The Last Jade Tablet

"What can you believe in, other than the potential within yourself?"

- Ruan Xiaomen, the Bamboo Chronicles of a Good-for-Nothing

***

The moon hung high in the sky. Ruan Shanqiao gazed at it as she subconsciously picked up the final jade tablet.

With the exception of the Bamboo Chronicles the rest of the tablets held information on at least several millions of arrays. But they were all useless if she was unable to devise ways to the manipulate the elements.

She pricked her bruised finger to drop yet another drop of blood onto the tablet in front of her. Due to the lack of spirit and Yuan energy within her, she had to utilize the energy from her own life force to activate the tablets. She had pricked her finger so many times that her finger was numb. But one really had to question, was her finger numb from the pain or from the repeated action of stabbing it with a sharp object? Or were the two the same thing?

She sighed as the tablet slowly activated. It was probably another encyclopedia on arrays.

However, what showed up inside the tablet was completely in contrary to her expectations. Instead of a diagram of various elements, it was filled with information about a bird and the treasure it protected.

The image revealed a bird nearly as big as a small tree covered in jade green and purple feathers. It wore a crown of reddish gold feathers at the top of its head much as the emperor would. Legends told of an unsurpassed poison called Zhen. The toxicity of the Poisonfeather Bird was so great that it appeared to roll off the body of the bird in the form of fumes.

The only cure for such a poison as this was the horn of a spiritual beast called Hundred Year Rhinoceros. The problem was it was far easier to find the poison than the cure, especially since the effect of the horn decreased as the age of the bird emitting the poison increased.

In the case of this specific Poisonfeather Bird, it had lived for nearly a thousand years. Shanqiao decided that it was impossible to find the cure to the Zhen poison of this specific Poisonfeather Bird. Where would you find a Thousand Year Rhinoceros?

Thankfully, the main interest in the jade tablet was not the bird, however. It was the treasure that was protected by the bird. It was a small scroll, called the Jaded Tongues. The owner of the scroll would be able to speak and understand all the various languages in the world.

Ruan Shanqiao frowned as she read. What was her father alluding to when he had included this in the millions of resources for build up her combative power? The Jaded Tongues appeared to have very little relevance to her, especially as a good-for-nothing...

Or perhaps, he was telling her that this specific power was obtainable not only by cultivators. However, wouldn't you require a certain degree of cultivation to even reach the remote area that the treasure was hidden?

Oh father. Ruan Shanqiao started to sigh, but stopped herself halfway through it. Her father had once told her that your bad luck comes from every sigh to let out.

If she wished to obtain the Jaded Tongues, she require all the luck she had. Why diminish it by sighing? She was already-

Ruan Shanqiao froze. Her eyes widened as she slowly pulled a blanket around her.

She could have sworn that there was a crackling of leaves outside of her window. And further back in the forest, faint figures could be seen.

Could she have been found?

twang....

She turned towards the sound.