Sky Pride

Tian lay curled up on the side of the pond, twitching. The grass had a faintly blue central vane running up the middle of the long, pointed leaves. The leaves grew directly from a stiff central stem, a lighter green to the leaves darker green. It smelled like grass, with no distinctive odor. When the leaves were picked or damaged, they released a sweet and slightly spicy scent. The taste was bitter and vegetal.

The bastard thing was also at the peak of the Earthly Realm and went down like a burning ember, leaving a trail of what felt like acid behind it. When the ember landed in his stomach, it sent tendrils of burrowing heat into the stomach lining. Like the grass was trying to set down roots. It wasn’t, he could tell it was all quite destroyed. It was just that the spread of the corrosive juices made a root pattern. One of those funny little coincidences you can appreciate as you desperately use your vital energy to corral the evil stuff and keep it from spreading until you can break it down.

The Demon Pulling Art was quickly put to work. Tiny tendrils of vital energy reached out and wrapped around the invading poison. The elemental makeup was simpler than some poisons he had seen. Wood, overwhelmingly, with a minor strain of yang water. Not too bad, but the subtle variations it went through as it sloshed around inside of him meant constant, equally subtle, changes to the energy he was manipulating it with.

It hurt. He had been hurt before, and worse than this. It took a bit of effort to collect himself, but he managed to sit himself up properly and tear the energy apart. He didn’t know if the senior could detect the statue at the core of the Hell Suppressing Body Refining Art, and the old instinct not to display his treasures firmly returned. The Holy Land had strict rules about violence, but what about when he left the Holy Land?

Just use it. He knows you have something, and there is no plausible way to keep it hidden forever.

“You don’t think he would…?”

Nah. It’s not that there is nothing there to interest him, it’s that the cost would WILDLY outweigh the benefits. Assuming he wanted to use it at all, which at this stage of his cultivation, he probably doesn’t.

Tian started cultivating, Advent of Spring gulping down the thick chaotic qi of the Holy Land while greedily consuming the wood and water qi brought by the grass. The Hell Suppressing Art started running, and Tian immediately felt a stab of loneliness. It really didn’t feel right without Liren’s hands in his. The benefit from the art was less than a third of what he would expect from a regular cultivation session with her.

“Mmm? You need yin qi for your body cultivation? Or… not just yin qi. Curse energy? Oh hoh! Poison gets ground up too! Quite a convenient thing, if a bit annoying. You must usually dual cultivate with that girl you came with. Or is it someone else?”

“Just her, Teacher, and not…”

“Eh?”

“It’s not important, Teacher, never mind.”

“My poor disciple always traveled with a few jade beauties for just such a situation. Each was a proud daughter of heaven, with kingdom toppling allure, and all helplessly in love with him. Ah, his kind heart loved too easily and too well. I can’t expect you to measure up. Not with how ugly you are.” Voidcatcher sighed.

“When you eat the next blade of grass, stick your hand or foot or something in the pond before you start refining it. It’s a bit too strong for your level, but I expect you will manage somehow. Oh, and grab another of the same sort of grass. We’ll go through the cycle of ingestion and deconstruction three times per plant species. There are, perhaps, gentler ways to learn, but we might as well use that tough mouth of yours for something productive.”

Voidcatcher seemed content to crouch on the ground with his eyes closed. Tian didn’t know if he was cultivating, meditating, or just daydreaming.

The next blade of grass was no better than the first, but more easily tolerated due to prior experience. Tian managed to get a hand into the pond before the seizures took hold of his muscles, and almost immediately regretted it. Yin. Powerfully, deeply yin. It was assuredly at the Heavenly Realm or even higher, but he could feel a gentle membrane covering his hand, limiting his contact with the water. A cool, soothing sensation, without the edge of freezing death or coma-like sleep he might be risking otherwise.

“Thank you for limiting the power of the pond, Teacher.” Tian gasped, when he had more or less recovered himself.

“That’s not me. It’s the Holy Land. You lack the qualifications to even attempt to acquire the water from that pond, so your ability to contact it has likewise been limited. Your faith in me is appreciated, but in the future, don’t blindly touch things you aren’t sure you can survive. And you shouldn’t be so sure you could survive such a… high level… pond.”

“Is… is he going to just ignore the fact that he told me to stick my hand in this Beyond Heavenly Level pond?”

Yup. You can’t see it, but the pond, along with a whole lot of other things in here, are all carrying some comparatively sensible protections. It seems that when they said you can take whatever you are strong enough to take, there was a rather large asterisk on that.

“What’s an asterix, Grandpa?”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Something not worth worrying about at the moment. Take advantage of the opportunity to get a feel for the waters’ qi. It’s coming through a filter, as it were, but this is still good stuff.

Grandpa was right about the pond water, whatever an asterix was. The pond felt like water, but also like putting his hand into the concept of a good nap, or a cold drink on a hot day. There was a sense of content contemplation, and a gathering strength. Tian was reminded of the Six Turns Cavern, where you didn’t just struggle with what an element was physically, you had to grapple with what it meant emotionally and philosophically.

In his case, it meant nourishing yin qi seeped in through his hands and was dragged along his meridians. It wasn’t a particularly effective way to do it, but the quality of the water overwhelmed whatever objections his body might have had. The Hell Suppressing Sutra grabbed the yin qi with enthusiasm, dragging it through his meridians and down into his lower dantian. The vital energy flowed through his body, all the damage caused by the grass suppressed and repaired in bare minutes.

“Excellent. I was worried healing time would limit the number of plants you could eat, but it seems you are well prepared. Now, just get the next one down you, and we will review what it is you are eating.”

Voidcatcher sounded distinctly unconcerned about the serial poisoning plan. Tian changed his earlier opinion. He was ready for Voidcatcher to not be bored. He would very much like the honorable senior to take a more active interest. Ideally in ways that didn’t make his stomach feel like it was burning, disintegrating and turning into a planter all at once.

One of these days, he would really have to learn how to flatter his seniors effectively. It seems his directness had even more unfortunate consequences than he thought.

The third poisoning felt a little different. He had grown used to the sensation by now, and could give each part of the process his full attention. The leaves had a very faint chevron pattern that ran between the nearly invisible ridges within the structure of the leaf itself. You had to catch the light just right to spot them. The bruised leaves gave off a sweet and spicy scent, yes, but something about it tickled the inside of his nostrils like a breath of cold air.

The elemental makeup of the herb was fairly straightforward, yang wood and yang water, not the most common combination, but not unheard of either. It seemed to focus on the stomach-spleen system, which made sense given the stomach-spleen system was earth aligned. What’s more, for mortals, the stomach was the source of post-natal qi. It wasn’t an irrelevant source of qi for immortals either. All that energetic food had to be broken down somewhere.

It would take a great deal of care and dilution, but this grass could be an excellent medicine for certain yin-phase ailments of the stomach-spleen, and, yes, a decent cultivation aid. If you could stand it.

Tian was to be disappointed. Voidcatcher didn’t open his eyes once during the third round of poisoning either. He did, however, crack an eyelid when he finished healing after the third round.

“You have a sense of it?”

“Yes, Teacher, I believe I do.” Tian marveled at how level and polite his voice was.

“Good.” A book as thick as Tian’s thigh slammed onto the ground. “This is a beginner’s herbology manual from one of the big sects outside the kingdom. I will make a perfect copy of the page describing the plant you just ate once you have correctly identified it. You only get one guess, however. We will repeat this for every plant you try, and at the end of your time studying with me, you will have earned yourself a decent little herbalism manual as a memento.”

The giant toad paused for a minute, and Tian would have sworn he could see the ancient having a thought occur. “As well as your breakthrough to the Heavenly Realm. Of course.”

“Thank you, Teacher. That is very thoughtful.”

“Yes. I am very thoughtful, and kind. Get to it.”

Tian flipped open the book. An Introduction to Simple Herbs for Novices, 74th ed. Edited by- and the name was blurry. There were other stamps on the page, things that would normally indicate who wrote the book and to whom it belonged. They, too, were smeared into illegibility.

“Senior? Your book has been smudged, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, by me.” The toad nodded. “I don’t want you to know who wrote it.”

“Might I ask why, Teacher?”

“Certainly. If you don’t know who wrote it, there is no chance you will one day go looking for them, and if you run into them by accident, there is virtually no chance of you connecting me to them, which means you can’t rat me out and tell them where I am hiding.”

Tian blinked. Then blinked again. “Did Teacher… fail to return books borrowed from their library?”

The toad nodded. “Indeed I did. More importantly, however, was that in my human guise I seduced and betrayed the princess of the sect’s leading clan, abandoning her before anyone realized she was pregnant with quadruplets.”

Tian’s eyes were very big. They had to be as big as possible to “admire” his teacher.

“Human children, I want to be clear. My transformation art is no illusion. They will be born with perfect health and remarkable physiques for cultivation. I employed not a shred of trickery. I came under my own name, never hid my true nature. My intentions were pure. But once I found out she had immoral relations with my poor disciple, I had to cut things off immediately.”

“I expected nothing less from an expert of Teacher’s wisdom." Tian was utterly sincere too.

“Indeed. These things must be done properly, and as revenges go, I think it was quite appropriate. She did, after all, steal my late disciple's first kiss. Entirely without his permission. She just picked him up, smooched him and tossed him in a pond, laughing at his plight. Never gave him another look. Disgusting woman. And honestly, who still calls themselves a princess when they are in their fourth century? Tacky. Very. In retrospect, all those beautification and face fixing pills I gave her should have been a hint. On some level, I must have seen the ugliness within her.”

“Teacher is truly filial, and a role model to the youth.” Tian’s grip on rote social politeness was starting to slip, but years of training were not for nothing. It might be by just his fingernails, but he hung on.

“Haha. Yes. Yes, I have always enjoyed teaching, and practical education is as important as book learning. For example, if that sect finds out about you, they will kill you for being my student. This will motivate you to keep a low profile when you are out in the world, and not try to take advantage of my name. But now it is time for the book. Get to it, and be careful. We started with a good one, and there are no second chances.”