Unintended Cultivator

V13 Chapter 65 – It’s Never Free

Sen rubbed at his eyes as he asked the generals his most pressing question.

“Why did the army stop moving for three days?”

He lowered his hand in time to see all of them exchange very nervous glances. They all looked tired. He’d summoned them before dawn for this meeting. It was General Hu who finally stepped forward. Sen supposed that was a wise choice. He’d found the man a source of practical advice that wasn’t driven by excessive pride, which had made him something of a favorite.

“Lord Lu, Lady Fa ordered us to halt our advance until you were sufficiently recovered from your advancement. Fate’s Razor supported that order.”

“Of course, they did,” muttered Sen. “Very well, I can’t expect you to ignore them. Is there anything that needs my immediate attention? Any news from our regular scouts?”

Even if he had avenged them, the loss of those three cultivator scouts stung. He’d been dearly hoping that at least one of them would come back. Ideally, one of them would have returned with information that could be used to prepare for whatever lay ahead. He pushed those thoughts aside. Whatever those three might have known was out of reach now. He could regret the loss, but fixating on what might have been wasn’t useful. He and the army would simply have to make the best choices based on the information they did have.

“No, Lord Lu. The scouts haven’t reported anything unusual, except that there are fewer beasts than expected.”

Sen frowned at that. Fewer spirit beasts? That was not at all what he’d anticipated. If anything, he’d assumed there would be more spirit beasts. The army had moved into a new kingdom. There were almost always more of them soon after the army entered a new territory. Unless they’ve pulled back to consolidate their forces, he thought. He didn’t say anything, but General Hu was already nodding.

“General?” asked Sen.

“It appears that you suspect what we suspect. They’re gathering to deliver a decisive blow against us. However, since we don’t know where they’re gathering, there isn’t much we can do other than remain vigilant.”

Damn you, Changpu, thought Sen. How many lives will your quest for revenge cost us in the end? He kept that bitterness off his face when he answered.

“If there’s nothing else we can do, then we’ll remain here for one more day. Then, we proceed as usual.”

“Yes, Lord Lu,” answered General Hu.

He and the other generals all bowed as Sen left the tent. As he walked, he did something that he knew he should have done already. He summoned The Celestial Form body cultivation manual and began preparing mentally to make the first pill. With his recent advancement in spirit cultivation, he didn’t want to let his body cultivation fall too far behind. More importantly, if they were going to face a true horde of spirit beasts like the one he’d annihilated outside the capital, he’d need any advantage. After all, he wasn’t going to have clouds seeded with an absurd amount of divine qi just waiting for him. However, he wasn’t entirely without that resource. He did have all those beast cores that he’d filled with it. That reminded him of something else. Sen pointed without looking.

“You,” he said.

A foundation formation cultivator rushed over to him and bowed. Sen recognized the man, but that was all. He was familiar with the faces of everyone who gave him a vow to the heavens, but that was it. He knew nothing of substance about the cultivator in front of him. Of course, that was becoming increasingly common as they accumulated new cultivators in every conquered province.

“Y— Yes, L— Lord Lu,” stuttered the pale, sweating man.

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“Go tell Song Lan that I wish to see her. I have something that should make our next big battle more manageable. She can bring along whichever elders that she wants.”

“I will, Lord Lu! At once, Lord Lu!”

The cultivator activated a qinggong technique and, if Sen read the man’s expression correctly, ran away in abject terror. It was hard not to sigh after seeing that. He couldn’t really call it a surprise. Sen knew he’d done some objectively terrible and terrifying things, even for the cutthroat world of the Jianghu. It just didn’t make it easier to see how much fear he instilled in people who, on balance, had done very little to earn his wrath. Shaking his head, he continued walking back to his tent and turned his attention back to the manual. It wasn’t truly necessary, but he reviewed the ingredients. He wanted to ensure that he had, in fact, acquired all the ones he needed before he started.

He knew he had them before he started, but Auntie Caihong had trained him. She’d always said that a good alchemist double-checks their ingredients before they start concocting a pill, potion, elixir, or medicinal lotion. The ingredients themselves were nothing to scoff at, though. Each one was worth a fortune the likes of which Sen couldn’t have comprehended during his orphan childhood. A thousand-year ginseng root. A fire eagle heart. A singing water diamond. Several others that were equally rare. The most difficult to acquire had been a shadow lotus. That had been a nightmare to collect. It took exactly the right conditions, or the lotus simply wasn’t tangible. He’d tested it by passing his hand through the flower before trying to harvest it.

It had taken a formation he’d needed to consult with Uncle Kho about. The retrieval also required half a dozen talismans he’d needed to get specially made. On top of that, it took three seals that he had to get from the only seal master with the army. That had all cost him some valuable resources he’d had tucked away for future alchemical experiments. Sen knew he could have simply ordered the talismans and seals made. He just didn’t want to risk losing the lotus because the people making the seals and talismans were disgruntled about it. Better to pay and get something he could trust.

He couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be for any normal cultivator to ever acquire something like the shadow lotus. Sen had the right skills and the right people available, as well as a vast wealth of cultivation resources. It had still been questionable. It turned out that the talismans and seals he needed were very difficult to make. It wasn’t a matter of power, just complexity. They had all been near the limits of what the cultivators traveling with him could accomplish. It made him grateful that the lotus had been the only one he needed to go out and find personally. The ingredients he hadn’t acquired from conquered sects, he’d been able to buy or barter for from individual cultivators.

Sen entered his tent and, after a moment of thought, just decided to wait. Once he started working on the pill, he wouldn’t want to be disturbed. It wasn’t a long wait before Song Lan and a few other nascent soul cultivators landed outside his tent. They approached the tent and hesitated.

“Enter,” he commanded.

Aside from a brief nod to everyone, Sen didn’t bother with pleasantries.

“I have made something for the cultivators. Before I show you what it is, I want to be absolutely clear about something. These are not to be hoarded. They are not to be kept for your own benefit. They are to be distributed to the people most likely to need them in a desperate battle. Am I clear?”

Song Lan’s eyes narrowed a little, but the former matriarch said, “Yes, Lord Lu.”

A sentiment echoed a moment later by the others. Satisfied that they had at least heard his warning, Sen waved a hand over a table. Piles and piles of defensive talismans filled with divine qi appeared. Song Lan’s eyes went wide. One of the men behind her actually choked briefly. Sen watched their faces. A woman who had come along wore an expression of naked greed. Apparently, that greed was so intense that her hands had started shaking. It took a moment before she seemed to realize that he was staring at her.

“Lord Lu, I—” she started.

“I will know,” he said in a calm, almost gentle voice. “It will be your death. Do as you see best with those facts.”

He could watch as she made calculations in her head. Sen assumed she was estimating whether she could take the divine qi from those talismans without violating her oath to the heavens or drawing down his wrath. He gave her the time she needed. He knew when she’d drawn the correct conclusion by the expression of utter despair on her face.

“I understand, Lord Lu,” she said in a voice that was nearly a wail.

He understood her greed. While divine qi was a comparatively easy resource for him to acquire, the same was not true of most cultivators. If these talismans had come from anyone other than him, he suspected a war would have broken out between the army’s cultivators.

“Good. Song Lan, I’ll leave it to you to arrange for their distribution.”

Song Lan looked from him to the talismans and then back at him. Then, she asked the question he’d been expecting.

“How?”

“The heavens can be generous, but it’s never free.”