Chapter 21- Friends in Damp Places

There was a ghostly snicker.

I had my reasons. Now, the cheapest way to do this is to trace out the circulation path for you, then you just follow along.

A few moments later, a new bubble popped up over Tian’s head. It needed fewer acupoints, was less demanding of his control of qi, and Tian thought the whole thing felt a bit more robust. He nodded appreciatively.

“Elevated to the fourth tier?”

Upper Sixth, and that’s me appreciating my own work. Don’t underestimate how sophisticated and powerful spells can be at the Heavenly Realm… compared to the Earthly Realm, anyway. Remember what that little bird said about her realm, and the peacock’s realm? You can consider the Earthly Realm as the literal foundation, a sort of introduction to cultivation. The Heavenly Realm is when you start getting into the more advanced stuff, and the realm above this is when you complete the trifecta of energy control. All of which is still considered the lowest ‘realm’ by the so-called experts on this mountain.

“Vital energy at the earthly realm, qi at the Heavenly, then shen at the…?”

I don’t know what the local yokels call it. The Human Realm, maybe?

Tian blinked. A snooping senior would see his face twisting into a distinctly odd expression. “Heaven, earth and man?”

Daoists are going to daoist. As frameworks for grappling with invisible, intangible universal forces go, it’s not the worst. But yes. Don’t worry about it for now.

“No, I’m actually pretty worried about it.”

There was another thunderous boom, and a long rushing noise. Tian dashed out of his room. A wrist thick line of eye-searing fire blazed in the night, drawing a line parallel to the porch. At the end of it, a flush and wild Liren stood, bringing her spear up into a high ready position.

“Fairy Maiden descends from a fiery star, her war banner covers the earth. Comet Fall!”

Liren flashed, and another line of fire trailed across the garden. It, too, ended with an almighty BANG. This time, Tian could see the brilliant explosion of fire that made the noise.

“Getting the hang of Heavenly combat?” He was quite pleased with how steady his voice sounded.

“No. It shouldn’t be like this. The trail of fire is right, but there is supposed to be this glowing ball of fire around me that condenses into a blazing sun on the spearpoint. It’s not supposed to blow up. Well, maybe inside of whoever you stab, but you get my point.”

“Thankfully not.” Tian grinned, then pointed. “I think I see your problem.”

“What? How? You know even less about this art than I do.”

“I know you are using a Heavenly Realm art with an Earthly Realm spear.”

Liren looked down at the snake-bladed spear. Her face shifted repeatedly, from irritation, to wonder, to frustration, to outrage. “I barely used this thing. It’s practically new! Do you know how much we paid for this… this glorified tent pole?”

“I do not, and what’s more, you are wrong. You can’t call it a tent pole with that spearhead. It’s more of a gardening tool. It would be just the thing to saw off tree branches if you had to do some pruning. Now, the rope dart Dad had to sell a favor for me to have made, that, I think, would make a prime clothes line. It’s really in immaculate condition.”

“Oh good, that will make it easier to sell, if there was anyone up here low enough level to want it, which there isn’t.” Liren rubbed the spot between her eyebrows. “Are you planning to keep on using a rope dart?”

Tian spread his hands helplessly. “It’s all I know, other than darts. On the other hand, all the reasons I once had for using a rope dart no longer apply. It doesn’t even add reach or flexibility compared to other Heavenly weapons.”

“You could switch over to darts fully.”

“Maybe. But I’m not completely sold on that. I want something with stopping power.”

“Javelin?”

“Eeeh…”

“Saber?” She grinned.

“I’m not that yang. Or crazy.”

They considered things for a minute longer, collectively shrugged, and returned to their rooms. The free spells weren’t very good, but they did have the advantage of being free, and that was Tian’s very favorite price.

For a change of pace, he tried to learn the spell for doing laundry. It was considerably more difficult. Manipulating qi inside of himself was tricky enough. Trying to do it outside of his body was considerably harder. He persisted, and while there were some gains, he couldn’t quite get the hang of it.

The next morning, Tian was once again greeted with Voidcatcher’s floating leaf. The old monster’s cultivation ground was much the same as when he first arrived, though now it had fewer small plants littered around.