Fighting to be Kind in a Cultivation World

I can practically feel her excitement in the air, as she eagerly waits to dive into the task at hand.

First, she focuses her attention on a long-deceased corpse, her hand outstretched. She doesn’t even need a line of qi from her, to cause the zombie to slowly climb to its feet.

And in all actuality, there isn’t any qi being used in a direct line from her to it.

…that's like how my healing aura works. Activating the skill at a point in space, rather than having a connection. Though, it still takes mana (qi, in her case).

I’m actually looking forward to when I get to where I can do that with my cultivation abilities, since having the line means that others can interfere in some way.

As she raises the zombie, she has it make multiple movements. Starting from the normal, where she has it walk around, to the silly, where she has it do backflips. Throughout the entire time, her face was lit up with pure delight, finally able to perform highly intricate movements she had never done before, especially with a creature with flesh on the bones.

When she has it do a triple cartwheel flip, I give a nice cheer of support, which breaks her out of her brief experiment. She gives a little yelp, which makes me chuckle at how focused she was.

With a blush of embarrassment, she raises the other zombies in the same way. Each of the lines connecting her to her skeletons disappears, one by one. Letting her control them from a distance, without the possibility of interference from others. With that, she raises zombies of all kinds, going from humans and animals, to even giant insects with rotting flesh still inside.

There’s even a zombie giant mole here now.

And she’s raising every single one, without even a hint of strain, something that would be remarkable for necromancer of the same level with these amounts.

That’s not where she stops, though, as I see her raise up different things from the still huge piles of bones. Specifically, the bones themselves.

It starts with a tiny ear bone. Then a femur. A broken ribcage.

Each of these individual bones starts hopping around.

This is where it begins.

Her original version of necromancy could only deal with full skeletons. Using them in the same ways that a normal body could.

Now, she can control things that were once living, regardless of whether or not they are intact.

It won’t be long until she can go even farther than that…

As if confirming my thoughts, I see her swiftly turn her attention over to something else that I prepared for her. Bone dust.

Like a spiraling line, the dust begins to rise and swirl piece by piece into the air.

Finally, I see some sweat from her.

Her eyes bore into intently onto each piece of dust, before she takes on large and large pieces of them. Making it grow from grains of bone to now merged chunks. Through her constantly flowing changes, I can see the myriad of things she’s trying to do, to make it a free-flowing dust cloud.

She’s having a hard time thinking of a cloud as a whole, rather than individual pieces to control.

…But if she can do that, she’ll be able to scale it much higher than what is presently possible for her. I can only imagine where she’ll take the ability from there. In fact, with fossilized things, like fossil fuels and minerals like limestone in the picture, she could potentially drown people like a water cultivator. Suffocate a person like a wind cultivator, with bone dust. Crush a person, like an earth cultivator, with limestone.

However, even for a genius like her… as I see her fall to a knee, her eyes still locked on the dust, it’s easy to see the strain is taking her too far. I need to stop her before she builds bad habits into place, even with my healing being able to repair any damage.

Gently, I place a hand on her shoulder.

“Da Xia. That’s enough for today. You’ve done a great job at integrating the method into yourself, even after having worked with the other one.”

It cannot be understated how much of an achievement it is to switch between methods this quickly. Even if they had the same roots, the core of them is different, because of the multiple elements now included in it. If you don’t start from the very beginning with fresh eyes… you’d immediately encounter issues and slowdowns in effectiveness.

Of course, working with me would allow you to mitigate that aspect. But she didn’t even need help to get this far.

I decide to give her a few rewards for doing such a fantastic job.

“… here, I’d like to give you something for all your hard work.”

Before her eyes, I condense a spirit stone, using my qi.

This serves two purposes. To show her my level of power, even when I’m in the early levels of Qi Condensation. The second is to give her multiple spirit stones to work with.

Her eyes widen for a moment, before she snaps them shut, almost in disbelief at the sight.

Yeah… even though I'm doing it casually, it's ridiculously impossible for anyone at my level to do this normally.

I give her a smile as I continue to hand her spirit stones as I make them. I end up spending time and giving her 10 of them to use.

“Use these well, okay?”

She robotically takes each of them in hand before placing them in a bag at her side. I can practically see the words she wants to speak on her lips. Considering her intelligence, there’s no way she isn’t seeing the significance of being able to do this and how much qi it means I have.

However, questions like that are impolite to ask at best, especially when you are benefiting from it. She suppresses any thoughts.

While I could tell her… sometimes a bit of mystery is better for a teacher/student relationship.

“Relax for the rest of the day, considering the information on the method. Tomorrow, we’ll be discussing the deeper levels of the method for this realm. Such as, ‘Infinite Awakening’ and ‘Spirit Servants’.

“Make sure to review the jade slip, to be sure. I saw hints of some bad habits, so use that to correct them. It’ll adjust to show you.”

I hand her back the slip after she had given it to me. My misdirection is successful, as she gives a bright smile while holding the slip. Letting her keep the slip is a tremendous show of trust. Even with contracts. It also shows my value toward her.

“Yes, Master James! I won’t let you down.”

“I know you won’t. However, there is one thing I wanted to let you know.

And now for the thing I came to tell her… and the reason I needed to raise her trust with me.

“…You need to not watch your brother as closely as you have.”

The instant that I say that, she goes on edge. Looking at me like a potential threat. I continue.

“I know you’ve noticed it… but he’s going out further and further because of you tracking him. You’ll put everyone at risk if you push him too far.”

I look her in the eyes to convey the seriousness of it.

“It’s a not a matter of if… but when, if you continue this.”

Unlike most people, she's glaring at me fixedly. Not turning her eyes away.

But I can see the wheels turning in her mind. As she considers my words, outside her emotions. The benefit of being a genius. She exhales rapidly before nodding.

“Fine. Yes, Master James.”

“Hmm?"

I quirk my eyebrow. Showing her I’m being forgiving with her tone and actions, but that I don’t appreciate it. Immediately, she reels back in her disrespect.

“…I’m sorry. I understand. Thank you for all you’ve done.”

I give a terse nod.

Whether it’s in this world or my previous one, deal with disrespect instantly and show them you won’t tolerate it. Otherwise, it will become a habit. And then, the standard.

I have to nip that in the bud, even if it initially hurts the relationship.

She bows again, before turning to head back to her place.

All around, the undead scatter to the various parts of the city. Ready for her to call them at a moment’s notice.

…alright. Now, what’s next?