Chương 50: Arc 3: Chapter 19

“Not logging anymore, Xue Yaling?” Bianca asked, seeing the kitsune throwing around ghostflames while Song Ming, too, was sitting around, clearly concerned about… well, everything.

In truth, she understood to some extent that there was little benefit to continuing to work when a payment was already determined and ensured, even if it wasn’t under ideal circumstances. However, she was also not feeling too calm about all this either, so she was all too glad to add something to the atmosphere to relax it.

She didn’t feel the tension being resolved all that much, but it was something, at the very least.

“Of course not… though you seem like you know that already. For once – though it’s tough for me to be literal with that lately. You’ve shown yourself to have some semblance of a brain in that head of yours, even if it isn’t especially bright half the time.”

“… I have a question.”

“Go ahead, sweetie.”

Normally, she’d never ask a question like this, but she recalled Song Ming’s approach earlier in the day and she felt significantly braver than before. Furthermore, if Song Ming was able to manifest such confidence when her life was at significantly greater risk than Bianca’s was, she couldn’t help but feel like she needed to match that level of energy, at least once.

“Is it… absolutely necessary to act like… well, like a complete, uh, bitch?” Bianca asked, her eyes shutting reflexively as she prepared for the inevitable backlash.

Despite her expectation, she wasn’t met with an attack of any sort, be it verbal or physical. Instead, Bianca heard the kitsune chuckle for a moment, and opening her eyes showed a smile on her face. It was… odd, and Song Ming clearly shared in that opinion, as she looked as confused as Bianca likely did – not that she had a mirror to be sure of this.

Xue Yaling stopped placing her ghostflames all over the place for a moment and said, “Seems like you might also grow a spine at this rate. Good to know. Not entirely certain how you’ve handled walking without one so far.”

“It’s just… I don’t get it.”

“Which is a shame,” the fox muttered to herself, just loudly enough for Bianca and Song Ming to hear, though whether this was deliberate was hard to guess, “Both of you are young and inexperienced, though the latter has come about because of very different reasons. Song Ming, you’ve not had much of a chance to experience the outer world, nor to come up against all that it can throw at you. On the other hand, Bianca must have forgotten everything she had learned over her years, however many those were, and now she too is a gullible, simple fool… to continue being crass and ‘a bitch’, of course.”

‘So she did dislike it a little, I guess…’ Bianca sighed, “How, exactly, does insulting me constantly help with that?”

“It helps you get used to what others might do. Most people aren’t polite, and since you have… let’s call them anger issues, you really, really need to get used to people that might try to anger you. Furthermore, if you can figure me out, you should be okay with most others, though I doubt that you’d be able to match the wits of some of the geniuses out there.”

“Like who?” Song Ming asked.

The shrug from the kitsune was answer enough.

“Not too familiar. Most of the time, such people aren’t exposed to the public, since all it would take to kill them is some assassin sneaking in, whether from an opposing faction or an assassin organisation paid handsomely for the person’s death. While there are methods for such people to defend themselves, and some are undoubtedly high realm cultivators with an incredible skill in archetypes that benefit them, most people that are clever won’t necessarily be adept at cultivation.”

She looked at Bianca, and once again the message couldn’t be any more obvious. Nevertheless, after a brief pause that gave Bianca plenty of time to get extremely unnerved at Xue Yaling’s unblinking stare, she continued.

“You’re a prime example. You have… occasional planar cultivation aptitude, but if that didn’t appear as often, you wouldn’t stand a chance at reaching the first realm, never mind the second, third, fourth… you get the point, sweetie. Meanwhile, those that are smart enough to matter over pure might will have to contend with forces that have plenty of fourth and fifth realm cultivators, like the major sects.”

“You’re going to give me a headache again,” Bianca shook her head and found a comfortable enough silver stump to plant her butt on, then inhaled some of the pleasant fresh air around her before exhaling whatever ended up in there.

“We might need to bring you to a healer of some kind. Getting this many headaches isn’t normal in the slightest,” the kitsune finally returned to producing more ghostflames, which, now that Bianca paid her a bit more attention, she saw were placed into areas where they would be difficult to spot, the flames themselves dim and weak, “Regardless, there are a number of archetypes that benefit from the knowledge of the one cultivating them. For instance, the Wisdom and Information archetypes, which utilise various aspects of knowledge and transform them into offensive, defensive, utility and movement skills.”

Although it did nothing to diminish the headache, it certainly got Bianca to perk up and listen out for the details.

Cultivation might have remained an esoteric thing to her, but the concept of someone being able to use their knowledge to directly attack was rather fascinating. She knew plenty of teachers that would be incredibly happy to obtain such means, and while she didn’t expect to ever get her hands upon it, she was still intrigued. In theory, if knowledge of things from another world worked, she would have a very unique advantage, and would finally be able to separate herself from the Demonic Tyrant.

That idea was more than enough to tell her that she might as well stop dreaming about it. She lacked any and all capability when it comes to cultivating planar energy, using planar energy and doing whatever else with it, so an advanced and rare archetype would certainly be beyond her.

If anything would fit her, it would be an archetype based around the simplest possible use of energy. Simply using big waves of it might be feasible if she spent long enough on it, though, if it meant spending decades, she doubted she’d have the patience or will to do so regardless of anything else. Even spending months in this world was already too long, so years and decades… She shuddered at the very concept of throwing away so much time. Besides, she had no clue how all this cultivation stuff would behave once she returned – if she returned – so it was rather risky.

“Ahem, are you listening to me?”

“Hm? Oh, sorry, I… Knowledge. How does it work?”

“… Wisdom utilises one’s own insights. It allows the cultivator to think more rapidly, focus on more concepts at a time, and absorb more insights. With every drop of knowledge, of wisdom, the cultivator obtains, their power grows, and it can then be used to further amplify skills specific to the archetype. A famous example are the Western Continent’s Preservers,” Xue Yaling produced another flame and let it linger above her left hand, which she brought to her side, manifesting another flame above her right hand, “Information is focused on using knowledge about one’s foes, gaining insights about them and then manifesting them into combat abilities. For a good example, there is a skill simply named Cutting Remark. Guess what it does.”

“Cuts someone?” the words came out of Bianca’s mouth faster than she could actually think about the matter, though she made sure to quickly add, “I mean, if it’s about information on an opponent, then does it mean that it will be an attack which grows stronger the more you know about their weaknesses?”

“Close, though that’s the effect of Piercing Truth. Cutting Remark focuses all insight on an enemy, producing a blast of words which grows stronger with it – and I mean all insight. If someone was to know your entire life story, they could end you with a single use of this attack, provided that they were able to release enough energy to manifest it,” the kitsune moved her right hand to her side, then tossed both flames away, letting them settle in their own spots within the silver forest, “Before you ask, Piercing Truth does focus specifically the weaknesses, and allows the attack to target them directly, even if they aren’t physical. It’s what makes a rather simple offensive skill require the sixth realm.”

“… So, Information uses the knowledge about others and around the cultivator, whereas Wisdom employs one’s own knowledge, regardless of what it is, to amplify attacks? I’ll be honest, those seem rather similar,” Bianca tried to think through the information provided, regardless of the headache.

“They may well be. In truth, I haven’t studied these two much, as they were a poor fit for me and information about them was difficult to come across, but some archetypes can be rather similar to one another,” Xue Yaling shrugged, “Nevertheless, there is a significant enough different that most of the skills for one archetype cannot be converted to the other with ease. If this wasn’t the case, then I would imagine that the archetypes wouldn’t be considered distinct.”

“Makes sense…” she could hardly argue with such logic, so she looked to Song Ming, “And what are you up to?”

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“I’m… worried. I hope that we don’t end up in danger yet again… because there’s a chance that we won’t make it out safely this time,” Song Ming said, the reluctance obvious in her tone and even her posture.

She only barely maintained eye contact, her head turned away as she looked into some uncertain spot in the distance.

“You shouldn’t be quite so worried. While the amount is far higher than I could have expected, it isn’t impossible for him to believe that he can make more shards from what we’ve provided than what this transaction will cost him, and the others,” the kitsune came over and patted Song Ming’s shoulder before and after she continued on her work of creating ghostflames, “Besides, engaging us in a battle would require… more ready men that they will have by the end of the day, provided they keep working as hard as they appear to be so far.”

“Attacking us safely, you mean,” Song Ming muttered.

“Safely, sure. However, if they experience losses, they lose out of a lot of potential future logging effort, and therefore on their ultimate profit. The share they earn will also go down, since, as I mentioned prior, their revenue per log will go up with each one they hand over to Long Shiyi,” Xue Yaling explained, “Since they’re mainly in the second realm, fighting against me when I’m not holding back would mean losing several people at the very least, more if they have weak souls. Therefore, they’d need to find a way to overcome my advantage first, and, as far as I’m aware, they’re unaware of any of them.”

Bianca was, as always, unaware of the specifics – what means did one have to affect the soul, whether positively, or negatively, nor exactly what a soul was or where it resided – but Song Ming seemed to be soothed by this, so she took it to mean that the arguments were reasonable.

Thus, she followed the young woman’s lead and simply remained sitting on the metallic bark, which was hardly the most comfortable seat she had ever had, but the hard surface provided a certain degree of certainty. It was akin to a stable seat amidst a tumultuous ocean, waves knocking everything but it aside… or something like that. Bianca wasn’t too keen on whatever gibberish she was coming up with in her head, but at least it wasn’t panic or worry.

“Are either of you familiar with card games? We could play some to relax and pass the time,” Xue Yaling suddenly offered, reaching into her shrinking bag and producing a deck of cards.

For some reason, Bianca shivered at the sight, though, when she could think of no reason to be concerned, she shrugged and agreed, “Fine, I suppose we might as well… though I don’t think I’ll know any of these since… you know, memory.”

“Considering the other bits of arbitrary knowledge you appear to be able to recall at a whim, I wouldn’t have been too surprised if you knew of a few games,” the kitsune said, and as usual, before Bianca had a chance to think about her words too much, she opened the deck and removed the cards from within, “I know a relatively simple one, so let’s begin with that-”

“Wait,” something suddenly came to mind, so Bianca perked up, “Isn’t this the sort of time you’d recommend doing cultivation?”

“No.”

“… Why not?”

“We don’t have too much time, we could be under observation by the loggers or others from afar, and if they sense that our energy is weaker than they might have concluded from your intimidating aura, their plans might well change. Furthermore, since we’re obviously not in the right place or time for proper dual cultivation, the amount of progress we’ll actually be able to make is really low, which means we might as well relax prior to our departure, then find the time further from the camp to commit to it fully and make up any lost time.”

In her initial question, Bianca had raised her hand, but now she could only awkwardly lower it again. The answer was so clear that she had to ponder whether her question was so predictable – and therefore likely silly – that Xue Yaling had been able to predict it and come up with a reply that sounded way too reasonable.

“Alright then… what game are we playing?”

 

“You certain you haven’t played these before?” Xue Yaling asked, as Bianca won yet another round of whatever the people of the Planar Continents called it.

She hadn’t taken the time to learn it, since she easily recognised the Antanian variant and through whatever instincts she’d developed back then, she was able to overcome both of them almost every time. Certainly, there was still a bit of luck involved, but she had clearly spent more time playing around with things like this than the other two. If they had been playing for any kind of real reward, Bianca might have become rich… relative to having nearly nothing, at the very least.

“Maybe I have. This stuff is rather easy, to be honest,” Bianca couldn’t help but smile, finally running into something that she understood, “Oh crap, is it dark already? I lost track of time completely.”

A chuckle came to her lips, and she realised she’d been outright happy for once in a while. All of the stress around her melted away, and she felt like she was back on Orbis, back at home, back among friends and family and random assholes – or some of those, at least.

It was so nice that she wanted to give Song Ming a hug and have some fun with some video streaming service and a bunch of delicious snacks to pass the night before both of them fell asleep within a comfortable bed atop a number of pillows and covered in a warm blanket. Perhaps they could wake up the next day and just embrace one another for a while, forgetting all the troubles of the world and just letting them be washed away for a while.

“… Bianca?”

“Hm? Ah, sorry… Is that him over there?” she returned to reality with some hesitation, spotting some approaching figures amidst the silver trunks.

She got up the other two following her a moment after, Song Ming being even more surprised than her since she had been sitting while facing away from the direction of the main camp. Xue Yaling was on the side, so she must’ve seen them in her peripheral vision, since she was standing up even more readily than Bianca.

Just in case, Bianca decided to step ahead of the other two, letting the Demonic Tyrant circulate her energy to enhance the dangerous aura that she possessed regardless of her wishes. Her eyes caught a faint darkness framing her body, though she could, as usual, not feel the malicious aura that others did.

It was only by the time that she could see these figures in enough detail to confirm their identities that she recalled that planar energy could be channelled to enhance eye sight, though, in all likelihood, Song Ming and Xue Yaling would have done this long ago and confirmed the same information she was now getting. The main issue was that she was never able to remember things like this, which made it significantly more difficult for her to have the confidence necessary to play her part without needing to abandon reason to whatever part of her was unleashed when she dedicated herself to the role too intensely.

“I’ve prepared the planar shards for you. However, considering the display you gave me earlier today, I’d prefer not to hand them over while these two are around.”

“So you’d rather do so with your men surrounding me? Very brave of you,” Bianca forced her demonic grin to appear on her face, though she could tell her performance wasn’t quite as good this time, “Are you certain about this?”

“Not what I meant. We can go off to the side. Both of us are in the same realm, so we can be sure of one another’s safety.”

Having already considered planar energy, Bianca managed to use her spiritual perception to glance back at Xue Yaling and check whether she approved of this without making it too obvious, or so she hoped. The kitsune certainly noticed, as it took little more than a moment for her to respond with a slight nod while looking at the back of Bianca’s head.

‘Well… alright. Should be fine if she’s okay with it.’

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