When Immortal Ascension Fails Time Travel to Try Again

I stepped onto my sword and flew across the sect, making sure to stay high in the air and away from the few bird-type beasts who treated the sky here as their territory.

It was time to start on my new step three: the plan's preparation.

For my part in it, I'd have to create a massive flying demonic band that could attack quickly and escape just as fast.

I sent a message out to my band and all 123 of my students who were in Foundation Establishment. ::We have our first mission. Meet me at the large lecture hall in the outer sect!::

"We'll be there, Senior Linlin!"

"Let us know if you need anything!" Dread Lotus said.

::Are you willing to donate over a hundred unfinished flying swords?::

"… I'll get back to you on that."

"What's our assignment, senior?" One of the more outspoken disciples, Parroting Liar, asked.

::Be patient! I'll explain everything when everyone's together.::

I repeated the first message to Pearlescent Rose and her band while also requesting that she get me in contact with any puppeteer elders she trusted.

Little Spring flew over on his flying fan and caught up with me.

::Sister Lin! What's happening?::

I clasped my hands behind my back and slowed down. ::I finally have a solid plan to save the sect!::

::What is it?::

::You'll learn the details later. For now, you need to find Elder Wrathful Waterspout. The idea is for you to work as the team leader for our tagging unit.::

::I'd rather help you.::

I stopped mid-flight, and the kid almost ran into me. "You're the only one I can trust to keep your eye on the beast tamer part of this plan. You know I can't do it. Especially if that rat girl notices what we're up to and finds a way to insert herself in our mission."

"Would she even want to?"

"With the hell training you'll be putting your team through for the next week or so?"

"No. She wouldn't." He frowned. "Then do you not trust this Elder Wrathful Waterspout?"

I shook my head. "It's not that I don't trust him. He's been locked up in his immortal cave for so long, I haven't had time to get to know him." I lifted a finger. "When you're logically paranoid but live in a society that requires you to trust others, you must learn to trust some individuals as long as you verify that your trust is put in the right place."

"Trust but verify?"

I nodded sagely. Since there had been too many times when I'd been burned, I tried to keep that in mind, always. It only took one student, a single group project, to realize how flaky and lazy other people could be. Without constant verification, communication, and meeting up, a massive project like the plan we were going to execute wouldn't succeed, and I refused to let our best chance at saving this fucking ridiculous sect go to waste. Especially if that meant all my hard work would be for nothing.

"If we keep you off of the actual battlefield—"

He narrowed his eyes at me. "I'll only stay off it if you do."

I narrowed my eyes right back. "My original goal was to manage things from the first aid stations I recommended the elders put in place. That's something you can do. I have to be on the front lines to control a complex battle formation."

He crossed his arms. "Then I have to be there to lead the beast tamers."

This fucking brat. "Children should never have to be involved with something as hellish as war." Even in ancient China, they used to wait until the men were twenty before sending them to the battlefield, though that age decreased to sixteen in later eras. This kid was still a few years from even that young age.

He sighed. "How many large fights have I been through already? How is that any different?"

"War and fights between a few hundred cultivators are not the same. Even the largest skirmish you've been through so far is nothing compared to an actual battlefield, where thousands of Foundation Establishment cultivators could be killed at the whim of an enemy Nascent Soul."

He grabbed my sleeve, flew a little close, while frowning at me. "I'm still going to do my part."

"I know." Of course, I knew that. This brat wasn't a normal child. From the very beginning, when he spent his childhood always on the move, running from those blue wave people, he was destined never to live an average life. He was the damn universe's protagonist! Hellish shit was going to follow him everywhere he went. The only thing I could do as his teacher and older martial sister was prepare him for it mentally and physically. But that didn't mean I couldn't take a moment to regret that he would never spend his youth dealing with smaller, less important problems.

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He smiled, looking adorable.

"I won't stop you." Because if I tried, he'd follow after me, just like he always did. It was narratively expected at this point!

His gaze grew determined. "You can count on me! I'll keep these beast tamers in line for you!"

I smoothed his white hair back. "Good! And tell them only that we're doing special training for a mission. Don't explain the plan to them after Brother Wrathful Waterspout tells you. To succeed, we have to keep it secret from all possible spies."

"Fool ourselves first to deceive the enemy!"

I held my fist out to him. "That's right!"

He gave my knuckles a bump with his own before flying off in the direction of the beast tamer area.

***

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When I was halfway to my destination, Pearlescent Rose and Doll Monarch, the one-eyed puppet master I met when I first entered the sect, flew over together on a large flying fan.

"Good to see you again, Elder Linlin!" Doll Monarch said. "I am amazed that you managed to impress everyone so much that they promoted you despite your cultivation base."

"I'm just a temporary elder."

Pearlescent Rose smirked. "Your title was temporary until you showed off your skills to our most respected Nascent Soul elders. They approved your official promotion. You're now the first Foundation Establishment elder in our sect's history."

My lacking cultivation realm was why I had assumed those guys had just been messing with me. Making me an elder was illogical, damn it!

I glowered at the two women, and they laughed. These assholes laughed! It wasn't funny. I was a grand orthodox ancestor, not an elder of a backwater sect!

I kept traveling through the air toward the large lecture hall I'd requisitioned.

Doll Monarch smiled. "I was impressed with how you and Little Shadow Panther developed a new way to craft puppets out of beast bones. In fact, it inspired me and several other masters to create our own for fun."

Pearlescent Rose scoffed. "The only ones who didn't make one are the grumpy old men who don't see a need for change and growth."

Doll Monarch grimaced but didn't deny it. She pulled out her own puppet. It was bipedal and had a beautiful human face, but the body had beast features.

I scanned it with my divine sense. "Excellent work, though I would have widened the Qi string channels in the bones. As it is, you can't move it quickly by using an explosive amount of energy without breaking it."

"That… You could tell that with just a glance?" She frowned and looked over the puppet, then she shook her head. "If I expand the channels, the bones will become weak and brittle."

"That's if you remove material. You have to soften it first and then widen each channel by pushing a tool through it. After that, you can re-harden it. That not only makes the Qi pathways wider, it also strengthens the bone."

She stopped in mid-air as if shocked. The fan kept moving forward with Pearlescent Rose on it.

"So I need to find a forging technique to soften and harden the bones?"

I barely heard her.

She jumped through the air using pockets of divine sense and landed back on the fan. "Wait! Elder Linlin! I assume you studied a technique that will do that?"

I sighed. How was I supposed to know this sect's forging skills were so lacking that their smiths hadn't even studied something so necessary? It was just a slightly more advanced technique than the one I taught Shadow Panther. Easy.

Wait! I could use this. If I merely asked, she would send me a normal team, but what I needed were the best of the best. I doubted that without proper compensation, the puppeteer elders would hand over those experts when they could use them themselves.

"If you assign me a unit of competent, trustworthy puppet masters, I'll teach you the technique. But—"

"Agreed."

"I wasn't done."

"Whatever you want, just say it and it's yours."

"For this mission, I need them to be loyal only to me, and able to quickly move many people and treasures from one place to another. And they have to be capable of using stealth techniques in plain sight."

"Fine. Is that everything?" She didn't seem affected by my request at all.

"After you learn the technique, you can't give it to anyone else, ever. If you teach it to your disciples, I guarantee we will both be hunted down and murdered."

She sobered. "You can trust me. This isn't my first time paying for an exclusive technique."

Smithing skills were no joke. Every tool smith kept their methods close. While I thought it would be better if more had access to them, I wasn't going to be the one to explain my hard-earned techniques for nothing. That would get all the masters to come after me. The secretive fuckers were worse than those trick magicians from the early 20th century.

This felt too easy, so I added, "I first need to make sure the unit you send matches my requirements."

"Of course!" She smiled and rubbed her hands together. "Elder Linlin, I promise to assign you the best and most trustworthy shadow puppet masters I know. I'll take no chances."

"Good. You'll need to, for the sect's sake."

Doll Monarch took out a wooden cross used to control puppets and threw it into the air where it enlarged. She hopped onto it and flew off.

Pearlescent Rose skillfully avoided a bird. "What I'm wondering is if you're planning on creating a real illusion with your students. I know I taught you the technique last year…"

I grinned. "This sect has special battle formations in times of war, right?"

She nodded. "Of course. Any medium-tier sect does, or it wouldn't be considered one."

"Well, I've created a formation for musicians that should allow a large group, playing with enough strength and unity, to create the same or similar effect as long as I'm at its core."

"Oh! I have to see this."

"That's partially why I need you here. Your band has to join in if any Nascent Soul realm cultivators attack us."

"So we have to learn these things as well." She paused. "How positive are you that this formation can do what you think it will?"

"I haven't tested it." I only calculated it recently. "And it may require tweaks depending on the terrain and energy, which is why I'll act as the life gate and control it."

While I would normally be wary of teaching a sect that wasn't my own, a formation this powerful required a formation master as good as I was to make full use of it. This sect just didn't have one.

"My band and I look forward to learning it."