Cultivating Chai

67:

“When we first met,” His white-robed predecessor began, his expression serene as he met Xiao Feng’s surprise with a perfectly calm tone. “I told you that my soul had mostly been destroyed and you were fated to instinctively consume what remained,” He recalled.

“You did,” Xiao Feng replied.

“My words stand as true now as they did back then,” His predecessor declared, even though his very existence stood to seemingly disprove that notion.

“How?” Xiao Feng asked.

“My soul was devastated by an attack from a Nascent Soul Cultivator, one willing to practice Demonic Path methods at that,” His predecessor explained. “Shattered beyond repair, it would have long since dissipated if it were not for your transmigration. You absorbed my soul essence to grow rapidly, subsuming a cultivation base I could no longer maintain, inheriting both my memories and strength. Two souls cannot exist in one body and if I hadn’t resisted the pull of your complete soul, I would have indeed perished.”

“I thought you told me that I could not control the absorption,” Xiao Feng asked, puzzled by his predecessor’s words.

“You cannot, yet I never said that I would not fight back against the encroachment. I am trained in the martial way, after all,” His predecessor explained, his tone tinged by mirth.

“Why tell me this?” Xiao Feng asked. “You knew that I would discover your presence the moment I stepped into my soul,” He stated, certain in his conclusion.

“I could have,” His predecessor admitted. “Your beast master does not actually expect you to find your soul. Any discovery that offers an advantage at the Nascent Soul stage cannot be easy to learn before it. Though admittedly, given your unique disposition, you would have eventually figured it out if you kept trying. Maybe in a year or two.”

“That’s more than enough time for me to have moved on,” Xiao Feng replied, finding no reason to side-step around what he knew to be his own personality traits. He wanted to learn beast taming to claim the dying egg he had discovered and a year was simply too long a time for him to expect the egg to survive. No, he would move on far earlier and rely on the beast-bonding pill to establish a bond of friendship instead of a true bond, because his interest in the field had stemmed from necessity instead of desire.

“That is likely to have been the case,” His predecessor conceded.

“So, why?” Xiao Feng asked. “I do not think that my claim to this body supersedes your own. It is as you said, you are a cultivator. If someone takes what belongs to you, you fight to reclaim it. What advantage could you gain from revealing this to me?” He asked, unable to think of a single one unless his predecessor had withheld certain memories from him.

“None at all,” His predecessor replied, his tone perfectly calm. “In my current state, I cannot wrest control over my body even if I wanted to. Neither am I capable of consuming your soul to heal my own. Revealing my existence has put me at a grave disadvantage, if anything. I am sure you can sense it, as I can sense you. As the dominant soul, you could choose to snuff my own out and I would be powerless to resist in the here and now.”

“I could,” Xiao Feng numbly repeated, as he sensed the sheer dominion he could choose to exert over his predecessor’s soul if he chose to. Regardless of how he’d come to acquire it, this was his demesne and it was far easier to rebel against a foreign presence than it was to encroach upon a complete, healthy soul.

If his predecessor hadn’t been as grievously injured as he was when Xiao Feng transmigrated into his body, there was no doubt in his mind that it was his soul that would’ve been effortlessly shattered and dispelled—- and he could not even have faulted his predecessor for doing so.

“It is the easiest way to secure this body and soul for yourself. A cultivator would not hesitate,” His predecessor offered, not at all sounding concerned about the fact that his own life, or atleast, what remained of it hung in the balance.

“You are a cultivator,” Xiao Feng countered. “And you just told me your greatest weakness. It appears that neither of us make for very good ones then.”

His predecessor allowed a rare laugh to escape him, before he nodded, “It is true, though I suspect you underestimate just how severe the damage to my soul is. As resolute as my will is, I am not naive enough to believe that it is willpower alone that keeps my soul tethered to our plane. No, I suspect that it is you, or rather, your subconsciousness that has permitted my presence while your soul, that is ensconced around me even now, helps me maintain the structure of my own.”

Xiao Feng blinked, finding himself blindsided by the revelation. He had no idea how he would even begin to do something as complex as reinforcing the structure of another damaged soul with his own, yet if his predecessor’s words were to be trusted, that was precisely what he had been doing.

“I’m still surprised that you told me,” Xiao Feng admitted, his searching gaze locking onto his predecessor’s calm one.

“That is hardly unreasonable of you, given that I incinerated the contents of the essence cultivation art not long after its discovery. It is not in my nature to expose my vulnerabilities,” His predecessor admitted, as he tapped his chin in thought. “Yet to reclaim my body, I would need to either wait for your own soul to be damaged to a terrifying degree, whether by chance or because I lured you into a dangerous area beyond your abilities. Even then, reclaiming my body will not mean that the existing damage to my soul will repair itself. Just adding the burden of managing my body as I am now, might just cause it to shatter on the spot.”

Xiao Feng tried to keep the unease from his visage as the sheer calm his predecessor discussed both his own and Xiao Feng’s potential demise.

Shaking his head, Xiao Feng firmly replied, “I cannot believe that you have simply given up on reclaiming your body.”

“Given up? Perish the thought,” His predecessor dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “However, it was violence that caused my near demise, not you. I do not know if it was a cosmic accident in the grand cycle of reincarnation or some force beyond my understanding that sent you here, but regardless, your own culpability in the matter is non-existent. Should I have chosen the path of violence again, I suspect that I would have found myself doomed to fall prey to the same cycle. Whether it was a year or several decades later, once again, I would’ve found myself slain by a bloodied blade.”

“What alternative is there?” Xiao Feng asked, hoping that there was, in fact, an alternative. He didn’t know if he was capable of fighting his predecessor for something that didn’t belong to him, but at the same time, he didn’t want to simply be banished into an eternal void.

“Oh, that’s simple,” His predecessor replied. “I am simply going to ask for your help.”

“Pardon?” Xiao Feng asked, utterly and completely flummoxed by the proposition. There were a dozen different ways he’d imagined the conversation could go, yet he found himself completely blindsided.

“To once again step on the path of ascension, I need two favors,” His predecessor began, not at all moved by Xiao Feng’s bedazzlement. “The first is an alchemical pill, one of the most precious kinds. A pill that can heal the damage to a soul. I do not need it to recover my cultivation base, that I can do myself. But even such a pill would require you to reach the level of a Grand Alchemist and obtain a pill formula that even Nascent Soul cultivators would fight for. The second is a spare body.”

“A… what?” Xiao Feng asked, his gaze warily studying his predecessor.

“Don’t look at me like that, it is also an alchemical technique of some manner. Historical records have never been my forte, but Elder Haoyun once told me about an ancient elder of the Azure Lotus Sect. They called him Hundred Bodied Ming and it wasn’t because of some profound technique. No, Elder Ming fought like a demon himself, but he lost more battles than he won. And yet, he would always come back. As long as the Nascent Soul remained intact, he could simply shift to a new vessel as many times as he wanted.”

“Would the new body be able to contain something as powerful as a Nascent Soul?” Xiao Feng asked, pretty certain that cultivation wasn’t supposed to work that way. The body was strengthened alongside the soul, you couldn’t simply abandon it.

“Whatever methods Hundred Bodied Ming had allowed him to do so, if Elder Haoyun’s story is to be believed. I do not expect you to do anything nearly as impressive, though. A mortal body forged through alchemical means would mean that I am not cheating the heavens, not trying to evade my tribulation. I do not expect it to be easy, but it is a far cry from impossible,” His predecessor conjectured.

“You know that it is a long shot that I manage any of this, right?” Xiao Feng asked.

“You have a ways to go as a cultivator,” His predecessor replied, nodding in agreement.

Ouch, Xiao Feng thought.

“But you also have a tendency to undersell yourself. I would not have revealed this truth to you if I thought it impossible, even if it may have been a spur of the moment decision. Your Dao is… unlike any I have seen in the martial division and your temperament is far more suited to alchemy compared to my own. Perhaps there is a reason why you’re here and what I have seen is enough for me to take the chance. After all, you are the only cultivator in a thousand li foolish enough to negotiate with a remnant soul when you have all power over me.”

“I suppose I am,” Xiao Feng replied, a small smile playing upon his lips.

Despite his predecessor having revealed that this encounter could’ve gone much differently if had seen no hope in his abilities and if Xiao Feng had been more self-serving, he suspected that he would’ve been headed for far more unpleasant places; Xiao Feng still found that he was not unnerved by the revelation.

If anything, his predecessor had allowed him a pathway to his soul, which would have taken him ages to do on his own and had been at his mercy. There were no tricks or deception he could play within his soul, which was why he had offered him the truth.

His heart felt like it had been freed of an invisible weight that had been shackling it, as the guilt he felt towards replacing his predecessor gave way to a novel determination.

An agreement was struck.