216. A Stroll Through Dystopia

Even though he knew that the sects were dangerous, his first week ending in a murder was not something he had expected.

Alistair had been interrogated by the first balding cultivator he had ever seen of a higher realm, a bone-thin man with enormous black irises. 

This Elder Brittlebones had asked him a couple of questions, and when Alistair gave an appropriate alibi, he had dismissed him. 

The murder of Xiao Zhenyu was a big deal at the Clear Water Sect. 

No one really missed the guy, who was known for his ridiculous antics, but his death… it was gruesome. He had been crushed into a paste in the Cultivation Chambers.

The disciples of the Clear Water Sect recognized the possibility of dying, even by other disciples. Duels to the death were permitted. Powerful beasts and rogue cultivators on the outside could kill you.

But to be brutally murdered in the Cultivation Chambers, of all places?

Now that, that put people on edge. 

It dawned on Alistair that the nobility at the sect, who comprised the majority of the cultivators there, had lived far more sheltered lives than he’d imagined 

While they had witnessed death, they’d never truly faced it themselves. Whenever they left the watch of their perfumed seneschals, they were protected with all manner of life-saving treasures. In the wealthiest cases, even Internal Guardians.

He learned that even the deaths of the slaughter trial to enter the Clear Water Sect were not certain. The failed children of well-connected families were spared from death, while lesser nobles and commoners were left to die. 

For Alistair, it was no more than a small reminder of one’s mortality. The number of times he had scraped knees with the grim reaper was growing too many to count. 

Perhaps it lit a fire under others, but he was already putting in near-maximal effort 24/7. The only rest he got was his four-hour deep-sea cultivation sessions. There wasn’t any danger of burnout.

Two weeks of cultivation and missions put him at level 103. If he wanted to be inner disciple in a year, he’d have to get to at least Middle Adept to challenge the Late Adepts at the top 50 of the outer disciples. 

Even factoring in the time it would take to compress his Mana into a liquid, which could be anywhere from a week to a month, he was on pace to make it to level 130.

His current pace would get him to level 130 in eight months. While gaining power earned him more merit points, the increased Mana gathering ability this provided wasn't enough to fully offset the growing mana cost of leveling up as he approached Middle Adept.

Spiritual Dragon Cycling, which he had purchased a week ago, was a major reason why his progress was guaranteed to come so quickly. Unlike his previous cycling exercise, this new one used his life force to pump the Mana even faster so that his soulcore expanded more. 

If he hadn’t had his bloodline, he just simply wouldn’t give off enough life force to use the exercise without draining his lifespan. 

His cultivation became twice as fast, and his foundations would be better for when he legislated his Three Laws. The fewer imperfections in the membrane of your soulcore, the easier time you had compressing your Mana, and the better the result.

This was another bottleneck of cultivation. A poorly, or even merely adequately, formed liquid/solid soulcore would be many times less powerful than those of the wealthy and talented. 

After a sparring session with Red where he managed to push back his roommate a step further than ever before, he headed to meet Fuhao for an early lunch. There was an extra pep in his step, he couldn’t deny it. 

Even forcing back that monster in Early Adept skin one foot was like defeating ten normal enemies. 

Proof in the pudding—his rank crept up to 8,422 without losing a single time, and none of that was as exhilarating as his losses against Red Harmonia. 

Elder Aylesfort had notified him that the remaining dens of duskscale serpents were eliminated before they could harm the townspeople. The elder said he was working to find the Old Man of the Lighthouse’s creator, for which he and Red had no good leads.

Their only thought was perhaps it was related to the murder of Xiao Zhenyu—after all, wouldn’t it make sense that two nefarious events had the same cause?

Plus, Red explained to him that the murderer, or at least the person who covered it up, had to be very powerful. If they weren’t, one of the elders could just find a Karmic tie between Zhenyu’s corpse and the murderer, or track the aura of the killer. It seemed unlikely that there were two groups of murderers/traitors, though it was technically possible.

Alistair’s bad lead, if you could call it that, was Chu Hua. 

Chu Hua, the 59th-ranked inner disciple, held favor with Elder Da Rui, the Head of the Cultivation Chambers.

The reasoning was that since the murder happened in the Cultivation Chambers, Chu Hua might know something. 

Since he doubted she would share something so sensitive outright, he had decided to take on missions for her. Her personal missions paid better than the standard ones at the Contribution Hall, so it was a win-win. 

Also, Alistair liked making friends in general. If he were going to try to butter up Hua to get information, wouldn’t it be better to become actual friends with her? 

Long-term deception was not one of Alistair’s strong suits.

“But it is one of mine,” Dev'rox said. “Plus, you never know. She might be the culprit. Or rather, she might be doing Da Rui’s dirty work. The murder did happen under her watch.”

Alistair frowned. That was a possibility he had considered. “Let’s hope that’s not the case.”

--------------

Lunch with Gu Fuhao and Pristine Evolutionary had become such a standard part of his routine that he was quite shocked to see the latter’s absence at their table.

They always sat at the edge of the dining hall, near the water channels along the walls. Fuhao waved to him when he arrived.

Alistair got his 50 merit point steak sandwich. The meat was cut from a level 150 Beast Ruler Vitality Auroch, served on a toasted spirit grain bun that had absorbed the ambient Mana of Selvitari’s oceans. 

Each bite was divinity itself, tasting like an ever fattier and fuller form of A5 wagyu, except it never made you feel sick or full from how rich it was. The beef tasted lean and fatty at the same time, sprinkled with herbs that amplified his senses, his smell in particular. 

Sometimes Red joined them—his roommate would have delighted in the sandwich. Food and sleep were his two favorite things, other than fighting. 

Alistair wasn’t even sure what Red was doing. It came as a shock when he wasn’t sound asleep in bed this morning.

“Today’s meal is superb, not to rub it in,” Alistair said, sitting down and already chowing down on the roasted potatoes side dish. “Where’s Pristine?”

Fuhao looked at him incredulously. “It’s not obvious to you?”

“Afraid not.”

“Pristine and Red missing at the same time.” Fuhao crossed her arms over her chest. “You don’t find that suspicious in the slightest?”

Alistair shrugged. “They’re an odd bunch. There’s something wrong with both of them in the head. You know it, too. They’re… not like us.”

“That’s an incredibly rude thing to say, Alistair.”

“But it’s true.”

“Yes, it is.” Fuhao sighed.

“I don’t even mean it in a bad way,” Alistair said, trying to explain himself. “Everyone’s a bit weird in their own right, right? But those two are extra weird, so it makes sense that they’d get along.”

“You just told me that you didn’t know where they were.”

“How was I supposed to know that they’re together right now? I might pretend to be a little dumb sometimes, but I’ve got some pretty astute eyes. I’ve seen them looking at each other with… I don’t even want to say it, honestly.”

“You say they’re both weird, but Red is by far the odder one,” Fuhao said. “He doesn’t care about his rank at all, he doesn’t do missions, he doesn’t go to lectures, he doesn’t go to the Cultivation Chambers, he barely goes to the Training Grounds. What in the Eight Hot Hells does he do all day?”

“Sleeping, for one,” Alistair said. “He sleeps for like twelve hours a night. And he does do missions. He comes with me and gives me all his points. It’s ludicrous. I’ve seen him do one solo mission before, and he came back all bloody and pissed off. Not his blood, of course.”

“It’s hard for me to imagine him getting dirty,” Fuhao said. “If you know what I mean.”

Alistair clicked his tongue. “He’s not perfect, you know. I saw him all bloodied up after getting nearly eaten by a huge snake-human hybrid. To be fair, he was saving my life in the process.”

“Don’t be getting jealous now,” Fuhao said. “He’s like a sculpture to me. Or an alien. A handsome sculpture, but I prefer a little more edge. I know he’s your friend, but I don’t know if we can ever be friends.”

That’s more right than you know, Alistair thought. 

“It’ll be imbalanced then. Wait, actually, that’s perfect. I’ll be the centerfold, since I’ll be friends with all three of you.”

“You’re already the centerfold.” Fuhao shook her head. “At least there’s one category that I feel closer to Red in. You and Pristine are progressing too fast. You started out as level 100, and you’re already 103 in three weeks. I’m level 105, and I’ve been there for almost a month. Pristine, I don’t even know how she levels so fast. It’s like she doesn’t even need Mana.”

“I’ve already told you how I’m doing it,” Alistair said. “I don’t use the chambers at all, so I can spend my merit points on food like this and other items.”

Alistair already had 2,335 merit points. He was aiming for a 4,500 MP purification elixir, like Norman had recommended. 

“Not everyone has your Karmic methods. You know, Charisma is almost everyone’s dump stat, right?”

He had learned some more about Fuhao’s cultivation as they had traded stories. 

She was a Moonlit Singer, a Legendary rarity Class, with primary Attributes Wisdom and Intelligence, that focused on illusions and suggestions that verged on mind control. She had hinted that she had some way to fight at close quarters if she were attacked, but he didn’t push it.

“That's their prerogative. I’ll reap my Karmic rewards, thank you very much. Say, would you want to go on a mission together?”

Alistair’s [Reality Sense] was so good, he felt the slightest blush rise under Fuhao’s always serene expression. 

“Just us two?” she asked.

“That would be fun,” Alistair said with a grin, “but not this one, unfortunately. Our senior sister Chu Hua, rank 59, requires assistance in gathering a Natural Inheritance of the ruination essence. If you join, the split will be 600 merit points a piece.”

“Implying that if I don’t join, you get even more.”

“It’s not all about merit points,” Alistair waved a hand. “I’d say that building bonds between comrades is even more important.”

“Very well, Alistair Tan of the Nightwatch Duchy of the Disputed Shard. I shall accept your offer.” 

------------

The inner disciple had them meet at the teleportation deck of the Contribution Hall. The wide, open-air deck was thousands of feet in diameter, sporting hundreds of different Teleportation Circles constantly in use. 

The Clear Water Sect had connections to almost a hundred worlds in both the local planetary system and beyond.

Huh, isn’t Baron Aportamus only a Peak Adept? Almost all the inner disciples are at that level or above. Chu Hua or Norman Goldhair could be even province-level nobility in my region of the Empire pretty easily as Profounds. 

Alistair and Fuhao headed to the agreed-upon meeting point in the outer ring, where the circles led to less-frequented worlds.

The huge, mirror-like disc was twenty feet from end to end, yet it was dwarfed by the gargantuan Teleportation Circles at the center of the deck to the most visited worlds. 

Chu Hua waved at him, his fellow mission teammates already there—Riyord Fen and Berengar Sturmklinge. 

The Cultivation Chambers attendant had asked him for references in the morning. Apparently, the current mission was “intensive,” whatever that meant, so they needed more backup. 

How adding more Early Adepts was supposed to assist a Profound realm, he didn’t know.

Since Pristine and Red were nowhere to be found, he texted Severus, Thalen, his cousin Selira, and those two roommates, but only the latter responded in time. 

800 merit points, or now 600 with Fuhao, were nothing to scoff at. If they showed annoyance that their share was being diluted more, they didn’t say anything. Even 600 MP for what Hua claimed to be four hours of work max was an amazing deal.

Before they stepped onto the circle, she gave them a quick rundown of the mission.

“We’ll be traveling to the neighboring planetary system for this mission,” she explained. “A Master quality world named Fallstride. It’s an ugly, chaotic world ruled by martial gangs vying for power. In other words, a perfect location for a Natural Inheritance of ruination to appear.”

A Natural Inheritance was an object steeped in a certain affinity of Mana. They could be incorporated into one’s cultivation, but were primarily used for constructing formations and cultivation chambers.

“Ruination, as you should know by now, is the essence combining fire and death. It’s a fairly rare affinity, and appears naturally where disasters of fire cause mass death. That’s what happened here. One of the local gangs found an eternal ruination flame where a conflagration from a particularly powerful Mana Storm burned tens of thousands of people to death. 

“While you may have heard of it before, I doubt you’ve ever seen it. Ruination takes the appearance of ashen gray flames with streaks of orange-red running through it, like embers in dying coals. Instead of burning bright and hot, it radiates a corrosive entropy, decaying and unmaking whatever it touches. It’s extremely dangerous and unusable to most cultivators, which is why the gang is selling it to us for cheap.”

“How powerful are the gangs?” Riyord asked, the boy’s voice barely louder than a whisper.

“How powerful are the gangs, senior sister,” Hua corrected. “I know you came from a place where etiquette was thrown out the window, but it is an essential mark of a cultivator that separates us from beasts. I have seen Adepts get killed for less.”

She smiled at the young mage. “Of course, I am not a savage who kills for the lack of a few polite words; I’m simply warning you. As to your question, there are several dozen gangs, mostly led by a Peak Adept, but quite a few Profounds are running around. Fallstride is one of the largest planets in this duchy, with almost 100 billion inhabitants. 

“Now, for our mission, all we have to do is retrieve the Natural Inheritance from its secured location and transport it back. Easy as that.”

Alistair got the sneaking suspicion that Hua was hiding something. The idea that she was the traitor or working with the traitor crossed his mind, but that was just rank speculation. Even though it wouldn’t help him if she did try to kill them all, he was glad that Dev'rox was with him rather than on a separate mission.

“You’re welcome.” Dev'rox wiggled around in his Domain.

With no further questions, she activated the Teleportation Circle, and they vanished in blue light. 

Like his previous experience of going from Ah’Drezakh to Nuevo Invierno, reality itself seemed to warp, stretching him thin like a figure in a distorted mirror. 

An unnatural pressure built inside him, as if his organs were being tugged and twisted in ways he couldn’t begin to describe.

After what felt like two endless minutes, the light faded. 

Reality snapped back like a rubber band, and Alistair found himself standing on another Teleportation Circle—this one carved into smooth black stone.

They had materialized in what appeared to be a sewage system, the air thick with the disgusting scent of waste and smoke.

Two armed guards in black cloaks emblazoned with crimson skulls surrounded the circle, weapons trained on the new arrivals until they recognized their robes. The guards lowered their guns, and a scarred woman with cybernetic implants running down her neck stepped forward.

“This Kya of the Adept realm greets Profound realm Chu Hua of the Clear Water Sect,” she rasped. “The Crimson Skulls appreciate your punctuality.”

“That is I,” Hua nodded curtly. “These are my assistants, all capable in a fight. The Natural Inheritance awaits?”

“It’s a few hundred miles from here,” the woman said. “We’ll take the tunnels.

The sewers were a nightmare realm of their own. Massive tunnels, easily thirty feet in diameter, stretched endlessly into darkness, their curved walls slick with centuries of accumulated filth. 

The air was thick with a miasma of warfare and decay—a mixture of industrial waste, rotting organic matter, and the metallic tang of corroded infrastructure.

Rivulets of toxic runoff trickled along channels carved into the floor, occasionally erupting in small bubbles that released noxious gases. The liquid was an unnatural conglomeration of colors and scents. Sometimes it was a sickly purple that reeked of carrion, other times a phosphorescent orange that smelled of battery acid.

Rats the size of small dogs scurried in the shadows, their eyes gleaming red in the dim light. Alistair smelled other beasts in the distance, their musk hanging in the muddy waters and the walls, though they stayed far away from Chu Hua, who let her condensed, Profound realm aura scare off any would-be assailants.

The tunnels diverged and branched like the veins of some colossal beast. It was clear that not all the tunnels had been constructed for sewage purposes, blood and corpses marking former hideouts. They often found gang tags burned in the walls with Mana, territorial markers that matched the muffled explosions and whines of energy weapons above. 

Occasionally, they would skim the surface of Fallstride, seeing the surface through mile-long holes. 

The planet’s surface was a patchwork of scorched earth and toxic swamps, punctuated by sprawling, hyper-dense urban settlements that stretched for dozens of miles. Dilapidated skyscrapers pierced the clouds, rusted hovercraft filling the skies.

And then there was the fighting. Violent, bloody warfare. The bright streaks of red plasma bolts were universal, along with the smell of ozone caused by whirling electric spears that exploded on contact. 

“Surface travel is suicide,” their guide explained as she hurried them through the cracked sections, “for all except your teacher here. If you’re not gang-affiliated, you will be soon enough after they catch you. That is, if they don’t kill you outright.”

“Why do 100 billion people live here?” Riyord asked. “This is even worse than my homeworld.”

The scarred woman looked at Riyord as if he had asked why the sun rises. “We’re born here. We’ll die here. I suppose you mean to ask how the population stays so high if there’s so much war. Lady Chu, would you care to explain?”

A flicker of annoyance crossed her face before she responded. “It’s not dissimilar to the zombie worlds a few dozen provinces away, though with a distinctly criminal element. I suppose the Empire just cleared those, but you understand my point. If your momentum was running out of steam, if the Heavens had never graced you with a single radiant ray since birth, what would you do for a chance to seize destiny and remold your Fate? What would you do for a shot at eternity?”

None of the four outer disciples had anything to say at that. 

“Conflict is the surest path to power,” Hua said. “Such is the will of the Heavens. Never forget that fact.”

After two hours of travel, they emerged in what had once been a prosperous town. At present, a blackened scar on the landscape, buildings reduced to twisted metal skeletons and ash. The air still tasted of death and smoke, though the fires had burnt out five years ago.

Their target was the ruins of an orphanage on the outskirts of the town. As they grew closer, Alistair felt the unusual affinity pulse from the pile of blackened rubble. It’s buried underground. 

With [Reality Sense], he saw through the ruination’s thick, oily vapor that moved unnaturally slowly and to the fire-death affinity itself. The ashen gray flames floated in a pocket underneath all the ash and stone, the scent of burnt flesh and entropy itself in the air.

Alistair felt the death. His Ghost Node hummed as he sensed the spiritual energies of dozens of spirits nearby. None rose to the category of a true, haunting ghost. It was more like the town was infected with the lingering regrets and emotions of the dead. 

Ash crumbled between his fingers as he knelt, letting the particles drift away into the wind.

“Such is the nature of our world,” Dev'rox said.

Hua stepped toward the oily smoke, her hands wreathed in sickly gold and green Mana. Black flecks surfaced from the miasma, sizzling away as tendrils of dark steam. The quintessence moved like a viscous sludge and gave off the worst stench Alistair had ever encountered.

It was rot affinity—a grotesque blend of death and sun, a twisted kin to ruination itself. Essences often had a leading and subordinate partner. For ruination, fire and death came in almost equal qualities, while for rot, death was the majority of the composition. 

Ruination was superior at rotting inorganic matter, while rot specialized in ruining living tissue.

In the hands of a Profound realm like Chu Hua, however, her rot Mana could easily break down the floor of the building, as she burrowed to the Natural Inheritance. 

“It will take me ten minutes to properly secure,” Hua said. “Stay close by.”

Alistair used his freehand shaping to create a nice bed of ice for him and Fuhao to sit on while they waited. Berengar and Riyord took to sparring with swords and spears.

The blond-haired, blue-eyed outer disciple was from the storied ducal Sturmklinge Clan within the Disputed Shard. They were an offshoot of one of the Eight-Eight Progenitors, ruling over Storm’s End, the fourth most populous duchy in the fief. 

Berengar’s purple lightning marked him as a bearer of one of the Sturmklinge Clan’s two great bloodlines—the yang-aligned Living Storm. 

While details were scarce, legend spoke of a male ancestor who, in ages past, was baptized within a Mana Storm rich with lightning affinity. From that crucible, he emerged a new man, his flesh infused with the storm’s might. 

As those of his blood progressed in cultivation, they shed their mortal forms piece by piece, literally becoming more storm than man, until they could wholly transform into living lightning itself.

Then there was the yin to the Living Storm’s yang. The legends also recorded that a female crystal dragon mated with the primogenitor, with female descendants having the possibility to inherit the rare affinity and physique of a dragon. 

The yang of the male storm and the yin of the female crystal. All contained within one bloodline, never touching.

Except in those rare, rare cases. A male born with an especially yin-aligned body. A female born with an especially yang-aligned body.

Leofric Sturmklinge was one of those exceptional cases. A bastard born of his father, Duke Alaric, and an unknown Dao Companion, even at twenty years old, he was spoken of as a future era-defining cultivator, like Gideon the Golemmaker or the Sword Saint of Mai Atal. 

Berengar drew his crystal greatsword, a crackling current of purple lightning dancing along its edge. To call it a current hardly did it justice—at his level of control over his bloodline, he could all but transform the blade into pure lightning.

Riyord stepped forward with a grunt, raising his crystalwater spear to meet the incoming strike.

It was clear to any onlooker that Berengar vastly outmatched the younger mage, both in strength and in skill. Yet he held back with a deliberate gentleness, guiding Riyord through the motions, teaching him the proper way to wield a spear even while they exchanged blows.

Alistair couldn’t help but smile. Where was that cranky third-ranked Berengar who protested being roomed with a mere boy?

“His lightning is beautiful,” Fuhao said, as she lounged on the ice bed. “They say the Duke’s is even brighter than a star. I wonder if he’ll be selected for the tournament.”

“The tournament?”

“You don’t know?” Fuhao shook her head. “I forgot, country bumpkin. The Mira Laketor Memorial Tournament is the largest event for the youth of the Empire. Anyone under a hundred years old who is below the Profound realm can participate. There is no grander stage in the entire Empire. And the prizes, oh the prizes. An endless supply of Dao Fruits, extremely high-grade Natural Inheritances, bloodline purification resources, technique crystals from the legends of the Empire… It’s too bad, though.”

“What’s too bad?” Alistair asked, knowing he was entering her trap.

“Well, it’s only in four years. To even have the slightest chance, you’d need to be Late Adept by then.”

“And you think this guy can make it and not me? I’ve already surpassed his rank.”

“The Living Storm only grows in momentum as the bearer climbs the realms. You’d have to have the foundations to match.” She gave him a pointed look.

Alistair batted it away politely. Friends were friends, but some secrets needed to be kept. His bloodline and Subclass were complete mysteries to the outside world. Unfortunately, his ghost cultivation had leaked, though the exact details of Dev'rox were unknown. 

As he opened his mouth to speak, a flicker of aura passed through [Reality Sense]. 

Chu Hua was gone. 

Too fast for even Alistair to register, something struck—

Thirty miles in the distance, a nuclear explosion bloomed like a terrible flower, its mushroom cloud climbing toward the heavens. The shockwave hit moments later, a wall of force that would have shattered ordinary buildings. Even at his distance, the spiritual pressure was immense.

Only a Profound or Visionary could have blitzed them like that, and if it were a Visionary, he suspected he’d already be dead. 

Alistair activated [Dharmic Gaze], perceiving reality around him in his sphere. The attack hadn’t been aimed at Chu Hua—she’d simply taken the blow for her Adepts that would have died otherwise.

Ten figures appeared on the edge of the town two miles away, wrapped in black robes that drank in the mute sunlight. 

All of them had reached the condensed liquid aura of a Middle Adept. 

All felt utterly profane, the depth of their horrific sins staining the Dao. Alistair’s “Heroism” Badge unhesitatingly granted a 25% bonus to his Agility and Charisma.

Now was the time for evil to be vanquished.