CHAPTER 12 - Grass

Out in the forest not too far from what used to be the Zearthorn sect premises, a man that looked about middle-aged sat cross-legged near a pond. Well, cross-legged was perhaps a little inaccurate, as he didn’t have two legs to cross.

Kaphor was looking a whole load better than he looked after his extreme near-death experience. He was still missing half his jaw, several fingers, and an entire leg, but other than that he was almost fine.

He had even regained a good portion of his life force, although it was only around eighty percent of its maximum capacity.

All of this was achieved when he stepped onto the golden path.

Kaphor was quite desperate when he crawled his way out of the ruins of the Zearthorn sect. His injuries and overall poor state left him unable to make it very far. Eventually, he came across a particularly picturesque part of the forest.

There was a small pond surrounded by several wonderful trees. The entire section of the forest was located within a small depression which meant that it was mostly out of sight of anyone that might be snooping around the ruins of their sect.

He decided to rest here at first, but as time went on his motivation to leave rapidly left him.

It was so peaceful. There was nothing but the occasional chirping of birds that disturbed his quiet.

As he spent time within this garden his hatred and anger slowly withered away. After he had relaxed, he chose to spend most of his time meditating. Not even a week after he started, he broke onto the golden path.

It just felt so petty afterward. He had spent years fighting for benefits to push himself over this seemingly unbreakable barrier, but in the end, all it took was a bit of peace and quiet.

The breakthrough drastically helped with his life force deficiency and he regained a good part of the youth he had lost.

He no longer felt any rush. There was no more of the desperation that drove him to do whatever it took to progress. Now he just felt… Empty.

How had been living his life up until this point? Was everything he schemed truly so petty that a mere bit of relaxation could have replaced it?

Ever since he had broken into the golden path, he was stuck in a constant loop of questioning himself. At first, he stubbornly stuck by what he had done. But there was nobody else here. The only person he was lying to was himself. What was even the point of keeping his face?

Half of his literal face was gone anyway. All of those petty men and women he had worked to impress were now below him. So there was no more reason to be deceitful.

Eventually, he admitted the truth. He was a petty man that spent far too much time doing petty things. At some point along his path, he had stopped believing that he had any potential outside of the potential he could steal from others.

And where had that taken him?

He pondered the birds in the trees and the frogs in the pond. Slowly, as more and more time passed Kaphor felt his opinion on potential take a complete one-eighty. He went from seeing no potential anywhere to seeing endless potential in everything.

The birds and frogs, if nurtured properly, could become spirit beasts. These beasts could grow and eventually attain a human form. They could become cultivators and walk down the path.

Kaphor spent days sitting in the same position. Eventually, he noticed a shriveled stalk of grass growing on the floor just in front of him.

Partially out of boredom and partially out of curiosity, he fed the stalk of grass qi. He had spent a good deal of time nourishing the plants, so he was familiar with the special techniques that allowed one to imbue plants with qi.

It didn’t change at first, but as the days marched onward, the stalk of grass stopped looking withered. As more days went by the stalk grew a shade greener than the ones surrounding it, and it was growing a bit taller as well.

Kaphor pondered this. Could a stalk of mundane grass grow beyond its means? Could it attain sapience? A human form? Could it, even theoretically, step onto the legendary third step of the diamond path?

In theory, yes. All of this was possible.

But as he sated his curiosity, he felt bitterness replacing it.

So fucking what?

Even a stalk of grass held unlimited potential, but who cared about that? It could never fulfill any of that potential on its own. There were countless stalks of grass in this realm, if it was possible for it to happen on its own there would have been at least one that achieved it by now.

In reality, the potential a stalk of mundane grass held was empty. There was no point in potential that could not be fulfilled. Kaphor scoffed at the slightly greener-than-usual stalk of grass. It would have never grown or even survived without his help.

Kaphor had spent most of his life feeling exactly like this stalk of grass. Abandoned. Empty. Withering. There was nobody there who wanted to nurture him. He had to achieve all of the progress he had entirely on his own.

Once again, he started slowly feeling like he was justified in living his life the way he had. But yet again, as the days marched onward, the bitterness and fury wilted away. He just didn’t feel any motivation to keep up the anger.

He was alone in a forest, without any will to even move from where he stood. He would certainly be boiling in anger if he was still dying and helpless, but he was on the golden path now. Kaphor just couldn’t bring himself to cry about injustice when he felt more and more like his failures were his fault.

He kept feeding the stalk of grass with qi. Not even he knew why. It was just fun, he supposed.

More days went by in peace as he nurtured the small stalk of grass.

***

The diamond path cultivators of the Yixine empire sat in a circle in a forest. They had been tracking the myth golem for a bit now. As far as they could tell, this thing wasn’t heading in any particular direction.

They hoped that all it was doing was just looking for an entrance into the underground, but there seemed to be no such luck. The myth golem had walked past many caves and openings that led into the underground, a few of them even artificially created by the diamond rankers.

They forged plans on how to deal with it, but so far they hadn’t gone much further than evacuating the settlements in its path.

Beanna spoke up after a while of silence.

“You know, maybe we should just like, make a gigantic pit trap! Perhaps if we dropped it into the underground it wouldn’t be motivated to climb back out?”

The Emperor considered that proposition.

“That is not a bad plan. The problem is that it keeps randomly turning directions. And judging by the estimated range of its spirit senses, we would have to create the trap well ahead of time.”

The heavily armored man, Carfen, spoke up at that.

“We always have the option of preparing a large number of traps in its wake and hoping it drops into one of them.”

The Emperor considered that as well.

“Perhaps. But we are going to need a bit more than just hope if we want to evade this crisis.”

Kingean spoke up.

“Why don’t we just fight it?”

Zhaore answered that question in a quiet, raspy voice.

“Because the calamity…”

“... The calamity we will leave behind might drag more monsters out, I understand that is a theoretical threat, but it is neither an inevitability nor is it something we can’t account and compensate for.”

The Emperor addressed Kingean.

“Exactly how do you propose we account for that?”

“It won’t be easy. But we can replicate what had been done in the caverns of Xinus.”

Beanna and Zhaore groaned a bit at that. Carfen considered it and the Emperor spoke again.

“That would be a tremendous undertaking that we would be fortunate to finish within years, let alone the days we would probably have.”

“No, think about it. The five of us are all on the diamond path. We don’t have to clear the caverns, we merely have to locate a section that is closed off from the deep underground.”

“That is a plan that would involve a tremendous amount of luck first, and then we would have to find a way to bait the myth golem over the location.” The Emperor contemplated a bit and an idea flashed through his mind. He frowned. “There is one more thing we could potentially try, however.”

Everyone perked up at that, but they could tell that it wasn’t going to be an easy undertaking.

“We could somehow bait the golem into a mystical realm and fight it there.”

Everyone contemplated that, but eventually, they all nodded.

If they could execute that plan, it would work.

***

The destruction of the Bentheta sect had caused quite a disturbance within the Yixine empire. Rumors were very unclear, though, as nobody had truly witnessed what had happened and survived.

According to the disciples that had been teleported out in the last moments, it was some sort of monster attack. Nobody truly knew the exact scope of what had happened, but there were a lot of rumors.

One such rumor wasn’t particularly prevalent, but it still had quite severe consequences for the person involved.

Hunter was currently in the third circle of the capital. He was out on the streets, penniless and desperate.

When he arrived within the Bentheta sect, he had been showered with benefits. He didn’t really understand why, but as far as he could tell, the leadership of the sect had appreciated what he had done.

Perhaps the cover of the book was more valuable than he had initially assumed.

To Hunter, the book cover was little more than incriminating evidence against Marven and Neave. To the Bentheta sect leadership, it was probably some sort of mighty treasure.

When he first arrived, Hunter was a target of immense envy and scorn by the other disciples. He had just joined the sect, yet he had risen the ranks at unbelievable speed. Few among those fighting for every scrap they could get could tolerate his existence.

Rumors spread, such as him being the bastard son of the sect master, born to a whore. He had rather vehemently spread the truth of his story. He told everyone how he had barely escaped the destruction of the Zearthorn sect.

He was warned not to spread any rumors about the book cover by the leadership, so he kept quiet about that.

In the end, it was his competence and strength as a cultivator that gained the respect of the others. He was easily within the top ten disciples among those his age. He was shocked at how strong the other disciples in this sect were, but his status as a competent fighter and cultivator was solidified within days.

Rather soon after arriving and settling himself, he was, together with as many other disciples as possible, teleported out of the sect by desperate elders.

They had arrived at the capital, but they hadn’t arrived to open arms and support. Those among the most competent had been recruited by sects, but Hunter simply wasn’t competent enough to land a spot.

He had joined the rejects in their journey to find a place in a smaller sect in the outer reaches of the capital, but it wasn’t long until he had been ostracized and kicked out.

Most of the other disciples blamed him for the destruction of the sect. Zearthorn sect had also been destroyed, yet he had escaped with his life. To the children of the Bentheta sect, it simply made sense that he was to blame.

What were the odds of it being a coincidence?

He was outraged. They were just looking for someone to blame, but he was outnumbered and everybody was against him. They beat him up and left him abandoned on the streets of the capital.

Ever since, he had been randomly lumbering around, hoping to find any sect that would take him in.

It was only now that the reality of just how inferior the Zearthorn sect was began to truly sink in. Most major, even middling sects of the capital had scores of disciples far mightier than him.

He tried to present himself as a prodigy that had grown up in a poor environment, but nobody was buying that story.

Hunter had tried himself in several of the publicly available trials that would get him a spot in one of the sects. Each time, he spectacularly failed to meet their standards.

In one trial, he was presented with an obstacle course that he had fumbled terribly due to his lacking agility.

In another trial, he had to hold onto a spiritually heavy object for ten minutes. He didn’t even last ten seconds.

The third trial he tested himself against required him to fight a dummy. The dummy was an artificial golem. It was an opponent that all disciples of this sect were required to be able to defeat if they wanted to stay in the sect.

He got severely beaten, luckily not breaking any bones or suffering any heavy injuries. This was the last of trials he was willing to risk. Hunter slowly walked out toward the outer reaches of the capital. It took him days to reach the outer layer. Once he found himself there, that was when he truly sank into despair.

Any sect he tried to join refused him, with endless excuses and reasons to reject him at the ready.

Some suspected him of being a spy. Others suspected him of being a thief. Certain sects just told him that his style didn’t fit them or that his build wouldn’t be suitable for their arts.

There was even one sect where an elder had refused him because some young master was eyeing one of their disciples and he didn’t want any competition.

Unbelievable!

Even worse were the sects that did want to accept him. The problem was their criteria. They wanted him to take a spirit oath that would turn him into little more than a slave.

Hunter had nothing to his name as he roamed the streets of the capital.

Looking for anyone who wanted to take him in.

***

On top of the outer reaches tower of the Crystal Palace merchant group, Kalen was fumbling around with the monster core he had been gifted. It irked him that he had to make such a deal, but as the annoyance faded away, he was left with glee and joy instead.

Finally, there would be some hope for the happiness of his daughter.

He was so immersed that he hadn’t noticed the obese man standing there. As he snapped back to reality, he saw this unusual person standing in front of him. He couldn’t tell anything about his cultivation.

He put the monster core away into a dimension ring and politely nodded to him. He wasn’t going to judge this man by his looks. Anyone that could make their way to the top of this tower was a respectable figure in their own right.

“Greetings, sir. My name is Kalen and I am the representative of this branch of the Crystal Palace. How may I assist you today?”

“‘Sup mate. Me name is Bob.”

The man spoke in a deep, gruff voice, then he gurgled and spat on the fine marble floor.

Kalen winced.