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

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New Good Seed and Omake Rule Updates
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    • Good Seed and Omake Spreadsheet Rules:

    Firstly, if you have questions about Good Seeds and the like please read here. If that doesn't answer your question please ping me in thread, or on Discord.

    If you write a new Good Seed, or write an omake, please update the spreadsheet if you have access.

    If you do not have access, please ping a collaborator (Swordomatic, Alectai, Quest, TehChron, Insane-Not-Crazy, Humbaba, ReaderOfFate, Kaboomatic, no., BungieONI) letting them know what you want and they will update the spreadsheet here. To gain access, you will need a gmail account of some kind. Throwaway emails are fine (I'm using one for the spreadsheet), but to gain access it's as simple as sending me either your email via PM, via DM in Discord, or just in Discord's #spreadsheet-requests channel.

    This is mandatory. If a Good Seed does not record their omake by pinging collabs (or just requesting access and editing things themselves - this is the preferred option), I won't give out awards. If a new Good Seed is not recorded here, they won't advance. By doing this it makes the whole thing manageable for me - it's gotten pretty unwieldy!

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    Omake Writer Instructions:

    There are four fields you need to fill out.

    Omake Link, which is just a link to your first omake for the turn. This makes it easier for me to read them as I do the update - without this it's tough to know off the bat which omake were written this turn, and to properly

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    • Sirrocco said:
    Kakos Alexikeravno - Good Seed Background
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    As a author and IC as the brotherhood I can already say that I like this good seed.
    And I salute the return of GS which focus is not only the arrays but one that is focus in a key problem of the clan.

    This turn had being incredible kind to the brotherhood in term of good news, new NS, new GS that is a living city, Abel as FE, new kings, that (as far as they remember) the new 13th are still alive and growing stronger, super GS(s) appearing. the correct builder had even survive the secret realms and advance to lvl level of power (kek). which was really surprising for them

    What a age to live on.

    Ah, if you want to use any of the brotherhood to serve as NPC be free to do so like any GS^^.
     
    Insane-Not-Crazy said:
    Lipita is currently crippled and working out her daring folly in Yuan but she would love to reach out to another Curse Bloodline, particularly one whose ill fortune has some similarities to the Delphi plight. I think that there are now officially 4 Curse variants of the Blood of Bronze.
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    That'd be cool. I'll have to get Kakos out of childhood, and then see how *he* does in Yuan, but sure.

    He'd probably try to offer ideas on how to turn the echo of the Turtle Child's death that resonates in your soul into a soul attack to use on others. Kakos is... kind of one-track in his response to certain kinds of things.

    Oh, and I messed up initially and got my names in the wrong order. Sorry about that. It's fixed now in text, but could someone please fix my threadmarks for me?
     
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    Tolis Athanotis [RETIRED]- Good Seed Background
  • Sidestory
    • Tolis Athanotis

    Coming from an old family of astrologers and map makers. Since time immemorial her clan has kept track of the stars and created maps of the ever shifting dunes and people that inhabit the desert. Because of this Tolis has joined the scouting force in the legion. This way she can make use of her long range focus and bring back information for her clan's primary business. So much has changed in recent years that new maps are needed more than ever. And if in the course of her scouting she discovers ancient ruins filled with jewels all the better!

    Starting bonus: Nanaam
    Nanaam is a great bow discovered by Tolis Athanotis when she was hiding in, I mean, helping organize an old sub basement library of the clan. It is the color of the night sky, stars and all, with a bronze circle in the center radiating lines of bronze. Ever since it was discovered it has grown with Tolis. Now it is taller than Tolis herself and requires specialized ammunition.

    Tolis Athanotis
    Age: 16
    Cultivation: 1st Heavenstage
    Cultivation years: 0
    Health: Healthy
    Impact: 0
    Life Saving Treasures: 0
    Lifespan Enhancements: 0
    Other Treasures: N/A
    Cultivation Goals: 13th Heavenstage, Single-Pillar

    So this a new good seed. I know we are only supposed to have one so unfortunately Theoron Strophios wandered in a cave and rocks fell. He died. Hopefully this one will have a more engaging event loop I can use. Find treasure, get greedy, activate trap, run from trap should be enough material to get me to the more interesting places.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Tolis Athanotis 1
  • Sidestory
    • Tolis Athanotis: Part One

    Soft grass tickled her back as Tolis Athanotis stared at the night sky. Twinkling above her were thousands of jewels. Each one glimmering, each one entrancing. This was the first time she had been allowed out of the house. The first time she had been allowed to look fully into the heavens.

    "Daddy," she said, "I want them."

    "Want what?" Her daddy said.

    "The stars. They are so pretty."

    "Honey." Her daddy said. "The stars are up there for everyone to enjoy. We can't take the stars down just for you."

    She thought about that, turning it over in her mind. Or trying to at least. The medicine was making it hard to think right now. "Why not?" She said.

    "Well, it wouldn't be fair, would it? Taking down the stars for yourself isn't fair to others."

    Tolis thought about that. She remembered how much fun other kids had when she was stuck in bed. She remembered the whispers that spread about her pitiful blood, only expressed in a few strands of bronze hair. She remembered what Grandpa had said when she cried to him.

    "But the world isn't fair." She said.

    Daddy didn't have an answer.

    ***

    Tolis blinked away memories and stretched her arms above her. Gone was the sickly child whose very bones poisoned her. In her place was a tall willowy teenager, with dirty blond hair that reached the small of her back. Threads of bronze weaved through it giving her hair a strange glint when it moved. Today, like most days, she wore a light sleeveless sandy yellow jacket over a sun brown sleeveless shirt. On her tanned arms were bands of sparkling metal, each one having a small jewel, and around her neck hung a necklace of woven bronze threads inlaid with sapphires and rubies.

    Sapphires and rubies were her favorite gems, and she picked each one she wore individually. They had to match her eyes. One eye was a stunning blue and the other an equally vibrant red. She was told that if you stared long enough into them they would twinkle like stars, but no matter how long she stood in front of the mirror she couldn't see it.

    After stretching all the kinks that one got from taking an unplanned nap Tolis started her day again. There was planning to do, appointments to keep, maps to consulate, and treasure to be found. First things first, she had to pick up her bow.

    Yiorgos Bowery was a small shop on the west side of the city. Specializing in weaponry for cultivators it was the go to for anyone who had unique needs with their archery. Tolis had placed her order years ago, back when she first decided that archery was going to be more than a phase. After all, it wasn't as if her bow would take normal arrows.

    Namaan was a one of a kind bow, at least according to the experts Grandpa had brought in after she had found it deep in the archives. The first thing that caught one's eye when looking at Namaan was its appearance. It looked like the starry sky, in all its glory, with a deep midnight blue color and inlaid with tiny gem fragments that twinkled and shifted. Bronze lines embossed the bow as well, spreading from a center circle like rays of the sun. The second thing was its size. Her bow was big, almost twice as tall as her. Of course, it hadn't always been so big. When she had first found it hiding behind dusty maps and star charts it had been much smaller. Still bigger than her then which was impressive, but when it started growing with her experts were called.

    Such a bow would normally be impossible to move, it would simply weigh too much. That is where the third unique thing about the bow came from. It floated. Never more than a finger's width off the ground, but it floated all the same. No matter how much was placed on it Namaan would never touch the ground. Grandpa had made it bob when he pushed down on it, but that was the most that anyone managed. Sometimes when she was tired Tolis would use it as a chair.

    Arrows for such a bow were finickily business. More javelins than normal arrows, such pieces needed to be properly balanced and expertly fletched. Even the smallest error would send such a massive arrow hurtling off target. Which brought her to Yiorgos Bowery.

    Leaving the store made her feel more complete than she had felt for a long time. Hovering beside her, as steady as the heavens was Namaan, and that brought her a comfort that she had sorely missed. Placed in a special holster tied to the bow were her new arrows. It made the whole thing look uneven, but it was the only way that her arrows could be carried about.

    Now that was done, she had another appointment. One she was well on the way to after turning down the wrong street. Every city has parts that are better and parts that are worse. It is an unfortunate truth. Still no matter how decrepit or squalid somewhere is, people will live there, and where people live doctors will work.

    Walking down such a street made her a target. Smarter ones merely watched her, waiting for a chance. Others had too much spirit, and loose hands. Hands that got a little too close in their wandering were slapped away, but Tolis tried to keep things mild. Getting a reprimand for bullying mortals on her first day as an official cultivator of the clan was something to be avoided.
    The doctor Tolis had come to see worked in a rundown two storied building. Nobody lived on the upper floor, and the roofing was bad and sand tended to creep in during high winds, coating everything in a fine layer of grit. The man had sallow sunken eyes and an unkept beard, but a clean shaven head, and as she walked into the room, which fulfilled all the tasks of a foyer and operating room, he looked up.

    "May I help you miss…?"

    Tolis untied a small leather bag from her belt, before tossing it at the man.

    "Inside are gems, each one valued differently." She said. "They have been appraised and their values are recorded on a note in the bag, so try not to get scammed."

    The doctor almost fumbled the bag, ripping it open he stared inside. "Why?"

    "Not everyone is born with the money for medicine." Tolis said, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she turned to leave. "The world isn't fair like that. But that doesn't mean people should die from it, so please put it to good use."

    Before the doctor could say another word Tolis left. There were still other appointments to keep, forms to sign, and scout paths to memorize. First day in the legions here she came!

    ***
    A.N
    @Alectai A new good seed! There is a post right above this one describing her. If possible I would like my first omake bonus to be a LST. Thank you.
     
  • Sidestory
    • (More seriously, the difference in difficulty between a normal Fate and a Yuan one is minor. It's just a matter of three more rolls, after all, since the multiplier would already be charted out for the first roll, and now that Fates are going to be written by collaborators there isn't even the added difficulty of having to write a longer Fate.)
     
    Katha Theodoros 6 - A Bridge Too Far
  • Sidestory
    • Katha Theodoros 6 - A Bridge Too Far​

    [First Turn 12 Omake Here]

    Blades flashed beneath the boiling sun. The clash of flying bronze rang across the courtyard. The air grew muggy with Qi as a pure soul sought to test her limits.

    One strike, two strikes, three strikes landed in the span of a heartbeat. The end of the wooden training sword dented, stress rippling through its structure. The first and second were caught against the bronzed forearms of her opponent; the third struck him in the forehead, but barely even registered.

    Metallic flesh rippled even as force propagated. Rathos skidded back two feet, but his posture remained flawless. He exhaled shallowly, shaking off the tremors in his hands before resuming the stance. Katha twirled her blade, watching his guard once more.

    They have done this dance many times before, as children, as teenagers and before she'd encountered a peculiar silver senior in the markets of Emporikopolis. But now things are different. They were not unblooded children anymore, but full members of the Clan, sworn to fight in its service. Rathos now stood in the Sixth Heavenstage, and his sister dwarfed his progression twice over. In the past, Katha often won their bouts, for she was always the more martially inclined, admirer of battle and warfare. Rathos eventually stood his own, but their fights often ended in her favour, one way or another.

    Today, however, things were different. The power that rippled through Katha was enormous, and a gap of six small realms would be nigh-on insurmountable without the use of Formations, powerful treasures, or no small amounts of trickery. But this was not the battlefield, but the wrestling ground. The victor would be the one still standing within the circle.

    Katha had struck him thrice. She had nearly forced a ring-out in the opening act of this bout. But compared to before, she was off her game.

    Too fast. Too strong. Too clever by half. Now her sword was splintering under her strain. And she knew it, too. The moment the training sword shatters, it no longer mattered how the match went. She would still lose.

    Katha lunged forward again, thrusting at his throat. Rathos crossed his forearms instinctively to block the blow, flesh roaring with Qi to absorb the blow. Her speed was incredible, but it betrayed sloppiness. Too powerful by half, she no longer concealed her intent.

    No. Worse. Carelessness was easy to rectify. Problem was, Katha could no longer conceal her intent. Not when it poured out of her like the river down the mountain, as easy to read as the aftermath of a Blood Path massacre. For one who had no power up to now, learning to contain it would prove her greatest trial yet.

    Barely able to see his sister move, Rathos caught the tip of her sword with ease between his forearms. Then he moved, one hand swiping for the sword, the other balled fist moving along its shadow and towards the hand that held it.

    He missed. Katha saw him and threw herself backward. But that was not his game.

    After all, the one still standing in the circle won.

    Quickly, in the span of a breath, he threw his weight forward, feet leaving the ground as he rotated in the air and struck his sister with both feet. Her senses, sharpened through ten thousand tortures at the hands of a beetle, saw through him and reacted promptly. Still moving backwards, Katha stabbed her sword forward and caught Rathos between his heels.

    The tip made contact. Force enough to launch her brother out of the circle and into the tree behind him was transmitted. But contact was imperfect, the rotation insufficient and the angle too steep by a hair. Striking too hard and too fast, the wooden training sword disintegrated, and her brother fell flat instead of flying backward.

    He caught himself with one hand, rotated, and struck out with both feet again. Katha struck the ground to right herself, but Rathos wrapped his shins about an arm. In a single motion, using leverage and surprise and violence of action in a single motion, Rathos righted himself and landed on his feet and threw his sister to the ground.

    The match was settled. Katha had lost.

    As Rathos pulled his sister up and Katha dusted herself off, their father clapped beneath the shade of a tree. "A fantastic demonstration of Pankration, Rathos," the man said with a smile, which then faded. "And a disappointing show, Katha. A swordswoman who destroys their blade is unworthy of any."

    She was already squatting on the ground, picking up the splinters of the sword that detonated. "Yes, father," she replied. She looked at each of them, reassembling it in her mind's eye and considering the cracks that must have formed over the battle. "Tch, angle of attack again."

    "Still trying to get used to it?" Rathos asked.

    "It's flimsier than I'm used to. Breaking a hundred-year pine didn't used to be possible for me at all." She glanced at her brother. "You got good, though. Found someone else to practice your Pankration with?"

    At this, Rathos became sheepish, and he scratched behind his head with one hand. "Ah, yeah… She's really good, and she's been giving me pointers."

    "She?"

    Rathos nodded. "I'd introduce her to you, but she's currently on assignment, and by the time she gets back you'll be at the Great Battlefield. Anyhow, a draw and a loss? You're seriously slipping." Rathos blinked, then frowned as he rubbed his wrists, not bruised but still a bit hurt from the spar. "It didn't use to be that easy to read you, what gives?"

    "It's a matter of practice." Their father was between them now, having somehow stood up and moved between them without either of them so much as noticing a muscle. For a crippled man, he was startlingly sneaky. "Katha, now that you're in the 12th Heavenstage, you've developed a flawless body, cleansed of all purities. But," Shu Enya emphasized, "You skipped all the intervening steps between the First and the Tenth Heavenstages. It will take further investigation, but I suspect that your body is still moving as if you were a near-mortal First Heavenstage cultivator, not someone who stands on the cusp of Tribulation and might soon verge into the Single Pillar Path."

    "Not to mention you've got Purified Qi, too," Rathos added. "And now that you know how to use Qi to augment your movement and have loads of it to throw around, you're doing that all the time without real consideration. So your movements are more exaggerated than they used to be, too."

    Katha nodded, then sighed with her hands clutching her head. "Great, so now instead of being held back by being weak, I'm literally held back by being too strong. The fuck is this nonsense supposed to be?"

    "A blessing." Shu Enya reached out with his hands and collected the disintegrated wood chunks of his daughter's favoured training sword. "You've only had this power for less than a year, Katha. Master the blade once again. Perfect your poise, posture, and intent, and when you've returned to your current height you will be all the stronger. Which will take time," her father admitted, "But time is one thing you have in great quantity, now."

    "...Father, I have to be at the Great Battlefield in a few weeks. I can't be fighting Blood Path monsters if I'm breaking my swords. I'm not bringing five swords and a smithing hammer to the Great Battlefield!" She bent over and retrieved an old gravebronze Cuirass, once worn by the great Elessia Theodoros during her days as a Centurion, its plates polished and anointed with oil for the first time in centuries or even millennia. "It's going to be annoying enough to keep maintaining this! Who needs to oil their cuirass?"

    "Everyone, Katha," their father said patiently. "Everyone must oil their Cuirass from time to time. The maintenance of one's own equipment is but one of the basic responsibilities of a Legionary. That includes oiling your Cuirass."

    "Although she's got more of it to oil than most," Rathos muttered under his breath, before his father flicked his ear. "Ow! I'm literally made of bronze! How do you still do that?!"

    "I'm your father," Shu Enya replied, as if that explained anything. "As for that problem, Katha, you have your horn beetle sword. So long as you acknowledge that it is a crutch, I don't see any problem with using it for the time being."

    Katha pinched the bridge of her nose and thought. He did say that the Hornsword was harder and stronger and sharper than just about any other sword he'd ever seen, despite its unwieldy shape. Considering just what it was made from, it might even survive the ministrations of a Nascent Soul!

    She wouldn't, but it meant that she would not have to worry about things like weapons breaking on her on the field of battle. Which only left the other problem.

    "Have you given thought about your Tribulation, Katha?" Her father asked thoughtfully. As one who peaked at the Eighth Heavenstage, Shu Enya never got to taste the lightning of the Heavens and now never would. But he, who had struggled so long and so hard to reach where he was now, had given it much thought before.

    Truthfully, Katha thought she would have had much the same journey. But now, only ten years older, she stood ready to face the lightning and take the next step, left with only the Dao she would follow forever and whether she would take up the Single Pillar in defiance of the Heavens above.

    And it was down to the Dao. The Truth. Her guiding light for the rest of her days. All her life, she knew that she'd need power to defy the Heavens and prevent what had driven her mother's stubbornness and crippled her father. In the caves, she was given a measure of that power, a taste of what could yet follow.

    But the Truth remained slightly out of reach, visible but immaterial. Its form remained like smoke to her. Its shape remained unclear to her. The path she would take, the future that she would fight to bring into being… Her Dao remained uncertain.

    In what way would she face the Heavens? In whose sign will she check their cruelty?

    "Not yet, father," she admitted to him shortly after some thought. "I'm still coming to grips with everything."

    Shu Enya nodded. "Understandable. But it is never too early to consider such things, Katha."

    She knew that too well. Katha had dwelled on the Dao she would follow since the day her mother died.

    The only piece of the puzzle remained in how she would issue Judgement.

    Katha blinked, then held a hand to her head. It was easy. Too easy. There had to be more to the Dao she would follow than that.

    "Something wrong?" Rathos asked.

    "No… Yes. I don't know." She paused, then looked at her bare, exposed arms. "Holy shit, we've been out here for hours and I still haven't tanned at all."

    "Curious indeed," Shu nodded. He stroked his chin, index finger and thumb running along his jawline. "But is it concerning? Katha, how do you feel?"

    "I mean… I don't feel sunburned." Katha sighed. "I'm just worried I'll be drawing stares, now."

    "You already do," Rathos muttered, and received another flick to the earlobe from his father. "Ow! Seriously, how?!"

    "I'm your father, Rathos." His father stroked his chin one last time, then flicked Rathos' earlobe again, eliciting another yelp. "But perhaps if you reflect on your behaviour, kowtow ten times, break your arm and meditate upon Mount Tai, you will know the truth of my words."

    Rathos, frowning, turned to his forearm.

    "I'm kidding. Don't actually break your arm." A beat. Shu flicked his son's earlobe one more time, the sound like a whipcord. "...Insolent brat."

    "Ow! What the hell did I even--"

    ----

    That night, as Katha pondered over what to pack for the Great Battlefield, her father knocked on the door. Before, she wouldn't have known who was visiting, only having a good expectation that they were family from the feeling of the Qi. But since her senses sharpened and she hurtled into developing a Pure Soul, it had become simple to key Qi Signatures to people she'd met before.

    Perhaps with further study, she could learn to fight while blind and deaf. But as is, she essentially squinted everywhere, her senses only expanded to full in battle, lest she be overwhelmed. She stood and opened the door, greeting her father.

    "Your mother studied the blade for a time, too," he said to her. "She was never as obsessed as we were, since she had more options. But the two of you now have something in common."

    Katha understood immediately. "A strong body," she muttered. "But mother's dead. How much could her lingering Will remember?"

    "Frankly speaking… Not much. But you don't need to learn to fight like her. You are not your mother, and your cultivation base will likely surpass hers soon. More importantly," he added, "She had a different philosophy to the blade than I ever did. Meditate on it overnight."

    She bowed, replied that she would, and saw her father off.

    Then Katha made immediately for her mother's gravestone.

    ----

    She saw her mother duel her father.

    It was not her memory. She had not been born when this battle occurred. But the swordswoman in her beckoned, and what remained of Riala Theodoros answered.

    Her daughter's body had become too fast, her mind too sharp, for the techniques she learned from her father. So, she had only two paths to walk. Katha could either learn them again, a lifetime of instruction repeated.

    Or, she could learn new techniques from one who had known speed and cunning since she was born, a genius from the beginning.

    A raven-haired beauty, her blue eyes shining like sapphires, Riala stood opposite a man whose red hair had been partially bleached white from the strains of cultivation. Where she carried a single saber, her father held two, each in reverse grip. And where she was confidently eased, he was tense.

    "Relax, Shu," Riala laughed. "I'm not trying to kick your ass! It'll just happen anyways!"

    Shu Enya adjusted his grips on his blades, keeping to his strange dual-bladed stance. "That's exactly what I'm worried about," he grumbled. "You'll just tell me I owe you for lessons and put me further into debt."

    "Well if you win, that means I'll owe     you for once. It's your best bet for paying off the debt anyhow, so why not?"

    "I don't recall signing any bank slip…"

    "It's a matter of personal honour! Now fight me, dumb-dumb!"

    Shu obliged with a flurry of swings. Each swing flowed into the next, the dance of steel fervent and unrelenting. Blows that were blocked became feints, strikes that hit air turned into probes. Oppressively, like an iron wind, Shu Enya forced Riala Theodoros back. Aggressive, dominant, most would say Shu held the upper hand, that this young junior might soon have his revenge against the teasing heiress.

    But Katha wondered why her mother had not drawn her sword from her scabbard.

    With laughter bubbling from her lips, Riala was as effervescent as evening mist as even the blows she could not block with a sheathed blade simply slid around her, missing by hairs despite barely moving. Not once did she counterattack, the extent of her retaliation seemingly just the exhaustion her enemy felt.

    Until Shu Enya overextended by a hair, his center of gravity just barely past his balancing point. A trivial matter to rectify, given a second to adjust.

    In a tenth that, Riala's hand was already pressed against his chest, digits slightly bent and jabbed into his skin. She did not clench or tear, she simply pushed. And Shu Enya was sent flying.

    He caught himself, plunging a hand into the soft dirt and arresting his movement directly, buffered by a burst of Qi. Riala did not rush forward to capitalise, nor did she launch further attacks - air bullets, a thrown blade, poisoned daggers. Instead she walked slowly towards him, sword still sheathed and still smiling.

    Shu coughed, his hand powdered lightly red. "That wasn't a sword technique."

    "Sure it was!" Riala finally unsheathed her blade and tossed her scabbard aside, twirling it twice before taking up a stance. "If I'd stabbed you, you'd be dead right now. Pop quiz, Shu; how many Meridians would that have burst? Two or three?"

    Steadfastly, Shu picked up his blades, once more in reversed grip. "Irrelevant. That would have destroyed my heart."

    "Good, good! You're learning!" Riala chuckled, then threw her sword into the air, catching it in the other hand before reversing her form. "This time, try to hit me. And flailing like an idiot doesn't work, so don't bother!"

    "I can't help it, I'm slower     and you've got sharper eyes. This is the only way I can keep up."

    "By becoming a sweaty mess before I even land a lit?"

    Enya's cheeks became a lightly dusted red, the first Katha had ever seen her unflappable, shameless father even slightly embarrassed. In response, Riala just laughed again. "It's a work in progress. Not all of us can be brilliant heirs to ancient styles forged for their constitutions."

    "Oh, my ancestors apparently do what you do, just better." Riala held up her empty hand, wriggling her fingers. "This one I came up with myself. If you beat me, I'll teach you~"

    "And put myself further into debt? No thank you!"

    "Ah, but I don't care for words! Show me with actions, Shu Enya! Beat me for once and put     me in your debt!"

    Irritated, Shu Enya began his onslaught once more. But his movements were sharper, more refined. Gradually, his expression evened, then blanked entirely, his face a mask of serenity even as his movements became faster, sharper, more efficient, pushed to their absolute and utmost limits. Riala attempted to shove him again, but Shu simply let himself fall, slipping past the thrust and nearly cutting Riala by the waist with both swords.

    Her clothes came out ripped. Contact had been made with his gravebronze swords. Riala grinned, satisfied, and gripped her sword earnestly for the first time that bout.

    And then she struck once, an upwards slash. It was a flawed strike, and Katha saw a dozen minute imperfections that compounded into noticeably reducing the power of the blow, cutting it almost by a third. It did not matter; she simply put herself in the ideal position, where she did not need a perfect strike to win victory.

    The flawed strike was more than sufficient. Shu's guard broke, his swords falling from cut wrists. Shu Enya gasped as his mind realised what had happened, and by then Riala was already gently pushing him to the ground with a sandaled foot to the face.

    When Shu Enya next blinked, the duel was over and Riala was already done bandaging his wounds. She stood over him with a satisfied smirk, hands on her hips. "Well, I think that went well enough!"

    Shu Enya sat up and groaned as he clutched at his head with both hands. "Give me a break! How is a half-rate like me supposed to repay a debt to you?"

    Riala laughed again. "Well, I'm sure you have your uses! Come on," she grinned and pulled him onto his feet. "I'm about to face the lightning, so you better sit tight! The next time I see you, I want a nice present!"

    Shu frowned at him, sucking on his teeth. "Anything will do?"

    She giggled. "Nope! The heart of a maiden is a fickle thing, you know? You'll just have to make a guess and hope you're right! For example..." she added, turning about and looking towards the mountains, "...Well, I'm sure you'll figure it out!"

    "...Right." Rubbing at his wrists, Shu joined Riala's side. "You're a pain in the ass, you know that?"

    "Guilty," Riala replied, feeling not at all apologetic. "So if you're going to put me in my place, you'd better work hard! I'm not about to waste my time on a failed investment!"

    "Yeah, yeah…"

    Then, the dream unravelled. Details bled out and blurred into an indistinct smear. The mountains ran like water, the sands turned to mud then to nothing. Eventually, even her parents were gone, coloured into the same blank smear as the rest of memory's creation.

    And then, Katha woke up.

    ----

    Katha continued to kneel before her mother's pillar for a long time, head bowed before the jade box that contained her bronzed heart. Consulting her will had been enlightening to her, in a number of ways. It was perhaps difficult to reconcile her image of the woman as a peerless, flawless and exceptional genius with the energetic girl that she had been in the past, but that was not the point.

    It was a matter of philosophy, Katha realised. Her father believed that the initiative in a duel had to be seized in order to achieve victory. Initiative had to be won through momentum, force, aggression and dominance in either skill or psychology or ideally both, whether to overcome a gap in skill and power or simply to end the fight as quickly as possible.

    Yet, her mother ceded the initiative instead, allowing her opponent to rail against her defenses until she found a crucial gap to exploit mercilessly. It did not matter to her whether one started with the initiative so long as one ended with it with a cunning reversal. Perfection was not necessary, nor was even excellence needed. One simply needed to make the right move in the right circumstance and victory would follow.

    "Full marks, Katha. You've hit the nail on the head."

    Katha looked up, startled by the voice. A ghostly apparition looked back down, so thinly defined it barely had the shape of a woman. But the voice, though she hadn't heard it in decades, was all too clear. "Mother?"

    The lingering will of Riala chuckled gently. "Nothing so fortunate, my dear. But I am her echoes. What do you think of your mother's swordsmanship?"

    Katha frowned. It would lose nothing to be forthright, even though the woman herself would never know it. "It was sloppy. It was like you weren't even trying."

    Riala nodded. "I wasn't, but you're right. And what do you think you can do with that knowledge?"

    "...I need Patience," Katha concluded. "As I am right now, trying to make my own opportunities will just leave gaps for an opponent to exploit. I'm better off waiting for them to expose some."

    "Your father's actually got a lot of anger underneath his blank expression, you know," Riala noted, before chuckling to herself. "And I don't think you can match that anymore. It's not ideal, mind you, but it's a good springboard for your future ambitions. Consider this a bit of homework, Katha; what is a battle to you?"

    Katha nodded haltingly. Then, she swallowed. "Mother, I… I wanted to ask. Did you ever regret attending the final lecture?"

    Riala looked at her. Then, she tilted her head from side to side. "Who knows? I had plenty of reasons to regret it and plenty of reasons not to, but I can't say for sure what I'd feel about it now, being dead and all. But in the end, that doesn't really matter, does it?"

    "I guess not…"

    The lingering will of Riala stooped down to her, cupping her daughter's chin and spreading coolness where she brushed the skin. "But I do know one thing, Katha, and that's how proud I would have been of you. Not because of your talent. Not because of your gift. Not even because you're stubborn enough to win them from the jaws of danger." The coolness left, then Riala pressed both hands against Katha's cheeks. "It's because you're still trying after what happened to your father and I."

    Katha felt sad, but no tears fell. Maybe that is because she had long since shed them all. "I wish you didn't die," she said instead, to which her mother's echoes laughed.

    "So would I! But it doesn't matter what we wish for, but what we get. So get to it, Katha!" The lingering will, having granted its wisdom, began to retreat back into the urn. "And for Imperator's sake," Riala added as her voice began to fade, "Don't bully Rathos so much, he's trying his best!"

    "But he's a nerd," Katha protested weakly, but it was already over. Her mother's lingering will was at rest once more, not to be disturbed for another ten years.

    She knelt for another hour, dwelling on her wisdom, before returning to bed.

    ----

    And at dawn, armour-clad and sword at her hip, Katha set out for One-Boat, One-River Pass. On the outskirts of the Thousand Song Siege.

    [Wordcount: 4,310 Words]
     
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  • Sidestory
    • Savvas Nicolidis 10 - Economies of Poison
  • Sidestory
    • 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.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Did Savvas just spend the last three years building up an immunity to iocane powder, and has he figured out a way to make this marketable?

    Or did I misunderstand...?
     
    Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 1 - Liaogai Village
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 1 - Liaogai Village​


    The Ninth Prince clapped his hands. "So, you might be wondering why I summoned you all here today."

    The assembled members of Liaogai village, well-respected elders, members of the village council, crime lords, owners of the most prosperous shops in the market district, and sometimes all four at once, did have to admit they were quite confused.

    "The answer's simple really."

    The elders, sages, and assorted old and powerful people of the village leaned forward, waiting for the pearls of wisdom or ancient secrets that would almost certainly come from his mouth.

    Maybe, just maybe, if they were unfathomably lucky, the Ninth Prince might even...

    "And no, Xiaobu, I'm not declaring my undying love for any member of the Thirteen. Or Jin Muyi. Or Minervina Barda. Neither am I going to 'reveal' that I'm secretly a member of an underground civilization of snake people, Rong. I know you're where your grandson gets it from."

    Two ancient looking men cursed under their breath while money surreptitiously changed hands between many others of a similar venerable age, all as the assembled elders remembered one crucial fact they'd forgotten for a moment about the Ninth Prince.

    This man had been around since before their grandparents were born. He'd seen them grow up, he'd seen them fail, he'd seen them as teenagers.

    All of this, coupled with him being able to casually destroy the village if he wanted to, meant one thing. The Ninth Prince, unlike literally everyone else in Liaogai Village, had no respect for the elders of Liaogai.

    Well, that wasn't entirely true, he gave them quite a bit of respect for their accomplishments. It was just hard to look at someone with awe and veneration when you'd changed their diapers, played ball games with them, or seen them compose brooding poetry to read to the object of their affections.

    Unfortunately, the Ninth Prince had seen essentially everybody in this gathering do something embarrassing as a kid, and so any sort of mystique or higher position that the elders normally held when dealing with the other residents of Liaogai was dispelled even before it could be created.

    Of course, that stripping away of mystique carried its own benefits.

    One of the most ancient elders, a woman using not one, not two, but three canes to stand up, hobbled forward. "Well, if it isn't either of those, then it has to be you revealing that you're actually a spirit beast in human form!" She said, with a smile that would look more at home on her grandchildren than herself.

    "Xiuren are you daft?!" A bald old man jabbed his cigar at the woman who'd just spoken, fake anger soon giving way to a similar mischievous smile. "Obviously he's going to say that he's an ancient construct that was made millenia ago!"

    This broke the floodgates, and soon dozens of decrepit, wrinkly elders were shouting out what they thought the Ninth Prince was going to reveal.

    "-A member of a race of underwater snakemen!"

    "-initely a heavenly treasure granted sapience!"

    "-ecretly a fish ma-" "-ou idiot, he's gonna reveal his secret treasu-" "-chemical pill made huma-" "-om the fifth s-" "-lexios pretending to be a fou-"

    "He'S TotAlLy a-"

    The desert resounded with hundreds of thousands of hisses, drowning out any noise the mortal elders could make.

    "Alright, back to the actual reason why you're all here." The Ninth Prince said, amused but definitely wanting to hurry this up.

    "You're all smart and rational people, so I'm just going to say this outright and trust that you won't panic."

    The elders were filled with a mixture of pride and annoyance. Pride at the fact that the Ninth Prince trusted them to keep their cool, and annoyance at the fact that it even needed to be said in the first place. They were the elders, for crying out loud. Sure, maybe some of those hotheaded youths that were starting to take a bit more control over the village might do something rash, but the elders had the wisdom of experience. They wouldn't panic when faced with any old mild disast-

    "I'm going to die in the upcoming trials." The Ninth Prince said, perfectly calmly and with no hint of alarm.

    And that was when the elders started to panic.

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

    One elder, a prominent politician and pillar of the community, started crying.

    A trio of filthy rich shop owners began wailing in shock, forming a dissonant chorus that was absolutely murder on the ears.

    The same old lady who'd said that the Ninth Prince was really a spirit beast in human form jabbed another old lady with one of her three canes as she started flailing around wildly. This of course prompted the second old lady to try and hit the first one with her walker, which smacked a banker in the head.

    Said banker promptly tossed one of his gold rings at the old lady, which missed and hit someone else in the eye. That person, a blacksmith with a hefty set of arms, walked over to the banker and punched him straight into five other people.

    This was enough to start a massive brawl, as dozens of elders began fighting among each other, a battle for the ages waged by the aged, set to the backdrop of yet other elders crying and screaming, running to and fro and generally causing chaos.

    It was, in a word, hysteria.

    Said state of hysteria was dispelled by none other than the Ninth Prince.

    Once more, an uncountable number of snakes began to hiss, suppressing all noise in the area even while the elders saw the faintest impression of an enormous, world-devouring serpent hanging in the sky.

    The Ninth Prince seemed to loom over those near him, face cast into shadow and eyes glowing a baleful green, the color of unspeakable poisons and corrosive acid.

    His voice pierced through the deathly silence that had now fallen on the gathering cold as ice and hard as stone. "Are you all quite done?"

    Shamed and terrified into order, what else could the leaders of Liaogai village do but nod?

    Immediately, the Ninth Prince exited his state of fear-inducing seriousness. "All right, perfect!"

    "So, now that all of you are done acting like your children and grandchildren," The elders winced. Yeah, that was… unfortunately accurate. "Maybe you all can let me explain just how I plan on cheating this death?"

    With that, the elders calmed. After all, this was the Ninth Prince, a man who'd managed to do the impossible time and time again. If anyone could find a way to cheat their own death, it would be him.

    They couldn't wait to hear what he had planned!

    And so the elders waited.

    And they waited.

    And they waited some more, standing there in anticipation for what seemed like hours.

    Eventually, one of the younger members of the gathering, a butcher specializing in gourmet scorpion meat, broke the silence. "So, what are your plans?"

    The Ninth Prince smiled. "Well, I'm glad you asked! Figured it'd take more time, but this is good too, allows me to wrap this up quickly."

    The NInth Prince produced an iron fang as big as his palm and covered with jagged runes glowing a sickly green, runes that paradoxically bolstered the elders, making them feel like they were in their forties again. "This is… Well if I tell you there's a non-zero chance that lightning strikes down to obliterate all of you, so I'm just going to say that this is a key piece in my plans to be resurrected."

    "I'm going to keep this in the center of the village, make a nice little monument slash altar for it. What I need you all to do is keep it safe. Make sure nobody touches it, make sure nothing damages it, make sure it's kept intact. If it's marred or scarred in any way, I might legitimately die."

    With that, the Ninth Prince stopped for a moment, lowering his head until it was completely cast into shadow. When he raised it again, there was no trace of his previous levity. "I know I'm asking a lot from you, but this is literally life or death. So, one last time, even with all of the effort it's going to take, are you willing to do this for me?"

    The elders thought for a moment.

    They thought of the implications of such an action, of the reactions from other villagers.

    They thought of the dangers of such a potent source of Qi, the spirit beasts and bandits that might attempt to claim it for their own.

    They thought of the Ninth Prince's numerous and powerful enemies, enemies who wouldn't hesitate to attack Liaogai Village if even a hint of what was happening here leaked out, enemies who would decimate entire cities to stop the Ninth Prince from cheating death.

    Then, as one, every elder of Liaogai Village promptly ignored all of that.

    Because, at the end of the day, this was the Ninth Prince. The man asking them this was a living legend, the reason Liaogai was more than merely a sleepy village housing a criminal underbelly. His mere presence had turned Liaogai into a bustling town filled with trade and life and also a criminal underbelly. The Ninth Prince was the reason any of the elders of Liaogai had jobs and prestige at all.

    And even more than that, the Ninth Prince was a man who had played with them as children, who'd assisted them with romantic troubles as teenagers, who'd helped their businesses and careers as adults, who still took the time to do all of that with their children and grandchildren.

    Liaogai Village owed so much to the Ninth Prince, even if he wouldn't accept any such debts. It was about time they repaid him in even the slightest way.

    As one, the elders of Liaogai Village silently nodded, agreeing to house this Fang Pillar without even the slightest of hesitation.

    Seeing all of this, the Ninth Prince smiled. It was a nice smile, a soft smile, a smile filled with emotion and gratitude. "Thank you. All of you. I'll start setting up the monument slash altar as soon as possible."

    His smile grew wider as the seriousness of the moment was broken by the Ninth Prince's customary levity. "What do you say I take you all back to the village where you can finally get to sleep?"

    Accompanied by cheers and good natured grumbles, the Ninth Prince waved a hand and flared his Qi, and in a swirl of sand, each elder of Liaogai Village was placed safely back into their homes.

    The Ninth Prince, however, had to take the long way back, a five minute walk (at Foundation Establishment speeds at least) to the village.

    After those five minutes, he arrived at the village, waved to the sleepy guards and sent a pulse of Qi their way to keep them alert, and walked to the center of Liaogai.

    The night was dark, the stars were bright, and every shop and house lining the plaza had turned off its lights.

    Everyone in Liaogai Village was peacefully asleep, safe from any dangers of the desert, secure in the knowledge that no matter what happened, they would be protected from harm.

    The Ninth Prince smiled as he looked around at his village, at his home, quiet and peaceful in the dead of night, filled with people he'd known for decades.

    Liaogai was a bit seedy, a bit sleazy, sometimes a bit hot and always a bit loud, but at the end of the day, it was home.

    God he loved his town.

    A/N: Hope you enjoyed this.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 2 - Ninety Ninth Legion
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 2 - Ninety Ninth Legion​


    The command tent of the Ninety Ninth Legion was barely used.

    Most of the time the Ninth Prince talked to his commanders and lieutenants out in the field, planning campaigns basically anywhere and everywhere that he could gather his advisors.

    Really, the command tent only existed for aesthetic purposes, so that the Legion could feel like they had a normal rational command structure instead of what the Ninth Prince considered 'normal', or 'rational'.

    (Honestly, it wasn't like the command structure was that bad at the end of the day! After the first set of desperate pleas from literally everyone, including his own snakes, the Ninth Prince had moved away from a snake-based leadership hierarchy and into a more regular ten man group, ten commanders each with ten squad leaders, each of which led a ten man squad.

    Now, maybe the exact details of which commander managed which squad leader changed from day to day, and maybe there was a loosely defined group of a few thousand auxilia waiting to be processed into legion groups that basically answered to both everyone and no one, and maybe about an eighth of his command structure was made up of snakes, but those were all minor issues in the grand scheme of things.)

    Most people, members of the Ninety Ninth and the rest of the clan alike, just shrugged and counted it as yet one more quirk of the Hydra and its leader.

    As such, when the rank and file of the Ninth Prince's legion saw that the Hydra's command tent had light shining within it, they were understandably both confused and mildly terrified.

    Absolutely none of this was of any importance to the people inside the tent, occupied with pressing business as they were.

    The Ninth Prince slammed a fist on the desk inside the command tent, face filled with mock anger. "Antotrania you bastard, I can't believe you actually had all the kings!"

    Antrotania, a large burly woman who'd risen to prominence off of the strength of her shield and potent earth techniques, simply chuckled and pocketed her winnings. "Well, sir, you should know by now that I never bluff. Except when I do, of course."

    "Fret not though." Her smile somehow grew wider, a feat that the Ninth Prince had thought impossible. "Your generous gift will be put towards my dream of a vineyard near Callista lands. Who knows, maybe I'll even gift you a vintage as recompense?"

    As the Ninth Prince grumbled under his breath, the table erupted in laughter, not at Antrotania's poor attempt at a joke, but at the Ninth Prince losing a game not minutes after he'd boasted of his unbeatable winning streak.

    As abruptly as it had started, however, the laughter stopped. Another one of the Ninth Prince's commanders, Komianos, a short pudgy man with a quick wit and an even quicker blade, finally asked the question that was on everyone's minds. "Well, boss, if you don't got a problem with me speaking plainly, I'm kinda wondering why you called this meeting in the first place."

    "Now, don't get me wrong, cards is always fun, but that wasn't supposed ta be until next week. So you got a different motive for this little gathering, and somehow, I doubt it's anything we're gonna like."

    The Ninth Prince sighed. Well, Komianos wasn't wrong, but he'd hoped to get a little bit more levity out of the meeting before the important matters.

    Still, he supposed now was as good a time as ever, and it wasn't like he could avoid this topic anyways.

    That little train of thought resolved, the Ninth Prince stood up from his position at the head of the table. "Alright, a bit earlier than I hoped, but let's just get this out of the way."

    "I," the Ninth Prince said, voice lacking its normal levity, "am going to die in the upcoming trials. I know this for a fact, it was divined by perhaps the greatest seer in the region, and the odds of this not coming to pass are incredibly low."

    To their credit, his commanders didn't break out into mass hysteria like the elders of Liaogai Village, instead staying perfectly silent. But, calm as they might seem to an outside observer, none of the Ninth Prince's commanders could hide their true feelings from him,

    When you lived near and worked directly with a group of people for decades, you began to notice little things about those people, small nonverbal cues that could help you get a read on them.

    The Ninth Prince noted the tightening of Komianos' jaw, the way Fexiang's right eyebrow involuntarily twitched, how Sun Yijun (he insisted on always being called by his full name) beat a staccato rhythm on the tip of the table, and countless other such tells from every member of his command staff, and came to a conclusion.

    His commanders weren't happy with the news.

    Well, normally he'd wait a bit, draw out the dramatic pause, and let them stew for a bit in order to make the reveal hit harder, but out of respect for their long years of service (read: putting up with his bullshit), the Ninth Prince would hurry it up.

    He smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Now, let me tell you about my plans to cheat this death."

    And with that, as one, the Ninth Prince's commanders sighed with relief.

    Diana Duca (thankfully no relation to the elder, more famous Duca. At least, no relation that the Ninth Prince knew of anyway) laughed, vaguely hysterically. "Alright! You really had me going there for a second, your majesty."

    Ul, a hunched old engineer with fingers of knives, cackled. "Same here boss man! I have to say, I was worried there! But I suppose that's why you're the boss and I'm not, you always have some sort of plan."

    "Now, let me ask the question I've got no doubt you're waiting for." He leaned forward in his seat, gripping the table tightly. "What exactly are those plans?"

    Well, with such an accommodating audience, how could he refuse to answer?

    The Ninth Prince produced a small iron fang, the size of his palm and covered in jagged glyphs that pulsed with a sickly green light. "This is one of my Dao Pillars. I know you all know the significance, the madness, the sheer utter stupidity of having a Dao Pillar be physical, but in my defense I didn't really have a choice. It was the price I paid for surviving Pleuron, you see."

    As his commanders sputtered and sat in shock at the absolute absurdity of what he'd revealed, the Ninth Prince continued on with his little speech. "I'm hoping that you all are going to be able to keep this safe for me. It's quite literally life or death, in that if this pillar gets damaged in any way, there's a strong chance I'm going to die."

    As the Ninth Prince paused, another one of his commanders, Fexiang, a woman with potent mastery over fire arts, spoke. "So, what, you're gonna ask us if we'd be willing to 'take on this burden' or 'help you with this task' or whatever polite-speak you use when you want people to do stuff?"

    Shocked for a moment, the Ninth Prince let out a short bark of laughter. "Ha! No, that would just be insulting to you. I know all of you, I've worked with all of you, fought with all of you, lived with all of you for decades on end. You lot are some of the bravest, most stubborn, absolutely idiotic cultivators I've ever met. It's why we get along so well. Even if I tried to talk you out of it you'd keep this pillar safe."

    Sun Yijun, a bald man covered in tattoos, raised his hand.

    The Ninth Prince sighed. He'd thought that Sun Yijun had broken that habit months ago. "Yes, Sun Yijun? Also, as I've reminded you before, you don't need to raise your hand to ask me a question."

    "Apologies, sir." Sun Yijun said, not looking sorry in the slightest. "I will keep that in mind for the next occasion in which I need to ask you a question. But for now, regarding the question I raised my hand for, there appears to only be one Dao Pillar, and ten of us. Which commander will be trusted with possession of the pillar?"

    The Ninth Prince felt ten sets of eyes on him, staring with an eagerness and anticipation that could only be described as hungry, as if he was face to face with a pack of wild spirit beasts, ready to attack both him and their fellows.

    Of course, with the Ninth Prince being the Ninth Prince, this didn't really faze him in the slightest.

    Instead, he merely smiled and turned around. "Well, the best way to do this seems like it'd be some sort of competition. Nothing too complex of course.

    Here's what we'll do. The first person to come and touch me on my left shoulder with their left pointer finger will be the person who gets the Dao Pillar.

    I won't turn around, I'll fully ignore whatever happens behind me (as long as it doesn't hurt the furniture too much, this table is expensive), and this command tent is both warded and soundproofed from the inside and outside.

    Also if you hit me with any sort of damaging thing, you're disqualified."

    The rules thus laid out, the Ninth Prince held up a finger. "Your time starts… Now."

    Immediately, the Ninth Prince heard the sounds of truly ferocious violence being enacted on and by the other inhabitants of the Command Tent, techniques and weapons flying everywhere, table being upended and used as an impromptu barricade and shield.

    With this backdrop of absolute carnage, the Ninth Prince simply sat down, pulled out a small cup of some sort of tar-like liquid, and drank deeply.

    His Legion was truly the best Legion.

    A/N: Hope you enjoyed this.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 3 - Manuel Konstantinos
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 3 - Manuel Konstantinos​


    The Ninth Prince stepped gingerly into the bowels of the Dawn Fortress, hesitating at the doorway, not because of any sort of fear or doubt, but because he hadn't memorized the layout of the traps yet.

    Assuming there were traps anyways. After all, if the Ninth Prince was going to fortify an inner sanctum while holding the reputation of a master manipulator with a plan for every situation, he'd just tell everyone there were traps in the road to his sanctum and leave it completely empty.

    That way, any would be intruders would spend an inordinate amount of time just trying to evade any sort of pitfalls or hazards, and as soon as they started gloating at passing through every trap unscathed, the Ninth Prince would tap them on the shoulder, let them realize that he let them through his sanctum, and kill them after that happened.

    Yeah, that sounded like something the Archegetes would do.

    That taken care of, the Ninth Prince confidently took a step forward, walking in the empty chamber.

    ...And then immediately jumped back, as a gout of flame hot enough to melt basically anything it touched, and certainly hot enough to melt the Ninth Prince, erupted from the floor, missing the Ninth Prince by inches.

    ...Well, that answered that question, the Ninth Prince guessed.

    He looked down at the map of all the traps in the entrance, the map that was complicated and detailed enough that the Ninth Prince had to pull out a magnifying glass just to read everything on it.

    ...This was going to be a long journey.

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

    ...why had he taken the trapped corridor? He'd given his permission for Anush Naag to visit!

    Manuel watched with some minor amusement and confusion. There was the guarded corridor, of course, where one simply let the guards know if they had permission. He wasn't walking through a gauntlet of traps every time he had to leave his quarters.

    As he thought about it, it made sense. The young man sought to test himself to prove himself worthy, even if he had permission to enter. Such bearing was certainly worthy of a cultivator of the Clan. Intervening at this point would be an insult, shaming the Ninth Prince and his desire to overcome all challenges in his way.

    The other corridor was of course empty, and came with a series of traps. This was largely to funnel spies more than anything, and served as a foil. People preferred to beat the known than think of an unknown way in, and consequently your average spy bizarrely tried to sneak through the trapped corridor as opposed to using more mundane methods, like lying convincingly to a guard, or forging proof of permission.

    It did serve as a useful way to dissuade the juniors who absolutely had to meet the Archegetes and wouldn't take no for an answer, though. The traps were all non-lethal and varied according to the strength of the intruder, and once someone was disabled they'd sound an alarm to get the guards to come pick up the disabled intruder.

    Still, the Ninth Prince was exceptional at disabling traps, so it'd serve as a good test of the corridor's capabilities.

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

    The Ninth Prince was currently having the time of his life.

    Apparently the Archegetes had cultivating mice living in his corridors, probably from the sheer power radiated from his Dao Emanations. And, seeing as this was the Archegetes, the mice were incredibly well trained and proficient in the use of Qi Magics and Dao Abilities.

    The short range shadow-teleportation was quite ingenious, as were the tiny throwing stars cloaked by unusual Qi fluctuations. It was almost as if these mice had learned to cultivate by studying the Archegetes' Dao through constant proximity.

    But he was getting off topic.

    The point was that the Ninth Prince was currently fighting off black-clad mice throwing tiny projectiles at him, while also dodging falling hammers, pit traps, tripwires leading to barrels of a quick-congealing tar, oil slicks that were somehow infused with Qi to make them more slippery, and of course, poison gas, sedatives strong enough to knock out even him, and explosives (filled with smoke, obviously.)

    And it was great.

    The mice were adorable and also incredibly interesting from a biological standpoint (probably also quite tasty, but the Ninth Prince wouldn't eat a part of the Archegetes' defenses. That was just rude.). The hammers and pit traps were much better put together than those in the Temple of Scales, done well enough that he couldn't even see the seams, having to rely on instinct and infrared vision.

    The tar and oil slicks were just fun, fun enough that the Ninth Prince had started triggering them on purpose just to slide around a bit (and also to trip up the ninja mice). The poison gas didn't do anything at all to him, what with the bloodline immunity thing, and the smoke bombs and sedatives added a bit of spice to everything, since the mice could maneuver through the gases quite easily, while the Ninth Prince had to go around them.

    But, all good things came to an end, and that was true of this as well. The Ninth Prince was rapidly coming up to the end of the hallway, and thus, to the Archegetes' chambers.

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

    Manuel raised an eyebrow.

    The young man was fairly clean, which was a surprise. Apparently one of the more interesting traps had simply failed to trigger, which meant the corridor needed maintenance. Humming for a moment he decided to hand it off to Destasia. Nothing lethal was a proscription she'd follow, and if the corridor was so easily breached it was clearly time to make it far more difficult.

    As the Ninth Prince entered, he inclined his head - or at least the puppet he had left in his chambers did.

    He split his consciousness off briefly, feeling far around him with his soul, checking for any other actors who were converging towards him. He didn't find any, of course, and didn't expect any.

    After all, it simply didn't seem plausible that the Ninth Prince would be the herald of an assassination attempt. Still, carelessness was a quick and silent killer. The puppet was in all accounts indistinguishable from his main self unless one knew him intimately. If he was found out, he would simply wave it off as the demands of a busy man, doing many things at once.

    Even Kleisthenes was winnowed of secrets before she sat in his presence, though he didn't tell her so crudely. Suffering a proper assassination attempt was unlikely, but falling to some esoteric and bizarre poison would be a horribly ironic end, and he had never appreciated irony.

    Divining Anush Naag's true origins had been beyond him in rather violent fashion. It was rare he received a backlash when peering into the secrets of others, but it had happened in this instance. Despite his seeming loyalty, Manuel could imagine a thousand reasons the other man might seek - or be driven, or controlled - to kill him, and his inability to properly simply grasp the Ninth's Prince's secrets meant more caution was due than normal.

    He spoke.

    "Welcome, Anush Naag. What brings you to my chambers today?"

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

    Huh, these were surprisingly nice chambers.

    The Ninth Prince didn't mean that the Archegetes didn't deserve these chambers, he was after all the pillar upon which the entire clan precariously balanced, and to do anything less would be to shame the office and the living legend who held it.

    No, the Ninth Prince was just surprised that these quarters seemed to be the Archegetes' actual chambers, instead of a fake set booby-trapped to hell and back.

    He was actually quite touched that Manuel Konstantinos trusted him enough to let him into his true abode, even if said abode was also most likely booby-trapped to hell and back.

    But that was enough contemplation for now, the Ninth Prince was in front of a Nascent Soul he respected and it wouldn't do to take up too much of his time.

    With that, the Ninth Prince launched into the reason he was here. "First of all, thank you for taking the time to meet me, I know you're most likely incredibly busy, so I'll keep this short."

    "I'm going to die in the trials. I obtained a prophecy from the Noble Knowledge Sect Dao Child hmself, a man with a constitution that allows him to perfectly see the future of anybody below Nascent and not in Single Pillar. To my knowledge, there is absolutely no way for me to circumvent this death, it will happen no matter what." The Ninth Prince said, somber and lacking his normal exuberance.

    "However." The Ninth Prince smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "I think I've figured out a way to slip through a loophole in the prophecy. Of course, I'll tell you about it if you'd like me to, but assuming Bhrigu manages to bring his Spirit Severing grandfather through, or one of the proctors simply scans your mind, I was just going to keep it a secret and only tell you what I'm hoping you'd do."

    ...Was talking to the Archegetes, the leader of the clan himself like this a potentially bad move?

    Maybe. But it had to be said, and Manuel Konstantinos seemed like a man who very much understood the importance of information security.

    The Ninth Prince continued onwards with his explanation, producing a small iron fang that glowed with green jagged runes. "This is one of my Dao Pillars. I was hoping you could just store it in any sort of safe place, or keep it on your person if you want. The important thing is that it has to be unharmed, or I'm probably going to have my soul torn apart."

    "I know I'm asking a lot of you, and as the Archegetes you have every right to refuse, but, would you be willing to do this?"

    Well, alright. That was his pitch. Now all that was left to do was wait for the Clan Leader's response.
    ----------------

    Manuel had not often been surprised, but he admitted some shock at this.

    He couldn't tell, frustratingly, if Anush Naag had to live still. He presumed as much - he knew if the boy had died before the Trials a hundred years after his ascension to Mid Nascent Soul it would've spelled the end of the Clan, but now…

    Better to be safe. Carrying on his person seemed wise, but first…

    He gestured briefly, stopping Anush Naag from moving at all, leaving him in a senseless daze. He had an art for this, the Memory-Wiping Timestop Art allowing him to let the young man sense a discontinuity but nothing more when he was done, and so he quickly extracted a sample of blood, healing the wound over with another wave of his hand.

    A thought later, and he took a small amount of marrow. It'd cost Manuel a little Qi to heal it, but still, it would be worth the additional security.

    Keeping the Ninth Prince in a state of unconsciousness, he had the puppet quickly return the marrow to his main body, where he compared it against the six other samples he'd gathered over the years.

    Well within tolerances. The blood as well. The Ninth Prince was still the Ninth Prince, and not a clone of some sort with a sabotaged Dao Pillar designed to weaken or kill him.

    He sighed, and tapped his foot, the Ninth Prince feeling a momentary discontinuity as he awoke. The memories would be gone, and the young man would be aware only that the world had shifted ever-so-slightly, and nothing more.

    He inclined his head, and grasped the Dao Pillar, tucking it into one of the expanded-space pockets in his puppet's robe. He'd study it for sabotage before letting it get near his true body, but he suspected there would be no issue.

    "I will guard it for you, Anush Naag. I trust you know what you are doing, so I will leave it at that. Was there anything else?"

    The polite dismissal sounded an end to their conversation.

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

    Huh.

    That was a lot easier than the Ninth Prince expected it to be.

    ...Honestly, the Ninth Prince wasn't sure why he was expecting anything different.

    The Archegetes trusted him enough to allow the Ninth Prince into his personal chambers, so obviously the Archegetes trusted the Ninth Prince enough to hold onto something that could mean the difference between life and death for said Prince. It was actually quite humbling really, knowing that someone that powerful trusted him that much.

    But that thought could be saved for after he got out of the Dawn Fortress.

    "Thank you again for agreeing to do this, it really does mean a lot." With those surprisingly subdued words, the Ninth Prince turned around and exited the Archegetes' chambers, only noticing the second hallway labeled 'Untrapped Entrance' after it would be awkward to double back and take that path.

    As he nearly ran face first into a wall, the last lingering side effects of a slight wooziness he'd begun to feel pretty much right as the Archegetes took his Fang Pillar, the Ninth Prince cursed a bit under his breath.

    He'd gone through all of that trouble, fought through oil spills, sedative gas, spike pits, flamethrowers, bears, and so much more, for nothing.

    Apparently there was an untrapped corridor the entire time.

    ...The Ninth Prince was definitely going to eat those ninja mice on his way out.

    A/N: Huge thanks to @occipitallobe for this collab. Hope yall enjoy.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 4 - Amaranth Castellanos
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 4 - Amaranth Castellanos​

    As one approached the desert, one might be forgiven for believing that one was simply heading towards an area where the natural vegetation thinned out, as the shifting of Qi flows tends to cause. However, the further you went, the harder it would be to not realize the truth. The ever-stalwart grasses thin out and the soil grows more sandy, until you reach areas where there's nothing but unmixed sand.

    Once you got this deep in, the sands of the great Organ Meat Desert spread out as far as the eye could see. To the untrained eye (and to those who lacked spiritual senses), it seemed like a lifeless, empty place. However, while that may have been true to an extent, the majority of the beasts that existed outside of the few oases where qi welled up learned that hiding and conserving energy was paramount. When you didn't have convenient veins of spirit stones to draw on for power, every bit of Qi had to be painstakingly extracted from the air or taken from other beasts, and if poorly chosen, such conflicts could end up burning more Qi than the amount gained. It would be accurate to say that the desert was a place that incentivised the adaptation of opportunistic predators and more often than not, ambush predators. So, when one had to move through areas of this sort, that would be the usual threat that a traveling cultivator would expect to encounter, and therefore prepare against.

    A Spirit Scorpion the size of a wagon barreling through the place at top speed, on the other hand, was a bit more blatant than that. And was that the aura of Foundation Establishment?

    "Well, fuck." Amaranth had been wandering around the area for a bit now, trying to seek opponents around his level to push his comprehension of absorption further, and things had been going fairly well. A few frogs with variant constitutions, a kettle of Corpse-Vultures, and even one particularly angry Thousand-Li Roadrunner, but overall, nothing that he couldn't handle. Foundation Establishment, on the other hand, was a couple steps outside of his weight class. He still remembered, nearly a century ago, where he had to burn his bloodline to match one for merely half a minute. And while Amaranth had certainly gotten stronger since then, the Keystones weren't terribly great at giving power in the moment, at least, in contrast to what they granted in Foundation. Sure, he could beat the Amaranth of a hundred years ago, but the gap of power wasn't so certain that he could defeat someone that had laid him low with such ease back then.

    So, he grabbed his trusty Mist-Command Pendant, and was about to execute the sixth classic tactical maneuver of the Golden Devils, otherwise known as running away, when the Scorpion struck.

    It was less the force of the stinger that surprised him. The Twelfth Heavenstage wasn't too far away in plain bodily force from the First Pillar, after all. It was the sheer, blistering speed. And while the Twelfth was kind in many regards, as he could personally attest after the lectures, in terms of speed Amaranth had barely improved since the Trials. At best, his techniques had gotten more honed, but that wasn't the sort of difference that mattered between small realms, forget a great realm.

    After staring at the stinger lodged into his shoulder for perhaps a moment too long, Amaranth wrenched his body out of place and flooded Qi to the location, desperately trying to cut off the circulation. He was probably going to die, he reflected. The venom of a Foundation-level beast wasn't something Amaranth could resist with the potency of Qi that he possessed within Qi Condensation, at least, not without taking sufficient attention away from escaping that he would be killed either way.

    Well, if he was going to die, then he sure as hell wouldn't go down alone! Roaring, Amaranth plunged a spark-covered fist at the creature's chitinous faceplate. Amaranth was close enough and it had not been long enough after the strike, so the blow actually connected. The scorpion was suffused with enough Qi that its body felt like a block of spiritually-refined iron, but the force managed to reverberate through enough that a few drops of blue blood sprayed through the cracks.

    Perfect. The sparks flickered, and locked on to their target. Blood was blood, no matter the type, and it bound to its own. He could visualize the meridians running through this beast, now. Usually, this would be a prelude to twisting them to shreds, sending the flows of Qi in and back at each other. However, the difference of a great realm proved to be a problem once more. Amaranth recalled how the unrefined form of his strike had difficulty sapping the strength of those Foundation invaders due to the innate spiritual defense that a higher density of Qi provided. It appeared that this beast had the same, but it seemed lesser. Maybe a lower small realm? Nevertheless, it was enough of a barrier to mean that if Amaranth wanted to use his usual trick, he'd need to use multiple strikes.

    However, for good and ill, this scorpion wasn't a fool. Unbeknownst to Amaranth, it was an escapee of Elder Destasia's breeding projects, for the scorpion cavalry that would be deployed during the Trials as a first strike against the invaders. Though, when the escape was reported, Destasia hadn't cared too much. She didn't expect that particular scorpion to survive long in the wilds anyway, not with that mutation.

    So, after feeling unfamiliar Qi that it couldn't flush out rummage through its system, the scorpion attempted to gain distance so this strange man couldn't shove any more Qi into it.

    While that initially looked like a pretty great idea, it wasn't actually as good of a move as it seemed.

    A few seconds ago, Amaranth had realized something about this scorpion. Like most scorpions, it was filled to the brim with venom-aspected Qi. Strangely enough, though, its ability to effectively use venom Qi to perform techniques was completely stunted. The stinger in its back wasn't even properly hooked up to its venom sacs, so all it did was be a built-in spear. It was certainly very odd, that was for sure, because if that was due to some sort of wound, there would be a lot more leftover damage from the process.

    Though, now wasn't the time for pondering about peculiarities. Now was the time to exploit a weakness. As the scorpion backed off, Amaranth managed to wick off a fairly significant amount of the beast's Qi in the process, and sent it into his meridians. The energy density was already fairly significant, considering it was from a higher great realm, and could very well cause severe strain to control if it wasn't for the fact that Amaranth had purified his Qi. Considering that he did, though, he could do a little more than that.

    Just hit the blob of energy with a good old rotation, and focus it up, and there we go. A thin line of a dark, muddy shade of green shot out of Amaranth's right hand in the direction of the scorpion. The scorpion, recognizing a threat, moved to the side, but the blast was shot at the exact same speed as the scorpion itself, and then just a bit more, enough to give it the edge. The line hit dead-on into an area between the front armored plates of the arachnid, and vanished, hopefully near the brain. For a few seconds, nothing seemed to happen. Well, it was probably a bit too optimistic to assume—

    And then it happened. The giant scorpion froze, and began to thrash uncontrollably in place. In short order, its own bodily strength proved to be its undoing, and Amaranth heard a horrific crunching noise, and a furious chittering. After a few moments where it glared at him with such intensity that he swore it would make a last-ditch attack, it stilled.

    A Foundation-level spirit beast corpse, all for him. Amaranth grinned almost maniacally. Something like this could serve as all the fuel he needed to push himself to the Thirteenth Heavenstage, and at the age of one-hundred and eighty-six, he needed to get there sooner than later either way. As he headed over, a sudden rumbling shook the area.

    The air quickly took on a tinge of brown from the sheer Earth Qi emanated by a presence below, and the sand began to ripple like water before its movements. Then, the ground erupted, sending a plume of sand nearly a full li into the air. A gigantic sand-worm leisurely slithered out of the hole, radiating energies that to Amaranth seemed nearly blinding. It didn't seem as strong as a Core did, but it came awfully close.

    Throughout this process, Amaranth had suppressed his Qi as low as he could and stayed dead still. He would have released the Mist-Command Pendant's power at this point to escape, but the titan didn't seem like it was focusing on him at the moment. The mist that it would emanate might change that factor, so he kept it unused.

    The creature opened the gaping fleshy tunnel that was its mouth, and gulped the corpse of the scorpion whole. In the same movement, it burrowed back into the ground, apparently satisfied. The rumbling started again, but it soon became quiet.

    Amaranth let out a breath, and began to move at a brisk pace towards the opposite direction. Sure, he might've been a bit frustrated about the fact that his prize was stolen, but that hardly mattered compared to his life. After all, there was absolutely no way that he'd have any chance against a creature like that as he currently was, so it was best to get going.

    Though, he'd be a liar if he said if he had gotten over it.

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

    The Ninth Prince wasn't exactly having the best time, to be fully honest.

    Even someone as stalwart and stoic as him could be slowly ground down over months of tracking and hard work, months of scouring the entirety of the golden devil lands, research in forbidden libraries and hidden temples, the inheritance of generations of seekers and explorers.

    Thankfully, the Ninth Prince didn't have to do any of that.

    All he did was ask around the Clan for where Amaranth had gone, metaphorically take the incredibly unhelpful answer of 'into the desert' and throw it into the trash, then send about ten thousand mortal snakes into the desert to do the actual work.

    Using snake slave labor (only not really, the snakes did volunteer) was apparently an incredibly efficient way to find someone, and within a month, he'd gotten a report of someone fitting the description of Amaranth to a t.

    Unfortunately, seeing as he'd asked his snake unpaid employees to search the desert, and they'd found him, Amaranth was in the desert. And that was quite annoying, because sand was quite annoying, coarse and rough and irritating, not to mention it getting everywhere.

    So that was why the Ninth Prince wasn't having the best time, he was trekking through the desert in an attempt to reach Amaranth's location.

    That was the bad news. The good news, on the other hand, was quite new, specifically that the Ninth Prince had finally found Amaranth, after about two week's worth of high speed travel.

    His target was walking angrily in a random direction (probably northeast, but it was really hard to tell when everything looked the same), and the Ninth Prince started to move up to him, ready to call out to Amaranth and figure this whole fang pillar thing out.

    Then the Ninth Prince stopped.

    After all, there was nothing in the area that could hurt him, and when would he have another chance like this?

    Not soon enough, that was when.

    So, signalling his contracted beasts to stay right there and not give the game up, the Ninth Prince dove under the sands, swimming through the desert like a fish would swim through the water, calculating the trajectory and angles (factoring in wind and spiritual sense of course) necessary to evade Amaranth's notice and pop out right behind the unfortunate cultivator.

    Standing right behind Amaranth without his victim even noticing his presence, the Ninth Prince did the only reasonable thing. That reasonable thing of course being to hop over Amaranth and block his path while standing less than a foot from his face.

    -----------

    There was a vibration coursing through the earth again. Amaranth frowned. It was comparatively subtle, and maybe if he was weaker he wouldn't have caught it, but the purified physiology of the tenth Heavenstage gave a few minor boosts in that direction, so that things that would otherwise be imperceptible wouldn't be so.

    Oddly enough though, when he tried to sweep his spirit sense in its direction, it kept on catching nothing but the sand around it. In other words, either whatever this thing was knew he was here, or he was being paranoid.

    Amaranth hadn't survived this long without trusting his instincts, so he cycled Qi to his flipper-boots in preparation for a rapid escape.

    That was when the ground erupted once more, and an aura flooded the air. Once more, that characteristic power that scraped against the limits of the Foundation stage announced itself to any senses in the area.

    To him, it may as well have been Death itself coming to reap his soul. So, that thing didn't decide to leave him alone, huh. Couldn't it just have been satisfied after taking his scorpion? But no, spirit beasts didn't think in those terms after all. He was just weak enough that this wouldn't be a hassle.

    Amaranth burst forward and was about to leap away, knowing that his attempt at escape would probably be fruitless but he may as well try, when he realized who it was. That was no overpowering aura of Earth, it was something more akin to the venom qi of that other beast, but with a few critical differences. Differences that he recalled in one other person, a century ago. The emerald glow of the Toad Boots dimmed. Then, he turned around.

    "Long time no see, Ninth Prince. Though, what's up with the entrance? You nearly gave me a heart attack."

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

    The Ninth Prince might have miscalculated.

    He had no idea that he would get that react-

    -Yeah, the Ninth Prince couldn't say that with a straight face. This was the exact reaction he was hoping for, and by the heavens, it was glorious.

    "Hey Amaranth! How are you doing? Wait, scratch that, I don't care. Or, I do, but I care a lot more about what I need to tell you now, so let's get through that first. Also, the entrance was specifically designed to nearly give you a heart attack, dramatic and frightening entrances are my entire thing."

    "But, none of that's important. I'm here because I need your help, and while, in hindsight, popping out from under the sands to 'nearly give you a heart attack' probably isn't the best way to win said help, it's not like I can change the past, I'm not a Heavenly Time Shatter Sect member."

    The Ninth Prince stopped his rambling for a moment, realizing that he was taking way too long and getting nowhere. "Alright, cutting through all of the unnecessary stuff for a quick moment, the thing I need your help with is, of course, incredibly important, perhaps even vital to the continued survival of the clan, and definitely vital to the continued survival of the Ninth Prince, that being me."

    "See, I'm going to die during the upcoming trials, don't ask how I know that, it's super secret and I won't tell you." Before Amaranth could even say a word, the Ninth Prince continued on. "Alright, alright, twist my arm why don't you. I got a prophecy from someone I believe to be the premier diviner in the entire region, and it's physically impossible for me to escape my death."

    "Which is why that's exactly what I'm going to do. But to cheat death, I'm going to need your help. Are you up for that?"

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

    Amaranth blinked. That was a lot to take in.

    First, there was the fact that apparently the Ninth Prince was apparently fated to die during the trials. The Ninth Prince was quite formidable these days, so anything that could be said to have a certainty of defeating him would necessarily be incredibly strong themselves. Alternatively, it was going to be a pile-up, and after last time, Amaranth wouldn't be too surprised to be honest.

    Second, apparently the Ninth Prince had picked up a bit of a sadistic streak throughout the years. Actually, no, he already knew about that, so it wasn't really surprising. Amaranth grinned for a bit at a memory, but his face soon cleared out into something more serious.

    "A prophecy, huh. I hear that Fate's supposed to be a lot more mutable than something set in stone— but well, I suppose that's what you're doing, right. Well, whatever it is you need, sure, as a fellow member of the Clan, that's the least I can do. So, uh, what is it?"

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

    The Ninth Prince honestly kind of expected a bigger reaction.

    That was the thing about him you see, one of the two cores of his personality and a thing that nobody, not even himself, could change about the Ninth Prince.

    He lived for the payoff.

    Justice was of course its own reward, but it was all the better when somebody actually saw it, when people reacted to him, whether with happiness that they'd been saved, anger that their plans had been foiled, or something else, anything really.

    At the end of the day, the Ninth Prince was a showman.

    That was why it was vaguely disappointing to just be met with easy acceptance that, yeah, sure, the Ninth Prince was going to die.

    ...Had he gotten too extravagant? Countless surprises and grandiose events dulling the impact, making the magnificent routine?

    ...Maybe, just maybe, the Ninth Prince would have to dial it back a bit.

    Just a bit, mind you.

    But, Amaranth was waiting for a response, and it wouldn't do to keep him waiting for too long. "Perfect. So, here's what I need you to do." The Ninth Prince pulled out an iron fang glowing with jagged greyish runes. "This is one of my Dao Pillars. I'm hoping that you'll just keep it safe until the instructions on this sheet of paper tell you to do otherwise." The Ninth Prince said, pulling out a small piece of paper.

    "Oh, also, since the thing I'm asking you to keep ahold of is my Dao Pillar, there's probably going to be some weird resonance and imprinting with your Dao. So, mind telling me a bit about it? Your Dao, I mean."

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

    Amaranth stretched out a tendril of spiritual sense towards the fang. A Dao Pillar, huh. He had never heard of one being externalized like this before, but the world was large and he was young, so it could easily be so. And indeed, when he felt the object, he could feel the sheer concentration of the Ninth Prince's Qi within the thing, in addition to a strange feeling of Justice that seemed to color it in a different manner than Qi did.

    When the Ninth Prince asked his question, Amaranth became a bit pensive. What was his Dao? He knew what he was trying to follow, but it didn't fully satisfy him quite yet. That wasn't to say none of it did, because that would be a lie, but— hmm.

    "My Dao? If you had asked me a few decades ago, I'd have told you one thing with certainty, but one of the things that I've realized, through this long journey on the path to Dao Purification, is that you need something far more shaped than that if you're to have any hope of having it serve as a basis to move on. So, I'll tell you about some aspects of it. Originally, I thought I followed a Dao of complete Consumption, a Dao of Devouring. It seemed to hew well enough with my methods to work for quite a while, so I just sort of internally accepted that and moved on, without much thought spent on the matter." Amaranth's eyebrows furrowed, and his voice took on a contemplative tone. "It was only a few decades ago, when I finally managed to barrel past the Eleventh and Twelfth Heavenstages, where the Thirteenth actually felt in sight, that I began to have doubts about the matter. Some parts of it felt correct, other parts didn't quite fit. The implication of complete Consumption is after the thing has been consumed, the story is over and everything is done. The power stays in one place. Except, there was something about that stasis that repulsed me." He nods sharply. "Whatever my Dao is, there has to be motion. That's one thing I know for sure."

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

    The Ninth Prince could quite honestly say he was flabbergasted.

    Amaranth didn't know.

    He was aiming for the Single Pillar, and he didn't know what his Dao was.

    The Ninth Prince wasn't sure whether to be shocked or horrified at that fact, and quite frankly the only thing stopping him from grabbing Amaranth by the shoulders and shaking him vigorously while repeatedly yelling at him to ask if he was mad was the fact that despite Amaranth not knowing what his Dao was, the Dao was still there.

    And anyways, it wasn't really any of the Ninth Prince's business what Amaranth's plans for his cultivation were. The path to ascension was an individual one at the end of the day, and it wasn't right for one cultivator to interfere with another's journey.

    Amaranth would either succeed or fail, and either way the Ninth Prince wasn't able to impact that outcome.

    Which was why the Ninth Prince needed to get back to stuff he could impact, specifically his impending doom.

    He snapped himself out of his fugue, turning to address Amaranth. "Well. I'm not going to pretend I understand your path, but I do trust in your ability to walk it. No matter what happens, you're going to be fine."

    "That said and done, thanks for the info." The Ninth Prince tossed Amaranth his Fang Pillar. "Here, keep this safe, it's literally life or death for me, if you need any more help, well, you probably won't get it, I'm either going to be fighting in the trials or dead, depending on when you need said help."

    With that, he walked about five feet away from Amaranth, snapped his fingers, and disappeared, falling into a pre-made tunnel dug by his snakes.

    The Ninth Prince's last thought before disappearing completely into the darkness was that he should probably have figured out where exactly he was before falling into a hole.

    Getting home was going to be murder on his schedule.

    A/N: Huge thanks to @ReaderOfFate for this collab. Hope yall enjoyed this.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 5 - Aretaphila Myia
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 5 - Aretaphila Myia​


    Aretaphila Myia itched.

    It was an unpleasant feeling, but on the balance of it the sensation was one she was accustomed to. She'd gone a long while since she had been near-death, and in the Third Sea becoming reacquainted with the experience was good for building character.

    Her sole remaining eye blinked, the right eye blinded beneath the rubble of Acrocorinth when the wounds had grown too terrible and untreated for too long.

    Where once the expression had been something Aretaphila just did as a quirk, it had now become the default. A permanent reminder of what she had endured, what she and others had struggled with. The soldering technique applied to her Constitution had not been able to fully repair the sensitive and complex ocular organ, unfortunately.

    An unexpected cost of rising to the 13th Heavenstage.

    One among many, in the end.

    The Myia scion sighed to herself as she stared at a thick booklet in front of her. Purchased at extreme cost in Contribution Points at the end of the Trials, it was a list of potential tribulation sites strong in various types of Environmental Qi, supposedly marketed towards the more ambitious scions of the Clan.

    "Damn that Konstantinos and his media empire," The aged Qi Condensation cultivator muttered to herself, "First he eavesdrops on some girl's talk only to publish, and now he has the audacity to charge so much for this nonsense?" The golden ponytail above her head shakes in agitation as her sole eye continues scanning for locations.

    The Princess had mentioned the benefits of taking into account the Five-Element Cycle for a Single Pillar Tribulation, but Aretaphila had her own doubts. The other woman was someone who dealt in more straightforward matters with their Dao, as absurdly ambitious as it was. Whereas the Aretaphila had a more esoteric bent to how they approached things.

    Those who are born with abnormal bodies must sometimes walk abnormal paths in their cultivation. And those who do that often find that they turn ever and further away from common sense as they continue marching along it.

    "Huh," Aretaphila paused, staring at a particular page, "That floating island at Fu Tong has an incredibly strong Inversion affinity." Unsurprising, given the potency of the Array and its success during the Battle of Shadow-Over-Sun. Nascent Soul effects of particular potency tended to warp the surroundings in such fashion, even if only temporarily. Considering the nature of her Dao, that may just be the edge she needed to survive the Tribulation.

    A bronzed eye narrowed at the mention of an Early Foundation Building Owl that had been reported to be present there; a creature that had been caught up in the effects of the Eclipse Array activating, and surviving its effects only barely.

    "...I may need to call in a favor or two when heading there."

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

    The Ninth Prince smiled.

    At the very least, Aretaphila was easier to track down than any of the others. Unlike half the people the Ninth Prince had tried to find, she wasn't in the middle of the desert or behind about twelve layers of traps or in a library (His snakes had no way to enter a library, seeing as they didn't have library cards, so he had to search every damn library in the clan by hand.), or any other number of quite annoying places to be.

    All he had to do was walk into Myia lands, ask one of their servants where Aretaphila was, repeat the process until he found someone who actually knew what his quarry was doing, give up the entire ordeal, and then sneak into her house, wait till she came back, and follow her into her study.

    ...If he said it like that, the Ninth Prince kind of sounded like a stalker. But! Unlike actual stalkers, the Ninth Prince had no illicit intentions.

    All he was doing was finding out where a girl much weaker than him lived, then following her to her house and hiding inside until she was deep enough in thought not to notice him, after which he'd pop out and ask her to keep a piece of himself with her at all times otherwise bad things would happen.

    ...Yeah maybe this little bit of his adventures wouldn't make it into the Ninth Prince's autobiography.

    But the seemingly illicit nature of his current escapade was irrelevant to the Ninth Prince.

    What was relevant was figuring out the best way to frighten the ever living daylights out of Aretaphila for his own amusement and personal enjoyment!

    So the Ninth Prince waited. And waited. And waited some more, constantly on the lookout for an opportunity in which he could surprise Aretaphila, when her attention was so focused on her work that she wouldn't notice him. And for two weeks, the Ninth Prince was stymied

    It was apparently quite hard to sneak up on a Demonic Tunist without them hearing you. Who'd've thought, right?

    But eventually, that perfect moment appeared, everything lined up, and Aretaphila even said the perfect line!

    And so, naturally, the Ninth Prince appeared, figuratively, literally, and metaphysically exploding out of the very tiny, very cramped box that he'd been stuck in for the past two weeks.

    Which was still intact, even after the explosion, somehow. The Ninth Prince blamed quality craftsmanship.

    Now, imaginary voice in the Ninth Prince's head, you might be asking 'what makes a good dramatic entrance, the Ninth Prince?'. If you are, first of all, you're stupid. There's a hundred other things you should be asking, like 'why go to all of this trouble in the first place?' or 'how did you fit in the box?', or 'why are you so handsome?' (For the payoff, don't ask questions you don't want answers to, and genetics, respectively.)

    Second, there's two things that make an entrance dramatic. The first is drama, an unusual or out-of-the-ordinary scenario that instantly puts the recipient (or recipients, depending) of the entrance on the back foot, catches them off guard, all of that good stuff. It's why the Ninth Prince exploded out of the box instead of just opening it.

    The second thing is less obvious, a bit harder to pull off. Unflappability. The more you look like this is as normal as getting out of bed, cultivating, or swallowing live mice whole, the more dramatic your entrance becomes.

    Speaking of.

    "Well, I'd be happy to oblige, depending on if I'm alive or not at the time." The Ninth Prince said, calm, composed, and perfectly put together.

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

    Surprise consists of multiple factors. The first can be said to be the emotional element, the initial shock that comes as a blow to one's mentality as they are suddenly stressed with an abnormality thrust into its midst, reported by the senses. Interpretation of data. If one expects the unexpected on a perpetual basis, for example, then it is safe to say that the only true surprise to such an individual is mundanity.

    Aretaphila Myia is not so jaded as to be such a person in the privacy of her family's home.

    However, the second necessary element can be said to have saved her. By virtue of the Ninth Prince's transcendent stealth and significantly greater power as a Formation Building cultivator, Aretaphila was simply unable to sense him with her more esoteric senses.

    Which is why, when the Ninth Prince attempted to make his entrance in as flamboyant and shocking a manner as possible, he had done so while hiding within the right-sided reaches of her vision. Probably unintentionally.

    Thus, when his voice boomed and streamers flew, there was no sudden jolt of realization to Aretaphila. He had simply attempted to shock the sensory input of an organ that was already dead.

    "Oh, Anush." Aretaphila said in surprise as she turned her sole functioning eye upon him, ignoring the streamers and confetti falling to the ground.

    "Wish you would've given us some warning, I'd have prepared a cask or two for you."

    She paused, considering what he had actually said, "Wait, how much do you know about what I'm up to?"

    ----

    The Ninth Prince was…

    Confused.

    Yes, confused was probably the best word to describe the emotion he was currently experiencing.

    He'd expected at least some shock at the enormous and quite tricky explosion, some sort of startling, maybe a few swears or, if he was lucky, Aretaphila falling out of her chair.

    Instead, he got this. Some bland surprise, a little bit of curiosity, nothing impressive, nothing deserving of the immense time and effort he'd put into this.

    But that wasn't the true problem currently plaguing Anush Naag. No, the real reason he was annoyed was much more simple. The Ninth Prince couldn't figure out why he'd gotten no reaction, why Aretaphila hadn't had a more reasonable response to his explosion, why he had-

    Ah.

    The Ninth Prince felt quite stupid. "...Forgot you were blind in your right eye. Dammit, that was two weeks of work wasted. I sat in a box one sixth my size for two weeks for that."

    "But what's done is done, not like I can change the past." The Ninth Prince said, quickly regaining some of his lost pep. "Yeah, sorry about the no warning, that was mainly so that I could actually surprise you, though obviously it didn't really work."

    "Anyways, I don't know too much about what you're talking about, but I can guess!" he said, raising a finger and regaining his trademark smile (no seriously, it was trademarked. No other cultivator could do the Ninth Prince SmileTM​ without being sued by the lawyers of the Clan.). "Hmmm. Seeing as you're in the Thirteenth Heavenstage, I'd assume you're looking for a proper place to actually perform your tribulation. There's a few sites that might work for a Demonic Tunist with a variation on a Dao of Music. I assume your Dao is based on music at least, you're a Myia and a Demonic Tunist. The Caves of Chimes is perhaps the most likely place you'd go, but it's a cave, so tribulation wouldn't really reach. Beyond that, maybe wherever you got your gong, but that's also some sort of underground thing, so it's off limits. The only other thing I can think of is the floating island of Fu Tong, it's high in the sky, has actual Dao Residue from a Nascent battle, and it's aspected to either reversal or inversion, not sure which, so it should work perfectly for you."

    "It's also quite dangerous, what with the whole 'Dao Residue from a Nascent Battle' thing, so you're gonna need help, meaning you need to call in help, meaning you need to call in favors."

    The Ninth Prince looked expectantly at Aretaphila. "Am I right? The box was soundproof, so I have no clue."

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

    Aretaphila smirks, "That last one in particular. It's inversion nature is perfect for dealing with that craziness the Princess reportedly dealt with for her own Tribulation." A frission of static crackles about the pamphlet in her hand, "I don't know if you looked into it, but the Five Element Tribulation is supposed to be at least semi-sapient, and is absurdly powerful."

    The Myia scion shrugs before returning to a shelf, pulling another fresh pamphlet from it, "It's the traditional five element cycle." A finger jams down on a spot in the paper, a copy of Rina Callista's report on her own breakthrough, "That progresses and then the next cycle feeds upon the energy generated by the previous cycle to empower itself further." The shorter girl turns her remaining blue eye towards the former Fifth Sea Prince, "And unfortunately all my own tribulation treasures are about amplifying my own ability to fight off the Tribulation, rather than subvert the strength of the lightning."

    She shrugs.

    "I'm betting that if I'm lucky, the Dao Residue from the Battle of Shadow-Over-Sun will be enough to dampen that escalation cycle enough for me to survive."

    Aretaphila unfolds the pamphlet she had originally been holding, pointing towards the relevant page, "The issue is that apparently there was an early Core Formation level Owl that lived on that island before the battle."

    She stared at the Ninth Prince, "And it survived everything that came afterwards."

    ----

    The Ninth Prince whistled. "Damn. That's. That's something for sure."

    He didn't really know what to say to that, beyond 'well, good luck', and the Ninth Prince had a feeling that that wouldn't really go over too well.

    The Tribulation information was quite interesting though. A Five Element Cycle, each rotation feeding into the next and boosting the power near exponentially?

    Yeah, this was a tribulation meant to kill, not to offer any chance of improvement. There was basically no way anyone was getting out of this alive, no matter what they did.

    But Rina had managed it. Somehow she'd been able to get through intact, meaning it wasn't impossible, and that Aretaphila had a chance of actually surviving.

    Speaking of. "Oh, actually, I've been meaning to ask. Is there a particular reason you call Rina the 'princess'? It's just kind of weird to me, since it sounds vaguely derogatory and I thought you two were close friends."

    Before Aretaphila could respond, the Ninth Prince lightly slapped himself. Since he was metal, it didn't really do anything but cause a slight ringing sound. "Wait no that's not important. Or, it is, but you can tell me after I tell you that I'd be more than willing to help you out assuming I'm alive when the time comes."

    "Because if you're doing this right after the trials, I probably won't. Be alive, that is."

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

    Aretaphila paused, "Well, uh, that's ominous?" The shorter girl stared quizzically at her century-long comrade, "I'm hoping you have a good reason for it-" She then blinked, and abruptly decided she didn't want to deal with that right this moment, grasping for an alternative, "Right! Why do I call the Princess the Princess?"

    The Myia scion cast her remaining eye upwards, searching her memories for when it first came up, "This is a bit of an old story, but did you know that she and I actually began training on the same day almost two centuries ago?" She gave the Ninth Prince a moment to process this revelation before continuing, "She didn't notice it herself for a few decades when I told her, but she was something of a wonderchild in our class, always being treated as this big potential for the clan due to her concentration of the blood. It's probably how she first developed her weird complex about being held a certain distance away from the rest of the clan."

    She shrugged, "It was unfortunately pretty true from what I could tell. The Legionnaires training us would always go "Rina Callista this," or "Why can't you be a fraction as good as Rina Callista" or "Rina Callista is going to be the hope of the Clan" and stuff like that. So as you can imagine, hearing that off and on constantly made a bunch of us develop a bit of a complex."

    A tanned hand wriggled back and forth, "So one day someone in my training cohort had an imaginary conversation where Rina was supposed to be some cloistered Jade Beauty type, and then went and said "Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, Princess!" and we all had a good laugh, and the nickname started getting passed around in our generation." Aretaphila smiled to herself, memories of better times, left behind by ordinary talents who had either passed or went on ahead to Foundation Building before her.

    "Of course, then the idiot had to prove everyone else right, and like that the nickname all but disappeared."

    She jerked her thumb back towards her heart.

    "Except for me," Aretaphila smiled daringly, "I keep calling her that because it helps remind me to not get caught up in all the silly hype. To remind myself that for all she's done, she's not so different from the rest of us. And because it reminds me of times before…" She pats the scar over her dead eye with a faint ringing, "Things like this."

    ----

    The Ninth Prince, against his will, let out a small chuckle, before immediately raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Oh, sorry, sorry, I'm not laughing at you. It's just… this is really important to you, huh?

    I don't think you define your life by Rina Callista, anyone who did something like that with another person would have no hope in hell of reaching the Single Pillar, but you two definitely have some sort of close bond." The Ninth Prince said.

    He was kind of jealous actually. Rina and Aretaphila were close, close in the way the Ninth Prince wasn't to any other person. Back in the Fifth Sea, he'd had a few people like that, but at the age of 16, there just wasn't enough time in his life to form a relationship like that.

    His Nascent Soul self must have had some bonds of a similar intensity, but the Ninth Prince couldn't remember any of them, on account of, well, his memories being gone and his clan being killed.

    But! None of that mattered now, the Ninth Prince's designated brooding time was in… huh, three hours actually, he'd have to wrap this up quick.

    After a pause just long enough to become uncomfortable, the Ninth Prince snapped himself back into focus. "Anyways, back to my impending death."

    "I'm going to die in the trials. This is going to happen, I cannot stop it, it's been foretold by the man I'm pretty sure is the greatest diviner in the Virtuous Flipper region." The Ninth Prince said, uncharacteristically serious.

    Then, he smiled. It wasn't a very nice smile. "I need your help to cheat that death."

    The Ninth Prince pulled out an iron fang, glowing green with jagged otherworldly runes. "This is one of my Dao Pillars, specifically one from a pillar stage that I haven't reached. I'm technically in the Fifth Pillar, achieved it during the Qigai secret realm, but I've been actively preventing myself from reaching that stage for this exact purpose."

    "I'm going to give it to you, along with a set of written instructions on what to do with it, and then I'm going to need you to keep it safe until what I've written on my instructions has come to pass."

    Wait. Shit. He'd forgotten something.

    "Just to be clear, you're okay with doing this, right? Also, one last thing, you mind telling me your Dao? It's gonna impact my Dao Pillar just from proximity and I need to make some preparations."

    Yep. Nailed it.


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

    Aretaphila's remaining eye narrowed in suspicion, "That's…" The blue pupil swiveled upwards, considering, "Alright." It was certainly an odd ask from the Prince, but her entire life was filled with those kinds of oddities and uncomfortable requests.

    Like the time she'd been asked to serve as a witness to Fecundity Stork rituals in order to record them for posterity in the event that the revenge hunt took a turn for the worse.

    She reacted as she had at that time, with an awkward smile and accepting the suspiciously similar slip of paper. Thankfully the piece of metal being handed to her was considerably different. Less cylindrical, at least.

    "My intended Dao is-" A frission of actinic energy lanced over her, static leaping from her fingers to the 'Dao Pillar' she had been handed, "Something I call the Heaven-Shaking Song." Aretaphila's gaze locked with the Ninth Prince's, "It's not complete yet. There's one last push I need to comprehend it, and for that I'm going to go out into the desert during the Trials.

    "Alone."

    There's a short pause as the Myia waited for her companion to respond, but instead he let the silence drag on to the point of awkwardness. Determined to end the deadlock, Aretaphila continued, "I intend to unite my own understanding of Song with my own realizations on the nature of the suffering we're all inflicted with. Once I understand the way that the suffering descends upon us, and how we all defy it, I intend to turn that understanding against the Heaven's themselves and defy them with every breath I take. Every Song I make."

    Aretaphila smirked, "And succeed while I'm at it."

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

    Well.

    That was certainly ambitious, yeah.

    Literal defiance of heaven, and not just the general cultivator mentality of defying heaven with every step one takes, actual out and out flipping a middle finger at heaven, daring it to come and have a go if it thought it was hard enough.

    Also singing.

    The Ninth Prince laughed. (internally, he didn't want Aretaphila thinking he was laughing at her Dao.) It certainly suited Aretaphila, that was for sure.

    But he could muse on the suitability of his friends' Daos later. For now, the Ninth Prince had to wrap this last bit up quick, his designated brooding time being in a few hours and all.

    "Thank you so much, Aretaphila." The Ninth Prince handed over the fang and a small slip of paper. "Right, here's the fang, here's the instructions, and good luck with your tribulation. See you after I get resurrected!"

    The Ninth Prince laughed a little at his own joke, snapped his fingers, then hopped back into the box he'd entered from, teleporting himself to an identical box buried under the sands outside the Myia estate.

    As the Ninth Prince hopped out of the second box and clawed his way through two li of desert, he came to a very important realization.

    He shouldn't have buried the box so vritra-damned deep!

    ---

    The light of Dawn, rays stretching like fingers across her limbs awoke her with a start.

    That's right. She thought as a hand caressed the scar on her face.

    Of course it had been a dream. Anush hadn't died until the Trials. The last time she could have seen him alive would've been before she had been blinded. How odd.

    "Maybe I could've told him after all?" The Myia muttered ruefully, getting out of bed.

    There was a thumping sound as her feet find purchase. An iron fang.

    And a sheet of paper.

    With an expression of wonder, she picked up the two familiar objects. Flipping open the aged paper, and scanning the contents within. Her remaining eye blinked, then widened in wonder before turning back to the "pillar" in her hand.

    "Anush Naag, you son of a bitch." Her lips curled into a cocky smirk.

    "Come along then, I guess I could use a companion for this trip."

    In the unfathomable distance, thunderclouds began to roil and churn.

    A/N: Huge thanks to @TehChron for this collab. For anyone confused, what happened is that the Ninth Prince hopped into Aretaphila's subconscious, dropped his Dao Pillar (which is both physical and metaphysical, a metaphor for an object that's also said object) into her mindscape (technically her mind palace, but at this point we're getting into weird pseudoscience), via dream teleporting box. Once Aretaphila remembered the details of said interaction, years later, the Dao Pillar and instructions popped out and were given form.

    Hopefully that makes sense.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 6 - Gaius Antonius
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 6 - Gaius Antonius​

    It was cold.

    That was obvious, of course - every damn night is cold in the desert. But for some reason, that was all Gaius' mind could conjure up. Whereas before, the anxiety of the last few months before the Trial had eaten at him, he now had the opposite problem. With two weeks before the first bell, his mind was totally blank. No philosophical insights came to him. Battle strategies slipped from his mental hands like [something slippery].

    This was part of the terror of the Centennial Trials. War was was - it was cruel, terrifying, unspeakably violent. It was dirty, smelly, exhausting drudgery… but at least it was war. It was a battle over something. Ideals, or land, or resources, it had meaning even if that meaning was purely material. It was not nearly as degrading as being hunted. Reduced to the role of animals, this slow, creeping dread weighed down on the shoulders of every Devil in these last few weeks. Perhaps Gaius' mind was acting to preserve itself, purging all complex thought to make him into an animal in truth, so as to better survive the hunt.

    How degrading, how humiliating. Gaius rolled over to his other side, reaching down from his cot to turn on a small lantern. He wouldn't be getting much sleep tonight anyway.

    The Ninth Prince lived for moments like these.

    Maybe it was the serpentine part of him, the reptilian bit that loved ambushes and sneak attacks, or maybe it was just his natural nature as a bit of a rapscallion (that was a fun word to say. Rapscallion. Rapscallion.). It didn't really matter at the end of the day.

    What mattered was seeing the look on his prey's face as befuddlement turned into dawning comprehension, which in turn normally shifted into terror and then futile anger.

    It was fun, you know? Scaring the ever living daylights out of people, going out of his way to make anyone and everyone surprised and angry.

    Anyways, that was enough of that. Also, the Ninth Prince was sitting right next to Gaius Antonius' bed as the Qi Gathering Cultivator turned on his lantern, meaning that his metallic and serpentine face was the first thing the man known as 'The Seeker' saw.

    Like he said. Fun.

    "FUCKIN- SHIT, FUCK!"

    Gaius summoned an Aegis - probably faster than he'd ever managed in his life - and drew a knife from under his pillow, before stopping and managing to think like a human again.

    "You… you're…"

    He let the shield dissolve into motes of light, and put the knife back. "You're the Ninth Prince? And you're here? What?" His heart rate began to slow down to a manageable level as he slowly and carefully got out of bed and to his feet. "Why are you… here in my tent, Senior? Please forgive my rudeness."

    Oh that was amazing! Truly marvellous!

    The look on this poor Junior's face!

    The Ninth Prince let himself revel in Gaius Antonius' shock for a moment before speaking. "Oh, nothing much."

    Wait, no. The Ninth Prince actually had something important to say. "Yeah, scratch that actually, this is really important and I can't half-ass this."

    The Ninth Prince stood up, created a chair out of Venomsteel, sat down again, leaned forward, stood up again, and put his hands on Gaius Antonius' shoulders. "I. Am going to die. And not in the 'everyone dies eventually' way. I'm going to die in the trials. These trials. There's nothing that can stop this from happening."

    "You… you mean like a sacrifice, right? Like you're going to risk your life to save people or…" Gaius trailed off. "I've got no place criticizing your choice of words, Senior, forgive me." He bowed, still trying to process the last few minutes.

    "Okay, so you might… er, you will die? I'm very sorry to hear that, but why are you telling this to me?" Gaius asked with a flabbergasted expression. "I can travel fast, is that why? Do you want me to tell someone else?"

    The Ninth Prince looked at Gaius. "Right, first off. If this is going to work, you're going to need to be a bit more self confident. I'm not gonna bite your head off or anything! Even beyond the fact that that would technically be Blood Path, the taste of people is really bad. Also that would be bad and immoral and I wouldn't do that."

    He coughed. "ANYWAYS, beyond that, I'm telling you this because theoretically there's a way out of this. It's a half baked plan that's mathematically sound but requires everything to go in a very specific way otherwise my soul gets destroyed and I die for real."

    The Ninth Prince once again looked at Gaius Antonius, trying his best to convey the gravity of his request. "For me to survive a doom like this, one prophesied by the greatest diviner I've ever met, I need your help. I can't tell you anything about the plan unless you accept, but rest assured I'm not asking you to put yourself in danger or anything."

    Letting go of his Junior's shoulders, the Ninth Prince stepped back and sat down into his chair. "So. Are you willing to help me in this?"

    Gaius took a moment to breathe deeply and take this all in. He ran his fingers through his hair as he contemplated the gravity of the situation. "Alright, I'm in. I'll help you to the best of my ability. I've already decided to risk my life this year, I may as well do this too." He smiled. "Besides, I got a chance to meet the Ninth Prince, how could I ever turn you down?"

    The Ninth Prince coughed. Well, that was kind of embarrassing, all things considered. He'd never really gotten used to his 'fame', and the Ninth Prince didn't think he'd ever be truly comfortable with it. Still, Gaius seemed like a good kid.

    "So. The way this is going to work is, well, here. You know how Dao Pillars work, right?"
    "Mine are physical, and I'm gonna give one to you."

    Gaius was taken aback by that statement, possibly more than any other thus far. "I'm honored that you would trust me with something like that. I don't know what kind of treasure or technique you used to accomplish this, but I will safeguard it with my life."

    "So, that's the plan? You're giving your pillars away to others, to keep them safe?" Gaius stroked his chin in thought. "That… might actually be a viable way to resurrect yourself, in theory. All of a person's Dao pillars, together, would represent the entirety of not just their Dao, but their specific interpretation of it. If they were made physical and paired with the right phenomena…"

    Gaius shook his head. "Sorry for rambling, I'm very much interested in things like this. If it's Dao-related, then I think I can guess why you've chosen me."

    The Ninth Prince was a bit confused. Was there something special about Gaius Antonius' Dao? "Ah. Well, this is relatively awkward, but I have no clue what your Dao is or how it's special." The Ninth Prince scratched his head. "I just know that you're aiming for the Single Pillar stage."

    The Ninth Prince stood up, a mildly mad glint in his eyes. "Still, there's something interesting about your Dao? I would love to hear about it. Scientific curiosity, you understand."

    "Well, if you've got some time I could explain." Gaius, all of a sudden, seemed far more in his element and comfortable, pulling up a chair for himself and crossing his legs.

    "To keep it… short-ish, I'm aiming for Single Pillar because I have no other choice. My Dao of The Seeker is one which emphasizes perfect attainment, the implacable search, an eternal cycle of self-improvement and other such things. The way I've conceptualized it from the start, it can't be manifested in any way other than a completely holistic one."

    Gaius seemed like he wanted to go into more detail, but pulled himself back after a moment. "In that sense, it's almost like a Dao of Dao; my ability to perceive and manifest Dao abilities developed earlier than was previously thought to be possible, and my mind has itself been optimized for contemplation of the Dao." He paused, pursing his lips as he wondered how to articulate himself. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, you giving this to me is a greater act of kindness than you could have possibly known. Thank you."

    What.

    No, seriously, what.

    That was… That was something, for sure.

    The worst part was, the Ninth Prince could see the logic there, see how that would work. The theory was sound enough, and theoretically the Dao could propel someone to Nascent Soul relatively well.

    The real problem here was the mindset necessary for a Dao like that to even work.

    A Dao, at least according to the Ninth Prince's understanding of the world, was supposed to reflect one's beliefs. What kind of trauma had this kid gone through to produce something like that?

    To all of this, there was only really one thing the Ninth Prince could say. "Huh. Neato."

    Gaius did his best to not show how obscenely giddy he felt that one of the Thirteen would think so highly of his Dao. He had to play it cool. Yeah, best to be understated about it. "Thanks."

    He rubbed the back of his head, not really sure where to go from here. "Um… I won't pry into what it is that's going on with you, but can I ask you something? You're not the first person I've asked about this, but… how is it they can do this? As in, bring themselves to do this?"

    Gaius sighed and fished out a cigarette. He'd been going through these a lot faster than usual, for obvious reasons. "Maybe they're just barbarians, like the cannibals. But I just don't get how they can farm people for luck like this and think they're in the right."

    Ah. Shit.

    And the Ninth Prince was pretty sure Gaius didn't know about his ancestry and Sea of origin either.

    Still, the Ninth Prince was never one to shy away from a challenge.

    He sighed, resting his chin in his hands. "Look, Gaius… The first thing you need to understand here, is that to them? We're not people."

    "We're devils or monsters or some other manner of horror wearing the guise of a person."

    The Ninth Prince's voice took an unfamiliar cadence, as if a different Ninth Prince was speaking. "To most, this isn't merely a secret realm, but a righteous duty, as they exterminate monsters so vile that the heavens grant them karma for it. That doesn't even happen when killing blood path."

    "Of course, there are always exceptions. Some know that they're slaughtering actual people, they just don't care. This could be for any number of reasons, perhaps they view it as a necessary evil. If you were to choose between the safety of a random group of people you'd never meet outside these trials, and your disciples getting the strength needed to not be slaughtered by your rivals, there's no real choice at all. On the other hand, maybe some see it as no different from a regular invading war. I've killed a lot of people, I'll kill a lot more, and if what's brewing is true, soon its gonna be during an invasion of someone else's land."

    "Even still, however, there are those who see the trials as an inherent moral wrong, normally the new Qi Gathering cultivators who enter the trials for the first time. They're the people who give up on karma to spare someone's life. And that's a problem to their leaders. The best way to weed this out of your juniors is propaganda. Show them stories of Devils who struck at the people who spared them even as their backs were turned. Show them Gravebronze and the implications it possesses. Create an 'us versus them' mentality, emphasize that these are people so vile that they have karma bounties on their heads. Above all, praise them for whatever 'atrocities' they committed during the trials. Nobody likes to think that what they did was wrong, so make it so they don't have to."

    The Ninth Prince shook his head rapidly, as if to dislodge some sort of fugue or drowsiness. "Yeah, that's just my two spirit stones on the whole thing, how I'd run the trials if I was in charge."

    "That'd do it then." Gaius sighed. "Well, I won't keep you any longer then, Senior." He stood up, shaking the Prince's hand firmly. "I'll protect it, at all costs. I swear on my honor. On House Antonius' honor, not that that name means anything anymore."

    He smiled. "I mean it, thank you. And good luck."

    The Ninth Prince smiled. What a good kid.

    He turned to leave, before abruptly remembering to actually GIVE the Fang to Gaius.

    The Ninth Prince pulled out a shining Venomsteel Fang Pillar glowing with green runes, about the size of his forearm, and handed it to Gaius, along with a sheet of paper. "Here you go, keep it close to you at all times for the best results, and here are the instructions for what you're gonna have to do with it. Good luck, and thank you."

    With that, the Ninth Prince walked out of Gaius' tent, before abruptly popping back in. "Also, you can keep the chair. Call it a thank you present."

    A/N: Huge thanks to @no. for this collab. Hope yall enjoyed this.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 7 - Xiao Yingzi
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 7 - Xiao Yingzi​

    On the table on one side, lay a map of the Third Sea. It was likely several centuries outdated but it contained some measure of information on all of its regions or at least, so the maker claimed. On the other lay a somewhat identical map, but it was far older and much harder to acquire. It was a map of the Third Sea, before the death of the turtle-child it contained. Xiao Yingzi looked between the two and sighed.

    She had looked through several sources of information on the continent's history but in the end, it was the same. The Sea Conquering Army came and did as its name suggested. Their acts allowed the Demonic Soup Chef to rise and cause the dying world she was born in. As one of the army's descendants, was she to blame for that act? She had seen what heaven's vengeance had wrought, but she had now even seen why.

    She leaned back on her seat as she thought the same thought over. Why does this give me such pause? She wasn't certain why, but she felt that resolving this conundrum would be important for her cultivation. She looked up, seeking external stimuli in an effort to find a solution for her labyrinthine thoughts.

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

    The Ninth Prince sneezed.

    Which was weird, seeing as he was made of metal and probably shouldn't actually have the organs and tissue needed to sneeze, but Qi didn't really follow the rules of biology, and technically as a man made entirely of iron and venom, he shouldn't be alive at all, so sneezing wasn't the weirdest thing about his continued existence.

    That little tangent aside, the Ninth Prince was currently in a library, looking for a certain Foundation Establishment cultivator to recruit/manipulate into one of his many (mildly) mad machinations, mainly meant to maintain much of the man's mind.

    ...Man that was a lot of words starting with m.

    Marvellous.

    ...ANYWAYS, the Ninth Prince could spy his current target now. Specifically one Xiao Yingzi, a more recent addition to the clan who'd risen up to Foundation Establishment quite quickly.

    He wasn't entirely sure why she was important enough that one of his Dao Fangs was actively jumping out of his palm in an attempt to meet her, but the Ninth Prince had long since learned to trust his instincts. Thus, the ambush/meeting/ambush in the library.

    Xiao Yingzi was completely lost in her own thoughts, so it was child's play to sneak up behind her and wait.

    Specifically, wait for one of Raj's minions to slither up to the Ninth Prince and hand him a tiny trumpet.

    The Ninth Prince grabbed the trumpet, quickly used his Qi to create a sound blocking barrier around him and Xiao Yingzi (it wouldn't be fair to the other residents of the library if his noise interrupted their work), and began to play the instrument with all the gusto he could manage.

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

    If she had her Soul Farseer at hand, she would have been able to sense every entity in the building. If she had her Banner Pole Spear, she would have felt the other presence from any variety of skills contained in the Core Will fragments bound in her spear. Despite all of her advantages however, the question in her mind had her so preoccupied that she never noticed the person sneaking up on her.

    It was a loud sound - a trumpet of all things - that would have startled most individuals and even caused her to draw a hidden dagger from her sleeves. Then she turned to the source and found herself experiencing a strange combination of wariness and recognition. The face that faced her had the distinctive skin tone that she had only seen during the trials, however the face itself was remarkably familiar.

    Her mind jumped to a battle nearly a hundred years ago where she had been a mortal orphan aiding the defence of Pleuron by running errands and messages. While her memory wasn't entirely clear, given that none of the other presences in the library were reacting to him in a hostile manner, he could only be one person. "Greetings, Senior Brother." She said, inclining her head and placing her dagger on the table. "What brings you to me, today?"

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

    ...Really?

    Really?

    That was all the reaction his little trick got?

    ...Yeah that was fair, it's not like it was the most inspired thing in the world, but the Ninth Prince still would've hoped for a tad more shock.

    But he was getting off track, and his junior had a question for him.

    The Ninth Prince opened his mouth, before raising a finger and closing it once more. He leaned down a bit, studying his junior for a second before speaking again. "Hmmmm. Just to be clear, before I get to why I'm here, you are Xiao Yingzi, correct? I'd hate to think that all of this was for the wrong person."

    Before Xiao Yingzi could respond, the Ninth Prince snapped his fingers. "Wait, no, of course you're Xiao Yingzi, and even if you aren't, your name, history, demeanor, and most things about you as a person have no real bearing on what I need your help with, so it doesn't really matter that much to begin with."

    "Anyways, let's actually get to what I need your help with. As you might know, I'm the Ninth Prince, Hero of Pleuron, Savior of Liaogai, He Who Hits Things With Snakes (the last title wasn't my idea and I have no clue why people came up with it), and a half dozen other epithets besides."

    The Ninth Prince grew serious for a moment, straightening up and speaking with the gravity of a man knowingly walking to his doom. "In the upcoming trials, I will die. This is something I know for a fact, a prophecy produced by a man I consider the best diviner of the Virtuous Flipper Region, and a fate that there is nearly no hope in me avoiding, any chance of my survival requiring me to thread the needle a thousand thousand times."

    "Even still, there is a way. And that, Xiao Yingzi, is where you come in."

    The Ninth Prince smiled, a bitter, hopeless thing that spoke of a man knowing the futility of his actions but continuing out of the blind hope that maybe, just maybe, it would work. "So, Xiao Yingzi, are you willing to help me cheat death?"

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

    Xiao Yingzi considered the request of her senior.

    Perhaps another individual would have had some degree of awe or apprehension at a storied individual asking them for help. Instead, her mind went to her more recent fortunes. While it would be hubristic to compare her own experiences with that of those this man would consider his peers, it was undeniable that her encounters had left her with several unique skills that may well be of some use in such a scheme.

    After a moment's consideration, she nodded in acceptance. "I would be willing to aid you in this endeavour." She replied, before pausing. "In any reasonable capacity, at any rate." She added a moment later, just in case she needed to retract the previous statement when she gained more information. "What would you have me do?"

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

    The Ninth Prince sighed in relief, before clapping once. "Alright! So, here's how this plan is going to work, and due to the whole 'need to cheat death' thing, just know that i wont tell you everything that isn't immediately relevant to your portion of the plan."

    The Ninth Prince pulled out an odd metallic spike, covered in glowing green and grey runes and shaped like a serpent's fang. "This is one of my Dao Pillars. As you can see, it's physical, it's out of my body, it's one of the pillars i haven't imprinted with my own personal view of the Dao of Justice yet, and I'm giving it to you."

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

    Xiao Yingzi simply nodded at the explanation of the plan, knowing that information security was a part of all ventures. "As long as I can understand my own part, I am fine with it." She commented, glancing at the item for a moment, attempting to feel it with her spiritual sense. She could tell that it was powerful but the feeling it gave off was hard to describe.

    "I thank you for your trust, Senior." She said, inclining her head. "Is there any particular task I need to accomplish with it? Or something that I need to keep in mind?"

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

    The Ninth Prince thought for a moment. "Hmmmmmm… Probably not no. So, if that's all then I g-"

    "Wait. Wait, no, there is one thing. Beyond the pillar being a way to keep me alive, it's gonna take on characteristics of your Dao, just due to proximity alone."

    "Actually, if you don't mind me asking, I know it's sometimes a personal topic and I don't want to step on any boundaries or traumas that I don't know about, what is your Dao?"

    ...The Ninth Prince should have probably figured that out before he gave Xiao Yingzi a Fang Pillar, but eh. It was what it was.

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

    Xiao Yingzi paused at that question and considered how to best answer it. "I couldn't say." She replied, giving him what she hoped was a sheepish smile. "Just as you cannot divulge the specifics of your plan, I cannot divulge the specifics of my dao. Success along my path requires that as few people as possible know about what it entails, to the extent that I hide details even from myself."

    She hesitated for a moment. It wouldn't be possible to confirm the details, but perhaps it wouldn't matter if he deducted the answer for himself. So long as she didn't confirm it. "What I can say is that the dao connects me to heaven in some manner." She told him as she opened her hand and let a spark of tribulation lightning erupt on it. "My cultivation involves transforming me into someone capable of generating heaven's will and includes to a large degree the idea of deception."

    -------
    That…

    Huh, yeah, that was certainly a Dao.

    The Ninth Prince was honestly a bit confused by all of this. That Gaius fellow had his monstrosity, Aretaphila had her entire thing with the Heaven-Shaking Song, Amaranth's Dao was blood path but not really somehow?, and now Xiao Yingzi had her whole 'trick heaven' Dao

    What was wrong with the straightforward Daos? Justice was a perfectly fine Dao for anybody, and all of these newfangled fancy ones were just diluting the purity of a path, making sure tha-

    ...The Ninth Prince was turning into his father.

    And not Zhu Bhujie either, his biological father, the one who was dead, killed by the Randhwa.

    But this wasn't his designated brooding time, and Xiao Yingzi obviously needed some sort of advice. The Ninth Prince wracked his brain for a moment, before coming up with something. "Hmmmm. That's certainly a Dao. It feels like some sort of infiltrator, slipping into the mechanisms of heaven and trying to muck the gears up. Something like… Heaven's Saboteur, if I had to put a name to it."
    -------

    Xiao Yingzi simply shrugged at his conclusion. Whether it was correct or not, she couldn't confirm it. In fact, she didn't even know whether it was correct or not given the details were hidden even from her current self. "I was in fact thinking through an important facet of my dao just as you spoke to me." She commented, looking at him. "I was wondering if you could provide some guidance?"

    -------
    Well, of course the Ninth Prince would give a bit of advice to his junior. Honestly, it was kind of insulting that Xiao Yingzi thought she had to ask for his assistance, but that wouldn't stop the Ninth Prince from freely giving it. "Why, of course I will. So, what's the problem with your Dao, and how can I help you make sure it's not a problem anymore?"
    -------

    At his agreement, she continued. "In my recent trip to Qiguai, I had the honor of encountering an unfathomable entity who claimed to be the Dao Protector of the Third Turtle-Child. They were cut with a blade of bronze and wounded by a soup-spoon - the story behind it can easily be guessed, but I comprehended it truly as they sang to me their Song of Despair."

    She glanced at the maps in front of her and nodded. "As you can imagine, it left me a touch conflicted on my current path. I have grown with the golden devils and that makes it seem right to oppose heaven, to make of it an acceptable target." She replied, affecting a sigh to convey her frustration. "But it was the Sea-Conquering Army that struck first and it isn't as if heaven hasn't lost much in its battle with us."

    She paused for a moment, grasping for a conclusion to her thoughts. "What I am attempting to decide, I suppose," She finally said. "Is why I should walk the path laid out for me? My instinct tells me that I should walk it completely and so I search for a reason to justify that. And yet, my instincts also tell me that the very fact that I seek a justification tells me that I cannot justify it."

    She sighed once more, meaning it a touch more this time. "How could I even resolve this conundrum?"

    --------

    What.

    No, seriously, what.

    What the actual fuck.

    Forget Xiao Yingzi's problems for a second (though the Ninth Prince would eventually get back to those. Eventually.). The far more important thing here was the fact that apparently Xiao Yingzi had met the Dao-Protector to a Turtle Child. As in, the dead landmass that the Ninth Prince, Xiao Yingzi, and the entire Clan were currently existing on.

    WHAT THE FU-

    ...In. Out.

    In. Out.

    The Ninth Prince took a few deep breaths to center himself, and finally managed to calm down.

    He clapped his hands together once, dispelling any remaining what-the-fuckery that was clinging to him. "Alright! So, ignoring the whole giant Dao-Protector thing, the root of your problem seems pretty simple at the core of it."

    The Ninth Prince continued, uncharacteristically serious. "The Sea-Conquering Army might have struck first, and heaven might have lost more than it needed to. But, and I need you to understand this, we aren't the Sea-Conquering Army."

    "We're a remnant of a remnant of a remnant, the Golden Devil Clan, no army, no invading force, just some poor sods unlucky enough to have been related to the Sea-Conquering Army.

    Exactly what crimes have you or I or anyone currently alive in the Clan, from the lowest mortal to Manuel Konstantinos himself, committed? We're innocent of any wrongdoing, and punishing the son for the crimes of the father is never right!"

    Oh, the Ninth Prince was shouting.

    He sighed, suddenly feeling far older than he actually was, putting a hand to his forehead. "The core issue here is this, Xiao Yingzi. Do you think that the Golden Devil Clan deserves to be punished for actions that nobody alive committed?"

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

    "That's not it." The words escaped her before she could think them through. She turned them over in her mind but she didn't retract the statement. It had a ring of truth to it, a thread that she had pulled on unwittingly. She needed to follow it. "I do not believe in blame being inherited by blood unless said blood is genuinely culpable." She continued, answering the question anyway as her thoughts raced. "However, my issue was never that."

    She frowned for a moment. "It is not that I am reluctant to continue on, even if blame was assigned to me." She replied, shaking her head, more to herself than to her senior. "It is more the thought that..." It took her a moment to gather her thoughts together and then she finally understood. "To me, Heaven was a faceless foe."

    She leaned back, relaxing as she pulled the thread and finally unravelled the whole dilemma. "In this culture that I am raised in, to defy heaven is as if to breathe." She said, glancing at the maps before her for a moment. "We are devils after all, monstrous demons to much of the rest of existence but to a devil, is it not heaven that is the faceless, monstrous demon?"

    "Heaven is a foe against whom any villainy is justified." She looked down at the maps on the table and placed a finger on the modern one. "But even heaven has lost a child. This dead corpse that we exist upon, even that is still missed and mourned."

    She paused then, trying to bring forth a conclusion to our thoughts. "The illusionist Diana once wrote that to follow a dao, is to concoct a lie in your mind and then to convince yourself - and then the world." She remembered. "I have long since accepted that premise but my experiences have shown me that there are other lies I tell myself too, lies that comforted me and allowed me to justify my actions."

    "That I believe was the crux of my dilemma."She shook her head and looked up at her senior. "I don't think I want to justify things any more. I act because I must and because I want to, not because it is easily justified."

    "Thank you for your aid," She said, with a bow of her head.

    -------- (Done I think)

    The Ninth Prince didn't really feel like he'd helped much to be honest.

    Xiao Yingzi had basically talked herself into a realization, at most the Ninth Prince had provided the metaphorical fuse for her to figuratively light.

    But that, at the end of the day, was unimportant. The important part was that Xiao Yingzi had reached her conclusion at all, and the Ninth Prince had helped her along that path.

    The Ninth Prince smiled. "Well, you're welcome. Now, if there's nothing else, I'll be on my way."

    The Ninth Prince turned and started walking out of the library, content that he'd managed to help his junior out in some meager way.

    ...And then he abruptly turned back, remembering that he came here for a purpose, an important one at that, one that wasn't even finished!

    The Ninth Prince made it back to Xiao Yingzi, and quickly pulled out a quick note. "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, you can't just keep the fang. Here's a location, here's some instructions, don't look at them until twenty years after the end of the trials, do some memory block stuff if you need to."

    "I think that's everything. So, yeah. See you. Oh, also, sorry for this."

    And with that, the Ninth Prince disappeared in an explosion of venom, steel, and enough spirit stones to pay for the considerable damages to the library.

    ------------------
    []
    Xiao Yingzi blinked at that and noted everyone in the library was now looking at her. With a shrug, she securely placed the fang pillar and the note the senior had given her into her storage ring as a librarian approached and turned white at the damages despite a deep bronze skin. As the man stammered questions, Xiao Yingzi considered her next steps.

    She was responsible to at least some extent, at least in the eyes of anyone watching and it wouldn't do to blame her senior for the damages. Nodding at the librarian, she got up from her seat to help clean up the damages. It was a way to build good will and ensure that the blame went to a nebulous 'someone else'.

    Besides, this way she would get a chance to collect the venom that still glowed to her spiritual sight. She certainly didn't specialise in their use, but one never knew when such resources may mean the difference between life and death.

    A/N: Huge thanks to @Quest for this collab. Hope yall enjoyed this.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 8 - Minervina Barda
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 8 - Minervina Barda​

    Minervina could not express how glad she was to be back in her own tiny dominion. Getting out from under Destasia Duca's iron fist had taken quite a lot of careful negotiation and slippery skullduggery, but she had finally managed it with the excuse of needing some private time to make preparations for the Trial, which was looming closer all the time.

    The lab was a large, cool space lit only by the same arrays that sealed it from the outside world. The three giant coal-black Pill Furnaces that had been given to her in tribute by the King of Xin were all hard at work, sizzling with inner flame. Four long stone tables dominated the centre of the room, the last ingredients for her latest client's request laid out on them. The Ninth Prince had a reputation for eccentricity, so she shouldn't be surprised that his request had puzzled her. Fortunately the long, painful months working on the Giant Scorpion project had left her with plenty of time to hash out the theory behind the design.

    Emilia busied herself by patrolling the corridors, a little bored by the lack of rodents or other vermin in the immaculate apartments. The servants were still too scared of the gigantic venom spirit to make good company either. They would just faint or run whenever she tried to get them to play with her.

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

    The Ninth Prince, though he'd never admit it to anyone, was just a tiny bit scared of Minervina Barda.

    Now, most people would be skeptical, and rightly so, seeing as this was the Ninth Prince they were talking about, the hero himself, Savior of Pleuron, Terror of Jharkand, and a half dozen other titles beside.

    But those people were forgetting one thing, one very important thing. This was Minervina Barda.

    The woman's poison skills were absolutely terrifying, her concoctions feared by most right-thinking people in the clan (Elder Detasia didn't count).

    And sure, the Ninth Prince was theoretically immune to poison and venom and all of that good stuff, but he didn't exactly want to test that.

    Anyways, all that aside, Minervina Barda did some amazing work with poisons and venoms and all of that good stuff, better than even the Ninth Prince, weird as that might be to say.

    Said skill with concoctions was why the Ninth Prince was braving the Poison Witch's lab in the first place. In case it wasn't obvious, he'd placed an order for the trials to come, something that would be immensely useful.

    Oh, there she was now.

    The Ninth Prince slammed open the door, causing it to nearly break off its hinges (shit, he'd have to pay for that later), and greeted the Old Crone (which was a weird thing to call her, seeing as the Ninth Prince was technically older than her). "So, I could do the whole spiel, the yelling, the laughing, the GREAT JUSTICE!, but I'll just cut to the chase here."

    The Ninth Prince paused. "You got the drugs?"

    ----------------------------------------------------
    Minervina wasn't much used to entertaining guests, but she was pretty sure her mother had told her that setting your first ever houseguest on fire was unacceptable behaviour. So she settled for a long meaningful glance at the cracked doorframe before nodding. "The last of them are refining as we speak. They won't retain their potency for more than a few months, so I put the actual refinement off to the last moment."

    She guided him through the halls and down to the lab. She was quite sure that politeness required her to make some kind of small talk at this point.

    "So, I have been meaning to ask since Pleuron. The dramatic entrances. Are they some kind of Dao Requirement? Or just a personal peccadillo?"

    As she asks the question, Emilia comes barreling down the hall towards them, excited at the new presence on an otherwise dull day. The huge purple serpent flows towards them and circles the Prince three times, as if confused by his scent.

    "Oh, sorry about Emilia, she's a curious soul."

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

    The Ninth Prince laughed. Oh this little serpent was adorable. "Oh, it's no trouble at all, your familiar/tulpa/Qi-based construct/weapon is very cute. You should be proud of her."

    As they were walking to the lab, the Ninth Prince stopped his playing with the giant purple snake. "Also, the dramatic entrances. It's no real Dao thing, it's just fun. Also gets people enough off guard that I don't have to waste time with the whole political maneuvering and rigmarole there, but mostly the fun bit."

    ...Shit. The Ninth Prince was really bad with small talk, which was weird since he was normally really good at talking to other people. "...So. What's been going on with you? I've been a bit busy since Pleuron, and I haven't really been able to catch up with most people who assisted in that."

    ----------------------------------------------------
    Oh no. Her mother had never mentioned the guest then asking questions back. If she didn't cut this off soon they would be in danger of having an actual conversation. That was unacceptable.

    "Much the same as you I expect. My cultivation has advanced in a satisfactory way, at least once I found a solution to the damage I inflicted on myself at Pleuron.I have been able to contribute to the Clan in a few small ways since then as well."

    Fortunately they arrived at the lab before she had to cast around for another topic. She left the Prince to poke around for the moment while she checked the three sets of pills she had cooking in the huge furnaces. "These were unusual requests, I haven't heard of them before. Something from your homeland? Or perhaps your own ideas?"

    Emilia followed the pair, occasionally nudging Minervinas feet as she walked. On arriving at the lab she sighed and grabbed a fresh lemon from a bowl on one of the side tables and threw it to her. "I can never say no to her."

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

    Ah, the Ninth Prince could work with this. A pet owner! "I can recommend a few training tips if you want her to be less greedy, but normally the best way to deal with a lemon addiction is to feed her limes instead. Of course, then she has a lime addiction, but that's easy enough to fix by feeding her lemons instead."

    The Ninth Prince inspected the lab, noting the quality of the Pill Furnaces and the pills themselves. "Oh, yes, these will do perfectly. To answer your question, these aren't from the Fifth Sea or even one of my own concoctions. This is actually a variant of a mortal recipe, I think you might know of it."

    He looked at his 'dealer' in the loosest sense. "Have you heard of a concoction known as cocaine?"

    "It's basically that, but with an aerosolized component, and with my own blood added to the mix, it should be keyed to only affect those from the Fifth Sea."

    The Ninth Prince smiled. "It's actually quite clever if you get into the science behind it!"

    ----------------------------------------------------
    "You're very kind to offer, but it's not really a behaviour issue." With a gesture from the Poison Cultivator, Emilia flows up and into the woman's outstretched hand. "It's just that she gets bored on the days when all I do is work in the lab. It's okay when we are out on campaign or in the countryside where she can hunt, but whenever we are here in the Fortress she finds herself without much to do."

    She turns to the three massive furnaces, which have started making a shrill wailing noise. Emilia prods her face out of the Witches neck, maintaining eye contact with the Prince as she moves around the lab.

    "That's the last batch done. I've had a very detailed education in addictive hallucinogens in the last few months. I've been acting as Lady Destasia's personal assistant." She pries open the furnaces one after the other, retrieving the pills and bottling them with deft, practiced motions. "I would not have thought that substance would have been potent enough to have any kind of debilitating effect. The hunters tend to have such potent constitutions. I suppose its relative harmlessness might prevent it from triggering some of their various protective talismans at least."

    She hands the bottles over to the Prince. "Can I ask exactly what you intend to do with them?"

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

    The Ninth Prince inspected one of the bottles, opening it to take the iridescent powder out.

    He dabbed a bit on his finger and sniffed the cocaine. Almost immediately, his blood felt like a bubble bath and the world started going swirly.

    Ugh. He couldn't have that, so with a quick pulse of poison qi, the drug's effects were dispelled.

    The Ninth Prince quickly screwed the bottle's cap back on, before giving Minervina a thumbs up. "Yep! This is the good stuff! You've outdone yourself here, Minervina."

    "Anyways," The Ninth Prince grew serious for a moment. "The general plan here is using the Qi cocaine to to cover a battlefield in drugs. The hallucinogen can't affect our side in any way, which is the important bit."

    "I'm hoping that when the Hunters realize what the powder mist is, they're just gonna accept it, since at this potency, all it's gonna do is make them feel pretty good, so they won't try and dispel it."

    "If it works, then, well" The Ninth Prince smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Cocaine is highly flammable. And by the blood array, it has no way to affect us in any way, including when it's on fire."

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

    "An intriguing strategem. I thought it might be something like that, so I whipped up a little something to go with them." Minervina rattles around in a few cupboards, producing 12 bottles of a light coloured green liquid. She pulls out a sheaf of thick, hard wearing paper and a bronze stylus before recording exacting conditions on how it should be used. "This is an advanced Mental Aegis cream. In case you end up picking up Legionnaires with only minimal Bronze Bloodlines, or if there's some other mishap. It will block off the … recreational effects of the cocaine for a time. Please note that it will have only a minimal effect against more pernicious mental venoms, particularly those of the Foundation Establishment stage or above, and no effect at all on toxins that attack the flesh directly. I would hate to lose such a high value client."

    She pauses, looking at something impossibly far away for a long moment. "What do you expect to happen this time? The Clan has weathered the trials time and time again, but a hundred years ago we came so close to disaster. An entire generation of top tier cultivators cut short. I don't see how we survive another winnowing like that, not with things so unstable across the Region."

    She forcibly brightens. "I'm forgetting my manners. You have come a long way. Should I put on some tea?"

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

    Well, that was…

    Certainly something, yes.

    The Ninth Prince couldn't say he thought that much about the Clan's almost inevitable doom, but he was certainly thinking about it now!

    ...Right, one thing at a time.

    The Ninth Prince graciously accepted the Mental Aegis Cream. "Thanks, this is gonna help more than you know."
    Now to figure out how to deal with the rest of this.

    The Ninth Prince took some time to think of a thoughtful and concise response, then almost immediately threw that idea out of the window. "Full disclosure, we might die."

    "I have more experience with the trial invaders than most, not sure if you were here for that whole discussion, but I'm actually from the Fifth Sea originally. They're strong, they're clever, and they either don't see us as actual people or they just don't care. The trial rules are rigged to favor them, and our greatest asset, the Archegetes, is unable to act."

    "That being said, this is not the worst position we've ever been in. Historically, the trials have been much bloodier, not just from a numbers perspective, but from a percentage perspective and a political one. And, no matter what, we've always managed to hold on.

    The Clan hasn't died yet, and this time around, we've got perhaps the greatest crop of new talents in generations. Rina Callista's already gotten to Single Pillar, which is almost certainly going to be a surprise, and even beyond that, we have people like you, Jin Muyi, and me in Foundation Establishment." The Ninth Prince smiled. It was a nice smile, albeit just a tad shaky. "I'd say we're going to be fine."

    "Well, not me, obviously." The Ninth Prince laughed bitterly.

    Wait.

    "Oh, wait, I forgot to tell you, didn't I?" The Ninth Prince facepalmed. "Alright, so, basic gist, I'm going to die during these trials."

    "It's going to be sad, it's going to happen, my death was predicted by a man I consider the greatest diviner in the Virtuous Flipper Region."

    "I need your help to try and cheat that death."

    The Ninth Prince paused. "Also, no, I don't need the tea, thank you though."

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

    Minervina pauses at the Prince's proclamation. "Well, that sounds like an occasion for something stronger doesn't it?" Without asking for permission, the Witch pulls a golden bottle with the increasingly famous 'Centennius' family seal on the label. After looking around in vain for some suitable glasses, she shrugs and pours the thick amber wine into a pair of alchemical beakers. It pops and sizzles angrily in the glass, the odd tendril of gelatinous liquid reaching out to claw at the air.

    "I was saving this vintage in case Lady Duca paid a visit. It has kick enough that even we should notice it going down."

    After offering the beaker to the Prince and finishing her own portion in a single pull, the Witch pauses to look out the window for a long moment in silent reflection before looking her colleague in the eye. "As you might imagine, I have seen many men waiting for death. I know all the different aspects and emotions it brings out in a man's soul, whether he be a sniffling coward or a fanatical martyr." Bronze fingers rap on the cold steel of the lab desk. "I don't think you have given up on defying heaven just yet, whatever your favourite bone charmer says."

    "If you need anything, just ask. Family stands together after all."

    ---------

    The Ninth Prince took a drink of the vaguely living beverage, expecting his general poison immunity to neutralize it, and started in shock as he actually felt the burn going down his throat, felt the kick of the alcohol.

    It was a new experience for him, and definitely not an unpleasant one. The Ninth Prince nearly coughed, but managed to hold it in with sheer force of will, giving a slightly shaky thumbs up. "Good wine."

    Despite the burning in his stomach and the lightness in his head (or perhaps because of it), the Ninth Prince smiled, sharp and edged like broken glass. "Well, Minervina, you'd be right. Fate's said that I have to die, but I've never been one to let other people (or things, or machines, or whatever fate is) tell me what to do."

    "As such, I've crafted an intricate, masterful plan in order to survive my imminent demise."

    The Ninth Prince pulled out a knife-sized metal fang, glowing with sickly green and grey runes that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. "This is one of my Dao Pillars. I'm going to give it to you, along with some instructions I can't say out loud for fear of being discovered, and hopefully you'll keep it safe until the time on those instructions happens."

    He was halfway through handing Minervina the Fang Pillar before the Ninth Prince stopped and raised a pointer finger. "Oh! Actually, one more thing. The Fang Pillar is a blank slate, so it's gonna take on a mild imprint of your dao."

    "Speaking of, what is your Dao?"

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

    Minervina had made a career out of hatching unorthodox plans. Long Bi would have called them 'Insane, outrageous, madcap plans' if she wasn't far too well mannered for such vulgarities.

    This one... Well it was noteworthy to say the least.

    How on earth had he managed to calcify a Dao Pillar into such a physical shape? Sure Cultivators habitually spoke about spiritual constructs like Cores and Pillars in a manner much like a Mortal would refer to his heart or kidney, but that didn't mean you could extract one by simply cutting your way into a Cultivator's torso. Only Spiritual Beasts physically manifest physical crystalline organs that power their Cultivation. It would bear much study, assuming this wasn't some kind of elaborate prank.

    As for his question, just coming out and asking like that was a little rude, but she never did have much time for formalities, moreover the famous warrior was offering to entrust her with a chunk of his soul. Trust was a river that best flowed in two directions.

    She poked around the lab for a few minutes and returned with a beaker of water, and a desert rat trapped in a cage. She placed both on the desk as she responded to the question. "The Dao of the Eternal Crucible. It's a path of my own devising, but it's best summed up as a Dao of Transformation. All things in the world change constantly, even if the rate of change is too slow for even an immortal to perceive. I seek out the most powerful and pervasive forces of transformation, and seek to master some small part of them. Starting with the gross and physical" She taps the beaker and the ice freezes in an instant, a second tap see's it boil away into nothingness. "Moving into the subtle and profound" a tap on the cage sees an aura of Death surround the trapped specimen, the rat curling up and retching in pain. A second tap sees Life replace Death and the rat recovers, shaking in fear, but alive and healthy. "In Late Foundation, I moved on to more rarified forms of transformation, the forces that move men's souls and lift them up to higher realms of thought and reason."

    She looks at the Fang Pillar "It's not a simple or easy path. Are you sure you want me to carry it? An imprint from me could lead to problems with your Cultivation later on if you can't reconcile the differences between my Dao and yours?"

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

    Well, that was…

    Huh.

    That was certainly a Dao, yeah.

    An interesting one too. The Ninth Prince's mind was already racing, trying to figure out exactly how the metaphysics worked here. Eternal Crucible implied an alchemical connotation, which was fitting for a Poison Mistress. The Ninth Prince did wonder if it was an external Dao focused on transforming others, an internal Dao focused on the transformation of the self, or a combination Dao that was both.

    Also, the Dao's transformations worked through seemingly three states, physical, the higher forces, and then something relating to enlightenment. Body/Soul/Mind? If so, that was an interesting look at Minervina's priorities, putting the mind above the soul/qi, since with most cultivators it'd be the other way around. Poison mistress though, her techniques weren't techniques, they were alchemical recipes and thus her path focused more on the mind than the amount of Qi she had.

    It opened up some useful possibilities for her later path, especially if the physical property changes applied to the reagents Minervina used to make her poison. The Ninth Prince almost drooled at the possibilities of powders with the consistency of liquids and stones that acted like gases.

    But the Ninth Prince was getting off track, and he was pretty sure if he just stood there looking off into the middle distance, Minervina would become Unnervina.

    Hah! Still got it!

    The joke here was that she'd be unnerved.

    But anyways, back to the conversation.

    The Ninth Prince snapped out of his little science fugue, returning back to reality. "Well, that's a powerful Dao."

    "And, in regards to the Dao imbalance thing, it's not that big of a problem. I won't go into the details of the metaphysics, since that'd take about a month of explanation, but the way this works is that my Dao Pillars are both part of me and not part of me, and that intersects in just the right way that the imprints don't pose an issue to my personal Dao. There's a small barrier separating them so it doesn't have cross contamination."

    "Besides." And here the Ninth Prince smiled, just a tad smugly. "My Dao is Justice, and Justice is useless if it can't understand other perspectives."

    The Ninth Prince stood silent for just long enough for the absence of noise to become uncomfortable, coughed a bit, and then continued as if nothing had happened. "All of this is me basically saying that, yes, I do want you to have one of these Fang Pillars. Assuming you'll accept of course."

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

    "Well, it should make for a good conversation piece the next time I host a soiree." She makes a rare attempt at a joke as she takes up the Fang. "Seriously though, I'll keep it as safe as I can, until the day you return for it. If you don't make it. Well it seems sharp enough, I'll drive it through some Trial Hunters eye for you, as a fitting tribute to a fallen champion of Justice." Her expression twists slightly on the last word, but it clears swiftly, just because she had walked away from a similar Path centuries ago doesn't mean she has any right to look down on one who had met such success on it.

    She recharges both their glasses before leaving to trigger a few of the more costly security arrays that were secreted around the apartment. "Now you said there were a few things you needed to explain away from prying ears?"

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

    The Ninth Prince, against his best efforts, let out a small chuckle. "Sorry, sorry. I do appreciate the gesture, but I still can't really talk about anything out loud."

    "I'm sure your arrays are quite potent, but seeing as the people I'm trying to conceal this from are, in order of scariness, a Nascent Soul (not the Archegetes, mind you), someone in Spirit Severing, and also Fate itself, I doubt they're going to do much."

    The Ninth Prince handed Minervina a small sheet of paper. "Here, this is a bit of relic paper from the Fifth Sea. Read it when you know you're alone, don't say anything in it out loud, then destroy the paper by any means you wish. After that, the secret won't get out no matter what."

    "Speaking of, I should probably be going. You're the eighth person I've done this with, and the ninth time is gonna be..

    It's not gonna be fun, I'll say that much."

    "Thanks again Min, I'll see you again when this whole thing is done."

    The Ninth Prince paused for a second, smiling as Minervina silently handed him the rest of the wine bottle. "Oh. I don't want to repeat myself, but thank you!"

    With that, the Ninth Prince slowly walked out of Minervina's lab, wine in hand, crushed a token, and disappeared in a flash of light.

    A/N: Huge thanks to @Katana1515 for this collab. Hope yall enjoyed this.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 9 - Ulo, Kha, Li, and Ya, and Raj
  • Sidestory
    • Ninth Prince Fang Pillar 9 - Ulo, Kha, Li, and Ya, and Raj​


    There was a snake in his boot.

    Well, more than one.

    Technically, there were seventeen snakes in the Ninth Prince's boot, thirty three if you counted his other boot too, and a few hundred if you took into account his other articles of clothing.

    This wasn't abnormal either, at any time the Ninth Prince had anywhere from thirteen to seven hundred snakes somewhere on his person, though the larger numbers were only possible through the careful management of space, numerous pockets, and in a pinch, his lungs.

    Not needing to breathe or eat opened up quite a few extra spots for storage.

    The reason the Ninth Prince had even mentioned such a commonplace fact in his internal monologue at all was that the snake in question was Raj, one of his three (or five, depending on if you counted snakes by the head or by the tail) contracted beasts and the controller of most/all of the other snakes on the Ninth Prince's person.

    And Raj wasn't supposed to be there.

    Seriously, the Ninth Prince had an entire designated resting place for Raj, specifically his head, where Raj would act as a sort of 'crown', while Kha, Li, and Ya curled around his spear and Ulo carried him to wherever was needed.

    They had a system, was what the Ninth Prince was trying to say, and it was a system that had worked for centuries, since before the Ninth Prince had even entered the Golden Devil Clan, while he was a part of the Flood Dragon Gang.

    (The Ninth Prince wasn't exactly sure if the pre-curse him had used the same system, but the odds were high.)

    So, in order to correct this problem, the Ninth Prince took off his left boot and shook it vigorously, dislodging all seventeen snakes within.

    Raj was not pleased by this, hissing (but not the normal kind of hiss that a snake did, the kind of hiss that humans and other mammals used to signify displeasure, but conveyed through the normal kind of hiss that a snake did) and wriggling angrily.

    Eventually though, he clambered up the Ninth Prince's leg, back, and neck, and took his rightful place, curled around the Ninth Prince's skull like a crown.

    The Ninth Prince looked up at Raj. "Right. I'm going to take a wild guess and assume you're mad at me."

    Raj indicated that, yes, he was quite peeved at the Ninth Prince.

    The Ninth Prince sighed. "Well, that's fair I gu-"

    He was cut off by Kha, Li, and Ya also making their displeasure at the Ninth Prince clear.

    Okay now the Ninth Prince was just confused. "Wait, you too? What did I do to y-"

    He was interrupted again by Ulo also rumbling out an agreement with his fellow snakes.

    Alright, that was weird. The Ninth Prince must have messed up really bad if Ulo was annoyed. But what exactly could he have done to-

    Oh.

    Oh.

    The Ninth Prince was an idiot. "This is about the Fang Pillar thing, isn't it?"

    All three (five depending on if you counted snakes by the head or by the tail) of his contracted partners acknowledged the truth of his statement.

    The Ninth Prince sighed, jumped off of Ulo, and sat down in the desert sand. "Alright, let's clear this up right here, right now. Kha, Li, Ya, mind getting off my spear for a sec? Raj, same with getting off of my skull? If we're gonna have this conversation, I'd like to be able to see all of you."

    The two (four if you- yeah, you got the picture) snakes obliged, and soon the Ninth Prince was sitting with all of his partnered beasts facing him.

    He clapped his hands together. "So, you all do know that my ninth and final Fang Pillar is going to you guys, right?"

    The snakes all indicated that, no, this was news to them and quite frankly the Ninth Prince needed to get better at communication.

    Well, that last bit was just Raj, who was quite acerbic when he wanted to be.

    The Ninth Prince facepalmed, but continued. "Well… Alright then. I have to say that, in my defense, I thought it was pretty obvious. After all, who else would I entrust my final pillar to? Jin Shufeng? Fang Tai? Someone not my contracted beasts?"

    The snakes conveyed that they felt quite foolish now, and Raj retracted his previous venomous statement.

    Well. The Ninth Prince was glad that was taken care of. "Right, so, glad that's taken care of, but we do have something else to talk about."

    "Namely, what are you all going to do after I 'die'?"

    The snakes politely expressed their confusion at that statement.

    Okay, that wasn't exactly true.

    It was less 'politely expressing their confusion' and more 'what the actual fuck are you talking about Anush, has your impending death come early for your brain cells?'.

    ...The Ninth Prince was both amazed and slightly uneasy at his contracted partners' mastery of insults in particular.

    But even still, he pressed forwards and explained. "Well, you see, after I'm dead for a bit, if everything goes according to plan I'm going to be a free floating soul trapped in the Orb of Shesha for about four to five decades, and so I'm not really going to be around to drive our adventures."

    "As such, beyond guarding my Fang Pillar, what do you want to do with that time?"

    The snakes said nothing.

    The Ninth Prince groaned. "...Here, try and think of it another way. This absence is completely out of our control, but that doesn't mean you can't make the most out of it. Do you have any dreams, any things you'd love to do, stuff that you've wanted to try but never could?"

    The snakes said nothing, silence stretching on for minutes, which turned into hours, which turned into most of the day, until, eventually, even the Ninth Prince's patience, honed from centuries as a cultivator and the blood (well, he didn't really have actual blood any more but the metaphor was still valid) of ambush predators running through his veins, ran out, and he was almost ready to give up and try this from a different tack.

    Then, as the moon hung overhead and the stars twinkled in the cloudless night sky, one of his partners finally said something.

    Ulo, timidly, as if he was worried about saying a wrong answer, said that he'd always wanted to guard a village. Then, immediately afterwards, he looked at the Ninth Prince.

    The Ninth Prince said nothing, but, with a smile on his face, motioned for Ulo to continue.

    Ulo continued with more enthusiasm this time, saying that he wanted to do something different from what he did in Liaogai Village, he wanted to be the mysterious guardian spirit of a mortal village, save them from attacks and beast tides and the blood path, be venerated and appreciated as a great protector of their homes!

    After Ulo's proclamation, the desert went silent, and the large cobra shrunk back as the void of noise stretched on.

    And then that void of noise was shattered by the NInth Prince's furious clapping. "Amazing! Excellent! Magnificent! What a wonderful idea! I'd suggest the bandit kingdoms in the Jingshen Lands, they have quite a few mortal villages in need of protecting."

    Immediately after that, silently coming to an agreement amongst themselves, Kha, Li, and Ya spoke up, and shared that they wanted to be bandits.

    Not the evil kind that preyed on innocents, they hastened to clarify. They wished to be similar to the flood dragons, harassing blood path and the Jingshens, raiding and feasting on the spoils of their attacks, living like kings off the ill-gotten riches of those who deserved to have those riches taken from them.

    Once more, there was silence, and once more, the Ninth Prince clapped. "Astounding! Incredible! Top tier! What an amazing idea! If you want suggestions on where to base, might I suggest taking over a small bandit gang in the Jingshen lands? We could always use a few more raiders there."

    Finally, Raj began to speak, detailing his own ambitions. And they were ambitious indeed.

    See, Raj wanted to go into politics. Or, politics of a sort. Not the normal, boring kind of politics, the criminal kind, the kind that the inhabitants of Liaogai Village practiced.

    Raj wanted to run a mafia, a grand criminal enterprise with roots stretching across multiple kingdoms, controlling all mortal (and some Qi Gathering) crime in the area and bending it to his will, giving back to the community when needed and making sure that his crime spree improved the lives of those living under his 'control'.

    For the third time, there was silence, and for the third time, the Ninth Prince clapped. "Spectacular! Phenomenal! Wonderful! What an incredible idea! Obviously, you could probably set something like this up anywhere, but the Jingshen lands are quite fractious and divided, and a snake of your talents could do wonders there."

    With that, the Ninth Prince stood up, stretching his arms out and limbering up his joints after literal hours in the same position. "Well! Those are all quite magnificent dreams, and none of you dream small. Which is perfect, because your dreams are both immense and easily achievable with your power and skill."

    "Now," the Ninth Prince said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out an iron fang, jagged runes glowing a sickly green and grey, "I do believe that you've all waited long enough. Now that I've handed all my other Fang Pillars off to other people, there's nothing really stopping me from just doing this now. I doubt the ceremony and pomp really matters to you all anywa-"

    The Ninth Prince was smacked by three tails at once. "-OW! Alright, alright, I was wrong." He groused, rubbing his head to reduce the pain. "How does that even work, I'm made of Qi reinforced steel."

    Kha, Li, and Ya informed the Ninth Prince that they were all Foundation Establishment Spirit Beasts that were invincible in their great realm. Qi metal, while potent, didn't really matter in the face of that.

    The Ninth Prince conceded the point with a wave of his hand, dropping the Fang Pillar in front of his contracted beasts.

    It was Raj who spoke up first, informing the Ninth Prince that there was only one Fang Pillar, and three (five, dep- yeah, you get the idea, we did this gag already and also the 'you get the idea' gag) of them.

    The Ninth Prince merely smiled. "Well then, I suppose you'll have to stick together while I'm gone."

    With that, the Ninth Prince disappeared in a flash of sand, reappearing on top of Ulo, about to point him forwards and continue on their journey.

    Then the Ninth Prince remembered that he was giving his Fang Pillar to Ulo (and also Kha, Li, and Ya, and Raj), and he couldn't make a dramatic exit.

    He coughed.

    Well.

    This was awkward.

    A/N: Hope you enjoyed this.
     
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