I Was Called A Demon

Having nearly been bored to death minutes prior, even the least interesting of distractions proved sufficient for time to simply fly by. Cultivating without the assistance of the kitsune – and, to a smaller extent, Song Ming – was clearly slower, but it did allow her to relax quite a bit more, not to mention the fact that, according to Xue Yaling, her speed was already higher than average for someone of her realm.

Supposedly, it could take years to make a stage of progress in the Planar Pool realm, as Song Ming could attest, but she felt like she was progressing ever so slightly faster.

It was hard to tell, though. Perhaps she was moving very quickly in comparison to others, but to her, it felt as if she was doing nothing for hours, since observing the dantian inside her body filling up with energy got dull rather quickly. She wasn’t sure if there were people that did this kind of thing for longer than a few hours, but if there were, she wasn’t sure whether to feel pity for them, or to stay as far away from them as possible.

Whatever the better answer was, she had little time to contemplate as she felt someone obstructing the light from the opening of the tent again. She reluctantly dropped an attempt to control energy on her own, the lack of success discouraging her from even trying to ignore the interruption.

“I must say, walking towards this place reminded me of my visit to the tomb of an ancient demonic cultivator,” Xue Yaling said as she entered, a weary Song Ming following behind her, “It was cleared out at the time, but it still retained quite the intimidating aura. Now, consider what that feeling is like for others, who don’t have the same resistance to your aura that we do.”

“… Do I have to? Also, some guy came over and told me about the previous person that showed up here unannounced.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“I think he said something about a man that summoned a bunch of soldiers who fought the loggers, and then left. Now, there was about an hour of other nonsense, but I have no idea how he managed to take so long to explain something so simple.”

Xue Yaling raised an eyebrow, “I have a feeling it’s not quite as straightforward as you say it is. Have you remembered anything more precise, or must I seek out that man myself?”

“Well, I can roughly describe it to you if you like, though I should mention that half of it was so fucking dull that it’s starting to disappear from my mind already…” Bianca sighed, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll start… though I would much rather not.”

 

“… Huh. Song Ming, you encountered a particular cultivator when you fought off the Treading Earth near Xi Village, did you not?” Xue Yaling asked after Bianca’s retelling was done, “User of the Breach archetype?”

“Mhm. Is he related to the man that appeared here?”

“No. Well, not as far as I am aware. The user of the Breach archetype might well have been Jun Jie, a mighty general on the Exarch’s side. What I wished to note was that there are more users of unusual archetypes around than most years in recorded history. Exarch, Breach, the Heaven archetype up to the north-east, rumours of an opposing Human archetype, a rumoured Theft archetype, and now this… what name does it even deserve? Army? Legion?”

“Legion…” Bianca repeated that word, almost tasting it as she did so, “I do like that quite a bit. Not sure why.”

“Fuck it, Legion it is. For your information, that is not usually how the names of archetypes are decided, though, to be fair, I do not doubt that a number were named simply based on what the common descriptor for it is,” the kitsune shrugged, “Anyway, since conflict is brewing between two forces with such unique archetypes, and more are appearing all over the place, I do wonder if there is something more happening around us.”

“Something more?” Song Ming asked.

“In various historical accounts I’ve read, there are mentions of especially notable times when the heavens part and spill their blessings onto the world… imagery aside-”

“Ew.”

“- there is enough reason to assume that it’s more than just mere superstition.”

‘… Seriously? I show up and there’s some kind of strange event happening with a bunch of random archetypes showing up… I don’t appreciate that in the slightest. Why did I have to show up now of all times… and where exactly is the sense in that? Can’t people just come up with whatever archetypes they want?’ Bianca thought for quite a while, but with her head already partially fried by Lao Ping’s lengthy account and her attempt to retell it, she lacked the will to bring any of these things up, “So, what does that mean for us?”

“Fun times. Heh, just kidding. We’ll need to watch out for uncommon archetypes like the ones I listed, though I doubt we’ll run into anyone using the Exarch archetype at the very least. With how close the Exarch is to their archetype, it’s unlikely anybody would have gotten their hands on it while the Exarch still lives.”

Song Ming nodded along, so Bianca had no choice to believe it.

“What about all of those other ones? And, more importantly, what exactly are they? How does an archetype work?”

Xue Yaling sighed, “I have a feeling I must have explained this to you already.”

“Mind doing it again?”

“Do you need me to repeat exactly what an archetype is, or do you at least remember that?”

“Nah, I think I do. It’s a set of skills and techniques that function along the same principles and are able to fill every slot in one’s arsenal, right?”

“Mhm, more or less. In particular, I like the use of the word ‘slot’ – quite fitting, I think. An archetype requires at least one technique and skill in every category, and all of them must be able to function together in a synergistic manner. Ideally, the energy one cultivates will be ideal for each of the skills used, and the skills will be able to interact with one another to empower the cultivator beyond their typical limits. A common example of this are domains, wherein one spreads their energy, influences the land, and then uses it to empower additional skills.”

“Right – I think – but what is an Exarch? How does that form into an archetype’s concept?”

“Darling, you are not ready to hear about the Exarch. Let me teach you about… hm, the Breach archetype is most familiar to me, as its user made sure to demonstrate it during a number of battles, so that’ll be the one I explain. Make sure to pay attention, since I’d rather not repeat myself,” the kitsune said, and gave Bianca a few moments to ready herself.

If she had a notebook to take out, she most certainly would have – or, preferably, a laptop or even just her phone, since she could turn on the microphone and then refer to the recording whenever she wanted – but she had no such thing. Thus, all she could do was adjust her seating position a bit.

A more comfortable way of sitting would do little to her ability to comprehend anything related to planar cultivation and this world’s strange rules, but at the very least she wouldn’t need to spend the entirety of the lecture in discomfort. And if she did understand something, she would likely do so better if she was comfy.

“Let me begin with the cultivation technique. While I cannot tell you of the exact circulation paths used, I can say with plenty of certainty that it produces an opening within the dantian from planar energy. It can be attuned to different elements, changing the appearance of the breach accordingly, but they are all framed with an endless number of fingers, forming the outside of the opening. The unique structure created by the cultivation technique is key to every single skill that follows, as each one evokes the structure into the outside world and empowers the skills as a result.”

The kitsune looked around and then quickly sighed.

“I would have been able to roughly demonstrate the concept, but the space is less than ideal for a number of reasons,” Xue Yaling sighed, “Song Ming’s account should be enough for you to imagine it, and if not, tough.

“The primary premise of the archetype is the opening and eruption of rifts – breaches, if you will – and the release of monstrous beings from within. Hence, the primary combat skills are all related to this: Flash Break, Pull of the Breach, Monstrous Flood and Hand of a Lord are the most well known skills, though they doubtlessly have numerous variants. You might be able to guess their function from the names, but I shall elaborate regardless.”

Song Ming spoke up, “Wait, Hand of a Lord? Does that create a hand that can grasp an enormous being, like, for example, a Treading Earth?”

“Yes, that is an example of what the Hand of a Lord can produce. Don’t interrupt me again.”

“Sorry.”

“Flash Break is the most combat skill of the Breach archetype. It opens the rift within one’s dantian in the outside world, and releases from it monstrous beings that are able to operate within the boundary of the rift. It is supposedly possible to open up a rift like this without the use of the cultivation technique, but the efficiency and efficacy would be vastly reduced if it was attempted.”

“Is it similar to the things created by the guy that showed up here a few days ago?” Bianca asked, “The monstrous beings, whatever those are, are they as… special as the warriors he created? With how much Lao Ping was salivating over them, it certainly seemed as if they were something unique.”

“So you did pay a bit of attention. No, the legion produced by that odd man was very much unique in terms of its ability to demonstrate cultivator-like properties, possibly suggesting that they may even be able to cultivate within some internal domain or that they can be imbued with the cultivator’s energy in an unusual fashion, but to verify that, I’d need to meet him myself. I’d rather not do that while his motives are as unclear as they are.”

“That’s fair… Bianca, can I rest on… uhm, your thighs?”

“Um, sure,” she was caught off-guard, but she wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to occupy herself with something far more sensible, “I’ll adjust if it’s uncomfortable. Anyway, Flash Break… seems understandable, I guess. What about that Hand one?”

“I’m getting to it, you lovebirds,” Xue Yaling sighed, “Pull of the Breach functions according to the opposite principle. Flash Break is about unleashing the entities of the rift, and Pull is, as you might be able to guess, about pulling in a target into the domain of the breach. That being said, very few that the Pull of the Breach has been used upon have actually been dragged inside, and to my knowledge, the most that being pulled inside will do is inconvenience you briefly, since there isn’t truly a world within the cultivator’s dantian.”

“There isn’t?” for once, it was Song Ming asking, though she yawned a moment later and turned away, finding a comfortable spot on Bianca’s thighs and shutting her eyes.

“No, there isn’t. Spatial capabilities and creating entire worlds is a little beyond the fourth realm, which is the minimum for using the basic skills of this archetype. They require the stability of a core to be executed to a sufficient level, which is the fourth realm. And, since you won’t remember, spatial capabilities are a seventh realm thing, though that’s just for creating artefacts most of the time. To freely use spatial abilities, the eighth realm would be required.”

‘Uh-huh… I am so glad I hadn’t used the Demon’s Commanding Rod this time, since her breath would… well, it’s still kinda doing it…’ Bianca had to shut her eyes for a moment and focus herself again, “Right, so, next skills?”

The kitsune looked at her with a raised eyebrow, glancing down for a moment at Song Ming, and sighed again. No matter how disappointed she was, it was apparently not enough for her to stop her explanation, as she resumed it after a few more moments. The aura of disapproval remained around her for quite a while longer, but it quickly mellowed out and became mixed with the usual smug look that she had.

“Monstrous Flood is the first of the fifth realm skills, and is an improvement over Flash Break. Rather than snapping open a rift and unleashing some foes once, it creates a static, stable opening from which entities are spat out continuously. These are more akin to the entities produced by the man that visited this place a few days ago, though, again, principles likely vary in many regards.

“One thing that may be the same is how such intricate beings are created on the spot. Obviously, forming complex planar constructs is nothing unusual, especially in the higher realms, but it takes time to devise beings that go beyond simple shapes and a practical form. To have something like that man’s army emerge, it would require far more effort than is strictly necessary for a casual planar constructs. However, if his techniques rely on generating a certain image – an internal domain, if you will – that is kept stable and then formed using planar energy when the skill is unleashed, then it may well be very similar to the Breach archetype in that regard.”

Again, it sounded like nonsense to her, but she was vaguely able to understand that a concept could be stored within the body or mind and then reproduced with planar energy. That resembled saving a file and then just pasting it into a document, so at least it was somewhat comprehensible.

Then again, she might be getting it entirely wrong, in which case she was just throwing herself off further. It wouldn’t be very helpful to completely mislead herself for however long it might take for Xue Yaling or Song Ming to spot and correct the misunderstanding, so she… well, she didn’t do much, since, in the time it took for her to get through all the thinking in her head, Xue Yaling had already moved on to the next skill on the list.

“This is the last one of the combat skills that I can speak about with certainty. Higher realm ones have been seen in combat, but rarely are they used against foes that don’t require their use, and when they are, those in the area rarely survive long enough to provide a detailed description. Naturally, Jun Jie is not especially keen on sharing the details of his skills either, since it would only give his foes more opportunities to strike at him and find his weaknesses,” the kitsune explained, “And one that might wake Song Ming up. Hand of a Lord. The first of, apparently, several skills relating to a certain Lord of the Breach.”

As she predicted, Song Ming did stir in Bianca’s lap, though she did little more than adjust her position before seeming to just doze off again.

“Um… what did you do to her? How is she so tired?”

“Exercise does that to a person. She needed to learn how to swing an axe with the proper amount of energy infused into it, and infused in the appropriate manner,” she answered, her frustration seemingly diminishing a great deal at the change of topic, “It’s not the most straightforward thing, and puts a lot of pressure on musculature.”

“Does it tire out a second realm cultivator with a physique to this extent? I thought both of those things were meant to help.”

“In her current state, pressure on the physique will not, in fact, help. You do remember that her body can’t handle it, right? However, the physical training will make it easier for her to accommodate the power of the physique, and if she was to reach a level equivalent to, say, the fifth or sixth realm, she might have no more issues with it. Might being the vital word there… Honestly, you two are too fucking weird. I really hope you don’t attract anyone like you to your side.”

“I, um… Don’t plan on it?” Bianca said, “How would I do that, anyway?”

“How did you end up in Xi Village without memories to begin with? There has to have been some kind of reasoning behind it, and I imagine you can’t be the only one in such circumstances.”

“Why not?”

“Rarely is there something that is truly unique. Truly irreplaceable. Most skills can be reproduced, most techniques can be recovered, most artefacts… well, you get the basic idea of things, I hope. Even the Western Continent’s Master of Yi City is, most likely, a figure that will appear once more, if given enough time, and that person is seen as a human that was on par with the heavens in some places,” Xue Yaling said, “The only way you’d end up somewhere in a manner that nobody else could would be if you did run into that incredibly rare thing, and if you did… well, you were either blessed by the heavens or cursed to the utmost degree.”

“So, it was probably a repeatable thing? Some skill, or pill, or whatever else?” Bianca asked, though the examples she would have preferred to use differed quite a bit, ‘I don’t think I did anything especially unique that day, though, at the same time, my memories of it were faint the moment I woke up in this world. Now, I can barely recall anything aside from Lia, Roz and the moron I punched…’

She couldn’t help but sigh. Although the scenario had begun to fade from memory, she would have liked to know how she ended up in the Planar Continents, and ideally to figure out a manner of returning to Orbis. Assuming her appearance in this world was due to something she did or encountered on her last day on Orbis, then it would have to be something that either wasn’t supernatural – since she knew of nothing supernatural in that world, fiction and its contents aside – or something that looked ordinary enough for her to have no idea.

If it was something she missed, then perhaps the people of the world would too, and if it was truly ordinary, then it shouldn’t be too difficult to get her hands on it.

“Who knows. The question, really, is whether you just lost your memory, or were transported to a different location in the process. There’s always the possibility that someone else did it to you, perhaps due to your techniques or skills, or that you did this to yourself… or that the heavens decided to punish you for your misdeeds.”

“I… don’t think I’ve had many misdeeds. I hope.”

“Well, how would you know? Are your memories returning?” Xue Yaling asked in a strange tone, looking directly into Bianca’s eyes, “It would help us all a lot, and if you can finally understand anything cultivation-related, it will spare me so many fucking explanations…”

“Sorry, but no luck yet… I don’t think…”

“Right. I’m sure that’s the case,” her tone became even stranger, but only until she suddenly clapped her hands and said, “Well, Hand of a Lord. Interesting name, truth be told, given that it refers to a Lord as if there are many, when, if one was to be reasonable, they would make it so that they were the Lord of their own breach. This ability produces a small opening from which a hand reaches out, grasping at a target and potentially attempting to crush them. Otherwise… it sounds simple, doesn’t it?”

“… Yes? I’m not sure why you’re asking me when I barely understand any of this stuff on a good day… which today probably isn’t.”

“Ancient’s sake, I’m trying to teach you. Fifth realm skill, seems to only produce a hand, though quite a big one. Is that really the full extent of its effects, or is there more that isn’t immediately obvious to an outside observer?”

“Is it possible that it is all it does?”

“Well… I can’t actually complain, because that is a reasonable question. Yes, there are certain skills that simply perform a particular action extremely well, and do nothing else. An extremely strong but simple barrier, for example, could be designed around the capabilities of the ninth realm’s infinite energy, thus being a ninth realm skill, and be just that simple.”

The kitsune nodded again.

“But! Most skills of any realm are specifically meant to take advantage of that cultivator’s power, hence making them distinct from abilities of lower realms. Any combat skill of the first realm can be used at any higher realm, with effects that will exhibit the difference in realm to any casual observer – hopefully even someone like you-”

“Hey-”

“- but there is a big gulf between that and the true power that a given realm can demonstrate. Consider the second realm, for instance. Your skill, Dominion’s Light, purely channelled energy within the weapon you used. If that was the only thing you did in the second realm, then while you would be able to cut through objects with far greater ease, at least in theory, but your current advantage would be eliminated. You wouldn’t be able to attack at range using purely the same principles.”

“And if I wasn’t able to do that, my actual strength would be significantly lower than if I used the current variant of the skill?”

“Finally! Ahem, I mean, yes, that’s it. The difference between the first and second realm are most obvious at a glance, but the principle carries on regardless of realm. A planar construct meant for the second realm will be designed around limited range of control and a relatively frail state, but one for the third can be far more stable and act at a greater distance, fundamentally changing how you would attack a foe outside of your reach. The fourth realm brings with it stabilised energy that can be manifested into even more complex constructs… hm. Odd.”

“What is?”

“…”

“Eh… is it to do with the guy that showed up at the logging site?”

Xue Yaling sighed, “Close enough. His skills were more similar to a fourth realm combatant, not a third realm one, which means that his particular archetype is especially unique.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Dangerous, for one. If there is truly such an era where all kinds of unique archetypes and skills reveal themselves, then there is a greater chance of us meeting with one of them, and there is also a notable chance of them appearing as our foes. If they do appear and are our foes… we might be fucked if you don’t figure out your own abilities to a sufficient degree.”

“Can’t you protect us?”

“Are you stupid? I may be above average… probably, but that’s when compared to the usual cultivator. Even the man that appeared here should be vastly more powerful than I am, and that’s just one person. He might not have mastered his skills, and he might have been in a weakened state, and there is every chance that there are numerous others who are stronger regardless. Furthermore, not every archetype is like the Exarch’s. Most will not be truly unique, though I believe I said enough on that topic already.”

“Yeah, you did… so what does the hand actually do?” Bianca suddenly realised that their discussion had veered away from the original matter by quite a bit.

“Hm? Oh, the Hand of a Lord. In addition to immense strength and size, it is also capable of imparting secondary effects through touch. It can cause anything it touches to rot, or turn to stone, or otherwise be affected in a negative manner. The exact function, however, seems highly dependent on the cultivator, as some accounts of the Hand of a Lord describe very different consequences to being grabbed by it. Hence, if you run into anyone other than Jun Jie, you should be extremely cautious about the hand’s effects, and that’s assuming that you reach the fifth realm and can defend yourself from every other skill.”

“That’s… unlikely, isn’t it?”

“Yep. You’re not anywhere near the fifth realm, even with the current pace of your cultivation. Without external aid or a lot of good luck, you shouldn’t expect to reach that realm in anything less than… five years, more likely six.”

“F-Five? That’s… uh… quite a while. Wait, even if the time it takes increases ten times with each realm, shouldn’t I still be able to progress rapidly with your help? You and Song Ming are also cultivating more quickly as a result, so we should be able to aid one another and progress much faster than usual, right?” Bianca asked.

“That number was me already taking this all into account. Now, let’s not waste any more time and rest up. Song Ming is already doing exactly that, and the two of us will be having to work hard as well.”

“Both of… wait, I thought I didn’t need to chop any wood.”

“You don’t. The only wood for you to take care of is your own, heh,” Xue Yaling smirked, though she didn’t linger on the joke as seriousness returned to her expression, “You need to play the part that you’ve chosen. In time, I bet that this camp will receive word of a wanted criminal, a demon, escaping in this direction. At that point in time, you need to act so differently from the reports provided that you cannot possibly be mistaken for the same person. The change in your appearance will help, naturally, but it’s not like you’ve completely transformed.”

“… True. Fine…” Bianca glanced at the sleeping back, then sent a quick glare at the kitsune, “No messing with either of us.”

“Wasn’t going to.”

“I don’t believe that for a second. Anyway, good night.”

“Nighty, honey.”