A Thousand Li book 11 - Chapter 8 preview (Patreon)

Lessons, the personal lessons that Wu Ying conducted, for his most advanced of students were no longer conducted in the classroom. His personal students had long ago passed such hand holding, the Department of Wandering Gatherers having grown to such a size that his oldest students now carried out such menial chores.

No, the lessons that Wu Ying had to impart was best done in-person and outdoors, amidst the woods and the lands surrounding the sect. Or, in this case, in the wind cultivator's own home, standing around a powerful formation as it drew forth images from a storied ring.

The formation itself was just one of a few, the first being a security formation that secured the privacy of any viewings within the room itself and the second a layer of wards to protect against theft and tampering. It was the third set of formations, empowered by the largest set of five spirit stones, that drew the eye and empowered the casting of images from the World Spirit Ring centered in the middle of the formation itself.

Over the years, Wu Ying's continued sustenance of the World Spirit Ring had seen to its continued expansion. No longer was the territory within a simple set of fields that Wu Ying had to painstakingly develop. No, the ring itself encompassed an entire continent worth of space, one filled with mountains and lakes and rivers and plains, deserts and gullies and caves and a small ocean even. Comparing the World Spirit Ring utilised by Elder Kim, the Head of the Department of Gatherers and Farmers, to Wu Ying's ring was like comparing a child to a Nascent Soul cultivator.

Laughable in the extreme.

"I still don't believe you bought this ring in an auction," Ma Jie said, arms crossed under her breasts. She stared as Xia Hui manipulated the formation, sending the projection blurring through the world captured within the ring itself. "And slow down, you're going to make me ill."

"I'm looking for something," Xia Hui said. "And I'm not going to waste my time just for you. Close your eyes if you have a problem."

Ma Jie sniffed, but she refused to look away. As Elders, they could process and memorise faster than any mortal cultivator, and the chance to view lands - any kind of land - with such detail and safety was not to be missed. Nor, as Xia Hui hinted, could they afford to run the formation long. The cost of pulling such images from the World Spirit Ring without damaging it was astronomical, the five Core Formation equivalent spirit stones would only be sufficient for the beat of one bell(2).

"Believe it or not, it's the truth," Wu Ying stated. He was watching the image spin through before him, but his own aura and winds were embedded deep within the ring itself, sensing the way the formation manipulated the energies within the ring and verifying against the dao and enchantments used to make the ring itself for damage.

"Some people truly have the luck to pick up phoenix feather's while shitting," Zhe Lan said, the water cultivator lounging backwards. She perked up a little as the image came to a stop over the sole eastern ocean in the ring, leaning close as the image expanded swiftly and plunged into the water itself. "You still hunting for that multi-limbed squid?"

"Octopus. It's called an octopus," Xia Hui said. "And I swear, it's already progressed to Energy Storage the last time I spotted it."

"That would be impressive considering how seperated the ring is from the greater Dao." Wu Ying did not, however, gainsay his student. Or colleague. The man was, after all, an Elder now too.

"Did you really capture all these octopus variants yourself?" Elder Khang asked, hands deep in the formation and twitching them. His dao enveloped the energies, helping him manipulate the entire thing with casual ease.

"I did." Of course, Wu Ying was not going to admit how he did it. Opening a gap in the world, pushing against the dao of the world and the opening into his world spirit ring while injured had not been his best idea. It did, however, mean that he had filled the entire portion quickly enough.

"Smart, to have variety in species and types. Makes for easier study," Xia Hui muttered to himself, continuing to search. A moment later, Zhe Lan was by his side, whispering suggestions. The pair leaned their heads together, speaking to one another with comfortable ease.

Wu Ying backed off, leaving them to their privacy and leaned in to the quietest member of the quartet here. The bookish cultivator had a book propped open on her lap as she sat cultivating, pulling energy from the monster core she held in her legs while reading.

"So, are they back together again?" Wu Ying muttered softly to Ya Zhu, manipulating the wind and his aura to ensure privacy.

"Not right now. Give it a week," Ya Zhu said. "At this point in the cycle, they're just recourting."

Wu Ying grunted, leaning away. As their teacher, he was not one to get involved in their romances. It was, in his view, bad form in the extreme. After all, it was not as though he had a dao of romance or relationships. Or karmic balance or connections, like his martial sister or his lover. Anyway, the pair were adults, their choices their own.

He just liked to know when to make sure the original copies of his tomes needed to be packed away.

"Why are you two so interested in octopi anyway?" Ma Jie said, grumpily. "Not like we can gather them."

"... see the ocean." Zhe Lan stopped muttering to Xia Hui and looked up at Ma Jie. "Why not? We can learn a lot from them, and this particular species, the smaller banded octopi lives among the twice living corral. They are great markers if you can sense them to find the corral."

Ma Jie rolled her eyes. "And when are we going to see an ocean?" She shook her head. "It took Elder Long nearly three months to come here, and he's faster than all of us."

"Not back then," Wu Ying pointed out. "Then, I was only faster than two of you."

Ma Jie smiled a little proudly at that. She knew she was one of those that had been faster than him, her own progress with the Earth Bounding step offering her a degree of mobility that even her friends lacked. Wu Ying considered the style cheating though, what with it containing a trace of spatial dao within it.

"Either way, we should be using this time for something more useful," Ma Jie said. "Like reviewing those mountains."

"You can do it on your own schedule," Xia Hui countered. "And you're the only one who likes looking at moss and dirt. Just because you like delving in caves for lichen doesn't mean the rest of us get much from staring down caves."

"If you all just..."

Wu Ying tuned out the old arguments, a small smile on his lips. In truth, while he named such gatherings lessons, his students had fast grown to rival - and in some cases, surprass - his knowledge in the areas of specialisation that they had chosen. Gathering formations and symbiotic creatures for Xia Hui, aquatic plants for Zhe Lan and so forth. Only Ya Zhu had not specialised in gathering itself, though her book knowledge and management of their gathered knowledge was without par.

All in all, it meant that these gatherings were as much social time for the group as they were lessons. Utilising his World Spirit Ring, they provided him new insights into the development of the world within, recommendations to further progress its growth and the balancing of dao's and chi within and, of course, a study of potential environments that the quartet were unable to easily access.

After all, there was no ocean or desert within easy reach of the sect.

"You're quiet." Ya Zhu, not caught up in the argument, is the first to notice. Or the first to ask.

"Just... enjoying this." Wu Ying smiled a little, gesturing at the group. "Five of us. When there was but a single other Gatherer before. And not even a Wandering Gatherer."

Ya Zhu raised one shoulder and then let it drop. He knew that argument, even if she chose not to speak it. She was a poor Wandering Gatherer, more suited for the study and the books and the fields than spending time in the wilderness. Without her friends, she would have been dead years before.

With them, she still had not broken through. And the other two, they were only Elders by dint of resources. None of them, not even Zhe Lan who was by far the most talented, had Wu Ying's breadth of knowledge individually, nor journeyed as far or as wide. In the quiet of the night, Wu Ying knew, Elder Li - his old master - would have deigned them insufficient.

But she had always been a grumpy old woman. At least in the time that Wu Ying had known her.

"You have taught us well, tsifu." A slight smile, as she cut him off. "You and Honored Elder Yang. The knowledge you passed on, the chance to visit her parents..." She inclined her head to Ma Jie, the woman having returned to arguing with her friends. "She would never have broken through otherwise."

"And yourself?" Wu Ying asked, forced himself to ask. "Did you find what you all that you were searching for?"

"I don't know about all," Ya Zhu replied with a shrug. "But we got the ingredients for my pill. ElderLiu is forging it for me right now."

Wu Ying cocked his head to the side, eyeing the sluggish flow of chi within her body. There were numerous reasons why individuals failed to push ahead to Core Formation, from lack of enlightenment on a dao to issues with their dantian and the meridians in her body. In Ya Zhu's case, there was an incompatability between her cultivation method, the chi she utilised and the formation of a core.

Attempts at finding a new cultivation method had failed, the trio that she had tried to learn providing no additional benefit - and in one case, causing her to damage her own meridians and force convalscence for a year. In the end, the current cultivation method was the best option to her, the Springtime Surge after Winter Convalescence meant to make use of her naturally slower chi flows. Like it's name, the goal was the strengthen the meridians during the period of quiet cultivation till it was time for the explosive growth.

In this case, the point was to use that explosive energy to compress the chi in the dantian to form a core. Already, her dantian was filled to bursting, the alchemical pill she was to take the seed that would begin the final process. Of course, forcing cultivation like this was not without danger.

"I'll be fine," Ya Zhu said, lips twisted wryly at Wu Ying's gaze. "There are some dangers you can't train us for tsifu. Or take on. And if we are to take over for you, I'll need to be a Core Formation Elder at the least."

"I didn't..."

"I'm not blind," she replied. Conversation had fallen silent over on the other side of the room, with the projected image having stopped.

"What's this about taking over from Elder Long?" Xia Hui said, frowning.

"The Sect Head called him up to speak with him while we were gone," Ma Jie said. "Rumors are that he was asking tsifu about replacing himself."

Xia Hui turned and eyed the girls,t hen eventually grimaced. "And they don't think I'm strong enough."

"Or me," Ya Zhu pointed out.

"Or any of us, alone." Ma Jie said, arms crossed. "Our tsifu casts a long shadow."

"It's not that..." Except, it was that. None of the group had the gravitas or reputation to hold the newly - in cultivator terms - Deparmtent of Wandering Gatherers together. More importantly, the Elders and the rest of the sect had quickly grown used to the volume of pills and herbs now available, nevermind the connections and prestige the organisation had developed over the course of time. Wu Ying's ability to locate and garner rare herbs and monster cores had become a matter of routine for many, which the sect was loathe to give up.

"Once Ah Zhu becomes a Core Formation cultivator, we can take on more challenging quests," Zhe Lan said. "Even split up a little."

"And have you lost again?" Ma Jie said, snorting. "No thank you."

"Well, if you walk me to the lake, I'll be fine there!" Zhe Lan protested. Her lack of directional sense in the deep wilds were a constant joke and a minor tragedy. It was not, of course, entirely her fault. The deep wilds often had energies and daos emplaced upon them by successive layers of spirit beasts and foliage, such that traversing certain locations could be tricky. Maps and compasses could only help so much if one was caught by a dream fungi or were gradually turned around by a twisting dao of space. The others learnt how to handle such matters using cultivation techniques and boosted sensing techniques of their own, but Zhe Lan still struggled anywhere beyond the outskirts of the deep wilds and on bodies of water.

"And I won't survive myself," Ya Zhu said. She nodded to Ma Jie as she continued. "You might but..."

"But I don't fair well outside of caves, and there's not that much demand for what I do find." Her specialisation had come - partly - from her own interest and elemental skill, but also from necessity. Ma Jie struggled to locate rarer plants when she traversed the land. Whether it was a lack of perception or just outstandingly bad luck, her returns were always the smallest of the trio. It did not help that at least a quarter of the items she picked were often less artfully extracted, the specialised techniques that acquiring high grade herbs eluding her.

"So, all three of us are worth one Xia Hui or tsifu," Ya Zhu said, simply.

Xia Hui blushed at the complement, ducking his head. Then, bitterly, he could not help but add. "And I am but a shallow gatherer, unable to face the dangers of the true deep."

And that too, no one contradicted. It was a sad fact that Xia Hui - like Ya Zhu perhaps - would forever be locked in the lower edges of Core Formation. Because of that, they lacked the heft and strength to take on the common dangers of the deepest wilds where the greatest riches contained. Nor were either prodigies of a weapon, able to cross the divide of power through sheer artistry and skill.

"My apologies," Wu Ying said, breaking the morose silence that had enveloped the three. "I was not planning to bring this matter to your attention till Cultivator Cao had completed her ascension."

"Or failed it," Ya Zhu said, serenely.

Of course, all of them were quick to reassure her of her guaranteed success. Even if, deep down, everyone knew it was more dangerous for Ya Zhu than ever. If she was willing to wait, willing to look around further; perhaps... but at the same time, her meridians were solidifying, the chi movements grown more sluggish. The time for solutions was over, the hope of finding something, anything better, lost.

Now, there was only risk and perhaps, gain.


Footnote:
2 - Reminder that traditional Chinese time-keeping saw the day broken into twelve portions, with each ‘bell’ or portion a two hour block. This, of course, varied a little by the specific time period and dynasty. Additional splitting could occur, especially further north, as daylight and nighttime hours were separated. Not surprisingly, time keeping as a whole could receive a whole treatise.