Volume 2- Chapter 13

Chapter 13

~~~~Yang An Xie~~~~

Reporting to the clan head my findings was disturbingly easy.

The leaders of small groups and settlements in this life are approachable and do not possess the same fear for their position as those in my past life did. Normally one would need to step carefully around them, lest they or their direct subordinates think you start shining up too brightly.

It didn’t hurt that Pham Trung Xie was a second tier and I wasn’t, which prevented a lot of the normal paranoia and posturing.

Instead of paranoia and pride the man was welcoming, generous and humble which, while appreciated, were no less strange to think about. Cultivators are not meant to be like that, not to anyone but their closest family at least.

“I shouldn’t have allowed the Van to claim you, but Hien made a good argument for her husband needing a guard when going to Tay Vo. The plan was simple, get them a guard, have you marry within the Vans and help keep the traders safe. Now I am wondering if that wasn’t a mistake and if I shouldn’t have instead taken you in myself.” The Clan Leader declared with a grin.

“Clan Leader?” I asked, my voice strangely subdued.

I… I didn’t know what I was feeling. I have not felt it in my past life, but it was warm and made me feel small, and yet it felt good. I didn’t understand what was going on however.

We were in danger, we possessed something sects with Third Tiers and higher in them wanted! That’s how you get turned into mindless thralls or die if lucky. We needed to run!

I knew better than to try and kill the human cultivators. We may have a Secomd Tier, but their elder expected them back soon and if they weren’t back at the appointed time then we would have both made an enemy and had said enemy hunt us down with means we had no chance of evading.

The Clan Leader chuckled once he heard my question.

“Right, you weren’t born in the Empire of the Blazing Sun. Tell me, why do you think we accept living like this? We were given hostile lands to live in, we can’t even call them our own or properly settle in them due to how hostile they are, we are forced to give face to foreign people and have to fear reprisal each time we interact with humans. Why would anyone accept being subjected to this?” He asked me.

“Because we don’t have a choice?” I asked back.

I thought about it, but the only thing that made sense was that our people simply had no home of our own or this clan was exiled from it.

The clan leader chuckled.

“As if, our people do have a settlement to call our own still, The Town of Willows. We chose to live like this because of the possibility of offers like the one you just received young man.” He answered.

We have a homeland and weren't exiled? Why do we live in this hellpit then?

“Why? Do we have some ancestor that needs the medicine I was offered?” I asked.

What sort of offers would be enough to trample your pride and that of your descendants for generations? That was the only explanation that came to mind. The Empire has a deal with one of our ancestors to allow us to live here and earn enough merit or money to purchase certain things for him.

Would we have to relocate once we received the medicine?

“No, none of my ancestors had managed to reach the Third Tier to even have a chance to live for as long as we’ve settled here. The Empress of the Blazing Sun has condensed a Dao Heart that allows her to grant immortality to others, including herself. The Lesser Phoenix Elixir is indeed a pale shadow of what she can provide, which is the Immortal Phoenix Elixir.

That elixir would give any Third or Fourth Tier cultivators an extra two hundred years of life at no cost or limit. That is how she maintains the loyalty of all of the elites of the Empire, as the very thought of going against her will means that you will be left to die of old age while the loyal will outlive you.” The Clan Leader explained.

That…. That was absurd. This is the sort of boon worlds would be ground down to dust for, and this Empress would just grant it to her followers? What sort of higher realm was I thrown into, that such treasure are something achievable for anything but the rulers of hundreds of Worlds?

There was however an issue with what the Clan Leader said.

“We can’t use such medicine.” I pointed out.

It specifically worked on third tiers only, and the Clan Leader had only Ascended to the Second Tier, and counting on someone to reach the Third Tier is not a plan, it's not even desperation. It's simple foolishness.

The Clan leader’s eyes glinted with pride, it seems that he expected that answer.

“Spot on. There are lesser Elixirs, like the Lesser Phoenix Elixir that can cure most injuries, or the Rejuvenating Fire Elixir that can only be taken once a decade, but gives fifty years of life and removes most ailments a Second Tier would suffer and not die immediately from. All civilized beast clans not hostile to humanity, be they foxes or wolves, crave to be allowed to prove their loyalty to the Empress and be granted the chance at immortality, as the Empress Prizes Loyalty and Utility. Those that are both, find themselves living for as long as they continue being so.” The Clan Leader replied, his tone solemn.

I froze, immortality for second tiers. Third Tiers can live for a thousand years and are more akin to Gods than anything that they were before Ascending. Them being able to find ways to prolong their lives was not beyond the realm of possibility, but giving the same chance to those of the Second Tier was not something that should be possible.

What sort of Dao Heart has this Empress condensed? I’ve heard of Dao Hearts, the few lessons the Endless Plains Sect provided us being meant to inflame our ambition and make us strive to reach ever higher mentioned the higher tiers of existence.

A Dao Heart is the singular truth that separated those on the Fifth Tier of Existence from those of the Fourth Tier, it was a singular ability that could be whatever its creator wished it to be. It could be made to be able to destroy worlds, kill anything, enslave all but the strongest of fourth tiers and even create Artifacts that would be the envy of any craftsman, but according to my lessons, they still had rules.

All of them represented the accumulated knowledge of the Dao of their makers, but they were limited. You can’t make them do everything, and the more you have them do, the less effective they are at it.

The Wolf Emperor of the Endless Plains was a mythical existence that founded my old sect more than one hundred thousand years ago. He had the Endless Plains Dao Heart, which allowed him to stretch one Li into a thousand Li and create pocket dimensions. His ability allowed him to avoid any attack and made his attacks almost always hit, it allowed him to slow down his enemies and speed himself up a thousand times as he stretched and compressed distance to his whims.

He died in a single hit from another Emperor who has made his Dao Heart focused purely on offense. According to the texts, the Sect barely managed to run to another world before we were exterminated to the last mewling babe.

Wisdom said that the purer the destructive potential of a Dao Heart, the stronger it's wielder and it seems that the Empress of the Blazing Sun has decided to pursue the exact opposite strategy and made herself weak for her realm in exchange for earning the undying loyalty of any cultivator beneath her.

“I understand Clan Leader. I will no longer advocate for running. But if I may ask, how can we be sure that they will keep their word?” I replied.

Running and hiding would have been our only chance at survival or something approaching freedom, because the cultivators of my past life would not have bothered with negotiating or paying their lessers to acquire something they needed from them.

They would have exterminated us if we were lucky, or enslaved us all to be used and abused as they saw fit for daring to possess that which we couldn’t use or defend when our betters had need of it.

I did not believe the Imperial Cultivator for a moment that we would be paid what he claimed for what we had. Nobody in my past life would have paid, trade is for equals and we are not equal to a sect or the Empire of the Blazing Sun. Despite that, I could see that the clan leader did trust his words and I just couldn’t figure out why.

Even if these humans were willing to give away these elixirs, why would they? We are not powerful enough to be useful or have them bother with actually keeping their word.

“You know that power comes with a price, Ascending always takes something from us and it takes a lot of time to get it back.” He answered.

“Yes, I haven’t Ascended past the first tier in my past life, but I heard enough to know that all that do become looser with their morals, instincts and ability to restrain themselves. Early on after Ascending was the only time when disrespect and impropriety were tolerated, but only for a few days at most.” I admitted.

I’ve never understood why the tolerance existed, I just knew that it was.

“Unsurprising and yet, coming from the hellhole of your past life it loops back to being surprising, but I would rather not talk about the cesspit you called home in your past life. What do you think humans have to pay for being able to use multiple ways to cultivate naturally?” He asked me.

I started thinking.

Humans are the strongest species I knew of, short of dragons which I only knew from rumors and, from what I learned in this life, a primordial species like the dragons or wolves. All beast clans descend from them, their own forms variations of humanity mixed with other species.

The primordial wolves do not suffer from the madness of Ascending if they don’t rush, but we do regardless, if to a far lesser extent. Then that meant… that meant that humanity had it worse because the madness came from them. What we were feeling when Ascending was a diluted form of what humans felt!

“Judging from the way your eyes widened you realized it. Humans suffer far worse during Ascension, in fact just becoming a cultivator is enough to turn any of them into a deranged murderer that would happily kill anything around them if even slightly provoked. All Ascensions past that are worse for their psyche, and, by the time they reach The Third Tier, there is little to nothing left of who they were before they became a cultivator, unless they have an incredibly powerful will that is.” He explained.

“How does that make them trustworthy?” I asked as I tried to hide my fear.

I was thankful I had no tail left, I doubt I would have succeeded if I still had one. If anything that put us in even greater danger! Then there was the fact I was now a human myself.

I didn’t feel the madness he talked about, I felt the same as I did in my past life, if a bit less steady in my conviction, but that was probably because I was a reincarnator and that changed things somewhat. I didn’t think anything of it back then and assumed I just ate something my stomach disagreed with that made me grumpy and angry at everything..

“How do you think such beings would be able to create an empire with dozens of Nascent Souls in it?” He asked back.

I had no clue how a sect with more than one Nascent Soul was even supposed to work in my past life. The Third Tiers were barely able to be in each other’s presence without trying to kill one another. I’ve never even seen a Fourth Tier cultivator, even if I heard that the sect had several.

My mind drew a blank because I had no clue. The clan leader sighed when he saw that.

“You make sure all of them have the same views and smash into their heads the idea that keeping to your oaths is important. The Imperial Cult started by the Empress espouses many values meant specifically to keep the Third and Fourth Tiers pliable and able to act in the way she wants them to.

One of the many Virtues of the Imperial Cult is the Honoring of Oaths. The Blazing Fist Sect swore an oath to ensure that we are treated fairly and that if we are Virtuous, they will protect us from outside threats, treat us fairly and provide assistance if we are ever in danger of being wiped out.” He explained.

Realization came quickly.

“They have enthralled their own minds with a set of values that demands that they act that way.” I answered in awe and fear.

What sort of creature was this Empress that she could do this to Nascent Souls and create a system that would make monsters, which would otherwise be the masters of hundreds of millions of souls, her lackeys willingly?

The clan leader shook his head.

“Not quite, but close enough. Now, do you understand why we trust them to honor their deals with us? If they started not doing so, then that means that their society has started crumbling and we’re in far greater danger than them just not paying us for what they want.” He explained.

I remembered what I heard of the history of this world and realized what he was getting to.

“The spiders.” I said simply.

“Them especially, but do you think the foxes will spare us?” He asked me.

I already knew the answer to that question.

“No other species in my past life would have.” I answered gravely.

The humans may keep other species around their territory, but the foxes weren’t operating under the human’s madness. All it would take is for some foxes to decide they want the land we’re on and if we couldn’t defend it then we’ll lose it. If we're lucky we might even have time to try and run before they start hunting us down.

The clan master nodded his head.

“We aren’t allowed in their lands at all. There used to be wolf settlements throughout the continent, two north of us, two to our east and one south. According to legend two of them were eaten by bunnies, our largest one Wolf’s Peak was exterminated by the spiders, and the one south disappeared shortly after the foxes moved in the area around it. The Town of Willows is our last true home and our clan and two others left it hoping we will be able to make new ones, and right now you gave us the best chance to make it here.” He replied.

I knew what that meant.

“I won’t let you down.” I promised.

The future of our people required it. If we are done to one last settlement and a few wandering clans, then that meant we were close to extinction, especially with not even a single Nascent Soul to provide protection. If giving up some nearly useless techniques was all it took to prevent it, then it wasn't even a question of what I should do.

His ears twitched in pride.

“I know that you won’t.” He declared, his tail swaying behind him with pride and happiness.

~~~Da Xiu~~~

Getting people to stop being idiots and work together is what I was always good for.

Being the biggest and strongest meant that what I wanted my friends to do, was what was going to happen.

An idiot wanted to break his bethrothal because her brother beat him up? I beat both of them up and then tell them that if they’re stupid again I’ll beat them up again. They try to beat me in revenge? I beat them up again and deliver them home and tell their parents to teach them how to fight better.

Being the one capable of beating up everyone your age and even those a bit older, meant that people stopped trying to be idiots when they should be working together, and reminding them why every now and then was always a pleasant experience.

Ever since I became a cultivator I wasn’t able to do that anymore. Tai Su, even before he started leaving me in the dust with his cultivation speed could beat me up more often than not. I could win sometimes, but those fights were always close. Now, not so much, but being a subordinate wasn’t so bad when your superior wants to do mostly the same things you do.

In front of me, the reason I was here through this cursed forest shuffled around. I didn’t know what the skull shaped eight-legged creature was but I recognized sleepiness when I saw it. It was swaying on its eight legs as its body tried to decide if it should be asleep or awake. The creature was drowsy, or better said it used to be.

One moment the thing was trying to wake up and the next it had a javelin sticking out of its body.

I left my hiding spot and headed towards the carcass now that the hunt was done. It’s killed came from another direction and started looking over it, same as I was.

I turned towards my guide and the man who killed the creature with a single hit.

“Vu Can, are you certain this thing is edible?” I asked the blonde man.

Vu Can was one of the more junior huntsmen of the Xie clan. He was a bit shorter than me discounting his ears, which if taken into consideration would make him one of the few men I’ve met that is taller than me.

I think he’d be the third now if Mo didn’t hit a growth spurt since I last saw him.

“Check the fangs, they’re long. Swarm-Skulls with long fangs don’t have blood pearls in them, which means they’re safe to eat… mostly. You still need to cook them.” The man answered.

The Swarm-Skull was an eight-legged abomination with no eyes and eight fuzzy white legs. It’s main body was a skull-like thing that was nothing like any skull I’ve seen and it’s body was the size of a dog and could reach my knees now that it’s dead. When it was alive and standing on its legs it could reach my hips thanks to its long legs.

It died by spear to the head, it’s skull-like body now showing a massive hole at the top coming from the huntsman’s spear.

“Huh, didn’t know something could have black fangs.” I observed.

The thing’s fangs were indeed huge and, unlike the rest of its body, were a pale black.

Van Can pulled out his javelin and was now dissecting it and explaining to me exactly what made him think this creature was edible.

“Here, in the glands near the stomach, that’s where the venom is stored. Centuries ago all of them used to be filled with poison and it spread around the body of the swarm-skulls and eventually settled in the kidney, creating the blood pearls. Now there’s less of them with blood pearls in them, but the rule is simple, if they have blood pearls then they’re poisonous, if they don’t, then they’re safe to eat.” He explained.

He cussed out loud when he saw a green pearl in its kidney. The flesh looked weird, it reminded me of the spongy way some lichen looked, but made out of flesh that looked disturbingly like boiled chicken.

I looked on curiously at my guide cussing in his native tongue and awaited for him to explain.

“Paralytic. It won’t kill you and it’s got some medicinal properties in small quantities, but we can’t use it for tonight’s feast. It needs special treatment to be safe to eat for children. Long fangs are usually a sign that it’s not poisonous but it’s not a guarantee, especially with green or blue blood pearls in it.” He explained.

I nodded and gratitude, that explained things.

“Why do you call them swarm-skulls? I am not seeing a swarm.” I asked him.

They certainly looked like skulls, but from what little I’ve seen of the wolf clan, they were a practical people. Their description of things are direct and blunt in a way I can appreciate.

The man grunted at my question. He continued digging around the swarm skull’s body and pulling out more blue blood pearls as he answered my questions.

“This is a young male judging by the lack of spinnerets, it was probably chased from its old swarm by its elders. Swarm Skulls hunt in swarms of one hundred or more during the night. They kill off anything that sleeps and are also among the fastest things in the forest and can climb trees.” He explained.

Horrible creatures, them and all of the other creatures the spider clan decided to create to fill in the empty space created by the bunnies eating most of nature in large parts of the continent.

“Must be difficult to keep them away from your clan.” I remarked.

That caused him to spit on the ground, and his next words contained nothing but hate.

“They are the biggest killer of our people. Anything else around we outnumber, but swarm-skulls can have groups numbering in the hundreds and during the night? It’s happened a few times that they came ate a few dozens of us and ran away before we noticed, as they managed to ambush one of the night-guards. If some of them weren’t edible we would be doing our best to hunt them to extinction, but they are one of our three main sources for food.” He explained, his tone reminding me of mine when I had to do a chore I didn’t want to.

I could commiserate. I too had to do it many times and I could respect the fact that he was doing it without whining about it. He has been cold, but professional in answering my questions and I did anything he requested of me to not make his job harder. Unfortunately I too had a job to do, and that was to find what I could about the local situation.

The wolf clan is in good standing with the sect and the rest of the Prefecture according to the reports I read… mostly. There were issues with merchants as always, but they were fulfilling their obligations as they should, but it did not hurt to learn more from them and update the reports according to Tai Su.

I was silently walking around the hunter and trying to make sense of the strange body plan of the Swarm-Skull. It had legs like those of a spider, but it had hard flesh with a skeleton beneath it, as opposed to the exoskeleton of spiders, but a glaring lack of something continued making itself visible.

“Where are it's eyes?” I asked again.

Everything had eyes, no matter how small or strange, and spiders had more than most creatures, but this thing had none. It’s skull body eye sockets were filled in by bone and no matter how hard I looked I could not see any eyes.

“They don’t have any, they hunt by scent and hearing during the night.” He grunted back.

'Things without eyes, now I've seen everything.'

I continued asking him some questions about the swarm-skull and the other critters in the forest. The answers were the sort I liked, short, blunt and straight to the point.

The feeling wasn’t mutual, but I liked Vu Can, he’s the sort of man that back home would have had my back when someone needed a beating. A pity he was born a wolf, I think he would have thrived in the banners.

Eventually he finished rummaging through the swarm skull and we continued our hunt. We had to leave the swarm-skull behind, the other critters are scared of their smell and so Vu Can can’t use it as bait.

We ‘stumbled’ upon a river as we walked and Vu Can started washing his hands are refilling his canteen.

“Can you fish in these rivers?” I asked.

There was a large network of small rivers crisscrossing the forest and around which the wolf clan’s migration path was made around. They had no wells back at their camp, which meant that this is their primary method of acquiring water.

I too refilled my canteen with water and waited for Vu Can to answer.

“No, the fish have little flesh and taste foul, even if they are edible. We use them as bait sometimes, or as fertilizer for the Le’s experiments with making and keeping edible fruit bushes near the camps. Not that they have much luck.” He answered.

Now that’s interesting, they have experiments with making the flora less hostile? I wonder if they had any luck. Nobody else in the empire did. The best we could do is burn a place until all plants are dead and quickly replant other species. It doesn’t stop the demonic mushrooms from returning, but it sometimes slows it down and prevents it from spreading to farmland and orchards.

“I read about the situation, the main corrupting influence are the mushrooms, their root networks corrupt most things to make them poisonous. Have the Le managed to make any breakthrough with keeping them away of making plants immune to them?” I asked.

The Le were the gatherer family, and apparently the one tasked with making the flora less poisonous.

“Ask the Le, all I know is that each time we return to check on the bushes they’re dead or poisonous.” He replied and started walking.

I sighed. I don’t know why I expected them to have found anything that works. Nothing we’ve been able to find or make did, even after one thousand years of trying. If we could remove the evil from nature then so too we could remove the last traces of the spiders in our lands, and soon hopefully from the rest of the world.

What a world that would be, I can barely imagine it.

“Why did you want to come with me hunting?” The hunter asked and pulled me out of my ruminations

I shrugged, I needed something to do to feel useful, but I can't exactly say that.

“Why not? My friends and I are here to check what your tribe is up to, Tai Su and Mei Lin are looking after your newest member and questioning him on his past life, Ya Xue is learning how your settlement operates and I learn about the forest.” I answered honestly.

Tai Su didn’t tell us to do it, he did nothing to make it seem like he was implying it, but when you see someone standing above you working hard, you start feeling bad when you don’t work hard yourself.

Our main duty here is what Tai Su and Mei Lin are doing and questioning the reincarnated man. Ya Xue and I don’t technically have anything to do but be nearby when Tai Su questions him, but that didn’t mean we wanted to be lazy.

“It feels strange having a cultivator just do normal things. Aren’t you meant to hunt monsters and train all day?” He replied.

“How is that any different from what we’re doing?” I asked back.

The life of a cultivator is what he said it is, but it is also just life. We have things to do, yes, but we do more than train, cultivate and go on missions.

“These are prey, things to eat, not monsters terrorizing settlements.” He declared.

I shook my head at that, just what nonsense is he spouting?

“You live in a cursed forest filled with poisonous plants, hunting demonic abominations created from some ancient cultivator’s most deranged experiments. Everything you do here for a living would be a drink-worthy story outside of the forest.” I explained simply.

Many people don’t understand that their lives are meaningful and always need a reminder. I would not wish his life, but it didn’t mean I didn’t wish to hear of it or thought it as anything but impressive.

“I… I never thought about it like that.” He muttered.

I scoffed, few people do.

Some scribes complain about their life lacking meaning and when you ask them what the papers they file contain, and you find out they are preparing the paperwork needed to requisition supplies keeping the anti-vermin formation up. They are quite literally helping save the town from having it’s supplies eaten and they whine about lack of purpose.

Others are the same, seamstresses feeling that they waste their life spinning yarn and not being a part of society when they make the dresses women use at their parties, their names on the lips of many others, apprentice smiths not realizing what their help to their master means and so much more.

The only ones that seem to acknowledge how important their contributions are, are those that farm or cook food, because it’s impossible to mistake that as anything but important.

I put my arm around his shoulder.

“You should start, life is always more pleasant when you realize how important or incredible your actions are to others.” I encouraged him.

That seemed to improve his dour mood if his chuckle was anything to go by, which was something I suppose.

Seeing new things can be interesting, but I really didn’t learn anything new as I’d hoped. Hopefully Tai Su and Ya Xue are having more luck.