The Phoenix [Cultivation, Reincarnation, Tower Climber]

The spearman is unfortunately quite prepared for the attack. Even worse, he's smart enough to know that blocking won't work against my sword, so he jumps back instead, and the other four spears shoot at my side a moment later. I dance out of their range, swinging at the nearest to try to lop off the tip, but their strikes are as quick as vipers, and my sword swings uselessly through empty air.

A split second later, the leader is right back on top of me, moving his spear in a wide sweeping arc aimed at my throat. At the same time, the other three close in on the sides to follow his strikes up. I bend backward, letting the spear whiz overhead, then continue backward into a handspring to get out of the range of the other ones. From the handspring, I focus oum in my legs and use it to spring a dozen feet into the air.

A bullet of oum immediately shoots out of the leader's spear to break the branch I'm hanging on, but I'm already swinging back to a new branch, and retreating. This time though, I don't look for a way to escape. I dart from tree to tree just long enough to get out of their line of sight, then drop to the ground, hiding my presence as I land in a crouch at the base of the trunk. A moment later, one of the pursuers comes around the corner, still looking up, and I sweep my sword through his legs, lopping them off at the shins and sending him to the ground.

The others are already right here, so rather than finishing him off, I grab his spear and leap away again. I dance back a few steps as I sheath my sword and ready my spear, then take a defensive position with my back to a large tree and wait for the remaining three to come to me.

The leader is the first to arrive, swinging his spear like a greatsword again. I duck as it cuts a deep gouge into the tree behind me, and counter with a stab aimed at his stomach. He twists his body out of the way at the last second, and my attack slides across his stomach, cutting into his coat, but not touching his skin. He stabs back, followed immediately by one of his subordinates. I lean to the side to avoid his attack, but the excess oum he uses breaks through my coat and leaves a small trail of blood across my arm.

This is within expectations though, as leaning to the side put me in the perfect position to catch the subordinate's spear between my arm and my side. I duck the leader's next attack as I send oum coursing through my body and twist with all my might. My goal was to disarm the man, but he holds tightly, and rather than wrenching the spear out of his hands, I wrench him off his feet and swing him head-first into a tree trunk.

There's a loud crack, and he falls to the ground, limp and unmoving. It's a better outcome than I hoped for, but the unexpected turn of events puts me off balance, and I don't have enough time to properly dodge the leader's next strike. I dive to the ground, but it's a half-second too late, and as I go, a spear pierces into the side of my lower back, and my roll sends it out the side, tearing through a large chunk of flesh.

I roll once more to avoid the next stab, and a third time to avoid the subordinate before getting back to my feet. I level the spear at my two remaining attackers, and they hesitate. Despite the wound I just took, and despite the fact that neither of them are injured, the situation still isn't great for them. My wound is fatal if I don't treat it, but I'm already staunching the blood flow with my oum, and I've experienced enough pain that I can ignore this easily.

"Your wound is deep," says the leader. He smiles, but the jovial tone he had earlier is long gone. "You can still survive if you get treated soon. Just sign the contract, and we'll take you to a healer. Let's not shed any more blood than we already have."

"You're still on about that?" I ask. "I told you, no."

"This is your last chance."

"You already gave me a last chance. Just come at me and let's get this over with already."

"You'll die if you-" he starts, but I cut him off by stepping forward and stabbing at him.

"Are you-?"

I stab again.

"Do you want to die?" he demands.

"Yes, actually."

"What?"

I make as if to stab at him again, but at the last second, I change the trajectory and send it flying off to the side, directly into his final subordinate's throat. I draw my sword as he stabs back at me, then I slowly walk him down until his back is to a tree. His oum is low, and at some point, he runs out entirely. His body is still strengthened from having reforged his body upon reaching 2 star, but without the additional strength from the oum, it's nowhere near enough.

I lop off the tip of his spear, then his right arm. He backs into the tree clutching the stump, his face full of fear.

"Please!" he says. "I'll-!"

The next strike takes off his head. I lean against the tree for a moment, then trudge back into the forest to where the man I slammed into the tree lays. He's still breathing, but only just barely. I put a stop to that, then head for the legless man. He pleads as he tries to scramble away, then he dies as well.

With all my attackers taken care of, I find a good tree, and lean against it and slide down until I'm sitting. My breathing is getting a bit shaky, and I've lost a lot of blood, but it's nothing dire yet. I'm low on oum, but not as low as I would have been if my core was smaller. After that fight, I think I'll leave it oversized, at least for now. The slower circulation hasn't been too noticeable, and the large volume has been more helpful than I originally predicted.

After about a minute of relaxation, I close my eyes and gather my willpower and begin meditating. I circulate the oum throughout my entire body and begin drawing it in from the air, and at the same time, I focus on guiding it toward my wound. My intestines and colon are a mess since it wasn't a clean stab because of the way I was moving, but with a bit of guidance from my hands, I'm able to get most everything back in place and begin using oum to knit it back together.

After about half an hour, I stop my meditation briefly when I sense something approaching, but relax when I realize it's just Trinity. She stops by briefly to lick some of the blood off my hands, then trots happily over toward the corpses of my attackers. I use a sliver of attention to keep my senses open and watch what she's doing, but I otherwise devote myself wholeheartedly to my healing.

It takes another two hours before I'm mostly fully recovered. I'm still down a lot of blood, and a bit of body mass, but that can only be repaired with time. I cultivate for another half an hour to replenish my oum, then open my eyes and stand up. It's still early afternoon, so plenty of time to move deeper into the woods.

I walk back to the scene of the fight to find that the nearest two bodies are gone. I follow the tiny feline footprints through the snow until I reach the spot where I killed the final three and I find Trinity passed out in the snow, blood on her whiskers and her stomach distended. One of the missing bodies is now lying here, while the leader's body has vanished, severed head and arm included.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

I prod her with my foot, and she opens one eye lazily to look back up at me for a few seconds before closing it again and going back to sleep. Gluttonous little shit.

I bend down to pick her up, but as I do, I realize my hands are still covered in blood, as are my clothes. I'll need to find somewhere to change, and even before that, I need to wash my hands. I'm feeling pretty parched, and I don't want to be eating bloody snow.

I heat up some snow in my hands to scrub them clean, and for a moment, consider just wiping down the rest of my body right here, but I decide against it. The last thing I need is for someone else to show up while I'm stripped down.

With my hands clean, I go back and pick up Trinity, who barely reacts, and then I set off toward the mountain range.

As I leave the bloody scene behind, I think for a bit about what the consequences of this will be. I doubt there will be any of the legal variety, since I was acting in self-defense, and Trinity was smart enough to bring the contract back when she returned, so I still have the evidence too. The fact remains though that the leader was 2 star, which is rare for this Floor. He was probably ranked quite high, and someone will notice him going missing. More people will probably notice my rank going up. Actually…

I check my own rank with the ring and see that I've shot straight to the top 10,000. That's gonna be annoying when I get back. Good thing I'm not going back any time soon. Just getting far enough to reach where the ginseng is supposed to be will probably take almost a full week, let alone actually looking for it. I have Ganyu's book to catch up on lessons, and I can make up Organa's lessons later. They're not that important.

Plus, the others probably don't really want to see me right now. Not after what I did to Kat. I'd better give them some space.

***

While Bella fought for her life in the snow, Vanessa was peacefully cultivating in her room. She was not quite as productive as usual though. She continuously found herself stopping the rankings to make sure that nothing had happened to Bella while she was out questing. She felt a bit foolish being so worried about someone who was obviously so powerful, but after spending a quarter of her life around the other woman, she knew Bella had more than a little bit of a reckless streak.

Still, she did her best to force herself to be calm and focus on cultivating. There was no point in worrying about Bella. Not only was it pointless, since Bella was obviously very competent, but also because she already knew Bella wouldn't be back for a while. If Vanessa stayed like this the entire time Bella was gone, she would hardly make any progress. She could already feel that she was within a week of forming her core if she focused properly, and she didn't want to be left behind by the others.

She managed to make it a full hour straight of cultivating before her growling stomach forced her to stop. She almost checked the rankings again immediately, but harnessed all her willpower to avoid it.

The dining hall downstairs was almost empty. Vanessa had skipped lunch to cultivate, so it was the middle of the afternoon and there weren't many people there. She didn't know most of them, so she didn't pay them any mind as she filled her plate with a noodle dish similar to bolognese. She originally planned on just heading back to her room to eat, but she stopped in her tracks when she left the dining hall and saw a familiar face sitting in the lobby.

The angel woman, Organa, was there, and stared at Vanessa as soon as she emerged. Vanessa made eye contact, and Organa nodded to the chair in front of her. Vanessa had no idea what she wanted, but after seeing how much both Bella and Ganyu seemed to dislike her, she had a vague feeling that it wouldn't be anything good. She had nothing to gain from refusing the invitation though, so she went over to join her anyway.

As she walked, she noticed something odd. No one else seemed to be paying Organa any mind. It was like she was invisible to them, and as Vanessa drew near, one man walked by the angel woman so close he almost brushed the edge of her wings, yet he didn't even do a double take.

"Hello," said Organa, her tone as stiff as ever.

"Hello," said Vanessa.

"How is life in the Tower so far?"

"...good?" said Vanessa hesitantly.

What does she want?

"Ganyu tells me you are quite talented," said Organa. "It seems he wasn't lying."

"Thank you."

"He also mentioned that you've been getting lessons from Bella. Or rather, the Phoenix."

Ah, so it's about Bella.

"And what if I have?" asked Vanessa.

"Nothing," said Organa. "She's very skilled. Strangely so."

"I don't know anything about it," said Vanessa. "And if I did, I wouldn't tell you."

"That's fine," said Organa. "I wouldn't ask you to betray your friend's secrets. She is your friend, yes? You two seem quite familiar with each other."

"We are friends, yes. Listen, if you're trying to fish for information about Bella from me, I'm just going to leave. I don't mean to be rude, but I'm not going to talk about her behind her back like this."

"Ah don't worry," said Organa with a smile that Vanessa found chilling. "That's not why I'm here. I'm here for you."

"What about me?"

"You've learned about the 7 Ascendant Families right?"

"Yes…"

"Then you also know that my family, the Hatep family, is one of them. With Ganyu as your instructor, I'm sure that your opinion of us is… not stellar. I can't tell you the details of his private life, but let me assure you that Ganyu's dislike of us is entirely personal. Our family is one that focuses on healing and support, and we are widely regarded as the most well-liked in the Tower."

"Are you recruiting me?" asked Vanessa.

"I am."

"Did you also try to recruit Bella?"

"I did."

"And she said 'no'?"

"She said she wanted some time to think."

"Then I also want some time to think."

"That's perfectly fine," said Organa, still smiling. "But will you at least allow me to continue making my offer?"

Vanessa hesitated a moment, then nodded.

"As I mentioned before, you are talented," Organa continued. "There are many groups that will try to recruit you. However, I believe that the Hatep family is the best. While I do not know your affinities yet, regardless of what they are, I believe that we are best suited for you to achieve your goals."

"And what, exactly, are my goals?" asked Vanessa.

"You wish to climb the Tower with Bella, do you not?"

Vanessa didn't respond.

"I'm sure you're well aware that in your current state, that will not be possible. All the talent in the world could not keep up with her. Even if you managed to push all the way to 2 star in the next 4 years–which would truly be an incredible feat–she would likely be long gone by then."

"But if I accept your sponsorship, I will be able to keep up?" asked Vanessa skeptically.

"I can't promise that," said Organa. "But I can promise that you would at least be useful. Perhaps you would not match her cultivation, but you would remain a valuable asset to her. As I said, the Hatep family is the best in the Tower at supportive skills. And given the current gap between you and her, support is the best you can hope to provide."

Vanessa was silent. There was something about the way Organa spoke that rubbed her the wrong way, but at the same time, her words rang true. Bella was already Middle 1 star, and Vanessa hadn't even formed her core yet. Bella was apparently skilled enough to defeat the scions of the Ascendant families with her eyes closed, and Vanessa had just learned how to throw a proper punch. Bella was out hunting, and probably earning thousands of Tower credits, while Vanessa was stuck with the same 10000 she started with.

"Of course, you don't have to decide now," said Organa. "But the sponsorship would, of course, come with cultivation resources. Pills, techniques, and private instruction from myself, if you desired. The sooner you get them, the sooner you'll be able to start growing stronger."

"...I'd still like some time to think," said Vanessa.

"Then I'll look forward to your response in the future," said Organa, standing up. "You can find me in the sector's Administration building whenever you come to a decision. Good luck with your Climb, and may you reach your goals."

With that, Organa walked away, leaving Vanessa so deep in thought she didn't notice her noodles growing cold.