DC 65

Got my laptop back. It was an entire endeavor and very upsetting, months were wasted but we're back.

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With his first day over, Feng Jiao settled into a bit of a routine while waiting for the summer solstice to come around. He’d eat a (reluctantly) vegetarian breakfast of vegetables and rice porridge, read in the library for a few hours to fill in his general knowledge gaps, and then cultivate according to the flame technique Aideen taught him until the sun sets. His Essence continued to get more viscous but had yet to condense. At night, he would continue trying to understand the various plant cultivation techniques he’d stolen and experiment with the growth techniques the sect had given him while growing his spirit rice, which he’d planted near the pond of water he used for bathing. 

After six days, he’d almost managed to understand that illusory hidden hallowed technique within the cultivation technique. Although he still didn’t understand what the technique was supposed to do, he was able to confirm that he was correct when he thought that practicing it while cycling the cultivation technique led to better results. Realistically, Feng Jiao knew that he should have moved on to one of the easier techniques to comprehend already but he had a hard time putting it down. He felt that if he could just comprehend the hidden technique the assembling his own unique cultivation technique would be many times easier. All he was missing was that one moment of enlightenment and the frustration of not being able to figure it out had been wearing away at his nerves.

Of course, enlightenment was one of those things that could only be found and not searched for so the harder Feng Jiao tried, the more difficulty he had. With that in mind he didn’t try and force it too much and just concentrated on purifying the wood essence within his dantian and pushed out most of the impurities. Although the expelled impurities slowly clogged up his meridians, they were so large after cracking and healing that he didn’t need to worry about that just yet.

On top of all that, somebody in the sect was making things difficult and messing with the supply chains for things like wood and furniture for Tan Sai’s mountain. It was expecially annoying because the people who’d smashed up her mountain over and over before she found a repellant had used their foresight and destroyed all the trees as well, leaving the mountain barren with the exception of grass and weeds.

This meant that, even after a week, not only were Feng Jiao and Bai Fu sharing the same room still, they even had to share the same small bed. The two of them had silently agreed to stagger their sleeping hours so that they didn’t technically sleep together, despite all of Bai Fu’s teasing. Just the day before she’d whispered into Feng Jiao’s ear that she loved the herbal smell that he leaves on the pillow every morning before blushing and running off.

The same people were also making it difficult for him to buy the herbs needed to do his ritual for communicating with Aideen, who was still silent and worrying him. He, naturally, already had a few sets that he’d collected while they caravanned halfway across the country but Feng Jiao had decided to try and buy higher quality versions to see if he could extend the amount of time he could spend with Aideen. This so-called ‘Radiant Gardens’ alliance was quickly making its way to the top of Feng Jiao’s ‘Face-stomping List’.

On his seventh day in the sect, Feng Jiao was staring up at one of the two moons that circled this planet and decided he was going to retire early that night. Tan Sai had told him that every seven days, the teleportation formations onto and off the mountains went down for charging and maintenance. Supposedly, this increased the longevity of the absurdly expensive formations but what it meant for Feng Jiao was that if he wanted to eat breakfast, he’d need to walk down the mountain. Something that, for obvious reasons, was going to be a very shitty experience for him. Were it not for the fact that this day also coincided with the one day of free time that most nominal disciples got, he’d likely turtle up on the mountain as Tan Sai had recommended.

After rinsing off the sweat he accumulated throughout the day, Feng Jiao returned to Tan Sai’s cabin. When he entered the room he was surprised to see that Bai Fu was not already sleeping in the bed. Happy that he didn’t have to sleep on the floor, Feng Jiao crawled under the thin blanket and closed his eyes. In his dreams he saw Aideen again, his little red friend. He knew that she wasn’t there and that this was just that, a dream, but it still warmed his heart. For the first time that week, Feng Jiao slept longer than two hours.

By his math, it was going to take at least an hour to descend the couple-miles tall mountain and another two or three to walk all the way to the Outer Sect Common Area where the Mess Hall and other buildings were located. A few hours before dawn, Feng Jiao woke up. He was thankful that he woke up early enough to possibly get some meat with his meal, something he’d yet to accomplish, and annoyed at the same time that he’d woken up after sleeping so peacefully. The culprit to this sleep crime was quickly identified in the form of a gently snoozing girl snuggled up to Feng Jiao’s side. With her arm across his chest and her head laying in the nook of his shoulder, Bai Fu’s body heat had woken him up.

Almost as if she could sense his gaze, Bai Fu’s eyelids trembled as she opened her eyes. Quickly noticing her position, she pushed herself off Feng Jiao and stood up. There was a moment of eye contact before she turned and left the room. Feng Jiao took the opportunity to put his Outer Sect robe on and start descending the mountain. 

As always, the paved path down to the teleportation formation was littered with tall man-sized torches burning the herbal laxative smoke that kept Tan Sai’s enemies at bay. Thankfully, neither Feng Jiao nor Bai Fu had forgotten to take the antidote any of the seven days that they’d stayed on the mountain and were now safe for the next year or so. Feng Jiao always meant to pick Tan Sai’s mind on how she came up with the combination of herbs that was so cost effective and functional. It wasn’t often he met someone who shared his love for the many plants that this world had to offer.

Passing by the teleportation formation, the torches became fewer and farther between until, eventually, they were gone. Feng Jiao knew this was because burning the torches all day everyday took up a lot of time, both for refilling them and growing the herbs. As he descended the mountain, it obviously got wider and wider which caused there to be more surface area that needed to be covered. With only Tan Sai living on the mountain until that point, covering all her land was practically an impossibility. 

The scent of manure got worse and worse until, finally, the green mountain faded away to a field of brown as far as Feng Jiao could see. With a frown on his face, Feng Jiao realized that knowing that something like this was happening and seeing it roused two entirely different emotions. Feng Jiao stood at the edge of this rolling landscape and could only feel melancholy. The grass there was so green and vibrant right up onto the border where life just vanished. Feng Jiao couldn’t help but be reminded how fragile, yet resilient, life was. Although it could end in an instant, new life would always flow back in like the tide returning from sea. 

Ten or so minutes later, Feng Jiao realized he’d been staring at a pile of shit and had somehow gained a bit of enlightenment. ‘That’s some good shit!’ he thought to himself as he took a large pair of boots out from his storage ring. Even though she didn’t like to leave her mountain on ‘Charge Days’, Tan Sai had kept them for emergency situations anyways. Since Feng Jiao hadn’t hit any major growth spurts yet, his feet fit inside them nicely and Tan Sai said he could borrow them. He usually prefered to wander around barefoot so he didn’t own any boots of his own. He also made sure to take his robe off and put it away for the time being and made a note to purchase some shorts to wear for activities like these.

Should a bird have been flying overhead that morning, it would have seen a very pale boy descending the mountain in nothing but knee-high boots, underwear, and a thin sleeping shit with long gray hair flowing in the wind behind him. Forty or fifty minutes later, Feng Jiao finally reached ‘dry ground’. Really, only the last 10 minutes had been too bad. The rest of it had just about dried and solidified by that point and wasn’t too difficult to walk over. 

Just as he was getting ready to take off the soiled boots and get dressed, Feng Jiao heard scraping in the distance. He jogged over to the sound and about three minutes later, he ran into somebody at the foot of the mountain. It was a muscular boy, probably around the age of eighteen, wearing nominal robes and shoveling manure from a wooden cart onto the heap. The practiced manner in which he managed to shovel shit, almost as if he were no different than lifting a piece of paper and setting it back down, told Feng Jiao that this man did this very frequently. 

He couldn’t help but get angry at the sight of it. Tan Sai told Feng Jiao that people used to compete to buy the stable’s manure to fertilize their fields but ever since she’d won the mountain, a few alliances, with Radiant Gardens leading the pack, had been bulk purchasing it to desecrate her land. He knew this nominial was just doing as he was told, but that did nothing to curb the anger welling up in Feng Jiao. 

Feng Jiao was able to make a few assumptions. Since he was still a nominal disciple, it was obvious that he hadn’t yet condensed his first drop of Qi. Not only that, but Feng Jiao was willing to bet he hadn’t even reached the peak of Awakening yet. If he had, the meridian that ran through his head would have been unblocked and Feng Jiao would not still be going unnoticed. Of course, there was also a chance that the man hadn’t formed the habit of constantly circulating his Qi through the important meridians to increase his awareness as Feng Jiao had.

Either way, Feng Jiao quickly came up with a plan to help alleviate his anger. Feng Jiao released his spiritual sense to check if there was anyone in the area. After confirming that this was the only person here, Feng Jiao snuck up on the man. 

The nominal disciple continued auto piloting his daily morning task. He’d picked up the job four months prior and considered it a major improvement. Previously, he was responsible for lugging coal and ores around to the various blacksmiths for a month. Not only was the job harder on him and took longer to complete, it also paid less. There weren’t many jobs that nominal disciples could do where they profited, so this slot was heavily competitive.

Were it not for his older cousin being an Inner Sect Disciple, the man wouldn’t have even been accepted as a nominal disciple, let alone been able to land such an easy job so shortly after coming to the Sect. He’d started cultivating later in life, only able to afford the awakening ceremony after his cousin was allowed to send money home. Still, with the spiritual energy being so dense in the Sect, he’d managed to open two meridians in six months since he’d awoken his martial spirit and come to the sect. It wasn’t an amazing speed, but it certainly wasn’t bad for someone his age. He even felt that he was vaguely approaching the threshold of breaking through his third meridian!

As he shoveled the shit onto the mountain, he just thought about finishing his task and headed back to eat breakfast. With any luck, he’d break through to Awakening Step Three before the newbies showed up in the next month or so. He was zoning out until his shovel seemed to get stuck under some particularly heavy manure in the cart. He turned to see what happened and found that there were two boots standing on his shovel. Almost the moment he saw the boots, however, one of them lifted up and stuck itself to his face.

Before he could even stop to consider how disgusting the smell of beast manure getting pushed up his nose by the soles of the boot, or the fact that he could taste it because he had the habit of breathing lightly through his mouth, he found himself in the air and flying backwards. With a wet slurping noise, he disappeared from sight. By the time he managed to claw his way out of the literal shit hole, Feng Jiao was long gone.