Dragon of Rochester
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Story 10 - The Spy Who Rocked Too Hard (Part 10 đž)
🕑 Added 2023-10-16 19:41:37 +0000 UTCLittle Spring walked over while carrying a tome on Beast Blood Contractors. His brow furrowed and his eyes lost focus.
âFind something troubling?â I asked.
âItâs just. Very different from what I thought it would be like.â
I grabbed the tome from his hands and looked through it. Since I couldnât believe what I read, I skimmed through it again.
I didnât know much about beast taming, but even I knew that there were several standard contracts.
The one most known for being a beast taming trope in Xianxia were slave contracts. From what I remembered, these made the beast die if its master did as well; however, if the beast died, the master wouldnât suffer any backlash. This forced the beast to keep the owner alive at all costs.
Another one was the Equals contract. In this world, both parties using this contract, agreeed to work with each other so they both improved. There would be equal backlash if either party died which ranged from no pain at all to death depending on the terms.
The rarest type of contract was the subservient contract where the tamer would feel backlash or die when their beast died, but the beast wouldnât receive anything negative. Usually, this type of contract was reserved for incredibly powerful beasts contracting with weak cultivators. From what I'd seen, it was unpleasant for the tamer as they practically served their tamed beast.
This Beast Blood contract was an equals contract like Iâd never seen before. It required a bath in an alchemical solution that included the willingly given blood of the beast. It connected the two as partners for life and allowed the tamer to share their beastâs physical strength. Of course, this manual didnât mention the major drawback of the technique â that the tamer would grow animal parts and gain the weaknesses of their beast as a side effect.
I closed the tome. As I expected, the bathâs recipe wasnât listed. Surprisingly, I couldnât even guess at what spiritual herbs theyâd use to accomplish it.
As curious as I was about it, I was not here for beast-taming secrets. I had other things I had to do this month.
I handed the tome back to him.
::I donât recommend going through with their strange taming method.::
::Yes, sister Lin!::
Gold String frowned. âYou looked through that so fast. Did you even understand any of it?â
I shrugged. âI once heard of a man who could flip through books faster than me and still retain all the information.â Of course, that ability was from a different fictional universe.
âImpossible.â
âJealous?â
âWhat? No.â
âWell, I am.â I could only replicate a fraction of that ability back when I was in immortal Ascension. âAnyway, Iâm done here.â
Gold String blinked. âYou just casually flipped through a bunch of manuals. You couldnât have found out much.â
âI have more questions than answers at this point, which is why I think we should go find some kids we can conâvince into letting us mentor them.â
Gold String frowned. âAre you going to bully them like you did to me?â
I pulled out the bass to show it off.
âI am giving you the chance of a lifetime. Look at these curves.â I strummed a deep chord, sending a beautiful sound through the pavilion. âAnd this clear, lovely sound. You know you want to play it.â
He placed his hands behind his back as if preventing himself from grabbing it. He scowled.
I threw it back into the space and shrugged. âLook, I wonât force you into it. Nothing is worse for a musicianâs cultivation than playing music they hate.â This was a concept I had firsthand knowledge of.
âYou were very forceful earlier,â he said.
âThatâs because I want you. Youâre a talented sprout who would make an excellent addition to the band Iâm putting together. But not if you canât appreciate rock.â
â⊠Oh.â His eyes turned thoughtful. Maybe I was finally getting him to consider it?
Little Spring tugged on my sleeve. âLittle Sister Linlin, I still have a lot to read here, so Iâll see you later.â
::It will be good for you to read about a different cultivation method. Just keep in mind that this sect practices an unorthodox path. It may look more powerful than what we practice, but it often comes with horrible and sometimes growth-stunting side effects. Their techniques also have weaknesses that can be easily targeted compared to ours.::
::I'll keep that in mind.::
I nodded, then turned to Gold String. âIf I find a worthy student, the bass is going to them.â
âItâs your instrument,â he said before turning back to the manuals on demonic musicians. He was totally pretending that he wasnât fascinated by the new genre of music and a never-before-heard sound.
Maybe I needed to play more songs for him to get interested. Three couldnât be enough. And after a few more, and maybe a lecture, if he still didnât want to learn, Iâd focus my efforts on more malleable students.
***
All it took was a quick check with my divine sense to find where the demonic musicians practiced in the outer sect. There were several sound-restricted spaces for them to play in private, but there were also a few areas where teachers could lecture to everyone.
A disgruntled-looking attendant guarded those open-air lecture spaces. After coming to an agreement with him, I exchanged a few healing pills for a few hours in the largest space. Next, I paid a random musician walking by to spread the news that Iâd be lecturing soon on the Dao of Rock.
When I stepped onto the lecture areaâs main stage, I looked out over the empty seating.
In my past life, Iâd introduced rock to this world with no master plan. I gave kids several hundred songs â most of them only half-remembered. They took them and explored the genre. But those students never had a cultural connection to those songs. It didnât help that the music practiced by cultivators tended to mirror Classical Chinese music in that they were often, though not always, monophonic. This meant that they had a single beautiful melodic line with note variations not seen in most classical Western-style music. Of course, the increase in range and variation made it difficult to harmonize or have a counterpoint melody, which the Western styles excelled in.
What my students did was brilliant. They took some of the familiar melodies that could translate well on the guitar and built rock songs around those, artificially creating a bridge between the beautiful songs theyâd been studying their whole lives and the rock theyâd come to love. Though, I imagine it helped that rock was the child of blues, a style of music that was in between monophonic and harmonic.
Unfortunately, by the time those kids wrote music that connected the two styles, the elderâs perceptions of rock had already been colored in a negative light. They refused to change their minds, the stubborn donkey-brained assholes.
While it was important to find a mentee right away, it was even more important that I introduce rock to this culture in a way that would appeal to these demonic musicians so that the future I remembered didnât happen again. My plan started with introducing several of the songs that bridged the gap.
Even after I decided how Iâd structure the lecture, there was still no audience.
âIf you play, they will come.â
I started by increasing the volume on my guitar to half its max. Next, I played a song called âPhoenix Revivedâ created by Fairy Winter Medley. It was a piece reminiscent of A Phoenix Seeks His Mate. By the time I finished, I had finally gathered a crowd. Some of them looked confused, others fascinated. A couple of older Qi Condensation musicians had irritated expressions on their faces. One or two Foundation Establishment cultivators even showed up. They secretly held recording crystals. I didnât call them out on it since I wanted this lecture to spread far and wide.
I played two more gap-bridging songs that became more harmonic before I lectured about music theory, chord progression, and working together to build a complex song made of standardized notes that harmonized with each other.
Then, instead of taking questions, I began to play a series of songs, bringing everyone in the crowd with me through the comparatively short history of rock.
I started with the song that became a model for rock and roll itself, Tutti Frutti from the 1950s, written by Little Richard and Dorothy LaBostrie. Next, I explored the 1960s with While My Guitar Gently Weeps written by George Harrison and originally performed by the Beatles. Obviously, I couldnât resist adding Purple Haze written by one of the best guitarists in my past-lifeâs history, Jimi Hendrix, who pushed the technical limits of the electric guitar. Then I moved into the 1970s with a classic that nobody could resist, Free Bird.
By the time I switched to the 1980s with Donât Stop Believinâ by Journey, Iâd filled up the whole lecture hall.
Well, they wouldnât be musicians if they didnât attempt to understand a new genre of music.
I finished up with Come as You Are by Nirvana from the 1990s.
Of course, without a full band, the effect was muted, but the spirit was there.
Now that Iâd explained the concept of harmonic music and shown a progression of music, that was when I started explaining where Rock came from.
Since it would make me sound fucked in the head if I told these cultivators that their universe was inside a dumbass Xianxia web novel and that these songs came from the real universe, I decided to go with a more plausible lie: That I came across these songs in the ruins of an ancient civilization. I described the vast inheritance that included hundreds of songs, both mundane and spiritual, with a rich history that was lost to time.
I then continued by lecturing on the basics of the Dao of Rock before ending my long lecture by saying, âIf this music inspired you and you want to learn to play it, come up to me any time, and Iâll teach you.â
I expected a few cultivators to come greet me. There were certainly a few excited eyes in the crowd. But a cultivator at the peak of Qi Condensation with a sour face stepped up.
âDonât waste your breath. No one here will learn from you.â
I crossed my arms. âAre you going to stop them?â
âNo, but if they approach you, theyâll be punished by Eight Blaring Tones.â
âAnd who is that?â
Sour Face sneered. âYour esteemed senior in the inner sect.â
Again with this stupid hazing?
âWithout his approval, no demonic musician will learn from you.â
I grinned. If no one would learn from me publicly, I could just teach them in secret. The idea of creating an underground rock movement was pretty intriguing. When things were forbidden, they became even more appealing to those misunderstood youngsters. And what kids were more misunderstood than those in a violent unorthodox sect?
I memorized the faces of those whose eyes sparkled the most. If I had enough time, Iâd make enough instruments for them to practice on and start a secret rock scene. Muahahaha!
Sour Face frowned. âYou donât look upset.â
âThatâs because Iâm not the one missing out." I waved them all to get out. "My lecture is over.â
As the audience slowly left, I played the best song to end on, Closing Time by Semisonic.
I added Eight Blaring Tones to my general shit list. If they pushed my buttons I might move them to my Fairy Linâs People to Kill (When you Can) List.
***
Being denied mentees wasnât entirely a bad thing. It gave me an excuse to do what I originally came here to do â snoop around the sect. Mostly, I listened in on conversations and discovered gossip I didnât give a shit about. Some of it was pretty juicy, though. For instance, there was a fairy who was flirting with one cultivator in public but spent the night with another.
There was also a puppeteer who had crafted her most recent puppet to look suspiciously like a senior brother of hers.
The last piece of information I learned was that a poison body cultivator was having trouble and was on the cusp of being labeled âtrashâ. Apparently, he had taken the poisons he needed to increase his realm twice, but they hadnât worked. Some jerks in an alley I passed were going to use that as an excuse to steal the third set heâd just purchased after saving up for a year.
Frankly, the lack of information about the scroll or demonic cultivators was annoying. Those goddamn movies from my past-past life lied to me. Being a spy was fucking boring.
As I reached a fountain where outer sect disciples gathered water, I heard a rhythmic sound coming from a nearby courtyard like a heavy drum. I used my divine sense to take a peak and found that it was just a poison body cultivator practicing an unorthodox martial art against a leather-covered Iron Wood log. Each of his strikes sent a crack through the metal-strong wood. While Iâd never seen his techniques before, I could tell from the force behind his punches that he was proficient in them.
Damn. And here Iâd thought Iâd found a good drummer. Not for the band Iâd need to help wake up Ghosty, but for a mentee. There was no way a guy this talented would give up body cultivation to become a demonic musician.
Just before I pulled my divine sense back, the same half dozen poison body cultivators from the alley burst into his courtyard.
âThree Drops Silent Toxin,â the tallest of them said.
âYou could have chosen a better way to talk, Fellow Daoist Broken Serpent.â He nodded to the others in the group. âWhat brings you to my courtyard?
âJust give us the poison pills and weâll leave,â Broken Serpentâs familiar voice said.
Three Drops cracked his neck and stretched his arms. âAnd if I refuse?â
Malicious laughs sounded from the group.
Three Drops Silent Toxin didnât wait for the mob to answer further. He threw the first punch at Broken Serpentâs face. Even I heard the crack as the hit connected, sending the man flying out of Three Dropâs gate. He landed at my feet, spat out a mouthful of blood, which I backed away from. Next, he jumped up and ran back into the fray.
âItâs not like you need those pills!â One of the guys said while throwing a punch at Three Dropâs weak spot under his armpit. The strike made contact, sending the man barreling into a wall. He coughed, spraying those closest to him with blood.
Yep, that was still the grossest way to tell how damaged someone was.
Broken Serpent sneered. âCome on, letâs take him to the dueling area and put him out of his misery.â
Hmmm. If this Three Drops was at an unsurpassable bottleneck, like these thief assholes believed, I might be able to get him to switch paths. While not everyone could cultivate multiple paths like I could â thanks to my Phoenix Constitution â having a second path wasnât that rare.
And, if I succeeded, I could snag a mentee.
Authorâs Note: Thank you all for reading! You are the best readers a writer could ask for!
Thank you so much for your patience. I finished most of my edits last night but I couldnât get everything done so I had to leave the final steps till this morning. I would have pushed myself to get it done, but Iâm trying to be good about going to bed early. Reminding myself that going to bed early means, ultimately, that I have more hours I can work.
I had to do research on the differences between Western and Eastern styles of music to make this chapter work. Iâm certain my understanding is very shallow, but I did my best. If youâre a musical expert, feel free to correct me and Iâll fix it after double-checking. Iâm just an indie writer, but I donât want misinformation spread based on my fiction (I used to see this happen with science back before the TV studios regularly hired scientists to double-check their facts).
On Health: This marks, I think, the fourth week my boy is sick? Weâre all coughing over here at this point. Itâs not too bad for me but my husband has asthma, so itâs very rough on him. I called the doctor this morning and weâre getting my Little Dragon something over the counter to help. Weâll have to see a doctor later this week if he doesnât improve. At least, after I set up a humidifier, my boy could finally sleep through the night with only a few minor coughs instead of whole fits. Not having to wake up every few hours is the main reason Iâm able to edit now. This really made me regret not setting it up a couple of weeks ago (not that I knew it would help then).
So, Iâm going to aim to get the next part out on Friday this week but I may have to push it back to Saturday depending on our health.
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