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Chapter 453 - Fast Progress
🕑 Added 2023-10-26 04:45:06 +0000 UTC“That’s very grandiose for a vision,” Red said after some consideration.
Lady Ilse smiled at his reply. “I thought so too, but didn’t you end up helping us?”
“In a minor way.”
The assistance he provided compared to what her dream was implying he would do was on two different levels.
“Visions are never that straightforward, and most of the time involve a certain level of symbolism,” she said. “For instance, the crimson moon is a known omen for demonic invasions, whereas your abilities in formation are amongst the best in the city. This means that your skills in that area could be vital in the future to stop the efforts of the cultists to open a portal into the infernal realm within the city.”
“You are putting a lot of faith in a vision that you don’t even know refers to me.”
“Divination is a matter best approached with faith and instinct. If you doubt the visions your own skills provide to you all the time, then you can never advance your mastery of this art.”
Red didn’t respond. He knew nothing about divination, but from how Lady Ilse made it sound, it was an art that went against his natural instincts. This was not to mention something about this vision of hers bothered him.
‘A crimson moon…’
Aurelia already told him about what it represented - a thinning of the veil between this realm and the infernal realm, which made it possible to open a portal connecting the two. But he also knew that this crimson moon in specific wasn’t brought about naturally, so a demonic invasion shouldn’t be possible. The cultist efforts, while damaging, would all be in vain in the end.
Or so he assumed.
In the end, though, Red couldn’t clarify this matter with Lady Ilse without revealing some very delicate information about himself. But this did provide him with the opportunity to bring up another matter.
“You had a dream about a snakeman, right?”
Lady Ilse’s face fell at this question. “That’s right.”
“And is that matter resolved?”
She gave him a helpless smiled. “I wish I could say that I knew for sure, but there’s no way for me to check.”
“Yet you seem to believe it’s not resolved,” Red said, noticing her pessimistic tone.
“One does not need visions to come to that conclusion. Those cultists had the help of others within the city, but the only person we found out from that whole accident was the formation master. This matter is far from over.”
“There also wasn’t a six-eyed snake in the sewers.”
Lady Ilse looked surprised at this. “… Leon told you?”
Red nodded. The young master had told him the snakeman she saw had six-eyes, a characteristic shared with his own snake pet that disappeared before his confrontation with the spectre in Bestrem. Not to mention that he also recognized the serpent’s energy from his investigation into the summoning formation. He hoped there was no connection between these two matters, but he would be a fool to discount it.
Lady Ilse sighed. “There’s not much for me to say. My dreams are hardly ever clear, but the six-eyes of that demon were very clear, so the fact we didn’t find anything like that also leads me to believe this matter is not over.”
Unfortunately, it seemed she didn’t know more about it.
“In any case, if I have any more dreams about the matter, I’ll let you know,” she said.
Red nodded, going to pick up his belongings.
“Where are you going?” Lady Ilse asked with a frown.
“Home.”
He was under the impression his part of the job was done, and now he needed to wait for Marina to build the workshop.
“You don’t want to accompany the constructions?” She asked.
“Is there a point?”
“You’d be able to build the forge to your specifications.”
“I don’t have specifications.”
Red knew nothing about building a Spiritual Forge, so he would rather leave the matter to Marina’s people and adapt to whatever they chose.
“Very well,” Lady Ilse nodded before taking out an ornate box from her pouch. “Here, I’d like you to have this.”
Red took the item with some hesitation before looking back at the woman.
She smiled. “Open it.”
He lifted the lid of the box, and a pleasant fragrance wafted against him. Behind this aroma, he also felt a powerful wave of Spiritual Energy, all originating from a round green pill nestled within the padded interior of the box. A strange symbol resembling a pegasus was carved on the pill’s surface.
“A Condensation Spiritual pill,” Lady Ilse said. “It should be of help to advancing your cultivation base.”
Red examined the pill. This was a precious item, costing upwards of a hundred Spiritual Stones, and it was of extreme help for the cultivation of a Lesser Ring Realm practitioner. This one had a different color than what he knew, though.
“It’s wind-aspected,” the woman seemed to guess his question. “I learned from Emeric that you mostly used wind Spiritual Arts, so I thought it was a good bet that your circulation technique was also related to Wind Spiritual Energy.”
Red closed the box and shook his head. “This is too valuable.”
The fact it was an elemental pill would almost double the price of the item.
“It’s a gift,” Lady Ilse said. “Without your help, I wouldn’t have been able to build this formation for years. You can also consider it an investment, as advancing your cultivation base would help this business and our efforts to stop the cultists.”
He thought to himself for a while before nodding and stowing the box away. His first instinct was to refuse any gifts, but if it came with no strings attached, or at least no additional ones, there was no reason not to accept it.
“The construction should finish in one or two weeks,” she said. “I’ll send someone to look for you when it’s done.”
Lady Ilse led him to the gate of the manor and saw him off in her own personal carriage.
On the way back to his manor, Red stood silent in thought, looking outside the window. His contemplation was interrupted as Aurelia’s figure manifest on the seat across from him, with her arms crossed.
“Ask it.”
Red looked over at her but didn’t respond.
She snorted. “Come on, I know you have a question. Just because you have the emotional range of a plank doesn’t mean I can’t tell what’s on your mind.”
“The vision of the crimson moon… Should I be worried?” Red asked, ignoring her insults.
“You’ve already involved yourself so much, so why should you worry now?”
“You told me this was a false crimson moon.”
“And it is! The one she saw was just symbolism for the cultist’s encroaching threat to the city.”
“So her vision was influenced by her own knowledge and interpretation of events?”
At this, Aurelia fell silent.
“…No, that’s not how divination works,” she said. “It is an art that reads the threads of fate, and that’s a force that’s independent of any one individual’s knowledge.”
“Then how can you say for sure the threat of this crimson moon is not real?”
Red half-expected Aurelia to tell him off for worrying so much as she did so often, but instead, her expression grew more severe as she considered his words.
“The fact stands that divination is not a straightforward matter,” she said. “If we can take the threat of the crimson moon literally, then does that mean we would also have to worry about the moon crashing down on top of the city?”
“…You have a point,” Red said.
“I will advise you not to give too much heed to divination. I knew cultivators that had their fate read by oracles and became overly worried about what they learned, so much so that it became detrimental to their cultivation and they slowly lost their will to advance. Besides, there’s also something strange about that girl’s supposed visions.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, noticing the strange tone Aurelia’s voice had taken.
“I’ve met cultivators from the Divine Dream Sect before, from outer disciples to elders, and I can tell that almost none of them had such grandiose visions when they tried reading fate. And even if they did, it was often mired by abstract images and unclear messages. Yet this girl saw a crimson moon, a formation, and an entire city? Not only does this paint a clear picture, but it also involves the fate of hundreds of thousands of people, something that is extremely hard to do for divinator in the Lesser Ring Realm.”
Red frowned at this. “You think she is lying?”
Aurelia shook her head. “Not necessarily, but there is definitely something she’s not telling you. Either she’s a once in a thousand year divination genius, or the way she’s been getting her visions is not so straightforward.”
Lady Ilse’s expression and fluctuation had never changed while they were talking, so Red didn’t have any evidence that pointed to her being dishonest. He also couldn’t think about why she would lie about this, but it was a matter that already raised alarms in his mind.
The carriage dropped him off at his manor, upon which he was greeted by a relieved Emer.
“Master, you’re finally back! Your faithful servant has never relaxed in keeping watch, and I can safely say that no one sneaked into your manor while you were away!”
Red nodded. “Good. In any case, I want to look around the house.”
The imp accompanied him as he examined the manor. Before he left, he made sure to remember how the entire manor looked like, just so he would notice if anything was misplaced upon his return. Some things were slightly out of place, but whenever, before he could even ask Emer about it, the imp would tell him if he or the soulless maid had touched anything.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but when Red arrived at his office on the second floor, something caught his attention.
“Did you touch the window?” He asked the imp.
“N-No, master! Neither me nor the maid entered your office while you were away.”
Red frowned and approached the closed window, where the latch was slightly out of place from what he remembered. This was a detail that most cultivators would miss, but Red, who had always been extremely careful and had many secrets to hide, noticed it.
The first thing he did was check the formations, but he could confirm all of them were still working. Then, he started examining every item and corner of the office with an increasingly nervous imp following behind him.
“I-I swear, master, I did not see anything in the formation!”
Red didn’t respond, his frown growing deeper. He examined the room many times over, but he could not find nothing else out of place, which made him somewhat worried. Yet when he stopped to think about it, he thought maybe he was being too paranoid.
For one, if an infiltrator got into his manor and didn’t leave a single trace behind, how could they have been sloppy with the latch? His conclusion was that this misplaced detail might have been caused by the wind, the tremor of the traffic below, or by someone who thought about breaking in but got second thoughts. If the third option was correct, though, what exactly made them hesitate?
‘Did they notice the formations?’
It was possible. Red did his best to hide them, but they weren’t disguised by magical means, and an observant cultivator could notice them. A visual deterrent was useful, of course, but that would only remain the case if his enemies had no means of countering it, and he wasn’t too confident that would always remain the case.
‘I need to improve my defenses.’
…
Over the next few days, Red improved the configuration of his defensive formation until he was satisfied. They were now better hidden, though they still lacked magical disguises since he didn’t have the materials on hand. It would be something he would make sure to rectify as soon as possible.
After that, Red didn’t rest. The effort he required to draw formations was rapidly decreasing, and with his improved stamina, all he needed was a quick break to recover from days of continuous drawing. It wasn’t something a Lesser Ring Realm cultivator could do normally, and it proved to be perhaps his best advantage in advancing his arcane scripture mastery.
Red activated the Spirit Gathering Formation and began to cultivate. He didn’t have many spirit stones remaining to power it, but it was enough to last him through the week until the Spiritual Forge was completed. There was also the tea Marina gave him, which he drank every day and helped his cultivation immensely.
In fact, Red never felt his cultivation progressing so quickly.
At some point, his mind went to the pill Lady Ilse gave him, but he hesitated. It wasn’t that he suspected the woman wanted to poison him, but once certain doubts appeared in his mind, he couldn’t help but be extra careful with every decision he made.
His knowledge of alchemy wasn’t great, though, so he could only ask for help.
“Is this pill poisoned?” Red asked Aurelia.
“I can’t feel any suspicious energy, but my senses are limited in this form.”
It wasn’t complete assurance, but it made Red feel more secure.
He picked up the pill and put it in his mouth. Some of it dissolved in his mouth and travelled down his throat, turning into pure wind energy that flowed into his Spiritual Veins. Red kept a close watch on his body with his expanded awareness, but after he saw no adverse effect, he swallowed the pill whole and a torrent of energy entered his body.
The benefits of this specialized Spiritual Energy were immediately evident. Not only was there an enormous amount of energy on the pill, but it had taken a misty form as it travelled through his veins, akin to the energy Lesser Ring Realm cultivators kept in their Spiritual Sea. This not only meant there was far more Spiritual Energy packed far more densely, it also meant it was easier for practitioners in that realm to assimilate it with their circulation technique. All of this added onto the fact the energy was also wind-aspected made it so there was basically no wasted energy as Red absorbed and circulated it.
It took him five hours before he finished absorbing the energy. When he checked his Spiritual Sea, he saw a rich cloud of azure green mist slowly spinning like a storm. Compared to when he first started cultivating, its size had doubled.
‘If I can keep up this rhythm, I can break through into the middle stage in a month.’
For a second, Red couldn’t quite process this. The age limit to break into the Spiritual Awakening Realm given by the hawk spirit was thirty years old, and considering his speed in the past, this seemed like an unreachable goal. Yet now he could potentially break into the Greater Ring Realm in less than a year.
It was hard to believe.
“Are you surprised?” Aurelia's disembodied voice asked as she noticed his dazed silence.
Red nodded. “Somewhat.”
“You shouldn’t be. A supply of pills, supplements, and a dense Spiritual Energy environment - that’s all you can do to speed up your cultivation. Even sect disciples couldn’t be much more efficient than this. Well, they can definitely be faster, but there comes a point where being too quick to advance is detrimental in building a good foundation.”
“How quick were you?”
“Hmm?” Aurelia snorted. “You’re trying to compare yourself to me? Bah! When I was your age, I was already halfway into the Greater Ring Realm. I wasn’t called a genius for no reason.”
That was indeed faster than he expected.
“There’s no point in comparing us,” she said. “In your situation and with your talent, you’re doing about as well as you could.”
“Will it be enough?” Red asked.
“For what?”
“To reach the Spiritual Awakening Realm before I’m thirty?”
Before, he didn’t even feel like he was qualified to ask this question. Now, though, he dared to let his mind wander.
“With all my talent, I only reached the Spiritual Awakening Realm when I was twenty-eight,” she said in a serious tone. “Realms will take exponentially longer to progress in, and the resources you will need to keep an ideal cultivation speed will become rarer and rarer until you find yourself completely unable to buy them outside of sects. I’m sure that with your skills in arcane scripture, you can reach that realm one day, but before you’re thirty? Extremely unlikely unless you get a sect’s support behind you, but...”
‘That’s not an option for me.’
Red could guess what she left unspoken. What she told him wasn’t outside of his expectations, and he knew he would need to seek opportunities wherever he could if he hoped to achieve that goal. It reminded him of another matter, though.
‘Viran’s inheritance.’
At this point, Red was almost certain the man had been a Spiritual Awakening cultivator that had lost his cultivation somehow, and this meant his inheritance was likely to contain resources he wouldn’t be able to find normally. This would be his best opportunity to reach the Spiritual Awakening Realm as fast as he could. But the problem remained that the location of his inheritance was very far away and in the middle of recently conquered imperial lands.
It would be an enormous risk to venture there, something Red didn’t dare to do until he was at least in the Greater Ring Realm, and even then, he didn’t know if that amount of power would suffice to survive.
A few more days passed as Red stabilized his cultivation base, and he finally received a message from Marina telling him that the Spiritual forge was completed. After resting for a few hours and honing his mental state, he sent a message back telling her to send a carriage.
It was time to forge his artifact.
