The Magistrate: Chapter 83 (Patreon)

Chapter 83

The Nature of Miasma

The Civil Realm might have been designed only to cultivate into the foundation realm. However, it was still a national treasure and a constant source of pills for both the government and military. Patriarch Shen was mortified at the idea of exposing it to an infected person. He even refused to allow Elder Chow in while in front of Peace Master So.

Peace Master So ignored him. Once Tobias had put the idea back in his head, he wasn’t willing to stop until the centuries-old question was answered.

Tobias entered the Civil Realm a step before Elder Chow, spreading his aura to see what effect she would have on the realm. The effect was obvious. Her core began to crumple.

If Peace Master So hadn’t intervened, she would have been overwhelmed by miasma.

Tobias winced. “I should have realised that would happen.”

Elder Chow took several shaky breaths. “What exactly happened?”

“The vacuum pressure in your core and the high pressure of the chi inside this realm interacted,” Peace Master So replied. “The chi is trying to force its way into your core, and the miasma in your core is trying to suck it in. You’re trying to stop both, but your dao isn’t strong enough to prevent it. The result was your core nearly imploding. Even if this works, you’ll never gain another layer to your core. Your cultivation was just crippled beyond repair.”

“I’ll be dead shortly, so that seems like the least of my problems,” Elder Chow replied

Tobias liked her attitude.

Peace Master So turned to Tobias. “Where are we going to test this?”

“Preferably, where it will cause the least amount of harm should this go wrong.”

Peace Master So pointed to the closes cluster of sage realm spirit herbs in the distance. “It isn’t the smallest group, but it is the closest to the exit in case something goes wrong. Nothing important to contaminate while we leave.”

“It will do. Follow me, Elder Chow.”

Tobias crossed a hundred yards of spirit gardens, scanning Elder Chow with his aura the entire time, but other than her body absorbing the chi saturation, there seemed to be no other detrimental effects from bringing her in. Tobias stopped before the barrier that the sage realm spirit herbs had created. The moment Elder Chow stopped beside him, the barrier vanished.

Tobias turned to Peace Master So. “You didn’t do that, did you?”

Peace Master So shook his head, grinning excitedly. “They did it themselves.”

Tobias turned to Elder Chow. “I want you to go and sit beside one of those sage realm spirit herbs.”

Elder Chow complied.

The barrier reappeared the moment she was close enough for it not to take off her head. Peace Master So immediately grabbed Tobias, and they appeared two steps in front of Elder Chow.

Tobias turned around, sensing a trickle of miasma flowing from her to the surrounding sage realm spirit herbs. “How are you feeling?”

Elder Chow smiled. “The pressure in my core is gone.”

Tobias took that as a sign that the sage realm spirit herbs could suppress the plague, but he did not like the fact that a trickle of miasma was leaving her body and flowing into them. Elder Cloud and Elder Mist had said that this would kill them.

However, the damage was already done. This particular cluster was for a general body meridian cleansing pill. The spirit pill Peace Master So had made to form the joint barrier nearly two decades ago was still sitting in the middle. Losing this particular garden wasn’t what Tobias wanted. However, losing it to gain more information was bearable. The Great Plague had ended an era. A few spirit herbs meant nothing next to that, especially when they were of the most common kind.

Tobias instructed Elder Chow to take a seat near a sage realm spirit herb in the centre of the cluster, noticing that as she got closer to the spirit herb, the trickle of miasma increased in volume. Once she was sitting next to it, there was a line of black miasma dust that would have been visible to a mortal. The sage realm spirit herbs showed no negative effects from the miasma.

“Is the miasma in her body being replaced?” Tobias asked.

Peace Master So nodded. “It also appears to be nourishing the spirit herb. Its growth rate has increased exponentially. It will gain a season of cultivation progress by the end of the day if this continues.”

There was only one thing that Tobias knew of that nourished spirit herbs like this. “Could miasma be chi toxicity?”

Peace Master So shook his head. “It poisons spirit herbs. It has to be something different.”

“It’s not poisoning these ones, and they all consumed a little.”

“These are sage realm spirit herbs, and sages are almost immune to miasma.”

“They might be immune, but they also suffer from its presence just like they would with chi toxicity.”

“I’m immune to chi toxicity.”

Tobias frowned. “I didn’t know that?”

“Well, I’m not actually immune to its effects. The toxins don’t get absorbed by my flesh, spirit, or soul, so I don’t experience the effects.”

Tobias nodded. “Could you tell Patriarch Shen to bring in the vials of miasma. I want to test if the spirit herbs will try to absorb it.”

A few moments later, a far too peaceful-looking Patriarch Shen appeared at the edge of the barrier, holding the vials. The barrier immediately vanished, and the vials he was holding shattered. Patriarch Shen vanished as they broke, leaving the realm as the miasma flowed through the air and into the sage realm spirit herbs. What was left of the blood splattered on the mossy ground as the barrier reappeared.

“Did that miasma negatively affect the spirit herbs?” Tobias asked.

“No,” Peace Master So replied with another grin. “And I’m instructed Patriarch Shen to bring the infected to the dungeon here.”

Tobias scoffed. “We’ve barely learned to walk, and you want to run.”

“You said it yourself, Senior. There are no signs that the spirit herbs have been negatively affected by the miasma in Elder Chow. The next step is to introduce other infected and see if spirit herbs react in a similar manner.”

Tobias didn’t have the spare time to argue against moving too quickly, so silently observed what was going on with Elder Chow, making notes while they waited.

Patriarch Shen returned a few minutes later with three iron cauldrons floating before him. Peace Master So moved them outside the barrier. When Patriarch Shen stopped before the barrier, it dropped. Peace Master So opened the lids of the cauldrons with his aura and floated the infect over to the spirit herbs.

The infected immediately began to dissolve. However, as they floated in the air, they didn’t fight against their destruction. They extended their arms towards the nearest sage realm spirit herbs, as if they had found salvation.

Tobias and Peace Master So came to the same conclusion simultaneously. “They’re searching for sage realm spirit herbs!”

Before they were even halfway to the spirit herbs, there was nothing left of their flesh. It had withered away, crumbling into dirt. Every particle of miasma that had been in them had flowed into the spirit herbs, leaving their bodies to fertilise the ground around them.

“You were right,” Peace Master So said. “It is chi toxicity.”

“This explains why the oceans self-corrected,” Tobias said at the same time. “The infected marine life found wild sage realm spirit herbs.”

However, even as he spoke, something clicked in Tobias’s head, and everything came together with a beautiful and simple answer.

Tobias groaned. “It’s not chi toxicity.”

“But you just said-”

“It’s immortal chi toxicity.”

All four cultivators stared at him.

Peace Master So frowned. “Why would you say that?”

“Because cultivators are stupid and immortal cultivators are twice as stupid.”

All four of them glared at him.

Tobias sighed as everything he knew about the cultivator world continued to fall into place. “How many sage realm spirit herbs have ever been allowed to ascend to immortality?”

Peace Master So frowned. “Why is that important?”

“It’s important because you all assume that the realm you ascend to is the heavens, and not some realm in between. With that assumption, you remove any thought that there may not be a realm waiting for you when you arrive. No one has ever been there and returned, so everything you have to go on is what immortals can sense through the barrier before they leave, and that’s not a lot. I’ve read eighteen accounts of their parting impressions, and they don’t really have a clue beyond knowing that they cannot die there. What if there isn’t an established realm? What if it’s just a void or a barren wasteland, and you’ve all been ascending there without allowing spirit herbs to ascend with you to purify the chi there? What if that realm is now so toxic the heavens are forcefully sending those toxins down here so that the sage realm spirit herbs will breakthrough and begin cleansing the immortal realm for them, correcting the imbalance. Only the first time the heavens did this, all the sages turned their sage realm spirit herbs into pills to escape. Their ascension provided more bodies in the immortal realm to absorb miasma, and the funnelling of miasma to this world lowered the levels there. Still nothing really changed, and now the chi up there is just as toxic as it was in the past, forcing the Great Plague upon us, because they let their power go to their heads and thought the basic rules of cultivation no longer applied because they were immortal.”

Peace Master So’s mouth had dropped open halfway through Tobias’s tirade, and it didn’t close for several seconds after he was done.

Peace Master So looked visibly shaken. “I may be wrong, but I do not know of any spirit herbs that have ever been allowed to ascend to immortality. The difference between an immortal and a sage realm spirit herb is the difference between heaven and earth. You would have no hope of harnessing the power of an immortal spirit herb, even if they remained after their ascension.”

Patriarch Shen swallowed. “I know of one. Our ancestor once found a bed of sage realm snow moss on a mountainside on the Bell Continent. For reasons no sane mind can understand, he took a nap upon it. When he woke, a sage stood over him. He spent the next thousand years guarding the sage’s bed until the spirit moss ascended to immortality and left our world behind. It is a cautionary tale in our family about not resting where you do not belong.”

“So only spirit herbs with sentimental value have been allowed to ascend,” Tobias said. “How often do you think that has happened?”

“I’d let my tree ascend if it had a chance of doing so,” Peace Master So replied. “But I haven’t met any other sage who is as attached to any of their spirit herbs as I am to my tree. Not unless they can’t ascend. The constant supply of chi from those ones is quite useful.”

“You also kill spirit beasts before they reach the sage realm,” Tobias muttered as more pieces fell into place.

Peace Master So groaned. “How can you have something against killing spirit beasts? I know how often you eat them.”

“Spirit beasts don’t destroy spirit herbs unless they can no longer ascend.” Tobias had learned that from Peace Master So’s realm. “A sage realm spirit beast would seek out spirit herbs that can enter the sage realm to improve its cultivation, but if they were capable of ascending, it would allow them to ascend. By preventing spirit beasts from entering the sage realm, you have prevented spirit herbs from reaching immortality.”

“If a sage realm beast were to go on a rampage, it would destroy half of The Three Kingdoms before growing tired of its slaughter and returning to its realm,” Peace Master So replied. “There is a good reason they are not allowed to ascend to the sage realm.”

“I understand that, but you have also disturbed the natural order by doing so. Now, we must deal with the Great Plague.”

“I don’t understand your concern,” Patriarch Shen said. “You’ve found the solution to the Great Plague.”

Peace Master So motioned to Elder Chow. “We are concerned because the miasma that is coming from Elder Chow is only a fraction of what lies within her. It strongly suggests that there is an upper limit to the amount of miasma these sage-realm spirit herbs can absorb. We also cannot tell which spirit herbs have the potential to reach immortality and which do not. We may not be able to ascend enough of them to mitigate the plague.”

Tobias nodded. “I need to study this in more depth to come up with a solution.”

Peace Master So chuckled. “Senior is outrageous.”

Tobias frowned. “What did I do?”

“You just made a discovery through a single afternoon of investigation that has stumped the cultivation world for centuries, and all you think is this is the first step to fixing the problem.”

“Well, it is.”

Peace Master So threw his head back and laughed.

“Don’t you have a proclamation to distribute?”