Chapter 32

  Vast-Body Art (III)

  Damn.

  That's one thick window.

  And that's a lot of information to dump on me.

  So, all my points are gone, my body feels slightly lighter (likely due to the extra 3% purification), and, apparently, I got a trait?

  Demonic Qi Sensitivity... call me a paranoid little prick, but this feels an awful lot like foreshadowing, no? Like in those stories where main characters unlock some super specific power that seems beyond useless, yet they are literally saved by it within the next few chapters.

  This... are there, like, demonic cultivators in the sect? Will I discover some deep-seated conspiracy about how our sect's been infiltrated by them?

  ... whatever. I'll think about it when I come across it.

  Most importantly, I got a splurge of quests! Four of them! And those last two... damn, those rewards are really juicy. Ew. I'm a forty-year-old man who just used the word 'juicy'...

  Anyway, everything is ready. I have (hopefully) enough Spirit Stones to support my two resource-sucking drones for the foreseeable future. I have a method for Dai Xiu as soon as she can cultivate again, and I have a premonition that the competition in six months' time will not go as most of the sect anticipates...

  ...

  Days and weeks began to blur together rather rapidly.

  Once I stopped descending the mountain and wholly dedicated myself to erecting shelters for my disciples, a simple yet gratifying daily routine was established.

  I'd wake up at the crack of dawn, have breakfast and tea with both my disciples. Right after, Long Tao would retire somewhere to cultivate, Dai Xiu would do her daily cleanup, and I'd go to the back of the mountain and resume construction.

  Two weeks in, a surprise happened--Dai Xiu's 'brother' woke up from his coma. To be frank, I kind of forgot about the boy; I'd stuffed him in Dai Xiu's temporary room, and she had been taking care of him all this while, so when I saw a random face pop up one morning at breakfast, I nearly had a heart attack.

  Dai simply called him 'Brother Hua', and the thing about her brother Hua was that he was mute. Couldn't utter a word. But she must have relayed everything that happened because, starting with that day, the boy accompanied me and helped with the construction more than I expected.

  Okay, fine--he took over and fixed a whole bunch of my mistakes. Despite being quite scrawny and having recently come back from the dead, he could lift. Like, I'm not saying he'd win benching competitions or anything, but he could enter them at least, which is more than what could be said for me.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The outline of the structure was completed in about a month, a bit longer than I anticipated. Nonetheless, this was the hardest part, and the rest should go relatively smoothly.

  I also got my monthly supplies, once again with some taxation, and also descended the mountain and even exited the sect to cut some bamboo trees and lug them back up the mountain (okay, I paid a few servants some Spirit Stones to do it for me).

  As the day that Dai Xiu could finally start cultivating again dawned, I opened my eyes to an excited little girl looming over my head like a ghost. Okay, I am a bit of scaredy-cat, I admit; jump scares would get me, haunting music would get me, hell, a cat jumping from one chair onto another would get me, but when I tell you I near shit myself when I saw her as soon as I woke up, you better believe it was scary.

  Luckily, I maintained my dignity as a master. Outwardly, at least.

  "Someone's excited," I said, smiling and standing up.

  "A-ah, forgive me, Master!" she quickly stuttered out. "I just, I mean..."

  "Ha ha, it's fine, it's fine," I patted her for a moment, yawning and walking past her. "Come on. Let's eat first and talk about all else after."

  "Yes!"

  Descending, I sat down at the table as she went to quickly heat up some food. Well, it was rice. It's always been rice. Truth be told, I'm freakin' sick of rice. I haven't eaten anything but rice and an occasional loaf of bread in two months. And it wasn't even well-prepared rice... there was no salt, no pepper, no other spices, just rice boiled in some slightly Qi-enriched water.

  But the body had to eat...

  Just then, footsteps came from the other side of the house, and Long Tao emerged.

  His body had changed considerably in the two months he'd been with me; though he hadn't grown taller (at least not obviously so), his previously thin frame had filled out a bit, and he looked less and less like a child (not that he ever really looked like one, if one bothered noticing him).

  Hm?

  Oh, for heaven's sake!

  Yup.

  That kid has reached the twelfth stage of the Qi Condensation--peak of the Qi Condensation Realm. He'd already reached the realm of the Inner Sect Disciples, and the youngest of those, as far as I can tell from the memories, was seventeen, and she was a special case, being the Spirit Sage's direct and sole disciple.

  Not only was he four years younger than her, but he also had about a hundredth of her resources. Yet, did it matter? Of course not!

  The scariest bit was that he didn't even bother concealing it! The bastard purposefully struts about, hoping to get a reaction from me. But nope. I'll do exactly what I've been doing every other time he showed off: pretend I didn't see it.

  If I acknowledge it, I risk opening a can of worms that will never close. So, nope. Keep it tightly locked down.

  He... he won't break through to the Foundation Establishment before the competition, right? I mean, I already knew he'd win it, but if he broke through, he'd outright be disqualified...

  ... well, he's already disqualified. If they learned his actual realm, I'm pretty sure they'd hike him to some basement and dissect him from head to toe to try and figure out his secrets.

  Dai Xiu came back with the breakfast soon after, right in time for Hua to come back from... somewhere. He'd go out before dawn every day the past couple of weeks, and as for where he was going, I didn't know. I'd hazard a guess that he had somebody in the 'Outer Sect Waste' and was either sneaking them some food or medicine.

  Whichever it was, it had nothing to do with me. More power to him. Rather, if he could maybe become my link to some potential future disciples or servants… haah. How the world changes you; here I am, two months into my stay, thinking thoughts scarier than my dad after a bad day at work. Scarier, yes, but apparently not darker…