On the hill close to the small town where the Teng Yong Sect’s people resided in the border region, Mei Chao Bing had transferred all of the gathered energy under the puzzled eyes of Da Hei and Song Mu. As soon as the last bit was given to him, Mei Chao Bing leaned back, rubbing his arms to get rid of the faint pain caused by the overcharge while Da Hei focused on circulating the energy to use it for his cultivation. Seeing as nothing seemed to happen, Song Mu stopped supporting the arrays and hurried over to ask what was going on. Neither of the three had noticed anything happening in the town, completely unaware that the situation they had feared had already come true.
Mei Chao Bing sighed and shook his head. “No matter how I thought about it and what I tried, there was no change. There being more energy didn’t suddenly unlock something and, to be honest, I believe this might be a general issue. It’s not that I can’t do it. It’s that it can’t be done.”
Song Mu raised his brows. He understood in general what the difference between the two was but … “What makes you think so? Your Master should have had this plan for a long time. Would he really make such a mistake? Or has he thought of something else?”
“I believe both are possible.” Mei Chao Bing slowly got to his feet, stretching his limbs and walking a few steps while he continued to explain. “He must have been looking for a way to strengthen himself to a large degree. It makes sense: He was caught between the Wu Yun Sect and the Teng Yong Sect. Both are strong and with neither of them, he can rest assured that he won’t get into a bind.
“If the righteous sects would have found out about him being in contact with the demonic sects, they would have abolished his cultivation in the best case or executed him in the worst case. On the other hand, if the demonic faction were to believe that he had jumped ship and turned from a spy to a genuine member of the righteous sect who was simply taking advantage of them to advance faster, then being killed would be a blessing. The horrors they are able to commit in such a case are unimaginable.
“Now, there is one way out he has: Become strong enough that neither side will easily dare to touch him. When he is the backbone of whichever sect’s side he finally chooses to stay on, what can they do to him? Of course, if he could directly ascend, that would even be better.”
Song Mu furrowed his brows. “So what you’re saying is that he might have been anxious and looked for a possibility to strengthen himself for so long that he finally saw something that wasn’t there?”
Mei Chao Bing inclined his head. “Something along those lines. I mean, it’s not like there isn’t some truth to it: The constitution clearly exists. I simply believe that it isn’t as overpowered as he thought it to be. From what I’ve understood from our attempts today, I can indeed take in any kind of energy and convert it to spiritual energy. That is a major advantage in the cultivation world.
“I could go to a place like the southern chasm or some miasma field or any other place with energy other cultivators fear getting close to and would have all of that energy to myself while simultaneously ensuring that nobody would come to bother me. It’s like … a way to cheat your way to the top because you gain access to resources that others could never touch and there is hardly any risk involved for you.
“At the same time, what I can’t do is take in a big amount of spiritual energy in the way he imagined me to. I see why he would assume so but this should have only been a guess. Most likely, records of the Lin family indicated that all of them were strong contenders among the top figures of their generations.
“It makes sense: With knowledge about the constitution being passed down from parent to child and each new generation drawing on the experience of the previous one, they could hone their use of it to a high standard. From the outside though, that is difficult to judge because you only see one generation after the other take big strides in their cultivation but you don’t know the details. Finally, knowing what they do about how others cultivate, they might have started to believe that the Lin family members were indeed able to take in any and all kinds of energy and a large amount at that.
“My guess would be that another cultivation family or maybe a sect was investigating them, leaving records behind that contained guesses about the exact benefits of their constitution. Maybe they were trying to form an alliance or otherwise get a foot in the door of the Lin family but they wanted to be sure so they gathered all the information they could, accidentally believing some wrong information and obscuring the truth.”
“And that would be what your Master found.” Song Mu nodded slowly, having to admit that what Mei Chao Bing said made sense. “If he continued to investigate the possibility, he might have found other sources that pointed in a similar direction, strengthening his belief that he had found the key to his way out of his predicament.
“Also, it would have been difficult to ascertain whether it was true or not. After all, he first needed to even find a survivor of the family. Who knows how many years that alone took? Then, the blood had already thinned down considerably so there would have always been some doubt whether the people he found simply hadn’t inherited enough of the constitution or whether it was always this way. Yes, the more I think about it, the more I feel that you might be right. Your Master really might have gotten it wrong.”
Da Hei cracked his eyes open as the two of them came to this conclusion. Even though he had mostly focused on assimilating the energy into his own, he had still heard them talk. Now that some of the energy had been dealt with, he had the space of mind to throw in one question that the two of them seemed to have overlooked. “So, if you can’t do what he wants you to do, how do you intend to make this work? If you don’t have a good plan, he might kill that little lover of yours directly in front of your eyes.”
On the hill close to the small town where the Teng Yong Sect’s people resided in the border region, Mei Chao Bing had transferred all of the gathered energy under the puzzled eyes of Da Hei and Song Mu. As soon as the last bit was given to him, Mei Chao Bing leaned back, rubbing his arms to get rid of the faint pain caused by the overcharge while Da Hei focused on circulating the energy to use it for his cultivation. Seeing as nothing seemed to happen, Song Mu stopped supporting the arrays and hurried over to ask what was going on. Neither of the three had noticed anything happening in the town, completely unaware that the situation they had feared had already come true.
Mei Chao Bing sighed and shook his head. “No matter how I thought about it and what I tried, there was no change. There being more energy didn’t suddenly unlock something and, to be honest, I believe this might be a general issue. It’s not that I can’t do it. It’s that it can’t be done.”
Song Mu raised his brows. He understood in general what the difference between the two was but … “What makes you think so? Your Master should have had this plan for a long time. Would he really make such a mistake? Or has he thought of something else?”
“I believe both are possible.” Mei Chao Bing slowly got to his feet, stretching his limbs and walking a few steps while he continued to explain. “He must have been looking for a way to strengthen himself to a large degree. It makes sense: He was caught between the Wu Yun Sect and the Teng Yong Sect. Both are strong and with neither of them, he can rest assured that he won’t get into a bind.
“If the righteous sects would have found out about him being in contact with the demonic sects, they would have abolished his cultivation in the best case or executed him in the worst case. On the other hand, if the demonic faction were to believe that he had jumped ship and turned from a spy to a genuine member of the righteous sect who was simply taking advantage of them to advance faster, then being killed would be a blessing. The horrors they are able to commit in such a case are unimaginable.
“Now, there is one way out he has: Become strong enough that neither side will easily dare to touch him. When he is the backbone of whichever sect’s side he finally chooses to stay on, what can they do to him? Of course, if he could directly ascend, that would even be better.”
Song Mu furrowed his brows. “So what you’re saying is that he might have been anxious and looked for a possibility to strengthen himself for so long that he finally saw something that wasn’t there?”
Mei Chao Bing inclined his head. “Something along those lines. I mean, it’s not like there isn’t some truth to it: The constitution clearly exists. I simply believe that it isn’t as overpowered as he thought it to be. From what I’ve understood from our attempts today, I can indeed take in any kind of energy and convert it to spiritual energy. That is a major advantage in the cultivation world.
“I could go to a place like the southern chasm or some miasma field or any other place with energy other cultivators fear getting close to and would have all of that energy to myself while simultaneously ensuring that nobody would come to bother me. It’s like … a way to cheat your way to the top because you gain access to resources that others could never touch and there is hardly any risk involved for you.
“At the same time, what I can’t do is take in a big amount of spiritual energy in the way he imagined me to. I see why he would assume so but this should have only been a guess. Most likely, records of the Lin family indicated that all of them were strong contenders among the top figures of their generations.
“It makes sense: With knowledge about the constitution being passed down from parent to child and each new generation drawing on the experience of the previous one, they could hone their use of it to a high standard. From the outside though, that is difficult to judge because you only see one generation after the other take big strides in their cultivation but you don’t know the details. Finally, knowing what they do about how others cultivate, they might have started to believe that the Lin family members were indeed able to take in any and all kinds of energy and a large amount at that.
“My guess would be that another cultivation family or maybe a sect was investigating them, leaving records behind that contained guesses about the exact benefits of their constitution. Maybe they were trying to form an alliance or otherwise get a foot in the door of the Lin family but they wanted to be sure so they gathered all the information they could, accidentally believing some wrong information and obscuring the truth.”
“And that would be what your Master found.” Song Mu nodded slowly, having to admit that what Mei Chao Bing said made sense. “If he continued to investigate the possibility, he might have found other sources that pointed in a similar direction, strengthening his belief that he had found the key to his way out of his predicament.
“Also, it would have been difficult to ascertain whether it was true or not. After all, he first needed to even find a survivor of the family. Who knows how many years that alone took? Then, the blood had already thinned down considerably so there would have always been some doubt whether the people he found simply hadn’t inherited enough of the constitution or whether it was always this way. Yes, the more I think about it, the more I feel that you might be right. Your Master really might have gotten it wrong.”
Da Hei cracked his eyes open as the two of them came to this conclusion. Even though he had mostly focused on assimilating the energy into his own, he had still heard them talk. Now that some of the energy had been dealt with, he had the space of mind to throw in one question that the two of them seemed to have overlooked. “So, if you can’t do what he wants you to do, how do you intend to make this work? If you don’t have a good plan, he might kill that little lover of yours directly in front of your eyes.”
