Cultivation Nerd-Chapter 329 - The Bursting Dam

It was a warm spring day, the kind where it wasn’t too hot or too cold, just right. The sun spilled a gentle golden light that seeped into the ground, carrying with it a comfortable warmth. A lazy breeze rolled through the fields, stirring the grass and carrying the faint perfume of blooming flowers.

I stood with my teacher in an empty training field, adjusting array sizes and carefully following the official steps. The goal was to learn how to make an array larger inside than the space it occupied outside.

A greenish barrier shimmered around me, compressing and expanding as I tried to balance the ratio. Soon, cracks laced through its surface, and it crumbled apart.

“There was too much pressure around the edges,” said my teacher. “You’re trying to control everything. What we array conjurers do isn’t control; we only pave the way for things to change.”

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

“Can you explain it in more layman’s terms?” I asked.

“No,” he said, leaning against a newly planted tree. “This isn’t something you can explain with words, or learn from books.”

I nodded and raised another green barrier, shifting its size and shape; larger, smaller, larger again, and several times in a heartbeat.

This exercise was meant to continue until, by accident, I compressed space. After that, I was supposed to “get the feeling for it,” as my teacher said.

Essentially, we were relying on luck.

Arrays were more ritual than science sometimes, and this method felt especially poor.

Before long, this barrier shattered like the last, broken under strain. Worse, I was running out of Qi under the weight.

Well, time to try things my way. I've been doing this for a while with no results, and it was time to try something new.

I set a finger-long incense stick on the ground. It would last about ten minutes; the best way to track time in a world without watches.

Then I activated my foundation technique, and the world froze.

I tried compressing the barrier, shrinking it in under a second to see if the space itself would bend. As it shifted at such impossible speeds, cracks spread, but I had the “time” to patch them with Qi.

It was pointless. I stopped it from collapsing in on me, but gained nothing.

I released the technique, the world snapped back to motion, and I sighed.

“Are you okay?” my teacher asked.

He had noticed I’d used my mind-based foundation technique this time.

"Yes," I answered.

He nodded and took my words at face value before saying.

“Oh, by the way, I was going to show you these after the exercise. But now might be better,” he pulled three books from his storage ring and handed them over. “These should help you when using your foundation technique.”

The books were titled Ghost Mind Technique, Two Thoughts Technique, and Daisy Eyes Technique.

I recognized all three from the library. They were solid Earth Grade mental techniques, and I had even memorized the first two, and a dozen more like them, from the hidden section of my library.

Ghost Mind Technique allowed the user to enter someone’s mind. At its peak, if the victim was unconscious and weak, the technique could even control their body.

Pointless for me. My Eight Mind Phantoms already achieved something similar, and without the risk of stepping into an enemy’s head, where a strong will could crush me.

Then there was the Two Thoughts Technique, which let a person run two parallel thoughts at once. I already had that capability thanks to my Sky Grade technique. However, I rarely used it as it cut the power of my mental arts in half whenever it was active.

Daisy Eyes Technique was different. With direct eye contact, it could leave an opponent dizzy, as if drunk, and at mastery even freeze them in place. A dangerous mental attack.

But once again, my Sky Grade technique covered that ground too.

Perhaps the Eight Mind Phantoms wasn’t designed with these specific effects in mind. Yet, I had explored its breadth enough that it surpassed Earth Grade techniques in nearly every way.

Well, it was a Sky Grade technique for a reason.

Besides, as the elder in charge of martial techniques, I had access to the sect’s entire collection—including Sky Grade arts I technically wasn’t supposed to learn.

Still, I accepted the books. The thought mattered more than the content. Maybe my teacher hadn’t spent enough time with me outside of lessons to know what my day usually looked like.

“Thanks,” I said, flipping through the first dozen pages of each before sliding them into my storage ring.

I already knew how to begin training with most of the sect’s mental techniques, so they held little use for me.

“Just be careful,” he warned. “Even once you learn these, don’t overuse them. The mind is a dangerous thing to play with.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

My relationship with this teacher was unlike the one I had with Xin Ma, or the tea-obsessed Shan Sha. I never spent time with him beyond our training sessions. However, he still cared for my well-being and was dedicated to ensuring I surpassed his legacy.

I didn’t fully understand his mindset. It was as if he was excited at the thought of raising someone who would see the world of arrays beyond what he ever could.

I didn’t mind raising someone stronger than me, look at Wu Yan. She had already surpassed me, and the gap between us would only continue to widen.

But I had no interest in grooming someone to inherit my will, to unravel cultivation’s secrets, or to comprehend the world in my stead.

I wanted to do all that myself.

My obsession was mine alone, and I never forced it on those who learned from me.

Imagine trying to make a sword-obsessed freak like Tingfeng bury his nose in books he cared nothing about. That would only cripple his path.

“Has there been any news from outside the sect?” I asked my teacher.

“No, not really,” he replied.

Every year, the four great sects held a joint event. This time, it seemed we weren’t invited, which was worrying.

What happened when someone had the resources of a great sect but lacked the strength to protect them? The answer was obvious.

...

Time slipped by. Days blended into weeks, my cultivation crawling forward at its usual pace, my array work stubbornly stagnant.

By the time spring fully bloomed and winter’s chill was only a memory, I still had little to show for my efforts.

I wasn’t concerned about cultivation’s slow progress, as that was expected. But temptation gnawed at me to peek into Jiang Yeming’s mind, to learn how she sensed spatial abnormalities. That had to be a step in the right direction.

In the end, I resisted. Even if progress lagged, I’d rather discover it myself.

Just as I was about to enter a deep state of cultivation, I sensed a flickering Qi from my house.

Wu Yan. She was breaking through to three-star Foundation Establishment. She had lingered on the edge for days, refining a new technique of her own design.

By now, I trusted her to walk on her own. She was forging this technique from her own ideas. When she had asked for my opinion, I refused to give one.

The truth was, Wu Yan would likely reach Core Formation before me. I couldn’t guide her there as I hadn’t walked that road myself.

So she had to walk it alone.

I stood, ready to congratulate her. Even with her extreme physique, her speed was remarkable, her grasp of her element outrageous.

But before I could, I felt another surge of Song Song’s Qi barreling toward me like a missile. A sonic boom followed about a hundred yards from the house as she landed beside me.

Despite shattering the sound barrier more than once, she touched down so softly that her arrival barely made a sound.

“Did our monstrous genius break through again?” Song Song glanced toward the house where Wu Yan was. “What’s her interval now? It feels like every two or three months.”

Even then, it only took that long because Wu Yan was careful with her breakthroughs.

“Did you come here just to ask that?” I inquired.

“No, I was mid-flight when she broke through. I came to tell you something else.” Her gaze shifted toward me. “The other three great sects held their competition between disciples and didn’t invite or even inform the Blazing Sun Sect.”

“It seems our old friends no longer consider us part of the four great sects,” I sighed. “Which sect hosted this time?” 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

“The Titanic Blade Sect,” she said.

“Well, fortunate for them they didn’t invite us.” I smiled, meeting her deep blue eyes. “After all, you’re still under twenty-five and technically qualified to participate.”

Song Song had just turned twenty-four. A Core Formation cultivator had never entered before, and she would have crushed them, wiping out their entire younger generation.

“Maybe they just didn’t want their disciples to die, so they saved face with an excuse like this,” I offered, half-joking.

“Heh. If they start a war, they’ll learn the hard way,” she replied.

A war between the four sects, by now, sounded all too possible. With the top brass of the other three gathering in that competition, the signs weren’t subtle.

Which meant I needed to prepare for the worst. If I died, I couldn’t leave Song Song to face her father alone... the Blood Step Immortal.

Damn it. Plans would have to be pushed forward. This was going to be dangerous.

Initially, I intended to slowly pit the Blazing Sun Immortal against her father to fight fire with fire. But we no longer had that luxury.

How was I supposed to handle someone like him on such short notice?

…

The months crawled by. Spring’s blossoms gave way to warmer winds, and soon summer began in earnest.

With the season came another surprise: the Azure Frost Sect had won the tournament. I couldn’t recall anyone particularly impressive from their ranks last time. My money had been on the Void Piercing Sect, though perhaps Song Song had culled too much of their promising youth in the previous competition.

Despite the turmoil outside, my own days passed in steady rhythm: studying arrays and puzzling over the strange mirror.

In my lab, I cycled through sealing arrays, testing them against the mirror’s teleportation effect. To grasp space, I needed to understand how to seal it. But my efforts failed one after another.

I knew of arrays capable of sealing space and halting teleportation, but they were all beyond my level.

Still, that day had been peaceful. Until the sect grounds shook.

A sudden flare of Qi, violent and bright, erupted outside the library. For an instant it blazed, then vanished, leaving only trembling earth in its wake.

The signature had been Zun Gon’s.

The Blazing Sun Sect desperately needed a Nascent Soul cultivator, and Zun Gon had been poised to become that pillar of balance.

I left the lab at once, flying toward the source of the disturbance. My teacher’s Qi appeared nearby, and soon we arrived at the same place.

Or rather, what was left of it.

Where once stood a newly built restaurant, only ruins remained. The ground was scorched black, earth split and brittle as though fire had burned through its very atoms. Bloodstains marked the stone, half-seared into the floor, with darker smears trailing outward like dragged bodies.

Chunks of flesh were scattered through the wreckage, twisted and unrecognizable, some still clinging to bone. The stench of cooked meat lingered, tangled with acrid ash and char. The silence was heavier than sound.

“Where is Elder Zun Gon?” I asked.

My teacher’s face was grim. Other elders crowded around us, and some had arrived before we did.

“Elder Zun Gon has passed away,” one elder said flatly.

He had failed his breakthrough.

And the Blazing Sun Sect had lost its strongest elder.

We were beyond fucked.