Chapter 355
Ghosts of the Mine (I)
I've rarely seen Light smile, let alone laugh.
For a seven-year-old girl, she was this strange dichotomy: stern, boulder-ish stoicism, sarcastic beyond her years, drably apathetic... yet, anyone who spends more than a day with her will quickly realize that she really is just a seven-year-old girl. There are things that no amount of early, gnarly experiences can hide, and she seldom even has the tools to attempt it.
But now, as she was floating leisurely about ten feet off the ground... she was laughing.
Laughing as though wholly unconcerned about everything.
Laughing like a child ought to.
... For a while now, I realized, I've kind of given up even trying to give these kids a 'normal' childhood. Perhaps the world bent me just far enough to make it so I don't believe it possible, but regardless of the reason... I'd given up. But hearing her laughter and seeing others' expressions alight, too, is... well, disheartening.
There was a way, a way to at least try.
"Come on, Light! Teach us too!" Dai Xiu pressed. "Master, please tell her to teach us!"
"Don't involve me," I said, still seated alongside Lao Shun and Long Tao. "I already said, if Light chooses to teach you, she can. If not... there's nothing I can do about it."
"Humph!" she pouted but quickly turned toward light and begged again. The little girl seemed to be enjoying it a great deal, cackling away while making strange poses midair.
"Besides, don't you all have your own things to learn?"
That did little to diffuse the situation, as Light continued to taunt, Dai Xiu continued to pout, Xing Feng looked like he really wanted to fly, too, and the rest of the kids did their best to hide it.
"Right, ye' old alchemist," I turned toward Lao Shun.
"Oh no."
"What?"
"Any time you refer to me as an alchemist," he said. "You proceed to shock the soul out of me. Will you do it again?"
"... I don't know. Let's see?" I mulled for a moment which recipe to procure, but I had a feeling that it didn't really matter. As such, I just chose the pill I would need the most of: the Void-Nullifying Pill. "This," the parchment appeared on the top of my hand as I extended it toward him. "Can you concoct it?"
"..." his expression distorted slightly as he took the parchment and flipped it over, reading it. I could pretty much guess by the play his face put on--the slightly uncomfortable expression quickly melded into one of shock, then one of horror, then a strange mix between the two, then he paused for a moment to shoot me a bedeviled stink-eye before looking back down, his face twisting further and further away from a normal human expression. "Fuck." he spat out loud as he seemed to finish it. I think that was the first time I'd heard him curse out loud. "Do I even dare ask where you got this?"
"My third cousin, twice removed, had an aunt who--"
"--yeah, yeah, yeah," he quickly interrupted, taking a deep breath. "I will just say: this pill doesn't exist."
"Hm?"
"Not anymore, at least," he added. "It is listed in the compendium of Historical Records, but has been considered a lost type for... well, for forever, practically."
"Interesting."
"It has the capacity to dissolve spatial twists and essentially freeze the Laws of Space within a radius."
"Marvelous."
"Consuming one means that you can flicker through spacetime at will, depending on the pill's potency."
"Extraordinary."
"You could, theoretically, walk into a Chaos Storm's edges, grab a crystal or two, and leave... and survive."
"Phenomenal."
"Oi, you bastard! Take this shit seriously!" while he cursed me out a bit, Long Tao stifled his laughter, though his shoulders' movements betrayed his state.
"I am!"
"Like hell you are! If I went to the Tower with this recipe, do you know what they'd do to me?"
"Make you the leader?"
"Dip me into boiling oil, upside-down, until I squealed where I got it!" he said. "This is categorized under 'Extinct Recipes'," he added, his tone rather serious. "It doesn't just mean that nobody's heard of it or seen the pill in a long time. It means that a group of Alchemists had likely spent thousands of years scouring every inch of every realm, searching for either a set of pills or the recipe. And only after diving into every possible place, and still not finding anything, did they declare it extinct. And yet, here it is."
"... and yet, here it is."
"Haah," he sighed, scratching his head. "Whatever. I'd already made an oath to not disclose anything."
"That's the attitude."
"Oh, drop dead, you bastard."
"Ha ha ha, come on, don't be like that," I said. "Weren't you the one who said that your life was beyond boring? Well?"
"Indeed. But if I had known it would turn into this, I would have never followed you."
"Ah, let the bygones be bygones," I shrugged. "You never answered my question. If you can't, I have to find somebody who can."
"... hah. You really are heartless," he said. "Truth is, not even Tower Master would be able to concoct this--not with ordinary means, anyway." Hm? Didn't the system say that it prepared those pills specifically in consideration of my circumstances?
"I'll be able to do it with the cauldron you've given me," he said. "But I will need help."
"What kind of help?"
"I never took in a Disciple," he added. "Not direct one, anyway. However, there was one kid in the Tower that would pester me often, and to get her off my back, I'd share a nugget of wisdom or two with her. I'll need her help."
"Why do I have a feeling it won't be that simple?"
"Last I heard," he said. "She tried to scam someone in the Jade Blossom City and got thrown in jail."
"... haah. Let's hope she's still there, then."
"Forget the concoction," he said. "Some of the ingredients required won't be easy to source." Figures. "The city, though, has a branch of the Tower; if I put in a request, I'll at least be able to learn where we can get them."
As the dawn wound on and the kids finished their morning spars, we got up, packed up, and left.
For the next twenty days straight, all we did was travel--at an immense pace, even. The days became rather similar to one another: wake up before dawn, practice, spend the entire day walking with maybe one break on the way, and camp when the night fell. The kids spent the nights cultivating while I spent them sorting the items, occasionally trying to comprehend a thing or two, and playing chess against Xing Feng.
... that kid is scary, to be honest. If we were plunked back on Earth, I've no doubt he'd eventually become a contender for a world champion. He learns scary fast, and by the twentieth day, he'd actually managed to beat me once or twice.
After learning how to play chess for just a month. Sheesh.
On the twentieth day we came upon a river mouth, gushing and wide, as it spilled into Moon Lake. And at its back, we came upon the first people we've seen since leaving Moonlake City.
Chapter 356
Ghosts of the Mine (II)
"Three, are you done?"
"Just about, Boss."
"I told you not to call me that."
"Haah. What's wrong with calling Boss a Boss?"
"Just listen to me for once."
"Pipe down, you two. Somebody's coming," a woman's irate voice broke the tension as the six figures shuffled their gazes from the caravan to the south, where silhouettes broke through the haze. There were quite a few of them, they noted.
"Two men," the woman continued. "The rest are children."
"Should we kill them?"
"Is killing the only thing you know how to do?"
"... yes?"
"Ugh. Just shut up. The strongest among them is just at the Revolving Core Realm. They're probably a random group that left that stupid festival in the city. Cover the cargo and let me do the talking."
The five men grumbled as they quickly pulled the cloth over the cages. It was far from ordinary cloth--woven from the strands of lutich grass, it had natural properties of concealment, so much so that even Demigods struggled to see through it using Divine Sense.
She dissented from the rest of her group, feeling annoyed; though she knew Master sent her with them as a test for her Heart, she was not doing well. She would struggle mightily to put together another group of five as stupid as those were, and yet she had to endure them for an entire year.
How many times now, this month alone, did she prevent them from killing a random group of strangers just because they happened to be on the same path? Dozens? She'd long since lost the count.
What's worse, they considered doing it to a bunch of kids--the two youngest seem to be ten and even younger than that! Though she never felt herself to be particularly saintly and could be just as cruel as those morons behind her, a line had to be drawn somewhere. And, apparently, those five just never bothered to.
"Good afternoon, Fellow Daoist." The one to greet her was the more unassuming of the two men; he was neither particularly handsome nor ugly, neither tall nor short, big nor small. Average, per all aspects, as far as she could tell. He looked to be at the peak of the Spirit Manifestation Realm and looked to be in his thirties, with somewhat lengthy hair held up in a ponytail, cascading down the ordinary-looking black robes.
His smile was affable enough, and the tone of his voice was pleasant--sagely, even--reminding her of her Master's.
"Good afternoon," she greeted back, returning the half-bow with one of her own. Despite the fact that she was likely twice or thrice the man's age and that she was far, far, far stronger than he was, she was the sort to repay manners properly.
"My name is Lu," the man said. "I hope we are not inconveniencing you, as we planned to rest for a moment here before crossing the river."
"Ah, of course not," she said, feeling a bit peeved; she'd rather they moved on, but it was perhaps better that they stayed here as she and the others moved on. "There is plenty of space for everyone."
"Thank you," he really was affable, she mused. More so than most other cultivators she'd ever met in her life. She presented herself far differently from what she was actually like--on the outside, she looked no older than late twenties, and, thanks to her Master's treasure, she was just some brat at the Foundation Establishment Realm. Yet, despite that, the man treated her graciously and without any pretentiousness. "Okay, kids. We'll set up camp here, but make sure not to bother them, alright?"
"Yes, Master!" It was a concert of agreement, and before long there stood a pitched tent with a roaring campfire in front of it where one of the kids was currently busy cooking, while the few others had taken to swimming in the lake.
The two men had gone inside, while the oldest of the kids--a young woman who looked to be in her late teens to early twenties--seemed to have been left to oversee everyone else.
She retreated to where the other five were, ensuring that the cargo was covered up properly. This was a mission of honor, and should they fail it, she would kill the five others and then herself to repay the disgrace.
Once in a while, she'd glance over at the strange newcomers, but there was nothing really untoward about them. They just seemed... ordinary.
After about an hour passed, and just as she herself was prepared to deal out the daily ratios of grain balls, a tantalizing scent of meat wafted from the south. It prompted the five morons to awake from their daze, and all looked just a second away from drooling.
"What... what is that smell?"
"It's--it's amazing!"
"Boss, let's kill them and eat the food!"
"Stupid! If we kill them, then we'll only eat once! If we enslave them, we can eat it every day!" She listened to them and felt the strings of her patience snap one by one. By the end, she turned toward the 'Boss' and glared with such venom that the man whimpered like a scared dog.
"Forget for a moment that I would wipe my sword with your heads before you crossed half the distance," she said. "Do you deliberately go out of your way to forget Master's orders?"
"..."
"Repeat them to me, One. What were Master's orders?"
"Uhm. It was... to take the cargo somewhere?"
"Good job, Boss!"
"Of course, Boss remembers! He he, that's why he's the Boss!"
"..." she took a deep breath and did three circulations of Qi just to dissipate the bubbling anger within her. If she let it explode, she'd kill all of them. "What about the part after? Where Master explicitly said, 'Do it without getting into trouble?'"
"Ah? This would be getting into trouble? But they're just some nobodies."
"And how do you know that?"
"H-huh?"
"What if they're members of a sect? What if one of them has an older sibling that's far stronger than us? What if they, too, have treasures on them that mask their actual realms? What if they are a secret group of murderers who roam the world pretending to be weak, using children to lure in morons like you, and then capture them to torture them for months before finally executing them?"
"S-scary, Boss! Those people are scary!"
"Phew! Good thing I never attacked! I don't want to die, yet!"
"That's right, Boss! That's why you're brilliant!"
"..."
God, she mumbled inwardly. Should you exist in any form, please, in the name of all that is holy, drown these morons until they are too stupid to even talk.
Alas, her prayers went unanswered, and all she could do was prevent her stomach from grumbling at the most mouthwatering scent of food she'd smelled in centuries. Should... should she walk over and beg for some? No! She could pay for some!
... just for her, of course. She'd sooner burn the stones than use them to buy anything for these morons.
Just as she was wondering how much to offer, one of the kids broke off from the group--a teenage boy with a sword scabbard hanging loosely from his waist--and walked toward them, stopping about ten feet away and bowing.
"Apologies for disturbing you," he said. "My Senior Brother accidentally made too much food, and Master is wondering whether Seniors would like to join us for a meal?"
"--yes." it wasn't One, or Two, or Three, or even Four or Five that almost immediately acquiesced to the invitation. It was Six herself, and she felt embarrassment shoot up from her soul. Yet, the boy merely smiled as a response.
"Senior Brother will be happy," the boy said. "He's just recently started learning how to cook, so, hopefully, Seniors won't be too disappointed with the meal."
... just recently? Six felt her eyebrows twitch. But it didn't matter.
They hadn't eaten anything but the grain pills for months now. A proper meal? She'd happily dip herself in a vat of vinegar and put on a dance show for them, if need be.
Chapter 357
Ghosts of the Mine (III)
I'm actually surprised they chose to join us.
Ever since we met them earlier today, I've been sitting on a bed of nails, worried. After all, it cost me 500 points just to glean parts of that woman's status window, and seeing those parts hardly settled my nerves.
Anyone pretending to be far weaker than they are worries me. And yes, I'm deeply aware of the hypocrisy, but I approach it from a heartfelt sentiment: rules for thee, not for me. Or something of that nature.
[--Creator's Eyes used. 500 points spent]
[Target: Qian Shuren]
[Age: 983]
[Talent: ???]
[Cultivation Realm: Shedding Mortality Realm (Body Stage) (Temporarily Sealed Forcibly) --> Peak Sovereign Realm]
[Cultivation Method: Nirvanic Song Sutra (???)]
[Cultivation Arts: ???]
[...]
[Traits]
[Heavenly Chosen (Legendary) -- as someone chosen by the Heavens, he will always get favorable outcomes no matter what]
[Reborn (???) -- underwent a Nirvanic Rebirth, having soaked in a cauldron of Dao]
[Assassin (???) -- capable of being unseen by Dao itself and driving a dagger into the back of even Emperors]
[Virtuous (???) -- deeply devoted to the Path of Virtue, she loathes liars, cheats, and thieves and only ever kills those she finds beyond reproach]
[--Host is too weak to discern any other Trait]
[...]
[Assessing suitability...]
[A set of Anomalies Discovered...]
[...]
[Host can discern only one of them]
[A Special Physique discovered, Dao Body (Divine)]
[Dao Body (Divine) -- said to have been one of the first Seven Gifts that Dao presented to humanity. The Dao Body is considered one of the rarest physiques in existence, and all those found to be in possession of it are relentlessly hunted down by the Heavenly Court, deemed heathens for trying to impersonate the nature of Dao. Possessors of physique will never struggle to comprehend Dao or Heavenly Laws, will gain mastery of all cultivation methods and arts far more easily, and have the capacity to temporarily embody Dao itself in a show of prowess only few can ever match. Can only endure one instance of it, however, upon which the Dao Body will disintegrate and leave the bearer an ordinary mortal]
[...]
[Recommendation: There are no recommendations matching the host's current understanding of the target]
[...]
[Final Assessment: a talent beyond this realm. Short of a tragic end, guaranteed to become an Empress]
Is this the result of the classic protag aura that the kids exude? I mean, it has to be, no? Otherwise, how the fuck do I explain just chancing upon the most talented person (BY FAR) in this world by randomly walking next to a fucking lake, in the middle of fucking nowhere, without seeing a single-other-fucking-person for almost a month?!
... yup.
I mean, I kind of knew that the kids were a magnet for weird stuff and that we'd randomly come across wild things, but isn't this a bit too much? Not only is she the most talented; she's also by far the strongest.
Ah, fuck me.
What are you doing here, in the middle of nowhere, with a bunch of thug-looking dudes?
Haah. Just because her realm is 'technically' sealed doesn't really fill me with joy.
I extended the invitation because, well, I was kind of worried she'd just attack us and take the food anyway. But to see her walk over, following Xi Zhao rather politely, was... well, fascinating, in more ways than one.
"Fellow Daoist," she greeted, bowing slightly. "Thank you for the invitation."
"Not at all; the more the merrier," I said. "Please, have a seat." We'd already spread out a bunch of chairs around the wooden table, and all six of them promptly sat down, their gazes betraying their desires as they kept glancing toward the cauldron of food.
As Long Tao finished, Dai Xiu, Xi Zhao, and Xing Feng helped with distributing the bowls, as what he made was a potato-meat stew. I have no idea where he got the potato (or the meat, to be honest; but maybe he just hunted something?), but I'm not complaining. Anything but plain, unseasoned rice.
It smelled nice, like a proper meal, and nobody really stood on ceremony as we started eating immediately.
... but, by God, before I was halfway done with my bowl, all six of 'em finished their second bowl. It's like they hadn't eaten in years, and it was a do-or-die situation for them.
"Would you like more?" I asked when I saw them push the bowls away.
"Uh, no, no, we couldn't," the woman said.
"Nonsense. Please, have as much as you'd like; you're making our little cook fairly happy." Oh, bite me, you and your glares. You know just how insanely strong she is, so just pipe down and play along.
"... really?"
"Of course."
Anyway, Long Tao made four full cauldrons of the stew over the span of two hours, and we went through all of them. Well, when I say 'we', I mean those six were responsible for eating three of them, at least.
"That was... beautiful. Boss, can you learn how to cook? If you did, we could eat like this every day!" one of the men spoke up to another one of them. Though they weren't anywhere near as strong as the woman, the five still were rather scary; four were at the peak of the Void Transformation Realm, and one was even in the early stages of the Inner World Realm.
The reason why I wasn't as scared of them as I was of the woman was the trait they all shared: Moronic, with the tier ranging from 'Legendary' to '???' which... well, it made me a bit sad for them, to be honest.
But a lot sad for her. Because she had to live with them, it seems.
The kids slowly got up and dispersed, leaving only me at the table with the woman and five morons, whom she seemed to quickly send away back to their camp, leaving just the two of us. Honestly, I started feeling like I did back when I used to date in my teens: nervous, clammy, and wishing I'd never asked the girl out.
"Where are you headed, if you don't mind me asking?" She was the one to break the silence.
"Ah, we're headed to the Spirit Vein City," I said honestly, as I didn't know if she had the means to discern when somebody's lying.
"Then, you are crossing the southern point of the Heavenly Void Range?"
"Indeed, that is the plan."
"We are headed there as well." Her face suddenly beamed into a massive smile. "If it's not too much trouble, could we travel together? We--we will pay for the meals, of course!"
... ah. That's why.
They just don't want to be eating some dry garbage.
I get it.
I really, truly, deeply get it.