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-/-
It was a depressing trudge back to the village in which they'd taken on their original mission.
Jin had argued against it, honestly. And it wasn't just because of his broken toes and his newly relocated knee.
They'd given it their all on that mission, everything they had.
It still hadn't been enough.
But, Elder Flower, likely watching from above like a sort of bloodthirsty god, might not be satiated by the attempt.
Hashimi's argument was that the village elder might not have given out the full reward of 20 stingers, or that Biri and Xiao had intentionally left the materials with the man so that the two of them could go pick it up.
In the end, it didn't hurt to try, she'd argued.
Jin's argument against going was actually the exact same. They might pass if they went. He just couldn't say it without getting branded a coward, the second worst title right after traitor.
So, they trudged their way back to the village, occasionally seeing other disciples running around like headless chickens trying to find the materials.
They didn't bother joining. Jin wasn't in any state to fight, and Hashimi felt responsible to stick next to him in case she needed to protect him.
Jin appreciated the gesture. He just felt that it was a bit overzealous in magnitude.
"Are you sure you don't want a ride on my back?" Hashimi asked once again.
The boy could only roll his eyes. "That defeats the premise of you defending me; it's not particularly easy to fight while carrying someone on your back. "
"Are you surreeeeeee?" Hashimi asked again.
"I'm fine, I promise," he said once again.
The conversation had been dragging for a while, and despite how much he wished not to go to the village and enter the next phase of the tournament, he breathed a sigh of relief when the small settlement finally came into view.
"We're finally here!" he said with fake cheer and started hobbling faster.
"You shouldn't run!" Hashimi screamed after him and quickly caught up to slow him down and hold his elbow.
That's how they reached the village, like an invalid and his minder. Dried blood, guts and other liquids on their previously beige robes.
It was the afternoon, so nobody but the lounging Blazing Fire Sect Elder was out, but a knock on the house of the village chief brought out the short, prune-like man whose eyes widened as he saw who'd come to visit him.
"You lived!" the man exclaimed with some surprise.
A glimpse over his shoulder revealed one of the emaciated girl they'd dragged out of that hellish oasis. She was lying on the cool floor and was being fed clear soup by a middle-aged woman who seemed to be her mother.
"The rumours of our death have been greatly exaggerated," Jin said dryly.
The chief proceeded to wring his hands. "I'm sorry, but the stingers were taken by your two companions. They said you were waiting for them elsewhere. There are no more in the village."
"Of course," Jin said with a sigh and shook his head.
He turned to Hashimi. "I don't even know what I expected," he told her, secretly happy.
The girl took it less well, mullishly crossed her arms and looked away into the distance.
He turned back to the elder. "All's well that ends well."
The man hesitated for a second before bringing a hand to his neck and pulling off his necklace with three stingers. Two small, one large in the middle.
"Take this," he said. "It's a family heirloom, but without your efforts, there would have been no one to inherit it."
"If we take this, we'd only need seven more," Hashimi said while perking up, extending her hand and unceremoniously taking the relic.
The village chief stepped forward, hugged Hashimi, hugged Jin, and left.
But not before whispering in his ear. "Thank you for not bringing back that horrible boy."
Jin and Hashimi turned around and left, not having anything more to say. They refilled their water skins and stood there for a moment.
"Spiteful old man," Jin eventually commented.
"Didn't the herbalist have some desert snake horns?" Hashimi suddenly realised and perked up.
"You want to marry her to get at them?" Jin asked sarcastically, remembering the interaction.
The mousy-haired woman wanted a beautiful, dutiful husband to whisk her away from her dreary existence.
Hashimi paused. "Maybe she's uh, lowered her standards?" she asked.
Jin could only roll his eyes. "Alright, lead the way."
Hashimi did, gladly.
-/-
"There's been a few offers," Bao said after she'd bid the two cultivators to enter and poured them a glass of water each. She sighed. "Unfortunately, none of the men have been to my taste."
Hashimi sipped her glass of water. "Have you, uh, considered changing your taste?" she asked. "The trial ends in five hours. I don't know how many visitors you're still getting, but if nobody that you liked has come yet, they probably won't."
Bao crossed her arms, likely acting casual because she knew that they knew that they couldn't take the horns by force, or else they'd become an ash outline on the floor.
Her face contorted into a variety of different expressions: consideration, disgust, acceptance, rejection, grief, and depression.
"No," she eventually said with an almost fanatical gleam in her eye. "The right one will come, I'm manifesting it."
"Well, if you change your mind, a servant slot is open," Jin said with a roll of his eyes. He would gather enough sect contribution points soon to take one servant. He was sure Elder Flower would agree.
At Hashimi's accusing look, he raised his hands defensively. "I'm not marrying anyone for a tournament," he argued. "You marry her."
"How are you even getting a servant slot so early?" Hashimi muttered darkly. "You've been an inner disciple for less than a year."
"I mean, the rewards for The Last of Us were massive. And ever since I've put the other scenarios in the library, it's been a relatively steady stream of income," Jin muttered. "According to my calculations, if the rate keeps steady, I'll have more than enough when we come back. Similarly, I don't think Elder Flower would mind me sourcing a servant a week in advance if I do it to gain the qualifications for the tournament that she wants our sect to succeed in."
Hashimi mulled over his words.
Bao, meanwhile, had gone really, really still.
"What sect are you two from?" she eventually asked, pretending as if she was biting out the words, but obviously curious.
"Illusion Room Sect," Hashimi answered. "We make illusory combat scenarios so that cultivators can safely practice against certain types of enemies without risk."
"That's interesting," Bao replied, her eyes flashing as if she was connecting some dots.
Immediately after she fluttered her eyes at Jin, jutted out her frankly unimpressive chest and said, "Well, maybe it's time to let go of unreasonable expectations. You know how foolish women's desires can be sometimes, hehe, too many romance novels," she poked a tongue in her cheek. "You know how it is."
Jin stared at her, surprised at the very sudden shift in attitude.
Hashimi, for her part, jumped up and pumped her fists in the air. "Yesssss," the girl hissed.
"So, what, you've changed your mind?" Jin asked curiously.
Bao tittered with a hand in front of her mouth, rapidly fluttering her eyelashes as if she was a praying mantis sensing prey. "Well, obviously I won't be treated like a true servant because I bought the place with my resources," she said. "But otherwise, I don't see a fundamental conflict between our desires. You want my snake horns, I want to get out of this desert. You lose the servant spot you'd have given to someone who would have worked harder, I lose my snake horns."
"You'll still work," Jin said darkly. "Consider it payment for gaining access to a place where you can find that husband of yours."
Bao simply giggled. "What would you have me do?" she asked with a hint of danger in her voice.
"Not much," Jin eventually admitted. "Bring food bowls from and to the cafeteria, clean the apartment, and bring the clothes to the washer. That's maybe about an hour or two of work per day, time I can reinvest into something more valuable. Obviously, you'll have to take care of your own rooms in the servant's quarters. The sect pays you, I don't know how much, but you get something in addition to room and board."
The herbalist looked at him with blank doe-like eyes before standing up, going to a shelf full of dried herbs and rummaging within them. A few seconds later, she came back with what appeared to be four dried desert snake horns.
"Here you go," she said simply and truly; nothing more needed to be said.
"I'll visit you tomorrow, arrange a stay at our abode and transportation back to our sect," Jin muttered defeatedly.
Hopefully, the girl would find an idiot husband and fuck off sooner rather than later once they got back to the sect.
"We're not going now?" Bao suddenly asked harshly.
Hashimi and Jin shared a look. "I don't know if it's allowed. We have to gather at a rock platform by sundown. We'll be taken back to Koncho under the eyes of dozens of elders. It's not really a situation into which I'd put a mortal."
Bao's right eyebrow twitched. But she quickly relented.
"You're bound by your word," she reminded him before ushering them out of her hut.
The sun was hanging low on the horizon already.
Jin looked down at the desert snake horns in his hands before thrusting them to the side, to Hashimi.
"Take it," he said, resolving the unspoken conflict that existed due to having only four.
"Are you sure?" Hashimi asked. "You're the better fighter between the two of us."
"You ran back into that oasis to get me out," Jin rationalised, masking his lack of will. "You deserve it."
A tear glistened in Hashimi's eyes. She took not just the horns, but grasped Jin's entire arm. "I always doubted it, didn't believe so from day one, in fact, but you are an ok, no, a decent man, Jin Fan."
Jin extradited his hands. "Go fuck yourself," he muttered, before shaking his head. "We have to run."
They ran.
Qi pumped into their sore muscles as they sought to beat the sun in a race against time.
Had they not been cultivators, they never would have made it.
But due to their supernatural abilities, they managed, in the nick of time.
The sun was just about to touch the horizon when they came to a stop at the rock plateau.
Unfortunately, there was already a rather unwelcome guest waiting for them there.
"Biri," Jin greeted the tall, muscular man coldly and went to walk past him.
A sad look hushed over the giant's face.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I truly didn't believe you could make it, didn't think that it was anything other than a sacrificial play. I didn't expect your partner to jump in after you. I've been waiting for you since this morning, just in case…"
"Wait," Hashimi interrupted. "Do you have the other ten stingers?" she asked, before stretching out a hand. "If so, gimme quick, we're missing two."
Biri sadly shook his head. "The village chief lied to us. He only had ten; he only claimed he had twenty because he didn't think that a two-person team could complete the mission."
Jin thought back to the prune-like village chief. A smirk hushed over his face. If he could, he would have thanked the man. Now he wouldn't have to progress to the next stage.
"Fuck!" Hashimi shouted. "That piece of shit!"
A voice suddenly spoke from behind them.
"You're short one pass?" a young man clad in purple robes asked from behind them.
He'd seemingly walked over, burdened by the two massive objects he was dragging behind him with the rope fastened over his shoulders.
Biri, Hashimi and Jin stared at the two wyvern heads still bleeding into the sands beneath. Each one the size of a human torso, they looked more juvenile than the wyvern they'd seen at the oasis, but still…
"Take this," the boy said unceremoniously, handing one of the ropes to Jin before picking up his own head and making to ascend the cliff.
Jin looked down at the rope suddenly in his hands.
"Huh?"
The purple-robed boy smirked at Jin. There was something evil in that smile.
"I'll humiliate your entire sect in front of the world, trash," he said before jumping up and scaling the plateau.
Jin looked down at his newly gained wyvern head.
The cut was clean. Atomic almost.
"Huh?!"
-/-
AN: This is not a random development, kudos and a virtual cookie to anyone who knows what part of the story fore-shadowed this last segment, lol. Anyway, tournament arc is done over on patreon, so hop on if you want to read ahead or just to support me. Alternatively, all comes to those who wait. Adhyāśayasañcodanasūtra