The Jester of Apocalypse

Marven couldn't see what was happening inside the sect without stepping closer. He settled for relying on his spirit senses, even though tracking Neave with spirit senses alone was impossible.

Hordes of people surrounded one central figure in the courtyard of the neighboring sect. That figure was a roughly twenty-year-old woman on the second step of the silver path.

Focusing on one's spirit senses took a lot of work in such a heavily populated area. Marven could vaguely feel that there was some sort of fight happening. He had deduced that it was probably between Neave and the young woman.

Marven sighed.

Did he seriously have to attract the ire of a sect the instant he left my sight?

At this moment, Marven felt several silver path cultivators run toward the middle. He panicked a bit, hoping Neave wouldn't fight them. However, his worry was for naught as Neave appeared next to him seconds later.

"Yo, old man! You here to challenge their sect master?"

"Neave, what did you do?"

"I piped their young mistress."

"You…!" Marven sighed. "That isn't funny, Neave."

"Aw, I thought you'd be proud. Nah, I'm just messing with you. I actually beat her with a metal pipe."

That wasn't much better if Marven was being honest. It was probably worse.

"Exactly why are you causing conflict with the neighboring sects?"

"To chase them away, of course!"

"That's just idiotic, and I know you aren't an idiot, Neave."

"That is true, indeed! To be honest, I'm just scouting out the neighbors. We might be able to buy the land from some of the sects here, but others will be stubborn."

Marven lifted an eyebrow at that. He took the opportunity to probe Neave's motives, "And exactly what do you want to do about that?"

Neave rolled his eyes.

"Slaughter them and hang their corpses in our courtyard."

Marven paused, and Neave laughed at him.

"No, you dumbass! You're such an obvious old man. I will initiate the plan ‘neighbors from hell’! It is time to harass the shit out of the neighboring sects until they decide that moving away will be for the best. Our sect premises are tiny now, which will be a problem as we grow. We can go up and dig down for now, but that will require expensive materials and workers."

Marven reluctantly nodded. That was entirely true. It was easy to build tall buildings, but the issue was that toppling them was pretty easy too. Tall structures needed proper defense measures and excellent construction. Underground was more manageable, but it was dangerous and expensive.

Neave turned around.

"Either way, old man, you're already planning on following me, so how about we go together instead?"

Marven was surprised at Neave's suggestion. He gladly accepted, and they set off toward the wilderness.

The streets didn't have a section dedicated to fast running, at least not here in the outer circle, but neither Neave nor Marven had many issues making it toward the capital's border. Once they reached the wall, they walked to the entrance, greeted the guards, and left. 

It took as much as ten minutes of running to come across a cave. That wasn't much time, but it was a great distance at their speed.

All the caves in the capital's proximity had been manually collapsed to prevent monster outpourings. They still happened as monsters occasionally made new exits themselves, but that was easier to handle than a constant torrent that had to be dealt with.

Marven knew he would have to reduce his speed so Neave could keep up, but he was surprised at how little he had to slow down.

Once they had approached the cave entrance, naturally, they went inside. Marven pulled a small crystal out of his ring. It floated a little above them, lighting their path.

"That's a cool little gadget you have there, old man. Can you give me one of those too?"

"It's made of gold rank material, so I am not sure your spirit could fully synchronize with it. It would probably just float away."

"Ah, I see."

They didn't have to walk far into the cave until abominids appeared. Neave immediately picked one up and started eating it alive. Marven watched on in abject horror.

"What the hell are you doing…?"

"Hmm?" Neave was somewhat confused by the question at first, "I'm eating, of course. I'm hungry, and I'm low on life force." Wasn't it obvious?

"Yes, but… That is…Why are you eating a still-living monster?" Marven was starting to think Neave had an inexhaustible source of surprises for him.

"Oooh, yeah, I get why you're confused now!"

"Ah… Can you explain?" Marven was doing his best to be patient, but he couldn't imagine someone doing that for any rational reason.

Neave explained the synergy between his spirit powers and how absorb allowed him to stockpile life force. Marven felt, at least partially, that what he was saying made sense, but he had to speak up.

"What you are doing isn't completely foreign to me. Certain spirit powers allow cultivators to gather life force above their maximum capacity. This is usually a horrible idea. Life force isn't a uniform substance. It behaves differently depending on the exact life form that life force had come from. Loading your body up with a myriad of different sources of life force is dangerous and can have unpredictable effects on your body. It may be one of the main reasons your body and spirit were in such a horrid state."

"Hmmm, I get what you're saying, and I sensed something along those lines last time I overloaded on life force. But it isn't as bad as you may think." Neave looked at his hand. A small, perfectly round ball of life force gathered on his palm. Marven sucked air through his teeth at the absurd display of control," I suspect there is something special about my spirit. The life force stuck within my body rages wildly, but it doesn't have anything to affect. The way it feels is strange. It's as if the life force is a man trying to bite a flat wall. It just can't get any grip on it." The life force on his palm whirled and reabsorbed right back into his body. "So I think I will be fine for now."

Marven reluctantly nodded. They entered the cave and went on a killing spree. Marven lazily flicked his sword in the general direction of anything threatening. As he observed Neave, he realized Neave had the entire situation under control, so he just watched instead.

Neave was a menace. It was the most efficient monster hunting Marven had ever seen. Marven wondered whether Neave could even run out of stamina at all.

Eventually, Neave ran out of monsters in the first section of the cave, so he turned to Marven. Neave asked Marven about qi techniques. Marven wasn't surprised that Neave couldn't make qi techniques and was even more surprised to learn that Neave could create movement techniques. 

Neave's guess for movement techniques was entirely on point. The only two targets were himself and the space around him.

Attack and defense technique creation was fundamentally different. It was a process that inherently required progress down the path of cultivation because it was no longer about discovering potential. It was about creating it.

Creating a qi technique meant creating a layer of unrealized potential. In a sense, it was the reverse process of cultivation. The concept that allowed cultivators to develop or modify qi techniques was called the wayfarer's authority.

This authority could only be gained once one had progressed enough down the path of cultivation.

The wayfarer's authority was entirely out of reach for someone like Neave, who had yet to move an inch on the path. Even then, it would take a long walk down the path before he could use it.

He could still learn qi techniques. In fact, he could learn any qi technique in existence; he just couldn't create his own.

Neave asked Marven to teach him an attack qi technique. Marven complied, teaching him the most basic strike within the Zearthorn style—a simple thrust.

Marven put his hand out in the air, and shimmering cyan runes manifested. Neave had no idea this was a thing. There was nothing on the topic in any of the books he had read.

"I've read several cultivation manuals, but I've never seen anything like this ever be mentioned. Is this really how qi techniques are learned?"

Marven laughed.

"Obviously, you wouldn't know. A cultivation manual is merely a book to mortals. Only those on the path would be capable of perceiving these shards of potential after reading a manual."

Neave facepalmed. This was one of those things that he didn't know simply because everybody probably considered it too essential to mention.

Wait a minute. Shards of potential? Oh fuck, I've heard those mentioned a million times. I just had no idea what they were! I thought it was some stupid metaphor!

Marven handed Neave a small sword from his dimension ring.

"Take a long hard look at these, Neave. I can show them to you again if you forget them. It should take you around a month to…"

Neave turned around and used the thrust technique.

Perfectly.

Marven felt he shouldn't have been so surprised, but this was starting to get absurd.

"Ew. This is so qi hungry and not even that strong."

That was… A rather absurd statement, but it made perfect sense from Neave's perspective. In the hands of someone at the very beginnings of the foundation realm, a qi technique like this was pretty weak. Neave was used to crushing bones with punches and shattering walls with kicks. A basic qi technique felt like child's play in comparison.

Marven thought for a bit, and then he lifted his hand again. He didn't speak a single word. Runes yet again appeared in the air, but this was far different. The runes themselves were many times more complex, and there were dozens of times more of them.

Neave grinned. It was apparent Marven was challenging him. And he wasn't going to turn away from a challenge.

Neave observed the runes. They were seriously giving him a headache. No matter how many of them he grasped, he found a deeper connection between the concepts and more potential to explore every time he peeled off a layer.

He found himself losing track of everything eventually. This was something that was far beyond the difficulty of that first technique. But Neave wouldn't quit. He used a trickle of lifeforce to fortify his spirit and another trickle to boost his thinking speed.

His eyes shot from one corner of the rune script to another, every gaze and every look cutting through and dissecting the endless layers of complex constructs. Marven was beginning to sweat from maintaining the manifestation of the shards of potential for so long.

Eventually, they flickered and died.

"So… How long do you think it will take to master that one?" Marven grinned.

Neave's face was blank. Marven was worried Neave had crushed his spirit by accident or something along those lines, but Neave eventually moved again.

He walked up to a boulder and took a stance. He took one step forward, pushing his center of balance right above his heel. The sword was pulled back, parallel to his other leg, as he bent the knee at a ten-degree angle. 

Neave took a deep breath. He took a step forward and thrust the sword. Four phantom images of a slash appeared to the left, right, above, and below the blade. They swung outward, cutting through the boulder and severing it into four pieces.

The thrust itself slammed into the boulder and blew the four pieces apart.

"Uwaaah, that is icky. All of my qi is gone."

Marven was speechless.

Less than a month ago, his greatest wish had been to relinquish his position as sect master and for his son to become a competent cultivator. What a cruel joke fate had played on him. 

There was a question that was burning him up from the inside. It was a subject he would rather avoid forever. But he asked anyway.

"Neave."

"Hmm?"

"Your time within that loop. Tell me honestly. How do you feel about going through that?"

Neave paused.

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"It was very fun."