Chapter 197

  Over the Summit (III)

  Right.

  Of course, of course he's some proper-right monster. How else would he have 'fallen' into my lap?

  Ugh, don't say it like that...

  It's sort of like a curse that's trying to wrap itself like a present--oh? You're an Elder? And your System is dependent on having a bunch of really talented kids? Here! Have all of them! All the talented kids!

  Will they suck up all your resources? Yes. Will you often feel so inadequate because there's quite literally nothing you can teach them? Oh, will you ever.

  Will--

  Aah. I don't have the energy for this. I'm tired and tapped out, and I just know this kid ain't going anywhere.

  The crowd dispersed soon after, and, before I knew it, I was alone with my thoughts yet again. In fairness, I feel like I've been constantly swimming in my head for the past year, trying to maintain some sense of normalcy.

  Feeling somewhat bored and having already set aside the night to break through, I left the drafty house and took a walk along the castle's edge. I could see permafrost just barely scraping up against the topmost edges, and I just had to wonder how people survived winters in this place. Did they just all bundle within the barracks and never leave them?

  Probably.

  A lot of things about this world confound me, but there are also those anchors that pull me back--the principle of recognizing the familiar.

  The struggle, it seems, is the same. As is the divide. Who was born where, in whatever circumstances, seems to determine the outcome of life here as much as it did back on Earth, perhaps even more in some cases.

  What if Light had been born a couple of decades earlier? She'd be a grown woman now, if she were even alive, perhaps out there seeking vengeance.

  What if Long Tao reincarnated a year earlier than I arrived here?

  What if Dai Xiu and Hua just... never ran away?

  None of them would be here with me, and I may have had a whole other assortment of kids waiting on my every word. And yet, I feel, if only they'd been born in slightly better circumstances... there'd be no need for me at all.

  They'd be in want of nothing.

  I stopped at one of the decrepit staircases and slowly made my way up to the wall. The evening was surprisingly clear, with the fog having lifted, offering a fairly vast-encompassing view of the rugged mountains.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Nature here, too, seemed strangely unconquered. Just as we'd learned to utilize it, so did folk here, but its whims and wiles seem equally... vast.

  Haah.

  There I go again.

  Just... thinking.

  It never does me any good, honestly. It always seems to depress me one way or another, and I have to claw my way out of the sewage pipes I've built. Alas, there's no time for it today.

  I'm taking a big step, perhaps the biggest I will in my life in this world, and nothing can stand as a distraction.

  I'm becoming a proper cultivator, warts and all.

  No longer just a husk force-fed a thousand pills... but something that may actually result in a good outcome.

  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous--it's sort of like that feeling before the big test, right? Even if my entire future doesn't necessarily depend on it, one specific future does.

  Back on Earth, before I met Yas, those exams wrecked me. Med school was a proper hell, and it spawned so many insecurities that I was battling them even going into the fourth decade of my life.

  Here, though, I'm... trying.

  Trying to not let it happen again.

  And this is the first step.

  I walked the wall for a little while as the day began to fade and the day's chills turned into the nightly one. Descending, I quickly found my way back to the house, where a strange sheen embossed its edges; surprisingly, there was only Long Tao.

  "Where's everyone?" I asked.

  "I sent them away."

  "Why?"

  "You're breaking through," he said with a faint smile. "I'm more than enough as a Dharma Protector. They'd just get in the way."

  "... you think someone's going to attack me?" I asked with a bit of worry.

  "Only your stray thoughts," he sneered. "But my Master will not undergo a breakthrough without a Dharma Protector. It's a shame that would last a lifetime."

  "Right."

  "I took the liberty of drawing a small array taught to me by my grandfather."

  "Oh? Now we're dipping into your grandfather's knowledge?"

  "Of course, it's fairly ancient," he said as he guided me inside to the central room where, practically carved into the stone, was a strange set of marks drawn into six concentric circles. "It's an array specifically designed for the Revolving Core Realm," he added. "Per my grandfather, Revolving Core is about condensing the spirit you manifested at the depths of your dantian into a dense singularity. The denser you can get it to be, the higher quality the breakthrough. It goes from Loose Core to Mortal Core to Spirit Core to Heaven Core and the ever-elusive Eternal Core.

  "Since you're also purifying the body at the same time, the quantity of Qi during the breakthrough will be enormous. You have to be careful."

  "Oh, I will--"

  "--you have to be careful, Master," he interrupted quite harshly, actually. "I have a means of stopping it in the worst-case scenario, but if I do... you'll become mortal. And not even the heavens will be able to change that."

  "... I'll be careful, Long Tao," I said after a brief silence. "Thank you."

  "It's not for free," he grinned.

  "And here I thought you were being a proper, filial Disciple."

  "One of the tombs on our way over has a... strange mechanism. I was thinking your father may have stumbled upon an art or two that can disarm it."

  "I may have to reach for my grandfather's treasure trove sooner than I thought, it seems."

  He simply grinned as I sat down, crossed my legs in front of me, and took a deep breath.

  I could feel it, the bulging energy radiating out from my depths--like a dormant volcano stirring to awaken. Long Tao took a few steps back and sat down, too, in a lotus position, his back facing me. It's... eerie how safe I feel with that fourteen-year-old frame sitting over there.

  I took yet another deep breath and closed my eyes; I'd already run this scenario through my head a hundred times, to be honest. Ever since I made my own, temporary cultivation method, I'd been waiting for this day. For the day I undergo a mini nirvana.

  Qi within began to bubble, and I reached down and slowly started guiding it. Out and about like slithering serpents, they coiled through my meridians, doing three rotations before slowly beginning to settle into the dantian.

  I had to do that for every mote of Qi within me, and I had to do my darndest to get to at least a Mortal Core, which will require me to condense at least half of my current Qi reserves into a Core.

  Here I come, the rest of my life.