The Fourth Fall - Chapter 20 preview (Patreon)

The pair of spirit instruments broke away from the  Third Grand Palace of the Wei the next morning. Not without another half-day of pomp and ceremony, one filled with musical instruments played to the slow departure of the buildings, vast vases of flower petals strewn across the walkways and the droning voices of bureaucrats attempting to justify their existence.

Wu Ying was grateful he was allowed to forgo his presence, instead standing near the top floor of the floating pagoda, the winds wrapped around the building as they sought out intruders and other disparate elements within the building itself. Even though the protective formation had been enacted throughout the meeting, it had been utilised at a lower powered basis. It would not have taken much for a spy to slip within.

In fact... "There." Wu Ying pulsed his aura, forming a solid connection in the building as he sensed a warping of chi that was unusual. A trio of formation masters moved, crossing the floors to head for the pulsing aura. Once within, the wind cultivator withdrew the energy as he continued to sense the surroundings.

"Stowaway on the second floor. Female. Mortal." He sent a whisper downwards, eyes narrowing in thought. He wondered, briefly, what he story was but other than pulsing his aura around the room itself to allow the seekers to find the hidden woman, he had other matters to attend to.

Mortal stories, of tragedy and love lost and desperate moments of sought salvation. They were as important for them as his own to him, but he could not watch it, could not seek out the details. If every life was as important as another, it was also true that some lives, some events revebrated through eternity. One did not need to be a seer to know that this journey might be one of them.

And yet...

"Make sure she's treated well," Yang Mu, listening to Wu Ying by his side muttered. "Her connections to this land are thin, disparate. One pulses with the darkened heart of blood ground ink."

"Ah...." Wu Ying hesitated, then repeated Yang Mu's words to the searchers.

The wind drifted through corridors, between gaps and whistled along formations that blocked their entrance. Each time, the wind cultivator allowed his presence to seep within or if rebuffed, marked down said locations for the searchers. Many were known, understood and accepted.

The Patriarch of the Six Flags rooms, unopened since his entrance. The old man within cultivated, holding his age and infirmity at bay with ever increasing amounts of chi. A powerful master, on the last legs of his life who had insisted on his presence here, to the dismay of his sect. Wu Ying had only glimpses of the man, though the hunched over figure utilising a gigantic brush as his walking cane had stuck in his memories.

The Sect Head's own quarters, the Right Guardian's. His martial sister's, of course, though he could bypass her wards. His own quarters were wide open, allowing any to enter. If they could bypass his sense of the wind within, he deserved to be attacked or trapped.

The heart and control room of the pagoda itself, the pulsing center of the floating building. The multiple storage centers of spirit stones all guarded, by cultivators and formations. Those he had no issue browsing within, for the ward stones offered to him allowed him to bypass security measures.

Below, the three Energy Storage specialists had arrived at his first location, a seldom used meeting room that could be converted to dining or cultivation as needed on the third floor. They paused, searching the room carefully, only one staring at the simple vase located within. Gently, ever so gently, they moved around it, crystal wands and yellow talismans appearing in their hands, eight-sided compasses providing information on pulsing and twisting energies emnating from the vase.

"Not explosive talismans," one muttered. "A simple messaging construct?"

"Connected to a sensory formation," the other confirmed. Bending down, she squinted at the vase and added. "Amazing construction. They double-fired the vase, layering the outer coating on top of the inner that holds the formation itself to hide the entire thing. Difficult to sense, if one did not have the right tools."

"How did he sense it then?" the third speaker said, lips pursed.

"He's an Elder, of course."

"That's not an answer...!"

Wu Ying pulled his senses away, allowing the three to bicker without his presence. No need to explain his own methods, to note how the minute changes in environmental mana told its own tale. Or the mental map of the structure, formed from blowing winds, that had spoken of a changed flow within the room itself that had given him his first clue.

On and on, he traversed the building, speaking with Yang Mu who held a hand upwards, a cats-cradle of string and chi dancing between her fingers as she did the same. The pair watched, long after the buildings had broken away, finding minor breaches through the building. A gift here, an additional delivery of rice there - the bag itself laced with a tracking beacon - and more.

Then, the final cultivators were arriving, traversing the distance on flying swords and clouds, to return to the Verdant Green Waters building. The Sect Head, Fa Yuan, the Right Guardian. Their protectors and other members of the embassy. Finally here. The moment they arrived, the pagoda sped up.

For now, the final objective was in-sight.

***

Wu Ying retreated to his own room soon after, the overwatch of the building taken over by others. He relaxed within, as Yang Mu turned to deal with their stowaway, her own dao compelling her interest. For the wind cultivator, he had other matters to attend to, matters of great import.

"Why would you ever mix wind desert cacti with lilac marsh flowers?" he growled a little, peering at the letter on his desk. Missives, sent by spirit messengers, cluttered his desk and a vein in his temple throbbed. "No, no, no." Pen poised, he scribbled across the documents and the map offered to him. "Put it here, and then move it there..."

Seven minutes later, he was done and the document set aside for delivery. Next up, the demands from the apothecarist departments, their requests for delivery of herbs. Alongside it came the detailed listsof stores available to the sect from the armory and forecasts of current growing trends for the herbs in the cultivator fields. Wu Ying held all three documents up, floating them in space with chi and wind and compared them.

Paperwork, for the sect. Sometimes, it was a matter of lining up forecasted demand and growing trends, though he often had to plan multiple months ahead. Made complicated by the arrival of new cultivators during the spring season, their training in the summer months and the final winnowing in autumn. Yet, most of their needs were basic, the requirements of their cultivation aids - Meridian Opening Pills, Clear Water Cleansing Tonics, the Five Fold Elemental Drops - easily forecast. Even growing as the Verdant Green Waters might be, stores left behind by previous department heads saw to the minor fluctuations.

No. Within twenty minutes of careful review, Wu Ying was done, and only minor adjustments were required. No, all this was simple enough and only duty and responsibility had him overseeing the final review for what was demanded of his people.

It was the Elders, their needs and requirements that were his greater responsiblity. And those, those were more complex. Those required a wider breadth of knowledge, of substitutions and locations, of potential harvesting times and the passage of his people. Those, he would have to oversee, to his dismay. And yet, necessary, for none knew the contents of his World Spirit Ring.

And so, he read and perused and created a list, striking those off that could be sent to other cultivators to acquire or to Yang Mu to trade for. Only for the rarest, for the ones that were most dangerous to locate. Only those did he keep.

When he was done, he set the documents aside. He sipped on his tea, stood and stretched before taking a seat on a cultivator cushion. And finally, he sent his mind within. To his World Spirit Ring, to traverse the lands within, to check upon the myriad fields of spiritual herbs that grew within, the forests and plains that sprawled outside the carefully managed fields and the myriad compost heaps contained within. All the way to the mountains in the distance, the ranging mountain goats and the browsing sheep in the low hills, the formed clouds and the seas in the distance.

A World Spirit Ring, a true one.

Not a full world, not yet; but soon. A decade, maybe two. It'd be a pretty empty world, if he did not take further action to develop it. He could sense every moment the World Spirit ring expanding, the way it fed upon his chi, upon his dao to fuel its development. It had jumped forward since his ascension and breakthrough, and he could feel within, a trace of the greater Dao. Heaven, hell, it all was there if faintly, seeping within as it was carried forth by chi and dao.

Wu Ying let his senses within, spending time first at his fields. So many fields dedicated to the production of wind-related herbs, some of them cleansing herbs meant for his medicinal baths. Over the course of the last year, he had slowly begun switching out various fields for other, more generic ones as needed.

Yet, there were entire fields filled with herbs that took multiple years to grow. He could uproot them, but would then lose multiple years of work, in a few cases entire decades. Rather than waste all that effort, Wu Ying had chosen instead to continue cultivating the herbs. He would flood much of the medicinal bath market if he put all this for sale, so he would have to carefully adjust their presence and extraction.

He took some time, ensuring he extracted weeds all along the rows, turned over earth and rotated the compost piles. On top of that, he made sure to work on the irrigation lines, allowing water to flow down the clay pathways he had carved in the earth. As his spiritual aura extended across the entirety of his fields, he worked on multiple areas at the same time, able to control the flow of energy in a variety of locations.

Once done, the wind cultivator finally turned to checking on the various other herbs he had scattered through his World Spirit Ring. Over the years, he had gathered herbs of a wide variety, germinating or transplanting them all across the land, from plains to shaded forests, lakes and rivers and even mountainsides. These herbs, they were a variety of strengths and kinds, meant to help provide trade goods for Wu Ying and to ai the Verdant Green Waters as necessary.

It was not possible to just add Nascent Soul strength herbs. Many such herbs started from the lower strength level, growing stronger gradually. Some might need hundreds, even thousands of such herbs germinated beforehand, with only luck and chance somehow allowing the progress of a specific spiritual herb to strengthen. Others on the other hand, like the ginsengs and the like, might need age.

More importantly, to create the environment for spiritual herbs to progress, a proper environment was necessary. To push the growth of a strong water herb, a fiery environment not far away was desired. The contrast of energies within the environment would promote the growth of stronger herbs.

Splitting his attention a little, Wu Ying utilised his brush, adding in details about the various herbs that had been requested. It was prosaic work, but necessary. In a few cases, he even found herbs that needed to be extracted. Jade preservation boxes were withdrawn from his storage ring and the herbs gathered and set aside for later usage.

He could not help but regard the quiet, personal wealth within and smile. It seemed, even after all these years and the trouble his refusal had caused, he had made the right decision to defy Elder Li.