Chapters 23-24

It took everything Jun had to calmly finish exhaling. Almost immediately the pain noticeably eased—leaving behind a dull throb that could be felt from his crown, all the way to the tips of his toenails and back. Unfortunately, Jun was given no time for further reflection before the next breath in the unforgiving chain arrived. He was fully committed to the second stage by now, and he knew there would be no turning back. With mounting dread, he added another exhale to the cycle—lasting for only two heartbeats this time. Once again, a terrible pain stole through him, as if millions of miniature razor blades had been introduced into his blood stream. The sheer agony of it was unimaginable, half again as bad as the previous flare, so that it was all he could do to grit his teeth through the pain and maintain his steady breathing.

His hesitant exhale did nothing to alleviate the pressure building in his dantien. And he recognized that he’d have to release his spirit at a far faster pace than that. That if he didn’t, and soon, his will was bound to give out long before he was finished. And then where would he be? Smeared all over the walls would be his first guess.

It was around then that Jun truly began to fear. Because he could already tell that releasing the pent-up energy would not be a quick process. At the rate he was going, it would be hours yet before he found himself in the clear. Meaning that he’d barely even started and already the pain was too much. And if, like he was beginning to suspect, the pain only increased with every cycle of breath… just how bad would things be in an hour? Two? Could he even survive such an ordeal? If not physically, then mentally. Could he withstand what amounted to a prolonged session of torture, and then maintain the will to keep getting stronger after the fact? Once he made it out onto the other side? If he made it out at all? With a dread shock of soul deep terror, he found that the answer wasn’t even in question. No. No, he absolutely could not.

His analytical mind shut off about then. Too absorbed by the horror of his current situation. Which was why when an errant thought—innocuous at first glance, almost trite—was gently lobbed up from the deep recesses of his subconscious, he almost ignored it out of hand. And yet, something about it made him hesitate. It wasn’t even that he thought it would work exactly. It was just that, well, he didn’t really have anything to lose.

And so, with a thought, Jun used [Cutting Hand]—instantly wreathing his clenched fists in a shifting red mist. Immediately he felt a change come over him. A loosening of his muscles as panic eased, and the pain he felt lessened. Yet it still wasn’t enough. Barely conscious of what he did next, or how, indeed, he was doing it at all, Jun found whatever mechanism transformed his hands into sharpened weapons and pulled.

Slowly at first, almost hesitantly, the shifting red smoke began to climb up his forearms. Within seconds it’d reached up to his elbows, then to his shoulders, and then, in a wild rush, the strange technique rose up all at once to sheath his entire body in the semi-transparent mist. Instantly, the difference he felt was staggering.

Ding!

Congratulations!

Your Mantra [Cutting Hand] (Poor Quality) has evolved.

[Cutting Hand] (Poor Quality) has become:

[Blade’s Sheath] (Good Quality) +5 resonance.

It wasn’t that the pain had gone anywhere exactly. Instead, it was as if a cloudy pane of glass had been placed between him and the agony. So that, if he really squinted hard at it, he could still make out vague shapes, but the brunt of it no longer held the edge it once had. Almost as if it were another person’s pain entirely. He felt good. No, more than that he felt in control. It would also appear he hadn’t half imagined the brief flash of calm rationality he’d felt the last times he summoned his Cutting Hand. And now that he’d upgraded the mantra, the effects were like night and day.

And so, it was with an almost detached sense of unreality that he continued the breathing rotation. Freed from the pain, he was finally allowed time to properly observe the goings on. And in that same detached way, it didn’t take long for him to realize that it wasn’t technically his body that was being affected, but instead the strange channels that were funneling his spirit. Something which, admittedly, made a lot of sense. Contrary to expectations, whenever he exhaled the pent-up spirit didn’t simply take the simplest route from his diaphragm to his nasal passages. Instead, the spirit appeared to trace a roundabout pathway, which wound its way throughout the entirety of his body, leaving utter ruin in its wake as it did so.

Jun continued to cultivate. Time slowly passed. And as one hour bled into the next, then became three, and nearly four, he began to feel the edges of panic vying for his attention once more. The pain, likely never having stopped its measured advance, soon began to wear away at even his newfound mental defenses. Very soon the pain rose to match its previous crescendo, leaving him shaken by the decidedly grim implications. What might it have felt like had he not had his cutting aura active, he wondered? Nevertheless, he continued to release one breath after another, this despite the ever-mounting agony. His only consolation the near certainty that he was basically on the final stretch.

In this way, time dragged on one glacial second after another. His mind falling into a hazy, pain induced stupor. One so complete and overwhelming, that he almost missed the most important bit entirely. The moment when the winds swirling around in his diaphragm finally died out.

The ordeal left a tear-streaked Jun kneeling prostrate. Weeping in a cold puddle of his own sweat. Forehead resting against the wet stone. Body trembling like a leaf in the wind, he could feel the faded edges of unconsciousness slowly encroaching. With a shake of his head, however, he banished even the temptation. He simply couldn’t afford such a luxury. Not yet. He had to understand what it was he’d done first. And whether or not he’d suffered irreparable damage. He took a second to compose himself, then flared out his cutting aura—instantly forcing calm. He opened his eyes.

Your body has transcended its natural limits.

50 CELESTIAL ESSENCE CONSOLIDATED.

Your mind has transcended its natural limits.

50 CELESTIAL ESSENCE CONSOLIDATED.

Your spirit has transcended its natural limits.

50 CELESTIAL ESSENCE CONSOLIDATED.

Wow… Four measly hours to earn nearly double what I’d have consolidated in a year previously, and that’s not even counting what all I’ve gained in spirit. Wait, how much stronger does that make me? I guess that’s what risking life and limb gets you. Huh. …I hate the fact that I’m actually starting to get the appeal, damn them.

Rising gingerly to a sitting position, he managed to catch Ivory’s eye as, for the first time in days, she peeled her gaze up away from her book. And so it was that he got to watch, in real time, as she first scrutinized his sorry state, contemplated admonishing him for, yet again, placing his health unnecessarily at risk, apparently wrote him off as a hopelessly lost cause, before she turned back to whichever page she’d been on.

Ah, well. It would appear I’ve turned my once bubbly companion into quite the jaded little creature, Jun thought. And all in the span of half a week no less. Either that or Lady Maisell made more of an impact on her than I’d first realized.

To which a disapproving “hmph!” was her only response, essentially proving his point.

Shaking his head, only once he’d re-centered himself, did he dare to take a peek inside his dantien. He was immediately shocked by what he saw. The wind in the space was entirely absent, but in its place, sat six small leaves. And it didn’t end there either. He hadn’t taken more than a cursory glance before, but if he had to wager a guess, he’d say that his pathways felt…bigger? Hollower somehow. As if the pressure of all that energy being released had ballooned them outward. Given what he’d been through, it wasn’t a hard thing to believe.

Though that did beg the question, what did this mean for him specifically? Of course, the benefits were readily apparent. Three new leaves in less than a day? He was still feeling rather sated so it can’t have been that long. It had taken him more than two days to form his first ever leaf. To have tripled that output in a fraction of the time…? What could that mean for his cultivation if he could keep up such a pace?

Jun, getting a hunch, decided to try something. With a mental nudge, he sent a small amount of spirit through his channels, finding the act as natural as breathing. Ignoring the sharp pain with a detached disinterest, he noticed that the energy moved noticeably faster through his channels. It moved at what had to have been half again what he’d been capable of previous. And while he wasn’t sure what that might mean moving forward, being faster on the uptake had never led him wrong before. Perhaps the same would apply to cultivation?

First things first though, he’d definitely done some damage to his channels, even if he couldn’t feel it at the moment. If he wanted to continue to cultivate in this way—in Jun’s mind the benefits far outweighed a little discomfort—then he would need a way to heal himself after every session. If not, he might wind up crippling himself for good. He wasn’t confident on how far he could, or should, be pushing things, and would prefer not to find out he’d overstepped his bounds the hard way.

His first instinct was to use the mending pills he’d bought, but something made him hesitate. It wasn’t really his body that was injured, right? Sure, he’d been in immense pain, but when actually inspecting himself physically, he felt fine. Would the pill even do anything? Or would it be equivalent to flooding his channels again—only serving to worsen the damage? Were there specific resources to combat such an injury that he just didn’t know about?

Feeling like there had to be something—he refused to believe he was the first to stumble into such a dilemma—he decided to contact the highest authority on such matters. With a jarring chime, he opened his screens and entered the system’s general marketplace. It would seem he had some shopping left to do. And while he was there, he might as well check up on how his investments were panning out. He had no idea how expensive such a treatment might be, after all. And he’d hate to come across the perfect solution, only to be stymied due to a lack of funds. Wasting no time, Jun made his way over to the trading house screen. When he saw what all was waiting for him there, he couldn’t help but smile.

 ————————————————————

 Interlude

—————————

His Li Minghua

Ivory

As the impenetrable depths of those abyssal shores surrounded her, as they tried to choke the life from her, and all light seemed to fade away, uncertainties she’d been avoiding up until now—one’s that she hadn’t even dared to think, let alone speak—rushed immediately to the fore. Only to fall away just as quickly. Leaving her, in their aftermath, entirely cleansed of doubt. Feeling as if her very soul had been scrubbed raw.

Although, if it hurt, she thought to herself, it was the good kind of pain. For it was the kind that portended true revelation—her own divine truth.

And, just like that, the final words her teacher spoke to her neatly clicked themselves into place, and at last she understood why she’d been unable to use the final technique he’d bestowed upon her. She understood why the path forward had been barred to her, and more importantly, how she might take those very first steps.

And so, far beneath the ocean’s capricious waves, in that cold and suffocating place so utterly foreign, her body became a radiant, golden beacon of hope in an otherwise bleak and uncertain time. Now revealed clearly before her in stark lines of light on darkness, the abyssal hoard, nearly a million strong, who’d sought to hurt her friends, enslave her emperor, and ravage her home—without cause, nor mercy, nor even an inkling of remorse—looked upon her now celestial visage and recoiled.

Ivory took a second to calm her nerves before she even thought about turning to the next page. Even still, in all her eager excitement, she managed to move just a little too quickly, though not too, too quickly, which was all that really mattered. Everyone knew that was how you got a torn page after all—something she hadn’t done this time around. Or, well, if she had, it was only by a little so it didn’t really count. Ivory had very nearly wept with frustration the last time she’d accidentally ripped the climax free from its bindings. And the time before that. And… the time before that too…

Anyway, Jun had only caught her crying the one time. And even then, she was pretty sure she’d been able to pass them off as either his fault, the story’s fault, or both if she was lucky. In other words, not the fault of her own clumsy digits, and that was really all she cared about.

For the record, Ivory thought it unacceptable that she didn’t know immediately whether her ruse had actually worked or not. It used to be that she knew what he was thinking like she’d thought it up herself. But he’d gotten far too comfortable keeping his mind from her recently. It’d been that way ever since they’d been reunited in fact. Quite frankly, she wasn’t entirely sure if she was done being cross with him over it. In fact, if he weren’t so thoughtful, and kind, and the only person she really trusted in the whole wide world, she was positive she’d have gone her own separate way a long time ago.

It was what Li Minghua would’ve done—had done, according to all the books. Though, the more she thought about the prospect, the less and less realistic it became. That was surely why her insides seemed to squish and twist at the idea of leaving him behind. Because, really, it wasn’t the same thing at all! Or even close, for that matter! As far as she was aware, she didn’t know any celestial grade techniques, passed down from emperors and kings since the dawn of time.

When she found some, Ivory decided, she could revisit the idea. Until then, she supposed she was stuck with him for now. Well, at least until he up and got himself killed doing something impossibly foolish. Again, it was like her guts were being squeezed by invisible hands. Perhaps this was that hunger thing he kept pestering her about? Whatever it was, she found she didn’t like it one bit.

Ivory glanced up in his direction, very discreet like, so he wouldn’t notice and think she was maybe done being angry with him. And even if she was, for the most part anyway, that didn’t mean she wanted him knowing that. Not before she was good and ready. And so, she very wisely turned to discretion. In any case, she needn’t have bothered. He was sitting in the same place he always did, staring off into space with that goofy grin he sometimes got. A feeling of warmth pooled in her belly upon seeing that. She was feeling a lot of things recently. Even stronger than in the before. And that was saying something since, way back then, it was the most she’d thought anyone had ever felt… well, ever. It was new, and strange, and scary at times but right then she didn’t seem to mind it so much.

She’d given up on trying to make him see reason. Even now that he was so much weaker than he had been, if he decided to try something idiotic, there wasn’t much she could do to stop him except give him a piece of her mind and hope against all hope he’d somehow see sense. So far, that approach hadn’t really worked out so well. Which left her, ultimately, with only one real option. Contrary to the before, she found he was a lot like Liang Xin in many ways. Brainy with the books but stupid where it really counts. Always getting himself into sticky situations and needing Li Minghua to swoop in and save the day. It was just plain typical of him to be this hopelessly exasperating purely to annoy her. Like the wonderful Mistress Maisell would say, you really just couldn’t with some people.

Well, in any case, if she was stuck with him for the foreseeable future, she’d just have to make do with his innate stupidity. And if he was so utterly set on being a Liang Xin, then it only followed that she would just have to become his Li Minghua.

 ***

One-hundred and fifteen “sold” icons greeted him upon pulling up the trading house screen. One-hundred fifteen! He knew he was basically selling for dirt cheap, but even still, after the week he’d had? It was just hard to believe things could be going so smoothly.

The practice was not an uncommon one, though it was a bit on the riskier side given precisely who he was shorting in the exchange. It was an idea he’d stumbled upon years back. Though back then he’d been too afraid of the possible consequences to attempt it. Now that he had little choice in the matter, it was a startling thing to realize that the system appeared more or less amenable to the idea—in so far as he hadn’t received any warnings to the contrary. It even led him to believe that maybe this was exactly how the title had been meant to be used.

A strange thing to contemplate, though it did ultimately play into the cultivator’s warped philosophy. Why should the exceptional be forced to do things the average way when cheating gave just as good results, if not better? In many ways, the concept of “talent” itself was just an ingrained ability to skip steps that should’ve been necessary. The rich are born with resources that far surpass their peers, while the well-connected are given better opportunities than those just as equally qualified. And if his theory was indeed correct, it only made sense, then, from the systems point of view, to allow for such an exploit to not only be possible, but encouraged.

It wasn’t all that complicated really. With his twenty five percent discount, he was able to make bulk purchases for a fraction of the cost. Leaving him in a position to resell said wares at prices that, for most, would mean considerable financial losses. For him though?

So long as the amount deducted didn’t exceed the twenty five percent he never even payed, his margins, as it turned out, weren’t all that bad. They were fairly remarkable actually. Like this, he was able to undercut even the cheapest of reasonable prices with ease, due in large part to the fact that his prices were inherently unreasonable. And as for his customers? Jun couldn’t blame them for capitalizing on what they likely saw as a steal—willfully profiting off of a perceived error in the price listing, or else some other idiotic blunder. It was the carrion nature of the merchant, and he didn’t begrudge them their feeding frenzy. It was the very thing that was making him rich after all.

The only really tricky part had been divining which items would be in hot demand. That and the limited amount of stock he was allowed to purchase at a time. A fairly generous cap under normal circumstances, it hadn’t ever really been something he worried about. With the way things were going, however, he was starting to get perilously close to his weekly maximum.

Shopkeep’s Weekly Total

Store resets in 119:45:09

Common Rarity Items: [92,000 of 100,000]

Uncommon Rarity Items: [48,560 of 50,000]

Rare Rarity Items: [0 of 10,000]

Epic Rarity Items: [0 of 5,000]

Superior Rarity Items: [0 of 1,000]

Prodigious Rarity Items: [0 of 500]

Perennial Rarity Items: [0 of 100]

Legendary Rarity Items: [0 of 50]

Peerless Rarity Items: [0 of 10]

With all his financial feelers loosed out on the open market, all that’d been left was to sit back and cultivate. He’d done this multiple times over the course of the last few days, and the results had been astonishing. Tallying everything up, Jun calculated he had to have made a little over six million spirit coins in just a few days, nearly doubling his initial pool in a fraction of the time it should’ve taken. Now, with coin secured, there was really only one thing left for him to do.

He exited the trading house and started searching through the general store. After a dozen or so minutes, he finally found something that looked promising.

High Grade Meridian Rejuvenation Pill (Uncommon)—100,000 SP

75,000 SP (-25%)

He found it ludicrous that a single pill cost the same as a low tiered spacial artifact, but that didn’t stop him from buying ten of them right away. He could only pray the price matched its medicinal efficacy. Setting aside the majority of the pills, he grabbed one and downed it immediately. Within moments a soothing wave of cool energy coursed through his channels, quickly easing his throbbing pathways, and leaving them feeling clean and refreshed.

Taking a moment to cycle some spirit, he found that moving his celestial energy elicited no pain whatsoever. Jun grinned. With these pills in hand, he wouldn’t have to worry about injuring himself with his own cultivation any time soon. Now all he needed was a little spirit and he could get right back into the process of spirit compression. And so, it was with a jolt of anticipation that Jun palmed his very first spirit restoration pill and downed it with a long swig from his flask. Sitting back, Jun felt the pill as it traveled down his esophagus, taking its sweet time until, at last, it rested squarely in the pit of his stomach.

The sudden eruption of spirit would’ve likely been enough to startle a novice cultivator into injuring or even crippling themselves out of pure shock. It was a description that—had he not undergone a full rotation of the [Leaf Rides the Gale] form—would’ve pretty much summed him up perfectly. Seeing as he had survived such an ordeal, however, it was simplicity itself to slip into [Leaf Follows the Current] and guide all of that wild energy directly into his dantien. At which point the once still void abruptly transformed into a furious gale.