Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

Cultivating with her fellows was something she would never give up, Ferenike had decided. She couldn't point to a time before she had decided it, having felt this way amongst her family, but year at the Fortress had made her settle on it for sure. Hammering in already formed opinions into proven fact.

It was so fun for her to blend her roaring flame of Qi with others around her, the raging cauldron of energy held tightly in iron grip and fed to the others in their circulations. It was easy to sync her breathing with the others, to call out the proper kiais when needed, an instinct for it that drove her feet to find the marching beat almost before her trainers called it out. That fellow Tiu Shen was always at her side in the squad, her shieldmate and the rest clumped up around the two of them.

Right now they were practicing the most basic Qi cycling steps of the first stage for forming the Clan's Hoplite construct. Under the eye of the burning bright sun they were dressed in thick black weighted training robes, forced to move through rigorous stances while weighed down by sweat soaked and stiff cloth and iron bands. She was smiling in the middle of her squad as she shouted a kiai, all the rest following along with her. They weren't the best in the trainee group, but they were one of the most persistent, a stubborn rock that kept going even as others slowed or tired.

The ones keeping ahead were those squads whose members were in further Heavenstages, who obviously had the advantage of superior cultivation.

"Hah! Keep going! Again!" Their trainer yelled, a stout girl called Cassandra Agata. She stood like a steel pillar in front of them, brown tightly braided at the base of her head and a deep frown on her face.

Her squad shouted and moved faster under their senior's glare.

Fondness bloomed in her chest for her companions. There was Tiu Shen to her left, a stout boy with bright green eyes and black hair. There was Nan Fuxi to her right, a red eyed girl with a shock of silver hair. There was Gallius Armenicus behind her, bronze skinned and light haired like her though he was much shorter and plump. There was Markus Salviati in the front, black haired and bronzed skin and the de facto leader of the squad whenever they got together.

Markus stepped forward, his kiai as he punched forward bolstered by Ferenike's as the rest of the squad followed behind them a hair after. That was her job here, to support the others. She shouted encouragement as Nan started to flag and she felt the Qi of her fellows brushing against her and twining like clasped hands. Around them rose a bronze-ish haze, flickering in and out as the Qi flowed slowly between them.

"More!" Cassandra yelled.

Ferenike pushed, her Qi flying out into the cycle and mental hands spinning it faster and faster in the rising coil of the first Hoplite stage. Markus grabbed it, his blade like qi filtering the everflowing rush of her own and then it went on grasped by the next and the next until it returned to her where she threw it up and out.

The bronze haze stabilized, beginning to consolidate, agonizingly slowly. The strain made her temples scream in pain but Ferenike was smiling and she could see all of her friends smiling as well.

To go further they needed their cooperation to be stronger, not clasped hands, but welded links in a chain. And so, they trained and trained, training till they fell down and then getting back up again as Ferenike pulled herself up through sheer insistence. They were emboldened by her example, constantly pushing themselves to meet her stamina and stubbornness. As they worked Ferenike could feel her soul soaring on a fire of Qi, rising towards the next Heavenstage.

It was a quiet night when they finally stopped, sent off for dinner and rest. There was the usual amount of pranks at the dinner table, with Nan dumping fermented egg on Markus's head in revenge for a joke he'd pulled with a bar of chocolate and a stick of Spirit Butter last week being the most notably messy. Ferenike talked animatedly, as she usually did, with either Tiu Shen or Nan, when she wasn't laughing at some bit of mischief.

Eventually they split off to head back to their rooms for final meditations and rest.

---

Cultivating alone was a completely different experience Ferenike found. The silence of her room aside from her own breath closed around her like a blanket, trying to dampen the heat in her breast. As her many instructors had told her, she found cultivation painful, even if that pain was forgotten when she was cultivating with others. It felt like teeth of beasts tearing into her old wounds, over and over and over with lances of fire and itching irritation tingling all over her pores.

But she still persisted, in a way finding the challenge from the Heavens relaxing. Her oldest enemy was still present and every breath of Qi she stole from them was a small victory, a grain of sand in the eventual storm.

Tonight was a usual night as she spent it contemplating the history of the Clan before they were forced to flee across the mountains to the Organ Meat Desert. With her grasp of the Clan tongue now completed she had a much greater vista of opportunity open to her and when she wasn't out training or performing patrols near the Fortress and exploring near it she could be found in the library perusing the scrolls and jade writings of the Clan.

Herself she wasn't entirely sure if she was truly related to the Golden Devils, but... it honestly didn't matter to her that much. She'd adopted them, pushing herself into their arms with abandon and she wasn't letting go. The Legion was her family now, her squad her life. Loyalty and duty were her pillars now.

She mused on those for a time in her meditations, pondering what she actually thought about them and reflecting on the classics where similar thoughts might be found. There were some, but she most closely fit the thoughts of the Proud Soldier, a series of parables and tales about a Centurion passing his life as a proud scion of the clan before dying in battle against the Devil Bees. It went at length for several volumes about his particular behaviors towards his superiors in the Legion and she found it funny a lot of the time.

But it worked for her, so she took it and made it hers.

Her musings are interrupted by a sharp twisting pain in her right index finger. Her eyes popped open and she stared as awareness bloomed in her mind's eye, every bulging vein, tendon, small muscle and the bone forced into her now hyper-aware mind. She blinked, the scrape of her eyelids over her eyes loud and demanding as they move slowly up and down.

The tingling burning pain of cultivation in her fingertip intensified as the twisting pain grew, rising in lockstep, as she felt her last finger bone twist in place as her Qi flowed against it, rotating under her skin around its long axis. Tentatively, between one breath and the next she tried to prod it in the other direction. With a snapping pop it returned to place and she lost her grip on the altered state of mind, her senses dropping back down as her Qi roiled, unsettled.

What the hell was that?

In confusion and curiosity she tried to return to that state, but failed completely. Not even a slight twinge of awareness of her veins. Consternation scrunched her brow late into the night, but a breath and patience won out. She'd just have to keep trying and to do some research in the library.

After rest in the morning and the day's training, she went that night to the library and scoured the shelves for manuals and texts on strange body cultivation techniques and bloodlines. Nothing eventuated, as while she had some small signs, those signs were too non-specific as of yet to actually narrow anything down. Dozens, hundreds, of lists of similar symptoms were compiled as she spent her time reading and breathing in the Qi of the arrays of the library and they were all somewhat similar.

Ugh.

Days were spent in mild frustration as she pondered what had happened that night. But she would persist until she could do it again and then she'd nail down what the hell that was.

Regardless, her studies would be put on hold for a short time as she was called up for exterior duty again with Tiu Shen and the others. The strange event was put out of her mind and she went to work with a smile.

---

@occipitallobe here's another Omake, with some hints about what I'm going to do and expand on next turn, as I figured it needed some build up for pacing purposes. Put this supplemental into my Cultivation roll if possible please. I also figured that since Ferenike was a part of the Legions and a formations specialist I should sprinkle some minor characters around who form her squad, and can be recurring elements of her story. Possibly as targets of cruel fates.

Also my stuff seems to have gotten organized in the threadmarks as part of Magnus's reader mode flow.

@occipitallobe Another omake for the throne.





Demonic cultivation and you! Or 'the blood path and why Demonic cultivators should avoid it'

Takes place during turn 2, shortly after Wei Feng joins the clan:

---------------------------

Bryennios Sullus was not an elder in anything other than the technical sense.

That is to say, he was old. For a Qi condensation practitioner anyway.

However, whilst he was not an Elder, he was one of a number of people of all levels of cultivation that shared an important duty within the clan. He was one of those who would speak with outside recruits and guest Elders who had had bad experiences with more terrible demonic cultivators about the philosophy of demonic cultivation as practiced by the clan in order to help them over any issues that they had.

It was important to the clan that they had people of as many cultivation levels as possible able to do this. Many cultivators would not respect those weaker than them, but it was equally important that they were not so terrified of the difference in level that they refused to ask questions. It was important to make sure they fully understood the differences, or should their minds prove truly intractable, that the clan was aware of the possibility of their betrayal

Experience had been a bitter teacher for the clan.

The next person on the list for him to talk to was young Wei Feng. According to the recruitment reports, he had come across a demonic cultivator before he joined the sect who had boiled a village alive for cultivation ingredients. The demonic cultivator had been destroyed by a righteous cultivator in a strike that incinerated both the demonic cultivator and any mortals he had yet to finish.

The experience had apparently been somewhat disillusioning for the young man.

Still, Wei Feng had been part of the Flood Dragon gang, who had been steadfast allies to the Golden Demons for generations despite being a righteous sect. He hoped that this would be much more to help the young man with any lingering issues rather than patiently explain that the cultivation methods of the Golden Demons or the Magic Oak sect were nothing like those of creatures like the Blood cannibals.

Best to at least start the full spiel though. Assuming the level of knowledge someone possessed could be a dangerous practice. The worst that could happen was that he told someone what they already knew. After all, cultivating patience with rambling Elders could also be a valuable lesson to a young cultivator!

He looked up, hearing a knock on the door.

"Good afternoon young cultivator" he said, "Do come in."

Bryennios examined the young man who stepped into his office. He was on the higher side of average height, a certain broadness across the shoulders and chest served to make him seem shorter than he really was. His skin was tanned in a way that might suggest peasant origins in the North or West but here simply marked him as a newcomer to the desert. His clothes appeared to be of relatively cheap and functional make for a cultivator. His black hair was longish, clearly in the process of growing out from a peasant's short cut. As he moved into the room his hair seemed to move slightly behind where it should be, as if it was moving through liquid rather than air. A side-effect of water Qi use, Bryennios surmised, though having come from the Flood Dragon gang this was unsurprising.

"Please take a seat." He waited politely for the young man to sit. "Do you know why I'm talking to you today?

"Your note said…." He paused and cleared his throat before starting again. "Honoured Elder, your message mentioned you wished ensure I understood the Golden Devil's cultivation philosophy". His voice seemed to waver on the last point, as if he was uncertain of its meaning but didn't want to risk asking the question.

Bryennios frowned internally. Wei Feng clearly fell back on formality with authority figures when he was intimidated. Not a terrible habit, given the often belligerent attitude senior cultivators could develop, but not helpful for this conversation. Still, best not to show it. He pasted a genial smile on his face.

"Ah, lad. I'm no Elder, I'm just old." Bryennios paused to see if the informal tone had softened his guest's nervousness. "Mostly I'm here 'cause a few people over the years have seen the 'Demonic cultivation' label the clan's gets tarred with and gotten the wrong idea."

Wei Feng tensed slightly, easily visible to Bryennios experienced eye and rapid perception. Definitely a good idea to have the talk now.

"There are a few different types of Demonic cultivation. The first is the one a lot of horror stories are about. Things done by monsters like the blood cannibals, the Demonic Altar sect" He allows some of the disgust he feels to show on his face, and is gratified by the slight untensing of the young man's face. "Now you already know we're not like them. We wouldn't be such big pals with your Flood Dragon lot if we were." He flashed a grin, then let it fade.

"This is usually known as the blood path. Consuming others directly to power up your cultivation. It's an evil path that primarily depends on murdering the defenceless. Blood Cannibals will horribly murder entire cities of mortals to get a small boost to their cultivation." His lips twitch into a frown.

"Thing is, and the reason we're having this talk….the thing is that every so often we get someone come along, see the clan and all it's work and get that demonic cultivation isn't inherently evil. Which is grand. But then they'll look at the blood path and how ridiculously fast it can boost people and they'll say…"

He pulled himself up straight, tilted his chin towards the celling and puts on an enthusiastic voice.

"Ok, this is horrible and disgusting, but is it really that bad if I use people who are already dead? I'd never do it to innocents, but if I only use my enemies and only once they're already dead it might be nauseating, but not too bad. I can use this for a greater cause!" He stared at the man across from him, all wide-eyed innocence. Then allowed the farcical impression to drop into a scowl.

"You can't." he said with finality. "Direct consumption of another's cultivation forever changes you. Those that take that first step find that the effects of spirit stones and beast cores begin to degrade. Eventually, they find that their cultivation base beings to degrade itself if they have not consumed another in a certain amount of time. Eventually all who take that first step find that they have only two choices left. To let their cultivation fade away, becoming mortal again. Or to consume more and more and more, uncaring of their targets." He pauses for a moment.

"Remarkably few choose the first." Again, he pauses to let the seriousness of the statement sink in.

"But then… what do the Golden Devil clan known as Demonic practitioners?" Wei Feng finally comes out with.

Bryennios lets himself smile. This is one of the reasons he has these talks. He enjoys his little teaching lectures, feeling like he's helping young minds understand. Perhaps it is another reason he'd make a terrible Elder, even if his cultivation had been higher. Cultivation was so intensely personal that many things could not be directly taught, without directly damaging the student's potential. Bryennios hated to have to leave students struggling.

"There is much that can be done with the corpse of an enemy, or even a willing ally that does not involve the blood path." He explained. "The skin can become powerful components in formation arrays. Organs may become treasures, hardened bones may become weapons. Even the flesh may be fed to empower beasts which may then be slaughtered." He explained, trying to mute his enthusiasm. "There are many indirect methods in which they may empower us, without stepping onto the blood path. In such a way, they may give back in death some measure of penance for what they took in life."

Bryennios tried to reign in his smile, for he knew it was a bestial thing. Taking open pleasure in the way that enemies of the clan were made to atone in death for their crimes in life was ill-mannered at best, but he could not help himself. The symmetry pleased him.

"Of course, sad as it is sometimes we must also be prepared to use the fruit of our enemies labour." His mood dimmed and his smile followed. "As pleasant as it would be to say that all artefacts or knowledge born of monstrous deeds the clan recovers are destroyed, it is accepted that if it does not bear consciousness or exist in a state of suffering, it is a fine thing to turn the enemy's work back upon them." His attention wandered away from the man across from him, looking back down the years at villages long destroyed and friends long vanished.

So absent was his attention that he failed to notice the gleam of agreement slowly growing in Wei Feng's eye. Though perhaps it did not matter. Bryennios would not have been concerned anyway.
-------------

1537 Words.

Achille Adephos V
A cliche Xianxia tournament… of fishing?

---

From within a vast, seemingly unending desert, a veritable ocean of course sand and jagged rocks, lay a crab. It's shell had once been smooth and polished, years of fending off f desert weather and the bite of predators having taken a toll on the shell, leaving behind a dull disk of bone. No longer did it refract brilliant under the morning glow

The crab knew not the vast history of the arid wasteland and its genesis, nor the masses that toiled, lived and died, under the harsh sunlight above. It's meagre intellect only enough to recognize food and not-food. Yet, the scuttling creature possessed instincts. Powerful instincts refined over hundreds of eons of evolution and natural selection, by the harsh struggle of living in the barren hellhole that was the Organ Meat Desert.

Now, the crab's instincts screamed at it, from someplace within its hindbrain.

'Run, run, death is coming!'

An indivisible aura of death and blood, a stench of rot and decay filled the air as the crab scuttled desperately across the loose sand of the desert. Alas, it was too late. Without warning, the sand underneath the crab began to fall, as if a great mouth had opened within the earth to swallow it whole. Loose sand poured into fill the gap and the crab, like so many other living beings, was forgotten by the desert.

Hours later, a boot stepped across the shade the crab had once lain in. It was a hunter, garbed in sandy brown robes designed to camouflage him.

He walked alone through the sand, dim red light flickering in his pupils. Perhaps the hunter had once been handsome, with a strong jawline and sharp facial features. Now all that remained left was mangled scar flesh and hideous red welts.

The man's skin was course and callused, a deeply tanned shade of brown. It was the skin of someone familiar with the desert. The hunters long ebony hair trailed over the back of his robes, fluttering in the dry desert weather.

In his left hand the man, a hunter gripped a small sackcloth satchel that oozed with dark red fluid, slowly dripping from the bag onto the bleached sand and sharp rocks below. In his other hand was gripped a long silver blade. It was curved, forming a long arc of glimmering metal.

The hunter reached his destination. A dune of sand, exactly like every other dune in godforsaken, condemned wasteland, where it was so accursed that even the very Qi in the air had abandoned it, retreating from the skies above the desert.

The tanned man threw the satchel atop the dune, waiting. Minutes, passed, then hours, then days. The sun rose and set. Then, without warning, the sack began to slowly sink into the sand, bubbling sound rising from the dune as if a great ocean lay below the sand.

Then, the ground burst apart, a horrid monstrosity of bubbling flesh and boiling blood rising out of the sand. The atrocity of flailing tendrils rose high into the sky, until it was a towering pillar of meat and bone, gazing down from above.

The writhing mass began to slowly shrink, condensing into the form of a hunched elder with a kindly smile, the type of old person one would see relaxing in a quiet library or atop a rocking chair.

The old man smiled gently at the hunter, his eyes wrinkling, only the blood-red glow within his gaze revealing the abomination that lay just below the skin.

"You've fulfilled your side of the bargain," the elderly man said. "Now that I've recovered, I'll fulfill mine."

For those who followed the deviant Blood Path, sacrificing morals and restraint and embracing the brutal darkness that lay within all men, the side effects were only as numerous as the benefits.

Decades ago the old man, a great cultivator by the name of 'Meastro Horrid' had been nearly slain, his body shot out of the sky by a terrifying spear of serrated glass. For years he had lingered within the sand, subsisting on the flesh of scorpions and snakes. Yet what he craved was human flesh and to sate his hunger he had entered into a pact with another, the hunter before him.

'I will bring you human flesh and you bring me vengeance' the pact had been sworn.

"What is it you desire?" the old man asked, smiling widely.

"Kill Achille Adephos!"

---

Achille Adephos awoke in the morning, the loud buzzing of his clock rousing the Mechanikos from his slumber. Achille raised his hand, slapping down on the clock, the Arrays on it falling silent.

Achille Adephos was currently vacationing on the edge of the clan lands while recovering from his injuries. He had been ambushed by a group of bandits while repairing an Array in the outlands, left near catatonic.

Only the vast ocean of wealth poured into his recovery by the Adephos family had saved him from a far worse fate. Yet, it would still be years before Achille could resume his cultivation or anything more strenuous than normal mortal work.

Sometimes Achille missed his old life, galavanting across the desert with his fellow Legionnaires, fighting off blood path and going on fantastical adventures, but he had to stay careful while he healed.

The near-death experience had not left Achille destitute nor traumatized. Instead, it had only ignited the willpower within the boy, solidifying his Dao.

"Once I recover," Achille had sworn. "I will cultivate harder than ever before!"

With little commitment, due to his injuries, Achille was actually far freer to pursue his passions than ever before, discovering that the previously tedious and overworked man, did in fact have many hobbies that lay undiscovered.

Hobbies such as the fishing contest he would be undergoing today. Achille had found that the repetitive and slow pastime of fishing was in fact quite soothing and more than a little enjoyable.

The (relatively) young man threw on a long brightly coloured robe that would protect him from the sun and a straw hat that would keep his face under shade. He grabbed a long golden fishing rod, and a box filled with bait, amongst other things. These were all the tools Achille needed.

Achille strode out of the large, luxurious cottage he dwelt in, sauntering across the village he was in, past the fancy villas and summer homes to a large lake that lay outside the town. It was fed from an underground spring, one connected to a greater network of lakes that, as a whole that eventually fed into the great ocean.

Surrounding the lake were tens of massive bleachers, each filled with thousands of spectators. Betting booths were set up across the bleachers, where one could gamble away their excess money on the results of the match. Many stood to lose, or gain, fortunes on this event. Even Achille had taken out a large sum of money from the Adephos vault that he bet, on himself of course.

---(What follows may or may not be a cliche Xianxia tournament.)

Achille, while reading his fishing rod, heard someone scoffing behind him. The Array-engineer, whirled around to see the arrogant, always sneering face of Jonathon Aurelius.

"Well, look who showed up," Jonathon spat. "If it isn't Achille Adephos."

"It is," Achille agreed nonchalantly.

"Heh, today, it's time I finally wipe away that smug attitude," Jonathon sneered. "Are you ready to be destroyed?!"

"I think you'll find," Achille smiled. "That the one about to be destroyed today is in fact not me, rather, it is you!"

"You could have said that with eight less words you pompous prick," Jonathon shouted.

"Indeed, I could have, with fewer words, confer the same meaning that I have, with a multitude," Achille said. "But fuck you, I won't."

"Hah," Jonathon said venomously. "How about a little bet then? If I win the match today you must publicly admit defeat to me and you're a pompous, debauched, roguish, wretched, worthless, egoistic, pilgarlic, beggardly, knavish-"

"I get it, I get it," Achille cut him off. "If you win, I'll admit I'm… whatever that is, but what happens when I win?"

"Now do you see what it's like when people use more words than they need?" Jonathon asked. "Anyways, if you win I'll… give you my best fishing rod!"

A gasp rang out from the gathered crowd, who had assembled to watch the drama. Jonathon was famous for having inherited a powerful magical fishing rod from his grandfather, a renowned item-forger. It was likely worth more than the entire village!

"Alright then," Achille smiled. "It's a bet, a gamble, a venture, and dare I say it, a wager!"

"Shut up," Jonathon said. "The tournament is about to start!"

And so it was. Atop a tall platform, an announcer walked out, carrying an Array-device that would amplify his voice.

"Hello everyone! Welcome to the annual Grand-Emperor's Ten Heavens Fishing Trial! As always, the rules are thus: Each contestant has ten hours to catch as many fish as possible. The rarer a fish is the more points it's worth per gram, and whomever collects the most points by the end of the day wins the title of 'The Youth's Heavenly Fishing King' and a prize of spirit stones!" the Announcer shouted.

"It's time," Achille said, narrowing his eyes.

----
@occipitallobe, here is my next omake. I would like to ask for even more boost to my fate roll.

Amaranth flooded his fist with Qi and struck the boulder one more time. It splintered into pieces, and he smiled. It'd been over a decade since he had become a real cultivator, and he still marveled at the little things like this. His bloodline hadn't shown much improvement from the influx of the spiritual energy that now ran through his body, and his cultivation speed wasn't exactly extraordinary, but even this was a huge jump from his previous abilities as a mortal. Then why, might you ask, was he happy in the first place? Surely that disparity that marked him as one of the weakest of the Bronze would hold, if not increase as the cultivation stages rose? Had he finally accepted his place in the world to be forever below? And normally, that'd be a fair assumption to make, but not all was how it seemed.

He looked at the back of his hand, a faint bronze, but deeper than it had ever been in his life.

That old, fanciful theory of his bronze strengthening through the blood of his foes seemed not to be a stress-driven delusion after all.

He still remembered the terrifying mission he recently went on that brought it to its current level.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This is a story from many years ago. A local Spirit Cane plantation placed on one of the rare oases in the Organ Meat Desert had been suffering from a terrible infestation, with vast swathes of the crop being ravaged by swarms of cane beetles. The situation started mundane enough, so they decided to increase the use of pesticides to counteract the issue and tilled the earth in an attempt to wipe out the eggs. Normally, this should have been sufficient, but due to a stroke of misfortune, some were missed, so natural selection meant that that over a few generations during this extermination, the beetles developed an adaptation to increase their odds of survival. Specifically, they developed an affinity to the rich spiritual energy within the Spirit Cane, allowing them to develop into proper spirit beasts that could easily shrug off the pesticide.

However, the plantation managers weren't overly worried. After all, while some of them may have become spirit beasts, they were pretty pathetic ones to be frank, so a small group of cultivators of Qi Condensation cultivators should have been more than enough to exterminate them. So, they waited, and waited, and waited for a response, but the cultivators never came back.

Later, when they sent a search party, the only evidence of the earlier group was scattered fragments of bone. Turns out, even though the beetles only made it to the first level of Qi Condensation at best, a disturbingly large amount had also grown to sizes between an apple and a watermelon, so their bodily strength was greater than it should have been. Combined with the numbers advantage, the small group never had a chance.

At this point, the plantation managers were panicking. The beetles would begin to snowball, and snowball, and after a point there'd be much more problems than just having a plantation gone. They considered calling in high level experts to deal with the issue, but ultimately it was judged to be an unnecessarily high expense. Instead, they looked at nature for their solution. There was a species of toad, dubbed the cane toad, that was the natural predator of the mortal versions of these Cane Beetles.

If they fed a large population of Cane Toads on spirit stones and beast cores, then surely even the spirit beetles would be wiped out. Thanks to their reserve wealth, it was possible to bring all these Toads to the second level of Qi Condensation, which should take these Beetles some time to get to. So, they did so, and it didn't just work. In fact, it worked absolutely fantastically. The Cane Toads gulped down beetles like competitive eaters at a particularly renowned tournament. The few that tried to put up a fight were quickly put down. A spirit beetle might be able to defeat an ordinary Cane Toad, but when spiritual energy was even on both sides, the oversized Spirit Cane Toads were the clear winner in the martial field. Even if somehow a group of beetles defeated a single cane toad, the potent poison in their bodies quickly brought them to their end.

And for a time, all was well. Harvests were going as they should, and the dread Cane Beetle had been vanquished. Only a few of the old wave of spirit beetles still lived, and those had reached a terrifyingly high level of power from the carnage either way, so people were hesitant to go after them. Besides, they hid away now, so the plantation managers were content.

However, the plantation managers forgot one, crucial detail. Remember all that spirit energy which was causing that problem in the first place? It's still there, just concentrated in the far less numerous Cane Toads, many of whom took the opportunity to surpass the second stage to the third stage, the fourth, or even in very rare occasions, the fifth Heavenstage of Qi Condensation. At this point, you could see Cane Toads as tall as a fully-grown man.

Worse, while the Cane Toads weren't nearly as prolific as the Cane Beetles due to not being insects, they still were very much so by non-insectoid standards.

What ended up happening is that the population began to expand and expand, and while they ignored the spirit cane, they ate many of the local species causing ecological havoc, harming the people who lived in the area. Eventually, one of the outlying villages had called cultivators from the Golden Devil Sect themselves to help them exterminate the toady pests that were in the vicinity at least.

Amaranth was one of them. At this point, he had recently broken through the Third Heavenstage, also known as the Acupoint Awareness stage. It had taken him a fair bit more time in comparison to the prior stages to get all them open so he wouldn't sabotage his future cultivation, but eventually he had succeeded. Now at the Fourth Heavenstage, he was confident he could participate in this mission.

After resting in the village for a day, he headed out alongside several others to start killing toads. The majority were comparatively young, only at the second Heavenstage, and Amaranth's fists easily burst through their bodies, spraying crimson. His constitution responded to the source of nourishment, and started assimilating the power in the blood. (As a side-bonus of his constitution, the poison in the membranes wouldn't harm him unless he ingested it internally. For that reason, he kept his mouth clamped down when the blood sprayed.) However, to his currently fourth-stage self, it was comparatively paltry, and he'd have to kill an unfeasibly large amount to expect a breakthrough. He felt like his body was groaning in disappointment, but it continued to absorb what it could.

After a week or so of this, Amaranth himself began to grow bored. Where were the strong toads, the one that struck fear in the hearts of the plantation managers? But it seemed that only their whelps that had probed outside of that area were over here. He really shouldn't have gotten his hopes up. Why had he prepared so much for this in the first place if it had all come to just this? He was never going to surpass the others with ordinary Bronze and have the power to strike at the rapidly-growing adherents of the Blood-Path like this.

And so, Amaranth decided to do something reckless. And dumb, and foolish, and most probably ending in his death, but he did it. He bought some particularly strong spirit-beast bait with his saved merit points and tossed it into the field. The few that remained near the village after the dedicated efforts of the sect members dashed at it, but were easily dispatched. Annoyed, he shouted at the sky, "Is this all you have for me, toads?! If all of you are just this pathetic, then I should have just headed over to the beetles!"

Now, statements like these are generally foolish to make when you're near a cluster of enemies in the first place, but Amaranth just assumed that they were too dumb to understand him either way. Now, while that might be true, they sure as hell can comprehend the tone, and more importantly the volume of your voice.

A deep croak resonated through the earth, and Amaranth's eyes darted to the being that made it. It was a big, bulbous mass, with eyes the size of grapefruits, scaly folds all across its body, a peculiar large red line on its left side, and three-toed limbs that seemed like they were tensing with power.

It was looking straight at him.

Amaranth gulped, and began to slowly back away when it rapidly hopped, blurring straight forward to where he was! Amaranth threw himself to the side, barely dodging the behemoth which landed with the force of a boulder tossed onto a fortress wall by a catapult on to where he formerly was. Amaranth quickly scanned it with his Spiritual Sense, and while it seemed to be just in the fourth Heavenstage like him, this seemed to be some mutant variant with fleshly body power that clearly exceeded its stage!

Well, at least he finally got that fight he wanted. Bemoaning his fate would be worse than useless right now, so he prepared to strike back. Looking carefully at the toad, it seemed that the strange red line he saw from a distance was actually a rather deep wound left by a sword cultivator. If he struck there, he might be able to do significant damage. Though, why did the toad attack him if it was already— Because it saw him as just weak enough to risk it. Beasts are able to consume humans for power without consequences after all, and this'd be a useful way to heal.

He didn't intend on becoming just another meal. He gathered a large amount of his Qi to his left hand the next time it charged at him, and struck right there. Yeah, that was a brilliant plan, he was a—

Pain. Sky, then earth, then sky, then earth, then a crash. He felt completely disoriented, but forced himself to struggle on his feet. If he was too slow, he'd just get swallowed up. He rubbed his head. What? He could have sworn he landed that punch right on the wound, that should have stopped it clean, right? Vision still blurry, he saw the toad a few dozen feet away, preparing to charge again, wound the same but with a fist imprint right on it. Green blood was oozing out smeared with red, but when he looked at his own arm the blood looked like his— A sudden stab of pain hit him. It was cracked.
He swore. Was this the end? Was he going to die right now, right here, since he was foolish enough to try to catch a fish that was too big for his hook? Probably. He noted that it was terribly ironic that he was fighting someone with a superior constitution naturally and getting his ass whooped like usual. Maybe this was just the fate of Amaranth Castellanos.

But did this mean he'd just sit down and take it? HELL NO! Amaranth Castellanos isn't gonna go down that easy. He'd already decided that his ability wouldn't always be inferior, and this mutant Toad would be no different. He'd blow this obstacle apart.

Besides, despite the situation, his constitution ached for the power for this toad, and it felt ready and eager to him. He was happy to oblige.

He focused his desire to survive, his constitution's hunger for power, and all the dregs of Qi that he had left into his fist, and the bronze of his fist dulled, but not with weakness. It was a dullness that hungered for the power of foes to raise it beyond all who sought to oppose it. The dullness of the Oric******— his mind blanked and the memory disappeared.

When the toad charged again, Amaranth sidestepped and landed a haymaker right into the place where his fist had imprinted its flesh before, straight into its body. He tore straight through, breaking the wound completely open and expanding it some more, showering him with strangely green blood. However, he didn't pull his fist out. Amaranth seized the flesh with all of his might, and his constitution greedily drunk in the power. The green blood over his body didn't break into a haze at all, but his skin absorbed it like a sponge nonetheless. It was like his body had gone into overdrive. The thrashing of the toad weakened, but with a heave it shoved Amaranth away. Murder filled its amphibious eyes, and it bled freely from the gigantic wound that the previous injury had become. It fully intended on killing him today, as gruesomely as possible in return for this injury.

It was still badly injured, much worse than Amaranth was, but it was still a mutated Spirit Cane Toad. It instinctually burned its power like dross, shedding it away in a verdant cascade of light, and made its final suicidal lunge. Amaranth had a split second to make a choice, and decided that he'd respond in kind. Amaranth took the newfound power he had stolen, and burnt away the greater part of the toad's former power to empower his counterstrike.

The toad ripped apart in an explosion of gore, splattering the field and Amaranth with it.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Amaranth broke out of his reminiscing. While he had lost over half of what he had gained from the Cane Toad, the increase to his bronze was still fairly noticeable. Small, incremental steps were important in this long road, and he'd cherish each one of them. More importantly… He focused once again, and his fist dulled. His hand snapped back at a Spirit Tree, draining its vitality. He had gained something much more valuable anyway.


A/N: So, I was trying to write out the one with the Core Formation Elder @occipitallobe, but I felt like I didn't have enough bits yet with Amaranth before he skipped to the Ninth so I decided to write on this one instead. It's funny, because I was certain I wanted to get a Life-Saving Treasure, but this is where the idea-mill decided to go instead. Well, time to roll the dice once more.

Make no mistake, that was a really awesome prompt, and it'll probably be the next one I write.

My omake-reward for this one is the technique he used in this story. It's a fist-strike that enhances his constitution's energy-theft ability for the duration of the attack, though ofc it has the restriction of requiring contact with blood. The qi is ripped away with such ravenousness that the attack deals extra damage. I can't think of a name right now, so I'll probably think of one later. (Or maybe you could make one? IDK.)

(BTW, the burning away the immediate gains he got for a burst of power was an idea based on the traditional "burning away your cultivation base for power" thing. It was also to be consistent with the fact that he only had average advancement until the Core Formation Bandit incident.)

@ReaderOfFate , I might mention your omake has a particular impact on me as a Queenslander!

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The intervening years had been easy on the Clan, Manuel thought. A few fat years, with new lands yielding Spirit Stones, with few enough people to protect. Admittedly, that income was spent building new forts, rebuilding cities, granting new lands to various families and branches thereof. An expansion of nearly fifteen percent of the Clan's current wealth was a tremendous boon, and the Contributions Points Board found itself granting governorships, new lands, and all manner of things.

A great many Qi Condensation cultivators were settled there, usually in new manors, or as part of a Legion occupying a city. Since the lands had been ceded, the Clan knew they were not merely a reasonable place to make a living, but completely safe for century. Even in those who took the long view, this was something to be considered. The Clan were unlikely to give up land easily, meaning holding that territory now could be bought for a pittance, and if the Clan defended it successfully...

Well, there were many young talents, or even older ones without the land and governorships they desired. Many valuable positions to make a profit from if one was competent enough, and such space to grow a family. In the coming years many new families with the Blood of Bronze would rise up, he thought. The older families would see this as a challenge, and strive ever-harder to maintain their position and power by contributing more through the Clan, unable to maintain their prestige without service. The newer ones would be dissolute and useless for some time, but expansion was ever thus.

He had been lying low, seeking the enemy that had been maneuvering in the darkness. Nothing yet, but expecting to uncover an enemy in a mere few years was unlikely. The two assumptions were the Saber Palace, seeking to weaken them and the Cannibals, or the Devil Bees seeking the same. In reality, both made sense. After a tremendous raid, weakening your longtime enemy so another enemy would feel inclined to attack them made sense. On the other hand, the Devil Bees had every reason to want the Golden Devils weaker as well.

He sighed.

So many enemies. It made it difficult to find out who was aiming at his head.

Manuel conjured a light, and began looking over recent correspondence. He had taken up his old practice of trying to predict what would happen before he opened the jade slips, trying to see how well he comprehended the world. By constantly testing oneself you grew, little by little, he thought. It was difficult to see the flow of the world, but small improvements could make for small advantages, and small advantages accumulated over time into large ones.

He infused his consciousness into a jade slip.

"Mortal-Protecting Heavenly Bandit Huang Li has died."

He let the slip fall to the floor, thoughtful. His strongest ally in the Flood Dragon Gang...

He picked up another. This was more detailed. Huang Li had been an steadfast ally for hundreds of years, mostly spending time in the mountains and plains. He had crept into Golden Devil territory to recover for decades at a time, and was readily protected. He had recently attempted to rescue a city by flying them away on an ancient Phoenix-Burnt Tortoise Shell, but the Demonic Altar Sect had been ready for this. He had been taken and killed easily, and his body taken back to the Demonic Altar to be consumed into many more Core Formation elders for the Sect.

An Early Nascent Soul elder of the Strength Purity Sect and the Bear Enslavement Sect had tried to save him, but also fell. Manuel rubbed his head with a finger. Surely that meant the Demonic Altar Sect had once again reached the Late Nascent Soul Realm.

This meant war in the north. Not the light war of the last century, but a full-scale war as the Demonic Altar Sect attempted to overwhelm its neighbours and claim more territory. If he were to guess, a Ninth Demon-Annihilating War was about to begin. The Verdant South would supply men and wealth, meaning the Devil Bees were much more likely to strike at their now-weakened defenses. Or so he assumed.

Thirty-five years to the day when he had last met Lady Jiao, she came again to the doorstep of the Golden Devil Clan.

"Grand Elder."

She bowed formally.

She had not grown or changed in that time. Perhaps, he mused, she found it difficult. To offer such acceptance surely meant accepting yourself. And with such acceptance, how could you grow?

He on the other hand, had prepared himself well, drinking some tea with brewed with leaves from the ancient Contempt Soul Tree. He was reasonably sure it would work. More importantly, he needed more methods of dealing with such attacks - the power of a Dao such as hers could not be swept aside by raw power. He knew of precious few, and uncovering another one would be worth as much as whatever she came here for today.

The notion was obvious enough. Simply crush one own's sense of worth and fill your soul with contempt - including the most potent self-contempt - and then simply act according to a rote he had long known. Play your part like a puppet, and all the self-hatred in the world cannot impact your actions. Acceptance was no weapon against the most potent self-loathing - indeed, the kind of creature who would accept something he hated so much was worthy of perhaps even more contempt than he.

In all honesty, he considered it a foolish move, worthy of a pathetic, idiotic creature like him.

"Lady Jiao. You once again grace my humble home. Please, come in. Sit and have tea."

She scowled at him. She could clearly feel the sheer force of the contempt. Had he not been overwhelmed with a sense of how vile he was to do this to another human being, he might have chuckled. Acceptance was merely a Dao, and when once accepted and found acceptance in turn... was it easy to bear contempt for seemingly no reason in return? Of course not. As much as he hated himself, she was equally deserving. This might well shake her Dao-heart a little. Amusing.

"Perhaps we will not sit together. Let us speak quickly."

Manuel looked down at the table, and idly considered smashing his own head into it, a worthy punishment for his sins. No, there was a plan. A plan made by the contemptible, odious thing he was, of course, but he tamped down on that notion. The feeling was no compulsion, and his actions here he had already thought through.

"Of course, lady Jiao. What does the Jingshen Clan wish of my humble people?"

The disdain oozed from his voice, and he couldn't quite control a sneer.

"A new war is beginning. Jingshen Clan have negotiated the ceding of the former Oasis Rebels under the Cannibal Sect to us. Our plans are simple enough. The Spirit-Refreshing Oasis there is an excellent healing measure for Core Formation cultivators. We are hoping to have the Golden Devil Clan see reason and allow such cultivators to travel to be healed from the Great Battlefield for a nominal fee."

He snorted.

"Why should my Golden Devil Clan do this? What benefit is in it for us?"

"In return, Jingshen Clan will commit to spending fifteen years of our income to fortify the region against the Cannibal Sect, and will not permit Cannibal Sect cultivators to travel through the region for two hundred years. An excellent bulwark for you, no?"

Mmm.

Manuel wasn't quite sure. This was all true, but it would mean a powerful Jingshen force to his immediate east, even as it shored up his own defenses. It'd cost him some income as well, but it would mean goodwill - whatever little that meant - from Righteous Powers, and would offer an excellent bulwark against the Cannibals for at least a century once the agreement with Old Cannibal lapsed. Certainly, an advantage over the next few centuries. After that? Hard to say.

He looked up at her, silently mocking her foolish bright red skin - for only a fool would cultivate a fire technique to such a degree - and spoke.

[ ] Agree. Minor Income boost from Cultivators traveling to the Spirit-Refreshing Oasis. Considerable amount of the border secured against the Cannibals at Jingshen expense. Gain in Jingshen relations.

[ ] Disagree. Moderate Income boost from Cultivators traveling to the Spirit-Refreshing Oasis. More likely to cause trouble in your lands due to tariffs charged. Fall in Jingshen relations.

[ ] Negotiate. Yes, but... Write-in what you want. Relies on a Diplomacy roll from Manuel to succeed. The more you ask for, the less likely it is to go through.