Chapter 120 – Challenges on the Horizon
A scene of carnage greeted Ren’s bleary eyes through a pounding headache the next morning. Mei Ling was sleeping, sitting upright in her chair, a line of drool extending to her shoulder. Yu Ran was coiled on her head like a crown with its tail tied into an actual knot. Ren vaguely recalled it being his idea with the young snake, an enthusiastic accomplice because it wanted to be a crown. On the other side of the fire, burned down to low coals, lay a practically naked Bao Hua. Sometime during the revelry last night, his rags had finally given up and disintegrated.
Ren had a wonderful vantage of it all from where he lay draped on a ledge of the mountain peak extending above the entrance to his cave. Trying to climb things was an unfortunate habit of his when sufficiently deep in his cups.
‘Aiyaa! It’s been a while since things got so out of hand! Did we… drink it all…?’
He scanned his spatial ring and found not a drop of the wine he bought meant to last him for months. He let out a weak groan and started climbing down. If it weren’t for his body cultivation, he would have suffered more than a few scrapes before he reached the bottom. Hands on his hips, he surveyed his home, a small smile sneaking onto his face despite his ineffective attempts to chastise himself for overindulging. He had truly missed his friends, and despite the headache, he felt better than he had in months. It was good to meet up with them and blow away all his worries with a good party.
Just then his eyes landed on his Mutating Bamboo Sword plants, which had been gnawed on some more. One of the worst affected plants was drooping, unlikely to survive. The sly pest had visited again, taking advantage of their lowered guard. There was no other damage, so Ren could confirm it was a mostly harmless annoyance, and in the spirit of last night, it was one he was willing to forgive just this once. But he resolved to catch the intelligent little thief the next time.
Some hot tea and food later, everyone looked far more presentable, even with Hua wearing a robe Mei Ling charitably donated.
“I can’t believe you fought to the point your clothes turned into rags. What about armor?” Ren said, shaking his head and chuckling.
“That was my armor! I kept patching and wearing it because I didn’t want to wear beast skins like a savage. Although they would have provided more protection, a man can’t lose face like that!”
Ren could tell even Mei Ling was very impressed with Bao Hua being in constant battle for months on end but, like Ren, wasn’t going to let him get away with it lightly.
“But you would have been fighting naked in a few days! Or was that an intentionally planned tactic to scare the beasts?”
“We can’t all be strategists thinking ten steps in advance like you! Oh, did you manage to find that misplaced list of books you got out of Ren? Is this it perhaps?” Bao Hua waved a jade slip and waggled his eyebrows crazily, and to Ren’s surprise, Mei Ling blushed furiously and fell silent without a rejoinder.
‘Why would names of books on the forbidden region be embarrassing?’ Ren felt he had forgotten something crucial.
After a while, the pair brought up the matter of a market to Bao Hua, who happily decided to join their venture. His days of constant combat had earned him a plethora of beast materials and the cores of foundation realm beasts. Currently, he was the wealthiest of them all! He had even lent out his territory to some interested hunters before he left to earn some additional income while he was away. He provided Ren with a large quantity of spirit beast meat, which was accepted without hesitation. The small patch of flesh eating moss Ren had was looking a bit dried up lately, and this was like being sent coal on a freezing winter night.
The last one remaining was Xi Yuan, who had wanted to come but got pulled into some sect matters by her master. Her talent was apparently being reevaluated by Azure Mountain standards. Ren took the opportunity to test his new communication talisman to send her a short message and invite her. The talisman consumed a significant amount of qi, but that allowed it to be reused for much longer. He would have to replace it eventually, but as he learned, it wasn’t nearly as expensive as he had initially believed.
By noon, Bao Hua had already returned to rest some more. Mei Ling needed to leave soon too, but before she did, she asked Ren in passing if he planned to resume creating ‘Challenges’ in the Azure Mountains.
“Last time, I had Elder Yun warding off inquisitions and protecting me from the shadows. I can’t be naïve and proceed without expecting consequences that I couldn’t possibly handle. I’ve learned that if they were willing to pay a sufficient cost, even a cultivator at my level could have gleaned the truth through divination. I did find a lead for a certain powder that could help, but it’s too rare and expensive. Hopefully my new connections in the black market could help. But until then, lacking protection and resources, I can only wait.”
“In that case, why don’t you build them in the lower dimensions?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t look into the Sword of the Celestial yet?! We’ve been here for months! Oh Ren, you lose yourself so wholeheartedly to what’s in front of you that you sometimes forget to look around. I don’t know the specifics, but one of the foremost rewards you can earn in the Azure Mountains is time before the Celestial’s Sword.
“You can exchange merit to be able to meditate in front of it or to enter the gates to the many subdimensions that are frequently ripped open by the great artifact’s mere presence. It’s said that the dimension-tearing property of the sword is how it ended up falling to ours in the first place. Those sub-dimensions it opens gates to often have entire civilizations within them! Hua can probably tell you more. Naturally, the colossal sword was one of the things he was most curious about!”
Ren’s thoughts were racing furiously as he turned to look at the titanic sword on the horizon, visible from anywhere in the sect. Mei Ling had suggested an incredibly suitable method for him to continue raising trials and forging a legacy. He had been feeling stifled at being unable to follow his dao, and this way he could act without it being tracked back to him. He would look into the Sword of the Celestial as soon as he settled matters in his abode. Thanking Mei Ling profusely for her suggestion, he bid her farewell.
The welcome break was over, and Ren was ready to resume his undertaking.
Though there weren’t any miraculous breakthroughs as soon as he returned, Ren felt far more capable of relentlessly calculating arrays and combinations, less frustrated by frequent failures. It wasn’t just a matter of motivation. His future seemed less uncertain now. He had found ways to make a living and follow his dao even if this venture failed. It took the edge off.
He burst out laughing at his private joke and nearly forgot the combination he had been testing.
Another reason for his improved mood was that the months of studies and effort were continuously proving the validity of his idea. He was on the 8th set of seeds and plants to create a working array, blending life and death, and this batch had lasted much longer than the others.
The soil had improved significantly. Though it no longer felt sterile, Ren hesitated to call it alive, especially the soil filled with death qi. More accurately, it was suffused with a mix of varied qi. The attempts to plant opposing elements to the source of qi had also worked to increase the traces left behind when the cycles of life and death eventually ended.
The combinations he had devised, assisted by suggestions from the tortoises, were also working well in conjunction with the soil. They lasted twice as long as they did at the start. With 18 nodes, he had some room for failure, and he made the most of it. Many failed, but he had some promising successes too.
He had tried including seeds of his Purifying Life Lotus, which were known to refine miasma from befouled lands, which the forbidden regions definitely were. They had thrived in the soil near the death qi nodes, barely even requiring water! Ren had high hopes for them to mutate to specialize in refining this particular blend of qi. He had plenty of seeds but was still being cautious for fear of destabilizing the balance. They could be introduced slowly.
On the other side, the lotuses may have failed, but the small bits of the flesh eating moss were stubbornly surviving the onslaught of life qi. Ren had initially expected it to fail, but the moss was bolstered by the spirit beast meat Hua provided and took root well. It had already stopped requiring flesh and was sufficiently nourished by the ambient qi!
The moss had dispelled the clouds and let Ren see the sun because of what it meant. The flesh eating moss had always contained high levels of essence, which Ren used to feed his pets and replenish his body after body cultivation sessions. If the moss and the lotus both managed to thrive, then they presented another source of essence for Ren to practice the Boundless Space Physique! That method didn’t use qi, only essence, which was found in plants and spirit beasts.
It would reduce the burden on Ren’s other arrangements, the goats and the yaks. Ren had initially planned to feed them with the plants he grew and fatten them up well before using that essence for his body cultivation. Without any other hunting prospects, his options were extremely limited. But they were few in number, and Ren feared it would take too long to raise larger herds.
‘If only my family could see me now! First a farmer, and now dreaming of becoming a goatherd. Hah! Father would have disinherited me.’
Sparing a thought for how his family might have fared after the fall of the Heavenly Sword Sect was surprisingly not that difficult for Ren. For the most part, he had already begun to sever ties with them. Any debt he might have owed them had been repaid many times over, so by the principles of his cultivation, his extended family may as well be strangers now. But one’s parents were not so easily forgotten.
‘Wherever they are, I wish them a peaceful and long life.’ He thought as he stroked Yu Ran’s shiny scales.
“Why stop, Ren?”
“It’s nothing, little one. Tell me, how has your hunting been?”
“The hoppers are slow now. Ambush works every time.”
“That’s good. You need to train hard too if you want to come with me and Ling to the forbidden lands. Being stealthy is your strongest defense, but we will have to learn to work together. It’ll be your first real test.”
Returning to his work of reading the flows of qi and the repeated interactions between plants, Ren worked tirelessly.
On the fourth day after he arrived, Bao Hua finally stirred from his slumber and came to visit. A bloody aura occasionally leaked out, but it had started to feel less like a rampaging beast baring its teeth at him. Ren thought his brother still had a long way to go if he wanted to wield that baleful aura as killing intent.
“Hey Ren, have you heard of Natal Weapons?”
“Of course! All weapons smiths dream of making something like that! A weapon that is useful for a core formation realm cultivator is one in a hundred thousand!”
“Oh? Then you’ll like this. Master Jun Yi said that my sword, the ‘Storm Tyrant,’ has the makings of a natal weapon. Can you help me reforge it?”