Calculating Cultivation

I felt the ground shake, just as I was digging up my 91st channel. I knew everything about my chamber and the environment I had been stuck in for such a long time. That was why the ground shaking was so surprising. That had never happened before and the mountain the Cloudy Moon Sect was built on was quite stable.

There was no hidden volcano or other such local formation that I needed to worry about. The only thing that could shake the ground like this was a battle between two cultivators. I kept cultivating, while hoping it was nothing serious. I needed to keep focusing on my cultivation.

The ground shook a second time. The glowing blue parts of the chamber dimmed slightly before coming back. I felt a massive wave of foreign energy pressing down from above. I was close enough to done, that I wasn’t worried and moved to the clean up phase for this last section. It would be a lot harder, but things were falling around me. There were slightly better places to stop, and I wanted to make sure I ended on one, than a troublesome stopping point.

For one moment, I was in free fall as the entire chamber shifted downwards. I kept my body absolutely stiff so no mistakes happened. I quickly stopped my cultivation and twisted the jade needle before pulling it out. The blue light flickered much more. I quickly put away the jade needle in my spatial ring and put on my sect robe. The entire chamber had shifted to a slight angle and I noted minute cracks around the doorway.

I pushed on the door, but it wouldn’t open until the chamber ran out of energy. I was trapped inside and began to panic slightly as the ground shook once more. The entire chamber lifted up slightly and it went completely dark. A sprinkle of dust fell on my head.

Pushing on the stone door, it was stuck. I pulled out my rank 5 sword and stabbed outwards through the door. It cut through the stone doorway very slowly. This would ruin the chamber, but I was afraid the entire thing would collapse I might get trapped underground.

Another massive way of energy pushed downwards. I let go of my blade and collapsed to the ground, unable to breathe or move. The pressure went away, and I slowly stood up, very carefully finding the hilt of my sword and cutting into the doorway once more.

I cut through edges, except for the base. I then slammed my body against the door and pushed it over. The staircase beyond it was much more damaged than the chamber. The ground shook again, but not as violently as before. Hesitating for a moment, I raced back into the chamber and quickly put all the supplies, including the waste bucket, into one of my spatial rings. After that I held onto the sword, as I quickly raced up the staircase.

It was quite long climb, since the chamber had been built very deep in the mountain to prevent any disturbances during extended periods of cultivation. The fact the entire ground was heaving was incredibly worrying. Another wave of pressure struck down on me and I slammed into the staircase in front of me. Thankfully I didn’t impale myself with my sword. Once the wave of pressure disappeared, I put my blade away in one of my spatial rings and continued to rush upwards. Stabbing myself would be an idiotic way to die.

Just when I was about one floor from the top, I came to a cave in. The ground kept shaking, and there were more waves of pressure, as I began to try and dig my way upwards. I only paused once to have some water and food and kept digging. I was incredibly tired, but with the formations not working, there would be no air to breathe down here. I needed to get out as quickly as possible.

It was an hour or so after the first tremor that they stopped. I had no way to tell the time. No more waves of pressure either. Five hours after that, I finally broke through to the surface. The staircase was only reinforced with a technique, not any kind of array or formation, which meant it was simply a matter of tossing debris back down the staircase behind me.

I could see light. Clearing the rubble, I quickly crawled through the hole and made my way outside. This was one of the few times I was grateful to still be the size of a small child. It let me escape cave-ins much more easily.

Letting out a relieved sigh, I looked around. It was dawn, at least it appeared so through the haze of dust. There was dust everywhere that made everything yellow and hazy. I slowly made my way out of the collapsed building and carefully looked around.

The building I had climbed out of was mostly gone. A large portion had been destroyed, similar to other nearby buildings. I slowly made my way through the rubble to the center of the sect. If anyone was still alive, they would go there.

I spotted my first corpse. They were wearing disciple robes. The back of their robe was bloody and ripped up, but it wasn’t clear what killed them. A super beast of some kind? I spotted a couple more disciples and a member, all savaged in some way and in a pool of blood. I noted the blood was still fairly fresh, which meant that they had died when all the tremors were occurring.

There was no sign or clue about who the attackers were. I then reached the center of the sect. The haze of dust was quite a bit. That was why I almost missed the large pit. Where the Sect Leader’s home once stood, there was nothing, but a pit and body parts scattered about inside. The smell of blood was heavy in the air.

I saw a left shoulder connected to a head and carefully went over. I flipped over the deceased. It was the elder Yi Meifeng. My heart shot up into my throat and I had to push back the bile. There was no sign of a sword or any other valuable. Whomever or whatever killed people, left nothing behind. I slowly made my way to the bottom of the pit. There was something down there, an array of some kind.

My heart stopped as I looked upon an incredibly macabre display. Sect Leader Li Fu’s head rested on a pillar of stone. That pillar had an array. The head was still alive. Its eyes were moving. “What happened?” I whispered out. The bloodshot eyes darted towards me. Sect Leader Li Fu was trying to say something, but nothing was coming out. I felt fear and shock. Who could have been strong enough to do this? Why would they do this?

I hesitated on what to do. On one hand, putting him out of his misery seemed like the right thing to do if this was just a message. But there was a good chance this was a trap for any survivors. Cultivators didn’t adhere to the Geneva Convention, which meant booby trapping people and corpses was a valid tactic.

“I am sorry Sect Leader,” I said very quietly and bowed my head. I noticed he had closed his eyes as well. I quickly moved out of the pit, the dust bothering my eyes quite a bit. I began to check the various buildings, but they were all destroyed, with corpses scattered about. There were no supplies or cultivation materials that I could find either. Something or someone had swept through the sect and took everything of value.

After several minutes of pointless searching, I went towards the administrative hall in the outer portion of the sect. It was destroyed as well, nothing of value left behind. Not even food. I hadn’t found any survivors either.

It was time to get out of here. I didn’t want to risk whatever had done this coming back to finish me. I made my way to the staircase that led up to the sect from the base of the mountain, but paused at the massive cliff that was now there instead. I gulped at the sight, as some of the dust had settled and I could see a massive debris field in front of the cliff. Like someone had exploded the entire mountain outwards.

Chunks of dirt and rock were still crumbling slightly down the massive cliff. I was in shock over what had occurred. One moment, there was a sect with a couple thousand cultivators, now it was a wasteland of destruction and death.

I hesitated before running off, which was my first instinct. My niece, she might still be alive. I had only looked over a small part of the sect. I looked out at the destruction and then back at the sect, hesitating to make up my mind. The unknown was the scariest thing to confront. Whatever had done all of this was out of my weight class. The stone pillar with the Sect Leader’s head, which made me sick to think about, was clearly done by something powerful and intelligent.

Anything that could rip through elder cultivators was not someone I could face. A minute went by, while I was still unable to make up my mind. That was when I spotted a figure advancing towards me out of the cloud of dust hanging around the entirety of the sect. Their cultivation looked weird. Like it had been smeared inside their body. I had never seen someone with a cultivation like this.

“Oooh, a survivor,” a younger looking man said. Based on the energy as part of his cultivation I would guess he was of the fourth rank, which meant he was really a dangerous grandpa. Not super dangerous, since he wasn’t past the first bottleneck, but ahead of me, if I observing the density of his cultivation correctly. He was wearing black and red martial robes with no symbol on them. A hundred questions raced through my head, and I didn’t know want one to ask first.

“Why?” I asked. The young man gave a shrug and flicked his hand to the side, a sword quickly fell into his palm. I did the same thing, drawing my blade from my spatial ring.

“A sword user? How delightful,” the young man replied with a grin. My mind was racing as he kept advancing giving an occasional casual wave of his sword. It was clear he thought me beneath him. That was his mistake. Time to get one last bit of information before I killed him.

“I am Yuan Zhou, sect disciple of the Cloudy Moon Sect,” I replied.

“The genius. I will only take your limbs and leave the rest for my senior. Someone has been quite naughty,” the young man kept advancing.

“Aoyin?” I asked and his grin widened, which was all the confirmation I needed. He leapt forward, looking to cleave me in two with his blade. I grabbed my gun out of my spatial ring as he moved right in front of me. A rank 4 bullet blew a hole in the center of his chest at almost point blank range. He stumbled back a couple steps.

“Death is only-“ I raced forward and swiped out in a one handed sword swing. His head easily separated from his body. The body collapsed into red liquid, equipment and all, leaving nothing behind. I blinked in confusion as there was a slow clap that came from the dust cloud. I quickly put away my sword, and reloaded my gun with another rank 4 bullet, before bringing my sword back out once more.

“Illusion blood clones are quite useful. I suppose you have earned my name before your death. I am Chimei. Sect disciple of the Demonic Blood Sect,” he replied while stepping out from behind some rubble.

“Why?” I asked once more. He just smiled and shook his head.

“That is like asking why the sun rises, the winds blow, or the oceans have waves. There is no answer that matters. The strong take, and the weak perish,” he replied as a second and then a third copy of himself stepped out of the surrounding dust cloud.

“Orbital mechanics, temperature differential, and tides,” I replied, and Chimei blinked a couple of times in surprise. “I answered three of your questions, perhaps you can answer one of mine, where is your master?”

“How interesting. No wonder there is such an interest in you, a genius. As for your question I don’t know. I am not his master, watching his every move. But you. You think escaping is so easy? That you can just take things and go on your merry way without consequences?” Chimei asked.

“No,” I replied while I kept scanning my surroundings and the locations where the blood clones had come from. “It was Aoyin who forced himself upon me.”

“So? A genius with a unique cultivation running around, you are just asking to be captured. Well, bad news for you, and good news for me, you are no more use,” Chimei countered verbally as all three blood clones advanced on me. I could tell they were all the same as the previous one, unless he was able to disguise his actual cultivation, which was unlikely.

My eyes were darting around. The three blood clones closed in on me, and I noticed a blur moving around to the side to get behind me out of the corner of my eye. The three blood clones pulled out swords, but now that I was looking for it, I noticed all three swords had the same type of energy as the blood clones holding them. It was a very good illusion or trick. My energy seeing eye saw through the deception.

“Ahhh!” We all paused and turned towards the screaming. It was disciple Wu Changying. I had only seen her occasionally over the years and almost didn’t remember her. Another woman was chasing her.

I leapt for the blur, my gun pointed at it. It tried to fake me out as the clones rushed in but my gun tracked the blur easily and I fired. Trying to feint and dodge, wasn’t possible since I could see it. Chimei, came into view, with a large hole in his side, but he wasn’t dead. The blood clones collapsed into pools of red liquid. Chimei didn’t hesitate and rushed for the edge of the cliff and jumped off, leaving a blood trail behind from his wound.

Wu Changying raced towards me and came to a halt behind me as I turned with my sword in hand. “Ice grip!” the female demonic cultivator cried out and gestured. Icy hands quickly formed around me and grabbed onto me, limiting my movement. Thankfully they grabbed my torso and not my arms. I flicked my wrist, throwing my sword towards the enemy cultivator, buying me a precious second as I reloaded my gun. I was glad for the countless times I had practiced reloading to do it flawlessly and quickly.

The gun really was the best weapon. I fired it a third time. The demonic cultivator’s head partially disappeared, and she collapsed to the ground right in front of me dead. The icy hands disappeared, but there was a bit of frost burn through my sect robes from where they had grabbed me.

I quickly reloaded my gun once more and retrieved my sword. “What happened?” I turned to Wu Changying, who was dirty with fear etched deep onto her face.

“The alarm sounded, but we only had seconds,” she replied nervously. “I was tending one of the spirit gardens at the very far edge of the sect. I…I hid under a bunch of dirt. Several demonic cultivators swept up the mountain while the elders were fighting. I didn’t see much after that because of the dust. There was a battle. Afterwards, I saw they…they captured many of the disciples. I was trying to sneak away, but one of them located me,” she replied.

Dammit! Why couldn’t you say they were all dead. I put away my sword as I checked the corpse of the female demonic cultivator. There was a single spatial ring. I checked inside of it, but there were just some basic supplies and spirit stones. Also, some tools, but nothing more valuable than the ring itself. This would make my third.

Wu Changying looked at me with a thousand-mile stare as I went over to the edge of the cliff. There was a bit of a blood trail that led away. Chimei hadn’t hesitated in his escape. I could pursue him or to try and save my niece, or even just leave, but I didn’t have much hope of fighting higher ranked cultivators.

The gun equalized things against slightly higher ranked cultivators, but that only went so far. At a certain point their techniques and speed would leave me helpless. Also, Chimei would be ready for round two once he recovered as well. If he could recover. A wound like that, where he lost the side of his gut would damage his cultivation.

Why attack now? I let out a heavy sigh as I looked at the ruined Cloudy Moon Sect. This was a massive disaster, for all my plans. The force chamber had been destroyed. Well, I could probably go to Imperial City and have something similar remade. Our split business was also in jeopardy. Cultivators of the Cloudy Moon Sect were running things. Zheng Ting had retired, so they were the ones in charge. Once it became known the sect was destroyed the Han family would move in and take everything.

I felt slightly ashamed since I had put all thoughts of my niece to the side for the moment. That was another option, I could go after her or try and find her body in the ruined sect. My heart clenched at the disaster that had happened and the choice in front of me.

Any attempt at a rescue or taking on an entire sect just wasn’t possible. While I knew that, my heart was heavy with this realization. If the elders of the Cloudy Moon Sect were defeated, I would have no chance to go after whatever lair the demonic cultivators had retreated to. It was also surprising that most of them had left so quickly.

There was still a lot of dust in the air. I glanced at Wu Changying, who had collapsed to her knees and was sobbing. She was no longer the icy woman I remembered, but a broken woman. I wanted to do the same, but crying wouldn’t help anyone right now. I shook my head and began to walk through the ruined sect looking for any treasures that might have been missed.

The demonic disciples had been quite through in clearing out everything of value. Aoyin might have gotten beasts and other cultivators to participate as well. But it was surprising that they had all left so quickly. It was a shame there was no one to question, but capturing a cultivator was way too risky. That was why I had aimed to kill when fighting.

It was close to evening, and I had just about completed a loop through the sect when five members and Elder Zedong showed up in front of me. Another person in the sect I had not regularly seen. I had explained what I knew and had found so far. I showed them the corpse of the woman I had killed. He also dispatched a member to begin collecting the bodies to be burnt.

Elder Zedong quietly looked down at the corpse in front of him, the members behind him shifting nervously. “The sect has fallen,” he said with a heavy sigh.

“What exactly does that mean elder?” I asked.

“It means the sect has dropped from a mid-rank sect to a low ranked sect at best. Even that is in question with the damage we have taken. The damage won’t be easily fixed either, but we can recover, in time. A third of the elders tend to be outside the sect at any given time, in case something like this happens. So about ten to fifteen elders. I will take up the title of temporary Sect Leader until more elders return,” he said slowly.

“Will there be a response from the Imperial Sect?” I asked.

“Maybe, but probably not. Unless you think otherwise disciple?” he asked me. I explained our business dealings in Imperial City with the mining operation that had been set up.

“Even that isn’t enough. Sects come and go. The Imperial Sect will not act. The Cloudy Moon Sect has had setbacks in the past. If Jiang Fengge had been alive, then it might have been different with his connections. But with his passing, we lost quite a bit of prestige and connections that could be leveraged. He would be the only one who would have a chance of appealing to one of the Immortals to intervene on our behalf,” Elder Zedong answered.

“Even after all of this?” one of the members almost shouted and waved his hand.

“Even after all of this. The attack was targeted and limited. If the demonic sect had tried to occupy this place, then the Imperial Sect would have followed up, or if our entire sect was destroyed to the last cultivator. But do you think that demonic sects don’t have the tacit approval of the Imperial or Blazing Sun Sects then you are foolish,” he replied with sadness.

“Why?” one of the members asked with despair in their voice.

“To make sure cultivators aren’t useless. The business deal that our sect disciple set up was bringing in quite a bit of wealth. The Imperial Sect would never be so heavy handed as to go after us, but the demonic sects exist for a reason. You will have to sell your ownership and we will probably have to do the same,” Elder Zedong replied while everyone looked at me.

“Don’t blame him,” Elder Zedong said, and the five members looked back at him. “It is something that has been known to us elders. We aren’t a martial sect and have been encroaching into various cultivation services offered by the Imperial Sect. We apparently overstepped enough for this to be the response. They let loose demonic cultivators upon us.”

“But we can’t do anything,” one of the members said with a heavy frown.

“Such is the way of cultivation. If one is not strong enough, then they cannot complain when someone stronger comes along. The sect will be pulling back and rebuilding from our reserve stockpiles. Since the alarm was raised, before the attack then the emergency measures would have activated. There is a reason the Cloudy Moon Sect has persisted for this long over the millennia,” Elder Zedong said.

“What do you mean?” one of the members thankfully asked and the elder was more than willing to explain.

“There are emergency tokens the elders carry if the Sect Leader dies unexpectedly. The surviving elders will have been alerted and know what this means. They will return in time. The libraries will have also been saved. We shall deal with this.” Elder Zedong paused. “This is all a secret of the sect and never to be spoken about even to other members,” he said. We all nodded and then followed him.

He sent one of the four remaining members to help clean up the bodies, while the rest of us moved down one side of the mountain, down a dirt path. Eventually we came to a large boulder and the Elder placed spirit stones in three specific spots. The boulder sank into the ground, and we entered a dimly lit tunnel.

Elder Zedong had two members guard the entrance while I followed him inside along with the last sect member that had been accompanying him. He stopped occasionally to put another spirit stone in one of the many alcoves along the wall while mumbling.

“That should do it, hopefully. Stay close behind me,” he said as we reached a large chamber and doorway at the end of the tunnel. The door slowly swung open. Some dust fell down. Incredibly deep underneath the sect were two buildings. Both libraries, the main one, and the elder’s library had all their shelves transported down here.

“How?” I whispered.

“Teleportation array. Not good for living things and the cost is horrendous. But it is our trump card. Knowledge is something that is not easily recovered if lost. I was worried that the arrays hadn’t activated, but it is the first thing we are supposed to do in the event of a large scale attack,” he explained.

“Now it is time for you to pay the price for this knowledge.” I got worried for a moment. “Rebuilding. Let us leave here for now. We will rebuild, and then move everything back to the top of the mountain peak. But first…” he trailed off and moved to one side of the very large underground chamber. I hesitantly followed him along with the sect member.

“Building supplies,” I said quietly as he reached one side of the chamber. There were a large amount of spirit wood planks, nails, and other construction tools. The elder began putting a large amount into his spatial ring before we left. He sealed up the chamber behind us and we made our way back to the top of the plateau in silence.

The bodies and body parts had been collected and a large pyre was built. I noted the head of Sect Leader Li Fu had been collected as well. Apparently, it wasn’t a trap, just a macabre message. I checked the bodies for my niece and other people I was familiar with.

Wen Xue was among the deceased and all his belongings were missing. Gen, a one-time friend was also among the dead. Only parts of elders Liu Chen and Healer Meihui were found. Only burnt pieces of Martial Elder Lei’s battle gauntlet were found, indicating that all of them had perished in the battle.

The pyre was lit without fanfare at the edge of the plateau, near the cliff where the stairs used to be. I had spoken to the members a bit and learned that Half Moon City was fine, which was where they had come from. The words of Elder Zedong echoing in my head. If the sect had been wiped out then the Imperial Sect would have to actually respond or look weak.

But with this just being considered an attack, not a destruction of the entire sect, no matter how many had died, it could be brushed off as a minor fight. And even if we wanted to protest, there was no higher authority we could protest to. It was the Cloudy Moon Sect’s fault for being so weak and unable to defend itself. Even if a rank 8 demonic cultivator had attacked, the Cloudy Moon Sect was a mid-rank sect and expected to be able to handle threats up to that level of cultivation. Even if Aoyin was pushing that boundary, we were expected to still be able to handle him.

It was a huge shock, first the sect’s destruction, and secondly, my role in its destruction. My successes had propelled the Cloudy Moon Sect into people’s attention and had drawn enemies. Even if I wasn’t to blame, I felt some responsibility. I watched the fires burn the pyre down in silence as I thought on how many people had just lost their lives because of what I had set in motion.

If a man is rich and is robbed, it isn’t his fault that he is robbed, but the fault of the robber. But that was the logical answer, not the answer in my heart. I didn’t like fighting or violence. I might be good at it with a gun, but that was the power of the weapon in my hand, not any joy I felt from killing.

Other more martial sects and cultivators might derive joy from violence, but I enjoyed studying and improving myself one day at a time. Now everything was in jeopardy. Both my funds for cultivation and the chamber I needed. While I could retreat to the Imperial Sect, it would be a disaster once I got there. The elders weren’t idiots.

Such an attack had been expected. They had been hoping to endure it and have more people survive. But they hadn’t. They weren’t strong enough. Management was going to be turned over to the Han family, and my fifty percent would be in jeopardy.

I could sell the rest of my business, shares and everything, to pay for the rest of my third stage of cultivation, but that would be it. There would be nothing after that. I would go back to being poor with no source of income. That was the power of cultivators to take and destroy what they wished of those weaker than them. Only with backing could one hope to make their way in this world.

While I had only done small bits of work, I liked my mining business. It made me feel important and accomplished in a way that other things didn’t. Who didn’t want to be rich and successful? Now I was losing everything because I was too weak.

I could protest and might be able to appeal to Elder Xu Xiaoli of the Imperial Sect, but she would not move lightly. At best, I could give her a bit more ownership to ensure that whatever transaction I did went through without any shenanigans. That would be it.

The problem of this culture was that once your backers turned on you, there was very little recourse. There was no court or justice system. The only way to hold someone accountable was power. And everyone was powerless before the immortals in control of the high ranking sects. Once these people turned a blind eye or tacitly approved of what happened, there was nothing that could be done unless one was willing to fight and put their life on the line.

It was a bitter pill to swallow. While I had thought I had gotten used to everything in this place, the lack of any kind of accountability was shocking. An entire sect attacked, thousands killed, but no one could do anything. It galled me to have to bow my head to the Han family.

When I went back to Imperial City, I would have to consider other options besides capitulating immediately. It all led back to the Imperial Sect. They would get their due one way or the other. The real question was how culpable the Han family was. But first, my niece, could see be rescued?