Chapter 18 - Water-drop Slash

News of Yaan’s breakthrough led to a change in the general chatter around the sect for the first time in many months. Despite this small event that lifted people’s spirits by a marginal amount, the atmosphere in the core sect still made Yaan feel startled.

After facing this tireless beast tide for so long without respite, people were growing wary and dispirited. Yaan knew that things might be a bit solemn, but the atmosphere after walking into the central core sect area for the first time in months was a bit too much.

He understood immediately after finding his teacher.

“I still can hardly believe it, True Yuan Qi realm at ten years old, it’s really amazing.” Great Elder Wan sighed in wonder, shaking his head slowly as he examined Yaan carefully.

“But teacher, why does everyone seem so glum? Did something else happen with the beast tide?”

“Indeed.” The old man nodded, his expression darkening slightly when Yaan brought this up. It hadn’t been long, but one or two of his hairs had turned white from the stress since Yaan last saw him. The Elder sighed as he thought about everything that had unfolded, explaining it to Yaan with a solemn tone.

“This beast tide is of the biggest scale the sect has ever encountered. In fact, every single one of the nine organisations in the Greenwood mountain range is under assault now!”

“The entire mountain range?!” Yaan exclaimed, his eyes widening in shock. That meant that this beast tide was encompassing 9 mountains, each similar in size to heavenly path mountain, spaced a hundred or so miles apart! This, this scale was simply so massive that he couldn’t even wrap his head around it!

“Indeed. Each attack is being led by a Rank 5 beast, seemingly acting according to its own will and separate from the others. However…”

“Is there a more powerful beast behind them?” Yaan frowned as he arrived at this conclusion.

“Most likely, but we can’t say for sure. Sigh, if there is such a beast, it is certainly at the peak of Rank 5 of perhaps even Rank 6…if that is the case, I really don’t know what we will do.”

Yaan’s heart started beating faster after hearing that they might be facing against a Rank 6 beast. A Rank 6 beast was not only beyond any of the Qi masters in the Heavenly Path Sect, but it was beyond any individual in the entire Greenwood mountain range! Thankfully, Rui quickly dispelled his worries.

“There is no way that a Rank 6 beast is attacking. Firstly, a Rank 6 beast would never care about this little mountain range. Secondly, such a beast would have no need of an army to utterly decimate all of the nine groups and to flatten the mountains. It wouldn’t even be a battle, the nine organisations would be wiped out over night.”

Yaan sighed in relief, but Rui ignored this and instead closely scrutinised Great Elder Wan. She saw a hint of pride on his face after learning that Yaan had reached the next realm. Mixed in with this pride, she saw confusion, followed by sorrow in his eyes.

‘So he still plans to refine Yaan into a puppet, despite caring for him. If he really goes through with this, it will either shatter his dao heart in regret or force him onto the demonic way.’ She assessed silently.

Perhaps things would have been different under normal circumstances, but Great Elder Wan now understood that their sect lacked the power to protect themselves. He needed more power, not just for himself, but for the sect. For the sake of the sect, he would even sacrifice himself, no matter Yaan who he intended to use for his own gain anyway.

At least, he felt a bit better now that this ‘righteous’ intention was firmly implanted within his mind. Still, the nagging feeling that betraying this disciple of his was wrong had been eating at him more and more in recent days. It was even getting to the point that he was struggling to focus whenever he tried to cultivate…

“I need to go now Yaan, but you should visit the treasure hall. Now that you have reached the True Yuan Qi realm, you’re entitled to choose a treasure, technique, art or spell. You already possess the sword treasure, the Fiend Transformation technique and the Agile Sword Arts, so I suggest that you choose a spell.”

With that, Great Elder Wan jumped gracefully onto his flying sword, before flying with an air of elegance down the mountain, to once again battle against the beasts. Yaan watched as he left, then turned and headed towards one of the few core sect buildings that he was yet to explore.

The treasure hall. A well guarded pagoda with 4 different levels, each of which situated on a different floor. On the bottom level one could find spiritual treasures, objects that were used by Qi masters to properly channel their Yuan Qi and display their prowess. On the second level were techniques, methods designed to assist with cultivation and breakthroughs. On the third level were martial arts like Yaan’s own Agile Sword Arts. The fourth and highest level held the sect’s spells.

There were many different levels of spells, but all of them would be heavily guarded by any organisation. A sect could sometimes possess its own unique spells, so they would never divulge this information to outsiders.

“Oho, disciple Yaan, I have been expecting you.”

Yaan briefly glanced up at the towering pagoda draped in red silk banners and lanterns, then lowered his eyes and smiled back at the old man who greeted him with a kind smile.

This old man was was actually a Qi Temple realm Elder, one of the strongest Elders below the Great Elders. His name was Elder Juseph, known for his carefree attitude, but also his firm strictness towards the pagoda rules. He would never accept a bribe and neither would he give preferential treatment to any disciple; everyone needed to follow the rules properly here. It was probably this fair and just attitude of his that allowed him to maintain his position in the treasure pagoda for so long.

“Greeting, Elder Juseph. I would like to visit the fourth floor.” Yaan clasped his hands, not daring to disrespect this old man. He wasn’t the head of the treasure hall directly, but he was the second in command and was always stationed right outside this pagoda. Getting on his bad side could mean being shooed away from the treasure hall.

Yaan didn’t realise it, but this Elder Juseph would never treat Yaan poorly.

‘A talent like this hasn’t been seen for generations in the sect, his prospects are beyond my imagination. My old life is coming to an end no matter what, so the best I can do is assist the younger generation.’

Elder Juseph was 179 years old, he could feel that he had at most a few years left in him. Looking at the young and vital spirit displayed by Yaan, he felt somewhat envious.

Yaan was led through the pagoda by Elder Juseph personally, up until they reached the fourth floor. Each stair case was expertly crafted from black obsidian, the same material used in the flooring and reinforcements within the walls. It had a very sturdy feel about it, as if destroying this place would be impossible even if he tried.

Yaan was now a True Yuan Qi realm Qi master and a revered disciple of the core sect, but this didn’t mean he could choose anything he wished for. Each floor of the pagoda was split up such that you could only enter if you possessed a certain level of cultivation. He stepped into the first room on the fourth floor, where the weakest spells suitable for True Yuan Qi realm disciples were kept.

This place was much smaller than he had imagined, only storing 25 different scriptures. Upon seeing Yaan’s confusion, Elder Juseph laughed. He had witnessed such a scene many times before.

“Spells are all rare, even to a sect. What you see here is already many hundreds of years of accumulation, resulting in 18 spells that are usable for True Yuan Qi realm Qi masters. You may choose one spell to learn. If it’s something that can be learned right away, then you may stay in a training room until you have learned it. If you are unable to learn the spell right now, feel free to leave and come back later.”

Yaan nodded slowly as he made his way across the room. Each of the spells was inscribed upon a thin leather scroll. Beneath each scroll was a bronze plaque, detailing the use and effect of the spell above.

“As expected, these spells are all trash.” Yaan paused as Rui spoke, then continued examining, deciding to ignore her snide remark.

“Unfortunately, I never bothered learning any spells suitable for True Yuan Qi realm children later on in my cultivation, whilst I only learned my first spell at the Qi Temple realm. You’re quite lucky in that regard, not many Qi masters get the chance to learn a spell immediately after entering the True Yuan Qi realm.”

Given that Rui couldn’t teach him anything of use, Yaan carefully browsed each spell, listening to Rui’s assessment of each that she based upon the descriptions on the bronze plaques. Even though these descriptions were merely summaries, this was somehow enough for Rui to understand and compare the spells without needing to read through the spell scroll itself.

‘Water-drop Slash - The liquid True Yuan Qi forms a blade around one’s weapon, firing away and reaching further than the user could reach otherwise.’

‘Bronze Skin - The Yuan Qi forms a defensive metallic layer around the outside of the body, turning the skin bronze in colour. High defensive power but drains Yuan Qi rapidly.’

‘Exploding Fire Palm - The Yuan Qi is compressed into a single point at the palm, then burned abruptly and exploded outwards. Generates a powerful strike but drains Yuan Qi instantly.’

These three spells were the only ones that Rui considered worth learning out of the selection before him. Even then, she still thought they were a too weak.

Out of these three spells, the Water-drop Slash was most suitable for Yaan. It was unfortunate that he didn’t yet fit the requirements to practice this spell, so he could only leave now and return after refining more liquid Yuan Qi within his dantian.

The Water-drop Slash required that he wrap his sword in a layer of Yuan Qi, for which he would need at least 100 drops. Since he had only recently ascended, Yaan’s dantian held just a single drop of liquid Yuan Qi, far from the requirement to cast even a single slash.

The nature of the True Yuan Qi realm dictated that a Qi master needed to refine massive amounts of spiritual energy to fill their dantian with the liquid Qi. For this reason, the usual stages in this realm were also accompanied by alternative names.

The initial stage was known as the drop stage. The early stage was sometimes called the pond stage. The mid stage was known as the lake stage. The late stage could also be called the sea stage and the peak stage was referred to as the ocean stage.

On first entering the True Yuan Qi realm, a Qi master only had a single drop of liquid Yuan Qi. By the time they reached the peak stage, this drop would have grown substantially in size, developing into an entire ocean.

To properly utilise the Water-drop Slash in battle by using it without immediately exhausting himself, Yaan would need to reach the early stage, developing a small pond of liquid Yuan Qi.

However, he soon encountered a problem.

With the recent development in the beast tide, the Elders were kept busy dealing with the ever growing army of spirit and demonic beasts. Because of this, the sect lacked the time to deal with the surrounding mortals within their territory. This meant that the influx of mortal prisoners had steeply declined. Yaan felt stuck…without prisoners to slaughter, how was he supposed to cultivate properly from here on?

“This situation was never going to last forever, it was already pretty good that you could reach the True Yuan Qi realm with so little danger.” Rui didn’t seem at all phased by this development, much to Yaan’s surprise.

“Then how am I supposed to refine more slaughter aura now?”

“By killing beasts, of course.”

Yaan’s eyes widened as he thought back to his prior experiences with the beast tide. He remembered that he was able to recover his Yuan Qi more rapidly by refining the slaughter aura from the beasts cut down by his sword. Equally, he could use this slaughter aura to refine more liquid Yuan Qi and increase his cultivation!

“Besides, your need for slaughter aura has grown too far now, such that the number of mortals you would need to execute to reach the peak of this realm is in the tens of thousands. You have had it easy until now, but there’s no such thing as a relaxed path to power in this world.”

Yaan listened to Rui’s words and sighed helplessly. In her eyes, The opportunity to kill prisoners who were unable to resist was like receiving a free meal. His mental suffering and ongoing moral dilemma were probably just side notes to Rui. She was so merciless and indifferent to it all that he couldn’t even refute her.