We were woken up only a few hours later by the call of the rooster.

Well, at least I assumed that it was a rooster, because it sounded like a regular rooster call, except being performed while the creature was getting shot, stabbed and set on fire all at the same time.

I do not know what the poor critter was, but my money was on a failed experiment that had gotten loose somehow.

It was annoying to say the least.

Trying to sleep had been almost an impossible task, with all of the life-changing threats looming over my head, not to mention with the absolutely horrible hay beds that we had been given to rest upon.

I had tried very hard to ignore all of the thoughts inside of my head that were trying to point out how many insects had crawled all over me during the night-time.

There's no way any of this was sanitary! But then again, what could you expect out of an evil clone den.

As soon as the rooster-thing had stopped his very good imitation of a metal band lead singer, Yi walked in.

All of the other clones stood up instantly, like on command. He did not even need to shake them awake.

We formed a line and followed him into a nearby courtyard.

There were a couple of tables lined up, each with a series of empty bowls on top of them. On the third table there were two steaming pots of some sort of brown gruel.

“Trina, come give me a hand and with these. You fill the right side and I will fill the left.”

“Yessir!”

I began filling the empty bowls on my side with the shlop, while leaving a little bit on the bottom of the pot for myself as well. Of course, because of my portion, the entire right side group was getting a little bit less food, but I did not think that they cared even a little bit.

“Alright, everybody eat now!”

I tried sampling the dubious looking gruel, and then I froze in place. Horrible tasting was saying little. This was beyond that, it was the absolutely horrendous, stomach-churning-vomit-inducing-pallet-paralysing sort of bad.

"Dude, what the hell is this thing! It's absolutely inedible! My taste buds are screaming in defeat!"

"Huh, what do you mean? That is an absolutely scientifically balanced meal, well thought out from a caloric, energetic and vitamin point of view."

"Senior, have you actually ever tasted this?"

"No, why would I ever want to taste clone food?"

"Here, have a spoonful, I dare you!"

"Oh come on, it cannot be that ba...BLAHURGAH...HURGHALBURGAL! Oh my god it's bad, incredibly bad."

"Mhmm! Told ya! You should be using that recipe to punish people, not to feed them!"

"Good idea! I should probably write that down! Anyway...here...you can have one of my morning sandwiches. I have one extra."

"Wow...thanks Senior!"

"No problem, enjoy."

Indeed, I quite delighted myself in the taste of my given ham and salad sandwich. It was worlds apart, flavour wise, from the “torture gruel”.

I pitied my sibling clones, which were now being forced to eat it.

Myself and Yi just sat next to each other, enjoying our morning sandwiches in silence.

After we both finished, we all proceeded to move to another enclosure. It was a sort of a training yard, given the presence of weights and dumbbells, wooden training weapons and target dummies.

"Alright, everyone get ready for practice." Said Yi to the whole group, then turned around to search for something in one of the nearby wooden chests.

"Ok, you are all to equip one of these and…" Yi stops in mid sentence while turning back around to face us.

"Umm...what the hell are you doing, Trina?"

"Umm...stretching, Senior? Didn't you tell us to get ready? It's always good practice to stretch your limbs before you do any physical exercise, so that your muscles and joints do not grow sore."

"Is that so? Hmm, I should probably write that down. But why did you assume that we were going to do any sorts of physical exercise?"

"Well isn't this training what it's all about? Like defeating the Hero of the Sun using our special clone powers?"

"Special clone powers? What? Whatever gave you the idea that you have any?"

"Well, didn't Elder Xin say that we are “special weapons” created to defeat the Hero of the Sun?"

"Well yes, but you are all supposed to defeat his psyche, not his talent at combat! Trying to fight him fair and square would only end up with you painting the walls with your blood. No, what we’re after is dealing a blow to his MIND, so that the Sect Master can finish him off. It is why you all have been made to look exactly like his dead little sister. You have no idea through how many troubles the Sect has gone through just to acquire even a drop of blood and tissue-sample from her body. I mean, she’s been dead for almost two years now..."

Ok, so at least they are aware that a fair fight will end up in disaster.

Also, I’m apparently wearing a dead girl’s face. There’s no way that’s not going to end up in a disaster somehow. So much for begging the Hero to save my ass and take me away from this insane sect!

"Anyway, everyone grab one of these tomes, and Equip them in your inventory screen, then set them active as your offhand."

"Ugh...Senior...what is this all about...It says [101 Techniques on How to Seduce a Cultivator] on the cover…”

"Ah, did I not mention this before? Hmm...right, I guess I didn’t...Well, the Hero of the Sun is a total SisCon. In the worst way you can think of.”

I frown deeply at the new info.

Anyway, “Inventory”

Head: [Bad Morning Hairdo]

Hair Accessory: Empty

Earrings: Empty

Upper Piercings: N/A

Neck: Empty

Shoulders: Empty

Chest Underwear: Empty

Chest: [Evil Minion Jumpsuit Version 2.5]

Tabard: Empty

Badge: Empty

Backpack: Empty

Right Hand Glove: Empty

Left Hand Glove: Empty

Rings: Empty

Belt: [Evil Minion Jumpsuit Version 2.5]

Middle Piercings: Empty

Legs Underwear: Empty

Legs: [Evil Minion Jumpsuit Version 2.5]

Lower Piercings: Empty

Socks: [White Tabi Cotton Socks]

Boots: Empty

Main Hand: [Fist]

Offhand: [Fist]

Backup: Empty

Charm: Empty

Timmy: You have now equipped [101 Techniques on How to Seduce a Cultivator]

Timmy: You have set [101 Techniques on How to Seduce a Cultivator] as your offhand tome. While equipped, you have gained some of the skills contained within the tome.

Tap ⊞ for the whole list.

Timmy needs to access your motor system to perform any System Preset Skills.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Are you sure you want to grant root access to : System Assistant Timmy.

[Yes] [No] [Cancel]

Fine, Yes, whatever! I’m so glad that I bought the [I am the master of my own destiny!] module, since it disallows Timmy from screwing me over by taking control of my nervous system when I least expect him, and doing nasty shit with it.

Knowledge of the new “Skills” granted by the tome floods into a corner of my mind, and I can now seamlessly perform them on command. Except that all of these skills are...wow...I can’t even begin to...

"Alright, practice time." Yi interrupts me."Move onto Chapter 1, Page 1"

I open the tome, and gaze at the contents, just to make sure.

Haaah...well, of course it would be something like this.

It’s very...graphical, containing both hand-painted illustrations and detailed literary descriptions of said “seduction techniques”.

The next couple of hours are spent with us poor clones trying to “properly interpret and execute” the techniques inside.

The whole book looks like a compilation made up from the worst little-sister oriented anime character lines, 80’s forbidden erotica, and even stuff that you would have only found on the “deep web”, back on Earth, and would result in having the FBI chase after your ass afterwards.

Which basically amounted to us doing all sorts of embarrassing stuff, that ranged from a mild and quite innocent stuff like “waking big brother up by pouncing on him”, “giving big brother the puppy eyes”, “giving big brother a pouty tsundere expression”, to raunchier stuff like “Aaa, big brother is a pervert, he walked into my room while I was changing”, to down right fucked-up shit like “be gentle big brother, it’s my first time”, “ah no, big brother, it’s so big I don’t know if it’s going to fit in”.

While I protested and told Yi that he could shove his porn leaflet where the sun don't shine, and that I’m not doing any of that shit, the other clones got forced to “perform” every action quite rigorously.

It became absolutely horrendous to have to watch “myself”, multiplied by twelve times over, attempting to execute said techniques and failing miserably.

The unfocused eyes, flat execution tone and stiffness of movement that the clones were displaying absolutely ruined every line delivered.

From something that was supposed to elicit feelings of protection and intimacy from the target, they now elicited as much “attraction factor” as a door-to-door church preacher trying to convert you to his religion.

Even Yi was getting absolutely pissed off, with a throbbing vein on his forehead pulsating so bad it was nearly bursting.

"NO! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! AGAIN!”

Slap!

"AGAIN!"

"WROOOOOOONG!"

After watching that whole shit go on for another half an hour, even I had gotten sick of the whole show.

"Senior Yi, I do not mean to be rude, but you are fucking TERRIBLE teacher!"

"Huh? But it’s how we have done things in the Sect for years. It’s how I was raised, and I turned out just fine..."

"As a half-mechanical deformed minion inside a demonic sect, that can’t wait for the next opportunity to stab his boss in the back and take his place? Oh, wow, great success...so many life opportunities!"

"Hrr, I see you have unpacked even your sarcasm memory bundle. But yes, point taken, teaching is not a strong point inside of the Sect. What do you think I should do then?"

"For starters, you don’t just yell “wrong” at students over and over again and expect them to improve! You HAVE to tell them what was wrong in the first place, so that they know what to correct. Otherwise, they will forever keep on fumbling blindly and not get anywhere!"

"Hmm, maybe you’re right...I should write that down. Ok, then what?"

"Then you have to show them examples of how it should be done, in the instances where you can do so."

"Wait, you expect me to start acting like a 13 year old girl in love with her big brother just so I can train these clones?"

"Well...yeaah, Duh! I mean, if you want them to be “functional” by the time of the deadline Elder Xin has tossed upon you, then you’d better try every method available. You don’t actually have to “play out” the whole book, you just have to show them when they “go wrong” how that particular section should be properly executed. It does not matter that you’re a hideous mechanical midget, because the body language, tone inflections, timing of line delivery and stuff like that will still remain the same, no matter who acts them out.”

"BAH! Dammit...I guess you are right. Ok, let’s try that!"

"And one more thing, can’t you do something about that emotionless-ness? The worst past of the whole execution is their appearance similar to wax mannequins."

"But...if I disable the Emotional Blocker, then they might run rampant again! I already told you about the previous clone rebellion..."

"Yeah, the previous “accident”...right?"

"Cough...yeah...”accident”."

"Then don’t just totally disable it, but rather turn it down low enough until they can exude facial expressions instead."

"Wow, ok...Huh...a gradual setting...why did I not think of that...I should write that down. But to obtain a gradual setting, I would need to modify the control matrix" He points to a switch on his mechanical arm.

"Actually, you know what, I’ll go improve it right now. Here!" He hands me his tome. "Keep them practicing till I come back, shouldn’t take more than an hour."

"Five more sandwiches." I state out cleanly!

"Five more...whaaat?"

"If you want me to keep on training the clones, it’s gonna cost you five more of those ham sandwiches!"

"No way! Two sandwiches!"

"Four sandwiches!"

"Three sandwiches!"

"Deal!"

"FUCK! You started with five on purpose, didn’t you?"

"Basic negotiations 101, my dear Yi: Start with a high price then lower it to acceptable levels."

Timmy: For having successfully negotiated your first deal, you have gained 50 Normal Experience.

"Fine, whatever, three! Just keep them going through the motions! I’ll be back under an hour. I need different specialised tools from the Lab to modify this."

Yi rushed back into the Lab, and I did not see him for the next hour or so. After he came back, he was sporting a new adjustable knob in place of the switch.

The next hour was spent with the midget acting out the silly lines, like he was a young girl in love, with the clones faithfully beginning to copy him and starting to improve by leaps and bounds once their emotion blocker had been tuned down.

Of course, I was barely containing my laughter at the whole show. The whole dissonance of a deformed robotic midget acting like a little girl in love was just up to the next level of cringeworthy.

From time to time I pitched in, when even the midget was too terrible at executing the lines by himself.

When lunchtime hit, I received one of my promised sandwiches as my reward.

Unfortunately for them, the clones had received the same “clone feed” shlop as during breakfast, and I kind of felt sorry for the bunch.

"You know, if you’re so good at guiding the clones in performing the routines like that, why the hell don’t you do it instead?" Complained Yi while chewing on his own sandwich.

"Because the routines are absolutely embarrassing, and I still have no clue how you guys expect to fool the Hero by using such pathetic displays of acting skills, not to mention actually deal any psychological damage besides that."

"Well, the techniques are not totally necessary, but they are the best chance at getting the girls close enough to the Hero while his guard is lowered. It doesn't even matter if he kills a few of them, because as long as one makes it, then we have a much greater chance at winning."

"Makes it through his guard? To do what?"

"Ah, right, I forgot that it’s not in your memory package. To touch him with one of these." He produces a golden hair pin out of thin air, and hands it over to me.

"Erm? A hair brooch? What’s this for?"

"Ah, right. Use your appraisal skill on it."

"My what?"

"Your appraisal skill...Ah damn, I keep forgetting that you’re fresh out of the oven. Hold the pin in front of your eyes, then focus on it and try to think “Identify” in your mind. Mother Earth will do the rest."

I do as told, and I get two new prompts.

Timmy: [Passive Identify Skill] has been unlocked. Added progress bar for the skill to your statistics.

Description:

See a quick description of the items in the environment that you focus on.

At advanced levels of this skill, you will be able to notice items that have hidden effects, but you will not know what those effects are until you actively appraise them.

Timmy: [Active Appraisal Skill] has been unlocked. Added progress bar for the skill to your statistics.

Description:

Spend Qi to enhance your perception and your mental link with Mother Earth. Reveals properties and modifiers from items in much greater detail.

At advanced levels of this skill, you will be able to reveal hidden and connected properties and modifiers from the appraised items, as well as their history.

Current cost: 10 Qi per activation.

Appraisal Results:

[Golden Hair Brooch Of The Timid Recluse Queen]

Item Slot: Hair Accessory

Item Type: Concealed Weapon

Item Material: Tainted Bloodgold.

Item Quality: Rare - Crafted

Item Damage: 1-15 Piercing, 1-2 Slashing, 0-0 Blunt.

Item Durability: 80/80

Item Modifiers: On Touch - Recluse Necrosis

Description:

Upon touching the target with the pointy end of this hair brooch, inflict [Tissue Necrosis] and [Generalized Regeneration Suppression] on the target. Both debuffs last for 24 hours, or until cleansed.

This is a special item that has been crafted to slay a specific target.

"[Tissue Necrosis]? [Generalized Regeneration Suppression]? Why those things in particular? They do not sound that great to me."

"Because the Hero of the Sun is best known for his insane Health Regeneration attribute. He is a hundred times worse than a troll, you can even cut his limbs off and he will regenerate them back in under 10 seconds. And because of that, he has also become quite adept at using skills that convert Health to Qi or Health to Stamina, making him virtually invincible and tireless. It is how he got so far on the Hero path, by abusing his own body to the limits. Stabbing him through the heart does nothing. Poisoning him does nothing. Someone even managed to cut his head off once, and he then regenerated the entirety of his lower body from the neck down afterwards, then beat the guy to death using his previous dead body as a blunt weapon, because it had armor on. Gruesome stuff.

He also has a penchant for using light-attribute attacks, hence his nickname “of the Sun”, because every enemy he encounters gets burned to ashes in front of his wrath."

"Wow man, that bad? How the hell can you even kill something like that?"

"Precisely. Is why this brooch was specifically made to target his greatest strength, which is also his greatest weakness, the Health Regeneration. We’ll be getting a few more of these brooches from the Crafting Hall during the next few days, so you just hold onto that one that I already gave you, just in case. "

"Wow...thanks, Senior Yi...I guess?"

I gaze upon my first murder implement with conflicted eyes. It’s a heavy gift for me to bear.

"So you see, if any of the clones manage to touch or stab the Hero with one of these brooches and disable his Regen factor, he will become ripe for the slaughter, since he’s not that tough of an opponent overall. He has no idea how to dodge or avoid taking damage, because he has never needed to do so. Usually, he just tanks everything thrown at him without a problem. The Sect Master will make short work of him once he cannot regrow his limbs anymore."

"I see..."

"Therefore, up and at it! Back to training with you lot!"

All the way from lunch to dinner time we kept practicing those embarrassing and cringy seduction techniques.

I even managed to negotiate an extra deal with Yi Gore, where he would give me an extra sandwich if I managed to get the clones to execute something properly after he had failed to do so.

By the end of the day, I was sitting on 15+ sandwiches, and Yi was feeling terribly embarrassed by his incompetence as a teacher.

When night time arrived and we were herded back to the clone den, I asked Yi if he could lend me a blanket, since I did not want to sit directly on the hay stacks again. He promptly whipped his hand out and summoned an old blanket full of moth holes from nowhere, then gave it to me without asking for anything in return. I was slowly growing a little fond of the little pipsqueak by the end of the day, as he had been nothing but nice to me. I had expected some grueling physical training and maybe even a little bit of torture during the sessions, but all I got was ham sandwiches and a dancing midget pretending to love his big bro instead.

It had been a weird experience to say the least.

With the clones safely “parked”, I finally managed to get some shut eye, all tucked away in my “new” old stinky blanket.