“Monsters underneath the village?” Chin almost yelled. “Monsters?”

  “Calm down Chin, they wouldn’t be monsters, they’d be slimes. And they would be able to-”

  “They would be harmful and they would be monsters!” Chin spat.

  “You’re throwing a tantrum. It's still up to you at the end of the day, just let me explain exactly what I’m planning to do.”

  Chin gave me a long hard look. He was thinking. I generally tried to keep my senses to a bare minimum. It felt invasive to read people’s inner thoughts like that.

  But I didn’t need to glance at Chin’s aura to know what he was thinking. Chin trusted me. He may look old and I may look young, but we both knew it was the opposite.

  I was the old man and he was the young one. He didn’t like change, but he trusted me to not ruin his village.

  “First, this wouldn’t be directly beneath the village, this would be a mile or two down in an intricate cave system. And second, they would be entirely unable to escape from that cavern. I’d make sure of this myself.”

  “But why?” Chin grumbled. “Why do all of that? Why not just build a regular set of sewers?”

  “This one would be cooler,” I said with a shrug. “And this deals with the waste product while also being able to accommodate stronger cultivators. Remember how Medin has to throw away Nai’s diapers?”

  Chin opened his mouth, closed it, and nodded.

  “Waste product is different in different realms. The same as cultivators, foods, and everything else that’s filled up with qi. You can still get fertilizer from the animal dung and Po Pen would still have a business dealing with that, but for human feces, it's best to let it rot beneath the earth. And you can harvest it later on.”

  “Harvest it?” Chin asked.

  “Yes,” Xi Lu spoke. “In…larger cities, waste products become less of a problem, at least human waste products. But waste still exists in half-eaten foods and spoiled ingredients and such. The richest places just anticipate the waste but the more efficient ones do create labyrinths to compost the qi into something else. That's the most common use for slimes. They’re ambiguous beings with no nature and can consume pretty much anything below their own rank. They’re awful at combat but they would be a source of spirit stones within a few months, maybe a few days if you have the right starting material.”

  “You could finally pay me back,” I added.

  Chin snort-laughed.

  “And they would be able to dig up to the village?”

  “I will make sure that isn’t possible,” I replied.

  Xi Lu had been surprised by my suggestion, not because it was unheard of, but because it was common. It was something you saw in celestial sects of the fifteenth rank or under. A sewer system or a rot labyrinth weren’t rare things in existence. Most of the sects between the fifteenth and twelfth ranks had them.

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  It was where they would bury their dead or store their broken treasures and poisoned herbs. The idea was for the object and qi to rot and develop a new form, much like how old foods would compost into fresh soil. And it worked.

  The same way the concept of growth could make anything grow, the concept of rot could make anything rot. It would take time but if you prepared the right area almost all dead things, aside from the soul, could be remade into something new.

  Well, you could use the soul as well, as long as you were able to deal with the fallout of trespassing on death’s domain. The celestial death sects could get rather touchy about that, especially when you tried to interfere in high-ranked souls making their way toward the Sea of Death.

  But all in all, composting systems that used complex mixtures of death and rot laws were very common in small celestial sects. Even the corpses of God-Imperiums had their uses.

  Chin scratched the newly forming stubble on his beard.

  “Would retrieving the spirit stones be…dangerous?” He asked.

  “Yes,” I answered. “But not very.”

  Chin frowned.

  “We wouldn’t need your help every time we wanted to gather these stones?”

  No, but they would need Rin Wi’s and the other girl’s help. But Chin didn’t seem to see them the same way he saw me.

  “No, you’d need Rin Wi and the others maybe, but you wouldn’t need me.”

  Chin thought for a moment and nodded.

  A few more arguments came and after every one of them, Chin seemed a bit more placated. I had promised him my assurance in this endeavor and that I would make sure that the sewer system was completely encased.

  I had some fun ideas planned out for it.

  As for digging out the caves, Xi Lu had suggested hiring a sect of earth-based cultivators, but Chin wouldn’t like that idea as it would be too expensive. I offered to cover it, as did Xi Lu. She could make ten decent fifth-rank spirit stones in a matter of hours, but Chin refused.

  Then we settled on another means of digging, one that involved groundhogs and negotiations.

  Chin really didn’t like that idea. He was aware of the beasts and he had even seen them sometimes, but the old man didn’t want anything to do with him.

  Either way, those were all issues for another day. An hour later we had both left the building and were wandering about the edges of the village.

  “So,” Chin grumbled. “What do you think?”

  “I think it's about time this place got sewers,” I noted. “I can’t say I enjoyed the human composting process-”

  “Stop it,” Chin cut in. “You know what I’m talking about.”

  We kept on walking, I put my hands behind my head and looked up the crimson colored sky. The suns were setting, all of them. It was a rare occasion but it happened a few times a year. All seven suns would align at some points. Sometimes it was in the morning, other times it was during noon, but the sunset days were the best ones.

  “I think they make a cute couple Chin. I think it's alright.”

  He was silent, staring vaguely at the village as we walked on.

  “Po Pen doesn’t talk,” Chin spoke. “He can, but most of the time he’d rather be quiet and let others speak for him. He used to get pushed around and bullied. I did my best and I’m damn happy about who he is now, but the boy is too… willing. He can’t say no. I was… I assumed that might be what was happening here. I assumed he might just be accepting it out of convenience rather than desire.”

  “Oh no Chin, he loves her.”

  “Does he now?” Chin asked.

  “And she loves him,” I added.

  Chin was silent and turned his head from the village to the bleeding sky.

  “I trust ya,” Chin finally grumbled.

  “You should trust Po Pen and Xi Lu. She’s not stupid Chin, she’s aware of the differences between them. All the maidens understand the difference between them and the villagers. That’s why she taught him how to cultivate.”

  “I just hope the village takes it fine. Medin will be happy at least and I suppose Rin and the girls already know about this,” he said.

  “Probably,” I replied.

  “Change is tiresome.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “It is.”

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