The Jade Shadows Must Die [Cultivation LitRPG]

"I couldn't make two extras," Rix said.

Yutaro's looked him up and down. His smirk widened, but there was a coldness in it now. "Is that so?"

"I'm sorry," Rix replied. He kept his voice as flat as possible.

Then, he felt another set of eyes on him. Xu Han. He'd stopped laughing with his men and was watching the exchange, an unreadable expression on his face. For a moment, his eyes met Rix's. They were dark, indifferent. There was no recognition. To Han, Rix was just another face in the crowd.

The casual dismissal was a fresh stab of pain Rix hadn't anticipated. He didn't want to be recognised, of course. And there shouldn't be any way Han would. But at the same time, it was surreal to watch someone who had profoundly shaped your life stare at you with such disregard.

"This your business, Yutaro?" Han's voice was a low rumble, not loud, but it cut through everything.

Yutaro shifted slightly, the playful cruelty in his eyes dimming a fraction. "Just a small matter of educating the new arrivals, boss. You know how we like to keep things orderly."

A flicker of impatience crossed Han's face. "Chasing dregs for pocket change while we have bigger issues to worry about?"

Yutaro wilted under his gaze. For a moment, Rix thought Han might actually be his saviour. But then the man sighed and turned that uncaring gaze back to him. "Whatever my man says, you do. That clear?"

Rix's throat was dry. A million replies flashed through his mind, but most had nothing to do with the situation at hand. He'd spent so many nights lying awake in bed composing speeches for the moment he finally came face to face with those on his list.

"What he's asking, it's too much," he eventually managed, his voice steadier than he felt.

Han's expression didn't change, but his voice dropped a notch. "Not good enough." He looked at Yutaro. "He doesn't understand. Make him." He turned back to his meal, the incident already forgotten.

Yutaro's smirk returned, full force, now that Han's attention was elsewhere. He leaned towards Rix. "The boss says you need educating. And so that's what we'll do."

He stood up, looming over Rix. Kenzo rose with him. "The thing about the Farm," Yutaro said, his voice a soft, menacing purr, "is it's all very predictable. Same walls, same faces, same doddering old men standing guard over fresh meat." He gestured vaguely. "The Fractured Realm, though…that's a different story. So many dark corners. So many ways for a little lamb to get lost." His eyes gleamed. "Or found. You keep an eye out. When we come to collect, we'll be bringing something a little stronger than a punch."

Rix met his gaze. He didn't speak. There was nothing to say. He'd delivered his message. He'd received theirs.

***

As he'd suffered Yutaro's harassment throughout the week, Rix had thought about what he'd do if things escalated further. Unfortunately, the only thing he could come up with was something he'd desperately been trying to avoid.

He could join a faction.

It still felt like a burden he didn't want, but at this point it was the lesser of two evils. So, after his meal, he sought out Tolson.

"Seems like you're not getting any better at making friends," the man said, by way of a greeting. Clearly, he'd seen the confrontation in the mess earlier.

"Turns out my brand of charm isn't universally appreciated," Rix replied glibly. "I think it might be time for me to consider your offer to join a faction."

Tolson hesitated, looking slightly apologetic. "I can put the word out, but it might not be so easy now. Remember what I said about catching Han's eye? Well, you've sort of done that now. I can't imagine many of the smaller groups are going to be interested if they think he's going to take offence."

"What about the bigger ones?" Rix asked. "That guy you sent to give me the message, Huan, he said the Shadow Runners were the biggest group in here."

"That's true," Tolson said carefully. "But they're pretty selective when it comes to recruiting. They don't typically take newbies. Funnily enough, they're actually involved in a spat with the Iron Hand themselves right now, which also means they're busy focusing on that. Not sure you'll have much luck there."

Rix frowned. "That's not what I wanted to hear."

"I'll do my best, okay?" Tolson offered. "Maybe I can call in a favour. The Pattern Faithful are big enough that they might not care. And there are one or two other smaller groups that might work, given the Iron Hand currently have other concerns."

"Thanks," Rix said.

Tolson eyed him. "They're more likely to get you in the realm. Maybe consider not diving for a few days?"

Rix grimaced. Again, that idea of bending to Yutaro's bullying sat sour in his stomach. He'd come here to get stronger. Everything rode on that.

"I'll think about it," Rix said.

***

Somehow, he did manage to convince himself to skip the next dive. It didn't feel good, but he justified it as temporary, given that he could be hours or days from being accepted by a group that would offer some protection.

And it wasn't like he had nothing else he could do. His style still hadn't set. While he'd have preferred to be out there killing fades, there was something to be said for the simple work of just training. With Master Zhen eyeing him in amusement from his post, Rix spent the entire day doing drills. He ran through the full repertoire the Weaponmaster had assigned him twice and then spent some time working with his staff. But it made no difference. At the end of all that, the word "null" still sat taunting him in his System display.

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"It will take time," Master Zhen said, as Rix finally prepared to leave, frustration evident on his face.

But time was something that felt in short supply.

The bad news continued when he checked in with Tolson that night. The man could only shake his head. He'd tried his best, but the smaller groups were flat out not interested. Han's words in the mess hall were apparently enough to make Rix seem like too dangerous a prospect. The Pattern Faithful hadn't outright said no, but they were "weighing the matter," whatever that meant.

The only solace Rix could take was that Yutaro seemed to have other things on his mind. As Rix was walking to a table with his tray of food, the Iron Hand member momentarily looked his way. The man's eyes narrowed, but he was almost instantly pulled back into a furtive conversation. Whatever the disagreement with the Shadow Runners was, it was apparently a big deal. That might work in Rix's favour, for now at least.

The next morning, he once again wrestled with what to do, but the idea of continuing to cower between Spiritlock's walls was simply too much. While not everyone had said no, the reality was it looked likely that no group would accept him. If that was the outcome, would he just quit diving forever? Just sit here while his sentence slowly drained him of life? No, that was unacceptable. His father had always told him to act like the person he wanted to be until that was who he became.

Rix wanted to be someone who never had to hide again.

So, he headed to the dive portal. He made sure to slip in late to avoid Yutaro — he didn't want to hide, but that didn't mean he had to be careless — and it seemed to do the trick. There were no prisoners left at the dive site when he stepped through.

"Sleep in, dreg?" asked the Divemaster scornfully.

"Just got caught up training, sir," he replied, then moved off towards the western quadrant before the man could offer more.

He basically had two choices about how to do this. He could linger in the Low Whisper zone near his turf, which was close to the portal, or he could push as deep as possible into the Mid Whisper area. Lingering close kept him near the guards, but it also made him easier to find since the zone just wasn't as big. Due to the way the zones were structured in concentric circles, the further out you got from the centre, the bigger that zone was. The math said the Mid Whisper zone was more than three times the size of the Low Whisper zone.

Neither option felt great, but, with the dead man he'd found on his first day still looming large in his mind, he decided to keep close to the portal for now. He could feel the situation out over the coming days.

The results weren't particularly inspiring. That day, he earned 8% towards his next rank up. It wasn't much, but it was progress. More importantly, the Iron Hand never showed their faces.

All in all, it felt like a win.

***

The week progressed in a similar fashion. Despite the threat hanging over Rix's head, nothing immediately came of it. According to Tolson, tensions between the Iron Hand and the Shadow Runners were consuming most of the air in the room for now, which left Rix as an afterthought. He'd never been so thankful for a little gang violence in his life.

The Pattern Faithful eventually rejected Rix too, leaving him out of options for a group to call home. In some ways, that just crystallised things for him. Nobody was coming to his rescue. He could give up on everything he'd worked for and stop diving, or he could continue to pursue his Path and surmount obstacles as they came.

And so, he returned his focus to the thing that really mattered — getting stronger. The first thing he did was accelerate his training. Though he had no dummy or truly open space in his cell, he did have a wall and a few square feet, which were enough for some exercises. He could train the thousand blows against the wall, and the open floor was enough to practice one of the basic katas Master Zhen had given him. Every night, after doors were sealed, he did a second round of what training he could. It ate into his sleep a little, and his knuckles came away scraped and bruised after doing the thousand blows against unyielding stone, but he made do.

His dives continued to be uneventful. He stuck to his turf, such that it was, and tried to make the most of what was available, but the situation didn't improve. He was still earning about 8% of a rank up every dive, give or take. After a few days, he nearly broke and moved deeper, but then he returned to the portal to hear the news that there had been some kind of entropy event in the realm that drew a hoard of powerful fades to the Pattern Faithful's area. A staggering ten divers had died. Thankfully, the event happened on the opposite side to where Rix was diving, but it was still a wake-up call. Several of the dead were from his cell block. The Steward's warnings rang in his ears that night. The realm was unstable. People would die.

Such was the scale of the devastation that the Divemaster held a meeting where he begrudgingly encouraged all the divers to behave cautiously and minimise losses. He even handed out an emergency jarrowstar root to each diver, which was a healing herb more potent than stargrass.

Rix hadn't been sure Spiritlock had a threshold where its owners said 'too much', but that was a sign they definitely did. Tolson told him later that the higher-ups had come down hard on prison staff, even though it wasn't really their fault.

Of course, it didn't take long for the system to start feeding the meat grinder again. A day later, a raft of new prisoners showed up to start filling the gaps. Judging by their wide eyes and lack of confidence, they'd all been mortals when they arrived. Seeing them like that put into context for Rix how intense the acclimation process was here. Though he'd barely been imprisoned three weeks, he felt like a completely different person to the boy who'd stepped through the gates. This place forged you in fire. If he'd been a better person, he'd probably have used his recent experience to help the new inmates find their feet, but he had enough on his plate. Thankfully, he saw Tolson talking to several of them in the days after their arrival.

For a few dives after the ten prisoners died, the sobering reality of the situation kept Rix's ambition cowed, but when two more unaffiliated divers died in unknown circumstances less than a mile from where Rix himself dove, he came to a realisation — how deep he went had little bearing on being subject to the realm's whims. If the cards fell wrong, he'd die regardless of whether he was near the portal or not.

When sitting in his cell that night, he opened his system display.

[Essence: 58%]

The product of nearly two weeks of diving was half a rank. Under normal circumstances, perhaps that progress would be reasonable, but Rix knew reasonable wouldn't cut it. The enemies were at the gates, and he was still too weak to deal with them. To get where he was going, he needed to be unreasonable. He needed to take risks.

The next day, when he stepped through the portal, he set his jaw and headed out to his turf in the western quadrant.

And then he kept going.

The area remained rocky for a while, but quickly shifted to something new, widening rapidly into a valley several hundred feet across. In amongst the gnarled trees, the landscape became smattered with stones ranging in size from less than a foot to twice the height of a man. Though there was less foliage than the areas he'd explored previously, the boulders provided myriad crevices and nooks and places for danger to hide.

Rix's tether told him he was deeper now than he'd ever been, but he still maintained his hunter's mindset. He moved slowly, his attention intense on the environment around him. This time, though, he needn't have been so careful. When the fight came to him, it was anything but a surprise.

The ground trembled, and from behind a cluster of boulders emerged something dark and heavy and huffing. Its massive form was the size of a small wagon, covered in a patchwork of thick, overlapping plates that gleamed with a dull sheen. The behemoth's head was adorned with three spiralling horns, two sweeping back from its brow and one protruding from its snout. As it let loose a thunderous roar, its maw gaped open, revealing rows of crystalline teeth that seemed to absorb light.

He'd been looking for something stronger than the fades that lurked near the dive site, and he appeared to have found it.