Chapter 28 – Cultivation Camp in a Bloody Wilderness

The blood beast had been guarding a natural treasure. The small cave was lit with a dull red glow from a pool of what looked like blood and two spirit plants with red flowers growing on the shores. There was also a pile of bones on one side from its previous victims.

Blood-based herbs were often very useful for healing or blood-replenishing pills. This was a fortuitous find that would fetch a high price. Mei Ling began to examine the herbs and the blood pool as Ren started setting up defensive arrays. He had prepared an ample number of array flags for this event and knew the value of a safe place to rest. The arrays would hide their presence and create an illusion of a rock wall so no one could spot the cave entrance. He also prepared an offensive array in case they were attacked. Finally, he laid out qi gathering arrays for Bao Hua.

Ren had put a lot of thought into how best to use his skills as an formation user. As a qi gathering realm disciple, it had been daunting to create formations mid-combat. As a foundation realm cultivator, he had greater control over the flags and larger qi reserves, but he still required a lot of practice.

For now, the best way to make the most of this strength was to be able to prepare in advance. If given only a few seconds mid-combat, he was weak. If given a few minutes, he could create opportunities to take advantage of. If given an hour, he was confident he could defeat even those a few cultivation layers above him.

As he grew stronger, Ren could see himself lay out massive formations during combat that ensnared his opponents so completely they would feel like they had thrown themselves into a net. To win battles without even lifting his sword: that was true strength.

They quickly settled in and recovered from the day’s exertions. Their bodies were indeed strong enough to bear the strain, but the constant vigilance had drained their minds. Bao Hua already appeared rather pale. They decided to stay here and continue exploring with this cave as a temporary base.

Ren took the respite to pull out his notes on karma and continue his studies. It was one of his biggest priorities to make sure he could keep cultivating with Causality of Karma. In the foundation stage, cultivators would use the qi they had accumulated in their spiritual sea to wash their inner organs and refine them. This would purify and strengthen their body, creating a strong foundation when it came time to condense a core for the next realm.

According to his chosen cultivation manual, in the foundation establishment realm, he would have to create mental images of strands of karma. These strands were not real karmic threads, as such matters were far beyond the comprehension of little foundation establishment realm cultivators. They were just qi constructs created with willpower, mental imagery, and qi. These strands could then attach to the connections created by the seeds of intent he had sown. There was no specific number he needed, but the more he created, the faster he would grow in power. Ren was in no rush to advance by leaps and bounds and would rather take a cautious approach and carefully manage his karmic connections.

These karmic strands needed qi to take shape, and once formed, he could no longer access that amount of qi. So each strand he formed was comparable to reducing his reserves. If he formed too many, he would need longer to reach the core formation realm, so he couldn’t be reckless. He also felt the flow of qi through his meridians was closer to complete than ever. He was reassured that he would have a proper cultivation manual to follow very soon. Until then, his qi reserves wouldn’t grow.

The part where he had to gather qi from his environment was the part he still needed to address. He had compared other cultivation manuals that he bought and their methods to the Causality of Karma. He realized that his method actually gave him a lot of freedom in how to cultivate. The butchered sections of his manual could even work to his favor, as those sections were modular. The sect elders who had made those changes had left these sections as completely independent. Ren could choose to apply them as he wished.

It was a lot of responsibility to piece together his own cultivation manual, as there was a lot that could go wrong, but Ren was willing to take the risk. Over the months of study and effort he poured into the manual, he felt increasingly confident he could do it. He was almost done with the final steps. All that remained was to finalize how to circulate his qi through the specific meridians. He had already begun experimenting with circulating qi after he stabilized his dantian following his breakthrough.

As for growing his strength as a karmic cultivator, he had redefined some terms and created a simple layout to follow. The first step was to sow seeds of intent in objects or sentient beings. The objects would serve as connections, but it was the sentient beings that really impacted his cultivation. According to his manual, the karma of each being could be represented by two fires within them. A Fire of Life and a Fire of Achievement/Endeavor.

When those seeds bloomed, he would be able to sense it and could attach a karmic strand to them to strengthen the connection. The part about Fire of Achievement he renamed to Fire of Merit. It represented the merit achieved by one’s actions, an easier concept for him to grasp. From those he was connected to, he would draw an extremely small portion of their Fire of Merit. Those portions or embers should give him a hint if they represented sin or merit. If he began to receive too much negative karma, he could cut that connection by sacrificing his qi construct. The perceived sacrifice should balance the scales. He was too weak currently to do much else.

The other part, the Fire of Life, represented the summation of a person’s life and could affect the Fire of Merit in strange ways beyond his current understanding. In the final step, he would add their drawn embers to his own Fire of Life, another qi construct he would grow in his dantian. The strange method wouldn’t directly provide him with qi to increase his spiritual sea. It would instead give weight to his existence such that qi would naturally flow into him faster. It wasn’t too clear from the manual what it meant by “weight”, so he wouldn’t touch the construct beyond growing it. It was too soon to mess around with it. The Fire of Life that belonged to others was off-limits for the same reason.

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He had followed his manual and compressed qi into the delicate shape he imagined based on the manual’s description. He still remembered when it first solidified. The ember had caught, the tiny, flaming qi construct hovering above the shallow pool of his spiritual sea in his dantian. It needed no further attention from him after that.

Over the months leading to his breakthrough, he had chosen to imbue the beneficial plants he grew and sold to disciples he trusted. The ties created would thus have a degree of separation and be more malleable to his perception. He had already created his first karmic strand in preparation and attached it to a karmic connection he felt sure was positive. It would slowly add to his Fire of Life over time. He strictly monitored it to ensure that he wasn’t accepting any sin through it. Now he focused on creating a second strand.

Once he finished his cultivation session, he got up and looked at his companions. Bao Hua was still cultivating, but Mei Ling looked ready and eager to go explore the subspace. Even Ren was excited at the prospect of finding more treasures, but while they waited for Bao Hua, they would try their best to only scout and avoid battle.

They left a note for Bao Hua and the master flag through which he could activate the formations. Ren marked the cave’s location, and then the pair of them began exploring the mountainside they had only just started to climb.

“You’re back! Are you well? How was it?” Bao Hua eagerly greeted them when they returned.