We were being followed. Well, of course, we were being followed. While raw jade wasn’t an immortal level treasure, it was still a treasure. And treasure was all about perspective. A pound of sugar would be invaluable to an ant, after all. And we looked like scruffy little kids just out of the mortal world. So I decided to do something I should have done in the first place.
I dragged Little Spring to a clothing store and purchased a variety of expensive ready-made clothes for him and myself in several different colors, but mostly white with clouds, or in imperial jade green with stylized vines. The sets cost us 5 whole spirit stones. A pure fortune for mortal silk and cotton. Of course, If I’d had the 5000 gold teals for it, I wouldn’t have spent the spirit stones since I still needed most of those for my cultivation and as travel expenses.
After we changed, we picked up some supplies for easy-to-make food since Little Spring kept bugging me about it. Then I had us slowly leave the city, as if we hadn’t noticed our various tails.
When we reached beyond the boundary of the city, I immediately took out my flying sword, grabbed a few spirit stones, and booked it as fast as I could go in a direction away from the sect. Behind me, Little Spring clutched at my waistband and buried his head into my shoulder. Who knew that this kid would be such a little wimp? If it weren’t for the fact that we were running for our lives while hiding his space’s existence, I would have asked him to get inside it already.
We traveled non-stop for a half day. I waited until an hour before sunset before I set us down in a sparsely forested area. Little Spring ran off to take care of whatever while I did prep work and some other things. Mostly, I took out the flag silk and paint from before as well as a few dozen flag sticks. Then I started to put together formation flags as if my life depended on it because it did.
I think somewhere in there Little Spring came back, but I was too focused on my work to pay him any attention. He may have asked if he could help, and I may have sent him into his space to do his homework... I mean practice his characters.
Before he left, the sweet kid made me a campfire and left Ghosty to me for some reason, as if that specter could help in his weak ass condition.
Finally, as the last vestiges of light vanished from the sky, I finished the flags and started placing them on the ground around the fire. Before I could place the last several and finish my formation I sensed fluctuations of spiritual energy at the 6th layer of Qi Condensation. It was a good thing that I could sense it since I still couldn’t use my divine sense, as damaged as I was.
The back of my neck itched. I knew what that meant. Hidden weapons in the form of thin needles flew toward my nape. Unfortunately, my mostly mortal physical reflexes were shit.
I grabbed the weapons with several strands of spiritual energy and changed their trajectory enough to avoid my body. After I gathered the last of my flags into my off-hand, I took out my borrowed hairpin and turned it into a sword. I sent a slash of sword Qi into the darkness where I sensed the assassin.
He dodged, of course, then dashed behind a tree so he could face me from a new direction. Another barrage of hidden needles flew at me. After I tossed them aside again, he ran at me with a spear out. Since he hadn’t learned to harness spear Qi yet he couldn’t use his weapon from a distance. Unfortunately, a lucky enough attack would still kill my ass.
I sent a single slash of sword Qi at him, but he dodged. I backed up two steps, wrapped the flag in a strand of my energy and used that to plant it into the ground. To distract my opponent, I simultaneously sent another slash toward his head.
Right, two steps. Another flag into the ground. Sword Qi slashed towards a pale neck. Jumped to avoid a spearhead. Spirit palm to the man’s face. He backed up. Two small steps away from him. Placed a flag. Turned counterclockwise. Jumped up to avoid a spiritual fist strike. Backed up four steps. Placed a flag behind me so he wouldn’t notice.
And that was when the four other cultivators waiting to attack, finally made their move. These were obviously not associated with my current assassiny foe, but they were also the reason that bitch Sea Pearl only bothered to hire one asshat.
It may have been because I wasn’t the main character, but these guys said nothing and just started to join in on the fight. Their bloodlust rose when they ran towards me. It was as if, in silent agreement, they all decided to kill the kid first. Reprehensible child-murdering fucks.
Between them, one used a dao, two just used techniques and the last one was some kind of sword cultivator. Considering that the man was going after weak children, I doubted that he was a real sword cultivator as they tended to be righteous little cun— Shit! I used a spiritual shield technique that should only be possible for a 5th layer cultivator to stop their simultaneous strikes. Well, mostly. The tricky asshole with the dao got through by stabbing in the same spot as his buddy and gouged a slash into my right kidney area. I coughed up several mouthfuls of blood from that and the backlash of pushing myself to use techniques beyond my cultivation level.
Of course, these guys were really trying to straight-up kill me, so they wouldn’t let my need to recover stop them from making the final blow.
Once again, their weapons zoomed toward me and I shielded myself.
My knees dropped to the ground without my consent, and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth and poured from my lips, staining my new white robes, crimson. That was when I placed the last two flags and activated my confusion-slaughter formation.
The spear assassin was in the middle of thrusting the tip toward my heart, so I had to immediately roll away then step out of my formation, before it caught me up in it.
Now that I was in the eye of my ring-shaped formation, I saw a wall of fog and heard the slashes and screams from the five cultivators inside. If any managed to escape this trap, then I’d let them leave with their life, since I wasn’t in any shape to go after them... but if any were still alive by the time we left in the morning, I’d kill them myself. Fuckers who would murder children for a little jade didn’t deserve to live, let alone cultivate to immortality.
I sighed. Little Spring was still just a little kid. And someday he would have to kill but I wanted him to stay pure and innocent for as long as possible. I wanted him to have a better peaceful childhood than he had in his last life.
There would be plenty of time to teach him how to kill once he became an adult.
Honestly, I’d prefer not killing at all, but this was a cultivation world that was, unfortunately, created with the unrealistic mindset that the strong ruled and the weak had to obey or die. A little cannon fodder like me couldn’t afford to show mercy to those who might come back in a decade to get revenge for making them lose face.
Seriously, the people in this world were the worst.
***
I wanted to move from my spot next to the tree but my adrenaline had eased, making it too hard to ignore the injuries I’d sustained.
I took out the best medicinal pill I inherited from the Immortal Flower Thief and downed it. From there, I used its energy to slightly heal my kidney area and some internal injuries, but I’d need better medicine to fully heal.
“Fuuuck.” I’d need to buy alchemy supplies at our next destination so I could make the pills myself. I couldn’t trust other alchemists to make them for me, since there were a lot of discoveries in the field between this point in time and the era when I was about to ascend. These discoveries lead to higher quality pills with fewer impurities and side effects. But that would be for another day.
I couldn’t enter Little Spring’s space on my own, nor could I cultivate out in the open. Since I was waiting an indeterminate amount of time anyway, I took out a bunch of round pebbles and the first white jade I had the yard open for me. I had plans for this. Spirit stone making plans. Muahahahaha!
Using the pebbles and a spare spirit stone, I created a small formation around the jadeite. This was a secret formation of crafters, used to make a material malleable but still strong while being cut. I could have used it on the tree earlier but I hadn't thought of it since wood was easier to work with than stone.
Once I had my makeshift workstation set up, I set the sword beside me in case those people who were tired of living broke out of my formation, then I brought out my trusty knife.
There were several ways to make jade boxes, but the ones that had been the most popular in this time period were the set of same-sized boxes —the type stores prefered so they could sell them off piece by piece— or the Russian doll set —this type that was popular with collectors and was more expensive since it required a special method to create.
The first thing I did was cut the stone down to a reasonable size, exposing the entire piece of jade. I threw the excess stone into my storage bag as I could use them to create simple pendants later.
Next, I used my sword Qi to cut within the stone. I did this slowly, because I couldn't use my divine senses. But I had control, precision, and a thousand years of experience. I cut and cut, then paused and cut some more.
After I made my last curved bend, Little Spring reappeared from his space and stood in front of me.
“Junior brother! Come take a look at this!” I waited for him to get close enough to see, then used my spirit energy to break the last bit of jade that held the shape together. I peeled away the excess to reveal a beautiful, though plain, white jade box. Then I lifted the lid to reveal dust. I gently blew on the dust revealing another white jade box.
I grinned. These were going to earn us the spirit stones for our cultivation.
I heard a sniffle and looked up at the boy. He wiped his large watery eyes. “Fairy Lin... Y.. you’re hurt.”
I quickly put the boxes away.
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He wrapped his arms around me and started bawling into my shoulder. The world spun. Splash! My clothes became soaked in his lake water. I patted his back as soothingly as I could while the spring water went to work cleaning the dirt and blood that had hardened.
While just letting the boy sniffle. I revolved my Qi and, slowly, a bit of my Phoenix constitution’s energy flowed out. I directed it toward the worst of my wounds. It healed it and strengthened those areas. Mostly.
As long as I didn’t jerkily twist in the wrong direction my body would be able to function as if I was at the second layer of Qi Condensation. This meant that I would still need to go create medicine soon, but this was enough to get me to the next city.
Now that I was relatively healed and mostly spotless I patted the little kid’s head.
“Hey, I’m fine. What’s the matter?”
“You need to listen to me when I speak!”
Ah, had he been talking while I was cultivating and healing?
“I told you to come into the space but you wouldn’t listen and now you’re hurt again!”
Fuck, I’d probably looked like a stab victim on the verge of collapse. I may have given this poor kid a slight trauma.
How the hell did a person comfort children, again?
I wiped away the tears on his face, feeling a bit awkward. He stopped crying and his cheeks puffed with anger.
I guess I never told him what I was doing. I mean, really? What adult could take time they didn’t have during a situation like that to explain it to a child who would be protected completely anyway? And maybe knowing the reason I didn’t hole up in his space would help.
“Little Spring. Do you know why I stayed out here to defend our location?”
He shook his head.
“Well. There were a variety of reasons. But the main one was that these people were following us from the beginning. If they reached our location and found that we had just up and vanished, they would suspect that we had a space like this.”
His swollen eyes narrowed further.
“This space is a very special treasure. It will be sought after by everyone under the immortal level, and possibly even immortals. People who would murder thousands just to get their hands on it. So we cannot let anyone even have a hint of its existence.”
“It’s not worth anything if you get hurt.”
Damn. What a cute innocent little kid. Seriously, what the fuck happened to change him into gross-ass Bloodsword?
“Yes, it is. Because this treasure can save your life if you are ever in such a desperate enough situation that you wouldn’t be able to survive without hiding within it.” I patted his head. “Also, I did it because I needed to see my current combat limits. While I can estimate fairly accurately, not knowing for sure might get us killed one day, and I won’t let that happen.” I was also hoping that it would help to unlock more of my constitution than it did. The fight might not have been desperate enough. Regardless, I refused to get into a worse situation if I could help it.
“Elder sister. Can you start teaching me how to fight?”
Good. While I didn’t want him to kill, having him learn to defend himself from an early age could only be a good thing. “Tomorrow, after I’ve rested I’ll add more training to the schedule.” I sighed. “Now go get dry and rest up. I’ll join you in a bit.”
He nodded. And began to walk off then he paused, and, while not looking back, said, “You said that this place is supposed to be a treasure, and I know it’s nice, but I’d still rather have you be safe.”
Then he ran off.
Ah, such a cute kid. He’d eventually figure out how awesome this place was. Actually, I knew a guy who could appreciate it and what I did to protect it.
I floated in the spirit spring and poked at Ghosty’s necklace until he made his appearance off to the side. He let out a loud sigh as if life in general pained him. “What is it?”
“Ah, Little Spring has such a good golden finger in this space right? Isn’t this the best?”
He looked at me oddly. “If you’re talking about a cheat-like existence that can help a person immensely, then I think, Fairy Lin, that actually, you’re Little Spring’s best golden finger. And that boy may not know that consciously, but he certainly knows it unconsciously.”
Holy fucking shit snakes! I am really the main character’s golden finger? For some reason, I wanted to cry but instead replied while feeling like I lost my soul, “Yeah. That sounds about right.”
I sunk down into the water and blew bubbles while trying not to even contemplate my life choices.
Just as I was getting up the courage to go into the cottage, Little Spring returned with a towel and a cup of warm water. Did he use the alchemy room to boil this?
I accepted both, thanked him, and patted his soft hair. “You did a good job today.”
The tips of his ears turned red and he mumbled his thanks. That was when I remembered...
“Right! We need to check out that stone you won and see if there is anything good inside.”
He frowned but nodded determinedly.
I took out the heavy stone and set it on the grass then grabbed my knife. Just as I was about to take a little slice off the top, the whole thing dropped into the ground like a brick into water.
I blinked.
The earth shook and distorted. Grass-covered chunks split off, like broken ice in the sea. I hugged Little Spring to steady my still injured self. The land around us began to extend out. It expanded for miles. The once flat horizon suddenly jutted up, turning into a ring of massive mountains.
“Holy shit!” That stone just upgraded this farm-sized space into county-sized space!
When the ground stilled, Little Spring collapsed.
I caught him. Sharp pain from my injured side, jolted through me. I just barely managed to bring us both down onto the grass safely.
I lied down next to him, too tired and in too much pain to move.
Was the stone we won the item Bloodsword originally married Effervescent Sea Pearl for? If it had the power to upgrade his space, it was possible.
I frowned at this kid. Why did this upgrade make him faint though?
***
It took him a full 24 hours to recover, and since I couldn’t leave the space without his permission, I was just as stuck in here as Ghosty had been. Fortunately, I used the time to set up a spirit gathering formation with around 25 spirit stones and used those to reach the peak of the fourth layer of Qi Condensation. My constant headache eased a bit more and my mind seemed to clear a bit.
I could have continued, but I wanted to solidify my base a bit more... That and cultivating aggravated my injuries. I decided to heal myself first before continuing, rather than pushing it.
I sighed and handed my little martial brother who had just sat up, a grain liberation pill and a cup of spring water. He grimaced but consumed them.
“Feeling better?”
He nodded, then shook his head. He held his hand out and narrowed his eyes at it until a glowing orb appeared in his palm. “The jadeite was some kind of special spiritual earth element. It expanded and briefly woke up the spirit of this space...” He bit his lip. “I argued with it... so I could give you this. Take it before it changes its mind.”
I froze. The glowing ball pulsed happily. While I’d never seen something like this before, it was easy to guess what this was.
“A key,” I said. Or a permission slip. Free access to the main character’s second-best golden finger. My hand trembled.
A chill ran down my spine.
Some might think that I would love to get my hands on this particular treasure. While I did enjoy its amenities and convenience, the truth was, I wanted nothing to do with it. A treasure like this came with massive karmic ties. Little Spring was already the owner of it so he wouldn’t have been able to avoid those ties regardless of using the stone or not... but my own self? No fucking thank you.
But I also couldn't say no to having a key. Since we were traveling together, I needed to access this place.
Last night, even though I managed to deal with everything perfectly, I was still injured and had to wait for Little Spring to come out before entering. And that was not ideal. If I’d been attacked in that injured state, I could have died... not easily, but still. I had no right to refuse.
But I wanted to. Taking this key meant breaking rule 5 of Transmigrated Into a Novel Club - Don’t get too close to the main character as you are squishy and do NOT have a protective halo.
I closed my eyes. Well, I’d already broken that rule several times over, hadn’t I?
I slowly took the key and rested it against my glabella. It entered my body and I transferred it to my divine sense. This would keep it safe since it would be attached to my soul instead of my body.
The space became a solid presence in my mind. While I didn’t have permission to do much with it I could definitely enter and exit it at will.
I stared at Little Spring. “If there ever comes a day when you want to take it—“
“—I won’t—”
“You will. You should. And when it happens, I’ll freely give it up. This space is yours—“
“No, this space is ours.”
Fuck. He really isn’t making it easy to deny this massive karmic debt.
He smiled brightly as if he’d just given his favorite person an amazing gift.
I sighed. “Just... Don’t bring anyone else in here. At least not until you’re strong enough to protect it.”
His face turned bright red and he nodded. “I won’t. But promise me you’ll use this space to keep yourself from getting hurt too.”
“I can’t promise you that I won’t get hurt, but I’ll absolutely use it if I get injured and need to escape. Okay?”
He smoothed my hair happily. “Mhm.”
I had a horrible feeling that my distant-future wouldn’t be as peaceful as it had been in my past life. But, on the plus side, I’d taken care of our tails, collected supplies for our journey, and earned us some desperately needed spirit stones. At least, having a peaceful near-future seemed like a strong possibility.
----------------------------------------
Story notes:
Ranks: Mortal, Earth, Sky, Heaven, Transcendence, Immortal, Golden, Black, and Unparalleled Perfection.
Qualities: Low, Medium, High, Pinnacle, Perfection.
Transmigrated into a Novel Club Rules 1-5:
1. Do not talk about being transmigrated into a novel.
2. Never steal from the main character
3. If you don’t seek death, you won’t die.
4. Always stay on the main character’s side, even if the odds seem bad.
5. Don’t get too close to the main character as you are squishy an do not have a protective halo.