Luxire Worse
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Dao of Fuck Off Chapter 5: Aggravated Ascension
🕑 Added 2024-07-30 22:00:26 +0000 UTC
Before I face my death, it strikes me as an oversight that the sect scholars have so little to publicly say about tribulations.
Like, I know I have an abnormally scientific mindset for the position of ‘Cultivator’, but tribulations are still quite a fundamental part of the process, and the most anyone had to say regarding them was that the severity of a tribulation was determined by how much the heavens hated your path, with a side note that the more powerful a tribulation was, the more impressive the cultivator would likely be if they survived.
‘If’ being a crucial operator there.
So conventional wisdom, looking at the gathering thunderheads above me, would presume that I am one of the most heaven-hated entities on record.
But that viewpoint is poisonous. Literally. If I hold that view and try to face the heavens’ first attempt to stop me, I’m going to die, and none of the measures I brought with me would be the slightest bit of help.
Which means I need a completely different viewpoint to approach this from, and I need it in the next minute.
No pressure.
“Let’s see.” I mutter aloud as much to calm my jittering nerves as to sort my thoughts. “I’ve argued with you over the fewest possible points of your decrees that I can, and you rewarded me with unprecedented ease of working with Ki. I’ve talked to you about what I’m doing at every stage, and my perceivable fate has been almost irrationally cooperative. Out of everyone and everything I interact with, I put special effort into giving you Face, to go with the face. So you being angry with me doesn’t track.”
I stare into the swiftly forming eye of the tribulation storm with narrowed eyes.
“No, not that’s not anger, is it?”
Electricity dances along the clouds eagerly as they billow.
“Eager, not angry. I can work with that.” I nod and prepare to gamble on my deranged ass understanding correctly by swiftly tearing down the protection array.
After all, it was impolite to wear an ear covering when a friend wished to speak with you.
“Here’s to being right or being ash.” I sigh and reach for the ki of the storm, not to pull it in and process it, but to start producing Chi in the right ‘flavor’ to complement and hopefully incorporate it as the lightning starts arcing wide.
The first bolt launches down and strikes my brow
~~~
Hope. Joy. Worry. Affront. Surprise. Understanding. Joy.
~~~
My body spasms in agony even as I form Qi of the bolt’s insanely pure Ki and my Chi.
“You are!” I laugh as I process the incomprehensibly pure emotions that had shoved their way through my awareness. “You’re trying to talk back! Buddy! Come on!” I crank my Chi production up to full, entirely caught up in the fact that heaven itself wanted to talk. “Let’s do this!”
The second bolt comes to my outstretched arms and slams into my chest.
~~~
Amusement accompanied a memory of cataloging bugs in the rice field. Irritation with a memory of being chosen by the recruiters. Approval at my pushing for the boar, and at repaying uncle Hing. Disappointment at my interactions with the instructors and Elders. Acknowledgement of my many, many maimings of others. Interest at my dinners. Joy at my attempted conversations.
~~~
What should have, by rights, been a hole in my torso is instead a charred, blackened patch that my body was already working on repairing.
I laugh in exhilaration. I could do this! I was hearing Heaven!
“Couple bits got garbled!” I shout as I rise to meet the voice of Heaven again. “But I’m hearing you!”
The third bolt jumps and jags around before stabbing into my abdomen.
|||
Sung Shu gaped at the report that his eagle-eyed comrade and friend just made, but it was Hua Jin that voiced everyone’s incredulity.
“What do you mean he’s not blocking?”
“He’s throwing his guard wide open and taking the blasts directly.” Yu Jung clarified the nonsense claim. “It looks like he’s yelling at it too, a challenge, maybe?”
Eit Kai shook his head. “No, remember what he said about talking to heaven? He’s gone mad in the face of heaven’s wrath. He’ll be dead before the seventh strike.”
“I don’t know. The damage isn’t lining u-” Yu started to explain before gaping.
“What is it?” Sung demanded. Watching over juniors who broke through major bottlenecks while on excursion was one of his most sacred duties, and this was already far too abnormal for his patience.
“He’s a celestial spirit.” Yu mumbled. “There’s no other way.”
“Report! Damn it!” Sung roared before Po No’s awed face caused him to spin around and see lightning flying back up from Guang’s position.
Nowhere near the same strength, but very clearly Heaven’s very own lightning being thrown back.
A moment’s glance at the other juniors who were watching the tribulation confirmed that they had at least a glimpse of what this meant.
If Guang survived, he was in for a truly busy dinner schedule.
|||
“How many times do I have to say it?” I laughed through Heaven’s insistence and flicked the offending decrees back across the desk. “I’m not looking to be under your command. I don’t have that sort of trust or duty within me.”
Something in the process of accepting Heaven’s answers had pushed the vague sense of connection into a full blown mindscape as the fifth blow landed. Imagery appropriate to a beaurocrat’s office seemed to be indicating Heaven’s -quite reasonable- position as an authority figure, and as the discussion seemed to veer toward the future, the pleasantries had faded to negotiation.
Other decree tokens lit up with insistence, and I sighed. “Yes, I know you’ve provided assurance that I can develop the trust and duty, but it’s not yet a part of me. So no. Ask again after I have the ability to accept and not self-destruct.”
A third set of decree tokens burned up outright, no doubt burning my flesh as well.
“That’s fine by me. I don’t need those assurances either. Honestly, you’re being surprisingly accommodating with the rest of these.” I gestured easily to the decrees that I’d had no objection to. “I mean, unending armies of enemies? That’s like a birthday present.”
A strong sensation of amusement accompanied the exchange ending.
~~~
The burns were surprisingly light as I stood again, a manic laugh carved into my features.
Ki melded with chi, and the qi cycled right back to producing chi as fast as I could. I could taste the chi getting purer as I argued with Heaven, and the resulting qi from every strike was similarly purer than anything I could have dreamed of even yesterday.
Heaven didn’t hate me. This wasn’t rage.
Heaven was giving me the tools to defy it. Willingly.
Sure, the process sucked, but what about being a cultivator didn’t?
And this payoff was so much better than months of bedrest and a few insights.
The sixth bolt slammed down into my skull as I laughed in rapture.
~~~
The strain of evaluating each token was getting immense. I’d already noticed that my will couldn’t manipulate them directly, I had to have my mind and soul working in tandem. But this was only exchange six out of ten and I was already seeing my limit.
Impulse drove me to try melding them like I melded ki and chi, but that caused me to fumble several decrees and singe my flesh. Suboptimum.
I worked as I thought, accepting decrees of future trials without contest, dismissing decrees of subservience, as well as anything that felt like ‘mortal desires’, given that those were the ones that heaven refused to grant if I didn’t bow.
I’d made my own maguffin once, I’d do it again if I needed one. Divine promises of power and pleasure were for those too weak to make their own.
Every time I flicked one back, Heaven laughed approvingly while also grumbling that I wasn’t bowning. No words from the order of the world, but I could kind of understand our positions. Heaven decreed men’s lives and bristled when they rejected its decrees, but it wasn’t a nobleman. It could adapt and work with men, if the men listened.
Cultivators were men who rejected the position ‘man’. So Heaven had to file them as a new entity. ‘Man’ could not survive qi, after all. That’s why cultivators had to re-temper their flesh and sou-
“That’s it!” I exclaimed as clarity shot through me. My mind was still the same basic structure as I’d been reborn with! That’s why I had to manipulate the pure ki decrees with my soul! “You need me to finish the reforging before you can accept me as a qi-man!”
Unadulterated enthusiastic vindication rolled through the connection and I cheered with Heaven for the clarity of the demand. Thinking quickly, because these lighting-strike dilations didn’t hold forever, I thanked Elder Tong for provoking my paranoia and made a guess at how to cultivate my mind based on the foundation of the mental defense art I’d picked up.
Lining my thoughts with chi and letting Heaven’s ki meld with me in a nearly-desperate bid to get my transformation finished in time for my buddy to file me without issue was among the most existentially painful things I could recall imagining, and hands-down the most painful thing I had experienced.
But as the split attention mandatory to forming a foundation allowed me to also continue sorting the decrees, the lessened strain of doing so proved that it was worth it.
And when the bolt finished, I was still standing, staring at the stormclouds rolling in visible excitement.
And then they changed their pattern, and the lightning dancing around took on several more hues as the seventh bolt built and I prepared my thoughts and emotions for the upgrade that exactly nothing in the sect lessons had mentioned.
The golden spear of lightning that descended on me was massive. Easily as wide as I was tall, and I opened my arms yet again to accept my friend’s gift.
||||
Huan Kong stared at the storm that threatened to dash his hopes one last time. The heaven-blessed disciple that held the promise of showing the sect the value of cooperation was gathering a tribulation large enough to challenge even his seniors of several major ranks.
One strike. Powerful. Final. Devastating. As if Heaven were declaring little Guang to embody the sin of cultivation.
The Sect Master shook his head. It was a fool’s dream to think men could be more than beasts. Heaven would never stand for challenges to its rule.
A second strike. Stronger, louder. But confusing. There shouldn’t have been a need for it. Guang was but a Qi Condensation tier. The first strike being visible from Kong’s mountain should have slain him outright.
A third strike. Despite himself, Kong’s ancient heart stirred in hope. If the boy could, somehow, survive, none would dare challenge his teachings openly.
If Guang could live through this, Kong’s dream of so many centuries ago might be realized.
A fourth strike. Deafening even with thousands of kilometers of distance.
A fifth. The entire population of the sect below him seemed to turn their attention to the storm. Lesser eyes couldn’t see the truth of it though. Lightning being thrown upwards was barely visible to Kong’s nigh-divine sight.
A sixth. A bolt comparable to ones in his own fourth tribulation, again had Guang somehow returning fire.
Then the storm shifted. Heaven’s wrath palpable throughout the land.
A seventh strike. No mere bolt, but a towering column of golden rage slammed into the boy’s location. Kong paled, unsure if he, the master of a mighty sect, could survive such a strike.
The strike held for almost a minute before heaven was done scrubbing Guang and Kong’s dream from the world. The sect master slumped, defeated by both his own sect and heaven itself.
He resolved to yield his position to his second-in-command. The sect had no use for a man as defeated as him.
And then the eighth strike landed. Golden in fury, even larger than the impossible strike.
But Heaven needed to hit Guang again!
One Thousand years of defeats, encrusted on the Sect Master’s soul, quaked as his spirit ignited in hope. If Guang could survive one, what was two? If two, what was four?
The eighth finally ended three slow breaths later, and the world waited in deafened anticipation.
A ninth strike formed, and Kong had to blink as it’s brilliance, heaven’s rage made physical, threatened to blind him. He prayed, for the first time since forming the sect and to whatever god or spirit could hear him through the din, that Guang would win.
The day turned dark as the light of the strike faded, but the clouds didn’t disperse. One more strike. Tribulations were always limited to ten. Heaven’s own decree, limiting its power.
The world turned white as the last strike fell upon Guang.
Kong’s soul burned in vindication, and the shackles of his failures seemed as nothing to him. He felt his bottleneck release and his path forward become clear. Guang had done the hard part. Now it was up to him to control his sect like he’d been failing to for centuries.
The rise of the Yellow Fang Sect was now, and their rivals would fall in line or fall in battle.
---
“Kill him now! Don’t give him time to recover!” I heard someone shout as Heaven’s final gift faded and I grinned. Humans would be humans.
“Now, now. Is this really how you want to suffer?” I called out as the power that even my cultivated flesh had no hope of holding onto for long surged through me. “Taking the fight to someone still sparking with divine might?”
A blade in my gut was the answer I got, and I barely opened my eyes in time to see Tong Sailong’s glowering face before the power I was barely holding onto leapt from the wound and disintegrated her.
I took a moment to focus on closing the wound, and my flesh obeyed easily, before turning to the other three assassins. “I really must suggest waiting until I’ve stabilized. It’s not safe to disrupt my form right now.”
“What technique was that?” Tong Luking gaped with the least composure between the three.
“No technique.” I answered. “Merely Heaven’s gift overflowing my vessel because I managed to touch the divine secret with a barely formed identity core. I reckon it’ll be three, maybe four days before I can be harmed without... that.” I looked at the empty space that used to hold the woman. “But if you want to wait around while senior brother Sung reports and I bleed off the excess, I don’t mind.”
“Brother Guang!” Sung’s desperate voice rang out as he crashed through the treeline.
“Ah! Senior Brother! I found a hole in our cultivation philosophy!” I greeted him, casually dismissing the Tongs.
“You reckless idiot! Get behind me!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Brother, my dear friend! These kind fools pose no threat today. You can relax! Enjoy my success with me!”
“Have you gone mad?”
“Oh, no more than I began. I’m merely hosting Heaven’s might within a fragile body, so mortal means cannot touch me until I stabilize.” I laughed and approached him, guard to the fools nonexistent. “Come! My pack has tea and meat enough for us all! Having Heaven’s voice sear my flesh gave me a wonderful idea for a roast!”
“You shall not leave here alive, Jinsheng!” Tong Kai declared and I felt the ripple of his famed Flowing Dragon Realm cover the area.
I dropped my head with a sigh. “Brother Sung, might I impose on you to hold our brothers and sisters back for a few moments? It seems that some foolish humans wish to taste Heaven.”
“Your safety is-”
“No concern, today.” I interrupted. “When he cuts me, he shall die and I shall live. But I worry that the others might be harmed in the exchange.”
He looked me in the eye for a moment and saw my confident sincerity, then finally relented. “Alright, but nobody will forgive you if you’re wrong.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to.” I laughed and patted his shoulder. Then, only after he’d left the clearing, I turned around to address the Tongs.
“Well? What are you waiting for?”
“Kai, do we have an answer to whatever that technique was?” Luking asked with far more trepidation than suited a cultivator.
Tong Kai, at least, smirked like he had a plan. “Arrogant fool, thinking you know everything after one tribulation. Die!”
I took note of how he wove his qi into his Realm technique to move with it in a wonderfully impossible manner to outflank my lack of a guard and swung his blade right through my skull, cleaving my brain horizontally while ducking as Heaven’s power gushed forth.
And then the golden light curved down into his shocked form and wiped it away, and I ran my focus along the damage to my mind and brain before looking at the remaining assassins.
“Ah, he must have thought that my thoughts were still mortal! An unfortunate misimpression. Would either of you like to try? Or to join me for a celebratory meal?”
The lesser Tongs shared a glance and fled without a word.
“Does anyone else believe they know my weakness today!” I called out an invitation to any other assassins in waiting, receiving no reply.
So with a satisfied nod and a silent lament that this invulnerability was all too temporary, I turned to stroll back to where the rest of the patrol members were waiting.
“Terribly sorry about the delay! Some people just have no manners.” I waved as I approached. “Speaking of which, I forgot myself in my elation. Were we pressed for time with my tribulation’s timing?”
I came up short as most of the group prostrated themselves and even Brother Sung’s squad knelt before me.
“Come now, martial brethren!” I pleaded in exasperation. “Merely having a civilized relationship with Heaven is no cause for reverence. Please, rise.”
“You threw back Heaven’s wrath, honored Celestial.” Yu Jung answered from his knees.
My mind, understandably fuzzy after its abrupt upgrade, failed to provide words to even start rebutting the miscomprehensions baked into that interpretation. So instead of trying, I said instead “Would you like to learn to do it yourself? It’s no crime by any of the laws that matter.”
“You would teach us your arts?” one of my fellow juniors gaped.
“Ah, we must not have met before!” I joked. “I am called Guang Jinsheng, and I’m something of a tutor here in the Yellow Fang!”
The ridiculousness of... well, me, threw the unified reverence into disarray and I turned to the excursion head. “Anyway, brother Sung. Please be honest, how’s our schedule looking?”
He’d already started straightening up, hopefully realizing that I wasn’t the brand of special that should be catered to. “We are running later than I’d like. Not so much as to be critical.”
“Then we should continue on, no? Celebration can wait until we camp for the evening, if not until we’ve caught up properly.”
“As you say. But if you are the same brother Guang I have worked and eaten with, I believe I speak for everyone when I say that an explanation is in order first.”
I nodded. “I shall be happy to provide it at great length while we rest. The short of it is that I am still Guang of the dinners and Heaven does not hate our desire to rise above our station but it does oppose us riding the border between man and our new role, which is what we are inadvertently doing by forgetting to cultivate our minds alongside our bodies and souls.”
“Heaven brought more wrath upon you than it brought upon my master when he entered the Golden Core tier, and you say it does not hate you?”
“Not in the least!” I answered chipperly. “The lightning is not Heaven’s anger, it’s Heaven’s voice. The searing of your flesh when you don’t listen is its anger.”
He blinked slowly at the dismissal of well-established knowledge before shaking his head and continuing “And throwing the lightning back isn’t even more angering?”
“No. Because I had to listen, understand what it was saying, and then choose to refuse the declarations in question. It’s the difference between someone not hearing you when you tell them what to do and someone hearing you and explaining why they can’t obey. Still frustrating, but you’re not being ignored.”
“Finally, what the hell were those last four strikes?”
“Oh, I figured out the issue on the sixth, did a rush job replacing my mind’s chi with qi, and then heaven had no more complaints about my position so we just talked and shared plans with each other. I’ve got to say, Heaven is profoundly kind to lower its voice so much under normal circumstances. Can you imagine having it raise it’s voice that far in irritation?” I shuddered in exaggeration. “Terrifying. I couldn’t have handled it myself if it was still trying to save me by insisting that I serve its plans.”
“Talked. And shared plans. With Heaven itself.” He repeated with a strained expression. Then he sighed. “Yeah, that’s something that only the Guang I know would dare say. Let’s get moving.”
I fell in line with my fellow juniors and revelled in the new resonant harmony within myself. Even without Heaven’s gift allowing me to marinate and forge my identity core with its impossibly pure energy, having the almost invisible separation between mind, body, and soul cast into stark relief and corrected for was so much more impressive than I had any reason to believe.
And when I’d seen Sect Elders exchanging pointers with senior disciples, that was saying quite a lot.
---
I shook my head at the deference of the peasant serving girl. It was one -perfectly rational- thing to be terrified that a squad of cultivators had chosen to take up lodging for the night in a small village. But their response to me was outright worshipful, for the dumbest reason available.
Mortals apparently hadn’t actually been able to see the unrestrained bolts of my tribulation, nor hear them. So when we arrived and senior Sung informed them that we were staying the night, one old man had the courage to formally accept his declaration and offer condolence for the ‘fallen’ cultivator.
Said old man had his attention directed to me and upon seeing my face declared “The heavens smile upon us!” and promptly died.
The leading theory: The heavenly might I’m still processing isn’t fit for mortal perception.
So I’m wearing a veil to avoid accidentally medusaing people and being treated as the guest of honor even above my martial seniors, who themselves are immensely amused that I’m the one protesting most to the situation.
“So, ‘Celestial’ Guang.” Senior Hua Jin teased. “What exactly are Heaven’s plans for us, if we follow your lead?”
“If you follow it completely, to acknowledge you as a wholly Qi-based entity and to leave your fate to your own hand.” I answered, not giving her the reaction to her blasphemy she was hoping for. “If you’d prefer to join its ranks, there are plenty of quite appealing positions available, it seems.”
“So you have nothing left fighting you regarding your fate?”
I chuckled. “Heaven has withdrawn its complaint, and I am now the equivalent of a peasant of a higher realm. Much like our lovely hosts, there will no doubt be myriad forces that I must contend with to secure myself, and likely an even higher realm for me to aspire to.”
“You don’t know?”
“Correct. My next major opposition is not from above. For while Heaven rules over men and decrees their fates, it is not alone in having dominion.”
“The Earth?” Senior Sung asked after a moment. “First the Heavens, then the Earth? Not the other way around?”
“There’s no discrete order, no. I merely settled Heaven’s complaint first due to my eccentricity, and I’ve not yet garnered the Earth’s attention.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I will eventually, of course. But the Earth’s concern, according to Heaven, is for my impact upon the world. Cultivators as a rule anger it immensely as we grow, with our constant harvesting and predating of resources. Should I partake too much, I shall face a tribulation from below. One that has none of Heaven’s courtesies.”
“Ah, so the Divine Retribution for exploiting fortune is not of Heaven’s hand?”
“No, that is the Earth striking, limited by Heaven’s claim upon the cultivator.
“And you say Heaven has no more claim on you.”
“Indeed. Fortuitous that my methods are light upon the land, no?”
My martial brethren exchanged furtive looks of concern before senior Po finally asked “Will you... survive catching the Earth’s ire?”
“That depends entirely upon my strength and fortunes.” I smiled easily. “Much as it does for everyone.”
“But if everyone else has protections in Heaven’s irritated filing, what do you have?”
“A gentle touch and plenty of time to grow first.”
An awkward quiet fell over the dinner. I understood, naturally. I was telling them without coy filters that if and when the Earth decided I was overstepping myself, the disasters it visits upon Elders of the sect would look trivial in comparison.
While also warning them of the primary risk of following me into proper defiance of Heaven, as they would likely evoke its wrath much sooner.
“What- No, how does one defy the Earth and survive?” Sister Ku Mai, a fellow junior asked.
“As I understood, and do understand that it was only an afterthought even at the time, there is a point where the Earth essentially gets frustrated with your continued survival and voluntarily severs its dominion over you.”
“Oh, so you’ll be fine then!” Senior Yu laughed, breaking the somber weight of the discussion easily.
I smiled along with the mirth. Part of me wanted to laugh as well. His confidence was amusing, after all. But laughter was... hollow. My emotions were no longer greater than my mind and body’s limits. Not something that threatened to be a hindrance, merely an oddity.
A peasant child who’d been lurking nearby leaned far enough around her hiding place for me to get a good look at her. She couldn’t have been more than 6 and she was clearly disobeying her parents by risking our attention, judging by the way she was almost more concerned with the serving staff than the demigods being fed.
Senior Sung noticed my attention, and in following it pulled everyone else’s onto the girl.
“Hey!-” one of my brethren started to shoo her off before I cut him off.
“No, this is fine. Let her come, if she has the courage.”
Despite what most mortals believed, Heaven very much did want them to rise to their potential. And as a temporary host for some of its might, it was reasonable to help out.
Besides that, this was an opportunity to do something deeply funny to me, personally.
She screwed up her face and courage and marched forward with a little bag.
“Mommy says giving offerings to Heaven is good! So here are my mushrooms!” she shouted, holding up the bag.
I opened it up and found foraged mushrooms, relatively fresh and decently cleaned off. “These are very good mushrooms.” I spoke gently. “Did you harvest them for dinner?”
“Yeah. Mommy’s always saying we don’t have enough to eat, so I learned the good mushrooms.”
“That’s very responsible of you. My friends in the heavens are very proud of you for that. So let me tell you what.” I grabbed two wooden bowls from the table and started sorting the mushrooms at my newfound speed. “These ones are a little bit small. Can you promise to go plant them in the good shade around the village tomorrow?” I handed her back the bowl of smaller shrooms.
“Uh huh!” she nodded before remembering her manners “I mean, yes, honored Celestial.”
“Very good! And in exchange,” I started peeling the larger mushrooms into proper cooking sized chunks. “You can split these up with whoever you want to in town, with my blessing.”
“You’re giving them back?”
“The half I want.” I pointed at the smaller ones. “Should be ready for me to collect next time I come through this area. If you remember to plant them well tomorrow.”
“Oh! Okay, honored Celestial! I’ll make sure everyone knows they’re yours too!”
“There’s a good girl. Run along now, and make sure to share yours with others by pouring some into other bowls.”
She bowed and darted away, bringing a great smile to my face. As well as a mild relief in the form of expended heavenly essence.
It was a gift literally without peer for a mortal, but heaven’s power was very much not something the human soul was made to handle.
The meal and conversation wound down after that and we each retired to slumber, and I made a point to thank the Earth for its patience with its charges before beginning to weave the essence of sharing dinners into my identity.
Soul cores, like others were limited to forming without their minds caught up, were mighty, singular essence declarations of one’s spiritual nature. They could be altered somewhat after formation by significant upheaval that affected one’s spirit for good or ill.
Identity cores, the completed model, were highly mutable. I could intuit more than my friend explained thanks to my recursive study of comprehension, and the matter was beautifully intricate. Any aspect of myself that I deigned to identify with, I could weave into my identity core and use it as a ‘secondary foundation’ of sorts.
Stunts like the mushrooms that the mortals were singing praises to me over could be developed as techniques tied into my identity as ‘Guang Wancan’, and would eventually be no more straining than my morning stretches if I continued to commit to the bit.
And I truly had no reason not to. The benefits of it were far in excess of my initial pragmatic ploys, even before the newfangled ability to imbue power into myself as the dinners guy. Having people who were genuinely glad to see me because they’d grasped that I chose not to be a threat to them, being able to try new tastes because my guests found it dutiful to contribute to the meal, and the honest smiles as they joked without noble formalities in the way were all far more valuable than I’d expected them to be.
Which really spoke to my initial sociopathy more than anything. A different flavor than most cultivators held, but still casually overlooking the intrinsic value of people all the same.
I elected to keep it as a part of my identity, of course. Making all my bonds be ones of choice instead of leaving myself open to manipulators of the heart just made sense, especially now that the sect was trying to tie me to them more tightly.
The surviving Tongs would be an asset, of course. They meant that the Tong family, at least, would know that my tribulation was as aberrant as everything else I do. And with my casual mention to brother Sung that the attempted assassination wasn’t worth a hubbub, they’d treat me more like a viper than a pest.
Refusing to strike someone’s Face was, after all, nearly a foreign concept to nobility.
That left three major holdout houses still collectively enraged at my existence. The Sang, who at my parting update had concluded that I’d set the Ho screaming at them specifically to ruin a trio of marriage arrangements, the Ling, who I’d been careful not to provoke with the genuinely professional assassin patterns visible in the conspicuous lack of detractors they maintain, and the Yang, who mostly seemed to want to pick fights with anyone who wouldn’t collapse on contact.
The Yang didn’t seem to actually have an issue with me, but they were still arranging for my demise with malicious regularity. I still hadn’t quite figured them out. Probably some external influence I’ve been overlooking. Meaning I need informants in the other sects.
Which means I need to get on with going outside more often so I can acquaint myself with and subvert outsiders. Which in turn would have the Tong renewing their quiet clamoring that I was a traitor pretending to have loyalty.
I still hadn’t figured out if they were just classist bigots or if their truth techniques could tell the difference between dutiful behavior and dutiful souls.
Given that they hadn’t been able to convince anyone who’d interacted with me at length, poetry said they could actually tell. Maybe I could prod them into sharing their means of detecting true loyalty if it meant being free of me dicking with them. Something to probe Elder Tong about if he took my tea invitation.
For that matter, there were tensions between the Tong and the Ling. I could exacerbate them by thanking a Ling Elder for their family’s work defending the sect’s disciples. It’d add a twenty-second target to my back, but if I need a distraction as I move to being an inner disciple, that was an option.
Why Elder Tong felt the need to tell me of the impending shift was beyond me. Maybe hoping that it would go to my head and cause me to trip in my tribulation? To be shocked at his family’s attempt on my life afterward?
It was largely moot, but stuck out as a potential for me to be moving from misinformation regarding him. With how charitable I was feeling as I continued working heavenly ki into my own qi, it even occurred to me that he might actually be rooting for me.
If so, he was the best double agent I had even the faintest suspicion about in the upcoming schism.
Oh yeah, and the schism was absolutely going to happen. Maybe destroying the entire sect. That was left to the actions of the Master and the Elders. Heaven opposed toxic seedbeds teaching poisonous lessons, and the Yellow Fang had earned an arranged trial well before my arrival.
I wasn’t salty about being a tool to deliver said trial. Miffed at most. Mostly because I would have set different ploys into action if I’d known.
No matter, really. I’d done my part and then some. As long as they didn’t try to front-line me before I was strong enough to handle it, their fate only concerned me until I found a good opportunity to leave. Ideally, that’d come before anything pushed the sect into full-on infighting. And it wasn’t like I’d done anything to suddenly upend the upper management of the sect.
I had time.
