NOVEL FROG Chapter 32: Guidance 'freely' given
Transmigrated back into the body of her child self, can the mighty Celestial Bing Meilu survive in a Xianxia world all the while staving off the advances of arrogant young masters and wannabe protagonists alike?
Why is life so hard for the Icy Beauty?
Any corrections or criticisms are welcome, I hope you enjoy Chapter 32: Guidance 'freely' given
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Eight men followed Bing Meilu into her throne room.
Jiang Hu, former head of the Crimson Dragon Faction. His fiery draconic Qi and copper-attuned body were well formed for the sabre combat the muscular man favoured.
Li Ji, the Yin Metal cultivator and skilled manager who had come to deal with the daily running of the BMFS Faction.
Xi Fu, who rested his weight on the shaft of the spear that formed the basis of his cultivation as he walked behind her
'The Elemental Four', a quartet ... of Five Phases Cultivators. There would be a fifth member soon or Bing Meilu may just lose her mind.
Last and certainly least, Private Ji, an idiot. His discordant, malformed meridian system was an affront to the entire history of cultivator culture and the human race. Still, Bing Meilu's instruction, the knowledge and expertise of ten thousand lifetimes, would be enough to transform even the foolish. After all, to her, the difference between the greatest genius of mankind and a village idiot was like the difference between two different ants to a human. Utterly irrelevant.
They arrived within Bing Meilu's throneroom. In the center was a large bowl covered in blood-red symbols. When the men offered their blood to the chalice, they would be bound by contract to Bing Meilu and her faction, unable to betray her lest they suffer a horrible backlash or even death. It could also serve other purposes, such as tracking or informing her if the members were in danger.
As a failsafe, it was not foolproof, Bing Meilu did not have the resources to waste on anything stronger and it would have to do for now. The young girl raised her hand, and a jagged knife of sky-blue ice formed. She tossed it to the feet of Li Ji.
"Offer your blood to the chalice."
The lanky man gulped nervously as he nodded, picking up the knife and stepping hesitantly towards the chalice. He placed the blade to his palm and gingerly sliced it. The cultivator winced, letting drops of blood fall into the enchanted chalice.
"Welcome to the Inner Circle, Li Ji!"
Li Ji exhaled in relief, placing the knife by the side of the chalice, and taking a seat by Bing Meilu's side.
"Jiang Hu, your turn."
The tall muscular man strode forward. He did not bother with the knife, biting into his wrist with his teeth and spitting a mouthful of blood directly into the cup. Next up was the leader of the Elemental Four.
"Slave six..."
The earth cultivator quickly finished the business with a confident yet nervous energy. The rest quickly followed, each putting some amount of blood into the chalice.
Slowly, the symbols carved onto the side of the chalice began to glow with red light. Lines of qi lashed out, wrapping around the Dantians of the eight inner circle members.
"Now that we have that out of the way, prepare to receive my personal guidance. Never let it be said that Bing Meilu does not reward loyalty, even from her lowly slaves... Li Ji, stand before me."
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Li Ji hesitantly stepped toward the pale-skinned child. Her icy eyes seemed to pierce into his soul, and he winced as he recalled the horrifying killing intent that had ripped him to shreds as the tiny child effortlessly demolished his former leader, Jiang Hu. No matter how much time he spent in her presence, he could never become comfortable.
With Jiang Hu, it had always felt like they were a band of brothers, comfortable and rowdy. While some may be stronger than others, they were all fundamentally similar. It was not like that with Bing Meilu. When around her he always felt so out of place, like he was in the presence of someone from a different world.
The man walked up to her, biting his lip as he bowed as deeply as he could. He was not even this respectful when bowing to his own father, who was in Core Formation., But then again, he'd never seen his father literally cave in a man's body during a fight.
Bing Meilu's eye bored into him for a long moment, before she began to speak.
"I've already given you a worthy cultivation method, so there is no need to change anything there. However, I've been very disappointed with your cultivation speed."
Li Ji visibly stepped back, confusion and horror filling his eyes. He'd displeased her? He was only twenty-five. To reach the eighth stage of Qi Condensation by that age, while not top genius material, was fairly impressive.
"B-but I've finally pushed back my bottleneck and reached the eighth stage of Qi Condensation. At my age, that's already impre-"
The girl slightly narrowed her eyes, and Li Ji froze, sweat beginning to drip from his brow. That had been foolish.
"It's not your place to have opinions when I'm speaking, Li Ji. Perhaps reaching the eighth stage in a week is impressive to the lowly dogs at the dregs of the Armada," she sniffed in disdain. "But it is nothing even close to the universe that mediocrity lies in, do you understand? You're a member of Bing Meilu's Faithful Slave Faction, and we have standards here. With a technique as potent as The Jade Tributary Convergence, you should have reached Foundation Establishment already. If you were at my old sect you'd have been made a laughing stock for such a claim. "
'Foundation Establishment from the seventh stage? In a week?' Li Ji blinked. 'She's... joking with me, right? She must just have a strange sense of humour.'
"Now, part of that is my fault, for failing to account for the fact, you, coming from a backwater background, lacked the knowledge to properly harness the Jade Tributary Convergence's true power. I overestimated your knowledge, which is my fault. The Jade Tributary Convergence, being a Yin Metal technique, is tied to the Dao of Wealth. To properly cultivate it, one needs either a massive amount of money or another way to gather Yin Metal Qi."
Li Ji struggled to keep his face calm. As the eldest son of the Head of the Southtip Trading Company, he was more familiar with Yin Metal Qi than most. To have his background derided as a pitiful backwater... it did sting a little.
'But then again... the fact she managed to effortlessly resolve my bottleneck and even improve my cultivation method shows she knows more about the Dao of Yin Metal than even me. I had no clue that was something practiced in the Moon-Crying Swan Palace, but I suppose it makes a little sense, given they were Yin Ice cultivators. There is at least a little overlap.'
However, he did understand what she was saying. Accumulating vast wealth was the core of 'merchant style' Yin Metal cultivation. He simply lacked the resources to cultivate any faster.
'What does she want from me then?'
"Now, there is a fairly easily accessible source of Yin Metal Qi in the form of the invisible flow of karmic merit and wealth, the Jade Rivers that travel through our world. You will of course begin to sense them naturally during the Great Sage Realm."
'Invisible rivers? The... Great Sage Realm?'
This was a piece of information about the Dao of Yin Metal that Li Ji had never heard before. But it was no wonder. After Nascent Soul, one stepped into the Transcending Impurity Realm, purifying their body until they were ready to ascend to the Saint Realm. Then after that was the Great Sage Realm. No one in Li Ji's family had even reached Transcending Impurity.
'To think there were such massive aspects of the Dao of Yin Metal my family had no clue about...'
A feeling of anxiety began to bubble up in Li Ji's stomach. He had been comfortable attempting to create his own cultivation method because he considered himself an expert, whose family knew more about Yin Metal than almost any other merchant group in his region. Now he was beginning to feel like he was nothing more than a frog at the bottom of a well.
"Until then, however, you cannot normally access them as a source of Qi. Rather than wait until then, I'll impart to you a special sensory method, the Manyfold Good Fortune Dao-Enshrining Scripture."
Bing Meilu began to chant in a foreign tongue. As she spoke the incantations, her Qi rhythmically pulsed and she began to feel strands of mysterious Qi flit through the air. While the girl had never cultivated the Dao of Wealth, she was familiar with it.
The Crystal Providence Heavenly Tome, the legacy of the Crystal Providence, was the absolute highest Yin law, and as its master, Bing Meilu naturally held a certain familiarity with other Yin-aligned methods. Li Ji nodded, inscribing the mnemonic to memory.
Li Ji mimicked the mnemonic, feeling his qi begin to shudder and pulse according to some esoteric formula he could only barely grasp. Already, despite have barely begun to use the technique, vast swathes of information begin to flitter through his soul. His eyes widened.
'This technique... any of the merchant sects in the continent would kill to have it.'
Around him he could feel pulsing lines of karmic wealth and Qi, naturally flowing through the world as money changed hands. The applications of a technique like this in the hands of anyone who followed the Dao of Wealth were near infinite.
Li Ji may have acknowledged his own limits, but he was absolutely certain a technique this heaven-defying was not in the hands of any of the major merchant groups in the Bird Talon Continent. For the Moon Crying Swan Palace to possess such a technique despite focusing on the Dao of Ice... utterly terrified him.
Just how deep were the foundations of the Twelve-Headed Avian Sect?
The more time he spent as her subordinate, the more Li Ji felt his decision to bet his future on the girl had been the absolutely correct one. The technique she had given him would be enough to guarantee the rise of his bloodline for countless generations.
'She seems hard on the outside... but the generosity of this level is worthy of even the benevolent deities of heaven,' Li Ji bowed deeply once more, but this time it was out of genuine respect, rather than fear.
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Bing Meilu struggled to retain a smirk. Though the Manyfold Good Fortune Dao-Enshrining Scripture was indeed a way for Li Ji to speed up his cultivation... that had nothing to do with why she had given it to him.
As a common technique employed by followers of the Dao of Wealth in higher realms, it allowed one to sense flows of wealth through the world and many other aspects of the world. In other words, the perfect technique for a manager who would be in charge of her factions finances.
'So long as I, Bing Meilu, never have to look at another budget sheet again, I won't have cultivated for nothing. Li Ji, your sacrifices will be well appreciated.'
As the founder of her own sect, the girl had dealt with more than enough paperwork for a thousand lifetimes. As her faction grew, the burden of management would fall on Li Ji and his subordinates and it was a fate Bing Meilu did not envy in the slightest.
'Oh well, what are slaves for if not to give them all the difficult jobs?' the girl shrugged. 'Besides, after dealing with running my own sect, I think I've more than earned myself the right to never so much look as a contract or budget for my next thousand reincarnations!'