This is the last chapter of this arc. There is about to be another massive time skip, so I need some feedback on the story again.
A while ago, someone suggested that the cut-off point for Book 1 should have been when Tobias was captured by the 3rd Prince and thrown into the dungeon, not when he finished making the Weary Disciple Body Cultivation manual. I've thought about this a lot. Especially since someone also suggested that the end of the war should have been the end of Book 2, and Tobias acting as 1st Minister should have been the start of Book 3. I've also thought about someone else's suggestion that I name the books, Initiate, Foundation, Core, or something to that effect, and I really like that idea, because with the changes to cut off points, this makes Tobias's understanding of each realm align with each book. And the who story is really just about a guy who makes a standarised cultivation system, so everyone can understand it.So now I'm seriously thinking about breaking this massive book into 4 books instead of 3 books. This was never meant to be a series, but breaking it into a saga works much better than breaking it into a trilogy. Book 1: Ends with Tobias being captured by the 3rd Prince. Book 2: Ends with the war ending. Book 3: Ends here with Tobias and his clan stepping back from the world and going into seclusion. (This ties up the stories before this, closing off most plotlines)Book 4: This book follows Tobias's life after he's no longer dealing with the consequences of escaping poverty. He now understands the nascent soul realm and is working towards a better understanding of dao to confirm this understanding. His past actions have led to a new problem, and he is rediscovering who he once was. (It closes off some of the other plotlines that are still dangling.)If I structure the series this way, I can tie each book to Tobias' understanding of a specific realm, which the books would be named after. This will also allow me to more tightly plot each book, making them hit harder in the final version. However, this will also leave the series with a kind of meh ending, because it's themed around the realms but currently doesn't have a book for the sage realm.I have no idea what that final book would be, right now, so I can either skip the final book and keep the summary ending chapter I've already written, or I can leave the series open until I come up with a book for the sage realm. I would love everyone's thoughts on this. Also, just a heads-up: this last arc is going to need heavy editing, whether or not I change the structure, because the pacing needs a lot of work. The final version will be similar but hopefully offer a much better reading experience.Well, that's what's bouncing around my head, and I would love your input.Thanks for staying interested until now.
Chapter 102
Taming Old Monsters
The Minister of Taxation made it clear to Tobias before he left the Capitol that they would be coming to collect his clan's Pill Tax as soon as they could organise where the pills were going to and where the excess could be stored. So, Tobias wasn't surprised when the Minister of Taxation arrived at his home a few weeks later and informed him that the army and his underlings would be arriving within ten days to collect what was owed.
Tobias's servants had greeted the core realm minister as he approached the edge of their grand formation on his flying sword and escorted him to the main road, so he didn't disturb the chi flow with his passage. Passing so many core realm cultivators on his way to Tobias's old mansion had the man so thoroughly intimidated that by the time he arrived at Tobias's door, he was as meek as a kitten.
Tobias had appointed him to his position centuries earlier, so they had worked together for over a decade. However, their time apart spanned centuries, so it took a few days of Tobias hosting him before he could relax. They were not friends, but they were comfortable with one another, so the pill assessment ran smoothly until the army and upper magistrates sensed one of Tobias's other guests approaching.
Tobias watched from his pavilion as his core realm servants and army generals rose into the air to confront the nascent soul realm cultivator approaching his clan's territory. The cultivator was moving sedately. Not bothering to hide their presence, so it was unlikely they were coming to attack.
However, they were not approaching with his servants, so Tobias wasn't certain whether they were friend or foe. There were a lot of nascent soul realm cultivators Tobias wished to trade with before he went into seclusion, so they could have been one of a dozen different people.
It took nearly a minute for Tobias to recognise Lung Zhi. The old monster from The Tiger Mountains, who had protected Peace Master So's ascension, must have received his message that he had finished studying her collection of body cultivation manuals and that she could come and trade for the fruits of his labour.
Tobias flexed his aura, indicating to his nearest servants that he knew the cultivator who was coming. They repeated the action, passing the knowledge along until it reached those at the front in a fraction of a second. They didn't return to their tasks, but they changed their behaviour to treat her as a guest.
His servants passed along the information to the Minister of Taxation and the generals of the army, while Tobias instructed his servants to prepare to receive a nascent soul realm guest and to collect her body cultivation manuals.
Then he went back to his garden to wait.
Lung Zhi hadn't changed in the centuries since he'd seen her. Her white hair and impressive biceps were still the same as they had always been. However, the purple tiger she rode on had grown to the size of an elephant and was ready to ascend to the nascent soul realm. The tiger landed on the lawn at the edge of his garden and threw its head back and roared as she leapt off.
Tobias cupped his hands and bowed. "Sage Knowledge greets Lung Zhi and welcomes her to the Three Step Hills."
Lung Zhi glanced at the tax collectors below. "That is a disgusting display of wealth. You make my clan look like beggars."
Tobias didn't buy it. "Your clan treats core realm spirit beasts as cattle. You are far from beggars."
"We need them for our cultivation."
"And my clan needs spirit herbs for ours. The only difference is we create pills from the spirit herbs that do not make the grade instead of eating them."
Lung Zhi continued to scowl.
Tobias assumed being infected had not solved her problem, which was why she was in such a foul mood. He motioned to the table in the centre of his garden. "Would you care to join me for tea?"
"I prefer wine."
"Wine can be arranged."
Tobias flicked his fan, and Servant Ho hurried off.
Lung Zhi walked over to the table. Tobias balanced a dozen different rules of etiquette in his head before settling on sitting at the same moment she did. Lung Zhi cared little for the higher points of etiquette, but she did require respect.
She placed her elbows on the table and leaned forward, looming over him. Her gaze probed his navel below the edge of the table. "Did you use the plague to strip your foundation, or have you always had a golden core?"
"I used the plague."
"Did you know you could form one before you did so?"
Tobias shook his head and lied. "My foundation was weak because of my lacking divinity. A better core had nothing to do with my decision to destroy the old one."
Lung Zhi leaned back, glanced about, taking in all the core realm servants surrounding them. "You seem concerned I'm going to try and kill you?"
"Your companion is known to have a temper."
"Bo Fang only had a temper because he couldn't progress his cultivation to keep up with me. He's as gentle as a cub now."
"You gave him the plague."
"I'm not that cruel to my companions. Bo Fang ate an infected mortal while I was in seclusion. He made a fuss until I let him enter the garden. It was pathetic. He behaved like a kitten who had been put outside."
Bo Fang growled.
Lung Zhi glared over her shoulder. "You were asking for forgiveness when you should have been asking for permission. And you are not forgiven for your audacity."
Tobias hadn't given any spirit beasts the plague, preferring to give those spots to his servants. Now he was regretting that decision. The tiger's bloodline was so pure that he could sense its latent potential. "Are you willing to share what transpired?"
Lung Zhi paused and then nodded. "The miasma improved his bloodline. Once I realised what was happening, I found some other interesting spirit beasts and brought them into my garden."
"Why?"
"Better bloodlines produce better offspring, which cultivate faster. I plan to breed the ones I collected to replace those in my mountain. Bo Fang can accelerate his cultivation by eating lesser spirit beasts, so it will help him catch up."
Servant Ho arrived with a jar of spirit wine.
Lung Zhi grabbed the jar from the tray, removed the cover, and swallowed the contents in one large gulp. She threw the jar aside and wiped her mouth. "Another."
Tobias motioned to his manservant to bring more. "I didn't expect you to answer my question so thoroughly."
Lung Zhi grinned. "And I didn't expect you to have so many spirit herbs I could use. I'll trade you some young spirit beasts with exceptional bloodlines for mature spirit herbs. I'll even give you the placid ones you seem to prefer."
Tobias paused. "Why would you be so accommodating?"
She laughed in his face. "Docile spirit beasts are content to grow through gradual improvement. In the wild, they are picked off young because they are unable to fight back. The prey beasts which survive are always the surliest and most aggressive. They dash through the realms to challenge the heavens, using the corpses of their enemies to fertilise their spirit gardens. A docile spirit beast will take ten times longer to reach the core realm than the more aggressive ones will, and I'm raising these for Bo Fang and my clan to hunt, so I want them to grow as quickly as possible."
Tobias had witnessed the symbiotic relationship between spirit beasts and spirit herbs and was actively encouraging it across his clan's territory, so it made sense to accept her offer. "I'd be interested in such a trade."
"We can discuss the matter once you've shared what you've discovered about body cultivation with me. My price will be dependent on how valuable your insights are."
Tobias folded his arms. "Are we discussing what others consider to be body cultivation or what you consider to be body cultivation?"
Lung Zhi glared, not liking how close his statement was to her secret. "And what exactly would I consider to be body cultivation?"
"Most consider the opening, cleansing, expanding, strengthening, and then enhancement of the body meridians to be body cultivation. You consider the transformation of flesh to be body cultivation. You go about this primarily through the ingestion of pills made from the blood, bones, muscles, and organs of spirit beasts. However, this has caused a significant problem for you, because the conflicting daos have prevented you from progressing beyond the nascent soul realm."
Bo Fang roared, causing Tobias's servants to flinch.
Tobias leaned to the side and glared at the tiger. "If you do not behave, I will make you behave. We are having a polite conversation, and you are disturbing my servants."
Bo Fang lowered his head and immediately lay down.
Lung Zhi glanced over her shoulder again and then frowned at Tobias. "Bo Fang possesses the greatest survival instinct I've ever seen in a spirit beast and the largest thirst for conflict. He only backs down when he knows death is assured."
"Then he is as astute as you claim. Now, to the problem with your foundation."
Lung Zhi gave him a second look, recalculated how safe she was. "Assumed problem with my foundation."
"The assumed problem with your foundation. I assume that you have taken precautions. These precautions were likely restricting yourself to only using predatory spirit beasts for your body cultivation. You felt that the dao of the hunt would be enough to bind them to your purpose and create a stable path. This seemed to work until you reached the nascent soul realm, and then your cultivation turned on you."
"Assumably turned on me."
Tobias wouldn't get anywhere if he allowed her to dig in her heels, so he pushed harder. "What happens when you assume your true form? My guess is that you turn into a rampaging chimera that kills everything it comes across."
Servant Ho chose that moment to arrive with three more jars of wine. Lung Zhi took them all and began knocking them back one by one.
“Dulling the edge?” Tobias asked innocently.
Lung Zhi scowled.
"The issue isn't your dao. The issue is where your dao has been corrupted. You are no longer the hunter, but the primordial incarnation of the hunt. You are the beast that lurks in the night. The predator that consumes all. You are no longer hunting with purpose but hunting for the sake of hunting. Having so many conflicting predatory daos within you at once has caused only those aspects which overlap to be strengthened and come through, increasing their influence over your actions."
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she tossed aside the last empty jar. "I'm aware of what I've become. Now, how do I fix my mistake?"
"You become the hunter."
"I hunt constantly."
"You hunt to take the edge off. I'm talking about hunting for others. Hunting so that you can feed your family and neighbours, so that you have the pelts you need to trade for tools. You have borrowed too deeply from the dao of the spirit beasts you have hunted, because it gave you quick progress. You must now undo this by embodying your original dao path and strengthening it."
"And this will remove my monstrous form."
"That monster is your true form. You were always going to develop one when you ascended to the nascent soul realm. The form you are currently wearing is the mask you have chosen to maintain."
"I am not that monster."
"You are, but you don't want to be, which is the only reason I can save you."
She paused. "Go on."
"Your direct disciples are your children, correct?"
Lung Zhi unleashed her killing intent. "Choose your words carefully."
Tobias didn't so much as flinch, cutting through the killing intent with his sword dao. "Do they practice the same cultivation method as you, or have you learned from your mistake?"
"They practice one based on my cultivation method."
"Are they restricted to one type of spirit beast?"
"Yes."
"Good. Upon reaching the nascent soul realm, they will undergo a transformation similar to your own. However, their transformation will be limited to the spirit beast they consume and not the monster you have become. Their new instincts will be natural and controllable."
Lung Zhi smiled for the first time. It was like ten thousand years of worry had vanished in a moment.
"To fix your condition, you will need one of your core realm daughters to donate heart's blood to you and hunt a nascent soul realm spirit beast that matches her body cultivation. With her blood and the spirit beast, you will be able to create cleansing pills that will cleanse the monstrous form within you and replace it with the form your daughter will eventually have."
Lung Zhi's smile vanished. "Does it have to be a daughter?"
"Only if you don't wish to become a hermaphrodite."
"Then we will speak of this again when she is born."
"Your mother or sisters would also work."
"They and all but three of my sons have long since moved on to their next life."
Tobias nodded. "Then I am unable to help you with your current situation. However, I have made other interesting discoveries about body cultivation."
"I doubt any of them will interest me as much as what you have already said."
Tobias smiled. "You want to bet?"
"No."
Tobias chuckled. "Wise answer, because I've discovered that your clan can safely body cultivate with chi variations of spirit beast. This will amplify your power and the control you have over specific elements."
Lung Zhi groaned. "If there are other insights like this that you can provide, I'm going to be giving you spirit beasts for centuries just to pay you back for this conversation."
"I expect it to take longer. Your collection was better than I expected, and I've added over a hundred manuscripts to it."
Tobias had spent three centuries studying cultivation, and Lung Zhi was just the first of many that he planned to speak with. Tobias wanted these old monsters so filled with ideas and possibilities that they were stuck in seclusion for the next thousand years, allowing his clan to remain safe while they slowly overtook them and removed the threat they posed.
Now that the plague was finally dealt with, all that was left to do was create a safe road to immortality.