As he opened his eyes again, he saw a roof and was able to make out some sounds of pots and pans being rattled around in what was presumably the kitchen of this house.
He was on a bed, under a blanket. He sat up and immediately checked his palms. They were bandaged and from what he gathered, there were a lot of poultices applied as well. Other than a constant numbing and pricking sensation, he didn't feel anything else if he didn't move his hands.
'Just clapping my palms as they are covered in Yin and Yang Qi, caused this, to my body? And that wolf was obliterated even though it was a peak Tier 1 monster. No , it was even more powerful as his middle layer Soul Tier body had huge damage because of it.
This probably does not happen to others as they usually use only one type of Qi. I don't think 'Layers of Chaos' technique was supposed to be used like this, or maybe it is. But it seems like the beginnings of a different technique.
I'll name it the 'Yin and Yang clap'. I'll also need to think about what level of the clap my body can withstand so that it can be used in actual battle without compromising myself.'
As Luo was deep in his thoughts thinking about his battle experience, a small girl peeked from behind the kitchen wall.
"You're awake!! How do you feel? Are you in a lot of pain?? Do you want some food? How about I change the bandages? Ahh, I saw your battle towards the end. You're so strong. They would've killed me like the rest of the village if not for you, so thank you. But how come you're so stro.."
"Whoaa, wait, wait. Calm down. One question at a time. What are you, a chatterbox?"
The little girl came closer. She was a little thing, barely four feet tall, with her jet black hair clipped in a bun, kept in place with the help of an ornately carved jade hairpin. The hairpin was long, with a carved snake running along it and it's mouth opened into a carving of a four leaf clover, as if trying to eat it.
Luo observed her as she came over and without saying another word, as if she was pouting at what he said earlier, began to slowly change his bandages. He saw her cheeks puff up like a balloon in a childish pout and he laughed. "Why are you pouting?"
"Because you called me a chatterbox. I will not speak to you again. Hmph!"
"But you just did."
"Did Not!"
"You did it again. Hahaha, you are such an adorable idiot. Anyway, leave the pouts and tell me what's your name."
She did not respond this time so Luo suddenly yanked his hands away. "What are you doing?? I'm changing the bandages. It will cause you more pain if you move it abruptly like that. Are you an idiot? Give me the hands back."
"Only if you tell me your name. I did save you, you know. Or who knows, you might have been the meal of one of those wolves and probably even be digested by now. HAHAHA"
Her cheeks lost color at this thought and she finally said "My name is Xun Yu. What is yours?"
"Now see, was that so hard? I am Luo LianHao and it's nice to meet you little sister Xun."
"Little sister?"
"Yes, seeing as how little you are, I'm calling you Little sister" She didn't really care for his joke and continued changing his bandages.
"Then, big brother Luo, you will be my big brother?" "Yeah, why not?"
"You know that all the villagers are dead, including my family?"
"Uhhhhhh…"
"And that means if you're my big brother, I can now only follow you and you will have to take care of me?"
"Uhhhhhh…"
She finished tying his bandages and rose up in a flourish as she came close and kissed him on his cheek "Then it's settled, you will be my big brother Luo and Xun Yu will be your adorable little sister." With that she suddenly ran into the kitchen, leaving Luo feeling perplexed.
He brushed off these thoughts and inquired Master Yin 'Master Yin, if I keep using the layers of Chaos and extracting only one type of Qi , what will happen if there is a lot of deficit and my Qi skews either towards pure Yang or pure Yin Qi?'
'It's not a big problem. But you have to be careful in the initial realms as it can hurt your body. Your body will be able to completely withstand it once you're in the Virtual disaster realm.'
"Vir...Virtual Disaster…??[1] But that's so far away. What will happen till then?'
'You know, you ask too many questions. Figure it out for yourself or how will you grow?'
'Whaat!! Finee, I will figure out a solution for this myself'
"By the way, Xun, why was your village attacked and all the wolves seemed to be focussed on you. Is there a reason for that?"
Xun walked up to him and said " Well, how would I know that?"
"Fair enough, I suppose. Anyway, who taught you how to bandage and make medicine?"
Xun beamed at this "My father taught me. He was an alchemist and the village doctor. He used to teach me all sorts of things."
She then realized that her family had died and grew sad again. Luo saw this and patted her on her head "It's going to be okay."
She showed a small smile "Your hands suffered a lot of damage. I think it will take you at least a month for them to heal."
"Nooo! I only have two months left to improve my cultivation for the exam."
"I am sorry brother. Because of me you got these injuries."
Luo suddenly felt awkward and waved his hands apologetically "No no. I mean I will still have a month left after my hands heal. That should be enough for your genius brother to venture into the forest to find herbs and treasures."
Xun suddenly had a naughty smile as she put her hands into a nearby bag and pulled out glowing Tier1 monster cores.
" That...are those the cores of the wolves I killed? You even got the alpha's core. Look at it, so green and glowing. It's my first time seeing a beast core. The Alpha's core has a different color."
"So this should help brother cultivate here, right? You can stay here for a month until your hands heal." She looked at him with puppy eyes which made him smile with affection.
"Yes yes. But we should clean up the village. Disease can spread if we leave all those bodies out there. We should clean it up tomorrow. I can help with things that don't require my hands...hehehe"
"En. Let's do that tomorrow."
The next day, after Xun changed his bandages again, Luo went out to survey the damage. As he surveyed a few bodies, he saw that there were a few cultivators in the Gathering Qi realm among the bodies as well.
Cultivation was a hard path and not suitable for everyone. Even if some have the aptitude and cultivate, like the villagers in front of him, breaking through requires immense resources and luck, so they just live with their basic cultivation skills for their entire lives.
Xun kept up with him as he surveyed the village. He saw that some of the beasts he had killed had their guts cut, probably the doing of Xun as she collected beast cores. He then saw that the Alpha's coat was rich and probably had some defense properties 'I should collect these skins and sell them later' As he saw the number of bodies another thought occurred to him.
'Why would the wolves come into the village and attack everyone? Even if they were hungry, a few people should have been enough. Why did they have to kill more than 50 people? Something feels wrong about this. Wolves are clever and only pick battles for practical reasons.
What reason could there be for them to go killing the entire village? Could it be the actions of some powerful young lord? But what could possibly be here?'
He immediately looked at Xun, who saw him and smiled warmly. 'Could it be because of her? If so, maybe I should get out of here quickly with her? Master Fu Lin should be able to make sense of this.'
"Xun , change of plans. We're going to leave quickly. Help me skin this alpha wolf and then we will gather food and your belongings quickly and leave this place." Xun was surprised by what he said but nodded yes.
After Xun carefully skinned the Alpha wolf's coat, they then changed into different clothes and gathered foodstuffs from the now empty houses. He gave her time to gather a few personal artifacts and then they began their way back to Xian town in just a few hours.
They encountered a merchant's cart after a few hours of walking and the merchant agreed to give them a ride to Xian town as he was passing through there as well.
After a journey of three days, they reached Xian town. Luo thanked the merchant and with Xun following behind him, he made his way to his shack.
#Glossary
Currently known Cultivation levels:
1.Gathering Qi2. Qi Condensation3. True foundation4. Core formation5. Virtual disaster realm"Ta da. This is my home. Well now it is our home" Luo said as he pointed towards his wooden shack with just one bed. Xun had a peculiar expression on her face, as she struggled between showing thanks to him and showing disgust at the condition the room was in. She finally settled on a forced smile "Great. It looks gr-great brother." After settling down and having some food, Xun changed his bandages again. "It's getting late, we should sleep." Luo said to Xun. "Who gets the bed?" "Who? Me of course. HAHAHA" "You know if you weren't hurt trying to protect me, I would've made you sleep on the floor. Hmph." " Made me? Did you say MADE ME? How would you have done that?" "You will find out." Luo was surprised at this little girl's stubbornness, but this kind of a silly fight made him feel warm as well. He never had anyone to fight with in silly ways. He smiled as he looked at her when she said "What?" " Nothing. Of co
A month passed and Luo reached the peak of the 3rd layer in Gather Qi and Xun reached the 6th layer. Luo's hands healed but scar tissue formed over his palms and obscured all the lines on his hand."Xun, it has been a month now and my hands have also healed. We have one more month for the summer competition and I should go to the Dai Shan forest like I originally planned to increase my cultivation.""Okay brother. I will meet you at the competition directly.""En. Sounds good. You can come there with Master Fu Lin. Don't forget to get the jade slip of the Ancient Zither Abode before the competition." Xun nodded to this and Luo departed towards the Dai Shan forest.After running for three days, taking breaks when he could, the scenery slowly changed around him. He could tell that he was nearing the Dai Shan forest by the increase in the density of Spiritual Qi in the surroundings.As he made his way inside he started to s
Just as they were congratulating themselves, a Tier 2 lord Naga monster, which was double their size and had blood red scales appeared in front of them from the mist. It looked at its dead brethren and let out a shrilling scream filled with hate. It was also a mental attack and all the half step cultivators except Luo passed out.Luo was guarded from the attack by Master Yin 'I'll guard against its mental attacks. You can take care of it without any worries.''Thanks master. I won't let you down.'Luo went alongside Ma Jiande as he prepared to attack it. The Qi condensation cultivators had not passed out but it was a strong mental attack and only Ma Jiande was unaffected. "Luo, it seems it's just you and me. Don't piss your pants now.""In your dreams brother."Luo asked him if he had a finisher attack with his machete and Jiande said "I do but that thing's defense is very hard. It won't pierce through.""You let me worry about that and prep
He came out from cultivation and saw that the Tier 3 monster outside had been killed by someone and he could see the signs of a bloody battle. He packed the remaining Blood essence fruits to give Xun and came out of the hollow in the branch.'My body is as strong as peak True foundation disciples now, so I should be good in battles. But I should probably focus on a movement technique for use in battle. My current moves are strong but predictable.''Good thinking Brat. Good movement techniques are a must. I will not help you explicitly by giving you a technique, but I can let you view how I use them and come to your own deductions.''That would help as well master. Your movement techniques must be very profound.'' HAHAHA, of course, they are. They are the profoundest of them all. HAHAHAHA!'Luo rolled his eyes at master Yin's smugness but was excited to learn the techniques. 'This one should do. This is one of the most exciting battles of my life.
Luo now decided to start for the summer competition. Xian town was to his east now and headed Northeast towards Kumji town, north of Xian town, where the Summer competition would be held.He just started running out of the forest, all the while practicing the 'Wave' portion of the Iron and Wave steps as he zipped past the Dai Shan forest at high speeds.After running like that for 2 days, he reached Kumji town with the competition being hosted in 3 more days. The city was already bustling with people coming in from different sects to attend the competition. Lamps were hung in the streets and the shops were decorated gaily.There was a kind of festive mood everywhere. Most of the inns were already occupied, so Luo had to search for a while until he found some boarding for a few nights and paid the rent. He slept through the night and woke up late, getting all the travel tiredness out of him.He washed up, had some breakfast and with the blood essence
Ignoring Cai MingZhu, two disciples who were twins, suddenly went near Luo and as they surrounded him, constantly looking at him from various angels they introduced each other. "We are the nightingale twins of the Ancient Zither Abode. This is Zhong Bai, my brother.""And this is Zhong Gui, my brother. Now, you should introduce yourself."Luo was amused at this and introduced himself "I am Luo LianHao, nice to meet you."The other apprentice, a scrawny girl with a flat chest and short,wild brown hair looked at Luo with disinterest. As their eyes met, Luo smiled "Hello sister, I am Luo LianHao, what would your name be?""Hmm. My name is Hao Qi". She looked at him up and down and carried on with her business.Luo also introduced himself to Cai Mingzhu but she did not grace him with a reply, so he shrugged and moved to the registration counter with Xun.After entering their names for the competition, master Fu Lin bi
As everyone, about 500 who passed out of the 5000 applicants, shuffled into the next building for the test, they were allotted different rooms based on their token numbers. Luo and Xun found their room and started walking into it. Cao Mingzhu , Zhong Bai and Gui and Hao Qi were also in the same room as them.The test began after the instructors explained the rules and gave out written tests with questions that checked their approaches to different problems. Cao and Luo at once began to tear into it and started answering their questions.Xun looked at all the questions and she didn't recognize half of them. The other half were as master Fu Lin had made her practise. The Zhong brothers started meditating and listening to the tempo of the brush strokes of Luo and Cao who were answering the questions vigorously.They found the rhythm in it and started using their own brushes to replicate that rhythm and answers started flowing from their hands as well.Hao Qi
Master Gu Ryu bade all of the applicants to move to the open ground for the next round of testing and everyone followed his orders."All right. Now for testing how much of the 36 walls of Soul you all have comprehended." He then expanded his Qi and his Martial will with the intent to kill, gushed out from him. This was to put pressure on the soul or to test out the mental defense of those around them.Hua Geming comprehended the soul defense technique until the peak of the 4th wall of Soul and he immediately put his soul defense up. While it was still hard for him and he was feeling a little suffocated under the pressure he withstood it.Cai MingZhu had comprehended till the 3rd layer and had broken through to the 9th layer of Gathering Qi. The Zhing Gui and Zhong Bai Twins also comprehended till the 3rd layer but their cultivation had not progressed enough for a breakthrough. These three were finding it very suffocating under the pressure but were able to withs
Luo had made amazing progress with the short scythes and in extending Qi to his weapons. But his most valuable progress was to his soul cultivation because of painting 10000 runes in the room. Now both Luo and Hua, with just a month left to leave from the secluded cultivation, sat down to circulate and refine their Qi. **** With it having been a month and a half since everyone went into secluded cultivation, Pan Hua was guarding the entire sect and taking care of administrative business of the sect without any major incidents happening other than arguments with a few merchants. He had even gotten new trade deals by being more shameless than the sect master usually is. With a couple of weeks left before the sect master and everyone came out, Pan hua got word of summons to open at the sect gate. Pan Hua greeted the messenger and bade him to follow to a guest house. Once inside he offered hospitality for the messenger in the form of tea and some snacks. “Well, what is your name and w
“Alright let's go.” Luo said as he got into a soft stance of Iron and wave steps. Hua immediately started with a few probing attacks and started attacking Luo in predictable patterns. “Let’s first get you accustomed to using the short scythes. We can slowly scale up after that.” “Alright. Sounds like a plan” Luo and Hua clashed again and again as Hua broke Luo’s attempts one by one. But Luo used this feedback to remove his faults one by one by trying out new things each time when one attempt failed. He would tweak the attack a little until it could be at least successfully parried. He tweaked all of his attack patterns like this in a slow, persistent spar with Hua. After a week of sparring, Luo got the basics of the schort scythe down. WIth excellent feedback from Hua and his revision of the memory where Yama and master Yin fought, he could improve by leaps and bounds. He had a basic framework down from watching the memory play in his mind again and again. He got to practice these
Luo continued his work and he was done with completing the ten thousand runes on each tile of the room by the ninth day itself. He was exhausted but it didn't really show because of the Heaven and Earth Qi he was absorbing. He looked over at Hua who had been alternating between meditating and then practicing the Clap and Thundering slash according to the manual. Now that he had a couple of days till sparring started, Luo sat down to collect and refine his Qi.His soul cultivation had a surprising benefit by him painting thousands of runes. He could see wisps of world formations inside his mind. When he asked master Yin what it was he got the answer “This is the benefit of soul cultivation. As you cultivate your soul, your senses become sharper, you will get resistance against mental cultivation techniques and if you learn those techniques on the Phantasmal spirit crystal you got from the library then it will give you a much better repertoire of techniques.”“Master, what techniques do
Although everyone was shocked that Hua had regressed , they understood the logic in his acceptance of it. Fu Rah bid Master Yin a farewell and prepared for an immediate set of instructions for everyone gathered there.“All of you who have reviewed blessings from the great master Yin, you will all have to focus on closed door cultivation, even us teachers have to do it. I want us to be in great shape before we receive any unwelcome guests, of which believe me there are soon going to be plenty.Luo and Hua, I believe it is best for the both of you to temper your cultivation levels by listening to Master Yin and practicing the techniques you have received from the Royal Library. I believe progress there will not be wasted. Both of you are to train in battle tactics with each other's company under Master Yin’s guidance.Everyone else, please go into secluded cultivation and start practicing the techniques the master has given you. The time limit for now is 2 months. At least for me and m
After he opened his eyes, Master Yin asked him “What is your answer to my question?” Hua replied “I know that the physique and the techniques of cultivation that Luo practices may be much better than mine, but still, if I doubt my ability to reach a stage in the future in the present moment, then why even cultivate, why even aim to attain the heights of martial dao? What gifts he has gotten, the universe has given him, and it is not unthinkable that I will have fortuitous encounters of my own in the future either, right? That is my answer to your question Master Yin.” “Whoa..that is a very good insight into the way of the Dao or the mindset one needs to pursue it. Good to see that my test did not break your spirit. Worthy of your name ..Geming. And this master has a good reward for you as well. You see I showed Luo a couple of memories so that he can pick up a technique by seeing it, but he picked up the technique of my rival…can you believe it? My useless disciple did not pick up
Master Fu Rah came to Luo and then asked him “So, what do you want our help with in training? We will help you with whatever you need, no holds barred.” Luo looked at his friends and then at Hua and Xun’er and smiled “Master, I don’t want to be the only one who is favored. These are all my friends and I want to grow alongside them. I don’t want to just be singled out for getting help. I have received help from all of them when needed and would like for nothing more than to grow along with them.” Fu Rah was brought to tears which she held back barely. She nodded and then gave everyone a bear hug at once. “Yes, yes, you are all kids I have had my eyes on. Did you know that our sect does not even have proper core disciples, as not many would join it and all the applicants would just go
Fu Rah, followed by Fu Lin and Ren Cho, entered his residence. Master Ren Cho went to get some tea for everyone while Luo, Hua, Xun’er and the others followed and entered the hall as well. Hua and Xun’er were the only ones standing beside Luo, looking back to back at him and then at the others. Cai MingZhu, Hao Qi and the Zhong twins went and stood beside master Fu Lin. Fu Rah had a serious expression but she waited for Ren Cho to pour some tea for everyone. Luo refused the tea, to which master Ren Cho said “Kid, no one is going to punish you or cause you any harm. We just want to know so that we can give you the treatment that can foster your growth and think of handling any unwanted outside interest in your powers.” Luo sighed and took the tea that was served t
Ren Cho was at the middle layers of Core formation and had not advanced in a very long time. But he had a flash of inspiration from the drawings that Luo had drawn and went into secluded cultivation for the day. He could feel the intent of movement , of balance between soft defense and hard defense and the flow of offense in the movements. Although it was more natural with scythes and Ren Cho did not use scythes, but a staff, the profundity of the movement still allowed him to take his own insights and use it for his staff techniques. He was burning his Qi at an amazing rate. It could be sensed by master Fu Rah and Fu Lin and other masters of the sect, even from afar. Fu Rah rushed into the scene thinking something had happened only to see that Ren Cho was in closed cultivation. She intimated the same to the masters that had followed and ordered them to quietly sit outside in the premises and not make any disturbances. She inquired about
"So have you figured out how to use the Phantasmal spirit crystal yet? I don't think your Qi will be enough to actually use it now, will it? And what do you think the training in store for us will be?" Hua asked Luo. "I haven't figured that out Hua. And as for training, I suppose we'll see in a couple of days. For now, I just want to eat like a pig and sleep." "How about this, how about we spar tomorrow? Huh? Huhh?" "What brought this on? And I don't want to fight you until I have a proper melee weapon. My long range attacks won't work on you and my other techniques are too lethal to be used in sparring." Luo responded. "Ehhhhh~~~. Well alright. We should go on an adventure to get you a named weapon after our training ends. Short scythes huh. Well, we can go ask master Ren Cho about it. He might know more." Hua said. Luo raised his eyebrow and said "Well, who knows how long the training will be for? To master your technique and