Reforged from Ruin [Eldritch Xianxia Cultivation]

"Rai Ka the Bloody, you are a GUEST, graced with your life through our GENEROSITY! How DARE you-"

"I can hear you just fine, friend! No need for all the yelling!"

The elder who spoke up seems silenced more by absolute befuddlement than by the statement itself. She gets the impression he's not used to getting interrupted, but that's hardly her fault. She made her choice, and she intends to commit to it. Worst case scenario, she temporarily loses a body- who cares? Ko and Aria have insurance planted on them already, even if they don't know it, and she's got better shit to do than spend more weeks dealing with whoever wants to introduce themselves and scheme around her.

"Rai Ka, what is the meaning of this?"

Now this one she almost feels bad about. Bin Wei's been good to her, at least relative to his type, and if not for how much she's sure he's going to enjoy what she has in mind, it might be enough to foster a bit of regret.

Eh. Fuck it. Timetable.

"It's quite simple, my dear elders. Out of pure generosity, this lovely Li Tianfeng has informed me that the delay on my request has nothing to do with establishing it, and everything to do with cheating me out of a fair price! Isn't that right, Li Tianfeng of the Dancing Clouds sect, here on a diplomatic envoy?"

"I- that is not-"

"Yes indeed, wholesale agreement! You see, elders-"

"I did NOT-"

"Be Silent."

Her voice echoes in a way that none of the screams in the chamber can match. It resonates, vibrating, eliciting a little Dink from deep inside her body and from the Qi formations spread throughout the room. The ones designed for silence especially flare up, a sympathetic weight to their own causing them to flare strangely.

The chamber becomes very quiet, very fast.

"Thank you. I'm a bit of a hypocrite, I hate being interrupted.

"So! Apparently, according to your close friends in the Dancing Clouds sect, the resources I graciously gifted you are far more valuable than I was led to believe, and I would be better off trading with entirely different partners. Is that right, Li Tianfeng?"

Silence. She turns around, looking at a thoroughly shell-shocked young man. His eyes are wide, there's sweat on his brow, and his cultivation seems a bit out of sorts, to put it mildly. Aria and Ko are both half-silent too, frozen by the weight of the words, but he, along with his entourage, are reacting to her Truespeak with something like primal fear, an adrenal reaction she can taste on the air like vinegar.

She waves a hand in front of his face, snapping him out of it.

"See, when I prompt you, that's when you speak."

"I… I don't…"

She stares at him, eyes cold and even.

"Yes, Senior. I… I informed you, as I earnestly believe, that you are being short-changed in this affair, and-"

"Rai Ka! This challenge is unfounded and of tremendous disrespect!"

She turns back to the elders, catching sight of one she recognizes- Qin Yana, the woman who met up with Bin Wei in the defense against her on her arrival. She looks livid, her skin flushed, her ever-so-slightly too thin, too alien nature on full display as she moves with unnatural smoothness.

"I heard with my own ears that you wagered the treasure on a conflict with Bin Wei, a conflict you lost. To claim otherwise now-"

"Agreed! I couldn't agree more, in fact!"

The elder pauses at that, mouth a bit agape.

That's the stuff. Got to keep them guessing, that's how you hook them.

"In point of fact, honored elders, as senior Bin Wei likely informed you, I'm in a bit of a hurry, so, in the face of information new and old, I've decided to simply give you the droplet. Keep it! No need to wake your patriarch at all!"

That causes a further uproar, the dead silence of their mouths eclipsed by the ways the elder's Qi and Domains slither and shift across the space. Proper chatterboxes, they are, transforming reality in myriad ways that emulate human-like surprise, consternation, confusion-

"But I would never seek to short-change my precious allies. So! I wash my hands of the loss- take the droplet! It was well earned. But… I do want to expedite things a bit. So I propose a little game!"

With a flourish, Raika raises her arm, throwing it out like she's presenting it, and raises her opposite hand to it. With a twist, a twirl, and a razor-blade curl, a claw peeks out of the flesh of her fingers- and carves open her wrist, animalistically, furiously, deep enough to expose the bone.

And to unveil to the air the scent of crimson-beyond-crimson.

At the surface, layered around her armor-plating, is the regular carmine, the almost-human color of it only subverted by the arterial brightness and darker depths of it- but she cut deeper. Beneath the plating, where she keeps the blood that only needs to feed semi-animate twitch-muscles and the nanoscale, there is a deeper red, deep enough to look close to black, deep enough to color the air around it as it almost radiates. It flows heavily, spurting violently as the pressurized interior of her veins treats the ooze like a liquid, and as it splatters against the ground, arrays and formations light up, start sparking, start emitting a high-pitched sort of squeal of escaping air.

She's seen it before. Impurities in the formation, minor defects. Nothing important, nothing even relevant, really- unless they become supercharged, say, in the presence of an alchemical reagent. Like, say, lifeblood, saturated with more Qi than any human below the Warrior realm can hold in their whole body.

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An unexpected effect, but for showmanship? Sexy as hell.

And behind that carmine-beyond-carmine, the hyper-thick blood she uses for a human scale body, from a single vein that is embedded in the bone… a single drop. The merest trickle of something deeper, from a tube reinforced more than armor and filled with a fluid heavier than anything human at all.

A splash of indigo, oddly bright against redder-than-red blood.

Half of the formations in the room glow, the ground at her feet superheating from the presence of so much Qi pressing directly against the arcane circuitry.

The room is dead silent.

With a flick of her wrist, Raika closes the wound, regenerating the damaged tissue such that a stream becomes droplets becomes bare skin, russet and starry midnight growing back over the blood.

The room is dead silent.

She throws both arms wide, channeling a bit of Hao Nera as she bows, trying her best to be as showy as possible (and, in her humble opinion, succeeding).

"Since it would seem that a mere droplet was worth such a fuss that the sect elders would convene so quickly and that a diplomat might be tempted to risk it all on acquiring my gratitude, I figure, why not sweeten the pot. Why not get what I want a little faster?

"So! To that effect, I've made Li Tianfeng here a deal."

You can feel the room get colder at that. Killing Intent crawls across the walls of the pagoda, and she can see Domains beginning to expand, bit by bit. A glowing terrain of ever-forming metals, made into beautiful tools and glowing weapons, pointing infinite spears at her. An endless field of tall grasses, through which unknowable things hunt, stalking unseen and unheard. A black and heartless expanse beneath the earth, rich loam made all the richer by that which feeds it.

Man, what she would give to take some of these Souls for herself. If only…

No. Bad Raika, she chides herself. Focus. There'll be more than enough killing to come, she doesn't need to get greedy and fuck herself over.

For a single, traitorous instant, she almost feels thankful to the golden band around her inner world. Without that distinct and painful reminder of enforced limits, the way it's guided her development, the hunger might be all the harder to hold back.

"And what might that deal be, junior?"

Bin Wei to the rescue. His words snap her out of her fugue, and she swallows without signaling it on her skin. No reason to let them know part of her is literally drooling over how powerful and dangerous the people in this room are.

"It's quite simple," she says, shooting him a grateful smile. "I would come up here, with him, and he would inform you all of exactly what he said to me. I took over most of the hard work there, but you know how it is, I'm an eager woman. We agreed, or I suppose I proclaimed and he agreed, that after that, I would set conditions, and then he could make me an offer.

"But I'm not so ungrateful a beast I wouldn't extend the offer to my oh-so-gracious hosts."

Slowly, one by one, Domains retract, the presence of the elders finally lightening. She can hear Ko and Aria behind her, taking a relieved breath as the pressure literally holding them still lessens.

"So! You all see a slightly clearer glimpse of what I can offer. You know there are those looking to poach me. And you should know, for the sake of this little game progressing, what I want.

"I want to meet with your sect patriarch. And his sect patriarch. And the patriarchs and matriarchs and elders of every important sect in the entire Jianghu, if I have to, so I can get your asses moving to fight the end of the world. And, additionally, I want to fight.

"So. I offer you alchemical components beyond compare. Biology saturated in enough Qi to swim in, and with plenty more of it on the way if it's needed. I offer a way out of a perpetual stasis, a way to advance, a way to change the world in a way that's worth changing, and a pathway to war against the end of everything as you know it and more. I offer transformation for the better.

"But I assume you care more about the goods, for now, so let's start there."

She turns to the elders up, waving a hand at the circle of seven that sit above her as if in judgement as she turns her judgment upon them.

"So? Offers?"

For a moment further, there is silence like the grave.

And then she hears them.

She has to use her masking abilities to stop herself from giggling. They're not hiding the fact that they're conferring, but to anyone sensing their Qi directly, through orthodox cultivation perhaps, their Intent and communication would be basically encrypted. But to her? Without their Domains unleashed, without them actively aware that she can do it and trying to stop her, she can hear everything. The creak and groan of breaths as they inhale and exhale, the tics and wet twitches as their expressions move as minutely as can be, the way that their synapses taste as their neurons fire. They're weird, distant, that same alien vagueness she felt get stronger after that unknown cultivator removed his "impurities" entirely present here… but despite their age, despite how much they've changed, they still think rigidly, in pathways. She might be the exception, but in under a decade she's become something transcendent to the human condition. They've seemingly spent their Qi, their cultivation itself, into making themselves one step above and one step removed- but very much still in the neighborhood.

Immortality and infinite possibility, and the best they could come up with was to be as they are, but older and more bound to bureaucracy and etiquette. One of many reasons she's found this place as disappointing as it is fascinating.

It doesn't take a week this time for them to come up with an answer.

"For the sorts of reagents you promise, and only that, we would be willing to open up an offer of trade between us. Our cultivation manuals would be open to you, and the sect library's higher floors would be yours to peruse. Additionally, you may request any three of the honored treasures of our armory, so long as they are not tied directly to the lineage of our sect. Finally, we shall ensure that we and the patriarch meet with and fairly hear you, and will reach out to our allies. As part of the land of Morae, our connections to other sects run deep, and we will be able to reach nearly all to arrange similar trades with them, acting as brokers on your behalf."

Huh. Well that's… kind of disappointing, actually. She's not sure what she expected, but after her little speech she figured it would be something… unique? This just sounds like what would be on offer if she'd provided any old near-divine tier alchemical reagent.

She turns back to Li Tianfeng, an eyebrow raised, waiting.

He is looking at her with the sheer terror that comes with a test one has not studied for.

"Well?" she asks. "Are you going to surrender, without even a drop of boldness?"

He scoffs, and then chuckles, and then lets out an incredulous little half-laugh. In spite of it, she tastes the moment that something clicks in his mind, and the smile on his face turns from confused and agitated to something more like…

Ooooh. Is that arousal? Li Tianfeng, you fascinating little creature.

"I cannot speak on behalf of my sect, honored senior. I am a mere Core Disciple, not worthy of negotiating on behalf of elders."

Palpable relief in the room. Well hidden behind semi-human physiology, but she can taste the way that mild relief echoes from the elders around them, the comfort at the idea that they were so lucky as to run into a cultivator not quite bold enough to jeopardize centuries-old diplomacy over a sudden thing like this.

"However…"

Aaaand there it goes again.

"While I am no expert on the nature of direct commerce, I am well-versed in the art of trading in rare artifacts among sects. The Dancing Clouds sect is an open ally of many of the alliances within Morae and betwixt the peaks. I cannot name for you a price for that which you offer.

"But I can offer you those who can. In fact, I can offer you all who can. If you but allow me a little time, I can guarantee for you the greatest possible opportunity to meet with, negotiate with, and barter with the greatest names in the Jianghu."

"Oh?" she asks, her own smile widening well past his.

"With your permission, Raika the Broken, I would be overjoyed to host for you, on behalf of my sect, an auction."