Path of the Ascendant

After a few questions regarding the preferred formation array to be inscribed into the back of her robes – which may sound somewhat confusing, but is simply the fault of the terms occasionally used for the two different arts overlapping – she was guided to the tailors outside of the Ancestral Hall, though not before Yi Wei made sure to ask for anyone other than Yi Kun to take her measurements, as that person would be certain to take the opportunity to feel her up way beyond the amount necessary.

Fortunately for her, and unfortunately for the female population of Yi District, the strange girl’s antics were well known, and Yi Taizhi even revealed that she acted in the exact opposite manner to men, many of whom had suffered after trying to come onto her without knowing who she was.

None of them suffered any permanent damage, supposedly, but it did add one piece to the puzzle that Yi Kun embodied.

‘Unfortunately, I don’t know how many pieces that puzzle has, so I don’t know if I am one step away from completing it, or if I only have enough pieces to complete one small part of it,’ she thought, although it also seemed that there was some obvious implication that she was missing regarding that strange girl’s character being suggested by Yi Taizhi, “So, do I need to give you a part of my spiritual will for the identity token? I’ve never had an opportunity to examine one, but I’m still curious how these tokens are able to prove one’s identity. Is it related to my spiritual will, planar energy or some other connection to myself?”

“We can discuss this in more detail after your measurements have been taken, but it is a combination with the two. Much like the Master of Yi City created the jade slip, he also invented the array that allows a cultivator to condense their planar energy into an object far before the fourth realm, then seal a small fragment of their spiritual will inside for as long as that person draws breath. Now, go.”

 

In theory, it was possible for one’s measurements to be taken with spiritual will, which would naturally be much faster than the typical process of taking every minor measurement manually, but this would require at least someone in the Active Core realm to be able to achieve the accuracy required, and that would be a waste of any good fourth realm expert, even if it only took them a dozen seconds to completely scan one person.

Instead, first and second realm cultivators with poor combat abilities were more suited to the job, as they had little else to do for the majority of the time and putting them to work was clearly more reasonable than letting them rot at home while they struggled to cultivate to greater heights.

As a result, she entered the tailor’s room to find a young girl, fourteen years of age, who was clearly incredibly shy, as she only managed to look in Yi Wei’s direction enough to read the measurements she gathered. Despite that, once it came time for her to leave, the girl offered to take her out for some food, which Yi Wei declined tactfully.

For some reason, that brought extreme disappointment to the teenager, though she hid her expression quickly.

 

When she left the room, Yi Taizhi was holding a new set of cups filled with tea, as if brewing tea was her only activity outside of guiding newly promoted servants. Naturally, Yi Wei did not voice this theory and instead followed her silently back to the inside of the Ancestral Hall, to a room on the second floor.

This was something that she did decide to question, “If the formation array to condense identity tokens is inside, then couldn’t I have done this first?”

“The process can be extremely draining on people in your realm, Yi Wei. After all, you need to expel a sufficient quantity of energy into the array for it to be condensed into a solid, which means that you will require around fifty times more energy in order to condense the planar energy of an Active Core realm cultivator,” Yi Taizhi explained, “You also need to remove a fragment of your spiritual will, which, depending on how much you have, can leave you in a poor state for a few hours until it recovers.”

“Right,” she nodded to show her understanding, ‘It’s great that she told me, or else I wouldn’t have known how to correctly respond to the process. If I just walked away without any signs of tiredness, then it would surely be noticeable.’

The room with the identity token array was in use at the time they got to it, though the people within left a few minutes later, allowing them entry.

Within the room, there was no light other than the one coming from the array in the very middle of the room, which was made with a silvery material laid out across the wooden floor. There was a trace remnant of silvery metal planar energy dissipating atop the array’s surface, the leftovers of the previous use of the formation.

“To use it, just pour your planar energy into it until-” Yi Taizhi stopped midsentence and looked to the side, hearing something that she didn’t, “Get started on your own. I’ll come back once I deal with something.”

She stepped out of the room and shut the door, audibly walking away.

 

‘If I couldn’t hear anything, it must have been a message sent through spiritual will,’ she figured it out quickly, ‘It shouldn’t be some sort of test, because I cannot detect any observation and detection arrays in the area, nor are there any wills viewing me at the moment. Also, if this was standard, I am certain that Yi Kun or someone else with little control over their mouth would have warned me about this. So, while she is away, it would be best to compare this array to the one I know from Lord Meng’s memories.’

Her past few questions were not out of random curiosity, but rather to confirm whether the things they told her would line up with what the Thunder Lord had experienced when he reached the second realm of his cultivation.

One thing she didn’t see was how the process of condensing an identity token affected him, as the memory cut off just as it was getting to the interesting bit. Still, it gave her enough information to understand what a certain configuration of the Token Condensing array did, and thus to decipher whether there were any malicious elements within the Yi family’s setup.

‘The basic composition seems to match his memory. These few nodes capture the planar energy, this one is able to keep it in place, those few allow for its condensation… That one is odd. The previous node in the sequence is able to hold spiritual will, but that one sends it somewhere… Eh, I’ll get rid of it,’ she decided, altering that part of the array in a matter of minutes, ‘What els- Hold. Up. This is a circulation map, shaped much like the human meridian system… I’ll need to memorise and study it later. For now, I should do what I should have been originally doing.’

It was already fortunate that Yi Taizhi did not return to the room to find her modifying the formation array, so she knew that it was best not to push her luck any further.

She knelt by the edge of the silvery circle and rested her hands on the array node that would absorb her energy, whilst also sending out her spiritual will to rest right above the node responsible for storing it.

Once she made sure that her planar energy was completely metallic, she released a thin stream of it into the system, willingly guiding it along the correct pathway. The moment her energy touched the array, it lit up with a glow that was a dozen times brighter than it initially was and began to pull every little drop of external planar energy into itself. At the same time, it was a sharp knife cut through the tip of spiritual will, severing it from her before bringing it into the middle of the array, where her silver planar energy swallowed it while slowly forming the shape of a simple silver token, with her name written on the front.

Interestingly enough, when the spiritual will was being enveloped, she noticed it increase in density ever so slightly.

It solidified, then hovered to a space in front of her, where it waited until she caught it.

Although the process went smoothly, Yi Wei was completely dumbfounded. She had just heard that forming an identity token at her level was incredibly difficult, or at the very least exhausting, yet it was complete in seconds while taking a few small, insignificant drops of her planar energy? That made no sense at all!

‘I guess I shouldn’t be complaining about this, but… is it due to the purity of my energy? My cultivation technique? The way I channelled the energy into the array? None of those should be able to do any of this…’

She was unable to figure it out right there and then, so she hid most of the planar energy within the shadow of the mysterious characters, where none would see it. Regardless of the cause of her strange success with the formation array, she had now memorised the array both in her own life, and in the Thunder Lord’s life, so simply understanding it wouldn’t be particularly difficult in the future, especially if she manages to create her own Token Condensing array for personal study.

There was still no sign of Yi Taizhi, so she reverted her planar energy to its cosmic form.

Immediately, her identity token shattered in her hand, each piece of silver melting into a star-like dust that returned to her dantian, settling near the outside wall.

‘…’ Yi Wei looked between her empty hand and her dantian in silence for several seconds, ‘Don’t tell me that I cannot switch my planar energy to another element without losing my token… No, that’s not something that can be certain just like that. Experimentation is necessary, no matter what ability I’m dealing with.’

First, though, she coursed some of her planar energy into her teeth to achieve a similar striking effect to Yi Taizhi’s pearly whites. It only took a few seconds now that her energy could solidify in the planar aperture, but the effect was completely worth it, in her opinion.

‘It is said that a woman’s appearance is also a weapon, much like their fists or blades. I can’t enhance most of my features, not yet, so I should focus on the little things that will undoubtedly help me if I ever need to… chew through something, I guess? I’m sure there’ll be some use for this in the future,’ she shrugged and willed her planar energy to shift into the state of the Scalding Torch Sutra specifically, rather than simply changing into the fire-type.

The small clump of planar energy at the edge of her planar aperture suddenly launched out of her body, forming a fiery red identity token with her name at the front and the Yi (毅) character at the back. If she didn’t know where it came from, it would have been easy to assume that this originally belonged to a fire cultivator.

She made her planar energy transform back into the cosmic state, allowed the token to return into her body, then switched her element into water while willing the token to reappear in her hand.

The condensed energy flew out of her planar aperture and, after a moment of seeming hesitation, landed in her hand whilst forming itself into the shape of a round, smooth blue token. When she changed her energy to earth, the identity token reformed itself into a brown shade, almost as if turned into a lump of earth. After she transformed her planar energy back to metal, the token followed suit and became sharper, almost turning into a rectangular piece of a large sword’s blade.

‘So that’s how things are. For some reason, my changes in planar energy extend to my token. I have no idea whether this is due to my modifications of the array, or part of the standard features of the identity token, but at the very least nobody will be able to steal it from me, as long as there isn’t a limit to the range of the token retrieval,’ she determined, ‘And I should never have any issues with disguising which technique I practise to my teachers, all of whom seem to believe I cultivate a completely different element.’

Yi Wei stabilised her planar energy at the metal state and waited for Yi Taizhi to return.

‘Now that I think about it, the more I stand around that woman in particular, my unfortunate weakness to her is fading away. Perhaps that means I am able to solve my problem by being around people enough, or by finding some issue with their character, like her odd mention of ‘missing me’ if I die despite knowing me for fewer than a few minutes.’

 

That woman arrived several minutes later, and the pretty smile was completely absent from her face that now showed a certain degree of frustration, “That stupid girl… Where were- Oh? You’re done? That was quick.”

Her lips curved upwards slightly as Yi Wei replied, “Yes, I’ve completed it just a second ago, and I’ve gotten this token out of it. Did I do things correctly?”

“Let me take a look at that… Yes, that is very good. You have done a good job cultivating the metal element to reach such a purity of energy,” she said, looking at the token in Yi Wei’s hand, “If you don’t mind me asking, which technique are you practising?”

‘Oh, ask me an easier question…’ Yi Wei sighed internally, recalling a suitably low-level technique, “I use the Tempered Steel Sutra, though I have received a lot of inspiration thanks to elder Yi Zhihao’s guidance on studying other techniques and elements, so I may have altered the substance of the technique as a result… I understand that it is foolish to challenge the wisdom of the ancestors who had worked for so many years to create the skills that we now use, but I couldn’t ignore the inspiration that I received after my study of the… water element, which made me understand metal in a completely new way.”

For some reason, that made Yi Taizhi’s eyebrow rise, “Oh? An insight from water? If that is the case, you wouldn’t be interested in learning a new technique, would you?”

‘Really? Like that? Another one? A sixth teacher? Right.’

She took a moment to consider things, making sure that she doesn’t seem too eager to take up the time of an important members of the family, “I don’t know if I can impose on you like this, but if you wish to spend your time on someone insignificant like me, then I will listen to your every word carefully.”

“Do not treat me like some family matriarch, I am just a casual middle-class member of our wonderful Yi family. This is just a simple technique of mine, but if you succeed in cultivating it successfully, I shall be… very happy.”

‘She really is odd. It can’t hurt to read it, though I don’t know if it would be wise to cultivate when she has such a large smirk on her face while she speaks in an ominous fashion,’ Yi Wei thought, doing her best not to let that thought show on her face as Yi Taizhi was looking at her very intently, “Alright, I will do my best. Can I take a look at the technique?”

“Here you go. Once you’re done with it, bring it back or burn it somewhere in secret. I wouldn’t like it if someone who wasn’t supposed to read it got to look through my latest project,” she said, removing a thin book from some pocket on the inside of her robes that she then gave to Yi Wei.

It had fewer than ten pages, and the text was not particularly large, either, meaning that she didn’t have to flex her usual reading skills in order to complete it in a few minutes, at which point she eagerly handed the manual back to her and excused herself from the Ancestral Hall with all the haste she could muster after reading such a technique. It wasn’t so impressive that she wanted to attempt it immediately, nor was it so terrible that she wished to get aware from the terrible person that created it. No, it was simply because she observed a strange element within the skill that she might not have noticed if she hadn’t read through as many skills as she did.

It had a curious effect of raising the intensity of the bloodline within her body, at least in theory.

The actual effects could not be certain until she tested it, but there were two reasons for her to avoid displaying her cultivation of the technique in front of Yi Taizhi, apart from the standard ones. Firstly, she had no interest whatsoever in the skill’s main effect – it was already impressive that she had not been caught switching elements every few minutes and adding another method of tracking her wouldn’t help the situation.

However, the more important reason was that the technique appeared to be attempting to create multi-elemental planar energy. It, the Disciple of Iron skill, was primarily a water-type technique, but it often made use of the metal energy present within the body and in the user’s previous cultivation, and it had a high potential to create a form of water and metal dual energy as a result.

‘Fire and metal makes lightning, so I wonder what water and metal would be,’ she wondered, hurrying to her home to modify the technique for herself, ‘I know too little to make a proper informed guess…’

 

She did not make it far before she came across a familiar face sulking on the side of the main road, slowly stuffing her face with a steamed bun. Yi Yaling’s expression was absolutely miserable, as if she had just witnessed her entire home being destroyed, though that was almost certainly not the case.

“Hey. Any reason why you’re sitting over here?”

She jumped up, nearly throwing away the bun before she realised who was addressing her, “Yi Wei! Daddy told me off! Waah!”

‘Yep. Thought so. Now, if I think about it, didn’t Yi Taizhi mention a stupid girl when she returned? It wouldn’t happen to be this stupid girl in particular, would it?’ Yi Wei considered, so she decided to ask, “What did you do that caused your father, who seems to always tolerate whatever it is you do in your spare time, to suddenly scold you?”

“I… I tried breaking into the Ancestral Chambers to take a few planar shards for you to cultivate with.”

She had no words for that, so she turned around and began to leave.

“W-Wait! Can I stay over at your place tonight? Even though I recently reached the second stage, daddy looked really angry with me, to the point that he didn’t even pat my head when I asked him to! I want to stay over with you until he calms down…”

“No,” Yi Wei said sharply, without even looking at Yi Yaling.

“B-But I… I can-”

“No, you cannot stay at my place,” she stopped in place, “I don’t have room for some random girl to sulk.”

“I can be useful! I can… eh… I can do things! Don’t abandon me like this!” Yi Yaling leapt to Yi Wei’s leg, hugging it tightly, as if she was stuck within a planar stone statue specifically designed to trap her, “Please!”

“No, I meant that I literally have no room for you. My house only had enough room for my bed, and the space to get out of the bed. I couldn’t share the bed even if I wanted to, and I highly doubt you want to sleep on the floor when made up of dirt and old wooden planks in an uncertain distribution,” she explained, shaking the girl off with a disguised kick technique, “Also, I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t survive the incredible quantity of filth in the surrounding area. No offence to your survival abilities.”

“Aw… Can I come with you for a bit, anyway?”

Seeing the girl do her best, well-practised impression of a small puppy begging for food, it was difficult to turn her down after all this effort.

“Fine, although I never would have stopped you from just following along, and then leaving. Even if I wanted to stop you, you shouldn’t have much difficulty with finding out where I live just by asking your father, once he calms down,” Yi Wei said, deftly dodging another attempt to hug her thigh, “Come on.”

“Alright!”

 

“Oh… You… you really weren’t kidding about your housing situation. How does this place not even have a planar herb lawn?”

“Do I genuinely need to tell you that most people do not have a- hold on, how can your father afford a planar herb lawn? That’s something that even the patriarch would love to get his hands on, not to mention most middle-class members of the family,” she said while keeping Yi Yaling from running into the dirt and sprinkling some planar herb seeds onto her lawn by holding onto the collar of her clothes, “Also, stop that. I don’t need to get more people screaming at me in the morning. It isn’t particularly pleasant. If you want, I can show you what it’s like by coming over to your home every day and yelling at you to fight me.”

“N-No thanks, I’m alright…” Yi Yaling reluctantly pocketed the seeds and stopped trying to run away, allowing Yi Wei to release her, “Daddy got it by luck, and because he sold it to the rest of the family for a tiny price, they decided they might as well let him keep it.”

“How convenient,” she muttered, frowning as she saw Yi Yaling kick one of the rocks that composed her Planar Condensation array, ‘Out of all the rocks, you kick that one? I guess that’s as good an invitation as any to update my array. This one is completely useless to me, anyway… And it isn’t very good to begin with. It sure took a while for me to notice that.’

“Hm? Did I do something just now?”

“You did do something, though I don’t know what it is you mean,” Yi Wei replied.

“It feels like the planar energy around here suddenly thinned as I kicked this rock…”

‘So she isn’t completely blind to the energy around herself, but isn’t sensitive enough to it to actually matter. You need that much to get inspiration from some golden lightning, I gue- Oh, I know what I can do!’ she stepped forward and grabbed the ignorant girl’s arm, then dragged her to her door, “Come with me, Ah Ling, I just thought of something I’d like you to do for me that doesn’t involve breaking the laws of the family.”

“Okay? You have very strong hands…” Yi Yaling muttered, reluctantly allowing herself to be brought into Yi Wei’s home, “Are you also practising a body cultivation technique?”

“Are you?”

“No, I didn’t think it was a good idea after all of the weird things those techniques are capable of. That Bovine Stomach skill, for instance, would completely ruin what little balance I have… Why is the floor mostly earth?”

“That’s a feature,” Yi Wei replied, nudging one of the floor planks back into place, “The floor wasn’t in a good state, but I never really had the time to fix it.”

“This is terrible… Do you want a new house? My daddy gave me a few spare homes, but I don’t really need any of them, so I can probably give you two or three of them. Do you want the one near Mirror Lake or nearby the Three Star Pharmacy? Personally, I prefer the residence near to the Xiao Mountain, though it has a few too many cherry trees-”

“I was about to say that I have no interest in your residences, but I’ll take the Xiao Mountain one. I happen to be practising something related to cherry blossoms. Thanks, Ah Ling, for your contribution to the cause!”

“… What? Eh… No…”

That previous miserable look returned to her face in an instant, forcing Yi Wei to drop the act, “Okay, I’m just joking. I’m not going to steal your spare house… even though you wanted to give it to me.”

“I did, but… that place is so pretty… can I keep one room there? Daddy would scold me again if I return and tell him I’ve lost one of the homes he gifted me…”

“No, seriously, I don’t need the house. If you really me want to, I can take one of the rooms, though you’re not allowed to complain if I leave behind a few burn marks by the end. Does the place have a bathing area?”

“Alright, that’s fine. It does have a hot springs, though. Hey, what did you want me in here for?”

“Hm? Oh, right, that. I nearly forgot. Could you release some of your planar energy for me? I would like to inspect its structure and see whether I can copy it.”

“You… think you can copy it?” her eyes widened in surprise, or perhaps shock. That wasn’t too strange, because if anyone had claimed that they could learn someone’s technique with a simple demonstration of their planar energy, then they would typically be treated as a madman by most. If skills were so easily learned, then any single fight would instantly allow both sides to learn the techniques of the other, and then jade slips and manuals would be completely unnecessary and inefficient, for who would bother reading things for many hours to completely understand the deep meaning of a technique when they could just-

"Alright, I believe you. Go on," Yi Yaling said, and released a thin strand of golden lightning from her hand that wrapped around her arm, crackling quietly.

“Ah Ling, did… did you just believe something that nonsensical?”

“Was it? You can read a book in a minute, can’t you?”

Now it was Yi Wei’s turn to be taken aback, “I… I know I’m the one that suggested this, but you do know quick reading skills don’t translate to the understanding of planar energy structure, planar energy cultivation technique circulation map comprehension and multi-elemental thinking, right?”

“Depending on what the last two things mean, I might know that, but you’re really smart! There’s no reason why you can’t do something so simple!”

‘Right, I just remembered… she isn’t very bright. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but it is a thing,’ Yi Wei sighed, getting as close to the girl’s arm as she was comfortable with, “In that case, keep your energy as stable as possible please. If you do this right, I might come up with a cultivation technique for you… though I’m not going to promise anything.”

Yi Yaling nodded, so she was able to focus on studying the golden electricity. In many ways, it was incredibly similar to the energy produced via Elysian Storm Burst, as she had confirmed before, but it had its certain differences. For one, her planar energy was controlled by her without any faults, but Yi Yaling’s energy was almost… alive, as if was a true storm, raging infinitely within the silly girl’s dantian. Perhaps it was contained, or it was residing within her-

‘Planar energy isn’t alive, so that can’t be it. Perhaps it has something to do with how her inspiration came about,’ she pondered, raising her head, “If I may ask, what in particular brought about your inspiration?”

“It was Da Gang’s lightning storm. It seemed to be composed of a thousand individual bolt of lightning, seeking out and destroying danger on their own… I don’t think I can describe it properly…”

‘There’s no need for it, I was there. However, I did not notice that particular element of my Elysian Storm. Regardless of whether it happened or not, I should still keep this in mind, just in case it turns out that inspiration is an important part of techniques. That would explain why the most common ones are related to some form of source, like animals or natural phenomena, and why more abstract techniques are mostly non-existent. In fact, my Elysian Palm has very little inspiration beyond my prayer to the heavens… Doesn’t seem to harm the effectiveness of it, though,’ she considered, looking back down onto Yi Yaling’s arm before the direct eye contact caused her mind to drift to different things, “Ahem… This is very interesting…”

Despite her best attempts to refocus, it seemed like the very thought of her thoughts going awry invited that very event to occur. Her eyes involuntarily drifted away from the golden planar energy and onto Yi Yaling’s soft skin, which glistened slightly with a thin layer of sweat, and the faint scent of a perfume, or perhaps even her natural smell…

“Alright, that is enough for today!” she lurched up and turned away, feeling blood rushing to her cheeks, “Now, I’m going to be practising my own techniques, so unless you want to watch, you can leave.”

“Eh? A-Alright…” the confusion in her voice was clear, but Yi Wei did not dare to look at her and check her expression, “I’d like to watch, for a bit.”

‘I was trying to ask you to leave, but… that’s fine. That’s fine… I can keep myself calm for now, but I certainly need proper mental techniques in the future as to not suffer from this in the future. Maybe I can seek out an ascetic or a Daoist that has strengthened their mind for guidance on… lustful thoughts? If only they were of my own volition, that would be fine, considering my age, but no… I had to get some ancient shadow sitting in my head…’ she took a couple of deep, slow breaths as she tried to focus on the Disciple of Iron technique.

To say that an overeager girl sitting close to her and keeping her gaze purely upon her made it somewhat challenging would be an understatement of a lifetime, but given some recent experiences, she believed that she would be able to handle it in the end.

 

She wasn’t able to calm herself immediately, but she did succeed in shifting her thoughts from the woman in her home to the words of Great Dark when she used his jade slips. According to his conjecture, if she was able to absorb their information in a literal instant, then her mind must have been capable of handling it at that rate. Thus, there should be a method of using that speed in normal situations, which would mean that she could understand anything, no matter how complex, instantly.

‘To come up with that from scratch, however, I will need to use that same effect…’

Though was not as productive as she would have hoped, this contemplation relaxed her, and an image that represented her effort slowly crept into her mind. It was the rising sun.

It opposed a vast black sky as it attempted to rise, forced to overwhelm it all just to shine upon the world for a brief while. It faced the gleaming stars that wished to take its place away, competing with the moon that so often overlooked the world, and wanted to show itself to everyone that needed it, and to all those that believed that they did not.