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

[SeptimusMagisto]

Lipp Galanis in: A Frank Conversation​

"At this rate you'll die before accomplishing anything important."

Lipp isn't at all sure he's prepared to take that kind of guff from a piece of jade, but it never pays to interrupt someone explaining what they think your weaknesses are. So he waits for the Analysis Jade to elaborate.

"You skip out on combat training and cultivation to learn about basket weaving and butterfly anatomy. So you need spirit stones and cultivation aids to catch up, and to earn them you take on missions you think pay more than they should. But to find those missions and make them a success you have to spend even more time researching, so you cut out time with family, friends, and peers. So you work twice as much as the average cultivator and still have to burn years' worth of luck just to stay ahead of the pack. Is any of that wrong?"

"There was the implication that acquiring knowledge is useless, but I take your point."

The Analysis Jade pauses, flickering steadily while processing the new input. Despite being surprisingly opinionated, it's only a training tool, not a full person. If presented with something that sounds abstract, it will take time to relate it back to training.

"Knowledge is useful if you use it," it finally responds. "You could be a researcher, an array engineer, a crafter, a beast tender, or even the kind of warrior who chains together attack after attack to create unpredictable combinations. But you want to be all of those and many more things besides. You stretch yourself too thin."

It's not exactly a novel insight. Lipp has struggled with this question, especially after near-defeats. And he's found an answer, or at least a rationalization.

"I probably could become good at any one thing. And it would probably even help me. But it wouldn't do anything for the Clan."

Here Lipp pauses, trying to compose the most straightforward account he can, leaving out anything too abstract for the shard to comprehend.

"The history of our Clan stretches back very far. The oldest document I've been able to find dates back thousands of years, and it refers to much older ones. For all of that time we've had an excellent bloodline, the best arrays and formations, poison masters, demonic tune users, and armies of researchers and crafters. We've had auxiliaries of beast tamers, elemental mages, and chefs. None of that helped. We lost and we lost and we lost, right up until two and a half centuries ago, when the leadership of the Clan fell into the hands of a dabbler. That's when we started to fuse our chirurgs with plants and sending legions of scorpion riders down roads of weakened gravity and raising up Kings. I need to be a part of that. Like Old Gold or Scarletglyph, or Elder Duca, I need to know everything and be capable if doing everything. It's the only way I can contribute to getting us off the corpse we live on before it rots away."

"You are picking the harder path for yourself. One that will most likely end in your premature death."

"Yes."

The Analysis Jade glows softly for a few moments as it digests this information.

"Very well. I will do my best to navigate that path. What are our next steps?"

"The Yuan realm. I will need to become much better at puzzles, and I'm already very good. I will train in trap-filled ruins."

"Sounds sensible. What else?"

"My cultivation. I need to decide what to do next."

By this point Lipp has wrangled enough secrets from his half-undead prisoner to come up with the Swamp Body Constitution. By stopping the flow if blood within his own body, he could have negated any worries about impurities, since instead if being swept by swift currents they could quietly pool in his organs. Lipp already traced the technique further, through Poison Swamp Constitution and to the culmination of Rotten Swamp Oak Constitution, a stage at which he would have become a willing host to many terrible things.

It was a novel and powerful technique, but it would have required Lipp to let his body rot like a living corpse. And ultimately Lipp found that he liked himself too much to do that to himself just for the sake of power. That didn't bode well for his future as a cultivator, but it was ultimately the decision that he made. Instead he purified his body in the regular manner, passing into the tenth heavenstage. But the eleventh one bothers him. He still sees himself as having more in common with a swamp where a thousand different organisms could bloom than with a uniform and sterile sea. So he contemplates an alternative scheme wherein he takes many objects directly into his dantian - beast cores and undigested herbs and pills, and concentrations of raw elemental qi - and lets them intermingle within the whirlpool, creating a rainbow of energies so that Lipp can draw on exactly the one he needs.

And on the other hand Lipp contemplates his encounter with a Favored of Heaven and wonders whether he can replicate that same matrix of energies within himself. He can't give himself a Favored's luck or destiny. Tugging on those strands too hard is likely to bring down Heaven's wrath instead of its favor. But by making himself into a perfect receptacle for Heaven's power, he can better take advantage of the Great Era.

The problem is that the two plans are incompatible. Maybe. Having seen the Favored convert the excess fire qi into pure qi with unbelievable speed and ease, Lipp contemplates a method to do the same. Some sort of a spiritual prism that can break pure qi down into all its assorted flavors, or fuse them back together.

He explains all this to the Analysis Jade, hoping against hope that it will have an insight to offer. After all, the pagoda at the center of a star whose points are elemental in nature is at least conceptually similar to Lipp's idea.

Instead it has more criticism.

"Do you think you can do any of that with your half-assed grasp on the elements? I know you still think water is the key to life."

"Is it not?"

"Life can't exist without water, sure, but water itself? Simpler filler. Meanwhile flame is the nature of life."

"You don't mean metaphorically." Of course it doesn't. The Analysis jade has a very loose grasp of metaphors that aren't training jargon.

"Haven't you ever noticed that he only difference between breathing and burning is that one is faster than the other? It's appalling how low elementalism must have fallen in this age. Listen up, then. If you are to use fire as anything other than a weapon you must understand the makeup of air..."
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A/n: 1148 words.

 

[SeptimusMagisto]

Lipp Galanis in: Training Expeditions and Legitimate Grievances​

Short of infiltrating the Yuan Clan and getting an in-depth look at the Man-As-World array (infeasible) or reading every existing account of Yuan realm entry going back a thousand years (already done) the best way to prepare for a delve is to explore other underground labyrinths. Or at least Lipp hopes that's the case, because that's what he's doing.

Luckily, there is currently no shortage of underground facilities to explore. The Jingshen dug like termites, and even decades after the war ended the Golden Devils are still finding hidden wings in underground fortresses. Lipp knows to stay away from any place that has ever been visited by a Nascent Soul or even a Core Formation cultivator, because he can learn from others' mistakes. But that still leaves a plethora of underground storehouses, private mines, pleasure retreats, and training facilities, most of them guarded by traps. Lipp persuaded Tulia to team up with him and join one excavation effort after another. She, of course, is prized for her echo-gnomics. Lipp is somewhat less prized, but he's methodical, powerful for a Qi Condensation cultivator, and the treasures he won in the Qiguai realm serve him well here. Fire and physical force account for perhaps seventy percent of the opposition, and with the Shell and the Eye, Lipp can absorb those and then send them back.

The afternoon finds the two of them approaching another underground vault. A Jingshen functionary sponsored some bandits and dug into the first solid piece of ground he could find to hide the loot. Probably doesn't amount to much, but the Golden Devils are digging it up on general principle. The three-man team is lead by a Foundation Establishment expert, which is probably overkill, but caravans going down the Scorpion Road don't need as much defending these days, so the Elders are always on the lookout for other places to stick people. Bemus is a talisman expert, which makes him well-suited for taking out any threats lying in wait.

As always, Tulia sets up in the entrance with tuning forks, incense censors, and a lute. With a voice clear as a bell she sings to the spirits of the stone and they sing back to her in rumbling voices incomprehensible to Lipp. So he waits until Tulia uses the crystal she won in the Qiguai realm to project a three dimensional map of the complex and colors in the parts she believes are traps.

It's cheating in a way, but that's how you learn. You have a friends show you that there are suspicious narrow cavities in a wall and then when you get close you spot the camouflaged openings, and then you spend half an hour tapping on the wall to find the hidden switch that disables the hidden blades and safely extrudes them for maintenance. And hopefully next time you run into hidden blades you can spot them on your own.

***​

Jing was born in an age of madness. The Sea Conquering Army showed its true colors and abandoned the pretense of ruling over the people in favor of outright extermination. The Golden lords slaughtered people from on high, using terrible curses to murder entire cities at once and starve kingdoms by creating toxic wastelands. The Bronze foot soldiers got up close, however reluctantly. The one who destroyed Jing's village acted like a man being forced to club rats, staying as far from his victims as he could. Perhaps that's why he failed to notice that Jing was still alive when he threw him into a mass grave and covered it with earth. Jing should have died there, but rage at the monstrous unfairness of this treatment kept him alive. He clawed his way to the surface and his determination won the favor of Heaven.

The wars that took part over the next millennia were terrible indeed. There was no atrocity the Sea Conquering Army wouldn't stoop to in order to keep their dominion, no sacrifice they wouldn't commit. But Jing never stopped fighting. He fought and killed and raised armies and forged alliances, always striking out at the metal skinned invaders. He learned curses more terrible than the ones used by the enemy. He killed enough cultivators to equip an army with suits of Grave Bronze armor and he led that army to bring down one of the towers meant to avert the wrath of Heaven. Only when not a single Optimatoi remained in the Virtuous Flipper region did Jing finally rest. He built a city and ruled it wisely, earning the title of Jing the Just. One day his body died but Jing remained behind, ever watchful for the return of the hated enemy.

So focused was Jing on this threat that he never noticed his city's gradual decline or its eventual destruction at the hands of a rival power. He never noticed as it sank deeper and deeper into the soil or when another city was built atop it only to also sink. He stirred slightly when the Turtle Child died, but finding no soldier of the Sea Conquering Army in the vicinity, he sank back into the dream of unbeing.

But now someone is calling out. A girl's voice echoes through layers of sand and rock, and it reminds Jing of something. The tune itself is innocent, but hidden within it is an echo of one that long ago destroyed a city, killing fifty thousand Righteous cultivators. Jing stirs, reaches up, and begins clawing his way through the ground, just like he did so long ago.

***​

Lipp has learned many valuable skills from these expeditions, but chief among them is accurately estimating the value of the prize from the challenges guarding it. The basic correlation of better traps equaling greater treasure is obvious. Trap arrays and puppet guardians need Qi, which in the desert means spirit stones. And nobody would spend a hundred spirit stones guarding another hundred of the same caliber. Establishing an accurate ratio is tricky, especially when accounting for rooms that used to hold valuable things but have since been emptied and rooms that were meant to get fuller over time. But Lipp's been getting more accurate. For example, this place was meant to hold plunder gathered by low level Qi Condensation and occasionally outright mortal bandits. So it has a fire trap that uses more lamp oil than Qi, a couple of saw blades, and a minor curse with a skull for a focus. Well within Lipp's ability to deal with, much less Bemus.

So when Lipp sees a purple-hued ghost rise through the ground, his first thought is that it must be an illusion. Anything else would be absurd. He prepares to recite the Fear Dispelling Mantra instead of readying an attack, which may be all that saves him. Bemus, less analytical and more experienced, moves into action. He draws the Second Death talisman from his sleeve and yells the activation word. The ghost flickers and the talisman bursts into flame, scorching Bemus's hands and forearms. Undeterred, Bemus tries to activate a Spirit Consuming Flame talisman without bothering to pull it out of the sheaf, but the ghost stares at him and suddenly he falls to his knees, eyes rolled back, screaming in agony. Tulia has activated her most powerful defensive technique, putting a three foot thick wall of rock in-between herself and the ghost. It does nothing as she too collapses. Lipp, instinctively understanding that there is no getting away, prepares for a last stand. One hand on the turtle amulet with its layered defensive arrays and the other on a knot bought with a year's worth of small misfortunes, he falls a split second before he can activate either of his Life Saving Treasures.

***​

Lipp is a middling cultivator in the Nascent Soul stage of advancement who's made his home in a Qi-rich valley. One day his meditation is interrupted by a sudden blaze of power in the northeast. He flies up to greet the incoming cultivator, vary but peaceful. He offers greetings, but the metal-skinned arrival doesn't bother with dialogue. He strikes Lipp down for the crime of existing too close to the Sea-Conquering Army's landing point.

Then Lipp is in another body, but in the same situation. An oncoming stranger slays him without discourse. This repeats over and over again as the Sea Conquering Army establishes a secure perimeter, and the first of Lipp's ancestors to step foot in the Seas racks up a great karmic debt. Then the real campaign of conquest begins and things get much, much worse.

The Sea Conquering Army moves with ruthless efficiency to eliminate all threats to its goals, and all those who hold potential to become threats. Its soldiers denounce Heaven, and all who refuse to do the same suffer for it. Its administrators view the natives as little more than insects, and any insect that dares to irritate one of the "real" people gets squished. And Lipp gets to experience each torment and each death inflicted by a member of his bloodline from the victim's perspective.

Then things get worse as the Sea-Conquering Army starts losing. A cultivator power on the rise can be terrible, but usually in efficient, goal-oriented ways. A waning power desperate to arrest its slide into irrelevance will do far worse. And so Lipp gets to experience being worked to death to create a great fortification; dying to poison a million times over as one of his ancestors blights the headquarters of an important river; freeze to death in the dark because someone has blocked out the sun. A million years of war, tyranny, and betrayal, and Lipp gets to experience it all.

And just as the litany of crimes and injustices finally catches up to the present and it seems like it's mercifully over, Lipp is taught final object lesson. He finds out what it feels like when someone tries to change your Dao by force.

Heartbroken and weeping, Lipp is finally released from the illusion. He stares up at the ghost, which has moved to hover directly in front of him.

"I don't understand," he whispers. "Why don't you hate us more?"

***​

Jing counters the Optimatus's clumsy attack. He has faded over the millennia, but not so much that he can be threatened by these fledglings. He answers with his favorite curse. The sages who invented it gave it a long and auspicious name, but in his own mind Jing has always called it the Invader Killing Hex. A technique made possible by their own great crime against the proper flow of time, it summons forth an echo of every dark deed perpetrated by their ancestors. Like a judge reading the list of charges, the curse makes sure the victim knows exactly why they deserve to die. And then the collected echoes are consumed the call forth a killing blow from Heaven itself. Jing repeats the effort twice more, bringing the two remaining cultivators down.

While he awaits their deaths, Jing considers his options. It seems his efforts worked better than expected, but worse than he hoped. The Sea Conquering Army has returned, but only after far too much time has passed. If they had returned a hundred years after Jing's passing, he would have been able to strike at them anywhere within the Virtuous Flipper. If a thousand year had passed, he could have at least struck anywhere within the jungle and the surrounding mountains. Now he's having difficulty even staying this far above his final resting place. So: is it better to expend what's left of his strength in a suicidal rush, or to haunt these stones in hopes of giving a worthy junior a legacy?

Then the oldest and strongest of the Optimatoi stirs.

How?! How is it possible that the killing blow simply didn't come? Has Heaven forgiven their transgressions? Impossible. The deficiency must be in Jing. He can no longer be relied on to wield weapons of this sophistication. He'll just have to do this the crude way.

He subjects the man to the Ambition Reading Enchantment and finds that his greatest goal is to protect his family. So he casts a simple bloodline curse. Every member of the man's family who is mortal or in the Qi Gathering stage of development - and that seems to cover all of them - falls dead, blood gushing through various orifices. Then he simply cripples him, shattering every meridian with a single gesture. That should leave him alive just long enough to see what has happened.

The girl next. Her ambition is to finds things with her music and her keen senses. Jing rips out her tongue so she can't sing or speak to the gnomes, bursts her ears so she can hear neither music nor echoes, and crushes her eyes on general principles. He then expends the effort to create a complex curse that will cripple any healer who tries to help her.

Lastly, the boy. His highest ambition is...to undo the terrible wrong done against the world and ease Heaven's burden?

Well, that's...No, but he's still...

"I don't understand. Why don't you hate us more?"

Oh, wow, that question is sincere. The boy isn't about to go slaughtering his clanmates, but it seems like the Invader Killing Hex has burned patriotism right out of him. Perhaps he doesn't need a curse placed on him. Perhaps he can be the curse.

Jing isn't about to give him any power, of course. But teaching him to hear Heaven's voice? Yes, that could be done. Let him do what he can to restore and strengthen the mechanisms that govern the world and dispense justice.

He burns the knowledge into the boy's soul. While he's at it, he notes that the seed of Despair within the boy's heart has been changed by the Hex. So he finishes the job, transmogrifying it into Grief. Much more productive. The boy should be burning himself out to atone for his people's deeds, not giving up preemptively.

Unable to take the strain of the alterations, the boy has passed alongside his companions. That's fine. When they wake up, each of them will bear their burden. As for Jing, he strains at his own invisible tether. Times have clearly changed, too much for him to know how to best apply his remaining power. Best to find someone worthy of inheriting his legacy and the favor of Heaven, then let them figure out what to do.
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A/N: 2433 words.

 

[SeptimusMagisto]

Lipp Galanis in: Soup for the Soul​

Cultivators are no strangers to mental attacks, nor to dealing with the aftermath. There exist drugs to deaden emotions and prevent dreams. There exist meditative techniques to induce artificial calm and prevent fight-or-flight reflexes from firing. Lipp is taking full advantage of all of those, which means he only wants to attack anyone with Blood of Bronze on sight, instead of actually doing it.

Intellectually he recognizes the impulse as irrational. The visions he was forced to endure had a feeling of truth about them, but you can lie using the truth. Such as by showing all the evil a given civilization does, but none of the good or the merely neutral acts. Apply this treatment to any clan or sect, no matter how Righteous, and it won't come out looking very good. And even if the Golden Devils were particularly vile in the past, that doesn't mean they are now. Stories of fall and redemption abound throughout history and it may well be that the Golden Devils' humble circumstances forced them to learn empathy and stewardship. And most importantly, the visions were clearly an attack, meant to harm Lipp in some way. Therefore the logical response would be to ignore the visions as much as possible.

But if logic could dispel the effects of mental attacks, no one would bother using them. No rationalization can stop the anger and revulsion Lipp feels whenever he sees another Golden Devil. The feeling runs so deep that Lipp has carefully avoided anyone he couldn't stand seeing in that light - his friends, his family, Elder Duca, and as many mirrors as he can dodge. No rationalization can make Lipp not mourn the unjust deaths of countless people with an intensity he hadn't known he was capable of. There are too many Dao effects echoing within Lipp's mind and he is helpless to quiet them.

Lipp isn't sure what the ghostly cultivator hoped to achieve. If he meant for Lipp to betray the Golden Devils in some concrete way, he shouldn't have used a blood curse against innocent mortals. Nor should he have cursed Tulia, whose most nefarious ambition has always been to find buried resources, as harmless an act as is likely to exist under the Heavens. If a woman who's lived a largely blameless life is nevertheless expected to bear a karmic burden in so horrific a way, this is not Justice. It is vengeance, or possibly a deterrent. Plenty of cultivators have engaged in similarly harsh retribution, very much including the Golden Devils - and Lipp means the Golden Devils of today, not their imperial ancestors. But it's still not Justice, so Lipp has no rational reason to help.

Irrational impulses are a different story though. And so, until Lipp can find a way to love his Clan again, he must leave it.

Leave the core territories and spend time with the vassals, that is. Lipp is traumatized, not reckless. While he technically has a standing invitation to visit Tenchang, that seems like a bad idea in light of recent revelations. No, no, a place where Lipp can see positive examples of Golden Devils' governance but few actual Golden Devils seems best.

To begin with, Lipp decides to revisit the Simmering Soup Sect. It is common wisdom among cultivators that returning to one's roots with the benefit of fresh perspective is all but guaranteed to produce new insights. And besides, soup is famously a comfort food, and Lipp is badly in need of comforting.

One thing's for sure, visiting the Sect in the tenth Heavenstage is a very different experience than doing it in the first. This time around Lipp skips the caravan and just hitches a ride on one of the Simmering Soup airships when it comes in to trade for premium ingredients. Lipp has the wealth to pay for soup instead of tricking kitchen hands into feeding him, and the power to visit the more dangerous outlying areas.

Lipp spends the first month on an eating tour, trying to find something potent enough to wash the taste of war crimes from his mouth. Some of the soups he tries even work, for a time. The Glad Man's Zest of Life, in addition to having a delicious citrus sweetness, made Lipp laugh. The rich and salty Mourning's End tinged Lipp's sadness with a fond nostalgia and left him ready to move on. The indescribable Contempt Erasing Tea (technically a kind of soup; Lipp will die on that hill) made Lipp feel good about himself. Too bad each effect wore off after a few hours, leaving the Grief etched into Lipp's soul fundamentally unchanged. If there is a soup capable if easing Lipp's burden permanently, it lies beyond Lipp's means to acquire.

As a last resort, Lipp travels to the Pot. Feeling himself become a potential soup ingredient - a little tougher than last time, and a little more nutritious - does help a little. How can a piece if stew meat be expected to bear a karmic burden? The notion is absurd. But Lipp cannot in the Pot, just as he can't constantly sip soup or keep himself drugged up to the gills. He has to find a way to exist within the world. That means moving forward, if only to the most immediate of goals.

So Lipp spends the next year sharpening his cooking skills. He does not seek to learn the high culinary arts or create the kind of soups that replenish qi or enhance cultivation. Instead he wants to know how to turn any piece of meat, fish, or fruit he is likely to ever encounter into a tasty meal. This will mean more or less wasting ingredients that someone who does nothing but cook could use much better. But Lipp has learned that many cultivators deeply appreciate a good bowl of freshly made soup, however mundane.

In his second year Lipp learns more obscure cooking. He once again studies bacterial soups, growing deadlier and more useful microscopic swarms than before. His experiences with swamp water have taught Lipp how to let bacteria strive better than ever before. He grows generation after generation of bacteria in chambers full of unbalanced qi, creating elementally-aligned swarms. Then Lipp uses a dangerous technique to take the microbes directly into his dantian, digesting them not at all. It slows Lipp's cultivation, even with his qi-rich diet. But it's key to making his own qi Five Coloured, which will be vitally important.

At this point Lipp's money begins to run low, so he takes on missions to help replenish it. The Simmering Soup Sect is happy to make use of him, throwing him at missions considered too dangerous gor their own Qi Condensation disciples. Lipp does better with animals than they expect, luring Foundation level beasts into traps or tricking them unto attacking each other, all with ever-increasing speed and confidence, as the piece of jade he took from the Qiguai Realm and his now-innate sense of timing let him learn from each success. Lipp also develops a healthy respect for vegetables after a carrot chews on him, only the Blood of Bronze saving him from being devoured.

In his final year Lipp concentrates on learning ancillary skills. He learns to build the perfect fire, shape the perfect pot, make kitchen leftovers into a perfect compost heap. He renews his acquaintance with the knife sharpener he met all those years ago and together they work to enhance Lipp's cooking knives, sharpening them well past the point of usefulness.

At the end of the three years Lipp still hasn't found what he was looking for. He had hoped that the simple passage of time and accumulation of fresh experiences would do what drugs and soups could bot and permanently ease his suffering. They did not, though having a sense of purpose helped a little. And so Lipp prepares for the next leg of his journey, boarding an airship headed for Xi Kingdom.
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A/N: 1339 words. For my turn 15 bonus I'd like a Healing Treasure.

 

[SeptimusMagisto]

Tulia Carbo in: The Weight of Expectations​

There is nothing quite as frustrating as having a good opportunity to sink into self-pity snatched away.

When Tulia returned from her ill-fated expedition, she assumed she was finished as a cultivator. Technically she remained capable. The ancient ghost left her cultivation base intact. But he took away her voice and her senses, leaving only a million years' worth of torments to distract her from the pain. She can't sing a Demonic Tune or project a map. She can't spot an enemy or negotiate with a local. She can send vibrations through the ground and feel their echoes return through her feet. The ghost left her with that much, possibly by mistake. It's nowhere near enough. She would be a liability on any mission. So she was well within her rights to expect to be gently set aside to live out the rest of her days in a dull retirement while her cultivation withered.

The Galanis matriarch had other plans.

Tulia found herself showered awith treasures and resources. Her ruined left eye replaced with a ruby that shoots fireballs. Her right one with a piece of spiritual jade that records anything her face happens to be pointed at. She was gifted a cane of petrified wood, equidistant from living thing and stone, with power enough to serve as a bridge between the two. She's been given servants to tend to her daily needs, teachers to help her deal with her condition, specialized cultivation aids to direct her growth in the only direction still open to her.

This is more than she ever got at her peak, and certainly more than she ever gave to the family or the clan. Neither guilt nor pity could provoke such an expenditure. Lady Galanis is making a bet on her. She believes that Tulia will be the kind of cultivator who us tempered by tragedy. That she will do the Blind Seer thing, gaining in her remaining senses now that she can't rely on sight or hearing.

And if that's what Lady Galanis really thinks, then she is oh so wrong. Tulia is grateful for the chance to continue working with gnomes, however stunted her techniques. But she knows she will never be what she was again, much less evolve into a new and greater being. She has always relied more on creativity than on determination, and her predicament demanded far more of the latter than the former.

She would try, of course. To do otherwise would be no less a betrayal than if she were to set fire to the Galanis spirit gardens or collapse their mines. But unless she manages to shatter her own expectations of herself, she is destined to be a net loss, leaving her benefactors worse off than if they had never met her. She wishes that burden had not been placed on her shoulders, but then again she wishes she hadn't somehow brought the wrath of an ancient phantom upon herself. People so rarely get what they wish for. Why should she?

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A/N: 514 words.

 

[SeptimusMagisto]

Vignettes From the Bathmother​

Link to collab. 2362 words. Jumping slightly ahead in Lipp's timeline.

 

[SeptimusMagisto]

Lipp Galanis In: Seeking Scraps​

Lipp nearly bankrupts himself by buying up five years' worth of sleep aids and mood softeners in advance. But the expense is a necessary one. Finding such things in the Xin Kingdom would be far more difficult. Xin was never a land rich in herbs or pills, not even while it served as a bulwark against the Battle Blood Cannibal Sect. Once the Cannibals disappeared, so did the Bronze-blooded garrisons, taking most of Xin's imports with them. The onset of the Great Era arrested Xin's downward slide into irrelevance, with the qi raining from the sky doing much to replace the diminished patronage of the Golden Devils. But what resources exist in Xin now do so mostly through the exertions of elementalism, and they tend to be consumed quickly and greedily. There is little left over for trade.

The airship carrying Lipp is an exception that proves the rule. It carries hundreds of pots sealed against air and temperature, each one containing a portion of soup cooked by a senior kitchenhand or a minor restaurant owner. It will return with a shipment of Weightless Wood and Earth Repelling Stones, to be used in airship construction. Neither trip fills the hold to bursting, so there is room for an occasional passenger. Usually it's a soup chef seeking to experiment with elemental flavors or an elementalist hungry for stew, but it's easy enough for Lipp to catch a ride.

Lipp still needs more time away from the Clan and the sight of copper skin, and there are not many places within Golden Devil territory that hold fewer Golden Devils than the Xin Kingdom. Even those who are interested in elementalism tend to seek instruction elsewhere, because the Xin guard their tomes so jealously that the effort spent prying them open would win better rewards elsewhere.

But that's because they tend to head for the Towers. Lipp knows better. A fourth child will freely tell you secrets that the heir won't sell at any price. Obviously they'll have fewer secrets to tell, but as long as you're not looking for very much, it's a fine way to win small benefits. Just like the kitchens of the Simmering Soup Sect or the frog ponds of the Fortune Storks, the Xin Kingdom has its own out of the way places full of unexpected secrets.

Even so, as the airship moors at the great ruined tower, Lipp gives it a single wistful look. A single drop of the Bountiful Five Element Fountain's waters is all it would take for Lipp to figure out the Five Colored Qi, Lipp is sure of that. Even observing the fountain would yield valuable insights. But going after the most valuable, flashiest thing in the whole Kingdom is exactly the sort of mistake too many cultivators make. So Lipp says goodbye to the fantasy and leaves for the Seafort.

In Grandmama's day the New Shieldwall was an important line of defense against the Cannibals. Or at least important enough to be staffed by some of the best cultivators the Xin had to offer and garrisons of Golden Devils. But the Forts were shattered in the last great war against the Cannibals, and after the Cannibals were destroyed as a power, the Forts immediately lost all importance and prestige. What use was a defensive line between one of the Clan's territories and another? Irrelevance did what Nascent Soul attacks could not and drove the Forts' defenders out forever.

Still, the Forts themselves were too built-up to be abandoned entirely. Instead they became homes to heterodox Xin - those whose interpretation of the elements or personal rivalries made the Towers inhospitable for them. Cut off from political power, perpetually starved of resources, and willing to buck tradition, these quasi-exiles seem like just the sort of people who might be willing to part with lesser secrets.

As Lipp approaches the Seafort, the everpresent grief is sometimes tinged with a certain giddiness. Lipp has a special love for water, especially water teeming with living things. Though he now knows that water is not the source of life, in his mind the two things are still tightly bound together. He longs to begin learning from the masters of water as quickly as possible.

***​

Days later, Lipp stares through the blizzard at the masked and painted figure perched atop an ice obelisk. The master of the Seafort is like nothing he expected. The Seafort exile Peng Yaoting practiced a hybrid Water/Wood art that took full advantage of the power of life, so Lipp assumed that was the heterodoxy still practiced here. But apparently the reason Peng left the Seafort in the first place was the growing focus on ice.

Lipp is fairly certain that Zhuo, the master of the Seafort, is at the very least from another Region, possibly another Sea or even another world entirely. Lipp isn't sure how he'd make the crossing as a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator, but such things do apparently happen. Either way, Zhuo talks and behaves as if the land should be covered with ice and snow by default and it's the desert that's the aberration. Historical records indicate that the Seafort's defenders always used great blocks of ice to reinforce damaged walls, but Zhuo has gone beyond that. The whole of Seafort now looks as if it was chiseled from a single block of ice, and if Lipp didn't know for a fact there is stonework underneath, he wouldn't have guessed it.

Zhuo was at first reluctant to teach Lipp anything, but Lipp offered to pay with a single reasonable favor once he establishes his own Foundation. Lipp could summon the lightning right now. It would be as easy as taking a breath. Zhuo sensed the truth of this and accepted Lipp.

Now, Lipp knows water. He's set it to the task of polishing sea glass over the course of decades. He's perfected the salt to water ratio that would keep a mollusc healthy and happy - and one that would help turn it into good soup stock. He found a way to swim the rotting waters of a swamp while staying clean. But he's never faced it like this - hard as stone and exuding a biting cold that would chill a mortal to the bone and even bothers Lipp a little. More than the few spells Zhuo grudgingly shares, this new understanding is the most valuable thing Lipp could hope to gain.

***​

He moves on after a year, seeking the Metalfort. His expectations are not high. One would think that metal cultivators would love metal in all its forms, but the Xin metal cultivators refuse to use weapons or armor. To Lipp this attitude suggests either narrowmindedness or extreme pride. Either way, refusing to squeeze every bit of advantage out of mundane crafts that require no qi expenditure grates on Lipp.

Not that it turns out to matter. Shan, the master of the Metalfort, takes an immediate dislike to Lipp. As a Bronze cultivator, he views the Blood of Bronze as a clumsy effort at mimicking what he does. And to prove it, he's developed a curse he calls True Bronze Sovereignty. When cast on a sufficiently weak Golden Devil, it suppresses the Blood of Bronze for a time. Having cast the curse on Lipp, he challenges him to face one of his disciples if he wants to be taught anything.

Lipp loses that bout, but he comes back. Again and again and again. By the end of the year he's humiliated himself dozens of times, and Shan believes that the Metalfort taught him nothing. But that's wrong. Standing at the tenth heavenstage, Lipp could have easily defeated the disciples he was set against even without the power bestowed by his bloodline. But he spotted the most valuable thing in the Metalfort on that first day, and he did what it took to steal it. And now, after having the True Bronze Sovereignty cast on him so many times, Lipp understands it well enough to cast it on himself.

This new technique allows Lipp to trade power and resilience for speed and anonymity. With the metal in his blood suppressed, it becomes much easier for Lipp to disguise himself should the need arise. And he has a theory that the technique may even allow him to bypass alarms and traps aimed exclusively at the descendants of the Sea Conquering Army.

***​

Moving on to Earthfort, Lipp finds that its master is gone, collaborating with the Woodfort on some sort of a long-term project. He spends a few weeks exchanging tips with the disciples about stone carving and wall building, and then moves on to the Firefort.

Here Lipp doesn't have to pay with future favors. Master Huo falls in love with the Analysis Jade that Lipp pulled out of the Fire Temple in the Qiguai Realm. The Jade is frankly appalled at the state that fire sorcery has sunk to, and determined to remedy things. It contains no techniques or arts, but the civilization that built the temples was something like the Xin, except far more advanced. The simple memory of how they used fire in battle is enough to greatly enhance Huo's battle prowess. The brilliant and inventive woman soon finds ways to adapt her existing techniques to produce similar effects. The Xin are best known for massive attack spells meant to destroy massed formations, but Huo's new arsenal includes many other applications.

She is now capable of creating a cloud of thinly-spread flying embers that are perfect for burning wings off Devil Bees; a superheated plume of flame the length of a sword for slicing through hardened substances; a zipping, dancing bead of flame that jumps from enemy to enemy even if those enemies are separated by multiple Li; and many more qi-efficient, highly specific tools.

Lipp learns lesser versions of similar techniques and finally moves on. He is pleased with the spells, but somewhat wistful. The Analysis Jade taught him about the subtle, slow fire that is the mechanism behind rust, fermentation, and life itself. He had been hoping that he could learn about this fire here, but Huo knew nothing of it and had no interest in researching it.

***​

At the Woodfort, Lipp discovers something he never expected. Master Golshan proves to be obsessed with ordinary, non-spirit plants. The Woodfort is little more now than a collection of experimental gardens where Golshan tests soil acidity and crossbreed chickpeas in the same way Lipp's own Grandmama does.

Gou, the master of the Earthfort, is here too, participating in a peculiar project of his own. While most earth cultivators focus on solid stone or at least thick, contiguous soil, Gou's techniques center around manipulation of the desert sand. Not seeking to harden it and force it into sandstone, but dealing with it exactly as it is - a fluid, shifting mass of very tiny individual stones.

When the Xin retreated from the original Shieldwall, they salted everything in-between the old Shieldwall and the new. Using his power over individual mineral grains, Gou is un-salting the land so that Golshan can cultivate it.

Here, Lipp spends a blissful two years. This is everything he's wanted cultivation to be. He walks with master Gou and learns to restore the land. He spends endless days and nights trading tips with master Golshan, and even puts her in contact with Grandmama. He comes to understand ever-more minute details of what soil is and how it affects the plants that grow from it.

***​

Before Lipp knows it, the five years he's allotted himself have passed. Even as his supplies of mood altering medications dwindle to nothing, he finally receives the package he's been waiting for all this time. A thick tome, bound in leather and wood, inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl. And inside, a story written by a cultivator who follows the Dao of Writing, commissioned at great cost.

It is a semi-fictional account of a series of events that took place some seven thousand years ago. Gem Tiger Clan, a minor power that has long since been absorbed by larger polities, was facing a number of concurrent crises, and one of these was a rivalry between two of its great family, referred to in the text as the Claw family and the Stripe family.

The chronicle opens from the viewpoint of the Gem Tiger Grand Elder. For a while it ignores the feuding families altogether and focuses on the Grand Elder dealing with external threats. Finally, after barely managing to preserve his clan (for now), he receives news that a skirmish between Fang and Stripe has damaged the clan's array inscribing facility. The book perfectly captures the sense of frustration and desperation that leads the Grand Elder to declare that the next time the peace is broken, the offending family will be wiped out in its entirety. And it captures the despair he feels when the head of the Fang family kills the Stipe Young Master and the Grand Elder has to keep his threat. One hundred and sixty seven people die to preserve the credibility of the Grand Elder's threats.

The book then goes back in time and describes the lives of each and every one of those members in turn.

It begins with the Fang matriarch and her life - steeped in responsibility and centered around the protection of her family at an early age. The book takes a look at each action the matriarch took to protect her family, right up until the one that doomed it. And the peculiar thing is that even knowing the ultimate consequences of that last decision, the reader can't help but empathize with the matriarch's reasons for making it.

It then moves on through the other family members. One life after another, each one with its challenges and peculiarities and joys and letdowns, right up until the day each one is cut short by a sudden unstoppable assault. It finally ends by looking through the eyes of a baby, recounting the ten days it lived before being murdered in its crib. And finally, it returns to the Grand Elder as he returns to his seat of power, equal parts regretful and annoyed.

Enthralled by the words of a Writing cultivator, Lipp reads the book cover to cover. Driven by the Grief seed in his head, he mourns each character individually. And yet…he can't say the Grand Elder's decision to commit familicide was ultimately wrong. But nor can he say it was unavoidable. If this book tried to teach a moral, it would be lesser for it. All it really wants is to draw every last tear from Lipp.

As Lipp sits on the floor of his room, fully burned out by the blaze of emotion inside him, he finds strength enough to connect the book to the distant visions of the Sea Conquering Army. To mourn the Army's victims is not the same thing as hating the Army. To mourn the Golden Devils as they are struck down for the crimes of their ancestors is not the same as condoning the Army, nor even condemning Heaven for the action it clearly deemed necessary.

Grief is not the same as picking sides.

Once Lipp fully understands this - enough to carve it into his mind and soul - he is finally able to return to the core Clan territories and face his friends and family without feeling revolted by their very existence.

He is even able to face a mirror.

------

A/N: 2618 words. Count this toward turn 16 and give me another LST, please.

 

[SeptimusMagisto]

Lipp Galanis in: Time's Winding Thread (Part 1)​

Lipp enters the Man-As-World Mountain Array feeling calm but strangely empty. He's won a reprieve from the ever-gnawing sorrow that's been threatening to consume him, and the sight of another Golden Devil doesn't send his mind spiraling downward. But nor does it reassure him. Lipp always believed that the Golden Devils were basically good, and helping the Clan was the same as helping the world. But seeing the Sea Conquering Army burned that certainty out of him. Worse, the seed of Grief in his soul has not ceased its function. The neverending heartache is gnawing at the edges, seeking a way back in. The armor of understanding and rationalizations Lipp put around his heart won't last forever against true Dao effects. Despair and Grief destroyed all certainty in Lipp's life, and so he enters the Secret Realm feeling lost and alone.

"I know what you should do."

It's not a voice but a feeling. The same feeling Lipp had when Heaven banished the Blood Mist from his soul. The same one he got from being near Liu Tenchang. It was a warm and gentle glow and the sound of a flawless mountain bell and Grandmama's strong hand resting on his shoulder, all at once.

"Help the Turtle Child. It has to be you. No one else can do it. You are unique. You are worthy."

Such sweet feelings pouring into Lipp's wounded heart. Moreover, they resonate with his Grief over the poor, innocent Turtle Child murdered by a power-hungry maniac.

"It will be hard. You may not succeed. But if anyone can, you can. Please help."

Unconsciously, Lipp's lips curl into a smile as he gets a sense of direction. His feet move before he's formed a second thought.

Following Heaven's call, Lipp walks past one of the Yuan's challenge rooms. Inside it is a great winged beast with features somewhere between those of a lion and a dragon, exuding dignity and power - and also pain and rage. The source is immediately apparent to Lipp. Stuck in one of its paws is an ornate bronze spear that practically radiates power. One good yank would free it, and a simple mixture of antiseptics and numbing agents would see the beast's pain abated. The challenge would be gaining the beast's trust long enough to perform the deed, but Lipp is confident he could do that.

But the path Heaven wants Lipp to walk leads past the door.

It takes more effort than Lipp expected to walk away. Deep down even the most dedicated of cultivators is greedy for adventure and treasure. Turning down a perfect opportunity is painful.

But Lipp can carry more pain.

The next room Lipp passes contains two fully stocked kitchens, one of them helmed by an automaton clearly prepared for some sort of contest. The one after that is a workshop full of impossibly precise machinery, with bird skeletons pinned to the ceiling. The one after that is a shifting maze full of pendulums and rotating walls, requiring extremely precise timing to get through. The next one is a dusty old library with a monolith inscribed with ten questions sitting in the middle.

Really, this is getting pretty irritating. Is Heaven testing his resolve, or is some opposing force trying to make him stray?

Regardless, Lipp puts one foot in front of the other. Has he not sworn to sow the seeds he will never get to reap? Now is the time to prove it. Lipp will not become a cultivator who lives only for the sake of power.

And so he walks ever onward until reaching the very edge of the realm. There he finds an opening. Not a proper gate or even a break in the wall, but more of a discontinuity, as if one space intersects another there and they don't quite fit together.

"Here. It's here. You're almost there."

Lipp is about to step forward, but a cough interrupts him.

"You are about to make a mistake, young man."

Lipp turns around and bows to the hunched and white bearded cultivator who called out to him. The elderly cultivator continues, smiling mildly.

"This may not be a story you've heard, young man, but the maze beyond this point is well known to those of us in the Yuan Clan. Well, we don't quite know who made it or what treasure might lie at its center, but no one has ever been able to make it through. Even some Nascent Souls got turned back over the centuries. So you'd be better off participating in our maze."

"I…thank you for your kind warning, elder. But now I really, really want to go inside!"

"Feh. Youth is wasted on the young. Don't say no one warned you, now."

Lipp doesn't heed the warning and steps into the labyrinth. And the moment he does, Heaven's guidance stops. It fades out gently, like someone whispering "Good luck!" into his ear before walking standing back to watch him succeed or fail on his own merits.

***​

After days of experimentation Lipp can confirm: the maze isn't static. The curving tunnels made of some invulnerable material that glows with a soft inner light change when he's not looking.

He figured that much out when the Yuan cultivator mentioned that Nascent Souls tried and failed to solve the maze. If the maze were laid out according to a pattern, a Nascent Soul would certainly figure it out. And if the maze were truly random, a Nascent Soul could simply explore every passage. With their great speed and perfect recall, figuring out any maze is only a matter of time. And Nascent Souls have so much time.

Of course, if Lipp can figure all this out, then so can a frustrated Nascent Soul. What they have apparently not been able to figure out is how the maze changes. And if they couldn't, then can Lipp?

Almost certainly. Heaven would not lead Lipp here if the task was impossible. Nascent Souls have vast minds, but they aren't omniscient. There has to be something Lipp understands that they do not.

And so Lipp maps the maze. With ink and thread, with qi effects, with bacterial colonies and grains of sand. He studies the curvature of the tunnels and the way air moves through them. He can only reach a tiny corner of the maze, but there is something…

After weeks of work, Lipp is drawing on paper that he's cut until it's so thin it's practically transparent. Simple mazes, one after another. In none of them does a path from the entrance to the maze connect to the exit.

Lipp lays the papers on top of one another. In the superimposed drawing, the path emerges. In places it's intersected by lines, the "walls" of Lipp's two-dimensional maze, but there is always at least one sheet of paper where the "wall" is not there. A dot that could jump between the sheets would be able to reach the exit.

Something like that, then. Only with a three dimensional maze, superimposed on itself in time instead of space. Using the ticking of the glass clock in his head, Lipp imagines a series of frozen worlds next to each other, each one subtly different. The picture that emerges…

It isn't a maze, not exactly. More like an enormous array inscribed in four dimensions. Or a living machine with qi for blood. Or the growth of some vast tree expressed as pure mathematics and then reconstituted as a place. Or the fractal qi attack that Lipp uses to shred bacteria to shreds for his soups, turned to creation instead of destruction. It is mind bogglingly frustrating and beautiful all at once.

And Lipp can see its shape.

From then on it's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. The tunnels never change before Lipp's eyes. It's nothing so crass. The network simply "expands" into the physical world in one place while another "contracts" into non-existence. It's not a pre-set cycle, but something closer to a heartbeat or a snowflake building itself.

So Lipp moves and then waits. And then moves again and waits again. Until one day he leaves the tunnels behind and steps into a vast domed chamber containing a grassy meadow and a stately home. Lipp smiles triumphantly.

And then disaster strikes.

Many years ago, when poaching secrets from the Fortune Storks, Lipp learned that while increasing your overall luck is very difficult, deciding when to have your luck is easier. Just as it's better to roll a six on your die when the opponent rolls a five than when he rolls a one, it's better to receive a knife wound when cooking at home than in the middle of battle. With the proper technique, one can take a mundane success and turn it into a mundane disaster, 'saving' that success as a tiny sliver of luck. By joining many such slivers together, one can save up enough luck to turn even a life or death situation around. The pouch on Lipp's hip contains a store of luck saved in this manner.

What happens to Lipp now is the reverse. Some force, some malevolent shadow lurking at Lipp's feet, yanks all the bad luck from Lipp's immediate future and brings it to this one moment.

Lipp reaches for his pouch, but it's too late. The house's inhabitant notices Lipp and takes exception to the color of his skin. He does not so much attack Lipp as simply wishes him dead.

And so Lipp dies.

Heaven rumbles in displeasure, causing the master of the maze to reconsider. Time breaks and rewinds itself.

Lipp walks into the meadow once more, but the stray thought that slew him never comes. Instead he is hit by the world's memory of the killing blow, a mere phantom echo of an event that never was.

It's still enough to almost destroy him. Lipp is left physically unharmed but somehow terribly thin, as if his very existence has become tenuous.

"Come on, then, boy. Let me see you."

Lipp bows and enters the house. He finds himself staring at a man who's similarly thin, but even more so. It can be said that Lipp should have died. The scholarly looking man wearing a simple robe who stands before Lipp has died. There just hasn't been time for his corpse to fall to the ground.

"Apologies, young one. I…almost attacked you because you are a Golden Devil. You can't blame a man for wanting to avenge his own death, eh? But it seems you are different. Why?"

"The Turtle Child," Lipp replies, no uncertainty in his voice. "I intend to revive it."

"Hmph. I see. That's a sin that can't be laid at your people's feet, eh?"

"Yes."

"And? You really think you can do it?"

"I have to, so I will. And if I don't, then I will leave behind a path for others to follow, so that even if I fail, someone will succeed."

How easy to say those words with Despair gone from his soul and the intense Grief over the Turtle Chld's unjust death spurning him onward.

"Hmm. I see, I see. What an admirable attitude. If that's the case, then I should let you know that you're not the first to try. Most of us die before we accomplish anything."

Here he looks down at the back of his own hand before continuing.

"But a few earned merits. You ought to visit the middle of the Qi Draining Desert, should you find a way to survive it. Perhaps it will teach you how to lay down your life in an actually useful way. But here and now I will teach you something else."

"Really? You will?"

"Just a sliver. A useful trick or two. I won't put my full knowledge into Golden Devil hands, not even yours. But you managed to make your way here, which means your mind is compatible with my techniques. So I will teach you just enough to keep you alive. Be grateful. Most who find themselves tangled in the web of this Temporal Spider aren't this lucky."

A/N: 2102 words

 

[DawnOfBoom]

Name: Liu Mang

Starting Age: 18

Health: Healthy

Spoiler: Appearance after 1 turn

Biography:
Cast out of his poor family at a young age, mostly cause the damn bastard kept popping out sons and daughters his family couldn't possibly feed with their meager farmland in the middle of a bloody war, a young Liu Mang had but a bag filled with breads and a lead chopper with which to defend himself on his journey 'to make something out of his worthless hide.'

Which lasted all but until he reached the first city, half-starving and forced to sell the blade for a most measly sum, which was then taken from him mere moments later by two drunkards who 'kindly' left him to recover in a pickle barrel.

From there, Liu would be taught for years by the city's lead urchin on how to pilfer pockets and the best spots to do so, how to beg, and how to throw a mean right hook.

None bar the last lesson stuck.

And the more he threw those punches, the better he got at taking and giving hits. The more he fought, first for himself and then for his little group, the more he came to understand one simple rule in this world.

The rules didn't matter to the strong. It was only a matter on wether you had enough in you to bend them.

That would especially prove true when his little group was outright annihilated within minutes by a wandering Jingshen cultivator, leaving only Liu alive to spread fear to the other gangs in the city.

He just up and left, rather than giving the cultivator the satisfaction.

As his teens came and went, so did this rule stick to him the most, and underwent a most qualitative change during the Golden Devil Trials, after stowing away on a nearby merchant airship towards their lands, a toll of the bells ringing loudly in the distance…
————————————————

Cool Thing: Indomitable Dao Heart - Driven like an ox, Liu Mang will not stop unless and until he has achieved his goals.

It is best to not stand in his path when he is so motivated.

Cultivation Stage: 9th Heavenstage of Qi Condensation

Current Cultivation Goal: Reach 12th Heavenstage

Dao: TBD

Life-Saving Treasures: +2 (Turn 11, Turn 12)

Impact: +11

- +6 Body
- +3 Axe #1
- +2 Axe #2

Cultivation Years: 21

Current Maximum Lifespan: 200 years. (500 years is the highest you can extend your lifespan to within Qi Condensation.)

Plot Coupon: None

Current Goal: Awe Yao Zhihao into making him her second-in-command!

Omake List:

The Bandit, Liu Mang, Makes His Entrance! (WC: 2.1k) (Turn 11 First Omake Bonus: LST)

The Bandit, Liu Mang, Joins the Golden Devils! (WC: 2.1k) (Turn 11)

Heraclius: A Life Well Lived (WC: 6.5k)

The Golden Bandit, Liu Mang, Goes On a Mission! (WC: 2k) (Turn 11)

The Twin Axe Golden Demon, Liu Mang, and The Deal With A Dragon! (WC: 2.4K) (Turn 12)

Fate Events:

The Joy of Banditry!

 

[DawnOfBoom]

The Bandit, Liu Mang, Makes His Entrance!​

Death.

The fortified town was ruined from the crazy dark-skinned bitch chasing after the bronze shortstack, as were most of the people he'd been laughing and smiling with mere hours prior… haaah. That's crazy. Like, he had heard of the difference between Cultivators and, well, basically everybody else, but this was just ridiculous!

Observing the catastrophe that befell the place just made Liu grin all the harder though, even as shivers ran through his body the more he eyed the ruins that were left from the cultivators merely trading blows.

And even most other cultivators standing and looking proud mere moments ago were now part of the paste and blood surrounding the area, so that meant the ones above had to have been a cut above from the rest. The top of the top.

He would join them soon enough.

Groaning as softly as possible, Liu Mang made his way out of the rubble, noting with stupor that the blade he'd went through the trouble of 'borrowing' had broken when a massive chunk of the wall tumbled on top of it.

Must've been a crappy blade. Why, the guy should thank him for pilfe- that is, for 'borrowing' it!

Dusting his shoulders off what was probably the remainder of the wall, Liu yet again swore he'd be one of those grand cultivators, blowing up cities with a twist of the palm and enjoying riches and women throwing themselves at him. What a grand sight it would be.

Rather, what a grand sight that shall come to be!

With a map in one hand, supplies in the other, an axe he's picked off the ground at his side, a guffaw in his throat and a dream in his heart, the teen thus marched out of the city and into the desert heat.

(And if nobody but a single poor passerby heard his screams of anger after Liu figured out he'd been holding the damned map upside down for the better part of a month, well, all the better!)

… … …

It'd taken Liu Mang a lot of taking and swinging hits before he finally managed to cross the threshold for Qi Condensation. Lots of close calls, lots of chasing and running, and lots and lots of digging pits and hoping to the Heavens that he wasn't found. And maybe just a bit of getting lost, not that he would ever admit that. But he was relentless, and succeeded beyond expectation.

Course, most of the swinging was at other weakling fools' throats as well as the weakest beasts, but it still worked out.

Somehow.

The best he got from a wandering stranger was to absorb the Qi in the air (non-existent), to absorb Qi from Spirit Stones (which he had none of, nor knew what they looked like), or lastly, absorb the Qi that lay in the cores of beasts.

And most obviously of all no souping up Human Qi or Blood, that would beat the whole point of making this whole trek to the Golden Devil city of Epikiri-something. Bah, he swore they just made the City names so damn hard to read to make it sound more posh or whatever.

Right on the eve of his arrival, a most fortuitous call came out.

The Flood Dragons were reforming, and all were 'invited'.

Filled with pride and arrogance, Liu Mang strode pompously into the outhouse where the mighty bandit queen, Yao Zhihao was holding the first gathering of the second generation of Flood Dragons. Striding over tables. Mayhaps kicking over a bottle of wine or two. He just stomped his way to lady Yao, uncaring of the stink-eye he was getting. Even at 18 Liu was more a man than many that he had just passed by, and as such had no qualms barging into her discussion with all the gentleness of a bull in a fine china shop.

"Make me your second, Dragon Zhihao!"

Even as he was sent flying by a mere flick of the amused woman's fingers, along with a good following of laughter and cheers from the other cultivators he'd passed moments prior, blood pouring out of his orifices and a concussion that wouldn't leave him for weeks, Liu figured he might've deserved it.

Just a little.

He should've waited til she was done talking with her old man, after all!

… … …

It was a couple hours later that Liu came to his senses once more.

His head throbbed, his body hurt, and he was pretty sure tasting purple was not normal.

But none of it mattered, as Liu stared at Yao Zhihao standing at his side while another person was pushing something… comforting, into him. It was a weird feeling, but not one he minded much. They were in a small cottage, barely two-three rooms with windows overlooking the forest, and a straw bed that reminded Liu of home. He could barely still hear the laughter and yelling from the new Flood Dragons.

"So, barely out of your ma's and pa's nest, and ya thought that you had what it needs to be one of my men, eh, boy?"

Liu tried to force himself up, but it wasn't even a moment's effort for the medic at his side to bind him with the same energy that he was healing him with. Liu gave him a stink eye in return, before addressing the Nascent Soul.

"But of course, Dragon Zhihao!"

She snorted at the young man's proclamation.

"Didn't even think twice at what you've almost gone and done, do you boy?"

"What's the big deal?" He questioned warily.

"Listen here: I've got no clue which fool just let you barge in weak as a wet noodle, but everybody that you stormed past was at least a hundred times stronger than you. If not more. And then…" Yao chuckled at the memory. "… you had the sheer gall to ask, nay, demand that I put you in charge? Do you even have a brain in between those ears, boy, or is it all just empty air in there, ya damned hoodlum?"

He didn't.

And as Liu stared half-vacantly at her, trying to comprehend where he'd gone wrong, Yao decided to make a point and have a bit of fun by poking at his chest with every word, drawing a pained wince each time.

"You. Are. Weak."

Oh how he glared at her for saying that.

But she was right, else Liu wouldn't be magically strapped to a bloody bed while getting his chest poked in by the bandit.

It just hurt to accept it.

"Then…" the words came out raspy, soft, and oh how he hated how weak his voice sounded, "then I shall get stronger."

"Oh~"

"Just… how strong?"

Yao stroked her chin in thought.

"Well, I'm at Early Nascent Soul, which is so beyond you it ain't even good for a joke, but to just enter my Flood Dragons? Foundation Establishment's the lowest that are accepted, bar none."

Liu's body was momentarily brought forward, as the medic shined some light with a weird rock into his eyes, before setting him back down. The energies receded, and as the man stood, he spoke for the first time.

"The worst of the damage has been dealt with. Thankfully you had kept your strength low madam, lest the boy start his cultivation crippled and in bed. Concussion's been left, as a lesson not to wander just anywhere."

Dusting off his clothes, the medic held an open palm towards Yao.

"3 stones for inspection, 5 for healing, 2 for the bother. 10 total, please."

She rolled her eyes at the last one, but dutifully put her hand into… Liu couldn't even see what she put her hand in, some sort of rip in the air, before handing over a bunch of power-filled blue rocks with pulsing lines to the medic, who promptly sped off.

"Look, and you even went and cost me some stones! Really…"

She huffed amusedly.

"So, what now? You bloodied my gathering, needed medication from a simple finger flick, and look like I gave your puppy to a damn Cannibal!"

Liu growled at her, and she flared her aura in return.

The pressure was suffocating. Inescapable. Endless. He could only see her, feel her, know that wether a moment more passed… it was because she let it happen.

But Liu still glared at her. Even as he knew she could end him without moving a muscle.

Interesting.

She released it mere seconds after.

Liu forced himself to breathe, the pain in his lungs the worst over his whole body. Greedy, hungry breaths, in and out and again and again until the world felt normal once more. Not as bad as being flicked directly by the lady bandit, but he supposed, that was the point.

"Passed your test or whatever?" His voice was back to being hardy, rough with an edge. But not an angry one, but rather just heavy with questions.

"Ya sure did, boy! Now you get to live and get strong enough in the the next hundreds of years to possibly, maybe, conceivably live long enough and train to get into the Foundation Establishment realm and join my gang."

Liu supposed he should just take that. At least she was kind enough to get him healed, rather than just leaving him forgotten on the street side.

Not goods odds for him, if that had happened.

But now that the threat of death was gone, so too did return the threat of hunger, and his voracious appetite made itself well and truly known with a rumbling that thunder would be proud of.

He truly wished he had died, now, even as Yao started laughing some more.

"Ah, give me a moment, I got just the cure for your problem."

Confused and intrigued, Liu sat back down on the bed, even as she dug and dug and shoved her arm trying to dig out something out of that weird rip in the air of hers.

Said something being a plain ceramic bowl… with soup in it?

"You see, I had saved a bowl of soup for myself for later, but you just had to go and make a mess of yourself, so here I am taking much pity and giving it to ye!"

Liu couldn't smell much but his own blood since the earlier event, but whoever was still listening in on the duo promptly fled for the hills. He merely shrugged and dug in. The bowl was emptied within moments, as his hunger made true on its promise and dutifully emptied the offerings given.

"It's a decent enough soup, good meat on it. Could have used more salt, though."

"Everyone's a critic." She drawled, getting a chuckle out of Liu.

It was about time he made himself scarce, and Yao was already starting to make her way back out of the house to her gathering he got flicked out of, but there was one thing Liu couldn't quite understand.

"Just… one more question." Yao turned her head back, hanging on the doorway. "Shoot." "If the invites were only for those strong enough… then what was up with the bells?"

She stopped in her tracks at that question, pondering on many how's and why's before asking back.

"What… bells you talking about, boy?"

Liu was now rolling his shoulders back and forth in an effort to stretch out the last of the pain as he spoke back, and though her confusion worried him somewhat, he figured it wouldn't hurt to speak of it.

"Heard bells ringing couple years back. Came in the area only to barely survive a city getting blown to smithereens, and after a couple months the bell rang yet again then went silent. Figured it was a call of some sort, and then I got news of the gathering, made a fool of myself, and here we at."

Yao was parsing through the mess of a story Liu gave her, before chuckling some more.

"Oh, the Old Man's gonna love to hear this."

She swiftly stormed her way back to the now-standing Liu, who stood weary at her approach. He stood his ground, a most futile endeavor. Pointless, but it was still a sight that made her grin, even as she hoisted him on her shoulder and started going… somewhere.

"Hey, what's the big deal!"

"So, remember how I was asking you about what plans you had? Yeah, plan's changed. Now it's time for you meet the Old Man." "Who?" "The guy that you oh so nicely interrupted my discussion with moments ago." "Okay… can you put me down then?" "Let me think about it…"

She hosted him on her other shoulder and started moving even faster, to Liu's consternation. Her grin widened in turn, akin to a shark's… or a dragon's.

"No."

(Word Count: 2143)

(First Omake of Turn Reward: LST)

(@ReaderOfFate, @Kaboomatic, @no.)

(Also, thanks go to Insane-Not-Crazy for giving me more ideas on how to write this first omake!)

 

[DawnOfBoom]

The Bandit, Liu Mang, Joins The Golden Devils!​

His head throbbed dully, a remnant of a most inglorious attempt to join the Flood Dragons a couple days back. While trying and failing to block the light from filtering past the window and his fingers to sear his brain, Liu Mang rose from his bed in slight stupor, rubbing his parched throat and hand searching for a glass of water he'd long learned to keep beside his resting zones to deal with the early morning heat.

Even with the headache and the stretching, Liu's mind wandered to the moment he was unceremoniously thrown in front of the Clan Leader, Grand Elder Manuel Konstantinos, and inducted into the Golden Devils. The crotchety old man spoke at length about some sort of Bronze blood, how it was extremely weak within him and thus only was given a small portion of their physiology, or something like that. How it was necessary to be protected by the many, many arrays that they've come to develop.

And how the Clan Leader offered to infuse some into him.

Liu was perturbed to accept the deal, much to the surprise of the two Nascent Souls.

"After all, if I heard these bells that only happen every 100 years, doesn't it mean I've got enough to join already?"

His excuse was flimsy, for the moment, but Manuel stroked his beard in thought, while Madam Yao started to stomp her way to him in an effort to make him see reason. A stringy arm stopped her, as if an ant was stopping an elephant, and she backed off petulantly as the clan Leader addressed his question.

"Possibly. Suppose we should test it."

All of a sudden, various lines that were on the wall started shining, pulsing bright for a moment. Two. Three.

And then they died down, and as swiftly as the light came so did the shadows return.

"So, does that mean I've got enough of the clan's blood in me to come and go?" Liu questioned in discomfort, as the light-show had brought back the headache in full force.

"But of course." Manuel smirked at the new Golden Devil.

"After all, you're still alive, are you not?"

… … …

As much as he appreciated the joke after the fact, his eyes turned into pinpricks at the proclamation and Liu found it much harder to focus on the following hours upon hours of paperwork and oaths.

It probably didn't help that Madam Yao found the whole turn of events a total riot, and was laughing at him from the side.

But once the papers were signed in blood and the oaths were sworn upon his soul, the poor, poor young Liu was once more hefted up on Madam Yao's firm shoulder, she and Manuel jumped out of the building and raced in minutes towards two great towers… and a giant bronze gate, spanning a third of the mountainside, that Liu was forced to crane his neck to try and fail to see the top of.

Not that being on a shoulder helped matters, even as he valiantly but fruitlessly tried and failed to wiggle himself off.

This drew a chuckle out of Yao, as she drawled to him.

"Might not wanna get off the ride just yet, there's one last jump ya know!"

Liu went stiller than dead, even as he knew deep inside what she meant he had to make sure.

"… going up?"

The Draconic grin was back in full force.

"Going up!"

*insert Goofy scream as they're both catapulted up to the top of the gate in one leap*

Having saluted a couple of the guards and wardens places to maintain the wall, Madam Yao finally released her grip on Liu Mang. It hadn't been a single second passed that he dropped on the wall's bronze floor tried to regain a minimum semblance of dignity by shuffling clothes and stretching a bit.

Judging by the nearest chuckles, and a loud one belonging to whom-shall-not-be-named, he failed.

Sighing softly, Liu combed the last of his hair out of his face, before walking beside the she-Devil.

"Soooooo…" "Soooooooooooo…"

He wasn't gonna give her the satisfaction.

He wasn't.

"Why are we up here, exactly?"

She smiled as the question, slamming her arm around his shoulder and leading him to the other end of the wall.

"Well, you see, you just went and joined one of the best places ever, and it wouldn't do you any good to just be thrown into the training pits without seeing both a tad of what you fight for, and the kind of people that'll now stand at your side."

Having already tried and failed multiple times to dislodge himself of his newest predicament today, Liu gave it one small try before just letting himself be dragged to the other side of the wall.

"So, what, a demonstration of sorts? Not gonna lie, I… woah."

He couldn't help the exclamation that rose from his surprise.

After all, it wasn't every day one got to see verdant farmlands such as these in the middle of the desert. Madam Yao released him then, and he used the opportunity to dash to the desert edge of the wall and back, incredulous.

"How?"

Yao gave a shrug.

"Don't know the exact details, myself. Something about the mountains just makes the land in the middle extremely good for cultivation, and the wall keeps the one side that wasn't quite closed enough to keep the Qi in."

The adrenaline from the jump still hasn't worn off, so the excitement just added to the mystique this impressionable Liu was feeling.

"And is that where I'll be training then?"

Just beyond the lands of flowing green and yellow rose a bronze-golden palace, eclipsing the majority of the other buildings beside it, under which one could make many people leaving and entering in a wild rush.

Along with the occasional one that would then dash straight over them, and Liu had to force himself not to stare at.

"Why indeed, you have a good eye."

While he couldn't help the shiver, he would not give them the satisfaction.

"Elder." Liu turned and bowed, as the Grand Elder made his way to the duo.

"That which you have pointed to is the Eight-Hundred and Eighty-Hundred Technique Cultivation Palace. It aids in the finding and teaching of combat techniques that would support our Formation arts as our apprentices and fellow cultivators rise through the Qi Condensation and Formation Establishment Realms. Through it one can increase their power and knowledge, their skills in battle, and grow stronger for the Clan."

The elder stared at the building that had cost him almost too much for a couple seconds longer than necessary, before turning to walk towards the mountainside

"Now, come. It is about time."

Liu pulled his shoulders up and squared out, and followed slowly behind the two nascent soul cultivators with a pep in his step, wanting to see what lay in store. There was none of the talking and joking of before, though, even as he tried and failed to start a conversation. And the more they walked along the bronze wall, the more he could see those that he walked past acting respectful and even a couple that were crying in mourning, which in turn cooled his expectations as to what was coming next.

But even then Liu wasn't ready for the sight that they came to.

A loose circle of guards blocked the way of a raging, bawling teen, no older than he and yet clearly wanting to go past the ones holding him tightly… and behind which lay a bleeding man.

The body was thin, almost a corpse, and covered in deep cuts that wouldn't stop bleeding. A gaunt face riddled with tears of blood, empty sockets where once eyes laid. One could see bone behind the meat, with the right angle, and the blood flowed freely. Green and bronze hues turned muddy from the flow of blood.

Liu tried to scream, to ask, to get an explanation as to what in the damned hells he was seeing… but no words would come out.

He looked up from the corpse only to see Manuel standing right in front of him, once again having popped so close that he filled his entire view with no sound whatsoever, and the old bastard placed a single finger over his lips.

Liu really, really wanted to try and bite it.

"Hush, boy. Listen, and learn."

… … …

It had been hours, and indeed Liu listened, and learned some of what was going on.

Liu had been surprised to discover that what had appeared to be a corpse being showcased for punishment was actually someone still alive. His name was Heraclius. The child earlier was his nephew or somesuch.

And apparently, he was whose blood would fortify Liu's bloodline, as well as something about strengthening the wall. As time passed, numerous were the men and women that came by to say goodbye. Some had cried. Some had laughed. But everyone had paid their respects, as if bleeding over the wall was an act to be respected.

But many more yet just stuck around, standing or leaning around, a couple were even playing Gambit in a nook.

Until the body started shining hues of bronze and verdant gold, and all came to surround the circle.

To pay their last respects.

The wall hummed, and from it rose a mote of light.

And from the light came the voices.

"Yours… nay, ours, is the Blood of Bronze, the greatest, the Imperial Optimatoi! Of us is asked the greatest of tasks, the greatest demands, the greatest tributes. We are the ones that shall stand where others fall, and we shall succeed where others would fail. To live is to give service to the Clan, whom in turn protects us, shelters us, and helps us grow."

The voices grew tempestuous. Like the eye of the storm, or the darkness in the abyss, Liu couldn't help but be drawn in it, seek shelter within from the unending pressure outside. Even as his body faltered and dropped to his knees, even as sweat poured down and his headaches returned. Even as some of the bronze flowed around him, through him, and stayed within.

As if it had found purpose once more.

… … …

To Liu's whole being, there was only the bronze light.

Within it, stood tall the wisps of men long gone that shall return should danger come to Dawn Fortress.

The Wall's Guardians.

"The Golden Devils were there, the first boots on the war front when the Jin Empire faced the Abyssals, or Legions scouring the enemy from the face of the Seas at every turn. We were there, when the thrice-damned Rite of Karmic Purification came first to claim our lives, our future, and later even with the Heavens' support it has failed."

They spoke, and Liu listened.

He could see through the light, as the soldiers stomped along with the voices.

And how some of them would nod towards Grand Elder Manuel.

"In thanks of the sacrifices of our Ancestors, we stand tall, the Bronze blood that flows through us all a reward for the ages to come! In thanks of the sacrifice of the generations that came before, shall live generations that shall come to be after us! The greatness of the Best Men lies deep in your blood. Grasp it! And never let go."

The winds died.

The pressure ceased.

And the world came once more to be.

"That, is what means to be a Golden Devil." An old hand patted Liu's head, even as the last flakes that made the martyr's greenish-bronze body flowed into the greater cracks that laid where the body once was. And when the last bit of light when through, so too did the cracks close, and the last vestiges of the glow die in turn.

One last whisper echoed in the wind.

"And don't let anyone else tell you otherwise."

… … …

It was torturous, coming down on the other side of the wall by his own force, Madam Yao and Grand Elder Konstantinos having left to take care of much more important business than showing a new cultivator the reins. But landing upon softest grass and clean breeze rather than coarse sands and biting winds, Liu Mang was sure of it.

At the end… the only way you could claim that which was yours, and protect it and those that would stand with you…

… was by growing stronger.

As a Golden Devil.

(Word Count: 2130)

(@ReaderOfFate, @Kaboomatic, @no.)