Regressor Sect Master

A few days later [R+1Y1M]

“Have you two been well?” Tundra was in the room when Celestia and Elly walked in. Ever since his ascension to the seventh, there were more political matters. Meetings with guests, entertaining some of the other sect masters who stayed a little longer than he liked, and all that jazz. 

People he wouldn’t say he liked, so when the two walked in, he was fairly relieved. It was nice to finally be over all the social obligations of the Sect Master. 

“Exhausted.” Elly said, as she quickly sat next to Tundra. “Socially. And in terms of my mind. There are so many companions. Can we defer the next banquet?”

Tundra nodded. While Tundra handled the Sect Masters, the companions and wives often hung around each other as well. There were only that many tea parties and shopping expeditions one could do before they got tired of it. He saw the exhaustion in Elly’s eyes, as she somehow rested her head on his shoulders. 

“What about you?” 

Celestia nodded along, it was a little harder to notice the exhaustion in her features. “Elly dragged me along for all the events.”

Elly, one of her eyes closed, said with her head still on Tundra’s shoulders. “I’d die if I had to entertain so many people in a day. I had to spread it around. I made Marin handle some of the ladies too.”

Tundra wondered how Marin did. “Did everything go well?”

“I think so. I didn’t hear anything from the rest. They’re all so-” Elly’s exhausted mind searched for a word. Celestia completed it for her.

“They were all looking for information.” Celestia said. “They wanted to get more- entangled.”

“Yeah.” 

In his first life, his ascension to the seventh took quite a while, and by then, some of his wives were in their older stages. It didn’t help that the Verdant Snow Sect made many enemies through it’s constant conquest, so the banquet they held back then was much, much smaller. Just a small meal in between battles. 

It was really nice to have a peaceful life. The Zuja remains a threat, one he would have to work on, but there must’ve been a reason they waited thousands of years. It is highly important, but their response didn’t need to be immediate.  

He thought about the Whispering Man, and realized he needed a shadow arm of his own. In the alternate future where Verdant Snow ascended to be a great sect, he created a shadow arm to handle things in the shadows. 

It never got far because the Zuja plague exploded and everyone suffered in its wake. 

He needed to start earlier in this life, and he would need to begin looking for candidates. 

The regressor shook his head, and then refocused on the two beautiful women that were now sitting close. There was something about their scent that made him feel a little calm, and he now understood why some went to great lengths to tweak their scents. 

The two didn’t look like they were here for cultivation, so he waited for them to speak the topic they wanted to say. 

“-Did you really want to send Edison to the Mystical Harbors?” Elly asked. She must have thought about it for days, because there was genuine concern in her eyes. 

“I did. I wondered whether he would learn better if he was away from me. My influence did not help, and so, I thought he would do better being elsewhere, under a different tutor.”

Elly looked worried. “You are right, but I’m not sure if this is a good way to do it.”

“Is the Mystical Harbors an unsafe place?”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean, Edison- our son, I’m not sure if he can.” Elly frowned. 

Tundra wondered whether they babied the boy too much. Or neglect. 

He wasn’t sure what made his son this way. He wanted to give them opportunities to grow, and yet they turned it down. He wanted to give them a chance to let them escape from his watchful eyes and grow under other masters, and yet they seem reluctant. He gave them a chance to prove themselves, but they didn’t do much. 

“Then, how should I help him?” Tundra asked, feeling a kind of frustration. “What does he want?”

It felt like arguing with a toddler. 

He never had to do this with disciples. They wanted to be there. A chance to learn from the Sect master was something every disciple would fight for. A chance to prove their talents and earn rewards, even more so.

But children frustrated him. Maybe from their point of view, they didn’t ask for him to be their parent. They didn’t ask to be cultivators, either. They needed to decide for themselves what lives they wanted, but as a parent, Tundra naturally preferred if they chose cultivation. 

Cultivation was the only path where they could live long, and no parent wanted to watch their children grow old and die before they did. 

It was one of the few factors of why cultivators don’t have that many children, especially so in the higher realms. Because, as their own lifetimes extend longer and longer, the mental price of having a child and then losing it because the child couldn’t live longer than them weighed on them. It is for this reason that certain cultivators are extremely harsh and strict on their own children and descendants, and seek to control them. 

For some others, these patriarchs and matriarchs just lose touch and stop being able to care, and they view children as nothing different from cute little pets. They enjoy playing and training them, but at some level, they don’t view them as true peers. Their children are just little chess pieces. 

In some ways, Tundra felt like that. In that alternate future, when he had so many children and wives, they just stopped being ‘people’. 

He knew it was wrong. 

He looked at Elly, and Elly didn’t know how to answer him. “I- I don’t know what he really wants. I will ask him. I will try to ask him.”

Tundra nodded. “Thank you. He wouldn’t tell me the truth. I hope you can get something out of him.” 

On some level, maybe he didn’t even know what he wanted. Even if Edison knew the truth, would it help? All he knew is the path he had was painful, and so he avoided it, even if it could lead him to where he wanted to be. 

Elly sighed. It was not the first time he asked her for her help. But with their son, Tundra’s attempts were not working. 

“Ask him why he doesn’t want to go. What does he want me to help with?” Tundra vented. At some point, he wondered whether the right thing to do was to strip him of his status as the favored young master, and appoint some other son or grandson that’s more interested in cultivation.

Elly could only nod, and she was in her own thoughts then.

He then looked at Celestia. She was still in the 4th realm, but she has made small progress. He could feel the flow of energies when he touched her hands and her skin, there was more density to their flow. Cleaner. More efficient. 

Effectiveness and efficiency made some 4th realmers able to do what others cannot. She was getting better, and his aid helped. 

“You have something to say, Celestia?”

Celestia shook her head. “Not really. Nothing much. I just wanted to be here, and well, Lady Mistburn looked like she wanted company. But there is one small thing, one of the visiting ladies mentioned their trade caravans noticed an unnatural presence of spirit beasts along the northeastern routes towards the central farmlands. It was out of their land’s usual dominion, and within ours, so she thought it should belong to us.”

“Oh?” Politics of favors sure worked quickly.

“I highlighted this to Elder Severian and Jon, and both of them suggested that you should know directly.” 

Tundra nodded. A cultivator may feel the fortuitous encounters are fortuitous, but when a sect grows large enough, there are tiers to fortuitous encounters. Some become so common that they become mundane. A burst in spirit beast activity due to the presence of natural energy flows, or a crack in the earth exposing an old spiritual vein. 

Or even the weakening of an old treasure micro-realm’s hidden barrier. Many old masters in the 8th to 10th realm learned how to fold space to a limited degree, to create spatial pouches and bags, and later, applied this to actual areas to create secret treasure realms. 

These usually required the application of all five primary elements, in union to form the true energy-to-space fold. 

Fortuitous encounters are therefore very common. “Would you like to explore it yourself, Celestia?”

She shook her head. “I’d like to spend a little more time on my own cultivation.”

“I see. Then let’s arrange for one of the rest. Perhaps a Core Disciple along with some Inner Disciples.”

***

Marin Eastheart watched as the boy kneeled in front of her. His cultivation was surprisingly decent, and in some ways, his talent was only slightly inferior to her own. And yet, she could tell Tundra did something to him. 

It was the strange smoothness of his energies. He was just a kid. 

Was it the pill he gave to some of their kids? 

Did he move so quickly that Marsh Eastheart already received the mind clarity pill barely a few months since he returned? 

Or was she such a poor judge of character that she couldn’t tell his talent?

The boy knelt. Marin knew he cultivated furiously since the day he joined the Verdant Snow Sect, unsure whether his progress would be enough to avoid punishment. 

“Did the Sect Master do anything to you?”

He gulped. “-we only met once since that day, milady. I- I cannot tell what he did to me, all I knew was he held my hands briefly, and I felt the sensation of his energies flowing through mine.”

“And?” Marin prodded the boy to continue. 

“Nothing else. The master said I should remember that feeling and try my best to reproduce it.”

“That’s it?” Marin frowned, but at this point, she wasn’t sure whether hitting the boy would do any good. There would be no consequences if she did so, and yet, if this boy really did grow up to be a future 4th realm cultivator, there would be consequences then. 

“Yes, Lady Eastheart.” The boy said. His voice was trembling. 

“You may go.” The boy couldn’t believe it. Instead, his head went lower, to the point it almost touched the floor.

“If there is anything else you wish me to do-”

Fear. Trauma. Marin wondered whether this was her family’s doing. The boy was deathly afraid of her. Anyone of the main family. Tundra may have the right idea, but she wondered whether the fear carved into their soul could really be undone. 

Marin looked at the boy. The boy was uncertain.  

“Leave.” She said, yet he did not move. He still kneeled, and watching him made her frustrated. Annoyed. She raised her voice. “Leave!”

This time the boy responded to the command and ran. 

Yet this just made Marin feel terrible. She never realized how subservient they were, but now, decades apart from their family, she wondered how she would’ve been if she grew up there and still lived there until today. 

Would she be like that? 

It would be hard to undo the fear burned into the hearts of the distant members of their family.  

This is normal in their family. 

It made her uncomfortable. Yet, rather than face it, she shook her head. This is the way of the world. Nothing wrong with it. 

***

The room was filled with the strong stench of burning wood. It was a common source of heat for cauldrons, and Tundra hovered from cauldron to cauldron, checking them periodically. There’s tremendous variation in how different types of pills are made. Some are made slowly, some are made quickly. Some types of qualities hidden within its raw materials needed to be extracted slowly as high energy forces usually destroyed those unusual components. 

His senses, now elevated to the 7th, scanned each of them. 

Core Disciple Julia observed, and nodded. She had a notebook, but she was merely using it as a means to reinforce her learning. At this point, she focused her senses on the few pots around her, and watched how the master worked. 

Julia was one of the few core disciples that dabbled in alchemy. Most cultivators had a side thing to round up their skill sets and help them earn money. Yavin Redaxe was a diligent translator of ancient text. Yerra Wishstone meddled with crafting tools and armor. 

The two observed each other. Julia’s focus was on the alchemy, and Tundra, the teacher, observed her actions. 

She was meticulous when it came to alchemy, and it came from genuine interest. Still, her natural spiritual energies were wood. 

Of the five primary elements, fire, earth and metal had a natural advantage in alchemy. Fire’s control of heat meant more precision in the disassembly of materials. Earth and metal’s energies resonated better through cauldrons, and because most materials often contained trace amounts of unique metals, and it usually meant higher sensitivity to the reactions within the cauldron. 

Wood and water were the next tier. They could be useful, but water was more useful only in some applications such as boiling and water-based alchemical processes. Wood was mainly useful when dealing with natural materials, such as the Thousand-Year Ginsengs and the sort. 

Julia stared and felt the movements of the materials within the cauldron. 

These were the materials made from the stolen beast cores. Well, Tundra thought it was stealing, but he didn’t mind stealing from the Zuja.

They would be made into decent 5th realm pure energy pills, and should be a good boost for his disciples and elders. It should push them up a minor realm or two. 

“Adjust the swirling energies such that the elements rotate a little faster.” Tundra said, and Julia nodded. 

She was supposed to observe, but Tundra couldn’t help it. She injected a little bit of her energy into the cauldron, and adjusted the rotational movement of the materials. 

“Good. These beast cores’ energies are rotational. Some beast cores emit energies that tend to rise up and down like waves, and some are explosive in nature.”

Each different type of energy pattern needed different methods, but Julia knew that already. The theory is often simple, but knowing how much, and how fast or slow, is really where the pretender falters, and the master demonstrates why they are the master. Each material, each component have minute differences due to how it was harvested, how it was grown, and whether they were exposed to certain contaminants, and those minute differences change how they react in the cauldron just a little bit. 

If the alchemist only wants to create a pill that is good enough, then these differences don’t matter. But these minute differences are where a master can create a pill that is purer, and way more effective than a pill that is just good enough. 

All of this is entirely trial and error, or in some other words, experience. It is hard to explain and put into words why the slight differences in the balance or density of materials need to be treated with extra care. Sometimes it needs a little more energy, sometimes, a little less.

Julia tweaked it and Tundra smiled. She’s getting better, and she will be a fine alchemist one day. She will have to work harder to overcome the limitations of her natural wood element, but nothing is impossible.  

He felt proud of his disciples. The success of his disciples only contrasted strongly to the struggles he faced with his children.

He closed his eyes. It is not their fault. 

He will keep trying, but his mind remembered his conversation with his wives.

There will be a day he has to stop extending his hand, because they refuse to grab it.

The question is when? What will trigger it?