V3C65: To the Ping District, Part 3

Outside of the Kong Prison Realm, Wei Yi returned to her journey towards the Ping District, having done everything that she wanted to do within the prison realm for now. She had retrieved an outfit for use in the next district which would allow herself to cover up and present yet another side to the people of that district from Fu Zan, made sure that Miyu would be prepared if she needed to be consulted on any matter, and checked in with the massage parlour that got their hands on Zhi Qiu Ya to make sure that they wouldn’t do anything too hasty.

She wanted to carefully guide the wolven woman into accepting at least some parts of herself, and while the careful touch of a professional would most certainly help, that particular establishment was immediately connected to a far more carnal place. Such a thing had to be had in moderation, above all.

At that moment, she intended to reach the Ping District in a single day, observe it for a short while, then dress up and assume some new identity within it either that day or the next day, depending on her mood at that time. If it was a place that she thought it to be from the records, stories and the occasional rumours from people in the previous districts, she would fit right in.

However, things rarely went according to plan at all times, and this was certainly one of those times.

Midway through a step, a voice entered her ears, prompting her to look back to see who this odd yet familiar voice belonged to.

With her spiritual perception reaching this figure even more quickly than her gaze could, she was sure that she would recognise the woman that was trying to run up to her, but there appeared to be no one with the exact features of this figure in her memories. Furthermore, despite the long distance that she must have sprinted, she had so little planar energy within her body that it wasn’t even sufficient for the first stage of the first realm.

In addition, she was extremely poorly dressed, wearing a rag on her body that failed to hide either of the areas that one would usually keep obscured, to the point that it would have been more effective just to keep one’s arms and hands there instead.

‘She doesn’t look half bad, so she certainly couldn’t have faded from my memory if I did encounter her in the past. Who in the world is this woman?’ Wei Yi asked herself, countless tomes and books within the Ascendant’s Library flying out to contribute their knowledge but failing to produce any results, ‘With her cultivation and absence of… everything, I doubt that she will be able to injure me in a second or two, so I suppose that it would be safe to allow her to approach, so long as I remain on guard.’

As she still had no clue who this person was or what they wanted, given that all they were asking for was for her to stop and wait for them, she did exactly what they wanted, stopping and standing still.

If the woman wanted to get closer, she would need to do so on her own.

When she saw her from a far closer distance – after quite a bit of waiting, as the woman was finally getting tired and thus slowing down with each step taken – Wei Yi finally realised why this individual was so familiar to her.

“What the fuck have you done, Ju Zhang?”

“I… I…” the woman whose features looked remarkably similar to that of the man she met a few days earlier in the streets of the Luo District, except with a far more feminine look and the obvious features of a woman without the hint of ones that belonged to men, stopped to take a breath, then finally replied, “I did as you asked! I’ve found a place that let me become female!”

“What? How did you… how did you do that?”

“There was a store that I found, which promised to be able to change my gender and rid me of my yang so long as I agreed to the usage of all of my planar energy.”

“Did you now?” Wei Yi asked with an entirely unsubtle hint of doubt in her voice, not hesitating at all to plunge a strand of spiritual will into the woman’s neck to figure out more, “Ah, so that’s what happened. Just so you know, Ju Zhang, you have been scammed, and quite severely.”

“Eh? What do you mean?”

“The shop… well, let me begin with exactly what happened to you. When they put you to sleep, they removed your root of yang, the meaning of which I shouldn’t need to explain to you. While doing so, they funnelled all of your energy into it, possibly taking some pure yang with it, so that they could later process it and sell it off to someone with very little sense. Typically, the procedure would make you a little more feminine at most – and rid you of your dick, if you were attached to that – but your sudden dedication to fulfilling the requirement to be accepted as the disciple of some random woman you met on the street caused you to make use of the remnant medicinal essence in your body and transform into a woman fully.”

“…” Ju Zhang could do little more than blink in confusion at all of this, as she had clearly thought matters to be far simpler.

“That is, technically, a possibility, but I don’t think that either their usual visitors, those looking to make some money by receiving a share of the later earnings, or the owners of that establishment considered that someone would be that dedicated. If nothing else, I have to commend you on that accomplishment. However, you heard nothing about payment, did you?”

“I… paid them everything I had.”

“It’s too late to come back. Even if Primordial Greed itself – if such a thing even existed – returned to demand your share, they might not relent. Also, they’ll have probably completed their sale once you return on your own, so they wouldn’t give you a single thing anyway.”

There was a moment of pause, but then she raised her head and declared, “This does not matter to me. I had gone to that extent for the sake of reaching a greater realm, and I would repeat it countless times so long as you will accept me as your disciple! I will do anything and everything you wish for and ignore any other obligations that others would ascribe to me, so long as you can guide me to the fifth realm!”

“Come again?”

“Eh… Which part?”

“Did you say fifth realm?”

“I did. With it, I would be able to do everything that I needed to in my life. You are the third realm already, clearly having reached it at a young age, so I trust in your ability to go further.”

“No, that’s not what I meant with that question. I am indeed quite young – relatively speaking – but are you certain that you want to make the fifth realm your destination? You could have just sat in some pit somewhere and cultivated with your existing technique, and you would have had it by the age of one thousand or so. That’s the worst case scenario, by the way.”

“Are you certain? Oh… Then, sixth realm?”

“Let’s just say seventh realm. I can allow you to reach that before I turn fifty, if it is the realm alone that you want. With a simple technique that gives you little strength, it can be done in a year or so.”

“And if I wanted enough power to match another cultivator of the seventh realm?”

“The Oblivion Halo realm is quite dependant on the realms before it in order to make the most of your potential, so that would be a little more difficult, but five years should be enough. Technically, if not for the absence of knowledge, I could have reached the third realm in a day, so you should be able to manage it in a week. From then, fourth might take a month, the next could be six months or so, and the one after might require a year or two, presuming that the correct technique is found and developed sufficiently.”

“Do you have any techniques like that? I will begin cultivating them this very instant and shall not stop until I have met your expectations, no matter what it takes!”

“Tune down that fucking enthusiasm, please. It is rather excessive,” Wei Yi asked, shaking her head, “I am in the third realm, just in case you don’t realise. I cannot take you that far just yet. I myself won’t need the Oblivion Halo realm to raise you to it, but I will need a polished and compete technique.”

“Alright, mast-”

“Nope. For now, you shall be a servant. I will teach you a technique for the Energy Condensation and Planar Pool realms, you will practise it and do things for me. Once you’ve confirmed your commitment, I will let some others train you most of the time, since I have far better things to be doing than taking care of you. Oh, and have you gotten used to that female body yet?”

“What exactly do you mean? I don’t feel odd while looking like this, if that’s what you mean, and I don’t stumble or trip anywhere.”

“No, that’s not it. Have you… You know what, I’m certain you will realise what I mean before the end of the day. For now, take this,” she said as she reached into the air and condensed a scroll from killing will, “Read it, remember it, then practise it as you follow me.”

“It’s possible to practise cultivation techniques while moving?”

“Once again, no. This is for training your body in preparation for that, and it is best to train your body through some kind of physical activity, which walking happens to be. I’d give you some weights or something, but I happen to have absolutely obliterated my last set and, as such, cannot provide them to you even if I truly believed you to be my disciple.”

There was a moment of disappointment in the woman’s eyes, but it quickly changed as she must have understood why this was necessary.

For a cultivator, their body mattered regardless of their path as they needed to be able to handle all of the energy that would course through their body as part of their cultivation. Everyone understood this to a certain extent, but this would usually be completed in the first realm and not thought of much. Ju Zhang clearly needed to have some above average abilities in order to bother someone to such an immense extent that they would hate his – at the time – life to a ridiculous extent, so it must have been rather obvious to her that if she wanted to make great progress, she would need to prepare for it accordingly.

“Wouldn’t I need to reach the first realm in order to be able to practise it?”

“You already have some energy within you, and although your gender has changed, your meridians remain. You can still circulate the energy that you do possess, and so long as you make good use of it, you don’t need to get any more at all. Once you’ve prepared your meridians, you will be able to rush straight into the second realm with a good technique, and at that point you can continue alternating between the two for the smoothest progress. Get it?”

She read over the technique given to her once more, then nodded as she gave back the crimson scroll with silver words written upon it.

“Since you are done reading, get to practising the technique. I’ll watch over you for now,” Wei Yi said, although she naturally intended to keep watch for the rest of their journey together not just out of caution about the woman, but also due to not wanting to randomly kill someone for no good reason.

The technique that she created wasn’t entirely new, but it was something that she quickly adapted from her own abilities, which was where the danger lay. She was able to regenerate, recover and rapidly empower herself from any injuries, making Absolute Rupture something that is actually worthwhile for her, but that did not apply to most others. As a result, she couldn’t be entirely certain whether or not the technique that she had modified would be likely to work on a normal person – as normal as that person could be.

Ju Zhang nearly tried to sit down to practise but was grabbed by the arm and forced back up.

She quickly corrected her mistake and followed behind Wei Yi as they walked north together. After a short while, the slowness of their travel at the moment forced Wei Yi to make use of a group movement technique to accelerate them, although that would still not be anywhere close to the speed that she had originally wanted to achieve.

‘Why did this person even go in this direction? I didn’t tell her that I would be heading to the Ping District, nor did I even imply it… Did I walk towards the north in the street, making her assume that?’

Regardless of the reason, Wei Yi could neither throw her into the prison realm, just in case there was something that she missed and somehow endangered that spatial realm as a result, nor did she want to throw the woman away, at least not until Ju Zhang had the opportunity to learn about her new body and consider whether she truly wants to follow her and not someone with a little more life experience and stability.

Thus, they proceeded onwards, mostly in silence save for the occasional advice from Wei Yi.

Despite her best efforts, and what could be seen as the best effort of Ju Zhang, who kept moving at her top speed despite the blatant signs of exhaustion upon every part of her body, they were not able to get to the Ping District in time. They were forced to stop near the end of the day, when her companion could not continue any longer, and make camp.

It also then that Ju Zhang learned of one of the differences between the male and female body.

Fortunately enough for her, and for all women of the Planar Continents, all that she was faced with was understanding how to relieve herself with her new parts and nothing else yet. Since stepping onto the path of cultivation allowed for the suppression of the worst aspects of the monthly cycle, she wouldn’t need to deal with more than the occasional mood swings, which was one of the many reasons that most women in particular pursued at least the first stage of cultivation. Regularly bleeding wasn’t something that anyone was fond of, after all. Even the most extreme of masochists tended to prefer some control over the pain and discomfort.

They had nothing to sleep on or cover themselves with, but since Wei Yi didn’t intend to sleep and Ju Zhang was too tired to care, this did not cause issues for either of them, and they were able to pass the night uneventfully.

‘I wonder what this person would be best at. If I can get a loyal servant that I can personally train from the very beginning, as with Min Lian, then I will naturally not throw that opportunity away, but I shouldn’t waste it by teaching her things that will not be compatible… I suppose that I do have some knowledge of quite a number of weapons and techniques, which I could put to use,’ she considered, bringing up the Truth of the Universe to remind herself of the exact enormity of that list, ‘Perhaps it is time to search for more Dao…’

She rose silently, using a simple stealth method to obscure the sound of her footsteps and easily holding in her breathing to guarantee that Ju Zhang wouldn’t awake early, and snuck off into the distance, where she would be able to see the former man without having a chance to wake her with an overly loud punch, or something of the sort.

Due to her familiarity with fist and hand techniques, including punches, jabs and palms, she decided to seek this Dao first. She would have a great likelihood of possessing a sufficient quantity of insight into the field to unlock something about it, even if it was only the Uninitiated state within the Truth of the Universe. So long as it was founded, comprehending more of it and connecting existing insights to it would be notably easier than if she possessed no clear foundation from which to work from.

As for that foundation, she decided that it was best to unite it to her Ascendant’s Dao, since it was one that she had the most understanding of – she was the one that created it, after all – and would thus result in the overall strengthening of the Hand Dao alongside the development of the other Dao.

Wei Yi began with a simple but precise punch, striking the air without any target in the world before her, nor within her mind, then followed up with a palm, a jab, then a finger, then a claw. She heavily restricted her own strength, for even a light attack with her immensely powerful body could fell a thick and ancient tree some distance away, and carefully observed both her own body and how it impacted the world around her. With both spiritual perception and sight, she watched the way in which her muscles moved, how the air was displaced by a stronger attack, and compared some particular methods of attacking to examine their strengths and weaknesses.

If she wanted to comprehend the Dao of a very specific branch of attacks, she would need to fully understand the basics of each move involved at the very least, or else there would be little chance of success no matter how much anchor energy she forced into the Truth of the Universe. In fact, it was probably best to think all Dao through in order from the simplest and most base concept before moving on, as her understanding could otherwise be warped quite significantly.

She suspected that something of the sort could have already happened with the Dao of Lust that appeared within the display recently. While she was aware of a whole range of possible sexual interaction and activity, amongst other things, her mind treated the matter of lust as something that occurred between two women first and foremost, which was naturally not the case in reality, as the population of the world would be in quite the steep decline if it was. This either meant that it was easily possibly to step into an incomplete Dao, or that it was not as simple as a single Dao per topic.

Perhaps a number of the Dao that she had stepped onto weren’t full paths at all, but instead branches of the overall truth. It could be that her Dao of Law was the Absolute branch of the overall Law Dao, inspired by her intense desire to surpass many of the common laws of the world to assert an order that she believed to be best, or that her Dao of Lust… well, there was no need to explain that one.

If that was correct, then that meant that there was yet another aspect in which she would need to maximise her development of the Dao. Depending on the way in which the branches would function, there was one of two likely possibilities: either individual branches would simply mean that one acquires different power and control over the Dao based upon it, with no obvious inferior branches, or it could be that there is a sort of hierarchy to every Dao, where the branch that one comprehends could immediately put one in an inferior position to another.

The first option would mean that all she would need to do is perfect her own path and strive to discover its absolute limit, no matter what that was, which would suit her just fine.

It would be even better if taking a new road that most had never even conceived of could grant her more overall capability than if she took on a branch that most with comprehension of that Dao also occupied, although that would be yet another possibility.

On the other hand, if each branch had a different power and degree of potential, then she couldn’t possibly just get Dao after Dao without giving proper thought to which branch she would step on and pursue, although not every Dao that she had unlocked so far gave her the opportunity to do much thinking in that regard. It could also be a good idea to attempt to cultivate multiple branches, or otherwise advance an inferior branch to a superior one, although she would much prefer to find some method of discovering all such routes either before or after she stepped onto the path of the Dao, rather than simply stumbling around in the dark.

Unfortunately, in a world such as the one she lived in, that wasn’t something that could be obtained easily. The nature of the world, of the Great Dao, of heaven’s will and whatever else wasn’t plainly put out there for the people to see, so the only chance she would get of seeing such branches laid out clearly would be with an otherworldly gift, which carried its own set of risks and problems.

Even with the azure light cleansed, there was no guarantee that any otherworldly gift would convey reliable, complete and wholly accurate information. As such, obtaining one would do little.

She could still use it as a very basic guide, like a map drawn by a child, which a person could consider to be vaguely based on reality but hardly reliable as anything but a suggestion towards the true nature of the depicted area, but it would be best not to.

‘Well, I trust in my own Ascendant’s Dao, so I will certainly continue with the basic Hand Dao inspired by it, but as for everything else that doesn’t perfectly fit with it, I will certainly need to take great care not to accidentally take the wrong step forward before I am absolutely certain of what I wish to do,’ she thought, continuing her slow and repeated practise and deliberation, ‘I have six or seven hours before she wakes up at the very least, so I should put it to good use.’

The next day, Ju Zhang opened her eyes and found the blue sky above her, without a single thing obscuring it.

It had a slight grey shade to it, and there were quite a few clouds at the edges of her vision, although none seemed to dare intrude upon the space above their camp. A cold breeze was blowing past her, taking with it a number of fallen and dried leaves.

Although much of her body still hurt from the previous day’s travel, and the technique that she had been told to cultivate, the cold air upon her mostly naked skin finally brought to her attention the fact that she had ran all the way from the Luo District with barely a rag on her body, and that anyone with eyes was free to witness everything.

For a moment, she could almost imagine the woman that she had chased questioning why she was having such stupid thoughts, but a quick look around showed that she was not resting near her, but instead standing far away on a hill, repeating a simple series of movements that nonetheless had the ability to enrapture the viewer, for she acted with incredible smoothness and proficiency. As someone who had focused on cultivation and martial arts even before she was able to cultivate, she knew that her chosen teacher had a great comprehension of every action that she took, whether it was her seemingly casual punch, or the palm that barely displaced air yet contained great potential.

She couldn’t help but stare at the woman for a while, a mixture of feelings arising within her mind but all failing to distract her.

The scene repeated, again and again, with perfect accuracy, to the point that Ju Zhang couldn’t help but wonder whether she had somehow come across a mythical immortal being that had no need nor concept of time, and could exist within the Planar Continents in perpetuity to focus on whatever they found interesting. Perhaps this immortal cared about combat techniques, and spent her eternity practising them until they could reach perfection.

It was silly, for no such thing as immortality existed, but it felt believable.

That impression could only deepen when she suddenly saw the woman’s hand blur, and the shadow of a dozen fists emerge alongside a punch that seemed to be no different than any of the others. With the use of planar energy, such a thing would not be in any way unusual – planar constructs allowed for far more insane things to occur – but there seemed to be no sign of the flow of planar energy in her.

Ju Zhang had never reached the second realm and had thus never been able to send her spiritual perception outside of her body, so she could not confirm this, but when her teacher proceeded to perform a basic palm strike and displayed the same phenomena, followed by a finger, jab and claw that all showed her hand blurring into numerous shapes, she paid really close attention. With her vision, one that was only barely tempered by her cultivation from before, she looked out for any typical signs of planar energy circulation and fluctuation.

She tried to find the slight glow of energy beneath the skin, but not a trace could be found, although that much would be expected from either an immortal or someone with a lot of experience and control. Then, she attempted to discover the faint weight that such energy could often add to one’s movements, but that, too, would never be seen within an expert.

This exercise, as futile as she quickly found it to be, proved one thing to her without a shadow of a doubt – she had too little knowledge about planar energy, about its circulation, about everything to do with cultivation.

In part, this was the fault of her teachers at the Ju District, who all disliked the extreme obsession with planar energy that the world possessed. To them, they did not live within the Planar Continents but rather the Continents of Discovery, where it would be their research, their creations and their creativity that would allow the world to step into some new age, rather than the attempts to recreate the ancient failures of the ancestors of those other districts. As a result, finding their child to have such a fascination was entirely impermissible. As the teachers of that young child, they believed it to be their responsibility to stamp out the foolish illusions that he had about the world and correct them.

Perhaps they understood why he had left then, or perhaps they thought that he had been kidnapped and that it was a prime opportunity for them to display the might of their hidden knowledge and weaponry against a foe, whether old or new, forgotten or not. Regardless, she would not return until she could show them that her path was not a mistaken one, that she did have some ability, and that her path had worth as well.

‘I picked the right person to teach me… Wait, did I ever get her name?’ Ju Zhang was suddenly distracted by that fact, the realisation that she had forgotten to ask this all along, and so she missed the moment when a faint cosmic light arose within the shadows of her teacher’s hands, fading quickly.

For a brief moment, Wei Yi was distracted almost entirely from the world around her, her mind focused solely on the faint revelation she felt somewhere in the distance, far away yet clearly within reach. She barely even knew what it was, other than the fact that it had something to do with both her Ascendant’s Dao and the Hand Dao, which could do with a better name than that.

However, this deep focus faded quickly, not just because she seemed to lack some vital key to comprehending the matter that she had felt the existence of, but also due to the rather insistent stare upon her body that she knew the origin of, both in terms of the purpose behind it and why it was currently able to look upon her. She understood it perfectly well, since anyone would be bound to look upon her form during her practise, especially with so little else around to observe, but she wouldn’t allow a chance like this to slip away without a single benefit for herself.

In a sudden shift from her previous hours of consistent and smooth repetition, she returned to the motions of her punch, this time infusing the principles of her Elysian Storm Burst, the Rising Dawn fist, her Absolute Force, and the very core tenets of the Ascendant’s Dao all at once.

It completely broke the atmosphere, and shattered any potential of her obtaining some other natural revelation from this particular contemplation session, but her punch was akin to a hand shooting out to grab the trace of hidden knowledge regarding the fist within this condensation of a mental realm and the possibilities present within the world. With a firm grip, it took that trace and brought it back to her, pushing away the rest of the knowledge.

Her eyes opened, and she quickly confirmed that she had indeed claimed the Initial Accomplishment stages of both the Hand Dao itself, and the Punch Dao that lay within it.

So long as the Dao worked the same as techniques and their primary groups, then her actual comprehension of the Punch Dao would actually be equivalent to the Minor Achievement stage, bringing her half of the way to the goal of a second Full Success within a Dao, bringing far more progress than randomly jabbing at it with the Truth of the Universe’s calculative abilities.