Chương 64: Chapter 63 – Bees?

Ren's pilgrimage was reaching its culmination. Although he felt that he still had much to observe and learn from the 5th challenge and the people around him, opportunities waited for no one. He hurriedly bid farewell even as the fluctuations from his dantian quickened. He needed to find a secluded place to break through. He jumped onto his flying sword and took off to find an appropriate spot. Even if he engaged the fastest speeds of his sword, he wouldn't make it back to his mountain in time.

Not to mention he would arrive almost drained of qi, which wouldn't help matters with his breakthrough. He flew some distance before circling to find a quiet spot, rich in qi. He landed in a deep valley that met his needs. Tens of amber rods flew out of his spatial pouch and set up concealing arrays.

During a breakthrough when the cultivator was preoccupied with their cultivation, they naturally couldn't spare any attention towards hiding the abnormal signs and fluctuations and would rely on external help such as arrays. Ren dug a small cave and further hid it using illusion arrays. By that time, his dantian had undergone rapid changes already. As a final touch, he placed qi gathering arrays and sat down to meditate.

He drew his senses inward until he perceived his agitated spiritual sea, which was crashing against the walls of his dantian, with flecks of gold shimmering on the surface. The Fire of Life was pulsating with his heartbeat. But something was different. Normally, he could only see the reinforced Karmic Strands that looked like extremely thin golden strands emerging from the Fire of Life and heading outwards. Now there was a shimmering golden cloud all around the tiny flame!

Worried, Ren looked closer and saw that the cloud was actually just countless ephemeral strands that faded in and out of sight. Among those, occasionally a strand would solidify to the same extent as the Karmic Strand constructs.

"Are those…? No! It's too soon! This was only supposed to happen near the peak of the foundation establishment realm…" He almost couldn't believe his eyes. What he was observing were no simple qi constructs meant to represent karmic connections. Those ephemeral strands were actual karmic connections! A terrifying natural force that he wasn't supposed to be capable of even seeing under normal circumstances.

"Maybe it's because the breakthrough is temporarily allowing me to see the real thing? But that still doesn't explain why I'm seeing this so early?" Ren's manual, the Causality of Karma, had been pieced together by him on his own, so there were many sections open to interpretation, but not this particular part! He frantically tried to recall the lines.

"When one is enmeshed with the world, one may perceive the chains tying them to the earth. The spool winds the tempered chains into brilliant flame." Sections like this had frustrated Ren endlessly to the point of wanting to tear out his hair, but through careful study and with the context of the surrounding passages, he had placed this stage near the peak of the foundation realm, when the number of connections had reached a sufficient number and upon nearing core formation.

"The number of connections. That must be it!" Perhaps this was happening now because he had reached the number of connections far earlier than he was supposed to! While Ren was forming these theories, the Fire of Life was starting to shrink and grow repeatedly. Ren went over his recent experiences and came up with a possible explanation. He had set out to visit all his challenges in order, and it had transformed into something resembling a ritualistic pilgrimage.

Rituals could be crude and arbitrary, but intent played an important role, and that gave them power. With each challenge he visited, he had unknowingly stimulated the karmic connections he formed through them by thinking deeply about the impact of his actions. That's why his qi had been acting strangely all day! How such a thing was possible, Ren couldn't explain, but the results spoke for themselves.

After visiting all five challenges, the enormous number of connections he had formed, most likely positive, had started to appear and crowd around the Fire of Life construct. The energy continued to build, and cracks started to form on his dantian. This time, Ren couldn't just passively watch his breakthrough happen by itself. He focused on holding together his dantian and patching the cracks with qi. The tiny sun was pulsating so rapidly that it just looked like a brilliant ball of flame.

Under its light, most of the cloud of strands faded entirely, but without his prompting, 4 strands solidified on their own and joined the Karmic strand constructs! Before Ren could even start to worry about what that meant, he remembered the main reason he had decided to visit the challenges in the first place! It had entirely slipped his mind that he had wanted help to come to a decision about severing the strand that was bringing him karmic sin or keeping it until he broke through.

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"It's a little late for that now." Ren lamented.

"I waited too long, and the choice has been made for me. But the least I can do is watch carefully and verify my suspicions." Ren was starting to strain to hold together his dantian as the energy built to a peak. With a final flash, the Fire of Life stabilized, giving off a sense of implacable weight. Ren watched carefully so as to not miss a single change. The strange energy emerged from the tiny flame and raced down all the karmic strands, including the 4 new ones.

He tried to memorize the warm and pleasant feeling of that energy, but this time there was a chill that penetrated down to his bones. As the energy raced outward, he noticed on one strand it was extremely faint, and for the first time, a different energy was approaching from the distance and heading towards his fire of will. It was that energy that gave him the unpleasant sensation of clammy cold. He watched it sink into the Fire of Will, which dimmed and flickered oddly for an instant before returning to normal.

The satisfaction of proving a theory was completely drowned out by the consequences he had just accepted. That foul energy that sunk into his flame was the twisted mirror of the energy that emerged from the flame. Through some process that yet remained a mystery to him, the Fire of Life construct was concentrating Karmic Merit, both positive and negative. It answered some questions and raised many more. At long last, he knew how the balance was being maintained.

His cultivation involved absorbing small portions of merit from others, but in compensation, he returned an even smaller quantity of… purified? Higher order? Concentrated energy or providence? He didn't know what to call it, but it was something his connected counterparts would otherwise have very little chance of encountering, if ever. But then why did he receive refined sin from that one connection? Shouldn't he have sent it back out instead? Did it follow different rules?

What did it mean for him now that he had absorbed it? If the enhanced providence had allowed him to come in contact with many fortuitous encounters and ensured a smooth cultivation without any bottlenecks, then what would the opposite be? Would they balance each other out? He fervently hoped they would. As worried as he was, his thoughts receded to the back of his mind as qi washed through his body.

As the impurities were pushed out, his body was flooded with that incomparable bliss he only felt during a breakthrough. It's no wonder that cultivators chased that addictive feeling with all their might. Slowly the qi trickled back into his dantian, which was looking rather poorly after the difficult breakthrough to the 4th layer and thus the middle stages of the foundation establishment realm. All thoughts of celebration were replaced by the foul scent burning his nostrils as Ren opened his eyes.

In his rush to set up the important formations, he had forgotten the non-vital but extremely useful formation to clean up the impurities.

"Why does this always happen?!" Ren moaned as he stripped. He threw out more array flags and waited as the array worked to erase all signs of the black gunk. It was hard to believe the qi-rich food he ate still added so many impurities to his body. If it weren't for his body cultivation, it would have been present in even greater quantities! Once he was clean, he dressed and emerged from the small cave. He retrieved his array flags and looked up at the rising sun.

The gentle light of the sun was slowly creeping across the valley below him, illuminating the bright green of the treetops. It was a beautiful morning, and his body was thrumming with new strength. Leaning into the urge, he stretched his body and started running. Cultivation increased body strength without improving durability much, but combined with his body cultivation, Ren had nothing to fear as he raced through the dense forests. His strides were covering ground at a prodigious rate.

While not as fast as his flying sword, the pleasure of approaching those speeds just by exerting his muscles and tendons was unmatched. His breaths were like bellows, and his heart was pumping furiously. He ran, relying on his senses to avoid obstacles and low branches, but he hit a patch of loose soil, and his legs flew out from under him. He tumbled down a small hill, crashing through thin trees until he came to a rest at the base.

Even his toughened body wasn't impervious to impacts at such speeds and was covered in bruises and small cuts. He groaned, a little disoriented as he got up. When Ren's eyes finally focused, he didn't know whether to laugh or to cry at his luck. He had fallen right through a patch of thorny vines into a hidden alcove. Right before his eyes was a massive hive of bright blue bees, each one the size of his finger! They weren't ordinary insects but rather spirit beasts or gu, as insect types were referred to.

The hive was mildly agitated by his intrusion, and their droning hum was increasing in volume. Unsure of just how dangerous they were, Ren resorted to his control technique, the Intermediate Insect Control. The rhythmic waves he released were enough to subdue the hive. Ren knew that in most cases of gu that lived in hives, there was one particular king or queen that commanded the others. He just needed to find it and bring it under his control, and the hive would be his.

Deep in the hive that was taller than him, he found a brilliant blue insect, larger than all the others around it. He followed the technique and immersed it in the rhythmic waves of his qi until he felt the faint connection that meant he had succeeded. The hum that was starting to pierce his hearing slowly quietened.

"Great. I've obtained control over a qi gathering realm hive of gu. What now?" Ren hadn't planned on it, but he was also reluctant to simply release them now. The unlucky fall with a happy conclusion felt like a fated encounter, and those should never be taken lightly. One of the bees landed on his palm, and he carefully scrutinized it. His divine sense told him each bee was weak individually, but together, they were a formidable force, as he had just experienced.

"They must also be using enhanced sound as a weapon. That droning hum wasn't ordinary. Also, the long stinger likely means they have venom." Ren spent a few hours studying the hive before a wicked idea popped into his head. He was already planning to set up more challenges in the outer sect on this venture, so why not include a spontaneous one?

"Yes! Those would make for the perfect rewards! Perhaps a rescue array? Hmm..." Ren's creative side emerged in full as he considered the arrays he knew and the best pairings to create a proper challenge around a new central concept. The concept? Bees!