Chapter 89

  Virtues of a Master (IV)

  I came back down, staring at the glazed eyes lost in a dream before the fade.

  It was the same as I remembered it being and why I stopped coming here in the first place: depressing. No... that's selling it short, honestly. Unlike your standard fare brutality of the world that I'm (somewhat) accustomed to, this here reeked of something deeper. Not necessarily sinister, as it were, just... colder.

  I used all my Creator's Eyes charges, but they yielded little besides what I already expected: four kids, aged between eleven and sixteen, each a few days away from dying.

  There was a difference, however, from the last time I was here. Not about the place, but about me. That haze, that abject elusiveness, almost, that I noted above the town... I sensed it here, too. But it was far too vague to make anything of it. It'd be like identifying a killer by saying, 'He smelled somewhat familiar to the scene of the crime'.

  Perhaps it was my mind playing tricks on me, feeding me what I maybe wanted to believe. Because, if the Seed were somewhere here, a lot of things would fit into a puzzle that I only ever got glimpses of.

  I spun and left before the shadows swallowed me up, too.

  Perusing the market for a little while yielded little to no news, so I headed over to a peak I'd never visited before, strangely: Elder Qin's.

  Though it wasn't as vastly wealthy as the Spirit Sage's Peak, it was still leagues above my own. Plus, there were far more kids--hundreds, in fact--rushing about everywhere. Domestic pavilions lined the uphill climb, courtyards decorated in unique ways, with trees casting shade rather symmetrically on both sides.

  Most disciples looked at me oddly for a moment, though, strangely, they all greeted me... and did so politely. Not that I think they respected me, but more that these were the ways of a man who taught them.

  Once at the peak, a steward approached me and guided me to a small hall to the left, round and pleasantly scented. It was jasmine, or an ersatz scent of it, and before I knew it, I was served a spirit tea. Far more pleasant and tantalizing than the mildew tea I've been drinking all this while.

  I patiently waited for about half an hour before a tired figure came through the doors, his face seemingly having aged another decade since I last saw him not a few hours ago.

  "I hope you haven't waited for long," he said, pushing out a smile.

  "... it must be infernal."

  "Hm," he sighed, sitting down, creases in his forehead quite a bit deeper than I remembered them being. "You could say."

  "Anything I can do to help?"

  "Just remember all I ever said to you," he smiled deeper this time, and I bit back my words. "I should rest for a little while."

  "Ah, yes. Of course. Forgive me for disturbing you."

  So... I learned nothing.

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  Hm.

  It's a bit frustrating, being kept in the dark. I mean, he probably did it with good intentions, and perhaps for a good reason, too, but still... damn is it frustrating.

  By the time I came back home, the sun had already set. Somebody had gone down the mountain to the restaurant and picked us up a dinner, and thus we all sat in a circle to eat.

  Unlike me, who was wrecked with worries, the others chattered rather freely. Well, 'others' really meant only three--Dai Xiu, Xi Zhao, and Light on occasion. Long Tao and Hua remained the silent oaks they'd always been, appearing disinterested in everything.

  The war's in fifteen days... which means, in all likelihood, we'd be departing the Sect soon enough, too. But I'm not ready. Nowhere near ready, in fact.

  I don't even have a functioning map of this world, for crying out loud! I don't know where to go, what to do, or how to do it... I mean, I have an okay-ish vault of wealth, but how long can it realistically support these little monsters around me?

  And then there's me--I cannot protect them on the outside. The best I can do is take a 'bullet' for them a couple of times thanks to that Tortoise reward the system gave me. I'd hoped that I'd be able to stay safely in the sect until I'd purified the body and finally started getting accustomed to using Qi.

  But I'm nowhere near that.

  I glanced at Long Tao and at Hua. The latter would be our last resort--if he temporarily lifts his restrictions, then he'd probably be the strongest person around. But that's like counting on winning the lottery to absolve you of debts.

  Unrealistic, to put it mildly.

  Long Tao, on the other hand... I'm not sure, honestly. I imagine he'd drag us to Desolate Cliffs first, but what after that? Would we just become his entourage as he digs up old tombs and robs them of artifacts?

  ... hey, that doesn't sound half-bad, honestly.

  1,000 points. My final 'cheat' before the unraveling of everything.

  What should I create? The ultimate defensive art? Or the opposite? Or something else entirely?

  I don't know. I decided on it being useful to everyone, so there was really only one place I could go to in order to figure out what would be useful to everyone--that old monster seeming disinterested in everything.

  "Master?" He seemed a bit surprised to see me enter his tiny little 'house'. Wow, I really did cheap out on appropriate housing. Here I am bitching and moaning about 'comfort', yet I have these monsters living in a cube that's, like, 3x3x3.

  "What would be good for everyone?" I gritted my teeth and asked.

  My heart ached ever so slightly as I watched his face contort into a strange grin.

  "... I thought you were tapped out."

  "Pretend that I'm not."

  "Hm," he chuckled, sitting down cross-legged. "If I'm not wrong," he added. "Before war is over, we'll be long gone from here."

  "..."

  "The world is... blazingly unforgiving. Maws gape around every corner, their hunger burning." Wow, what a poet. "And even if we run, we'll be branded. Hunted. Bounties put on our heads. Even if we may not know anything, those profiting would not dare risk it."

  "Hm," okay, so... what? I need to create another cloaking art, but this time around for everyone? No... he wouldn't suggest something like that.

  "You've made me a means of hiding from the world," he said. "Undisputed one, too. But even I cannot hide for too long. Besides, there is no life when shadow is where we exist. My father mentioned that, among the arts under the heavens, one that even the Immortals pursued the most was the mythological and long-lost way of Alteration. Bone-Mending. Face-Changing."

  "..." This guy's asking me to create the damned MI stitch?! Hey... isn't that actually a pretty good idea?

  "Perhaps your father accidentally left it lying around and you picked it up at some point. It would be rather useful to all of us."

  Honestly, I didn't even consider face-changing, as I thought it would be a relatively common thing that virtually anyone slightly more skilled could use almost innately. And yet, by the sounds of it... the technique didn't even exist. If Long Tao himself considered it a freakin' myth, though, is it actually that smart of a thing for me to create it?

  Would that not just completely expose the fact I can birth arts into existence? No, I can't just make it seem like I can make things out of thin air.

  "I suffered the loss with your art," I said, smiling faintly. "But my father's vault of wealth would not be able to... help me locate that specific art."

  "They know not of the little gift the Elder gave us," he shrugged, closing his eyes. "Maybe that gift will be enough? If not... it will be a rather arduous journey anywhere, I gather."

  Yeah.

  There will come a day I can smack this guy over his head just to vent out, right? Otherwise, I might explode.