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2.3 - Travel
🕑 Added 2024-01-13 22:30:15 +0000 UTCWhen He Yu arrived at the outer sect gate, Li Heng and Yan Shirong were already waiting for him. Neither had changed their appearance much at all, which initially struck He Yu as odd. They looked like exactly what they were—a pair of wealthy noble scions.
He Yu had mostly gotten used to Li Heng always looking clean and well-dressed. The heir of the Western Passage stood out in his eyes less than Yan Shirong did. The comital scion was dressed in his typical robes of black and violet silk. Neither looked as though they had dressed for a months-long journey over land.
Then again, neither had Zhang Lifen when He Yu had first met her. It was one of the reasons he’d initially mistaken her for a spirit—she had been wearing a silk gown of pale blue, along with silver and jade jewelry. Her fine clothes hadn’t even a spec of road dust on them. Hardly the look of a traveler. So it probably shouldn’t have surprised him that Li Heng and Yan Shirong hadn’t dressed for the journey either.
“There you are,” Li Heng said with the typical familiarity he used with He Yu.
“Sorry, I lost track of the time.” He’d been lost in cultivation, trying to soak up a last-minute boost before they left the mountain.
“I’d noticed,” Li Heng said, nodding in approval. “Getting close?”
He Yu shook his head. Middle Foundation was still a long way away as far as he could tell.
Li Heng shrugged. “Well, maybe we’ll get the chance to hunt some awakened beasts on our journey. There’s precious few of sufficient strength on the outer sect mountains to be worth hunting.”
“You should just buy some,” Yan Shirong said with a dismissive sniff. “Sect Brother He ought to simply purchase elixirs as well. Then he could spend all that time he’s been secluded, and not breaking through, on hunting or doing jobs. Then spend the spirit stones on advancement. It’s simply the more efficient option.”
Shame and desire twisted around one another inside He Yu as Yan Shirong spoke. On the one hand, he was right. It would likely be a far better use of his time to perform various jobs and earn more spirit stones that he could spend on advancement resources. Maybe if he did that, he wouldn’t feel such pain at parting with what few spirit stones he had forced himself to spend so far.
Then again, Zhang Lifen had chastised him for using elixirs to speed his advancement. False Dragon. That was the term she’d used. She had told him to cultivate to the peak on his own, then take his elixirs. The result would be a stronger advancement. He supposed he ought to listen to her. She was the sect’s rising star, after all.
In the months that he’d been on the mountain, He Yu had come to learn somewhat of Zhang Lifen. “Rising star” was a bit of an understatement. She was a prodigy, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in hundreds of years.
Not only had she managed to advance to Body Refining while she was still seventeen years old, but she had also spent nearly half a decade cultivating at the Third Realm’s peak before she formed a perfect Golden Core in her twenty-third year. That was the feat that had gained her a spot as a core disciple of the sect. What was more, she achieved all that before Elder Cai Weizhe had taken her on as his disciple.
He Yu would be an idiot not to listen to someone like that. He was only seventeen himself, and he’d only just managed to break into Foundation. Even Tan Xiaoling, this year’s top outer sect disciple, hadn’t reached Body Refining yet, and she was a full two years older than he was. Still, the thought of jumping forward a stage—or even a full realm—simply by spending money was a tempting one.
“You can see to your own advancement however you wish, Yan Shirong,” Li Heng said with a dismissive wave. “I, for one, fully support Sect Brother He’s dedication. His hard work saw him going from the weakest disciple in the outer sect by a fair margin to someone who can now stand against a villain like Sha Xiang. And now he’s provided us with a job that will see the three of us dealing with a Third Realm cultivator terrorizing the people under our sect’s protection.”
“Senior Sister Zhang has provided us with the job,” Yan Shirong pointed out.
“Can we just leave?” He Yu asked, feeling more than a bit awkward at the reminder of how weak he’d been when he’d first arrived. While he may still have been the weakest out of the three of them, he had come a long way. Yan Shirong was now only a stage above him at middle Foundation, and Li Heng had raised his cultivation to late Foundation using the resources he’d gained from his initial duels after the end of the grace period.
The three set off through the sect gate and down the mountain path leading to Xu Xiang. In the months since his first hike up the trail with Chen Fei, He Yu had made the trip down to Xu Xiang a couple of times to purchase more mundane things he couldn’t find at the sect market. The mist spirits that had harried him and Chen Fei on their ascent had lurked around the edges of his perception on those trips but hadn’t bothered him. Now, with three Foundation level cultivators on the path, they were completely absent.
They kept a brisk pace through the mists and made it to town by late morning. As always, Xu Xiang was busy with merchants here to do business with the sect, and with disciples here to purchase mundane goods. The three made several quick purchases in town before leaving on the road that ran to the northeast out of Xu Xiang. None of them bothered trying to haggle much—not even Yan Shirong—as the paltry amount of bronze coins they spent wasn’t worth even a single low-grade spirit stone.
Once on the road Li Heng threw his arms wide and sighed. “It’s good to be away from that mist,” he said, face turned up to the sun.
He Yu couldn’t help but agree. Although there was a crisp coolness to the autumn air, it was decidedly less damp at the foot of the mountain, and more importantly—bright. He’d become so used to the eternal blanket of gray in these past few months that he’d nearly forgotten how good the sun felt on his skin.
“I’ll get tan,” Yan Shirong muttered.
“Would you like a palanquin? Or perhaps just a parasol?” Li Heng asked with a grin.
“Obviously not,” Yan Shirong responded with one of his offended sniffs.
He Yu suppressed a chuckle. Yan Shirong still held a grudge against Qiao Xia since their fight during the spirit core competition and got prickly whenever someone mentioned parasols around him because of it. Apparently, the girl had teased him relentlessly both during their fight and in the days following, and he hadn’t come anywhere close to forgiving her for it.
The three disciples fell into companionable chatter for the rest of the day as they traveled. By nightfall, they’d managed to cover easily twice the distance He Yu would have been able to back when he’d first made the journey to the sect, and when they made camp he barely felt the fatigue. After a simple meal, the three of them settled into cultivate before snatching a few hours of sleep.
As He Yu lost himself in his cultivation, the now-familiar vision of himself standing atop a mountain reaching for the heavens returned to him. Over the past months, it had varied a little, with the figures representing his new friends at the Shrouded Peaks Sect appearing closer or further away. Now, both Li Heng and Yan Shirong were close enough to him that he could clearly make them out. Sha Xiang was still somewhere—he could feel her presence in the vision—but she was distant. More important were the gossamer threads of fate connecting him to his traveling companions.
He reflected on something Li Heng had said to him shortly after they’d first met. Bonds formed in the sect stretch beyond a mortal lifespan. Although he found it a bit odd that Yan Shirong was so clearly represented. Maybe it had to do with the fact that they were simply traveling together, seeing as he didn’t particularly care for the young man. It wasn’t as though he disliked Yan Shirong. He Yu just found him a bit prickly.
The vision of his companions and the mountains fell away. The sudden change nearly shocked him from his cultivation. It didn’t feel as though he was gaining any insights, but rather as though something from outside was intruding. Another vision filled his inner eye. A man, large and rough looking, carrying a massive two-handed bronze mace.
Deep in his spirit, He Yu knew this man was the bandit king, Hao Niu. Behind him was a red sun, just barely touching the horizon. It was an unnaturally deep shade, stained the color of blood. A powerful sense of want radiated from that sun, carrying a spiritual weight that pressed down on He Yu even in his meditation.
With far more effort than it should have taken, He Yu snapped his eyes open. A sheen of sweat had made his skin clammy in the late autumn air. His chest rose and fell as though he’d just finished a light jog. Looking around, Li Heng and Yan Shirong seemed undisturbed. He shook his head, pushing whatever that vision had been away.
He was just nervous. They were headed to do battle with a Third Realm cultivator. That must have been what he’d seen. With the last vestiges of his vision still pressing in at the edge of his thoughts, He Yu turned in to get some sleep.
Comments
Rehoboth Okorie
hmm i wonder if things get very eldritch at some point
