Leaving A Legacy

The first arrays that Ren focused on were privacy and security. He had been lax before, and though he hadn’t seen any sign of the small animal that had broken in to chew his bamboo, he couldn’t afford to slip up again.

He used a majority of the formation flags he’d made from willow resin to reinforce his boundaries, focusing on the only open side, the plains to the west. While he laid them out, he also set up a few to alert him to any visitors to the sacred ground or forbidden region. That first group had taught Ren the value of providing assistance, and Ren wasn’t going to let easy wealth escape his grasp. Two other groups had passed through, one of whom tried to establish a good relationship with him using some gifts like that chubby senior, Rong Bo, had.

Ren had so many ideas to improve the services he could provide, but all that could wait until his crucial work on his abode was done. Until then, he gave the visitors a token tied to an array that would alert him to their need for assistance. They looked at him awkwardly, and one blunt fellow in the group asked unabashedly,

“Don’t you have communication talismans?”

Ren had politely responded, "Apologies, senior, those talismans are too expensive for this disciple.”

Ren certainly couldn’t afford to give away precious communication talismans to every group that passed by. Not wanting to insult them by implying he was unwilling to help them, he simply pled poverty. The looks of pity they gave him only intensified. But by then, Ren had learned to ignore those looks. He was far too preoccupied to care about them for long.

Once The Edge had been secured to his satisfaction, Ren got to work changing the land to stimulate the qi. He began with the 18 sources of qi, the focal points of the vast array he had planned. He set up temporary qi repelling arrays at each point as he worked on them. Though new qi would continue to flow in, the arrays brought down the concentration to tolerable limits for the spirit plants, herbs, and trees Ren intended to grow.

According to his plan, Ren would begin by planting life, nature, and yang attribute plants around the 9 sources of life qi near the sacred ground. Around the 9 sources of death qi near the forbidden region, he would plant death, ghost, and yin attribute plants. One of the nicest things about belonging to such an impressive and storied sect was the sheer variety of spiritual plants available even in the outer sect. Ren had little difficulty in finding plants of such rare qi alignments and for very reasonable prices, seeing as they mostly belonged to qi gathering realm and early foundation realm.

Up to this point, other custodians had also made similar attempts. In their records and through his tests, Ren had confirmed that the concentration of life and death qi was too high and would slowly strangle and smother those plants. Even the qi repelling arrays would fail to sustain the plants.

However, one past custodian had attempted to take it further. Life and death qi were higher-order qi belonging to some powerful concepts and daos, but everyone knew how closely related they were. Even if one lacked the slightest understanding, they knew that life and death were tied together. That past custodian had introduced some death qi to the areas around the sources of life qi and life qi to the areas around the sources of death qi. She had written about some very promising results that had got Ren very excited until he reached the abrupt end of her records.

The last entry had mentioned a future attempt to escalate the process but nothing beyond that. Man proposes and Heaven disposes. That had been one of the cases where Ren believed the custodian had destabilized the precarious balance between the life and death qi with catastrophic consequences. No custodian since had followed in that line of thought.

Until Ren.

Naturally, he wouldn’t blindly repeat steps hoping for new results. He believed that the mistake lay in attempting to directly influence the qi too rapidly. Hence, his next step was not to influence the qi but the land.

The first thing Ren intended to fix was the soil. Ren remembered his first manor in the outer sect, where he had improved the soil using qi-infused fertilizers, the Nurturing Rain Sutra, and even the droppings from his baby Myriad Path Tortoises. Combined with his careful planning and studies, Ren had drastically improved his success rate of growing spirit plants, allowing him to earn life-changing wealth in relative safety.

He had come a very long way since those days when he had been fumbling in the dark. Living in his first abode, he had gained experience laying out the mountain-spanning array using spirit plants as nodes. He had also grown proficient at creating complementary systems of plants like the wuxing cycle of elements. He had also experimented with introducing more elements to the system following the steps of another senior who dreamed of a complex garden ecosystem of multiple qi types.

From his earliest days, Ren had never slacked off and worked until he almost coughed up blood. This undertaking was the culmination of all that effort.

He had crushed the gravel and stones into a coarse sandy mix and added additional soil and fertilizers. He planted quick-growing herbs and trees. And finally, he danced the two sutras of rain and soil almost incessantly. Regardless of the death or life qi, the excess qi would initially boost their growth. The death qi understandably caused the plants to die swiftly. But contrary to his initial beliefs, life qi didn’t mean endless growth. The plants there would age quickly and die due to some internal deficiency that halted their cycle of life.

Yet the abnormally boosted cycle of life and death wasn’t without meaning. The remains of the plants were left behind, improving the soil with each cycle. More importantly, they left behind traces of death qi in the land around the sources of life qi. And the mere attempt to grow new plants left traces of life qi around the sources of death qi. However, faint traces were the extent of it. It would take thousands of cycles to create a permanent change. Ren didn’t have that kind of time or resources to endlessly plant weak spirit plants.

Still, it was a crucial step and a clear validation of his idea. After 3 such cycles, Ren grew more confident. He had enough seeds that he could repeat it another 7 times. He needed to make them count because it may be a very long time until he could find more resources, completely wasting the little momentum he gathered. The effects of the Nurturing Rain Sutra and the Enriching Soil Sutra were fixed so Ren addressed the one thing under his control. So with each cycle he improved his arrays.

In the next step, Ren would introduce a few death attribute plants around the life qi source and vice versa. This would bolster the traces and leave a slightly greater imprint on the land. This process carried unknown risks and would need rigorous monitoring.

He used his qi senses to examine the seeds and calculate their changing needs to better match them with neighbors who would let them collectively last longer. In a way, this work was very similar to the challenge he had left in the inner sect, aimed at herb growers. The next 3 cycles had already improved a lot, but it wasn’t enough. He needed to reach a certain baseline of change in the land before he could plant the Heart of Relentless Suffocation and Encroaching Darkness. Before then, the enfeebled plants he had purchased would fail at taking root and die, utterly ruining his plans.

The stakes were extremely high, and Ren spent many sleepless nights grouping different plants together to create the perfect combinations for the next 4 sets of plantings. He may be a strong body cultivator, but even his strengthened body was straining under the pressures he placed on himself. It was a point of further frustration for Ren that his body cultivation was stagnating.

He presently couldn’t obtain the high levels of vital essence required for his Boundless Space Physique, and the two yin flames weren’t recovered enough to be used for his Heavenly Fire Body Refining Manual frequently. He had bought some spirit beast bones to feed the Ossiferous Yin flame, and the flame partially mutated by astral qi, but not much, choosing to spend on the plants he needed.

Life was getting very stressful. He couldn’t afford to indulge in his usual hobbies of forging or alchemy either until the flames recovered. Though there were other limitations, like materials to work with. He was also cut off from his friends. Even his guilty pleasure of cooking delicious meals was limited by the lack of game to hunt, causing a sharp decline in quality from the delicious new dishes he had tasted in the outer sect of the Azure Mountains. He had plans for the goats and yaks on his abode, and the small rabbits Yu Ren hunted came spiced with deadly venom. His vexations compounded daily, taking its toll on him.

Perhaps they sensed his anxiety, but Yu Ran and his tortoises started to cling to him more. They would cling to his robes and insist on accompanying him around the mountains. Ren thanked the heavens they did, because it allowed him to make another remarkable discovery.

They could help!

---

At least this time, Ren didn’t have to carry an alchemy cauldron full of tortoises everywhere. He used the beast pouch to carry them from one qi repelling array to another before setting them loose. Except for the little one wanting to feel the rush of wind from atop his head.They had adjusted admirably over the months, but they still need some more time to go without protection entirely. In the meantime, unlike Yun Ren, the tortoises hadn’t grown in size. But the colorful spot on their shells had become richer and more vibrant.

At first just having company helped ground Ren, reminding him not to lose himself in refining the groupings of plants. But with time, he noticed the little ones dislodging seeds after he planted them. Amused at first at their play and then exasperated at their insistence, Ren had missed it. But he soon realized the movements weren’t random. Sometimes, just sometimes, the tortoises improved the arrays!

Neither the senses of spirit beasts nor their keen, inborn instincts about certain things should ever be underestimated. Despite never having read about Myriad Path Tortoises displaying any such ability, the reality was that the little ones had a knack for reading the flow of qi belonging to their aligned elements. Perhaps the environment in his previous abode had been too abundant for their minor ability to have any impact, but they shone brightly in this unique qi-rich yet stale atmosphere.

Once Ren noticed, he kept careful watch and found the little tortoises with yin or yang alignments suggested changes far more often than the others. He had only one of purely yin and yang alignments each, and they were far more insistent than those with dual attributes, such as the yang-wood aligned Wu Meng. But they all provided suggestions, save for Ang Jun, who only ever looked for insects and pests to fight.

That didn't mean that all their suggestions were valid. They were more often than not wildly wrong, since they didn't understand what he was trying to accomplish, but occasionally something they suggested ignited a new line of thought for Ren to consider. With that realization, Ren had the little tortoises accompany him everywhere. Everyone involved was happier with this arrangement. So how could Yu Ran be left behind?! He joined Ren, asking questions, fetching things, and even just napping curled up on Wu Meng. Ren really desired to put in more effort training the young snake, but beyond keeping it company, he presently didn’t have much time for more.

Another welcome distraction was the hatching of the Corpse Silk Moth eggs. This generation of little worms looked far more lively and healthier than any previous. Despite being raised inside the qi repelling arrays to avoid overwhelming the developing eggs, this environment was akin to a supreme cultivation chamber. For a species so closely tied to life and death, these mountains were perfect. Once they turned into moths, Ren wouldn’t even have to feed them! And he eagerly anticipated how much better the next generations would be. He quickly bound the little worms with the Intermediate Insect Control technique. It would suffice for now, but like all his other techniques, it needed to be upgraded.

Ren had just finished planting the 8th set of plants around the nodes when a familiar presence made itself known at his gates. Gathering up his companions, Ren rushed to the entrance gate on the first mountain, not even stopping to clean his dirt-encrusted appearance.

“Mei Ling! You’re back!”

"Ren, is that you under all that mud, or has someone else claimed this mountain?”

“Hpmh! There is dignity in an honest day’s labor! Of course the icy healer wouldn’t deign to get her hands dirty.”

"Oh, if only you knew the things I’ve had to touch to learn how to heal, you wouldn’t dare say that.” She visibly suppressed a shudder and then laughed. She reached out with her foot and prodded a large pile of dirty rags near her that had completely escaped Ren’s attention.

“Speaking of dirty, if I hadn’t promised to meet him here today, I wonder how long he would have slumbered here.”

“Huh? Wha… I did not. Oh, hi Ren.” Said the pile of rags. So much for the sharp senses he prided himself on if he missed his brother, lying collapsed at his front door!

“Bao Hua, you’re here too?!”