MPCW Ch. 83
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9m
"So what's the maximum?" Alexei asked, still eyeing her tails. "Nine?"
Qingxue shook her head. "Why would it be nine?"
"Because that's how it goes in every novel I've read. If there's a fox girl with multiple tails, she usually ends up with nine."
"My sacred physique is called the Seven-Illusion Azure Fox. The limit is seven tails, not nine."
Alexei paused, then frowned. "Seven is worse."
"Seven is fine."
"But nine is a better number. It feels more complete."
"It doesn't need to feel complete. It needs to work." She crossed her arms and continued before he could argue. "Each tail represents one condensed Seven-Illusion Body. Since I have three right now, my ice spiritual energy circulates at roughly twice the normal speed."
Alexei glanced at the tails again. "So more tails means faster circulation..."
"Yes. Each tail adds about fifty percent on top of the base, so seven tails would put me at triple the normal speed. But that isn't the main reason the physique is valuable."
Instead of explaining further, she showed him.
Two more Qingxues appeared a few meters away from the couch, identical to the one sitting in front of him down to their clothes, expressions, and the tails moving behind them. Alexei stared at all three of them, then stood up and walked over to the nearest copy.
"Oh," he said, pressing two fingers against her arm. "That's kind of impressive."
The copy felt real. Her skin was warm, her arm was solid, and when he checked the second one, she felt the same. There wasn't any flickering, transparency, or obvious illusion trick he could point to.
"They aren't projections," one of the copies said. Her head tilted, and the other two followed the motion. "Each one is a complete secondary body. I experience all three at the same time."
"That's why it feels strange," the Qingxue on the couch added. "It doesn't hurt, but handling three bodies at once is a lot of information."
Alexei stepped back and looked between Qingxue and her two copies again. If he had that ability, one body could watch the Wither containment setup, another could handle the bartering farm, and the third could keep the sorting system from choking on its own output. That would leave his original body free to work on the portal network without stopping every hour because something needed restocking, clearing, or checking. If he could split his attention between three separate tasks without losing his mind, he could probably cut the total project time in half, maybe more.
"You look like you're planning something," the nearest copy said.
"Just thinking about something."
Qingxue herself looked unimpressed. "You understand the tradeoff, yes? Once the bodies are manifested, the speed boost to my ice circulation disappears, and any spiritual energy they use for casting still comes from my core reserves."
"I see... Can they cultivate independently?"
"No." She waved a hand, and both copies dissolved into light that folded back into her while the two missing tails reappeared behind her. "If they could, it would be a divine physique instead of a sacred one."
Alexei thought that over, then shrugged. "Still more useful than most things I've seen."
Qingxue didn't answer, though the corner of her mouth shifted before she turned away.
After that, they went through the rest of the details. The Illusion Bodies couldn't stay manifested forever, and keeping them active through extended combat drained her much faster than using them for simple tasks. The ice circulation bonus also scaled with the number of tails she kept, so creating more bodies meant giving up more of that advantage. By the time Alexei had a decent idea of what the physique could and couldn't do, it was already past seven.
He stood and stretched. "I should head back."
"Your room's not going anywhere."
"No, but I am." He gathered the inventory items he had left on the table. "Thanks for the demonstration. It was useful context."
Qingxue inclined her head slightly, which was about as close to "you're welcome" as she usually got.
Alexei crossed the living area and headed through the connecting passage to his own building, leaving her to return to whatever she had been reading before he interrupted.
---
Morning arrived without waiting for anyone to be ready.
Alexei was up before the sun finished clearing the ridge, and he spent the early light going through his usual checks. Inventory first, then active systems, then anything left over from the previous day that might need attention. Nothing really stood out.
He made tea while he worked. It was one of the few habits from this world he could justify keeping, partly because it helped him think and partly because his mornings had become easier to tolerate with something hot in his hands. While the water heated, he opened the system manual again and returned to the entries on Nether Stars, especially the ones he hadn't read carefully the night before.
He was three pages in when Qingxue knocked on the open doorframe and came inside.
"You're up early."
"You were moving around," she said, taking the chair across from him. "I heard it."
"The walls here are too thin."
"The walls here are fine. You just move loudly."
Alexei couldn't really argue with that, so he didn't.
They spent the rest of the morning finishing the review they had started the night before. Most of it was the usual estate work that had piled up while Qingxue was in seclusion. None of it was difficult, and by the time they worked through the last item, the week ahead looked a little less likely to trip over itself.
Qingxue stood after that and said she was going to check the outer formation before midday. Alexei nodded, poured the last of the tea into his cup, and waited until she left before turning his attention back to the manual.
---
Things had been complicated in Verdantree City lately
An ancient battlefield realm had appeared in the flatlands about fifteen kilometers outside the city walls, and the news had spread before the Immortal Alliance could properly contain it. Half the city had already heard something had happened when the first controlled perimeter went up, and once enough personnel arrived to make that perimeter useful, representatives from a dozen sects were already waiting at the edge of it, politely asking questions that couldn't be ignored.
The sects involved in the incident had ended up in two very different positions. Some had noticed the warning signs early and pulled their people out before things went bad, so they were mostly intact and clearly pleased with themselves. Others hadn't been nearly as lucky. Their senior members lingered near the Alliance's command area, some angry and some barely holding back panic, depending on how many disciples and elders they'd lost inside the realm.
The Alliance's field operation was being run from a temporary command post near the perimeter, where Elder Li was standing over a survey map when his steward came in with another problem.
"What should we do with it?"
Elder Li looked up from the map. "The gold from the warehouses near the entrance?"
"Yes. We cleared about twenty of them during the initial sweep, and the rough estimate is around 40,000 tons."
Elder Li held the brush above the map while he processed that number. "What are the current transport costs?"
"More than the gold is worth at current prices. The market collapsed after the first few reports came out of the realm, and no one's buying."
Li set the brush down. "Pave it."
The steward blinked. "Sorry?"
"Use it to pave the approach to the realm entrance. That covers the ground, removes it from our logistics problem, and gives any sect arriving without context a clear warning. If someone sees a road paved with gold and still walks in without asking questions, that isn't our concern anymore."
The steward took a few seconds to work through the order, then bowed once he reached the same conclusion Elder Li had.
"Understood."
"What else?"
The steward checked his notes and continued. "The internal survey teams have found a few things worth reporting. First, some cultivators discovered that the pig creatures inside the realm respond to gold. If someone picks up one of the floating gold blocks and holds it near them, the creatures sometimes trade for it. Once the gold is dropped, they leave something behind in exchange."
"Oh, what kind of things?"
"Leather, dark green crystal spheres, unusually strong thread, and some kind of unfamiliar stone brick. The list varies, and the success rate isn't good. Most of the people who tried it either received nothing or were attacked, but a few have managed to repeat the exchange consistently. There is also a potion. Each container weighs roughly 3,000 kilograms, and multiple reports claim that drinking it grants complete immunity to fire-based attacks."
Elder Li didn't respond right away, and the steward seemed to understand why.
"Complete immunity..." Elder Li said at last.
"That's what the reports claim."
"I assume you have doubts."
"I do," the steward said. "It's probably exaggerated, but the source isn't unreliable enough for me to dismiss it outright."
Elder Li nodded once. "And the rest?"
"Jiang's team located a large city structure roughly 250 kilometers into the realm. The construction is black stone, and it covers a significant area. They also found several previously unknown items inside. Jiang returned two hours ago to request additional personnel, including three Nascent Soul realm stewards and more than a dozen Spirit Condensation realm support staff."
"Why so many?"
"The main issue is a golden fruit with purple light moving across the surface. No one has seen anything like it before, and it can't be stored in standard spatial bags."
"That's really unusual, but it doesn't explain the number of people requested. What's the real problem?"
"The weight, Elder Li. The fruit weighs approximately 150 kilograms."
Elder Li absently dragged his brush across the survey map, leaving a long black stroke that cut straight through three weeks' worth of notation. He looked down at the ruined section, set the brush aside, and then looked back at the steward.
"What?! That sounds absurd. You're certain?"
"Jiang measured it twice."
Elder Li took a slow breath and forced himself not to look at the map again. 150 thousand kilograms was close to what an early Tribulation Transcendence cultivator could exert at full output, which meant someone was asking him to arrange transport for a fruit heavier than most fortified gates. Standard spatial bags were useless, ordinary staff wouldn't be able to move it, and apparently, even hearing about it was enough to ruin his paperwork.
"Send the personnel and tell Jiang that if the next report contains an object heavier than a mountain, he can carry it back himself."
"Could it be a spatial irregularity? Or is something interfering with the weight reading without changing the mass?"
"Jiang considered that, so he had his team move it to check, but the reading didn't change."
Elder Li looked down at the ruined map lying between them, then pushed it aside and reached for a fresh sheet. "Tell Jiang to document everything before he tries moving it again. I want the weight, dimensions, surface condition, and any effect it has on the surrounding area. If it can't be transported safely, no one is to make another attempt until I have a complete record."
"Yes, Elder Li."
"And have the gold road started before noon."
---
Inside the Nether fortress, twenty-three cultivators had gathered around an open chest and spent the better part of a day staring at the fruit inside it, mostly because none of them knew what else to do with it.
The fruit didn't look difficult to handle. It was round, gold and faintly luminous, roughly the size of a clenched fist, with a shallow dimple at the top and a short curved stem. Inside the chest, it was light enough for anyone to pick up without effort. Several disciples had already reached in, lifted it, turned it over, and confirmed that there wasn't any obvious trick to holding it. The problem only appeared when they tried to take it out. As soon as the fruit rose above the rim, its real weight returned all at once, turning from a harmless fruit into something so heavy that every attempt ended with it dropping straight back into the chest.
After the weaker cultivators had failed several times and proven the point, Jiang tried it himself. He was close to mid-stage Nascent Soul, and at full output, he could exert around 55,000 kilograms of force, which made him the strongest person present by far. Even then, he only managed to raise the fruit about a third of the way before his arms began shaking and his body made it clear that continuing would be a bad idea. From that attempt, he estimated its full weight at somewhere between 140,000 and 160,000 kilograms.
That estimate left them with a golden fruit that weighed more than most buildings, sat safely inside a random chest, and couldn't be moved by the strongest cultivator among them, all while giving them no clue where it had come from or what it was supposed to do.
By the time the group settled on the current plan, they had already tried everything else they could think of. Long-staff artifacts hadn't worked, leverage rigs hadn't worked, and the formation-based lifting techniques had only managed to shift the fruit, proving it could move but not bringing it any closer to getting out. Someone had suggested cutting it into smaller pieces, but that idea died as soon as another cultivator asked what would happen if they cut into something dangerous. Since none of them had an answer, they left the fruit intact.
The cultivator who had tried to pry it loose with his staff artifact was still standing off to the side, trying to bend the weapon back into shape. It wasn't going well, which didn't improve anyone's confidence.
That left spiritual energy traction, and Jiang didn't like it any more than the others did. The fruit didn't have spiritual pathways, so their energy couldn't sink into it and carry the weight through a natural channel. They had to wrap their spiritual energy around the outside and pull the entire thing up by force, which made the strain far worse than the number alone suggested. Moving 160,000 kilograms would feel closer to pulling twice that, and every cultivator around the chest understood what that meant.
Every one of them had been chosen for strength, and from the way they were staring at the chest, none of them had any illusions about what came next.
"On my mark. We pull together, and we don't stop until it's clear."
Once everyone nodded, Jiang gave the order.
"Now."
Spiritual energy surged from all sides at once, pressing into the fruit until the air around the chest felt heavy. Jiang felt the resistance immediately. The fruit didn't want to move, and because their energy couldn't enter it properly, every bit of weight pushed back through the formation and into their meridians.
He clenched his jaw and kept pulling with the others. Tendons strained, veins rose along temples and forearms, and the fruit slowly inched out of the chest as the cultivators forced their energy into the same rhythm.
Nearly a full minute passed before the fruit finally cleared the rim. Jiang's meridians burned from the strain, and the three junior cultivators at the outer edge of the formation were shaking so hard he doubted they could hold on much longer.
"Hold it. Don't drop it."
No one looked like they needed the reminder, but he gave the next order anyway. "Someone get a container under it."
One of the female cultivators nearby started to nod, only to stop once she understood what he was asking. Any container placed under the fruit would have to survive being crushed by it, and standing there to hold the thing herself was clearly out of the question. Taking the instruction in the safest possible direction, she set her jade box beneath the fruit's path and retreated before anyone could mistake her cooperation for a willingness to stand under it.
The group began lowering the fruit with the same care they had used to lift it. Gravity was helping them now, but that didn't make the job easier. It only changed the problem from raising an impossible weight to stopping that same weight from turning into a falling disaster, so everyone kept their focus locked on the thread of force supporting it.
The fruit came down onto the jade box, which held for less than a second before a crack ran through the jade. The pressure forced the fracture wider, then crushed the rest of the box apart, sending fragments and dust across the ground. Several cultivators flinched back from the debris, and someone near the rear let out a sound of surprise. When everything settled, the fruit remained where it had landed.
For several seconds, the group only stared at it.
"...Well, it's out."
Jiang looked from the fruit to the wreckage beneath it and realized, somewhat belatedly, that he hadn't thought the container situation through. The jade box had been sturdy by any normal standard, especially for something portable, but there was a difference between a durable cultivator's container and an object expected to support 160,000 kilograms without complaint.
"Sorry," he said to the box's former owner.
She looked at the fragments, then back at him. "You can reimburse me."
"I'll reimburse you."
They moved on.
Getting the fruit out of the chest had been the easy part, mostly because it had been the obvious problem. Everyone had known that opening the chest and removing the fruit would be difficult, so that was where most of the planning had gone. What they hadn't properly prepared for was the part where they had to move the thing back through an active realm, across nearly a hundred kilometers of territory controlled by increasingly aggressive pig creatures, without spatial storage and with only a limited supply of spirit stones to refill their spiritual energy.
Flying couldn't work. Even with several people supporting the load, keeping that much weight in the air would take too much effort and leave too little room for mistakes. After several attempts to find a better option, they were left with the simplest and ugliest solution: four of their strongest cultivators would carry it at walking pace while the rest of the group formed a moving perimeter around them.
The pig creatures made that plan worse. The boar-type creatures of had been aggressive since the first survey teams entered the realm, but they became far more persistent once the fruit was out in the open. Whether they were drawn by the faint golden light coming from the fruit, the way its weight pressed into the ground, or the smell of sweating cultivators forcing their way through their territory, the result was the same. They kept coming in groups of eight to fifteen, circling the formation before charging, retreating when they were driven back, and returning several minutes later with more.
The cultivators on the outside worked in rotating pairs, blocking charges and forcing the creatures away before they could reach the carriers. The four in the center couldn't afford to stop. Every pause made the fruit harder to lift again, and every delay gave the creatures more time to gather. Jiang stayed at the rear, listening to the scouts and calling out route changes whenever they found a denser concentration ahead. He also controlled the spirit stones, handing them over before the carriers' reserves ran too low, because if one of them ran empty at the wrong time, the entire formation could collapse.
The trip out had taken less than an hour, but the return dragged on for nearly six. When the transit passage came into view, the carriers were nearly empty, and the defenders had fallen into a tired rhythm of blocking, redirecting, disengaging, and resetting before the next charge came.
A small crowd had already gathered at the passage entrance when they arrived. Most were cultivators from nearby sects with nothing better to do than stand around and speculate, though Jiang couldn't really blame them. Four people were struggling with the load at the center of the formation, while the rest of his group kept close around them. Whatever they had brought back, it was clearly heavy.
Jiang's lead cultivator reached the iron gate without slowing down, fed more than twenty low-grade spirit stones into the entry funnel, and led the group through as soon as the formation opened. The crowd followed right behind them, taking full advantage of the activation someone else had paid for. Since the gate charged every time it opened, no one was eager to spend their own spirit stones when they could slip through with the group in front.
The transit hall on the other side was occupied but not crowded, and the noise from the entrance fell away as his group crossed the hall and stepped onto the central transfer platform.
When the formation brought them outside the gate, the market waiting there was impressive enough that it would've drawn attention even without the strange circumstances. When Jiang had passed through that morning, the ground outside the gate had been ordinary packed dirt. Barely six hours later, the entire two-to-three-hundred-meter area around the gate had been paved with clean stone brick, with irregular lines of gold brick running between them.
It was ostentatious, but considering what the market had sprung up to sell, he had to admit it worked better as advertising than decoration. Cultivators had set up trading stalls across the paved area, calling out prices and hawking salvage from the realm's interior as his group pushed through the crowd. He caught several pitches along the way.
"Pearls that home in on the target once released, thirty low-grade spirit stones each!"
"Thread salvaged from the city interior! Strength-tested, suitable for artifact weaving, three hundred per length!"
"Fire immunity potion! Confirmed effect, one dose left! Five hundred spirit stones, final offer!"
Jiang slowed at the last shout. He had seen the reports about those potions, but he still wasn't sure what to make of them, and the vendor's confidence didn't make the claim any easier to trust.
The street around him was packed with minor sect disciples, independent cultivators, and merchants who had somehow appeared as soon as there was money to be made. Food vendors had taken over the edges, smoke drifted between the stalls, and a man near the corner was selling hand-drawn maps of the realm's first three levels. Jiang gave the maps a passing glance and couldn't decide whether they were priceless or worthless. A map of this place could become outdated before the ink dried.
He kept moving with the crowd, squinting whenever the afternoon light hit the gold brickwork at the wrong angle. The glare bounced up from the road and flashed straight into people's eyes, and most of the cultivators passing by had already developed the same narrow-eyed look.
He filed that under things to mention in his report and continued on.
---
The courtyard of the Aureate Summit Sect was quiet in the late afternoon.
Mengyao sat cross-legged on the flat stone near the wall, the cultivation manual open across her knees as she worked through the same passage for the fourth time. She understood the words well enough, and the explanation itself wasn't difficult to follow, but the technique still didn't sit right with her. Every time she traced the circulation path in her head, something seemed to catch halfway through, as if one part of it should have connected to another but didn't.
Qingxue sat nearby and let her think. She had learned early on that Mengyao didn't need constant correction whenever she paused. Too much explanation only made the girl depend on the answer being given to her, while silence forced her to test her own understanding. That had worked better over the past months than she had expected, especially with a manual as difficult as the Triune Convergence.
Mengyao's progress had already gone past what Qingxue had first predicted. She had completed the initial circulation faster than most disciples would have managed, and she had simplified more than twenty hand seals without being guided through each change. That wasn't the sort of thing a person achieved through quick comprehension alone. Plenty of talented disciples could understand a line after reading it once, then fail to notice when their understanding was shallow.
Mengyao could move quickly when the path was clear, but when something felt wrong, she didn't rush past it or pretend it was fine. She slowed down, compared it against what she already knew, and kept working at it until the strange part showed itself. It wasn't the flashiest kind of talent, but Qingxue had always trusted that sort more than brilliance that burned through a problem once and forgot to check the ashes.
"Is something unclear?" Qingxue asked when Mengyao's frown stayed fixed on the same part of the manual.
Mengyao looked up from the page. "It feels incomplete."
"You aren't wrong. Triune Convergence and Triune Nine Cycles used to be one technique called the Triune Art. It was strong, but the cultivation path was too difficult for most disciples to follow, and even those who managed it often reached places where they couldn't keep progressing. The former sect master reworked it after that and split it into the two techniques the sect uses now. But they weren't split carelessly. Each one can be cultivated on its own, and neither one requires the other to be useful. The difference is that the original technique only starts to show itself when both halves are understood together. The parts that seem missing from Convergence are covered in Nine Cycles, and Nine Cycles has gaps that Convergence fills in return. Once you reach minor mastery in Convergence, you'll need to study Nine Cycles as well before the full effect can develop"
"So they're both pieces of the same technique."
Mengyao lowered her eyes to the manual again, but her irritation had already faded. Qingxue saw that she understood and didn't say anything else.
---
The light outside the window slowly shifted as Mengyao worked through the same section of the Triune Convergence again and again, only to stop at the same point each time. She could trace the circulation path through her meridians and follow the technique's logic through each turn, but the flow always broke where the next step should've been. No missed detail revealed itself no matter how many times she checked. The manual might as well have described most of a staircase and expected her to climb through the empty space left behind.
That kind of obstacle wasn't new to her. In her past life, she had spent years forcing her way through techniques with far less guidance, because no one in the sect had been willing to answer questions from a disciple who couldn't offer anything in return. If she got stuck, she stayed stuck until she worked it out herself, which usually took days when she was lucky and weeks when she wasn't.
Having Qingxue nearby should've made everything easier, and in many ways it did. Mengyao could ask questions, avoid wasting hours on the wrong idea, and check whether her understanding was even close. The problem was that the Triune Convergence still wasn't cooperating, and with Qingxue sitting right beside her, every failed attempt became harder to brush off.
"You might try shifting to a spell for a while," Qingxue said after watching Mengyao frown at the same page for nearly twenty minutes. "Spell seals and technique seals use the same kind of work. You start with the full sequence, cut it down step by step, and keep refining it until you can use less spiritual energy without losing control. It might help loosen things up."
Mengyao looked up from the manual. "A spell?"
"Try something you can make progress on instead of getting stuck every third step."
Mengyao considered the suggestion and couldn't say it was wrong. Spells and cultivation techniques weren't the same, but their seals were trained in much the same way. A beginner used the full sequence because that was the only way to make the spell work at all. With practice, the sequence could be reduced to fewer than thirty seals, which was already considered proficient. Reducing it to a single seal meant minor mastery, and casting without seals while keeping the same power and control was major mastery.
That was the part most cultivators never reached. Even basic material could take years to refine properly, and Earth-tier spells were worse. In the Eastern Territories, a cultivator who reached major mastery in even one or two Earth-tier spells would already leave an impression. Most couldn't get that far no matter how long they practiced.
Perfection came after major mastery, when a technique started producing results beyond what its original design promised. Most cultivators never reached that point, and the few who did usually had enough sense to keep quiet about it. Telling people that one of your techniques had gone past its limits was no different from inviting them to guess how much stronger you had become, and cultivators didn't like leaving that kind of threat alone.
That was also why mastery couldn't be rushed. A simple Yellow-tier spell still needed a year or two of steady practice before it reached minor mastery, while Earth-tier techniques could easily demand decades. Talent helped at the start, but it couldn't replace repetition. Mengyao had seen plenty of gifted disciples shine for a season, impress their elders, and then stall the instant raw talent stopped carrying them.
She'd learned that lesson herself.
The only technique she had ever pushed to major mastery was Blazing Lance, a mid Earth-tier spell she had found in a secret realm almost by accident. It wasn't a perfect fit or some inheritance-backed trump card. It was simply the only serious combat spell she had, so she poured years into it until it became something she could rely on.
Everything else had stayed much lower. Fireball, Gentle Wind, Voice Transmission, and the other small spells she'd collected were useful, but useful wasn't the same as impressive. They could solve problems, save time, or help her survive the occasional bad situation, but they couldn't make anyone look at her and think she was dangerous.
The reason was simple: she hadn't had the spirit stones.
Spells worth learning were expensive, and Celestial Path Sect had never pretended otherwise. Its technique hall was technically open to disciples, but only if those disciples had the stones or contribution points to survive the prices. A single Profound-tier spell could cost thousands of low-grade spirit stones, while Earth-tier techniques were priced so high that ordinary disciples could stare at them for years without getting close. Heaven-tier techniques didn't even belong in the same conversation. She couldn't remember seeing a listed price for one, because those weren't bought by people like her. They moved through favors, family lines, and backroom exchanges between people who already had power.
So she had made do. She had learned what she could afford, practiced what she could keep, and built her past life around scraps while knowing what better options looked like.
That was what made her current situation so hard to ignore.
"Mengyao."
Mengyao looked up from the manual and found Qingxue watching her.
"Sorry," she said, setting the manual down. "I was thinking."
"I noticed." Qingxue held out a jade slip. "This belongs to Alexei. It's called Firefly Light. Yellow-tier, lower grade, fire-aligned, so it should match your spiritual root. Start with this and see how the process feels."
Mengyao recognized the name as soon as she heard it. Firefly Light was one of the most basic fire-element spells available. In its complete form, it required thirty-four seals and produced small luminous flames that were useful for lighting a room, decorating a courtyard, and very little else. The Celestial Path Sect had sold it for two hundred low-grade spirit stones, which hadn't been an outrageous price for a spell, but it had still been two hundred stones she couldn't afford to waste when pills, talismans, and cultivation time all had to come first.
She accepted the slip from Qingxue and pressed it to her forehead as instructed, channeling spiritual energy into it until the familiar warmth of a jade slip spread through her mind. She had used enough of them before to know how this was supposed to go. The technique should settle into her memory with its seals, circulation details, practice notes, and all the other pieces she would need to spend months studying before she could use it properly.
Instead, the only thing that appeared was a short description.
[Firefly Light (Yellow-tier):
Each point of spiritual energy generates one firefly light that follows the caster automatically. Useful for illumination, ambiance, or impressing someone at an inconvenient time.]
Mengyao read it again, still waiting for the technique to unfold properly, but nothing followed. A real cultivation method should have come with seals, circulation routes, practice notes, and at least some explanation of how to advance it. This had none of that. All she had was the name, the description, and a strange certainty in the back of her mind that she already knew how to use it.
After lowering the slip, she looked at her hand and gave it a small wave, more because there didn't seem to be anything else to do than because she expected it to work. A point of orange light appeared in front of her, flickered once, and expanded into a steady flame about the length of her index finger. It hovered at eye level, without requiring a seal, a chant, or any preparation at all.
She stared at the flame as it drifted left, then right, following her thoughts while her spiritual energy reserves dropped by about one-thirtieth.
"...What," she said, because that was the only word her mind was willing to provide.
"Could there be something wrong with the slip?"
"Possibly." Qingxue held out her hand. "Let me see it."
Mengyao passed it over, and Qingxue turned the jade slip between her fingers before checking it with her spiritual sense. From the outside, it looked ordinary. The format was standard compressed memory, the surface was only slightly warm from use, and there weren't any markings or hidden formations that could explain what had happened.
After finding nothing unusual, she pressed the slip to her forehead and let her spiritual energy enter it.
[Firefly Light (Yellow-tier):
Each point of spiritual energy generates one firefly light that follows the caster automatically. Useful for illumination, ambiance, or impressing someone at an inconvenient time.]
The technique entered her mind the same way it had entered Mengyao's.
She followed the instinct the jade slip had left behind, and a small flame appeared in front of her without resistance. It was identical to Mengyao's, down to the way it hovered in the air and waited for direction.
For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
Mengyao looked between the two flames. "That shouldn't have worked, should it?"
Qingxue kept her eyes on the flame she had just cast. "No. It shouldn't have."
She had a pure ice spiritual root, so the flame in front of her shouldn't have been possible.
Spiritual roots shaped how a cultivator interacted with natural energy. A mixed root could sometimes work around its limits, and certain techniques could imitate effects outside their element, but a pure ice root casting a fire spell wasn't something training could fix. It went against one of the basic rules of cultivation, which made the small flame burning in front of her far more troublesome than it looked.
Mengyao stared at it for a few seconds before looking back at Qingxue.
"Master said your spiritual root was pure ice."
"It is."
"Then where did the fire come from?"
Qingxue looked at the flame again. It kept burning quietly in the air. She didn't have an answer either, so she placed the slip on the table between them. They'd already confirmed that the spell was real and that neither of them had misunderstood what happened, which left the slip as the only obvious thing worth checking.
"I need to think about this."
She retrieved two more slips from her storage and set them in front of Mengyao, who picked them up and went through the same process as before.
[Flame Fist (Profound-tier):
Channel spiritual energy into a forward strike. Power and range scale with input.]
[Wind-Walking Technique (Earth-tier):
Grant yourself or an ally double movement speed. Costs 6 points of spiritual energy per minute.]
Both techniques settled into Mengyao's instincts. That didn't mean her body could keep up with them.
Flame Fist was usable, but her meridians were still too underdeveloped to push it anywhere near its real ceiling. Even at full output, she guessed the strike would only reach about ten meters before the spiritual energy scattered. Wind-Walking was worse, since an Earth-tier movement technique was built for a level of spiritual energy control she couldn't support yet. She had the full technique in her instincts, but right now she would probably only manage two tenths of its effect before the strain became too much.
Still, that was useful. Both techniques would improve as her cultivation grew, and having them now meant she wouldn't have to spend weeks or months learning them properly later.
Then she set the two slips down and looked at the Triune Convergence manual still open on the table beside her. Compared to the slips, it looked thick, dense, demanding, and inconvenient.
"Learning cultivation techniques is difficult, isn't it?"
It wasn't really a question, and Qingxue seemed to understand that only after she followed Mengyao's gaze from the three jade slips to the open manual.
Her expression froze slightly as she realized what she'd just demonstrated. As introductions went, showing off instant mastery through jade slips probably hadn't been as encouraging as she'd intended.
"Cultivation and spells are different disciplines. The difficulty doesn't compare."
Mengyao nodded slowly, though she didn't look convinced.