Chapter 27
My body was covered in black goo. Impurities. I wouldn't have minded, since they were a mark of my prowess. A reminder that I had achieved the impossible and defied the heavens.
The problem was they stank like crap. As though someone had found a pool of rotten sewage and excrement, fermented it further and then mixed it with the juices of a skunk.
My quest to defeat the spirit beasts of the Jagged Sword Mountains would have to be put on hold while I looked for a river or lake in which to bathe. My only priority was now to find a way to clean myself.
Like a man injected with chicken blood I raced into the distance, filled with energy and determination. I started to scour the forest in search of water. Anything would do.
Even a puddle, provided it was sufficiently large to let me have a bath. Unfortunately, even after searching for fifteen minutes I was unable to find somewhere to wash myself.
Cursing this forest, I turned my gaze towards the centre of the mountain range. I hadn't seen any bodies of water outside so my only hope of bathing was to search deeper inside.
I didn't mind heading further in, since that suited my goal of finding more powerful awakened beasts to beat down and then heal. However, I was a little worried I might run into other people while in this disgusting state.
I remembered seeing that guy while chasing the spirit monkey. I still wasn't sure if I'd only imagined it, but I knew this was a training ground for disciples of my old sect so it wasn't impossible that there were some here right now.
Even so, I wasn't going to abandon my only hope of a wash out of fear of meeting someone. Cultivators knew what breaking through was like anyway so I'm sure they would understand my pain.
With my mind made up I sprinted through the forest, determined to reach the Jagged Sword Mountain and find a lake or river.
****
Despite my earlier ambition, I was still stuck in the forest. It was far larger than I'd first believed, though I'd only seen it from a distance.
The Jagged Sword Mountain was simply that enormous. I suspected it was easily twice as tall as Everest back on Earth. Yet from Zhao Dan's memories I knew it was far from the largest mountain in the Cloudy Falls Sect's territory, let alone the Celestial Jade Empire.
Just when I was beginning to think my journey through the forest would never end, I heard the sound of snapping branches. A second later I was forced to duck as something flew at my head.
I heard a crunch and the sound of cracking bark. When I turned around I realised what had flown at me wasn't an object, but a person.
More precisely, it was a girl wearing familiar robes. The bright red robes of an inner disciple of the Cloudy Falls Sect.
She coughed and blood sprayed across the forest floor. Almost immediately after, she attempted to stand up. However, she coughed blood again and fell to the ground.
My first instinct was to look in the direction she'd flown from. There was no way that had been a natural occurrence—a fight was happening nearby.
A rather vicious one judging from the state of the girl. Her robes were torn and bloody, her once bright skin now marred with a plethora of cuts and bruises.
Then again, perhaps it wasn't such a vicious battle. Even the so-called friendly spar between fellow disciples I'd witnessed the day I left the sect had been bloodier than this.
Even so, I was inclined to help the girl. Not just because my qi oath compelled me, but because I had no reason not to.
Zhao Dan's hatred and resentment towards his former sect was not mine. Other than those bastards who tormented him personally—I wasn't sure how I would react to meeting them—I had no conflicts with disciples of the sect.
When I stepped towards her she immediately opened her eyes. She flinched and raised her hands, but then lowered them slightly when saw me… and then immediately threw them up again after realising I was not wearing the sect robes.
"Who are you?" she asked, coughing blood once more. "You dare interfere with the affairs of the Cloudy Falls Sect?"
'Seriously?' was the only thought I had when I saw her reaction to my arrival.
Instead of simply asking me my identity and purpose she'd chosen the classic cultivator approach of acting high and mighty. Throwing around the power of her sect instead of being a normal person and having a conversation.
I understood her a little. In this brutal world it was rare to encounter someone who wasn't selfishly chasing the peak of cultivation. When you were injured and someone appeared before you, more often than not they only wanted to steal your treasures and leave you for dead.
Luckily for this girl, I wasn't one of those selfish bastards. No, I was here with the purehearted intentions of healing her and saving her from death.
The fact I would see massive gains in my own cultivation afterwards had nothing to do with it whatsoever. Definitely not.
Actually, I was a little excited. My heart was beating louder in my chest as I took tentative steps towards the girl.
Having the opportunity to heal a cultivator in the Qi Gathering realm might give me the insight I needed to break through myself. I raised my hands, palms facing outwards, to show that I wasn't a threat.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I am simply in these mountains to train, just like you," I said calmly. "As far as I am aware the Cloudy Falls Sect does not restrict other cultivators who live in these lands from entering the Jagged Sword Mountains."
She seemed to relax a little, but from the wary gaze in her eyes and the way her hand never left her hip—where she likely hid a weapon—I knew she was still on guard against me. That was fine. She would soon change her mind.
Unfortunately I had forgotten one crucial detail. As I grew closer I saw her sniff the air a few times and then scrunch her face in disgust.
Taking a closer look at me, she seemed to have only just realised I was covered head to toe in impurities and smelled worse than a horse fart. "Bastard, what the hell are you doing running around like that!?" she exclaimed, gaining a second wind as she leapt back to escape the stench.
I looked down at my stained robes and body. I'd done my best to scrape off most of the black goo, but plenty remained. It was almost impossible to cleanse without water.
Sighing, I raised my eyes to her once more. "Look, I just had a breakthrough in the middle of the mountains and there isn't exactly somewhere close by to wash," I explained, continuing to walk forward. "You shouldn't move around so much with those injuries," I added.
Her eyes widened. I was sure she knew I'd broken through. That was almost always the reason for a cultivator's body to expel impurities. I just wasn't sure she'd been that focused given the extent of her wounds.
However, instead of calming down and letting me approach she suddenly smacked her fist against the ground. "What the hell is wrong with you? Did water leak in your brain or something!? Had a damn breakthrou-" she suddenly coughed blood two more times but didn't even stop her ranting… "-gh and staying in the mountains! One isn't enough for you, greedy bastard? Go home and have a bath!" she hissed, crawling away from me.
Blood leaked from her wounds onto the ground and she coughed again. She was literally killing herself just so she wouldn't have to be close to me and smell the stench I was giving off.
She was a Qi Gathering cultivator. I could tell that much from simply observing the qi in her body going wild as her injuries ravaged her body. This foolish woman was going to die because of her pride.
Well, and perhaps her nose… but it truly wasn't my fault I'd managed to utterly defy the heavens and break through to a stage of Body Tempering that hadn't previously existed!
There was only one option left to me. Sometimes being a doctor meant making hard decisions. Right now this woman was refusing to see sense.
I inhaled… and then closed the distance between us in just two steps. She gasped in surprise. I clamped my hand around her arm.
"You- you softshell turtle! Don't touch-" her eyes suddenly rolled back in her head and she passed out.
I think I accidentally used a little too much blood essence…
However, I made sure to focus very carefully on what happened. This was my first time healing a cultivator in the Qi Gathering realm. I wasn't actually sure the technique would work, but I had to try anyway.
Just as they usually did, sparks of my essence rushed into her body. They had no particular destination, simply racing for the closest injury they found.
The typical process of the technique involved my own blood essence combining with the person I was healing's blood essence. In mortals it was quite difficult to detect as they often possessed barely any essence, but with cultivators it was different.
Until now I'd only healed Body Tempering practitioners and what usually happened was their own blood essence would join with mine, forming swirls that would then disperse healing sparks until the damage was repaired. Or the sickness was pulled up by the roots, whichever was necessary.
So in my head there were two possibilities now that I was attempting to heal a one-star Qi Gatherer; either the same thing would happen, just with her qi instead of blood essence, or my technique would fail because I didn't possess any qi.
At first everything seemed to be fine. My blood essence spread throughout the girl's body—I realised now I'd never asked her name—and I saw it beginning to swirl and shake. So far, so good.
Everything seemed to be proceeding smoothly. Her wounds began to heal all across her body. Bruises faded and cuts began to seal as my blood essence went to work.
Halfway through the process, I saw strands of her qi joining the swirls of blood essence. That was new.
The qi didn't mix smoothly with my essence, however. It was like oil and water. Two fluids that violently rejected each other and refused to cooperate.
Yet that didn't impede the healing process. In fact, the opposite seemed to happen. As her qi and my blood clashed, the swirls sped up rapidly, spinning faster than I'd ever seen before.
The clumps of qi and blood they spewed out hastened the healing process and before long the girl was in perfect condition. I was a little surprised at what had happened, but it wasn't beyond the realms of my expectation.
Instead, I was more interested in what would happen next. This was the part where my blood essence would return to me, having multiplied and ready to improve my cultivation.
There were two problems with that. Quite major problems.
The first was that I had not only reached the peak of the Body Tempering Realm, but I had even surpassed it and entered ten-star Body Tempering—a previously unknown stage. Despite the breakthrough I still felt as though my body was swollen and full to the limit with blood essence.
If I received even more, what would happen? Surely I wouldn't keep doing the impossible, defying the heavens and breaking through to more unknown stages of Body Tempering. Ten-star was one thing, but for there to be an eleventh star would be absurd…
That wasn't even taking into account the second problem. One which was perhaps even bigger than the first.
What would the impact of qi on my blood essence and technique be? I hoped that it would do something beneficial and thus provide me some insight into how I might approach the wall to my own cultivation, but it could also do the opposite.
There was every chance something terrible would happen to my technique because I'd tried to reach beyond my limits. Either way, I would soon find out. My endless musings were rather pointless, but they did help to further my own understanding of the world and myself.
I felt a rush as the first drops of my blood returned. Immediately I noticed that they were not the same as before I'd used the technique. I tried to figure out what had changed, but my understanding was limited.
Previously, my blood essence had transformed by absorbing various potent toxins, giving me greater resistance to poisons while also letting my technique fight against toxins more effectively. Perhaps something similar had happened with the girl's qi?
I quickly realised that my technique had worked as intended. Far more blood essence returned to me than I'd used to heal her.
That was a big problem. Once more I felt my body swell beyond its limits, like a dam about to burst.
For a brief moment, less than a breath's worth of time, I was scared I would face another unexpected breakthrough. However, the rush of energy soon subsided. The shattering of my limits that I feared never came.
I still felt uncomfortable, far too much blood essence than a Body Tempering cultivator should ever have racing through my body, but there was nothing I could do except clench my jaw and bear it.
The girl was still unconscious. I propped her up against a nearby tree and wondered what to do next.
I wanted to focus on my blood essence and see what changes had taken place. I felt that was the best way to approach enlightenment; to discover the steps I needed to take in order to reach the Qi Gathering Realm.
However, there was a more pressing issue. Now that I was not so focused on healing her, I realised the sounds of battle rang in my ears.
In the first place she had been wounded and flown in my direction because of a fight. That fight was bringing itself to me whether I wanted to join or not.
Which… wasn't necessarily a bad thing. If I played my cards right I could just watch the battle unfold and then heal whoever required it afterwards.
Not only would I be doing a good deed, I would also be improving my own strength and perhaps gaining more opportunities to observe my technique in action on Qi Gathering cultivators or awakened beasts.
Assuming that was who was battling. There was the chance it was two groups of cultivators, but I wasn't experienced enough to tell the difference between cuts from claws and the slashes of a sword.
The answer revealed itself to me a few seconds later. A man jumped backwards through the trees, landing nearby and sliding through the dirt.
Blood dripped from wounds across his body, but his eyes burned with determination and he gripped his sword firmly in two hands. He also wore the robes of an inner disciple.
His eyes swivelled around and when he saw me, then the unconscious girl, they widened and I saw his brow furrowing in confusion. However, he quickly turned his gaze back to the direction he'd come from just as a tree in front of us exploded.
I threw my arms up to guard my face as the shower of splinters and bark cascaded over us. Thanks to my recent breakthrough my body was perhaps even sturdier than that of a one-star Qi Gatherer, so I suffered little damage.
What came next was far more dangerous.