Path of the Ascendant

“- and that grey cloak, please. You’re not going to want more than one minute mote, correct?”

“N-No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to try to pick your pockets-”

“Shut up and give it to me already, you liar. How in the world could you ‘accidentally’ try to rob me? That either shows that you are absolutely moronic and incapable, or that you are possessed, in which case I will be all too pleased to remove both spirits from your body,” Wei Yi said, grabbing the items she had purchased from his hands.

Mid-way through turning around, however, she spotted something more appealing in the corner of this poor man’s shop and dropped the cloak back onto his counter.

The moment that her hands went towards the pile of clothes, the shopkeeper nearly leapt over the counter to stop her, “No, anything but that! You can’t take that from me! Not even for a titanic mote, alright?”

“Why not?” she inquired, her eyebrow raised as she lifted some tight trousers and a similarly tight shirt that, if worn by her without anything underneath, would provide any onlooker with a perfect view of her body, almost as if she wore nothing at all.

“This… this is something I had made specifically for me. If you want your own set, go to the tailor two streets down!” the shop owner declared, finally managing to hop over the counter despite his fat and weak body, “That tailor is a really talented woman who makes her clothes based on ancient and lost designs that are said to be from the era of the Master of Yi City, with some of the designs possibly being created by the man himself!”

“Right, two streets down. I’ll let you keep these, then, even if I can’t imagine you ever putting them on,” she replied, leaving the items on the ground before departing with a few of her purchases.

She headed for the tailor shop she had just heard about, and found it a few minutes later, after realising that the store that was capable of creating such interesting items was located within the worst building on the entire street, resembling random pieces of wood stacked onto one another.

Within, the only light was provided by a small red candle, which thankfully gave off a warmer orange glow that made the building more pleasant to take in than most of the outside world.

“Hello? Anyone here?” Wei Yi called out, spreading out her spiritual will to find someone in this dim environment. However, to her surprise, there were no traces of life in the entire four metre vicinity, though she could have understood that through the thick layer of slightly red dust covering every surface in the building, or the fact that there have been no traces of any movements anywhere around her, with certain stacks of thread and pairs of scissors clearly having been left alone for far longer periods than others.

‘Huh. Very interesting. Has this tailor moved out without that shopkeeper noticing?’ she wondered.

Just as she intended to turn around and ‘peacefully‘ ask around about this shop, she heard the faint sound of something shuffling in the depths of the darkness, where there should have been no traces of life.

“Excuse me? If you are human, can you say something before I punch you in the face?” Wei Yi said, ensuring that she spoke loudly enough for even a deaf individual to notice.

“Everyone here… always jumps to hitting… and punching… ugh…” a voice came from the same place as the shuffling. The vague outline of a figure rose from the darkness and slowly crawled over to a low table in the candlelight, revealing a humanoid body with slight but noticeable feminine features. However, it also showed strange crimson flesh that was covered in translucent skin, with multiple insignificant chunks of the body missing and revealing pitch-black bones within the body.

Even the woman’s face, although lacking any such missing chunks of flesh, looked rather disconcerting due to the strangeness of her skin and flesh and her pitch-black eyes that had no clear distinction between iris and sclera.

Although that raised an incredible number of questions, it did answer why she couldn’t be found in the building on first glance – she had no heartbeat nor breath.

“Are you the tailor that works here?”

“That’s right… are you wondering why I look like this?”

“I wouldn’t say that I’m not interested, but if you can create the same thin and tight clothes that you made for the fat shopkeeper a few metres away from here, then it isn’t important what you look like,” Wei Yi answered, explaining the basic appearance of the clothes she had found there, “They appear to be very suitable for combat, which happens to be incredibly suitable for me.”

“Shopkeeper… Ping Feng, right? I remember that set…” the tailor muttered, reaching under the table to retrieve a set of papers that contained a number of designs on either side of them, “This is what you want, right?”

Wei Yi took the paper from her and examined it. The design matched that of the clothing found in Ping Feng’s shop, and looked to have been drawn many, many years ago by someone who was not too artistically talented, but it did enough to convey the basic idea of the clothing set. The upper portion of the clothes, the shirt, was simple in appearance but instructed that the material to be used ought to be gathered from very particular sources and to be processed in a very specific manner to produce thin, flexible and tough fabric.

Meanwhile, the lower part was labelled as ‘jeans’ and was likely from a different set of items, for they used a completely different method of creation and fabric, clinging tightly to the body instead.

“This does look suitable. Do you know who created these?”

“No clue… no labels nor names on anything… but they do seem to have been made by the same person… But these are copies, despite how old they look. The original creator… he or she would have died long ago, even with the benefits of planar cultivation and the Beast’s blood combined…” the strange tailor guessed, “Do you want these?”

“Naturally. Do you need to get my measurements?”

“Yes. Stand here…”

She pointed to an empty spot within the building, then took out a series of instruments to measure her body.

The tailor worked incredibly quickly and efficiently, getting the entire process done in just a few minutes, without any extraneous actions or questions. It was almost like she had mastered a unique martial art and was currently performing it without any reservations.

When she was done, she went straight to creating the clothes, and did so in a similarly impressive time, finishing before half an hour went by. The shirt was made out of grey threads that stretched easily, while the trousers were woven from fabric of the same colour while having slight discolorations on the knees.

“Five minor motes, please.”

“Here you go,” she threw out some motes that she had received from someone who misinterpreted her approach to interrogation as an attempt to rob them, “How long have you been doing this?”

“I do not remember… I wasn’t like this… originally, I think, but then I woke up like this… without any memory… but with a thread and needle in hand and knowledge… and instinct allowing me to make use of them… I might have been human at some point… but not anymore,” the tailor stated, stretching out her arm, “My body resembles that… of hatred automatons, with black bones and crimson flesh and no need for food… but I seem to still have my mind…”

“Could you tell me what a hatred automaton is? I’ve heard the term before, but not what it means.”

“Hatred automatons… they are beings that once lived, animated by the endless killing intent within the world… their flesh is partially missing and crimson… and they act almost like mechanical constructs, moving methodically and without any obvious purpose…”

Wei Yi grabbed the tailor’s arm and felt her skin and lightly touched a spot of exposed flesh, “You do have a certain quality of dryness and solidity, unlike what flesh is ought to have. Very interesting.”

“If you want to see a normal hatred automaton… you can ask the guards about them…”

“Noted,” she said, releasing the woman’s arm, “My knowledge of hatred automatons is naturally lacking, but if it is somehow possible to reverse whatever happened to you, would you be interested in doing it?”

“Don’t see a reason for that. I’m alive… never hungry nor thirsty and possibly free from aging… I get to do what I like whenever I like…”

“Fair enough. Before I go, could you tell me if you intend to remain here in the near future?”

“Nowhere else to go, so, yes.”

“Good.”

She left the tailor’s store and headed towards the other side of town, where the first brothel she had visited was. Although she was tempted to find Ah Li or someone else that caught her eye and spend another day with them, that wasn’t something she could afford to do at this very moment, so she snuck into the brothel and descended into the depths, traversing both sets of stairs to return to the room in which she met Meng Chu.

At the moment, that room was empty, so she went around and inspected every single hidden passage before finding one that led to an incredibly similar chamber within the range of her spiritual will, which she opened up with some spiritual will-based trickery and stepped through, opening the door on the other side in a similar manner.

There, she sat down and crossed her arms, waiting for someone to enter.

‘As far as I can tell, these places are used frequently, even if it isn’t always by the owner of the establishment, so I am bound to find someone who works here if I wait long enough.’

And find someone she did, only a few minutes later. One of the regular doors was opened, and two women came in at the same time, with neither of them wearing any clothes and with both of them too busy kissing to notice her presence. The moment that they got through the doorway, one pressed the other up against a wall and got busy.

‘When I thought that it wouldn’t be the owner that entered, I didn’t realise that customers would also be permitted,’ Wei Yi commented, considering what to do now, ‘I could interrupt them, but they seem to be having quite a lot of fun at the moment… No, with how deep this part of the brothel is, no regular customers or workers would be here, so it would make sense if this connects to some internal part of the brothel where some of the higher-ups, Meng Chu included, might reside. Worth a shot, I suppose, and if it doesn’t work, I can return to these two and ask them about it.’

She used her stealth techniques to sneak past them unnoticed and entered the chamber on the other side of the door. Unlike the first two chambers, which were both small and limited in terms of furniture, this area was incredibly large and open, with a number of shelves, chairs and tables scattered around.

From the other side of the room, she heard a voice calling out, “Where in the heavens have those two gone? Can they not… what’s this?”

It was instantly obvious that this was Meng Chu speaking, so she approached his position openly while ignoring whoever he was looking for. She found him on the far edge of the chamber, standing over two sets of robes that were randomly dropped onto the ground without any care for the placement or the ornate fabrics they were made out of.

“Have you lost someone, Meng Chu? Not very professional of you.”

“I haven’t lost anyone, I-” he replied reflexively before raising his head and realising who he was speaking to, “Wei Yi? How did you get in?”

“Through the door, as most people probably would. Can I expect a proper answer to my question?”

Meng Chu sighed, “Since I assume that you are here to resume the negotiations we were having previously, I temporarily won’t object. I am looking for two of my subordinates, Dugu Wei and Qiu Sheng, who typically manage the guards and brothels whenever I am not present. These robes belong to them, so I assume that they snuck off to engage in their typical ‘romance sessions’, as they call them, while they should have been working. If you still have your spiritual will, could you find them?”

“Well, I’m not guaranteeing anything, but I might be able to do something,” she replied, grabbing both sets of robes, “You can take a look at the left side, I’ll look at the right side of the room.”

The man shrugged and followed her directions, while she returned to the doorway she entered from and, after waiting a little in the hopes that the two women, whose moans could be heard easily from such proximity, would hear her, she knocked on the doorway loudly.

“Girls, you didn’t pick the best time to do this. Get dressed and report to your boss,” Wei Yi said, throwing the robes in their direction, “And do pay more attention to your surroundings.”

Their moans stopped, and a pair of hands shot out shortly after to grab their respective clothes.

“What did you mean by that?” one of the women – the one that had been pressed up against the wall, based on the sound of her voice – asked.

“Did you not notice that someone had been watching you two for half a minute before walking right past you?”

“Someone did that? They need to be apprehended immediately!”

“You… You’re not Dugu Wei, are you?”

“Fortunately, she is not. Were you the one that was observing us?” the other woman said, her voice sounding far more mature and tough than her partner’s, “If you are a new assassin or agent that will work for us, then you have passed my test. I could not be sure that anyone was watching us to begin with, except for the feeling of being watched.”

“That is not quite what either of us intended, but we will see. However, if I had wanted to serve beneath you, I would be concerned at how inattentive you were. You see, I hadn’t used a single one of my stealth methods.”

“…” Dugu Wei was audibly silent, with the sounds of cloth being louder than her breathing.

Her partner also remained quiet, allowing both of them to change without any further interruptions. When they appeared in the doorway, Wei Yi noticed that the two of them were surprisingly similar to one another, except for a few key features. Their hair and eye colours were identical, but Dugu Wei had blond hair and dark eyes while Qiu Sheng had dark, almost black hair and cream-white eyes. Both had light skin, as did most within the prison realm due to the obvious lack of sunlight, and rather fair and lithe bodies, which was also common for pure killing intent cultivators.

The vice-leader of the guards, Dugu Wei, was in the first stage of the fourth realm of killing intent cultivation, while Qui Sheng, the vice-manager of the brothels was at the peak of the previous realm.

“I do not recall seeing you around here before. Did Meng Chu authorise your presence?”

“Yep, that’s exactly what he did, so get going already,” Wei Yi replied, nudging the two in the same direction that she had instructed Meng Chu to go in.

Although the vice-leader of the guards clearly didn’t trust her completely, she found that her physical strength allowed her to easily push around the two even without exerting herself, so they had no choice but to do as they were told.

Thus, they were brought smoothly to Meng Chu’s location, where he was already waiting for them to appear after he understood that Wei Yi didn’t take their robes for no reason.

“There you are. Dugu Wei, manage the situation in the east section. Qiu Sheng, there have been a few complaints in the female-only brothel in the southern section and I need you to investigate and resolve the situation to the best of your ability. I might be busy for a while,” he said, waiting for the two of them to depart before turning to Wei Yi, “My apologies for that. Not the best first impression of your future co-workers, I’d imagine.”

“About that… how about we find a more comfortable place to speak?”

“Certainly. There are a number of chambers similar to the first one we spoke in, so we’ll speak in the closest one,” Meng Chu said, bringing her to a nearby negotiation chamber, as he called it. There, he sat down in a chair and offered her to sit down as well, continuing, “Do you recall our original terms?”

“I do, but I have something different to propose first. It’s significantly different from your original proposal, and it is this – you serve under me, and I get us Beast’s Rest and more.”

“… Just to confirm, this is a serious suggestion, correct?”

“Naturally,” Wei Yi nodded, “I have a certain set of skills that allow me to recall and calculate an incredible amount of information, and so I will be able to provide you with unbeatable tactics so long as you give me the data I need. Furthermore, I believe that I have the potential to either shatter the prison realm or to locate an exit, in which case I will be your only chance to survive the anger of the Great Families. Even if I cannot do that, I will retain the ability to use spiritual will for a long period of time from now, and both my killing intent and physique are powerful enough to… well, crimson robe.”

“That is good to know, but you know that I cannot trust something like that just due to your word. I am not necessarily against working for someone competent, but…” Meng Chu paused, “Had you not come here wearing a Crimson Robe of the Third Arrival, I would have tried to kill you already. I’m sure you understand.”

‘There’s the standard violence and rage that a killing intent cultivator is meant to have…’ she sighed internally while looking perfectly confident on the outside, “Naturally, which is why I am sure we can work something out. There has to be something you’ve been working on, some operation or plan or idea that is quite complex and thus likely to fail, causing you to be unsure about starting it. How about letting me handle it? If it fails, you won’t lose much, and if I don’t, then you’ll know about my general capability. Perhaps I might even accomplish something you did not expect, resulting in a far greater success than you originally planned.”

Meng Chu frowned, considering things for a moment, “I could do that, and I even have the perfect operation to let you manage… So, if you succeed, you want to take charge, and if you fail, will you serve under me?”

“Something like that. Mind explaining what operation you wish me to tackle?”

“My ancestor, Meng Qi, had lost his techniques in an old battle, and the battlefield is currently occupied by a bunch of bandits from the Great Bone Lake – in case you are not aware, they are pure body cultivators, and thus they handle a form of unique physique energy that is not available anywhere in the upper realm, in the continents. I wanted to reclaim whatever was left of Meng Qi’s legacy, but it is not a particular priority, so you may do it instead.”

“Just some bandits? Sure, I can manage. Besides, I have something of my own as well,” Wei Yi smiled, raising her hand and releasing a thin wisp of True Ascendant physique energy above it.

“Oh… you don’t practise killing intent, then, do you?”

“It should be impossible to practise both due to the fact that both occupy the meridians, right? Well, if you follow me, I could provide you with a unique method to produce a secondary set of those with the minor cost of extreme, excruciating pain and… well, more pain. It isn’t pleasant at all.”

“Very interesting… if only you had opened with that, I wouldn’t have needed to offer you that challenge. Using two forms of energy at once will naturally bring extreme advantages to any force that is able to give even one percent of their fighters that ability, no matter what the costs are. Physique energy and killing intent… mental and physical abilities… It is the peak of what we can achieve.”

‘He shares my opinion on this, then. If I can manage to substitute planar energy for killing intent and reduce the complexity of my body cultivation to minimise the results, to ensure that no-one can ever rival me with my own techniques, then I might be able to gain some leverage over everyone in this prison realm, so long as I never reveal the possibility of having five sets of meridians at once,’ Wei Yi thought, rescinding the physique energy, “Tell me, Meng Chu, how does that compare to what most of the body cultivators from the Great Bone Lake are able to muster? I need to know that to understand how they will compare with me and with your troops.”

“It isn’t very easy to judge physique energies based on sight alone, and since I have no spiritual will to look at it with… It seems purer and brighter, but that is about it. What realm are you in?”

“Uh… Come to think of it, I have not asked about realms yet. Tell me everything you know about both forms of cultivation as well, for the same reasons as before,” she asked, “I have cultivated both energies without a full knowledge of the realms, and I suspect that is not the best of ideas.”

“For the purposes of our eventual cooperation, I shall do that. Since I am more familiar with killing intent, I will begin with it. The first realm of killing intent is called Initial Well, for it is the realm in which one gathers the killing intent that belongs to them and the Beast and refines it into a pool within themselves and their meridians. At this point, you may mobilise it beyond mere instinctive reactions, but not with a clear target. This realm can be attained through mere accumulation of energy, but beyond that, you need a shape. A form for the hatred to take. Something striking for yourself and your enemies,” Meng Chu explained, materialising his killing intent in the form of a great waterfall, “After that, you reach Fine Piercing – and I have to point out that the names are not particularly creative nor original, for they were made by insane savages – in which you may direct killing intent in a certain direction. You can’t pierce through anything, but the name has been sufficient so far…

“After that is Condensed Shot, in which you may morph your killing intent into fluid and strike specific targets at specific locations – which ought to name the realm Fine Piercing, but, well, it is not named that – with a variety of different forms of attack, mostly varying based on your particular technique. Sometimes, the source of killing intent is very obvious, but at other times, it is not,” explained Meng Chu, “Searing Torch, my realm, comes next. Silly name aside, it permits the condensation of killing intent into a weapon, which I shall demonstrate now.”

He raised his hand and closed it around the air, almost as if he was gripping the hilt of a weapon.

‘I remember this – the Black Terror did this exact same motion to create her crimson jagged blade instead of using the dagger in her robes,’ Wei Yi noted, carefully examining him and the flow of killing intent within his body to understand how it functioned for her future cultivation.

His killing intent surged out and shaped itself into a large staff that was as tall as him. It, like every weapon in the prison realm, looked dark, jagged and imposing, as if the very appearance of the staff could harm one’s body. However, by simply unclenching his fist, it dissipated back into his body, vanishing from sight.

“Where’s the armour?”

“Hatred Augur realm, the fifth and, so far as anyone has been able to manage in the prison realm, the final realm of killing intent cultivation. It is what most of the owners of the Crimson Robes of the Third Arrival are in, and it is significantly more powerful than the preceding realms. It permits the killing intent cultivator to infuse their hatred into their very flesh and skin, empowering themselves and applying immense defence on themselves. Furthermore, they gain something called a Hatred Scar that they can use to further those powers even more. I suppose that it can be compared to the searing marks of planar cultivation, or the planar anchor, but this effect is much more permanent and tends to be placed on the most significant part of the cultivator’s body. The heart and the brain are common positions.”

“I see. What about body cultivation?”

“The realms are: Stable Form, Greater Shape, Impermanent Permanence and Progressive Difference. Their effects… I have no clue.”

“How so? Is the information on body cultivation so hard to gain, or have you never particularly cared about his matter? If the bandits have truly been bothering you as much as you had claimed, then I imagine that you would have dealt with this already,” Wei Yi commented, crossing her arms.

“It’s not that I haven’t wished to investigate this, but the only people that can gain this information are those that engage with the body cultivation groups of the prison realm. The most well-known are those that reside within the Great Bone Lake, for the very environment there constantly forges and strengthens their bodies, but staying there requires either immense strength or submission to those there, and even those who enter via strength tend to go mad due to the constant pain,” he replied, “Additionally, the descriptions of the realms, just like the names, are far more vague than those of killing intent or planar cultivation. For instance, Stable Form has once been described as ‘Through mastery of body cultivation, the form achieves stability, preventing unfortunate temporal progression’.”

“So, it is something that is attained through a powerful body and prevents the effects of aging. Simple.”

“The second realm is ‘Elements of the body are refined, with certain imperfections within the mortal form being transcended. The physique is purified, extrapolating further might via its roots’.”

“I’d assume that impurities and flaws are removed while the physique can attain the next level, like ascending from a Yin physique to a Greater Yin physique or from a Bright Star physique to a Superior Bright Star physique.”

“In that case, I think you are far more suitable for body cultivation than the practise of killing intent.”

“You might be right, but I don’t mind that too much. Now, in terms of the planned method for distinguishing my position, are we agreed on the terms?”

“Naturally. I look forward to benefitting from your presence, regardless of your position.”