13.1. Ruby Demonic Sect

The journey back to the sect was painfully slow.

The wooden platform creaked and swayed precariously as it carried a massive pile of dragon bones and other parts that didn’t fit in the group’s spatial bags.

Faust swore under his breath to pick artifact forging back up and make a damn spirit ship when he had time. He was someone who usually didn’t take missions outside of the sect’s formally recognised territory, meaning the longest missions he usually took wouldn’t take longer than 3 days now, a week if he was still at the Meridian Opening realm.

It had only taken 2 days to arrive, find and kill the flood dragon, but it had taken almost a week to dismantle its corpse and would take 4 more days to return to the sect while carrying everything.

Faust sighed. He should have brought some books.

Even Satheon had brought an expensive memory crystal and was rewatching some kind of play.

Phalecia was solving a Qi manipulation puzzle and Sirius was reading something titled, “Ten Thousand Years of Seclusion, When I Emerged I Was Invincible!”

Faust only had his notebook and a brush, so he returned to trying to improve the Heaven’s Smite spell technique. Despite the mental exhaustion of the past several days, he had nothing better to do except trying to find another route of vectors through Qi State analysis and Qi Array Indexing. The current vectors he was using had almost blown out his Meridian Channels and crippled him.

To use conventional euphemisms, he was finding another way to twist his Spirit Qi to achieve the same effect but by applying different earth laws to the spell techniques dao.

Such euphemisms were common. Substituting the hellish mathematics and excruciatingly detailed descriptions and terminology, for something most muscleheaded cultivators could intuitively understand.

“Math… It always comes back to math.” Faust muttered under his breath as he angrily worked out the cross product of 7 vectors by hand.

Faust wanted to kill himself by the 800th operation and he still had some 4240 more to go before he could determine if the alternative path of Spirit Qi for the spell technique was viable.

No wonder nobody makes their own techniques and methods anymore… Faust thought idly. He hated it.

“Hey! Senior brother!” Sirius called out.

Faust didn’t respond immediately, writing down his current progress and line of thought so he could continue later.

“Yes?”

Sirius raised her book in response. “Is it possible to reach the Void Transformation realm without knowing you’ve reached it?” She asked.

“No.” Faust responded simply.

“Why not?”

“Fundamentally not how cultivation works. If you don’t do anything you won’t be cultivating and you won’t improve.”

“What if like… The place is covered in Pure Qi that’s like…” Sirius glanced at a page of the book, “…a thousand times denser than atop the highest mountain peak in the sect?”

“Your spirit body would be swept away by the equally strong currents such Pure Qi would contain and you’d drop dead like a soulless husk.” It was the obvious outcome.

“What if there were no currents?”

“It would become Dead Qi.”

“Could that help you cultivate?”

“No. Dead Qi can be revived by expending your own Spirit Qi, but then you have the problem of Qi currents and movements again.”

“What if you use a treasure to protect your spirit body?”

“It either blocks the Qi completely or only lets a small amount through, in which case, what’s the difference between that mountain of Pure Qi and a normal mountain peak at the sect?”

“Ah…” Sirius must have run out of ideas, because she looked at the book dejectedly, then stuffed it back into her spatial pouch.

The group went silent for a while.

“Hey. What’s happening over there?” Sirius suddenly pointed out after twiddling her thumbs for a while.

Faust again paused his calculations, turning upwards to follow Sirius’s gaze.

In the distance, a large amount of smoke was rising.

A small glow suddenly shot into the sky. It twisted to head toward the sect briefly before Satheon stretched his hand out. The small light zipped around and shot towards the group.

“This is Lin Chang from Clear Mirror Outer Sect! Demonic cultivators above Meridian Opening have attacked! If any seniors are around! Please help!” The talisman repeated its message.

“Demonic cultivators.” Satheon spoke before even Faust could, stowing his memory crystal away as his gaze became cold.

“Waaait!” Faust tried to say, but Satheon shot forward ahead of the group on his flying sword.

The platform carrying the bones was yanked forward.

Orion shot from its scabbard and cut Satheon’s rope.

The platform began wildly swinging and bones began spilling over the edge.

“…” Faust felt his eye twitching as he caught the bones with Qi telekinesis. “Nevermind. Both of you! Go!” Faust said.

Sirius and Phaleica removed the ropes from their flying swords before shooting forward. Faust carried the whole platform with Qi telekinesis as he followed.

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“Hmpf. What pointless righteousness.” A white haired old man in blood red robes snorted.

Lin Chang grit his teeth, one arm covered in blood limp at his side while he held his saber in his other hand, standing between the demonic cultivator and a group of mortal villagers.

Buildings burned and crackled around the group, lighting up their faces with amber light.

A large chunk of the inn the group had been staying in suddenly gave way with a crack, before crashing to the ground and sending burning embers everywhere, licking Chang’s clothes.

“Chang…” Chang’s martial sister, Su Xin, asked nervously.

Chang knew what she wanted to say. They had invited a lost looking Qi Refining disciple from the latest generation of new recruits, who was trembling wildly to Chang’s other side.

“Listen closely, May.” Chang began, “Me and Xin will give our lives to make an opening. When we do. Run through with the villagers and return to the sect.”

“You think you’ll have a chance?” A blood robed old man scoffed, more interested in a freshly dug out skull than the trio.

More than 10 blood robed men and women bared their clawed ruby hands, daggers or small scythes, practically licking their lips as they closed in on the trio from all directions.

Chang looked between one demon to another. He erased all hesitation in his heart, resolved to die here. He began drawing all his Spirit Qi out from his established nodes and channels, even the Innate Qi he had spent years refining for his breakthrough bubbled up.

There was a brief moment of silence.

Chang’s eyes narrowed, his breathing stabilised.

The demons’ stances lowered, their legs coiling to leap forward.

The clank of claws, the shine of Chang’s blade.

The tension rendered the world silent.

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“MERE DEMONS DARE!!!” A voice sounded in the distance, breaking the tension.

“Hmm?” The blood robed old man glanced up, then his eyes widened.

“HAAAAAHHH!!!” The voice sounded loudly, cutting through the tension and startling Chang so bad he almost dropped his saber.

The blood robed old man tried to do something, dropping the skull and raising his arms.

ZING!

The blood robed old man fell apart in two halves.

BOOOM!

Dirt and stone was thrown into the air as the impact of someone landing exploded in the next instant, throwing several of the Meridian Opening demonic cultivators into the air.

Chang covered his eyes with his saber before squinting and peering through the clouds of dirt and dust to see a giant man with a wild mane of dark hair smiling furiously as he held a sword. The man turned, glaring at the other demonic cultivators as he stood over the Open Palace realm demonic cultivator’s corpse.

“Hmp!” The man turned to a group of demonic cultivators. They tried to raise their weapons.

ZING!

The man moved almost faster than Chang could perceive, slicing through the demonic cultivators, weapons, claws, armour, robes and all. Three of them dropped dead, cut in half at the waist in an instant.

Everyone went silent as all eyes were on the beast of a man, who turned to his next victim.

“Arm.” The silence was cut through as a soft voice spoke from Chang’s left. He turned.