Not that kind of Thunder Cat (Xianxia)
- Thread starter Pinklestia
- Start date
- Original
Chapter 4: Cat Part II
- Location
- Argentina
Chapter 4: Cat Part II
Edited by megrisvernin.
After the month passed, I had family matters to take care of. Despite that I did not completely ignore my students, I left them instructions in writing and told their families what to do to help them.
Meanwhile, I read the books my grandma left me and I practiced the skills any Wise Woman should have.
Eventually I would have to train someone else but it was too soon and I was still too young.
A year passed, during that year I still went out to hunt and did train my students but only half the time. I helped to prepare them for their trip to the Spirit Forest as best as I could, and as the new Wise Woman what I could do was a lot. I got them wandering Cultivator robes, I got them weapons and minor talismans. Basically I did everything I could to disguise them as a group of wandering cultivators. I couldn't fake them being part of a Sect, not only did I lack the resources even with Uncle Yu selling the medicines I made and the Spirit Beast parts we all 'obtained' around several cities, but a new Sect was not something we were strong enough to form yet. In that time Li Na grew even more, becoming only slightly smaller than a Spirit Tiger.
Then after that year of duties and preparations I did my best to get stronger by having all my students fight me at the same time. I lost, lost a lot, only to heal using medicine and go at it again, and keep losing. Li Na went against the dozen dogs on her own... and also lost. This, with breaks to allow healing and mentally recover from my losses, continued for six months. I never was able to win, but I kept making it harder for them to win, the same for Li Na, who thankfully was not going for lethal attacks on the dogs.
Then I did reduce the number who attacked me to half... and while I still didn't win, it was a very close thing and all of the half that fought me got injured. Now my cat... she actually was able to beat the six dogs of the other half on her own, and without using lethal moves.
After that even with medicine we had to delay our future trip for two months so we all fully recovered.
Cruel? Maybe. But after getting my students to defeat us for so long we had to establish that we still were much stronger than them, while also leaving half of the students and dogs not injured in case something attacked the town.
Then I made sure Uncle Yu would stay in town for a while and then lead my students to the Spirit Forest.
It was time for my students to rise a Rank and become real cultivators.
The result was both a relief and a disappointment.
We didn't meet any sect Juniors and if there was any wandering cultivator he or she avoided us due to being a big group.
I had my students tag team Rank 9 Beasts two on one, since that was four on one counting their bonded Beasts, and this time I actually had information about Rank 9 Beasts, the six groups all won their fights, but not without injury.
Unfortunately there was not a single rise in Rank.
We retreated from the Forest, my students had their injuries treated and then we tried again.
And again.
And again.
After two weeks we headed back to town and I finally realized either Li Na was really special or that I had more potential than my students.
Because in those two weeks none of my students' dogs rose in Rank.
Maybe it was because it wasn't dangerous enough with me being there to help if anything went wrong. Maybe it had to be one on one, but I feared that one on one some of my students or their Spirit Beasts would not survive.
That doesn't mean there was no improvement at all, because there was.
All of them improved the Thick Fur ability, the students more than the dogs.
That was the first sign I had that training could actually improve abilities instead of them only rising in power with a rise of Rank.
So naturally the next thing we did... was take it easy for a few months. We all were tired in mind and body after all. And if sometimes I goofed off doing cat things... well a Wise Woman is supposed to be a bit weird so whatever.
Not to say the training stopped but it now consisted in taking down Rank 10 Beasts one on one while using the same ability over and over to make it improve.
Of course that was for my students, I still had my duties as Wise Woman and Uncle Yu just couldn't fully replace me, even if he didn't have to wander over several smaller towns and villages that didn't have their own doctors.
But I also couldn't leave my path as that would literally kill me.
So like before our not-so-useful group trip to the Spirit Forest, half my time was training and the other half was making medicine and resolving the townspeople's problems.
And everyone had problems.
I had not realized how busy my grandma had been, most likely due to her making me leave when she had to talk to people.
The first year people had both respected that I was new to the job and that my grandma had recently died.
That grace period was apparently over when we came back from the forest.
I had to take two of my younger cousins, both girls of course, as Wise Woman assistants just to have some play time with Li Na. That was really needed or we both would have gone crazy.
But of course I couldn't just order them around all day; I also had to teach them.
Good thing that, being Uncle Yu's daughters, the two of them already knew how to read and write really well despite only being six years old. So most of my teachings involved making them memorize things from the books Grandma had left me, as there was no way I was going to let them borrow or copy the books, and being there to supervise their practice so they didn't screw up too badly.
Doing all this and planning and preparing for the next trip took a whole year. During that time I and Li Na trained our abilities and my only skill as much as we could.
My students now looked the same age as me and all their abilities had improved.
Their dogs' looks had changed, they looked as if one of their parents had been wolves.
This time we had even better medicine, better robes and better talismans. Still far from looking like a Sect but enough to look like wandering cultivators that were not doing too bad.
We saw the same Rank 8 Spirit Tiger me and Li Na had seen before. Said tiger still looked and felt the same. Probably because the higher the Rank the harder it was to rise in power. And being Rank 8 in a place that had Ranks 9 at most means he was king of the forest.
The creature didn't ignore us but also didn't attack, and then I saw her.
Beautiful, delicate, with green robes of fine silk and woven with gold and jewels. Skin white as porcelain, long hair as black as the moonless night and lips as red as blood. She had her eyes closed so I couldn't see what color they had. Seeing using her Spirit Beast eyes perhaps? Or maybe training a sensing skill?
A sect Junior, and the tiger was hers. I could see that by how well they got with each other. And by the feline letting her climb on his back.
Also... she felt as strong as the tiger, indicating she had an even stronger bonded beast than said tiger.
"You have grown stronger Stranger," she said without looking at anyone but actually referring to me in particular.
I bowed and so did my students. My students bowed a bit lower than mine. Good manners help you to avoid death.
"This fairy thanks you for your kindness." The kindness being both the praise and not killing us.
Saying that was a way to take what she said as praise. Calling her Senior was not appropriate, not only did we just meet, we were not friends or allies, or members of the same sect.
"Oh, and whatever is the fairy's name?"
"This fairy's mortal name is An Xiu, I have not earned a Cultivator name yet." Mostly because taking one on my own was just not done and I lacked a Master to give me one.
"Fairy An Xiu, are you happy with your current path?" In other words, 'do you want to join my Sect and be my personal slave?'
"Yes." Also known as 'No, I won't join your sect and we have enough numbers to be a bother if you try to force it.'
"Very well, please leave Fairy, my sect is currently using the forest, it's not just me this time."
"As you wish, we will follow your kind advice." As in, we didn't dare to fight you and however many others you had on your side.
I even let the slight of not being told her name or the name of her sect slide. We weren't equals after all, I was inferior both in status and cultivation. Same reason she ignored my students.
So we left and headed to a backup location, one of many places called Spirit Cave.
Despite the name, the so-called cave was a very large place, more of a series of big interconnected natural tunnels than a cave, but it's not like I was the one that named the place.
The closer you were to the entrance, the weaker the spirit energy, in fact the entrance itself had almost no spirit energy at all. But the deeper you went, the stronger the spirit energy and also the stronger the Spirit Beasts would become. In fact there were rumors that if you went deep enough you would find Divine Beasts.
Not that we were stupid enough to go that deep, in fact the second we found something stronger than a Rank 9 Spirit Beast we would escape as fast as possible while using all of our talismans to slow down whatever was chasing us.
And we ended up doing just that.
A Rank 8 Raging Mole chased us. Thankfully our long time of preparations helped and while the Mole was not hurt by our pitiful talismans it at least got tired by having to use its energy to protect itself from so many talisman attacks. As they say a single ant is nothing to worry about, a whole ant hill? That's a different matter.
Even so the beast was too enraged and chased us past the entrance, the combined electric attack of eight Rank 10 wolf-like dogs barely being able to stop it and only damaging some of its fur.
Then Li Na attacked the mole's neck and when the mole tried to use its claws to kill Li Na it once more got attacked by the wolf dogs. Our weapons were not going to do anything to the Rank 8 Spirit Beast so it was up to our bonded companions.
That second attack by the canines actually made the mole cry in pain.
Then the mole showed that it wasn't an idiot and retreated back into the cave.
After that the eight dogs fainted, because they had used too much energy in that last attack.
Li Na didn't collapse out of sheer stubbornness but by our connection I knew she had less than a third of her energy left.
All of that and the mole's neck had been barely injured.
But while Li Na and I didn't become stronger, the eight dogs that had faced the mole rose in rank becoming Spirit Wolves.
Of course that left four dogs that had not.
After resting and recovering for a few days we went back to the forest, but only I (and my cat) entered.
The four students whose dogs had yet to rise in rank waited for me and Li Na to check if the sect was still there, thankfully they weren't.
So those four had to face a Rank 9 one... more than once. Good thing we had brought a lot of food because it took a whole forsaken month!
The other eight students were busy practicing with their improved bodies and with their beasts' new ability.
After that we finally returned home, and I slept for three days straight.
Only after that did I care to check the wolves' new ability.
Four of them, the ones that took longer to rise in Rank, had somehow got the ability Sharp Claws. Meaning that despite being wolves they could use claws like a feline and hurt the enemy with them. Combined with the ability of Sharp Teeth they already had, it made them good at close combat.
The other eight got Lightning Ball, the ability to throw a ball of electricity from their mouths. That and their Lightning Run made them good for attacking at distance.
There were also physical changes besides four of them having claws. The wolves that had electric powers had a white lightning bolt-shaped patch of fur in their foreheads while the ones with sharp claws and teeth had a crescent moon instead.
My second book about Spirit Beasts identified the lightning bolt symbol wolves as Lightning Wolves while the ones with the crescent moon were Clawed Wolves.
And there was no information about Li Na's current form, but my best guess was that she was going to become a Lightning Tiger at Rank 8.
The Clawed Wolves students copied the claws, that in their case showed as short blades of spirit energy in the nails of their hands. While the Lightning Wolves students actually had the Lightning Ball form in their hands instead of their mouths. Probably because using the ability in their mouths would hurt them. They had to use their two hands together for the ball to form but it was still quite impressive for someone at Step 3.
With my students' beasts finally at Rank 9 that meant all of us could be considered true cultivators.
And the most important, all of us had an extra hundred years to live, there was no real rush to get to the next Step and Rank.
Of course I had my students fight each other so they practiced with their new bodies and abilities. While I had a different objective, to get a book about Spirit Skills.
I had been either lucky or showed great potential when I copied my Silent Run into a noise reduction Skill, I didn't think my students could do the same without harm.
There was also the fact I had not taken the time to create more Skills based on abilities since the noise reduction one due to lack of time and feeling it would be kind of pointless.
Unfortunately to get said book would mean either trading with a wandering cultivator or outright killing one to get said book. There was a limit on how much information Cultivators allowed mortals to get and Skills were not on the allowed list.
Just in case I abused my power as Wise Woman and had everyone that had some free time looking for books of Cultivation all over the town, not just the library, but it was almost useless.
Why almost? Because they found a box that held a few seeds that had spirit energy in them. The one that found them was my redheaded student, Fan Dandan. Her wolf had dug the box from out behind my grandma's house.
Uncle Yu didn't know what the seeds were from so naturally I put finding what the seeds were as a test to my two assistants cousins. Not that I didn't figure it out myself first of course, it just was not something I could say out loud.
In fact I had to make my cousins swear they would not tell anyone but me if they found out what the seeds were.
It took them three months but they figured out what the seeds were. I rewarded them by allowing them to copy some things out of my Wise Woman books, of course they also could not show those copies to someone else.
I secretly planted the five seeds in five separate places in the Spirit Swamp and then went once a week to give those seeds extra spirit energy myself.
Unfortunately even if they were at the same Step as I was, and feeding those seeds my spirit energy left me really tired, I couldn't give the task to my cultivation students in order to keep the secret.
I also started to suspect that the dead wandering cultivator that my grandma obtained stuff from, had not died from a bad pill by accident.
Longevity trees are one of the things Sects are quite angry about anyone else having after all.
AN: Well, well, it seems Grandma had at least one secret that she didn't tell her.
Edited by megrisvernin.
After the month passed, I had family matters to take care of. Despite that I did not completely ignore my students, I left them instructions in writing and told their families what to do to help them.
Meanwhile, I read the books my grandma left me and I practiced the skills any Wise Woman should have.
Eventually I would have to train someone else but it was too soon and I was still too young.
A year passed, during that year I still went out to hunt and did train my students but only half the time. I helped to prepare them for their trip to the Spirit Forest as best as I could, and as the new Wise Woman what I could do was a lot. I got them wandering Cultivator robes, I got them weapons and minor talismans. Basically I did everything I could to disguise them as a group of wandering cultivators. I couldn't fake them being part of a Sect, not only did I lack the resources even with Uncle Yu selling the medicines I made and the Spirit Beast parts we all 'obtained' around several cities, but a new Sect was not something we were strong enough to form yet. In that time Li Na grew even more, becoming only slightly smaller than a Spirit Tiger.
Then after that year of duties and preparations I did my best to get stronger by having all my students fight me at the same time. I lost, lost a lot, only to heal using medicine and go at it again, and keep losing. Li Na went against the dozen dogs on her own... and also lost. This, with breaks to allow healing and mentally recover from my losses, continued for six months. I never was able to win, but I kept making it harder for them to win, the same for Li Na, who thankfully was not going for lethal attacks on the dogs.
Then I did reduce the number who attacked me to half... and while I still didn't win, it was a very close thing and all of the half that fought me got injured. Now my cat... she actually was able to beat the six dogs of the other half on her own, and without using lethal moves.
After that even with medicine we had to delay our future trip for two months so we all fully recovered.
Cruel? Maybe. But after getting my students to defeat us for so long we had to establish that we still were much stronger than them, while also leaving half of the students and dogs not injured in case something attacked the town.
Then I made sure Uncle Yu would stay in town for a while and then lead my students to the Spirit Forest.
It was time for my students to rise a Rank and become real cultivators.
The result was both a relief and a disappointment.
We didn't meet any sect Juniors and if there was any wandering cultivator he or she avoided us due to being a big group.
I had my students tag team Rank 9 Beasts two on one, since that was four on one counting their bonded Beasts, and this time I actually had information about Rank 9 Beasts, the six groups all won their fights, but not without injury.
Unfortunately there was not a single rise in Rank.
We retreated from the Forest, my students had their injuries treated and then we tried again.
And again.
And again.
After two weeks we headed back to town and I finally realized either Li Na was really special or that I had more potential than my students.
Because in those two weeks none of my students' dogs rose in Rank.
Maybe it was because it wasn't dangerous enough with me being there to help if anything went wrong. Maybe it had to be one on one, but I feared that one on one some of my students or their Spirit Beasts would not survive.
That doesn't mean there was no improvement at all, because there was.
All of them improved the Thick Fur ability, the students more than the dogs.
That was the first sign I had that training could actually improve abilities instead of them only rising in power with a rise of Rank.
So naturally the next thing we did... was take it easy for a few months. We all were tired in mind and body after all. And if sometimes I goofed off doing cat things... well a Wise Woman is supposed to be a bit weird so whatever.
Not to say the training stopped but it now consisted in taking down Rank 10 Beasts one on one while using the same ability over and over to make it improve.
Of course that was for my students, I still had my duties as Wise Woman and Uncle Yu just couldn't fully replace me, even if he didn't have to wander over several smaller towns and villages that didn't have their own doctors.
But I also couldn't leave my path as that would literally kill me.
So like before our not-so-useful group trip to the Spirit Forest, half my time was training and the other half was making medicine and resolving the townspeople's problems.
And everyone had problems.
I had not realized how busy my grandma had been, most likely due to her making me leave when she had to talk to people.
The first year people had both respected that I was new to the job and that my grandma had recently died.
That grace period was apparently over when we came back from the forest.
I had to take two of my younger cousins, both girls of course, as Wise Woman assistants just to have some play time with Li Na. That was really needed or we both would have gone crazy.
But of course I couldn't just order them around all day; I also had to teach them.
Good thing that, being Uncle Yu's daughters, the two of them already knew how to read and write really well despite only being six years old. So most of my teachings involved making them memorize things from the books Grandma had left me, as there was no way I was going to let them borrow or copy the books, and being there to supervise their practice so they didn't screw up too badly.
Doing all this and planning and preparing for the next trip took a whole year. During that time I and Li Na trained our abilities and my only skill as much as we could.
My students now looked the same age as me and all their abilities had improved.
Their dogs' looks had changed, they looked as if one of their parents had been wolves.
This time we had even better medicine, better robes and better talismans. Still far from looking like a Sect but enough to look like wandering cultivators that were not doing too bad.
We saw the same Rank 8 Spirit Tiger me and Li Na had seen before. Said tiger still looked and felt the same. Probably because the higher the Rank the harder it was to rise in power. And being Rank 8 in a place that had Ranks 9 at most means he was king of the forest.
The creature didn't ignore us but also didn't attack, and then I saw her.
Beautiful, delicate, with green robes of fine silk and woven with gold and jewels. Skin white as porcelain, long hair as black as the moonless night and lips as red as blood. She had her eyes closed so I couldn't see what color they had. Seeing using her Spirit Beast eyes perhaps? Or maybe training a sensing skill?
A sect Junior, and the tiger was hers. I could see that by how well they got with each other. And by the feline letting her climb on his back.
Also... she felt as strong as the tiger, indicating she had an even stronger bonded beast than said tiger.
"You have grown stronger Stranger," she said without looking at anyone but actually referring to me in particular.
I bowed and so did my students. My students bowed a bit lower than mine. Good manners help you to avoid death.
"This fairy thanks you for your kindness." The kindness being both the praise and not killing us.
Saying that was a way to take what she said as praise. Calling her Senior was not appropriate, not only did we just meet, we were not friends or allies, or members of the same sect.
"Oh, and whatever is the fairy's name?"
"This fairy's mortal name is An Xiu, I have not earned a Cultivator name yet." Mostly because taking one on my own was just not done and I lacked a Master to give me one.
"Fairy An Xiu, are you happy with your current path?" In other words, 'do you want to join my Sect and be my personal slave?'
"Yes." Also known as 'No, I won't join your sect and we have enough numbers to be a bother if you try to force it.'
"Very well, please leave Fairy, my sect is currently using the forest, it's not just me this time."
"As you wish, we will follow your kind advice." As in, we didn't dare to fight you and however many others you had on your side.
I even let the slight of not being told her name or the name of her sect slide. We weren't equals after all, I was inferior both in status and cultivation. Same reason she ignored my students.
So we left and headed to a backup location, one of many places called Spirit Cave.
Despite the name, the so-called cave was a very large place, more of a series of big interconnected natural tunnels than a cave, but it's not like I was the one that named the place.
The closer you were to the entrance, the weaker the spirit energy, in fact the entrance itself had almost no spirit energy at all. But the deeper you went, the stronger the spirit energy and also the stronger the Spirit Beasts would become. In fact there were rumors that if you went deep enough you would find Divine Beasts.
Not that we were stupid enough to go that deep, in fact the second we found something stronger than a Rank 9 Spirit Beast we would escape as fast as possible while using all of our talismans to slow down whatever was chasing us.
And we ended up doing just that.
A Rank 8 Raging Mole chased us. Thankfully our long time of preparations helped and while the Mole was not hurt by our pitiful talismans it at least got tired by having to use its energy to protect itself from so many talisman attacks. As they say a single ant is nothing to worry about, a whole ant hill? That's a different matter.
Even so the beast was too enraged and chased us past the entrance, the combined electric attack of eight Rank 10 wolf-like dogs barely being able to stop it and only damaging some of its fur.
Then Li Na attacked the mole's neck and when the mole tried to use its claws to kill Li Na it once more got attacked by the wolf dogs. Our weapons were not going to do anything to the Rank 8 Spirit Beast so it was up to our bonded companions.
That second attack by the canines actually made the mole cry in pain.
Then the mole showed that it wasn't an idiot and retreated back into the cave.
After that the eight dogs fainted, because they had used too much energy in that last attack.
Li Na didn't collapse out of sheer stubbornness but by our connection I knew she had less than a third of her energy left.
All of that and the mole's neck had been barely injured.
But while Li Na and I didn't become stronger, the eight dogs that had faced the mole rose in rank becoming Spirit Wolves.
Of course that left four dogs that had not.
After resting and recovering for a few days we went back to the forest, but only I (and my cat) entered.
The four students whose dogs had yet to rise in rank waited for me and Li Na to check if the sect was still there, thankfully they weren't.
So those four had to face a Rank 9 one... more than once. Good thing we had brought a lot of food because it took a whole forsaken month!
The other eight students were busy practicing with their improved bodies and with their beasts' new ability.
After that we finally returned home, and I slept for three days straight.
Only after that did I care to check the wolves' new ability.
Four of them, the ones that took longer to rise in Rank, had somehow got the ability Sharp Claws. Meaning that despite being wolves they could use claws like a feline and hurt the enemy with them. Combined with the ability of Sharp Teeth they already had, it made them good at close combat.
The other eight got Lightning Ball, the ability to throw a ball of electricity from their mouths. That and their Lightning Run made them good for attacking at distance.
There were also physical changes besides four of them having claws. The wolves that had electric powers had a white lightning bolt-shaped patch of fur in their foreheads while the ones with sharp claws and teeth had a crescent moon instead.
My second book about Spirit Beasts identified the lightning bolt symbol wolves as Lightning Wolves while the ones with the crescent moon were Clawed Wolves.
And there was no information about Li Na's current form, but my best guess was that she was going to become a Lightning Tiger at Rank 8.
The Clawed Wolves students copied the claws, that in their case showed as short blades of spirit energy in the nails of their hands. While the Lightning Wolves students actually had the Lightning Ball form in their hands instead of their mouths. Probably because using the ability in their mouths would hurt them. They had to use their two hands together for the ball to form but it was still quite impressive for someone at Step 3.
With my students' beasts finally at Rank 9 that meant all of us could be considered true cultivators.
And the most important, all of us had an extra hundred years to live, there was no real rush to get to the next Step and Rank.
Of course I had my students fight each other so they practiced with their new bodies and abilities. While I had a different objective, to get a book about Spirit Skills.
I had been either lucky or showed great potential when I copied my Silent Run into a noise reduction Skill, I didn't think my students could do the same without harm.
There was also the fact I had not taken the time to create more Skills based on abilities since the noise reduction one due to lack of time and feeling it would be kind of pointless.
Unfortunately to get said book would mean either trading with a wandering cultivator or outright killing one to get said book. There was a limit on how much information Cultivators allowed mortals to get and Skills were not on the allowed list.
Just in case I abused my power as Wise Woman and had everyone that had some free time looking for books of Cultivation all over the town, not just the library, but it was almost useless.
Why almost? Because they found a box that held a few seeds that had spirit energy in them. The one that found them was my redheaded student, Fan Dandan. Her wolf had dug the box from out behind my grandma's house.
Uncle Yu didn't know what the seeds were from so naturally I put finding what the seeds were as a test to my two assistants cousins. Not that I didn't figure it out myself first of course, it just was not something I could say out loud.
In fact I had to make my cousins swear they would not tell anyone but me if they found out what the seeds were.
It took them three months but they figured out what the seeds were. I rewarded them by allowing them to copy some things out of my Wise Woman books, of course they also could not show those copies to someone else.
I secretly planted the five seeds in five separate places in the Spirit Swamp and then went once a week to give those seeds extra spirit energy myself.
Unfortunately even if they were at the same Step as I was, and feeding those seeds my spirit energy left me really tired, I couldn't give the task to my cultivation students in order to keep the secret.
I also started to suspect that the dead wandering cultivator that my grandma obtained stuff from, had not died from a bad pill by accident.
Longevity trees are one of the things Sects are quite angry about anyone else having after all.
AN: Well, well, it seems Grandma had at least one secret that she didn't tell her.
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BarbatosLupus008
Certified Not Killer Giant Robot
- Location
- Behind You
Good to see this back and Grandma does be hiding some shady stuff. Gonna wanna investigate that when she's stronger probably.
- Location
- Argentina
What? A bunch of random seeds some mortals took from a dead body? Nothing shady here, no sir! 😀
Honesty speaking Grandma hid them because just having the seeds would get her and the whole town killed. And just leaving them buried with the dead cultivator was risky. Out of sight, out of mind. It took a tamed Canine Beast specifically looking for anything cultivation related to find them, and a search like that in a random town is rarely done.
Thar being said, peasants in Japan used to steal swords and armor from dead samurai and hid them in them under their houses, even knowing getting caught with that kind of stuff could get them killed and similar things have happened all over the world in the past. So what she did is ironically for a Xianxia story, realistic.
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lightNing.
Chapter 5: Cat Part III
- Location
- Argentina
Chapter 5: Cat Part III
Edited by megrisvernin.
Years passed, my two youngest cousins learned enough about being a Wise Woman that I and my students were able to leave for longer periods of time to train, but we didn't all leave at the same time.
Before I had been a bit careless because I honestly didn't think our town could face any real danger if we just left for a few weeks to a month, but then I finally remembered the time we faced the Savage Rats and wondered if something worse wouldn't appear.
Hence why half of my students would stay to guard the town during each trip. Of course I always got to go as I was their teacher.
Then for the next trip it would be the turn of the half that had stayed back on the previous trip.
Because I didn't feel like it was worth it with all our Spirit Beasts being at Rank 9 we no longer went to the Spirit Forest. Too much risk to encounter that Sect fairy again and not being able to refuse.
Instead, we trained in the Spirit Cave.
Now you may be wondering, didn't we risk facing cultivators for Sects on the cave?
Not if we weren't stupid, because unlike with the forest it was easy to tell when a Sect was using the cave. They always left their group's stronger cultivators at the entrance in case whoever they sent inside had to run from a strong Spirit Beast.
Heck even wandering cultivators did the same if they could, so our group didn't seem weird even if someone saw us.
Oh but what about the Longevity tree seeds? Simple, when I had to leave for more than five days I made sure to bury dead Spirit Beast bodies, of at least Rank 10, near the seeds. And when we returned I buried Rank 9 remains near the seeds.
The greedy gluttonous seeds devoured the bodies' leftover energy, and the bodies themselves, quite fast. I noticed the ambient Spirit energy slightly increasing over time in the Spirit Swamp the more I did this, so I started to do so when I could.
The constant effort of using my spirit energy in the seeds seemed to have made my body slightly stronger too. Even so I still didn't make my students help, as a way to keep the seeds a secret. It would take decades for the seeds to finally sprout anyway, so it is not like I was in a hurry.
Good thing the Spirit Cave was literally enormous and for some reason never seemed to run out of Spirit Beasts, or I would have eventually had to stop to let the place recover.
In fact I much later learned that the reason why the cave never ran out of Spirit Beasts was due to all the twelve major sects burying the artifacts, swords and dead beasts of those who failed the Soul Lighting tribulation there and in other places like it. Said leftovers couldn't be used as they were damaged by the Lighting Tribulation but they still emitted spirit energy as they slowly broke down to nothing so they may as well use them for something useful.
Oh, you don't know what that is? No wonder, you probably were already born quite strong so you will only have to worry about the Mind Lighting tribulation.
Whatever is a Lighting Tribulation? Is a test of the Heavens. A cultivator will face a Lighting Tribulation three times. Upon finishing refining their body, upon fully reforging their soul and after the complete unification of soul and body.
What right do the Heavens have to test us? Well my friend if the Heavens did not test those who want to ascend to the Heavens then evil cultivators and demons would be able to ascend and then the world would be destroyed.
It's also said that, even if you are not an evil cultivator or a demon, those who are truly evil will not be able to ascend. But of the truth of that I do not know for sure.
But I have an idea.
Imagine if you will Friend, that one cultivator finally reaches the end of their Path. Not getting stuck, not being unable to climb more Steps but actually reaching the end. Why? Because they became the one that's both at the top and part of everything. They became all that is, all that was and all that will be.
And then since they are everything and nothing, they find out Life itself is dying and in pain. That ascension means nothing because cultivators doomed Creation. That the whole existence is not only dying but being starved.
Why? Because of greed.
Does the one overall and part of everything give up? Does this being who rules all and nothing just accept the death of creation itself?
Of course not, this is a cultivator we are talking about.
That's why I think all three main paths give back to the World, and why I think the Heavens judge us before we can enter them. And why even a single evil cultivator or demon entering Heaven will cause the destruction of the World were it happens.
Of course my friend, I didn't think about these things back then. I was just an eager and foolish young child that wanted to live longer. Power? Power has always been a means to an end for me, not the goal itself.
I think... I think that if you give up everything to ascend, then there is no point to it. What do you think Friend?
Oh, you want us to become better friends? Why not? Just beware, Li Na will have a hard time accepting you. She is against us becoming friends. Don't take it too hard, she is just jealous.
Before I knew it, puberty finally hit me, good thing I knew how to make the right medicine for me and my female students to avoid a certain inconvenience.
That also served as a wake up call to increase my strength. Even if I was stronger than my students, as their teacher I should still be at least a Step further than them; right?
Besides, in the last few years anything that reminded Li Na of the word "tiger" made her more and more irritated and soon nothing but raising our power would help to calm her down.
So we entered the Spirit Cave alone and tried to track down the Rank 8 Raging Mole only to find ourselves running from its slightly weaker relatives.
Six Rank 9 Rage Moles, one or two we could take, maybe three, but six?
The moles chased us past the entrance and into a nearby lake, where we had laid some traps beforehand.
Basically we got one of the moles with a lot of low ranking explosive talismans, I really needed to learn how to make those myself to save money, and we got two of them to chase us into the lake.
You see the lake was a salt lake, simply not used to get salt by anyone due to being too far away.
And salt plus water plus electricity from a frustrated cat equals fried moles.
Of course the explosions and being hit by lighting had only taken out three of the six moles. And that's when my students got out from their hidden spots and attacked the moles, three moles versus a dozen wolves of the same rank as them? It was a massacre.
Just because I went to the cave alone doesn't mean I wouldn't leave some backup outside after all.
****
"Well that was a bust, at least the claws of the moles are good for making bone healing medicine."
The fur was completely destroyed, the meat eaten by the dogs. And most of the bones had no real use.
"Teacher, did we do good?" Fan Dandan, my redheaded student asked.
"Yes, yes, have some candy." I hand all my students candy as a reward.
What, I didn't mention it before? I had decided after we all had become the same rank that bribes... er rewards for good behavior was a good way to keep them under control.
That also made my students like me a lot more.
We all had finally become adolescents and with that came distractions... but I did not take part in them and none of the romances of my students lasted.
Why did I not seek companionship even for a few hours? Because it would have been a distraction from the Path, because even a casual fling with one of my students would have lost me their respect and because... I didn't want to bother.
Maybe I just had not found the right person who also happened to be a cultivator and so wouldn't die too fast?
I had also been too busy thinking about the things I have done to make myself stronger, besides my main Path, and why I did them.
Eating everything and anything I could was logically taking advantage of such a useful ability. Training my body and how to fight is part of any Path so that didn't count.
But... the seeds of the longevity tree? Constantly feeding them Spirit energy and getting slightly stronger as a result had taught me something proper cultivators most likely already know.
Constantly using Spirit energy is not only good practice but helps to make you better at controlling it and also makes the Spirit energy in your body stronger. Hence the importance of using Skills, even weak ones, as that requires using a lot of Spirit energy until one finally masters them.
So that means that my students, still at Step 3, really needed to use Skills to improve unless they wanted to be weak even compared to wandering cultivators in the same Path and Step.
I didn't dare to teach the only meager Skill I knew due to fear of doing it wrong.
So I really needed a book on basic Skills.
Even if I had to risk death to get it.
But before that, I needed for me and Li Na to grow in power once more.
Hence why I was risking myself and my companion. Not just for myself but for her, for my students and of course to better protect my town.
I heard others call things like these insights, but unlike in stories there is no sudden jump in cultivation upon having one, not even for those in the Path of Sword or Artifacts. It's like finding an answer to a problem, having the answer doesn't mean you don't still need to solve it, just that you now know how.
So insights help but they don't miraculously do the Cultivation for you.
After resting for a day and preparing more traps, I went back into the cave.
'The mole might or not be fated with me, but better to try an easier prey first,' was my thought. And since we seemed fated with those who have electric powers, those were our target.
Unfortunately there were no cousins of Lighting Mice in this particular Spirit Cave. But there were still a few other electric Beasts.
My choice was between the Lighting Bear and the Lighting Bat.
Since the Lighting Bat was less likely to kill me in a single blow the choice was evident.
That does not mean I could be careless, the bat I was hunting was still of a better Rank than Li Na after all.
What do bats hunt? Usually insects, fruit or blood.
Injuring a weaker beast to get a Lighting Bat to attack it would be a possibility if Lighting Bats didn't usually eat insects and prefer fruit.
Turns out that me feeding so much spirit energy to those seeds gave me an idea, to improve our food using spirit energy!
Green Hairy Apples were the best fruit for it, as they didn't die or mutate horribly when given too much energy but let the excess spirit energy out by glowing.
Unfortunately... they taste horrible, their main use is for their medicinal properties. Even more unfortunately due to a certain ability that I have mentioned many times, for me and for four of my students it was better to eat them raw.
That's a long-winded way to say I had a few apples on me, as they do help to heal injuries faster and are also filling and nutritious just... the horrible taste!
Good for us then that apparently Lighting Bats have a weird sense of taste, because I was able to bait a few of them with a single Green Hairy Apple, heck they even fought over it! Sure the thing was more powerful than normal due to being farmed using spirit energy but... I will say it again, it tastes horrible!
Anyway, as the bats fought over the fruit I got ready all the talismans I had in me, and then used them on a single bat, even if a few of the others were also caught in some of the effects due to being too close.
The result was one bat getting half asleep and two others getting drowsy while the other four showed they had some brains and decided to fly away.
Before the three Lightning Bats left decided to attack me together I kicked the apple in the middle of them and showed that they were ruled by their stomachs as the bats then... continued to fight over the apple?
'Bro... why? It's just an apple! It doesn't even taste good!'
Li Na saw her chance and pounced at the most injured bat, the flying creature's electric attacks hurting her but not enough to slow the cat down.
Then I stuck a Spirit reinforced steel knife into the bat's eye.
The other two bats? One had bitten off a chunk of the apple and escaped, the other was eating the Green Hairy Apple right there while making happy noises.
Thankfully the knife worked and the Lighting Bat died. Then I tied the dead body over Li Na's back and we both ran away using Lightning Run.
Some beasts chased us but the few who had not given up by the time we reached the cave entrance were scared away by exploding talismans and the howling and attacks of a dozen wolves.
Then me and Li Na stopped and devoured the bat.
The expected rise in Rank and Step did not happen.
Instead one of the abilities of my cat changed.
Electric Zap changed into Lighting Claws, losing the ability to shock enemies with electricity from any part of her body in exchange for having a more potent electric attack focused on her claws.
The black tiger stripes on her back also changed to look a bit like lightning bolts.
I switched Silent Movement for Lighting Claws, it hurt a bit since I had the other ability for so long but the pain soon faded away and I watched with interest how the ability made my nails crack with lighting. I held a simple steel knife and I figured I could use the ability to electrify the attacks I did with it as long as I held it in my hand.
Just like cultivators can reinforce their body with Spirit energy, they can do the same with any weapon or artifact they hold. But the effect disappears after a minute or two when the cultivator stops holding it.
To give a permanent effect you need to refine the weapon or artifact, something I didn't know how to do. And even then only Sword cultivators and Artifact cultivators can refine something in their souls; and that's required to make something really powerful.
There is however a workaround for Tamers, the more a weapon or artifact is like a Tamer's main Spirit Beast, the better it works for a Tamer.
I had made the handle of the knife I used to kill that Lighting Bat with some of Li Na's hairballs and old nails. Unfortunately after using it to kill the bat it got tainted with the bat Spirit energy and it wouldn't take my energy anymore.
I buried the tainted knife in the swamp, and in a few days the longevity seeds took the tainted energy away. Yet they didn't destroy the rest of the knife.
"Strange, is it because they recognize me and my companion's energy in it?"
I unburied the formerly tainted knife and looked it over, it was as good as new. Then I tried to use it with the Lighting Claws ability and had to quickly drop it or it would have sucked me dry out of Spirit energy.
Even so the knife took away a third of it.
"Dangerous!"
Thankfully I knew something like that could happen, it was in some of the stories in the library. Mostly warnings to mortals to not pick up random stuff in the ground that could be an abandoned artifact or weapon of a cultivator and kill them.
I locked the knife inside a steel box and buried it back in the swamp. I would try again after we rose in power.
Said rise in power... was not easy. After months of hard work and over a dozen killed and eaten electric bats our ability's use of electricity had improved but there was no actual increase in power.
That meant... We had to risk fighting the Lighting Bear.
So we trained and prepared for six months just to do that.
I even got a sword made out of steel to channel my lighting on it, and Li Na and I trained to fight other kinds of weaker but still dangerous Spirit Bears.
Even so, there was the fact that the Lighting Bear could kill me in a single blow and even cripple Li Na.
So we did not fight it directly, we lured it outside the cave into a trap. Half of my money earned so far went into the trap, the bear falling into a hole and being hit with so many talismans I shed a tear at how much poorer that left me. Then Li Na and I attacked the bear from behind, the steel sword breaking as we unleashed an attack on its neck combining both of our electric powers.
Even so, that wasn't enough to finish it, but the tip of the sword stuck in the beast's neck made it a lightning rod for Li Na's electric attacks and we were able to kill the bear, even if we both fainted afterwards.
We woke up days later, starved for food and water. Good thing I have loyal students who prepared a feast for us, including salted and smoked Lighting Bear meat.
After eating the meat and drinking a lot of water we both went to sleep again and woke up a day later.
At Rank 8 Li Na... not only looked like a tiger as I expected, but she had become bigger than the biggest horse.
Even bigger than that sect girl Spirit Beast tiger had been.
"Wait... what?" I screamed looking at my new eyes in the mirror, this was not supposed to happen, not until Soul Reforging at the very least! I had cat like eyes.
Then again even at the same Step I was much stronger than my students.
"Fuck there is no way I will be able to avoid a sect's attention if they see my new eyes."
Worse, outsiders would think I was actually way more powerful than I felt like, that was... Really bad.
As a way to hide my new eyes, I got a straw hat that covered them if I was looked at from far away.
Even so Step 4 made me three times stronger than Step 3, so it is not like I could whine too much.
By checking my second book on Spirit Beasts, I confirmed Li Na had become a Lighting Tiger, just a bigger than normal one and whose colors didn't entirely match.
That meant that as I finally was once more a Step further than my students, I could not delay getting the book on Spirit Skills much longer.
The problem was how to go about it.
Wandering cultivators do trade with each other, and we had the numbers. Plus my eyes did make me look stronger than I actually was.
However, there were flaws in that idea, anyone who actually was as strong as I looked would actually have at the very minimum a strong weapon and mere steel weapons were not gonna cut it.
Also anyone my supposed rank would have juniors much stronger.
And that is just for wandering cultivators, let's not even talk about clothes.
Still, waiting much more would hurt my students' cultivation and as a good and kind teacher; that I could not stand.
So I decided that once more I had to face things with just my feline companion.
And so, after getting a change of clothes, things to trade and bribing my partner with good meat, the two of us went to a Cultivator Market.
AN: Finally going to get that darn book, then again is not being paranoid if they really are after you.
Edited by megrisvernin.
Years passed, my two youngest cousins learned enough about being a Wise Woman that I and my students were able to leave for longer periods of time to train, but we didn't all leave at the same time.
Before I had been a bit careless because I honestly didn't think our town could face any real danger if we just left for a few weeks to a month, but then I finally remembered the time we faced the Savage Rats and wondered if something worse wouldn't appear.
Hence why half of my students would stay to guard the town during each trip. Of course I always got to go as I was their teacher.
Then for the next trip it would be the turn of the half that had stayed back on the previous trip.
Because I didn't feel like it was worth it with all our Spirit Beasts being at Rank 9 we no longer went to the Spirit Forest. Too much risk to encounter that Sect fairy again and not being able to refuse.
Instead, we trained in the Spirit Cave.
Now you may be wondering, didn't we risk facing cultivators for Sects on the cave?
Not if we weren't stupid, because unlike with the forest it was easy to tell when a Sect was using the cave. They always left their group's stronger cultivators at the entrance in case whoever they sent inside had to run from a strong Spirit Beast.
Heck even wandering cultivators did the same if they could, so our group didn't seem weird even if someone saw us.
Oh but what about the Longevity tree seeds? Simple, when I had to leave for more than five days I made sure to bury dead Spirit Beast bodies, of at least Rank 10, near the seeds. And when we returned I buried Rank 9 remains near the seeds.
The greedy gluttonous seeds devoured the bodies' leftover energy, and the bodies themselves, quite fast. I noticed the ambient Spirit energy slightly increasing over time in the Spirit Swamp the more I did this, so I started to do so when I could.
The constant effort of using my spirit energy in the seeds seemed to have made my body slightly stronger too. Even so I still didn't make my students help, as a way to keep the seeds a secret. It would take decades for the seeds to finally sprout anyway, so it is not like I was in a hurry.
Good thing the Spirit Cave was literally enormous and for some reason never seemed to run out of Spirit Beasts, or I would have eventually had to stop to let the place recover.
In fact I much later learned that the reason why the cave never ran out of Spirit Beasts was due to all the twelve major sects burying the artifacts, swords and dead beasts of those who failed the Soul Lighting tribulation there and in other places like it. Said leftovers couldn't be used as they were damaged by the Lighting Tribulation but they still emitted spirit energy as they slowly broke down to nothing so they may as well use them for something useful.
Oh, you don't know what that is? No wonder, you probably were already born quite strong so you will only have to worry about the Mind Lighting tribulation.
Whatever is a Lighting Tribulation? Is a test of the Heavens. A cultivator will face a Lighting Tribulation three times. Upon finishing refining their body, upon fully reforging their soul and after the complete unification of soul and body.
What right do the Heavens have to test us? Well my friend if the Heavens did not test those who want to ascend to the Heavens then evil cultivators and demons would be able to ascend and then the world would be destroyed.
It's also said that, even if you are not an evil cultivator or a demon, those who are truly evil will not be able to ascend. But of the truth of that I do not know for sure.
But I have an idea.
Imagine if you will Friend, that one cultivator finally reaches the end of their Path. Not getting stuck, not being unable to climb more Steps but actually reaching the end. Why? Because they became the one that's both at the top and part of everything. They became all that is, all that was and all that will be.
And then since they are everything and nothing, they find out Life itself is dying and in pain. That ascension means nothing because cultivators doomed Creation. That the whole existence is not only dying but being starved.
Why? Because of greed.
Does the one overall and part of everything give up? Does this being who rules all and nothing just accept the death of creation itself?
Of course not, this is a cultivator we are talking about.
That's why I think all three main paths give back to the World, and why I think the Heavens judge us before we can enter them. And why even a single evil cultivator or demon entering Heaven will cause the destruction of the World were it happens.
Of course my friend, I didn't think about these things back then. I was just an eager and foolish young child that wanted to live longer. Power? Power has always been a means to an end for me, not the goal itself.
I think... I think that if you give up everything to ascend, then there is no point to it. What do you think Friend?
Oh, you want us to become better friends? Why not? Just beware, Li Na will have a hard time accepting you. She is against us becoming friends. Don't take it too hard, she is just jealous.
Before I knew it, puberty finally hit me, good thing I knew how to make the right medicine for me and my female students to avoid a certain inconvenience.
That also served as a wake up call to increase my strength. Even if I was stronger than my students, as their teacher I should still be at least a Step further than them; right?
Besides, in the last few years anything that reminded Li Na of the word "tiger" made her more and more irritated and soon nothing but raising our power would help to calm her down.
So we entered the Spirit Cave alone and tried to track down the Rank 8 Raging Mole only to find ourselves running from its slightly weaker relatives.
Six Rank 9 Rage Moles, one or two we could take, maybe three, but six?
The moles chased us past the entrance and into a nearby lake, where we had laid some traps beforehand.
Basically we got one of the moles with a lot of low ranking explosive talismans, I really needed to learn how to make those myself to save money, and we got two of them to chase us into the lake.
You see the lake was a salt lake, simply not used to get salt by anyone due to being too far away.
And salt plus water plus electricity from a frustrated cat equals fried moles.
Of course the explosions and being hit by lighting had only taken out three of the six moles. And that's when my students got out from their hidden spots and attacked the moles, three moles versus a dozen wolves of the same rank as them? It was a massacre.
Just because I went to the cave alone doesn't mean I wouldn't leave some backup outside after all.
****
"Well that was a bust, at least the claws of the moles are good for making bone healing medicine."
The fur was completely destroyed, the meat eaten by the dogs. And most of the bones had no real use.
"Teacher, did we do good?" Fan Dandan, my redheaded student asked.
"Yes, yes, have some candy." I hand all my students candy as a reward.
What, I didn't mention it before? I had decided after we all had become the same rank that bribes... er rewards for good behavior was a good way to keep them under control.
That also made my students like me a lot more.
We all had finally become adolescents and with that came distractions... but I did not take part in them and none of the romances of my students lasted.
Why did I not seek companionship even for a few hours? Because it would have been a distraction from the Path, because even a casual fling with one of my students would have lost me their respect and because... I didn't want to bother.
Maybe I just had not found the right person who also happened to be a cultivator and so wouldn't die too fast?
I had also been too busy thinking about the things I have done to make myself stronger, besides my main Path, and why I did them.
Eating everything and anything I could was logically taking advantage of such a useful ability. Training my body and how to fight is part of any Path so that didn't count.
But... the seeds of the longevity tree? Constantly feeding them Spirit energy and getting slightly stronger as a result had taught me something proper cultivators most likely already know.
Constantly using Spirit energy is not only good practice but helps to make you better at controlling it and also makes the Spirit energy in your body stronger. Hence the importance of using Skills, even weak ones, as that requires using a lot of Spirit energy until one finally masters them.
So that means that my students, still at Step 3, really needed to use Skills to improve unless they wanted to be weak even compared to wandering cultivators in the same Path and Step.
I didn't dare to teach the only meager Skill I knew due to fear of doing it wrong.
So I really needed a book on basic Skills.
Even if I had to risk death to get it.
But before that, I needed for me and Li Na to grow in power once more.
Hence why I was risking myself and my companion. Not just for myself but for her, for my students and of course to better protect my town.
I heard others call things like these insights, but unlike in stories there is no sudden jump in cultivation upon having one, not even for those in the Path of Sword or Artifacts. It's like finding an answer to a problem, having the answer doesn't mean you don't still need to solve it, just that you now know how.
So insights help but they don't miraculously do the Cultivation for you.
After resting for a day and preparing more traps, I went back into the cave.
'The mole might or not be fated with me, but better to try an easier prey first,' was my thought. And since we seemed fated with those who have electric powers, those were our target.
Unfortunately there were no cousins of Lighting Mice in this particular Spirit Cave. But there were still a few other electric Beasts.
My choice was between the Lighting Bear and the Lighting Bat.
Since the Lighting Bat was less likely to kill me in a single blow the choice was evident.
That does not mean I could be careless, the bat I was hunting was still of a better Rank than Li Na after all.
What do bats hunt? Usually insects, fruit or blood.
Injuring a weaker beast to get a Lighting Bat to attack it would be a possibility if Lighting Bats didn't usually eat insects and prefer fruit.
Turns out that me feeding so much spirit energy to those seeds gave me an idea, to improve our food using spirit energy!
Green Hairy Apples were the best fruit for it, as they didn't die or mutate horribly when given too much energy but let the excess spirit energy out by glowing.
Unfortunately... they taste horrible, their main use is for their medicinal properties. Even more unfortunately due to a certain ability that I have mentioned many times, for me and for four of my students it was better to eat them raw.
That's a long-winded way to say I had a few apples on me, as they do help to heal injuries faster and are also filling and nutritious just... the horrible taste!
Good for us then that apparently Lighting Bats have a weird sense of taste, because I was able to bait a few of them with a single Green Hairy Apple, heck they even fought over it! Sure the thing was more powerful than normal due to being farmed using spirit energy but... I will say it again, it tastes horrible!
Anyway, as the bats fought over the fruit I got ready all the talismans I had in me, and then used them on a single bat, even if a few of the others were also caught in some of the effects due to being too close.
The result was one bat getting half asleep and two others getting drowsy while the other four showed they had some brains and decided to fly away.
Before the three Lightning Bats left decided to attack me together I kicked the apple in the middle of them and showed that they were ruled by their stomachs as the bats then... continued to fight over the apple?
'Bro... why? It's just an apple! It doesn't even taste good!'
Li Na saw her chance and pounced at the most injured bat, the flying creature's electric attacks hurting her but not enough to slow the cat down.
Then I stuck a Spirit reinforced steel knife into the bat's eye.
The other two bats? One had bitten off a chunk of the apple and escaped, the other was eating the Green Hairy Apple right there while making happy noises.
Thankfully the knife worked and the Lighting Bat died. Then I tied the dead body over Li Na's back and we both ran away using Lightning Run.
Some beasts chased us but the few who had not given up by the time we reached the cave entrance were scared away by exploding talismans and the howling and attacks of a dozen wolves.
Then me and Li Na stopped and devoured the bat.
The expected rise in Rank and Step did not happen.
Instead one of the abilities of my cat changed.
Electric Zap changed into Lighting Claws, losing the ability to shock enemies with electricity from any part of her body in exchange for having a more potent electric attack focused on her claws.
The black tiger stripes on her back also changed to look a bit like lightning bolts.
I switched Silent Movement for Lighting Claws, it hurt a bit since I had the other ability for so long but the pain soon faded away and I watched with interest how the ability made my nails crack with lighting. I held a simple steel knife and I figured I could use the ability to electrify the attacks I did with it as long as I held it in my hand.
Just like cultivators can reinforce their body with Spirit energy, they can do the same with any weapon or artifact they hold. But the effect disappears after a minute or two when the cultivator stops holding it.
To give a permanent effect you need to refine the weapon or artifact, something I didn't know how to do. And even then only Sword cultivators and Artifact cultivators can refine something in their souls; and that's required to make something really powerful.
There is however a workaround for Tamers, the more a weapon or artifact is like a Tamer's main Spirit Beast, the better it works for a Tamer.
I had made the handle of the knife I used to kill that Lighting Bat with some of Li Na's hairballs and old nails. Unfortunately after using it to kill the bat it got tainted with the bat Spirit energy and it wouldn't take my energy anymore.
I buried the tainted knife in the swamp, and in a few days the longevity seeds took the tainted energy away. Yet they didn't destroy the rest of the knife.
"Strange, is it because they recognize me and my companion's energy in it?"
I unburied the formerly tainted knife and looked it over, it was as good as new. Then I tried to use it with the Lighting Claws ability and had to quickly drop it or it would have sucked me dry out of Spirit energy.
Even so the knife took away a third of it.
"Dangerous!"
Thankfully I knew something like that could happen, it was in some of the stories in the library. Mostly warnings to mortals to not pick up random stuff in the ground that could be an abandoned artifact or weapon of a cultivator and kill them.
I locked the knife inside a steel box and buried it back in the swamp. I would try again after we rose in power.
Said rise in power... was not easy. After months of hard work and over a dozen killed and eaten electric bats our ability's use of electricity had improved but there was no actual increase in power.
That meant... We had to risk fighting the Lighting Bear.
So we trained and prepared for six months just to do that.
I even got a sword made out of steel to channel my lighting on it, and Li Na and I trained to fight other kinds of weaker but still dangerous Spirit Bears.
Even so, there was the fact that the Lighting Bear could kill me in a single blow and even cripple Li Na.
So we did not fight it directly, we lured it outside the cave into a trap. Half of my money earned so far went into the trap, the bear falling into a hole and being hit with so many talismans I shed a tear at how much poorer that left me. Then Li Na and I attacked the bear from behind, the steel sword breaking as we unleashed an attack on its neck combining both of our electric powers.
Even so, that wasn't enough to finish it, but the tip of the sword stuck in the beast's neck made it a lightning rod for Li Na's electric attacks and we were able to kill the bear, even if we both fainted afterwards.
We woke up days later, starved for food and water. Good thing I have loyal students who prepared a feast for us, including salted and smoked Lighting Bear meat.
After eating the meat and drinking a lot of water we both went to sleep again and woke up a day later.
At Rank 8 Li Na... not only looked like a tiger as I expected, but she had become bigger than the biggest horse.
Even bigger than that sect girl Spirit Beast tiger had been.
"Wait... what?" I screamed looking at my new eyes in the mirror, this was not supposed to happen, not until Soul Reforging at the very least! I had cat like eyes.
Then again even at the same Step I was much stronger than my students.
"Fuck there is no way I will be able to avoid a sect's attention if they see my new eyes."
Worse, outsiders would think I was actually way more powerful than I felt like, that was... Really bad.
As a way to hide my new eyes, I got a straw hat that covered them if I was looked at from far away.
Even so Step 4 made me three times stronger than Step 3, so it is not like I could whine too much.
By checking my second book on Spirit Beasts, I confirmed Li Na had become a Lighting Tiger, just a bigger than normal one and whose colors didn't entirely match.
That meant that as I finally was once more a Step further than my students, I could not delay getting the book on Spirit Skills much longer.
The problem was how to go about it.
Wandering cultivators do trade with each other, and we had the numbers. Plus my eyes did make me look stronger than I actually was.
However, there were flaws in that idea, anyone who actually was as strong as I looked would actually have at the very minimum a strong weapon and mere steel weapons were not gonna cut it.
Also anyone my supposed rank would have juniors much stronger.
And that is just for wandering cultivators, let's not even talk about clothes.
Still, waiting much more would hurt my students' cultivation and as a good and kind teacher; that I could not stand.
So I decided that once more I had to face things with just my feline companion.
And so, after getting a change of clothes, things to trade and bribing my partner with good meat, the two of us went to a Cultivator Market.
AN: Finally going to get that darn book, then again is not being paranoid if they really are after you.
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It confused me when the story seemed to go from standard first person narration to it seeming like An Xiu is talking to some specific person.
That doesn't seem like a "to who it may concern", that seems like there's a particular person she's talking to. But she introduced herself in chapter 2, so it's no anyone who knows her.
That doesn't seem like a "to who it may concern", that seems like there's a particular person she's talking to. But she introduced herself in chapter 2, so it's no anyone who knows her.
- Location
- Washington, USA
My best guess is that it is a "to whom it may concern" but An Xiu knows that her book is only going to be available to people who have enough money/history/prestige to skip said tribulation.
My theory is that she talks to a spirit beast, she wants to bond with/already bonded with.
- Location
- Argentina
That is correct. Heck you can even figure out what kind of beast it is if you read what is posted so far carefully.
At a guess....
and more directly....
That would point towards a dragon, though probably a young one if Lin Na had to explain the very concept of tribulation to them.
- Location
- Argentina
Lin Na is the cat/tiger.
Also...
Now, since this is a Cultivation world, is not hard to guess why the dragon was so ignorant.
Plus take a look at this:
And earlier than that:
To sum up,
An Xiu and Li Na saved a dragon, and An Xiu is trying to befriend it. Li Na is staying outside both to help protect the injured dragon and to avoid hurting it because she is jelly.
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- Location
- Right next to the butcher's shop.
Lightning. You might want to do a search and replace for lighting as this mistake pops up frequently
'entering Heaven might cause the destruction of the world were it to happen.
Point to it
By lightning had only taken out
Gave
Of
Too busy pondering the things I have done
Call moments like this
I get what you're trying to say, but this doesn't make sense in English.
Than
Readied all the talismans I had on me
Chunk
Li Na's back.
And I watched
Crackle
Out I could
Effect you need to refine the weapon or artifact, something I didn't know how to do
There is a workaround for Tamers, the more a weapon or artifact is like a Tamer's main Spirit Beast, the beter it works for them
There's plenty of other errors, but I can only quote so much. Your main issue is using another language's grammar and sentence construction instead of how it should be written in English as well as using a bad spell corrector. Most words used exist, they're just incorrect, like lightning vs lighting.
I would recommend using something like grammarly to proofread your posts and getting a beta to look over them.
Fun story though.
- Location
- Argentina
I edited the first three chapters since I got access to a computer yesterday. No guide on how to remove double space in LibreOffice worked so I had to do it by hand, besides that it helped a lot not having to do any of the editing in a Smartphone and having a spellchecker.
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This has been a really fun story so far, I look forward to the future cat girl. As for the story you killed Pikachu you monster, I'd expected it from the title but it would have been fun if they had a small enough spirit beast could hide with the cultivator well the larger companion took the risks just like how a sword cultivator can avoid using there true sword unless they absolutely have to.
- Location
- Ohio
She could always have her students study their abilities, as to refine their use, and slowly work towards discovering new skills. She likely could of refined or discovered more skills from Silent Movement, maybe even being able to replicate the ability after letting the innate one go.
That would be interesting if she could figure out how to "cultivate" safe beginner skills, risky moderate skills, and dangerous expert skills. Or more likely a skill like the one she invented, a more dangerous to figure out skill, and so on.
That would be interesting if she could use her Wise Woman training to develop training exercises to work up to learning skills she comes up with on her path, maybe even studying her students skills. Heck if she could figure out the ability to eat anything, maybe by meditation and studying the digestion of a dead lightning mouse...
That would be interesting if she could figure out how to "cultivate" safe beginner skills, risky moderate skills, and dangerous expert skills. Or more likely a skill like the one she invented, a more dangerous to figure out skill, and so on.
That would be interesting if she could use her Wise Woman training to develop training exercises to work up to learning skills she comes up with on her path, maybe even studying her students skills. Heck if she could figure out the ability to eat anything, maybe by meditation and studying the digestion of a dead lightning mouse...
- Location
- Argentina
Thing is; is a matter of time, there is only so many hours a day and a lot of that time has to used on following your cultivation path. Even for a Tamer that's the easiest path, there is only so much time left since cultivators still have to sleep, eat and do something else besides cultivation to avoid going crazy.
There must be a balance, all work and no play makes cultivators crazy, this isn't like a typical Xianxia were you can just expend decades sealed in a cave living only of pills while you try to break into the next level.
Tamers have to expend time with their beasts and not just training time, Sword cultivators have to keep improving their sword arts and Artifact cultivators have to keep perfecting their artifact making and refining skills.
That means just meditation for decades to break to the next level does not work as all three paths require you to be active.
Yes some meditation helps, but specifically for a Tamer their bond with their tamed Beasts is really important.
There must be a balance, all work and no play makes cultivators crazy, this isn't like a typical Xianxia were you can just expend decades sealed in a cave living only of pills while you try to break into the next level.
Tamers have to expend time with their beasts and not just training time, Sword cultivators have to keep improving their sword arts and Artifact cultivators have to keep perfecting their artifact making and refining skills.
That means just meditation for decades to break to the next level does not work as all three paths require you to be active.
Yes some meditation helps, but specifically for a Tamer their bond with their tamed Beasts is really important.
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- Location
- Ohio
Err, I am sorry I gave that impression... I meant like maybe an hour of meditation or thirty minutes spent on one skill each day. Like for a week she takes one hour/thirty minutes a day for one skill, the next week with a different one, and so on to prevent frustration.
In other words she chips away at the problem, writes notes on what she learns, and when she makes Breakthroughs... She corellates what she has discovered and writes that down, and basically builds up a technique from scratch like ones before her.
At least she can start some training manuals for her new sect, or at least designate someone amongst her circle to come up with something.
But yeah, I wasn't declaring for decades of meditation at once, but daily small chunks...
In other words she chips away at the problem, writes notes on what she learns, and when she makes Breakthroughs... She corellates what she has discovered and writes that down, and basically builds up a technique from scratch like ones before her.
At least she can start some training manuals for her new sect, or at least designate someone amongst her circle to come up with something.
But yeah, I wasn't declaring for decades of meditation at once, but daily small chunks...
- Location
- Argentina
An Xiu won't teach anything to her students that she doesn't feel she understands enough of. Hence why she wants that training manual about Skills.
She also has not bothered to learn any martial art style yet because her body is still growing so anything she learns won't work right once she gets bigger due to balance and reach issues. Unlike mortals her body improves every time she raises her cultivation, so not only she can afford to wait, is better to do so to avoid habits that will cause trouble on an adult body. Not to say she lacks any experience fighting but fighting her students and other Spirit Beasts is not the same as fighting enemy cultivators. Yet another reason why she tends to stack the odds in her favour when possible.
She also has not bothered to learn any martial art style yet because her body is still growing so anything she learns won't work right once she gets bigger due to balance and reach issues. Unlike mortals her body improves every time she raises her cultivation, so not only she can afford to wait, is better to do so to avoid habits that will cause trouble on an adult body. Not to say she lacks any experience fighting but fighting her students and other Spirit Beasts is not the same as fighting enemy cultivators. Yet another reason why she tends to stack the odds in her favour when possible.
- Location
- Ohio
Would the training manuals teach her how to create a training regimen for the skills she derives from the abilities she gets? Cause with a certain amount of experimenting, she could come up with a way to train the skill. She has some examples from her Grandma's things of training manuals.
Though that would take some time to do, and it's not her focus is it...
Thinking back on it, her whole reason to create a skill from Silent Movement was necessity for her goals. Her whole focus is on extending her life safely, and quality of life improvements.
She seems to have a gift of breaking down abilities into skills she can use, but seems like a lazy cat in that she doesn't seem to want to do things she doesn't want to or need to do.
So I think I understand...
Though that would take some time to do, and it's not her focus is it...
Thinking back on it, her whole reason to create a skill from Silent Movement was necessity for her goals. Her whole focus is on extending her life safely, and quality of life improvements.
She seems to have a gift of breaking down abilities into skills she can use, but seems like a lazy cat in that she doesn't seem to want to do things she doesn't want to or need to do.
So I think I understand...
- Location
- Elsewhere
Untrue!
It is in fact possible to be both paranoid, and also have people out to get you.
For example, you might be so cautious about being kidnapped by a sect that you end up getting a book from a sketchy, anonymous source which turns out to be trapped in some way to sabotage your cultivation and make you vulnerable to demonic cultivators.
The paranoia around your identity could prevent you from confirming the product.
- Location
- Argentina
Is very hard to sabotage a basic book, more so when everyone is getting warned against demons and demonic cultivators in children stories. (And against body cultivators).
At worst the stuff is written wrong on purpose but remember the MC already figured how to make Skills on her own so she would know the book has bad information.
As she gets to a point she needs advanced information then yes sabotage is something to worry about but is very hard to become a demonic cultivator by accident as they use ENERGY FROM DEMONS. And that one tends to be quite noticeable.
This is not the type of story were demonic cultivators just means evil cultivators, here they are literally demon cultivators.
Evil cultivators do exist but use one of the three main paths.
All Tamers can do this but she is talented at doing so. It is in fact how skills are made, they are lesser copies of Beast abilities. It is technically possible to make a skill from zero but you would need to be close to being a true inmortal to do so.
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Since this thread seems a little more active, I guess I'll drop a relatively mild criticism I had been thinking after the most recent chapter. And I know that is only chapter 5.
I hope we get more characters soon. Right now there's what, three named characters? And one of them is the cat. And another (grandma Bai Bao) is dead. An Xiu has students, but so far they've been carefully backgrounded as a blob of "students". I think some of them got brief physical descriptors, but haven't stood out more than that yet. (Which seems sort of deliberate; An Xiu talks about keeping her distance, partially as a way of maintaining her authority.)
But still, there's an awful lot of the protagonist living inside her own head. It will be nice to see her have to deal with someone else as something approaching an equal, or at least someone she interacts with on an extended basis in a back-and-forth.
I hope we get more characters soon. Right now there's what, three named characters? And one of them is the cat. And another (grandma Bai Bao) is dead. An Xiu has students, but so far they've been carefully backgrounded as a blob of "students". I think some of them got brief physical descriptors, but haven't stood out more than that yet. (Which seems sort of deliberate; An Xiu talks about keeping her distance, partially as a way of maintaining her authority.)
But still, there's an awful lot of the protagonist living inside her own head. It will be nice to see her have to deal with someone else as something approaching an equal, or at least someone she interacts with on an extended basis in a back-and-forth.
- Location
- Argentina
Part of it is by design, as if An Xiu was not the kind of loner kid that that prefers books to people she wouldn't have figured a way to become a cultivator on her own. The other is, An Xiu is paranoid of getting close to anyone who is not family or her tamed Beast, way too much information about how cultivators are like. She is slowly growing closer to her students but she also seeks to keep a profesional distance.
The other is, she avoids other Cultivators like the plague because she doesn't want her and the people she cares about to be crushed like bugs under a shoe.
As she grows in power and experience she is slowly opening up but that's gonna take time.