Vessel of Worlds

The burly man's thick brows knotted, his bell-round eyes bulging with anger. "Bah, spare us the false courtesy. I say you're qualified, so you're qualified. Tell us where your family or sect is, and the two of us will wipe them out clean — then you can kowtow to us as your masters with an easy heart!"

"Trying to steal a disciple from us, the Yunheng Twin Fiends? You must be tired of living!" the other burly man bellowed.

Andy could only sigh inwardly. These two were plainly unreasonable men — they were the ones trying to force him into becoming their disciple, and yet they kept insisting someone else was stealing him from them.

This might be Yingzhou Immortal Isle, but Jade Cream Peak wasn't far off, and cultivators from every sect and faction passed through the area regularly. He doubted these two would dare openly defy the rules of the Three Isles and attack him here. Still, talking his way out of this was proving to be quite the headache.

Just then, a young scholar in a green robe drifted over from not far away, a paper fan in hand. He clasped his fists in greeting. "Peace, fellow cultivators. I wonder how this outer disciple of my sect has offended you both — I, Shu of the Scholars' Sect, am willing to apologize on his behalf."

Andy sensed the man's cultivation — early Core Formation — and froze for a moment. When he got a good look at the man's face, he was even more startled.

It was Shu Jiangnan, the pedantic scholar he'd crossed paths with once, decades ago, back when the man had been at late Foundation Establishment. Andy hadn't expected that after all these years, Shu would already be a senior at Core Formation. Back then, the man had told him he carried a scholarly aura and could master Confucian techniques with half the effort, and had even left word for Andy to look him up at the Scholars' Sect someday.

Andy had put the whole encounter out of his mind long ago, but seeing the man again now, it all came rushing back. Still, wasn't the claim that he was an outer disciple of the Scholars' Sect awfully easy to expose? If he really belonged to such a prestigious sect, surely he'd be wearing something bearing its emblem, if only to shield himself with the sect's name.

"Hmph. The Scholars' Sect, of the Righteous Alliance. You think dropping that name is going to scare the Yunheng Twin Fiends? This is Yingzhou Immortal Isle — you think you can push us around here?" The man's words stayed defiant, but the bite had gone out of his tone. The cultivator before them might only be at early Core Formation, but the Scholars' Sect was one of the Righteous Alliance's five great sects, and the two brothers didn't dare provoke it.

"That's right — you claim he's an outer disciple of your Scholars' Sect, but where's your proof? If you've got none, don't stand in the way of us taking on a disciple!" the other man added, putting on a show of bluster.

Andy thought to himself that despite their rough, boorish looks, these two weren't stupid at all. Every word out of their mouths managed to avoid offending the Scholars' Sect while still refusing to back down. As for demanding proof, they'd probably guessed the scholar was just smoothing things over with whatever excuse came to mind.

To both Andy's and the brothers' surprise, the young scholar simply smiled and said, without missing a beat, "Of course. I, Shu, would never make baseless claims without proof."

With that, he made a light hand seal, and a screen of white spiritual light several chi across sprang into being, covered in drifting characters of every color, swelling and shrinking in a strange, shifting dance.

"Take a look, both of you — this is one of the special abilities unique to Confucian techniques, a barrier of light drawn from one's scholarly aura." The young scholar's expression turned serious. He gazed at Andy for a moment, then slowly flicked a hand seal in his direction.

Andy checked it over carefully and confirmed the seal held only the faintest trace of spiritual power, nowhere near enough to harm him, so he stood still and let it strike.

What happened next was strange indeed. A faint white light rose from the surface of Andy's body, drifting characters of every color flickering in and out of view across it, swelling and shrinking just like on the scholar's screen. Even Andy himself found it baffling — especially once he noticed that the characters didn't look like any script used on the Tianyuan Continent.

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"You see, both of you — this one carries a scholarly aura as well. I trust that's proof enough of his ties to our Confucian teachings." The young man explained with a smile, then turned to Andy. "Your surname is Zhao, isn't it? Whatever you did to offend these two seniors, hurry up and apologize!"

"This junior, Andy, knows his fault. I beg the two seniors to calm their anger!" Andy bowed hastily. Never mind that the entire mess had started with those two fierce brutes trying to force him into discipleship — somehow he was the one ending up apologizing. Then again, that was nothing unusual in the cultivation world. He'd never once heard of a high-level cultivator humbling himself to apologize to someone weaker; more often than not, the higher-level cultivator simply killed whoever displeased them.

"Hmph. If you'd already joined a sect, you should've said so from the start — wasting our time!" The two brothers, knowing full well the matter of taking a disciple was dead in the water and glad for an excuse to save face, tossed out that last line and left together.

Once they were gone, Andy bowed again to the young scholar. "Congratulations to Senior Shu on forming your core and becoming an elder of Core Formation — and my thanks for stepping in to save me."

The young scholar didn't answer right away. He simply studied Andy in silence, and after a moment let out a long sigh. "Your scholarly aura has grown so faint — less than half of what it was decades ago. I suspect the killing aura you carry has been crowding it out. You must have done a great deal of killing over these years."

"In answer to Senior, this junior has simply gone hunting beasts in the Outer Star Sea many times over, in search of beast cores." Privately, Andy felt a flicker of unease. What exactly were this scholarly aura and killing aura the man kept mentioning, and what did they mean for his future cultivation? He resolved to look into it properly the moment he had the chance. Daoist techniques rarely so much as mentioned either concept. Killing aura, at least, had come up once in a jade slip that had belonged to the Blood Intent Sect's young master, though only in the briefest, most passing mention. There were simply too many strange arts and phenomena in the cultivation world; even after all his years of practice and all the texts he'd read, plenty still eluded him. Now that the matter concerned himself directly, he would have to set aside time to look into it properly.

"All living things are equal — what difference is there, truly, between killing a man and killing a beast? There's simply too much blood on your hands. If you don't take up some technique to purge that killing aura, sooner or later you'll fall to the heterodox path." The scholar shook his head, his tone full of regret.

"My thanks for the guidance, Senior. This junior will be careful." Andy bowed in gratitude, knowing the warning came from genuine goodwill, and his thanks were entirely sincere.

"Well then. I, Shu, have a question — I wonder if fellow cultivator Zhao might satisfy my curiosity?" The young scholar fixed Andy with a curious look.

"Senior need only ask. This junior will answer whatever he knows." Andy was already eighty percent certain he knew what the question would be.

Sure enough, the young scholar said, "A scholarly aura is something that normally only arises gradually, after a cultivator has taken up a Confucian technique and spent a dedicated stretch of time in secluded study. For us Confucian cultivators, it's the very foundation our spells draw their power from. I can't tell what technique you practice, but it's plainly a pure Daoist lineage. So how is it that you carry a scholarly aura at all?"

"In answer to Senior, this junior spent nearly twenty years in hard study as a child, before ever setting foot in the cultivation world. I wonder if that might be part of the reason?" Andy had his answer ready, half-truth and half-fabrication.

"Ah, so that's it. Though in that case, fellow cultivator wasted the best years for cultivation entirely for nothing — and yet you've still reached the very peak of late Foundation Establishment. That's remarkable indeed." The young scholar nodded, looking as though it had all just clicked into place. How much of it he actually believed, Andy had no way of knowing.

The young scholar opened the fan in his hand and gave it a few light waves. "You and I have crossed paths twice now — that counts for something. But given your cultivation as it stands, urging you to start Confucian techniques from scratch would be asking too much of you. I still need to go escort a disciple of my sect. Farewell for now."

"My thanks, Senior!" Andy bowed low, and by the time he straightened up, the young scholar had already become a streak of white light, vanishing several li into the distance.

The escape-light speed of a Core Formation cultivator truly was something else, nowhere near what even his Wind-Treading Flood Dragon could match.

Andy watched the scholar's retreating figure, a trace of envy flickering in his eyes. He wondered whether, the next time he came to Yingzhou Immortal Isle, he too might arrive as a senior and an expert in his own right.

He made up his mind: once he returned to Penglai Immortal Isle, he would get everything in order, then shut himself away in his cave abode to seek a breakthrough — and he would not emerge until he had formed the Primordial Unity Golden Core.