Headmaster of Shadowfrost Part 3

"Step aside old man," Feng Wu declared as he glared at the old man with shoulder length white hair that was standing in his way of picking a seventh moon touched blood lotus, wondering if he was color blind since his short sleeved shirt was a swirl of bright colors and his skirt was black with purple lines that made odd squares.

"No," the old wizard replied dryly as he leaned on his walking stick. "If you'd merely walked into the forest and picked a couple of flowers I wouldn't have cared but you're like locus."

"You're courting death," Wu replied, surprised that the man was able to stand considering the pressure the mortal should be under.

"If only," the old man replied with a sigh. "I'll give you one last chance, pack up your bags and run."

Wu laughed when he realized the old man was serious. "And why would we do that? Are you going to stop us?"

"No, my wife called dibs," the wizard replied with a faint smile.

"What?" Feng asked, not sure what the man was talking about.

"If it was just the plants, I'd deal with you. I'd probably have the local wildlife harass you until you left but one of your friends broke my granddaughter's arm because she objected to him stealing from her garden, so it's out of my hands."

"What makes you think we're going to be scared of a couple of mortals?" Feng asked.

"Nothing, you're not that smart," the wizard replied with a smirk that turned into a full smile as the cultivator launched himself at him.

Wu had half a second while he was 'flying' through the air to realize that he might have made a mistake before he hit some type of formation or technique that he hadn't felt and his world was transformed into agony.

Merlin smiled as he walked over and brought his rather solid walking stick down on the man's elbow, causing it to shatter with a rather satisfying crunch. He gestured with his left hand, causing the shadows in the area to twist and crawl over the cultivator binding him in place so that he wouldn't be able to crawl away. "Just because my wife called dibs on your friend, doesn't mean I can't vent on you."

"We're going to kill you!" Wu snarled through the pain of multiple crushed or broken bones.

"That would be a trick," Merlin muttered as he gestured at Wu, causing the shadows to cover the man's mouth and mute his screams. He spent the next couple of minutes working the man over with his stick before another cultivator stepped out of the shadows. "Let me guess, he's a friend of yours?"

"No, I work for the school that we're reopening," Chan replied, rather impressed by the old man's technique and a bit unnerved by the shadows that he couldn't sense that were obviously holding the silently screaming cultivator in place. "The cultivators running around the forest causing trouble slipped in before we got here and secured the gate. The headmaster sent me to deal with them."

"How are you planning on dealing with them?" Merlin asked.

"Considering their previous behavior and their inability to see mortals as people, I'll probably just toss most of them into the mine to kill some monsters until the monsters kill them."

"Probably?" Merlin asked.

"There's a small chance that we might be able to save a couple of them, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Are you done beating the shit out of the guy so I can take him?" Chan asked politely, keeping the Headmaster's words in his mind about playing nice.

"Just about," Merlin replied then hit the man in the nuts with his stick causing him to scream in agony. He dismissed his ward that ripped the qi from anything that crossed it. "That should do it."

"Thank you and have fun with your rituals," Chan replied as he walked over, reached down and tossed the broken cultivator into his spatial ring. "We should have a marketplace open in the courtyard in a couple of days, feel free to stop by if you want to trade."

"I'm sure we can find something to trade," Merlin replied, figuring everyone liked honey.

"Great…" Chan trailed off as the stranger vanished without a trace. 'At least we won't have to worry about any of the cultivators I don't find.' He glanced at the blood lotus in the pool then shook his head and continued walking deeper into the water, deciding that grabbing the herb wasn't worth the hassle.

0o0o0

Julia glanced away from the murky pool and focused on Mist when he dropped the last couple of feet to the ground holding a basket. "Any luck with the mines?"

"I probably burned a decent amount of luck," Mist admitted as he glanced around the dimly lit stone room with a sludge filled pool that had dozens of fist sized pipes coming out of it and going into the walls, trying not to gag because of the stench coming from the pool. "I managed to kill the kobold that jumped out of the tunnel at me by hitting him in the temple. I won't call it pure luck but it was close considering how fast the bastard was."

"Great, even the kobolds are cultivators," Julia grumbled, wishing she could have gotten dropped into a normal fantasy world or maybe a world with a gamer system.

"I wasn't expecting a cake walk but yeah, we're going to need a cultivator to deal with the mines unless I can find a couple of artifacts," Mist replied as he glanced at the dimly glowing blue crystal disks set into the walls every three feet at head height, wondering if they had been or were part of some formation or if they were just there for light.

Julia shook her head, fairly sure most of the really nice artifacts require qi. "What's with the basket?"

"I needed somewhere to put the mana stones I'm going to make," Mist replied as he walked over, bent down and held his free hand over the black sludge in the pool, causing a small section of it to start boiling away as his ability consumed the corrupted qi.

"You're just going to sit down here until the corruption is gone, aren't you?" Julia asked.

"That depends on how long it takes to fill my basket," Mist replied as he carefully sat down on the stone floor next to the pool so that his feet and ankles were over the edge. He set the basket down next to him then cast his mana stone spell, creating another purple marble that dropped into the basket. "Have you had a chance to pick up any techniques for absorbing qi?"

Julia sighed. "Just the basic meditation technique which slightly increases my passive qi regeneration and Moonlight Devouring which isn't going to help since we're underground."

"Do you have any water techniques?" Mist asked, figuring he might as well check but not expecting much.

"I have two gathering techniques, my Cheat Code 99 technique that makes spirit stones and a vague idea how to manipulate qi, why?" Julia asked.

"I was hoping you had a way to stir the water in the pool and create a current so that the sludge would move past my feet and get absorbed faster," Mist admitted and cast his mana stone spell since his mana had already recharged.

"Have you considered sticking your legs in the water and kicking?" Julia asked sarcastically.

"Nope, I don't want my pants smelling like sulfur and dog shit," Mist replied as he turned his attention back to the sludge covering the pool.

"You get used to it," Julia lied. "Do you want me to stick around or can I get out of here?"

"You should probably head to the library with the rest of the students and talk to Professor Sabrina about learning the technique for gathering corrupted qi and manipulating water, the sooner this is dealt with the better, unless you want to haul water from the river?"

"Not particularly," Julia replied as she headed for the metal rungs built into the wall.

"I know this wasn't your first choice of places to get isekai'ed, it sure as hell isn't mine but things could be a hell of a lot worse," Mist offered. "We could be on the street in this realm or stuck in a sect with young masters or we could have been dropped into 40k."

"No thanks," Julia replied as she started climbing the rungs, feeling a touch better about the entire situation.

Mist cast his mana stone spell then focused on the black sludge and tried to push some of his mana into it to see if he could get it to move. He scrunched up his nose at the scent when the sludge bubbled and the scent of rotting potatoes hit him like a hammer to his nose. 'Is that because of the way it reacts to mana or because it changes every couple of minutes bringing up even more foul smelling filth?'

He spent a couple of minutes trying to move the water with his mana or at least swirl it around before he gave up, admitting that he didn't have a clue what he was doing and the sludge bubbling was probably just random chance. 'I'm going to have to talk to the cultists in the forest and see if they'll give me some hints,' he mused as he created another mana stone, trying to figure out how the spell worked in case it gave him some insight into how to use his mana in other ways.

0o0o0

"You have been accused of trespassing and assault, do you have anything to say in your defense?" Sun Ru asked as he glared at the rag tag collection of a dozen cultivators that had survived their trip into the forest.

"The sect wasn't active and they were just mortals," Wu Fang argued, knowing they'd have to let him go if they didn't want trouble with his family’s sect.

Sun Ru turned to look at the rat faced man that was smirking at him. "The townsfolk warned you that the land was claimed."

"By Imperial law, mortals have no claim to spiritual herbs and your claims on the land don't matter since there wasn't an active sect at the time and you'll be dead when my grandfather hears about this unless you let me go," Fang replied smugly.

"First of all, we're not in the empire, we're in the Wild Lands so their laws don't apply. Does your grandfather have a name?"

"Wu Zhū, Grandmaster of Blood and the Crimson Sky, Elder of the Mountain Storm sect," Wu Fang replied smugly.

"Sorry, doesn't ring a bell," Sun Ru lied as he turned to look at Le Chan, well aware that Wu Zhu was a rather nasty blood cultivator and that he'd lost his last remaining relative three months ago, which made the idiot's claims a bit questionable. "Have you ever heard of the Mountain Storm sect?"

"Sure, they claimed a hill on the edge of the Empire about three hundred years ago and are famous for not being able to control their students."

"It's a mountain and we take what we want," Fang replied smugly.

One of the girls in the group piped up, "In my defense, I was drunk when they were recruiting and I didn't find out that the land was claimed until I got to the town and the townsfolk mentioned that the sect wasn't active so I figured it was abandoned. I'm happy to pay a fine for trespassing but I didn't assault anyone and I merely picked some herbs."

Sun Ru studied the young woman for a couple of seconds. "That's fair, please sit by the wall until we've dealt with the idiots."

"I demand trial by combat!" one of the other cultivators declared as the girl quickly moved to the wall and sat down.

Sun Ru glanced at his fellow teacher. "Do you want to break his spine or should I have one of the students do it?" he asked, causing the young man to go pale as he realized the extent of his mistakes.

Lee Chan pretended to consider the question for a couple of seconds then shook his head, knowing that the cultivators would murder their students if they tossed them in a ring. "I just spent twenty minutes chasing the idiots through the forest, I'm not feeling that generous if they want a trial by combat they can fight the kobolds."

"Kobolds?" Fang asked scornfully. "You can't honestly expect kobolds to prove a challenge."

"I don't really care," Chan replied, not particularly amused by the group since only a couple of them had surrendered when he'd shown up. "They have spirit stones and you're more than capable of killing them. Anyone that brings me fifty spirit stones from the kobolds gets to leave provided they sign a blood contract agreeing to never mention what they know about our lands or the mines."

"That's it?" one of the cultivators blurted out, shocked that he'd let them leave considering how much of a mess they'd made in the forest.

"We're not unreasonable, we're a bit too busy to properly deal with this mess right now and we don't have a proper jail which means if you don't agree, I'll just kill you and toss the bodies in the chasm," Chan told them.

"I'll take that deal," the young man said, figuring there were probably far more than fifty spirit stones in the mine.

Chan turned his attention to the other cultivator that hadn't tried to run when he'd caught up to him and hadn't left a trail of destruction through the forest. "Stand over by the wall."

Feng Wu spoke up, "I can barely move, I don't think I'll be much help in the mines."

"Don't worry, I have something else planned for you," Sun Ru said cheerfully, causing seven of the cultivators to quickly raise their hands.

"We'll fight!" the group said.

"Fantastic," Sun Ru replied as he gestured toward the portal to the mine that he was reasonably sure was filled with monsters. "Head into the mines and have some fun."

Wu Fang glared at Sun Ru as the seven people walked through the portal into the mines. "My grandfather will hear of this."

"Tell him that he still owes me for the bottle of spirit wine," Sun Ru replied with a shrug, hoping to hell the little shit was lying since he didn't want to deal with a blood cultivator that had survived long enough to become an elder. "But sure, I'd hate to cause my old 'friend' the annoyance of having to travel here to claim you, so let's settle this with a fight. Any disciple of Wu Zhu should have no problems fighting the monsters in the Mirror of Ten Thousand Reflections. If you survive you'll earn some rare and valuable cultivation resources, unless you're craven and you're lying about being his grandson?"

"I'll defeat your challenge," Fang stated arrogantly, jumping on the chance to walk away without the elders telling Wu Zhu that he'd been claiming to be related to the monster.

"Excellent," Sun Ru replied as he glanced at the young woman that was still seated. "Are you interested in fighting or mining?"

"I just wanted resources so I could kill some inner disciples that tried to trick me into a slave contract, I don't really care what I have to do for power," Morrigan replied, figuring she might as well be honest.

"Some people just need killing," Sun Ru agreed. "If you'll show the young master to the mirror, I'll start teaching the rest some of the new tricks."

"Let's go," Chan said as he started walking toward the hallway with the cursed mirror.

Sun Ru turned to look at the remaining four people once Chan left with the guy pretending to be a young master. 'They might be worth saving, if not at least I'll have a better idea how the reincarnation technique works that turns them into kittens and how much of their cultivation they keep.' He pulled a small jade strip out of his pocket. "If you're willing to put in the effort, I'm willing to teach you a couple of interesting techniques."

"Like what?" the guy by the wall asked.

"Like a technique that lets you come back from the dead if you die and a technique that quickly tempers your flesh," Sun Ru offered, curious if Julia could pull the corruption out of them and how much of the benefits they'd get to keep.

0o0o0

"There should be a limit on this," Dawn mused as she stacked another teacher's pet flaw on the new student that she was designing.

"A limit on what?" Mist asked as he walked into the strange science lab that looked like something out of a steampunk movie with bubbling solutions in glass vials and strange gizmos scattered around the lab.

"One of the flaws," Dawn replied as she turned to look at Mist, finding her gaze drawn to the basket filled with magic stones. "I was sort of curious how many times I could stack the Teacher's Pet flaw."

"What does the flaw do?" Mist asked.

Dawn pulled her attention away from the basket. "That depends on how many times you take it. Taking it once increases the student's desire to learn and be helpful. Taking it twice increases the student's tendency to be helpful to the point where they might start running into issues because they're trying too hard."

"It sounds like everyone should have at least one level," Mist mused.

"Probably," Dawn agreed. "After two, you can apply the flaw to specific teachers, increasing the number of things the teacher can get away with. One isn't bad, two is a bit suggestionable and the teacher could probably put them on a leash and walk them around, at three they could talk them into posing nude for art, four they could talk them into having sex fairly easily and five is apparently, fucking them in the middle of class is just fine."

"Six?" Mist asked.

Dawn checked and promptly got rid of that level of the flaw. "Romeo and Juliet levels of stupidity so we're avoiding that shit."

"Yeah, no thanks," Mist replied, not interested in turning the school into a 'romantic' tragedy. "How many points is the flaw worth?"

"Two points for the general versions, three points for the specific versions which means I can get thirty four points if we give them the basic two levels and then five levels each with Sabrina and myself."

"Are the points worth it?" Mist asked, trying to balance his morals against his desire to actually win the tournament and get home.

"Yeah," Dawn assured him. "It's enough to buy Enhanced Memory, Crafty and the Jack of All Trades, a Master of None trait that unlocks a bunch of spiritual roots at a low level or quality. If I take the Adorably Sexy flaw, I can grab Genius of Hard Work, which basically cripples the strength of your spiritual roots and spreads the potential around giving the students the ability to do a little bit of everything. It also gives the students a large bonus to learning techniques and skills which partially mitigates the quality of their spiritual roots."

"Except that Julia's corruption eating talent means they'd turn all of their nearly useless spiritual roots into divine tier boosts, right?" Mist asked, wanting to make sure they were on the same page.

"Or the next best thing as long as we can find enough corruption for them to eat and that's not going to be hard with the mines," Dawn replied with a grin. "I played with the points a bit with some flaws I'm not keeping and boosted one of her spiritual roots, the training boosts stack which means we're going to have some scary students."

"What does Adorably Sexy and Crafty do?" Mist asked, not sure how that counted as a flaw.

"The Crafty perk is a fifty percent training boost for production skills which means they'll pick up crafting skills extremely quickly. The Adorably Sexy flaw gives the student an appearance upgrade, makes sure they don't have a resting bitch face or bad hair days and prevents them from generating killing intent which is probably why it's a flaw and not a perk. Monsters don't really care about killing intent and despite the name, it's only useful for intimidation," Dawn pointed out.

"That's probably worth the trade off, unless you can find less questionable flaws?" Mist asked, curious about the available flaws.

"Not really, most of the flaws are either physically or mentally crippling or just not worth the points. I'd add nudist to their collection of traits but I only have the flaw version and it makes them really stupid about it and we're in a cultivation world. I'm pretty sure we could unlock more options by using the option to generate random students but the chances of them actually having Julia's Corruption Resistance is almost zero and we sort of need it to get started."

"Are there any useful perks?" Mist asked.

"Lots but most of them are extremely expensive or situational or they conflict with the family's corruption resistance which is a deal breaker," Dawn explained. "I can probably squeeze in a couple of small perks depending on how much mana each student costs but what I have is a pretty good framework and they don't have Julia's personality issues which is a plus."

"Are you okay with creating people out of thin air?" Mist asked.

Dawn raised her eyebrows. "You realize that you're asking a mad scientist questions about morals and ethics, right?"

"Which means that if you have issues with the plan, we should absolutely stop and reevaluate," Mist replied.

"Or get a fifth grader to check the plan," Dawn joked.

"Or that," Mist agreed.

"To answer your question, they wouldn't be alive without us and we're giving them trade skills, combat training and an insane amount of potential. I doubt they'd object to being alive or complain because they like two of their teachers an unreasonable amount. Everyone needs a sexy librarian and I'm awesome."

"Fine," Mist agreed as he handed her the basket. "I'll trust that you won't abuse the responsibility."

"They'll be fine," Dawn assured him as she started feeding the magic stones into the slot. "Huh, we probably only need five or six marbles per student."

"That just means we get a bunch of new students, right?" Mist asked with a grin as Dawn put the fifth stone in the slot and the next button lit up.

"How badly do you think Julia is going to explode about getting extra siblings?" Dawn asked thoughtfully as she selected the next button, causing the screen to change and bringing up several background options.

"Huh," Mist muttered when he saw the list of background options. "Alien abduction, hit by truck-kun, summoned by cultists, summoned to be a hero or local alternate?"

"Let's skip the hit by a truck option, it always seemed a bit traumatic and I'd rather not deal with a massively overpowered villain so aliens or summoned by cultists?"

"Either works and Julia knows the plan, she'll be fine," Mist replied.

"Do you think the aliens option would give us access to lightsabers?" Dawn asked thoughtfully.

Mist shook his head. "I doubt it, it's a lot more likely that we'd end up with someone probing people or a girl with a stolen blaster."

Dawn tapped the button for the aliens and frowned as she read the description. "Random alien event." She checked the other options and found that they were all somewhat random. "Looks like everything is random. Let's start with being summoned by cultists."

"Sure," Mist replied, not sure which option was less traumatic.

Dawn smiled as she filled in some minor background details for the girl then hit the button to create her.

0o0o0