Story 11 - How to Save a Sect in Six Simple Steps (Part 1)

Author’s Note:

Thank you for being the best readers on Patreon! Here is the link to the Google Docs for those who prefer it.

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Part 1

Using a reverse pinching gesture, I adjusted the spy recording tool to zoom in on another of Little Teasing Mouse’s poses. Between her mouse ears, her pout, and her clasped hands, she was disgustingly cute. I frowned and compared her stance to the demonic dancer technique manuscript. They were the same!

I had only just discovered the thing shoved to the back of a shelf in the Irrepressible Beast Blood sect’s scripture pavilion, but it had already solved one of my problems.

I lifted it high into the air. “I finally have it! Proof! Muahahaha!”

Now I could take that bitch down!

“Sister Lin?”

I stilled and slowly turned around to see Little Spring standing in the doorway of our alchemy room. The 12-year-old stared at me with wide eyes.

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I cleared my throat. “What?”

“That’s what I want to ask.”

I grinned. “You want to see?”

“Does this have anything to do with your recent obsession?”

“What obsession?”

He sighed deeply. “Ever since Noxious Fangstrike and you finished creating the bath treatment—”

“Technically, we’re still testing it for higher realmed cultivators.”

He continued with a furrowed brow, “—you’ve been not-so-secretly recording that Teasing Mouse girl. It’s been going on for months now and it’s getting a little disturbing.”

“Hey! Respect me as your older martial sister!”

“I-I do. It’s just... I think it’s time for you to give this up.”

With a scowl, I picked up the recording orb and the manual before shoving them into his face. “Look at this! Look at it! They’re the same. This whole time, she’s been using demonic dancing to get over half the sect under her thumb.”

He frowned. “Sister Lin... that’s just one movement. Maybe she’s just naturally inclined towards that gesture?”

I laughed.

He stared at me with a very concerned expression on his face. His white, husky ears flattened adorably.

I flipped the pages and showed him the various gestures she made from clasping her hands in front of her to digging her toe into the ground and glancing down. They all appeared in the book.

“Aren’t these familiar?”

He sighed. “I still think you’re overthinking this. I mean, look at these other movements.” He flipped the pages until he reached a sexy-looking dance. “While I’ve been avoiding her, I have seen her around the sect. I’ve never noticed her using any of these moves before.”

“Of course not! That rat girl is still a child.”

“She’s fifteen. That’s old enough to get married in some places.”

“Ugh, gross. In my original world, everyone married much later. It was healthier. Frankly, I think people shouldn’t get married until they’re twenty-three hundred, at the very least.”

His eyes grew wide. “Every human would die out!”

“Fine! I’ll compromise. Mortals or the weak should wait until they’re at least twenty-three.”

He opened his mouth to say something, then sighed. His hand rubbed his temples like he had a headache.

Huh. He shouldn’t have one of those. The kid was young.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you experiencing any side effects from your treatment?”

His ears shot up, and he took a step back. 

“No. I’m fine.”

“You said that a little too fast.”

Once I’d developed a treatment method for Foundation Establishment cultivators, I thoroughly tested it before allowing Little Spring to begin it. When I did, I took into account that his cultivation method differed from the unorthodox cultivators and adjusted his prescription accordingly. Unfortunately, even though he was only a couple of weeks away from finishing the full treatment, his white hair and extra ears stubbornly remained. though

The others who went through treatment would have already had full control over their post-original-bath beast traits by this point and would just be working on fully integrating the energy from the contract into their own bodies.

I was getting worried that the kid’s side effects wouldn’t go away. If that were the case, he’d be stuck like this until he reached Immortal Bone Creation, when a cultivator could reform their body as they condensed their first immortal bone. 

Of course, if I couldn’t get rid of these side effects, I didn’t think he’d make it that far in his cultivation. Though, from what I could tell, his internal energy was almost fully purified and integrated, so maybe I was worried for no reason.

“Anyway, Sister Lin, I think you might be onto something, with Little Teasing Mouse being a demonic dancer.”

I grinned and threw the manual and orb back onto my research desk. “I absolutely am on to something. Now I just have to convince...” Wait. Did this brat just try to change the subject to get out of today’s treatment? 

I took a step forward.

He stepped back. 

“I’m glad you think so but, Isn’t it time for your bath and acupuncture session?”

“We can skip it today, can’t we?” He looked down at me with his disguise’s pleading turquoise eyes.

I pulled out my cauldron, enlarged it to be tub-sized,  and began warming it up with a tall earthly fire. “You know we can’t.”

We stared at each other for a full minute. 

I put in the first ingredient.

The kid bolted.

Fuck. Not again.

I pulled out one of the puppets I’d made over the past two years and had it control the fire for me while I ran after the slippery little protagonist.

“You can’t escape from me!” I yelled.

He fled outside the house and into the space’s grassy area. “Come on! Not today! It smells bad! And I have lessons I want to take!”

I used an impossible leap to close in on him and he used one to get away. “It’s medicine, you brat! Do you expect it to have the scent of jasmine?”

He ran past his spiritual bamboo patch he’d planted so he could cultivate edible bamboo shoots. Unfortunately, he plunged into our precious alchemy herb garden, overturning a few cheap spiritual clovers. 

“I’m not doing it anymore! I’m good now!”

As he passed a tree, he grabbed a branch and pulled it with him as he escaped. 

When he released it, it shot toward me. I skillfully dunked under it. Leaves surrounded me. “Those ears and hair color tell me you’re not good at all!”

He slapped his hands over the white husky ears on top of his head. “I can control my senses and that’s the important thing!”

“You were so much more obedient when you were younger!”

“Well, you never tortured me with a medicinal bath before!”

“What’s wrong with that bath?!”

“Are you joking?!”

He jumped over the table of our gazebo where Ghosty McGhostFace and the little golden dragon spirit played chess. 

“You got this, master! I’m sure today is the day you’ll get away!” The gold dragon yelled.

Ghosty moved a piece, ignoring us. “Check!”

I jumped over the table as well, just in time to hear the dragon curse at his loss.

“Fine! Other than the smell, what’s wrong with it?”

“That’s bad enough! I can’t get it out of my nose for at least eight hours!”

“If you’d let me use my cleaning technique on you, you wouldn’t have to deal with that.”

He glared at me. With a wave of his hand, Xiao Bai appeared in front of him and lunged toward me, his tongue hanging out as if he wanted hugs and puppy kisses. I teleported the not-puppy to the other side of the space.

“Bork!”

Well, my cleaning technique had become more powerful after that epiphany I had a few months ago. But it wasn’t like it would really hurt him... that much… probably. My offering to use it was no excuse for him to send his not-dog after me!

“It also itches all over!” He ran over the lake’s water, dipping his toes in to keep himself afloat. He was really showing off his new footwork technique.

I blew a piece of red hair out of my eyes and followed him.

“The itching means that it’s working!”

“Are you sure? Because I haven’t seen an improvement for weeks!”

He slid to a stop when he reached the shore and stared at me accusingly. 

I stopped, giving him space so we could talk without running around pointlessly... for the tenth time this month. Because he wasn’t incorrect. “You’re right...”

He crossed his arms and nodded.

“... I should up the dosage of the bath.”

He froze, then visibly shuddered. “No! I was wrong. I think it is working fine. It will just take a bit more time!”

I shook my head. It was my fault. While I knew he would need a stronger dosage than the average cultivator, I didn’t take into account that he might need something even greater. This preteen was the world’s goddamn protagonist, after all, and every single one of those fuckers I’d read about always needed a ridiculous amount of treasures to improve. It made sense that he’d also need a ridiculous amount of treasures to heal from this shit as well.

“Let’s do your bath today and I’ll look into increasing the dosage tomorrow.”

I held out my hand.

He looked like he wanted to take it. Then he held his nose and dashed away again. 

Goddamn it!

Why the hell had I taught him that new footwork technique?! 

While it wasn’t as fast as Continuous Step, Impossible Leap, it was more tricky. Technically, it was a Golden Core technique that used both divine sense and inner Qi. I taught it to him since he had the internal energy to spare and had recently figured out how to create an air cushion with his divine sense.

“No! I’m done! I can make my own choices! I’m not a kid anymore!”

“You’re worse than a child! You’re a terrible patient!”

“Go give Noxious Fangstrike his bath! I’m good.”

“Oh, don’t worry. That slippery fucker is next on my list.” Muahahaha!

He pulled out his sword and started the twelve moves that formed the Blossoms in the Golden Tempest technique. I pulled out several silver acupuncture needles I’d dipped in a mild anesthetic and threw them at the brat. They hit his acupoints perfectly.

He froze in place while stuck in a half step, his sword raised for the next swing. Then he slowly fell.

“You dare think about using my technique against me? Ha!”

I loomed over his frozen body. 

“Come on, Sister Lin! Let me have a day of rest.”

“You want to risk never getting better again?”

He bit his lip.

“I can’t. As your older martial sister, it would be irresponsible of me  to let you do something that would ruin your foundation.”

I bent down, removed the needles, and grabbed his stiff arm. The kid had grown up well during the past two years. He was still only 12, but he looked 14, even when he wasn’t in his disguise.

The little fucker was already an inch taller than me! It made me think his inevitable height would surpass that disgusting mouse-girl-lover, Bloodsword. 

I used the space to move us into the alchemy room. The puppet I’d left in charge of the concoction had finished putting in the last herb, causing a stench like burned mildew and damp moss-covered lavender to spread — exactly the way it was supposed to smell.

I checked the bath to make sure it was perfect, then teleported the brat right into it.

“Sister Lin!”

I leaned over my enlarged tub-sized cauldron. “You’re free to develop a version of the bath that doesn’t itch and smells good if you can.”

“You know I can’t! I don’t have the knowledge or experience!”

Little Spring frowned and swam over to me. The anesthetic I’d used had finally stopped working. He reached for my head.

“What?”

He pulled a leaf from my hair. Ah, from the tree.

“...”

I totally would have noticed that... eventually.

I smoothed his soft white hair. ”Don’t worry. I’ll figure this out and fix it.”

”I… trust you, Sister Lin. But maybe there’s a less frustrating way to do this?”

I crossed my arms. ”Yeah? What way?”

”How about I take the edible ingredients you use and add them to a medicinal immortal dish?”

I rested my hand on his head. “You’re free to make the attempt, but no eating it yourself until I test it first.”

He grinned.

”But in the meantime, you can’t skip your bath.” The kid looked like he was about to protest, so I continued. “I’ll also be looking for a way to cure you using alchemy and acupuncture techniques.”

He pouted.

”Now turn around. I need to stick some needles in your back.”

He sent me a look telling me he would rather not, but did as I asked in the end.

Fuck. Getting Little Spring to take his medicine was always so damn hard. If it wasn’t also incredible training for him, I’d be beyond annoyed. 

Unfortunately, my next patient was even worse. Mostly because I couldn’t overpower him.

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Author’s Note: 

Thank you all for reading! You are the best readers a writer could ask for!

Finally, a normal-sized chapter! It was fun and showed what Lin and Little Spring had been up to during their peaceful two years staying at the Irrepressible Beast Blood Sect! At least, I hope you all had as much fun reading it as I did.

Sadly, I’m going to need to take next week off to write most of Story 11. The next chapter will be out on the 25th or 26th depending on your time zone. 

If you guys have anything you want to see in story 11, now is your chance to let me know and I’ll see if I can work it into the outline (as long as it doesn’t break the world or veer too far outside my plans for this story).

I do have an ending planned! It’s going to be epic and lead us into the next two stories that I’ve been thinking about since story 2 or 3.

BTW, Here is the alternate cover for story 11:

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Oh, and here is the alternate version of this chapter’s image. I decided against the wide eyes in the picture because he looked too adorable with normal eyes. 😅This version also is a little too extreme for what I wanted. lol.

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