Cultivation Nerd-Chapter 355: Icarus

As Speedy’s breakthrough settled, the distinct aura of a newly advanced Foundation Establishment cultivator rolled off him in gentle waves. The big guy himself hadn’t changed much, except for a dark marking that had appeared on his shell, faint but unmistakable.

He yawned and glanced around.

Speedy now possessed a legitimate beast bloodline, and his sentience had been gained through normal, complete means.

Before this, I had never been entirely sure whether Speedy had already developed human-like intelligence and was simply too lazy to show it, or if he was only hovering at the threshold. Sometimes he was smarter than most people I knew; other times, he was dumber than a mouse.

Now, I was certain.

And yet, he just stared at me, yawned again, and laid his head back down.

…Okay. Either he’d been sentient all along and was naturally lazy, or he was deliberately messing with me.

“Hey, don’t just ignore me and not even say hello,” I grumbled, lightly kicking his shell a few times as a wake-up call. He didn’t budge. “Not even going to say hi? Before, I thought it was just your nature, but now you actually have a choice and you still choose to be an asshole.”

He cracked one eye open, raised his head until we were at eye level, and let out a low groan as if he were trying to say something.

It was a whiny groan. The kind that perfectly conveyed the feeling of a kid whose mom had woken him up for school when he just wanted five more minutes of sleep.

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll wait until you break through to Core Formation so we can have a proper talk,” I waved him off. This was mostly just a test to make sure he was fine.

After all, him falling asleep could have been an aftereffect of the breakthrough. Most beasts would have been far more excited about having their bloodline elevated. Speedy, on the other hand, sounded more like I’d just dumped extra work on him. He clearly didn’t care much about power.

I let out a breath and patted his head.

No matter how simple I’d made it sound when explaining things to Muchen so he could prepare the pill, the actual research behind this had been anything but simple.

I’d had to study blood compatibility without proper technology, and beasts were far more complicated than humans. Dogs had over eight blood types. Cats had two main types, A and B. Horses and cows had highly complex systems. Lions, interestingly enough, had a blood type system similar to domestic cats, with type A being the most common among them and other wild felids.

Turtles, too, had different blood types comparable to humans and other vertebrates, though their blood cell morphology was distinct. Turtle red blood cells were nucleated and oval, unlike the non-nucleated, biconcave discs of mammalian cells. Their blood also contained different types of white blood cells: basophils, eosinophils, lymphocytes, heterophils, and monocytes.

And on top of all that, I still had to determine what truly differentiated ordinary beasts from those capable of cultivating Qi. The answer, I’d learned, wasn’t purely genetic.

Even a temporary transfusion between a turtle and a lion had been a nightmare to figure out. I’d spent over a year researching it, not counting the time it took to build a solid foundation in beast physiology, just to make the attempt viable.

But it was all worth it.

I smiled as Speedy rubbed his head against my palm before sinking back into blissful sleep.

“From now on, you will have to rely on your own efforts to advance, Speedy,” I told him.

Despite what I told Muchen, the research I had done was explicitly centered on Speedy with his blood type, his physiology, everything that made him him. The same pill would likely have no effect on other beasts, or worse, be outright harmful, unless they were Speedy’s brother or cousin.

For now, I had to abandon this line of research. Still, I hoped Muchen would take what I’d given him and push it further. I’d even provided him with a basic rundown on blood types, and sadly, I couldn't give him the comprehensive research because it was dangerous for innocent people.

But thinking about how he might advance what I’d started sent a flicker of excitement through me.

After all, this wasn’t just for my sake. If he perfected it, he would become invaluable to Goldwatch City. The position of mayor would be all but guaranteed if he reached Nascent Soul.

But I didn’t linger on matters that wouldn’t bear fruit for years. Instead, I walked inside my home. On the way to the kitchen, I passed the first-floor bathroom and spotted Fu Yating in front of the mirror, performing what looked suspiciously like a morning-level skincare ritual, carefully applying ointments to her face.

“What’re you doing?” I asked, suddenly concerned she might’ve fallen for something sold by a snake-oil peddler.

“I bought some ointments from the alchemy guild,” she replied, eyes fixed on her reflection. “They’re supposed to keep my skin supple and youthful. I need to get ahead of it now, not later.”

Wasn’t she a bit young to be worried about aging? Then again… I’d seen women do far stranger things.

Hopefully, this wouldn’t escalate into bathing in virgins’ blood to preserve her beauty.

With that comforting thought, I moved on. But before heading upstairs, I paused.

“I’m going up,” I said. “If you need more gold, just ask.”

She turned to look at me. “You already gave me twenty thousand gold. That’s half a clan’s yearly income. I couldn’t spend that much even if I tried.”

“If you need more, just ask,” I shrugged and continued upstairs.

I entered my room, taking in the familiar scent, my gaze drifting to the bed, which looked particularly inviting today. It was rare for things to go so smoothly, and between the excitement and exhaustion, I was feeling it.

I sat down.

Or rather, on someone.

A muffled groan sounded beneath me.

There was only one person I knew who could sneak up on me that easily. I looked down and found myself sitting squarely on Song Song’s stomach.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked calmly as I stood up.

“Tch. You didn’t even apologize,” Song Song snorted. “Is that how you treat a young lady?”

“Young lady?” I glanced around. “Where?”

“That is not funny,” she said flatly. If I didn’t know her better, I might’ve thought she was actually offended.

I wanted to tease her about how a woman at twenty-four like her wasn’t really considered young anymore in this world. Most women her age already had families, with at least two children running around.

But I didn’t point that out, for fear of getting slapped.

More often than not, Song Song was a sore loser. And I wasn’t in the mood for sparring.

She stood up, no longer sprawled across my bed, and instead sat on its edge. Her gaze wandered around the room, settling on my desk, where three books were stacked neatly in one corner, a single sheet of paper in the middle, and an ink brush lay carefully beside it.

“I never noticed it before, but your place is so orderly,” she said.

“You make it sound like keeping things where they’re supposed to be is hard,” I replied.

“Well, if you like cleaning like a maid so much, you can come clean my house sometimes. It’s gotten quite messy,” Song Song mocked.

“You could just hire a maid,” I suggested.

“Like I could trust those tramps,” she shot back. “Any of them could be a spy for my brother and plant poison sacs all over my abode.”

I nodded. That was a legitimate concern.

It was fortunate that Fu Yating handled most of the basic chores. Not that I was messy, and neither was Wu Yan, but credit where it was due. At least I didn’t have to worry about poisoning anytime soon.

Just as we were bickering for fun, a sharp snapping sound came from both our pockets.

I stopped mid-sentence and pulled out a broken wooden token. Fu Yating did the same.

Song Song tilted her head, staring at me for a moment as if trying to recall something. “Oh, right. This breaks if Wu Yan breaks hers on the other end. I was confused for a second. I usually only keep your tokens on me. The others stay in my storage ring.”

“Wait, really?” I frowned. “You do know they don’t work if they’re kept in a storage ring, right?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

It was a simple, if somewhat underused artifact; break one token, and all linked ones would shatter, serving as a crude but effective notification.

“So what?” Song Song shrugged. “If I leave them in my ring, it just means those people aren’t important.”

Now wasn’t the time to argue. Wu Yan could be in danger or, more likely, she was calling us over for something urgent.

I took a silver sword from my storage ring and closed my eyes, circulating my Qi as I spread my senses through the blade. It allowed for a rudimentary form of spatial perception within that contained world.

Wu Yan seemed fine. Just like before, there were no other living beings inside the space after I’d exterminated them.

“It looks like she just wants to call us over,” I said. “Even if an enemy were invisible to my senses, she’d at least be running.”

“I can’t sense her,” Song Song frowned. “And keep those last thoughts to yourself. Hearing your paranoia out loud is weird. It looks cooler when it seems like you predicted someone’s plan, not like you’re suspicious of literally everything.”

…Okay, but did she really have to be that mean about it?

“You can't sense her because I've been keeping her in my Mirror World,” I explained to Song Song.

She frowned and tilted her head in confusion. I stared at her blankly through the entire exchange.

“I told you about this when I explained the new research I was doing on how to lower the cost of spatial travel,” I reminded her.

That only earned me more empty looks. Instead of appearing even slightly ashamed that she had completely zoned me out, she snorted and looked at me like this was somehow my fault.

“I don’t really care about any of that and usually zone you out,” Song Song admitted shamelessly. “It was boring stuff.”

She didn’t need to add that last part. Unfortunately, this was just the kind of person she was, and it was probably how she genuinely felt.

“How is spatial travel boring–” I stopped myself, then forced my thoughts back on track. “Whatever. We’ll put this on hold and go see what’s troubling Wu Yan. Follow me.”

I shot toward the library pagoda at breakneck speed, the edges of my vision blurring as my senses struggled to keep up. Song Song followed easily, matching my pace without the slightest hint of effort.

Once inside the library, I guided her toward the hidden laboratory, its entrance concealed among the deep shadows between the bookshelves.

As we descended the stairs, the cold-looking torches lining the walls flared to life, igniting with a soft blue glow as we passed.

“I sense you here often, but I never really thought about what you were doing down here,” Song Song said.

At the bottom of the stairs, her gaze immediately locked onto the massive lion paw suspended at the center of the lab, preserved in a solution mixed with vitality potions.

“Oh, you still keep this as a souvenir?” she asked casually as we walked past it. “And here you used it to dissuade me from keeping the heads of people I killed as trophies. Hypocritical much?”

“This is for research,” I said.

“Yeah,” she replied. “Mine was for research too. I wanted to research where in my house the heads would fit.”

“Your house is completely white. The heads wouldn’t fit anywhere,” I answered automatically, my mind already elsewhere.

I couldn’t believe I was arguing about something like this. My life had a strange tendency to spiral whenever she was involved.

Stopping before the mirror in the corner, I pressed the silver sword against its surface and twisted it like a key. The reflection rippled, warping inward until it collapsed into a dark, yawning hole.

“Cool,” Song Song said, charging straight into the mirror.

I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose.

“Does she have to be so reckless?” I muttered under my breath.

The mirror wasn’t dangerous, but she didn’t know that.

I followed her through and emerged midair, nearly twenty feet above the ground. Song Song hovered beside me, already scanning the area as if hoping to find something alive to kill.

Ignoring that, I spread my senses, located Wu Yan, and flew toward her. Song Song sighed and followed close behind.

“This is a neat place,” Song Song said as she flew beside me, dangerously close given that we were moving faster than most planes.

“I know,” I answered, keeping it deliberately vague just to irk her a little.

She nodded and accepted it without comment.

When we found Wu Yan, she was sitting in the middle of a grassy field in a meditative posture, her expression calm and composed.

The moment she sensed us, she looked up and smiled.

“Hello, Liu Feng, Song Song,” she said in her usual soft, polite voice. “Teacher, I’ve been at the peak of Foundation Establishment for a while now, and I’m going to attempt to break through to Core Formation.”

Oh. So that was why she’d called me over. Song Song had just been an incidental addition, since she also carried a token in case of emergency situations I couldn’t handle, but she could.

Though going forward, that precaution wouldn’t be needed as much. I had my own methods now for dealing with Core Formation cultivators.

“Are you sure you can succeed?” I asked, frowning.

This was a bit fast considering her last breakthrough, but Wu Yan understood her own condition better than I ever could, and I trusted her judgment.

“I’ve thoroughly prepared,” she nodded. “But I still like having you here. It makes things feel safer. No matter what happens, I know you’ll always pull through.”

“This kid is so sweet,” Song Song said, stepping forward and ruffling Wu Yan’s hair.

Thankfully, Wu Yan didn’t share the excessive pride common among cultivators and didn’t mind someone being this familiar with her. She was still a kid at heart.

I nodded and sat down about four yards away from her.

“I’ll stay here as long as you need me,” I reassured her.

“Thank you…” Wu Yan smiled, a little strangely, considering how innocent it looked on a face that somewhat resembled my own. “Thank you for everything, for being my teacher and my savior, Liu Feng. From now on, I’ll finally be able to shoulder some of your burden.”

“You shouldn’t worry about things like that,” I told her.

Song Song settled down behind me, leaning against my back as she yawned and half-dozed. She clearly wasn’t very interested in the breakthrough itself and was only here because I was.

I raised a questioning eyebrow at her behavior, but quickly returned my attention to Wu Yan.

“You just need to live for yourself,” I reminded her. “You don’t owe me anything.” Then I smiled and added jokingly, “You’re about to become a Core Formation cultivator and technically my superior, so there’s really no need to worry about little old me.”

When I’d suggested to the elders that the Blazing Sun Sect needed to produce a Nascent Soul cultivator to decisively end the war, Wu Yan had been the person I’d had in mind. Her cultivation speed outpaced everyone else’s.

But she took my teasing seriously and frowned.

“I would never be so disrespectful to you,” she said firmly.

I looked at her. Sometimes she really did let her emotions cloud her thinking.

“I was joking,” I reminded her.

“Oh, sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t catch the meaning.”

I really needed to teach this girl more than just theory. Those lessons should also include dabbling in sarcasm.

Wu Yan closed her eyes and clapped her hands. Her Qi exploded outward in a sweeping wave, and for an instant the world stuttered with light blinking in and out, shadows flickering like a candle about to die. Her hair lifted in the surge, floating weightless as her aura roared to life.

When she opened her eyes and mouth, twin streams of radiant light spilled from them, white-hot and blinding. Her foundation techniques had aligned perfectly, their energies weaving together in seamless harmony. All that remained was the final step: guiding the fused flows of her Qi pillars and forging them into a golden core.

Then she gasped.

The Qi around her quivered violently, its smooth flow fracturing into jagged currents. What had been a steady, harmonious rhythm warped into something unstable and shuddering, rippling with hairline cracks that hissed through the air like splintering glass.

Shit.

The breakthrough was collapsing.

I lunged forward, my foundation technique roaring to life as my thoughts accelerated. The world slowed to a crawl, Wu Yan’s trembling aura stretching into long, distorted waves, every spark of unstable Qi moving like molasses in my perception.

Think. Think!

How could I help her? How could I stabilize the chaos tearing her breakthrough apart?

Even with my precision, I couldn’t touch this. This was Core Formation–level Qi, governed by an entirely different set of raw power. My control, no matter how refined, was a cup trying to redirect a flooding river.

I could try puppeting her body, guiding the circulation manually… but that would force me through her technique structure. The moment my foundation technique faltered, even for a breath, I’d lose control and tear her meridians apart. I simply didn’t have the raw power for that.

What about using myself as a coil, channeling her rampaging Qi into me and letting it discharge harmlessly? She would fail the breakthrough, drop a star or two, but at least she wouldn’t explode from the inside.

No. That amount of Qi would crush my organs before I even completed the first circuit.

There was still the body-snatching option: taking over Song Song’s body. She would allow it, and she did have Core Formation Qi reserves I could borrow…

But her body didn’t have my foundation technique. I wouldn’t be able to slow time without precision and micro-control. I’d be trying to perform surgery with shaking hands in pitch black.

And who knew what countermeasures her father had embedded in her body? It would be foolish to assume he hadn’t prepared for possession.

Every idea died the moment it was born. Every plan collapsed before it could take shape.

Nothing worked. Nothing could.

Even as I rushed toward her, the truth settled over me like ice. There was nothing I could do.

Killing was simple, brutally and insultingly simple. There were a thousand ways to end a life. But saving one? The paths narrowed to almost nothing. And here… there was no path at all.

In battle, I always experimented with different techniques and styles to learn more. But here, trying to save someone, I had no technique to use.

Before I could cross the last stretch of distance, Wu Yan’s Qi ruptured.

My thoughts were slowed to lightning precision, but my body wasn’t faster. My speed hadn’t increased. The blast overtook reality in an instant in a Core Formation backlash of pure, violent Qi detonating outward in a sphere that swallowed the space around it.

It surged toward me far too fast to counter. I couldn’t erect an array in time. I couldn’t shield myself.

Then a hand grabbed the back of my robe, hard, and yanked me back.

I cancelled my foundation technique on instinct. The world snapped back to full speed.

“Hey, that explosion is going to hurt you too,” Song Song said dryly.

She stepped in front of me as the blast flooded toward us, her aura flaring crimson. She extended one hand, fingers spreading, and a razor-thin line of compressed blood Qi solidified in the air.

The spherical explosion slammed into it with the force of an atomic blast. The world turned white with heat and pressure roaring against the dam Song Song held with one arm, as though she were drawing a line into reality itself.

Behind that crimson line, I was untouched. In front of it, destruction howled.

When the light finally faded, the truth lay bare.

Wu Yan had failed her breakthrough to Core Formation.