"How incredibly frustrating".
The collapse of the Song Empire front of the Demon Annihilating War was something that could be called the beginning of the end of this particular go around. The Demonic Altar Sect's momentum was finally halted--and with no further victims to recruit and feed from, they had entered the fourth stage of the Blood Path Cycle--self cannibalization.
The weak were fed on by the stronger, who were in turn fed on by those stronger still. The entire collective turned from a united cult into a feeding frenzy. This would be a spectacular opportunity to sally out and assault the thicker concentrations of force normally--and this was ordinarily how the Demon Annihilating Wars go.
Unfortunately, with the allied Nascent Souls largely concerning themselves with containing the Insidious Poison Maze, desperately trying to prevent it from consuming what was left of the former Thousand Arrows and Flowers Sect, there was little cover to be had against an Alliance Nascent Soul striking back against any pursuit forces.
So the siege lines returned to the Fearless Line, and restored order there. The next stage of the conventional war would be to the South.
Which meant she had the time and leisure to reconnect with some of her friends. Oh sure, they remained in contact with the occasional letters, but with Xu Zhen playing a key role in the western front and bringing most of the rest of their ad-hoc fellowship with him, there wasn't much space for visits and vacations.
Especially when he was going from strength to strength.
"I just have no fate with the Man-as-Heaven array." Rina bonked her head against the table the three of them were sitting at--Bright Iron was recalled home when Old Cannibal's rampage started getting out of hand, and Leafsplitter was serving as a guide with the Coalition Forces. Xu Zhen had been regailing her about his tales of derring do in the Yuan Secret Realm while Rina was busy trying to jump ranks.
"Well, it could be worse." Xu Zhen tried to console her--tapping his newly empowered cane against one knee in the process unintentionally. "You might have suffered an injury that was more difficult to heal than that, or even lost ground on your cultivation base!"
"I know, I know--I prepared for it. But I used one of my Supreme Voidguard charges and mother's binding, and I ended up doing just a little better than treading water!" Rina complained. "I should have just left the damn bunny alone…"
"Hey, it's always the ones that are cute that'll getcha" Millet tittered over her tea. "Spatial magic isn't really something that fits you anyway, you're more one of those punchy sorts."
"I was going to use it as the binding for my spear though!" Rina complained, her voice raising. "In combination with the Celestial Bronze and the Resonant Heartwood I already had, I would have been able to create a Space Rippling Glaive!" She raised her head, a pout on her face.
"And then you got your legs cut off by a bunny lashing out," Millet giggled. "Seriously, you don't need something that powerful to grow with you--and you can't just force that kind of thing either. You need to trip over it and hope for the best!"
"You speak with conviction, and no small amount of authority." Xu Zhen frowned. "Is that some deep secret or something?"
"Well, let me put it this way…" Millet reaches for a stick of cinnamon, and stirs her tea, leaving a line of bubbles through it that she stares into mysteriously. "Luck's a quantifiable resource, right?"
Rina and Xu Zhen both nod, and Millet smugly grins. "Which means that it's finite. If someone's doing well somewhere, it means that it's coming at the cost of someone else--if only because the opportunity created by your advantage has closed off options elsewhere. Tell me, has anyone in your Clan had a fantastic stroke of luck?"
Rina nodded. "Yeah, we had one junior walk in--barely past being an Aspirant--and she walked out at the Twelfth Heavenstage"
Xu Zhen spat his tea out.
"Hah!" Millet laughed. "I told you! That girl there probably ate up most of your Clan's good fortune right there, and by the time you started poking around, there just wasn't any left for you!"
Rina reached for her forehead, fingers splayed out as she rubbed her temples. "It… no, it can't be that easy."
"It has to be," Xu Zhen groaned, matching Rina's expression. "How do you even plan for that?"
"You don't" Millet curtly concludes, taking the cinnamon stick out and biting a chunk off the end. "Mmm--very nice." She mumbles, setting it down beside the dish in an atrocity against good tea manners. "You can't force the hand of Fate. You can try--yeah, you can make all your preparations, you can bash your head against the wall, you can work at ten thousand percent of your normal effort. But if destiny isn't with you? You'll just find yourself disappointed and possibly overextended." Satisfied with the amount of added spice to her drink, Millet takes another probing taste, and nods in satisfaction. "So you do what comes naturally, and you takes the bads with the goods. As long as you hold true to that and know when to fold 'em, you'll do well enough."
Rina nodded at that. "I suppose you're right, I've been… Admittedly shaken in the past few decades." She hesitates then, a trace of reluctance on her features.
"Given you say decades…" Xu Zhen leads on, and Rina sighs, shaking her head before speaking up. "The Trials went historically well--outside of Qi Condensation, our losses were just slightly above peacetime attrition."
"You wouldn't have been spooked though if there wasn't more to it though, would you be?" Millet added, doing her part to keep Rina from clamming up.
"I was jumped by something new, almost immediately after the Foundation Establishment stage began." Rina shut her eyes, remembering the pitiless gaze of the Purifying Heavenly Star. "Take the physical power of a Core Formation expert." She lists out. "Add to that a nigh inexhaustible supply of Qi, the ability to project power from kilometers away in an instant. Total immunity to poisons, drugs, and other gap closers. Furthermore, any sneak attack that could plausibly deal damage just fails, somehow. She'll step out of the way, or the technique won't fire, or it'll just
miss in defiance of all sanity and practice. Now take all of that and pack that in the cultivation base of a Foundation Establishment cultivator."
"Sounds a lot like you" Millet quipped, drawing Rina up short.
"Not quite…" Xu Zhen sifted the problem over. "You didn't describe anything like your Emanation coming out, did you?"
"I… Maybe?" Rina closed her eyes to think on the matter, drawing from her memory of the After Action Reports she had read in her frenzied recovery before heading to Yuan. "No, nobody else who fought her described that kind of pressure, she just struck them down and moved on. I only managed to drive her away with a one-off trick rather than any power of my own. She'd never let me get that close to her again."
"So why are you so worried?" Millet downed the last of her tea, and started chomping on the rest of her cinnamon stick. "You're already cultivating at a ferocious pace. So you couldn't beat her in a straight fight last Trial. How often have you just sat at one level for a hundred years though?" She stuffed the stick into her mouth, rolling it back and forth with her tongue. "Yew just gotta let things come naturally"
"Please don't talk with something in your mouth." Xu Zhen sighed, ignoring Millet's wide grin as she sucked the last of the stick into her mouth and chomped. He looked to Rina then. "That being said, you
are treading new ground with your Cultivation. Dao Magic in Foundation Establishment is nigh unprecedented--if you've exhibited those sorts of abilities merely in the… What stage are you at?"
"It's not as easy to track as the orthodox path, but I should be Middle Single Pillar at the moment?" Rina considered. "Closing on Late I think. I've been coming up with pithy names for each stage as I come along for my reports to the Clan, but I'm not sure they're catching on."
"So you should have two more powerful abilities coming, if the earlier stages are any indication." Millet swallowed the last of her cinnamon stick and leaned back on her chair, crossing her hands behind her head and kicking her feet up. Xu Zhen looked on unamused, but Rina seemed more focused on what she had to say. "Cultivation never pays out the good stuff at the halfway point, after all, you have to pay your dues and get your chores out of the way before it'll pour goodies down after all."
"That's… Fair." Rina allowed after a moment, though she was still apprehensive. "I'll admit, it's been… Trying lately, the more I learn about the Single Pillar Path, the more concerned I become of where it's going." Millet perks up there, tilting her hat back to get a better view, Xu Zhen gestures for Rina to continue.
"I was thrown off by what Kinslaughterer said, when he tried to kill me." Rina's speech tended to meander when she was gathering up her courage. "The comparison he drew to Soup Chef. I dismissed it at first, but it was in the peak of the battle in the Trials that I started to figure out what he may have meant."
"Blood Path does tend to be crazy…" Xu Zhen cautioned, but Millet made a series of shushing noises, holding one finger to her lips. Rina nods in appreciation, and thinks.
"I'm… Reasonably sure, after the events of the last set of Trials, that the Blood Path and the Single Pillar Path share a common root." Rina seems almost asking the question as much as she is laying her observations down.
"That doesn't seem right?" Xu Zhen squints, trying to mull it over himself. "You've certainly shown no signs of being barred from other forms of cultivation, and your techniques are also no different from orthodox elementalism--save maybe in aesthetic and properties, but that can be attributed to your own Clan's mythologies influencing how your Dao manifests." His inner scholar rears its head--as it always does when a puzzle is presented to him.
"No, it makes perfect sense." Millet nods, which gets both of the other Experts to meet her lazy gaze. "What? You're going to ask me to explain it? You two are the book nerds!"
Rina and Xu Zhen continue to stare back, expressions wooden. Millet squirms in her seat, then groans as she tilts her hat back down. "Okay! Fine! Gah!" She kicks her feet off, her chair settling back on four legs as she crosses her legs before her. "Okay, what is Cultivation?"
"The act of drawing in the energies of Heaven and Earth to purify the body and enlighten the spirit?" Xu Zhen recited.
"It's the ability to empower one's body and spirit, drawing closer to an ideal self?" Rina supplied her own perspective.
"Nope!" Millet popped the last syllable, and leaned forward in a conspiratorial way. "You're overthinking it, both of you. It's way, way simpler than that." She bared her teeth, her grin taking on an ominous note. "It's taking from the environment to enrich the self."
Rina's eyes widened.
"Ahhhh, you get it now, right?" Millet whispered, as Xu Zhen tried to grapple with that idea. "Whether you're cultivating from ambient Qi, extracting Qi from Beast Cores, or absorbing Qi from spirit stones--the fundamental act is 'Taking from Without to evolve the Self.' The Blood Demon Path is no different."
"That doesn't follow through, does it?" Xu Zhen bit his bottom lip, eyes flickering through unseen memories. "There's three proper methods, and a heretical one cursed by the Heavens. One's got to be flawed, right?"
Rina shook her head. "No, I think Millet has a point." She crossed her arms before her. "While common doctrine says that Heaven is Emotionless, there's proof positive that it can be biased, and it can adjust the rules to further an unknown agenda."
"Bwuh?" Xu Zhen is cut out from his reverie as he meets Rina's gaze. "My Golden Devil clan is the greatest proof that the Heavens can be biased. We have been laboring under the weight of untold curses--many of those observed and documented even beyond our own realm. Until just recently, any region we dared reside in suddenly ceased producing all but a trickle of cultivation resources. We are invaded by warriors from another Sea in defiance of the usual difficulties travelling between the Nine Seas on a centennial basis, and the fact that slaying a Golden Devil provides
noticeable improvements to one's good luck? The simple fact of
being born with our blood is apparently a sinful act that no amount of righteous deeds can wash away?"
Xu Zhen opens his mouth, pauses, raises a finger, and then closes his mouth again, grappling with that.
"Yep" Millet nodded. "Meanwhile, you've got assholes like the Noble Knowledge Sect who can get away with any level of atrocity, and yet membership doesn't carry any discernible karmic costs. Yes, I know the Insidious Poison Maze is awful--but it's not capable of blocking the gaze of the Heavens either."
"Okay, okay." Xu Zhen raises his hands to ask the two women to stop. "Let's say for the sake of argument that the Blood Demon Path is structurally as viable as the other methods. How does this tie in with the Single Pillar Path sharing a common root?"
"Because that root is shared among all methods of Cultivation." Millet leans back, satisfied that she had won the point. "Rina, tell me, how
do you Cultivate?"
Rina nodded. "I draw in Qi and pack it into my Pillar--most of it tends to leave, but the process of packing it causes my Pillar to change in nature, gradually picking up new capabilities as I go along… I thought for a while that I'd need to alter my Pillar personally, but it just kind of happens on it's own?"
Xu Zhen gasps then, and his eyes flicker with insight. "It's Qi Condensation!'
Rina blinks.
Millet leans forward, and wiggles her hand, clearly telling him to continue.
Xu Zhen flushes slightly, put on the spot the way he did, but nods, tapping his cane against the floor. "Ordinarily, once one enters Foundation Establishment, the process of gathering Qi is to forge the physical structure of one's Pillars. It's about philosophy. One explores the nature of their Dao, and assembles seven Pillars to support a future Core--seven fundamental clauses that make up a complete Dao to follow."
His cane continues to tap, and one of his feet gets in on it as Xu Zhen is caught up in his theory. "Qi Condensation is different. Anyone who can manipulate Qi in the slightest can enter that stage. It requires no special techniques, no special doctrine--as long as you have a rudimentary idea of how to strengthen the physical body, you can advance to the height. No mind is needed, no insights required. When taken to the extremes, it can forge a body perfectly suited to Cultivation--even raising one's innate Talent. It concludes at the Thirteenth Heavenstage, where one's own Dao is blessed by the Heavens--and it is at that point that the Single Pillar Path can be embarked upon…"
"Grand Elder Konstantinos mentioned that in his lectures before the Trials…" Rina mused. "That some cultures prioritize different aspects of being at different times, but
All begin Cultivation with the Body."
"He would know, would he?" Millet mumbles mysteriously. Xu Zhen nods. "I think that's what's meant by a shared root. No matter what one's discipline is--it goes through Qi Condensation
first... And the Single Pillar Path
continues the work that Qi Condensation began!"
Rina's eyes widen, and she curls up on her seat. "... It fits…" She allows. "I needed a complete philosophy to enter Single Pillar in the first place, there's no need for alignment, there's no need for fusing the Cores. The work of Foundation Establishment was done from the moment I entered the stage…"
"Which means that Single Pillar is a
cheat trick that exploits the fundamental nature of Cultivation to extend Qi Condensation far,
far beyond its intended scope." Millet concludes. "Cultivation is the process of concentrating the power of the Universe into the Self, you can't just
skip a stage, so instead of building Pillars, you just keep purifying your body and your Dao until you have the power needed to progress further."
"But that's expensive, the volumes of Qi needed to advance further are staggering. Just getting to the Thirteenth Heavenstage in the first place is already something only the most brilliantly talented can even dream of." Xu Zhen continues the line of thought. "But with a Pillar, one's capacity and pressure increase to the point where the impossible becomes possible--but not
cheap."
"Normal resources just don't cut it anymore." Rina admitted. "I have to use Core level resources to do much more than tread water at this point--not the top quality stuff thankfully, but if I didn't have my rank as a Legate and a Legion at my back to help, I'd be stagnating by now."
"It's intended as a matched set." Xu Zhen grimaced. "Cultivation Resources are expensive and subject to conditions, but humans are cheap."
"No wonder Kinslaughterer was so angry." Rina mused. "How many organizations have the infrastructure to support Single Pillar Cultivators
without converting to Blood Path?" She gave a ladylike snort and sneered. "It must have come off as literal theft of a weapon forged by their Founder."
"... Weapon…" Millet paused, letting that thought roll in her head for a moment. "Rina, you said you used a 'Cheap Trick', to defeat that powerful enemy, right?"
"Yeah--she was fueled by this little spark of power, constantly feeding energy into her." Rina explained. "Once I cottoned on that I could use my Pillar to absorb power rather than simply emit it, I found out that I could drain from that spark."
Millet's nose twitched, and she grimaced.
"Everything alright?" Xu Zhen asked, noticing her expression.
"I don't know, something about that feels important though…" Her mouth moved from side to side, almost as if chewing over a thought. After a few moments of this, she seemed to have something together. "I think…" She began, and froze as a
rumble of thunder filled the room.
"Someone in the middle of a Tribulation?" Xu Zhen wondered as he glanced off into the distance.
"Downtime Is a good time to do it--you think it's anyone we know?" Rina wondered, glad for the change of subject against the heavy discussion.
Millet looked between the two of them, then up into the air, then chuckled darkly and said no more.
It was fine, for her to know it herself--she'd know what to watch out for now...
