Tian felt wronged. Everyone seemed so upset. Grandpa was howling with laughter. And for some reason, everyone acted like his voice had some kind of magic charm to it. Even the movements of his hands caught everyone’s eye. He could understand if they were fixated on Sister Hong. She looked ready to fight ten armies and win.
“Junior Tian, state matters clearly. Did you have immoral relations with the master of the Six Turns Cavern?” The cadaverous looking elder glared at Tian....
2025-06-11 14:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Tian’s limbs had gone numb. It was a dreadful, creeping infiltration. He hadn’t noticed the weakness until it was far too late. His vital energy had all been consumed enduring the Null Chamber over three cups of tea. Had his gamble been wrong? Had he misunderstood the requirements of the Cavern?
“I would have thought rooms full of fatal dangers would have been a bit of a hint. I saw you burn yourself in the fire chamber. Very nearly to death. I really thought you had crippled your...
2025-06-10 14:00:11 +0000 UTC
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TL:DR- I'm taking next week off, as it's a good time, on account of Vol. 2 will be done by then.
SO! I don't usually like coming anywhere remotely close to a spoiler, but in the interest of fairness, I wanted to give you all at least a week's notice. Vol. 2 will wrap up on Friday, and Vol. 3 will start rolling out a week from next Monday. AKA on June 23'rd.
It is at this point the bragging begins. Two books out the door in three months. Four if you count the prep time, which you ...
2025-06-09 14:10:01 +0000 UTC
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Tian kept quite still. The skeleton had cold blue-white fires burning in its eyes. He recognized those fires. Yin flames. He remembered them from the belly of the demonic bird. It was eerie. The scene was jarringly unbalanced. The five elements were balanced between yin and yang, the skeleton was powerfully yin. Where was the yang? Excess yin could lead to… demons.
And nothing strong enough to make the Six Turns Cavern was going to be at merely the Earthly person level.
2025-06-09 14:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Use your needle! Forget the light body technique, use Heavenly Swallows and jab at the cuts.
Grandpa Jun sounded urgent. Tian didn’t question it. The needle dropped into his hand and the art circulated. The needle collided with the tearing metal qi with a sharp chime. The qi broke. The tiger made a chuffing noise and sent three more. Tian blocked another, but the two coming high and low forced him to step off his spear-nest and onto a glave rising from a nest of halberds tuck...
2025-06-06 14:00:12 +0000 UTC
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“Is it time yet?”
Soon. Any minute now.
There was a brief shuffling sound
“Now?”
Are you flying through a wall? Then it’s not now.
There was a little more shuffling, then a few seconds of foot tapping.
“How about-”
Tian, I swear I will humm the most annoying and inescapable melody you ever heard if you ask me if it’s time yet. You will be ripped from this room by arcane forces and flung ...
2025-06-05 14:00:13 +0000 UTC
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The six days passed in an odd sort of ecstasy for Tian. Odd, because he knew what he was feeling wasn’t entirely natural. Fire was the element of joy, red the color of supreme good fortune. Losing himself in the flames of his own fiery qi made everything a happy occasion. It became exhausting. Sometimes, you need to just be flat.
Tian healed and rested in the now pure-qi Fire Cavern, then experienced the element of fire within him in the Null Cavern. He would stand in the dark, ...
2025-06-04 14:00:13 +0000 UTC
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[AUTHOR NOTE- I saw the comments about putting Tian's dialog in italics and double quotes when he is talking to grandpa in his head. I don't know if that is going to be more or less confusing, but I agree the current way of doing things isn't good, so we're gonna try it out in this chapter. Let me know how it works for you. Just to be clear- Tian has been strictly talking to Grandpa in his head since he was first able to do so, and particularly in the caves. He isn't entirely sure abo...
2025-06-03 14:00:15 +0000 UTC
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The bone was quite pretty. Tian dug out a few more and gave them a quick polish, and they were all more or less the same- dense, a creamy white color more like stone than bone, and when the light caught them right, filled with a brilliant iridescence. Like rainbows trapped in jade.
Tian hadn’t seen much jade, but he had pestered Brother Long to show him a couple of pieces after the cultured young man referred to a sister as a “Jade Beauty.” He sputtered pretty impressively when Ti...
2025-06-02 14:00:11 +0000 UTC
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“Fire. Arguably the most Yang element. So… I should explode my way out of here.”
Sure. You do that.
“It was a joke, Grandpa.”
I wasn’t joking. But you would be missing out. My opportunity senses are going crazy. We have to get into that ring.
“The person who jumped in before me said his name was Ma Teng. I don’t know what honorable clan the Ma are, but even if they loaded him up with four times what Sister Liren’s grandmother gave he...
2025-05-30 14:00:07 +0000 UTC
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Grandpa had to use all his persuasive authority to get Tian to sleep. He was pretty sure there was barely six hours until the next chamber opened, and that meant Tian had less than six hours to sleep, freshen up, and be ready to jump into whatever the next challenge was. Despite Tian’s almost unlimited supply of “Yes, but-”’s, Grandpa managed to carry the day with good, old fashioned fear of humiliation.
You don’t want to be the first person to flunk out, right? How ...
2025-05-29 14:00:05 +0000 UTC
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There was a sudden moment of inexplicable dislocation- as though the world had shifted six inches left for no obvious reason. The air tasted different. Still cool, but without that mountain stream or deep well freshness. Tian looked around the cavern. The ugly turtle had vanished.
Tian took a step back into the cavern and nearly tripped. His limbs all felt jerky and uncoordinated. Everything seemed like an annoyance, and worse, like something precious had been stolen from him.
...
2025-05-28 14:00:13 +0000 UTC
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“Would it cost you too much energy to tell me what that is?” Tian’s eyes were fixed on the swimming… whatever it was.
Not at all. What it is specifically is a Qi Spirit. These occasionally appear in places with really intense levels of qi. It has taken the shape of a… hmm… patron deity? A primordial spirit? Not really sure how to describe it to you. Imagine a magical beast that was a sort of embodiment of Water as an elemental principal, as well as a few other thin...
2025-05-27 14:00:08 +0000 UTC
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It took two weeks to travel to the Six Turns Cavern. The last three days of the journey were spent traveling through a suspiciously convenient cloud bank. Elder Rui didn’t say anything, and the juniors, used to complete silence after two weeks of travel together, didn’t ask. The Caverns were entered through a modest sized hill inside the bend of a river. It managed to be both spiritual, elegant, and utterly horrible.
Everything was dead. It was clear that, until quite recently, ther...
2025-05-26 14:00:10 +0000 UTC
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This was made by Wistways, who has kindly given me permission to share it. I was floored when I saw it. One of those "I'm really glad I'm an author" moments. I'm not going to post it on RR for a while as it is technically a spoiler, but... damn. Just look at that!
2025-05-26 02:39:24 +0000 UTC
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Senior Redmane was a thoughtful old bird. He waited until Tian left that special state, then returned silently to the depot. He arranged for some of his brothers to sit with him on the back patio of the hospital until he entirely returned to himself. He was more or less functional by dinner time, but silence was coming easy today.
It was a floaty sort of feeling. Like he was utterly connected to everything around him, but was having trouble thinking anything about it. Chopsticks s...
2025-05-23 14:00:19 +0000 UTC
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Very soon turned out to be after what was technically his hospital shift. The word technically had to be inserted, as people kept stopping him, checking in on him, praising him for his restraint while loudly declaring that they couldn’t have stood it themselves. They’d have killed the little bastard!
Tian appreciated the good wishes, but he didn’t believe the boasting. It was Doctor Pei who sat him down in an examination room and asked the important question. “Why did you ...
2025-05-22 14:00:12 +0000 UTC
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“I really have to wonder who is setting up whom.” Tian kept his faint smile on. He didn’t know why, but for some reason it was making people nervous. “I am told, not asked but told, by one Black River Valley Outer Court Gosung San to escort the Li Clan’s young master who would be arriving today. Despite the fact that I have never met such a person. Then this promising junior gets dropped off by a Martial Aunt at the gate and she flies off with not even a backward look. Then...
2025-05-21 14:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Brother Long snapped down his white stone on the board. It was part of the etiquette of the game- the stones didn’t just go down with a little click or thud. The elegant young man held the piece between his index and middle fingers. The rounded disk shaped stone touched down on the intersecting lines edge first, then the middle finger slid out from below as the index finger pushed gently down from the top. It made a nice sound- tok-tak, wooden, then mineral.
Tian was ve...
2025-05-20 14:20:56 +0000 UTC
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Tian could feel himself creaking. His body had never been better, but inside, he was fraying and brittle. He had always known the world was a cruel place. He had known that his brothers were treated far, far too poorly. Their lives were spent far too cheaply. But the Monastery had been, unquestionably, good to him.
Just the existence of the West Town Temple was a great kindness to him, and from what he could see, a great kindness to the nearby villages. It provided security and co...
2025-05-19 15:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Tians’ triumphal trumpeting of his awesome arrival at level six was met with a resounding “Oh,” from the brothers of the West Town Temple. Disappointing, but he was used to it at this point. Brother Su gave him a single encouraging pat on the back. Tian would just have to make do with that.
Tian’s shift in the hospital was unremarkable. The horrors and miseries of the place become part of the working environment. Like the dump- never nice, but there was a sort of numb comfort in...
2025-05-16 14:00:12 +0000 UTC
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Tian stood straight with his hands loosely clasped behind his back. It was the pose he had seen some of the more senior Senior Brothers adopting when they were supervising his martial arts practice, and he thought it looked very fine. It seemed to have the air of an expert about it. Hopefully, it would lend weight to his dignity as he held the important job of Dao Protector.
Assuming that “Dao Protector” was an important job. It sounded important. You wouldn’t go around call...
2025-05-15 14:00:14 +0000 UTC
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Tian still had a little time before bed. Tian knew what would help him sleep- telling Hong that he had broken through to Level Six before her. It had been worryingly close. Hong said she could break through any day now, and from what Tian could feel of her qi, she wasn’t lying. She generally cultivated next to him on the back patio of the hospital. It was fairly quiet (the doctors treating noise in their break area as an offense second only to making more work for them) and comparatively pr...
2025-05-14 14:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Tian sat happily to lunch. There was fish soup, and a big bowl of blindingly white rice, plenty of pickled vegetables, some stir fried bamboo shoots and all the warm water he could drink. Paradise. His hand hesitated between chopsticks and spoon, then swooped down. It would be the soup! A big gulp- a little sweet, the clean fish taste coming through and the subtle warmth of ginger and scallions. And that tingle on the tongue… what could that be?
Was it curse energy? Perhaps a ne...
2025-05-13 14:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Tian decided he was fourteen. It had been a month since Martial Uncle Ku had returned, and in another month it would be Hong Liren’s birthday. To maintain orthodoxy and obeying the will of the Heavens, he could only reluctantly accept the title of Older Brother.
That the young Liren violently disagreed was more proof of her hooligan nature, entirely unsuited to being the Older Sister.
Tian stroked his nonexistent beard in precisely the same way Brother Fu stroked his...
2025-05-12 14:00:13 +0000 UTC
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Tian’s mind was a mess. He latched onto one phrase in particular. “It’s working?”
“In the sense that we have made battling us seem like a bad investment compared to fighting Sword Peak or the others. The gains aren’t worth the losses for the heretics. You couldn’t say we are winning. We have just made winning more expensive for Black Iron Gorge. A price they are currently unwilling to pay.” Auntie Wu nodded.
“It hurts, Auntie.”
“Yes. And it hurts more w...
2025-05-09 14:00:11 +0000 UTC
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The cultivators cheered for Martial Uncle Ku when he entered the Depot. Tian could see everyone pouring out of the buildings, the True Disciples flying up on their swords or flying clouds. People clasped their hands and bowed in gratitude or just threw decorum to the desert winds and yelled, waving their fists in the air.
Martial Uncle Ku had come back in glory. He rode in on the back of a giant mutated wasteland horror, holding a severed head. It had been a long time since the De...
2025-05-08 14:00:12 +0000 UTC
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[Like the caption said- I'm unlocking this chapter for the Awakened tier early, as I probably won't have the time to unlock it when I usually do. Sorry for the inconvenience.]
Time came unstuck once again. Tian had sat with Brother Wong and worked through the astrological calculations, finding the right day and time to start cultivating Imperial Heavenly Swallows. Then it was just a matter of waiting. It was only a couple of weeks. And since he was waiting, he might as well work. <...
2025-05-07 14:00:17 +0000 UTC
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It took Sister Li two weeks to craft Tian’s darts. During that time, for no plausible reason, the base was shifted from an Up to a Down posture. That is, it was no longer considered on the front lines, and so long as people earned their monthly quota of military merits, they could pick and choose the missions they took.
Brother Long Yichen came to find him when the darts were ready, and looked subtly disappointed to be called “Brother Long” instead of “Brother Supreme Art....
2025-05-06 14:00:11 +0000 UTC
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Tian sat and looked out across the wastes. Some instinct stirred in him, and he got up into a crouch and started drawing circles in the sand. For some reason, it always helped him focus. He started connecting things he had heard, seen and been told during his time in the sect.
“Brother Fu, the senior who was recruited before me and made it to the Inner Court in ten years-”
“Eight years, eleven months and four days, actually. Ao Yuanyun. Simply the most brilliant person...
2025-05-05 14:00:12 +0000 UTC
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