Chapter 6: Tiger Part I
- Location
- Argentina
Chapter 6: Tiger Part I
Edited by megrisvernin.
Now before I continue my story there is something I want to say.
The path of a cultivator is not easy, you get power and a longer life but that power comes at a price. One has to not let the desire to live longer and be more powerful blind them to everything else, because if you do so then you become a monster, just for a bit more power, a bit more time to live. But what use is it to live for so long, if you are left alone? What does having all the power do if all you do is use it to kill, no different from a mere beast?
Think about it, don't give me your answer yet.
A Cultivator Market is a street market run for and by cultivators, no mortal can get in one unless a cultivator takes them there and even then no one will sell them anything. That's because even the weakest pill you can get at a cultivator market will kill mortals.
I simply didn't have enough money to buy anything there but that's okay because a Cultivator Market mostly works by trading and bantering, even if they do accept money. That's because even for those cultivators that have storage artifacts, the amount of money they would have to use to buy things could be quite annoying for the most expensive stuff.
What I had to trade was the bones and skull of the Lighting Bear, good for making artifacts and swords that use electricity. Bone growing medicine made by using Green Hairy Apples and claws of Raging Moles plus other things. And of course, the type of 'special medicine' male cultivators swear they don't use yet buy a lot of it anyway. To be able to affect cultivators, said medicine was reinforced with fur from a Lighting Bear pelt.
Li Na looked really bored as she walked to the market entrance while I was mounted on her back. Being able to ride her was my "reward" for getting such lovely eyes. I couldn't fully hide my new eyes but the hat and the new scarf around my neck made from a Spirit Beast Wool helped. I had gotten the scarf on the road, by trading with a wandering cultivator while I asked him where to find the nearest Cultivator Market. He got some bone growing medicine, a third of my special medicine and the last raw Hairy Apples I had on me. I got the scarf, maybe he scammed me but the scarf at least looked good and was comfortable.
When it comes to cultivators looks can be deceiving, in my case due to still looking like a young teen and my cat eyes I looked way more powerful than I really was. The fact Li Na did look slightly different than a normal Lighting Tiger also helped. While no one in the Market would confuse me with a sect cultivator, they mistakenly believed I must be from a group of wandering cultivators that had found a prodigy and dropped their best things in her.
Even so getting that book on Basic Spirit Skills took hours, mostly because no one seemed to have it when asked. I had to resort to telling several male cultivators that I would yell out loud that I wouldn't lower the price of "that" medicine just because they were regular customers and that worked like charm because I had the medicine and was female, so why else would I have the medicine on me if it wasn't to sell it? Sure they could argue I had bought it for someone else but then that would still get attention and cause them humiliation since why were they even talking to me if that was the case?
After I got the medicine, me and Li Na did our best to make a disappearing act as we had angered several male cultivators.
Any idiot who tried to chase us would run right into a field full of explosive talismans.
And one idiot did.
Because there is always at least one, right?
I then hit said idiot with a lot of lighting and then robbed him blind.
I left him alive because we were still just a few miles away from the Market and so killing someone was considered bad manners. Plus if he decided to look into me later for revenge... well I still had students that could use the practice.
What I got from him was... not much really, just a nice non bonded sword. I left him his bonded sword intact. Everything else had been damaged by the lightning or was of no value to me.
After that we took the really long road back home. As in we took four times longer than we would have taken normally in case someone was chasing us. Thankfully no one was, there were a couple of stupid bandits that had nothing of value, a wandering wolf Spirit Beast that tasted okay raw, and I got a few seeds I didn't have before.
Overall things went pretty well, just had to find someone decent to reforge the sword and erase any marks on it that could be used to identify it.
But that could wait since having obtained the book meant me and my students could reduce our deficiency in Spirit Skills.
Granted the book just had the basics of the basics, just five Spirit Skills to learn but that was still five more that I had before.
Hardening, a skill to make one harder to hurt at the cost of becoming slower and heavier.
Lightening, the contrary of Hardening, makes you lighter and faster at the cost of making it easier to get hurt.
Sight, a skill of improving one vision to see better at longer distances.
Focus, moving most of your Spirit Energy to a single part of the body, either for defense or offense, at the risk of taking more damage if you get hurt anywhere else. My guess is that it would be possible to use that and Sight together to see even better but I had no idea if I could figure out how to do that.
And finally Projection, the Skill of using spirit energy outside your body. The hardest of the five Basic Skills and one I had an insight into thanks to the Lighting Claws ability.
Before I could teach, I had to master the five Skills myself.
First I circulated my Spirit Energy closer to my skin, making it tougher and heavier, in a way it was like armor; only one that was part of me. Then I did the same with my hair and nails, with my eyes, then focused to do the same with the rest of me, but stopped before actually reinforcing my brain and my inner organs, instead I wrapped them in thick strands of spirit energy.
When I was done most of my Spirit Energy was gone. I ate a big meal while focusing on keeping the Skill going and it was hard, everything, from breathing, to moving to thinking, was harder.
I still kept going for hours, using food made from Spirit Beasts and Spirit Herbs and fruits to avoid losing too much Spirit energy. Then slowly I released the technique before going to sleep.
The next day I found that my partner Li Na had learned something from watching me and made a Lightning Armor ability for herself. And she didn't even have to lose any of the abilities she already had to do so!
I switched off almost all the abilities I had on me, save the eat anything but my own species ability, and tried the Lighting Armor.
It was not the same, while Hardening did its best to reinforce the whole body against harm, the Lightning Armor protected it with an armor made out of lightning over the user's body and that was it.
It was also slightly less draining, because it did less. If someone got past the Lightning Armor I wouldn't have any extra protection inside my body, like happens with Hardening.
Still, just using the ability gave me further insight into Projection. Not enough to dare try it before I was ready with the others, but useful anyway.
Oh, you think that you have an answer? Then tell me friend.
Might makes right? Well it doesn't surprise me that a dragon thinks that. If that is your answer then since I am stronger you have to do what I say, right?
Oh, you want to think of a better answer? Very well take your time, I can just continue the story.
I continued to practice hardening for a month, limiting it to just one hour a day because I still had to hunt Spirit Beasts and train my students. Our travels to the Spirit Cave increased in frequency as I needed more Spirit dense food to keep going. Li Na kept practicing her Lightning Armor, so she ate more too. I also didn't forget to feed the special seeds in the Spirit Swamp.
During that month Li Na grew bigger and I did too. I read the book again looking for clues but the book barely had the basics on how to do the Skills and nothing else.
Still whatever I was doing wrong or was wrong with me, it at least had made me stronger. And by copying me Li Na became stronger too.
I decided to start teaching my students the basics of Hardening and while a few of them took to the external spirit armor right away others took weeks to get it.
Because of that I expended six months just going with the spirit armor until every one of them was a master of that part of the technique while I had reduced my hardening training to just half an hour every day.
Then we had our first real conflict with "real" cultivators. A wandering male cultivator tried to steal one of my students, the most pretty of the boys.
He definitely was not expecting to have his heart be destroyed by lighting claws. It should not have happened, he was stronger than me or Li Na, but Li Na had somehow combined hardening with her Lighting Claws, making them denser and stronger at the cost of almost fainting afterwards.
We dropped his body in the Spirit Cave, leaving whatever belongings he had untouched. Even if someone found anything of him after the Spirit Beasts in the cave devoured him, they would think it was some Beast in the cave that got him.
Then again it was a Spirit Beast that had indeed killed him; just not a wild one.
Li Na needed months to recover and I found myself weakened too, somehow my partner had used Focus despite the fact none of us had trained that Skill. She also had pushed it too hard, risking both of our lives if her attack had not killed the stronger cultivator almost instantly.
Despite both of us being weaker my students didn't abandon us and instead trained harder, in rotating shifts; to be able to protect us while we recovered while also not slacking off.
Oh, you have a different answer now my friend? You want to see the world and taste delicious food? I think that's a worthy cause.
Anyway we finally recovered and once we did I looked older, and found myself having sharper teeth. My partner surprised me by pushing a book my way and basically asking me to read it for her. It was a book of old children's stories but Li Na seemed to enjoy it.
Amusingly it is in one of those children's stories that I found out what was wrong with me. Hidden between the text of the children's stories was an advanced Tamer manual and the text became visible when Li Na's spirit energy had touched the book at the same time I was holding it.
It's something called Affinity, what does that mean? That some people are born with a natural talent for a particular element and if that element resonates well with the way they cultivate they become stronger than they should be.
I have an Affinity for lightning and Li Na is a Lightning Beast.
And for Li Na herself, she works harder than my students' Beasts did and also had been at it for longer.
That's it, that's the big mystery of why my body was changing in ways it was not supposed to do yet and why Li Na is stronger than she should be.
Of course having started as a kitten and when I was a small girl probably helped a lot since unlike a dragon we weren't born strong after all.
AN: Yes, Li Na and the MC can punch over their own level... but it has a heavy risk.
Edited by megrisvernin.
Now before I continue my story there is something I want to say.
The path of a cultivator is not easy, you get power and a longer life but that power comes at a price. One has to not let the desire to live longer and be more powerful blind them to everything else, because if you do so then you become a monster, just for a bit more power, a bit more time to live. But what use is it to live for so long, if you are left alone? What does having all the power do if all you do is use it to kill, no different from a mere beast?
Think about it, don't give me your answer yet.
A Cultivator Market is a street market run for and by cultivators, no mortal can get in one unless a cultivator takes them there and even then no one will sell them anything. That's because even the weakest pill you can get at a cultivator market will kill mortals.
I simply didn't have enough money to buy anything there but that's okay because a Cultivator Market mostly works by trading and bantering, even if they do accept money. That's because even for those cultivators that have storage artifacts, the amount of money they would have to use to buy things could be quite annoying for the most expensive stuff.
What I had to trade was the bones and skull of the Lighting Bear, good for making artifacts and swords that use electricity. Bone growing medicine made by using Green Hairy Apples and claws of Raging Moles plus other things. And of course, the type of 'special medicine' male cultivators swear they don't use yet buy a lot of it anyway. To be able to affect cultivators, said medicine was reinforced with fur from a Lighting Bear pelt.
Li Na looked really bored as she walked to the market entrance while I was mounted on her back. Being able to ride her was my "reward" for getting such lovely eyes. I couldn't fully hide my new eyes but the hat and the new scarf around my neck made from a Spirit Beast Wool helped. I had gotten the scarf on the road, by trading with a wandering cultivator while I asked him where to find the nearest Cultivator Market. He got some bone growing medicine, a third of my special medicine and the last raw Hairy Apples I had on me. I got the scarf, maybe he scammed me but the scarf at least looked good and was comfortable.
When it comes to cultivators looks can be deceiving, in my case due to still looking like a young teen and my cat eyes I looked way more powerful than I really was. The fact Li Na did look slightly different than a normal Lighting Tiger also helped. While no one in the Market would confuse me with a sect cultivator, they mistakenly believed I must be from a group of wandering cultivators that had found a prodigy and dropped their best things in her.
Even so getting that book on Basic Spirit Skills took hours, mostly because no one seemed to have it when asked. I had to resort to telling several male cultivators that I would yell out loud that I wouldn't lower the price of "that" medicine just because they were regular customers and that worked like charm because I had the medicine and was female, so why else would I have the medicine on me if it wasn't to sell it? Sure they could argue I had bought it for someone else but then that would still get attention and cause them humiliation since why were they even talking to me if that was the case?
After I got the medicine, me and Li Na did our best to make a disappearing act as we had angered several male cultivators.
Any idiot who tried to chase us would run right into a field full of explosive talismans.
And one idiot did.
Because there is always at least one, right?
I then hit said idiot with a lot of lighting and then robbed him blind.
I left him alive because we were still just a few miles away from the Market and so killing someone was considered bad manners. Plus if he decided to look into me later for revenge... well I still had students that could use the practice.
What I got from him was... not much really, just a nice non bonded sword. I left him his bonded sword intact. Everything else had been damaged by the lightning or was of no value to me.
After that we took the really long road back home. As in we took four times longer than we would have taken normally in case someone was chasing us. Thankfully no one was, there were a couple of stupid bandits that had nothing of value, a wandering wolf Spirit Beast that tasted okay raw, and I got a few seeds I didn't have before.
Overall things went pretty well, just had to find someone decent to reforge the sword and erase any marks on it that could be used to identify it.
But that could wait since having obtained the book meant me and my students could reduce our deficiency in Spirit Skills.
Granted the book just had the basics of the basics, just five Spirit Skills to learn but that was still five more that I had before.
Hardening, a skill to make one harder to hurt at the cost of becoming slower and heavier.
Lightening, the contrary of Hardening, makes you lighter and faster at the cost of making it easier to get hurt.
Sight, a skill of improving one vision to see better at longer distances.
Focus, moving most of your Spirit Energy to a single part of the body, either for defense or offense, at the risk of taking more damage if you get hurt anywhere else. My guess is that it would be possible to use that and Sight together to see even better but I had no idea if I could figure out how to do that.
And finally Projection, the Skill of using spirit energy outside your body. The hardest of the five Basic Skills and one I had an insight into thanks to the Lighting Claws ability.
Before I could teach, I had to master the five Skills myself.
First I circulated my Spirit Energy closer to my skin, making it tougher and heavier, in a way it was like armor; only one that was part of me. Then I did the same with my hair and nails, with my eyes, then focused to do the same with the rest of me, but stopped before actually reinforcing my brain and my inner organs, instead I wrapped them in thick strands of spirit energy.
When I was done most of my Spirit Energy was gone. I ate a big meal while focusing on keeping the Skill going and it was hard, everything, from breathing, to moving to thinking, was harder.
I still kept going for hours, using food made from Spirit Beasts and Spirit Herbs and fruits to avoid losing too much Spirit energy. Then slowly I released the technique before going to sleep.
The next day I found that my partner Li Na had learned something from watching me and made a Lightning Armor ability for herself. And she didn't even have to lose any of the abilities she already had to do so!
I switched off almost all the abilities I had on me, save the eat anything but my own species ability, and tried the Lighting Armor.
It was not the same, while Hardening did its best to reinforce the whole body against harm, the Lightning Armor protected it with an armor made out of lightning over the user's body and that was it.
It was also slightly less draining, because it did less. If someone got past the Lightning Armor I wouldn't have any extra protection inside my body, like happens with Hardening.
Still, just using the ability gave me further insight into Projection. Not enough to dare try it before I was ready with the others, but useful anyway.
Oh, you think that you have an answer? Then tell me friend.
Might makes right? Well it doesn't surprise me that a dragon thinks that. If that is your answer then since I am stronger you have to do what I say, right?
Oh, you want to think of a better answer? Very well take your time, I can just continue the story.
I continued to practice hardening for a month, limiting it to just one hour a day because I still had to hunt Spirit Beasts and train my students. Our travels to the Spirit Cave increased in frequency as I needed more Spirit dense food to keep going. Li Na kept practicing her Lightning Armor, so she ate more too. I also didn't forget to feed the special seeds in the Spirit Swamp.
During that month Li Na grew bigger and I did too. I read the book again looking for clues but the book barely had the basics on how to do the Skills and nothing else.
Still whatever I was doing wrong or was wrong with me, it at least had made me stronger. And by copying me Li Na became stronger too.
I decided to start teaching my students the basics of Hardening and while a few of them took to the external spirit armor right away others took weeks to get it.
Because of that I expended six months just going with the spirit armor until every one of them was a master of that part of the technique while I had reduced my hardening training to just half an hour every day.
Then we had our first real conflict with "real" cultivators. A wandering male cultivator tried to steal one of my students, the most pretty of the boys.
He definitely was not expecting to have his heart be destroyed by lighting claws. It should not have happened, he was stronger than me or Li Na, but Li Na had somehow combined hardening with her Lighting Claws, making them denser and stronger at the cost of almost fainting afterwards.
We dropped his body in the Spirit Cave, leaving whatever belongings he had untouched. Even if someone found anything of him after the Spirit Beasts in the cave devoured him, they would think it was some Beast in the cave that got him.
Then again it was a Spirit Beast that had indeed killed him; just not a wild one.
Li Na needed months to recover and I found myself weakened too, somehow my partner had used Focus despite the fact none of us had trained that Skill. She also had pushed it too hard, risking both of our lives if her attack had not killed the stronger cultivator almost instantly.
Despite both of us being weaker my students didn't abandon us and instead trained harder, in rotating shifts; to be able to protect us while we recovered while also not slacking off.
Oh, you have a different answer now my friend? You want to see the world and taste delicious food? I think that's a worthy cause.
Anyway we finally recovered and once we did I looked older, and found myself having sharper teeth. My partner surprised me by pushing a book my way and basically asking me to read it for her. It was a book of old children's stories but Li Na seemed to enjoy it.
Amusingly it is in one of those children's stories that I found out what was wrong with me. Hidden between the text of the children's stories was an advanced Tamer manual and the text became visible when Li Na's spirit energy had touched the book at the same time I was holding it.
It's something called Affinity, what does that mean? That some people are born with a natural talent for a particular element and if that element resonates well with the way they cultivate they become stronger than they should be.
I have an Affinity for lightning and Li Na is a Lightning Beast.
And for Li Na herself, she works harder than my students' Beasts did and also had been at it for longer.
That's it, that's the big mystery of why my body was changing in ways it was not supposed to do yet and why Li Na is stronger than she should be.
Of course having started as a kitten and when I was a small girl probably helped a lot since unlike a dragon we weren't born strong after all.
AN: Yes, Li Na and the MC can punch over their own level... but it has a heavy risk.
Last edited:
