CHAPTER 4
It had been years since the last time his father had deigned to grab Zhu’s wrist and inspect his cultivation, using his spirit energy to comb his flesh and meridians for signs of change. Far in the past, this often led to stressful and depressing occasions.
His father's heavy desk screeched against the floorboards, and the accompanying leather chair dented the wall with a horrific crack.
“You did it!”
Zhu’s shoulders were grabbed before he could even see movement.
“How did you do it, Zhu?!”
The reality of having cultivated finally crashed into him in the same moment, and he would have fallen had his father not held him up.
It… truly, really worked?
“Father, I…” the words were caught in his throat. What could he even say? That he can cultivate because he killed people?
“No, no,” his father laughed uproariously, “the method doesn’t matter! You can cultivate! That changes every-”
Knock. Knock.
In the space of a moment, his old man forced himself to calm. The quickness of the change was striking.
“Stand beside me,” he said before quickly dragging his desk back into its place and picking up his chair, examining it with a wince before sitting back down. The envelopes and paperwork were scattered about the room, but Zhu himself, still shaking from wonderment, quickly collected them and placed them back on the desk haphazardly.
“Enter!”
The handle clicked and the door swung aside for two plainly dressed elders.
Their countenance was strict and expressions grim. When they noticed Zhu, their gazes narrowed, and frowns deepened.
“We received a letter from the sect,” said an elder.
Zhu felt dizzy. His gaze lowered to the floor, tense. Emerging guilt easily overtook his joy.
It was impossible to escape the fact that anything to do with this was his fault.
“I didn’t even send them a letter yet,” his father muttered, tapping his desk. Despite the tumultuous circumstances, he didn’t seem any different. Zhu admired it deeply, if only he could be the same. “Are they coming? Now?”
A simple white envelope, unadorned, was carefully placed onto his desk. It was already open, and the edge of a folded letter poked out.
His father unfolded the letter and Zhu read it over his shoulder. He skipped over most of it, a lot of words that meant very little to him, but the final paragraph caught his attention.
‘While I’m sure that, given his status, my nephew is safe and sound… it must be understood that he needs to return promptly, or misunderstandings may occur. One such misunderstanding might involve the dissolution of the Liang family.
Kind Regards,
Kong Zhen,
Deacon of Flying Shore Sect.’
Zhu’s father sat quietly for a several long minutes.
Then, his hand caught aflame and burned the letter to ash, before he lightly blew, and the ashes dispersed through the open window.
“Elder Lu, the Jade Serpent Hall opens soon, correct?”
Elder Lu, who wore a particularly nice and flowing beard, pursed his lips.
“It would be a gamble,” he said slowly, thoughtfully. “Has a member of our Liang Family ever passed into a second-degree sect? If we hadn’t lost Randall…”
“You’re right, it would be the first.” Zhu’s father nodded his head, strangely little concern for the deceased crossing his face, and glanced at Zhu with a pensive look. “Gather the cultivators of the younger generation for the trip. If we’re lucky… the Flying Shore Sect is just a local snake. They wouldn’t attack the disciple of a powerful sect over a servant.”
There was no discussion. The elders accepted the words and orders of their family head and dispersed to handle them. It was more or less always like this, and doubly-so in such a dangerous situation. Doubt or hesitation were both ruthless killers in a world as harsh as theirs’.
“I’m sorry, father. When he threatened you…”
His father ruffled Zhu’s hair.
“It was utterly stupid. But, it’s ultimately my fault for inviting you,” his father smiled, but it failed to reach his eyes. “Killed for simple acts of negotiation – well, that person must be very agitated in the underworld.”
“Simple acts?! But-”
“Enough of this!”
Zhu’s jaws closed with a click. It was an automatic action.
“You cultivated! Tell me how you did it. Did an immortal elixir fall from the sky? Did a passing immortal take a fancy to you? Did you get betrothed to an ugly woman that ended up being a rich beautiful genius in disguise? Did a whimsical god offer you a blessing? Did you run ten kilometers every day, and perform one hundred push-ups, sit-ups, and squats? Come on, out with it!
And so, Zhu explained exactly what had happened.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Heaven granted me karma after killing the envoy this morning, so I leveled up and gained True Qi. I pushed a button to use it and breakthrough.”
His father fell back in his chair with a despairing sigh.
“Did you hit your head?”
“No…”
“When was the last time you drank water?”
“Dad…”
“Perhaps that scheming Elder Lu finally showed his true colours!” His father gasped. “He did, didn’t he?! Did you remember to check your food for poison?”
Zhu wore a complex expression. “In an hour or two, I’ll reach the second stage.”
A troubling gaze met Zhu’s own.
“Perhaps, Zhu, was murdering the emissary too much for your mental state?”
“I’m serious!”
“Nevermind, I don’t need to know.” His father waved him off and ushered him out of his office. “We leave come morning. Get some rest, relax your mental state, and this time, pack your things! This trip will take weeks!”
Zhu, naturally, chose not to linger. Before he could leave, however, his father spoke three words in a low tone.
"Pack now, Zhu."
He stepped out of the office, closed the door carefully, and found himself feeling strangely lonesome. He'd already ignored the parting words.
Zhu rolled his eyes and left in long strides with a pace that he should have had trouble with, but no longer did.
“It’s real…” he muttered, quickening his pace.
The servants were quick to duck out of his the as his pace quickened to a jog and he left the manor.
Despite the bleak outlooks the family was facing, Zhu felt anticipation burning in his gut.
“It’s actually real…”
He didn’t have the wherewithal to respect the others on the path to the library.
“Sorry!”
“Excuse me!”
Zhu was a bit too impatient this time, and almost ran into someone within the sparse crowd several times.
“Be careful!”
“Idiot!”
His hurried steps echoed loudly within the family library, and he was quickly hushed by the very same elder he had earlier come to for guidance. He skirted by her and quickly entered into a maze of manuals.
“Cultivation techniques… cultivation techniques… where are you?” He muttered frequently, thumbing scrolls and occasionally ducking to the lower shelves.
If I was a cultivation technique, I would be…
Along the center of the back wall!
“Aha!”
[Cultivation Technique]
Manifold Boulder Law
Quality 1 | Comprehension 0
Layer 1: +0.1 Qi/Hr
Layer 5: +0.5 Qi/Hr
Layer 10(MAX): +1.0 Qi/Hr
Cost: 2 Spirit Energy
…Underwhelming!
Zhu remembered where it sat, and then moved on to the shelves around it.
[Cultivation Technique]
Thirteen Whirlpools Law
Quality 0 | Comprehension 2
Layer 1: +0.1 Qi/Hr
Layer 2(MAX): +0.2 Qi/Hr
Cost: 1 Spirit Energy
He spat. “Useless!”
What was the point of this one? He quickly threw it behind every other technique scroll on the shelf, doing everyone else a favour, and continued cycling his hands through every scroll he could find.
[Cultivation Technique]
Endless Clouds Law
Quality 2 | Comprehension 1
Layer 1: +0.2 Qi/Hr
Layer 5: +1.0 Qi/Hr
Layer 10: +3.5 Qi/Hr
Cost: 20 Spirit Energy
He hesitated, but kept sifting through the scrolls. It was a good technique, but both his comprehension and spirit energy were too low.
Technique after technique popped into his vision, but he either didn’t have enough spirit energy, or his comprehension was too low, or the technique was terrible!
Until...!
[Cultivation Technique]
Hundred Turtles Law
Quality 2 | Comprehension 0
Layer 1: +0.15 Qi/Hr
Layer 5: +0.75 Qi/Hr
Layer 10(MAX): +2.0 Qi/Hr
Cost: 8 Spirit Energy
Finally, Zhu breathed a sigh of relief, and he unravelled the scroll.
He cringed. The diagrams and information inside were a bit…
“How do I learn something like this?”
[Learn “Hundred Turtles Law”?]
He quickly selected yes, and just as quickly regretted it.
His chest ached, accompanied by a pain in his abdomen. His body flashed with the flourish of bright blue spirit energies, and after a long, drawn-out moment wherein he clenched his jaws and his fists, the blue lights vanished.
[Technique Cultivated!]
Hundred Turtles Law
Layer 1: +0.15 Qi/Hr
Next Layer: +0.30 Qi/Hr
Cost: 2 Spirit Energy [+]
Zhu read carefully, and then upgraded it. A similar sensation to the previous burned briefly in his mind, but it was significantly less intense.
[Technique Upgraded!]
Hundred Turtles Law
Layer 2: +0.30 Qi/Hr
Next Layer: +0.45 Qi/Hr
Cost: 4 Spirit Energy [+]
He moved to place the scroll back where he found it, with the intention to place everything where it had been originally, but…
“Where did-?”
The scroll for the Hundred Turtles Law seemed to have, despite his best efforts to procure it, completely disappeared.
There was nothing to do about it. Zhu could only act as if nothing was wrong and tidied up the rest of the manuals that he had strewn about the shelves.
The elder eyed him oddly when he left, but he didn’t crack.
He next stopped at the training grounds, and watched those members of his family that were still sparring.
He was hopeful that, after breaking through to the first stage, improving his talent and learning a cultivation technique, he would be able to understand something. It was a waste of his time; he shortly went home and packed his things.
By the time Zhu ate supper – he ate alone today, but it was normal that his father was absent after the day’s events – he had his servant draw another bath.
The same as before, Zhu stripped and climbed into the tub. Unlike last time, he wasn’t so awkward in climbing in, and he wasn’t particularly worried about losing his footing and hitting his head or something.
[Attributes]
LEVEL 3 [Karma: 2/20]
Cultivation: Body Refining | Stage 1 [+] Cost: 10 Pure Qi
Cultivation Talent: 3 [+] Cost: 4 Point(s)
Comprehension: 0 [+] Cost: 1 Point(s)
Spirit Energy: 4/16 | 1.6/Hr
Pure Qi: 23/100 | 9.3/Hr
Point(s): 0
Time to live: 169Hrs
[Cultivation Technique]
Hundred Turtles Law
Layer 2: +0.30 Qi/Hr
Next Layer: +0.45 Qi/Hr
Cost: 4 Spirit Energy
Zhu upgraded the cultivation technique first. He braced for any oncoming pain, but the sensations he was used to from the first and second layer were, even at the worst of it, little more than a flash of discomfort.
[Technique Upgraded!]
Hundred Turtles
Layer 3: +0.45 Qi/Hr
Next Layer: +0.60 Qi/Hr
Cost: 6 Spirit Energy [+]
He sighed in relief, looking back toward the Cultivation option.
“And now…”
It was as if he flipped a switch.
His skin arched with lightning, and this time, he felt it searing the flesh deep within.
Zhu shook and shuddered. His nerves lit aflame with energy, and he spasmed; unable to control himself under the stimulation, Zhu splashed and spluttered, swallowed bathwater and wretched.
In the back of his mind, where Zhu still held a certain level of awareness, he felt the beginnings of spirit channels forming, his meridians – or spirit veins – cleansing and connecting, and a burst of energy filling his body. In parallel to all this, he finally realized just how incredibly powerful the Heaven System was.
Body refiners weren’t meant to have anything to do with their own spirit energy, a fact that escaped him until just now. He suddenly smiled, recalling that his father barely had control of his own spirit energy.
DING!
[Cultivation Success!]
Body Refining | Stage 1 » Stage 2
Spirit Energy +10 | +1/Hr
Qi Limit +10
The lightning petered out and dispersed as quickly as it had come, leaving Zhu panting and clutching the sides of the bathtub, the water now cloudy, and differently to last time, burning hot.
With a great surge of effort, Zhu dragged himself out of the tub and pulled his robes on, checking his attributes while fastening his belt.
Cultivation: Body Refining | Stage 2 [+] Cost: 20 Pure Qi
Pure Qi: 13/110 | 9.3/Hr
Zhu tensed. Wasn’t the cost climbing extraordinarily quickly?
Compared to a year of cultivation…
No, no it was not. In less than an hour, he could do it all again. He wasn’t terribly keen, the stimulation of the recent breakthrough still fresh in his mind, but with the threat poised above his head, could he still complain about a little pain?
He could do it tomorrow, Zhu decided. It was this thought that made sleep that night troubling, even moreso than the wandering guilt in his subconscious and the fear of what he might wake to.
If Zhu even wakes at all…