[RSM] Chapter 128. An Emperor's Pill (Patreon)

The spatial realm stretched as far as their spiritually enhanced eyes could see. A spatial realm created by one of the previous Emperors, it was large enough that they could fit an entire region into it, hundreds of millions of individuals and multiple cities. 

It was also now empty. 

Whatever was in here was long removed and destroyed, and now, it was a large almost empty space, with only a floating stone floor that served as the spatial realm's anchor and focal point. 

Tundra and Grand Abbot Ungkai sat facing each other, both linked together by an intricate formation carved into the stone floor. 

Spiritual energies swirled, and the abbot's soul shrunk. His will retreated.

Tundra made his approach, his spiritual tendrils reached through the formation's pathways, and into the Abbot's body. He was surprisingly willing. 

"I am starting."

"Fear not." The abbot answered. "I will only retain control over my head and necessary organs. You may have your way with the rest. Go for it." 

"I thank the abbot for your patience." Tundra sat, and started his work. He attached his spiritual senses to the Abbot's own, and felt the abbot's will step aside and grant him control over the abbot's spiritual will.

He could sense the abbot's watchful presence, but he would not interfere. 

Slowly, Tundra migrated his senses over, shutting off his own senses. It was as if the only thing working in Tundra's body was his mind and his soul, and everything was reconnected through the abbot's significantly more powerful spirit. 

He could feel the borrowed power of the ninth realm. The feeling was truly intoxicating, and he briefly adjusted his senses. He tried a few things briefly, trying to sense where the Abbot's limits were.

"Looks like you won't need much time getting used to it." Tundra could feel the Abbot's spirit speaking right to his soul, as Tundra quickly weaved small strands of spiritual energy and cast them out into the spatial realm like a massive multilayered net. Each of the strands was made with a little bit of spatially attuned energy, something only those in the eighth and ninth realm have in sufficient quantities for the task.

These strands then bound themselves with the spatial realm, and through the web and network of strands spread throughout the entire massive spatial realm, Tundra could then control them altogether at once. 

He sent small exploratory pulses of energy throughout the strands, trying to sense that he truly had control over the entire spatial realm.

Doublechecking the strands alone took him a day, and he felt the strain of temporary soul possession.

"Do not over exert yourself, Lord Fox." 

"Worry not. This is nothing more than preparing well." He answered. He sent more pulses of spiritual energy, this time testing his manipulation. The Abbot's innate senses were also quite good. "The Emperor picked well."

"Of course. The poor man grew up drinking my wines! I was one of his tutors, and I was one of his father's tutors!" The Abbot laughed.

Tundra merely filed it away as new information, as he focused on the spatial realm. 

"Am I interrupting?"

"No. I can handle a conversation." 

"Impressive. This isn't your first time doing soul possession." 

"Soul possession is permitted under certain medical cases, and dealing with spiritual parasitism." In fact, Tundra's attempt to deal with the Zuja parasitic was wondering whether he could use soul possession to trick the body into forcing out the Zuja parasite.

It didn't work, simply because the soul possession still relied on the host's spiritual senses, and the Zuja parasite was far too well enmeshed into the spiritual energies of the host that he couldn't tell it apart. 

"Well, I will now start folding." Tundra said, as he began the process of meticulously folding the vast spatial realm. It was as if the entire spatial realm was deconstructed bit by bit, folding and pulled tighter by the spatially attuned spiritual threads that weaved across the entire realm. 

"It is like a deflating balloon."

"That is one way to look at it." Tundra answered. "But I was mainly focused on preserving the spatial energies that kept the space what it is, so I am not cutting them off."

"I know. I can feel what you are doing with my spiritual energies." 

Tundra continued to work, and this took even more time. It took a full three weeks of constant work, and finally, he felt the entire spatial realm shrink to no more than the size of a small room. 

Now, for the encapsulation step. The Emperor's treasury provided a vast variety of heavenly treasures, but the most important of them all was a big green root. The Root of the Heavenly Tree. 

It is said that a single slice of the Root of the Heavenly Tree could make a spatial realm last for hundreds of thousands of years without ever needing external spiritual energy. A single slice of the same root could be used to prevent many treasure realms from collapsing. It is said that many reincarnated heroes of times past used a small slice of the Root to prevent the self destruction of various ancient spaces, and now, he had in his hand a big handful of the root. 

"That is an Empire's worth of treasure in your hands." The abbot teased.

Even Tundra felt his hands tremble. He had used many great treasures to make powerful pills, but even this felt like burning and betting the entire sect on the single pill. This was a treasure even he, as a tenth realm sect master of a great sect, would struggle to find. "I am stressed enough, abbot."

"Good. You are of human origins after all." He felt the abbot's laughter in his mind, and the regressor focused. He breathed. 

He double checked all the folded spatial realms, and reconfirmed the patterns. He stared at the treasure once more. 

"Well, I suppose there are some days I get to spend a lifetime's fortune on a pill." Tundra said, and he breathed. There were likely many treasures throughout the Empire's many treasuries that sat unused. Maybe somewhere out there is a special artefact that could specifically counter the Zuja.

Maybe. 

But those are pointless thoughts.

He set up the cauldron, and began to channel the Abbot's powerful spiritual energies into it. 

"You need so much?"

"The Root is a very greedy treasure." The powerful heat, and the introduction of the various pill paste and primers glowed, and Tundra said a brief prayer. 

"You are not one I imagined to be superstitious!"

"Any bit of heavenly fortune is welcome at this point." Tundra answered, as he finally placed the Root of the Heavenly Tree into the pot. The Root melted, and now for the task of folding the dense spatial realm into an even denser realm. 

The spatial-temporal paste state is highly unnatural, and it inherently desires to decay into lesser states. Without the Root of the Heavenly Tree, there was no way the spatial energies of such a large spatial realm could stay well behaved. 

But with so much, he began to compress them beyond what they are normally meant to be. It turned into paste. Now, it could be made into shapes, and Tundra began to shape it into even more intricate patterns. Patterns that theoretically should improve absorption. Most of these patterns were like layers of paper folded over and over, then neatly arranged. 

Day turned to night, and days turned to weeks.

The sheer size of the task required Tundra to focus for long periods, and the task strained both the regressor, and also the Abbot.

The two spoke less and spoke as time went on, the task wearing them both down. 

But in the end, a pill worthy of an Emperor, done in over a month.

Tundra collapsed the moment it was done, exhausted from the act itself, and using a ninth realm's power. It was too much for him, and he slept for weeks.

***

"How long have I been asleep?" Tundra roused to the presence of Grandduke Edrian walking in. 

"Three weeks. The maids fed you some restorative brews, but otherwise, both yourself and Grand Abbot Ungkai needed some time to heal. The abbot was awake about a week ago."

Ah. Tundra looked around, and began to recheck his own condition. There's still some leftover strain. Things to purge.

"Has the Emperor taken the pill?" Tundra asked. Even with the effects of the Roots of the Heavenly Tree, spatial energies do not like to be tightly packed. 

"Yes, and the Emperor wants to see you once you are well." 

"Now?" Tundra said, as he channeled his own spiritual energies throughout his body. 

"No. I will let him know once you are ready, so take all the time you need. But don't keep the Emperor waiting for too long."

"Give me a day, please. I have impurities and residual toxins to filter through."

***

The Emperor's presence was unmistakable. He did not hide it, and Tundra could feel it even as he stepped out of the door. He had a new change of clothes, the earlier set was stained with dirty blood and foul poisons, a side effect from overexertion over a month. The abbot was there waiting for him.

"You're the important guest, today."

"I dare not claim credit." Tundra shook his head, but he knew the truth. In his life, many cultivators often attribute their success to his pills. He knew many masters who sought out his pill, and only his pill, and made his sect extremely wealthy. 

Tundra remembered a time when he was not shy of weaponizing this, frequently promising special unique pills to certain friendly cultivators, in exchange for a defense arrangement or offensive alliance. His pills were a weapon. 

They always were. 

And just like today, he had made his weapon and used it to bring the royal family to his side. He only hoped that he didn't bite more than he could chew, and that the exchange was one the other party treasured.

Mutual defense and offensive alliances only worked when he could enforce these agreements if the other party didn't show up. That required strength. Today, he had none, but faith.

It was not the ideal set up his first life liked. He would prefer to arrange alliances where it was the best idea to be part of his team, and that way, his allies would always act in his interest. In this second life, the trades and assistance arrangement escalated way too quickly, and his own sect's strength has not caught up.

He stood at the door. He could feel the Emperor on the other side, and the Emperor certainly could feel his presence too.

An aide walked over and whispered the customs. Tundra heard of it before, but he put the instruction into his head anyway. 

He would not offend the Emperor in his first proper audience.

He knelt. He crawled. His head touched the floor with every three steps, a sign of reverence and humility before the Emperor. A custom when summoned for a formal audience. There are some talk about the sheer arrogance of the Golden Throne for imagining themselves as gods, but none dare say it to their faces. 

"This servant greets the Great Golden Dragon Emperor. May he rule for thousands of years." Tundra said as he reached the point where he was meant to stop, his head still on the ground. He couldn't see the Emperor, but he could feel him. 

He felt strong. 

There was a weight to his presence superior to even the tenth realm. He sat on a throne that distorted space by its sheer weight, the golden glow was certainly from a metal far beyond gold. 

"From others, those blessings always sounded hollow and false." The Emperor said, his voice may be gentle but he felt like he was standing on the shore, as the weight of the ocean itself shifted. "Thanks to the great pill, I may see another thousand more."

Tundra wasn't so sure. If he understood what the Princess said earlier, the lifespan of the Golden Dragon can always be sacrificed for more power. 

"You may stand. You have done the Empire a great service, Lord Fox. If you desire, I may name you one of the Imperial Alchemists, or any imperial position that is currently unoccupied. But I heard from my half-brother Edrian that you likely have other requests, so I wish to hear them."

Tundra closed his eyes. This was the moment to make the pitch in his mind. Strike the Murian Swamps, and delay the Zuja's progress by at least a thousand years. 

"So name them." The Emperor said. "State your desire, and let my Empire's resources fulfill them."

Tundra felt himself sweat, but he asked for it anyway. "I ask for a secret war on the Zuja, and that a secret force of tenth realms raid and destroy the Zuja's secret base within and underneath the Murian Swamps."

He felt a brief blink in the weight of the Emperor. 

"They dared bare their feeble claws against me. War with these bugs is nothing but a formality." The Emperor said. "But a force of multiple tenth realms. I can compel the tenth realm to serve, but it would be hard to compel them to serve together. If you know them, it is a hard challenge to even put any two of them in the same space together. Even the Great Sects' tenth realms speak to each other through shadows and their minions." 

Tundra remembered the histories and conflicts in his first life, and understood. 

The tenth realms are so supremely confident in their place in the world, that they didn't see anything that could threaten them. They would not want to work with another tenth realm, believing a single one of them is more than sufficient for any threat. 

Their egos were so large that it took the end of the world to finally stand together. Even Tundra himself thought the Zuja beneath him. By the time he truly understood them for what they were, half the world was in flames, and he was too late to make much of a difference. 

"But perhaps, there are a few that would see reason." The Emperor thought, and then looked at the side, and then back at Tundra. 

The Emperor waved a hand, and a rift appeared before him.

Then, a blue sword and a white feather appeared. "Take the Sword of the Three Blue Moons, and present it to Zomo Sapphens. State your case, and he might agree for a favor. Take the White Feather of the First Phoenix to Ember Talons, and win her over. If both of them agree, I will speak to another Tenth Realm Ancestor personally for an attack on this foul swamp. But until then, it is best we do not alert them."

Tundra knelt. Three tenth realms should be sufficient at this point. He wasn't exactly sure how strong and what secrets the Zuja hid away, but three tenth realms should do.

Yet, Ember Talons and Zomo Sapphens? 

After the incident at Prince Gomerl's banquet? He wasn't sure if things had calmed down between them. 

Could they cooperate and work together?

"Now, do not make such a frown." The Emperor sounded cheerful. "It is merely an attack on a swamp, we are not asking them to wage a long campaign together."

Tundra blinked briefly. "Yes, your majesty. I believe that would be the best angle. I do not believe they would tolerate each other's presence for long periods."

The Emperor grinned. "So go. Claim a few treasures from the treasury, and make your preparations. Within the next twenty years, get those two Great Cultivators to agree, then we will have our attack. But if they do not, then I will expect those two treasures to be returned to me twenty years from now. I also expect you to be in the eighth realm by the end of the decade."

Ah. Twenty years.

This was a decently good start. 

***