CHAPTER

40

Boons and Curses

I

Lan Yue stared at Tian Jin in shock, who looked back at her, his expression somber. Hao Zhen glanced back and forth between the two, trying to piece together what was happening.

For a while, nobody spoke, a tense silence hanging in the air. Gradually, Lan Yue’s widened eyes narrowed, and her brow furrowed, her surprise giving way to contemplation. Tian Jin, judging by his expression, seemed to be doing quite a lot of thinking of his own.

Hao Zhen cleared his throat and then turned to him. “Clearly there’s… something going on here,” he said, addressing Tian Jin. “But I’d appreciate it if you could share what exactly you know. What exactly are innate skill seeds, and… I thought that redsouls could only have one spiritual skill?”

Tian Jin took in a deep breath, then nodded. “I don’t really know much myself—only what my master told me, as well as what I’ve learned myself after becoming a cultivator.” He paused, his gaze growing distant, as if he was considering something. Then he continued, “Innate skill seeds, as I previously said, are something some cultivators are born with. They’re either passed down through something called a spiritual bloodline or manifest on their own inside a cultivator’s soul the moment they’re born.”

“How rare is it for a cultivator to have innate skill seeds?” Hao Zhen asked, turning to Lan Yue. “I’m assuming you’ve never heard of them before?”

“Never,” Lan Yue said, shaking her head. “I thought… I thought I was the only one. I went through the sect’s records, but I found nothing about it. I’ve never heard about spiritual bloodlines, either.”

“My parents didn’t know anything, either,” Tian Jin said. “They also gave me a spiritual awareness pill, and I asked them about the skill seeds in my soul. Like when you asked your grandfather, they didn’t seem to hear the question. Later, however, I asked Master about it—and he did hear the question.”

Hao Zhen’s heart skipped a beat. Could it be that Tian Jin’s master was also an Unweavable?

“But when I asked him why Father and Mother had ignored that question, he reacted the same way—as if I hadn’t asked,” Tian Jin continued, frowning, and Hao Zhen dropped that line of thought. “I thought he just didn’t want to talk about it, but now…”

“Hmmm.” Hao Zhen pondered. “Most likely, your parents knowing about it didn’t fit the Weave, but your master knowing it did,” he said. “On the other hand, since you were trying to point out your parent’s anomalous—well, Woven—behavior to your master, he was similarly Woven into ignoring that.”

“Right,” Tian Jin said, though his expression was still thoughtful. “In any case, according to Master, a cultivator must be at least at the Green Spiritual Realm to originate a spiritual bloodline. The strongest organization on this island is the Resplendent Gleam Sect, which is only at the yellow grade, so there shouldn’t be any cultivators with spiritual bloodlines here. According to Master, randomly occurring skill seeds are also incredibly rare, so I’m not surprised it’s not common knowledge. Maybe only the members of the Resplendent Gleam Sect would know about it, as they should be in contact with other islands.”

“I see,” Hao Zhen said. For a moment, he considered asking Tian Jin what else he knew about the geography of the world, before deciding to leave that question for later. “And your innate spiritual seeds? Do they come from a bloodline, or—”

“My master said they were randomly occurring,” Tian Jin said.

“And how rare would that be?” Hao Zhen asked. “Six skill seeds, all of them at the violet grade?”

Tian Jin glanced at Lan Yue, then said, “Master believed… that my case was unique. That there shouldn’t be anyone else in this world born with such great fortune.” His voice was a little tight.

Hao Zhen similarly glanced at Lan Yue. Tian Jin’s master definitely wasn’t someone from this island. He had already guessed this before, considering the man had supposedly been able to go from one side of the island to the other in a matter of moments, but the man’s knowledge only further solidified that. And if being born with six violet skill seeds was indeed that rare… What exactly did it mean for Lan Yue to also be an example of such a supposedly rare case?

Once again, Hao Zhen found himself reassessing Lan Yue’s status. Usually, this kind of luck was reserved for protagonists in cultivation novels. Did that mean that she was a protagonist after all, then? But… it was also true that she didn’t seem to be doing any Weaving of her own.

Hao Zhen’s frown deepened. To begin with, how closely related were being a protagonist and a Weaver? He had initially been working on the assumption that they were synonymous, but maybe… maybe they were only linked? Maybe she was a protagonist, according to the Weave, but not a Weaver? A secondary protagonist, perhaps? Or maybe she was also a Weaver, but to a lesser extent?

Hao Zhen spent a short while sorting his thoughts, before nodding to himself. “I think I get the gist of it,” he said. “What exactly does it mean to have six innate skill seeds, though? Does that mean you have six spiritual skills? Violet-grade ones, at that?”

“It’s not nearly as amazing as it sounds,” Tian Jin said, shaking his head. Across from him, Lan Yue did the same. “We’re still redsouls, after all. That means we can only support one skill seed inside our crux. The other five skill seeds in my soul are outside the crux. I can’t use them. I can’t even tell what they are called or what they can do. When I stepped into the Red Spiritual Realm, one of the skill seeds inside my soul naturally slipped into the crux on its own. According to Master, this should happen every time I advance to the next realm. Only after becoming a violetsoul will I be able to use all six of my innate skill seeds.”

“Huh,” Hao Zhen said. “Well, I guess you’re right. If you’re limited to assimilating the same number of skill seeds as other cultivators at the same realm, having six innate skill seeds only means that you won’t have to go around looking for skill seeds further down the line when you advance to the next realm.”

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Granted, that was still a pretty good boon, but Hao Zhen reckoned that as talented and lucky as Tian Jin was, he’d have no problem finding skill seeds to assimilate. Not only that, the other boy’s insight was most likely high enough that he should be able to rather easily form skill seeds of his own by comprehending heavenly laws.

But it wasn’t just the number of innate skill seeds that was surprising. “What about the fact that they’re all of the violet grade?”

Tian Jin shook his head a second time. “That only means that I won’t have to upgrade them later on. To use a form of a certain grade, you need to use spiritual power of the same grade. Since I only have red spiritual power, I can only use the red-grade form of Zenith Nullification Gauntlets, Red Nullification Gauntlets. I’ll only be able to use its second form—its orange-grade form—after I break through to the Orange Spiritual Realm.”

Hao Zhen blinked, once again finding himself rather underwhelmed. Certainly, not having to worry about upgrading your spiritual skills was definitely a plus—in fact, he’d have to look into upgrading Ethereal String Puppetry in the future. To someone like Tian Jin, however, that probably wasn’t all that useful.

Then again, he reckoned that if Tian Jin did have multiple spiritual skills, or the ability to use a higher form of Zenith Nullification Gauntlets, he would have mentioned it already. The other boy had already told him about his origins and what happened to his clan, which should have probably been his most closely guarded secrets. Hao Zhen didn’t think the other boy would have kept his other skill seeds and the higher forms of his Zenith Nullification Gauntlets a secret if they could make use of them somehow.

That did, in fact, beg a question.

“What… What exactly is the big deal, then?” Hao Zhen asked, frowning. “I mean, if they aren’t that useful…”

Tian Jin and Lan Yue shared a glance. “When a cultivator dies,” Tian Jin said, slowly, “what happens?”

“What do you—” Hao Zhen cut himself off, his eyes widening. “Oh. Oh.” Something cold settled in his stomach as he looked at Tian Jin and Lan Yue, who wore grim expressions. “If you two die…”

Hao Zhen had already been grateful that there was no way to see inside a cultivator’s soul, as that meant he could keep his possession of Ethereal String Puppetry hidden. Now, however, he was much, much more grateful for that.

“Whoever kills us gets six violet-grade skill seeds,” Tian Jin said. “Master told me that I couldn’t tell this to anyone. That if anyone found out… According to him, even in violet-grade organizations, blue skill seeds are precious, let alone violet ones. Six violet-grade skill seeds… Wars between violet-grade organizations can happen over that.”

And yet, you just exposed not only yourself, but also Lan Yue. Hao Zhen had a hard time determining just how exactly he felt about this. On the one hand, he definitely felt glad that Tian Jin trusted him with that kind of knowledge. On the other hand, Tian Jin really shouldn’t have told him this. This was the kind of secret you took to the grave.

Lan Yue’s expression was also a little pale. “I… I also realized the dangers, later, though I didn’t know it was this bad. I only knew that a single orange skill seed would be something that pretty much anyone in the sect would go crazy for. It wouldn’t be any more useful to them than a red skill seed, but if they were to auction it off… they’d probably make enough spiritual stones to raise a first-level redsoul to the eleventh level. And that’s just a single orange skill seed. Six violet ones…” She shook her head, her jaw tight.

Hao Zhen closed his eyes for a moment, bringing his hands to his forehead, trying to wrap his head around this. Tian Jin’s and Lan Yue’s innate skill seeds weren’t the boons he had originally assumed—if anything, they were more like curses. No matter how he looked at it, the cons far outweighed the pros.

“All right,” Hao Zhen said. “Never, and I mean never, tell anyone about this.” He gave both Tian Jin and Lan Yue firm looks. “Never. It doesn’t matter who it is. We also shouldn’t ever bring up this matter again if we aren’t absolutely certain that there isn’t anyone nearby and that there isn’t any possibility that others are spying on us or listening in.”

Of course, if his Weave Theory was correct, even if others did end up hearing about their innate skill seeds, it wouldn’t be an issue if they weren’t supposed to know about that according to the Weave, just as had happened with Tian Jin’s parents and Lan Yue’s grandfather. On the other hand, Hao Zhen still didn’t know if the Weave could rearrange itself or if other Unweavables existed. There was also the possibility that the Weave did intend for someone to find out about Tian Jin’s or Lan Yue’s skill seeds in the future, so at least by speaking as little about it as possible, there was a chance they could nip that possibility in the bud.

“I know,” Tian Jin said solemnly. “I just thought that this was relevant, given the situation.” He tipped his head to the side. “It might be in some way connected to the Weave and what’s going on, considering Lan Yue and I are both Weavers.” He paused, adopting an uncertain look, before adding, “Apparently.”

“No, I get it. I thought the same thing,” Hao Zhen said. “Just please be careful about this matter in the future. Very careful,” he stressed.

“Of course,” Tian Jin said.

Hao Zhen shifted his attention to Lan Yue. She still looked rather shaken. He was also rather worried about her slipping up. Although she didn’t appear to be as trusting as Tian Jin, she was careless with her secrets—a consequence of people seldom noticing her slip-ups, from what he understood.

“Well,” Hao Zhen said, deciding that was enough of that particular conversation for the time being, “on the topic of skill seeds, there are also the skill seeds of the inner disciple and the inner elder.”

“Oh. That’s right,” Tian Jin said, nodding his head. “I believe they both have Radiant Light Field. I don’t think they were using talismans.”

“You’re right. They were Radiant Light Barrier—the first form of Radiant Light Field—when they flew through the waterfall,” Lan Yue confirmed, confidently.

Hao Zhen had guessed as much. “What should we do about them?” he asked. He’d need to break through to the Orange Spiritual Realm before he could assimilate another spiritual skill, so the two skill seeds weren’t of much use to him right now. Tian Jin and Lan Yue probably found it even more useless, considering they were already set for life in terms of skill seeds.

Lan Yue shrugged. “Probably nothing,” she said. “If we do end up turning the two bodies in, the sect will definitely want them back. Even if we don’t, it’s not of much use to us. The most we can do is auction it outside the sect. Unless…” She inclined her head in Hao Zhen’s direction. “You’re still a first-level, aren’t you? To you, destroying your crux and starting cultivating all over again wouldn’t be much of a setback, so if you think Radiant Light Field suits you better than Ethereal String Puppetry, you can start over and assimilate it instead.”

“Oh.” Hao Zhen hadn’t considered that possibility, but it didn’t take him long to dismiss it. “I’m happy with Ethereal String Puppetry. But if we don’t turn the corpses in, I’d like to keep one of the skill seeds, just in case.”

Although he found it unlikely, if somehow they didn’t come across any other skill seeds, he could absorb one of the Radiant Light Field seeds as a last resort once he reached the Orange Spiritual Realm. That thought gave him a pause. Once he reached the Orange Spiritual Realm—not if.

He looked up at Tian Jin and Lan Yue. It was rather presumptuous of him to assume that he’d become an orangesoul, as he was still a first-level redsoul. But considering who his companions were… he had a feeling he’d manage it. He’d have to manage it, in any case.

Of course, that was assuming he could hold on to his life. If his theory about the Weave was correct, then the world itself was conspiring to keep Tian Jin—and possibly Lan Yue—alive. Hao Zhen didn’t think he’d be getting the same treatment. If anything, he was pretty certain that the Weave would want him out of the picture.

To survive, he’d need power. And on the topic of power…

Hao Zhen glanced at the five piles of items beside him. First his gaze fell on the pile of jade slips, then on the pile of pills, and finally on the pile of spiritual stones.

He decided it was about time he bid goodbye to the first level of the Red Spiritual Realm.