B2 Chapter 28

Orange-crest stared down at another world. A sky as blue as the heavens above, cut into the stone like a fishing-hole in a frozen lake. It seemed as if they'd descended so far that they'd found a hole that emptied out into the far side of the world.

The monkey crept closer to the edge of the hole. He got low, padding forward on all fours. He didn't expect to be pushed, but something about this space dried his mouth in a way that the waterfall had not. His eyes peeked out over the edge. The drop was dizzying. There was earth, at the bottom. Golden grass, spreading across the world in fields without end. The tall fronds danced like a lake in a storm, rising and bowing in response to a wind that orange-crest could not feel from his place above the sky.

Was this what stars felt like, staring down at the world? He wondered if the unseen sun gazed down from another hole in the stone. Was the sky down there like the sky above? It shined blue to his eyes now, but surely it had to be the color of rock? He had so many questions!

Orange-crest could tell the grass was tall. Up to his waist at least, for it to dance so joyfully. But even knowing the height of the flora, he could not have begun to guess how far the drop was. It was simply beyond his understanding of distances. Twice the height of Godsgrave Peak's bowl? Ten times it? Either distance seemed equally correct.

It was far.

"It looks like a world. An under-world."

"It is not the underworld, Li Hou." Daoist Scouring Medicine said with long-suffering amusement. "I know not exactly where Diyu lies, but I assure you that it is deeper by far, and less inviting by half. It is said that the path to Diyu for a living man is ten thousand times as arduous as the road a dead one travels."

Ugh. He'd almost forgotten men had all these impossible stories about the underworld. Everyone knew that when you died, you were dead. They'd spoken of this before they left. His master assured him it was impossible. The world was too large. One would need to travel downward for months to reach the underworld, if it were possible at all. Abysses beyond abysses, as he'd told the monkey there were horizons beyond horizons and skies beyond skies.

But orange-crest had eyes. There was a world spread out before him, and it was under the one he knew. Was he really the one who was a fool, to keep an open mind in the face of such evidence?

"Is a world." Orange-crest repeated, dubious. It was only the fact that still the earth pulled at him, trying to drag his body downward, that really convinced the monkey he was not staring down at the far side of the world. "And it is under ours. No ghosts though. Maybe men are wrong about underworlds."

Li Shuwen chuckled just the once at the provincial monkey's doubt. To his surprise, he heard Xiao Shulan muffle a similar noise of amusement.

Orange-crest half expected his master to rebuke him. Not meanly, but in his 'I know this and you do not' way.

Yet, to his surprise, Master Li Xun hummed thoughtfully instead.

"It does look like a world, doesn't it..."

Ooh. Orange-crest knew what that meant. His master noticed something, but he didn't want to say it until he was sure he was right. Maybe they had found the underworld by accident.

"That is larger than I expected." Li Shuwen said. "But I suppose Nascent Soul cultivators are more capable than I can imagine."

"Do we... Jump?" Wu Yingjie did not sound enthusiastic about the prospect. Orange-crest couldn't blame him, his stomach was a little jumpy and he was far better suited for great leaps than Wu Yingjie.

"You are a cultivator." Xiao Shulan's voice made clear that she did not think he lived up to that title. "Even one as lacking in attainment as you should not find any fall more than an inconvenience. Break an ankle if you must, you have healing pills."

"That is very far." Orange-crest noted.

"Height is irrelevant." Xiao Shulan continued. "Falling forever is not worse than falling far. The pull of the earth is limited, and a moderately effective light body technique is enough for even the most lowly of disciples to survive a fall of any height."

"Some of us don't have light body techniques." Wu Yingjie muttered.

"The sect has them available. You should have prepared better."

Orange-crest grabbed a nearby rock and chucked it into the hole. That was how real learning was done.

"Wait-"

Too late. Li Xun reached out reflexively, but by the time he could decide if he was going to use the Phantom Palm or not, the rock had already breached the surface of the space, disturbing an unseen membrane.

The world shook. The ground rose and fell like the waves of grain below, stone bending like cloth. Orange-crest dropped prone, lest the bucking earth toss him in to follow the rock. Ripples spread across the top of the sky like a lake disturbed, and strange powers poured forth in a rush. Not qi, not quite. Lighter and heavier, subtler and more... Intentional?

Divine sense? Was this what it was like to feel it in motion? Orange-crest felt them pass over him, seeking something.

The four of them froze, half expecting some spirit beast to burst out of the shadows, drawn by the wild fluctuations in space.

None came. When the world stilled, the rock was gone.

"Furry idiot." Wu Yingjie hissed.

"Is it supposed to do that?" Orange-crest whispered loudly. "Also, you touched the rat."

"Two mistakes don't-"

"Impossible." Li Xun said quietly.

"Impossible?" Orange-crest echoed.

"I thought I felt it at the patriarch's forge. A second will, one that I recognized. I am not mistaken. It is him."

"Explain?"

"Sect Master Xiang. When he fell, Elder Lu refused to speak of what happened to his Nascent Soul. We all assumed the worst. But it was not dispersed. He endures."

Orange-crest had no idea what that meant, but he'd prompted his master twice already. He just waited for him to continue.

"It isn't an inheritance ground. Not a mere sealed space, anymore. It's breaking. Spilling out, as it shifts. The remaining will of Sect Master Xiang is weaving the three grounds together, trying to pull in the patriarch's forges and who knows what else. That's why space is being twisted. Why Elder Lu knew someone who isn't even a disciple yet would be able to enter an inheritance ground. Xiang Ru's last gift to the Azure Mountain."

"And..." Orange-crest prompted.

"The Azure Mountain Sect will soon have a true holy land."

"If you are correct, this will change everything." Xiao Shulan said breathlessly. "None of the other great sects can boast a holy land. The Azure Mountain would eclipse all of them, in three hundred year's time. If the Seventh Prince joins the sect, and ascends the throne, they might even surpass the Capital Xiao at court. Elder Lu didn't just want to bribe the Seventh Prince. This is a message to my clan. A warning, and an offer."

"A coalition like that could dominate the empire's politics for a dozen generations." Li Shuwen added.

"What's the difference?" Orange-crest asked his master. He was feeling a little put out. It was always like this, with humans. They bent everything back to politics, alliances and power. Was it too much to ask to just rejoice in exploring another world and plundering its treasures?

"A holy land endures, or so the writings of the ancients say. It is not merely built around a single inheritance, destined to collapse when the core of it is finally passed on. It will grow with the passing centuries, drawing from the dragon vein below. Sect Master Xiang's Nascent Soul will transform to become a guardian spirit of the land, and his benevolence will make the holy land into a pillar of support for the sect. The density of qi within will allow for impossibly fast cultivation, and create spiritual treasures that could never form in the outside world. Disciples will enter every few decades, finding heaven-defying good fortune within. An inheritance ground might grant a dozen disciples good fortune and bestow its true legacy upon one. A holy land can benefit hundreds of cultivators over the centuries."

Daoist Scouring Medicine stepped past orange-crest and knelt. He extended an arm into the pit. Before he even touched the invisible membrane, the image of the holy land began below to shake violently.

"I cannot follow you. Not now, while it is in this transitory state. My cultivation is too advanced for the space to bear. I will not risk damaging what Old Xiang spent his Nascent Soul to build."

Orange-crest stared at his master in surprise. The long term benefits of the sect didn't seem like the sort of thing he would care about these days. He must have held Old Xiang in tremendous esteem. He'd spoken fondly of him before, but only ever in passing.

Without another word, Xiao Shulan stepped past the pair of them, holding aloft the token of cloudy blue-white jade the Azure Mountain issued all of its disciples. As she fell through into the holy land, the under-sect shook violently once more.

"I suppose we're done talking." Li Shuwen said calmly, taking out his own sect token as he watched Xiao Shulan fall.

"I came this far." Wu Yingjie muttered. "What's one more leap?"

Orange-crest looked up at his master. Li Xun smiled down at the monkey. Orange-crest smiled back, recognizing his own toothy grin in his master's expression.

"Go, Li Hou. I have restrained myself for the sake of seeing you safely here. But I am likely the most powerful existence beneath Core Formation in the entirety of the sect. My stores of ingredients run low. Anything fool enough to impede me can contribute its flesh to refill them. I'll find you when you emerge."

As if in response to his boast, the same unearthly howl that had driven the serpent off before once more echoed through the tunnels.

"I suppose that's our cue."

"Fuck me." Wu Yingjie muttered. "Why did I agree to this."

"Let's go!" Orange-crest shouted loud enough to wake the dead. No more sneaking. No more politics. No more old monsters to step quietly around. The monkey grabbed Wu Yingjie's shoulder, pulling him forward. No backing out now.

They leapt in unison. The world spun, the call of the earth uncertain which direction it sought to pull them. Up became down, then became to up once more. Orange-crest felt himself spinning like Elder Xun's wolf had when Elder Lu trapped it in a tornado. Twin waves of divine sense passed over him, The walls of the tunnel receded, and the other three presences fell away, pulling apart.

Three?

Orange-crest emerged from the boundary with a gasp. Fingers of wind ripped at his fur. Cold, clean, wind. Nothing like the stagnant musty air of the cave.

The monkey threw his arms out, trying to catch the wind, control his fall. He let his qi surge free. The new world pressed back upon him, so wildly, furiously, alive that its native qi was almost oppressive. Orange-crest drank it in gleefully, making the power his own. No wonder his master spoke so reverently of holy lands!

Flushed with qi, the monkey held his staff before him.

"Stop!" He hissed. The staff stopped. Orange-crest didn't. His arms folded, and he crashed into his own weapon, driving the air from his chest. But his spin slowed.

Orange-crest took in the world. The sky was boundless, with no stony ceiling. A sun shined down. Was the sun the passage they'd entered through? He twisted his neck. The golden fields beneath him were rapidly growing. He could see the other three below, Xiao Shulan a speck in the distance.

A surprisingly girlish scream emanated from Wu Yingjie, the sound rapidly changing in tone as the disciple spun round and round.

Li Shuwen fell slowly, apparently possessing one of those light body techniques.

Orange-crest extended his limbs, reveling in the way he could feel the wind pushing against him. He was flying! Not under his own power. Not for long. But he was flying!

He watched as the first two disciples plunged to the earth. Xiao Shulan had her arms at her sides, cutting through the air like a knife. At seemingly the last moment, she began to slow as she approached the earth, landing gently on her feet.

Wu Yingjie did no such thing, slamming down hard.

Li Shuwen was so high up he'd take minutes to fall. Orange-crest swung his arms, twisting, so that he could wave up at Yang Wei's friend.

It took a moment for Li Shuwen to wave back. Orange-crest shifted back round, wishing he had longer to learn to fly. He angled himself far from where Wu Yingjie was sprawled in a heap, and activated his heavy body technique.

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Xiao Shulan glided across the endless fields of golden wheat, her slippers hardly touching the ground. Before joining the Azure Mountain Sect she'd scoured everything she could find about the place in the clan archives. The Xiao Clan had a single account from a previous disciple who'd attempted the inheritance at the peak of Qi Condensation. It began with a stone road marker, and the first trial required that one have no worldly attachments. He'd failed there, unable to surrender his attachment to friends and family. She wouldn't make the same mistake.

She passed by Wu Yingjie, crumpled up in a mewling heap. Blood was already staining the robes the monkey had left him, his wrist mangled by the fall. He sat, eyes tightly clenched from pain, waiting for a healing pill to restore him.

Xiao Shulan sighed. The world of cultivation was not for the faint of heart or frail of spirit. No good end awaited the younger Wu sibling if he continued to bumble about as he did, refusing to recognize the limits of his talent. Barely making the third stage by the end of his first year with a great sect with the resources of a noble family behind him. It was... Embarrassing. If he kept up in this way, one day his clumsy feet and foolish heart would kill him.

Xiao Shulan fully expected to leave the holy land in the sixth. She had everything she needed to make the breakthrough, except the Ten Thousand Skies Scripture. With that cultivation method, the treasures in her ring, and the abundant qi of the holy land, the seventh or eighth stage were not out of the question.

"Wait there, and I will escort you to safety after I claim Grand Elder Shen's inheritance." She told the prone disciple who would never be her brother in law.

Before she could step passed him, the earth shook. A cloud of dust rose up, easily the height of a man.

A monkey stepped out of it, an insouciant grin on its face.

"Ah. Good air. Clean and strong. You good, Ogre Wu?"

Wu Yingjie grunted unintelligibly.

"Good, good." It chittered. "We'll find some treasure, yes? Once you can walk."

Xiao Shulan stepped past the animal. It turned, following right behind her. She moved to accelerate, but the monkey extended its staff in front of her.

"You dare." She hissed. Did it not understand, how such things were done? The mercy that she was extending by not striking it down the moment it left its master behind?. She might only be a single stage above it, but this was no tournament stage. With the techniques of the Xiao Clan and the treasures in her ring, the monkey stood no chance.

"What's the rush?" It asked. "Wu Yingjie will be better in a moment. Should explore together, yes? Do you know a secret?"

"Leave." She told the monkey. "Seek your fortune elsewhere. Grand Elder Shen's inheritance will be mine."

"Or... We share?" Li Hou offered. As if an inheritance could just be split like that. The monkey's naivety was almost painful to witness. "I already have a good cultivation technique. Maybe you take the cultivation technique and I take the movement one? Maybe we each take a quick look first?"

Li Hou stared at her in blank expectation. Xiao Shulan sighed. Thrice, she'd shown mercy. The monkey and its master had been useful getting her this far. But apparently it could not take a hint.

"This is your final warning. Leave. Or you will regret crossing me."

"No." The monkey said with a chittering laugh. Its furry face darkened. "No, I don't think I will."

The monkey reached for the gourd at its side and took a swig. Xiao Shulan heat rise within her, settling behind her eyes, in the tips of her teeth. A buzzing, burning, fury that demanded she give it voice. Some of her fellow disciples called her an icy beauty. Xiao Shulan oft wondered how they could cultivate at all, with eyes so defective.

Li Hou burped, loudly and lustily, dragging the sound out as much as he could. Her nose crinkled. The scent was beyond foul, old meat and cooking wine. What in all the hells was the beast drinking?

"I do not like you." The monkey said.

"Don't worry. The feeling is mutual."

"You getting in on this, Yingjie?" The monkey asked. "She's really annoying."

"Do you really think he would side with you against the Xiao Clan? You really know nothing."

Li Hou kept staring at Wu Yingjie, waiting for an answer.

Wu Yingjie slowly staggered to his feet. He took an unsteady step, then another. Away from them.

"I will not forget this, Wu Yingjie." Xiao Shulan said. The air felt like ice on her tongue. "A pity. You always struck me as a coward."

"Good hunting, Ogre Wu!" Li Hou shouted at his back.

Wu Yingjie paused for a moment. He looked up, toward where Li Shuwen was still slowly falling.

"Shut up, Li Hou." He said. "After all the trouble you caused me, you'd best not lose."

"Wasn't going to."

"Men." Xiao Shulan muttered. "Must all of you be such headstrong idiots?"

She extended a hand to the heavens, fingers reaching out in both command and supplication. The distant crackling of thunder answered her. Good. Even this false sky recognized her authority.

The grass rustled to her left. Xiao Shulan spun, a hand outstretched. Fire leapt forth, engulfing the honorless monkey that'd sought to sneak up on her.

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Orange-crest had really hoped they'd make it longer than this before the group fell apart. He wasn't so greedy he was unwilling to share whatever treasures they found. But if Xiao Shulan wanted a fight so badly, he was more than willing to oblige her. It was just disappointing. Not the violence, but the rancor beneath it. If he'd fought Yang Wei for a cultivator's inheritance, orange-crest had no doubt that the loser would accept the outcome, and come back all the more hungry the next they fought. As a pack should be.

If he triumphed over Xiao Shulan here, she would hate him forever. That was fine. It wasn't going to stop him.

The power in the air of the holy land was unbelievable. Cultivating was as easy as breathing, and techniques leapt to his fingers. Between that and the centipede wine flowing through him, orange-crest felt ready for a rematch with Yang Wei.

He was almost there. Just a few more steps, and he'd bash her lights out. Xiao Shulan twitched, and he dropped flat, expecting a needle to where his throat would have been.

The wave of fire that followed her sleeve mostly passed over him, but the grass all around him immediately burst into flames. Was Xiao Shulan insane! Was she trying to set this whole field on fire?

Orange-crest sprang out of the smoldering grass like a pouncing tiger, staff spinning. Xiao Shulan retreated with elegant crescent-moon steps. Orange-crest let his knees bend, dropping low and pivoting on one foot as he spun his staff around at knee-height. Xiao Shulan hopped the blow, floating through the air on her light body technique.

Foolish!

Orange-crest was upon her in an instant, she couldn't dodge in mid-air! His staff met her crossed arms, but orange-crest felt like he'd struck at a piece of floating cloth. There was no resistance, yet less force transferred through than he'd expected.

Still, light body or no, Xiao Shulan slammed back down into the earth, bouncing once before coming to her feet.

"Still not regretting anything." The monkey said glibly. Open skies but this was good. The qi, the drink, the fight.

Xiao Shulan rose slowly. Orange-crest stalked toward her, ready to leap in any direction.

"Burn." She spat.

Orange-crest stepped back as an illusion advanced. Xiao Shulan raised one arm to the heavens again, and chambered the other for a punch. The monkey waited, ready to counter spell with spell. He could feel his fur bristling, but he still couldn't quite remember how to turn just his fur to stone.

Xiao Shulan's fist punched forward, a tight jet of fire vaporizing the monkey's illusory clone. Nasty. Orange-crest charged, but then her other hand descended.

He threw himself to the side, but orange-crest was not fast enough to dodge the lightning that blasted down from the cloudless sky.

For a moment, his muscles all locked tight. The scent of burnt fur filled his nose as blood began to pour from the tongue he'd almost bitten in two. His ears buzzed as if one of the Bee King's legions had risen out of the tall grass.

Xiao Shulan took advantage of the distraction to consume a pill.

"I never did thank you for this." She said, swallowing the Jade Bone Elixir orange-crest given her just hours ago.

Orange-crest found himself wishing he'd poisoned that. How ungrateful. Should've added those Two-Shadowed Yew roots after all.

"I made that with my fur. You're eating my hair." He said instead, charging forward unsteadily, shaking off the last of that nasty bolt of lightning. He had to keep her close, or she'd pick him apart. Or burn him alive. The wheat field was already smoldering in places, the blaze growing with every careless bolt of flame.

"What the-"

His staff lanced out for Xiao Shulan's throat, but she parried with a needle that thought it was a dagger. Lightning leapt up his staff where their weapons touched, but orange-crest wasn't so weak such a half-hearted defense could make him flinch. It had nothing on the earlier bolt.

He pushed through, winning the clinch with sheer strength. His strike had no speed behind it though, and Xiao Shulan's feet were too far back for him to force her to the ground. She shrugged the blow off, his brilliant alchemy already making her more durable, as her palm punched out for his stomach.

Orange-crest turned to the side, narrowly dodging the jet of fire that followed. Xiao Shulan took advantage of the moment to keep retreating, shooting out further jets of flame as she did. Dodging the jets only cost the monkey more space. And then bolts of lightning joined the fire, and those were impossible to dodge.

Orange-crest took one, then a second. His mouth was full of blood. His nose was filled with the scent of burning fur and grass. His muscles felt loose, like they weren't attached correctly his bones.

"Fuck this." He declared, spinning on one foot.

Three monkeys leapt out from where only one had been, loudly shouting nonsense as they ran away. The real orange-crest quietly swallowed a healing pill.

"Fire is cheating!"

"Xiao Long is prettier than you!"

"I don't even want Elder Shen's inheritance!"

Unfortunately, the tall grass did not shift when the clones passed through it, making their nature plain.

Xiao Shulan swung her sleeve at where he'd been, and the invisible monkey was forced to flee as she chased with further arcs of flame. He looped round her, dodging all the while. Invisibility was surprisingly unhelpful there, the rustle of tall grass kept giving away his position, but at least not being able to see him kept Xiao Shulan from calling down more lightning on his head.

The fire was spreading fast. Orange-crest really hoped this great plain was not very important to the stability of the holy land. It would probably be really bad if he broke it. Breaking it was probably possible, if his master was worried that him entering could do it.

A blazing jet singed his tail, and orange-crest threw that thought away. He made a beeline for the place where the fight had started, where sections of grass were already burning low. Better his feet singed than his face.

He could go stone, but that wouldn't help. Xiao Shulan had a higher cultivation base than him, he could only bind her for a moment. He needed to get his hands on her and pound her into the dirt, but her lightning hurt and the combination of his pill and her light body made doing real damage a tricky prospect. He felt like he was trying to bludgeon a cushion into submission.

Orange-crest remembered the trick he'd not yet had cause to use. No time like the present. He stopped. Xiao Shulan did the same, to better hear his footsteps when he moved again.

"You cannot hide from me. This was a hopeless endeavor from the start." She said coldly. "Yield, and I will yet spare you."

Orange-crest said nothing. He was too busy getting ready to do something else with his mouth.

"I shall spread fire to every single sky." Xiao Shulan intoned, raising her hands heavenward. The many patches of burning grass shuddered, the crackling of flames began to slow. A hundred individual patches of fire were slowly peeled away from the grass they fed upon, drawn upward into the sky. The flowed like water, merging into half a dozen orbs of fire that crackled ominously.

Oh. That was why Xiao Shulan was not afraid of throwing about fire in the middle of a field of grass.

"That seems excessive." One of the clone-crests said, watching from a distance.

"I need cool words like that." Another noted. "I shall spread fire to every single sky. Nice."

With the fires no longer burning grass, the smoke that had clouded the field began to clear. Xiao Shulan's hands began to descend, but then paused for a moment. Orange-crest followed her eyes. There was a little pillar of stone in the middle of one of the burnt patches of grass. It stood at about chest height, tall enough it should have poked out from the grass at least a little. Orange-crest wondered how they'd missed it earlier. There was a short inscription on it.

Ten Thousand Li from Nowhere

Shen the Wanderer rested here

"Ooh. That's important, isn't it?" The third clone-crest said, starting to walk in the stele's general direction. "You better stop me from getting there."

Xiao Shulan took a deep breath. It whistled through her clenched teeth as she did. Her fireballs twitched, longing to unleash themselves on some unfortunate monkey.

"You are the most irritating creature I have ever met. And I was forced to deal with Xiao Long, Wu Yingjie, and Yang Wei when they were children."

Orange-crest didn't respond. He was too busy running for the stele. Xiao Shulan burst into motion the moment he did, but he was faster and closer and she knew it.

He turned the moment he heard the soft whooshing noise that heralded flaming carnage. The first orb went high, aimed past him. Orange-crest didn't slow. It would strike down half a dozen chi in front of him.

That was a mistake.

There was no roar of flame. The head-sized orb struck with a gentle thump, and expanded like a flower's bud bursting into bloom. Its petal were not violent. They did not push the tall grass flat. They simply devoured it, reducing everything their passage touched to ash.

Orange-crest leapt back at the very last moment. The heat was like a physical wall, so intense that even without contact the tips of his fur shrank back, vanishing into smoke. The tips of his fingers and the edges of his face felt like they were cooking. He could feel the wind pushing him forward, the very breath being sucked from his lungs, as the short-lived bloom of flame greedily drank in the air. He almost shifted to stone, only barely overcoming the instinctive urge to shield himself. Turning to stone would leave him stationary, exposed to the next five orbs. If he shifted back at the wrong time, he'd be left a monkey sharped lump of charcoal.

And then it was over, quick as it'd begun, nothing save gray dust left where the flaming flower had bloomed.

And Xiao Shulan knew exactly where orange-crest was standing. She did not hesitate an instant. Orange-crest exhaled, marshaling his qi as the second orb of flame quietly bore down upon him.