Chapter 410 - A Totally Normal Day In The Jianghu (Patreon)

And here we go! Five days post-arc-9, and here I am! Finally talking with people about getting the editing for book 2 started, taking care of myself today, and overall having a fairly good time returning to something approaching joyous creation and forward momentum. Admittedly, I tend to be my own worst critic, and I have been joyously creating and moving forward in a Bunch of ways already, so... good to have both sides of the coin, you know? Acknowledgement of change and acknowledgement of my feelings. Raaaah!

_________________________________________________________________________

Every aspect of proper cultivation is reflected in the organization of our world, and is further magnified by the ways in which the noble enlighten themselves and thus enlighten others. 

In all sects, there are the servants, those which fit the role of laborers, who cannot bear the weight of ascension and instead turn their hands and wills to the refinement of the mortal world. Farmers, cooks, cleaners and more all orbit and inhabit the fringes of a sect, acting as the necessary support to allow others to climb higher, enacting a nobility in servitude that grants those with the talent and power to climb higher the ability to do so. 

Beyond them, those who have taken their initial steps are initiated as Outer Disciples, brought forward into a higher realm just as their souls and inner selves have been elevated by the infusion of Qi. They pursue the avenues and methods best suited to their level, acting as a crucial part of an ecosystem. The chaff act as refinement for the wheat, and the strong rise above, aided by competition and the harsh lessons that can be learned only through strife.

Those who successfully rise will find themselves as Inner Disciples, selected for their strength of will, mind, and body, picked from the rest by their successes and by the wisdom of their betters. They now act as vital tools of the sect, gaining more power and glory through the honor of serving their part in the systems of the world. By rising, they elevate those above them, and clear the space for those below, while acting as agents of the heights they cannot yet reach.

Finally, there are those who stand up above all others. Direct Disciples, taken into the core of the sect, supporting and supported by the elders and true experts that have risen to the very heights. A symbiosis occurs, as those with the most talent, having eclipsed their competition and proving their use in the transformative ways that cultivation demands, are further heightened, prepared to join those who guide them as crucial parts of the sect.

As with life, with organs, with nature and all its many patterns, the pattern reinforces itself. The strong rise, the weak remain where they are, and all serve their proper purpose.

-Lectures on Cultivation by Elder Tan Jiang of the Broken Skies sect.  

______________________________________________________________

Geng He does his best to keep his fear from coming across his face. 

Fear is useless. More importantly, fear is a weakness. Fear is a message from a part of him that hasn’t yet caught up to the place he stands and the person he is. 

This is the next step forward. What is fear, then, but something holding him back?

Geng He takes another deep breath, using it to cycle his cultivation. 

He’s not alone in that. 

He, and hundreds of other cultivators, calm and quiet, keep their focus on each other and the danger they all face. There are tents, fire pits, and more elaborate set ups decorating the fields of grass on the cliffside they’re all waiting on. 

Two groups dominate the majority of the plateau, both deeply distinct looming over their surroundings.

Off to one side, a small ziggurat has been set up, a sort of pyramid risen from out of the earth into an “improvised” encampment. Cultivators from the Peak of the Iron Tortoise have set up rooms and cultivation chambers all throughout its multiple stories, a few hundred feet of landscape pulled up out of the mountainside purely to make their wait more bearable. Massive elemental constructs occasionally shift beneath its surface, wyrms and shelled beasts slipping in and out of the earth, and several small groves have been set up, the forces of earth creating sharp-edged plants that ripple and rumble, cracks running through them that open to chasms that go far deeper into the flora than should be possible.

Standing a fair distance from them, opposite the center of the cliffside, a lake and series of rivers have been created, carved into the landscape. Each pond and small lake is a few hundred meters wide, making a miniature archipelago out of the remaining bits of land in them, and many of them flow over the edge of the cliffside to form waterfalls that drain sourcelessly down the mountain. On floating lilypads and river barges the size of buildings, the Peak of the Azure Serpent’s outer disciples sit, lounge, and cultivate, many of them seeming to transform into water seamlessly to vanish into the man-made lakes. 

Two of the five great sects of the Jianghu both glare at each other from opposite ends of the field, the very landscape transformed for their benefit.

Others have set up arrays, group tents, and even some minor geographical changes, but only the two Peaks dare to act in such a way. For this very reason, though there are others who could rearrange the landscape to their liking, none attempt it, lest it be seen as attacking the face of two of the Peaks of the Jianghu. 

And yet, even still, there are differences between the sects and the rogue cultivators. 

Major tented encampments with servants and formations stand bright against the grass, making the Qi around them louder, more chaotic to those who try to cultivate near them without the proper techniques. Active defenses have been set up around many of them, keeping away any potential interference- or keeping out the rabble of the rogues. 

Geng He is part of said rabble, but not for long. 

He’s got a basic firepit, where he’s sat and meditated over the last few days, waiting for the same thing everyone else is waiting for. He’s slept on the ground, beneath the stars, as a proper wandering cultivator should (and must, really). He’s eaten simple rations, nuts and berries and mountain game he’s hunted while they’ve waited. He’s meditated, refining his techniques as best he can, feeling his Dantian struggling through the thick, tumultuous Qi he’s absorbed, saturated with the concepts of force, brightness, dreams, lightning, and bone. 

It’s the reason he’s here. Too much, all at once. His cultivation base is a skewed mess, one that has too many disparate pieces, which he has been unable to unite into a proper, functional path. This is an opportunity to fix that. 

The piece of flesh at his side, pulsing with life and connected to his veins by thin, needle-tipped tendrils, cycles his Qi alongside him, circulating it through an additional pattern he’s still forming. It’s incomplete, but the attached organ is already adapting to him, already adding to his network of meridians, and the more he masters it, the more his circulation improves, better digesting and generating the Qi that all things must learn to master to ascend.

It’s not enough. 

But as he stares at his objective, he knows it could be just the start.

The sun reaches towards its noonday peak, hanging over the sky to the west, and the thing at the center of the cliffside pulses, stretching just a bit further open.

It’s like a bend in space. Like a small little piece of the world fell inward, and took part of the fabric in with it, making it all turn to a sort of folded, messy bend around a corner. 

And every few hours, it expands a little bit. The fabric uncurls from within that mess of space, and it becomes less of a single point and more of a thick, heavy weight upon reality, from a pearl into a boulder in space.

This will be the second time this particular hidden realm has opened since it was first found a few months ago. This time, Geng He will be ready. 

He’s traveled for almost a month to get here, all the way from the territory of the Peak of the Golden Tiger. He’s had to kill, more than once, on the journey, once when he was intercepted by a bandit clan with more muscle than sense, and twice more when he met fellow experts on the road, and it was mutually decided that they would not find peace with each other. 

The organ he’s wrapped tight to his torso was bought with the first victory. The sash he’s wrapped it in, visibly enchanted for those with eyes to see, was the result of the second. Both victories left him wounded, and both victories gave him just enough to recover from and be able to grow the slightest bit, as the Jianghu demands. For wandering cultivators like him, every two steps forward comes at the cost of at least one step back. 

Not this, though. An actual hidden realm. One he managed to reach before it opens, before it shuts again. An opportunity like this comes only once in a lifetime. 

The sash moves according to his will, attuned to his thoughts, and bundles his supplies up tighter within itself. Its folds envelop and then disappear his purse, some minor talismans, and as many knives and sharp-edged tools he could get his hands on on his journey. On his finger, he can feel his spatial ring, always slightly warm to the touch, filled with his life savings, the one manual he’s managed to find that suits his methods, and the defensive token he’s holding onto, the only actual life-saving measure he could manage to get his hands on. His hand goes to the sword he wears on his hip, there to intimidate as much as for easy access. 

He’s as ready as he can be. 

He kicks a bit of dirt into his firepit, standing up. Others have already been on their feet for hours, while some only begin to rise minutes after he does. Neither of the grand Peaks have yet begun to move, so it cannot be too close, and yet everyone can tell that something’s going to happen soon, and for those with less access and less strength, speed and alertness must make do. 

He inhales, slowly. Then he exhales. Then he inhales. He cultivates while standing up, feeling the thick, uncomfortable weight of his Qi circulating sluggishly, supported by the organ he’s added to himself. 

He can do this. He’s ready for this. He’s killed to be here. He’s almost died to be here. If he doesn’t succeed here, if he doesn’t find the sorts of resources he needs to excel-

But he will. He will find them. He has to, he-

“I see you too are blessed by the Matriarch!” says a voice off to his left.

Too close. Not so close that they feel like an imminent threat, not close enough to make him leap away, but closer than he should ever have let them get. 

They’re a fellow rogue cultivator, or at least they look like one. Their robes are simple and unadorned, with thin ribbons of red, orange and purple to decorate their hips. He smiles, eyes open and calm but sharp. He radiates an aura of heat, something almost feverish, but it comes across almost peacefully, like a strange haze.

“Apologies, fellow cultivator!” the stranger says, keeping his hands visible at his sides. “It’s just nice to see another so openly wearing the blessings of the Bleeding Mother. Us wanderers might find ourselves at odds with each other more often than not, but faced with an opportunity such as this, how can I not hope to find the familiar and build a strength from it?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean by the ‘familiar’, fellow cultivator,” Geng He says, bowing only the slightest amount possible. Just enough not to be entirely closed off. “Though I will admit that, faced off against such powerful competition, it’s not wrong to seek to build up one’s strength.”

“Ah! My apologies! I know it’s a fairly new trend, but I had assumed that more of the lore had found its way across the lands,” says the stranger in the pale robes and sunset ribbons. “I simply saw the tool you wear upon your hip, and thought to find some conversation with you on the subject. I myself have partaken in the gifts of the Bleeding Mother, and thought to find connection in that commonality.”

They don’t talk like a wandering cultivator. They’re all pomp and fancy words. Geng He isn’t an idiot, he had to learn to read to be able to get his hands on his first Qi-Gathering techniques, but he isn’t from some fancy city or one of the sects, obviously. 

“I haven’t heard of a… ‘Bleeding Mother’ before,” he says honestly. “But if you’re speaking of my cultivation aid…”

“The very same!” the stranger says. “One of the more recent models, if my eyes don’t deceive me. It’s been an enlightenment, seeing how the Sunlit Flesh has grown into so many new forms. I’ve been following its trends since the start, and it’s been stunning to see the ways that innovation and inspiration have struck.”

His hand goes to his robes, slow enough not to be a direct threat, though Geng He keeps his hands close to his sword nonetheless. While not certain, there is absolutely a chance that this might all be an elaborate ruse to eliminate some of the competition early. 

Instead of an attack, though, the cultivator simply lifts his outer robe, revealing a long, sinuous whip of sinew and tendon hung on his own hip. Sharp bone spikes rustle as the flesh is pulled out to the light, the whole weapon shifting like some sort of serpent, sharp-edged and stretching strangely. 

“One of the few third-generation weapons made for those outside the mainline sects! I was lucky enough to find an opportunity to acquire it for myself, though it was quite the surprise to find just how potent an artifact it is. Have you named yours yet?”

“I’m afraid I won’t be sharing any names before yours, fellow cultivator,” Geng He says, trying to remain friendly in spite of how tense every muscle in his body is. 

“Ah! This Yan Guanyu has acted presumptuously. It’s only proper to be on edge when two wanderers meet. Please, accept my apology for how I have pushed this conversation forward.”

Yan Guanyu bows at the waist, smiling and seemingly at ease. Or perhaps he’s just that much stronger than Geng He, utterly comfortable in his safety before a “fellow wanderer”. 

“This one is Geng He, and I accept your apology,” Geng He says, though he bows much more shallowly. “I too have been presumptuous in my defensiveness, perhaps. I’m afraid I have to disappoint you, though. I’m not particularly familiar with the history of the artifact, only in the use it can provide.”

“An understandable choice!” Yan Guanyu says, shrugging. “I don’t expect all to hold my opinions on the matter. What is cultivation if not differing paths, after all! Still, seeing as you are here on your own, I wondered, since you seem open to the use of something I myself share a passion for, if you wouldn’t like to join my group before the hidden realm fully opens?”

Yan Guanyu waves a hand back the way he came, indicating two other cultivators, only one of whom wears similar robes. The other, a tall, slender woman with her arms crossed and hair made of thick river water flowing behind her, seems a bit ill at ease, standing a bit further from the woman beside her in the pale robes and ribbons, but she nods when she sees him. 

Not too unbothered, then. And if they were going to rob him, there’s less risk if they’d approached him alone. Unless they knew he’d think that, and believe they have some way to kill them both before either can put up too much of a fight. 

A risk. A gamble. But one that, if it pays off, might allow Geng He to better hold his weight against the rest of the competition, and could let them face some of the tougher challenges sure to be in there.

It would be a hazard rather than a proper hidden realm if there had been no one alive to return from it before it closed, nor if they’d returned without rewards. But without danger, it would just be some resource scooped up by a sect, rather than something that they’re willing to “mediate” over and allow others into. 

The rewards are great. The likelihood of death, for all those that do not have teleportation or life-saving artifacts or the backing of great elders, far greater. Geng He has none. 

He makes a decision. 

“I suppose an alliance between us might be possible. Us wanderers must often compete- better to find ourselves as winners of that competition.”

Yan Guanyu smiles. “Quite! And it shall be good to have those who are strengthened by the Bleeding Mother’s touch together. Those who see the future should work together to grasp it.”