7. The Little Sage
Di Ram was a mile away when he suddenly sensed another tracker appear. He zipped over as quickly as possible.
The forest was vast, and filled with formations. Some of those formations had the possibility to interfere with the tracking token that the sect used to keep track of its most junior members. While the idiot children he had found the night before had gotten by with simply hiding in the cave, it had been Ram’s assumption that Little Bug had wandered into one of those formations and fallen asleep. He had returned to the sect for a map with the known formations and spent the night searching each of them sequentially.
This one was not on the map. That by itself was not unsurprising; thousands of cultivators had passed through this forest over the years and many of them had set up privacy formations for their private cultivation spots. They were supposed to register them, and to dismantle them once they were no longer being used, but everyone knew that rule wasn’t enforced very strongly. It was possible that the dead zone where Little Bug had been unknowingly hiding was centuries old.
Di Ram caught up to the boy in no time at all, dropping to the ground mere feet away and startling the child. Little Bug dropped what he had been carrying, which Ram was surprised to see were a small collection of peaches.
“There you are, Little Bug,” Di Ram said, the relief in his voice palpable. “I have been so worried.”
Little Bug shrugged and simply held out one of the peaches that he hadn’t dropped for his elder to take. Di Ram took it from him and, figuring why not, took a bite. His eyes opened in shock as he realized that the fruit contained as much Qi as a refined pill!
“Where did you get this?” he asked. “No, wait. First of all, let me see your injury.”
Little Bug shrugged again and pulled up his robe. Di Ram took a look at the stab wound and he exhaled in relief. It was already mostly healed. How though? While he could have healed from such an injury in half the time, the boy was only at the third step of the foundation realm. He was practically a mort--
Di Ram sent his spiritual senses into the boy’s body, and he dropped the half-eaten peach into the dirt. It was impossible. Simply impossible. Yet it was true.
The boy was a monster.
~~~~~~~
Several things happened when I returned to the sect. The peaches were taken from me, as were the pits, except for one I insisted on keeping myself. It was the one which the tree had given me after I’d made my promise to plant them, and it was the most spiritually dense of any of the seeds. I was questioned on the events of the day before. Or rather, I was given two versions of the events and asked which one was true. When I chose the version which most closely matched what had really happened, I was thanked and informed that the five boys who had accosted me and Hien Ro were being expelled.
Yon Xian, I was told, would face even more severe consequences.
After this, I was asked in detail about my breakthrough. I told simply told them the truth, that the method had come to me in a dream. I was happy to demonstrate my Peach Blossom Dream cultivation technique and try to teach them, but I wasn’t certain that it was something which could be taught easily.
I was honestly more concerned with keeping my promise to the tree. I breathed a sigh of relief when I was informed that the tree had been located and the formations which had been obscuring it for the last three hundred years were dismantled. It was likely that a deceased cultivator had discovered it in the forest and set up the wards to try to turn the normal tree into a spiritual fruit tree without alerting the sect. The privacy formation, Qi concentration formation, and misdirection formation had kept anyone from finding it until I had blundered into it, following the relatively intense concentration of Qi in the area.
When I was asked what I wanted to do with the fruit, I simply shrugged and said I thought everyone in the sect should git a piece.
And that each of the seeds should be planted.
Another thing that happened was that I was given my own house in the compound. It was a small house, but the space I was given was as big as the dormitory I’d been sharing with the other boys by itself. I was also told that my martial instructions were being expedited, that I would have as much time in the Qi concentration rooms as I desired, and asked if there were any other resources that I would like to have.
I knew, at this point, that the most important thing I could learn from this sect was how to fight. I’m not quite certain how I knew this, but I asked to learn as much of their martial art heritage as I was allowed. I had already begun the basic forms taught to outer sect members. The elders vowed that I would receive the best education on the matter possible, with no secrets held back.
I also asked if it would be okay for Hien Ro to bunk with me in my new house, and it was swiftly approved. He would become my primary sparing partner, and was therefor also given access to the secrets of the Six Mountain Style, but he was more excited to learn my cycling techniques. There was no reason not to teach him the Peach Blossom Dream technique, so I did my best to teach him, and he did his best to spread the method to the rest of the sect.
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An entire year passed.
~~~~~~
Di Ram entered the supreme Qi concentration room. He was one of the fourteen elders who had been selected to witness this event. Little Bug had announced that he was about to breakthrough into the Condensation Realm, and as he had promised he had alerted others before taking the step forward. Aside from the Elders, Hien Ro was also present. The thirteen year old boy had progressed as well, having managed to follow Little Bug into the Energy Gathering Realm recently using the boy’s ingenious techniques.
While Little Bug had reviewed the six condensation cultivation methods that the Six Mountain Sect used, he had ultimately rejected each of them in favor of one which, like the Peach Blossom Dream technique, had come to him in a dream. The as of yet unnamed technique was unproven, which was the only mark against it. Considering that Little Bug had developed it, Di Ram was certain it was superlative.
As things stood, the Six Mountains Sect had gotten more from Little Bug than the boy had gotten from them. Or at least that was how Di Ram saw things. The boy only really needed food and Qi in order to progress. Any of the twelve major sects in this world could have given him the same, and if he walked out of the Six Mountain Sect today and appeared on any of their doorstep, he would be welcomed in immediately. His legend had already spread.
“It’s a shame that these techniques weren’t around when I was young,” Di Ram lamented to himself.
“We don’t know for certain that the path that Little Bug is on will lead to a seventh peak,” said Ko Ren, one of Little Bug’s harshest critics. “Many paths end with violent dead ends and roadblocks.”
“You’re blind, Ko Ren,” Di Ram said simply. “Blind and envious. The boy will surpass us old men, and we are too old to follow the teachings he is leaving behind. Our current patriarch is of the ninth stage of the golden path. I believe that Little Bug will trod the Golden, or even the Diamond path before he reaches the age of forty.”
Ko Ren scoffed. “It’s unnatural. There is genius, but genius doesn’t explain it adequately. There is some secret here. I suspect that the boy is possessed. I have spoken with the others, and--”
The door opened, and Little Bug walked in. Ko Ren cut off what he was saying when the boy was present. Di Ram would interrogate him later about what jealous rumors he had been spreading, but now was the time to focus on the history that was unfolding in front of him.
Little Bug knelt on a cushion. He pulled from his robe a scroll, which he handed to Hien Ro, who opened it and began showing it to the assembled elders. The scroll detailed the cultivation method which Little Bug was about to use. Di Ram choked when he saw the complexity; it was far beyond what he had been capable of until he’d been midway through the bronze path. Further, he could see how effective it would be.
Indeed, Little Bug knelt on the cushion and began to cultivate, and, with fourteen elders keeping their spiritual senses on him completely, he passed from late Energy Gathering realm, over the threshold into the early Condensation realm. The transition was so fluid and natural that it was almost anticlimactic. However, the boy didn’t stop there. He continued to condense his Qi, pulling more and more and more from the room at a rate which every elder in the room could sense.
He passed from early condensation into middle condensation within three hours before he finally opened his eyes.
“That is it for now,” he announced. “I must consolidate for some time. In a month or two I will have reached peak Condensation Realm, and then I will show you the method I plan to use for purification.”
It was one of the longest speeches the boy had ever given. Di Ram was so distracted by the impossibility of it all that he completely forgot Ko Ren’s earlier words and never did ask what rumors he had been spreading.
~~~~~~~~~
I could have kept going, but I stopped early. I knew it wasn’t always good to move too fast, which is why I decided to consolidate. If I had skipped to peak condensation realm immediately after entering it and then started purifying my Qi, it would have negatively impacted my body’s development.
Speaking of my body’s development, I came to a decision. It was time to grow.
Aging slowed down as one entered the later stages of cultivation, and if I didn’t slow down it was possible to step onto the silver path at age thirteen. If I did that, then I would spend hundreds of years in the body of a teenager. Instead, I would stop cultivating at the cusp of bronze and spend several years focusing on techniques and martial styles. I was already proficient in the six weapons and six styles of the Six Mountains Sect.
Strictly speaking, if I were to enter the mythril realm, then I wouldn’t need to master the sword, the spear, the axe, the bow, the mace, and the staff. I could simply destroy all opposition with a wave of the hand and manipulations of the world itself. Unless I were to face down another practitioner of the mythril realm, in which case the devastation we left behind would be catastrophic to whatever universe we did battle within.
My memories and mind were still muddled, however. Some things came to me in dreams. I knew that I was preparing to do something important. Something which I had dedicated my life to doing, before I had even allowed myself to be born. But I didn’t understand how that was possible.
Not until the day I was betrayed by my sect.