Calculating Cultivation

“Wen Xue, we have people chasing us,” I said as I looked over my shoulder. Down the road. We were twenty days out of Imperial City and passed the boarder of the Imperial Sect.

“How many?” he asked.

“Five people. Four at the fourth stage, and one at the fifth,” I said with a heavy heart. It was a large force that was coming to intercept us.

“Can you win?” he asked me. That was a good question. I might be able to outrun the lower ranked cultivators, but there was no way that Wen Xue would be able to keep up with me. Also if they used techniques to catch up, then I would have a chance.

“Not easily, but we have no choice,” I replied while removing the gun from my spatial ring. It felt much better in my hand than a sword. It reminded me of one of those old-time flintlock single shot pistols that were ornately decorated.

While there were options for guns that could fire more bullets more quickly, I had picked one that would maximize the impact of the bullets used. At least I wouldn’t need to use my single rank 6 bullet. I put a rank 5 bullet in the gun. The thing was more like an elephant round.

I could see hundreds of tiny formations carved into the bullet itself. Either we would die, or they would die. I was never going to give up my hard won resources. That was a big reason I had gotten a weapon that could punch above its weight class, even if each shot was quite expensive.

Losing the Displacement Channel Carver or any of the rank 6 treasures was just not an acceptable outcome, no matter what. While my greed might be the death of me, I wasn’t going to let anyone take any of the hard-earned treasures I had suffered and invested my time to earn. If I failed here, then there would be no coming back in terms of my cultivation. I needed everything I had.

Wen Xue and I moved off the road to a small clearing a short distance away. I put my gun away and brought out my sword as we waited another minute for the cultivators to catch up with us. If for some small reason the other cultivators were just passing through, then they would keep going and we wouldn’t run into them. But if they were after us, then they would turn.

I watched as they all turned off the road towards us. It had been a slim chance. Now there was no mistake that they were trying to kill us. “Get ready,” I told Wen Xue who nodded next to me. He had traded some of his spirit stones for an actual sword and numerous consumables.

Hording wealth was no good if you were dead and a rank 5 blade would be useful even after he got past the first bottleneck. He had no experience with it, but it was better than nothing. He stayed a distance behind me. Our plan was simple. I would take out the leader, probably the elder, and then retreat towards him while reloading.

I crouched a bit as I got ready as the enemy cultivators rushed through the trees towards us. They weren’t that spread out, moving in a inverse ‘V’ formation with the strongest cultivator at the front as the point of their formation. It was a standard practice when moving to fight. The strongest cultivator would be the best one at handling attacks and blocking them.

The lesser cultivators on the flanks would be able to adjust and attack from a distance. I noted they all had a weapon in their hands. Two of the rank 4 cultivators had guns, at the outside of their formation. The rest of them including the senior cultivator had swords.

I had been practicing this move with my sword and then the gun, so I was more than ready to act at a moment’s notice. I had my sword in my left hand in a stance, raised up behind my head with my right hand extended.

All the cultivators had dark martial robes with no markings on them. A clear sign they weren’t here to talk or make friends. The leader cultivator swept forward as the remaining four spread out to either side. They wouldn’t waste bullets unless they had to. They would let the leader take point.

My right hand gripped the gun and pulled it free from my spatial ring. I pulled the trigger and the various arrays twisted into a formation inside the weapon, drawing on the energy of the rank 6 spirit stone that I had slotted into the gun.

That spirit stone determined the firing speed and the number of times I could fire. The bullet exited at near point blank range to surprised elder. I aimed for center mass, not wanting to risk missing. He tried to dodge, but it was too late.

The sheer force from firing the gun, jerked my arm back and twisted me partially around. The bullet struck the elder in the side of his gut. A huge portion of his body was blown away in a shower of blood, bone, and viscera. It really was more of a hand cannon than a gun. The elder went spinning with a scream of pain as his sword went flying from his hand. I put my sword away as I changed the plan and darted forward, past the fallen elder on the ground. Audacity would see me through this.

The remaining four cultivators, spun towards me. But the sword wielders were in the way of the gun wielders. I had practiced for hours in the last twenty days with reloading my gun as rapidly as possible. It only took a single second. I snapped the front of the barrel downwards, the spent shell ejecting with hiss from how warm it was.

I quickly placed a rank 4 bullet into the gun and snapped it close. The rank 6 spirit stone would be good for four shots, before it needed to be replaced. One of the sword wielders was rushing in towards me with a shout as I brought up the gun at them.

They immediately dodged to the side, clearing my next shot. I hesitated pulling the trigger since I was too far away to guarantee a hit on one of the gun wielders. I felt a bullet zip by head and a tree exploded in half a short distance away.

I raced at the gun user I was aiming at, since his melee support had dodged to the side. I flung my hand to the side, touching, releasing, and activating several cannisters. Smoke exploded outwards as three cannisters were freed from my spatial ring, making it hard to see for everyone that didn’t have my eyes.

“Stop!” The gun wielder cried out in panic and raised his weapon. I was already aiming at him and he had come to a stop, instead of moving. I fired again, and adjusted to the recoil better this time. The cultivator was hit in the right shoulder, and a chunk of it was exploded away. His right arm went limp, dropping his weapon.

I was already reloading as nearest sword wielder who had dodged raced at me. “Piercing Ray!” he screamed while thrusting forward with his weapon. I pulled out a metal formation plate from my spatial ring. It was only rank 3 metal, but I had purchased it for just this reason.

The attack hit the plate mid-air, sending it spinning around as I finished loading my gun with another rank 4 bullet. I fired again as the sword cultivator was almost on top of me. I saw the look of despair on his face as the bullet struck him in the groin.

My aim was terrible. I had been aiming for his chest. He screamed and collapsed to the ground from the wound as I kept moving away. The smoke cloud, I had left behind was spreading out as the two remaining cultivators raced through. They saw their companions as I finished reloading.

“Shoot him!” The woman with the sword said and pulled out a large tower shield from his spatial ring and raced forward. A bullet went zipping by me once again. I heard its impact against the ground behind me.

The woman holding the shield raced forward, using it to cover herself and get close. “Ahhh!” The gun wielder behind her screamed. I had watched Wen Xue move in to attack her. They had clearly forgotten about him or just weren’t paying attention.

Kicking off the ground I flanked around the cultivator, but they appeared to have enough and quickly retreated back into the woods. Wen Xue came rushing out of the smoke and looked around. “Anyone else?” he asked.

“No. I got three and one ran. You get the last one?” I asked him.

“From behind, yes,” he replied, and I nodded at this. I would need to remember that shield trick against guns. Cultivators could rapidly close the distance and dodge, making it hard to track them. Even with increased bullet speeds from a high rank spirit stone, it was hard to hit a cultivator at a distance when they were moving about.

I put my gun away and pulled out my sword. The sword wielder I had shot in the groin was already dead from blood loss and shock. I still stabbed him through the head. The gun wielder I had shot in the shoulder was alive and stumbling away. I stabbed in the head with my sword. The elder’s body had disappeared.

Either they had escaped, or the remaining cultivator had grabbed them in their escape. A shame, if anyone had good stuff it would be him. While a chunk of his body had been blown away and would incapacitate him for quite some time, that wouldn’t be enough to kill a rank 5 cultivator. A body injury or a loss of a body part was less impactful to cultivators past the first bottleneck.

“No spatial items,” I muttered as I picked up the spare gun from the cultivator I had killed. Wen Xue did the same for his cultivator. It didn’t take long for both of us to find the spare bullets for the gun. They were only carrying nine rank 3 bullets each. Their guns were also garbage. Even if I had been hit, with my cultivation the damage wouldn’t have been as severe.

Still, better not to get shot in the first place. The sword was only rank 3, inferior to the one I had. There was nothing else of value even after carefully searching the cultivators. We left them in the forest for the beasts to find and set off once more, victorious.

“Who do you think sent them?” Wen Xue asked me as we kept traveling along the road.

“Any number of people. But I would personally guess Han Xingjuan. The woman is completely crazy and jealous,” I replied.

“You didn’t want to question them?” he asked, and I shook my head.

“Only the elder would know, or possibly that cultivator with the shield, since they would have spatial items and seemed more competent than the rest of them. My guess, rouge cultivators hired to come after us. Or they might have paid an information broker in Imperial City,” I replied.

“They were weak?” he asked.

“And disposable. They had almost no techniques, showing they probably aren’t from a sect or left. The weapons they had were only rank 3. A shame, that the elder and their weapon escaped,” I replied with a frown. “We need to keep moving and put distance behind us. Next city we will use a carriage diversion plan, I came up with.”

“Carriage diversion? Oh, you mean where you rent multiple carriages, but hide which one we are on,” Wen Xue said. This was something we had discussed on the way to the Floating Island as one of our strategies. I was glad that he remembered and had been paying attention.

“Might take a bit longer to get back to the Cloudy Moon Sect, but the delay will be worth it. Even if our route isn’t standard, I don’t want to be chased down or hounded,” I replied, and he nodded at that.

Thankfully, we didn’t encounter any more issues by the time we arrived in the next city. I hired four carriages to go in different directions. Then another four the following day, which we took one of them that wasn’t a direct route to the Cloudy Moon Sect. I also arranged for another four the following day as well.

I had the money, and it was better to create confusion for anyone following us than get into another fight. I should have taken more precautions when leaving Imperial City, but I hadn’t spotted anyone following us then. They had been probably been waiting in the first city we passed through and waited for us to clear the domain of the Imperial Sect before acting.

It had been a smart move to ambush us. Either they were acting alone or hired by someone I couldn’t touch who had deep pockets. Even if I learned it was Han Xingjuan, it was better not to learn. She was a member of the Imperial Sect and a distant descendant of an immortal. I was also involved in business with her family.

If she had been behind things, then I couldn’t touch her. That would just generate more hostility and pointless drama. The biggest headache about the continent was also my greatest defense. The sheer distance between everything meant that as long as we kept moving at a fast speed, there was no easy way to intercept us and direct people in a coordinated effort to kill us.

Once we were free and clear, there was nothing more to worry about. Unless a much higher rank cultivator came after us. While I would have said that was unlikely before, the amount of wealth I had on me, specifically the Displacement Channel Carver was more than worthwhile to a senior cultivator. With such an item, the third stage was incredibly simple for anyone that wasn’t me.

The next five cities, we quickly departed without even spending the night, racing back towards the Cloudy Moon Sect. While I could run faster, I couldn’t run without sleeping, which was why I was hiring carriages at exorbitant prices to race forward. Wen Xue and I took turns keeping watch, intercepting any beasts that got in our path. Thankfully, most seemed content to leave our carriage alone.

It took a year of hard traveling, but we made it back to the Cloudy Moon Sect. I was now 49 years old. It had been four years since I had left the sect for the Floating Island of Death. Wen Xue and I ascended up the stairs.

“I can’t believe I am alive,” I heard him mutter.

“Doubted me?” I asked him with a smile. One doesn’t go through multiple life and death circumstances without becoming friends.

“I will admit, there were times I was worried. But we somehow managed to return alive. I will easily make it to the fifth rank with focus and hard work. Thank you,” he said to me. I waved him off.

“You helped me quite a bit. Without your skill in arrays and formations, I never would have been able to get through the Floating Island of Death,” I replied.

“I don’t plan to leave the sect again until I reach the fifth rank. One adventure was more than enough for me,” he replied.

“Really?” I asked. I would have thought he would be much more interested after our last success. The saying went that there were adventurous cultivators and old cultivators, but no adventurous old cultivators. Still, I didn’t think things were that bad. While we had some close calls and struggles, we had come out ahead.

“Yes. My cultivation is solid enough to keep advancing. With the Tears of the Immortals, I will no issue quickly advancing through the fourth stage. It will take work, but the risk is too much. Better to quit while we are ahead,” he replied. It was clear cultivators weren’t gamblers. The aesthetic monk stereotype was too strong.

“I understand. It was risky. Come, you will need to speak to the Sect Leader as well,” I told Wen Xue as we reached the top of the stairs. He followed me to the Sect Leader’s home. We were allowed through without issue eventually reaching his office.

We both bowed and took a seat in front of his desk. I narrated our adventures and had Wen Xue explain the formations he had seen. The Sect Leader listened carefully. Once we were done, explaining he was silent for a bit.

“Wen Xue, you have done well. Our sect is not a martial sect, but you have shown your bravery, determination, and willingness to put our sect in a good light,” the Sect Leader said.

“Thank you, but my accomplishments are small compared to Yuan Zhou,” he said with a bowed head.

“Yuan Zhou,” the Sect Leader looked at me and chuckled before continuing. “Is someone blessed by the heavens themselves. You grabbed onto that luck, which is a skill in itself and shows wisdom. Your sect badge.” Wen Xue quickly handed it over. The Sect Leader held it for a long moment before handing it back.

“I have awarded you 1,000 Sect Points, disciple Wen Xue. While small compared to the treasures you have found, it should give you peace of mind as you move forward in your cultivation. You are dismissed,” he said.

“Thank you Sect Leader Jiang Fengge.” Wen Xue got up and bowed before leaving. The Sect Leader turned to look at me. He face had more wrinkles and his skin was sagging.

“Yuan Zhou, my crazy disciple blessed by the heavens. You have done well. Very well,” he replied with a heavy sigh.

“Thank you master,” I replied.

“I was worried you wouldn’t return with the needed materials, but it was a good choice to sell that Necronomicon. Even if the knowledge was useful, its value is limited for you. Your cultivation is already complicated enough. Bring out the treasures you have obtained and let me take a look,” he replied. I carefully removed all six treasures in their specialized containers and set them in front of the Sect Leader on his desk.

“Ashes of the Forlorn Tree, Core Bone of a Rank 6 Beast, Black Poppy of Decay, Compressed Clear Jelly, Withering Weed, and a Petrified Sapling,” I pointed each of them out.

“An eclectic mix,” he replied and moved his hand to touch the container of each one. After a minute on each one he looked at them carefully before slowly nodding. “They should work. I need to make my final arrangements,” he said with a heavy sigh.

“Final arrangements master?” I asked.

“Yes. Such an operation will cost me my life.” I bowed my head as I understood what he was saying. He was planning to rip out a piece of cultivation to counter Aoyin. “It is the least I can do for the trouble that has befallen you. Look after the sect, once I am gone. I worry for Liu Chen,” he said.

“I will master. Thank you for everything,” I replied.

“Once you become an immortal, drink a cup of tea in my honor,” he replied and I looked at him in shock at that. It was something my first master Yi Rong had said as well. “It is a tradition for a master to tell their disciple that once they come up against the limit of their age.”

“Do you have any other advice?” I asked. He was silent again for a while, but I didn’t say anything, before he reached into his desk and pulled out a scroll case, embossed with countless symbols I had never seen before. It was an array that used a completely different base than all the arrays I had seen including the Floating Island of Death.

While I didn’t know much, I could recognize components. Like spotting certain statements in a line of code. But this was entirely different code if I was looking at it right. The Sect Leader set the scroll case in front of me.

“This my disciple, is my greatest treasure. A token of passage to the Firmament. For each person that returns, they are given three of them. I have already traded away two and this is my last,” he said.

“You want me to use it?” I asked and he nodded. He then set a journal down next to it.

“Indeed. I have written a journal on my travels. That I will pass on to you. Just as my master gave to me. And hopefully you pass on as well. The danger is beyond compare,” he replied with a heavy sigh. He seemed to be doing that quite a bit. “But there is no other way for you to cross through the fourth stage of cultivation.”

“Where should I take the pass?” I asked.

“You will travel to the peak of Mount Vortex. It is a forbidden place at the Northern part of the continent, which is lawless. Getting there is its own test. Upon the peak you will find the Wandering Immortal Gongong. He will give you passage beyond the continent and allow for your return. The price back is not cheap, but the longer you stay beyond these boarders and are not an immortal, the quicker death will come for you,” he explained.

“So, get the resources I need and then return?” I asked and the Sect Leader nodded.

“That and the fee for the passage back. All the advice and wisdom is contained in that journal. Beyond that, it is best you make your own judgements. Narrating my experiences will cloud your judgement. I would advise you not to read too deeply either as your perspective and understanding will be clouded,” he said.

“There is risk in knowing something?” I asked.

“No. But there are many risks. Assuming understanding or familiarity with anything in the Firmament is a quick way to die. To cloud your path with my own, and the luck I experienced would be foolish. It might give you perspective, but beyond that I would hesitate to say more.” He waved his hand at me. I carefully picked up both items and put them into my spatial ring.

Clearly he had been waiting for me to come back successful before giving me such treasures. If there was no danger in reading the journal, I would definitely be reading it. I stood up and bowed. “Thank you master.” I told him with sincerity, grateful for everything he had done.

“Just remember your promise to see the Cloudy Moon Sect be successful. Perhaps one day you will sit here as young disciples bother you for help in their cultivation. Go and rest. No cultivating. We will perform the procedure a month from now. I know you are eager, but doing the procedure before you start your third stage would be for the best,” he replied and then dismissed me.

Leaving his office, I made my way to my room. Looking at the picture on the wall, I would need to take a short leave to visit my family before coming back here. I would be cultivating for quite a while after the procedure. Decades upon decades.

This would be the last time I would get to see my mother most likely. I felt a heavy heart about that. Even with the Displacement Channel Carver, I had a lot more channels, that were far more complex than other cultivators. I would also need to attune my channels. That was something I needed to follow up with as well.

Wealth was flowing in, and I had quite a bit that was left over from my time in Imperial City, but I needed more. The number of spirit stones I would need would be massive. I would need 5,216 level 4 spirit stones in total, or around 57,376 rank 3 spirit stones to trade for the higher rank of spirit stones I needed.

That wasn’t just one beast tide, that was multiple beast tides worth of spirit stones. That was 4 rank 4 spirit stones per channel and meridian pair. The only thing left in the third stage was sitting around and hard work. After all my adventures, it would be nice to finally rest without worry and focus on cultivation.

The fourth stage could come later. Once I reached the fourth stage, I would be able to learn techniques as well, which I was excited about. Proper magic would be amazing to learn. My mood soured I thought of the Sect Leader who was giving his life to counter what Aoyin had done to me. I didn’t know their history, but the only thing I could do was be grateful.

Once Aoyin’s Fang was countered in my head, I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. That would make things much simpler, with only the sheer amount of drops of energy for the fourth stage being the main barrier that was remaining. The higher stages, I had some idea about, but there was no use worrying about any of that right now.

The most important thing was to rest and the quickly progress through the third stage. Despite having to go to the Floating Island of Death, this stage felt a lot easier compared to the second stage and getting all those flowers. I kind of agreed with Wen Xue. Adventuring, while highly profitable was also dangerous. There were risks in leaving the sect, Aoyin being the perfect example of such a risk. With everything secured, there was no need to leave the sect for the third stage of my cultivation.