I was taken out of my reading Lu Huá poked me in the shoulder. “Yichen! What has training with elder Huang been like?”

“He mostly lets me do my own thing, but answers any questions and sets up exercises for me.”

“That sounds nice.” Chong Zhou added in. “For the regular disciples, it's mostly strict training that jumps from master to master, and a significant amount of sparing.” I do think I am somewhat lacking in man-to-man combat.

A short pause in the conversation came as I glanced at Lu Huá who seemed to be visibly shaking with excitement even in the small carriage. “I’m so pumped up! We’re going to beat up some guys!”

“I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that,” I spoke up.

Chong Zhou once again tilted his head in confusion, it seemed to be a habit of his. “Why not? If they’re encroaching unjustly on territory that isn’t theirs we should fight them off.”

“Because they’d win.” Both of my fellow cultivators looked at me like I’d grown a second head. I let out a sigh. “The Heaven Enforcing sect is the most combative and the most well trained in combat of the heavenly sects, our sect is the exact opposite, specializing in healing and exorcisms.” According to the book, I haven’t actually seen anything like that so far.” Not to mention currently there's a big divide in the sect, with both sides fighting for power any resources grabbed are more valuable to them.” That's what I got from the book anyway, a big power divide and a long history of violence and conquest. Quite the first opponent.

Li Huá flexed her bicep“But even so! We’re all strong!”

“Maybe for our level, but comparatively, they need this land a lot more than we do, and they have a lot more resources and higher level cultivators, we’ll almost definitely be dealing with someone one or maybe even 2 realms higher than ours.”

Chong Zhou was next. “Why would the sect send us at all then?” I shrugged.

“A few reasons, maybe just to secure the first few exports of the material, or maybe so that we would get beat up and they could use that against the Heaven Enforcing sect later.”

Li Huá was looking more and more confused by the second.

“How would us getting beat up help?!”

“Think about it, a heavenly sect walking into territory that isn’t theirs and attacking the local sect members? That’d be an act of war. Our sect has more allies than the Heaven Enforcing sect and they’ve done things like this before. If war did break out, they’d lose quickly. So an attack on us, means an attack on the sect, means we can effectively blackmail the Enforcing sect for greater resources or even land based on how our leader plays it.” Now both of them were looking confused. I let out another sigh “Look, there probably won’t be a fight at all, as long as the other team is aware of everything I just said, they’ll be under strict orders not to do a thing to us. We’ve just gotta play the long game, and not strike first.”

As soon as I said this, the cart came to a stop. The sect might have paid the old man on the cart already, but I wasn’t about to get on bad terms with the only method of transportation I’ve seen thus far and handed him two silver teals. We nodded to each other once more, and he took off. Nice guy.

The village itself was already in sight and only took a few minutes to get to. Once we arrived we were treated to the sight of 3 beautiful looking men wearing black and silver colored robes which denoted the Heavenly Enforcing Sect, all turned away from us, they were in the center of a crowd, one man was yelling and the other had his sword raised to a kneeling, and crying woman. The other two didn’t notice what was happening as quickly as I did.

“Remember what I said about striking first?” Li Huá looked at me.

“Yes?”

“I take it back.” That was all they got before I moved faster than they could react to with the help of Chi.

I placed my palm on the back of the sword-wielding man with one hand, took all the chi in my body, and vibrated it, shattering the defensive field he had. He made a surprised. “Huh!” Before my other hand came down on his back, with as much strength as I could muster, which thanks to the whole perfect body thing, was enough to shatter rocks. He hit the ground as the crowd gasped.

“What do you think you're doing!” The leader of the trio yelled at me, his sword moving faster than I could see, paused at my neck. I let out an internal sigh. Time to remember those few cultivation books I read a while ago.

“What am I doing!? I am disciple Yichen of the Heaven Guided White sect! Under whose grounds have you come here and attempted to assault our citizens!” I looked furiously at the man, though I was grinning on the inside. Nailed it.

“This woman stole from us!”

“And that gives you the right to kill her?! What proof do you have?! What court did she see?! If you can prove she has committed a crime then she will be tried in accordance with the laws of this land.” He inched his sword closer and whispered to me.

“You have attacked a member of the Heaven Enforcing sect, it would not be against the laws of my land to kill you now.” I grabbed his arm and moved his sword until the steel touched the flesh of my neck, as I whispered back at him.

“Do it. I’m sure that would pan over well with the village of witnesses we have.”

“I could kill them too.”

“Then you’d have a smoldering village and a dead disciple, do you truly think your sect would have any chance of winning that trial?” He thought for a moment then snarled before ripping his sword and hand away from mine and sheathing it. He yelled at the other man to carry the one still coughing on the ground as they walked away.

At this point, Li Huá and Cheng Zhou caught up to me as the crowd cheered. Still acting, I turned to the woman and gave her my best smile. “Are you alright?” She nodded and thanked me before running off. My two companions looked at me with disbelief as I addressed the crowd, still smiling.

“I swear to you people, that we, the members of the Heaven Guided White sect, will not allow you to come under any harm!” The crowd once again cheered as the two looked at me even more baffled.

After a few minutes the crowd dispersed, and I went through the motions of buying rooms with the little money the sect provided us for travel, the innkeeper said we didn’t have to pay, he insisted, and I insisted back. We haggled before eventually, I got the rooms at half price, Chong Zhou and Li Huá just staring blankly at me the whole time. Before Li Huá finally broke the silence as we entered one of the 3 rooms I bought.

“What on earth was that Yichen?! You were like a totally different person!”

“Sorry about that, I had to play things up a little so they would be more effective.” I was sipping some tea the innkeeper had provided us. Despite the number of modern technologies I missed from home, I will admit that the tea here is much, much better.

Chong Zhou was also drinking tea, one of the workers for the small inn had placed it in his hands while he was staring at me. “I don’t get it, why didn’t they attack you after you threw that punch?”

“Because they started it by attacking the citizen without giving her a trial. If they had killed me, you two or members of the village could’ve reported it as a sect member being killed for defending their citizen's right to a trial. It would’ve been a massive blow to the Heaven enforcing white guild, and could’ve been grounds for a holy trial by itself. Attacks against civilians- er, mortals, are treated a lot more seriously than cultivators fighting.” Both of them spoke at the same time.

“A holy what?” Shouldn’t I be the clueless one? Repeating some of what I learned from the book about the 5 holy sects I filled them in.

“It’s when the five sects gather to try a sect for breaking certain rules. Like I said earlier, the Heaven Enforcing sect is low on allies, and high on enemies, it wouldn’t be hard to get a guilty verdict and we would’ve gotten a lot of value out of that. Of course, I’d still be dead, so I pointed that fact out to them and they retreated.”

Li Huá slapped me on the back regardless. “Either way! It was cool of you to swoop in there like that! That's what makes us sworn brothers!” I wonder if that old library has a book about sworn brothers, is it really this easy to make them?

Chong Zhou still had a frown on his face. “I still don’t get it though, if we were fighting to control the territory, why would they try to kill that woman?”

I raised two fingers. “There are two possibilities. One, they are actually that dumb, thought they got robbed or even did get robbed, then tried to murder that woman in the street.”

“And the other?”

I thought for a second about how to phrase it best. “What we’re fighting for right now, is the first few batches of the mineral. The actual control will be discussed by higher-ups and used for trade deals and the like. But the first, and best few batches of the Chi-infused iron will go to whoever the villagers send it to. And if the villagers think they’ll get killed for sending it to us, they’ll give it to the Heaven enforcing sect. So for them, the plan was to find a reason to kill someone to prove they won’t hesitate to do so, then threaten them with death should they not listen to the cultivators. From there, even if we showed up it wouldn’t matter since they’re stronger than us. ”Li Huá interrupted me.

“Wait, wait, wait! But you one hit KO-ed that disciple! Are you sure they're stronger?”

“Li Huá, enforce your arm with chi for a second.” She did as I asked, and I placed my palm on it and shattered it. She spoke with an amazed laugh in her voice.

“Wha-What was that!”

“It’s a technique for dispersing chi, it works both ways though. I probably couldn’t ordinarily beat that guy in a fight, but I surprised him and ended it quickly. I’ll teach it to you later if you want.” I did learn it from the snake demon core, it’d feel wrong not to teach it to the person who actually killed it. Honestly, the reward dispersion for that whole thing seems incredibly uneven considering I got that pill, a core, and became an elders personal student.

“Yes please!” I nodded to Cheng Zhou. The more friends the better.

“You too.” He nodded back and spoke next.

“So, what do we do from here?”

“Nothing.” They spoke in tandem again.

“Huh!?”

“We don’t need to do anything. They can’t hurt us, they can’t kill us, and so long as we’re around they can’t hurt any citizens. They came in with a hostile strategy and we broke it down. They’re at a severe disadvantage. As long as we don’t do anything ridiculously dumb, and they don’t do anything drastic, we’re all good. The shipments will come and we’ll get them.”

Chong Zhou looked worried. “What do you mean by drastic?”

I looked out to the forest surrounding the small village and took a sip of tea. “Burn the whole thing down, and leave only ash as the witness. Blame it on a demonic beast, or forest fire, or some other flimsy but irrefutable excuse.”

Chang Zhou and Li Huá exchanged glances before Chang Zhou spoke. “Violent as they may be, they’re still a heavenly sect, surely they wouldn’t massacre a village like that.” I let out a snort at that.

“They’re unflappably loyal to a violent and destructive cause. I don’t know how far they’re willing to go, but I don’t want to stake my life on it. I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, you two keep the villager's company, help mine, do odd jobs around the town, just be friends with the locals.”

They both nodded. And Chang Zhou let out a sigh of relief. “All these politics are hurting my head. Some manual labor sounds nice around now.” As for me I grabbed my book from inside my robes and started reading. I’ve got some studying to do.

A few hours passed, and as I read the book on martial skills and cultivation practices, the most interesting difference between the sects was that cultivation was intensely religious to the Heaven Enforcing Sect, something the textbook didn’t mention.

The White sect, was more spiritual than religious, though it doesn’t seem much different when you break it down. We believe in the flow of life, and that the universe has a natural order, understanding and flowing alongside that order, makes us stronger and closer to ascension.

The Heavenly Enforcing sect, on the other hand, believed in a specific god called “Yì Láo Yǒng Yì.” Which was quite the mouthful. They believed that cultivation was ascending to become akin to that god and that it, or he, probably it, would guide them should they honor it. This is just conjecture, but if I also had to guess, stating that cultivation means becoming closer to god, would also mean those who had higher cultivation levels are to be respected to the point of worship, as they are closer to god. Subsequently, doing something like say, murder an entire village for some metal, would be a cultivator close to god, attacking those furthest from it, and thus entirely justified.

My crown chakra opened for a second again. Much to my confusion. I still hadn’t figured that thing out and wasn’t even that tired, but energy flowed into my body and I felt amazing. Maybe it has something to do with religion? Understanding the culture of the world? Nothing. Well, I’ll worry about it when my life isn’t on the line I guess.

I placed the book on my nose, covering my eyes and feeling the paper on my skin as I leaned back in my chair. Ok, so they're almost definitely going to attack the village. The questions now are: when, where, how, and who exactly. I looked outside once more, seeing a bustling little town, miners coming back home, food stalls happily selling to regulars, wives, and children welcoming the men back, having completed their own share of housework and studying.

I stood and stretched my back. Time to track down a group of individuals each stronger than I am, and figure out how to not die to them. Fun. I looked outward, away from the village and over the tree line. I couldn’t actually see anything, but a part of me spoke out to simply run. That this wasn’t my fight, and I shouldn’t risk myself over all this. And while I couldn’t really refute the logic there, I’m trying to stick to the side character in a story, not set myself up as the main antagonist. Plus, Li hu would give me shit for it.

I walked out of the Inn, bowing to the elderly Innkeeper and thanking him for the tea, before walking into the woods for a couple of meters. Once significantly distanced, I tried something I hadn’t tried since before the snake incident.

I placed my hand on the ground and reached for my root chakra, still the strongest. It sent out the connecting wave I experienced a whole year back. If it worked how I thought, I shouldn’t have a problem. Once again, but on an even greater scale, I was connected to the world. To the trees, the birds, the townsfolk, to Li Huá who was playing around with some of the town children, to Chong Zou who was helping with the construction of new houses for immigrating workers, and finally, on the other side of the village camped out by the mines, were a group of three strong cultivators. The leader reacted to the connection immediately, stomping his feet on the ground and activating some kind of technique that shut it down. My eyes shot open as I once again looked through only my eyes.

It didn’t matter, I had a plan.