Path of the Ascendant

Focusing on the image of the dawn, she was able to concentrate on the Disciple of Iron skill and filter out the unnecessary elements, until it was just the combination of metal and water. Before she even began to practise it, she began to figure out what the resulting planar energy would look like.

She released her metallic energy, made sure her token was out of sight, and activated the Disciple of Iron element.

The fluid silver energy suddenly froze in place, then quaked as red burst out from random points on the metal. It spread like a red tide, consuming the metal and destroying all metallic patterns until all that remained was the unmistakable texture of blood that formed several rings around her body. It bubbled slowly and released a constant metallic smell that quickly filled her small room.

“Whoa! That’s blood! Yi Wei, are you alright?”

“Ah Ling, you dummy, this is the combination of metal and water. I’m obviously not bleeding right now,” Yi Wei explained, willing the planar energy to recede into her body, “It’s a technique that Yi Taizhi gave to me. I think you might know her.”

“Yes, I do,” Yi Yaling answered, pouting, “She told daddy about my break in, so I don’t like her very much…”

“That’s immature, but fine. The Disciple of Iron, as she called it, is a multi-elemental technique, so once I have a proper understanding of it, I should be able to make much more progress on your lightning planar energy.”

“Okay, but I think that woman is creepy. She always has that smile on – except for when she and daddy were scolding me, of course – and a lot of her disciples vanish on or after their missions. I heard that they were constantly looked at weirdly by her, whether they were male or female, and when they vanished, their family only inquired about them once before they suddenly gave up,” she revealed, exchanging the pout for a concerned frown, “I can’t sit by and protect you all of the time, so you have to be careful, alright?”

‘What? We’re almost at the same stage… in practise, at the very least… and I am able to continue cultivating, while she cannot do so without a lot of struggle, and yet she is saying that she’ll protect me?’

The statement was so odd that it allowed her to turn to Yi Yaling calmly and say, “You have noticed I am at the Planar Pool realm, right? You saw me releasing external force, right?”

“Oh, yeah. I missed that. Sorry.”

“…” Yi Wei sighed, ‘She really is like a younger sister. If I only think of her that way, I seem to be immune to the Thunder Lord’s influence, so I suppose it is a good thing that she reminds me of this every now and again. Would still be nice if she was a little smarter, though.’

“However, I’ve got daddy’s support, so if you are ever in trouble, I can always ask him for help!”

“Not today, though, right?”

“No… But tomorrow, I’m sure he’ll forgive me completely for trying to help out my teacher-”

“Who you were also intending to protect, despite the fact I have cultivated faster than you, know more techniques than you, have more experience in combat than you do – unless you’ve been over to the training hall a lot – and am far more observant than you, since it still might not have dawned on you that you broke my pseudo Planar Condensation array when you kicked that rock outside.”

“That’s what that was? That makes so much more sense now! No wonder the area’s planar energy thinned out… Are you going to cultivate?”

“Are you intending to watch?”

“No, I think I should get going- Wait, let me draw you a map of where the Xiao Mountain Residence is, so that you can move there. Feel free to take any room other than my bedroom, which is the biggest one,” Yi Yaling said as she took out a piece of paper and began to draw on it, “I had asked daddy not to leave any servants there, so the only time anyone may bother you is when a maid comes over to clean the house on the weekend. I’ll try to inform her about you, but I’d suggest avoiding her the first time you see her.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. I’ll be leaving for the outskirts of the city soon, so you will get to keep your home for yourself for several weeks to several months, depending on how things go on the mission.”

“Alright, then I’ll prepare an excellent party for your return!”

Before Yi Wei had the opportunity to ask her not to, Yi Yaling skipped out of the house, leaving the map in her hands.

‘She likes making a quick exit, I see…’ she thought, looking down to examine the map she was provided. To her surprise, despite the haste in which it was made, and the lack of proper surfaces for one’s artistic expression, the map was incredibly well-drawn and highly detailed. Amongst a few rather childish drawings of houses and people, there was a clear route over to the Xiao Mountain, and the correct road to Ah Ling’s residence was harder to miss than the existence of the sun.

‘Despite whatever it is that’s happening in her head, she’s a good artist, huh?’

 

The next day, Yi Wei’s new robes were ready, but she didn’t hasten to explain her progress in the Disciple of Iron skill to Yi Taizhi. For one, the cultivation technique she practised, even if one was to ignore the fact that it was mostly emulated by the mysterious characters, was no longer fit to have that name.

Now, it had no feature of enhancing the bloodline, nor did it have a number of poorly thought-out elements that someone with no experience with other multi-elemental technique would naturally include to their misunderstandings. Now, it was simply called Disciple of Blood.

That name was a little menacing, admittedly, so after a little more consideration, she swapped it to Mysterious Blood, to fit in amongst the other elemental variants of her Mysterious Characters technique, though it also worked quite well as an independent name. The blood was rather strange and mysterious, and it didn’t look entirely human to her, although she would never profess herself to be an expert on such things. It was shaded by both crimson and gold, almost like the lifeblood of a Golden Qilin of legends, though it did not share any of the effects that creature’s life essence had. Whether that was due to Yi Wei’s own weakness, or because the Mysterious Blood skill had no actual connection to the Golden Qilin, was to be discovered later.

For now, she just pretended to be familiarising herself with the Disciple of Iron skill, and informed Yi Taizhi that she would be spending the next few days in the library studying a number of techniques for her trip on the fifteenth.

She didn’t have any objections, so Yi Wei went straight to the technique library and read through the rest of the books on the second floor in a few days through the assistance of her spiritual will, and by the thirteenth, she had gathered up every single book there into her mind, where there still seemed to be a large amount of space remaining.

Thus, to make good use of her time in the city, she returned to Yi Zhihao to get further access.

“Hello, what may I do for y- Yi Wei? Why are you wearing that robe?” he questioned immediately upon seeing her. She had walked past him several times before, but as she never stopped to greet him as of late, he – and, by extension, the rest of the regular visitors to the technique library – was unaware of Yi Wei’s current cultivation realm. Thus, when he laid eyes upon her clothing, it seemed to him that there had been some mistake.

“Hello, Uncle Zhihao. You might not have heard it, but I’ve broken through again! I just wanted to inform you that I would like to go up to the third floor.”

“How… how did you manage this? I thought you were at the third, or fourth stage a month ago?”

“Was I? I’ll admit, having read so many different technique manuals, my memories of the past have faded slightly,” she claimed, despite that being completely false, “What I do know is that I am currently within the first stage, and I would like to go to the third floor’s mental technique section. Do you mind permitting my passage?”

“Could you display your cultivation for me? I know that Da Gang has made relying on external force alone rather difficult, but if you can demonstrate external force, I-”

He stopped talking the moment a circle of blood formed behind Yi Wei, arranging itself into an entire paragraph of letters from the Triumvirate’s Will, one of the better mental technique on the second floor.

“Wow… I am sorry for doubting you, Xiao Wei. That is truly impressive,” Yi Zhihao bowed deeply, drawing the eyes of a few too many people before Yi Wei forced him upright, “You said you want to view mental techniques, correct? Have you been having some trouble with your mental state? I wouldn’t have guessed, considering your progress…”

“I’ve been in the Energy Condensation realm most of the time, so my mental state hasn’t had much of an effect on my cultivation. Now, however, I want to make sure to reinforce it.”

“That seems like a good idea,” he nodded, reaching out his hand for her identity token, “I will authorise it for you. If everyone could be as capable as you, our Yi family would not have declined until we only had this single district…”

The token was handed back to her, and they parted in silence.

Each floor of the technique hall was designed and laid out differently. The first was separated into five main sections, each holding first realm techniques of a single element. Anyone from the Yi family could access them, for there was little reason to obscure such things if the family wished to have any cultivators beside those born to the experts with personal skill libraries.

On the second floor, techniques still belonged in the first realm, but they were split into their functions and categories, allowing people to select their personal path in life a little more easily. This floor was also a little more restricted to ensure that no-one would attempt to go beyond their capabilities, using complex skills before understanding the basics of cultivation. It was also the first to impose some limit on the number of books that can be withdrawn, as the techniques stored there had some value, whereas the skills on the first floor could be easily recalled by any random individual who had cultivated them.

Within the third floor, things were even more secure. Rather than having easily accessible shelves, the techniques were kept in individual sections that require specific permission to access. They were made for the second realm, and thus often included elements regarding externalisation of force or the cultivation of one’s planar pool. As a result, their value increased exponentially, and the limit for borrowing manuals was one, unless you had the trust of a higher up of the family that would be held accountable instead of you in the case that you lost one of the techniques.

For this reason, while the first two floors had one or two guards watching over them, the third floor had a guard on every wall and corner, each one having a cultivation of the upper second realm or the lower third realm. In theory, a prepared and powerful thief could defeat one or two of the guards on their own, but even if they made it into one of the secure sections and stole a technique, they wouldn’t be able to leave.

‘Additionally, this place has the occasional skill that incorporates a semblance of the Dao, and is thus intended to be difficult to read through in one go. Luckily, I’m used to it, and my brain can handle reading five different books at once before the decrease in reading speed stops being worth it.’

She made her way up to the third floor, where she passed seventeen guards before she arrived at the mental technique section.

It was encased in fiery-red light, flowing most vibrantly through the engravings on the side of the violet stone walls. By the looks of it, there were several layers of defences, all being collected on a single set of four walls to minimize the chances of theft occurring on this floor. ‘If the third floor looks like this, what happens on the fourth and fifth?’

Since she couldn’t answer that question right now, Yi Wei raised her identity token and pressed it against the flaming wall, causing the barrier to shimmer and open a small doorway within the barrier. A border grew on the inner edge, stabilising the door, for a time.

The moment she stepped inside, the solidified energy shattered, sealing her inside.

‘Alright, now it’s time for me to enter… reading mode…’ she breathed out and turned to the nearest manual, flipping it open to find a muddled mess of characters written without any logic or consistency.

“Oh. What a nice book. Thank you,” Yi Wei looked at the cover, “Venerable Damned Sun. Clearly, you sacrificed much, including the right to a proper name, in order to deliver such a technique to me and the other people of the Yi family, so I shall- right, that’s the code. Excellent. Now I can actually study.”

As she decoded and read the Manual of Devil’s Will, she extended her spiritual will to four other books, only to find the exact same situation within all of them. They were written by different people, used different elements, and generally shared little to no ideas, but for whatever reason, they had the exact same cipher applied to them.

‘Damned Sun, Fat Wu, Fairy Dongfang… they don’t have any connection that I know of, so either this is common practise within the third floor, and perhaps above, or there is more to these than meets the eye,’ she contemplated, sealing the five books in her memory before moving onto another five. This time, three of them had the same code, while the other two were perfectly readable, albeit slightly aged and using a number of outdated expressions and methods. ‘Thus, the first idea is likely to be ruled out, leaving the second one. Since I was going to read all of these anyway, I don’t see why I shouldn’t solve a mystery while I’m at it.’

 

In the back of the technique library, a guard was observing the third floor from an elevated platform. There were rarely any visitors stupid enough to break the rules, so they were mostly for show, but he still had to turn his head to a random section every now and then to get paid.

A familiar voice, a fellow guard, spoke to him from behind, “Hey, anything interesting happen today?”

“This is the technique library. What exactly are you expecting?” the first guard replied, “I’ve been here four months, but nothing fun so far.”

“You’re unlucky, man. Had you been here a month earlier, you would have seen a girl suddenly burst into flame from some revelation, and stand there for a long time before she realised we were staring at her.”

“Why were you doing that?”

The second guard let out a disappointed sigh, “Dude, what does fire do to clothes? It burns them. What could we have been looking at?”

“Oh…” he turned away in embarrassment and saw a teenager in red robes grabbing every fifth book, flipping through it in seconds, before putting it back down, “Actually, I think I’ve found something as well. Look at that one over there. No, there! At the… mental techniques section. What do you think she’s trying to do?”

“How would I know? Probably trying to get through as many as possible in the hopes of understanding them all at home without needing to borrow any of the techniques, or something.”

“Does that work?”

“How do you think a dummy like you wouldn’t know about such a trick? It’s nonsense, obviously.”

 

Yi Wei lost track of time while reading, getting through every single book in a matter of minutes. Out of all of them, around thirty percent features the strange cipher, two more had a different code within them, and the rest were written in plain text.

‘Interesting. This is certain to have some importance, but the skills still have very few connecting features. Unless this was done as a joke by whoever was responsible for moving the books to this library, then there is something I have not yet noticed,’ she thought, slowly flipping through one of the books she hadn’t read physically while looking over the few hundred books with the first code in her head, ‘What if I was to line them all up? No, I can do that, but I’d need to know the intended order of the books first, and no matter how much information I can process at once, it won’t be enough to guess the correct order.’

Just in case she got lucky, she tried arranging the techniques in several different orders, but beyond a few somewhat humorous lines, nothing productive came out of it.

‘If there is truly something of value within these books, it should be reasonable to assume that it has not been found yet, because otherwise the family would have rewritten the techniques in plain text and would have stored the secret within somewhere else, unless they intend this to be a challenge for those who realise this pattern, giving them some information as a result. Then, it should be something that cannot be reasonably deciphered in an environment like the library…’

She bit her lip while she thought.

‘Perhaps it is related to some pattern within the texts? Their cipher is identical, so there has to be more that matches, right?’

There were a number of possibilities that she had already thought of, so she went through them one by one. A dozen possibilities were thrown out quickly, however, as she only had to check a few of the manuals before it was clear that there was no correlation. That was until she decided to overlap the first page of a dozen manuals in her mind.

Her lips formed a small smile, ‘Aha~. This seems to be having some success. A number of words are in identical locations on all twelve manuals, so why don’t I put them all together?’

A second dozen was added in, and it still worked. To not drag out the process too much, Yi Wei went ahead and added the rest, and, amidst the endless clouds of poorly overlapping characters she removed with a thought, there were two different sets of characters that remained.

One of the sets of words was present on the majority of the techniques, while the other was present in the minority. She began with the former, mentally organising them into a more readable format before she began to read.

‘I am of the sky- no, that should be Kong, not sky – of the Kong. This is the culmination of my efforts into the field of mental techniques. I have no need to study further in this field, for I have reached my limit with it, but I grant this to you. While I do not believe in fate, if you have succeeded in understanding this, then I hope the Kong Mental Arts serve you well. I would like to ask just one favour of you, which would be not to spread this to others, especially not the Kong family. Though I have given this art their name after they made themselves my second family, this is already more than they deserve.

‘You do not need to do this, but I would appreciate it if you could search out for the children of Yi Shi Ming, if any do exist. I do not expect there to be any, but if there does turn out to be someone, if you wish to, then you may protect them. However, if they do not deserve your attention, I would ask that you do not intentionally harm them. If it is necessary for you, you can think of it as repaying the debt for this technique.

‘Now, if you are reading the original cipher, you are likely to be tired of deciphering and reading so many insignificant words. So, without further ado, my Kong Mental Arts.’

Even though she did not have to confirm each individual word in every manual, she was still somewhat tired of the process, as every character was strangely malformed, as if the person writing was unfamiliar with the language of the Planar Continents, or perhaps they were far more familiar with a different dialect or form of writing that caused their text to be unusually difficult to understand. This wasn’t a noticeable problem when reading individual skill manuals, as those odd characters were somewhat sparse, but it became far worse when every single word was made up of these.

‘Thankfully, writing out the exact same thing over and over again clearly gave this person a lot of practise, as the actual technique is much easier to read,’ Yi Wei noticed, compiling the Kong Mental Arts in a minute, ‘Not as fortunately, all mental techniques take a while to cultivate, so I cannot learn them now. Onto the second overlapping set…’

It quickly became clear that this was written by a different hand, and perhaps at a different time. Somehow, these changed did not overlap, but the result was also a technique.

‘Red Phantom Flood Technique… Very interesting. Both this one and the Kong Mental Arts lack any clear indication of the element they are supposed to be intended for, almost as if- no, that can’t …’ she thought back to the Kong Mental Arts and quickly performed a few of its initial steps.

A small part of her planar energy floated up to her head, and right there, before the gaze of her spiritual will, it transformed for the briefest moment, changing back into her current Mysterious Blood form. However, she still knew what she saw. In that short instant, her planar energy changed into the same form that one would see within a planar shard; it became pure violet, shining like the vital soul of man within their heart, and it had no connection to the concept of elements whatsoever.

For a second, Yi Wei’s body contained a pure form of energy, devoid of all impurities and influences.

She tried to form it within the planar aperture on her own, but the most she was capable of was slightly dulling the glow of stars within her planar energy.

‘This technique isn’t normal. Not by a long shot. I have heard of a thousand different elements that have supposedly been manifested through various cultivation techniques, but never have I seen this. The lack of elements. The lack of inspiration. Just… raw energy… Despite all that, it’s acting a bit like inspiration by simply being this unusual…’ her previous smile had grown into an all-out grin by this point, “I can work with this… Then, what about the Red Phantom Flood? It clearly follows a different method, but perhaps it can create the exact same thing?”

In her excitement, she ignored a number of missing pieces within the technique, as well as the oddity of its structure, and cultivated it.

That was, in a word, a mistake.

A strange, unknown energy welled from the depths of her body, suddenly rushing to her heart almost as if it was a wave of knives, swords, daggers, sabres and arrows, all of which were thrown and fired with incredible competence. If she faced them in the physical world, no technique or skill would have been able to throw them aside, but in her own body, she could not even dodge as they impaled every organ in her chest.

She ceased the technique immediately, but not before she felt her throat fill with her own blood. Hastily, Yi Wei healed the internal wounds and forced that blood to return to her veins via the manipulation of the Mysterious Blood.

Even then, she shook at the fearsome might of the crimson energy, which, after stabbing her countless times, simply dissipated back into her body, vanishing as if it had never existed to begin with.

Just like the planar energy of the Kong Mental Arts, she could not force it to manifest again under her control.

‘That… is insane… what kind of madman made such a terrifying skill? What realm is it even for? Does that say… Marked Core? What in the heavens is this?’ she couldn’t stop herself from mentally screaming at finding such a strange ability within the third floor.

 

Somewhere, in an empty void, a chorus of identical voices laughed to themselves. An endless legion of flaming green eyes stared into a faint light within the middle of the group.

 

Despite no blood actually leaving her body, she felt faint, so she decided not to experiment with any more techniques she found, instead going through the remaining potential ciphers as quickly as possible and then heading to the Xiao Mountain Residence, where she would spend the rest of the day resting in the overly comfortable beds while practising her new mental techniques.

The second set of manuals, only thirty of them, did not reveal anything upon going the same process to decode them, and after she had tried everything she could think of, all she had left were the techniques that were written in plain text.

Initially, she wanted to ignore them and leave, but since it did not take much effort to attempt to decode them, Yi Wei decided to have a go at it.

Surprisingly enough, it worked. After overlaying every single page atop the other, a single word remained on every page, spelling out a curious sentence that was… unnerving, to say the least, for it was a great warning to the reader.

‘They see you. They watch you. They will consume you. Do not trust them.’

‘Ominous. Who are they? Why would they do those things? Hm,’ she pondered, shutting the book she had been pretending to read, ‘Let’s hope I don’t accidentally get on their bad side.’

To be safe, she circulated her planar energy a few more times through the damaged areas of her body and finally felt sufficiently stable to walk out of the technique library without collapsing the second she makes any step in any direction. She returned to the place in the barrier through which she entered and tapped her token on it to cause the doorway to reconstruct itself.

As soon as she exited the mental technique section, the doorway closed and the small wisp of energy within her token that granted her permission to enter that section broke.

She turned to the exit, when someone suddenly placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Excuse me,” the man behind her said, “The guy behind me wants to spar with you. Could you spare him a few moments of your time?”

Since the request seemed sufficiently friendly, she turned around with an audible sigh, only to see a pair of young men wearing the standard guard armour of the technique library, which consisted of a simple grey robe covered by a number of metal plates made from meteorite iron, which were inscribed with defensive and shielding engravings to make them useful, rather than simply being decorative. Potentially, they could even qualify as low-grade artefact. The man who stopped her had red hair and a tall build, with clear muscles visible despite the robe and armour, while the person he pointed to had brown hair, green eyes and an unimpressive physique, clearly marking him as someone not fortunate enough to attain either the features of the Yi family, nor a strong body.

“Sure. Does the technique library allow sparring?”

“Nah, but we can just go outside. Come on, Yi Fen,” the muscular guard said, waving to his friend, who only got the hint the third time he was spoken to.

‘I think he’s very nervous, for whatever reason. Was it not his choice to fight with me, like that time with Yi Zhang? He does seem to be somewhat anxious, as his heartbeat is higher than it should be, but he does not seem to be being coerced,’ Yi Wei analysed the situation, sneaking a glance at both of the guards, ‘I’ll go along with it until I see what’s wrong, if something’s wrong.’

They went outside, to a small square nearby the library where a shielding array was already built into the bricks. This was one of several ‘emergency’ arenas, as some called them, intended to function as a safe area for people to fight out their differences without needing to go through some official process to do so. All they needed was three people – one on each side and another to operate the formation array – and they could start and end a fight on their own.

“Get in there, Yi Fen. I’ll be cheering for you,” said the red-haired guard, nudging his peer into the arena.

‘That tone seems to be… encouraging? Not malicious, or anything of the sort… I don’t get this situation at all,’ Yi Wei got into the circle and breathed calmly while scanning her surroundings to see if there were any assassins waiting to pounce on her or the guard, ‘No, so is it just a friendly duel? Then, what realm is that man on?’

Seeing her gaze, the guard stammered, “H-Hey, I’m Yi Fen. I… I’m at the ninth stage of the second realm. W-What about you?”

“First stage. Don’t drag this out, alright?”

“Eh… o-okay…”

The other guard sat down at the outside of the array, calling out to certain townsfolk and accumulating a decent collection of food and drink for himself in a single minute, simultaneously gathering a small crowd of spectators.

“Alright, you ready, Yi Fen?”

“Hold up,” Yi Wei looked to the shy man, “Is this going to be a purely physical battle, or an all-out sparring session?”

“I t-think we can go all out…”

“Alright then, everyone! Gather up, everyone, and watch this riveting battle between two geniuses of the Planar Pool realm! Yi Fen, the magnificent, the powerful, wielder of the Yi Wood skills, and the most emotionally fooli-”

“We’re starting!” she interrupted this strange introduction and gave Yi Fen a second to comprehend her words before releasing two thick clouds of blood planar energy.

One flooded around her arm while the other remained floating freely in the air. She leapt forward, crossing the distance between them in one move, sending her blood-covered hand at his chest. In the air, an illusory reflection of her fist appeared in front of it, layering atop itself three times in a row, not unlike the Three-Fold Palm within the second floor of the technique library. At the same time, she created a whip out of the free-floating planar energy and launching it upon the raised arm of the guard.

It seemed that he realised what was happening only then, for he did not have the time to do anything but take the hit. Wood-type planar energy burst out of his chest and arm, but in comparison to Yi Wei’s refined energy, it was thin and lacking.

It only withstood the initial impact of the twin blood attacks, and the remaining force crashed onto his body.

“Ugh!” he restrained a pained cry and attempted to lunge forward at her, but a third planar energy cloud formed into a thick spear that had a dulled tip. If this had been a fight against an intruder into the technique library, or some thug outside, he would have felt insulted at the fact that he was being underestimated, but he knew that she wasn’t doing that at all. There was no chance for him to dodge.

The blood spear crashed into his body and launched him into the array barrier, creating ripples within the translucent surface. He fell to the ground, feeling a stream of crimson fluid pouring slowly from his mouth, and knew that he had no chance.

“I-I SURRENDER!”

Yi Wei had already stopped her assault, so his words were unnecessary. The crowd dispersed quickly, and once the barrier went down, she left those two alone.

‘Good to know that blood energy can benefit from physical strength…’

 

“So much for that, man. Shouldn’t you have been stronger than her?”

“I get it now… don’t drag it out… she was talking about me…” Yi Fen coughed once more and passed out on the spot.

“… What was she, some sort of Disciple of Blood? Does anyone even practise skills like that?”