Name: Yu Han (Johan)
Level: 1
Active Accords: 1
True Qi: 200 (+82) / 200
Pure Qi: 31 / 200
Primordial Qi: 0
Lifeforce: 792 / 792
Trial: [Investigate the Outerplanar Threat]
Through dreams of wraiths and burning souls, the Parasitic Fireworm calls.
Vanquish the Ghost of the Dreams of Flames; anchors alight with voyage as it claims.
Another poem? Yu Han had seen the dao record recite such literature once before, when he had reached Level 1 from Level 0. At that time, it was for a tribulation, which a cultivator must pass to break through major realms in cultivation. Such as from Level 0 to 1, or Level 10 to 11. But trials were usually easier to complete than tribulations, and they were needed for levelling up the minor realms, such as Level 1 to 2.
As this was his first trial, he didn’t know what their standard texts were like. But the text for his Level 0 tribulations weren’t poetic.
What’s an outerplanar threat? Is the poem a clue? Part of the trial text, or something extra?
The previous tribulation texts were [Purify Tainted Entities: 1/1] and [With merely water and no food, tread ten mountains a day for ten days. Mountains tread today: 0/10, Consecutive days: 0/10]—although he hadn’t needed to pass the latter.
The poem attached to the latter tribulation was a cryptic warning about not sharing it with others. It could be considered a clue to properly pass the tribulation, as apparently sharing them made passing the tribulation much harder.
Just like the tribulation, this poem came with the trial text itself. A flavour text, if Yu Han used game terms.
I can’t share anything about tribulations—but the restrictions regarding trials are looser, if I remember correctly. That was what Ji’s Cultivation Contemplations had said.
There were many common trials and tribulations. Kill a certain number of monsters, or solve a certain array pattern, or do a series of tasks in a specific order with restrictions applied. Basically, accomplishing feats.
If one had to kill a specific monster, it was fine for the cultivator to ask around about the monster, and even how to kill it. As long as he didn’t mention it was his trial, it was supposed to be fine. There were records of people boasting about their trials before and after passing them, without anything happening. But the stigma associated with talking about trials and tribulations was just too strong, deeply embedded in the psyche of older cultivators. Most preferred not to share them if possible.
There had to be a reason for such superstitions, especially in a magical world like this one.
Young Ji, the author of Cultivation Contemplations, assumed it might have something to do with fate, karma, destiny, and the like. When Yu Han first read it, he thought it was philosophical nonsense. After Fang Zhao shed light on karmic bonds, he wasn’t so sure.
It makes no sense not to at least research it, Yu Han thought as he went through the trial text again. Fireworm, a parasite? An actual worm? Or a fungus, like the flatworm? It’s telling me to vanquish the Ghost of the Dreams of Flames, but what is it? The worm?
Yu Han came into contact with filth regularly. He really hoped the trial wasn’t to purge himself of a weird fungal infection like the Underspores that had infected Feral Spot.
[Purifying Tainted Entities] was a killing task. The [With merely water and no food, tread ten mountains a day for ten days] tribulation was a series of labours.
Was he supposed to kill this ghost?
He tried to find mention of these in the books: Ocean Gu, River Gu, Lake Gu; Creature Compendium; and even Four Meditations on the Hundred Thousand Waterways.
In the Ocean Gu section of the first book, he found a mention.
“…which is the Barnacle Burrowing Fireworm, a most curious creature so weak by itself that it has to be graded even beneath mortal-grademortal-grades. Yet it dwells cleverly within the jade-like shells that cling to mystical seafaring vessels. No larger than an elder’s finger, it carries the essence of lesser flame dao at its tip, burning paths through calcified armour. When the tides align with the burning moon, its translucent form weaves through barnacle forests like an ember through incense smoke, leaving trails of scorched holes in elite-grade shells, which ancient cultivators once mistook for the work of sea wisps…”
The parasitic part matches. So do I really have a parasite? Yu Han shuddered. And it’s from another plane? An alien parasite? The image brought to mind the grotesque movies.
Thinking logically, every human being carried parasites. Yu Han didn’t know if cultivators of higher levels could somehow expel them from their mortal flesh. Maybe they could even refine the microbiome inside their guts and intestines somehow. At his level, Yu Han definitely couldn’t.
Maybe one of the parasites inside his body was this Parasitic Fireworm?
“Your Level 2 trial was a killing trial, right?” Yu Han asked Li Yao, who had just come out of the hot springs and was relaxing on a three-legged chair. It originally had four legs, but Fei Rui had stolen one to add it to his collection.
“Are you trying to curse me?” Li Yao raised an eyebrow.
“Merely talking around your trials causes no karmic harm, Brother Li,” Fang Zhao said from the yard. He went through each motion of the many martial arts. Somehow, he was connecting moves from Bronze Crane Leg with Feather Scale Step seamlessly. “As long as you do not blatantly share the trial commands as they appeared in your dao records.”
“I had to kill some monsters,” Li Yao said. “Not in the hidden realm, obviously. Went to a pioneering village on a Drizzle. The monsters had nested in a cave.”
“Some say trials are the great dao’s way of purging filth from the world using borrowed swords,” Fang Zhao said. “Some say that the primordial qi and heavenly allocation are rewards from the great dao for service rendered. I don’t agree, though.”
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He kicked up with one leg and punched backwards with both fists parallel to each other. “Because sometimes, trials of different groups of cultivators clash, which has caused war, famine, and countless deaths. Demonic cultivators go through torments in addition to trials, which cause suffering to themselves and others. And the great dao may bestow temperings upon a cultivator, which are like trials but without one’s true qi being filled, and without any heavenly allocation or primordial qi rewards. They are rewarded in other ways, but according to my clan seniors, on rare occasions, the difficulty of temperings may be greater than a trial’s, or even a tribulation’s. But the rewards always feel less than direct enhancement of origin points. Fortunately, we can refuse temperings, but they say that doing so is bad luck.”
“It’s amazing you can speak so much while prancing about like that,” Li Yao praised. “You should’ve tried being a teacher.”
“The scholarly cultivation is not for me.” Fang Zhao spun around with a roundhouse kick to a stop, breathing out with a low whistle.
“Show off.” Huang Niuniu scowled, hugging her two whips.
“Cow-Girl, do you have to be so petty?” Li Yao laughed.
“Don’t call me Cow-Girl!”
“Cow-Girl. Cow-Girl, Cow-Girl, Cow—Fuck! Don’t you know attacking a fellow disciple is a crime—Stop it!”
Li Yao deflected one whip with one sword and the other whip with another sword. Huang Niuniu chased him around, daring him to misbehave again.
Fei Rui tugged Yu Han’s sleeve. The crab was the size of a cat now.
he said smugly.
“Sure it is.” Yu Han sighed. The crab bounced off, becoming larger and blocking Li Yao’s path. Huang Niuniu thought Fei Rui was helping her, but the crab grabbed her whips and ran off. The girl chased after.
That night, Yu Han confirmed that Li Yao’s trial did not come with a poem. Fang Zhao had no answer for that.
Two more days passed. He had cultivated the first day, but true qi didn’t rise as expected. After one more shift of killing Filth-Eating Ghouls, his pure qi amount surpassed fifty again.
Pure Qi: 51 (+20) / 200
He had hoped that it would be assimilated for stat points, but it didn’t.
Wen Liujie returned, covered in bandages.
“What happened to you?” Huang Niuniu asked. “Did you make someone mad?”
“Junior Huang, is that any way to congratulate your supervisor for breaking through?” Wen Liujie said through his bandages. He looked like a mummy, with both arms apparently broken. “I even returned two days early.”
“Are you Level 11 now?” Huang Niuniu asked.
Wen Liujie laughed proudly. “Indeed, I am. Be proud, for you witness the sect’s newest qi gathering disciple! With the increase in realm, my stipend also increased. But here’s the good part. The contribution points stipend increased even more because I’m part of the Night Alchemists’ Yard. See how good the benefits are? And while I am not yet eligible for an inner sect disciple designation, my career achievements are on track to soon, no doubt, surpass most!” He came closer and spoke in a quieter voice. “If you guys think that recruiting two more members will get you promoted above me, think again.”
“Senior Wen, I think there is something profoundly wrong with how you view the world,” Huang Niuniu said.
“You guys don’t understand,” Wen Liujie countered. “To have a stable job is a precious thing in today’s economy. My view of the world is good for promotions, while you gamble for luck in the hidden realm.”
“Didn’t you break through in the hidden realm?” Huang Niuniu said.
“This is this, that is that,” Wen Liujie said. “I broke through in the hidden realm because I had the foundation laid out after years of work experience.”
“Why did you call us?” Yu Han interrupted the two idiots before their conversation could spiral further.
“Oh, right,” Wen Liujie said. “I heard about your stalker problem from Ruoxuan and Elder Chang.”
“So you call her by her given name?” Huang Niuniu asked sheepishly.
“Shut it!” Wen Liujie shot her an annoyed glare. He then asked Yu Han, “You guys realise that the hidden realm isn’t a playground? Not only do other hostile sects have access to it, but you also have to look out for stabs in the back from your own sect brothers and sisters. Why take the risk still?”
“It’s a calculated risk,” Yu Han said. With Fei Rui and the resources they had access to, such as the coveralls, healing potions, the 108 lanterns of the Blue-Veined Underspores (that could apparently heal, too), and the beacon talisman, it wouldn’t be so risky. They would go in for some experience and come back after testing the waters.
“All calculations break down when you meet a fist with your face,” Wen Liujie said. “Or a claw with your kidney, or a sword with your skull.”
“Senior Brother is right,” Yu Han said.
“I-I am?” Wen Liujie was taken aback.
“We’ve selected a mission to hunt Rot-Dweller Swine,” Yu Han said. “We understand that we’ll have to hand over one swine’s worth of the mushrooms that grow on their backs as tax, and the rest of the hunt we can keep.”
“That’s correct.”
“But it’s still combat, and even normal wild boars are nothing to scoff at. They can maim and cripple, and Rot-Dweller Swine can infect people with strange diseases, too. It may still be too dangerous for us.”
“So you do understand,” Wen Liujie exclaimed through his bandaged face.
“We’re wondering if we have access to missions that are safer, such as gathering herbs or plants,” Yu Han said. “Niu’er wants to train in alchemy in the future. So this line of work may suit her more. The missions you gave us earlier were mostly about hunting monsters, with no foraging and gathering ones.”
Wen Liujie didn’t answer immediately. He leaned back, his eyes narrowing as he studied Yu Han with an unreadable stare. For a long moment, the only sound was Huang Niuniu’s murmur and Fei Rui’s clicks. Finally, Wen Liujie exhaled a long breath that sounded more like a whistle.
“Fine, Junior Yu, have it your way,” Wen Liujie went around the desk to one of the cabinets and opened a lower drawer with his foot. “Take the scrolls here. They’re gathering missions suitable for Levels 1 to 5. The treasured plants are things that the alchemy or medical halls need. They should be much safer. On paper, anyway. Unless you pick a mission that asks you to gather poisonous plants. You won’t, right?”
“Of course not!” Yu Han promised.
“Don’t tell Elder Chang I gave you these,” Wen Liujie said. “The cost of a safe start is often far steeper in hindsight, or so he believes. He prefers disciples hardened by the hunt for a reason. There is a brutal truth to his methods. In the sect, a few easy successes in foraging often bred a fatal sort of arrogance, the kind that leads green disciples to believe the hidden realm is a playground. Without even knowing, you take one risk too many. And one day, you never return. At your levels, better to avoid the hidden realm altogether. If that is not possible, it was better to be afraid and alive than conceited and dead. Understood?”
Yu Han could only nod. Back at the resting quarters, he sifted through the scrolls and, surprisingly, found a suitable one; a mission where they had to gather Lesser Nurturing Bloodferns.
As he slept that night, he went over the last details of his upcoming hidden realm adventure in his dreamscape. Wen Liujie’s warning kept echoing in his head.
It’s going to be fine. This risk is calculated.
If nothing unexpected happened, the day after tomorrow they would leave. They had enough members, a good mission, and excellent equipment—and hopefully the team would function properly. They would keep safe, not delving deeper into the hidden realm than they had to, and then try to return within the same day. Two days at maximum.
The reason they weren’t leaving tomorrow was that Huang Niuniu was also at her true qi cap. Her trial was not a killing task; she had to do something in the rain near a large body of water. It rained nearly every day here, so the chance was good that she would break through to Level 2 soon.
It’s been about five months since I awakened my past life memories, Yu Han mused. A week on Earth was seven days. Here, it was ten. And the popular belief was not of stars, planets, and satellites, but of planes, realms, and worlds.
Their calendar only somewhat matched the lunar and solar calendars back home. There were twelve months in a year. Months all had thirty days, except every fourth month, which had thirty-five days, or three and a half weeks. The weekdays had different names according to the place, but in common they were just called the first day to the tenth day. In the half week every fourth month, the last day was the fifth day.
Today’s date would then be the thirtieth day of the ninth month, being the tenth day of the third week.
The calendar differed slightly according to the nation. Some had months with twenty-nine days and up to thirty-one days. Others had extra months or even weeks added, depending on the will of the ruler, geography, and culture. But most cultivation sects followed the standardised calendar, based upon some manner of history with the dao record. What history, Yu Han did not know.
It had been 157 days since Yu Han had become a cultivator. Since his family was murdered. He was Level 1 now. How far could he reach in this lifetime?
Reaching Level 2 before leaving for the hidden realm would be best. Ten more sub-origin points would boost his power a lot, but there was no clue of the Parasitic Fireworm—
A green shadow leapt out of nowhere, lunging towards Yu Han’s head.
Tldr; I have 60 days to complete my master's thesis. So I am slowing down releases.
need to prioritize the thesis. over posting regular chapters.
try to post at least 1 chapter a week, but that may not be always possible. I'm paying 8000 euros a year for my studies, and extending it means paying for more semesters.
So, I won't start billing again until a month's worth of chapter has been posted. That means, 12 chapters. This will make sure that even the latest member who pledged will get their money's worth of advanced chapters. I will still be posting on RR for a bit. So I will only start charging again after Advanced Chapter count reaches 20 again.