The Third Cut - Chapter 12 preview (Patreon)

Wu Ying dropped from the rooftop into the courtyard below silently. Cotton shoes made not a sound on the rounded paving stones, even as he bent his knees and ankles a little to take the shock. His arrival drew the attention of those in the food court, numerous tables scattered between the bordering food stalls selling a variety of succulent dishes. Dark eyes regarded Wu Ying, a few city and merchant guards letting their hands fall to their sheathed weapons by reflex, even as the cultivator searched for his prey.

The moment he found the man, Wu Ying strode over, a wide grin threatening to pull his cheeks apart. Back to him, the seated presence looked no different from all outward appearances. Bald head, green robes trimmed with black, sleeves rolled up so that the meat stick clutched in one hand did not stain the robes, nor the chopsticks in the other.

“You! What are you doing here?” Wu Ying cried.

In answer, a foot shifted, pushing a stool outwards for Wu Ying to take a seat. Tou He took one last bite from the meat skewer, letting the sizzling meat disappear before he discarded the skewer and turn to his friend.

Mouth still full, he answered. “My duty. What are you doing here?”

“You weren’t looking for me?” Wu Ying said, remembering the letter that had arrived for him. Forecasters and those who could tell the future were unreliable, but with the right incentive and sufficient time, they could find anyone.

“Why would I be?” Tou He said, puzzled. “Now, sit down and order some food. I recommend the meat.”

Wu Ying rolled his eyes as he sat down. “Which one?”

He gestured at the numerous stalls that included everything from the fragrant skewered meat to the roast duck, barbecue pot and even pots of soya sauce marinated, stewed meat.

“All of them, of course!” Tou He said. “What’s the point of being in Core Formation if you cannot indulge?”

“Is that the reason you’ve finally ascended then?” Wu Ying teased. “Have more space to put all that food?”

“It’s a good reason, isn’t it?”

“Good enough.” Wu Ying swiftly ordered from the attendant that brought over Tou He’s meal, handing her a coin to inform the others. At the same time, he stole from the man’s fried fish, wielding his chopstick to remove one long strip of meat with ease. He chewed on the garlic and sesame oil flavoured meal, enjoying the taste of fresh fish.

He swallowed, then spoke. “What brought you south?”

“An assignment.”

“To an Elder?”

“Even Elders receive them at times, though they are rarer. We mostly follow our own needs, but something troubling has reached our ears and the Sect has chosen to take a more active role in seeking out potential problems,” Tou He said. “After the war, that is.”

“I assumed that was the change.”

“Now, stop that.” the ex-monk smacked Wu Ying’s hand as he reached for more of the fish. “You have your own.”

“We’ve not met for so long and you won’t even share with me?” Wu Ying put on a hurt look.

“I’ll pay for your meal. But this is mine.”

“Greedy.”

“Needy.” Tou He finished stripped one side of the fish with his chopsticks, scooping more lunch into his mouth before flipping the fish over. He started the process of removing the flesh on the other side, though this portion had mostly been sliced off, the flesh itself deep fried by its lonesome and set on the edges of the dish.

Wu Ying considered his friend, reaching out with his aura to probe. Tou He had learnt additional aura control techniques whilst he had been away it seemed. Still, Wu Ying had studied auras and control much more than his friend, deriving his own techniques from repeated exposure to numerous styles and creatures of mythical strength.

Spending months discerning the difference between Body, Soul and Spirit cultivation alone had ensured his senses had leapt forward by multiple li. All of those, he utilized ot probe his friend, only offering the sheerest silk veil of obscuration to his actions.

What he found was startling. It should not have been, if Wu Ying had considered the matter at all. Tou He had been changed by the fire dragon blood he had offered the man, allowing him to leapfrog his cultivation stages as an Energy Storage cultivator. It had improved his connection to the fire element but also altered his bloodline a little as well.

On top of that, his friend had not one, but two dantians open – the lower and middle dantian. Such actions were uncommon, for the act of opening a dantian and the cultivation methods required to build a powerful core when utilizing two such stores of energy were complex, prone to failure and rare.

For all that, Tou He had no other choice but to do so if he had meant to continue his progression. His lower dantian had been smaller than normal, too small to allow the growth and development of a proper Nascent Soul. If he had progressed with a single dantian, he would have been destined to stay in Core Formation forever.

And a weak one as that.

Now, though, he had a multi-layered core within his body located in the lower dantian. It pressed against the edges of its storage space, allowing no place for the unrefined energy to be stored there. Thankfully, the middle dantian was sufficient for the energy needs he required, though Wu Ying wondered how he would grow the Core further.

Likely some painful and challenging technique. It always was with cultivation techniques that were meant to overcome a limitation.

None of that, of course, had anything to do with his friend’s food requirements. Though it might explain why he had the stomach equivalent of a furnace.

Lowering his voice, Wu Ying said. “Did you study a cultivation technique that derives chi from the food you eat?”

“Yes,” Tou He said, quite proudly. Then, lowering his voice and flexing his aura to help cut off noise around them, an act that Wu Ying mirrored a moment later, he continued. “The fire dragon blood changed my body a little. Refined it a bit, especially when I broke through. Between that and my dantians, I have to cultivate a lot more chi than most.” He waved at the meal before him. “This is one way to get around it.”

“Won’t spirit besat or demonic beast meat be better?”

“Of course. Have any left?” A slight pause, then he added. “That isn’t tainted?”

Wu Ying nodded. Of course, the meat would be tainted too, would it not? It’d make it difficult to consume such meat without first cleansing it. “I actually do.” Then, he let his audio control drop as the first of his dishes arrived, once more skewers of meat on a large plate that would have fed a family. “But we can discuss that later. As well as your presence here.”

Tou He nodded, copying his friend. “Agreed. Right now, I want to hear about your exploits.”

“And I, yours!” A slight pause, then he added. “And of my parents and my martial sister.”

“They are well.” Then Tou He blinked, grinning as he flicked a hand sideways, offering Wu Ying two scrolls. “On the off-chance that you actually did come here, as the prognosticators predicted.”

Wu Ying took the scrolls, noting the seals on them. No surprise that they were both from Fairy Yang and his parents. “Thank you. But don’t think that lets you off from telling me about what you’ve been up to!”

Tou He laughed, snagging a skewer from Wu Ying. Waving the thinly cut, marinated eat in one hand, he began. “Well, when you left, you should know, it upset quite a few people. Yin Xue was grumbling, a lot, about how he was looking forward to beating you with his new fist….”

***

It was not Wu Ying’s wisest course of action. Staying up late into the night, speaking with his friend till even the late night street stalls had closed, booting the pair out to wander the streets till they found an early morning diner that catered to early risers. They had spoken for hours on-end, taking turns relating the important events in their lives and the minor significant truths of their existence. They touched only lightly upon cultivation matters, with Tou He doing the majority of the speaking. After all, they had many friends in common.

“I still don’t believe you all managed to hear so much about my travels,” Wu Ying said, shaking his head. “There’s barely anything about the Verdant Green Waters sect – and most of it, the usual”

“The usual?” Tou He said, curiously.

“Oh, the Verdant Green Waters sect has swept the Shou kingdom cultivation tournament again. There’s a genius apothecarist who can make any kind of pill you want. And, of course, numerous poems, paintings and long discussions about the beauty and grace of one Fairy Yang.”

Tou He laughed at the mocking tone Wu Ying used for the last line, even as the pair strolled away from their latest meal towards the municipal guard’s office. Dawn had already broken and the streets were crowded, though the pair deftly manipulated their presence such that a small but noticeable space was created around them.

No need for jostling for these immortal cultivators. Wu Ying almost felt a little guilty at doing so, as mortals shifted away from the cultivators subconsciously, only to stare and point and whisper later as they passed.

Yet, it was also for their own good. Bumping into either party would likely see the mortal falling and injuring themselves, as though running into a wall. Even Wu Ying with his wind cultivation was still more solid than most mortals and able to punch

“Well, part of the reason is that your martial sister kept an on-going assignment in the inner sect active, such that any verifiable news about you would be brought back. It was quite a popular assignment actually. It seems the new Gatherer Elder-”

“Senior Goh? He managed to make his Core?” Wu Ying interrupted.

“No. Another that the Sect had poached from a smaller sect. The Fertile Saplings, I believe. They actually disbanded not so long after.”

“Horrid name.”

“I believe that’s part of the reason for their dissolution.” Tou He acknowledged. “Anyway, Elder Kim aided your martial sister in that, because it saw an increase in the number of applicants to the program. Even some men, some of which were being trained to be wandering gatherers like you.”

“Huh.”

The pair fell silent as they came to a stop before the guard’s administrative building. Wu Ying swept his spiritual sense over it, noting the lack of anyone above Energy Storage stage within as he did so. “Are you sure you want to come with me? Surely you have other things to do.”

“It will not hurt my own mission to come with you.”

“We still need to discuss that.” Still, taking his friend’s words as agreement, Wu Ying ascended the steps into the building. After offering the seal and informing the attendant of his requirements, the pair were directed to a small waiting room off the main hall. In short order, an officious-looking bureaucrat arrived, his hands hidden within his voluminous robes as he bowed.

“Honored Cultivators. We have been informed of what you will be doing by Captain Ky.” The bureaucrat extracted his hands from his sleeves, offering Wu Ying a seal. “This will allow you entry into the city once again after you have acquired the core. You may leave the core with the gate guards or deposit it with us here.” He then lifted his other hand where a bamboo scroll lay. “In here is a map with markings indicating the presence of Core Formation equivalent beasts that have been troubling our city.”

“Beasts. So there have been more than one,” Wu Ying said, just to confirm.

“There have been a herd of elephants blocking the use of the forest to the east, what we believe to be a clouded leopard to the direct south along the roadway leading out from the city and to the west, a pack of dhole.”

“And they’re all Core Formation equivalent?”

“At least a few in the herds or packs,” the bureaucrat said. “They are… different of course.”

“What do you mean different?”

Before the bureaucrat could answer Wu Ying’s question, Tou He said, grimly. “The taint that infects the beasts forces their cores to grow. It provides greater strength, as all larger cores do, but the cores themselves are flawed. Jagged and twisted, the cultivation of the creatures twisted.

“The monsters themselves act as though are in pain, even formerly peaceful creatures lashing out.”

“I… see.”

“Do the Honored Cultivators have any further questions?” the bureaucrat said, curiously.

Wu Ying held a hand up before he unrolled the map to review its contents. Once he was satisfied that the map itself was sufficiently detailed to guide him, he dismissed the man. To Tou He, he said. “Your mission, it is about the tainted cores, is it not?”

“In a way.”

When Wu Ying raised an eyebrow, Tou He shook his head, obviously looking around to indicate the reason for caution.

“Well, the day is not getting any longer. And this map seems to indicate we have far to travel, if we are to find these monsters.” Wu Ying said, aloud. “I do hope you’ve kept up with your qinggong techniques.”

Matching his friend’s light tone, Tou He stood up and walked to the door. “I’m sure I’ll be able to keep up.”

Even worried about what might make his friend hesitant of speaking his concerns in a well guarded building, Wu Ying could not help but grin. It would be good, to show his techniques off. After all, the wind was always going to be faster than the flame.