Volume 2-Chapter 1:

Chapter 1

~~~~Tai Su~~~~

There are many things one is not told about life in a sect, the most important of them being that in sect you don’t own your housing. Your quarters are assigned to you and while you are expected to keep them clean, the rooms and everything inside belong to the sect you included.

This would normally not matter much, as the room is apparently free and it comes with amenities, such as potable water being available from a weird bamboo contraption of tubes one needs to pull a rope in order to fill a glass of water. The sect had genuine toilets, I almost cried when I flushed the water, and they even had toilet paper. Most importantly though, it came with privacy.

I have not had privacy in more than eighteen years. I do love my family dearly and love it when they are around, but for the first time in this life I could genuinely sit in a comfortable spot and not have anyone watch over me or have to watch over someone else except Bao.

By the Heavens I missed that, and now? Now it’s gone.

This is not because I got kicked out of the sect or any such nonsense, I still remain in good standing and nobody else had the chance to screw things up to get us kicked out of our housing, we were no longer in the Disciple’s Dormitory because of a very simple reason. We had received our assignment, and our assignment demanded that we go somewhere closer to home.

At least the road back to the town was faster, it took us only a single day of running to reach it, as opposed to the many days it took our mortal selves.

It wasn’t even a difficult run, our ability to run having been enhanced by the days where we could cultivate far more efficiently and safely. The techniques taught to us by elder Shen Xifeng allowed us to run unfazed to what would have once been faster than any sprint we could have ever managed before becoming cultivators. Said sprint would have been difficult to match for any of us before receiving a few days of proper guidance too to boot.

“So this is your home Tai Su? It looks… well maintained for its size.” Ya Xue asked awkwardly.

“It looks like someone took a town and made it the size of a large village, then only populated it with half the people it should have.” Da Xiu commented.

We were explicitly not home as far as I was concerned, otherwise that would have gotten Da Xiu a beating. As it was, I couldn’t care less about his comments because I agreed.

Seventh Yellow Hill Town was small, yes it was well maintained as Lord Xi has been more active in his role lately and the city has been kept clean and the populated buildings are well-maintained, but the town is not exactly doing great and it shows.

Hopefully it will improve, there were some more foxes around and the place had a somewhat more friendly air than when we left, but it was still far too empty.

“It’s not home, home is a bit south and has something like a tenth of the population. Welcome to Seventh Yellow Hill Town, named in honor of Sixth Yellow Hill Town upon whose depopulated ruins it was built. Legend claims that General La personally ordered the town settled even, but that was some two hundred years ago and I don’t know how much to trust that legend.” I replied.

“It is no legend, general La did order it due to the importance of this area.” Elder Shen Xifeng said from ahead of us.

She was leading us through the town towards our destination, the townsfolk unaware of the fact that we are here thanks to the Core Elder’s technique.

We were heading towards our first assignment, apprehending the ‘creature’, as the elder called it, that apparently stole Bao and I’s slings, as well as part of our supplies and that of others that tried and failed to get into the Trials.

“Why is this area important?” I asked.

It certainly had nothing of value in it as far as I am concerned. There were no valuable resources, no exotic foods and the hunting and fishing game was low.

“It has lead in the hills around it, and lead has certain properties that makes it annoying to deal with when it is properly alloyed with other metals or used in certain compounds. This entire area was settled to make sure that all humans in it are accounted for and that any mining efforts for the material are noticed.

It’s also one of the areas in this part of the south that the spiders didn’t replace or modify all of the plant and mushroom species with poisonous variants, which means that those living in it and the surrounding areas won’t just die by accident if a mushroom dies and releases some spores where it shouldn’t.” The Elder explained.

“Is that common?” Bao asked her.

I was curious too. Mushrooms can grow anywhere and thanks to their method of reproduction, all they need is a place with some moisture to grow into and the local weather provides plenty of places for that to happen.

A single spore from a sufficiently poisonous mushroom growing into a mushroom and getting added to food stores could contaminate it, but I found it difficult to believe that it could just kill settlements. Maybe cause some illnesses and kill the occasional unlucky families yes, but kill off settlements? That seemed far fetched.

“Common enough that there are four towns in the south of the Prefecture and the distance between this one and any of the others is larger than the distance between all of them combined. The north of the Prefecture was lucky that the spiders wanted to keep it as one of the few area purposefully meant for human habitation, but the rest of the Prefecture and large parts of the Empire weren’t.” She replied.

We were now getting close to Lord Xi’s home, a modest mansion with two floors above ground level. I’ve heard that it used to be bigger, before a fire destroyed it when I was ten and Lord Xi remade it to be smaller for some reason.

This caused some controversy among the villages and in the town, as the Lord’s Mansion was also the guardian of the local tombs where the ashes of all who lived in the area are brought to rest at and many thought that a less imposing guardian would mean that their spirits are less protected.

Lord Xi simply improved the walls around the settlement and told the petitioners gathered at his door that the town’s walls are its true guardian, with his mansion only being the final line of defense before never talking about this again. That somehow mollified people at the time for a reason I still can't wrap my head around.

“Why?” I asked.

I heard her sigh at my question.

“Elaborate disciple, I can’t read your thoughts to know what you want.” She demanded softly.

I did not believe that for a second, she may choose not to, but I doubted that the storm pretending to be a woman couldn’t read my mind if she put her mind to it.

“Why did the spiders turn so many plant and mushroom species poisonous, and why are they still around?” I clarified.

The cultivators could easily just burn the hostile nature if they didn't want it around, I saw no reason for them to allow a hostile biosphere to exist.

I could hear her hum as the door to the small wall surrounding the mansion opened with the guards posted there not even noticing it. My eyes narrowed, was the cultivator’s ability to mess with our minds this strong?

One of the men posted there was one of mother’s cousins, he was proud of serving as lord Xi’s bodyguard and the idea that he’d let people barge in into his lord’s mansion went against all he has dedicated his life towards. I thought a strong will would allow people to somehow resist such techniques if even a little, but it seems I was wrong.

Cultivation differences of multiple tiers were absolute, and even the will of a man that has dedicated his life to a single purpose meant little in front of a single technique of a Core Formation cultivator

“Not poisonous to them Tai Su. The areas we can no longer live in are still as bountiful as ever to the spiders. There are ongoing efforts in the north and west of the Empire to make more areas livable, but the poisonous mushroom species never seem to be able to leave a place be for long and without constant vigilance they will return from wherever you extirpated them from and twist the local flora back into being hostile no matter what we keep trying.” She answered.

We were now inside the Mansion and I prepared to ask another question on the topic, but she raised a hand and I stopped.

“I enjoyed our conversation disciples, but now is time for me to prepare to talk with lord Xi, please remain silent unless addressed to until we are done.” She told us.

All of us nodded and continued to follow her silently through the mansion. No servant even noticed the fact we were here or the fact they moved aside for us to pass. It was disturbing to see it happen and I doubt I was the only one that felt like this.

We quickly reached the second floor where Lord Xi would invite people for an audience to consider their petitions or settle disputes.

The entire floor was mostly a single room and that room was filled with books, bookshelves, stacks of paper and scrolls arranged neatly in rows. I was the last one in line and so it was my job to gently close the door to the audience room after everyone walked in and proceeded to look around.

The room was the same as the last time father and I were here. Lord Xi’s large table remained in sight of the door and dominated the far end of the room as any that wished to enter would be forced to do so under the careful watch of the mansion’s master.

I was surprised to see teacher Hao Wen inside. She seemed to be waiting for something or someone judging by her impatient tapping of her foot. That someone was probably the elder now that I thought about it.

It seems that we were expected after all.

“I apologize if I am late lord Xi, I am elder Shen Xifeng of the Blazing Fist Sect, it is a pleasure to meet again.” Our master said as she startled the two of them.

The man’s reaction was muted, a simple jolt of surprise as he gave a side glance to the door leading to the balcony before sighing.

‘Did he expect us to come from there?’ I wondered.

The more I thought about it the more it made sense. It seems that Lord Xi was expecting us, and as he had received no news from his men downstairs he must have believed we would come through the balcony.

Teacher Hao Wen’s reaction was far less muted, as her fair fizzled out from it’s neat and ordered shape into a ruffled mess. She did not expect for a cultivator to just appear out of nowhere, as whatever the lord of this town said to get her here did not prepare her for us.

To her credit, she recovered fast and in moments she was almost back to how she was before Elder Shen Xifeng spoke. She noticed Bao and I and her eyes widened again, but this time her hair no longer threatened to jump out of her skin.

It’s been a month since we last saw her, but it felt like a year due to all that happened in that damned forest. Teacher looked the same as she did before we left, the only change being her robes which were now purely blue and devoid of even the faint traces of brown and green her previous clothes had.

Both of us gave her a slight bow and mutter a greeting she no doubt hear, but otherwise remained silent. Neither of us had any control over the following conversation and so it was better if we didn’t speak, we would have the time to greet each other properly later.

“Must you continue referring to me as Lord Xi, teacher? You know I would have been lost without you to guide me in the early days of my exile when I had to take the reigns of a small town at twelve years old. If there’s anyone that earned the right to call me by my name and not my title it’s you.” Lord Xi said.

The elder tutted at that. I long since stopped visibly reacting to it, but it still felt strange to hear people make those sorts of sounds, they just feel strangely mocking, even when the one doing it doesn’t mean them to be.

“Yang Xi, I may have taught you how to administer a town, even if I did not do the best job of it, but I hope you did not forget your lessons in propriety from this old woman. The Lords of any settlement need to hold themselves to a certain standard, you can’t just have people call you by your name or it will be harder to keep people’s respect when they are not reminded that you are their lord. You do not have the sort of presence that lends itself easily to this so you need all of the tricks you can get.” The elder gently admonished her student.

The Scene of a woman not looking a day older than twenty and was dressed in an almost ethereal white robe admonishing a severe looking man in his mid thirties dressed in bureaucratic reds, would have been the sort of thing that would cause everyone’s brains to need a restart, doubly so when the man genuinely looked embarrassed at her words. That would have been true if one did not take into consideration cultivation that is.

Pure white is the color of purity and death, to see a young woman dressed in it would symbolize in many stories that she is some sort of sacrifice, while the bureaucratic reds of lord Xi would lend themselves to painting him as the sort of creature she would be sacrificed to.

Instead it felt as if the opposite was about to happen.

“You did not do a bad job teacher, this one was just not meant to be a town lord, he was meant to be a bureaucrat in the capital, but then I was exiled here and you took me under your wing and tried to mend what was not broken into what it was not meant to be.” Lord Xi replied, his voice sheepish.

The elder shook her head at her student’s words.

“If I did not do such a bad job teaching you, why is it that my teachings did not let you know that having a golden meridian sky seer in your territory is something that needs to be reported? You knew what signs you are to look for and yet failed to look for it.” She answered, her voice disappointed.

The man sighed at his teacher's works and shame colored his words as he spoke.

“I kept a look-out for young individuals showing those symptoms, but the man your letter spoke of is close to three times older than I am. My predecessor’s reports called him a drunkard babbling nonsense and others had decades to check on him and see if he had golden meridians or not. Here, the reports I received on the man and his previous examination are all there.” The town lord said and presented the elder with a small pile of papers.

Elder Shen Xifeng approached the table and proceeded to read them for a few seconds, her eyes devouring the knowledge on each page faster than any man or woman would find natural.

“Little to no correlation of events found to ramblings? Qi tests show no reaction? Are these reports telling of the same man the Shadows of the Empress told me was a Golden Meridian and two of my own disciples confirmed the near universal accuracy of his predictions?” She said, her voice scathing.

The man winced at the elder's tone. He picked up one of the papers and started to read it out loud

“Old man Yi as most know him, or Yi Meng in official documents. Father of one of the three fully accredited midwives in the area by the name of Na Mei, known drunkard and layabout, this is what the documents have told me.” He confirmed.

“And the real answer?” She asked sternly.

“My predecessor had learned to time the weather anomalies, even if he did not know what they would be, he noticed a hidden pattern in when they would happen and it was accurate enough to be suspicious. I have found no hidden texts of it, but his preparations were overtly general each year a weather anomaly would come, up until they weren’t and turned highly specific.” Lord Xi informed her.

It was the most polite way one could say what actually happened without actually saying so. The former town lord was hiding old man Yi from the authorities.

“Your predecessor wanted to keep his own warning system private to ensure the town and surrounding area are prepared during his tenure and in doing so broke the law. Then he unexpectedly died in his sleep while waiting for you to come and did so before he could explain the intricacies of the region and the obscene levels of treason he engaged in.” The cultivator hissed and a sliver of her power escaped her control and colored the Qi in the air.

Suddenly all of the cultivators in the room were frozen in place as the pressure around her reminded us once again that we do not exist in the presence of a powerful woman. We were near the eye of a storm and the storm stopped pretending it was anything but that as its shouts raged around us in a way only cultivators could feel.

Every single cell in my body was telling me that the storm was raging around me, the storm was alive, it was powerful enough to kill me by accident and most importantly the storm was angry and I was close enough for it to shred me to pieces.

The mortals did not feel that, they only saw the physical action of an angry woman, but the cultivators sensed it and our bodies froze in fear as our hearts forgot how to beat.

The storm dissipated and a soft warmth gently restarted our hearts and we remembered that we could breathe. All of us started breathing shallowly as we tried to do what? Calm our hearts? Our hearts needed help to start beating, them calming down feels that it wouldn't help.

Trying to focus on the way I could use words to describe what I was feeling helped ordered my thoughts, even if it felt pointless, but I needed to gather myself from nearly dying more than I needed to think about useful things.

“My apology for the lapse in control disciples, but this situation is genuinely worse than mere treason. Sky Seers are important in a way you can’t understand properly yet, despite one of you also being one and I’ll explain how later. A Golden Meridian Sky Seer is the sort of thing the Empire desperately needs within the Palace and having one languish in obscurity here where others could have access to it is an obscenity you do not have the authorization to fully comprehend yet. It has the chance of being catastrophic, especially if my student’s hunch is correct.” The Elder said once she finished fixing what she broke.

“We thank you for letting us know elder Shen Xifeng.” I answered for the rest of us, my voice only slightly shaky.

My voice was far smoother than it should have been, considering my heart quite literally stopped beating a few moments ago. The others still weren’t capable of speaking judging from the fact that they did not speak yet.

It was probably for the best, as it would not do to scare the mortals of matters they were not meant to know. Living in ignorance of the fact that the being in front of them is capable of killing the entire town before it even noticed it’s dead is most likely for the best.

The few lessons she had time to give us told us that there is a reason mortals are kept ignorant of the intricacies of what cultivation life is and does to people, and that reason was to keep them comfortable and not mindlessly scared the moment they ever saw one of us.

To them we are powerful individuals that can sometimes control the forces of nature and that is easier to explain than us slowly becoming forces of nature the further we Ascended.

What just happened is also why the vast majority of people are not given access to the first tier of cultivation. First tier cultivators can be killed on accident if a Third or Fourth Tier Cultivator allows their emotions to slip through when they are angry, while Mortals wouldn’t even notice it.

She nodded at us and the mortals gave us strange looks once they noticed our expressions were somewhat strained. To my side Ya Xue was pulling the sleeve of Yu Zong to remind her to breathe, which she promptly started to do.

“I’ll handle the complications of this revelation later, now the second issue, the creature. What do you know of it?” She said and turned back towards her student.

“We know little of her, she has attempted to change her physical shape twice to trick the guards into letting her go, and the elder from outside the Prefecture claims the Talismans used by the Honored Wen Ancestor need constant renewal to counteract her attempts at mind bending techniques. Thankfully the elder is capable of creating such talismans and he has reported no issues on that front. S-It is awaiting your judgment.” Lord Xi reported.

He only noticed halfway through that the elder’s mood continued to worsen the more he referred to the ‘creature’ as a she, as opposed to an it. At least now, her worsening mood was not accompanied by a physical reminder to the rest of us.

“Is it human?” A voice called out of nowhere.

We could not say anything about it. I could not identify a gender, an age or even an emotion coming from it. It felt as if it wasn’t a living creature that spoke, but my mind’s interpretation of a bodiless voice, something so lacking in humanity that even the old electronic voices of my past life possessed more humanity in them than what I just heard.

“The Fox Ancestor claims that It is human, or at least was born as such. I have not been able to find out its identity, but nobody in the town or local villages has reported any missing individuals in the last two months and I was in the middle of checking population numbers and birth and death reports to see if any of them presented irregularities I could use to ascertain its origins. Unfortunately I've had no success yet.” Lord Xi answered the question coming from the Shadow of the Empress.

The shadow said nothing at that and the elder took the chance to speak now that the Shadow had gotten whatever information it needed.

Said answer seemed to make elder Shen Xifeng’s mood even worse, as her shoulders slumped slightly before she was back to normal.

“I will go with disciple Bao Xiaoli to inform Yi Meng’s family of the necessity of him leaving for the capital and assure them that their patriarch is not in any trouble. Once I am back, I will oversee the fate of the creature, but first I’ll need to handle the third issue that brought me and my disciples here.” Elder Shen Xifeng replied, her voice as cold as ice.

She turned from her student to my own teacher and her voice turned softer as she spoke to her this time.

“Miss Hao Wen, I am here as an Elder and representative of the Blazing Fist Sect, my name is Shen Xifeng and my disciples and I have been assigned as your minders to ensure that your security detail, which is composed of several second tier cultivators, behaves as it should and they have agreed to. You and them have my thanks for notifying your Honored Ancestor of your hunch and for convincing him to capture the creature. For your great act, know that the Blazing Fist Sect is in your debt and that you have gained our favor.” The older cultivator informed the younger woman.

He statement was even accompanied by a small bow.

“I swear I won’t misuse this favor elder Shen Xifeng.” Teacher Hao Wen replied and mirrored the elder’s own bow.

“I’ll trust you on that, but now I need to catch up with my student, so I’ll allow you to do the same with yours. Disciples, I’ll come take you to your quarters as soon as I am done and Yang Xi tells me where they are, you may leave and mingle with the locals until then.” The elder said and dismissed us.

“Thank you elder.” The eight of us said as one.

We proceeded to rush out of the room as fast as our feet and propriety could carry us, teacher Hao Went swift on our heels. The last thing we wanted to do is be in that room, Bao and I specifically as we missed teacher, but our reunion can wait for when we are no longer in the elder’s presence.

AN: Here we start the second volume.