Story 8 - Tribulation Troubles (Part 3) (Patreon)

Since I was no longer welcome to watch Little Spring’s lessons, I headed over to the Sect Leader’s hall.

I entered the side area where disciples filed reports and finished paperwork. A few of them talked excitedly while others quietly handed jade slips to each other.

Daoist Early Rise Swift Brush rushed down the bustling room. The young cultivator looked like he was about to burst with energy, figuratively.

His eyes widened and he slid to a stop right in front of me.

After hastily bowing, he said, “Great Martial Aunt Lin! I just had an epiphany on the Dao of Paperwork this morning!”

What?! Really? So soon?

I coughed and stood up straight, clasping my hands behind my back like the little master I was. “Very good! I knew the Dao of Paperwork would be perfect for you.”

Well if anyone looked like they were born to push papers, it was Early Rise Swift Brush.

He nodded sagely. “I’ve recently taught it to some promising young peak disciples. Breaking it down to teach it to others helped me organize my thoughts and delve deeper into its secrets.” He clasped his hand in an encouraging fist. “Soon, all the paperwork on the Indomitable Peak will get finished faster than in any other sect!”

“That sounds like a solid goal to start out with.”

His eyes glittered in a way that made me think he was looking for more direction. Shit. What do I say?

“Always keep in mind that there is more to the Dao of Paperwork than the mundane.”

His eyes widened. “Because Paperwork is used to navigate laws, and the universe is composed of laws? So if I can...”

He trailed off as if his mind was just blown, then a heavy universal energy rained down on him.

Another epiphany? Didn’t he just get one?

“Oh! I’m about to transcend! I need to go.”

The fuck just happened?

He pulled out his flying sword and rushed away. Probably to go through his tribulation.

What the hell kind of Dao did I just help invent? And there were going to be more practitioners?

Were the heavens tired of doing paperwork and decided to speed run clerks through their realms?

***

At the end of the lotus-themed hall, my friend, Peerless Resolve sat on his very uncomfortable-looking seat.

“Martial Aunt Lin, I heard you exchanged swordsmanship notes with Sword Master Salamander.”

“And I won.”

Despite his attempts to have a blank face, I could see his exhaustion in the slight downturn of his lips and the few wrinkles around his eyes. “Doesn’t this break the low profile image you keep agreeing to cultivate?”

There were just some things I needed to happen, and this spar had been one of them.

“I mentioned that I’d try to cultivate it.” I waved off his concerns. “It’s fine. It’s not like I beat him while he was at his full cultivation level.”

“He’s a sword cultivator, and you’re not,” he deadpanned.

“Salamander took his defeat well.”

My friend looked exasperated. “Regardless of how he takes it, doing something like this will put you back on the radar of the demonic cultivators.”

He was right, and I was downplaying the dangers.

I knew that.

But I also saw that Salamander was on the cusp of transcending his Nascent Soul Tribulation, and there were things he needed to practice and discover before he did.

Considering that it had been months since I’d last heard the sect leader talk about demonic infiltrators, I figured this might also help shake them up a bit. Maybe get my friend’s investigation rolling again.

“If the demonic cultivators have a list of disciples to watch out for, they would have put me on it when I destroyed part of Fairy Garlic’s kitchen, or when I cured the plague.”

My old friend looked at me as if I were a ball of trouble that had rolled into his formation and knocked down half the flags.

“Actually, it would have been when you first entered the sect.” He cleared his throat. “And since we’re speaking of the demonic sect — I have news that they’re going to try something drastic soon.”

“I doubt that they’ll attack the sect directly. At least not right now.”

“Not directly. I don’t want to discuss it. Any significantly different actions taken could alert these infiltrators and put our disciples in danger. For now, just be careful and keep a low profile.”

Sometimes I wonder if he’s met me. “I’ll try.”

I mean, it was hard to not show how incredible I was when a mere joke of mine could turn into a whole new style of cultivation. But, I knew how to be subtle when necessary.

“Also, I think you should finally transcend your tribulation... for your own protection.”

I frowned.

“I understand that you’ve been putting it off until you’re ready, but you don’t need to be prepared for every possible eventuality.”

I raised my hand to pause him, but he continued.

“Your increased difficulty is causing you some stress. But you shouldn’t put it off much longer. Doing so could give rise to inner demons.”

Me? Have inner demons? Ridiculous. Honestly, he should just relax. I had this handled. I wasn’t worried, I just... needed to be completely prepared for every possible eventuality.

“There are still a few more preparations I have to make. But I’ll go through it soon.”

“You’ve said that for months now. How soon is soon? A week? Two?”

“I have a mental list of things I need to ensure I get out of my tribulation alive. Once I have everything on the list, I’ll call it down.”

“From what I heard, Salamander is even letting you borrow his new pagoda defensive treasure.”

“While that will be useful, anything could happen during a tribulation.”

“Like what?”

“Some malicious person could get close to me, increasing the difficulty of my tribulation.”

“Aunt Lin, while that is a real risk, it rarely happens as long as you prepare a good place to transcend.”

“I already have a few spots picked out.”

“Then why don’t we head to one of them now? We can even call over Salamander and have him give you the defensive tool.”

I sighed. “As good as that tool is, I can’t stand inside it and breeze my way through. Doing that would just anger the heavens and cause me to fail.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that you just stand there.”

“But that’s what I’d have to do if I don’t complete my preparations. Trust me, Nephew. I know what I’m doing.”

Despite his nearly blank face, he looked unconvinced. I didn’t blame him. If some 11-year-old girl told me what I told him, I’d have an even worse reaction.

“Besides, I haven’t finished my body cultivation. How can you expect me to transcend without completing something so integral to my foundation?”

“Fine. Just try to do it sometime within the next week or two.”

I was an Immortal Ascension Stage monster. I wasn’t scared of a silly Qi Condensation tribulation that had the strength of Foundation Establishment.

***

After working for a few hours at the Sect Leader’s hall, I finally received a secret sound transmission from my new favorite black market dealer.

The thing about sects was that if I went through legitimate sources, I would get what my contribution points paid for. This was technically the only way to buy things within the sect.

But disciples in the know, like myself, knew better.

There were secret monthly markets where inner sect members gathered covertly to trade or sell.

Then there were a few shady individuals on each peak who were always open for a profitable transaction.

Disciples called these individuals black market dealers or fucking-shameless-conmen.

If these dealers didn’t recognize what they had, a clever customer could profit off them. Of course, if the customer wasn’t careful, a bag of medicinal herbs would actually be full of poison.

For an expert like myself, these were people who would always make a loss. But they usually made so much from their other ignorant clients that it didn’t matter too much.

I activated the simple obfuscation token I’d made. It changed my face, deepened my voice, and blurred my silhouette.

Once satisfied, I entered the rendezvous point.

This particular dealer had set up at an abandoned immortal cave that had lost all of its spiritual energy long ago.

It also had a lot of scorch marks on it from where the poor disciple who used to cultivate within it tried to transcend their tribulation.

Considering how empty the place was, they probably failed. They must not have had enough of an area to move around. A critical error in judgment on their part.

“Are you seriously not going to give me my spirit stones back?” A man raged at the small cloaked black market dealer. While he also used an obfuscation token, his wasn’t very good. I made out a weird silver eagle hanging from his waistband.

A girl’s young voice echoed through the cave, but it had obviously been changed due to her sky ranked Obfuscating Cloak.

“Dear Customer, as I told you at the time of your purchase — you couldn’t return items you’ve purchased.”

“You said that they were high-quality Emperor Jade stones.”

“I said that they were mined near where high-quality Emperor Jade stones were found. And they are technically jade.”

“But they have no spirituality. They may as well be rocks. Why should I give you spirit stones for this?”

“There are no returns or exchanges.” My black market dealer gestured to me. “And my next customer is here. Please leave.”

“I’m never coming here again!”

“Thank you!”

He stormed toward the exit. The guy and that eagle pendant looked familiar. I was pretty sure I’d seen him before in my past life, but I couldn’t remember where.

Well, whatever. I had shit to buy!

Unfortunately, before he passed me, he stopped and leaned over.

In a threatening voice, he said, “You should just use contribution points at the Indomitable Peak’s treasure pavilion. All these black market dealers are frauds and tricksters.”

I shrugged. “The girl used your greed against you. It’s not her fault you were too ignorant to notice.”

Compared to all the nasty schemes of the internet conmen from my past-past life, these dealers were tame.

He blushed. “You’re lucky I don’t have time for this.” He then flicked his sleeve and took off on his flying sword.

I watched him go, then eyed my dealer. “He’s likely going to send a sect enforcer over soon.”

While I couldn’t see her through her obfuscating hood, her obvious amusement came through when she said, “He has to file a complaint about me first. Either way, we better make this quick.”

She sat down on the stone cave floor.

After a swift cleaning technique that earned me a startled jerk from the cloaked figure, I took a seat in front of her.

“Was that really necessary, dear customer?”

“Absolutely.”

She pulled out a melted crimson metal piece about the size of my hand. “This broken shard was once part of an Immortal Ascension cultivator’s sword. It’s made from Three Star Red Titanium. Which was exactly what you were looking for.”

Then she placed several large folded pieces of dark gray leather next to it. “I also received this in the same shipment. The hide from a Magnificent Black Rhino — a spiritual beast that reaches stage 5.”

Then she pulled out a familiar tree that awkwardly took up half the space of the cave and had to bend a bit to fit inside it. Its leaves tickled my hair. I awkwardly tilted my head so it wouldn’t touch me.

She coughed and rubbed her shadowed face in embarrassment, but didn’t apologize. Yeah, she probably shouldn’t have taken it out inside the immortal cave. At least the ceiling was high in here, and this spiritual version of this tree was very bendy.

The girl must have had a very special bag to keep a whole tree in there without it losing its energy.

After scanning everything with my divine sense, I confirmed my suspicions. This was definitely what I was looking for.

“I’m not sure why you need this, but I happened to have a contact who imported it over here.”

“It’s called a Spiritual Rubber Tree. This one is exactly the size I requested, too.”

“Then shall we go over pricing?” She pointed to the Red Titanium. “Ten mid-grade spirit stones. The Leather is very hard to come by, but I’ll give you a deal since you’re a repeat customer. Twenty mid-grade. And because of how far my contacts had to travel to find such a weird tree, it’s two mid-grade.”

I batted away the leaf that kept touching my head. It slapped my forehead. Doing my best to ignore it, I cleared my throat. “The tree’s price is fine since it’s an item I specifically requested, but this sword shard is not worth ten mid-grade spirit stones. It’s not even worth 10,000 regular ones.”

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Author’s Note: Thank you all for reading! You are the best readers a writer could ask for!

I apologize for the late upload. I was doing a bit better this week. I managed to write around 8.6k words for story 8. But to do that I sacrificed my editing time on Wednesday. Since I was feeling a bit better, I thought I’d be able to make it up on Thursday and Friday but I felt like crap. Thank you so much for your understanding!

For those readers on discord who sent kind and thoughtful words — you are beautiful people and deserve all the virtual hugs I can give.