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Unintended Cultivator Vol 12: Chapter 29 – None of Us Want That
🕑 Added 2025-06-03 02:54:51 +0000 UTCIt was late the next day by the time that Sen returned to Inferno’s Vale. Unencumbered by others, he had traversed what even he felt was a truly absurd distance to collect what he needed for the Matriarch. That much would have been enough by itself. He’d also discovered, almost by accident, a shadow qi treasure that he might be able to use for his body cultivation. At least, he hoped that he would. That hinged on the assumption that his ideas for the process were viable. I certainly hope they are, he thought. It wasn’t easy getting the damnable thing. He had to fight an enormous, sapient, acid viper in the depths of a pitch-black cave to get it. Not that he really needed sight to fight anymore, but he discovered his profound preference for fighting with his sight intact during that confrontation.
Now that he thought about it, getting the fire treasure hadn’t been easy either. He’d expected that to be simplest task. Almost everything in Inferno’s Vale was fire qi-attributed. However, nothing had been of sufficient quality for his purposes. It would have been simplicity itself if all he’d needed to do was help a core cultivator. Instead, Sen found himself delving into the depths of a crevasse near the Mountains of Sorrow that had gone far, far deeper than it had looked to find what he needed. He’d very nearly needed to plunge into a river of molten rock to get it, and then he'd had to fight some kind of fire beast that swam in that river to actually leave with the treasure.
While he’d come out if mostly unscathed, his robes had not. There were gaping holes in them where he hadn’t been able to dodge the acid. As if to add insult to injury, the material was charred black in so many places that it almost looked like he’d intentionally chosen robes with spots. Still, he’d accomplished what he set out to do. Now that he was back, he needed to clean up and get a few hours of earned sleep. Sen thought he could probably make the elixir the Matriarch needed without resting. And if he thought her life was in immediate danger, he would. As things stood, forgoing sleep when he didn’t need to would only add an unnecessary complication to a difficult process.
He trudged toward the galehouse he’d erected but never made it inside. The Order members burst through the door with angry, demanding expressions on their faces. They looked ready to say things that would dramatically reduce their chances of surviving the next few minutes. When they fully took in his condition, though, the words seemed to dry up on their lips. Sen let his eyes move between the three.
“I didn’t think so,” he said before walking past them into the galehouse.
Falling Leaf took one look at him and pressed her lips together tightly.
“Did you find what you need?” she asked.
“I did,” said a weary Sen.
“I assume you healed your injuries.”
“I did. I just need some sleep. Any change with the Matriarch?”
“I stayed out of the room, but I didn’t sense any changes. Those three,” she said with an angry gesture at the Order members who had come in behind him, “took some convincing to do as you said.”
“She is our—” one of them started to say.
“You would do well to remain silent,” said Sen without turning to look at them. “Otherwise, I might discover unfortunate things. For example, that you believe you know better than I do about maintaining the integrity of formations. Something you most assuredly do not. If I were to discover such a thing in my present state of mind, my self-control might slip. There could be a fatal accident. Maybe even three of them. None of us want that, do we?”
There was a pronounced and prolonged silence before a very quiet voice drifted through the room.
“No, Lord Lu.”
“Good,” said Sen. “Now, I intend to bathe. I will sleep after that. Once I am rested, I will begin making what I think will give your Matriarch the best chance of recovery. If you find yourselves tempted to be disruptive again, resist that urge. If you interrupt my work, there is a good chance that you will doom your Matriarch.”
Sen took their silence as agreement. Taking his own advice to resist any impulses to do something rash, he retreated to the bath. While bathing was often a source of relaxation for Sen, the one he took that day was an exercise in practicality. He scrubbed off the accumulated filth from his fights and journey before putting on clean robes. No one spoke to him as he walked to the room next to the Matriarch’s. Falling Leaf was giving the Order cultivators a smug look that they might not entirely deserve. Concern could make the most even tempered of people act in foolish, even destructive ways. All the same, he didn’t pause to discourage her. Those particular cultivators had taxed his patience.
He summoned bedding from a storage ring and spread it out on the stone slab that served as a bed. Part of his mind was still trying to evaluate the options for what he could make with the natural treasures. Even so, the extensive flight, multiple fights, and healing had left him mentally drained. Sleep stole over him almost immediately. When he woke a few hours later, it was a pleasant surprise that he hadn’t been visited by bad dreams. Nightmares didn’t trouble him every night, but they came far too often for Sen’s comfort or well-being. It was hard not to view them as evidence that he had been making too many bad choices. Otherwise, why would such painful visions descend on so often?
Deciding it was best to view that unperturbed sleep as a small blessing, he focused on the task ahead. Sleep had clarified at least some of his plan for the natural treasures. Sen left his room and briefly checked in on the Matriarch. While he wouldn’t call what he saw a success, there were signs of modest improvement. The flow of qi throughout her body had stabilized, and she didn’t appear to be struggling as hard simply to maintain her life. The formation had not solved the root problem, however. Sen hadn’t believed it would. Not really.
After all, if burning one’s vital qi was a problem with easy solutions, it wouldn’t be treated as an act of last resort. He had hoped intensifying the environmental qi would provide greater benefits. Then again, it might do more were he willing to leave her inside the formation for weeks, months, or even years. If Sen had any real assurance that path would succeed, he might have looked for a way to make it happen. That kind of gradual healing would be a far safer course of action than what he intended. Except, based on what he was seeing, it probably wouldn’t succeed.
The most likely outcome was the Matriarch would see incremental improvement, but only up to a point. Her nascent soul body would absorb the environmental qi until she had replenished some of her reserves. It might even look like she’d recovered, on the surface, while a basic instability remained at the heart of her cultivation. The essential flaw with the formation was there was no way to increase the potency enough to restore her vital qi. Not without starting an almost impossible-to-stop conflagration, and even that might not be enough. If the Matriarch were conscious, able to further condense the qi she absorbed, and guide it where it needed to go, then the inferno method might work.
As things stood, it was going to take something extremely potent to act as a substitute. It also wouldn’t be enough to just get it into her body. Someone else would have to guide the elixir. The only way it would work was if it was spread out to every last part of her body, the way her original vital qi had been. The enormity that task almost made Sen rethink this approach. Manipulating an elixir with that kind of precision in his own body was one thing. Doing it in someone else’s body, let alone a nascent soul cultivator’s body, might actually be impossible.
“It wouldn’t be the first impossible thing I’ve done,” said Sen.
Although, even to his own ears, it sounded like he was trying to convince himself, rather than that he believed himself. Letting a frustrated breath pass through his lips, he decided that was going to have to be good enough. While he might be willing to spend a few days on this, that was all he was willing to spend on it. Then, he would have to take the army and move on. If he could take another nascent soul cultivator with him when he left, that would be good. It was difficult to overestimate the value of someone like that in battle. The Matriarch could save a great many lives, but her participation wasn’t a guarantee even should he save her.
More to the point, it was one life against all the other lives he and the army might save. If he couldn’t save her with the time that he’d given himself, that was just something he’d have to accept. Grudging and bitter acceptance, perhaps, but acceptance all the same. I hope you’re worth the trouble, thought Sen as he left the room. He only spared the Order cultivators the barest moments necessary to tell them that the Matriarch had improved, slightly, but that his edict not to enter her room was still in effect. They all wore discontented expressions, but one look at Sen’s stony glare convinced them that disobedience would not be overlooked. Satisfied that they understood the situation, he retreated to the room he’d made specifically for performing alchemy.
He almost took out the cauldron he’d received from Fu Ruolan but hesitated. Sen had made a great many things in it, but it had never been his first choice as a tool. Instead, he withdrew the battered pot that he used to such success during his first years off the mountain. The irregular shape of the metal was as familiar as the sun in the sky. The heft of it in his hand just felt right. While any other alchemist would likely think him mad, he knew that this was the correct tool for this job. At least, it was if he wanted the best chance of success. He set the pot on the stove he’d crafted for that particular room. He poured water into the pot from a water skin. Then, with a minor effort of concentration, he created a flame inside the stove. Only then did he summon the ice-attributed hibiscus and the fire-attributed mushroom he retrieved from that crevasse.
The orphan that still existed deep inside him insisted that the mushroom couldn’t have grown where he found it. Mushrooms needed darkness and moisture. He’d seen plenty of them grow in the alleys of Orchard’s Reach. The cultivator Sen had become just accepted the evidence of his eyes and spiritual sense. The mushroom shouldn’t have existed by any mortal reasoning. The fact that it did exist was one of those mysteries that would likely go unsolved. Perhaps it was through some fluke confluence of factors, or maybe it was the result of divine interference. In the end, it was nothing but a distracting and ultimately irrelevant thought. All that mattered to Sen was that he could use it to make something that might well have never been seen before.
He considered the natural treasures before him and said, “Let’s begin.”
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CipherFTW
"Use the force, Sen"
