CHAPTER THREE

The Budget Sage

​I retrieved my moist phallus from the snatch of the spent girl beneath me, frowning as I pulled the curtains aside to stare at the darkening sky above. A bolt of lightning arced for many miles across the grey canvas, slithering through the grey clouds as it ushered in a sudden thunderstorm.

"Zhu Yun, what is the matter?" I asked my courtier as I rolled off Ma Yili to assume a sitting position with thunder echoing outside in the distance. My weight no longer pinning her in place, the girl curled into herself, facing away from me as her body spasmed from the sudden climax I had previously been withholding from her for the past few dozen minutes with my Chi.

Outside, saddled on a well-bred Longma, the twenty-something-year-old mortal eunuch serving as my assistant suddenly turned stiff, paling as my attention settled on him. "...I-It appears someone is attempting to advance to Sagehood, My Prince," the courtier replied with a hint of a hesitant stammer. "I am not certain," he continued, sweat beading his forehead, "but the heavenly tribulation appears to be too large to be a simple Xiantian advancement."

I hummed in agreement—the response seemed to comfort the child as his spine relaxed quite visibly, the terror racking his body draining like water through a sieve. I ignored him to let my attention return to the gathering thunderstorm in the distance. The boy was right; that looked nothing like a Xiantian advancement. I knew what those looked like. After all, my predecessor had been forced by the emperor to witness three of his fellow princes face their tribulations with me as a silent spectator behind his eyes.

Regardless, I was not expecting to see this.

At least not this early.

Shielding my gaze from the great winds buffeting the densely wooded area I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I tried to gauge how this might affect my plans going forward. We were now just a few dozen miles from the White Orchid Sect itself having crossed into their territory a few minutes ago, meaning whoever it was that decided to undergo their tribulation here—this close to the sect—was almost definitely one of their members.

It is a bit earlier than I predicted it would be, but if I am correct, given what I remembered from canon, as well as the severity of the tribulation, the person attempting to advance must almost definitely be Great Elder Li Yifeng, a master alchemist whose legacy formed an arguably pivotal portion of the foundations upon which Li Shen, the former protagonist, had amassed his power.

If all went according to canon, the Great Elder was bound to falter in this advancement of his, and having been heavily injured in the process he would subsequently be forced into isolation so he might recover within the relative safety of the sect walls. It was later discovered that he did not eventually survive said injuries as his only core disciple returned to the sect to find the Grand Elder's still rotting, Anupata-infused corpse in his grotto a few years later.

But as all tales went, the illustrious cultivator did not simply fade into obscurity after being introduced that early in the story. Cognizant of the possibility of a worst-case scenario, the centuries-old Great Elder left behind a detailed summary of all his techniques and experiences—as well as the locations of a few valuable caches—in a single jade slip hidden in plain sight in the sect's Alchemy Division's library for his core disciple to return and find should he not be alive when she returned. Li Shen, of course, being the main character stumbled upon this jade slip before the disciple did return and made away with all its invaluable contents.

Invaluable contents that I now intend to claim for myself.

I allowed the curtain to fall as I gathered my discarded garments. Dressed, I pulled the curtain aside to instruct Zhu Yun to stop my entourage. As I alighted from my palanquin I cast a glance at Ma Yili's pale back.

"Make yourself look decent," I ordered her before dropping the curtains and walking away without waiting for her response. Even though I very well knew she wanted me dead, she was an otherwise obedient girl and was unlikely to put up much of a fight. After all, she was weak, not stupid.

I grabbed the reins of the closest Longma to me, patting the single spiralling horn in the middle of its forehead as I instructed its rider to alight. The warrior eunuch wordlessly compiled, sliding off the draconic horse and shuffling to the side to watch as I mounted the creature.

I looked at the rest of my guards seated wordlessly on their steeds before pointing out four men. "The four of you," I ordered, "follow me. The rest of you—I glanced at the palanquin hitched to two other Longma in the middle of the formation—guard her."

No reply came, but I knew my words were heeded. It was not a matter of something transient like loyalty or trust, but rather a simple certainty in the fact that unless commanded by the emperor himself none of them could disobey or intentionally harm me.

Slave seals really were that reliable.

I nudged my steed in the direction of the thunderstorm to get as close as I could to the tribulation without actually putting myself in harm's way. The knock-off Chinese unicorn sped away towards the destination I had in mind, the world blurring as I shot through the forest at speeds that boggled the mind without actually running into anything. Longma, being distant relatives of the true dragons and flood dragons possess some degree of dominion over the land, waters and air in that decreasing order. Their horns had the power to render all mortal poisons potable and to heal all mundane sickness known to man. In their hooves laid an innate understanding of the Heavenly Dao meaning very few creatures could match them in sheer speed on land or water, and in very short bursts, the air.

All of these made them perfect for traversing great distances very, very quickly.

Still, being a prince I ought to possess much a nobler steed instead; a Qilin, a Fenghuang, or a Roc perhaps. But given my predecessor's lack of talent or tact the emperor had deemed granting me one from the royal stables…

Unnecessary.

Not that that mattered.

No... it didn't.

Had things gone according to canon, Li Shen would have eventually stumbled upon an injured Azure dragon with an unbranded slave seal on its soul. A Gu that more than rivalled the emperor's very own flood dragon. I knew where the creature was currently trapped and had every intention of retrieving it for myself the moment the opportunity presented itself just to show the fucker up. Again, not that it mattered. It didn't... I was most definitely not salty about not getting to ride a fancier steed.

...

I soon arrived at my destination with my guards in tow.

The winds here howled much louder than they had at the fringes. Swathes of the white orchids that the sect was named after were torn out of the soil by the roaring gale. Lightning writhed in the sky above as ear-splitting thunderclaps boomed in their wake, and the air was absolutely rich in Qi.

I sat down on the muddy soil, ignoring the whipping winds as I subsumed myself in meditation. My inner Chi roiled as I tugged on the Qi outside. Had a true sage been present they would have had an understanding of what I was trying to achieve. Qi and Chi were two very different energies, after all.

Qi, like Yin and Yang, is a form of primal energy that exists naturally in the world outside living beings. It is sometimes referred correctly to as nature's breath or essence. Chi on the other hand is created when two of the three primal energies, Yin and Yang, are moulded together within a living being.

Yang, or physical energy is generated naturally by the body and can be increased through growing, training, elixirs, or exercise. Yin, or spiritual energy is on the other hand derived from the mind's consciousness and can be increased through studying, meditation, and spiritual subsumption. Either of these two energies becoming more powerful will in turn make the created Chi more powerful, although skewered more towards the more abundant of the two. Therefore, practising a spiritual technique repeatedly and meditating on the lessons learned will build up experience, increasing one's Yin (spiritual energy), and thus allowing more

Chi to be created. As a result, a cultivator can do that same technique with more power. This same applies to Yang (physical energy), except Cultivators need to increase their strength, endurance, speed, etc instead.

Some unique individuals have substantial potential that enables them to exponentially increase their Chi reserves in a relatively short amount of time. Still, at any given time, a cultivator will have a maximum amount of Chi that they can form and use before it runs out and they need to rest to replenish it. With practice, this maximum can be increased, but only to a certain extent as they are limited to the quantity and strength of Chi that their genetics and bloodline grant them.

If a body is given far more Chi than it can handle, then the body would potentially be destroyed by the overwhelming Chi. On the opposite spectrum, if somebody runs out of Chi, they potentially risk death. Each person's Chi is different and as such gives off a unique mystic signature, which skilled cultivators can detect and distinguish. These mystic signatures are mostly based on one's genetics, allowing a person's bloodlines to be identified by their Chi; over time, entire populations can have perceptibly different Chi from one another.

So, by gathering the Qi in their surroundings and successfully combining it with their own Chi, a cultivator creates a fifth energy known as Chakra and thereby attains the Heaven-ordained rank of Sage.

Failure to successfully combine Qi with one's Chi after an attempt however would result in what is referred to as divine petrification, i.e. the Cultivator is turned into a special kind of stone that corrodes and is corroded by Chi. This stone is referred to as Anutapa, or burning misery. To be able to master the use of Qi, one must first learn to sense the natural energy, Qi, in their surroundings as it is usually mostly imperceptible. Then they must learn to draw it into their body, which requires becoming "one with nature" by remaining perfectly still while meditating. To control the Qi they absorb, the user must balance it with their own physical and spiritual energies, which together make up their Chi. If this balance is disturbed before the energies can be fused, the cultivator will be petrified.

But of course, as you might have predicted by now, I face no such risk. The nirvana pill I had consumed ensured that I now possess a nearly divine attunement with the Qi in my surroundings. Had I been able to recover the fruit whole, I would have possessed truly divine attunement with Qi. Still, it was a boon that I could not even begin to quantify.

Aside from the fact that I now possessed senses far superior to that of even cultivators four realms ahead of me, the fact alone that I could manifest chakra in my being without truly being a sage would have even the emperor himself consider lobotomizing me for study to advance his own cultivation. Possessing chakra was really that broken.