Path of the Ascendant

“Boss, the newbie’s gone to one of your brothels after that,” the guard who had been seen beside the entrance to the city and then outside of the tavern, “I swear that she noticed me whenever I looked at her, though she didn’t even look at me except once.”

Meng Chu lazily clapped, “Well done, you managed to say one sentence that didn’t make me hate you. Now, as for the matter of her noticing you… very interesting.”

“What is?”

“That is something that can be accomplished with spiritual will and little else, but spiritual will is not something that one can project and maintain, even within their body, without planar cultivation. However, even if someone was to enter the prison grounds with a cultivation of a City Patriarch, with the peak of the seventh realm, they would only be able to maintain their planar structure for a month at most, and would then lose the anchor in a week and the rest of their planar energy would drain away within a similar time,” he explained, reading out of a different book from his shelf of knowledge, “For someone to have been here for less than two months, without access to their cultivation, and to be able to kill someone with crimson robes in that amount of time… She must be a dedicated body cultivator, and she ought to get stronger when she gets her hands on a killing intent technique.”

“Is ‘at cool? How strong does that make her?”

“Strong enough for me to talk to her in person,” Meng Chu stated, getting up and patting the crimson dust off of his robe, “You can return to your post for now.”

 

Exactly twenty-three hours and fifteen minutes afterwards, Wei Yi awoke within an extremely comfortable bed with a beautiful woman lying by her side, without a trace of clothing on their bodies. Although Wei Yi quickly changed her expression to be neutral upon her awakening, Ah Li, who accidentally revealed her full name to be Xi Wen Li around the fourth hour of their interaction, had a face of utter bliss.

As someone without any experience, she should not have been able to please someone with a great deal of experience upon her first time, but the structure of the brothel just happened to be constructed of a material that, while it subdued most of the noise from their adjacent rooms, was akin to paper before her spiritual will.

It allowed her to observe a number of similar interactions within the entire brothel. That awareness, when combined with her calculative abilities, perfect memory thanks to the Augur’s Library and the ability to scan her partners the entire body with spiritual will to see how every one of her actions affects her, allowed her to improve with frightening speed. Her ability to precisely control her body, hands, fingers and tongue also helped her greatly.

Out of all of the things she had thought to use these abilities for, this was not near the beginning of her list.

This did make her first ever time with a woman more than pleasant enough to explain why so many other people sought out such experiences, with certain bandit groups and criminal organisations seeking nothing more than beautiful, defenceless individuals to sleep with, whereas she previously considered them to be somewhat foolish.

‘Not that they aren’t still foolish, of course, I just see that they have a slightly better justification now.’

She sat up and stretched her arms before carefully cleansing them with physique energy while avoiding the metallic manacles on both wrists, just in case that energy proved to be particularly effective against them.

Just as she wanted to consider whether to spend her last few minutes with Ah Li or to leave early, her answer arrived for her in the form of the woman from the front desk, who knocked on her door and entered thereafter. She glanced at her body briefly before raising her gaze to meet Wei Yi’s eyes, maintaining a profession expression all the while.

“Dear customer, this brothel’s owner would like to speak with you.”

“Why? I still have forty-three minutes left, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t be permitted to make use of that time as I wish.”

“No, that wasn’t my intention, dear customer. In fact, if you still had the interest in Ah Li, then we could give you another free day with her, for the… intensity of your activities has doubled our customers overnight, but the owner, Meng Chu, has expressed interest in discussing an important matter with you.”

“So?” Wei Yi said, “Is that man important?”

“Meng Chu is one of the three leaders of Beast’s Rest, in case the dear customer was unaware,” the woman replied, “In comparison to the rest of the prison realm, he would be within the top fifty.”

‘I have caught the eye of someone like that? Although I did not expect to do anything of the sort, especially not by having sex – not that my actions in the bedroom are what has likely attracted this Meng Chu, of course – but it is within my interests,’ she thought, shrugging, “Alright then, I can do that. Step out for a moment.”

The woman did not question her request and left, shutting the door behind her. Naturally, Wei Yi had no issue with being seen as she was putting her clothes back on after the woman had already seen most of her body, but she did not want to expose the matter of her physique energy just yet.

She stood up and released her True Ascendant physique energy to envelop her entire body, with the natural exception of the training set, and removed all of the dead skin, dirt, dust, dried fluids and whatever else had gathered on her skin since her imprisonment within this crimson world while simultaneously wiping away any traces of impurities that may have gathered within her body since she was able to experience her last breakthrough. Once she had returned it to her body, she went to the back of the room and picked up a thin string, with which she tied her hair into a ponytail.

Once she put on her robes, she returned to the bed, planted a quick kiss on Ah Li’s cheek, and left the room.

“Very well then, lead me to your leader.”

“Naturally, dear custo-” the woman began, but her words suddenly got stuck in her throat when she saw Wei Yi’s appearance again. She was not particularly surprised by how this customer was able to clean herself with such care and precision in so little time, as that was something that could, at least in theory, be achieved by a number of killing intent or body cultivation – with the latter being more likely based on the customer’s impressive musculature – but what that cleanliness revealed.

It was as if she had somehow experienced a complete transformation, like a diamond being revealed out of a rough stone, with features that she would have initially described as slightly above passable having been transformed into something nearing perfection.

“Are we waiting on something?”

“N-no, dear customer, my apologies,” the woman quickly said, turning away as she thought, ‘I’ve been working here for so long, but I’ve never had a reaction like that before…’

“Right,” Wei Yi nodded, following the woman. She had obviously noticed the way in which this woman looked at her, but since she did not seem in any way interested in pursuing her own interests, she wouldn’t force her to.

The woman led her to the stairs, down to the first floor, and then behind the counter where a second set of stairs brought them to the basement. It was decorated about as lavishly as the rest of the brothel but lacked the same scent that had long been infused into the rest of the building. As was made obvious by the positioning of the steps, this was not a place that the regular customer would be allowed to visit.

Even then, the owner was apparently not content to see her there, for the woman continued into the basement and brought her to a third set of stairs, where she stopped.

“I’m afraid I cannot lead you any further, dear customer. Meng Chu will meet you downstairs.”

Wei Yi nodded and descended, finding that this floor was a little less aesthetically pleasing and a little more ergonomic, with a number of positions where one could hide from ranged attacks and manoeuvre their enemies into place for a more comfortable melee fight.

Furthermore, now that the walls were not covered with various fabrics and paints, one could see that they were all sturdy and reinforced against any possible assault, in such a manner that even if the beast carcass below the town suddenly exploded into nothingness, the basement might be able to withstand it and allow the people within to survive with only minor injuries from the inevitable crash back onto the ground.

There was only one passage to go down, and at the end of it was a door with three keyholes. ‘That, and there are a few secret passages within the walls, but I don’t think I was meant to notice.’

In preparation for her arrival, the door was open, so she walked through without issue. The room on the other side was simple, containing only one desk, two chairs and one shelf that was attached to the leftmost wall, near to the chair in which a man, dressed in ash-grey robes and wearing something that resembled crude glasses which rested on his nose, sat in a relaxed pose.

“Are you Meng Chu?” she asked, not waiting for his reply to sit down in the other chair.

“That’s ri- whoa,” the man expressed involuntarily, his eyes freezing on her face, “Ah Qiu did not tell me you looked like that. To be frank, I expected an enormous block of muscle, though you are tall by conventional standards.”

“I will just assume that this is a compliment and move the conversation along. Why did you feel the need to interrupt my usage of your services?”

“Straight to the point, then. First of all, can I know who you are?”

“My name is Wei Yi, and that is all I will tell you for now.”

“An interesting name, especially considering your hair and eyes,” Meng Chu pointed out, leaning in while placing his elbows on the table, “If the records and rumours are to be believed, both are very common in those of the-”

“Are you trying to say something? Do you want me to leave right now?”

“No, no, my apologies. I was just curious whether you had any familiarity with the world outside as it is now.”

Wei Yi sighed, “Fine, I will pretend that I didn’t hear anything before that one question. What sorts of things do you want to know, regarding what time, and what will you give me in return?”

“The general matter of the families and Great Families, I may decide to offer you my cooperation, and regarding the time… well, what year was it when you got imprisoned here? If you have arrived here only recently, you may be unaware of this, but time here does not pass the same as it does in the Planar Continents. As a result, news tends to be slow and far between, depending on when the Greats decide to imprison their next set of people.”

‘Cooperation is something that may prove useful, but the information he happened to reveal is even more interesting. Then, it is the Great Families that are capable of imprisoning others in this crimson domain, meaning that it is almost certain that they were responsible for burning the district and killing at least four of my friends or acquaintances,’ she thought, asking, “What exactly is the ratio, then?”

“According to one of the records, it is roughly one minute in the continents to thirty minutes here. Therefore, thirty days here is one day there, and thirty years here is also one year-”

“I am capable of performing mathematics on my own, thank you very much. Now, you have also mentioned sets of imprisonments, didn’t you? Do the Greats typically targets groups when they emerge – and yes, I am aware what my answer is telling you, so don’t try to seem smart.”

“Whatever could you mean, Wei Yi?” the man chuckled dryly, “Yes, they do. There have been a total of four hundred and sixty-four major arrivals, where more than fifty people were imprisoned within the prison realm, and roughly three thousand, seven hundred and fifty-two minor arrivals, where less than ten people were imprisoned. Typically, there are extremely long breaks in between those arrivals, for the Great Bastards are usually content to sit within some random caves, but every now and then they find some issue with the world and decide to emerge, or to respond to potential threats to their power. For instance, some time ago, there was something about a War of Yin?”

“No idea what that means, sorry. Any names that I could recognise?”

“Let me think for a second…” Meng Chu said, though he actually stood up, took a book off the shelf and flipped through it, “Peng Xi?”

“Nope.”

“Shu Wang?”

“Not familiar with that, either.”

“Meng Qi?”

She nearly shook her head again before she recalled an exact match for that name, “Seventh of Meng, the Thunder Lord, rune sword-wielding warrior in the Marked Core realm? Lost in a battle against an unknown foe. That Meng Qi?”

“It seems you know of him, then. The ones he fought, and lost to, were-”

“The Greats, and he then ended up here… and based on the text within that book of yours, Meng Qi is your ancestor. I must say, you don’t look anything like him, nor do you appear to be practising a technique as interesting as his. That is truly unfortunate, for I once hoped to acquire his technique and comprehend its secrets.”

“Not anymore, then?”

“Won’t be of much use here, would it? Now, the War of Yin is not something I recognise, but I vaguely recall that the conflict the Thunder Lord was involved in was the second of its kind, so I shall call it the Second War of Yin for now. I believe that happened roughly forty-seven years before I was thrown into this world, so that will be one thousand, four hundred and ten years ago… Holy shit, that is quite some time,” Wei Yi muttered, summoning up two sets of imaginary calendars within the library in order to confirm the validity of her estimate, “How distant of an ancestor are you, and how long do people usually live here?”

“Very distant, unfortunately, and I couldn’t possibly have practised his techniques due to them being lost after some random battle. Since we cannot practise planar cultivation, and due to killing intent not having much of an effect on the body until the fifth realm, you’d expect us to live less than a hundred years, but something in the Beast’s blood, even when diluted, allows us to live twice or thrice as long, unless we die an unnatural death or lose to the toxicity of the blood.”

‘Once again, quite a bit of information to work with. Thank you, Meng Chu,’ she calculated the answer and said, “A little under six generations, then. His blood must have been rather weak in comparison to that of the women of this world.”

“I won’t argue with that, so… Since you are aware of how cultivation decays in this prison realm, I think it would be prudent to move onto the topic of cooperation. Even if you have no combat ability, your ability to use spiritual will right now makes you incredibly valuable, so I would like to put that to use while I can. After that, I can easily teach you whatever method of killing intent cultivation I have access to or offer you a number of medium motes to acquire something else from Ding Wen’s auctions. What about this offer do you want to change before you agree?”

“You seem very certain that I will accept your offer. Why should I?” Wei Yi asked back.

“Because for someone with your abilities, abilities that were sufficient to acquire a crimson robe like that, there are only three people in the area that could give you anything worthwhile. That would be me, Ding Wen and Shi Luo Feng, the three leaders of Beast’s Rest,” he explained, ”Ding Wen will never give you anything, for that conflicts with his very cultivation technique, Greed Congregation, and Shi Luo Feng will try to make a favourable impression on you before leeching everything from you. When I say everything, I do mean it, as her Magnanimous Leech skill can drain away your very intellect and mind if she has enough time. Trust me, you do not want either one of these to be too close with you for too long.”

The techniques he described were incredibly interesting, and ones that she would greatly benefit from if she could ever get her hands on them, for she intended to keep quite a number of things to herself and wouldn’t be opposed to taking away whatever talents allow the Great Families to surpass those like her, though she would indeed be opposed to being on the receiving end.

“Do you lack such things?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Those kinds of techniques are rather rare and almost impossible to create, with their original creators doing so via pure luck or some insight that we cannot hope to replicate. I have no such insight, and that is well known in this town.”

“Then I will ask around and see what people tell me, descendant of the Thunder Lord.”

“Hold on for just a minute, Wei Yi. Can you promise me a week- no, five days of your cultivation remaining?”

“If I can’t then what will you do?”

Meng Chu did not reply directly, “Just answer the question.”

“Do you think you are threatening just because there are a few empty chambers and corridors around this room? Even if there are people in there that are somehow hiding their presence, I can still kill you before they have a chance to do anything,” she did the same, leaning back in her chair while still being ready to pounce if she needed to, “I do not need to answer any of your questions, but you can also be certain that I will not waste my time when it comes to my cultivation.”

Seeing that he remained silent for a while, she continued, “Unless there’s something else, I’ll be going. Oh, and don’t try anything with Ah Li. She’s cute, but I won’t be pushed into action for her.”

She stood up, gave him a polite nod and left through the same door she entered through.

For a while, Meng Chu sat in his seat, not making even the slightest movement, not even daring to breathe too audibly, and only when he was sure that she was not observing him with her spiritual will did he stand up and approach a wall, which he tapped several times without any clear pattern to his actions.

However, that somehow caused it to lower into the ground, and reveal an empty passageway with an identical wall at the end of it.

He tapped it in a similar yet wholly distinct manner, and it opened up to the same room that he seemed to have left, except for the number of chairs around the table and the fact that one was occupied by Ah Qiu, who sprung up the moment that he saw Meng Chu enter.

“Boss! How’d it go? Did’ya get them tits on our side?“

“By the heavens, shut up! Now that I’ve had a talk with someone who still speaks the regular continental tongue, your mangled version of it is even more painful to listen to…” he said, rubbing his glabella, “Unfortunately, I did not, but I do have an impression of her abilities. She did not display any fear nor hesitation when speaking with me, meaning that she was either confident in herself, as the owner of the crimson robes should be, or that she had no fear at all. As for which one it is… Ah Qiu, have you found any traces of a minor arrival?”

“Not ‘round here and not in the near towns. There’ve not been any new people as of late.”

Meng Chu smiled, “So the Greats thought enough of her to imprison her without the start of a major war… Interesting.”