DAO 16

I had recounted my experiences word for word to Wen, who seemed troubled. Now I stood alone in the training hall beneath my estate. The walls were reinforced with qi powered stone, capable of absorbing the attacks of cultivators in the Third Realm.

Wishful thinking.

The attendants kept the room clean; there was little here to clean, though, other than dust. It had fallen into disuse once Fang had mostly given up on advancing.

I wondered how many Comprehension Tokens it would take to help him.

I was struggling to acclimate to my new martial forms. Or; that wasn’t quite right. I was struggling to acclimate to suddenly having a completely different set of forms. 

Wen stood in the corner with his arms folded, staring down. When he could, he offered me guidance.

“This path is like nothing I’ve seen.” He had said.

And he was right.

Like the Anti-Metal creature we had fought in the dungeon, this path was some twisted inversion of qi. I steadied myself with a breath, raising the sword to prepare to cut. The Storm’s Cutting Gale. Memories flickered in my mind of the hours and days of practice.

They floated like dreams in my memories, the truth I struggled to remember having been stripped away, my memories fundamentally changed by the system. I remembered myself practicing this new, unfamiliar form hundreds of times instead. Images of that great black sky beyond the world flickering with alien power interspersed the memories.

I already knew the form. The system had given it to me. It had taken much in return, but it had given me this. I relaxed into the muscle memory of a sword stroke practiced ten thousand times.

It was also a sword stroke I hadn’t practiced once.

As I drew the blade down, I pulled the qi through the patterns of techniques.

And after two days of work, I executed it correctly.

Black lightning flickered along the edge of the blade. The smell of ozone burned through the room. The training dummy, meant to resist the blow of a Third Realm cultivator, cracked. Black lightning arced off of the dummy and into the wall, making my hair stand on end.

I panted as I completed the technique. It had forced raw power out of my core, far more than the Darkwind Scion path’s techniques had.

“You did it.” Wen said, unfolding his arms and stepping forward. “Now, again. You have to be able to use these forms consistently.”

I lifted the sword again, pulling in qi even before I expended more. My core was sore inside of me like a well worn muscle.

To step into the next realm, I would have to fill and empty it dozens of times, then use the massively expanded power it held to form a second core. Doing so would align my core with my Path.

I continued until my core strained with an aching pain, then sat and recovered.

“Can’t I just throw the tournament and come back to the Feng territories?” I asked, eyes still closed.

“No. If you place at the bottom of the tournament, you’ll be pulled into the clan as a Retainer — a mortal servant.” Wen’s eyes glazed over, seemingly enraptured in a memory. He shook it away. “It’s a terrible fate. The servants who clean the pits of the spirit beasts, run the sects restaurants and warehouses — those are the retainers. Often, they are simply mortals who join the sect for a guarantee of food and shelter, but the sect does not wish to let any of its blood go uncontrolled beyond its territory. Besides that… you know one of the sects secret inner techniques.”

“But winning only places me as an outer disciple?” I asked.

“Inner Disciples must reach the Sixth Realm before thirty.”

I laughed, opening my eyes. Wen looked at me seriously.

“You’re not joking? But the Feng Patriarch — ”

“Is an ant in the eyes of the Grim Tempest.”

The Sixth Realm. Far beyond mere mortals. Walking gods who could single handedly be the kings of empires. I had lived all my life believing that the Patriarch was the only cultivator in the Fifth Realm on this side of the continent. And yet, just crossing the threshhold to inner disciple of the Grim Tempest required you to be stronger by the age of thirty.

The Patriarch was over two hundred.

“No cheat will be enough on its own.” Wen said. “You have to work hard and cheat.”

“Is that the Grim Tempest’s official position?” I asked, eyes drifting to the ceiling of the training room. It had been decorated — painted black like a night sky with glowing stones embedded in it. My [Identify] skill didn’t reveal any hidden formations in the stars.

“No. But all cultivators cheat. Advancing isn’t a matter of who has the best foundation or the strongest skill. Advancing is a matter of who cheats the hardest.” Wen said.

Night and day, I trained, practiced, and studied. I dumped my remaining stat points into Willpower. I cheated harder. I used [Identify] on the system, on the ruin, on the people around me. It wasn’t enough to raise the level of the skill.

I wish I could have asked Poppy or Eros about it.

But they were a world away.

So I asked Stef.

“Yeah, I tried reading one of the books here, and used [Identify] on it — and then I could understand what everyone was saying.” Stef said, walking with me.

I suspected that the System had some kind of translation feature. Why mine worked right away but not his was a mystery, though I did spend hours in that world before talking to anyone. The thought of the goblin filled forest filled me with a desire I thought I had lost in childhood — the desire to explore, to see lands unseen and unconquered.

Tonight, I was in Sandgrave. A city I had carved out of the sand.

Stef was wearing the dignified robes of a noble, dressed in frills and filigrees. A beard as accumulating on his face — it made people stop and stare as we walked the streets at night. A few already stopped and stared regularly to look at me.

We parked at a street food vendor who prepared my favorite meal after seeing me.

“Stef, can I ask you something?”

“Mmm — ” Stef made a noise with a mouth full of noodles, then choked, patting his own chest. “Sure. Sure! Shoot.”

“How do you level skills up?”

“How do you… how do you — you use them!” Stef said. His face was a mix of concern and surprise.

I chuckled a little.

“I’ve been using my [Identify] skill constantly but haven’t leveled it up. I was hoping you could offer me some guidance.”

“Of course. You can’t just use the skill — when we say, use the skill, I mean, like, you have to understand what the skill is. What it’s doing. What it’s purpose is. And to stretch its use beyond its definition. That’s how you push it. My [Identify] is still only level 6. You don’t know a lot for a prince.”

“I’m not a prince.” I said. I had been checking on Stef daily. After the first two days, we let him roam the city with a guard on him. I wasn’t sure of the magic of his system could spread or do more than we were aware of. “And thank you for your insights. I’ll have to find something worth [Identifying.] Maybe I can explore the vaults of the geologists guild…”

“About that… why is no one around here familiar with the common skills?” Stef asked.

“They don’t have systems.”

“That — that’s terrible!” Stef said. “How did that even happen?” He nearly threw himself out of his chair, rising to stand. “Are they alright?!”

“Sit down in the restaurant. You’re being improper.” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder and gently pushing him down.

“We’re outdoors! On a bench!” He said.

“Politeness is important.” I said. “Yes, no one in this — on this continent, has a system. Except for you and me. I’m not even sure if our own systems will work here.”

Stef concentrated on the bowl of noodles below him. Then he continued eating.

“Well, at least you guys have good food!” He said.

I gave him a smile.

The ruins beneath the city were practically a magnet for qi, draining the entirety of the air above the desert, but they themselves were filled with power. During the day, I sat within them and meditated.

I gave myself one excess — I had a proper bed installed in the ruins. I didn’t want to sleep on a cot if I didn’t have to. Especially if I had years of it in my future if I was truly trapped as an Outer Disciple of the Grim Tempest. Perhaps I could run away into the Savage Expanse and beyond the reach of the Grim Tempest. But I couldn’t rely on that.

“The only true path to freedom is to become an inner disciple. Then they will give you this entire country if you so much as look at it longingly.” Wen had said.

A day turned into a week, which turned into two. Word still hadn’t arrived confirming my brother’s advancement. It felt like I didn’t have time. After years of standing still, I was suddenly shooting forward, and it wasn’t enough.

I had the willpower. I needed more Willpower. I needed levels.

I wouldn’t waste another dance in the other world that the System had opened the path to. I didn’t care if it called me insurgent or world ender, and I didn’t care what goals the System had.

My cities could not return to the hands of cultivators who cared so little for the lives of mortals. All that I built would not be lost like the ruins of Sandgrave.

I would kill every last monster I found and climb in levels until I could steal the strength of the gods themselves.