Jade Dragon Beauty

At the gate separating the inner and outer city everyone was allowed through and another barrier was raised. This one, however, was only meant to keep angry crowds and criminals from forcing their way into the area, so it wouldn't hold up long. A few people ran up the stairs on each side of the gate, but they soon found out how useless such a barrier was when several demons on swords flew over the wall and started attacking the people on the other side. After a few attacks resulted in over dozen people being killed, the High Elder ordered the retreat to the core of the city and threw a few more explosives at the demons which were still in the outer city before running as well.

Once in the Core of the city, not waiting for the demons to attack again, the two surviving High Elders in their group lead them to a statue of one of the five founders. As they were in the Earth district, it was of Earth Master Qui Laxan. Another group had already gathered there and, as Shen watched, the base of the statue opened up, revealing a staircase. As Shen was entering the door she saw a group of demons flying towards them, and a group of sect members running towards them, one of them carrying a man with a missing leg. The man who was carrying him was almost out of chi, however, and couldn't handle the extra weight, so he was moving slower than the others.

Seeing that they wouldn't make it before the demons got here, she made a decision. While the Flash step sword was bent, and therefore couldn't be used as a weapon, its effect still worked. She swapped her sword for it, placed it in her belt, and activated it. A streak shaped like a human passed the running people in the opposite direction and a second later Shen appeared beside the slower man. While one couldn't breath when they pushed the effect to such a high speed, she was only out of breath for a few seconds. Without introducing herself or asking permission she grabbed the man with a missing leg, threw him over her left shoulder, and ran back to the statue. She placed him beside it and returned for the second man, returning with him just as Elder Xu activated a secret switch hidden inside the statue. The courtyard which housed the statue glowed and a Nascent level Five Elements Barrier activated. Shen could tell that there were five points under the formation built into the courtyard where an elemental crystal, each of a different element, were buried.

While this wouldn't hold them indefinitely, as the barrier was only Nascent and Shen could already tell that the material it was made of was Middle Nascent quality, it would buy them some time. She sat the exhausted man down and picked up the wounded man, then went down the stairs. Once everyone was inside, the statue was closed, ignoring the demons pounding on the barrier with their best attacks.

At the bottom of the staircase was a circular room with another, spiral staircase. They joined the line going down the staircase, and a doctor ran over to stop the bleeding from the missing leg. Shen handing the injured man over and went down the second staircase with a limping Shoom. At the bottom she saw Mae, who ran over and started healing Shoom's injured leg. "Glad to see you." she said. "Lots of people didn't make it."

Shen nodded. "I'm glad you survived too." She then realized there were other people here she should be looking for. "Where are the boys?"

"I saw Danka a few minutes ago." Mae said. "He's helping the guards keep people in an orderly line down that path." She pointed to a long hallway which lead off of the room. "Not sure about Ponma." Mae had finished patching up Shoom's leg and started petting him. "You should be fine now, Shoom." she said.

"Oh, you know him?" Shen asked, and Mae explained that Mr. Li had come by the alchemist shop several times.

Shen had to explain how Mr. Li was killed by a demon, and she had agreed to look after Shoom for him. "If you know telepathy, though, you can talk with him. He still needs practice at telepathy and language, but he knows enough for a conversation."

Mae hadn't learned it yet, but Shen promised to teach her once they had some time. Mae had to stay behind to help treat people, but Shen and Shoom walked a bit down the path and got in line. Once they got to the end of the line, they stepped up to one of the three counters and an elder addressed them. "I'm sorry, but we can't allow spirit pets. There isn't enough room to take them all."

"But, he's not a pet." Shen said. "He's a friend."

'Me friend.' Shoom added helpfully.

"Still, we can only take sect members at this time. Once all of the sect members have been evacuated we can send him through, but for now….." He motioned to the side, where other spirit pets were waiting in cages.

"Excuse me." said a young man from behind the elder. "But I believe this Ice Wolf qualifies as a sect member."

"How have you decided that?" the elder asked.

"Well, his guardian is a sect member, which makes him an automatic outer sect member, the same way the children born in Farmer or Fisher or Miner are sect members."

"He wasn't born to a sect member, though. There are no full blooded Wolf type spirit animals in the sect, so it's not possible that he's the child of one."

"But he was essentially adopted by one, his master, when he released him from the contract and kept raising him. Furthermore, he is Early Foundation, which means that he automatically became an inner sect disciple when that happened."

"I don't think the rule was meant to include former pet spirit beasts." the elder argued.

"That is up for debate, but I don't think now is the time to debate this."

The elder thought for a few seconds and sighed. "Fine. Is he registered as an inner member or outer member?"

Shen didn't know, and without a bracelet which could be scanned to prove his identity, the elder had to search through a set of records. "Oh, here it is." he said after ten seconds. "Shoom, registered pet of Li Guan. He did tell us that Shoom had reached Foundation, and had an elder remove the control tattoo, but he didn't officially adopt him yet. Unfortunately, I don't have a Contribution bracelet for him at this time."

"Will my ring prove my identity?" Shen asked. "I can give him mine."

The Elder shrugged. "Not officially, but it's fine." He took out a paper and wrote a note on it, then gave it to Shen. "Just give that to anyone that asks for proof that he's a sect member."

Shen was about to respond when an elder in another line pulled a talisman and the woman in front of it jumped backwards, drawing her sword. Before she could do anything one of the guards stabbed her and she collapsed. Her skin quickly turned blue and her eyes red and her corpse was drug out of the line. "Next." the elder called, putting away the talisman.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Wait, there are demons down here?" Shen asked.

"That's why we're checking identities. That, and the fact that we need to send them somewhere different than the civilians." He motioned for her to keep moving, and she and Shoom walked past the man.

They entered a huge room which had two rings of large formations on the floor in the center of the room. One of the formations, however, appeared damaged. As it wasn't being watched, Shen jumped over the rope wall that surrounded it and started examining it. The first thing she could tell was that the damage came from something hitting it from directly above with a good bit of force. She looked up and saw that the ceiling had a few missing tiles above this formation. Shen thought about where they might be for it to be damaged from a collapsing ceiling, and realized that the direction they moved in was towards the exact center of the city. "We're under the barrier array?" she quietly asked herself.

"Yes." said a male voice from behind her. She turned to see the same young man that had convinced the elder to allow Shen through the checkpoint. "Xing Lu, Inner Sect Member. Seventeen years old." he said, bowing.

"Xing, as in the Sect Master?" Shen asked, surprised.

"Yes. He is my Father. My mother is a High Elder that died in the attack, but I'd rather not talk about it."

Shen nodded. "And your father? Did he survive."

Lu nodded. "Yes, though he was injured trying to reinforce the barrier, and is now going into hiding. When the time is right, though, he will return to rebuild the sect."

Shen nodded. "In that case, do you know anything about the formations?"

He nodded. "My father taught me a bit, though I'm only Foundation, and this is a Nascent formation. I can answer questions about it if you want." He explained that, when the exploding talisman was set off above, a piece of the ceiling fell onto it, damaging the formation. It was a teleportation formation, and the targeting section on it was too damaged to properly connect. That meant that, even if the formation were repaired, without resetting that location and linking it to another teleportation formation, the formation would only be able to randomly send a person or group up to 200 li or so from this location.

Shen thanked him for the information, then realized that she had forgotten about Shoom. She went to look for him and found Ponma petting him. Mae was there with him. "All of the lines above finished, so I was allowed to join the groups going through the teleportation arrays", she told Shen.

A few minutes later, One of the High Elders started speaking loudly. "Ok, everyone. I want you to form groups. We can only send one hundred people through at a time, but have already evacuated the non-combatants. I want everyone to join the guards on one of the formations, and if too many people get on one we will have to split you up. You will then be sent to a hidden base in the mountains."

After his short speech, Shen looked at the formations and saw Danka waiting on one of them. She told the other three, and they made their way to that platform. Danka would be going with them to make sure they were safe, as would all of the other guards, with a few elders following after they had sent the civilians away using the four functioning outer formations.

Once one hundred people were on the formation it was activated. Everything grew brighter and Shen felt a disorienting feeling of being stretched and moved in an unknown direction, then she found herself in a cave with a nearly identical formation.

Everyone was lead into another room where an elder was waiting. "I know this will be hard for many of you to accept, but the Jade Dragon Sect is no more." There were several surprised sounds coming from the crowd as well as the sound of a few people crying. "Now, all we can do is help you, so that you can live in mortal society. You will all be given a new Major and Minor cultivation technique so that you can pass as people who aren't part of any sect, but any signs of symbols of the Sect must be removed. Otherwise, the demons will be able to learn who you are and might look for you."

This was also shocking. For many of these people, all of the things they owned were in their storage ring, which had the sect's symbol on the top, a dragon surrounded by the symbols of the five elements. "I can help with that." Shen said. "I'm a relic crafter. I can remove the sect emblem from any storage rings or equipment so that you can replace it. I don't have the material to replace the symbol, though, so it will simply be filed off in the case of a storage ring. It shouldn't make the ring no longer work, though."

A few questioned who she was, but once someone recognized her from her contest against High Elder Xu they agreed to let her try. Not everyone trusted her, due to her age, but they didn't really have a choice. If they wanted to keep their belongings, they would need her help.

Shen went to an open area and pulled out her file set. This would be the quickest way to alter the rings, but they wouldn't look good. First, she removed her own ring and, holding it over a container to catch the shavings, removed the emblem from it. After all, her ring was made from Star Metal, so she couldn't waste even that much of it.

She spent the next hour removing the symbols from every storage ring that someone in the cave owned. Other items, like armor or magic bags, might have the symbol sown onto them, but others could remove those, as there was little risk of damaging those items when removing the symbols.

After that, she got up and headed to the library room. While it only had one shelf, there were several blue jade slips on each of the shelves, along with a jade slip which described the techniques. Techniques were classified into Righteous, Neutral, and Minor Demonic techniques. Righteous techniques required that you help others in order to cultivate. Neutral techniques were those which didn't require harm or help be given to others. Demonic techniques were those that required that one harm another intelligent being to cultivate. The ones that the sect had placed here, however, were all minor demonic techniques which meant that, while one could advance by harming other intelligent beings using them, one could also advance by harming non-intelligent beings, or even plants. The ghost technique which the twins used would count as a minor demonic technique, as they used the souls of animals, but could also use the souls of intelligent beings.

Upon seeing the Way of the Blood which the Black Serpent sect that had kidnapped her used, she asked about it, and was told that it only required that one inflict harm and pain onto themselves in order to understand pain and death. The techniques, however, could be used on others for practice or combat reasons, like the cultists had done. Shen thought about the feel of that Blood Chi again, and seeing the look of contemplation on her face, the elder explained that the replacement technique he had chosen was actually a minor demonic technique. It allowed him to steal life force, vital chi, from other lifeforms and use it to heal and enhance himself, or could be converted into neutral chi to power standard spell and techniques. Shen didn't believe that was the path for her, though. She had never wanted to harm another, outside of self defense, and, while she had fought the rats in the mine, and even killed intelligent demons, that was because she was protecting herself. If the rats had let her mine in peace she wouldn't have harmed any of them.

"I don't think that type of technique is for me." she said, looking over what was left. She didn't feel particularly drawn to any of the Righteous Path techniques, either, as she didn't want to dedicate herself to aiding others, so she searched through the neutral techniques and eventually found two she liked.

For the major technique, she chose 'The Path of Fire'. Major techniques were ones which could guide you from Cleansing to Immortal, and this one did so by having you focus on cultivating Fire chi. This meant that your Dao of Fire became very strong, and would let you use fire techniques extremely efficiently.

For her minor technique, she chose the Bloodline Manual. Minor cultivation techniques either didn't contain all of the stages of cultivation or took a different path to improvement than advancing through realms. This one taught one to awaken the bloodline they were born with, allowing them to use more bloodline techniques and even take on the appearance and physical traits of a spirit beast ancestor.

After handing over her copy of 'The Five Elements Technique' from her ring, she was allowed to use each of the slips she had chosen, touching them to her forehead and sending a bit of chi into them so that she would be given perfect technical knowledge of the contents of the manual.

She then brought Shoom into the room and, after showing the man the note from an elder explaining that Shoom was an inner sect member, he was also allowed to choose two techniques. As they had none for spirit beasts, he was forced to choose one for a human, which he could start using once he learned to take human form. He ended up choosing the 'Primordial Ice technique' as a major technique and 'The Way of the Hunter' as his minor technique, the first teaching one to cultivate Ice chi, much like Shen's technique taught one to cultivate Fire chi, and the second was about using cultivation to stalk and hunt prey, and contained many techniques to aid in that.

They left and found Ponma, Danka, and Mae standing in the main room. They were discussing their new techniques. Ponma had chosen a Water Body technique, a combined Chi and Body cultivation book, as well as The Dao of the Merchant, which taught techniques for aiding in commerce, much like Shoom's Way of the Hunter taught techniques for aiding in the hunt.

Mae had chosen something called 'The Sunflower Technique". It was a technique developed by a matriarchal sect thousands of years ago, called the Sunflower Society. This technique taught one how to focus on cultivating Yin chi, feminine energy and the chi of nurturing, as well as its aligned elements. It contained both wood and illusion techniques, though Mae would focus on the wood chi ones for now. Her minor technique was The Dao of Alchemy, which taught alchemical techniques.

To no one's surprise, Danka chose 'The Way of the Sword, Blades of the Heart', the cultivation technique of the Soul Blade sect. He had modeled his training off of them for years, and befriended several of their members that were staying in the sect town, so the others assumed that he secretly wanted to join the mercenary group. His minor technique, though, was a bit unusual. He chose the Dual Cultivation Guide. Mae and Ponma grew embarrassed upon hearing this, and Shen accused him of being a pervert, but he explained that the form of dual cultivation they were thinking of was merely the most powerful and final form of it. Any two people could dual cultivate by simply touching, and, in fact parents often did this instinctively with their children. The process merely grew more efficient with a closer form of touch, or when yin and yang chi were merged, especially when the connection was near the two organs which produced either high purity Yin chi or high purity Yang chi.

Once they were finished explaining their new techniques, they went off to a side room to break their cultivation and restart with the new technique. They wouldn't be allowed to leave the cave until they had done so, as anyone cultivating the Five Elements Technique would be immediately identified as sect member, so Shen wanted to recultivate as quickly as possible.