Chapter 852: The Jade Philosophers And Karma (Patreon)

It had been a week since I returned to the Cultivation World, and for the first time in a long time, the fate of a world wasn’t hanging on my shoulders. 

Though that didn’t stop me from waking up every day in my comfortable pavilion and lying in bed for a few minutes wondering what existential threat will appear next. And I had to admit, some of those mornings, I would wake up in a cold sweat, having dreamt of a giant red eye tearing a hole in the sky.

Thankfully, nothing had happened yet. Instead, a nervous Zhao Yu knocked on my door every morning with a tray of steamed buns and asked whether the Elder wanted tea or soup. The Elder was me, and honestly, that was something I was still getting used to.

A lot had happened over the past few days, even though none of it was as significant as saving a realm, it still mattered a great deal for my cultivation journey.

One of the first things I did since returning was check on my inner world, and I meant a proper check in. While I was in the Two Suns World, I only ever dipped in to grab energy, but now that I had time, I floated through it slowly in my spirit form to inspect one quadrant after another.

I took extra care to see how the four Stellar Realm souls were doing, mainly because I felt a little guilty about getting sidetracked and not being able to give them the attention they deserved as my ‘tenants’.

Unfortunately, for the thousand-year-old alchemist that looked twelve, my inner world hadn’t developed to the level where he could create pills that drew his interest. So he had built himself a small hut of woven branches beside the Ancient Oak so that he could spend most of his days lying on his back in the grass with a notebook on his chest while he watched the bees. 

The bees didn't seem bothered by their audience, they were still going about their work, moving between the herbs in the garden and the hive. From the warm golden colour of the wax spreading across the branch, they were doing their job well.

When I floated over, he held up a page covered in tiny drawings of honeycomb cells and waved it at me in excitement. "They trade nectar for wax," Ru Jian called out like he had made a world changing discovery. "And wax for shelter, and shelter for protection. Every single exchange is balanced. Do you know how many alchemists I've met who can't manage that?"

"How many?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"All of them," he sniffed, struggling to make eye contact. "Including me, on bad days, but maybe that will change if you bring in some good resources for me to practice…”

Without any hesitation, I promised him that I would try my best to work on that. After all, why would I reject the offer of an alchemist of Ru Jian’s level. Though, it would be better to grow practice materials rather than buying them. At least, that was what I was aiming towards as it is more sustainable in the long run, especially since all he wanted to do is experiment. And from all the webnovels that I had read, I knew just how expensive alchemy could be. In fact, that was one of the main reasons I had chosen to specialise in formations instead, I simply didn’t have the never-ending wallet needed for that field.

The Ancient Oak was in a mood, as usual. The bees had expanded their hive along a second branch while I was gone, and three Lithari children were hanging upside down from a third.

"I was born in a world where we all thought we were made for greatness," the Oak mumbled when it saw me looking at it. "But I didn’t amount to anything more than a ladder and a beehive."

"The wax keeps the rain off your bark," I reminded it.

The Oak didn't answer, but its leaves rustled softly, and it stopped complaining.

When I flew to the garden quadrant, I found Wen Suli having claimed a patch of soil to grow spirit rice of all things. 

The old soul was on her knees with her sleeves rolled up despite only being in spirit form, and when she saw me, she only nodded once and went back to work.

Honestly, it was good to see that she had found a hobby. After having waited for centuries to be used for her calamity-absorbing technique, the woman had finally found something to do with her hands that didn't involve dying. And it was good to see that she wasn’t alone, Sun Li Hao and Little Bloom were also in the garden.

The tiny sapling was showing her how to press roots into the soil to share nutrients with the herbs, and the jade beauty was kneeling in the dirt with a stiff expression, pushing her finger into the ground.

"No, gentler," Little Bloom said, patting the soil with a tendril. "You have to say hello first."

"I am a Heavenly Nirvana Pill," Sun Li Hua muttered. "Why would I say hello to dirt?”

Despite asking such a question, it didn’t stop her from whispering it very quietly. It was obvious that Little Bloom’s presence was doing wonders for her mental health, and slowly but surely, she was learning to trust again.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for Dao Renqiu, the old man spent nearly all his time sitting cross-legged in front of the Genesis Seed with soft, wet eyes.

"Is he alright?" I had asked Azure.

"He asked me yesterday if the Seed remembers him," Azure replied. "I told him I didn't know. He didn’t seem reassured by the answer.”

Whatever trauma he had experienced from cultivating the World Tree Sutra meant that the old man couldn’t be at ease living in an inner world created by the same technique. Honestly, I didn’t have the qualifications to help him get past it. All I could do was find something that could keep his mind off it.

The other one that wasn’t at peace was the Stone Emperor, it was in the southwest quadrant, in the middle of lecturing seven young Lithari as usual.

"—and that is why I say stillness is the highest form of action," it boomed. "When the first mountains rose, I was there. When the first rivers carved the valleys, I was there—"

"Last time you said you were there when the first stars formed," a young sandstone Lithari pointed out.

"I was there for that as well."

None of them dared to answer.

As for me, I didn’t get involved in the interactions between the Stone Emperor and the Lithari youth. If the elders didn’t have an issue with it, I saw no reason to myself. The good news was that the Lithari as a whole were thriving.

Tal had informed Azure that they had opened four new shafts in the northwest mountains and found a vein of spiritual iron deeper than any they had mined before. They had also started shaping a few new young, sure it was only half a dozen, but it was the first time since leaving Gorath-Kal. It meant well for their future in my inner world.

Which brought me to the other problem.

Before I left for the Two Suns World, I had moved some Lithari to Sect Master Yuan's inner world as a trial to see how they’d do in a different world. The group had consisted of twenty Jade Philosophers, and forty Lithari of various stone types who had decided to follow them.

What I hadn't accounted for was how much the Jade Philosophers loved to argue, and the Sect Master had been dying to return them. On the third day when I went to see the Sect Master, he had grabbed both my hands.

"Ke Yin," he said, and I had never heard such sincerity in his voice. "No more excuses. Take them back today. I have lasted for as long as I could, but even a Civilisation Realm expert has a limit.”

"Was it that bad?"

"Do you know what they asked me last week?" He let go of my hands and rubbed his temples. "Whether the karma of a cup of tea belongs to the man who drinks it, the man who brews it, or the leaf. I said the man who drinks it. They debated my answer for what would be a whole week in the Cultivation World, but years in my inner world. They took a vote and then told me that I was wrong, and that I had been drinking stolen karma my entire life."

I tried very hard not to laugh, but I failed.

"It isn't funny," Yuan said, though the corner of his mouth was twitching, which was rare for him. "I’ve been cultivating the Dao of Karma for thousands of years, and now I am seeing things from a perspective I had never thought possible.”

I could tell he was pleased with the new insights, after all, comprehension of the Dao was worth more than anything spirit stone could buy.

But even then, the Sect Master clearly needed a break, so we had transferred them that afternoon, using the same dead inner world as an intermediary to keep our worlds from touching directly. 

When the sixty Lithari stepped through into the southeast quadrant of my inner world, the Sect Master let out a long breath that emptied his entire chest.

"Peace," he whispered. "At last."

But I barely heard him, because I was staring at the change that the Lithari had undergone. This was significant because Lithari lived for thousands of years, and they changed slowly, one layer at a time, not like this.

The first ones through were the basalt warriors, and every single one of them had grown at least a head taller, and their black stone had a faint gold shimmer running through the cracks. When they stepped onto the ground of my inner world, it shook under them.

Elder Gralth was waiting at the front of the crowd, and when he saw them, he walked forward and pressed his forehead against the forehead of the lead warrior, making a loud clack.

"Thrum-kal dor," the warrior rumbled.

"Thrum-kal dor," Gralth replied, looking the warrior up and down with a critical look. "You've grown fat."

"The Sect Master's inner world is rich in energy, Elder. We ate well."

"Hmph. We'll see how rich it is after you've dug a few shafts."

The granite craftsmen came next, with formation lines carved into their palms. "We studied the Sect Master's arrays," one whispered to me. "Do not tell him."

It brought a smile to my face seeing that they thought that the Sect Master was ignorant of what went on in his inner world. But I gave a nod, which seemed to please the granite lithari.

The last ones to return were the Jade Philosophers, and honestly, I almost didn't recognise them. Before, their jade had been a pale, milky green, but now it was clear enough that I could almost see through them.

What I saw inside them made my eyes widen. There were thin golden threads twisting slowly, connecting and disconnecting, forming and breaking apart. This… this was the karma threads of someone that cultivated the Dao of Karma.

The leader of the philosophers, an old jade Lithari with a cracked shoulder, walked up to me and bowed low. "We’ve returned, and we have questions. A lot of them.”

"I was afraid of that."

"The first question relates to something we heard from the Sect Master," he continued, ignoring me completely. "You saved the world that had two suns, did you not? So, did the karma of that act belong to you? Or to the vine that ate the suns? Or to the world itself, which chose you?"

Behind him, the other nineteen philosophers nodded slowly.

“Erm, I think we all probably got a share of it based on our contribution?” I replied, not entirely certain about the intricacies of karma since I wasn’t a cultivator of that path. “But I don’t know.”

“Excellent.” The old philosopher's face lit up. "We will begin discussing this at once, and then take our findings back to the Sect Master.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that Yuan had been exhausted by their debates and was doing his best to avoid them, so I stayed quiet as I watched all twenty of them sit down in a circle right there on the ground and begin arguing immediately.

“Who dares debate without the Stone Emperor,” a voice roared from the southern quadrant.

"Master," Azure said, appearing beside me with a pained expression. "I think we've made a mistake."

"Too late now," I laughed, flying over to the northeast quadrant to check on the Leech-kin.

Whether it was a trick of the light, or the influence of the Blood Moon, I wasn’t entirely sure, but the Crimson Lake looked even redder than I remembered. Along the shore, there was a small village of huts woven from reeds for the Leech-kin to reside in. And in the middle of the lake, there was an island that was rising and failing. Well, most would confuse it for an island, but I knew that it was actually the back of the Crimson Cradle.

A few Marrow Crawlers were digging along the shore, their off-white armour covered in mud. One of them noticed me and rolled onto its back, showing me its soft belly. A Leech-kin woman nearby laughed and threw it a piece of bone.

"He wants you to rub his stomach," she called out.

"I think I’ll pass on that.”

As I flew through the village, I found Snik sitting on a carved chair in front of the biggest hut, wearing his red robes and listening to two elders argue about fishing rights. It seemed that old habits die hard, because he had his chin raised and his ruby eyes half-closed, looking every inch the great Lord Malachi.

"Walker!" he cried out when he saw me, standing up so fast that he nearly tripped over his own robe. "Please tell me nothing is chasing you."

"Nothing is chasing me."

"Good. Good.” He let out a relieved breath. “We've had a quiet past few months. I would like it to stay that way."

It didn’t come across as a surprise that the man who had spent six hundred years pretending to be a hero in a dying world and was now in a world where nobody was trying to kill each other just wanted to relax.

As for the prophet, Ignis was sitting outside a hut near the water with a blanket over his knees. The poor guy still had bandages wrapped around his chest from when he had tried to scry the Heavens of the Two Suns World, but at least the colour had returned to his grey face.

“How are you?” I asked, descending beside him.

“I’m getting better, but it is taking its damn time,” the old Ash-Seer replied, turning his blind eyes towards me. "The Otherworldly Being struck hard, but the moon helps with its soul essence, it is better than any medicine." He smiled faintly. "You did it, didn't you? You saved the world with the two suns? I know already. The Heavens have been very loud about it.”

I wanted to ask what that meant since I wasn’t too familiar with the scrying arts, but he had already closed his eyes and gone back to sunning himself under the Blood Moon. Not wanting to disturb him, I flew in the direction of the centre of my inner world where Taiyi, the Weeping Root, was standing guard beside a meditating Ke Jun.

Without a doubt, the former Civilisation Realm cultivator was busy looking for any possible way he could regain his power, or even regain the title of a cultivator since he was now simply a mortal soul.

When Taiyi saw me, it lifted one small root and waved.

I waved back, then flew off to check up on my buddy, who was curled around the base of the Genesis Seed with its tip drooping.  Seeing it like this wiped the smile right off my face. Ever since we came back, Yggy had been sulking because it missed the goats, the cactus with six arms, and the old man in a wheelchair.

"I know, buddy," I said, patting the vine. "I miss them too."

It gave a small, sad rustle and curled up tighter. I directed a few Lithari children towards it. They would cheer it up, or at least I hoped they would. Seeing Yggy like this reminded me that it was important for us to make a return trip, even if it was a short one. The vine deserved at least that much.

My gaze then rose to the purple ball of energy that was still tucked deep inside its branches. The stem at the top was thicker than the last time that I had inspected it, and the surface had gone from soft and shifting to firm and smooth, but it was nowhere near ripe.

Azure said it would be ready in a few months, maybe even a year, and when it ripened, I would have the chance to enter the World of Sorcery. But I definitely didn’t plan to go anytime soon since there were just too many things going on at the moment. Wei Lin was still in a coma in the recovery room, a Life Realm cultivator who enslaved souls was out there, and an Otherworldly Being was keeping an eye on me. The last thing I needed was a trip to a world full of liches, or mages.

So yeah, the Seed could keep its secrets for now, but I would be watching it, and if I suspected that the secrets of the Seed were related to the World of Sorcery, then I guess I will be heading there sooner or later.

But right now, what piqued my curiosity was the pendant that Tomas had given me, which had sunk into my Golden Sun. The knowledge sleeping inside it was so dense and heavy that even touching the edge of it with my spiritual sense made my head spin.

And underneath the knowledge, I could feel the energy that I needed to reach Rank 6 in Golden Sun cultivation.

In the Cultivation World, that was equivalent to the Life Realm, which was a realm that let a cultivator live for thousands of years. It was a realm that most Stellar Realm cultivators spent centuries crawling towards, but most of them never reached it. And then there was me, I could become the equivalent of a Life Realm powerhouse in the blink of an eye.

I had to admit, it was very tempting, but I knew better than to fall for temptation, especially after what the Sect Master had advised me when I had informed him of everything that had taken place in the Two Suns World.

A/N

Tomo we see the convo with the Sect Master and Ke Yin's karma level!

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