If one was of a poetic mind, it was possible to look at the areas of a sect and relate them to stages of human growth.
The outer sect was a child; the youngest and greenest disciples questing, fumbling, going from crawling to walking to running over the course of a few years. Outer disciples had few responsibilities, but also few freedoms, and for the most part their only objective was to grow under the watchful eyes of their senior brothers and sisters.
Grow into outer disciples, and take their first steps into adulthood. The outer sect was where the majority of disciples lived, and where a good proportion of them died.
Ah, I think my metaphor is already breaking down. Most people who survive childhood don’t die until they’re old. But ignoring that…
Yes, the outer sect could be said to be where a cultivator reaches adulthood. There was greater pressure – gone were the carefree spring days where showing up for lessons was enough to earn a stipend – but also greater freedom. One was expected to work a trade at this point, but what that trade was, was left mostly up to the individual.
Am I ready to step past the intoxicating allure of childhood? More importantly, can I even do it? I became quite ill rushing up to third realm using only pills and stones…
No, it isn’t a question of will or ability at this point. I simply have to do it; continuing to exist in the third realm while having access to so many resources would simply be too shameful. I’d be like a snail staying curled up in its shell, unwilling to face the world! What would people even think of me?
With a decisive nod, Lu discarded his age metaphor without bothering to think up any colourful ways of relating the upper half of the sect to old men. He secured his purse tightly to his side, checked his hair one last time in the mirror, and left his room.
Lesson plans have been sent out via scrolls, Cobo and Stingy are down at Little Swamp Village, and Bull has his own business to deal with…
So today, I’m going to focus on cultivation and spellcraft! I’ve been neglecting those, distracted by martial arts and consumption and alchemy and all that, but no more!
I have access to every spell in the sect; the world might as well be sitting in the palm of my hand!
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The Steadfast Heart sect’s spell archive was, like many libraries – the libraries of major sects, at least – built with more than one floor. And also like many other libraries, certain contents were restricted. One needed a pass to enter every floor past the first, one obtained through trustworthiness or specialised need. Simply advancing to the inner or core sect was not enough, even for just the second floor.
And the third floor was restricted even more heavily, and the fourth even heavier still, all the way up to the sixth floor, which not even every Elder could enter.
Lu had not the slightest idea what was held all the way up on that sixth floor, but he was giddy to find out. But not today, not today. I’ll build up to it; going all the way to the top to start off would be like eating dessert first, simply unconscionable. Besides, I am – for the moment – still only third realm; magnificent tenth realm attacks would be of little use to me, with my comparatively minuscule dantian.
…Unless the most restricted arts are the low-realm-but-horribly-effective kind of unorthodox, like the kind the evil rival in a play would use before they turn good right at the end?
No, no, I’m still in too poetic a mindset. I’ll go in order, give the second floor a look through before moving to the third, then maybe the fourth if I don’t find enough to hold my interest. Skipping right to the dessert is something a child would do, and Lu of the Steadfast Heart is no child!
He spoke briefly to the librarian at the front desk, then was checked over by the head librarian to confirm his identity, and within five minutes of arriving Lu took his first step on the archive’s second floor, a place he had dreamed of since he was ten years old. He took a breath, smiled, and then immediately went back to the staircase and ascended all the way to the top.
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Ah, I was simply too naive. But who could blame me? Obviously, if you give someone access to every key, they’ll go right for the door with the most locks! That’s human nature!
The sixth floor did not contain some super-art that would see him ascend to the core realm within the year. Rather, it was fairly mundane, if sickening; the most heavily restricted spells were mass mind control, some of the more heinous types of necromancy, and some extremely destructive anti-divination arts.
And of course, a large number of arts that were completely opaque to his understanding. Lu only recognised those last ones because of his observations of Tai Sho’s divinations. Destroying the mind of anyone who so much as thinks of a certain topic… yes, it’s a good thing that those arts aren’t widespread. I approve of locking them away!
Lu had less than no desire to learn any of those horrible arts, so he meekly retreated back to the second floor.
There we are, this is much more useful. The bottom of the restricted section was, to his relief, much more similar to the first floor than the sixth. In fact, if one ignored the trend of every other art being dangerous to the user in some way, the second floor’s arts were not much different than what he already knew.
Much more specialised, though. I can see why most of these are restricted; someone trying to perform Kanalan’s True Instant Forging without being familiar with the baser Instant Forge would likely hurt themselves – or at least become frustrated by the complex spellform.
In fact, to his mingled pride and embarrassment, there was a scroll containing one of his own arts; Lu’s Interpreter sat on a shelf, tucked between two other mental arts named Telepathic Lure and Blood-Drinking Liar’s Sword.
Ah, I suppose it makes sense. There’s really no reason to learn it over Telepathic Bond, except for extreme edge cases like needing to speak with an alien, and the spellform is not elegant in the least. It really is a lot like most of the spells on this floor: an overly-specific, overly-difficult variant of a more common spell.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
On the next floor, some more sinister arts began to creep in. Mind-affecting spells started to show up, though none of them were a tenth as malicious as what he had seen at the top. I can at least think of a few benevolent – or at least morally neutral – uses for such things. They aren’t all that different from a well crafted illusion, if we’re only looking at the end result.
There were actually a lot fewer combat arts than Lu was expecting, but after a moment’s thought the reason became obvious. Ah, I’m getting my own morals tangled up with the morals of the sect, which has entirely different priorities. I might find violence distasteful, but killing spirit beasts is basically nine-tenths of the sect’s job; there’s no reason to restrict combat arts, because combat is the point.
The thought might have been uncomfortable, but it did spur him forward. I can’t even say that it’s wrong for people to think like that – in moments where my life was threatened, violence became supremely useful.
The third floor continued the trend of being slightly more unorthodox while retaining mostly the same effectiveness, but there were some diamonds in the pile of detritus; extremely impressive spells whose downside was only that they were prohibitively difficult to cast. Flood Dragon’s Wave was a sixth realm spell, but its qi cost was more similar to a third; the most complex form in its construction took up a full half-metre of scroll, the monstrously complex thing blown up so that the reader’s eyes could see where each of the six intersecting base forms intertwined with each other. Even with it being colour-coded, Lu’s eyes threatened to glaze over as he looked at the tangle. I… could cast this, I think. Probably. After a few hours of memorizing the spellform, surely.
There were spells with thousands of forms, spells where misordering any two forms killed the caster, spells that were dangerous to the user even when cast properly.
But Lu couldn’t deny their usefulness, so he picked the best ones and pulled them from the shelves.
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There were exactly three dozen scrolls in Lu’s purse when he opened the door to his rooms. Many of them were usable at third realm, but a good few of them were too expensive; they were either preparations for when he ascended, or tools so he could bulk out his repertoire of forms.
His mood was strange, giddiness and anticipatory dread mixing together into a thick sludge that sloshed around the inside of his skull. Against – because of? – his better judgment, he had decided to take a select few of the definitely-unorthodox mental arts.
I don’t know why I feel so apprehensive – the Steadfast Heart is, technically and secretly, an unorthodox sect now. And it isn’t like I haven’t dabbled in this business; Lu’s Numbing Illusion is a match for anything I picked up.
The rationalisation failed, as they so often did when he needed them, to calm his nerves. But still, Lu got out a few scrolls, took a spirit stone in in his palm, and attempted to meditate while reading.
I won’t make the same mistake as last time – I'll properly compact the qi, all the way. No shortcuts.
But as long as I have enough spirit stones… How much time does the average disciple take to go from third to fourth realm? Four years, -ish?
I can definitely cut that down; I’m a third of the way there. And one of the Elders had gifted him some beast cores, which were even better than stones or pills. One year? Less than that?
There was only one way to find out. Lu breathed in, cycled new qi into his dantian, and breathed out. His eyes moved across the paper, and he breathed in again.
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Ascending to the first realm of cultivation requires a disciple to condense a dantian, the foundation of their qi reserve and spiritual self. Moving from first to second requires them to construct a network of spiritual veins to nourish the body. Third realm requires them to etch qi into their mind, expanding the function of their mental effort as their minds elevate just the slightest bit past physical matter.
Soul, body, mind. Three aspects, mirroring the three minor realms of each major realm. The order was not always the same, but each major realm always had one of each, one that disproportionately increased one aspect of the human condition over the other two, leaving one balanced in the end.
In order to ascend to the fourth realm, the lowest of the inner realms, Lu would need to nourish his body a second time. He was a bit anxious about it; this was similar to the step he had been stuck at for a just under a decade.
Ah, it’s not as though I’m that anxious, though. It’s an entirely different process than forming my spiritual veins in the first place – the likelihood that I get stuck isn’t higher just because it’s a body step again.
Still, he would have preferred either of the other two, which had gone much smoother both the first and second time around. But orthodox cultivation was something that had been refined over thousands of years; while other systems existed, there was no doubt in Lu’s mind that deviating would cause problems for him in the future.
The three-threes style of cultivation is what not only the original Heavenly Emperor used, but every single emperor that came afterwards. Variations have been tried and tested since the beginning of recorded history, yet this is the one that has stood immovable, an unblemished pillar reaching between Heaven and Earth.
No, he would not be attempting to strengthen his mind or soul first. He would follow the orthodox path, as his patriarch had done, as the emperors had done, as all of his fellow disciples were doing. Sinister spells are one thing, but my cultivation is too important to make it up as I go along. I just have to hope that my stomach doesn’t interfere too much.
As night gave way to the final day of autumn, Lu set a scroll detailing the first six realms of the Ten Fingers One Eye art to the side. His dantian felt bloated, almost uncomfortable; it was half-again larger than it had ever been before he fell into Salt, taking up more space in his chest. A fifth of a realm in one night. Dear me, beast cores are certainly worth the risk of hunting for them.
The thought made him snort. Ah, as long as someone else is taking the risk. I’m sure whatever disciple killed the fourth realm beasts that made these cores was paid adequately, at any rate. Or maybe the Elder had hunted for them himself, Lu had no idea.
But that’s as fast as I’ll ever go; with just stones, it will take me at least a few months to reach the pinnacle of third realm. And then…
In order to advance, he would need to upgrade his spiritual veins – or in a way, downgrade them. He would need to make them thinner, incredibly thinner, to the point he could thread them between every cell in his body. Not nearly the same trial-and-error process as setting them up from nothing – less guesswork, more busywork. I already know where the qi needs to flow for optimal circulation.
But for the moment he put thoughts of his future cultivation away, and simply gathered up the three scrolls he was finished with. He put them in his purse, refreshed himself with some cleansing spells, and made for the archives again.
My students will need guidance again soon, but for now I’ll focus on my own advancement. Salt will be coming at some point – and I don’t even want to consider Heaven and Hell. I need to be strong before I can help others!
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Below, at the point where the transition between forest-strewn grassland and mountain became obvious, three gold-clad figures walked lockstep along a steep path.
“And you’re absolutely certain they won’t attack us?”
“I’m certain.” Song looked up and up, at the towering thing of stone that seemed to hold up the sky. “I think they could have killed me, if they tried. They didn’t.”
Hun’s voice was hesitant. “…And that’s enough for you to trust them?”
This isn’t about trust. I don’t trust them at all; this is about survival. “The Heavens nudged us in this direction, did they not?”
Neither of the men walking by her side replied.
“Besides,” she continued. “I was just a little undiplomatic the last time I was here – there was this young man, you see…” She trailed off, unsure how to explain her rage at being talked down to by a child to men two to four times her age. “Anyway, brother Fong is much wiser than I am. I’ll leave the talking to him.”