Fighting to be Kind in a Cultivation World

Still in the privacy bubble with Sister Nuan, I prepare to explain more about my plans with the library. But before I can do so, she asks an important question.

“Your… scan, as you call it. Is it that similar to divination?”

Ah. This will be complicated to explain. Good thing she didn’t skimp on the privacy bubble or I’d be VERY wary about saying anything about this.

And since seeing both Lao Na and the Patriarch use void cultivation techniques, I’ve kept the scan honed in on any way they could listen in and watch me. Luckily, they couldn’t be able to in here, from the quality of it.

Even if they wouldn’t do it, it’s better that they couldn’t.

“My scan is like it, though it is more specific about what I can ask and find. The downside is, depending on the inquiry, it could incapacitate and kill me.”

She falls silent, in apparent thought, before asking more.

“What things can you ask it? Cultivation methods?”

That’s an easy and obvious one that any cultivator would ask.

“Yeah, though as you know, there would be other consequences to that, from just knowing the inner details of such methods.”

She nods in realization. But continues on.

“But can it help with interpreting cultivation methods or finding one, if allowed?”

She hit the nail on the head of what makes this so powerful for cultivation.

Even the method I’m using now for healing, without my scan, would be almost impossible to have understood mentally. It’s like if you are dealing with a multilayered code. If you have the key to all the layers, it’s difficult, but still possible, to go through. Without it… exceptionally difficult, to impossible.

My scan goes one step above that and basically transcribes it in my head. Even then, I still have some things to learn and grow with.

I leave her with the simplest answer.

“Yes. It can.”

She takes a breath.

“Well, that explains a lot…

“Even the Patriarch agrees that a cultivation method like yours would be almost impossible for even the best geniuses to work through. Especially if it’s this powerful in such a low realm. Adding that to your other feats… I can see why you succeeded.”

I’m completely shocked, though, at her next words.

“But something like that surely doesn’t have such a simple cost, which must be beyond what you’ve said.”

She raises a hand affectionately to my cheek.

“I know you probably can’t talk about it, but if you need someone to console you… just let me know.”

… I really appreciate the love and concern, but that’s really all the costs to it.

But I can’t say that or it will make her feel bad.

Instead of my inner thoughts, I just give her a smile and nod. She definitely would have seen my inner turmoil, being a Nascent Soul realm expert, but I feel she’s interpreting it much differently than how I’m actually feeling.

“This makes things much simpler, then. What else have you found thus far?”

From there, we go over a few different things I’ve discovered before she pauses and takes a glance over her shoulder.

My scan doesn’t pick up anything. She continues immediately after, as if she hadn’t done that.

“Hmm… I’m assuming this ‘scan’ is how you knew what to have your followers pick, right?”

A reminder that I should rush over to the library.

She can see my rise in anxiety and gives a coy smile, before grabbing the hem of my shirt. I find myself on a sword beside her, still in the bubble.

“That should be everything I need to know for now. The protections at the towers should be better than this talisman, so we’ll be fine for our much longer conversation there.

… I’m getting a sub context here that I’m definitely going to need to think about.

And then we soar through the bubble, with it dissipating behind us in a shower.

Unlike how I imagined, there were no crowds around the bubble, curious to what would happen inside. There aren’t even spiritual senses lingering around, looking for hints of information.

Which is both a testament to the ways of this culture, sect, and Sister Nuan’s power.

First, that she is powerful enough, that no one is stupid enough to hang around an obvious privacy bubble and earn her ire. Second, people in the same sect respect privacy bubbles and what is said in them. And last, people in this sect, like appearing righteous.

It’s hard to look righteous when you are snooping around and can get caught doing so by a higher tier cultivator. Not to say it doesn’t happen, but is much less likely, especially for against such a high tier person.

I have little time to mull over this as we speed away at an exceptional speed. Far faster than I could move. The air wraps around my body as we blow through the air. Clearly a feature of her sword techniques and skill.

Despite being my master, she actually is a sword master, with that being her specialty. The three swords on her back are a testament to that.

Now how she’s able to use three swords effectively, I’ve yet to see. But I have some guesses.

With nothing else to do on the sword, the variety of sights below us soon captivates my attention.

They built sprawling arenas, training areas, while filling numerous complexes with countless treasures. Facilities connected by tunnels and interwoven segments containing unknown secrets, with secretive sect members flitting in and out from their doors.

And that’s only the things that I can see with my eyes.

There are also the massive creatures that float and fly above the cloud layer, spirit beasts with defensive contracts placed upon them. Invisible ones that dart from place to place, far too fast for mortal eyes to see. Carrying both information and goods from areas both within and outside the Halls.

Bands of light beyond normal human sight that shift and bend to allow us and others through, seemingly with a life of its own.

Formations and buildings also form an unseen tapestry of massive proportions. The sight of which teaches me more about the concept, just from its proximity.

Then I see a massive structure cresting the horizon. One which can’t be mistaken for anything else.

The Radiant Library.

Accurate to its name, it literally shines with a light independent to the sun or sky. It’s easy to imagine that the area around it would be bright as day, at all times, considering this. And while its architecture is like the others I’ve seen around the Inner City, aspects of it make me think that the impression it gives off must be what the Library of Alexandria would have done to new viewers.

Mind-boggling in scale and in function.

There’s a difference between seeing an enormous palace and living space for people, vs a place of learning and storage for such knowledge. Knowing that every bit of its size is being used to house immense amounts of information, that then is stored into smaller and compact mediums.   

But even as we see it and at our remarkable speed, pass over it… it just keeps going. And going… and going.

Stretching from one horizon to the other, despite being at least 50 floors high. And I can identify that the underground structures dwarf that height.

It literally trivializes the absolutely enormous towers that I now live in. Despite the towers smallest floors being at least 20,000 sq meters.

It’s not just one monolithic faceless structure, but has countless shapes and internal buildings poking up and out of it. Like a city of unprecedented scale, all packed into one space, with no edges.

Even though we haven't seen the other edge of the building, Sister Nuan guides us to an area that can easily be seen to be a massive entrance to this monster.

We’re entering this behemoth of a building.

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