Jie roared and cycled lightning step with what little remained of her energy as she whipped her arm out, hurling one of her blood swords toward the distracted mummy like a javelin.

His gaze snapped back to her too late and his eyes flared with green fire as he tried to evade the strike. He was too slow. The crystalline sword penetrated the dry flesh of his stomach as the hilt caught on his desiccated body, preventing the sword from going all the way through and driving him back into the metal pipe behind him. The crystalline blade penetrated the pipe with a shriek of tortured metal and pinned him against the pipe.

He roared and gripped the hilt of the blade. He grunted as he tried to pull it out of him and free himself but failed to do so.

His burning glare settled on Jie and his fiery eyes seemed to fill with pure spite as he raised his hand and hissed, causing the wall of runic spheres to angle toward Jie's friends.

"No!" Jie snarled and threw her remaining sword at him.

The blade whipped through the air in a red flash and caught the mummy in his throat.

The blade sheered through his neck and embedded itself in the pipe, decapitating him even as it held his head in place upon its hilt like a shelf.

His headless body slumped forward, his bony fingers still gripping the hilt of the blade impaling his stomach as bright green fire gushed out of his neck stump, splattering the floor with unnatural flames. Slowly, the fire in his eyes died out until only wisps of smoke curled from the dark sockets. The runic spheres hovering in the air turned unstable and detonated in a chaotic mess of purple and black energy. The shockwaves of the blast washed over Jie and her friends but they were too far away to harm them.

Jie wavered as her lightning step skill sputtered out and the world seemed to spin. Strangely, she thought she ought to say something quippy like a hero in the occasional movies she'd watched, but only panting breaths escaped her lips as she collapsed to her knees with absolute exhaustion.

"Jie!" Pan Tian and Ithilix cried in unison as they and Xue rushed over to her.

Pan Tian popped a healing pill into Jie's mouth. It melted on her tongue, the healing energies pouring through her body and down her throat. Aches and pains she hadn't been aware of faded away. Though, it did little to reduce her exhaustion.

"Thanks," Jie said between panting breaths as she cultivated and began restoring some of her qi.

Xue nuzzled her neck and Jie stroked him. He brushed himself against her, then padded around, inspecting each of the mummies and making very sure they were dead.

"Did you just kill four ninth star Expert ranked cultivators?" Pan Tian asked.

"And their pet snakes," Jie said.

"How?" Pan Tian asked.

"Hit them very hard," Jie said between breaths.

Ithilix giggled. "Are you truly surprised at this point?" she asked.

"I suppose not... I'm sorry we couldn't help you more. Thanks for saving us," Pan Tian said.

Jie nodded. "Always," she said.

"She must be drained... the building has left the ground. This one expects it has lit up. Noctilith will be here soon," Ithilix said.

"Sorry," Jie said.

Ithilix lifted her up. "This one only meant that it would be wise to lock the door while the pr-- Jie recovers," she said.

"That's a good point," Pan Tian said. She slammed and locked the door as Ithilix helped Jie walk across the glowing transparent floor toward the crystalline lotus bud that dominated the room. Purple light streamed down on it from the circle above and the bud swelled with power. It clicked and whirred as it unfolded into a beautiful lotus with a wide platform in the center.

"What is this?" Jie asked.

"It's a cultivation chamber. Quite sophisticated. This one wishes we could take it with us," Ithilix said.

She helped Jie up onto the central platform. The second they entered the purple light, Jie felt the Essence she was drawing in magnify several times over.

"Woah... this is even better than the school's," Jie said.

"This one believes those you fought once had a much higher cultivation," Ithilix said.

"I wonder what wiped out their city if they had facilities like this..." Pan Tian said.

Jie settled down into a meditative position as the others, including Xue, sat down around her and together they cultivated the dense energies within the purple light.

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***

Soon, skittering and scratching noises came from every direction around them, particularly from the hallway. Though they were heavily muffled by the thick walls and door and the rhythmic clanking of the machinery in the cultivation chamber. Jie couldn't help but wonder just how many noctilith there were for them to still be so noticeable.

Still, she was in no shape to deal with anything. She focused on cultivating with only a small portion of her awareness sensing around her in case a noctilith got inside the chamber and attacked them.

Essence filled her dantian and she refined it as she always did, gaining new qi while also recovering her own that she had so recently spent. The ache in her meridians faded from the healing pill and her exhaustion lifted as she replenished her qi.

Jie felt Pan Tian, Ithilix, and Xue all break through into the star above where they'd been. Pan Tian and Xue reached the fifth star of the Expert rank while Ithilix reached the sixth star of the Expert rank.

"Well done," Jie said without opening her eyes.

"It's thanks to you and Kazzak. I can't believe how my cultivation is soaring," Pan Tian said.

"This one has similar gratitude," Ithilix said, "perhaps we shall even catch up to you?"

Pan Tian laughed. "If we did, Jie would probably think she wasn't working hard enough and start absorbing other people's cultivation like she did to that treasure monster," she said.

"This one is unsure if that's a joke or not," Ithilix said.

"So am I," Pan Tian said.

Jie rolled her eyes and continued cultivating. She felt the others soar in their cultivation as she not only replenished her energy but pushed it to new heights. Although she didn't break through, she couldn't help feeling that if she were to face the mummies again, she'd win almost effortlessly now.

Once again, her qi roared inside her dantian, raced through her meridians, and slammed into the barrier to her middle dantian. Jie gritted her teeth and grunted as pain flared through her body.

"Jie?" Pan Tian asked.

"I'm fine," Jie gasped, "it's just... a bottleneck."

The others settled back, but she could feel them watching her as she reigned in her energies and relaxed once more before resuming cultivating again. The same thing happened again and again, making her feel increasingly frustrated on top of the pain she felt.

She knew that she couldn't simply brute force her way into the Elementalist rank. That it required deep introspection about topics she didn't want to think about. And she had every intention of working on that. But she still felt that growing her cultivation was important regardless and would help her advance faster once she finally broke through this insufferable bottleneck.

She was glad for the advice she'd received on what was likely stopping her as without it, it'd have been maddening. But it was still annoying even so.

She and the others continued to cultivate for hours. Nobody even mentioned leaving and wasting this chance to cultivate. Even with all the scuttling around them and the sounds of explosions elsewhere in the building.

Gradually, the others stopped cultivating, using the time to work on their martial skills, look over the room, and gather up items from the mummies. As Jie cultivated, she focused on the idea of killing and the war within herself just as Kazzak had said.

Why does this bother me so much? She wondered, trying to understand the source of her conflict as Kazzak had advised.

The reply from her mind was a confused tangle of emotions and conflicting beliefs that made her head spin, but she did her best to process it, feel it, and understand it.

Because I don't want my parents to hate me... because I'm afraid they already do... because I don't want Ming to hate me... because I don't want to hate myself... and yet I already do. Because I don't know what's right and I don't know how to know. How is anyone supposed to know? How am I supposed to know? How can I kill without becoming a monster myself? How do I live with myself if I make a mistake? What if I already have? And if I don't kill Fang Zhuyu's followers... won't everyone die? Or worse... Jie thought.

The knots of twisted emotions and thoughts made Jie squirm uncomfortably as she focused on them. But she forced herself to do so until once again she felt like she was simply chasing herself in circles. Then, finally, she opened her eyes and wiped at them with the back of her hand.

"Are you done?" Pan Tian asked.

"Yeah," Jie said, doing her best to keep her voice steady as Essence spilled from her lips like mist, "I don't think I can cultivate more without risking making my cultivation base unstable again."

"Seriously? I reached that point ages ago. We all did, and you took in way more Essence than all of us combined. You're a monster, Jie," Pan Tian said with a bright smile.

"Thanks, but I'm also working on my bottleneck, so it's not just about cultivating. And you're refining way better than you used to," Jie said, "I'm sure you'll get there."

"Thanks. Here, take this," Pan Tian said as she tossed a small pyramid to Jie.

Jie easily snatched it out of the air and looked it over. It was smaller than her palm, with hieroglyphs she didn't understand carved into its surface and it pulsed with a faint purple light.

"Each of the mummies you killed was carrying one. My scroll of wisdom says it's a transporter and security key. I think we can use them to activate that pad we came across earlier, and maybe it'll take us back down. I'm not sure if it'll work for us, but I can't think of a better way for us to get down if noctilith are swarming the place. And I don't think any of us want to risk falling to the ground. Not even with your cultivation, Jie," Pan Tian said, "make sure you keep it on you and don't just store it in your ring. There might be new traps and defenses now this place has power, and my scroll suggested these keys might help guard against such things. If that's true, then we don't want to take the risk that the defenses can sense inside our storage treasures. It might just be overly cautious, but..."

"Makes sense to me," Jie said, "thanks."

"Don't thank me. We only have them because of you. I still can't believe you took down four ninth star Experts at the same time," Pan Tian said.

"I almost didn't," Jie said as she stalked over to the impaled mummy and yanked out her crystal swords with the sound of screeching metal and the dull thuds of the mummy's body and head hitting the floor.

"But you did," Pan Tian said, "your qi is so overpowering. I've never experienced anything like it. I suppose I should be glad you took it so easy on me when we sparred. No wonder Elder Shi took such an interest in you."

Hearing her name sent fresh waves of guilt through Jie about refusing Elder Shi... but to do what she wanted... even if it was the Chen family, wouldn't that make her a monster too?

But then, in this world, wasn't that considered a good thing?

"Her training has helped me a lot," Jie said, "so are we heading for the transportation room?"

"Yes," Pan Tian said, "I think it's best if you take the lead now. We've already been through it, so we're more likely to find enemies than traps, and... well... you're the strongest."

"Alright," Jie said, "ready?"