Reforged from Ruin [Eldritch Xianxia Cultivation]

Raika arrives back at the house of the dead provided to her only to find a wall of flora blooming out of the bones of it.

She can sense no major Qi deviation, no true scent of techniques, but the smell of the plants hits her as she approaches, turning from a faint scent hidden by the smell of Death into something bright and painfully sharp. Their origin seems to be the main courtyard area, perhaps near its back wall; hundreds of thick roots have grown over that side of the building, their bark an extremely thick, dark brown, but around many of them, there are bright white flowers blooming. Snow-white, bone-white, and bringing with them a clear scent that's still getting sharper the closer Raika gets.

She doesn't need to turn to look at Lu Karai to sense him, but again, his lack of conventional biology makes it hard to read him. He doesn't show any clear signs of surprise, nor any sign of being confused, which makes some sense. She'd be stunned to find out that the Church doesn't have all sorts of ways to spy on them in that house, even without recognizable formations. Still, she decides to step out of the "carriage" ahead of him, giving him a nod and departing for the manor directly.

He doesn't move for a long time after she leaves, and she watches him through the back of her head the whole way back.

She doesn't bother making her way through the house, navigating the hallways and chambers of it- she just leaps up and over the wall. It takes physical effort not to wince at how loud the smell is, saturating the air like a pale glow she has to squint through. It's bright, heavy, annoying, but not bad, and she can't detect any signs of poisons or instabilities.

She lands hard, the impact making her knees crack a bit- she needs to check that. Not as strong as she's used to.

She also scares the absolute fuck out of Li Shu, who flinches back so violently she almost falls over Jin.

"Heaven's Will, Raika! Fuck!"

"Gotta be more alert than that," she grins, not letting them see the way her joints creak as she stands up now.

"You know for a fact you're hard to track!"

"And I take great pleasure in exploiting that fact. Now, what's this?"

She turns to gesture at the wall of over-thick roots spawning from… huh. From a formation? A ritual circle? It's got elements she recognizes, and more elements she doesn't, arrayed around a central point where the roots have sprouted from. With Raika's senses, it's hard, but not impossible to see past the overwhelming "aura" of the plants, down beneath. She tracks the roots as they blend into the stonework, having torn apart rock and marble as they sprouted out of…

"Are those bodies?"

Jin perks up immediately at the question, grinning wide. "Yeah! I asked if they had any of the dead that weren't being used for anything, and they gave us, like, a lot of bodies. I sort of panicked, at first, but we checked, they're old, preserved."

"The servants here were more than happy to 'encourage the young master's development'," Li Shu says, shrugging. "A little too eager for comfort, if I'm being honest. It's a bit embarrassing to state the obvious, but they have a rather… interesting view on Death here, and by extension, the use of bodies."

She looks at Jin, who seems excited about something in a way she hasn't seen in a while.

"You alright?"

He nods. "Yes, I'm fine. It was a bit overwhelming here at first, but the exercises you taught me have helped. And besides… I Honor The Dead. When they delivered the bodies, it just… felt right. Most of them have already been honored, but it was still… meaningful."

"At which point, after our little prodigy got his perspective, we found ourselves with a pile of corpses."

"And then! Bis Sis Li Shu wanted to try something, and I wanted to help, it just sort of felt right, and-"

"And then… this."

Raika stares at the roots, and then down at the formations, and then back at her allies, standing in the pale courtyard.

They both look a mix of embarrassed, eager, and almost anxious, Jin especially. Raika sighs, smiling as she shakes her head. "Alright. I just had… like, the shittiest conference. This honestly sounds exactly like the kind of thing I needed. Walk me through this, I'm fucking fascinated."

Jin lights up like a sunrise, his smile as wide as she's ever seen. He dashes past her towards the roots, the smell of smoke and gentle whispers coming out of him loud and bright as he gestures her over, showing his age for once. For all that she enjoys her prim-and-proper student (and she still has no idea where he picked that up), it's refreshing to see him act like a kid, bright eyed and excited about some new thing he's figured out.

"I barely even need to cultivate, it just sort of happens here, every time I breathe in and out, but when the bodies arrived, something felt so much louder! It was like all these whispers in my head, all quiet but really eager, like they hadn't had anyone to be whispered to in a really long time. I talked with a bunch of them, and then Big Sis Li Shu said that it had a 'resonance effect'. I'm not entirely sure what that means, except that it reminded me of your spirit item, the tuning fork. Dink! And then they were… like, they were all out of words, but they were still louder somehow, and then…"

"And then I proposed an experiment," Li Shu says, stepping in where Jin hesitates. "In spite of how hectic things have been, your Big Sis Li Shu hasn't been idle."

Raika laughs. "You know I'm older than you, right?"

"Irrelevant. This Big Sis Li Shu, while not quite so talented a cultivator as the literal child prodigy, has been busy studying. I might not be a formations expert, but when it comes to alien biology and its effects, I'd say I'm one of the premier experts. Outside major factions, anyways. I do my best."

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Too many caveats. Speak, premier expert."

She snorts, rolling her eyes, but Raika can tell that she's pleased by the comment. "Well… I've been studying you pretty extensively. While you've done a decent job making a system that works, you're still extremely reliant on Qi and Truth for your growth, sustenance, and transformation. That's not good or bad, not necessarily- in a lot of ways, that's how most systems work, when they get powerful enough. But, it has made me curious about what else a body can subsist off of. If my Sacrifice can operate off of a sort of recursive ritual, feeding back into itself as it does and doesn't replace my spiritual organs, then it stands to reason that other things can also be used as a sort of feedback loop, and if life can subsist and mutate off of just Qi and Concepts, then it should be able to-

"Li Shu. Breathe."

Blinking, Li Shu does actually pause to take a breath, laughing a bit as she does. "Sorry. It's just exciting! Proof of concept achieved!"

"Proof of concept of what."

"Ok, so-"

She walks over to the floor where the roots have sprouted, their meter-thick bodies bursting up like guts out of the earth. The scent of the pale white flowers blooming on them remains powerful, and it's starting to give Raika a bit of a headache. They alternate between smelling like the general air of Death and arcane powers, blending in completely, and then switching to overpower them entirely.

"After Jin prayed over the bodies, or communed with their concept or their Echoes, I'm still not all the way sure, their energies shifted, became "clearer". I figured, why not try to use that? So I set up a ritual, built in a feedback loop, and started funneling that death energy into some of the plant samples I took from the Overgrowth. Ten minutes later… ta-da!"

"You two grew this whole thing out of Death energy?"

"Exactly!" Li Shu says, grinning proudly. "I mean, it was probably easier than normal, because the Overgrowth is already designed to grow under guidance and with input from abnormal energies, and this place is drowning in one specific conceptual energy, and Jin's method of harmonizing Death energy-"

"We grew this whole thing out of magic!"

She smiles, stepping forward to pat Jin on the head as she comes in for a closer look at the ritual. Again, she doesn't recognize most of the symbols that Li Shu's used here, or what they do… but she starts copying them down immediately. Her bones itch as she carves, building a physical repository of every symbol and sigil she sees. She doesn't understand it, but it's her job to try, to push until she does.

And it's fucking incredible.

"You guys did all this in… what, a few hours? This is amazing! It seems like a breakthrough on your cultivation style, Jin. Blending your Truth with the way you approach Qi and comprehension, it's exactly the sort of next-step you should be looking for. And Li Shu… where did you get the idea for these runes?"

Jin is absolutely glowing at the praise, and Li Shu doesn't seem far behind, her energy adorably close to their shared pupil. "It's mostly theoretical! I based it on a Qi-gathering array, then extrapolated some stuff off of our old 'curse'-notes, something to make a 'harmful to normal life' sort of effect, and then I built a framework off of some of the runes I identified in the household!"

"...Right, that's insane."

She laughs, rolling her eyes. "Oh please. This is nothing. Considering the company I keep, I should be doing at least this much."

Raika turns, raising an eyebrow at Jin, who shrugs. "I think it's pretty awesome."

She nods sagely, patting him on the head again. "Indeed, my apprentice is wise. Li Shu, you just improvised an entirely new ritual-technique off of a bunch of half-understood ideas you've run into in the last few years. What do you mean, you should be doing 'at least this much'?"

This time it's Li Shu's turn to raise an eyebrow, though she does it a bit more aggressively than Raika. She shrugs, leaning against the strange roots, some of her earlier energy calming at the line of questioning.

"Well come on, I'm not exactly the best cultivator you know. I'm a healer, sure, and I'd say a pretty good one… but one worthy of dealing with Warrior-realm level issues? Or beyond?"

"I- Li Shu, you're not here to fight. The whole point was-"

"Was for you to have support, and for me to learn. I'm learning, but fast enough to support you? You've gone from literally weaker than a mortal to stronger than most sect patriarchs I know. Hell, stronger than most sects I know. Fighting one-on-one, you're a monster, but you don't even need to fight one on one. Jin's almost halfway through the Foundational realm, and he's been cultivating for, what, a year? Hao Nera's got a unique concept, Qen Hou is probably the most advanced comprehension-specialist I know, and you've got all sorts of powerful allies in the Altered Cultivation Division, the interest of an Apex of the Pack… I'm smart. I'm capable. But I'm a healer, and a researcher, not a fighter and not a once-in-a-lifetime prodigy."

"Li Shu, that's-"

"No, it's important. That's fine. I am what I am. I'm clever, and I'm fairly certain I'm genuinely talented when it comes to interpreting theory. I might not be strong the way others are, but I've still got strengths of my own. The issue is to grow those skills at the pace we need. You're always tearing yourself apart, pushing forward faster and harder than anyone else. I need to match at least that much, no?"

"Jin, don't pick up any bad habits from your big sis."

"Wha-"

Jin steps back, frowning. "I don't think you're in much position to talk about bad habits, master."

Raika stares at him, her expression frozen in mock outrage. "Betrayed! By my own pupil!"

"Big Sis Li Shu is right, master. You took me from Wayun village, where I used to hide out in the woods, to the Wall and beyond it in a year. You've protected me, given me insight and training, and you tell me I'm growing well… but I'm not strong enough yet to fight alongside you. Senior Li Shu can support you, so doesn't it make sense to want to do that more?"

Raika scoffs, playing off their reactions like it's no big deal. "Neither one of you is responsible for fighting my battles. I'm happy to spend time with you both, and I'm happy to be able to help you, but I don't need that to be paid back somehow."

"It's not-"

"And besides, it's neither of your responsibilities to take care of me. I'm the one picking fights, and if I get hurt, I can take it. If I get hurt, I come back from it."

The courtyard feels… uncomfortably quiet.

"I'm not undercutting this. All of this is… I mean, it's genuinely incredible. I'm thinking we spend some time refining this? You tell me what you need, and I'll provide, I've got a ton of materials I think might be just perfect for this sort of work. Can you tell me what you did here, specifically? I can see how the basic Qi condensation runes travel, but the pieces that you added here and here…"

The silence lasts a moment longer.

Then, Li Shu nods, one of her Sacrificial needles hovering forward like a stylus. "Well, I guessed at some of the runes they use here. One of them is really distinct from the others, and I tracked it to mean "End", I think, and then an inverse over here."

"...Yeah, I think I see that. Let me start writing this stuff down. Lead on, oh wise teacher. There's a lot to learn here."