Wreath of Lilies, Cauldron of Poison

Chapter 180

Ascetic Training Crash Course: Hyper-condensed version

Akira and Martell were standing almost bare naked in the middle of a snowfall. A rope was attached to each of their waists. The ends of which were held by Klein and Nick respectively.

“M-m-m-martell…! W-w-why d-did we agree…t-to this?!” Akira said, teeth chattering.

“C-cause w-w-w don’t h-have a choice!” Martell replied. Though he could resist the cold somewhat, his Race was not made for winter. Especially not when wearing almost nothing in the middle of quickly worsening snowfall.

And it all started because of the damn old man puffing on a pipe with a shit-eating grin on his face.

After Akira’s coerced affirmation, Martell suddenly spoke out. “Guild Master, I haven’t agreed yet.”

Sabrac frowned in displeasure. “You are a follower of the Enlightened One; this is not something you can refuse.”

“You are asking me to do something that will put my life at risk. Something that might even kill you, an Unrestrained. I think you’ve got to add something to the bargaining table, right?

“…hmmm,” the old man scratched his beard impatiently. “You want to bargain with me?”

“You are a Hunter, surely you know that a just reward for a job well done is important?” Martell said politely, trying his best to hide the trembling in his voice. Thankfully the curse allowed him to hide most of his emotion.

“…” Sabrac considered this for a moment. “What do you want then? Money? Weapons? Items?”

Martell took a deep breath. If I asked him for any of those things, I would have gotten something very precious. But no, the most important thing at the man’s level are not all those things.

“A favor. You’ll owe me a favor.”

“A favor, huh?” Sabrac chuckled. “Very well, a favor for a job well done.”

“Is it a deal?”

“Deal.”

Hearing that answer, Martell exhaled slowly. His heart was beating crazily.

“Now that everything’s taken care of, you two will need to read this.”

The old man handed over to them a well-worn book, its edges had become horribly dog-eared. The glue that bound the cover together had started to fall apart. Akira read the fading title slowly. “The Words of the Enlightened One: A Collection of the Way of Life for a True Follower of The Path of Enlightenment.”

“This title is so long,” Akira said. The length reminded him of the light novels he had read in his commutes in his past life.

“That book is the foundation of the Meditation Skill of my school. I’ll give you both one night to read everything from end to end. We’ll start our training early tomorrow morning.”

“What about us?” Rhoddes asked. Eager to help.

“That book is a closely guarded secret of my temple. I only let them learn it because one is a Hero and the other is a Junior Disciple of the Path. As for the rest of you, I’ve already got something in mind.”

After that, Akira took the first turn and happily found that once he finished reading the book, he learned two new Skills. Meditation and Mental Resistance.

Not knowing the hell that would follow the next day.

This took us back to the strange scene unfolding in the middle of a deserted village. With everyone except the amused Sabrac being cold and mildly confused.

“Anyone can train their body to become stronger,” Sabrac explained, as he blew a smoke from his nose. “Do farm work, lift buckets of water, or chop trees. Do these enough times, and within a month you’ll build up muscles. Easy. But tempering the mind is different. The process takes much longer. Months, if not years. That’s why even the most seasoned warriors can fall into mental attacks. I’m sure most of you know about what happened during the Ball.”

His words brought bitter memories back for those who experienced it, but the old man did not care. He put up five fingers in front of his chest. “In five days, you both need to go up to the top of the stairs. If you can’t, then you should all give up.”

“Why five days?” Nick asked.

“Because that’s the limit of my patience,” the old man too another puff of his pipe. “And the limit of the seal put up by my predecessors.”

“C-can we p-please start with whatever we-,” Akira closed his mouth, trying to stop his chattering. “-we are g-going to do!”

“I’m getting to that. So how are we going to shorten the process that takes months and years of discipline into just a few days? Easy. You see, the Catastrophe Authority emitted by the Fragment is being held in check by the protection of my predecessor. The border of which is at the bottom of the stairs. So now, I want you to walk up the stairs. You will resist the mental attack up to the brink of madness.”

“When you begin to show the signs of falling, your friends here will pull you with the ropes. After you gather yourself up, you start walking up the stairs again. Rinse and repeat. Oh, and lest I forget, boy, don’t use the Sutra, I want you to resist it by your own willpower,” the man said with a wide smile. But for them, it was the smile of a madman.

“What! That’s madness!!” Hannah complained.

“I also still don’t understand why they need to take off their clothes,” Donovan stated.

“It’s not an ascetic training without suffering both mind and body! The cold is just in the mind. Control it, and you can raise your Skills with twice the effectiveness! Now stop yapping and start walking!”

Martell and Akira looked at each other and nodded. Both taking a step up the stairs. The moment they went inside the invisible protection, they both screamed.

“Resist it, you fools!” Sabrac said. “It’ll do nothing if you don’t make the effort! The Hero’s starting to fall, pull!”

Klein pulled the rope, dragging Akira, who was clutching at his head and mumbling at himself, back to safety.

“Give him a few minutes, then make him go again!”

“Er, Guild Master, what do you want us to do?” Rhoddes asked.

“You’ll see, it should be time soon,” the old man said.

Just then, Nick shouted. “Monsters! Eleanora, step back and prepare your magic!”

Rhoddes turned towards the old man. “With all the screaming from the two of them, of course they will attract monsters, right? It’s your job to protect them. At the same time, you will learn how to fight in groups. This way, everyone gets something!”

Soon, the deserted village became filled with the sounds of battle and screams of fear.

The second day of the gruesome training and already Akira was screaming and crying in his sleep. Martell closed his ears with his hands while reading the Sutra, trying to drown the screams that followed him in his sleep.

On the third day, Martell managed to reach halfway up the steps, while Akira was following six steps behind. The problem was, the higher they got, the harder it became. They had not managed to advance more than a step for the whole day.

As for the others, they took turns on who were on rope duty and who were taking care of the monsters. Even with their high levels, continuous waves of powerful monsters of at least C-Rank that did not fear death took a toll on their mental health, and the once quite talkative group became largely sullen and irritated. Even the bright Donovan could not find a way to keep their spirits up.

The evening of that day, while Akira and Martell were gazing into the bonfire with dead eyes and Sabrac was out to gods know where, Hannah was complaining to others.

“This is torture! Nothing but pure torture!” Hannah exclaimed, kicking at an empty bowl near her. “What in Sud-Ghazid does he think we are?”

“Look, Lady Hannah,” Nick said with a sigh. “I get that you’re angry, as we've been fighting with lack of proper rest. But we’re at least better than they are. We’ve already taken Milady’s Pills that allows you to feel full for a day, while they were only allowed warm water for three days straight.”

“That’s not what I’m angry about! Isn’t this already enough? They’ve been screaming and crying in their sleep non-stop!" she said. She was angry mostly because she worried for Akira, who jumped in horror at her slightest touch. "Can’t he treat him better?! He is a Hero! And some of us are Nobles!”

“Look, Lady. Hunters are rough, because life is rough,” Nick said, he started to feel fed up from the constant complaining of the girl. “And contrary to what you think, the majority of the Nobles are as clean as a chimney. Do you know how many times a Noble have tried to renege or haggle on their contracts once a Hunter finished their quest?” Nick questioned her. “A lot. And some of them even dared to say that they’re doing us a favor. Well, they can put that favor up where the sun doesn’t shine.”

“Y-you know that’s not what I mean. It’s not like all the Hunters are also good people,” she said defensively. “Most of them are money-hungry wolves!”

Rhoddes and Nick looked at each other helplessly. Whether it was out of understanding of pity, no one knew.

“Money-hungry,” A grizzled voice coming out of nowhere startled Hannah. Klein and Donovan tried to calm Sabrac down, but the old Hunter simply sneered as he pushed past them effortlessly. “Yes, we Hunters who lived by risking our lives for coins are indeed money-hungry. Do you know why, child?”

Sabrac loomed over Hannah. He was so close that he could see the yellowed teeth in his mouth and could smell his beastly stench assaulting her nose.

“He and I know…that freedom isn’t free,” a clawed hand pointed at Martell’s neck. The boy was still mumbling to himself, unaware of anything. “It is a prize that is won through blood, sweat, and tears. The Gods know the pain I’ve endured…so that my people; the downtrodden and the forgotten can have a chance at a better life.”

“The Hunter’s Guild doesn’t exist for the rich. It exists for the people. To allow even the lowest of the low to rise. So that a slave child can dream of becoming a hero,” At this, Sabrac’s voice trembled slightly. “We accept everyone without caring about their Races, their status, or their belief. It is a place where you can get anything you want, as long as you put some works in. This ideal is the very foundation upon which the Hunter’s Guild was built on. This ideal…is what I’ve staked my whole life into. And that is why we have contracts. Those who break that contract must pay the price. Regardless if they are the requester, or the requestee.”

The man tilted the young girl’s chin with his clawed thumb. The girl tried to look away, but he did not let her do so. He made her look straight into his eyes, that were laden with age and weariness.

“You speak lightly of hunger, child, because you are privileged. It does not have anything to do with you being a good or bad Noble. It’s simply because you have never been hungry. Truly hungry. A hunger… that seeps to your bone. A hunger…that leaves you weak and powerless and filled with hatred. Towards the world, towards you family, towards yourself. All while fearing that the end might come while you sleep,” Sabrac spoke, his voice now like the growl of a beast.

“The Nobles don’t care about the little people,” he paused, letting his words sink in slowly. “They speak of righteousness, and honor. All while having the fortune to be able to eat three times a day. But you see, righteousness cannot feed you. Honor cannot clothe you. Only by embracing that hunger and making it yours by any means necessary, that you can rise. If the Hero wants to become stronger, he must experience that hunger!” The man kept his eyes staring at the fearful Hannah’s eyes and pointed at the bucket. “Now take that bucket of water, and wake them up from their trance. They’ve got a long way to go.”

Outside the realm of Grea, Connie cursed. She did not know how many times she had done so. Or how long she had been floating in the darkness.

All she remembered before she got there was the searing pain of her skin and flesh melting away. This was the second time this happened, so the helplessness she felt the first time she experienced this did not appear. But at the same time, she also could not do anything.

She saw a great big river of silver lights in the distance, covering a gathering of lands that seemed to be slowly sucking her in. As she got closer, the suction became stronger.

Soon, the light that was her soul joined the glittering river. A crisis came in her mind. She did not know why, but she felt that this was not something good.

Suddenly, a hand shaped out of celestial bodies appeared from out of nowhere and scooped her soul like a hand, sifting out gold out of a river of sand.

The hand slowly closed and enveloped her soul-light.

“OOF!”

Connie fell face first onto solid ground. She got up and felt for her face. To his surprise, she could feel it.

“You’ve done something stupid, you know,” a familiar voice that she had not heard for a while said.

“…Tian Gu?”

The old man with white hair was sitting on a bench with a grimace. In his hand was a pot of wine. For some reason, the man looked more dishevelled than before, and his voice seemed to have become a bit colder.

“It’s not even your fault, but it was still a fatal mistake,” Tian Gu said, shaking his head. “So, I had to make a compromise. A big one.”

“What do you mean by that? What are you talking about?” Connie asked. The man’s words were disjointed and lacking in meaning.

The old scholar put down his pot of wine and looked up at the sky. “You’ll see soon enough. She’s coming.”

As soon as he said so, the blue, cloudless sky ripped open, revealing a patch of dark sky full of glittering stars. Then, as Connie watched, the patch of darkness moved. It formed the outline of a face, then a head, followed by hands. As if someone was walking through a sheet of cloth on a summer day.

The dark and the stars wrapped around the nubile figure as she landed before them.

Her skin was the night sky, and her eyes were stars in pool of deep waters. Her lips were the white of sun-bleached bone. She trod upon the earth with bare feet, and the bangles of gold around her wrists and ankles jingled with every move. Upon her ears hung a pair of earrings bearing the image of the moon.

“I am Anukara the Dark-Mother. The Queen of Dreamless Sleep,” she spoke with a calm, low voice. A voice that made you feel safe and loved. “I greet you and your other self, Heavenly Poison King. It has been many ages.”

Tian Gu greeted her with a polite bow. “I greet you, Dark-Mother. Blessings be upon you.”

“Tian Gu?” Connie gritted her teeth while glaring daggers at her other self. “What is this?!”

Tian Gu returned her look with a meaningful gaze.

“A compromise.”