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

[Shard]

Savvas Nicolidis 4 - The Prey Hunts

Savvas had wondered for a long time now, as to why the heavens did not simply dictate some spirit severing cultivator put an end to their whole clan with sword and fire. But now, looking at the faces of the other Qi Condesers, feeling the fear in his own heart, he realized why. The Trials did not exist to weaken the clan, not even to destroy them. They existed to make the clan suffer. Why else would they have such byzantine rules, such tactical nonsense as forcing only cultivators to strike within their own realm and never below? Because it was for sport. Or perhaps because on the other end from where the monsters came, they were a resource to be preserved, not to be depleted too quickly. To be conserved, and provide a consistent source of good karma for the murderers that came.

How could you ever deter such a thing? He didn't know how. There was hate in his hard for such cruelty inflicted upon him, upon his family, upon his clan. His father, a powerful figure in the 9th Qi Heavenstage and who had dominated his family as an icon.. the day before the trials, he'd just told him that he was at the end of his path, and was volunteering himself as a sacrificial shield for the Core Formation experts. Certain death. If he was successful, he would absorb a blow and instantly die, banishing another in turn. If he was unsuccessful, he would probably die regardless.

That you had to resolve to such tactics to survive.. Everyone knew of Aikaterine's sacrifice. One Core Formation expert choosing to save the army she led as opposed to saving herself. The strong fight, that the weak should not. That was at the heart of their clan, their protection of the mortals. Unlike the Blood Devils who saw them as lifestock to be bred and eaten. Unlike the others who saw them as things, objects to be used and discarded as desired. Why did a gap in power dehumanize the weaker so to the others? At their heart, they will still just people. From what he knew of Foundation Establishment and Core Formation.. they might even have greater claims to personhood than any cultivator could.

Still they were hunted. Hunted for sport.

It burned, running away like prey. And even for that Savvas could still be considered lucky. Because he could still run, hide, live, grow. But.. Savvas had enough. Maybe he would die in the attempt, but he was going to hunt them back in turn. At least one, this trials. He wasn't going to throw his life away, but if he saw a shot? He was going to take it.

---

The Desert Dunes never quite felt as unwelcoming as now. Hunters hounded across in shadows, the animals of the desert lashing out and out, even as arrays triggered. Split up as they were, they lacked the ability to form themselves into formations. Organization was visibility, and visibility was death. Here.. Savvas' own style, that of the Patient Hunter, ruled. He had thought it to a few others who had shown the inclination for it (and who couldn't use the Sect Palace). From his eye, he saw them take their shots. Well, rather he saw the results. Screams of pain, talismans being shattered, enemies permitted to simply.. teleport back home to be treated. The unfairness of it all. Knowing that the best and most efficient way was just to force your enemies to go back home.. Obviously intended by heaven to make them suffer more.

Savvas then spied them take their 2nd, and their 3rd shots. At the end of their paths, they aimed to kill as many as possible before being discovered, to help the others of their team.. others like Savvas. Savvas watched as their bodies exploded in retaliatory strikes, 4th and 5th Qi condensers no match at all for people in the 9th and beyond. Not with all the techniques, arms and armor they each had. Not even all the desert animals was sufficient to close the gap, the desert storm vipers that had been setup with help dying just as everything else did, desert soaked with blood. From afar, Savvas heard them count their kills, compared who killed more, even as his stomach sickened on the inside. The fact that some of them seemed nauseated by the act was no relief. Their enemies made monsters of whomever they sent.

Then they left, certain there was nothing more to be had here. Or perhaps they had spotted what they thought were Qi Condensers to hunt. More realistically, it was more snakes. Savvas wished them poorly.

---

Opportunity came 11 months deep into the wretched trials. Wretched, bloody trials. You could call the desert wastes blood-mud now. The smell was so pungent in the air, of rotting bodies, dead mortals and cultivators left for carrion birds to feast upon. This deep into the trials, attrition would have cost them dearly now. The 3rd Sea was poor in Qi, the desert was poor in Qi, and the clan's lands themselves were especially poor in Qi. To a cultivator from what must be a land of Qi.. it must be incredibly draining. And it showed. They crisscrossed the desert, because any cultivator might have doubled back. They now moved singly, because it was hard enough to find any cultivators with their numbers already pared down to such an extent. They competed with each other.

One man, looking across the bloody desert. Searching for someone to kill. This late in the trials, all the survivors were very good at running away or at hiding. Or both. Attentive, searching for anything out of the ordinary, senses stretched out to the limit to find that one mistake made. Savvas provided that mistake. One thread, completely ordinary, tugged. A movement at the edges. One blurred Qi attack, forceful and powerful, to kill whoever it struck. Exploded organ, blood and bone flew across the desert. It was a corpse Savvas had prepared. Too high-strung. The man grunted in disappointment. He'd struck too soon, too hard. He relaxed. Savvas struck. Blowgun with the most concentrated poison he could get, spitting the bolt deep into his back as he twisted. He'd realized, if too late. It could only have been enemy action that had made him waste an attack earlier.

The next step was a dodge, as killing winds cut and sliced through where he had been just moments ago, leaving a wide hole in the bloody desert dunes. He had forewarning, knowing his enemy would retaliate like that. That was two wasted killing attacks, now, and one successful poisoned attack in his favor. Was it enough? A whirlwind of sword sliced at him as he dodged back- and back, blocking with iron body and giving space to weaken blows as they. No. It was not enough.

Improvise.

"Monster." Savvas spat out, hoping to strike the proverbial shot in the dark.

No response. It'd been tried too many times before.

The whirlwind of blades continued unabated as Savvas was forced back even further, as the man scored a blow, and then another, blood bleeding out slowly from his wounds. Even poisoned and with two wasted killing blows, he was this good?

No, wait. He did make him waste two attacks.

"Failure." He spat this time.

That got a reaction, the man's impassive face contorting into fury. There. He opened his mouth to shout, or maybe give a response, a monologue - Savvas gave him no such opportunity. He spat poison into into his mouth before anything could be uttered. He garbled out words, made unintelligible by the now active poison burning through mouth, tongue, windpipe and lung. Savvas lunged as the blade whirldwind ended, strangling him as he pinned him down, not allowing him to retreat, turn back, or break the amulet. No, today he died.

He struggled still, staring at Savvas with hate.

Then it was over.

 

[Shard]

Savvas Nicolidis 5 - The Muyi Tree

It would be wrong to say that Savvas felt pure and complete respect for the Muyi Tree, as he had termed the spirit tree that used to be Xiao Yi. Mu, for 'wood', and Yi, carried over. Muyi! It would be more correct to say that Savvas felt respect, curiosity and awe, in that order of emotion.

Respect, for the Xiao Yi that laid down his life (or maybe he lived on as a tree?)
Curiosity, for to be Savvas was to have a burning interest in all things cultivation.
Awe, for this was the first time Savvas had ever heard of a cultivator becoming a tree, willingly or otherwise.

Also, this was a public attraction. Unlike most Foundation-Building level trees, the Muyi Tree didn't actively try to kill Savvas! Such an opportunity to study a novel, nonhuman, cultivator was rare. Perhaps even unique. Savvas might never get this opportunity again, and if he did, it might well have to contend with other, more pressing issues. Would the Muyi tree even remain standing, and might it's nature irrevocably chance regardless, if it survived anyhow? All sorts of critical data might be lost.

The Muyi Tree's cultivation, as far as Savvas could tell, is identical to that of a human. Maybe because it's still a human inside? From the outside, it's a labyrinth of vines, a 'Muyi Jungle' really, more suited to a secret realm than here, on the gates of Pleuron. It was amazing, really, how the vines had absorbed the Qi of all the weapons and armor of the 5th Sea Trial hunters, to keep itself alive(?). Getting through the maze was difficult, and would have been impossible for Savvas, suicidal in fact, if the Muyi Tree wasn't friendly.

Savvas could actually see the vines all around the area, rustling without wind, ready to strike at deadly speed against presumably enemies of the clan that dared come. Closer to the core, he noted that Xiao Yi's body was no longer present. Subsumed into the Muyi tree already? Or perhaps not a distinction to properly make in the first place. He could feel the emanation of the tree's cultivation, enough to drive most lesser cultivators away, survival instincts telling them not to mess with a senior. Not Savvas, though.

Touching the trunk of the tree and putting his will into it, not unlike the good seed contribution boards or a jade slip, Savvas found another mind lurking within the tree. The Muyi Tree itself? Xiao Yi, still alive somehow? Giving up is for lesser men. Another mind, hungry. Savvas withdrew, noting the agitated vines. He was sure of it now, though. The Muyi Tree/Xiao Yi (still) had a dao-pillar, at least one, anyway. Turning into a tree had not remade their cultivation, as of yet. Perhaps cultivation was similar across other plants and animals, but then this was a special case. Savvas needed more data still.. well, in time.

Savvas wondered if the Muyi Tree might be able to feast upon human cultivators without the usual consequences of the blood path. There were plenty of blood cannibals to go around, and if the clan, or even a single clan member could benefit from the Blood Path without any of the consequences... He'd have to keep visiting this amazing tree in the future, when he had time.

---

The 'Muyi Fruit'

The Muyi Tree's fruits are a valuable tourist product, of course. You couldn't find them anywhere else in the desert, well in fact there were no trees in the desert, once you excluded oases and like. Red in color, they looked sort of like apples trees that he read and heard grew in the plains. But smaller. When ripened, they were yellow. They were delicious, and decidedly safe for consumption. Mortals could eat them, even! They were certainly expensive (by mortal standards), and might become a significant part of the mortal economy in the future, if the Muyi tree persists.

Addendum: The Muyi Tree does not produce fruits. Or, if it does, the seeds from the fruits look suspiciously like normal cherry plants, and nothing at all like the original Muyi Tree. This is a disappointing outcome, as it means growing Muyi Trees elsewhere in the clan is an unviable, or at least, a nontrivial prospect. It also means I have been scammed by mortal merchants in purchasing ordinary cherries under the guise of them being a 'Muyi Fruit'.

@Mochinator

 

[Shard]

Savvas Nicolidis 6 - Tools and Knives

Shrouded on the desert, the one known as Savvas stalked. Hidden from peripheral detection, too inconsequential to focus on - If you didn't look closely, just relied on passive Qi Senses, you might think he was a 1st-heavenstage desert snake. Or maybe even an unlucky mortal, to be magnanimously spared by the trial hunters. Not a threat, not someone or something you were concerned about.

The first things Savvas had learned was that 5th Sea Hunters were incredibly wasteful in their techniques, at least as how he saw it. It's like they didn't have to bother about Qi expenditures at all. This made them very dangerous to fight directly, as he learned just a month ago. Without a Formation backing you up, it would be suicidal for most cultivators. Cresent slashes that aimed to kill were used wantonly, and months ago Savvas actually spotted one of them respond to Qi depletion by just draining a Medium-Grade Qi Spirit Stone, obviously brought in from their own sea, right after a particularly brutal fight. He avoided that particular hunter.

Ridiculous. Inefficient. A squandering of precious resources.

And it showed. The Hunters couldn't actually bring all that many spirit stones with them, and their brazen expenditure of Qi was starting to tell. They used their techniques less often, rested more. Attrition was beginning to play an increasing role in their hunt, as it always did. He suspected that the majority of the Hunters largely practiced the Spirit Qi cultivation method, which was a terrible match here. You could spend a mortal lifetime cultivating, and only breach the first heavenstage.

Now that they were managing their Qi more efficiently, Savvas knew to strike. A group of Hunters were meditating with precious spirit stones on hand in a makeshift camp. Mouth to blowdart, and a bolt flew through the air blew exploding in their midst, releasing Magnus' now-ubiquitous bacterial poison in a cloud they breathed in even as it attacked every skin pore to grow and multiply itself. They responded too slowly, inexperienced still even if their cultivation was far advanced for their age.

With their Qi depleted and poisoned still, they had no chance when Savvas slipped into their midst before precisely slicing and cutting with his knife (he was of course immune to the bacteria - They had dispersed, and he had long since trained his body against this specific strain of bacterial poison that he used), going for a crippling blow before immediately following up with a killing one when they couldn't respond even if they detected it. Harder to detect attacks not meant to kill. They were disorientated already, and were obviously strangers to this form of warfare, reacting badly (this would never work on one of the clan's veteran cultivators). Good. This meant he could replicate this strategy again for the other hunters.

Savvas then looted their corpses for anything valuable they had. Which wasn't much. They had really wasted their spirit stones, and Savvas would need to spend most of the Qi remaining in them just recovering his energy for another strike against the Hunters. Then again, if they hadn't been so sloppy, Savvas wouldn't have singled them out for practice to begin with. Plus, looking into their decaying cultivation, he had learned something valuable. Namely that at least for Qi Condensation, cultivation result wasn't all that different.. between Seas anyway.

Emboldened, Savvas began striking more brazenly, as he fine-tuned criterion for whoever was at their greatest weakness. He found that following large 'spots' of Qi to be the most effective, as it meant that major techniques had been used there, and from there it was a matter of tracking down the Hunters who failed to mask their Qi, probably thinking that nobody would ever consider the possibility of attacking them. Well, they were wrong, and Savvas decisively demonstrated it repeatedly. He refined his techniques each time, and made notes on possible improvements.

Long-acting and/or selective poisons was something he'd definitely have to pester Magnus about in the future, and for now Savvas deployed his newly invented smoke and sound bombs along with the bacterial poisons, intended to override the sensation of being poisoned - Normally it was very obvious, but if you deployed a lot of distractions simultaneously, you can buy a precious few seconds where the Cultivator was unsure as to why they weren't feeling so good, and maybe even blame it on the sound attack, a temporary weakness that would soon pass - He disabused them of that notion quickly, exploiting the weaknesses in their otherwise-impeccable style that spontaneously developed them when exposed to poisons.

Soon, the Golden Terror would find himself ensnared, as the Hunters devised a plan to put him down (self-preservation instincts were a powerful thing). Savvas didn't leave any survivors from any of his attacks, so they did their best to mimic his usual targets, 5th Sea Hunters drained of Qi and trying to regain it in a secluded area. But they reacted too quickly when Savvas attacked with his now-standard trifecta of poison and confusion preceding Savvas himself to mop up the survivors, too nervous from lack of Qi, too eager to put down a dangerous upstart.

Using the Qi-Cloaking Oil in the time provided by their mistake, Savvas would have crept out if not for realizing the 5th Sea Hunters actually had him surrounded. It wasn't obvious even when looking, but if there was one group aware as bait and at least another group hidden away but not well enough, then there were undoubtedly many more he couldn't see. Darting in, he targeted one of the slower-to-react parties (or maybe they really weren't aware and had been tricked) before slicing the spine, an injury enough to paralyze a mortal but not a cultivator. Then he darted out, throwing out knives and smoke bombs wantonly to hide himself as he fled and they believed he was among them. Which he was a few seconds ago.

That still left the matter of his encirclement. Knowing the location of at least one of the outer perimeter groups, if dimly.. he knew exactly where to run to - towards them. Why such a suicidal act? Well, firstly, Savvas had detected them, so obviously they weren't all that good in their stealth techniques. Between the Qi-Cloaking Oil and their presumably poor detection skills, he could slip by the least competent of their members. The other groups, which at this point Savvas wasn't sure existed, betrayed their presence at this point, looking too hard for the missing Golden Terror after he had attacked.

Unprofessional, really. Savvas swore that no operation of his own would run into the same issues as this. it was makeshift, haphazard, and it showed. If they hadn't revealed themselves by looking, Savvas might have diverted right into them and then killed. Now they were both revealed and blind, so effectively nonthreats. With all his opponent's cards shown, all Savvas had to do was to wait for.. the incompetent stealth ambush group to decide that now was a good time to launch a arrow bombardment on the camp Savvas had planned on ambushing (?!), since obviously there was fighting to be had there. What? Weren't they concerned about friendly fire?

Savvas suspected there was a lot more friction among the 5th Sea Hunters than existed in his own clan. The 'planned' ambush might not even have existed to kill him specifically, thinking about it. They had their own politics which were totally opaque to him. Still, never interrupt your enemy when they were making a mistake. Still shrouded from anyone relying, dependent, on their Qi Senses, Savvas crept away from what he was fully confident was going to shortly become very exciting.

 

[Shard]

Savvas Nicolidis 7 - Perspectives

On one mountaintop, he meditated. On one mountaintop, he killed again. The blood-path bandit didn't see Savvas, only felt poisoned darts prick his neck and shin. The bandit limped away, fear overcoming hunger. More darts, more disorientation in the bandit as poison overcome his Qi. Then a knife thrown. Dead. A riskless endeavor, a good deed done, a mortal girl by the name of Xiao Mi saved. Lavish promises of returning the favor, etc, that was by now common to Savvas' ears, and he simply nodded kindly. He didn't need to beggar mortals protecting them.

One mountaintop to return to, to meditate upon again.

What was his Dao? What path would he walk? All of his life stretched out before him. This choice was momentous, one that cannot feasibly be undone if it was in error. Honestly, now that he had come so far, it seemed like he ought to ponder it even further still. When he was younger he wondered why didn't people simply decide quickly.. so foolish, that Savvas was.

---

A Core Formation Elder. Savvas stilled his thrumming heart. Here? Had he done inadvertent and lethal insult? But no, it was not. He had inadvertently done a great service for the Elder Xiao Jing (better known as Tearful Chisel) when he had saved his great-granddaughter Xiao Mi from the bandit. He asked, no, demanded Savvas name a boon that the Blacksmith would fulfill with all due haste.

Daggers? Armor? Spirit Stones?

Savvas requested advise on the Dao. Tearful Chisel was happy to oblige. The Sorrowful Blacksmith's classic Daos of Forging (there were many variants), Savvas learned. All worthy Daos to follow, yet lacking in something for Savvas. The entrapment, always having to abide by them.. It was the same with Grigoris' Dao of Architecture. And the advise still rang through: If he had doubts, that Dao was not for him. Xiao Jing could feel Savvas' dissatisfaction and inner turmoil, how could he not? He told him he would guard him when he made his breakthrough on the mountain, for his repayment of a favor was still incomplete.

---

He looked at the skies above. The glare of the sun, the foggy clouds. The heavens that hated them all and saw all. Who yet.. did not understand all. Blinded to all but their own view, blinded by how all-encompassing it was. Far-reaching, yet indescribably incomplete.

Inspiration struck him. And then came thunder and lightning, torrents of doubts to shatter his newly formed pillar.

---

Perspectives. That was the way to understand.

"No", the Storm said. "Only one path walked to the end yields true understanding. Breadth is no depth."

"One line drawn is no painting, no matter how masterful. Many brushstrokes, is what makes a painting," He answered.

"This still is but one path. Your understanding will never be complete," It proclaimed through the voice of thunder.

"Then let it be incomplete, for in it's incompletion, is it's room to grow."

The storm ceased.

---

(This is Savvas' breakthrough into Foundation Establishment. His Dao is that of Perspectives.)

 

[Shard]

Savvas Nicolidis 8 - Mirages

Qi. Cultivation itself, at least at his level. So many types of Qi. So many ways to use them. Arrays and Formations, the Golden Devil's stratagem as a clan. With the blade, or with the body. Poisons, or beasts. Savvas himself had preferred an irregular style that sort of complemented formations. And with the Trials coming again.. He needed better tools. More sophisticated, for the enemy was always learning. Prepare, prepare. For though plans always went awry, the very act of planning meant you had tools and backups.

From his newfound vantage point with Perspectives, he looked at the desert and the sun that rained down upon it. Other had come up with ingenious thoughts of using mirrors to turn worthless sun and worthless sand into less-worthless glass. The clan's greatest array used Glass. And Savvas thought, why not have the sun itself be their ally in concealment? Glass and mirrors in the desert, and one has the perfect setup for a grand mirage. It might not even need all that much Qi to function.

---

As Savvas quickly learned, setting up mirrors in the desert actually had quite a few issues. Dust. Sand. Precious water to clean them. But he didn't need to rely on his own knowledge.. He simply consulted with Grigoris, what was with his Dao of Architecture. What he got.. needed to be toned down for mass production, it was crazy. He was not trying to cloak the entire clan with a mirage, that was beyond overkill! His array knowledge absolutely didn't extend that far. This setup would bankrupt the clan to build!

...Okay. There was something to be had here. It didn't actually need that much Qi to operate for it's, which was always good. And honestly for what Savvas wanted, quality wasn't too important. He started subcontracting to mortals. Instead of using array-managed Qi (a formation would make mistakes, as image construction was a matter of control and not power) to create a sublime mirage, glass and bronze mirrors that refracted the image of humans, with a touch of blood into the bronze to mimic the Clan's bronze bloodline. It wouldn't fool another one of the clan, especially close-up, but if you were a Trial Hunter looking for people who masked their Qi.. and found the edge of your senses faint Qi like that of those you were hunting... that would be good enough to lock-in, no?

Subcontracting did have downsides. Mortal hands weren't as precise as cultivators, and they certainly couldn't put Qi into the devices he was constructing - But Savvas realized that might be an advantage in of itself. Through the desert, you didn't need detailed images to know that someone was somewhere. And.. honestly accepting haziness would cover up quite a number of flaws in the design of the crude mirror-Qi array he was setting up in the desert, scattered randomly here and there.

It was nothing at all like Grigoris' original mirage array design. Savvas did not have enough spirit stones to even fund a fraction of that.. thing. Maybe.. maybe sometime in the future.

---

Come the trials, the mortal workers would uncover the many mirrors Savvas had setup in the desert. Their quality varied. A handful were constructed by Qi Condensers, giving detailed if false images and mostly true emanation of bronze. The vast majority was made by mortals who had a great deal of time and stored goodwill for their cultivators, and though they poured their work into it to perfect them you could still see the minute imperfections in the glass, in the bronze layering and the mechanisms that let them move ever so slightly to imitate movement. All infused with a trace of Qi. Savvas wondered which would perform better, and if any of them would survive.

The flag from Sacapolis hungered to be unleased still, and the cover of blatant lies in the broad desert sunlight seemed the perfect place to unleash them. Soon. His hate for the hunters had not diminished in the slightest. So much wealth and power.. and to still come here to torment those who did their best for all.

 

[Shard]

Savvas Nicolidis 9 - Adminstrative Duties

His body was scorched, molten in some places. No fit state to fight after being hit by that beam of light in his.. attempts to save someone. What went wrong there? It wasn't trying to save someone.. it was how badly it went. He sighed as he continued working.

Right now he was organizing Yao's bandits into a more coherent form. Cells of them, not so easily weeded out but unified enough that they would be a major hassle to be removed afterwards. In a lot of ways, he realized he had been so used to his clan's own organization. Recruitment and organization of someone new could be processed in a few hours at most, minutes at the least via the Contribution Points Board and their shared bloodline. Here in the Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms, it took days to weeks to properly organize. No Contribution Points Board, a need for plausible deniability, requirements for a certain robustness..

The first few 'bandits' were fellow clan members, which wasn't hard. After that the difficulty started escalating as the people of the Heavenly Bandit Kingdoms themselves started joining the cell. And given his own prior experience, he was expected to train them as well! His style used quite a lot of poison which was, welll, just not acceptable under Righteous sects and clans (which he was ostensibly a part of). No feeding your enemies remains to your spiritual beast friends. Ugh, so inflexible.

On the upside at least, the key ideas were still useful to Qi Condensers. Gang up on people, don't let people see you, etc. Pit traps with snakes on the bottom was still sort of acceptable for some reason. Savvas learned that one nice way to really get rich off Jingshen was to prepare antidotes against the common poisons (from the snakes), then sell them for spirit stones, which they had far too much of. Apparently they weren't even willing to tolerate their intestines and stomach getting burned through repeatedly over a mere year as compared to trading away a precious spirit stone for the cure. He's experienced the same thing before in Qi Condensation when training his body to be poison-tolerant - It wasn't so bad. Honestly. How did they survive so long in the desert with cultivators like these?

 

[Shard]

Savvas Nicolidis 10 - Economies of Poison

It was a brilliant idea, really. It wormed into his head and refused to leave.

At home, he and his clan had answers to many of the poisonous beasts that stalked the desert. Their Bronze Bloodline helped here as well. But the Jingshen clan.. they were merchants, without a bloodline that made them stronger, more resilient to poison. Less strong of will and less flexible as well, unwilling to go through poison-burning trials on pain of being executed or cast out of the Righteous path. Even if the were willing, they'd probable be outright unable to survive the challenges involves. Savvas wasn't even the most dedicated of the poison artists in the clan.

So what did that led to?

Well.. it was the work of one (1) essay purchase from the contribution board on the breeding of scorpions, another for the biology of snakes (The Ninth Prince was truly a marvel), then several more contribution points to figure out how to proliferate the breeding of poisonous animals.. It took Savvas a mere decade to find a satisfactory answer, and the second step (after writing an essay on it on the contribution board) was proliferating the method in Jingshen clan's lands. He worked with Qi Condensation animals first, whose poison was completely ineffective against him. Then he moved on to Foundation Establishment-level animals.

He was thankful for his habits of immunizing himself to the common poisons, some of them were actually dangerous.

The third step was commercialization. At home, he setup groups of cultivators tasked with creating antidiotes to the common poisons, before exporting to Jingshen at eye-watering markups. Soon enough, the spirit stones started flowing in, cultivators desperate for sweet release from poison (weaklings). The merchants of Jingshen were rich, filthy rich. With the amount of spirit stones they had! Well, it's have been easy to reach the Great Circle of Foundation Establishment with the resources they had at hand.

But now Savvas was here, and he was going to correct this terrible wealth inequality between their two clans. Slowly, but at increasing speed.

Where there was demand...? There was profit.

 

[Shard]

Savvas Nicolidis 11 - Practicing Shaping

The Shaper's Gloves. A most wonderful artifact, able to transmute Qi to anything.. ghost or poison. Poison enough to overcome his own resistance, and theoretically also curative Qi to counteract using it on himself.. you know, if he knew enough about poisons. The clan archives and Elders comprised enough that Savvas could probably spend his whole life studying those concepts and never finish them. After his last botch in turning himself part ghost in order to gain their advantages, his experimentation became more.. measured.

Some of the Sacapolis ghosts had mocked him, others laughed, others still were encouraging or of the sort to warn him away from 'a most foolish endeavor'. But right now for him to play his part in the mission to infiltrate the Jingshen Underworld Palace depended on him mastering the gloves. It was not strictly needed, in fact you could say it was folly for his to try and reach so far - But he wanted to contribute to the clan. Not just be someone who could only kill the absolute weakest of seven foundation bandits while Muyi slew the strongest, with the survivors all reaching Core.

Damn the plantman! Why did he have to die!

A tree burned so bright, but as they say, twice as bright, half as short.

He advanced so quickly, sacrificed so much of himself, reached so high up.. someone he himself could never reach. Savvas looked back at his gloved hands. He would never fit well in the Jingshen clan. Everyone there were near the peak of their great realms, but lacking skill and experience. Savvas himself was near the bottom of his great realm, making up for as much as possible with tricks, play as dishonorable as he could manage in any game. How else does the weak triumph over the strong?

With Formations. With Arrays. Banding together for strength. One part of his mind said.

With Sacrifices. With Payment. Everything comes at a price. Another part answered.

Perhaps there was nothing to truly master here. Just a choice. He always thought that he had to be able to undo any change he did to himself to call a technique a success - But did he really? Accept the consequences fully, and walk the road to the end without looking back.

After all, as they say,

Half as short, twice as bright.

 

[Shard]

Savvas Nicolidis 12 - Sarcophagus of Sacapolis

It was a useless relic, a heavenly treasure he had retrieved from the ruins of Sacapolis. Inferior to the Archegates' own by a massive margin, fit only to be a prison. When you needed someone's body alive, with the remainder as a distinctively secondary concern. It wasn't even particularly durable either. Still, it was a treasure, useless and ornamental as it was, and it was kept in the growing Nicolidis family as a relic. Maybe someone down the line could find some use out of the thing, it had happened before after all.

Savvas never expected that he himself would be using it. His family carefully moving his disembodied yet still sort-of-alive body into the confines of the Sarcaphagus, wearing each treasure of his that he owned in life, each reflected on his own ghostly form. His belts contained vials of deadly poisons, hands still wearing the Shaper's Gloves and holding the flag of Sacapolis as if to lead a glorious final charge. He never led such charges or battles in life.. but perhaps he would in death. Well, ghosthood. Was that being alive, or dead? Or both? Questions Savvas never seriously considered the implications of. Who would?

He did his best to remain stoic as they moved around his ghostly figure. He really did. But when the mocking mourning started, it was too much for even him.

"Uncle Savvas was really the best of us." His nephew Vangelis started. Oh, the cheeky brat-

"His last stand, fighting against a Nascent Soul!" That was his grandson Alkis, catching up to an unspoken, impromptu script.

"Sometimes, I think I can see his ghost, watching over us." Oh no. Et tu, Niki?

Savvas' ghostly form was standing right beside them. He took back everything he said about his family. Traitors, all of them!

"Juniors? My little Nicolids? Yes, we all know I died in a desperate fight against a Nascent Soul. But as you all can see, I lived!" Savvas wasn't sure if his words were an offer of peace or a request for mercy. They sounded weak to his own ears.

"Ghost! It's Uncle's vengeful ghost! Quickly everyone! Hoplite formation!" No, no, no no no-

In quick synchronization the 'mourners' formed the shadowy hoplite formation, that technique that was so central to the clan and now challenging him. It struck carelessly and Savvas dodged, noting to his own irritation the holes of his family's hoplite style. When he got through this he was getting some of the harsher instructors (Dimitra maybe?) to properly drill them on how to actually use and command that formation in battle - After he properly knocked into their heads retribution for this prank - oh, hmm, he knew just the way how.

---

Dodging into feint of the hoplite's spear, Savvas staggered back, clutching his chest as if mortally wounded. He collapsed, ghostly form breathing heavily, light in the eyes fading. Vangelis rushed over, concern in his eyes over playacting got horribly wrong. Reaching his ghostly arm to his face, he croaked out that barest words that Vangelis strained his ear to hear before letting his ghostly form disperse, his consciousness moving back to his corpse-body almost immediately.

Then he emerged back out from his Sarcaphagus, ghostly form wholly intact and perfectly positioned for ambush.

"It was 'Uncle's vengeful ghost' alright, Vangelis!" Savvas huffed in his ghostly form, rapping his nephew's ears from behind. "I trust that thought all of you a lesson in pranking your 'Patriarch Savvas'! Your generous uncle will be gifting your exemplary efforts with tutoring under instructor Dimitra. Hopefully you all find it very rewarding."

Her reputation, of course, was enough to inspire fear in all of them immediately. She, after all, ensured her students were exemplary.

 

[Shard]

Savvas Nicolidis 13 - Ghost Blues

Aside from the incorporeality, being a ghost as it turned out had a lot of downsides. And not just 'quality of life' things you could easily just go without, no, it was actual pragmatic issues that hampered his efficacy. Savvas was intimately learning the benefits of having an actual breathing bronzeblood body with every passing moment.

First, his Qi recovery was utterly garbage. If he wasn't using ambient Qi, he had to draw Qi from the soulthread tying him to his actual body in his sarcophagus, which had to be kept somewhat close to his ghost form for that to work. He couldn't carry spirit stones or use pills like he normally did, because his body was incorporeal. Second, while he was immune to a lot of physical attacks due to being incorporeal, it turns out, the bronze body of the Optimai already tended to make most of those attack irrelevant - And there were a lot of attacks that actually hurt him that he knew he could have easily handled with his body. Fire attacks, especially. Ow. Third, he couldn't use any techniques or items unless they used Ghost Qi. No poisons. Transmute only to Ghost Qi.

There were benefits, to be sure. When his form was inevitably destroyed by an attack he could have easily endured, he got dumped in his body instead of dying like most people did when their form was splattered. And of course he could pass through physical obstacles like they weren't there. Assuming they weren't Qi-Infused in a manner that made them impossible. Combined with his heaven-defying ability to fight an entire realm below his actual realm, Savvas was pretty much relegated to scouting. Oh, there were a couple of Spirit Beats or rogue cultivators within Qi Condensation or the very early stages of Foundation Establishment he could kill with the absolute minimum of Qi from ambush, but they basically didn't count under any metric worth using.

All this limitations left him choosing to go on the Underworld Expedition among the three proposals Sheng Yu had presented them. The Poison-Crushing siege sounded promising, with ghost physiology proof against poisons, and then you realized that the ethics of that sect would have left them with an intimate knowledge of how to apply poisons onto ghosts. The Mountain Bell expedition would have left clan cultivators guarding one extremely vulnerable sarcophagus (or Savvas trying to hide it) that on destruction would instantly kill him. The Underworld Spirit Palace was a place Savvas knew rather well, had plenty of ambient Qi for him to use on pseudo-techniques and with the projected enemies being spirit beasts confined to the palace itself, he could be reasonably confident his fragile body wouldn't be attacked, nor the beasts adapt to his presence overmuch.

Light Qi would banish him for sure, but it probably wouldn't kill him outright. Savvas could hide his presence very well in this spots of relative Qi-density here, refill his ghostly reserves somewhat even. In this environment, he could even practice proper ghost techniques in relative safety. One quick discovery was that the annoying senses of the spirit beasts here were not very discerning between a real ghost and the echoes of them that Savvas could invoke from nearly arbitrary positioning in this environment. With that weakness came exploitation, a skill he was very well versed in. Bypassing the unwinnable fights with spirit beasts let Savvas map out this area of palace far faster than he himself expected, find a handful of minor treasures here and there between his reports to other members of the expedition.

He might even get used to this form in time.