Chapter 686 - Mind Over Matter (I) (Patreon)

What's the point of life?

Why do we wake up every morning, only the suffer the unending existence of self? All day long, thoughts screaming at us, bodies withering away, everything slowly dying. Thus, why do we even live? Every day of living, we die just a bit. Isn't that just too cruel?

But there's one thing that's even crueler than that: this goddamn son of a bitch waxing on about every art under the sun, belting them into my ears like he's a fucking choir and I'm the sole member of the audience, chained to that goddamn wooden bench and forced to listen as the pitch goes higher and higher and higher, until it's so high my literal soul begins to ache.

Three days.

He spoke for three fucking goddamn days.

How?! How can there exist anyone who can talk for three days?! What are people of this world made of for that to even be a possibility?!

On and on and on he pontificated about the Surging Spirit Art, about Enduring Eternity, about Protean Song, about Spirit Qi Purification, shit, even about stuff that I couldn't even use like Endless Qi Ocean and Immortal Deity. He jampacked by brain with so much shit that I started to forget syllables of the language.

There's an a, and there's an e, and i, but... what's left? I forgot. The hammer known as Long Tao beat it out of my skull.

Thus, here I now sit, on the edge of a cliff (there's no cliff as it's a mountain) brooding and smoking (proverbially as I've got no tobacco), pelted by the rain (there's no rain, it's a very sunny day), contemplating the point of living. My head is physically throbbing, and I feel even a thousand pills won't quell it any time soon, since though the throbbing is physical, the pain is in my soul.

And I ask again: what is the point of living?

Just to suffer?

... haah.

I wish I could say that the torture was over, but it was not. One by one, the kids came up to the peak, and I had to drone into their brains, transmitting mastery of arts one by one. Apparently, there's a bit of a loophole in that I can increase mastery of arts that I can't even use, so long as I'm 'fed' that information. I did try contemplating them normally, but absolutely nothing would stick.

Until now.

The first one was Zhao'er. He stayed for about six hours, and left with a beaming look in his eyes.

I was happy and I was glad, but I was also a bit pissed off as the whole thing netted me stupendous 600 points. Though the system does allow loopholes, it apparently allows them within reason.

It's sort of a choice that has to be made--either progress kids' mastery quickly for a greater chance at survival, in which case the rewards are utter shit, or let it happen naturally, and get better rewards. While the rewards are tempting, I'd much rather increase our chances of survival now that we are on the island of death and whatnot. If one extra level of mastery increases their chances of survival by even 1%, it's worth more than potential rewards the system would have handed out had they reached that mastery naturally.

After Zhao'er, it was Xiu'er, and after her it was Lan'er, then Light, then Feng'er, then Yimu. Even the old alchemist crawled out from his dungeon and took on my little lessons. And, without even needing to call for her, Shufen appeared like a ghost, demanding the 'rewards' everyone else was getting.

... though it wasn't exactly subtle, I was starting to pick up on the fact that she seems quite keen on rewards, bordering on obsessive.

Nonetheless, I shared all of it with her, too, blasting her mind away to the point that she left the pavilion looking a bit catatonic.

Altogether, the whole spiel netted me some 3,600 points--not too bad, though somewhat of a drop in the bucket at the moment. Still, 3,600 points for basically a bad headache, yeah, I'll take that any day of the week. Just thinking back to the start, where I had to scrape and claw for measly 100 points... man, I've gotten greedy.

What I will say, though, is that there was a distinct change in the atmosphere immediately, because Shufen declared an in-sect tournament to test out their new gains. Everyone would have to participate, she declared, upon which Long Tao apparently looked at her a touch too meanly and she held another vote in which everyone agreed that Long Tao and I were exempt from the tournament.

Seeing the fire in everyone's gazes and a want to prove themselves, I had no heart to protest, so I simply joined in on the fun. Shufen quickly carved out an arena with 'two seats of honor' for old Tao and me.

The arena wasn't particularly big, perhaps the size of a basketball court, so the kids were told to only fight using mastery of the arts, and limit the scope of them the best they could. I wasn't quite sure what that meant until the first match started and, as if ordained by fate, it had to be between Lan'er and Xiu'er.

The two stood on the opposite ends of the arena, waiting for my signal to start. As soon as I gave it--shooting a small amount of Qi into the air--the two turned into absolute blurs, crashing into each other like mountains. Speaking of mountains, the entire thing quaked and shook, the hastily-made tiles of the arena cracking under the absolute weight of the clash before exploding into a shower of debris that all turned into literal bullets. I hastily put up a barrier that soaked up thousands of pebble-sized ones that would have easily made a hole in my skull had they had the chance.

All the same, the battle between the two continued; Lan'er stormed forth, using the fact that she could basically not be hurt at this point to completely ignore Xiu'er's attacks. The latter bobbed and weaved quickly, dodging Lan'er's strikes nimbly and jabbing back after each time. Most of those hits barely even registered, but a few, loaded with Annihilation and an amount of Qi that made my mouth dry, broke through and actually damaged Lan'er.

One, in fact, was so monstrous that it broke the young woman's arm, bending it backwards. In addition to that, the attack landed on the mountain and, just as I thought it, too, would be annihilated... nothing happened. The whole attack was just swallowed up as if it were a gust of wind.

I could barely even react to that before the two were back at it, with Lan'er's broken arm recovering literally in the span of three seconds. Eventually, Xiu'er just had nowhere else to run--cornered and knowing full well if she's touched once by her big sister, she reluctantly surrendered, clicking her tongue in the process.

"You're even less of a human, now," Xiu'er said. "It's like I'm striking at a plated, arrayed, legendary armor."

"Ha ha, isn't it great?" Lan'er laughed, puffing out her chest.

"It wasn't a compliment, you brute."

"Tsk. What about you, huh? You're more a rabbit than a girl, now," Lan'er said. "Jumping around like that, impossible to hit. If we weren't restricted to an area, is there anyone here besides the two honored guests who could even hit you?"

... are these two actually complimenting each other? Oh my gosh, to think I'd live to see the day--

"Real woman ought to stay headstrong and take the challenges as they come, not dance and prattle around like she's at a princely ball."

"Real woman?" Xiu'er said. "You really ought to look into the mirror before you say stuff like that."

"Alright, you two," Shufen quickly jumped in. "Not only did you ignore my instructions about taking it easy, thereby destroying the arena, causing it to explode and threaten Master's life," it really didn't, though? "But you're also happily chatting after the fact? Both of you--disqualified!"

"... eh?!! You can't do that!" it's kind of amazing how in sync those two are--the same words, the same tone of the voice, the same body movements...

"Next up--little Feng and little Zhao, come on! Show Master what you've learned!" wow, she just straight-up ignored them. That's... kind of amazing.

Whenever I officially create a sect in the future... I can just leave it to Shufen to manage the whole thing, huh? And I'll just sit back in the shadows and collect points like it's nobody's business. Man, just one impulsive decision to save her life will save me so many headaches in the future...