Learning About The Enemy

“I see that they weren’t very talented in the art of begging for their life”

Edrick came back to the Elt clan to the sight of two corpses stabbed upon tall stakes. Impalement is a very good way of ‘communication’. He himself would have preferred if they had been impaled in a way that their demise would haven taken its sweet time to come... But the scion had to assume that those two foreign cultivators struggled quite fiercely.

In any case, it seemed like relations with Journomanp were a bit tainted by today’s events. It was an especially bad day for Yingzi Sect. Anoteros did not know how powerful the elder they had sent here had been, but unless they had only done the bare minimum, that guy had probably been of some importance to them.

This was on them, however. They shouldn’t have tried to recruit him while they were visiting. It would have been much smarter to wait to meet him when he stepped out of the clan grounds himself.

“Ah, did you notice the new decorations, Zixu? Thanks for the tip. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have gotten these nice ornaments… I see that you took care of some business yourself”

In a flash of lightning, Lui appeared next to the young noble. It had been obvious that she had been involved in the rightful executions, considering that the elder had a cauterised hole through his chest, courtesy of being hit by lightning right in the torso.

“Yes, their best offer was just riches and women. Can you believe that? They couldn’t even offer me any land in Journomanp. I was thinking about making myself into a spy, but they clearly weren’t serious people–So I just killed them… Besides that, would you like to join my wives and me for dinner tonight? The six of them might be a bit too much meat”

“No thanks, I am not really into meat of this kind”

The cadavers of the cultivators of Yingzi Sect were on Oswulf’s back. Edrick had done his best not to mangle them too badly, but damage was inevitable when his enemies were so fragile.

Lui stretched her arms.

“Anyway, now that we killed those guys, we can either expect a few attacks or a big apology if they have enough brains to realise that the little Yingzi Sect isn’t even qualified to be considered a minor inconvenience to us”

“Did you guys get to interrogate those two before killing them?”

“No, the old fucker killed his own disciple to silence him and then struggled like a fish in a bucket until he got himself killed… He had swallowed a poisonous pill anyway. I would have loved to shock him a little bit, but alas…”

“I might have some interesting information, then. The strongest of the bunch that I slaughtered mentioned Fenghuang Sect. From the sound of it, Fenghuang Sect fed Yingzi Sect misinformation, which emboldened them to come here and do all of this in the first place. So it seems that despite everything, they are still actively in conflict and at odds with each other back in Journomanp”

“Really? What a bunch of idiots. It has been far too long since we went to war. The fuckers have forgotten their place. In any case, good job on eliminating these guys. By the way, the guy in charge of watching the entrance told me that you left with only a horse. When did your Greater Vulpine Hound join you?”

“Ah, I just cultivated the beast taming technique Wenxiong gave me to a high enough level to summon them when needed. I can even send them back to where they were beforehand. Ansbach helped me, too. But right now? He’s probably having some fun with his toy”

The Jhila and Jolib exchanged for a little while.

“By the way, how much do you know about Journomanp’s version of cultivation?”

“I know a little bit”

“Why don’t you swing by my residence once you are done unloading your loot? I can give you an explanation, and I’ll show you the progress Yechen has made as well”

“Sounds like a great idea. I’ll be there as soon as possible”

Lui slapped Edrick’s shoulder.

“I’ll be waiting!”

Anoteros had read about Journomanp, but Lui probably had insights due to personal experience. She was often out and about, and she had actually gone to Journomanp quite a lot of times–Usually to stir up trouble. Though she always kept her identity a secret when doing that, or so Anoteros had heard.

In any case, the scion placed the fresh meat where it belonged and stashed the belongings of the cultivators in a room. He would sort everything later.

Linmin was quite pleased by what Anoteros had brought back. Meat of this kind was not exactly the most common, so the second wife was happy to get practice with it.

Thus, he was soon sitting across from Lui. Instead of tea, she served him wine... Though she downed it much like a drunkard would down a pint of beer.

“Alright, so it is a little bit more complicated than what we do here, but basically… They have very clear stages, each with sub-stages, and also very clear bottlenecks. Their spiritual root nonsense governs their overall cultivation talent, and also their affinities”

“The first level is the aptly named Initiation Stage, which has six sub-stages. They are all about cleaning the body of impurities and refining it through basic training and the consumption of resources. This is true for all except for the sixth and last sub-stage, which is about accepting ambient ki into the body”

“If a cultivator can do this without dying, hurting themself, or just rejecting the foreign ki… Then it means that they can progress to the next stage. Though progressing through stages is always troublesome–Even at the lower levels”

“The second level is the Ki Gathering Stage, which only has four sub-stages, but the more important ones are the last two. They are about what they call ‘Meridians’. It is basically a second set of veins, but instead of carrying blood, they carry ki”

“They need to open them and learn how to make their ki flow through it. Once they are done with this, they can theoretically progress to the next level. However, moving from the second level to the third is actually way more difficult than it sounds”

“Quite a lot of cultivators from Journomanp die or get hurt trying to do so… This is the point where they begin to poison themselves with consumable resources. To stand a good chance at reaching the third level, they consume some pretty nasty things... Typically, a kind of pill. Sometimes, it makes them overdose and die”

Edrick leaned back in his seat. Judging by the smile Lui had on her face, she was going to be talking a lot about this. His Jhila definitely enjoyed the subject of cultivators getting themselves killed…