Unintended Cultivator V6: Bloopers (Patreon Exclusive)

Okay, so I had a moment of realization. While I couldn't use any of the suggested blooper ideas for the final text I submit to my publisher...I absolutely could use them to give you all a Patreon-exclusive bloopers chapter. That's right, this one stays on here for your enjoyment. There will be a different bloopers chapter to go along with the final version of the text. Enjoy! ~Eric

***

“I am a fox. Illusions are what we do. How do you think I got close enough to figure out that I couldn’t get into the ruins in the first place?”

“That didn’t seem like something to open with earlier?” asked Sen.

“I’ve found that it limits people’s creativity when they think they have a simple solution at hand. You came up with an alternative option when you thought you had to, Sen. And it’ll be a much more believable one since they’ll be getting hit with actual fire. Or did you settle on lighting?”

“I’ll have to see what the qi looks like out there. I may find something unexpected. It’ll probably be fire, though.”

“But isn’t an illusion a simple solution?” asked Li Yi Nuo.

“Maybe, maybe not. They’ve seen my illusions before. They might not be fooled. Don’t forget, we also have to get Sen back out again. A little mortal peril is just Monday for cultivators. I’m less enthusiastic about sending him into certain doom. That means we’ll need distractions for both sides of this adventure.”

“What’s Monday?” asked Li Yi Nuo.

“No,” said Sen. “Dealing with you has turned this into a perpetual Wednesday.”

Li Yi Nuo looked at Sen in confusion, while Laughing River stared at him in open-mouthed shock.

***

The rest of the trip back had been a learning experience for Sen. There had been one heart stopping moment where he’d put her down for a second to buy some fresh fruit from a stand. He’d turned around to give her a piece of the fruit, and she’d just been gone. Sen had almost lost his mind in worry before he remembered that he was a damn cultivator and washed the entire town in his spiritual sense. She had been less than a hundred feet away. He’d all but flown to where she was only to find her in an alley, hiding behind Glimmer of Night. The spider had bodily lifted a man by the throat and pinned him to a wall. Sen lifted an eyebrow, but he’d come to have a little faith in the spider’s instincts for danger.

“What happened?” asked Sen.

Ai thrust a finger at the stranger. “He hurt me!”

Sen could see where there were bruises starting to form on her arm. He gave the little girl a serious nod. He crouched down and opened his arms. Ai ran over to him. He gave her a quick hug and picked her up. Glimmer of Night glanced over with what Sen was pretty sure passed for a questioning look from the spider.

“Do what you think is best,” said Sen.

The spider reached into his robes and pulled out an odd device that Sen didn’t recognize.

“What’s that?” asked Sen out of idle curiosity.

“Potato peeler,” said Glimmer of Night.

***

As the miles disappeared behind them, an uneasy feeling started to grow in Sen’s heart. He found his gaze drifting to some place farther north than he’d initially planned to go. Sen tried to think of what could be that direction that he would care about. There’s nothing out there but Mt. Solace, and I certainly don’t want to go back there, thought Sen.

However, the feeling grew the farther they went until it burned inside him. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear that someone was trying to summon him like some kind of a spirit. Of course, that was absurd. Nobody had anything of his to try to do something like that. Sen lurched to a stop as a wholly alien feeling overtook him. It felt like some massive hand was trying to squeeze him down into something the size of a melon. He tried in break free of whatever was happening, only for that massive, invisible fist to clamp down even tighter. Sen’s eyes flicked over to where Glimmer of Night was offering Sen the usual impassive stare.

“That looks painful,” said the spider in an infuriatingly calm voice.

Before Sen could choke out a word, the universe seemed to yank him through a keyhole. It was beyond excruciating. It was as if every single bone in his body was pulverized in an instant, every blood vessel burst, and every organ was ground up. Everything Sen understand about how his body worked and how physical reality worked was upended as that gloopy mass he’d become was abruptly passed through what felt like the heat of a volcano, shot face first through a mountain of ice, and then repeatedly smacked against the ground for good measure. All of that happened simultaneously to the individual pieces of his body being scattered in a thousand directions, dropped into the infinite nothingness of the void, and swiftly flying through a place where fat winged children played unrecognizable instruments and spoke in a tongue that he didn’t understand.

That was followed by the universe reaching out, grabbing all the parts of him, and shoving them back together in whatever way seemed most painful. He was one more shoved through a keyhole and fell straight into a burning building. Sen sprawled in that burning wreckage as every single piece of his body screamed at him that everything was wrong. Wrong. Wrong! Sen didn’t understand what was happening. He didn’t understand where he was or why he was there. He really didn’t understand why he’d been dropped into a burning building. The one thing he did know was that he was very, very angry. Forcing himself to his feet, he smashed his way out the building, hurling profanity at the heavens because, in the end, only the heavens could have done that to him. He burst through the wall and found himself on a road in a village. He barely had time to register that fact before a little girl shot toward him from between two buildings.

“Help! Help! Help!” she cried, all but jumping into Sen’s arms.

A bandit barreled out of the smoke only to skid to a stop when he saw Sen. Or maybe it was the maniacal grin on Sen’s face. He had been wishing he had something to vent his anger on and here was a bad man just volunteering.

“Hello, victim,” said Sen to the bandit, as he drew his jian.

***

The lightning hit the barrier protecting the ruins. There was a moment of infinite horror inside of Sen when he thought he’d made a lethal mistake. If Heaven’s Rebuke damaged the barrier, it might spell all of their deaths. Instead, it was as if a great hammer had struck a bell. A pure note rolled away from the barrier like a physical presence. Sen braced himself for the blow, but it passed through him. He spun to check on the spider, but it was just standing there and giving Sen a look that made him think it was confused. Sen turned to look at Misty Peak and froze at what he assumed was her actual appearance. No, he chided himself, that’s an inside the ruins conversation.

While that sound had left them unharmed, it was less kind to the devilish beasts. Some of them were ripped apart, some of them melted, but it seemed like all of them were hurt in some way. Sen knew enough not to waste that bit of good fortune. He activated his qinggong technique and raced toward the ruins. He flinched a little as he passed through the barrier, but nothing happened. He turned to see what the others were doing only to have a great hairy spider plunge through the barrier and hit him in the head. Sen saw white and flopped backward from the force of the blow. He didn’t even have time to recover before another spider leg crashed down on his crotch. Sen jerked upright, only for the same spider leg to hit him square in the face.

Piercing the swirling miasma of pain, nausea, and confusion that dominated his consciousness, Sen heard Misty Peak’s annoyed voice.

“Why are you just laying there? Chop, chop. Things to loot.”

***

Captain Chen clutched the wheel so hard that his knuckles had gone white. His barely dared blink as his ship hurtled over the waves, and he tried to avoid hitting any other ships. While that formation had sounded like a good thing when the cultivator had talked about it, it absolutely was not a good thing. While his ship was all but indestructible now, the same couldn’t be said of the things it kept hitting. They had cleanly parted another ship in two bare minutes ago, and the shore was racing by so fast that water was arcing high into the air behind them. The men couldn’t even take the sails down. They were too busy clinging to anything they could grab in a desperate bid for survival. He didn’t even dare tell them to abandon ship. He didn’t know how they would stop, or even if they could stop. Just when it seemed things couldn’t get worse, a massive form exploded from the sea.

“Brace!” screamed Captain Chen.

He never even got a good enough look at the monster to figure out was it was. His ship slammed into the beast. There was an earth rattling roar of surprise and pain. Then, the monster’s skin gave way. There was a brief and probably merciful moment of darkness as they passed through the insides of the beast, only to burst out the other side. The deck, the sails, and the men were all covered in something viscous and vaguely green. When the ship splashed back into the water, though, they were finally going slower. Chen thrust a finger at the mast.

“Take down the sails!”

The terrified crew didn’t hesitate. They lurched and slid across the deck, fought the slimy ropes and managed to haul the sails down. The ship slowed to a crawl and, finally, a gently rocking stop. Captain Chen dropped to his knees in exhaustion. After letting his racing heart settle, he looked across the deck. He frowned at the sight of what looked like a purple ball as big as a water barrel slowly rolling across the deck. One of the crew hesitantly walked over to it before turning his eyes to the captain.

“Captain, is this that monster’s beast core?”

Captain Chen’s eyes went wide with shock and just a touch of greed. That cultivator had made them all rich.