Fighting to be Kind in a Cultivation World

 With the mother ready to cultivate, I have her go through the same steps that the father went through.

 After taking the heavenly spirit roots along with the local wine, she uses diaphragmatic breathing.

Since she had watched her husband and some mistakes that he had made, she could pick up the breathing technique a little quicker than he had. During the process, I also put my hands below her stomach, as well.

 It was already getting dark when I first came here, and by this point, it's already morning. But everyone here is wide awake.

 Once she was ready, we moved on to the next step.

 Almost every part of this goes easily. Like her husband, she also had gone into the middle Dantian. Unfortunately, she could not push past that point.

 Already knowing it’s futile, I have her move on to the cultivation method.

 Like her husband, this stuff takes quite a while. And despite her hearing what was going on with him, it’s a completely different experience when doing it yourself.

 It goes similarly to his and just as she finishes the normal part, I also show her how to do the alternate techniques.

After her eyes stopped glowing from that experience, we all turn towards the daughter, who we all have expectations for.

 As my scan goes over Xing Xun’s body, before she actually becomes a cultivator, I’m shocked to see something about her and her family. With optimization and her bloodline being retroactively strengthened, she’s extraordinarily powerful.

 Even without the heavenly spirit roots, she’s at the same level as her mother with it. 8 Orchid Heaven. Which means she’ll be that much stronger when she actually takes them.

Briefly, I wonder why she didn’t take them instead of her mom or dad, but then the reason quickly dawns on me. Having them all be on the same level, instead of one of them being weaker, means that they can cover for each other. Not only that, but considering their enemies' suspicions from earlier, they will wonder what else could she be hiding.

They already know that she should be stronger than them, but if she’s not revealing it, then they’ll assume that strength is in a different area.

 As I’m thinking this, she quickly begins doing the breathing technique, having already watched and understood what she needed to do. She takes far less time than it did for them. So much so that I had to put my hand on her stomach to help her with the next process only two minutes in.

 She actually moves quickly, moving the qi throughout her meridians, and almost doesn’t require any of my help.

However, she opens her mouth to ask me something.

“Could you heal me while I’m doing this? I have something that I want to do.”

 I quickly shift to healing since she has the qi movement part of this down.

 She’s trying to make adjustments to her meridians and dantians…

 I give her a long, hard look, wondering whether she can actually handle this. And whether I should suggest additional changes for her to do that she likely wouldn’t know.

 Irrespective of my thoughts, she’s already starting the process. I can hear her groan in pain as the truly torturous part begins. Her hand reaches out and grips my arm tightly, to deal with the pain.

She’s expanding the channels and pathways, and similar to me, forming them into a corkscrew pattern.

 Different from how I did it, she actually adds in flaps to the meridians. My curiosity grows into why she would do such a thing. But this is quickly answered, as after some strain on her part, I see them open and close.

 …

This is the difference between a normal person and a genius. I.e., me and her.

 The biggest issue with the Corkscrew pattern is that Qi will move out of your body and an exceptionally faster pace. So much so that you won’t be able to control the flow of it.

 In this case, because she’s somehow able to control these flaps, she can reduce and adjust the flow throughout her body.

 It can’t be understated how much control over one’s body this truly requires. This wasn’t even an option for me, as I don’t have that much natural control over mine.

Like her, I could have put the flaps in, but I wouldn’t have been able to actually control them, thus rendering them useless. I had to build other processes which wouldn’t be as effective as the one she created.

 And as she goes through each and every Meridian, she adds new and varied things to her body to make it work that much better. Some things that had come up for me, and others that never even were an option.

 In some ways, she’s rebuilding her body on a remarkably small level, using my healing as a catalyst.

 Where many of the changes I did were done to increase my capacity and counteract each other to build it up, her changes are synergistic. Working together and amplifying each other rather than mitigate disadvantages.

 And she even does it in a faster time than I did.

 All ending in one final adjustment, which gives me a little insight into how she wants to use the cultivation method.

 At the end of every part of her body that qi could exit, she formed it into an adjustable nozzle like shape, allowing her to pressurize the Qi that comes out. Like a water cutter.

 If she can generate the barriers directly out of her exit points, she can make it so the barriers can cut through people that much easier. From any part of her body.

Changing this from a defensive option into an offensive one.

 While I’m totally sure the cultivation method has similar offensive techniques at later stages, she’s now made it that much easier to do it at the beginning and that much more efficiently.

And then she gets to the final point, the upper dantian.

 Unlike mine, hers is at a size where she could just push through it. But even in this, she makes many other changes to make the flow easier. Culminating in every part of her body, becoming like a lethal machine.

During all of this, I’ve been using the scan to see and understand the changes she’s been making. Some of which I’ll need to consider when helping others.

 All of this occurred within an hour.

 But even she gets tired.

As soon as she finished, she falls backwards in exhaustion. With my healing, it’s definitely not physical, but a mental thing.

I mean… my mind broke down countless times during mine, but all she showed was moans of pain.

 Even with that, she only takes a minute to recover because of my healing.

After the quick rest, she immediately jumps into cultivating.

And that’s when even more interesting things happened.

 As she had also used the jade slip like her mother, she has an in-depth understanding of the original cultivation method. After hearing my explanation of the changes, she seems to adjust it even further. To be specific, she’s already keeping some aspect of the other elements while still focusing on the individual alternate techniques.

 Very similar to how when I’m using my scanning, I keep the other ones active while I focus in on another one.

 It’s easy to say this, but she’s creating abilities that are far above the initial cultivation level.

 After what I’ve done, it may be easy to assume that with sufficient work, preparation, and other supportive elements, that it’s possible to do things like what she’s done.

 It’s not.

She doesn’t have the scan, so she’s coming up with all this on the fly and by feel. Not only that, but she’s exercising a level of control, ability, and mental capacity that would put her far above experts of even the core formation realm.

 In fact, if me and her fought right now, unlike how I’ve been against other cultivators, I just cannot beat her.

She has a barrier that would prevent any of my physical attacks towards her, and she could cut me down with those same barriers, into tiny pieces. Continuously.

She could even encase me in a barrier jail.

 All of this doesn’t even take into account her intellect, control, and other abilities that she had before she was a cultivator.

 Even if I can basically divine the future attacks of a person, that doesn’t mean anything if the person you’re fighting has already predicted it and changed accordingly, 20-30 steps ahead.

… and now she’s a cultivator, so even I have trouble quantifying how far ahead she could plan.

 …

 She’s going far beyond what I could imagine possible.

It’s terrifying to think what she’ll become. What she’ll do with such powe…OOF

 As I was mentally processing these thoughts, I’m surprised by a heavy impact to my chest that knocks me onto my butt.

And lots of soft hair on my face.

 …I’m being hugged.

 Glomped, to be specific.

  A soft, tired, and affectionate voice enters my ears.

“Thank you. For all of this. I’ll never forget this.”

These few words and the grip of the hands holding me, calms my heart.

My scan picks up some non-audible words picked up from her whispered into my chest.

“With you… it’ll be different.”

 As she pulled back, I can see her face, which I can tell was completely sincere.

 Even with all the predictions and things that I know she can do, it’s easy to tell that she really feels grateful for what I’ve done. Making me feel as if I don’t need to worry about what she’ll do at such power and if she’ll turn it against me.

I still feel a little suspicious about some things she’s said and done, though.

Her way of knowing things ahead of time, above and beyond the 20 steps ahead part. Of what changes to make in her meridians. I can tell that she does have that capability at the baseline, but there has to be something more.

… Like she’s done this before.

But not every mystery about my allies needs to be fully investigated.

At least not now.

I’ll definitely be running my scan on the possibilities, but I’ll go with the assumption that she might be something like a regressor, or something similar.

In the meantime, I will treat her with care and kindness. Making her and her family my true allies.

There is something REALLY bothering me, though.

The look she’s giving still giving me of complete adoration and a slight glaze to them, gives rise my earlier worries of her being a yandere.

But as soon as I think that, the look goes away, and she gives a mischievous smile, as if just being playful.

Making me wonder if I just imagined it.

… My scan notifies me I didn’t.

I’ll chat with her later. And be straight up with her about things.

I’m not going to willing go down the yandere route. Not by choice, at least.

…

And I’m definitely not doing it later just to avoid a terrifying conversation.

…

 Either way, it looks like it’s about time to wrap this up and move out back into the city and into the sect.

 But first, I’ll need to settle their debts.

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