Chapter 169: Life 68, Age 36, Martial Grandmaster Peak

After entering the Path of Soul, I didn’t feel even a twinge from the path’s suppressive effects. With the defenses provided by my new cultivation technique, this level of soul pressure was entirely meaningless. LiTing, on the other hand, was showing a bit of strain. Looking at her, I could see that while she would be able to withstand the pressure of this first section well enough, her current level of soul cultivation wouldn’t be sufficient to complete the entire path. This needed to be addressed, but I put that to the side for the moment. We weren’t ready to start worrying about walking the path. First, we needed to ascend to Martial Lord. We could deal with soul cultivation after that was done. To give ourselves a bit of privacy, LiTing and I left the road and headed deep into the forest that blanketed this section of the mountain. With such dense foliage, it would be incredibly easy for us to hide out on the path for as long as we needed. After finding a secluded spot hidden deep in the forest’s undergrowth, we sat down to cultivate and prepare for our breakthroughs. I had noticed a shift in LiTing’s demeanor ever since we left the Path of Body, and now that we were safe, I had time to ask her about it. “How are you holding up?” She ground her teeth slightly at the question. She wasn’t quite angry, but she was certainly irritated. “Well enough.” She clenched a fist and looked me dead in the eye. “Fang, why am I old?” I looked at her blankly. Her nostrils flared. “You told me you would provide me with a disguise. You said it would be a beautiful young woman. Why. am. I. old?” I stared for a second before finally answering. “That... It was difficult... I tried to think of someone to disguise you as, but I couldn’t come up with any good options. So, when I finally thought of a name, I forgot she was a mortal and would have aged. In the end, I think it might’ve been the right choice. This disguise will hide you even better.” LiTing clenched her fist even tighter and then swung it futilely in the air. I had a pretty good understanding of the root of her anger. She didn’t want to look old, especially not in front of me. I knew she was frustrated, but I didn’t know what to do about it. Our relationship had become too complicated over the past couple of years. I had noticed that LiTing had started showing signs of interest in me, but I didn’t feel I was in a position to respond to them. Not only was she a thousand years younger than me, but I also understood the dangers of developing any type of feelings for people that would be reset at the end of a loop. Our biggest problem was that we didn’t have a defined relationship. To LiTing, we were a young man and woman who had known each other for 20-odd years and had spent the last two in close contact. What was our relationship? I wasn’t sure and neither was she. This anger about the disguise I had chosen for her was just an offshoot of that confusion. With my lack of responsiveness, she didn’t say anything else. She just whipped a cultivation mat out of her storage bag and plopped down on it. I closed my eyes and wished I knew what to say. All in all, this whole thing was a bit of a mess. While I was willing to purchase a disguise for LiTing, I wasn’t willing to tell her any details about what I did or how I did it. The System was my only remaining trump card that was truly secret. It would be obvious to my friends that I had some kind of strange power, but I had to keep the particulars of how it worked as hidden as possible. The only reason I was willing to use the System on LiTing like this was because she understood the importance of guarding secrets deep within her bones. She wouldn’t ask any uncomfortable questions or probe for more information than I was willing to share. Watching LiTing silently cultivate with her eyes closed, I took a deep breath. We had to set this drama to the side. There were more important things to focus on. I took out my own cultivation mat and got to work on my breakthrough. Having copied several Rank 4 cultivation techniques from the sect’s libraries, I no longer had to rely on the one I had gotten from my time as the Water Groom. I flipped through each of the techniques looking for something good, but none of these techniques had been graded by the sect, and none of them stuck out as particularly powerful, so I had to assume they were also all Yellow-Rank techniques. They were also all elementally neutral, so I only had to worry about choosing one with acceptable mental effects. After reviewing my options, I chose a technique focused on productivity. With everything I had learned, I would be able to close my acupoints so that the technique wouldn’t have an overly powerful effect on me in my day-to-day life, but when I was working, I could activate it to keep myself on track. LiTing went with a technique focused on learning. This choice was a result of her feelings of inadequacy. She felt a desperate need to learn fast enough to keep up with me. I knew this wasn’t healthy, but all I knew to do to help was to try and teach her what I could. LiTing took several weeks to successfully advance. After she did, I spent time explaining will-locks and getting her comfortable using them. I had never learned to fight as a Lord, so I could only guess at how to use them in combat, but I could at least introduce her to the basics. Once I felt we were ready, we exited seclusion and headed down the path to Profound City. While I didn’t have any difficulty at all with the meager soul pressure the path was subjecting us to, LiTing was a different story. In the first section, while she was uncomfortable, she was able to withstand the pressure without complaint. However, the deeper we went, the more problems she had. After reaching the fourth section, we had to stop. With the current strength of LiTing’s soul, if we risked entering the fifth section, there was a chance she would be seriously injured. My first time through the sect, the PangBo Alliance had wanted me to use Soul Numbing Pills to make the Path of Soul easier. After a bit of research, I learned that this was about the worst possible option. These pills allowed a person to ignore the pressure of the path, but they did so by permanently crippling the soul. I examined them in energy vision and couldn’t help but shake my head. They needed to improve their souls, but they were going about it the wrong way. They were simply cycling a basic soul cultivation technique. I couldn’t see inside their souls to know what was going on with them, but I knew that if they continued like this, they would only end up crippled. I wanted to walk away and refrain from making any new contacts, but something pushed me forward. These young men needed my help, if I was supposed to love everyone equally, I couldn’t just abandon them to their fates. Mustering my courage, I took a deep breath and stepped into the clearing. When I did, three pairs of eyes shot toward me, and all three men moved to grab a weapon. I raised both hands in a sign of peace to calm them down. With them eyeing me suspiciously, I took a seat in the grass across from them. One of the men was silently chosen as the group’s spokesman. “Who are you? What do you want?” I considered my answer. “A teacher. I only want to teach you, and by teaching you, learn from you.” The men growled and began to move for their weapons once more, so I reached into my storage bag, brought out a kettle, and filled it with water. I then placed it on a formation stone to heat it up. Once it was near boiling, I took out a tray containing a teapot and four small cups. I placed a few tea leaves into the pot and then poured in the hot water to let it steep. As I worked, the three men only watched me warily. While they wanted to defend themselves, they could see from my fluid movements that I did not feel the same pressure from the path that they were under. They knew attacking me would be far too dangerous. Once I judged that the tea was ready, I poured it into the four cups before me and took one as my own. I didn’t offer the other cups to the men, I let my actions do that for me. I sipped my tea, but the others didn’t move to pick up the other cups. I drew in a deep breath, smiled, and looked at my companions. “What path of cultivation do you follow?” The three men were confused by my actions, but their spokesman was willing to speak. “I’m a fire cultivator.” I shook my head slightly. “What path of soul cultivation do you follow?” The man on the right narrowed his eyes. “We can’t share our cultivation technique.” Again, I shook my head. “Not your technique. What is your path?” They seemed confused by this question. This made me sigh. On this continent, those who had not taken the elite courses at the Yellow Orchid Academy didn’t learn anything about soul cultivation. The Path of Soul was a dead end for all the unfortunates who had no understanding of how they were supposed to go about strengthening their souls properly. Quickly sorting through the scrolls in my storage bag, I took out foundational texts for each of the four paths of soul cultivation. I had transcribed these to help LiTing in her studies, but she was already beyond the level of these basic texts. These were, of course, texts from this world. I hadn’t even shared the books the System had given me with my friends. I wasn’t about to share them with complete strangers. I placed the four scrolls on the ground in front of the three men. “Your souls are strong, but they are undisciplined. Continuing down your current path will only lead to ruin. Instead, as you improve your soul, consider the information in these texts. It can help guide you.” Given the situation, I knew these men couldn’t trust me. Leaving the scrolls and tea set behind, I stood and disappeared into the forest. This interaction hadn’t accomplished anything except potentially betraying our presence in the forest, but something about it felt right. It felt like I had finally done something to make the world a slightly better place. I immediately felt an urge to push back against this feeling. I knew that it was coming from my soul cultivation. However, after ensuring the shell of my cultivation technique remained solid, I chose to let the feeling of contentment from helping those three wash over me. I was supposed to be a Mohist, and I needed to start acting like it. That could change in the future, but I couldn’t live in the future. I needed to live in the moment.