8-13

Chapter 8: A Friend We Lost

"A deep breath in, as quick as lightning and as loud as thunder. Feel the zhen enter your body," Pengzi read the first line of the Sky Thunder Scripture.

A chorus of inhales sounded around the fire pit.

"Guide the zhen from your lungs to your heart. Pause there for a moment before splitting it into four groups that go to each of your limbs. Let the zhen linger next to your limbs and then pull it back to your lungs. A breath out, soft like mist and quiet like rain…"

A few seconds later, the group exhaled.

After finishing the full cycle, Pengzi broke character with a smile. "It's a good thing that they taught us how to read. If not, I don't know how anyone could read these words."

"Why don't I read it then?" Wangpan asked as he reached his hand out.

Pengzi snapped the scroll shut and pulled it closer to himself. "I'm not done reading it yet. We agreed that since there's only one copy of the scripture, I'd read it aloud first to everyone and then we'd each get a turn at it."

Xun had washed up in his hut, waiting until the water no longer turned red after brushing against his skin. Then, he rifled through the hut, finding a bunch of farm implements and two pairs of rough-spun cotton clothes. One was dull gray, while the other was a darker brown meant for fieldwork. He opened the door to find the sky pitch black, it was a cloudy night.

Changing into the brown clothes, Xun slipped out and found the other laborers already discussing the Sky Thunder Scripture. He joined them.

"Brother Peng, what tier do you think the scripture is?" Lanhua asked.

"Hmm." Pengzi opened the scroll for a quick peek. "It's definitely not chalk-tier. Maybe it's a shale-tier scripture, or perhaps even silver level?"

"I wonder what scripture the disciples are practicing," Zhuge said.

"I bet it's the same as us," Wangpan said. "Disciple Zeran mentioned that everyone practices the Sky Thunder Scripture. At least when they first join the sect."

Xun had enough of this. He had joined the circle to gain an alibi, not waste an entire night talking about useless things.

"Let me read it," Xun said as he stood up. Faced with Pengzi's questioning gaze, he gave a faint smile as he explained, "I don't want to fight you for the scripture but there's a reason I was on the Thunder Path to begin with. I might see something you don't."

"Yeah, give it to Brother An," Wangpan said from the side.

Even Lanhua joined in. "Anlin was the best of our year at classwork. He might find something."

Faced with no other alternatives, Pengzi handed the scroll over, whispering a threat as he did.

"You better give it back soon."

Xun ignored the comment as he scanned through the scroll. Much of it was quite basic, no different from the basic scriptures that he had seen in his past life. The only change of note was the slightly strange pathway that zhen went through at the end of each cycle, which allowed a cultivator to use lightning and thunder attribute techniques more easily. It confirmed his initial impression of the Nine Thunder Sect. They were a bunch of barbarians, relying on trash without realizing it.

He tossed the scroll back to Pengzi. "It's a shale-tier scripture."

"And how do you know?"

"The notes. It says that the scripture can only be practiced for thirty cycles in a single day. That's what shale level is," Xun stated.

It was unfortunate that scriptures didn't stack. Xun couldn't practice the Inner Breathing Method for a hundred cycles and then the Sky Thunder Scripture for another thirty cycles. If he tried to do that, not only would he not find zhen on the second thirty cycles, he'd also risk hurting himself.

"That's still much better than the chalk scriptures that we would have used if we didn't join the sect," Pengzi said. "I'm sure there are better methods in the sect, but those are reserved for geniuses that actually succeed in what they set out to do."

Xun ignored the implied insult. Instead, he turned to Wangpan and bowed.

"Sorry Brother Wang, I decided to change my name after the entrance exam. Please call me Xun from now on."

Wangpan hurried got to his feet and returned the bow. "I'm sorry, I didn't know. Of course, I'll call you Brother Xun from now on."

"So what's your talent now? Brother Xun?" Annoyed at being ignored, Pengzi forced his way back into the conversation. "You were at the silver level but I heard your spirit channels were damaged in the Thunder Path. You're shale like us now, aren't you? Or maybe even chalk?"

If only he knew that my spirit channels weren't even chalk-tier at this point.

Xun plastered a fake smile on his face. "I think I've mostly memorized the Sky Thunder Scripture. It's been a pretty long day, I'll go rest first and we can talk more tomorrow."

Without waiting for a response, Xun turned for his hut on the edge of the community. In the earlier conversations, he had learned that the other laborers had mostly picked huts close to the central fire pit. The other female laborer, Zhuge, took the hut second closest to Lanhua's. And then the last two male laborers chose huts opposite to Pengzi's.

As he walked away, Xun heard Pengzi's loud grumblings. "So what if he was a genius in the past. He's a laborer just like us now."

Xun smiled at the comment. He tilted his head to look at the top of the mountain they now called home. Seeing the cabin in the distance, the disciple's words came to the top of his mind unbidden.

There's no reason why Disciple Fanpin should emphasize for the laborers to not disturb him at the top of the mountain. Not unless he's hiding something. I wonder what it is?

—

"Laborers!" Disciple Fanpin's bellow echoed across the huts, putting an end to many sweet dreams.

Falling out of their beds, the laborers hurriedly left their huts to gather before the fire pit. Fanpin waited for five of the six laborers to show up before he pulled something from behind him and tossed it forward.

It was a human head.

Lanhua and Zhuge screamed as they jumped away, while the men tried their best to stomach their unease.

"This is why it makes no sense to give a warm welcome to new laborers," Fanpin said as he spat in front of him and silenced the screams. "Perhaps you guys felt that I'd be someone you could mess around with. This idiot certainly thought so, sneaking up the mountain last night. He got caught in a killing formation and accidentally died before I could save him."

It was Pengzi who mustered his courage first, "Disciple Fan, I'm sorry. We all exchanged notes on the Sky Thunder Scripture last night and then went to bed. I didn't think that someone would be so foolhardy as to disobey your words."

"Oh, so you're the leader of the laborers?" Fanpin turned his attention and his anger to Pengzi, who paled under the combined weight of both.

"No, I wouldn't dare call myself that. I simply believe that rules must be obeyed and seniority must be respected," Pengzi said, bowing his head down so that he could hide the red fluster creeping up his face.

"So who is this?" Fanpin asked.

Pengzi took one more look at the head before responding, "I believe it's Brother Liu. His full name is Liubo. His hut is right behind you if you'd like to examine it."

"It's fine. I don't need to. I'll overlook this breach from you all this once. Thank Liu for that, since he paid for that mercy with his own life. What was your name again?"

"Pengzi."

"Good. Pengzi, you said that you liked rules, right? Then, make sure the other laborers don't make trouble. If something like this happens again, I'll hold you accountable. And trust me when I say that you all won't get off this easily if something like this happens again."

Pengzi tried his best to hide his smile as he bowed his head low again. "Of course, Disciple Fan, I promise I won't disappoint you."

"Good," Fanpin said. He reached behind and brought out a bag. "Now, I can understand accidents, but that doesn't change the fact that we have seventy-two terraces that need tending. His slack will have to be picked up by the others. I've brought five pounds of spirit rice. It should be enough to push you all further into the Earth Flesh Stage. It's an investment I'm making in you. Just know that I expect to see that investment repaid. If you haven't opened your aperture by the end of the month, I'll personally kick you out of the sect."

"Thank you, Disciple Fan," Pengzi said as he took the bag with both hands.

Five pounds of rice was enough to feed for a family of four for an entire week. But that was a mortal estimation, made for mortal hunger. Cultivators, even those as low as the laborers, no longer needed to eat in the traditional sense of the word.

If they were hungry, they could run a single cycle of cultivation and feel satiated. Most of the laborers would probably save the spirit rice, to be used only when absolutely necessary.

"And remember. Do not try to go up the mountain, or you'll end up like this idiot."

That's weird, Xun thought. The disciple had made such a large fuss in front of the other laborers, but didn't even do something as basic as check Liubo's hut for other evidence.

When Fanpin was gone, everyone thawed. Before anyone could say anything, Pengzi lowered his new bag of rice to the ground and walked over to the head. "I think we should bury Liubo first."

"I agree," Lanhua said. "He might have just been curious. How could he know that Disciple Fan had placed a killing formation in the forest?"

Xun joined Pengzi and took a more careful look at the head. A look of fear and confusion was etched on Liubo's face, his eyes still open. He crouched down to close the eyes.

"How about we bury him in the small hill to the right?" Xun suggested.

"Sure." Pengzi took a deep breath and apologized to the head before picking it up. "Wangpan, Xun, get the shovels from your huts. Zhuge, can you find something for the grave marker? Lanhua, can you find some flowers?"

Together, the laborers dug a small grave for Liubo and placed a couple of wildflowers next to a wood stake that read, "Liubo. A friend we lost when starting the path to eternity."

Once all of that was done, the group returned to the center fire pit in low spirits. Pengzi, though, snapped out of his depression and stepped forward to claim the bag of spirit rice. "How do you guys want to split this?"

The laborers looked at each other. The meaning behind Pengzi's question was obvious: he wanted more rice than the others. But at the same time, no one wanted to make an enemy on their second day as a laborer.

"Perhaps Sister Lan should decide. She was one of the most responsible people during our studies," Xun suggested.

He had seen the looks Pengzi gave her during the hike to the farm; Disciple Fanpin had the exact same expression. While Lanhua wasn't as beautiful as Yifan, she was still one of the prettiest Xun had seen in his new life. Unlike Pengzi, Lanhua didn't have the social capital to try anything nefarious with the rice distribution.

"How about an equal split into five portions?" she offered.

"That makes sense to me," Xun said.

The other laborers easily agreed. Lanhua gave Xun a look of gratitude. In asking her to divide the rice, he gave her the opportunity to take charge of rice distributions in the future. It was a small but important privilege, especially when the spirit rice was probably going to be the main cultivation resource they had.

But Xun had bigger problems than the division of the rice. He smelled something fishy about Liubo's death, something that he was sure would eventually be a problem. The sooner he could see to learning more about that, the better.

Chapter 9: Sky Thunder Scripture

After dumping his newly gained rice into a large clay pot, Xun walked to the window and pulled the curtain closed. Sure that there were no prying eyes, he took out a new metal pot and poured in half of his rice to cook.

If anyone else saw him, they would have chided him for wasting so much spirit rice. Most laborers couldn't adequately control more than a dozen grains of spirit rice in a single meal and would waste the extra zhen. But Xun was sure that his body needed it, especially with his Inner Breathing Method. Control wouldn't be an issue when his body gobbled it up automatically.

The new round of a hundred cycles passed by much faster than the first. Less than two hours. This time, Xun didn't enter into a moment of enlightenment, but the pain was less, a bargain that he gladly accepted.

He stumbled over to the cooked spirit rice and gulped a small part of it down before frowning. For some reason, the rice tasted earthy and flat. Like he was eating the stalk of a plant that he couldn't chew through.

He grabbed a small bottle of soy sauce left by some former occupant from a nearby shelf and drizzled it in. Then, he lit the fire and waited until the last bits of water boiled away before eating the rest, smiling as his body incorporated the zhen and recovered.

His cultivation was coming along smoothly. With three hundred cycles down, he was more than one-tenth of the way to becoming a cultivator again. But like his cultivation yesterday, he could feel that there was something wrong with the Inner Breathing Method. He was only getting about four percents of zhen after each cycle, when he should have been getting five.

It was a good start. Sure, it was a far cry from his previous life's pace of only taking three days to open his aperture, but it was as good as he could have hoped for considering how damaged his spirit channels were.

He was in no hurry, anyway. He had centuries of life to live now. A slower cultivation speed wasn't the end of the world when he had such a long lifespan. But there was one larger threat looming towards him, something that put his new life in jeopardy. That, at least, he took seriously.

Rubbing the dried blood flakes off his hands, arms, and legs, Xun thought about changing clothes. It was faint, but the brown robe he had worn earlier in the week was already beginning to smell. He'd need to wash it tomorrow, but the darker color would be harder to spot at night.

To that end, Xun left the blood on his face. It'd help hide him in the darkness.

—

When the sun finally set, Xun snuck up the mountain.

As he reached the edge of the forest, he slowed down and noticed the formation that Fanpin had mentioned. It was faint, but Xun could sense small waves of zhen emanating from each of the formation flags that had been planted. The moment any wave of zhen was disturbed, the disciple who planted them would know.

Without opening his aperture and gaining control of his zhen, there was nothing Xun could do about them. He simply lacked the tools.

It was a catch twenty-two. Xun knew that the disciple was hiding a secret, one that was potentially deadly and perhaps also valuable enough to repair his spirit channels. But since he needed functioning spirit channels to have a chance of getting past the formation, he had no way of reaching it.

With frustration brewing in his chest, Xun walked back towards his hut. But halfway back down the mountain, another thought occurred to him.

The thick grassy scent of the rice kept entering his nose. Somehow, he had never noticed this smell until tonight. But now that he was already halfway up the mountain, Xun realized that the night could be dedicated to theft. Again.

Xun began picking a couple of grains from the middle fields before he realized his mistake. Now that he knew Disciple Fanpin kept formations around the forest, it made no sense to risk stealing higher on the mountain.

He'd much rather get caught by the other laborers than by the disciple. The worst that would happen if someone like Pengzi saw him was losing a few cups of spirit rice as a bribe. But if the disciple caught him, Xun could imagine plenty of horrible outcomes. Since the rice at the bottom terraces was no better or worse than the rice at the top, the risk didn't make sense.

Except, Xun found, that wasn't true. Something was different with the rice below.

Whereas the stalks he had borrowed from in the terraces halfway up the mountain were mostly full and starting to droop, the plants in the lower terraces were ransacked by insects. Almost every stalk had one or two borers, and the insects had greedily chomped away at the grains.

From almost every stalk, Xun could take quite a few grains without leaving too big of a trace. Perhaps that was why no one had noticed his midnight borrowing the previous night.

As he filled his pockets, Xun looked up to the top of the mountain. More things were starting to not add up. Why were the terraces at the bottom of the field in such poor condition? What secret was the disciple hiding?

—

After picking two meals' worth of unripe spirit rice, Xun made his way down the darker side of the mountain. At the bottom, he gave the laborer's village a wide berth as he instead went to the bamboo forest that surrounded the mountain.

Picking a particularly thick bamboo tree, Xun made a mark on the plant and then dug down. He poured the rice he had collected into the hole and then covered it with some loose dirt.

It wouldn't be enough to stop a determined cultivator from finding it, but the chances of that happening were low enough that Xun could ignore that possibility. The spirit rice he was stealing wasn't even worth half a spirit stone.

Washing his face and making sure that he looked presentable, Xun went to the village. Given what happened in the morning, no one was around the fire pit that night. Everything was unusually quiet.

That suited Xun just fine. He walked to the fire pit and looked at the huts circling the mound.

To find where Lanhua lived, all he had to do was find the biggest and best maintained hut around. From that knowledge, he could derive the location of Pengzi's house. Liubo and Xiaopan had taken the two houses across from Pengzi, but he wasn't sure which of the two huts belonged to Liubo.

Choosing one at random, Xun walked up and knocked on the door. The sound echoed across the empty village center and he could feel the gazes peering at him behind the other hut windows. After waiting a few seconds, he pushed open the door and entered.

As expected, the hut was empty. In just the span of a couple of hours yesterday, Liubo had cleaned his entire hut, clearing away the dust from even the corners and organizing his pots and pans by size. There was a meticulous attention to detail that impressed Xun.

The only part of the hut that resembled Xun's dwelling was the bed, where the blankets had been bunched into a messy ball.

Xun took this all in. Then, he went over to the wood closet and found Liubo's laborer uniforms.

He collected them and came to Pengzi's hut. After just a single knock, the door swung open.

"These are Liubo's clothes," Xun said. Although he had a feeling that the laborer had been watching him the whole time, it was still good to feign ignorance. "Since Disciple Fanpin said that you're in charge of the rules, I thought I'd bring the clothes over to you."

"Sure, uh, come in." Pengzi hid his suspicions and welcomed Xun into his hut. Taking the clothes, he set it on a nearby table.

"How have you been?" Xun started the small talk as soon as they both found a seat.

"I've been good. Well, not good, exactly. But I'm doing okay," Pengzi said distractedly. He was probably trying to figure out why Xun had brought the clothes over to him.

"Yeah, same here." Xun ended the small talk and moved to a new subject. "I'm glad you took the lead in burying Liubo. Even though he made a mistake, it was still right to give him a proper grave. I think the others were a bit scared of offending Disciple Fan."

Pengzi's face lit up. "Of course! We spent two years together as students. I couldn't just let him wither away in the elements. The least I could do was give him a proper goodbye."

"Well, it was a nice gesture. I'm sure the others think more of you for making it." Xun said.

Although the distractions of running a sect had slowed Xun's cultivation in his past life, they had also taught him important lessons about people. For one, most people were inherently good. When faced with a choice, they'd often do the right thing.

But more than that, they wanted someone to see their good deed and acknowledge that. That's exactly what Xun was doing, and he could see Pengzi's hostility and suspicion melting away as Xun satisfied his need for acknowledgement.

"Thanks. I just did what I thought should be done."

"Since you were the one who took the lead in burying Liubo, I thought that you should also be the one who keeps Liubo's clothes. It's not a lot, but I think he would have wanted for us to use them."

Pengzi looked over at the clothes and stayed quiet for a moment.

"Anlin… Sorry, Xun. I forgot you changed your name. I think maybe we should also put our past behind us and focus on cultivating. We're both laborers now, but if we work hard we can become disciples within a year or two and not be too behind the rest of them."

"I agree with you," Xun said and brought the conversation to a new topic, "So how has cultivating been for you?"

"I tried a couple of cycles today but I wasn't in the mood. I think I'm starting to get the hang of the Sky Thunder Scripture, though."

"Yeah, it's a tough scripture to understand. It's really different than the other scripture that I know."

"Oh, you know another scripture?" Pengzi caught on to the opening Xun had left.

With a nod, Xun took out his new copy of the Inner Breathing Method. "A lot of people in my hometown knew of this scripture, but very few people practiced it for some reason."

Pengzi came closer for a better look at the scroll. He took a few seconds to skim through everything before pointing at one of the sections that Xun had previously marked out.

"I think the word here is wrong. If I'm not wrong, when the zhen reaches your foot, it should swirl for a second, not pause."

After a quick glance, Xun agreed. "You're right. It's been so long that I barely remember the words. But you also know this scripture?"

"Who doesn't?" Pengzi leaned back and reached for a kettle and two cups. Then, pouring a cup full of water, he offered it to Xun. "This scripture was also famous back in my hometown. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn't practiced the Inner Breathing Method. Even mortals with zero talent have tried it. Not that it helped them much."

"Right. I guess I should have known that something a mortal could obtain wouldn't be that great."

"Great is the least of your problems. It's a good thing you didn't try to cultivate with this in the academy. It's all just a giant trap."

"A trap?"

"Of course. Although the rumors say that this is an emerald scripture, and it is indeed true that a person can cycle zhen a hundred times every day with the Inner Breathing Method, the scripture has two major flaws. First, it's painful. Most people can't even complete a single cycle. And the more cycles you do in a single day, the worse the pain gets. I heard of someone in my village who endured twenty-four cycles before quitting. But when people went to check on him the next day, they found his heart had stopped from the aftereffects of the pain."

Xun frowned. "But I'm sure there are people who have a higher pain tolerance that can practice the scripture right?"

"That's where the second flaw comes in. The pain isn't some imaginary thing. Practicing the scripture tears a person's body apart. That might be fine when you're a mortal or even at the early stages of the Foundation Realm. You can heal yourself with some herbs and rest. But as your cultivation increases, your wounds start to deepen. It's said that practicing the scripture too much even shortens your lifespan."

This was all stuff that Xun knew. Still, he patiently sat through Pengzi's lecture and added appropriate noises at the right times.

He wanted to make sure that Pengzi didn't hide anything. Although it was unlikely that the boy would hold such a deep grudge at his age, Xun wasn't going to leave any room for error.

So he feigned ignorance to test if the laborer would hide or twist any of the disadvantages of the scripture. Pengzi didn't.

"So Brother Peng, is there any chance that you could help me fix the Inner Breathing Method? It seems like I didn't even memorize it properly. I'm hoping that there might be some way that I can use the scripture as a reference, to help me understand more of the Sky Thunder Scripture."

Pengzi didn't even hesitate. He wrote out a new copy of the Inner Breathing Method on the spot and handed it to Xun.

With both of his objectives complete, Xun bid farewell to the laborer. This time, the words following him weren't some thinly veiled sarcasm or threat. It was genuine well-wishes.

"Brother Xun, best of luck. Now that we have the Sky Thunder Scripture, we just need to keep working hard and we'll be disciples."

Chapter 10: The First Harvest

There was an old saying that cultivators often passed around.

"Talent paves the path to eternity. When you pray, first pray to be born with a Jade talent. If that fails, then hope to have the good luck to gain a Gold scripture. If neither talent nor scripture come to you, then curse the heavens and take up one of the four arts. Refine pills, carve formations, craft equipment, and write runes. Make your own fortune, unbeholden to any others."

Of the four major cultivation occupations, alchemists were the most sought after. The pills they produced could heal injuries, increase cultivation, or even change a person's spirit channels. Next were formation masters. They could create formations that could be used to collect zhen, defend territory, or trap intruders.

Smiths and rune writers were still useful, but generally not as popular. The former required precious metals and lots of spirit stones to create equipment that still always had the chance of breaking during fights. And the latter wrote runes that were powerful but burned up after a single use. They granted temporary power, which was useful, but not vital.

Despite spending three centuries cultivating, Xun knew none of the four arts. He had been a sword cultivator in his youth and by the time he strayed from that path he had enough wealth to hire others who did know the four arts.

So as the sun shone through the window, he sat cross-legged in front of a pot of cooked rice and considered his options.

I might actually have a heart demon related to rice in the future. How am I supposed to eat rice and nothing else and not feel sick? But I don't have the talent, I don't have a gold scripture, and I don't know how to refine pills, carve formations, craft equipment, or write runes.

A proper heart demon would be a waste on me.

But bellyaching would get him nowhere. With a deep breath, he threw those thoughts out of his mind and began reading through his new version of the scripture.

Pengzi's version was both slightly more detailed and slightly different than what Xun had remembered. The main changes were around how the zhen interacted with a person's limbs. In Xun's understanding, the energy should merely pause in those channels before continuing, lest it did any undue damage to his body. But Pengzi wrote that the zhen should be swirled and roped, which greatly increased the chance that Xun would lose control of the energy.

It's unlikely that Pengzi would want to hurt me by giving me a fake scripture. For all he knows, I'm still practicing the Sky Thunder Scripture. Plus, if he did change things randomly, I should be able to tell.

A minute later, he began spasming as the scripture took its toll. Whatever the changes, it still hurt.

Two hours and a full pot of rice later, Xun finished his cultivation for the day. The good part about the Inner Breathing Method was that it was quick. The bad part of the Inner Breathing Method was also that it was quick. Xun was trembling after he was done with his hundred cycles, having been once again battered by rapid-fire bursts of pain.

Pengzi's version had indeed been better than Xun's. Instead of only getting four percent, Xun got the full five percent of zhen with each cycle. The only downside was that each time the zhen swirled instead of lingering in his limbs, it was like thrusting his body into both burning lava and freezing glaciers.

—

Over the next ten days, Xun's life gained a simple rhythm.

He'd wake up in the morning and cultivate. And after some trial and error in the past few days, he found some ways to deal with the pain.

He could hold some rice in his mouth before he started the cycles and swallow as soon as the pain got to be too much. He also learned that if the zhen brushed against the green paste next to his aperture, the pain at the start of each cycle would lessen slightly. Neither trick made cultivating fun, but they did help make the scripture bearable.

His favorite part of the day was checking on his aperture after cultivation. Although he didn't enter another moment of enlightenment, his persistence of throwing five units of zhen at the shell of his aperture every day was paying off. The crack was now a couple strands of hair large.

After that was done, he'd stroll through the bamboo forest for hours at a time until he was sure that no one was following him. Only then would he dig up the nighttime hauls of unripe rice and begin eating it raw, bemoaning the experience as he did. Most of the zhen from the spirit rice, raw or cooked, was going to repair his body rather than increase his cultivation.

And in the afternoons, he'd talk with the other laborers. Now that he had made nice with Pengzi, the small hostilities he had felt from previous classmates had disappeared. After all, no matter what their past was, they were all laborers and at the bottom of the cultivation world together now.

It was, somehow, fun.

As Xun got to know the other laborers, he also learned a bit more about his past self. In particular, Pengzi told him about the animosity between him and Fangqiu. They had both liked the same girl, Yifan, and she had chosen him over Fangqiu. Xun had been silent for a few seconds, wondering how a cultivator could make such a silly mistake, before he realized that his new age was technically eighteen. It was the age where people did things first and then thought about them later.

At night, he'd still steal rice from the fields. Even that was getting better and more rewarding. Where most of his stolen rice grains were green and small before, they gradually ripened and grew. Once Xun took off the brown and gold husks, they were almost indistinguishable from the white spirit rice the laborers had been gifted.

—

After his cultivation in the morning, Xun heard a soft knock on his door. He opened it, thinking it was one of the laborers. Disciple Fanpin, in all of his heft, met Xun's eyes.

Before Xun could react, Fanpin squeezed into his hut and went straight to the kitchen area.

"Disciple Fan, what brings you here?" Xun asked.

Fanpin waved him off as he crouched down and began looking through the pots and pans. Xun watched as the disciple lifted the lids of each pot and sniffed inside. His face remained impassive.

When Fanpin got to Xun's large rice pot, he dug a hand inside and flipped the rice around. The rice was all white.

"Why do you have so little rice?"

"It's because I wanted to increase my cultivation as quickly as I could. I heard that a pound of spirit rice is worth an entire spirit stone and didn't want anything to happen to it," Xun answered.

Patting away the rice dust, Fanpin nodded. "You're Anlin, right? How many cycles have you done so far?"

"Sorry, Disciple Fan. My name now is Xun. But I've done a hundred and ninety-four cycles."

"Good, Xun." If Fanpin cared about the name change, he didn't show it. "Make sure you don't slow down your cultivation. I expect you to be a cultivator by the end of the next harvest cycle."

Xun nodded.

"Alright, follow me." Outside of Xun's hut was a pile of rough cotton bags. Each of the bags could hold around ten pounds of rice. Pointing at them, Fanpin said, "These are the bags that you'll use to collect the rice. There should be enough for at least five harvests. Make sure the others know."

"Of course, Disciple Fan."

Asking Xun where the other laborers lived, Fanpin went to his next target, Pengzi. Once again, Fanpin ignored Pengzi's greeting as he made a beeline for the kitchen and looked up only when he didn't find any unripe rice. Like Xun, Pengzi had only a thin film of regular spirit rice left in his rice pot.

"Pengzi, how many cycles have you run?"

"Two hundred and seven."

"Good. You'll become a cultivator in less than a week."

Fanpin headed to Lanhua's hut next and repeated his inspection.

"Lanhua, your cultivation?"

"A hundred and eighty-two."

"Not too bad."

Fanpin checked on the final two laborers and found varying levels of regular spirit rice but no unripe green rice. Only then did he finally crack a smile. He still chided Wangpan on his slow progress since the laborer had completed fewer than a hundred and twenty cycles, but his harsh words were missing their usual bite.

"Laborers. It's harvest day," Fanpin said. "I'll do you all a kindness and perform the harvest early this month so that you'll have plenty of time to prepare. Starting in two weeks, the farms' maintenance will be your responsibilities."

Then, waving for everyone to follow him, he leapt into the lowest terrace.

Xun waited for Pengzi to react before running toward the farm. He wanted to see where Fanpin's cultivation was at.

Luckily, Fanpin was in a mood to show off. First, he shooed the laborers back as he waved his hand at the field. A metal arc whipped across the field, cutting the rice stalks in its path in half. After a few more of those arcs disposed of all the standing plants, the disciple pointed at the center of the field. Moments later, the earth rose before being flattened. It became a mound with a round crater in the middle.

And finally, with his breath running a little short, he blew the cut stalks into the sky with a wind spell and threshed them by bunching the stalked into one tight group and slamming it against the crater multiple times.

In just a few minutes, the entire terrace was harvested. Straw was scattered around the field but the spirit rice grains were all sitting inside the middle crater.

"What are you waiting for? Use the bags and go pack the rice. If there's even a single grain left at the end of this, I'll make sure you regret it." Fanpin pointed at the crater.

While packing the rice into his bag, Xun took a quick glance at the disciple. As he expected, Fanpin gripped a spirit stone tight in his hand. The spells he used were powerful but not exactly the most economical.

Xun estimated the disciple to be at the peak of the Foundation Realm. Like Disciple Zeran, Fanpin was at the Fire Eyes Stage. It was relatively easy to distinguish stages within the Foundation Realm. A cultivator at the Earth Muscle Stage could only fill their aperture a quarter of the way with mist zhen, which was the equivalent of twenty-five units of zhen. Wood Skin allowed for fifty units of zhen, Water Lungs seventy-five units, and Fire Eyes filled the entire aperture with a total of hundred units of zhen.

The metallic arcs Fanpin first summoned were likely from a spell called Blue Metal Slash. Although it was a basic attack, each one would have still used up about five units of stored zhen. The earth spell was called Great Earth Palm. It seemed like the disciple wasn't too familiar with earth spells, given how slowly the palm had formed.

The wind spell was hardly a spell at all, instead simply using zhen to form a gust. All in all, the spells would have taken about ninety units of zhen. Since the disciple performed them all without break, he had to be at the last stage of the Foundation Realm.

"Hurry up," Fanpin yelled as the stone in his hand turned to dust. "I'm the one doing all the work here. You five better not slow me down."

After watching the laborers finish packing the first terrace's rice, Fanpin moved onto the next field and repeated the process. It was sundown before they finished all seventy-two terraces.

The rice had been piled into over three hundred of the bags that Fanpin had brought. Each bag had the max possible ten pounds of spirit rice in them with the final few bags a bit less than half full.

"There's a quota for each of these terraces. Every month, the sect expects them to produce at least fifty pound worth of spirit rice each. Because I let you all cultivate instead of working this month, the insects in the fields have severely impacted this month's yield." Like the laborers, Fanpin was also exhausted after the day's harvest. But instead of sitting or lying on the ground, he tried to maintain his authority by standing as straight as he could. "Starting next month, I expect you all to work as hard as you can. If your terraces produce rice above the quota, you'll get five percent of any extra rice you produce. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now, because you all worked hard today, you can have one of the half-full bags. I'll deliver the rice to the sect and take care of a couple of matters, and be gone for a few days. By the time I get back, I want to see all of you close or already at the Earth Muscle Stage." Fanpin said as he dropped yet another spent spirit stone to the ground. "And Pengzi? Make sure no one tries to climb into the forests. You all saw what happened last time something like that happened."

Pengzi hurried sat up as he bowed his head. "Of course, Disciple Fan."

After checking to make sure that the laborers understood, the disciple waved a hand and summoned a cloud that carried all of the bags of rice, minus one, with him as he made his way to the main sect mountain.

Everyone simply watched their disciple disappear. Not even Xun had the energy to bid him farewell.

Chapter 11: To New Beginnings

Despite his expectations, Xun found himself getting used to the pain from the Inner Breathing Method. In fact, the morning cultivations were now almost pleasant. He had enough rice for a while from the harvest so these days, he splurged on cooking two whole pots worth before each session.

Once all of that was done, he began cultivating. His body sucked zhen from the surrounding air, cycled it through his spirit channels, nudged the green paste, and threw it at his aperture. Before he knew it, all one hundred cycles were done.

Taking a walk around the village to relax his muscles slightly and get away from the unhappy memories of past cultivation sessions, Xun found himself at the fire pit. The only two female laborers were already there, deep in conversation.

"I think what it means by 'soft like mist' is that we breathe out in portions. One bit at a time until the entire breath is finished," Lanhua explained.

"That still wouldn't explain why I can only do fifteen cycles and no more," Zhuge said.

"Perhaps it's that…" Lanhua caught sight of Xun and beckoned him over.

Xun knew that both Disciple Fanpin and Pengzi had their sights set on the prettiest laborer among them. So after paying her the initial favor of determining how the first bag of rice was split, he let Pengzi be the one to decide how the second sack of rice Fanpin left behind should be divided. And true to form, Pengzi gave Xun a slightly larger portion than average.

Now, seeing that he had been spotted, Xun lowered his head and walked over.

"Brother Xun, it's been a while since we've seen you. Where have you been?" Zhuge asked.

"Oh, taking walks through the forest. The scenery around here is very pretty." Xun wasn't lying about that. Because of how little time his cultivation sessions took and the lack of other things to do, he found a new hobby scouting out his surroundings. And since the Bright Sun Farm was within the territory of the Nine Thunders Sect, the forests were generally free of spirit beasts.

"Right. I remember that Brother Xun was the one who found the nice hill for Liubo," Lanhua added. "We're having some trouble with cultivating. I thought that maybe you might have some insights."

"The Sky Thunder Scripture is so hard," Zhuge complained. "How many cycles can you do every day?"

Xun did some quick math in his head. So far, he was progressing at a pace of about five units of zhen per day. If he had Shale channels, he'd have a thirty percent efficiency in each cycle. Five divided by thirty percent was…

"Sixteen to seventeen cycles. Some parts of the scripture are still giving me a hard time."

"Wow, and I can only do fifteen." Zhuge's voice trailed off.

"Brother Xun, do you have any advice for us?" Lanhua picked up the conversation.

That question should have been simple, but stumped Xun. He hadn't bothered looking at the Sky Thunder Scripture since he confirmed that it was merely a shale scripture. At this point, he could barely remember what the scripture said.

"Do you remember the story about elements that Disciple Zeran told us?" Xun asked, diverting the topic to something that sounded similar but was in fact completely different. "I know a bit about what happens after. That gave me a lot of inspiration, since thunder and lightning are so similar."

Both of the laborers' eyes sparkled as they edged closer. "Please tell us, Brother Xun."

Xun took a seat and began telling the second part of the story.

"Unlike the other elements that had learned their lesson about boredom, Lightning was the type to never sit still. It jumped from continent to continent and bothered the various elements. One day, it tried to do something that had never been done before. It wanted to create a new life.

"Lightning first went to find Earth in the western plains. Over the years, Earth had learned to absorb and ignore the electricity that emanated around the younger element. But after hearing Lightning's offer to not bother it for a thousand years, it gave away a block of earth shaped into a body with one head, two arms, and two legs. Our flesh.

"Then, Lightning headed to the east forests to plead with Wood for something to hold the earth together. Wood initially refused, but after throwing a tantrum that left fractal burns in thousands of trees, Lightning got its way. It layered a thin film of bark over the flesh that would restore itself when cut or broken. Our skin.

"Afterward, Lightning flew north to the endless sea that was interrupted only by occasional islands. There it found Water, which added a way for the wood and earth amalgamation to circulate zhen. Our lungs.

"Tired but excited, Lightning dropped to the deserts in the south to find Fire. Over the years, Fire blamed itself for the tragedy of Iron and hid from the other elements. Lightning searched for seven years before finally finding the element, which gave away the gift of sight to assuage its guilt. Our eyes.

"And finally, Lightning struck at its creation right below the stomach, which became our apertures. That's the meaning of the Foundation Realm. The four foundation stages are meant to be a process where cultivators rebuild their bodies on the path to eternity, culminating in the Thunder Tribulation for the spark of life."

When Xun finished the story, his audience had expanded from the two female laborers to everyone in the village. Somehow, he had been so engrossed in his story that he didn't notice Pengzi or Wangpan joining the group.

"That's incredible," Lanhua said. "Wow, Brother Xun. I didn't know that you knew so much."

Xun found Pengzi's gaze locked on Lanhua. "Yeah, I liked reading stories as a kid. That hopefully can help your cultivations. I honestly don't know too much more. But I know that Brother Peng has understood quite a lot of the Sky Thunder Scripture."

Pengzi shot Xun a glance of gratitude as he began talking, "Right, so from what I've tried, I found that running the zhen against the left wall of the channel is slightly more effective than…"

Xun smiled as he watched the boy display his knowledge. Quite a lot of it was wrong, of course, but Xun didn't feel the need to correct him. The cultivation of other people wasn't his problem.

Soon, the topic around the fire turned to other things as the conversation broke down into smaller groups. Xun was about to excuse himself when he saw Pengzi find a seat next to him. Adding a smile to his face, Xun nodded to the laborer.

"Brother Xun, it's pretty rare to see you around the fire," Pengzi said. "I'm glad you're here, though. It'll be good for all of us to get to know each other."

Xun nodded. He could hear that Pengzi had something specific to say.

"So, I heard a rumor about Zhuge and Wangpan." Pengzi pointed his chin at the two who were chatting away happily with Lanhua across the fire. Xun saw that they were also holding hands. "I think they're interested in each other."

As soon as Pengzi finished his sentence, Xun could feel the boy's gaze intensify on him. For a second, he tried to think why that would have anything to do with him, and then he realized the answer.

"That's good for them. But for me, I don't think love is in the cards before I become a disciple. Yifan's a disciple now, I need to hurry to catch up to her and then maybe we'll have a chance together," Xun said. He had no intentions of creating or maintaining a relationship with Yifan, but that didn't prevent him from using her as a shield.

Pengzi nodded heavily. "I agree. I think that cultivating is an important matter." He pulled closer to Xun. "So between you and me, I like Lanhua. What do you think?"

"Wonderful," Xun said without hesitation. "There are only five laborers here and I'm not too interested in starting a relationship. If not you, then who else for Lanhua?"

A wide smile spread across Pengzi's face. "That's true… if not me, then who else?"

Fanpin. The disciple kept staring at Lanhua during the harvest. Xun thought. But he didn't say anything to discourage Pengzi's enthusiasm.

"You're a good friend, Xun. I'm glad you're here."

"I'm glad you're here too."

Pengzi brought forward two cups of water that he had carried from his hut to the fire pit at some point earlier in the night. He handed one of them to Xun. "To new beginnings."

"And new friendships."

By the time the night was almost over, Pengzi was laughing at Xun's jokes. To an outsider, the two would have seemed like the best of friends.

As the night wound down, Xun pulled his new friend aside.

"Peng, I have a favor to ask of you."

"Of course, anything."

"Could I borrow some rice from you? As you know, my spirit channels were damaged from the Thunder Path. I think the spirit rice is helping but I've already used most of it."

"Sure," Pengzi said without hesitation. "Truth be told, I'm less than twenty cycles away from opening my aperture. All I need is one more day and I should be there."

"Congratulations in advance then," Xun said.

"Okay, wait here." Pengzi took Xun's cup as he ran back to his hut. After a few moments, he brought out a small bag of spirit rice. "Here, this is for you. Don't worry about returning it. It's a gift from me."

Xun accepted the rice and after a small shake, he estimated that Pengzi had given him a tenth of a pound worth of rice. "Thanks Peng."

"No thanks are necessary between friends."

That night, as the fire burned, Xun went to the other laborers and successfully borrowed roughly another tenth of a stone's worth of rice from the other three. Combined with the rice he had in his house, it'd be more than enough to last until the rice regrew in the field. And at that point, he could once again perfect his art of stealing.

—

From the last night's gifts had come extra rice and, more importantly, condiments. After making the rice, Xun drizzled soy sauce and sesame oil and mixed them into the rice evenly. After that, he added a touch of sugar and some chopped green onions he found in the forest.

It smelled like heaven. For the first time, Xun was even excited to cultivate. Every breath he took reminded him of the treat he had made for himself at the end of everything.

When he finished the day's cultivation and the rice, he was sure that life was getting better. It was all up from here, he thought.

Like most days, he left his hut and walked into the bamboo forest that surrounded the village. If there was one thing that the Bright Sun Farm had, it was nature. Only the mountain itself, with the highest density of zhen, had been transformed for farming. But the surrounding land still had more zhen than normal, and Xun could often find squirrels that were a tad too quick and a tad too large to be normal.

But the best part of the forest was the scent. Ever since he began practicing the Inner Breathing Method, Xun noticed that his sense of smell had improved by leaps and bounds. In particular, the aroma of bamboo invaded his senses. It was soothing but sweet. Lush, but also crisp.

Xun felt like he could truly relax while among the bamboo. And every so often, he'd stumble upon a new scent and notice a new plant. Without knowledge of refining pills, he left the plants where they were. It was bad karma to just randomly kill things, even ones as small as a plant.

After circling around and enjoying the scents for some time longer, Xun returned to his hut. But as he entered the village, a different, slightly bitter smell entered his nose.

It smelled like a spirit beast.

Chapter 12: Tigerhead Rabbit

While it was true that a cultivator's senses were heightened compared to most mortals, Xun's sense of smell went beyond that. He had smelled spirit beasts in his past life, usually when he was face to face with one or in a lair that carried their scent.

This time, he was on the outskirts of his village, in a fairly open space. It should have been the spirit beast sensing Xun, not the other way around.

At the moment, he didn't question why his sense of smell had developed so much. He sprang into action, crouching down and sneaking in the shadows of the huts.

Looking back at the bamboo forest he had just left, Xun considered abandoning the village and running away. He didn't need to take a risk here. With enough lifespan and knowledge that the Inner Breathing Method worked, even if the sect wouldn't accept him again, he could find a random cave and cultivate for hundreds of years.

The only reason he didn't do this was because the bitter scent of the beast wasn't mixed with the metallic scent of blood. It could be that this was merely some disciple bringing their animal familiar to visit the farm, or some other benign happening.

Xun had to make sure. Since the beast hadn't yet attacked the other laborers, it was likely safe to at least understand why such a creature was in the village.

Following the scent trail, he found himself staring at the center fire pit of the village. Lanhua, Zhuge, and Wangpan were already there and across from them was a rabbit about the size of a person's foot. Its fur was a deep brown that gradually darkened in color. The tail of the rabbit was almost entirely black.

For the moment, the laborers were looking at the rabbit without fear in their eyes. And Xun almost did too.

The rabbit was a Tigerhead Rabbit, and generally harmless. In fact, most cultivators hunted these rabbits when out adventuring. Its relatively simple attacking method, surprisingly tender muscles, and relative abundance made it great for traveling rations.

It also shouldn't have been anywhere near a sect farm.

Despite its relatively harmlessness, the animal was a spirit beast. Humans weren't the only ones who could cultivate. In fact, in the broader world, humans were the minority. Bunched into the center continent, humans ceded the four outer continents to spirit beasts, many of which had cultivated to a point where they had incredible intelligence.

Xun could see the laborers talking amongst themselves. Slowing his breath and staying a fair distance away, Xun strained his ears to listen in on their discussion.

"Should we keep it? As a pet?" Zhuge asked.

"It could be dangerous," Wangpan said. "We don't know where it came from and what it is. Disciple Fanpin might get angry at us for keeping such a thing."

Zhuge waved at the rabbit. The animal trained its beady eyes on her but still stayed by the fire.

"It's just cold. Look at how it's shivering," Lanhua said. "How could something so cute be dangerous? And I'm sure that Disciple Fanpin won't mind. We can probably feed it some of the straw after each harvest."

Wangpan wasn't convinced. "I think we should stay away from it. The teachers in the academy said that nothing in the sect is as it seems. This looks odd to me, somehow."

"I'm pretty sure it's just a normal rabbit." Lanhua took a step toward the animal. The rabbit turned its head in a split-second motion to look at the new human. Everyone froze.

Did they not learn what a Tigerhead Rabbit is?*Xun thought as he looked at the laborers. Even though the beast's fur hasn't gone entirely black yet, it's still equivalent to an early Earth Muscle cultivator. It could kill them if it wanted to.

Xun had to square his instinctual dismissal of the creature with the fact that he hadn't yet opened his aperture. Despite all the techniques and spells Xun knew, he couldn't use any of them without mist zhen in his aperture. In all senses of the word, he was still a mortal.

"We should wait for Pengzi or Xun," Wangpan said.

"Pengzi doesn't leave his hut until late in the afternoon. And Xun's out in the bamboo woods somewhere hiking," Lanhua said.

"Then let's knock on Pengzi's door."

"And interrupt his cultivation? Don't you know how rude that is?"

"This is more important. We don't know what it is."

Zhuge smiled as she joined Lanhua and then walked even closer to the rabbit. "Are you scared, Wangpan?"

"It's the first animal we've seen that doesn't run off when it sees us. What if it's a spirit beast?" Wangpan's face flushed red as he tried to defend himself.

"This?" Zhuge pointed at the rabbit that was only a few steps away from her. "How could something so cute be dangerous?"

Without waiting for anyone else, she went to the rabbit, showing her palms as she went. "Here, rabbit. I promise I'm not here to hurt you."

Xun watched her coldly.

Every spirit beast is an opportunistic carnivore. Where humans cultivate through cycling zhen, spirit beasts do so in a more brutal manner. They simply eat things with zhen. And humans, especially ones beginning to cultivate, have a lot of zhen.

Although he enjoyed the company of his fellow laborers, the new relationships he had formed in the past few days hadn't changed his goals. Reaching eternity was still more important than anything else. Anything else could be sacrificed in pursuit of that goal.

Zhuge's reflection grew larger and larger in the beady black eyes of the rabbit. Still, the spirit beast didn't move. It seemed stunned at the human approaching closer. Then, when Zhuge was only a single step away, a glint of intelligence flashed through its eyes as it finally acted.

The rabbit made a small movement to the right, its body turning into a black blur. Then, it leaped and shot towards Zhuge's chest. Shocked, the girl tried pulling back with her arms up. Wangpan and Lanhua also realized the danger as they rushed forward waving their arms, hoping to scare the rabbit away. They were treating the spirit beast as if it were just another animal.

With dexterity that no human could match, the rabbit landed on Zhuge's arms, pushed down, and shot past her guard. With its two front limbs, it began a flurry of blows against the center of her chest.

At first, Zhuge seemed confused at the attack. The rabbit was small and its limbs so short that the attacks looked comical. It probably tickled more than it hurt.

Her confusion didn't last long. A couple strikes in, the animal transformed. It puffed up, growing almost as large as a dog. The attack also became far more deadly, with giant curved claws sprouting from its forelegs. In seconds, the spirit beast tore through to her heart and kept going until she had a gaping hole in her chest.

Wangpan and Lanhua stopped in their tracks when they saw their friend collapse to the ground. Their faces were full of disbelief as they watched the rabbit, now stained red with blood, climb out of the hole.

"Help!" Lanhua was the first to react, turning back and running through the village to get away from the monster. Wangpan snapped out of it a moment later, scrambling away as tears began to form in his eyes.

After the kill, the rabbit seemed to lose its strength. It gave a slight hop in place as it shrunk back down to its original size. Then, it began patrolling around its downed prey.

Xun watched all of this without moving.

The rabbit was barely a spirit beast, which was likely how it was able to slip into the sect. So while it was bad news for the other laborers who had never fought something with cultivation before, Xun still had a shot taking it down.

For starters, unless threatened, the rabbit would try to carry its prize back to its lair. That gave Xun time.

Xun retreated until he was sure that the animal couldn't hear him. Then, he opened the door to one of the unused huts and peeked inside.

Like most huts, this hut only had the usual farming implements, scythes, plows, and shovels. With the exception of the plow, the other two implements could double as a weapon but Xun ignored the sharp edges of the scythe as he made his way to the kitchen. After considering things, he grabbed a cast iron pan, a lump of black metal beaten into the shape of a convex circle with a short handle.

Xun returned to the center of the village to find the rabbit hard at work trying to transport Zhuge's body. It grabbed a corner of the laborer's robe in its mouth as it dragged the corpse forward. While not slow by any means, it wasn't exactly fast, either. The sheer size difference between the fully grown human and a small rabbit couldn't be bridged by cultivation alone.

When the rabbit finally reached the edge of the open area around the fire pit, it froze when it heard the creak of a door opening. Pengzi had finally finished his training and pulled open his door with gusto. Xun saw a half smile on his face, perhaps the day's cultivation had gone well. Almost immediately, the laborer noticed the blood on the ground and found the rabbit dragging his friend's body.

The rabbit trained its sight on Pengzi, only to find the human scream, close his door, and then from the sounds of it, move his bed to block the door.

That's the correct response to seeing a spirit beast, Xun thought. Either you fight and kill it or you run and pray that it'll let you live.

But unlike Pengzi, he was about to do the former.

As the rabbit continued on its journey, Xun slipped between the huts and maneuvered his way into the bamboo forest. He made sure that each step was as silent as possible with his toes touching the ground first. Slowly, he got into position, hiding behind a rock that was directly in front of the path of the rabbit.

While it was true that spirit beasts were dangerous, they were also an opportunity for cultivators. At the center of each spirit beast was a core, a section of its body similar to a human's aperture. But where human apertures disappeared after death, beast cores stayed behind. More importantly, they were the main ingredient in cultivation pills that could directly increase a cultivator's zhen.

Xun checked to see if any of the laborers were in sight. When none of them were, he gripped his cast iron with his left hand and waited.

The moment the rabbit reached the rock, Xun took a quick step forward and smashed his right fist down to the ground in the blink of an eye. Even so, the spirit beast somehow found time to drop the cloth in its mouth, twist along the ground, and dodge Xun's attack. Then, with a speed that Xun's eyes couldn't follow, it leapt against Xun's chest.

A small smile formed on Xun's face as the rabbit puffed up once again and clawed forward.

Instead of meeting soft human flesh, the beast's blow met hard iron. And even though its claws were enhanced with zhen, they stood no chance against the metal pan held under Xun's clothes. The rabbit screeched as the claws on both of its front paws broke under the force of its own blow.

Pulling his right arm back, Xun smashed his fist into the spirit beast. It was enough to throw the animal back, but not enough to kill it.

As the rabbit tumbled back, fear began to show in its eyes. Its nose twitched as it glanced deeper into the forest and then back to the prize it had painstakingly dragged so far.

Xun could almost hear its thoughts. It was wondering if it could still salvage things, if it could take the new human down and have two prizes instead of one.

Over my dead body. Xun pounced forward and drew the cast iron out from under his robe. The animal hesitated. Xun didn't. He gripped the pan in both hands and swung down.

The rabbit darted to the side and avoided the blow, only to be crushed into the ground by Xun's foot. In the split-second Xun had attacked with the pan, he had raised his foot to the right of the rabbit. It had shown a tendency to favor its right side in the earlier attack against Zhuge, something Xun was glad to take advantage of.

As Xun felt a satisfying crunch under his foot, he slammed the pan sideways, catching both the beast and part of his own leg in the process. But the pain was worth it. The rabbit flew sideways, carried by the strike, and then dropped heavily to the ground.

He smashed the pan against the rabbit one last time for good measure. His gamble had paid off. It was dead.

Chapter 13: Games and Emotions

Breathing heavily, Xun stared at the dead rabbit in front of him.

After a few moments of rest, he cut open the spirit beast's chest with a sharp piece of rock. Next to its heart was the core. To most cultivators, a Tigerhead Rabbit's core was like the edge of a chicken's wing. It had enough value to be a waste throwing it away, but not enough value to justify working with an alchemist to refine it. In the end, most simply sold it to a merchant at a price of maybe one or two spirit stones per core.

But for Xun, the core was without doubt the most valuable thing he owned. And it was about to get even better.

He plucked the core out and held it in his hands, then went to a nearby stream and washed the blood off. The cleaned core was like a gem, gleaming with a crisp green under the sunlight.

Most cultivators asked alchemists to refine the core because the zhen within would damage their spirit channels if ingested directly. Xun didn't have that problem. His spirit channels were already broken. And there were limits to how bad that could get. As far as he knew, nobody had ever broken their spirit channels entirely. Even in the stories where some hero decided to reverse their cultivation, their talent merely dropped. Spirit channels never, as far as he knew, disappeared entirely.

So he simply popped the core in his mouth, sucking on it like candy.

A new heat rose from his stomach that burned his insides. Once it reached a certain intensity, it hovered there, as if waiting for Xun to cycle zhen and make use of it. Unfortunately, he'd already done his hundred cycles for the day. And more importantly, he didn't have the time to waste on cultivating just yet.

Going back for the rabbit, Xun became lost in thought.

He knew that the best course of action was to base the dead creature a couple more times, then cut the corpse into a couple different pieces, and spread the evidence of his kill around the forest.

But at the same time, the rabbit was a legitimate spirit beast. Every part of its body had value. Xun didn't know if there would be a chance like this to collect spirit material in the future.

Gritting his teeth, Xun decided to risk it. He cleaned up any signs of the battle minus a few deep scratches in the earth and left Zhuge's body alone. All he needed to do was show that the Tigerhead Rabbit had been spooked by something stronger and ran away.

Carrying the dead rabbit, Xun went to the large bamboo culm that he previously used as his marker for the green spirit rice. Digging to the side, he buried the rabbit and made sure to flatten the ground afterward.

Next, he went back to the stream and washed off any sign of gore or dust from him. With his wash, he also plucked a couple herbs that had particularly pungent smells and rubbed them over him. He wasn't sure if anyone else around had a sense of smell as strong as him, but the last thing he needed was for his scent to give him away.

As he did that, Xun began to wonder why there was a spirit beast in the village.

He could understand that the Nine Thunders Sect was a bit more barbaric and weaker than his former sect. He could even understand how they let a Water Lung Stage cultivator be in charge of an important sect resource such as the spirit farm.

What he couldn't understand was how they could let a spirit beast, as weak as the rabbit was, through their defenses. A single beast could have devastated the crops. Either the sect had more than this single farm or there was something fishy going on. Xun leaned toward the latter.

But for now, that wasn't a problem he had to worry about.

With everything finished, Xun went back to the village.

—

"Hello?" Xun yelled as he entered the village. He purposely went from the opposite direction of where the rabbit had left a trail of blood. Trying to act oblivious, he yelled again. "If this is some kind of a joke, it's not funny."

Lanhua was the first to warn Xun. From one of the unused huts that had its window shuttered, she opened the door and hissed, "Xun, come here. Quickly."

Xun feigned an expression of confusion as he half-walked, half-jogged to her hut. She pulled him in strength that belied her small frame. Then, she slammed the door shut and put the wood bolt in place. When Xun's eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw that Wangpan was also there. But unlike Lanhua, he was huddled in a corner and crying softly to himself.

"What's going on?" Xun asked.

"We were attacked," Lanhua whispered. "It was a rabbit but I think it was a spirit beast. I don't know why it was there. It got Zhuge. Killed her."

When Lanhua mentioned Zhuge's name, Wangpan cries became a bit louder.

Xun glanced at the laborer as he also lowered his voice. "Is he okay?"

"He's not hurt, physically at least," Lanhua said. "But we don't know what going on outside. We've been here for hours."

"Hours?" Xun exclaimed. "Tell me again exactly what happened?"

Lanhua explained everything.

"I didn't see anything on my hike today," Xun said. His face was paler than usual, which he hoped she would take as a sign that he was scared. "What do we do?"

"Wait here until the disciple comes back. That's the only way we know that we're safe. There's no way any of us can fight a spirit beast right now. And if we cultivate, we won't go hungry."

Xun nodded. "What if disciple Fanpin doesn't return soon?"

"My second plan is to link up with Pengzi. We'll find safety in numbers. All we need to do is make sure that the beast is gone."

"I didn't see any signs when I came," Xun offered.

"Let's wait one more day just to be safe," Lanhua said. She gave a glance to Wangpan, who was still huddled in the corner weeping. Then, averting her eyes, she sat down in a different corner.

—

They sneaked over to Pengzi's hut the next day. Two days later, when they were sure that no spirit beast was coming to bother them, life gradually returned to normal.

Or almost normal. Xun took Liubo's old hut. It wasn't like he believed in superstitions like ghosts. After all, when he died, he didn't go haunt his family. He wanted to, but the heavens had other plans for him.

The second change was a new mound next to Liubo's grave. Zhuge's body was discovered a couple of days later and given a proper burial. Unlike last time, the laborers mostly didn't grieve.

The third change was that everyone besides Wangpan became cultivators. Pengzi opened his aperture first, yelling so loud that Lanhua thought the spirit beast had come back.

Xun was second, breaking through with the help of the Tigerhead Rabbit's zhen. His cultivation had been four times faster than normal for a whole hundred and fifty cycles.

When Xun opened his aperture, his body changed in a way he couldn't have possibly expected. The moment his aperture's crack was large enough, it began to suck in the black-green paste until not a single bit was left. Looking inside, Xun found a sight he never expected at the Foundation Realm. A single mung bean floated in the air as the paste swirled around.

As Xun watched, the bean began to absorb the paste and used the nutrients to sprout. A small bud emerged from the center of the bean and climbed higher. But before it could grow even a single a leaf, the green paste was gone and all growth stopped.

What in the nine skies is this? In both lifetimes, Xun had never heard of something like this. He would have called this a native spirit plant if it weren't for the fact that he was a Foundation Realm cultivator. Native spirit plants were something that cultivators at the Consecration Realm gained when they reached the Forever Garden stage. He shouldn't be seeing anything like that now.

But whatever it was, it was a good thing. He felt like he was floating in a warm pool as the plant swirled in his aperture. Better yet, Xun gained a new confidence that he would outlive his peers. If he had guessed that the green paste was the raw form of lifespan pills before, the feeling he got from the plant was undeniable confirmation. He wasn't sure just how much longer he'd live, but he was sure that it would be a lot.

Lanhua also opened her aperture, managing the task a single day before the deadline that Disciple Fanpin gave them. She spent that night singing and celebrating with Pengzi and Xun.

When Disciple Fanpin came back at exactly the end of their first month as laborers, everyone gave a sigh of relief. Pengzi reported what had happened with the spirit beast, which the disciple simply dismissed the laborers with a wave of his hand and went up the mountain. Later that night, he came back down and began to check on everyone's cultivation.

"Pengzi," Fanpin ordered.

Pengzi stepped forward and with a yell, he punched forward. The zhen from his aperture sprinted through his spirit channels and flew into the air. A slight shimmer appeared on his knuckles.

"Good, your zhen is decent for just opening your aperture. Keep it up." He turned to the next laborers.

Both Lanhua and Xun also performed well enough for Fanpin. And then the disciple came to Wangpan.

Unlike the other laborers, Wangpan spent the days after the spirit beast raid in a daze. After the initial few days, he began spending long hours in front of the center fire pit. The death Zhuge affected him more severely than anyone else. Xun guessed that a part of it came from the fact that he also ran when he saw his lover being attacked. People showed their true colors when in danger. Sometimes, they couldn't accept the real version of themselves.

Everyone, including Xun, had tried to console Wangpan. But none of their words did anything. He'd need to walk out of his anguish himself.

Unfortunately, time had run out. Fanpin frowned as he watched the only one of the laborers who didn't follow his instructions in punching forward.

"Not a cultivator huh? You think I won't throw you out? Wasting my spirit rice like that, do you think that you're some young master?"

Wangpan lowered his head further.

"Tell you what. You're done. You'll never be a cultivator. Pack your things. I want you off this mountain before the sun rises tomorrow," Fanpin said with a tone of finality.

Lanhua looked like she wanted to say something but Pengzi tugged her sleeve. Fanpin saw the motion and Xun could see a strange emotion flash across the disciple's eyes.

"I brought six damn laborers here and yet, when we need to start planting, I only have three left," Fanpin complained. "Oh well, we'll just have to make do. Pengzi, you're in charge of the bottom third of the mountain. Lanhua, you take the middle third. And Xun, you take the top third."

Xun hurried to accept his assignment with the other two laborers. But unlike Lanhua and Pengzi, Xun knew exactly what that meant. In his time getting familiar with the farms at night, he knew that the terraces closer to the top of the mountain were more fertile, while the lower ones were far worse.

Why assign the middle farm to Lanhua? For a second, Xun was stumped. He had been ready for the disciple to give Lanhua the top third of the farmland to curry favor with her. I saw annoyance, maybe anger, in Fanpin's eyes when he saw Pengzi tug Lanhua's sleeve. That would explain why he got the worst part of the farm. But why not give Lanhua the top third, the best farmland?

And then Xun realized why. In a game of three players, the emotional difference between the winner and the loser wasn't much. The winner would be happy, the loser would assume things were bad luck. But the person in second place would think that they could have won if they only worked a little harder. They'd be bitter and willing to do more than normal to win.

Xun shot a glance between Lanhua and Fanpin, especially the look on Fanpin's face. More than normal, it seemed, was exactly what the disciple wanted.