Chapter 21 | Virtuous Cultivator

“Shit!” Theo shouted as he dove for the inscriptions. After the red robed woman fiddled with those inscriptions, the two mana streams had tripled in flow. But apparently, that didn’t mean anything.

After all, the heat in the room suddenly shot up. The inscriptions in the middle circuitry of the circle started lighting up just like the ones that exploded outside.

With the woman busy basking in her own ego, they would blow up before she even noticed.

Fortunately, Theo remembered what the woman had done, at least right at the end. That little fiddle she had given those inscriptions near the two mana streams wasn’t random. It was synonymous with opening a valve.

Mister Cheas had probably closed it halfway for there to be no problems while doing the maintenance. And well… Theo’s eyes wandered over to the corpse momentarily.

As he released small clouds of mana from his fingers, Theo placed his fingers down on the ones the woman had rotated, and rotated them counter-clockwise. Like he expected, the mana flow reduced back to its initial state. Though, the luster from overheating didn’t disappear.

The current flow rate seems to be the maximum it can handle. Any excess heat remains in the inscriptions… Theo thought before looking at the mage woman. She, on the other hand, had realized what she had done and was pursing her lips.

“Are you an idiot?” Theo asked with a frown. It was more of a rhetorical than an actual question. And it did have the intended effect. The mage woman averted her gaze and looked at Mister Cheas’ corpse.

When she did, however, her brows rose. She walked up and kneeled next to him, looking at the dagger in his heart.

“This… Why has the dagger been stabbed upward, against a goblin at that?” she muttered. When Theo processed her words, his eyes widened in surprise. Indeed, the hilt of the dagger was slanted downward. As if the person stabbing him was shorter than the goblin.

That means… Never mind. It’s not the time for murder mysteries.

With that off to another side of his mind, Theo started inspecting the circle once again. This time, he focused his attention on the bridge between the water stream and the main circle. As far as he understood, the main problem was about the thermals. And the woman had also only changed stuff there. So the problem had to be the bridge.

“Come. I need your help,” Theo said. The woman broke out of her momentary stupor with a couple of hesitant nods before kneeling next to him. “How does this thing work exactly? Tell me the mechanics.”

“Umm…”

“The Emperor’s blessings be upon you, Mr. Jake,” the Captain said, giving Satou one last respectful bow. What he didn’t know, however, was that Satou had a much higher chance of surviving as long as he wasn’t being held back by a bunch of weaklings. So this wasn’t the noble sacrifice he was thinking of.

About ten soldiers had grabbed onto Satou from different body parts. They were only third-rate, so they couldn’t bring out their aura from their bodies. But Satou could feel their flows and pull on that aura on his own.

And once he did, his body suddenly flared with a bunch of different mana signatures. His skin bloated, the veins under becoming more apparent. But Satou’s body wasn’t that of a normal man. This much, he could handle.

Flaring different-colored auras from different parts of his body, Satou regulated his internal flow carefully. Now, he was like a beacon of easy prey for energy-hungry predators, just like the ones below slamming against the arcane wall.

Taking a deep breath, Satou decided on his course of action. He would leap over the horde, and run. Run as fast as he could while keeping the centipedes’ attention on himself.

Before he could start, however, he felt a similar aura rise from the other side of the outpost. Those signatures were, however, actually separate. It seemed the Lieutenant and his men had taken action.

I should start too.

With a push of his legs, Satou rose meters into the air. The centipedes sensed the aura, stopping their assault against the arcane barrier as they skittered on top of each other to maneuver their gigantic bodies.

Once Satou crash-landed, with his feet digging a couple inches into the soil, he quickly dug himself out and took off in a maintained dash. For him, outrunning these things wasn’t a problem. But this wasn’t about that. If he wanted to make sure that Theo and Long Tian didn’t die, he needed to stall until the horde dissipated.

Without further ado, Satou started circling around the outpost, with hundreds of centipedes following behind.

What would my esteemed father do? What would anyone do? I’m practically powerless right now. Can I truly only watch? My fate in others’ hands?

Long Tian thought with a bitter smile as he watched Senior Satou jump off the parapet. This martial artist was very good at his job, with a solid mental state. Sure, he was about as strong as an upper mid-level qi condensation cultivator, but power wasn’t all.

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After all, even the guards holding the door open for me could crack moons. But they were still guards, weren’t they? And they couldn’t or didn’t accomplish their task of protecting me.

Fury rose from within. Fortunately, Long Tian had been raised an ascetic through and through. If he were given the time to calm down, he could.

He took a deep breath and sighed.

Then, the fury was gone.

With a couple more probing gazes, he started calculating. He didn’t know if his dao heart could keep up with this much inaction.

To grasp the heavens, reap the opportunity. To reap the opportunity, sow the seeds, he repeated in his mind. These words were the catchphrase of his favorite novel: Opposing the Deities. After all, how would an ascetic like him learn of life if not from books? It was better than being completely clueless.

He had contemplated upon this phrase many times. Every book he read was chosen and brought to him by his father, so he must have had a reason for choosing them, right?

However, from a young age, Long Tian had noticed something weird.

There was a dichotomy between what his father had taught him and what was written in the books given to him.

His father always spoke of filial piety, of respect and asceticism and every kind of virtue. The books? Well…

They were more about how you could deceive people, benefit from chaos, trample over everyone else to rise to the heavens. To hide and to scheme and to win no matter what.