Cultivation Nerd

The Blazing Sun Sect was destroyed? That was such a weird thing to think about. Even weirder to hear it said out loud, out of nowhere. It felt almost trivial… but it wasn't.

"Where did you get this news?" I asked my grandfather.

He looked me in the eyes, and there was something strange in his gaze; a discerning look that suggested he was trying to read me.

"It's mostly rumors. No official sources yet. Just some petty merchants and travelers, largely word of mouth," my grandfather said in a strangely calm voice.

That was odd. While the Blazing Sun Sect wasn't our direct overlord, its name still carried enough weight that no outside power or Sect dabbling in sacrificial or demonic techniques dared stir trouble.

"But take it with a grain of salt," he said. "All kinds of rumors are flying around. Some say the Blazing Sun Sect was destroyed in a war, while others claim that an immortal ascended. And then there are people saying some Nascent Soul beast crashed into the Sect's mountain."

Even as he spoke, his posture was too stiff.

"Still, there's probably some truth to it," I said. "Rumors like this don't just start floating around for no reason. Something big clearly happened."

"Yes," Grandfather agreed. "Something that's left the Sect so short-staffed they haven't even been able to send out an official message to stop the speculation."

Even if my behavior might seem irrational to them, I was still an Array Conjurer, someone important to the Sect.

So, the only reasonable conclusion was that my grandfather was hiding something. Maybe out of some misplaced fear I'd rush off to the Sect or do something reckless.

I could understand that. After the stunt I pulled with Fu Yating, I wouldn't trust me either.

Still, it was worrying. Hopefully, the librarian and the old man were okay. They weren't the kind of staff who'd be sent to the front lines or forced to shoulder the burden of defending the Sect against something that could've been a heavenly calamity.

They'd only be in danger if something genuinely catastrophic happened. Which... did fit the bill of a heavenly calamity. But there were still people like the Sect Leader who'd act as a buffer before it reached them.

Despite everything running through my head, I kept my breathing steady and tried not to let any of it show on my face.

More often than not, my grandfather was a reckless man, but that didn’t mean he was clueless. He’d lived long enough and survived enough schemes in his time.

“For now, the Clan Elders have decided to delay the younger generation of the Liu Clan from returning to the Blazing Sun Sect,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me like a nearsighted man trying to make out something in the distance. “If these rumors are exaggerated and the Blazing Sun Sect comes asking questions, we’ll just say the clan suffered heavy casualties during the winter and we needed the extra hands to rebuild our strength.”

The Blazing Sun Sect was an absolute force to someone like my grandfather. But I wasn’t too worried. Even if people came sniffing around, I had Song Song backing me. And even if we were found guilty of something, nothing would come of it.

Still, not everything was so dandy. If this indeed was a Heavenly Tribulation aimed at the Blazing Sun Immortal, which if even half the rumors were true, then yeah, we were fucked.

This was much earlier than I’d anticipated. But with the Sect Leader still around, and likely the hidden Blazing Sun Immortal as well, it was hard to imagine they’d let the Sect grounds be destroyed.

...

After a while, my grandfather left without much fanfare. He didn’t even throw a single scoff Fu Yating’s way, which was very unlike him. It only confirmed he was hiding something.

Later that afternoon, I sat in my room, flipping through a notebook I’d written by hand based on records from the Song Clan’s library. It was full of relevant history on the Blazing Sun Sect and other things I’d found useful.

“What bad timing,” I muttered under my breath.

If this had happened two or three years later, I could’ve pushed for Song Song to become the de facto successor, sweeping everything up in one big move.

Oh well. At least the worst-case scenario hadn’t happened, and whatever went down, we weren’t at the Sect to suffer for it. Still, this was too close for comfort.

It looked like I might have to get active again. We couldn’t let this opportunity slip by. Even if the disaster came early, there were still advantages to being in a crisis.

Chances were, many of the major Sects under the Blazing Sun Sect were panicking right now. If I could get them to invest in Song Song, there would be plenty of benefits to collect along the way.

But before I went off gallivanting, I had to take care of some things within my own family.

I stood up, closed the notebook, and slid it into my storage ring. My eyes fell on the silver band on my finger as my mind wandered, turning over all the possibilities.

I took a deep breath, calmed myself, and began thinking about which major Clans and Sects were closest to our location. I doubted I was the only one with this idea.

Chaos created opportunity, and plenty of people were smart enough to see that.

…

After some small talk with my parents, I made my way toward a somewhat desolate corner of the Liu Clan compound. The place was surrounded by trees and looked like a small forest, though on closer inspection, the trees were actually rocks carved in their shape and painted over.

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The deeper I walked into this stone forest, the more realistic the coloring became. It was hard to tell the difference from the real thing at one point.

It was an odd clan tradition. Whenever a cultivator from the Liu Clan died, a fake tree would be carved in their honor and placed there.

After walking for a few minutes, I finally reached what looked like ancient living spaces carved into a massive boulder. The air smelled strange. A mix of paint and the faint scent of grass created a weird, stinging sensation in the back of my throat.

My cousin, Liu Qian, poked her head out from one of the boulder's holes and nodded.

"Liu Feng? What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I could ask you the same thing. Isn't this place supposed to be used for punishing unruly younger cultivators?" I shot back with a question of my own.

She narrowed her eyes. "Who told you I was here?"

Oh, so it was supposed to be a secret? That meant more was happening in the Liu Clan than I'd realized.

"I think you already know that," I said with a smirk, acting smug to bait her into giving away a name. I wanted to see who was in on her little secret.

"So you just happened to find me? Does that mean you've got some kind of array all over the clan grounds?" She raised an eyebrow.

She didn't take the bait at all. In fact, she saw right through it and even guessed how I'd found her.

"Not really. I just used an array that sends out a sonar-like signal and locks onto your Qi signature," I said, walking closer.

Liu Qian didn't seem uncomfortable. She simply moved aside and let me enter the same hole she was in. The place looked like an old stone dwelling with an opening about the size of a car. A straw bed sat in the corner, and some charred remains on the ground showed where a fire had once burned.

"What's a sonar signal?" Liu Qian asked.

"Just some Array Conjurer terminology," I waved off the question. "Anyway, why are you here? Did you do something?"

"It's more about what I didn't do," she sighed, leaning against the cave wall. "My father is crippled, and I doubt anyone would accept me taking his place."

"Well, the Clan Leader position isn't hereditary," I shrugged. I didn't really see what the big deal was.

"Someone from my age group did really well in the war. Meanwhile, my father was too scared to send me to the front lines," Liu Qian said with another sigh. She didn't sound angry at me, just tired. The whole thing seemed to have worn her down. "Being a woman already makes it hard enough to get elected as Clan Head. Now I've got this stain on my record too."

"You don't have to worry about me competing for that position," I told her.

"Yeah, you've made that abundantly clear," she replied, giving me a dry look.

I got the feeling she was a bit annoyed with how nonchalant I was about the whole thing.

"At least your cultivation is progressing well," I reassured her. "Nine-star Qi Gathering at your age is nothing short of genius."

"Yeah, well, we wasted all the resources we got from that immortal tomb raid on this," she said, looking down. "All of our cultivation has been rushed. Liu Bo and Liu Heng went through the same procedures."

"They did?" I frowned.

"Well, my father had to spread the resources evenly when he decided to give me mine. He no longer has the power to strong-arm the elders into following his orders," she said. "Honestly, I have no idea whether they used their resources or not."

What went unsaid was that this kind of fast-tracked cultivation likely came with side effects, like an unstable foundation. Breaking through to Foundation Establishment was going to be difficult.

I didn't know what the Clan Head was thinking, letting his daughter go through something like this. It felt like the clan's mindset had chained Liu Qian down.

She had a chance, however small, to reach Core Formation. But the Clan Head and the others would probably be satisfied with her reaching the peak of Foundation Establishment and nothing more.

Still, this was her choice.

"Anyway, my father and I decided it would be best for me to stay out of the public eye for a while," she said. "We plan to play it like I've been in closed-door cultivation. When I come out, I'll be at the peak of Qi Gathering. We won't mention the extra resources we used to get there. We'll just let people assume I've got a real shot at Core Formation and ride those hopes all the way to the Clan Head's seat."

So, she had pretty much ruined her actual chances at Core Formation just to make it look like she could reach it. That seemed kind of stupid, at least from my perspective.

"Anyway, enough about me. What are you here for?" Liu Qian asked, flashing a smile my way.

Oh, right. I had almost forgotten why I came here in the first place.

"Well, I just came to let you know that I'm leaving," I said.

Liu Qian frowned. An unreadable expression crossed her face.

"What?" she asked. "Why would you need to tell me that?"

I couldn't exactly tell her I was heading out to gather support for Song Song. It wasn't exactly a secret, but the last thing I needed was one of her enemies coming after me while she wasn't around. The fewer people who knew, the better.

"I just wanted to tell you that if Song Song comes here-"

"Wait, what?" Liu Qian interrupted, her brown eyes wide. A slight shiver ran through her fingers. "She is coming here?"

She looked around the cave like Song Song might crawl out from the shadows at any moment.

"It's not as bad as it sounds," I reassured her.

"Yeah, maybe for you. But that crazy woman might decide to exterminate the Liu Clan on a whim! You've spent the most time with her; you know how she is!" Liu Qian took a deep breath and tried calming down, but it didn't really help.

After all this time, my cousins finally got comfortable enough to share their honest thoughts with me. They didn't bother hiding their feelings about certain things anymore.

"She isn't that bad once you get to know her," I said.

In truth, I also hoped Song Song wouldn't come here, though for a different reason than my cousins.

I hoped she and I would have an unspoken understanding, even from a distance. The smartest move for her right now would be to stay where she was and focus on cultivation while trusting me to handle everything else. Sure, the Heavenly Calamity could have come at a better time. But we still had to play our hand now, or at the very least make sure others didn't gain too much ground during this window.

"She's unpredictable," Liu Qian countered. "This is our clan's survival on the line."

"Don't worry, she won't do anything drastic," I said, waving off her concern.

"How sure are you of that?" Liu Qian asked. "We know what she's capable of, even against Sects with Core Formation cultivators. She could probably wipe out our entire clan by herself and not even get punished for it."

"I'm pretty sure she'll behave," I said.

She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Pretty sure? That's it? Even you can't guarantee she won't go crazy."

"I mean, nothing is guaranteed," I replied.

Unless Song Song felt something was seriously wrong, she wouldn't act out. And even then, she wouldn't go overboard… probably.

Okay, to be fair, I understood where my cousin was coming from. But whether Song Song showed up or not was out of my hands.

"Anyway, if she does come, tell her to return where the chickens roost and protect the egg. She'll know what it means," I said.

If she didn’t understand what I meant, things could spiral, fast. We had no time to waste.