There was a shadow stalking, he was certain.
No matter where he ran, the lights would flicker and fade, and darkness would surge. He glanced back over his shoulder, spittle dripping out and covering it as he inhaled through his mouth, but there was nobody there. Just a dark, empty alleyway, not unlike a dozen others of Gold City that he'd ran through the past half hour.
Why him? He'd just come out to see the city after visiting the island for the first time. He hadn't gotten into a fight with anyone, he hadn't insulted anyone... so, why him? Why were the shadows stalking him?
He tripped over something, his knees giving out as he stumbled forward and facepalmed into the heavy stone. His teeth rattled and a few got loose as blood began to trickle out of his nose. Even so, there was no Qi--no matter how desperately he tried to summon it, to escape the clutches of death, it would not heed his call. As if it, too, were hiding.
Metallic taste coated his mouth as he spat out red and started coughing, pulling himself up to his knees. He wanted to run, to run as far away as he could, but his legs would not listen. It was as though there was a mountain on his heels and it was holding him down.
Then, he heard them.
The footsteps.
They were strangely erratic, as if someone was purposefully walking in a way to make discordant sounds. As if to taunt him. Mock him. Laugh at him. They started faint, distant, but slowly grew closer. Louder. Until the last pair echoed out near his ears, causing his body to shudder.
Then there was silence. It felt long yet short, as he urged his trembling body to calm and his head to look up. The stories of the island were true, after all. That its masters harvested the visitors and used their bodies for alchemy. He should have listened. Stayed home. Stayed safe.
He couldn't quite make out their features in the dark, only a scarlet reflection of something wrapped around their necks.
Death... was painless, but dull and cold.
**
"Brother Zhong, come on, drink with us!" he put on a smile, but loathed it. Pathetic hang-ons hovering around him like flies.
"Here, here!"
"Just one more, just one more!"
The room stank of alcohol and pipe, littered with passed out imbeciles trying to curry favor. Lights flickered past the smoke and mist, causing him to grunt and stand up. He hated them, hated them all.
But he needed them.
These pathetic vermin who couldn't do anything beyond drinking and smoking, spending their days in a mindless haze. Drifting through life as if it would be eternal.
He carved out a path around them and entered the back, finally escaping the toxic fumes that he was blocking with Qi. Walking through a small corridor for a moment, damp and gray, he reached the basement and entered, welcomed by bright sheen of warm color. Stacks and stacks of shelves ran the length of the four walls, with a massive desk in the middle and six chairs, two of which were currently occupied.
"Senior Zhong, you're back," S' greeted him, standing up and bowing while K' merely nodded.
"Hm," he nodded back, finding the chair opposite of them.
"How are things?"
"Bothersome."
"We understand, but please endure," S' said. "For a bit more, at least."
"It's fine. Why did you want to see me?"
"There's been an incident," K' interjected with his usual, lazy tone.
"You wouldn't have called me for an incident," he said.
"There's been a theft at the Southern Auction."
"So?" he frowned. "Aren't items sold there trash we throw away?"
"The thief hasn't been caught."
"Oh?" he arched his brows in surprise. Though it was southern waste as he called it, there was still a rule of law. That the thief hadn't been caught... it was something that bitch Hei was probably losing her mind over. "Interesting. What happened?"
"She's blocking the exact item that was stolen," S' said. "Which is strange as it wasn't slated to be that expensive."
"So, why would one bother stealing it?" he pondered aloud, tapping away with his finger against the desk.
"Hm. For now, she's taken the charge of the investigation, but there has been no progress."
"There's someone that can hide their traces even from Hei?" his eyebrows shot further up. "That's rather... dangerous."
"Yes. We have instructed the guards around the auction house to be on the lookout and increased the security around the most treasured vaults. Though we doubt the thief would even try, it doesn't hurt to increase security temporarily."
"Good," he nodded. "Well, since my Senior Sister is suffering so, as a proper Junior Brother, I ought to visit her and console her, no?"
"A proper Junior Brother would indeed do that."
"Indeed," he grinned. She'd swindled him out of full five Divine Stones last time, and he was hardly the sort to let the bygones be bygones.
**
It was unstable, again.
Qian Shuren couldn't help but frown staring at the wobbly edges of a vortex, plumes of light and shadow intermingling. The spacetime around it was rippling, as if enduring the bombardment of energy it was not prepared for.
All due to the portal.
In fairness, Qian Shuren could not actually remember a time when the portal was stable fully. Whether it was when she had just gotten to the island so many years ago, or in any of the ages between then and now, there was always some instability. However, by miracle, the portal never collapsed. Whether it was because Master Yuan maintained it meticulously, or he paid somebody else to do that, or because the portal was stable despite its instability... she didn't know.
After all, Dao of Space was something she barely grasped enough of to enter the Void Transformation Realm, and hardly focused on it since.
Still, she felt... this time it was different. She couldn't pinpoint why, far from it, beyond simply uttering the phrase that would get her laughed out of the hall: My gut tells me.
But it was telling her. No, more than telling, it was practically screaming at her--it was slowly coming undone. If it would simply disappear, it wouldn't even be a bad thing; it'd simply mean that the island would lose the ability to enter Infernal Realm and fight the unending war any longer, which, while it would hurt Master's pockets, wouldn't result in much else.
But if it collapsed violently?
She sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Parts of her wanted to go and meet the man and warn him, but every other part of her knew it would be futile. She was exiled all but in the literal sense, and he would sooner listen to a beetle than her. But for her to simply stand and do nothing about it?
It didn't feel right, either.
Sighing yet again, she turned her back and walked away. That man... he should be coming within the next five years, she imagined. Perhaps, all else notwithstanding, he might have the ability to either stabilize the portal or at least convince Master it was collapsing.
Perhaps... perhaps... perhaps...
Occasionally, I have stupid thoughts.
... okay, I have stupid thoughts often. Most of the time they are like a salmon in a sharknado, in that they're relatively easy to ignore. They come and they go, with no one being wise to them but me. Sometimes, though, their stupidity astounds me so much that they hang around for a while, rattling around inside my skull, not unlike those cringe onset moments you get in your thirties when randomly remembering a stupid thing you did in high school.
Alas, the latest hot topic of stupidity of my thoughts is: what if this chariot was a convertible? It came out of nowhere, I didn't work on it, I wasn't even thinking about anything either chariot or convertible-like or adjacent, it just... appeared. Rather, the thought was so stupefying, I kind of forgot what I was even thinking of before it appeared.
It did come with a lot of associations, at least, which is why it's difficult to simply... ignore. It was about a week after Yasmine first got diagnosed. I was still in my mother hen mode, reading ninth page of google results looking for something, when she woke me up one morning and dragged me out of the apartment. Just outside, perched slightly on the sidewalk, was a 2012 Ford Mustang V6 Convertible. Sleek. Black. Roof already retracted.
Apparently, while I was trying to look for ways to help her, she was looking for ways to spend a lot of money. Which we did--we blew through a good chunk of our savings taking the trip to the Rockies. All in that goddamn Mustang. Though I was somewhat annoyed and a bit of a bitch for parts of the journey, those few weeks we spent together are my most precious memories of us.
It was as if she knew, because not a week after we came back, she got sick. And weak. And she simply... never got much better. Just progressively worse. Even now, over a decade--no, it's closer to two decades now than one--removed from it, I can't help but smile whenever I think about it. There's nothing more important in life than memories, I realized. Every day, every hour, every minute.
Looking out over to the kids, some of whom were discussing the fights they had over at the auction house, some of whom were meditating, and some of whom were eating... there will come a day, however far off into the future, when one of them will leave. And then another. And then another.
It's hard. No, for now, it's perhaps outright impossible for me to let go. However pathetic it may be, it does come from the same mind that conjured up a convertible chariot, after all.
Do they feel the same way? I mean, it's different, isn't it? Though the system might tell me I'm gonna live for 40,000 years, and though I keep meeting people who've lived for many, many more years than that... it all still rings hollow deep down. They are used to stories taking centuries, to lives being tens of thousands of years long, to all connections being like karmic ties that span ages.
I still keep thinking that life is a blip. Blink and you miss it sort. Or, perhaps, time in every sense is relative; despite having thousands of years, they are still not enough. Even eternity isn't enough.
Haah.
There was a time in my life not too long ago when I'd steer clear of philosophy-adjacent thoughts. Oh how I miss it.
"Master, where are you off to?" Long Tao asked. He'd always sit across from me, occasionally meditating and occasionally pretending not to be listening in on the conversations of other kids.
"The hell that is my head," I said.
"Sounds awful."
"It well and truly is."
"Are you worried about the island?" he asked.
"Hm, among other things," I nodded.
"What other things?"
"Oh, so, so many," I chuckled, glancing over at him. "Refining my next lesson for you that I will inevitably barely stutter and stumble through, leave you all more confused than you were when you came in. Figuring out how I'm going to live without you lot to bother me once you all grow your wings and fly off to conquer the world. And, most of all, when is my dearest Tao'er going to find a hairstyle that actually suits him."
"..." he grinned for a moment, leaning back. "You really think they will leave?" he asked.
"If I do my role correctly," I nodded. "It's one of those things I never quite understood throughout my life. My parents all but kicked me out of the house as soon as they could, but then call--wrote letters to me practically every day. How are you? Are you eating well? Did you make any friends? Then, when I got let go from my first job, my mother mysteriously happened to be around my place every other day, with a meal or two she accidentally made."
What I was saying clearly made no sense in the context of 'Lu Qi's' life, but I knew these pigeons well enough to know they'd ignore it, this old monster included.
"It sounds like your parents loved you a great deal, Master," he said.
"Some things you recognize too late, I learned," I said. "And some too soon. What about your assortment of family members, Tao'er? Seeing how much heritage they left you, they must have loved you a great deal, too."
"... in their own ways, I suppose," he said, his voice trailing slightly. "But I fear what Master sees as love and what the rest of us saw it as... are very different things. You once mentioned that you had a Dao Companion," he added, his fingers tracing gently as Qi shuttled between us. It was a soundproofing array of sorts, I recognized immediately. "My Mother was Father's fourth," he said. "And my Father was Mother's second. Though it sounds warm and comforting, and as if bound by some higher law of the heart, Dao Companions are... fleeting. Whether by choice or force, the one you are with becomes your Dao Companion. Most Emperors and Empresses will have had literal hundreds, if not thousands, before they perish, sometimes dozens at the same time. Love is a lot like trust to us, Master: we choose whom to give it, how much of it to give, and for how long."
"..."
"They might fly away," his lips drew out a smile. "But I promise you, they will always come back to annoy you."
"Aah. Another thought to agonize over. Thank you very much, Tao'er."
"It's your own fault. Ordinarily, once a Disciple leaves their Master's shadow, they spend a lifetime trying to escape it wholly."
"Well, at least it will be quite easy for you all."
"Hm?"
"I don't cast that large of a shadow."
"..." wow, he actually rolled his eyes.
"Tao'er, you can come back anytime you want too, you know?"
"Eh? What gave you the impression I'd be leaving, Master?"
"... please leave."
"Where else in the world can I possibly wake up to a feast of Divine-tier arts and methods? The only reason those idiots will leave is because they're idiots. Once they realized how much of an idiot they are, they'll all be back."
Well, being annoyed and wanting silence after explicitly breaking it is par for the course. At least we are only half a day away from our destination, and hopefully boarding the damn ship over to the island.
I had plans for us to deboard the chariot as we approached the nameless village, but considering there were literal dozens of flying artifacts of all manners and kinds whizzing by us, I'm fairly certain that there is no need. Looking out the window, the landscape below blurred past a bit too fast to make out much of it, though seeing as we've crossed the tall peaks of the range and were flying over dry, flat grassland, I'd say we were getting closer and closer.
Before an hour was up, blue of the lake showed up on the horizon, melding with the blue of the sky in a sort of distant haze. The kids excitedly stood up and crowded the window, while I wondered how exactly will we boat across the lake.
Judging by the sheer number of flying artifacts, this wasn't exactly a 'niche' spot. Just how long will we have to wait until it's our turn? A week? A month? We aren't exactly in a hurry, but we also kind of are as I do have that looming quest of having to build an entire realm to hold back the dregs of Dao and whatnot. Then again, it's not like I need to be on an island to ponder upon it.
I slowed down the chariot considerably before landing it on the edge of a cliff, though not at the village itself. There was sort of a land bridge, similar with the Heavenly Sword Sect, though this one was considerably wider, longer, and, uh, is curvier the right word? There were no curves so much as there were sharp turns, like someone took a slice of cake and knifed around its edges flatly.
At the far edge, of the bridge, I could just barely make out some shacks and huts and smoke trails, though it was difficult to see much else as it was crowded to high heaven.
"Ship leaving for the island in two hours," hollering began at the very entryway of the land bridge. "Only two seats left! A hundred high-grade stone per person!"
"What?! A hundred?! That's a complete robbery!"
"It really is a robbery! How dare you charge so much?!"
"Tsk, if you're poor, why did you even come here?!" the old man hollered back. "It's a guaranteed, safe passage. If you think it's expensive, there's plenty others to go around!"
And there truly were.
I was under the impression that it was one ship, and that it was one captain, and that was not at all the reality. There were actually exactly twenty-seven old men and women currently being surrounded around the entryway, and I could even make out some ships already leaving across the lake in the distance. Which meant that there were even more than this.
Some, like the old man, charged an arm and a leg.
Others were suspiciously cheap.
But nearly all had at least a hundred or so bartering for a seat on the boat. While it wouldn't be the end of the world if we split into smaller groups and just took different ferries across, I figured I'd at least try and find us a collective passage. As such, I walked around the mass of people and toward the less 'popular' sellers, though I quickly understood why they were 'less popular'.
They had, you know, the faces. Once you saw that face and that smile, it becomes like an instinct to immediately distrust them. And I trust that instinct.
Which led us to the last in the line, the only one who didn't have a single person orbiting them. To be fair, he also wasn't hollering, or even paying attention to anything, instead smoking from a pipe and staring at the sky absentmindedly.
There wasn't a trace of Qi in or around him, he looked old and he looked old--frail, bet back, thin legs, dry land where hair used to grow across the middle, the whole shabang.
Honestly, I'd have thought it was some staple cliche of a hidden expert, but they usually tickle something in me even without using the system, and this one tickled... nothing. I even stealthily glanced at Long Tao, but judging by his reaction, it was the same.
Still, just on the off-chance...
[--Dao Sight used]
[Target: Qian Yuan]
[...]
[Host is insufficiently strong and cannot view target's status. Spend 1,000,000 CP to partially view that target's window?]
... oh, fuck off.
No.
No.
I refuse it. The system just read my mind and is fucking with me. Because I unilaterally refuse to accept the fact that one of the first people I even remotely took an interest in well before even reaching the island is literally the island's goddamn owner.
Okay, I'm pretty sure this wasn't his true body. I was told that he had as many Avatars as there used to be tic-tacs in a package (not in those exact words, though). What? Is he bored? Is he like one of those powerlifters who disguise themselves and larp as weaklings to shock and awe people in the gym?
Screw it. If anyone can provide a safe passageway, it's him.
"Excuse me," I called out. "Are you also offering a ferry?"
"... me?" he seemed genuinely shocked that someone actually asked him, looking at me incredulously.
"Yes, you."
"Er, I do, but are you sure?"
"If you have a boat large enough to fit us all," I said, gesturing at the kids behind me who looked equally surprised and shocked. "I am sure."
"Huh. I do, but I cannot guarantee your safety."
"That's alright."
"It will also be very slow. Might take a month, at least."
"We're not in a hurry."
"Someone might get hurt."
"We have an alchemist in our group."
"I might get lost."
"We all get lost in life," tsk, look at the bastard. He really came here just to observe, huh? "But good company usually helps me find a way back."
"..." it was faint, but I saw it because I was looking out for any changes: his eyebrow twitched. It was a very small twitch, one he controlled immediately, but large enough for me to notice I got to him. "Very well," he said, pretending to take ten seconds to stand up, picking up a cane by his side and leaning on it. "If you are that determined to die, you may come with me."
"Lead the way."
And he did.
Very slowly.
Oh my god, this bitch is doing it out of spite, I can just tell. My grandpa who broke a hip when he was 76 walked faster than this bastard, I swear. Nonetheless, I followed him patiently. The kids, luckily, kept their mouths shut, though their eyes were beaming questions my way repeatedly.
I'm very much aware that this is actually kind of a stupid idea. There's a good chance he'll purposefully take a dangerous route just to fuck with us or see what we're made of, but it's also a good opportunity to get noticed. After all, I do need him, as it were, before I have to kill him. There is also a good chance he might be suspicious of me and think I've recognized him, but that, I know, will not last long.
While there may be dangers in the waters of the lake, I am more than confident in being able to take care of them. And when I say I, I mean everyone but I. That will be proof enough that I just didn't care and needed a 'legal' boat to ferry me, all else be damned.
... well, at least I hope that's what he'll think. He's extremely paranoid, cowardly, and conceptually evil. There's a good chance even if we're all lying dead at the bottom of the lake, he'll still think someone's after him and put on an even greater guard. I suppose only time will tell at this point.
Did some basic blood work today, and it's kinda shocking how good it was considering I've been coughing up my goddamn lungs for like a week now. First time I got this sick in probably a few years, and I can even pinpoint the exact moment I got infected. Fingers crossed, here's to another few sickness-free years.
The man didn't really walk so much as he continued to wobble like a drunk penguin. Even so, as we made our way over the land bridge, rubbing shoulders with thousands of other people, he never did. Not once. Whenever it looked like he'd rag someone, they'd just... move. As if by magic. It would be funny if I wasn't fuming over the fact that we were moving quarter a mile a century.
Then again, it did give us the time to soak in everything about this place. The land bridge, at its narrowest, was about a mile and a half wide, almost tripling at its widest. There were no rails or fences or walls to guard against the sheer fall on either side into the lake, and considering that I've seen like seven people just slip and fall without so much as screaming, perhaps there's another mechanism containing everything.
Or perhaps it's just the good ol' ambivalence.
The crowds were packed with young, with old, with men, with women, with all manner of strange and weird characters and caricatures, to the point it felt like I was in some strange painting. I never took a deeper interest in the cultural zeitgeist of this world beyond the surrounding aspects of martial arts, but looking out now... yeah, it really does affirm that it's a world.
Beyond the colors of the robes, which were plentiful, there were the designs, the subtle differences that likely denoted the regions people came from, then there were the hats, the belts, the boots, the everything, really. There was no one 'uniform' design to how people dressed, and a good chunk didn't even wear robes. Some wore a simple combo of pants and shirts, with a rope string slung around their shoulder and a small bag hanging off just beneath their waist.
A good number had weapons rattling about in scabbards, sometimes tied by the belt, sometimes on their backs, and sometimes across their lower backs, forcing everyone to sort of dance around them.
And I'm sure there'd be odors to have nightmares about for years to come were I not plugging my nose with Qi. Especially as it's a scorching hot day, and I can't cross a foot without spotting those delightful darker spots around the armpits.
All in all, it took us some nine hours to reach the halfway point, which was also where the land bridge was at its widest. Here, there were quite a few 'rest' stations, small stalls with very basic assortment of chairs and tables strewn about, and we decided to rest at one of them. It was suspiciously empty, since it looked like the kind of a place where livestock wouldn't live and eat let alone people, but since the man led us here... screw it.
The server didn't even ask us what we wanted, bringing each a bowl of noodles in suspiciously gray water.
"They're the most delicious noodles in the world, I dare say," the old schemer said, slurping up the first bite. I followed suit, keeping Qi at a ready to purge whatever repulsive horseshit was in them.
... but, goddamn, these are some good noodles. They're soft but not spongy, they're just salty enough without overwhelming the buds, there was some kick to them with spices, and they were perfectly boiling which is why I immediately began to sweat.
"They're really good," I exclaimed, slurping up another mouthful right after. Seeing as I couldn't detect anything untoward in them, and as the system wasn't firing off any warnings, it was safe to eat... probably.
"If you don't mind me asking, o' Great Senior," I nearly spat out the mouthful at his words, barely holding back. "Why did you come to the island?" to kill you, among other things.
"Hmm," I pretended to mull over it for a moment before answering. "Curiosity? My kids and I have been traveling the world for the past few years, and we've been to many places. However, no matter where we went, we'd hear stories of the legendary Nirvana Frontier Island. The beauty, the serenity, the dangers. I'd always wanted to visit it, and it just so happened that we were near here when I heard one of the ways to get to the island is precisely here."
"Curiosity, huh?" he looked at me strangely for a moment, slurping up the noodles. "I hardly ever meet young heroes that are so carefree."
"We are a dying breed."
"If you need to know anything about the island, let me know and I'll help as much as I can."
"Ho ho, thank you very much, but wouldn't that defeat the purpose?" I asked. "We haven't come to fight or to seize treasures, where beforehand knowledge would be bountiful. When you've come to enjoy the place, knowing of its majesty and secrets beforehand, however, dulls it." the answer looked to have surprised him, but I pretended not to see it.
There's no way this will assuage him, but whatever. I really don't need to know any of the details, and it's not like he would have told me anything super-duper secret anyway. Best I could have wrang out of him would have been some random tidbits that everyone else knows already.
We finished our fine dining in some thirty minutes or so. While they weren't the bestnoodles I ever had--shoutout to the small shop with a very racist name of Mr. Chang's that I frequented in high school--they were pretty high up there, to be honest. Feeling energized, I was less peeved and annoyed about the fact that he crawled across the second half of the land bridge, leading us to the wide berth. There was some magic happening here as ropes and pulleys formed a line that literally pulled boats up and down along the cliff side.
People at the top would get into the boat, then the pulley system would lower them into the water, and they'd then sail onward. I was honestly kind of shocked that it wasn't just some setup with arrays and whatnot, but it made sense; while I was being escorted by the island's owner, most of the ferrymen weren't actually cultivators, and even if they were, they were mostly in Qi Condensation Realm.
Which also let me know that they were somehow protected, as there's no way in hell that somebody in this world wouldn't have tried to take over this lucrative spot and charge an arm and a leg to cross the lake.
"The Great Alchemist's Decree," the man, as if reading my thoughts, said. "Anyone who harms a hair on any of the villagers' heads will be declared an enemy of the island."
"Hm. Makes sense."
"Follow me." and thus we did as he led us far left, beyond the scope of shacks and hovels, and past where the people were, all the way to the edge where a small, awfully old-looking pulley resided, holding up a boat. "This is my mistress," he said. "Tempest."
... you call this rickety old shit a boat?! Oh, we are so gonna fucking sink. Absolutely, unmistakably sink.
There are many, many, many names I'd give to this rotting thing before coming upon 'Tempest'. No, seriously. This thing looks like it'd sink in a freakin' bath.
It was fairly large, some forty feet long and about ten-ish feet wide at its utmost, with asymmetrical bow and stern, with the latter's end being somewhat longer, sharper, and strangely slanted. Furthermore, it had a warped keel, split decking that looked like it was one wrong footstep away from collapsing the whole damn thing, and sagging mast-step.
The wood itself was pale and splintered, looking as brittle as arthritic bones, with uneven, patchwork caulking sticking out like a sore thumb between planks. It was some kind of a resin, best I could tell, but I'd sooner trust a glass floor than that, to be honest.
All the iron nails were rusting, a touch of which would probably give me tetanus even if I'm a cultivator, while its hull was listing left even when held up by the ropes. I can only imagine that we'd have to even it out a bit by sitting unevenly. The whole thing's held together by a prayer, and instead of being called 'Tempest', it should be called 'A Coffin With Oars'.
"Well," I mumbled. "I always did want to experience sinking at least once."
"Ho ho, she may not look much," no, not much. She looks like literal vaporware. "But she's a sturdy old gal that has taken me across the lake well over a thousand times." oh, an explanation. Finally.
"And she did so without ever being fixed?"
"She broke apart a few times so she has been fixed, don't worry," yeah, he's clearly just fucking with me.
But, fine. If you wanna play this game, so will I.
"Hm. Perhaps the old adage goes for the boats, too."
"The old adage?" he glanced back at me.
"In the world of martial arts," I said. "Fear most the old and the young. Perhaps boats are the same way. The sturdiest ones are the freshly made and the ones so aged they look like they'd wither away upon a touch."
"... that is a strange adage, o' Immortal," he said.
"Is it?" I glanced at him. "In my travels, only the most old and the most young tend to annoy me into sleeplessness. Ah, forget it, forget it. Kids, let's board this divine vessel and sail over."
Everyone jumped forward, gently landing on either side of the boat while slowly balancing it. In the end, the man and I walked onto it at just about the same time, with him taking to the stern and sitting down with a pair of paddles on both sides being jammed into small openings.
Before a minute was up, creaking of the old, rusty pulley system began to cry out like a wounded wolf, while the boat began to shake and stir midair. Looking over the edge, it was... terrifying. It was a far drop, and I'm not actually sure I would have survived it in any of the prior realms. Being in Void Transformation Realm was a bit of a blessing as, even if I couldn't fly for long periods of time, I could still fly.
Nonetheless, as this rickety old thing began to sway, I couldn't help but panic a bit invisibly. It dawned on me that I am currently doing a very stupid thing. Now, it's not as though the track record of my life isn't a who's-who of stupid decisions, but one would think I'd learn after having done so many of them in this world alone. Sometimes I get an idea, and then I pursue that idea to the detriment of life itself. Sort of like now. I'm gambling a lot on the fact that this old man won't just sink us in the middle of the lake, or just sic a bunch of people on us as soon as we land.
It's not as if I gave him a reason to think I'm there to kill him, but that's irrelevant. We're new, and he's probably noticed just how talented the kids are, and is deeply wondering why they'd come to the island. Most of all, he's probably wondering why I insisted he take us. And if he straight-up asked, I don't actually have a good answer. Best I could offer is, 'It doesn't matter; we just need a boat, we can protect ourselves'.
The lowering itself took about half an hour, if not longer than that. Nobody spoke in the meantime, taking in the rather spectacular sight of the lake. On the other side of it were sharp, jagged rocks atop of which, occasionally, I'd see signs of ripped, fluttering bits of clothes, and even occasional smeared, red stains.
As Tempest made contact with the water, the latter splashed upwards and reached us a bit. It was cold--cold, in fact. The old man raised a long stick and disconnected the boat from the pulley system, while beginning to rapidly paddle to create some distance from the protruding rocks that looked sharp enough to cut bread on.
Tempest slowly pulled out and away from the cliff and toward the open waters, whereupon I frowned a bit. Lakes... are supposed to be still bodies of water, no? I tried really hard to recall if there were exceptions, but best I know, short of some underground volcanic or tectonic activity or something, they're supposed to be still bodies of water.
But this one wasn't.
There were waves--and they were rather rough. The old man sailed into the first one directly with the bow, cresting over it as the boat angled so aggressively that we were nearly just fucking vertical. Holding on for dear life, it landed on the other side of the wave and dipped, gaining speed as he let go of the paddles and started pulling the sail's rope, adjusting it.
Yup, there were winds, there were waves, and I wouldn't be surprised if a freakin' typhoon hit his soon enough. Before the boat could even flatten on the waters, another wave came, reaching at least twenty feet. Nonetheless, the old man dove up and over it quite skillfully, though seeing the planks that made up the ship's hull kinda of bend under the weight... can this thing actually endure the trip?
"He's quite good," Shufen said, observing. "I was worried for a moment you became suicidal and decided to drag us all down with you."
"... I should have just left you in that sect," I said, sighing.
"That's mean, Master."
"No, the reason I took you in was to have someone to make money," I said. "But not only are you not making money, you're sucking it up. Even more than the other kids."
"Our bond runs deeper than mere monetary wealth," she said.
"It really doesn't."
"Tsk, fine. I'll help you make some money while we're on the island. Are you happy?"
"I'll be happy when I actually see that money."
"Haah. Anyway, how did you know that he's a good sailor? And don't tell me it's because of that 'old adage' of yours."
"I didn't."
"... eh?"
"I just saw a place we could all board and move together," I said. "I figured that if he sucked, I'd have one of you take the wheel and navigate toward the island." seeing as he's one thousand percent listening to us, I need to keep a consistent story.
"E-eh? You're... serious?"
"Why not? Worst case scenario, we'd just swim back and find somebody else to take us."
"You're insane."
"Each time you call your Master a name, the amount of money you need to make for me to forgive you doubles."
"You're the most divinely brilliant man I've ever met."
"... haah. Just shut up. You're going to give me a headache."
The waves slowly eased, and the boat finally managed to level out on the lake's water. How come, then, that my gut didn't relax at all? Oh, heavens. What kind of a shitstorm will this old man drive us through?
This is mighty odd, I have to say.
The calm and the quiet of when we first leveled out didn't really last, with the sky above us darkening in the span of just a few minutes. Soon after, rain began to pelt us like bullets, and the dark sky began to flash and crackle with thunder and lightning. As if a sigil of summoning, the bad weather caused the lake's waters to once again jostle about, forming waves that were... weird. It wasn't just a procession of waves coming from one direction and angling back toward the cliffs, but it was a constant intersection of waves from all directions.
And yet, despite that, the old man actually navigated over this hellscape somewhat smoothly. I mean, we all had to glue our asses to the boat with Qi, and occasionally repel some really bullet-like jets of water, but none of us had to directly interfere with actually sailing the damn thing.
Bobbing and weaving, as well as cresting and falling, did rattle around my stomach's contents quite a bit, and I actually had to use Surging Spirit Art to quell the need to empty my innards a bit.
In the midst of the flashing thunder, I spotted a faint silhouette in the distance; despite it being dark, after pouring Qi into my eyes, I saw it: a waterspout. It was rolling and rowing, jets of water whirling about it rather violently, and, as if by coincidence, it was going straight at us. Though I noticed him glancing at us from the corner of my eye, I was for a moment tempted to just let the damn thing hit us so I can be rid of him.
But, as it was a fleeting thought, reason won over.
"Zhao'er, destroy it," I said as he stood up, walked over to the front of the boat, perched one of his legs on top of it, bent forward slightly, grabbed the handle of the sword, and drew the weapon in a singular stroke of brilliance.
Light far more blinding than the lightning above us frayed forward through the world, rippling spacetime around it, and reaching the waterspout within the blink of an eye. It cut through it as if it were a sheet of paper, dissecting it brilliantly as its waters scattered in every direction, the beast itself fading.
In the meantime, Zhao'er walked back to his seat as if he'd spat over the boat's railing rather than destroyed a natural phenomenon. In fact, even I was a bit shocked as I didn't actually expect him to destroy it, but more so alter it just enough to where it wasn't an issue.
Anyway, that's one thing not to worry about.
... but then there was another. While we were going up and down like it's a damn roller-coaster, I noticed a slightly alarming pattern in the lightning strikes. Namely, they've been kinda inching closer to the boat. They started off firing in the distance, kicking up a whole spew of water as if an orca had leaped out, but the last few had hit just shy of a hundred yards from the boat. More worryingly, perhaps, is that they were growing larger.
No, that's wrong--they were merging. Where there used to be hundreds, now there were just a few dozen strikes smearing down. And each time one would disappear, another would grow ever so slightly thicker.
And then there was the coincidental reality of the whole thing slowly merging toward the boat. The old man sure has some weird and iffy things up his sleeve, I'll say. He's sailing properly, and doing his job, but also making sure we 'live up' to our end of the deal, as it were.
"Lan'er--"
"--yes, I'll deal with it, Master," alright, you didn't have to interrupt me so excitedly, but whatever. Rather than jumping upward from the boat, as that would undoubtedly sink us, she had Xiu'er whirl her around and hurl her toward the sky just as the amalgamation of destruction appeared.
Up above in the dark skies, there was a point of light that was at least ten yards long, and from it a bolt of lightning just as thick descended like the judgment from the God. At the same time, Lan'er reached the full mile mark in the air, taking on the entire bolt by herself.
The man's facade collapsed a little as he gawked at the black silhouette within the currents of emerging lightning above us; the whole flash turned the night into a day for a moment, and though it looked like the tiny silhouette was consumed, the lightning dissipated in the sea of crackling while she slowly fell back down. She even changed her robes midair so that, by the time she landed, the only sign anything even happened was a few singe marks on her face.
She sat back down as if nothing happened, just like Zhao'er, and even I had to endure a bit. Look at them, trying to act cool. Aah, can I blame them, though? If I were their age and could just casually take a lightning strike that would have likely split a freakin' mega yacht, I'd be strutting around like a peacock, too. No, scratch that--I'd be even more annoying.
The journey continued, but it wasn't long after before I noticed another anomaly--deep inside the cresting waves clashing into each other and forming currents that threatened to manifest a whirlpool, I saw a shadow. I saw it despite the fact that it was dark as night, almost, and in the midst of the flashing skies and the roaring waves.
It was simply that big. Bit by bit, just like the lightning strikes, it was growing closer. Honestly, I didn't know who to send out this time, but before I could I even give it deeper consideration, Rayce stood up on his own, went to the front of the boat, struck the exact same pose as Zhao'er, pulled out a few parchments and ripped them all at once.
A flurry of lights exploded like fireworks, shooting out and curving in beautiful arches while submerging and piercing through the waves. A few began to mingle together, merging like the lightning strikes, until there were only three left--and all three found the shadow and struck it consecutively in the same place.
Despite being underwater, a roar of pain was so loud that it rattled my eardrums, prompting me to frown. In the meantime, Rayce looked up for a moment as if in deep melancholy before turning around and walking back, sitting down and crossing his legs as if he had no care in the world.
... okay, I gotta ask: what the fuck are you guys actually doing?! Is this some sort of a competition between you that I'm not privy to? Who can be the biggest edgelord imaginable?! You're better than this kids, aren't you?!
Aah, at least the mask had all but fallen from that old stud. He wasn't even looking out at where we were going any more, staring back at the kids with open amazement.
A just a touch, a touch, of greed.
There was a deeply buried zealotry attempting to shatter its way out of Qian Yuan's soul. The kind that was unfitting for a mortal avatar whose purpose in life was to crest waves and sail the increasingly un-lake like waters of the Heavenly Star Lake. A mortal man, with a pair of mortal eyes, old and weathered and wrinkled like leather, ought not to know the depths of these children's waters. Yet, with each passing moment, it was becoming harder and harder to keep the mask fastened to his face. Cruel, he mused, of the man to tempt him so--crueler still if he was doing it without an express purpose.
He had no intention of ferrying anyone today, as he merely stepped out past the land bridge to see the newest batch of visitors. That was why he hid himself imperceptibly, why he looked like the sort that would bury his passengers in the waters, yet the man insisted. There were no shortage of martial artists that were after his throat and his head, and the sweeping assumption that the man was one of them was rather easy to make. Any time a soul stood out in the sea of conformity, there was a poignant reason for it. Though Qian Yuan may not have always known the true depths of that reason, the surface of it had always been fairly simple--to kill him.
But if he had been so easy to kill, he would not have lived for as long as he did. He'd evaded death from Emperors and Empresses, so a young pup still wet behind his ears hardly tickled his fears. All the same, curiosity got the best of him, and he allowed the man and the strange assortment of children to come. And now... now, the mask was slipping. He wanted them. He wanted them so desperately he was almost ready to ferry them to the northern parts of the island surround them immediately.
Enduring years of his life, however, have taught him better than that. If he were to ever have these children, he could not do it through force. Burning stars like them would never bend, no matter how hard he pressed. They'd sooner shatter their knees enduring and die writhing in pain than submit to some external force. They were like old oak trees, their roots webbing out endlessly underneath the ground, spreading out in every direction, while the trunks thickened and strengthened against the biting weather, their canopies tall, wide, sprouting as if crowns of the world.
Greed was merciless, regardless. He couldn't stop thinking about what he'd just witnessed--a boy who looked to be sixteen at best cut a waterspout with a simple sword array that had a fading tinge of Indominable Qi; a girl, or perhaps a young woman, who let a bolt of lightning strike her directly, suffusing it through herself and dispersing all excess energy with barely any mark on her; and a young man, a Shaman, who somehow managed to kill Leviathan using just a few words. He wasn't even certain what words the young man used, but he was certain that despite Jianhong's talents as a Shaman, he fell well short of the young man.
Though the latter could not match up with circles, as Jianhong was an 8th Circle Mage, circles in Shamanism were even more fluid than realms in cultivation. What circles usually represented was simply the breadth of Mana one could utilize while word-writing, not the complexity of the words themselves. Besides, no Shaman fought whilst actively writing words; they would write them beforehand, which was why Circles weren't a terribly clear way of distinguishing a strong Shaman from a weak one.
And those were just three--there were many others in the group, a few of whom he could not even read. There was the youngest girl, her hair as silver as rhayna, a flower that blooms only at the hearts of silver mines. However, it was the pair of eyes that he could not cut through--their hue seemed to drift, from twilight-colored to pastel, and their depth could not be measured. All instincts that he had honed in his life told him a truth that he was unwilling to accept no matter what--that the young girl who seemed to be ten years at most could kill him.
Not an Avatar of his, not a projection, not some fake he'd built up to monitor the situation on the island, no: kill him, his truest self. Though he didn't consider himself particularly strong, even less so when contrasted against others in the Imperial Realm, that should not have mattered. The girl was in the Foundation Establishment Realm. She'd just barely started cultivating. Even if he was the weakest worm to have ever reached Imperial Realm, there should be no way under the heavens for the young girl to so much as harm a hair on his head, let alone kill him.
Yet, his instincts were telling him otherwise. The way the girl looked at him... it was empty. Hollow. As if she were staring at an insignificant oar that was to be capsized by the sea of eternity soon enough.
Then, lastly, there was that boy. He sat at the back, one leg crossed over the other, eyes wandering away over the waves. It was as if he were looking at a statue of a god, one that underpinned his reality. And though he wanted to sink the boat and kill them all, he knew well enough by now that it would be futile. These people would not die crossing the lake--rather, doing so would just expose him. Despite everything, it was clear that the man didn't actually know this mortal vessel was merely an Avatar. The reason why he so confidently boarded the rickety boat that looked just about ready to collapse was because there was nothing that could threaten them enough. As such, how they got to the island was irrelevant.
And though Qian Yuan hardly for a second believed they were simply going to the island to 'sightsee', it was entirely possible that they were going there for the same reason all children of the Holy Lands went to the island: for opportunities. From the looks of it, they didn't belong to any of the major powers, and seeing just how many Disciples he had with him, it was outright impossible to have enough resources for all of them. In fact, Qian Yuan was slightly terrified at the number that came up in his head when he tried to calculate the annual cost of raising just a few of these kids, let alone all of them.
But that was also his in. If he could show these kids that they didn't have to live a destitute life, scrounging up scant few stones and fighting for every pill, it was possible to pry them away. Heavenly talents yearned to ascend, and if he could show them that he held the keys to that ascension, it was wholly possible they'd come under him. There was no need to kill them--he would simply buy them, as he had with hundreds of others, and their terrifying talents would be his to keep.
He had to shuffle some Avatars around the island, for he now needed to write a story. And who better to star in it than he and he alone, guiding the lost lambs away from the shepherd who couldn't give them the sky they so yearned?
After Rayce's little performance, the strange oddities that seemed drawn to us stopped, well, being drawn to us. Though the waters remained hectic, with waters rising up like dragons and clashing, splashing water every which way, there was little else besides that happening. Sure, an occasional monster would spray out from underneath us, soak us, and then swim away, and occasionally the storm would surge back up as lightning cracked against the lake's surface, but it was, generally speaking, a somewhat smooth ride.
Either the man had given up on testing us, or was working up to some final plan where he was going to imprison us or something. I'd hoped not, but knowing just how paranoid he was... yeah.
Regardless of my fears and hopes, the days began to merge together. One after another they flowed, and I found myself increasingly... bored. While the kids (and even Shufen and Lao Shun) cultivated and meditated, I was still not cast out of that mold. Best I could do was think about the Dao of Space and try my hardest to reach Create Void phase of the realm.
It's strange because I honestly thought I'd already reached it--I can create small spatial pockets that do last longer than a 'breath' of time (which I, functionally, consider to be about a second long), but no matter how many I create, the system never confirms the breakthrough, nor do I 'feel' one within me.
Even now, they're popping around relentlessly around my ears, but what's strange is that... nobody else seems to notice. And I've been paying attention, to say the least. Was it that I was actually super talented in the Dao of Space?
... nope. There's a much simpler and clearer answer: the spatial pockets I'm creating are so small and with such minimal impact on the world that they don't even register with others. And, hence, they aren't good enough for the system to recognize and acknowledge them, letting them ascend into the next phase of the realm.
Aah. I'll get there eventually.
Nearly a week passed by in the blink of an eye and the old man informed us that we were about halfway there. I was a bit surprised, actually, as I fully expected the journey in this rickety thing to take at least a month, but it's comforting to know we'll reach the island soon enough.
"We'll land on the western shores of the Southern Song," the old man sat next to me and uncorked a bottle of strange liquid, having already set sails and let the wind propel us forward since the waves themselves were quite mild. "Though most others ordinarily dock in either Myriad Song Port, second largest city, or the small docking bay called Mist-Anchor Wharf, I do not have a permit. As such, I land west of the Gold City, past the peaking mountains."
"That's alright," I said. "But why don't you have a permit? Because your boat looks older than some mountains?"
"No," he said. "Because it is older than some mountains."
"A durable thing, though. Perhaps you should take some of those folk who issue permits and ferry them over. They might be convinced."
"Ah, great immortal, few men and women of your stature are as open-minded," he said, glancing at me with a wry smile. "Most would sooner set themselves ablaze than be associated with mortal vermin like me."
"..."
"But it's fine," he took a swing of what I assume is some kind of booze. "I'm not long for this world, regardless. My hope is to one day die on these here waters."
"Mortal or immortal," I said. "We all seek the perfect death, I suppose."
"Oh? Immortals seek death?" he asked, eyebrows rising. "That's the first I heard of it."
"Hmm. Seek might be the wrong word," I said. "But all that lives inevitably dies, does it not?" I looked over at him. "And so, if I must die, I'd rather die a death that harkens to how I lived."
"And how is that?"
"Surrounded by my kids," I said. "Making bad jokes unto my last breath as they bawl their eyes out."
"... peculiar."
"Really? I'm sure they're all thinking I'm insane."
"I wouldn't dare say that."
"But you dare think it?"
"... of course not."
"Ha ha," alright, the old man's kind of fun. I'd almost feel bad about having to kill him if I could afford to feel bad about it. People are multitudes, I've learned a long time ago; even the most evil, ordinarily, have parts of them that are human. Ultimately, though, does it even matter? I could rationalize that I'll kill him because he's an evil person, but that'd just be the old hypocrite in me.
Besides, judging by the quantity of quests that are asking me to kill a whole heap of evil people, if I set out on that path, I'd be doing nothing else until that proverbial and literal death of mine.
"Forgive me for saying it, but you are strange," he added. "I'd ferried a few immortals in my many years of living, and none spoke to me ever once we boarded the boat. I was a tool making the boat move, and that was all."
"Maybe they were holding on for their dear lives, what with this old thing looking like it had been retrieved from the bottom of the lake, resurrected to serve its purpose once more."
"Indeed, maybe," he cracked a smile, finishing off whatever was in the bottle and hurtling it over the edge of the boat and into the water, standing up. "But I guarantee the boat has never sank... entirely."
"Huh."
The second week of the journey was... boring. Oh my god, it was so boring. Nothing happened. There were no waves, there were no monsters, no storms, no lightning strikes. There were no conversations, either, since the old man just sailed and slept, and the kids cultivated, probably sharpening themselves up for the island. There was nothing to do for a full week but pretend like I was in some deep thought when, for 90% of the time, I was most definitely not.
I mean, something has become fundamentally wrong with me. It wasn't too long ago that I would have cherished a week like this with my entire being. I mean, full seven days where nobody tried to kill us, or rob us, or fight us, and where nobody died, or was hurt, or impaled, and absolutely nothing of note happened? It would have been the perfect week! Like a gift from Dao itself!
And yet, here I am, bored by it.
The world has changed me, and it has changed me a great deal. Maybe some parts of my past neurotic self remain and crawl out of hiding every once in a while, but looking over my life here... it snuck up on me like a shadowy ghost, the changes. Who knows? If I changed this much in just the last few years, what the hell will I become in a hundred? Won't it be the case of Theseus ship, where parts of me will have been replaced so much that I will have become a completely different person?
... no, wait, that's not how that story goes, I'm pretty sure.
Speaking of ships, there were none in the distance as the edge of the island emerged past the mist--to both right and left there were sheer cliffs, tall and jagged and rough, and between them was a short stretch of sandy beach. It was, at most, two to three miles long, and just about a hundred yards deep, but it was shorn of life fully as we approached. No people, no ships, no animals. Just sand and dirt, blending into stone and rock.
At long last, we've reached it.
Nirvana Frontier Island.
Volume VII
The Great Convergence
The sand under my boots.
The blazing sun in the sky.
The crashing, foamy waves swallowing up the shoreline.
Honestly, if I close my eyes and ignore for a second exactly where we are, this... ain't bad? Just add a five-star resort somewhere behind us, perhaps a few water-based activities, and you could really turn this place into a vacation paradise.
"I must leave you now, o' Great One," the old man said as we all deboarded the boat. "If you keep moving straight east from here, you will reach Gold City in a day or two days' time. There's a small entry fee, but as far as I know, there should be no issues with entering the city." huh. Difficult thing for a mortal ferryman to know. "Thank you for a wonderful journey."
"... likewise," I said. "Be careful on the way back. Those infernal beasts and waterspouts and lightning strikes might come when you least expect them." ah, look at that. Twitch of an eyebrow.
"I will exercise great caution!"
"Hm."
I stood at the edge of the water, watching the boat slowly sail over the horizon. All else aside, we did at least make landfall. It was nowhere near where everybody else was doing it, sure, and I'm fairly certain it has the potential to come back and bite us in the ass... but we're on the island.
Sighing, I turned around and looked back at the cliffs and the carved, unnatural path up them to the top. This would be a lengthy stay, I felt, as there were some dozen things we needed to do.
Beyond seeking the alchemist and somehow securing 'official' audience to get his help with that pill quest I got literally years and years ago, there was also the matter of Long Tao's breakthrough. He was at the peak of Revolving Core Realm, and, per system, this was one of two places in this entire world that had conditions to break through into the Void Transformation Realm using the same method as I did. Well, there was the third place, but that was the creation of circumstances more so than anything else, so it doesn't count.
Haah, I'm such a busy man. But, before we go inland, there's a few more things to undergo. One, Zhao'er is ready to break into the Revolving Core Realm, as is Han Yimu. Feng'er on the other hand is ready to break through into the Spirit Manifestation Realm, and Shufen had already made preparations to break into the Foundation Establishment Realm.
As such, as soon as the boat had sailed over the horizon, and I confirmed with Long Tao that we weren't being monitored, I summoned the mountain. However, unlike the last time--as I knew how to--I actually controlled its size somewhat so that it doesn't shoot past the height of the nearby cliffs. It was still large enough to house everyone, yet didn't stick out like a sore thumb amidst the surrounding terrain.
There have been... a few changes since I last summoned it. Namely, it had become a great deal more lush. Beyond just the sight of green and brown, Lao Shun had planted quite a few trees and herbs and medicines the last time, and most, if not all, were apparently already in full bloom.
"... what the hell?" were his exact words as his jaw hung unhinged.
Beyond that, however, I also wanted to settle on the mountain for at least a couple of weeks to properly sift through the spatial rings and play around with something I hadn't touched yet: Ingredient Synthesis. I also want to create a few more arts, test further limits of alchemy recipe creation, and finally break through into the next phase of the realm.
Ah, no, before that--the seed. Specifically, Seed of Eternally Enduring Bamboo. I didn't try to plant it on the mountain the last time because, well, I kind of forgot about it, but even if I didn't, I do think the mountain was a touch too barren to fully support it. Now, thanks to all the stuff Lao Shun planted as well as Little Ling's influence as it has deeply embedded itself into the mountain, there might be a chance that the mountain has enough Wood Qi to support planting of the seed.
"Hey, come with me," I called out Lao Shun as everyone else had already climbed the mountain. "I need your help."
"With what?"
"With this," I tossed him the seed--it wasn't particularly unique at a first glance, and was somewhat rough to the touch. However, it did weigh a deceptive amount--well over fifty pounds within the fingernail size.
"What is it?"
"Seed of Eternally Enduring Bamboo," I said.
"Right. And I'm The Yellow Emperor, Ancestor of all Alchemists." he said.
"Really? You look quite young. Of course, unlike you, I'm not lying."
"... you're not lying?"
"I never lie."
"You always lie."
"I sometimes lie," I corrected. "Not this time, however. It really is the Seed of Eternally Enduring Bamboo. I was wondering if the mountain had enough Wood Qi to support it."
"Phew," he took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment before opening them up and looking at the sky, his expression... mellow. As if he'd resigned himself to death and was bidding his final farewell. "Life is fleeting, like the year's seasons. It waxes and wanes, and it flickers out like the candle's flame. Ah, the lament of passing years... the enduring of great silences and torment of fates unlived."
"H-hey, what are you mumbling about?"
"How wonderous is the mortal's ignorance, coiled in effervescent bloom," oh, he's gone. Gone gone. "A life the length of a breath, fully lived and endured. Legacy carved in a stone of ash and dirt. A name forgotten and forlorn. A curse of unending years thus comes, a comet from the sky above to transform us. Oh, great light, I yield! I--"
"--hey," I smacked him as gently as I could on the top of his head. "If you're going to lose your mind, at least lose it after you help me."
"... it's your fault," he glanced at me, smiling as if an old man saying goodbye to his grandchildren. "Do you even know what Eternally Enduring Bamboo is?"
"The kind of bamboo stick that can't be destroyed?"
"Ah. Awash with ignorance. Steeped in nescience. Blind to wisdom. Unyielding in the face of insight."
"... did you just call me stupid in four different ways?"
"I should call you stupid in a hundred different ones and it still wouldn't be enough."
"You're starting to piss me off."
"Eternally Enduring Bamboo," Lao Shun's expression finally normalized somewhat as he sighed. "Is said to have been the very first tree to have witnessed Dao. It was there before it, was there to witness it, and was blessed by it. Oh, right. There is also the case of it having gone extinct some hundred million years ago. It was used as the final material to usher the creation of the first Emperor of Mankind. As an anchor of regret, the Emperor proclaimed an edict deifying Eternally Enduring Bamboo, and declared it a mortal sin to ever allude to its existence."
"Fascinating," I said, and I actually meant it for a change. A hundred million years ago... that was at the tail end of Epoch of Magic, where Shamans just about drove cultivators into extinction.
"So, o' Great Master--are you just breaking my mind, are we committing the mortal sin, or is this truly the seed of something that was last seen so long ago time doesn't even make any sense?"
Hm.
Hmm.
Alright, system. For the love of god, you have to actually warn me when you give me nukes like this, okay?! There's only so far my bullshitting talents can take me when this shit happens!
"I asked if the mountain can hold it," I said. "That's your job, now. Figure it out. Both whether it's the real seed, and whether it can grow. I have faith in you, my number one alchemist."
Oh, the look of loathing. It cut deep, I have to say. Alas, I fear it's hardly gonna be the last one I will be given...
It was lonely on the peak, I have to say.
Cringe thoughts to have as a forty-something, sure, but I do mean them in the most literal sense. There's been some restructuring since we last sat on the mountain--namely, they've carved out a small pavilion at the very top with three rooms just for me. There was also a garden that had to be contained with an array, and even a fountain spewing Qi-purified water and forming a river of sorts that carved downwards through the mountain... somewhere.
Alright, I'm not fully alone--there's a fancy bird nesting here, though, thankfully, at least it's not on my head. Looking down from the summit reveals an ongoing terraced construction--apparently, Shufen is a woman of many talents, and one of those talents was construction. She'd sketched out the whole thing and employed the kids as builders. According to her, she will build the mountain in the image of the 'Seven Heavens', something that I was entirely unfamiliar with.
Anyway, all I know is that this place is the 'First Heaven', the summit of the whole thing. The rest will be structured in a terraced form, with pavilions arising from jutting platforms, from immortal caves to the final creation, the 'Seventh Heaven', a magnificent city at the base of the mountain. Judging by how aggressively she presented the whole thing when we met, there wasn't much room for a 'no' there so I just let her be.
Besides, the project will likely take years if not decades. Even my place, apparently, is just temporary; a hastily built wooden pavilion with some basic garden is 'unfitting' of a crown, so we'll have to redo it a few times.
Regardless, sitting on the proverbial top of the world, sipping tea, enjoying the breathtaking vista of sunlight warmly caressing the lake's gentle waters is... boring. Yup, boredom's back, baby. But, this time, I won't let it settle.
I pulled up the screen for Ingredient Synthesis for the first time since I got it (though it may as well be for the first time ever, as I'd completely forgot how it looked like). It was similar to the creation window, in that everything was just kind of shoved into one place, but selecting things automatically filtered out the 'noise'. There is one big problem, however--there's no, what I think should be mandated for this kind of crap, search function. I just have to scroll and scroll through the list of ingredients which literally never seems to end.
The saving grace is that it is categorized by default, with the most common and ordinary ones appearing in the beginning. As a test, I clicked on 'Processed Iron Ore', shuffling the main window around until there were a few options. First being to pay fully with Creation Points, which would literally 'manifest' the ore into existence. The issue? It cost 5,000 points for a single clump of iron ore that wouldn't be enough to build a bowl to shit in.
The second option was far more 'reasonable' as it were--I could feed the system an unprocessed clump of iron ore, one dug straight out of a mine, and just pay the 'processing' fee part which was just 20 points.
The third, and last, option was a bit... muddied. It's an option to input a bunch of different ingredients and materials, and I imagine use points to synthesize the main mat through them. Obviously this is pointless for something as common as iron ore, but it's not like there's gonna be unprocessed variants of some extremely expensive herbs. To test it, I scrolled down vigorously for a while and clicked on something called 'Shattered Star Flower'.
My head spun a bit when I saw that the price to synthesize a single flower from nothing was a whopping 1,000,000 points. This is a literal point sink that I'll probably never be able to afford, so, whatever. There was the second option here, too, and it had a specific ingredient requirement just like the 'Processed Iron Ore'--in this case, it was Shattered Star Flower Petal. If I had a petal, synthesizing an entire flower would cost me... 80 points.
There was also the change for the third option, where there was a list of materials that could be 'fused' together essentially to create the Shattered Star Flower. The strange thing was the fact that it had no cost--if I had a clump of Star Powder, a stalk of Firequay Flower, and a drop of Liquid Lava (eh?), I could just feed them into the system and it'd spit out the original herb.
... this is kind of fascinating, to be honest. Reminds me of a few games back on Earth that had a system to essentially 'convert' lower-level garbage that you collected into more usable higher-tier mats. There's still the question of extent here, but judging by the sheer volume of items... there's probably every last thing.
I did try scrolling to the bottom, but at some point the infernal '???' began appearing. At first, they were just scattered between the full names, but before long, it was just... '???'. All of them. Everywhere. From top to bottom.
I imagine one requirement was to actually learn of the items, but shit, I didn't learn of like 95% of the ones that did have their names listed, so who knows?
Setting aside the ludicrous point sink for a moment, I took a deep breath and pulled up the recipe window. There's one thing I've been planning on manufacturing, as it were, ever since we pinned our destination to the island. Seeing as it's a home to an alchemist, perhaps the greatest one in the world, it's also a home to a literal bioweapon of cataclysmic proportions. There's no way in hell that guy ain't packing a castle full of poisons to chuck at us, as well as a myriad of formations and arrays meant to silently kill whatever needs to die.
While I'll be fine thanks to my Bloodline, the kids won't be as lucky. So, I decided to do an experiment: a martial art versus an alchemy recipe.
I genuinely don't actually know which one might be better, but I do suspect that the recipe will win out. Of course, if I had limitless points to spend and no cap to how many I can use to create an art, there's no doubt that the art would win since everybody could just learn it, but since there very much is a limit, there's also the cap to how great of a toxin the art could block. The pills, on the other hand, while more expensive will likely also purify a greater grade of the toxin.
So, I decided on a test. If it works out well, I'll have to get Lao Shun to recruit a bunch of alchemists and create a sweatshop of sorts to just pop pills for us, as I wouldn't just stop at anti-toxins. I have already confirmed that it is possible to live on the mountain while it is minimized and inside my spatial rings as little Naǒ has done it, and there's already a plan in the back of my head for when I enter the Inner World Realm, so if I can confirm it...
Forget just pills for the kids. I will flood the world with them, get as many spirit stones as possible, create the secondary sweatshop where they'll convert lower-grade spirit stones into higher-grade ones, and never, ever, ever run out of money ever again. All from this little mountain here.
Right.
I should also hire some actual carpenters and whatnot to build stuff, so that the kids who ought to be cultivating and breaking through aren't swinging around pick axes to dig out a foundation for a beauty pavilion or whatever.
Ah, is there a fast forward button somewhere that I can press to get to the point where I can just laze around at the top of this mountain while my automation empire is making me rich beyond the wildest dreams? Something like, 'I set up an automated factory of pills and stones in the other world and became so rich I bought a planet'?
... yeah. My brain is well and truly deteriorating, isn't it?