Jun stared into the distance at the setting sun; red skies with purple and pink hues. The land before them spread out into an endless canvas of beautiful colors demarking trails of blood that were as wide as ravines that were a different color. At the head of them, so far to the left of them, they could see gigantic skeletons. Three of them that were locked in an endless battle that resulted in their deaths.
Shui sat on the edge of the cliff, the warg’s head on her lap as she slowly petted the monster.
Their ancestor and the couple were a dozen feet away, speaking about something or another. Yin Hu had come before these monsters existed.
It only fulfilled the suspicion she had carried for some time now. Yin Hu was not their ancestor. Yin Hu had not come at a delayed time after their calling for him.
No. He was the ancestor of their ancestor.
The very first of an illustrious line of geniuses that continued until this day and resulted in Shui. The originator of the Hu Clan had come after these primordials had fought and slaughtered one another, many thousands of years later. At a time when the normal human could survive long enough to one day become capable of ascending. A thought crossed her mind, if the primordials were so strong, why were they forced into a higher realm like everyone else or were they the cause of this change after destroying the planet so many times?
More importantly, what the hell did they have to do with the cultivation manual she had been given.
Her ancestor had remarked how closely connected it was to the ancient monsters and how to learn their truth is to find ultimate power. None of that made sense to her.
It had been a few weeks since he handed the darned thing to Jun. All of which was consumed with her attempting to figure out how to circulate her Qi and the energies of the world within her as the esoteric manuel had suggested. It gave exact instructions in the most roundabout way possible, yet here she was doing her best to find a single success after dozens and dozens of attempts. Jun had lost count after the fiftieth one.
She knew that time passed around her, that they were moving from one place to another and she only came to when they paused, but she had to be focused on figuring out what she needed to do next to fulfill her role and make her master proud of her accomplishments. Yin Hu was a difficult taskmaster, to say the least, considering the rigorous training he put them through during their duration together. Whether it was physical strength, mental strength, or the strength of their Qi and cultivation, it all needed to be perfect without a single flaw.
Any flaw meant starting over.
Every single drop in their core needed to weigh more than any other person a major realm greater. Liquid Core Realm cultivators were not meant to contend with a Solid Core Realm monster, and yet that was the expectation that was put upon them by their ancestor. Or as he put it; ‘the bare minimum is excellence, even if it may seem impossible to your limited view of the world.’
She could have told him that it was too difficult, or maybe figure out how to convince him to make the process more gradual and simpler, but it felt almost sacrilegious to question his order, decisions, and the expectations he put upon them. Just the thought made her uncomfortable. Jun was positive that speaking those words aloud would have been impossible, especially when he stared at her with those deep, endless, orbs of the abyss he called eyes.
That didn’t stop her from complaining mentally to herself about everything else that they had been going through.
Jun had to trust his process though. It always became obvious later down the line that their ancestor knew exactly what he was saying. Even if she thought otherwise. Whether it was the dangerous sparring with Yagwan and his disciples, inviting the couple into their camp, or allowing Shui and her to fight and figure out their own path in the forest during the strange fog phenomena while they were escaping the Silver Mountain Sect.
That included her fight with Shao Yating.
She felt her sword hum within its sheath. Jun patted it like Shui was patting the warg.
Jun reached into her bag and pulled out the unnamed, ethereal, almost transparent and ghostly manual, then opened it to the first page that was not blank. Tiny writing filled it and made it difficult to read comfortably. It would have been a wise decision to make the writing larger and use up more pages, but she wasn’t the author of the darn thing. She just had to work to study and understand its content.
At the start she had assumed that it would be a simple task to go through so little, but the longer she read, the more difficult it became. It started to become a mountainous task to figure out how to accomplish impossible goals like ‘usurp the universe’, ‘channel it through her entire body to suffice her being with greatness beyond her understanding’ and finally to ‘expel the contaminates and the majority of the the heavenly energy out of her persona’. What the hell did any of that mean?
None of that made sense to her.
It was more esoteric than anything else she had ever had the displeasure of reading or attempting to study. Was her body the heavenly energy it mentioned, or was it something else entirely? She wasn't sure. What the hell were the contaminations she was attempting to exclude and push out from her body that needed to go? It clearly wasn't the normal contamination she was aware of that came with the normal process of cultivating and body tempering. The sludge that was expelled from her body during the process of purification. Similar to what she had gone through during her preparation for her Spiritual Root mutation and awakening. This was something completely different.
“Jun?” Shui said as she leaned to put her head on the wargs. “ I can’t figure something out. Ancestor’s new manual he gave me is so hard to understand. What does ‘remove weightlessness from the weight of the eternal soul’ supposed to mean?”
Jun turned to the little girl. She had no idea what the hell she was supposed to tell her. No answer would be satisfactory and would probably end up with Yin Hu reprimanding her. After all, he had told her that he couldn’t figure these basic truths to them, but rather they needed to figure them out individually without external help. That was the only way to break through beyond the basic ranks and realms of cultivation.
Shui had her own esoteric manual of a make and model completely different. Though hers was more ethereal than the one Jun had received.
On the other hand, both were equally confusing and deliberately attempting to puzzle their readers. She had the mind to suggest that they were attempting to mislead anyone that did make an attempt to learn this technique, considering none of it made any sense at all. It wasn’t beyond the ancients to do something so strange to protect their legacies. A hidden language within the written words only their members could decipher.
Jun ended up just shrugging her shoulders, unable to even make up an answer of what it could possibly have meant to ‘remove weightlessness from the weight of the eternal soul’.
She didn't even know that the soul had weight in the first place.
I can't let myself believe that Ancestor would give us something that was detrimental to our growth. Everything he has provided us with so far has been fully planned out and fit our individual needs. We just need to believe and do our part in fulfilling our responsibility and duty to him.
Jun noticed the warg as it gave her wide, puppy eyes. Begging and pleading with her for some help in escaping the hold Shui had on it. It tried to shift away from the little girl, but that only resulted in a tighter hug. That made it look sadder.
Jun couldn't help but feel pretty bad for the once independent, sovereign, and powerful beast before them. She wasn't sure how strong her Ancestor was, but this Heavenly Realm Stage monster was trembling at the very sight of him and the Weapon Spirits that they carried. She knew that her own Weapon Spirit was powerful enough to bring this world to its knees unless the powers that be gathered to stop her. Jun was positive Mr. Mo Mo was in the same category of power, though the dragons that Shui had suggested existed in their master's spear were far more powerful. Each one individually that was. Neither hers nor Mr. Mo Mo could contend with them.
She looked back towards her ancestor.
His conversation with the couple had ended once the sun fully set. Zhong Da was to the side with his wife, starting the camp flames and preparing water and the bowls for Yin Hu to make some Heavenly Rice and Heavenly Tea. Yin Hu waved his hand and a luxurious lounging chair appeared out of thin air. He sat down and began reading the same book he had been studying and had always seemed to bring out whenever it was time to figure the next steps to their development.
The Compendium he called it.
An ornate massive thing that was a foot and half long and with over a few thousand pages. This was supposedly only one volume of many that were all under different subjects entirely.
She couldn't understand the words written on the title. It was an ancient version of their current language that she could not decipher, though she had tried multiple times. It was too far departed from the common language used now. Jun knew that he was taking some ideas provided by said Compendium and leaving others from within that he did not think would work specifically for their case. Individually, neither one of them was given a general path, but rather something that was tailored to them.
That included mutations that made the world rush to bow before them and gather Qi into their core without having to intentionally cultivate.
Jun shivered as she remembered what had happened that very first attempt to cultivate again. Both her and Shui had lost control of their cultivation. She remembered everything becoming blurry but not much else after the first ten minutes. Her memory foggy as the world seemed to surround her with more Qi and energy than she could possibly figure out what to do with.
She knew instinctively that had her ancestor not intervened, she would have started to break at the seams of her soul and physical vessel and eventually killing herself from oversaturation. Shui would have had the same exact calamity befall upon her.
Another thing she could not understand or figure out that had to do with her ancestor and his tactics to develop them.
Why give them something so powerful when they were clearly not prepared for it? Could it have been nothing more than a test for further and future development? She couldn't imagine what it would be like for something stronger or more efficient than what they currently had. At what point did they start to ascend? Start sucking the Qi out of the life around them?
Jun had to wonder what were the limits of ascension within this world. Could their ancestor stop that process?
She shivered at the thought of him being powerful enough to do that.
Many a tale and story had reached her of monsters growing mighty enough to move on to the next plane of existence and figure out paths to become stronger and stronger, but that was all they were. Long tales and stories that nobody could ever corroborate, considering that no person would give out the secrets of their sect’s and clan’s power.
Jun shook her head. She had to return to attempting this new cultivation manual in hopes to figure it out.
Maybe she would get lucky.