Chapter 61

I stared at myself in the mirror, hair loose and falling over my shoulders. My arm ached. I had woken up in the middle of the night from rolling on top of it. Life qi still rolled through me in waves, filling me with an unending itching as my flesh and muscle stitched itself together.

The red welts along my skin had slowly faded.

But Wen hadn’t come to see me at any point. It was already morning; breakfast had already been servedd in the banquet hall. I elected to skip it, avoiding seeing Jin — or worse, Bai.

Bai had tried to kill me. I could sense it in his aura, see it in his eyes. And the clash between him and Wen had devastated the landscape. I shuddered at the memory before releasing a steadying breath and standing to get dressed.

It took me half an hour to figure out how to tie back my hair one handed.

I wouldn’t be able to defeat Jin from a realm below him like I could Rainshadow Long. Infact, I suspected that Jin was probably capable of defeating enemies above his own realm. I had to get stronger.

Each of the trials lasted only three days. That was a problem.

[Time Until Dimensional Rebound: 10 days]

I needed to buy another day, and the only way to do that was to make the tournament stretch on for more than a day.

I needed almost every Scion here to pass the trials to make that happen.

Scions and servants openly stared at me as I crossed the halls to Yexiang’s room; the alchemist Scion was expecting a dozen Scions coming to meet him today alone. Littlebird reclaimed his position on my shoulder, and I could feel him glaring back at anyone who stared too long.

Yuhai’s golden haired cousin leaned outside the door imperiously, staring down at me. She wore combat ready clothes, her demenour entirely different from yesterday. She shot a smug smile at me.

“Mingyun” I said, giving a slight bow.

“Young Master Feng.” She said. “I heard your alligator is causing trouble in the pens.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“You were the talk of breakfast. Your pet got into the food pens.”

I winced. That sounded expensive. I would have to go visit The Emperor later.

Mingyun slid the door open with a smile. Directly inside the door was a table. Yuhai was picking at her teeth at the table.

When she saw me, she leaned forward over the table, slapping her hands down.

“Sai!” She said. “We saved you a seat!”

Yuhai, too, was wearing a tight fitting robe cut for fighting in. Tiny glass jars held round medicinal pills — spheres of medicine manufactured from a mix of specifics qis, extracted in a cauldron and shaped into a materialized form.

Almost every pill on the table was some variety of Blood Cleansing Pill or Bone and Flesh Stitching pill. On seeing what was on the other side of the table, Littlebird sailed off my shoulder and landed near it.

A stone bowl with complex patterns carved into its side was full of of the Shui birdfeed that the girls had been giving him last night. Littlebird chirped before digging in.

Yuhai gave me a smug smile.

In the back of the room, the younger Grim Yin Clan alchemist labored over a cauldron. His face was one of intense focus, covered in sweat. Yexiang was snoring on the floor.

I stepped in to the room.

“Haiwu’s not here?” I asked.

“Why? You miss her?” Yuhai asked. She had a mischievous face.

“Not particularly.” I said, crossing the room and sinking into the open seat.

“The Lady Shui is off collecting things worth trading.” Yuhai said. “How are we going to do this? I’ll make a good offer. You tell them all their problems and how not working with us will be their undoing?”

“Why should I be the evil sounding one here?” I leaned back in my seat.

Yuhai had clearly looted the chairs and tables from somewhere in the compound.

“Because of your reputation?” Yuhai asked. “Older brother of the Scion Jin, walks in and clears the first trial before we even know about it? You come back from a fight with him covered in bruises? Your pet rampages in the pen and you killed a Patriarch a realm higher than you on your way here?”

“People know about that? I — he wasn’t a Patriarch! He was just a lowly thug!”

“That is such a tyrannical young master thing to say.” Yuhai took on a mocking tone. “Hmph, that insolent pest? Death was a mercy upon him!”

I groaned and rubbed my face.

“Is that what people think about me?”

“Grim Sai; the man who sees most cultivators as little better than mortals!”

“When do people even have time to gossip about all of this!?” I asked.

“Well, it doesn’t help that you stopped attending the banquets and meetings and tournaments of the younger generation.” Yuhai said.

“My father made me attend those to begin with.” I replied.

Until I was fourteen, it was routine to visit the various tournaments and festivals hosted by friendly and even rival nations all around us.

“You were a prodigious fighter. Why did you decide to hide your talent?” Yuhai asked sincerely.

“I didn’t.” I said. Then I looked over at her calculatingly. Yuhai was staring at me without a mischievous look. Her face was calculating, cold. Even while being friendly, a cultivator shouldn’t be taken at first value.

“What other rumors have you heard?” I asked.

“I heard that you met with the elder Shui.” She had an unyielding and unblinking stare as she spoke.

My eyes glanced to the alchemist behind us.

“He won’t hear anything around him.” Yuhai said. “He’s deep in flow state. Focused entirely on creating.”

“The Elder Shui is looking for talents with Water element roots to cultivate his own variation of the Grim Tempest’s cultivation path.” This was what Yuhai was looking for. She nodded, satisfied, and her face relaxed.

“And you…”

I grimaced. My spirit-roots were not water element — but I didn’t want to deny that they were. I suspected that even now, the Elder Grim Shui could perceive me.

“I — ”

“Step inside.” Mingyun said from the hallway, interrupting us. I turned to attention, looking at the door. A young cultivator stepped in. He had bandages covering an arm in a sling. A fresh wound scabbed on his face, unbandaged.

“Apologies…” He said, taking one step inside. “I’m looking for Yexiang.”

Mingyun shut the door behind him. It buzzed with qi as it was locked and sealed… from the outside. I tensed. That could lead to a fight immediately.

Yuhai smiled like a shark.

“You’ve come to the right place my friend. Take a seat.”

Once I used [Identify] on the injured cultivator, I relaxed. He was no threat to me.

The cultivator took a few steps forward but hesitated, staring at Yexiang passed out in the corner, then at the pills on the table.

“If you’ve attacked a fellow Scion…” The cultivator started.

“Attacked? What attack! No, no, we’re Yexiang’s… representatives.” Yuhai leaned forward and smiled. “Now… how can we help you?”

“I need healing medicine. I have to recover in time to complete the first trial.” The injured cultivator said seriously.

Yuhai leaned back and looked over at me, waiting for a moment. When I didn’t say anything, she continued.

“Tell me, did you successfully injure an Omen Alligator?” Yuhai asked.

The cultivator clenched his fists.

“Those wounds you sustained look more like they’re from a local variety of Spirit-boar.

“I didn’t come here for your lessons. I will succeed with or without you.”

The cultivator held a hand over the table. From his spirit ring, pouches of spirit-herbs slapped out onto the table.

“Will you accept my payment, or not?”

Yuhai looked down at the plants, then back up to the injured cultivator.

“Now, what are we supposed to do with these?”

The injured cultivator’s expression turned harsh.

“These were to trade with Yexiang, not with you greedy cultivators trying to profit off of our suffering.” With a grimace, the cultivator released spirit-stones onto the table.

I picked one up and looked at it. They were bone white with flecks of red throughout.

“How long will it be before I can head back out?” The cultivator asked.

He was going to get himself killed. My expression darkened. Letting him go out wouldn’t be much better than killing him — even if a pill was enough to make him feel healed, and fight in an emergency, he would need to rest and recover, otherwise risking damaging his body or foundation.

Yuhai looked at me again.

“Do you want to die?” I asked.

“You — you can’t attack other Scions like this. If you don’t want to trade, I’ll — ”

The cultivator stood up, sweeping a hand over the table and collecting all of his goods.

“I wouldn’t have to kill you myself.” I said. “You’re only in the First Realm. You haven’t even opened your meridians.”

“My clan isn’t as mighty as the Feng or Shui to bully my way through the realms.” The injured cultivator sneered.

“Do you think the Grim Tempest would have allowed you to have so much less than us?” I asked, glancing at the cultivator’s sword.

Every Scion carried a sword that was nearly identical, regardless of where they originated from.

“Do you know what this is?” Yuhai asked, lifting up one of the blood cleansing pills.

The injured cultivator reached out hopefully. Yuhai tossed the bottle into his hand. He stared between us before popping the cork off the top of the bottle and smelling.

Immediately, he gagged and fell back, dropping the bottle. Yuhai lunged forward with superhuman speed, grabbing it out of the air and recorking it.

“What is this? Poison?” Instead of distressed, the cultivator looked hopefully.

“It’s a Blood Cleansing pill.” Yuhai said.

“Why…”

“Because the first trial is a trap.” I replied. “It’s designed to give an egregious advantage to Shui clan cultivators — Spirit-beast Tamers, one and all. If you actually had found and attacked an Omen Alligator, you’d be marked by their blood. Ands when the Second Trial commence, you would’ve been ripped apart. Especially at your… pathetic cultivation realm.”

The cultivator paled.

“There’s no way… the Shui elder…”

The cultivator didn’t need much more convincing.

“Luckily for you, we’re willing to sell you a pass through the trials.” Yuhai smiled.

It didn’t take much more than that to convince the cultivator. This was their entire future they were gambling on. The nature and order of cultivator society put the strongest at the top, figures to be trusted and empowered.

And this entire affair had done everything in its power to elevate the position of Yuhai and I; just our seats at the head of the table was enough to convince most of these cultivators of our prowess.

The cultivator eventually parted with his entire spirit ring; both the ring and the sum of its contents was enough to afford the entire life of a mortal. For us, it was a barely a step on our cultivation realm. The herbs would help Yexiang craft more.

We also gave one of the Flesh and Bone stitching pills.

“Mingyun, open the door!” Yuhai shouted.

The cultivator practically ran from the room.

We only received a half dozen other cultivators today; rumors must have spread of what was going on. Maybe other cultivators visited the Scions from the other Alchemist Clans who raised Scions of the grim tempest. The continent was immeasurably vast and full of talents.

“It will be easier tomorrow.” Yuhai said. Then she stood. “Mingyun, Haiwu and I will go and make sure we’ve rounded up enough Omen Alligators for these six. Once word spreads that we helped them pass the trial, we’ll be struggling to keep people out of the room.”

The servants brought our dinners to Yexiang’s room, along with more tables.. We practically had a mini-banquet as Yexiang woke. He proceeded to work through the entire night. His eyes practically popped out at the pile of herbs we had gathered for him. I parted from them and ehaded to sleep.

To Yuhai’s credit, when I arrived at Yexiang’s room the next day, there was a line stretching through the hallway.