Chapter 75 (Patreon)

“You’re joking,” Xie Jin said.

“I’m very serious,” Chen Haoran replied.

“What would you even be hoping to do by doing that?”

“I don’t know but I’d like to do it at least once before we reach Whiteridge.”

Xie Jin looked at Old Jiang and pointed to Chen Haoran. “Tell him its a bad idea.”

Old Jiang shrugged and stepped back. “It’s just swimming.”

“In a living river?” Xie Jin asked in disbelief.

“Were sailing on it,” Old Jiang pointed out. “And he wouldn’t be the first or the only thing to swim in the Machu. Of all the things that could anger the river, being treated as regular water isn’t one of them.”

“It could be good for my cultivation,” Chen Haoran said. “It will be a while before I come this way again.”

Xie Jin’s shoulders slumped and he sighed. “How can I get in the way of a cultivator’s advancement?”

“Don’t worry.” Chen Haoran patted Phelps’s head. The sloth licked his hand with a sticky tongue. “I’ve got the best swimmer with me.”

“Lucky him,” Xie Jin dryly said. “When are you going to go then?”

“Will we see more ships the closer we get to Whiteridge?” Chen Haoran asked Old Jiang.

“Aye. It’s the busiest river port in the Empire.”

“I’ll go know then. No reason to let an anchor fall on my head.”

Phelps floated out of his lap and Chen Haoran stood up and cast off his robe to a disgruntled Xie Jin who without hesitation slapped it onto the deck.

“Really?” Chen Haoran asked.

“Come back if you have a problem,” Xie Jin said.

Chen Haoran laughed and flipped off a confused Xie Jin which, to his credit, did not stop him from guessing the hand sign was an insult and responding in kind.

“Keep my cup ready, I’ll be back.”

With that Chen Haoran leaped off the boat with a flex of qi, followed by a squealing Phelps in his signature cannonball.

Man and sloth splashed into crystal yellow water.

——————

The first thing that struck him was not the clarity of the water. Although it was indeed clear. Even the qi-filled waters of the Spa Caverns pools, continually refined in an isolated water cycle, were foggy compared to the Machu. Nor was it the brightness. However, the way the sunlight streamed from the river’s surface in dappled rays and lit up the yellow waters gold was so beautiful it almost made him think his fall down had been a jump up to heaven. It wasn’t the way the speed of his qi’s flow had changed from a racing torrent in his meridians to a slower, almost meandering flow that ebbed and rose with the Machu.

None of those arrested his attention the way the warmth did, however.

It wasn’t a matter of temperature. The water was cold and he could feel the chill race along his nerves like spidery fingers. Despite that he was enveloped in a warm sensation that wrapped him like a blanket all the way down to his qi.

On the ship he could not sense anything supernatural about the water even when it was twisting itself into all sorts of unnatural forms before his very eyes. He could feel it now though. Within the river what he sensed was not just qi but the presence of a mind that was as endless to his sense as the waters of the Machu were to his eyes.

A claw brushed against his calf and he was broken out of his shock. Phelps swam into view far more gracefully than how he moved on land. Chen Haoran cycled his qi and followed him. On Earth, he would have never gone near water so deep let alone dive in it. He had preferred beaches and shallows, water you couldn’t see the bottom of was far too suspicious.

In this world those concerns were removed by qi. Not just his cultivation letting him swim farther, dive deeper, and hold his breath longer but his affinity. A Water Spirit Root had certain advantages in water. It wasn’t any sort of power boost or drawing power from the qi of the sea but rather a greater ease of mobility. Truthfully not the biggest of increases, Chen Haoran wouldn’t be racing any fish, but compared to other cultivators it was like he was kitted out in full swim gear. On his own, he wouldn’t fear swimming in any depth.

He was not alone.

Phelps and Chen Haoran dove deeper, down to where the golden light became inky darkness that even light could not reach through the crystal water. Streams of bubbles whirled around them like snakes as he felt the river move its currents to push them back. He took one last look at the abyss. If the river’s depth was at all comparable to its width…

He let the current take him away and spurred the yellow dragon within him to let loose a roar filled with as much meaning as he could pack into it.

‘Explore.’

He paused. The yellow dragon whimpered.

‘Not too far please?’

The river obliged.

Chen Haoran immediately felt the presence cocoon him and Phelps and the golden world became a tunnel of swirling light as the river suddenly accelerated them far and away. He couldn’t feel how fast they were going, protected as he was, but in the back of his mind, he knew that they were going very, very fast.

Old Jiang had perhaps undersold him on just how fast the river could have sped up their journey.

The light tunnel broke into calm gold and the river let go of them right in the middle of a school of fish. The boat-sized fish did not appreciate that, immediately scattering in every direction. Chen Haoran caught a glimpse of silver-blue scales with a darker blue trident pattern pressed on them before the fish fled out of sight and the river whisked them away again.

What followed was a guided tour unlike any he had ever experienced. They scared more schools of trident-patterned fish by appearing in their midst. In between breaks to the surface for air, they raced fish with dog heads that jumped out of the water to bark and beg for a fisherman’s catch. The river sat them atop a green turtle bigger than an elephant and let them ride it through a literal forest. Trees complete with leaves and flowers in full bloom grew underwater as if it was dry land. Small yellow fish claimed the branches in lieu of birds to build nests of twigs and grass and fluttered with silky pennant flag fins.

When the turtle grew irritated the river flew them away from the forest and to a much more believable bed of seaweed that it pushed aside to reveal crab clans and shrimp sects locked in battle. They were dragged off before the mortal foes could unite to fight the invasive man and sloth.

Not all of the rivers choices were so fantastical, it’s definition of exploring seemed a bit different from Chen Haoran’s. This meant they were brought around to witness rocks of all different shapes and sizes, a patch of empty sand, a piece of driftwood, someone’s lost underwear, and a boat with a single snail on the bottom of its hull.

Then there was a sight that was far more sobering. The river brought them to some distant shore where they broke for air and when they dove an entire sunken village was revealed. It was remarkably preserved for a ruin, the stone walls and foundations still standing after who knows how long. Shingles exchanged for roofs of algae and crawling plants, wooden doors rotted away to better allow fish to enter and exit. Chen Haoran remembered Old Jiang’s words. The Machu did as it pleased. If he didn’t have the Yellow River Dragon Refinement he had no doubt the river would view him the same as it did the residents of these homes.

As if sensing his sorry mood the river quickly took them away from the village and released them into open water above its unseeable depths. Chen Haoran spun around for anything of note when the currents surged and the overgrown wreckage of a sunken ship rose out from the deep. Chen Haoran almost choked. It was built of wood, that much was clear, but the ship was the size of an aircraft carrier. A large palace in the sloped roof style of Clearsprings City sat on one end of the massive boat, notable not just for its scale but also for how the top half was sliced clean off. The river wrapped them in a gentle tunnel of water and carried them around the forbidding vessel, across the expanse of its deck, over the sliced palace where they peered into the exposed rooms, and around the gaping hole in the side of the ship which presumably sunk it.

‘Here,’ he decided. ‘He would do it here.’

He hadn’t just decided to come into the river because wanted to take a dip. In the Spa Caverns cultivating in the spiritual pools helped accelerate his progress far ahead of his speed in Clearsprings City because of their compatibility with his Water Spirit Root.

What would happen if he cultivated in the place that inspired his cultivation technique?

He focused his qi and sent his intention to the river through the yellow dragon’s roar before beginning to cultivate. For a brief second, he could have sworn he felt… curiosity?

Yellow qi flooded into him.

It was a shade deeper than his own and far purer but it was unmistakably the same type of qi as his own. The yellow dragon roared in pure joy as the Machu river’s qi merged with his own. The yellow qi seemed to echo that roar and his meridians rang like bells. Chen Haoran’s sense stretched to its limit taking it all in and he couldn’t tell where the water ended and his body began. The yellow dragon revolved and rushed toward his head as his qi swelled.

Chen Haoran touched the limit.