Reforged from Ruin [Eldritch Xianxia Cultivation]

For all that Li Shu cares for her would-be patient and partner in crime, Raika can be insufferable. As much power as any given pillar of the world, more than capable of waging a one-woman war on any province of the Empire she chooses, wielding whole networks of allies, and what does she do? How does she think to improve her situation?

She clones herself, and lobotomizes the clones.

It's effective! If it wasn't she would have said something. The idea is rather inspired, all things told, and Li Shu would be the first one to tell her how badly she needs to better understand her own abilities. There's no way to grow that fast, gain perspective and scope so vast so quickly, without ending up at least a bit of a mess. Raika is very good at being a perpetually interesting mess, but she's pretty sure her friend wouldn't disagree with her on the claim that she is, in fact, a mess.

On the one hand, she is perhaps the most powerful, fastest-growing entity Li Shu has ever seen.

On the other, she is still so, entirely, cripplingly human, in all the most animal of ways. The flaws of social conditioning, the weaknesses of untamed emotion.

Li Shu's not exactly one to talk when it comes to having flaws, but compared to Raika, she does read. Watching her friend brute-force her way through philosophical and theoretical problems that can take decades to solve "properly" is as terrifying as it is fun, but when it comes to actual research? Clueless. Borderline unwilling.

It's clearly working for her, which… fair. But the experience of others matters, and can provide context to those not so… prodigy-like. And one thing that every major text, every major story and manual makes clear, is that time is essential for development.

You can pump as much Qi into something as you like, but when it comes to growing as a person, it takes more than that. Time to mature, time to process, time to understand- all things that Raika refuses to give herself.

And yet, Li Shu can't help but acknowledge the fact that in spite of, or perhaps because of these flaws, Raika is one of the fastest-growing superpowers in the world. Her cultivation speed puts even superhuman prodigies like Jin to shame, and her ability to "cheat" by having so many minds at once is a crutch strong enough to support even her massive changes.

Insufferable. Endearingly so, but still!

Nearly infinite growth, ever-increasing power, and the emotional maturity of someone… well, someone who hasn't had decades, nevermind centuries, to get herself right.

Li Shu sighs, refocusing her thoughts at last to the project before her.

Jin, the adolescent, is nearly superhuman in his cultivation speed, Raika's help and the circumstances of his unique constitution making the Fallen Kingdom perfect for him. Raika is, as mentioned, advancing on a borderline exponential curve. Even Qen Hou and Hao Nera, back in the Empire, have developed their powers faster than her. And she doesn't mind. Not all the way, anyways. She's a healer- she has no desire to become strong enough to break mountains and melt the seas.

But focusing on knowledge doesn't mean she isn't advancing. Nor does it mean that she doesn't want to keep contributing.

All these unique icons and geniuses all around her, and all she has is knowledge.

Well, she thinks, they do say knowledge is power.

Slowly, part of her Sacrifice hovers down from over her shoulder, sinking point-first into the thing on her work table.

She feels the way that her Qi, there-and-not, flows into place, occupying the same space as her body and as the point in reality where the keratin floats. As Within, So Without, her Truth, pulses, pushing against reality, a background paradox that allows her to use her cultivation and Craft at once. Her spiritual organs push forward Qi digested to be more her, only for the paradox to loop it back through her Sacrifice, the fulcrum of her Craft infusing it further with the elements she's absorbed into it.

A twitch on the table. A flex of digits, so like fingers and yet not.

If Orthodox cultivation is to make the self more like the Ur-self, the greater ontology of one's own being, then to Craft is to make a part of oneself and the world outside one and the same. It's the reason her Truths mirror each other- As Within, So Without and As Above, So Below just different truths of the same paradox.

In effect, the Craft cuts out part of the middle, where what is absorbed, be it Qi, concept or otherwise, fuses into the self. Instead, it cuts out part of the self, wielding it as a tool and turning it into part of the world, and the world a part of it. As she's cultivated healing arts, her own methods and perspective aligning her abilities more with medicine, she's absorbed into her Sacrifice the Concepts of biology, life, and death.

She's had a surplus of all of the above recently. Between Raika and the Fallen Kingdom, there's been plenty of life, death, and biology to choose from.

The keratin continues to spread, the sensation of it almost mirroring the feeling of her own body. It oozes out, her expertise and cultivation letting her shape it into fractals that shift like sand, then like liquid. It fills veins and channels she's carved for this exact purpose, winding through the layers of the object in front of her.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Cultivation is to drink in the world, and make it into a greater self, to grow and evolve as one builds.

Craft is to make a cup out of the self, and fill it with the world, to drink or pour out as needed.

As Above, So Below

As Within, So Without

Li Shu's cultivation shapes the Qi in her body to her purpose, aligning it with her medical knowledge and the technical expertise required of her.

Her Craft, the Sacrifice made for it filled to the brim with life, death, and the messiness in between, pours those concepts back out into her chosen act.

The sigils she's crafted on the interior of the body on the table are filled with both, different manifestations of supernatural consciousness combining to fully inhabit the form before her.

She feels sweat running down her face, despite how cold the room is. She feels her meridians straining, the paradox of her Truths pushed violently by the act.

…admittedly, as insufferable as Raika is, she does lead by example. Li Shu probably could have started with something a little less dramatic, a little less powerful.

But nah. It's more interesting this way.

She pushes harder, focusing, keeping every drop of Qi and concept under her control with a supreme effort of will. She doesn't brute force it- she moves slowly, her experience at multitasking with her telekinesis guiding her as she loops through every circuit, every vein, every carved pattern.

If she were Raika, this would be done already. A dozen minds could pump enough Qi and organs into this thing that it would fill up in moments.

She isn't Raika. She is herself. So she moves slowly, but with purpose, pushing only when she's ready, keeping a firm grasp on the roots she's extended to keep them from returning.

It takes hours.

And then, she flexes a hand, rotating it along sockets and joints that do not exist in human anatomy.

She opens her eyes, letting out a little exhale. It carries the scent of copper with it, and she wipes at her nose, cleaning away the blood that's dripped down to her lips and chin. She feels similar heat along her ears and eyes, and knows that she'll have to wash her face thoroughly after this.

Smells awful, though. Just… like blood, but messier, like it's been contaminated or left out too long. She tastes it in the back of her throat, the copper taste only now being overtaken by something rancid.

She can feel every part of herself- she's not hurt. So she has time.

Spitting to one side, she turns to look at her creation.

Li Shu isn't a fighter. She's not capable of regenerating instantly, or throwing Qi with the force of a bomb. Hell, for a Core Formation realm cultivator, she's not even particularly strong.

But she reads. And she has patience. And she has ideas.

She looks up, through the red-tinted color of her eyes, to look as she commands her puppet to sit upright.

It's dark, made of rich, nearly onyx-black wood. She carved it herself from out of the roots that spawned from her experiment the past week, and crushed the glowing white flowers that grew on it into a paste to glue together certain parts. She originally intended to just use steel, but Raika wouldn't have it, donating Blacksteel and a softer, more conductive version of her Radiant Metal to the project, though Li Shu insisted on shaping the material herself. They gleam, obsidian and radiance peeking out from the edges around the joints and points of articulation, and the internal frame would do much the same if exposed to the air.

Invisible from the surface are the dozens upon dozens of layers of sigils she's carved into the puppet's body. Like rings on a wooden tree, she's carved hundreds of formulae into it, planned meticulously over weeks to mirror something like the circuitry of a nervous system. Each layer connects to batteries trapped deeper in the bodies, alchemical concoctions filled with enough Qi to refill Li Shu's whole core from empty.

And through it all, like the roots of a fungal network or the veins of fauna, she has spread and stretched and woven her Sacrifice. One of her nails, ripped away in the name of the Craft and its rituals, inhabiting the puppet from top to bottom.

It turns a blank, emotionless mask of a face towards her, mirroring her own stance as she stares at it.

Taller than a human, armed with a secondary set of limbs, joints that can modify themselves between different bipedal anatomies, and with thirteen different batteries acting to power it without needing to evaporate her own reserves. Dozens of inbuilt rituals and spells, giving it a versatility as a tool that Li Shu can't generate on her own. A durability that, before activation, took serious effort from Raika herself to crack.

It's a marvel of engineering, both in design and execution. From spellwork to craftwork, it's her most impressive accomplishment on a technical level yet.

It's a bit disorienting, controlling it and her own body at the same time. It's built to be partially independent, but her ritual-crafting isn't good enough to make it very organic- more like a doll, given general instructions. Controlling it through her Sacrifice and her Truths makes it move almost flawlessly, but it takes effort. Like using telekinesis to move her own body, but outside her body.

It'll take time to get used to, and to properly test its limits. Still, she's damn certain that she'd bet on the puppet against just about any Foundational Realm cultivator, and give it decent odds against most Core Formation Realm fighters.

She sighs, wiping at her face. When that fails to dislodge all of the weird blood-gunk that's coming out of her face, she summons her Sacrifices again, needles turning to pliers and flat sticks to scrape it off of her. She'll have to study that right away, figure out what the hell it is- but right now, she feels much too good to lose focus.

She feels refreshed. Bright. She could swear that her Qi is moving a little smoother. She's in the zone right now, and a little ooze won't stop her from finishing what she's started.

She commands the puppet off of the table, enjoying the way it moves almost silently. It's graceful, in an alien sort of way, and it moves to stand to one side, ready for later inspection.

Then, crafting her Sacrifice into keratin tendons and fractal limbs, she moves them over to the next puppet, and places it on the table.

She'll need to cultivate a bit between infusions, but that's alright. She's got time, at least right now, and this is important.

She takes a breath, and exhales, feeling her Sacrifice and spiritual organs moving in paradoxical sync as she pushes what's left of her cultivation through them. She takes a sip of some… "sap" that Raika left her, absorbing as much energy from the Qi-rich alchemy as she can.

First one done. Six more to go.

Breathing deep, she lowers another piece of her Sacrifice point first into the next puppet, and begins to cycle.