The waves inside Shin Sumi's Shinsoo Sea crashed and churned like a violent storm. With each passing rotation of the Sea, her body cracked and tore open, her joints ruptured and her muscles broke.
And yet Shin Sumi felt no discomfort at all. In fact she wasn't even aware of what was happening. Like a string puppet lost in a tempest, she was completely unconscious of the raging Sea inside her.
The process continued for more than half a day. At that point, her entire body had been broken, moulded and reconstructed by the outbursts of Shinsoo within her.
The storm was still raging with intense raw power when suddenly the Shinsoo Sea became still. The terrifying waves froze into a giant lake three times bigger than it had been, still as death and calm like a garden pond.
The sudden stillness jolted Shin Sumi awake and she finally realized what had happened.
Nuan was on her lap, curled under her folded wings and the tip of her tail between her small jaws. As Shin Sumi woke up, the Lion Bat shook and stretched, lazily walking a few steps and resuming her nap.
Shin Sumi stood, feeling her changed body, tensing and relaxing her muscles in succession.
Circulating the Moon Severing Ephemeral Shadow, one by one she felt her meridians awaken and radiate Shinsoo within her.
She felt full to the brim with raw power, with a Shinsoo that was bright and golden and yet cold and mysterious at the same time. In her hand, the Moon Stone was still casting its white rays on the immortal cave walls.
Taking Nuan back inside her wrist, Shin Sumi put away the Moon Stone and the Copper Bell after renewing the formations that made her seem weaker than she was. For another person's eyes, she would have just achieved a breakthrough to the second step of the Liquid Realm.
Disabling the light barrier to the entrance of the cave, Shin Sumi stepped outside.
She was immediately assailed by the cold blue light of the crystals illuminating the entire area beneath the waterfall. It was only then that she realized her head was thrumming and pulsing, as if her heart was pressed against her temples.
"Headache... Is that because of the breakthrough?" The excitement about her newfound power quickly faded as the light seemed to drill into the back of her eyes.
Focusing her Shinsoo in an attempt to shelter herself, she slowly left the caves. Nevertheless, even the Copper Bell seemed powerless to stop the light from hurting her. Neither could it stop the rumbling of the waterfall from banging her eardrums louder than she would have wanted.
Even with a headache like the one she was suffering from, Shin Sumi should have been able to focus her energy enough to completely block the outside stimuli that pained her, however she had yet to stabilize her cultivation base enough to do such a minute adjustment on herself.
Slowly and painfully, Shin Sumi walked under the waterfall entrance. Feeling Nuan inside her wrist through their divine sense link, Shin Sumi followed the Lion Bat's impulse and walked towards the other side of the waterfall. Not towards the bridge to Long Ring Island but towards a damp path battered by the rebellious drops which refused to follow the rest of the waterfall.
The path was beautiful and illuminated only by the irided light of the sun through the waters. It was like walking in a multicolored cloud but Shin Sumi ignored all of it, her eyelids closed firmly, relying on her divine sense more than anything.
After the end of the waterfall, the path climbed a steep set of stairs hidden behind the rocks. Lacing against the mountain face, the trail led above the waterfall to the plateau overlooking the lake and Long Ring Island.
Shin Sumi didn't take in the sight, nor did she marvel at the hundreds of natural springs bursting out of small rock crevices and forming a large river. The river was wider than it was long which truly was a strange sight.
Only a few meters away from the waterfall did the water freely escape the mountain. Following Nuan's divine sense intuition, Shin Sumi sat down behind the furthest spring.
After sitting down, her mind cleared up enough for her to look around in more detail. It was as if the mental space occupied by her walking had suddenly been freed up and she could dedicate that part of her mind for something else.
She only now saw the trees and smooth rocks whose bottom had been polished by years of running water. Somehow in her painful state she had unconsciously registered the water and the springs but now what laid around and made most of her sight.
Without being asked to, Nuan appeared on Shin Sumi's wrist, immediately batting her small wings and gliding to the spring in front of them.
Shin Sumi understood why the Lion Bat had taken her here. They were sheltered from other people's eyes. Even from their divine sense as Shin Sumi slowly realized that the spring water had a high concentration of Shinsoo.
That was the reason she had only paid attention to it previously and it also explained why the large cave underneath was full to the brim with good quality Shinsoo, making it a perfect location for Immortal caves.
Gently leaning forward, Shin Sumi drank the fresh water in her cupped hands, expecting Nuan's magic to take effect soon. It was the only thing she wanted and the only thing she had found to relieve her painful temples and eyes.
After drinking until her belly felt strangely full, Shin Sumi took her wet hands to her face and started cleaning her skin gently.
She was midway through washing her hair when most of the pain in her head disappeared, flowing away progressively like the oily dust and sweat covering her body.
Feeling strong enough to stand up and move, Shin Sumi then looked around for a little while until she found what she wanted. One of the natural springs coming out of a large crevice, big enough for an adult to submerge themselves in the clear fresh water.
Rather quickly, Shin Sumi bathed. Outside of the privacy of her personal courtyard and knowing there was an entire community underneath her that could come up at any time, she didn't want to be caught like this.
She donned a new set of robes similar to the one she had just washed, using a bit of Shinsoo to dry herself in the process.
The old clothes dried instantly and remained warm to the touch for a long time, leaving Shin Sumi stunned for a while as she had used only the slightest amount of energy.
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"I have to stabilize my cultivation base better. I can't go out in the world with little to no control of my Shinsoo."
Such was the process every cultivator needed to go through after a breakthrough of any kind. It never lasted a long time but the period during which the energy was unstable always felt deeply uncomfortable and frustrating, like having to learn how to read for a second time.
After an attempt at meditating there on the plateau, Shin Sumi frowned and decided she would rather cultivate inside the cave she was paying for. Even though the concentration of Shinsoo was good around the natural springs, it felt like trying to catch a bird, focusing her divine sense on Shinsoo that was constantly fleeting and flowing away from her.
Having been surrounded by precious water like this one for maybe millenia, the cave underneath had been soaked in Shinsoo for such a long time that at least the energy was calm and homogeneous inside.
As she entered the large cave and faced the hundreds of holes in the face of the rock, Shin Sumi felt a familiar divine sense on her.
"Congratulations, young lady. Second step eh? I told you this place was perfect for a breakthrough!"
Smiling sincerely, Shin Sumi replied "My deepest gratitude to you, sir. I have been chasing that breakthrough for months without being able to catch it and one night here was all it took."
Fetching three spirit stones from her bag of holding, Shin Sumi handed them over to the middle aged man sitting on the rock near the entrance, silently making him know that she wished to stay another day.
Shin Sumi was glad to have broken through to the third step of the Liquid Realm, and she wasn't lying when she said she hadn't expected it to happen there and then. The cave truly was a blessing in that regard.
However her initial intention had been to study the techniques Nuan had recently refined for her and she had already estimated that process to take at least two full days.
The man smiled back at Shin Sumi and caught the spirit stones, making a gesture that meant she was welcome to stay for as long as she wanted. As long as she paid, which was a given.
The headache gone and her body cleansed of all the filth she had expelled during her breakthrough, Shin Sumi felt so good she hadn't felt like that in a long time.
Her body was powerful and her mind was bright. Waving her hand behind her, she activated the cave's spirit formations.
After positioning herself at the center of the cave and letting Nuan roam free again before turning her into a book, Shin Sumi closed her eyes. As if her bathing experience had just been a short break from meditation, she started circulating the Moon Severing Ephemeral Technique.
Even without the Moon Stone out, Shin Sumi could now feel her energy passing through her meridians much faster than before.
She briefly imagined the Shinsoo Doors and meridians forming a complex system of tubes. If she could now feel Shinsoo flow like water inside it, then before her breakthrough her cultivation had been akin to warm honey, viscous and slow.
Over two days and two nights, Shin Sumi only lifted her eyes from Nuan's heavy book a few times to change the page she was looking at.
Nuan had finished refining all the stolen techniques from the merchant in Long Ring Island and Shin Sumi fully intended on learning all of them.
She didn't know if it was an after-effect of her recent breakthrough to the third step of the Liquid Realm but her comprehension abilities seemed to have undergone a massive qualitative leap. The techniques were not really advanced, being only movement skills that didn't require as much finesse as a combat skill, but Shin Sumi still went through them at a vertiginous pace.
Flowing Waterfall Dance and Summer Breeze Wind Step only took her a few hours to understand perfectly. The other three were a bit more complex.
Shin Sumi was about to start focusing on Fire Breath of the Salamander, the only defensive technique she had gotten so far, when her mind started spinning a bit.
Standing up and stretching, she realized she had been sitting for hours upon hours. Were it any other moment of her cultivation journey it would have been perfectly fine, but right now she still hadn't acclimated fully well to the third step of the Liquid Realm.
It usually took more than a few days to fully reach a stable cultivation base after a breakthrough. Any cultivator other than Shin Sumi wouldn't even have attempted to understand new techniques in that period of time but she didn't know any better.
Besides, with her sixty-four Shinsoo Doors opened, it was much easier to do for her than for most people.
After cultivating for a while and settling down her pulsating Shinsoo Sea, her mind calmed down again. It was with a bit of disappointment that she realized her comprehensive ability and clarity of mind had receded a bit.
Not wanting to spend too much time in the cave as of now, Shin Sumi exited the Shinsoo barrier and made her way out of the waterfall entrance. Passing in front of the man who had rented her the cave, she exchanged a few polite words with him and tossed him another few spirit stones.
"I will be staying in Long Ring Island a bit longer. This is truly a great place to cultivate and I don't want to miss that opportunity. I can at least finish learning these new techniques and settle my cultivation base before I go about finding the Sky Earth Sect" she thought.
She hadn't forgotten about the reason for her journey. The sister sect to her own was her destination, although she didn't know the way to it yet.
Lost in thoughts about how she could find more information and why the people here seemed to make a taboo out of it, Shin Sumi crossed the Shinsoo-powered bridge to the village.
It had been a few days since she had been to the market and she had even changed her appearance and cultivation base since then. As Yan Yan and with Nuan well hidden in her wrist, Shin Sumi patiently approached the first merchant she had talked to on her first day here.
The old man was advertising his pills and bottles of medicine, claiming high and loud how they were the best a hundred miles around.
When Shin Sumi approached, the man's nose flared slightly and a smile appeared on his face.
"Aaah, a new customer in town, what a pleasure! Let me guess, you just achieved a breakthrough and need a pill to stabilize your cultivation base quickly and efficiently?"
"You are right, sir," Shin Sumi smiled back, "I have to stabilize quickly and get on the road soon."
"Oh, and where are you headed, if it is right for me to ask?" The merchant continued the conversation while fishing for the appropriate pill in his large inventory.
Shin Sumi smiled again, this time internally. She had hoped for that kind of response.
Only this time she wouldn't bring out the subject of the Sky Earth Sect directly. She still didn't understand why the last time the man had prefered to leave rather than talk about it.
"I'm headed south west of here. I heard the roads are kind of dangerous this time of year...?"
Without being more precise, Shin Sumi clearly formulated her last sentence into a vague question.
Surprised, the old man tried to keep his confusion to himself and his face straight.
"Hmmm the roads... They aren't really more dangerous now than at any other time. But if you're worried about your safety, I would recommend walking straight to the south until the mortal city of Sun Castle. It's a few days away for someone of your speed but it's much safer."
Sighing heavily and purposefully, Shin Sumi continued, "What I mean is that I heard the roads were dangerous... But I do not know why. Are there bandits around?"
The merchant laughed a dry laugh, "Bandits? In a way... This is nothing that you should concern yourself with, in any case. Here is the pill you wanted. Anything else? That would be twenty spirit stones."
Once again, the conversation was cut short by the merchant's unwillingness to talk.
Shin Sumi took the pill and thanked him before leaving his shop.
"Maybe if I spend more spirit stones at the waterfall, the man renting the caves will talk to me..."
She roamed the market for a few more minutes, wondering what to do to get more information without being too inquisitive with the people of Long Ring Island.
Looking around, she saw a kid playing alone on the path between two rows of empty shops.
All smiles and reigning in her divine sense, Shin Sumi approached the kid. He was a boy of maybe seven years of age. As she got closer, Shin Sumi could detect the slightest trace of Shinsoo around him.
"So young and already on the path of cultivation" she thought.
The boy had noticed her too and his eyes were fixated on her beneath his long messy hair.
"You are such a pretty Big Sister!"
Shin Sumi was taken aback by the boy's comment before smiling even more wildly.
"You think so? I think you look strong! Do you want to become a warrior or something when you grow up?"
The boy showed his teeth with a bright smile and nodded. He was missing two, having not grown his adult teeth yet. He was maybe even younger than Shin Sumi had thought.
The two of them engaged in a passionate conversation in the middle of the empty part of the market.
"Do you want to join a cultivator sect later? I heard there was the Sky Earth Sect close-by. I'm not from here but I heard great things about it. In fact I wanted to visit it in a few days."
The boy's face became serious for a second and Shin Sumi thought back on how every person she had talked to had refused to tell her more about the sect.
Her worries didn't last very long, however, as the kid answered plainly, "I can't go there. When I'm old enough to get in, the sect won't be there. I heard my parents talk about it the other day."
Shin Sumi encouraged him with a smile but the boy remained silent. His eyes narrowed a bit.
"I don't know if I can talk about it, Big Sister..."
Shin Sumi took a step closer and crouched to face the boy at eye level. She whispered to him, "if you tell me what you know, I'll give you a few spirit stones to buy the sweet plums you were looking at earlier!"
The boy didn't hesitate for very long, the appeal of sweets being too strong for him.
"You can't tell my parents that I told you, okay? The Sky Earth Sect is in trouble. They have been mean to the Blue Fire Sect and they are coming for them. It will be a big fight but my parents said I can't see it because I'm too young and it's too dangerous."
Forgetting that he wasn't supposed to say anything, the boy kept talking and talking. By the time Shin Sumi held her half of the bargain and gave him enough spirit stones for treats, her face was grim.