I tweaked the climate model to make the rain stop as soon as Li Tian died. This would have far reaching consequences such as droughts throughout the Mortal Realms and a Category 7 hurricane in the Heavenly Realm, but eh, they're just NPCs and you could tell the viewers appreciated it.
It felt like the the last of the rain fell like sludge. Isaac and half of Pang's friends and family rushed over to his unconscious form, and hoisted him up like a champion, an effect only slightly tarnished by the way his head lolled about. Their celebration was checked by the weeping of Lady Ling, who decided that if the heavens would shed no tears for her beloved, she would in its stead. Li Ming howled and tore his robes, nails gouging bloody furrows in his chest as he alternated between mutilating himself and beating his head against the hard rock of the arena. Since Li Tian's parents had died when he was a young child, his uncle had doted on him and raised him as his own. To see him dead was to have his heart blood drained away and cast into an ocean of grief.
Isaac spat in Li Tian's direction, which drew several looks of disapproval, but at this point nobody felt inclined to quibble. The dead may keep their honor, but the living look to their own.
Under the gentle treatment of the Medical Hall Elder, a beautiful woman whose youthful appearance belied her age, Pang Zhenyu came to, his wounds sealed and robes repaired. His nose was crooked, one eye sealed shut with crusted blood and the other weeping red tears. He'd almost broken his neck, when the enchantment had worn off on Obbie, it may have become a blunt instrument with a broken collider and hitbox, but there were still minor charms on it even after the Heavenly Surgeon's Scalpel had dissipated. It was the equivalent of a baseball bat swung by a gorilla, and it's a testament to how Cultivators are made of sterner stuff that Pang wasn't decapitated nonetheless.
He smiled at Isaac, revealing half a dozen missing teeth, and when he spoke it was more of a soft hiss than speech. Isaac gently shushed him and stepped away as other members of the Pang family took over his care, while Ancient Ancestor Pangolin spoke with the Sect Elders, and then watched them restrain the maddened Li Ming.
He gave Isaac a knowing glance, and then let his parents and attendants wheel him away for naptime.
After being fussed over and pampered with medicine worth hundreds or even thousands of Spirt Stones, Pang Zhenyu managed to recover enough to barely walk while assisted. He hobbled over to the massive pool of blood which still showed smears from where Li Tian had been dragged away, and retrieved both his own blade and Obbie, handing the latter to Isaac.
Isaac took it with thanks and sheathed it, and then caught Pang as he immediately passed out again. He was handed off for proper convalescene in the Medicine Hall, and Isaac escorted as a guest of honor to an empty house near the Pang quarters.
The next few weeks passed in a hedonistic blur. Pang Zhenyu's father, Pang Tianlong, finally managed to acquire leave from his job at the Imperial Court, and arrived on a flying sword. He was quickly brought to speed, and when a mostly lucid Pang Zhenyu whispered into his ear that Isaac had been instrumental for his victory, he immediately showered him with spirit stones far in excess of the dozen Isaac had initially asked for. He laughed when Isaac politely mentioned the matter of a letter of recommendation, and stated that he'd personally take him to any sect in Jiangshu he cared to visit.
Flush with some real cash for the first time in his life, Isaac decided to properly delve into the notes left behind by the mischievous AA Pangolin, who feigned complete ignorance when he brought the matter up again.
On insistence from both Pang and his father (Pang), Isaac was allowed to train with the Outer Disciples, and made swift progress in his Cultivation.
To his mild dismay, his sense of satisfaction from the brutal slaughter of his foe weakened his Dao of Hatred, but he persevered out of a new found pugnacity, keen on ensuring he'd never be bullied around again. Of course that wouldn't happen, this is a Xianxia setting after all, but it was a noble goal and prompted a great deal of cheering from the invisible audience watching his every move. Our viewership numbers were up a full 20%, and I might even get a raise this week if I keep it up.
Isaac cultivated hard, focusing on Body Path for the moment. He'd seen how effective it could be firsthand, and making himself into a lethal weapon even without tools at hand seemed like plain old commonsense to him. He punched wooden boards till his hands bled, though he cheated by taking painkillers in advance, and kept it up until he felt the surge of Qi flowing in his arms reflect in the growth of his muscles. A rehabilitating Pang exchanged moves with him on a regular basis, and being weakened greatly, was almost a beatable opponent for Isaac.
Of course, Pang was immensely grateful, he'd repeatedly asked Isaac how he'd managed to use Reclaiming One's Own Sword on Obbie and get away with it. Initially, Isaac had sincerely stated that he had done no such thing, but Pang refused to believe him, and only stopped asking when Isaac helplessly claimed it was a hidden technique available to him as the Lord of Destruction. He almost regretted being so honest at the start, he'd come to realize that many in the sect thought the same as Pang, including the Elders, and they were more appreciative of his "talent" in hiding his abilities rather than angry at his acts.
Only a handful of people attended Li Tian's funeral, for all that he'd been a very popular Young Master in life. An ashen-faced Lady Ling accompanied the despondent Li Ming and other members of the Li family as the funeral procession wound itself down the mountain, headed for the family cemetery. Isaac watched them go with an Ill-concealed gleam in his eye.
As promised, the Sect elders forced the Li family to compensate him for the accusation, and Isaac chose several items from Li Tian's possessions. He was particularly fond of a guandao, or Chinese halberd, but it was inordinately heavy and needed its enchantments renewed. He took several cultivation manuals, a jade ring of storage, and even some intriguing herbs from the Young Master's collection. His heart quivered as he saw Lady Ling skewering him with her eyes as he walked away from the dead man's residence, but by now, the little conscience that Isaac had once come with was in terminal decline. He dreamt of fucking her that night when he wore the ring to bed, tearing off her mourning outfit.
Despite the name, Cultivators in the Spirit Realm lacked any ability to capture or seal souls or reincarnate, so Isaac was content in knowing that Li Tian wouldn't come back to haunt him. Ancient Ancestor Pangolin had in fact lived in the realm above for centuries until he had died in a refining accident, and instead of choosing any random ass baby to reincarnate in, in his whimsy he'd picked the unborn child of some distant descendants, thus re-entering the Pang clan as his own great-great-great-a-few-more-times-grandson, but losing much of his progression in the process. You really don't want to see some Cultivator family trees, the rendering bugs they cause aren't worth the trouble.
When Pang Zhenyu had mostly recovered, he took Isaac with him to the largest nearby settlement, Slovenly Hippo town, that hugged a river well within Streamlined Autumn Otter territory. It was renowned for its markets where exotic goods (by Jiansgshu standards) could be readily found.
Isaac spent a happy day touring the city, trying not to stare at the Otterfolk happily sunning themselves or manning half the stalls. For once in his life he was frugal, and didn't waste his newfound cash on drugs, though he did pick up a few rather interesting pills that promised to help accelerate his cultivation.
He bought a solid set of armor, while it might look like copper, it had been reinforced significantly and would augment his strength, making that guandao easier to wield. As for the weapon itself, on Pang Tianlong's advice, he took it to the local representative of the Azure Water Sect, where it received some basic imbuements that were both durable and not too taxing on his Spirit Novice abilities. It helped that he felt like an absolute badass when he swung that thing around, and with the new ring of storage, he was able to keep it away unless needed.
The ring couldn't hold all that much, being limited in both weight and volume to what could plausibly be lugged around by a strong Mortal man, but it was still great to have and Isaac was slightly addicted to the musical plop sound it made as it ate and disgorged items for him.
It had a minor unwanted effect of killing any living thing placed inside it, but that only made it a rather effective way of sterilizing food that Isaac put in. Turns out that Body Cultivation works up an appetite, and Isaac was nothing if not a gourmand.
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He'd had always wanted a pet, but never felt ready for a dog since his childhood lab died. He decided to visit the animal market, and immediately left, bought earplugs, and then dived back in.
There was a bedazzling selection, from depressed looking chickens that radiated heat and occasionally spat fire (phoenixes bred by the aforementioned General Tso), blind salamanders that hunted by tasting the air for the fear of their foes, kangaroos trained in MMA and kickboxing, wild dropbears caught in the Eucalyptus Forests by the local elves, which were only sold to higher level Cultivators.
Just in the dog section alone, Isaac was mesmerized by dogs big and small, thin or wide. He saw what looked like perfectly normal Shih Tzus, absolutely adorable Labrador puppies which he almost bought on the spot, a cage that purportedly contained Invisible Heavenly Hounds, which he initially dismissed as a scam before one of them started sniffing his crotch, all the way to Demonic Baby Eater Fighting Nanny Canines, which he got incredibly excited about till he realized were just pitbulls.
The sheer variety of options paralyzed Isaac for a good while, but then he mulled over the logistics and decided to refrain from getting a pet till he found a permanent sect to join.
On that topic, Pang Tianlong and AA Pangolin had both interceded with the Myriad Flying Cockroach Talent Scouting and Recruiting office, and he was subtly given the hint that if he really wanted to, he had the option of joining the sect as an Outer Disciple.
While he was sorely tempted, he ended up postponing the decision till he could get a more comprehensive overview of other alternatives in Jiangshu, having already exhausted the meager options in Simadril itself.
Bidding goodbye to both Pangs, he carefully placed the letters of recommendation that the senior one had written for him, which would be enough to let him tour most sects, at which point he could call in the real favor and have Pang Tianlong intercede on his behalf.
He refrained from going to Platinum Lotus as it would only upset his host, so he worked his way through the other local sects but didn't find any that took his fancy. He wasn't hairy enough to be an otter, or effete enough to be an elf.
Grey Badger and Flaming Chicken were clans, not sects, and thus unwelcoming to unrelated would-be disciples who hadn't made a name for themselves yet.
The Celestial Salamander sect was interesting, but Isaac found them to be too content for his tastes, while he was fond of boozing and whoring, his aspirations had grown since he'd come to Cultivation OS. He submitted an application form, but resolved to only seriously apply if he had no better options.
After a round of correspondence with Pang Tianlong, he received a suggestion to travel to more distant parts of Jiangshu and see some of the bigger sects, though Tianlong warned him that in some of the most prestigious ones, his status as an Imperial bureaucrat didn't count for much and that Isaac shouldn't pin his hopes of joining on him.
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In the end, Isaac decided to go see the wider world for himself, and after leaving most of his meager belongings at an outpost of the Myriad Cockroaches, he traveled east towards the massive city known as the Celestial Tower City, a month's travel with the fares he could afford.
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This was a true metropolis and home to millions of people, and as the name suggested, it had a central structure that made Wizard's Tower in Scholar's Township seem like a toothpick. But the region was resource poor, what primarily drew the massive population was that this city had one of the few Fast Travel points remaining in COS, which the locals dubbed Instant Heavenly Transporters.
Fast travel had once been far more common, but a movement towards hardcore mechanics had seen the majority dismantled and replaced with more organic means of transport. But as usual, the devs didn't get all of them, and after multiplayer was shut down, the teleportation system in Celestial Tower City was allowed to stand and stay connected to several thousand other points on the world map. But given that the planet was as big as Jupiter, they were still few and far between, and that's not getting into the fucked up dimensionality of the higher realms. We'll discuss that when it's relevant to Isaac.
Of course, barring this form of fast travel, Cultivators had created their own means of rapid transit or even teleportation, albeit the latter was reserved for very high level Heavenly Realm Cultivators. They often chose to build at least one of their base stations near the convenience of the existing Fast Travel network, and then connect additional nodes further away than them.
Now is as good a time as any to talk geography and the distribution of Realms. Unlike many Xianxia settings, Cultivation OS didn't have the strict delineation of different independent tiers of ever higher levels (a gross simplification, but it's true enough till the Heavenly Realm).
Instead, things worked on a system of Qi density, with the most Qi starved regions considered the Mortal Realms, such as Simadril province, while those that had sufficient Qi for Spirit Realm cultivators were, you guessed it, part of the Spirit Realm. You could find mortals anywhere, but Cultivators mostly stick to their lane.
The continent of Jiangshu was about the size of Australia on Earth, nowhere near as massive as some of the others. Simadril province was a small chunk by the sea, separated from most of the continent, but when you went east and crossed it like Isaac did, you'd end up in Jiangshu proper, with the western mountains being where Myriad Cockroach and other sects dwelled. Then there was another region of low Qi, forming a discontinuity, followed by more regions that fell under the Spirit Realm.
Over the epochs, Qi flowed from Earth veins and Heavenly arteries, being blown by arcane winds across the globe. Which regions had enough Qi to support advanced Cultivation and which didn't changed over time. Slowly, and it usually wasn't an issue within the lifetime of an average Cultivator, but occasionally some kind of event would precipitate massive changes.
From the perspective of mortals, this was no big deal at all, since any amount of Qi was usually sufficient, but many sects were forced to uproot themselves and shift wholesale because ambient Qi became too weak, or because stronger sects came to covet their location.
The lands east were desolate as far as cultivators were concerned, but they still flourished with mortal life. Isaac managed to join a reputable caravan, and they followed ancient roads that ran through the plains and rolling grasslands, passing bustling cities and towns, as well as enormous fields full of grain.
Slowly, Isaac came to have a better understanding of the schizotech nature of the setting. As he saw it, it wasn't that high technology or even technology on par with Earth in 2023 didn't exist, it was that it was suppressed.
On hearing the kinds of feats that Cultivators in the Celestial Realms were capable of, he understood that they were well beyond the limits of the best science and engineering of his time. They flew faster than escape velocity, could cure their ailments at a whim, and wanted for nothing made of mundane materials. They could interlink their minds, teleport around and build sentient creatures to serve them. They had little to no incentive to research normal technology, and given that they had fought isekai'd alien civs with battleships and railguns, could you blame them?
But at the lower levels, advanced tech was an existential threat. A gun could lay low an unprepared Spirit Master, let alone a mere Novice like Isaac. Hence in more monitored areas, they were contraband and quickly cracked down upon by sects or other governments, which were always dominated by Cultivators.
Out there in the boonies, Isaac occasionally saw muskets, pistols, rifles or even the odd unrecognizable firearm that might be considerably more advanced. Most Cultivators had no reason to come to these parts or linger here, and lower level ones could be in real danger.
He quickly came to regret not buying a Qi rebreather after a section of his journey passed through a region of abnormally low Qi. It felt a lot like asphyxiation, his meridians throbbed and his cognition dimmed as his body struggled to meet the increased demands of his Dantian. Luckily for him, they came across a waystation where for the price of a quarter of a spirit stone, he was able to buy the gear. Taking an occasional puff throughout the day was more than sufficient to keep him topped up, and his journey continued.
He switched mounts a dozen times in the process. Sometimes, when the Qi levels were high enough, he could switch to a flying Spirit Beast, crossing vast differences. Other times, he rode horses and camels, and the occasional more exotic mount like rhinos or megatheriums, a leftover from the Paleocene Animals expansion a dozen epochs back.
There were a few other cultivators in his caravan, including the Caravan Master and the Chief of Security. The former was a Spirit Journeyman who had to leave his sect to make enough money to feed his family, and the latter was a Spirit Apprentice, a cut above Isaac's Novice. There was a bubbly young girl and her father, the latter being a Novice too, but he had decided to quit his sect and return to his homeland when the burden of being a single dad proved too much to bear.
All along the way, he saw signs of the millions of years of history that had preceded him. Giant statues of unusual shapes and proportions lay half buried in the sand, farmer fields used the layout of ancient suburb streets to delineate their boundaries.
He watched with awe as the earth shook and a massive elephantine creature the size of a skyscraper broke out of the soil and began slowly but unstoppably trudging east itself, likely disturbed from its hibernation by a deficiency of Qi. The caravan followed a similar course, and the creature loomed large in the distance, steadily plodding along. Unfortunately, it often crossed carelessly into settled lands, and Isaac watched as guns were fired, cannons boomed and someone even dug out a what strongly resembled a Soviet-era RPG and fired it at the beast. It shrugged them off like gnats and continued, heedless of the houses it crushed or fields it ruined. The RPG made it trumpet in anger, but other than crapping out dung the size of cars which shook the ground with their impact, it was otherwise unbothered.
The next day, the creature, as yet unnamed, had outpaced the caravan by half a day's travel. As the sun began to set, the Caravan Master had just called for a halt when the first of many gunshots rang out, and he toppled from his steed clutching his guts.
With screams and cries of desperation, hundreds of villagers who had been displaced by the beast's uncaring march descended on the caravan, convinced that only its wealth could stave off starvation.
Isaac rolled himself off his panicked horse, and hit the deck before injecting his Qi into the ring of storage. His armor and halberd popped up with that same pleasing plop, and he hurriedly put it on, racing to get the last strap in place.
Before he was finished, a screaming woman dashed at him, thrusting a wooden spear. He ducked, his reflexes has subtly but noticeably improved with his cultivation, and he managed to jab her hard in the guts with his guandao, staggering her. He hesitated for a moment, unwilling to slay a human woman, and she quickly scrambled back and ran away into the trees.
This route had been peaceful for ages, even the Caravan Master or the Head of Security hadn't been aware of a recent crop failure, which precipitated by the destruction caused by the beast, had driven the locals to desperation.
Still, the caravan guards were professionals, and a defensive formation was quickly established. The Caravan Master had recovered from his wound, and pointed his finger at an attacker desperately reloading his black powder musket. His fingernail detached and flew with unerring accuracy, and slit the man's throat before returning to his hand.
A few members of the caravan had smuggled guns of their own, despite their illegality, and fire was exchanged with both more bullets as well as crossbow bolts and arrows.
His armor made Isaac rather resistant to damage, though he quickly regretted not buying a helmet as an arrow whizzed by his head, leaving a bloody cut on his scalp.
He ran forward towards the archer, alongside the other Spirit Novice, the father of that little girl who now was hiding in the midst of the formation. A burly man stepped into their path, clearly of a lineage that had experienced some degree of genetic or magical modification. The bastard was huge, an easy eight feet, and he swung a massive axe that itself glowed with arcane might. Isaac ducked beneath the blow, and stabbed with his guandao, but the man had copper armor on and deflected the blow.
Isaac was at least a little bit of a Body Cultivator, so he took the initiative to distract the big chungus while his comrade came from an angle and stabbed at him with a spear.
The man cried out in pain as the spear jabbed into his shoulder, but he rushed forward, body checking Isaac and sending him flying, before bringing his axe to bear into the shoulder of the Spirit Novice.
The man screamed in agony and collapsed, his arm almost removed at the joint, but before the brute could finish the job, Isaac was back and brought up the shaft of his halberd right up between his legs. "Guh." The man cried out, but punched Isaac so hard that he tumbled back and tripped over the wounded Spirit Novice.
"I never thought I'd be grateful for testicular cancer." The man growled with a rather high pitch. He stomped forward, and lifted a leg that easily threatened to crush Isaac's skull like a coconut when he was tackled by the Chief of Security.
The man was small, but compact, and he unleashed a flurry of blows with glowing bronze knuckles that left the giant reeling.
Seeing his fellow Cultivators in peril, the Caravan Master stormed forth, and charged on his remounted horse with a bedazzling blade that whistled as it sliced the wind. He was barely at eye level with the giant man, but swung ferociously and removed its head from its shoulders with ease.
With the strongest foe out of the way, the members of the caravan fought bravely and pushed the villagers back. Isaac took a pill given out by the Chief of Security and crushed it with his teeth, letting the bitter taste flow through his mouth. Immediately, he felt animalistic rage, as well as a massive increase in his strength. The former synergized extremely well with his own Dao marks, and he jumped back into the fray, his guandao cutting right through a panicked man's wooden shield and then chopping off his arm. The squirming man begged for mercy, but Isaac brought down the blade and split his skull like firewood.
A type of variant human he didn't recognize hissed and slashed at his face with fingernails better described as claws, but though it gouged out a good chunk of his cheek, he grabbed it by its scaly tail and used his leverage to force it to the ground. He quickly straddled it, pinning one of the thing's arms with his knee, and was heedless of the other claw that mauled his ear. He punched, the impact smashing its nose most gratifyingly, and he kept on punching till the very bones of the orbital wall gave way and its eyes turned to mush. He pulled out a small knife he kept in a holster by his leg, and slit its throat while it mewed in pain.
The battle turned into a rout, and those who didn't surrender or run as fast as their legs could carry them were slain on the spot. Isaac stood doused in both blood and the red light of the setting sun, looking at the silhouette of the elephant as it trudged off into the sunset.