Chapter 14 – Fear and Loathing in He Xao

“Soulforce is like opportunities, it multiplies when seized.” - Rick Tzu
"What about pickles though, don't they multiply less when seized?" -One of his students
"And yet, you must pick them off the stem and pickle them. Such is the duality of a pickle cultivator." -Rick Tzu

Lang spent the four days she had, by getting fitting clothes, using makeup to look similar to her old self. She was still beautiful, but it went from a pretty and girly, to cold and womanly.

She cured the people who were sent there, and it was surprisingly easy. All twelve of them only took less than two hours to be finished. At the end, she was exhausted nonetheless, however not to the point of fainting, this was doubled by the fact she had a Eureka moment during her second dive into the Soul Realm of another person, affording her the understanding of Spirit Transference, putting her at 39 Soul Realm, the same as Mike Zhao had the last time they met.

She could still write a large chunk of the research paper she was supposed to, but didn’t want to start cultivation in its full swing. At the end of the day, while tired she meditated for 2 hours taking in the beautifully glinting yellow Soulforce.

In the morning of the next day, she said “Time for advancements.” A morning filled with exercising her Soulcraft. She was at rank 22 in Soulcraft, one ahead of Vera who was at 21 the last time they talked.

In the new style, every 5 ranks of Soulcraft past the first one would contribute 1 to your Soul technique score.

Usually, once a cultivator got to a rank about 2 or 3 from another advancement by natural training or random Eurekas, they would train Soulcraft or Runecraft respectively to get that increased technique rating.

Alchemy was considered more prestigious and many people trained alchemy as their main thing, every 7 ranks would yield 1 to both Soul and Body Realm scores.

In the end they were both approximations, but it was the one that counted in Cultivation Aptitude Tests.

She had been training for Soulcraft in the morning, and writing the paper in the evening. At the end, of the day, she would get checked for the parasite, after which she would meditate for two hours before going to sleep.

She advanced to 23 Soulcraft on the second day. The small breakthrough that you get when advancing one of the magics didn’t change her much. But she looked on with a brighter outlook.

This is how it went for three days, until she was clean of the parasite.

‘I’m clean of the parasite, I’m going to school tomorrow.’

********

Going back to school Lang saw John Wo on the courtyard, so she stopped by.

“You look… different” He said “But great. But this will take getting used to.” He blushed in embarrassment.

“Yeah, there were circumstances.” Lang said calmly. “Do you think Vera got on the train on time?”

A look of stark realization appeared on his face, he couldn’t bare to face her so he looked at his shoes. “Wait, you haven’t been told?” He said reluctantly.

“Told what?” She snapped, that tone didn’t bode well at all. ‘What the fuck happened with Vera?’

“She was killed by one of the families. I’m really sorry.” He said earnestly.

But Lang’s vision was closing off, and she didn’t register what he was saying. She just stood there blankly staring at John Wo. ‘No!’ ‘This can’t be happening!’

“Apparently they are getting rid of people who can cure, or are close to a cure for the parasite.” John said.

Lang didn’t hear what he was saying, she fell to floor and tears started streaming down her face.

A moment later, Markus Hong came running in, his arm turning into the silverish metallic color, he was swinging it towards John.

“How dare you make her cry!” Markus’s hand connected with John’s cheekbone with a CRACK!

Completely unprepared, John’s head had a massive gash and as he landed head-first on the stairwell near the building eleven feet back, another CRACK! could be heard. Lang witnessed the whole scene but didn’t really register what just happened.

An alarm of the yellow level started and a yellow light was shone at the scene where John was strewn on the floor.

Many people came to look at the scene, Lang still crying and Markus’s hand reddened with blood. John was no longer breathing, blood was seeping from his cracked skull.

Within ten seconds of the start of the alarm, Sima Li appeared out of a small portal, she used Soulcraft to fix up John and put him on his side, this took her less than a second from making contact with him.

“Fighting with intention to kill.” The Soulcraft teacher said with an icy voice, looking at Markus “That’s not a good look mister Hong.”

Markus, who’s adrenaline had slightly abated, looked on stunned at the blood on his hand, on the ground and all around John. He really didn’t pull that punch.

Realization of what he had just done, got replaced by horror.

“I understand.” He said, he stood up and walked towards Sima, who put her hand on Markus’s back and they went inside together.

Bian Fong, the professor of medicine, came moments later and started tending to John, who was basically alright but just needed some rest, he picked him up and took him to the medical wing.

Finally, Tsu Shengu the microbiology teacher came out to disperse the crowd and talk to Lang, who was still on the ground “Miss Lang, I’m inviting you back into the university.”

Being directly addressed, Lang moved her head and was temporarily put out of her state.

“Yes” She said and she stood up.

Together they went towards her office.

“Miss Shengu, what will happen to the two of them?” Lang asked, knowing that Markus was definitely going to be punished, but what will happen to John.

“John should survive with minor injuries. Some blood loss, maybe two days in the infirmary will do it.” She paused “Markus went way too far, he’s going to get suspended or expelled. More likely the latter.”

She pulled out a cup of tea, and offered it to Lang “Would you like some tea?”

Lang took the tea, and started sipping from it.

“So, mind telling me what happened there?” Tsu Shengu asked in a friendly enough manner.

“I came to school, and talked to John, who…” She trailed off. Tears rushing into her eyes again.

“Who told you about Vera, judging from your reaction, you haven’t been made aware by your family.” Tsu’s vision visibly darkened, the anger at someone else than Lang almost palpable in her face, and her body disposition.

“She was indeed a biology genius, and she got close enough to a cure that they felt the need to get rid of her.” Tsu made a short pause to take a sip.

“Someone Eradicated her, from what we know they were an Emperor or higher level, but it could have been someone at the previous ranks; Master and half-step to master, at least from the sloppiness of original execution of the two attacks that failed to take Vera’s life.”

You could only survive Eradication techniques by having a spirit anchor somewhere. One would then spend 1000 years, or close enough worth of Lifeforce to resurrect at that point. Alternatively, 100 years could be spent to be reborn as a baby at a random place, but there were many negatives to this. Vera didn’t have either of those options, meaning not only her Body but also her Soul had been removed from existence.

“What of Jill, and Vera’s family?” Lang was still sobbing and her eyes had reddened, the skin around them becoming tender.

“Jill had been shirking school and from what I’ve heard, hasn’t been much at their dorm.” That made sense, then no one would be there for the mirror-talk. “Her family hasn’t interacted with the school yet, however I’ve heard they are preparing a funeral for her.”

Lang was slowly regaining her sensibility.

“What of her research?” Vera’s research had been her everything for the past couple weeks before all this happened.

“We don’t have the last 10 or so days of research notes, meaning we don’t know what caused her to have the sudden breakthrough in terms of usability.” There was an implication, that it wasn’t Vera that stopped writing them “Neither does Jill, by the way. However, she did publish a great research paper, which was also the reason she got assassinated.”

“Any remains?”As she asked the question, one of the tea stalks flew up and was bobbing on the surface of the cup.

Tsu looked down “No remains, even her sword was Eradicated.” Tsu looked sad.

“I think I’ll go home for the day.” Lang said, finishing up the tea.

She stood up and Tsu said “Good luck.” As Lang left the room she closed the door behind herself. She realized she left her sword on the courtyard, and didn’t sheathe it.

She went back home, where she cried her eyes out for a day and went to sleep.

********

Jill let Chao in, he asked “Did Vera have any prized belongings, ones she used on a daily basis?”

“All of her belongings are on that pile, on her bed.” Jill pointed at it, and was weirded out “Why do you need them.”

“I’m going to force her to resurrect at one of my Spirit Anchors, by spending my own Lifeforce.” Chao said almost matter-of-factly.

Jill was taken aback. “Isn’t that like a thousand years?”

Chao smiled at her “Yes, but I have over 17 thousand stored up.”

“May I ask what makes it worth it?” Jill was reserved, but also, the previous sleepless nights had left her disheveled.

“You may, but you may not like it.” Chao said as he looked over Vera’s belongings. Next to the bed, in her drawer there were two Petri dishes, ‘Not very discreet are we.’ Chao thought to himself.

Although unless someone literally invaded her house, they had no chance of finding these. Most normal people don’t need to fear someone invading their house.

In the end, Jill helped Chao pick out a set of Vera’s pajamas that she wore most days to bed.

With that, Chao excused himself, and left. Only a terrified Jill was left behind. Hoping, nothing more would happen.

‘Time to go to my Spirit Anchor.’

He came to one of the Dimensions he had built up from nothing. To enter, one needed to use his Spirit Mask as a key, however there were always ways to bypass that, some of which he blocked off, but you can never be too sure.

He placed the pajamas on a table, had a number of alchemy tools and prepared a ritual.

He put about a thousand years of Lifeforce into the ritual, along with flesh and all the ingredients needed. And then, nothing happened.

‘Even if it wasn’t quite enough Lifeforce, the thing should have started, Vera’s Soul shouldn’t be completely dissipated even through the eradication. There’s no way she hasn’t left a spirit mark on anything in the world, and her pajamas would also bear a smaller one if that was the case.’

‘There is only one reasonable explanation; She is alive, in some capacity somewhere. Whether someone had this thought before me, or she somehow survived. I do not know.’

Chao tried to scry for her, but came up blank. ‘That almost definitely means someone already did what I tried to do just there. Which meant one thing, her research notes were used, the ten missing ones.’

‘Time to catch a thief.’

Traveling through the spirit realm he was surprised to see, the Golden Dragon’s Spirit Dimension was visible for him again.

‘That’s an interesting phenomenon worth exploring. Later.’

********

Lang was back home on Sunday, practicing Soulcraft when a guard came to her and said “There’s a visitor at the gate, by the name Markus Hong, he wants to meet you.”

“Rejected.” There was disgust in Lang’s voice “Tell him, he is a loathsome individual and I never want to have anything to do with him. And that he stepped way out of line.”

‘Having the gall to show up like this, after never talking or visiting while I was sick, honestly its deplorable.’ She thought to herself as her guard left to deliver the message.

Lang still had over two weeks to train for the tournament, but she also had to race the alchemists her elder had set up on the task.

She decided to ask Helena Young, who’s family recently became the thorn in the side of the elder of Lang’s Bao family, by advancing to an alliance with Lye rather than subservience like the Bao had.

Helena was by far the best alchemist in her class, which made her somewhat of a hard nut to crack as she also focused on speed in cultivator battles and had a good chance at becoming a representative of the class, in the melee.

********

The next day, Lang came to Helena and said: “Hello, I’ve had a question about turning Eldritch Runes into regular ones, on my alchemical projects.”

Helena thought for a moment before saying: “Really depends on how you tied it, how many commands you gave and so on, but the easiest way is to create an Alchemachine with copied commands.” And she went into details on a couple of styles along with a book about it by Jacobs Young.

“It’s usually not the most elegant, but should work, especially for prototypes. Also, the Zhou family has a trade secret machine for turning Command Alchemachines to runes. But that would probably cost you too much, or your research will get flat-out stolen.”

‘Putting Helena and Jacobs Young into the references of the end paper should be enough, with this help, rather than needing to put her into the project headers.’ Lang thought.

“Thank you so much, I will go borrow the book, and you’ll appear in my references.” Lang said gratefully, turning around and going to the library.

What she didn’t see, was Helena go all embarrassed and sigh from relief after the conversation was over.

Finding the book in the library, didn’t prove to be much of a problem, the second main chapter was called Alchemachines and Lang found ‘Command-Copied Alchemachines’ as 2.3.

Perusing through the book while skipping Monday Sparring practice, she realized this what what she wanted, so she read the whole 12 page introduction at the start of chapter 2 and then read the 9 pages from the subchapter.

********

The simplest design for the Alchemachine was a single command copy, using three to five Logic Runes, and a meter set to a value.

Working on the complicated procedure to create two Alchemachine that did what the separate commands issued to the Eldritch Rune of Transfigurement, took all of Monday.

At the end of the day she prepared a vial and placed it at the end of the assembly of the Kettle of Life, continued by the two Alchemachines replacing the two commands on the Eldritch Rune.

Putting her finger against the seal at the first Alchemachine, she could feel the machine probing in her Lifeforce.

She set the valve to about 6 months.

Lang took an LMT test and came out with 38.4 years.

She put the machine on, she felt weakened, but not nearly to the point she was before.

The number changed to 37.6 years, meaning she’d underestimated the machine by about 50%, that could kill people.

Exhausted, she came to the elder of the family, and knocked.

One of his guards opened the doors and allowed to Lang to come in.

Kem Bao was sitting on the floor in the nearby room, next to a table filled with alcohol. He was reading something.

“Did the young lady find her tasks too hard, so she’s come to warm my bed?” Kem said, laughing for a moment, before he chortled on something in his mouth, coughed and then stood up. “Well?” He gestured her to sit.

“I have completed one of your tasks.” Lang said sternly, not moving, except to straighten up her posture.

“Did it take that long to finish the research paper?” He said after scratching his head for a moment.

“I finished the paper last week.” Lang said “I meant the real task of making the machine work without Eldritch Runes.” Lang realized she forgot to publish the report, but that would be the best with the design that could be used by anyone.

He looked at her in disbelief, than a smile crept on his face “Oh that’s amazing news.” He went from looking slovenly and disheveled to looking tipsy and businesslike in a matter of seconds.

“So you want a reward right?”

“I want you to start a war with whoever hired Vera’s killer.” Lang said unflinching.

“I guessed that would be your choice, hence I gave you two difficult tasks. Complete them both, and I will start the war. However until then, our family agents are only looking into the identity of the killer and their prospective employers.”

“You thought I would want this?” Lang blinked shocked “At the time you gave me this task I didn’t even know Vera died”. Lang looked saddened again.

He laughed and looked slovenly again “Well one doesn’t just go against their father’s orders and half their Lifespan on a whim.” He said half laughing half giggling through it.

Lang wasn’t impressed. “It’s not nice to laugh at my friends demise, also why did no one have the need to tell me?” She paused for a moment “My friend had been dead for 5 days, everyone acts as if its common knowledge and I find from a classmate?”

He became serious instantly “You are right, my apologies.” He made a small nod with his eyes closed, after he opened them “Anything else?”

“Thank you. I will be excusing myself. Goodnight.” and with that Lang left.

“Damn shame that.” He said to himself. “Damn shame that.” As he took another swig.