither, and I keep repeating the notes that she had ignored during the first time.
"Can you hear the note that I am playing?"
"I...I CAN’T! What note! I don’t hear anything! "
"Exactly my point!"
Ok, time to put on my sensei glasses, and help this girl out. She is Lingfeng’s niece after all, and I still sort of owe him for not outright killing me. But I’ll still need to have another talk with him. I did not think that he thought so poorly of me, even after everything we’ve been through. I felt a little betrayed about that, to be honest, I mean, I just saved the guy’s life and all, I thought he would be at least more grateful. Argh, damn emotion suppression formation!
But that’s a problem for later. For now, I gotta get this girl to pop her own Ear meridians and see if that solves anything. If stupid-ass Fung could learn how to pop himself, I do not see why this girl would not be able to do the same. And since I’m at it, I might as well do my own. I don’t think I have to restrain myself and wait for the Autumn Exams anymore. If what I heard from my eavesdropping is true, then the whole Sect might not even be around come Autumn if the Demoniacs get their way.
I spent the next hour just describing the Qi-braid cultivation method to her, and she was left agape. She was very doubtful, and it took a while to just convince her that I meant no harm and that It would not damage her in any way.
After she finally popped her first membrane and unlocked her Spinal Meridian, she changed her attitude 180°. She kept squealing and embracing me, thanking me for sharing such a “great secret” with her. In some sort of way, she was also mirroring Fung’s reaction to the whole cultivation method, which led me to believe even more about the fact that the Sects were hoarding all of the good cultivation secrets, leaving the public in the dark on purpose.
After taking a break and “sucking” on some pure but partially charged spirit stones that I had modified for her to recharge her Qi, she then proceeded to open her Crown Dantian, leaving her squirming in orgasm on the floor as the white Qi hit her Spirit Root for the first time.
After taking a couple more hours to “cool down” and adjust to the new pathway and braid some more Qi-ropes, she was willing to go again.
I also joined her, and I checked which pathways we needed to follow.
The Ear and Eye Meridians would be somewhat easy to open, because they were connected directly to the Crown meridian. The other ones though, like the Voice/Throat, Mouth and Nose would need some precursors opened before anyone could access them, by starting off from the Heart Dantian, which led to the Left and Right Lung meridians, which then continued to the Throat meridian, followed by the Mouth and the Nose meridian, which at the end also wound up re-connecting to the crown meridian, creating a full circle.
Because the Ears were the problem, I decided that we should start with those first. Still, I wanted to try something out before that. What if I were to use a branch-tentacle to open the meridians instead of a Qi braid? Branch-tentacles were a lot stronger and responded a lot better to commands than a basic Qi braid. My branch-tentacles had grown long enough to reach the length of about one meter away from my body when I projected them from my navel, so I had enough “rope” to use them for poking inside of my own head if I needed to. I pushed one branch through my spinal meridian, then I began to poke with the sharp tip at the membrane separating my Right Ear meridian from my Crown dantian. After a strong push, the membrane gave up, and I felt a booming sensation fill my right ear, just like someone had thrown a flashbang grenade into the room, but it had affected only my right ear. For a few minutes, all I could hear was a continuous beeeep of a tinnitus blood noise coming from my right ear, and felt a horrible internal itch inside of my head that I had no way to scratch.
In the end, it subsided, and I immediately felt the difference. I could now hear significantly better with my right ear, making it seem like my left ear had been damaged, but I knew that it was a fake sensation. The truth was that the right ear was now so much better at picking up sounds than the left, that it had left the brain baffled.
Still, I did not want to linger in this unbalanced state for too long, so I immediately “executed” the left ear as well. It also went pop with a bang and a scream of blood rushing inside of my internal ear, but eventually leveled back down to normal. The difference from before and after was tangible. I could now hear lower and higher frequencies which I had never been able to perceive before. I could probably even hear a dog whistle or an even higher pitch. Also, everything sounded more “clear”, which meant that my capacity for discriminating sounds from one another had also increased.
Timmy had also tossed a bunch of CXP at me for both of my openings, and I was slowly approaching the next level up.
SInce I had confirmed that meridian opening was done a lot easier with branch-tentacles, I proceeded to explain the process of nurturing a tentacle to Liliam. It took a while for her to create one, but I did not mind waiting. The less time she spent singing, the better it was for my mental health.
Liliam ran into a little bit of trouble when she attempted her first ear, because unlike my Ear meridians which were unharmed, hers were all twisted and ugly and had to be “uncurled” first, before they could function properly. The process had proven to be extremely painful, and Liliam was screaming like she was being eaten alive by a lion. An anesthetic Pill wouldn't have helped either, because this was not a problem of the fleshy body itself, but rather one of the inter-connected spiritual pathways. Even though she almost fainted, in the end she had managed to untwist her Right Ear meridian, and had successfully opened it.
It took her a couple more hours to get over the pain, and try the left ear as well. I told her that there is no need to rush, but she just replied that I should not worry about her, and that this was “nothing” compared to some of the other training she had been through. I dreaded to even ask about what other tortues she had endured, because I knew it would probably be something hurtful on a personal level.
After screaming in pain even more, and literally fainting for a brief period at the end of her “push” for the round, she had finally opened her left ear as well. Suddenly, she was sporting a strange expression on her face that you would have only been able to find on a deaf man suddenly hearing or a blind man suddenly being able to see. The wonder of the new influx of information made her jump, giggle and yell in joy, as she rushed out of the house to hear “everything”, from the wind, the grass, the leaves in the trees, the water pouring out of the bamboo pipes, the birds singing on the branches and even that rooster conjuring his demons from hell. For her, everything was new and marvelous and exciting, and I was glad to see her satisfied with the results. It also made me feel a little bit good about myself as well. It was nice to help others.
In the end, I had to pry Liliam off of me by force after she had latched onto me and would not let go as she began to piss her eyes and thank me over and over again. While I did enjoy the tender touch of a young maiden, the neighbors were starting to stare at us and wonder what the hell the crazy girl had done again, and the last thing I wanted at this moment was to draw unnecessary attention towards me. There were way too many volatile elements in the sect at this moment for me to lay comfortable.
Since the day was almost at an end, we both just went back into the house, so after I tested Liliam’s hearing range and I confirmed that she could now indeed hear all of the notes, we both just went to sleep. At least for Liliam, it had been a life-changing day, as she fell asleep humping her Zither and mumbling song lyrics.