AIR 136-137

AN: Leave Typos below, and yes I do use Grammarly.

Chapter 136 Sewers Part 2

“Monsters underneath the village?” Chin almost yelled. “Monsters?”

“Calm down Chin, they wouldn’t be monsters, they’d be slimes. And they would be able to-”

“They would be harmful and they would be monsters!” Chin spat.

“You’re throwing a tantrum. It's still up to you at the end of the day, just let me explain exactly what I’m planning to do.”

Chin gave me a long hard look. He was thinking. I generally tried to keep my senses to a bare minimum. It felt invasive to read people’s inner thoughts like that. 

But I didn’t need to glance at Chin’s aura to know what he was thinking. Chin trusted me. He may look old and I may look young, but we both knew it was the opposite. 

I was the old man and he was the young one. He didn’t like change, but he trusted me to not ruin his village. 

“First, this wouldn’t be directly beneath the village, this would be a mile or two down in an intricate cave system. And second, they would be entirely unable to escape from that cavern. I’d make sure of this myself.”

“But why?” Chin grumbled. “Why do all of that? Why not just build a regular set of sewers?”

“This one would be cooler,” I said with a shrug. “And this deals with the waste product while also being able to accommodate stronger cultivators. Remember how Medin has to throw away Nai’s diapers?”

Chin opened his mouth, closed it, and nodded. 

“Waste product is different in different realms. The same as cultivators, foods, and everything else that’s filled up with qi. You can still get fertilizer from the animal dung and Po Pen would still have a business dealing with that, but for human feces, it's best to let it rot beneath the earth. And you can harvest it later on.”

“Harvest it?” Chin asked.

“Yes,” Xi Lu spoke. “In…larger cities, waste products become less of a problem, at least human waste products. But waste still exists in half-eaten foods and spoiled ingredients and such. The richest places just anticipate the waste but the more efficient ones do create labyrinths to compost the qi into something else. That's the most common use for slimes. They’re ambiguous beings with no nature and can consume pretty much anything below their own rank. They’re awful at combat but they would be a source of spirit stones within a few months, maybe a few days if you have the right starting material.”

 “You could finally pay me back,” I added. 

Chin snort-laughed. 

“And they would be able to dig up to the village?”

“I will make sure that isn’t possible,” I replied. 

Xi Lu had been surprised by my suggestion, not because it was unheard of, but because it was common. It was something you saw in celestial sects of the fifteenth rank or under. A sewer system or a rot labyrinth weren’t rare things in existence. Most of the sects between the fifteenth and twelfth ranks had them. 

It was where they would bury their dead or store their broken treasures and poisoned herbs. The idea was for the object and qi to rot and develop a new form, much like how old foods would compost into fresh soil. And it worked. 

The same way the concept of growth could make anything grow, the concept of rot could make anything rot. It would take time but if you prepared the right area almost all dead things, aside from the soul, could be remade into something new. 

Well, you could use the soul as well, as long as you were able to deal with the fallout of trespassing on death’s domain. The celestial death sects could get rather touchy about that, especially when you tried to interfere in high-ranked souls making their way toward the Sea of Death.

But all in all, composting systems that used complex mixtures of death and rot laws were very common in small celestial sects. Even the corpses of God-Imperiums had their uses. 

Chin scratched the newly forming stubble on his beard. 

“Would retrieving the spirit stones be…dangerous?” He asked. 

“Yes,” I answered. “But not very.”

Chin frowned. 

“We wouldn’t need your help every time we wanted to gather these stones?”

No, but they would need Rin Wi’s and the other girl’s help. But Chin didn’t seem to see them the same way he saw me. 

“No, you’d need Rin Wi and the others maybe, but you wouldn’t need me.”

Chin thought for a moment and nodded.

A few more arguments came and after every one of them, Chin seemed a bit more placated. I had promised him my assurance in this endeavor and that I would make sure that the sewer system was completely encased. 

I had some fun ideas planned out for it.

As for digging out the caves, Xi Lu had suggested hiring a sect of earth-based cultivators, but Chin wouldn’t like that idea as it would be too expensive. I offered to cover it, as did Xi Lu. She could make ten decent fifth-rank spirit stones in a matter of hours, but Chin refused. 

Then we settled on another means of digging, one that involved groundhogs and negotiations. 

Chin really didn’t like that idea. He was aware of the beasts and he had even seen them sometimes, but the old man didn’t want anything to do with him. 

Either way, those were all issues for another day. An hour later we had both left the building and were wandering about the edges of the village. 

“So,” Chin grumbled. “What do you think?”

“I think it's about time this place got sewers,” I noted. “I can’t say I enjoyed the human composting process-”

“Stop it,” Chin cut in. “You know what I’m talking about.”

We kept on walking, I put my hands behind my head and looked up the crimson colored sky. The suns were setting, all of them. It was a rare occasion but it happened a few times a year. All seven suns would align at some points. Sometimes it was in the morning, other times it was during noon, but the sunset days were the best ones. 

“I think they make a cute couple Chin. I think it's alright.”

He was silent, staring vaguely at the village as we walked on. 

“Po Pen doesn’t talk,” Chin spoke. “He can, but most of the time he’d rather be quiet and let others speak for him. He used to get pushed around and bullied. I did my best and I’m damn happy about who he is now, but the boy is too… willing. He can’t say no. I was… I assumed that might be what was happening here. I assumed he might just be accepting it out of convenience rather than desire.”

“Oh no Chin, he loves her.”

“Does he now?” Chin asked. 

“And she loves him,” I added. 

Chin was silent and turned his head from the village to the bleeding sky. 

“I trust ya,” Chin finally grumbled. 

“You should trust Po Pen and Xi Lu. She’s not stupid Chin, she’s aware of the differences between them. All the maidens understand the difference between them and the villagers. That’s why she taught him how to cultivate.”

“I just hope the village takes it fine. Medin will be happy at least and I suppose Rin and the girls already know about this,” he said. 

“Probably,” I replied. 

“Change is tiresome.”

“Yes,” I replied. “It is.”

Chapter 137 INTERLUDE- DANE

Suffering was a constant. You could not escape it, this was what Dane had learned in his ten years of cultivation. 

He looked to his left and saw the numerous bodies sprawled out in a line. 

They had died.

He had killed them.

He hadn’t meant for that to happen. He hadn’t wanted it. It was just… a byproduct. An unfortunate result. 

His stomach pushed and hurled out its contents onto the floor. Dane collapsed, trying, begging his insides to stay together. 

He was strong in the small moments of war. He was able to kill, to cut, to raze his opponents low. 

It was always easier then, in those moments to cut down thinking flesh into unthinking things. It felt inevitable. It felt like a certainty. It was him or them. Death had come and it would not leave empty-handed, so Dane clenched his sword and offered up a sacrifice. 

He puked.

His stomach was empty. He tried not to eat much before a fight, but this one had surprised him. They were assassins hired to specifically take him out. 

Their bodies were cut with precision and the blood spray hit the walls and the outer carpets of the room, but had stayed clear of Dane’s area. In a neat oval circle in the center of the room squatted Dane, holding his stomach and begging for reprieve. He could see the blood leaking closer from the corner of his eyes. 

The human body contains about one to two gallons of blood. There had been ten opponents. They had each been cut open and blood was running from their bodies like red from a broken wine sack. 

An oil of regret surrounded by a growing ocean of death. 

He stumbled around his pockets, searching for something. He tried to stay clean, making sure the still slimy spit from his mouth stayed off his clothes. A moment later, he found it. 

A ring. 

With slightly trembling fingers, he grabbed the metallic thing and put it on, and finally-

Silence.

Apathy consumed him. Desire fell into nothingness and the disgust he felt mere moments ago turned foreign. 

Killing had always sat wrong with him. He hated it. Even now, when he was devoid of feeling at this moment, it still felt like a waste. Seconds ago he had slaughtered and a few seconds after that he had hated it. 

Now, even with a treasured artifact made for a fifth-rank being, he still felt distaste. Dane told himself that it was mere disgust at the sight of wasted lives, but a part of him, the small, screaming, caring part of his soul cried out in sadness. 

These were people, it would have said. They were alive and they cared and they thought, kill if you must but mourn their deaths. 

Dane frowned. This had always been an issue, something he could never overcome. In the moment of battle, it was easy, but inside, he was still a boy, a child. Every man he killed broke him a little, every mortal he saw in distress hurt him a little. 

One should care, it was human. One should love as well, but this? This bleeding heart of his would get him killed one day. That was a fact. 

Why should he cry for those who tried to kill him? Why should he suffer over others' misfortunes? Pain was a constant in this world, it had always been and would always be. 

For him to care so much, for him to feel, it didn’t make sense. It wasn’t practical. 

He felt different now. With the ring on, the feelings he had felt mere moments ago felt strange. The person he had been without the ring felt broken. 

How did he ever manage to take it off last time?

Dane, the past Dane, that is, was a scholar. He was a man who sought knowledge on enchantments and array. He sought to understand the world and marvel at its beauty. He was young, only nineteen or so, and already at the third rank. 

That might have been common throughout the empire, but for a village orphan with no family or support, it was almost a miracle. Many wanted him in their sects and many had tried to kill him.

Each time he evaded them, each time he fought them off.

Dane looked towards the corpses. They had been cut with kindness. His past self had aimed for an immediate death, cutting at their most vital organs, causing as little pain as he could, and making sure not to damage their face for identification. 

They had family after all. They had people who cared for them back in their sects, and though he had to kill them he could at least spare their families the trauma of seeing their pierced through face. 

He had stabbed them through their hearts, organs, arteries, and any other thing that would do them in quickly. He was stronger than them, but not so much stronger that he could shatter their cultivation. 

They had overwhelmed him, attacked him from all angels and he could only wave his sword and cut them down.

Dane scoffed.

Unnecessary kindness. All of it. They were the enemy, why spare them? Why be kind?

That was what the current Dane thought. That was what he saw when he stared at the nearly empty corpses near him. 

His hand moved and a gust of flames devoured the vomit in the middle of the room. 

He thought about burning the bodies and the building entirely, but he still felt some level of disgust at the unnecessary waste. He didn’t like killing, even if it was needed. And even if he burned the building down the sects that had sent those men would know who was responsible.

There would be no confusion about their deaths. 

He took a step and he leaped through the window, then he took another and ran through the village in silence. He was a cold wind in the night, moving but unnoticed. 

The ring felt like a stone on his finger, like a weight on his soul. It kept something at bay, something that had poisoned him and kept his mind polluted for far too long. 

He would not take it off take it off easily this time.

Empathy, it had its place. It was natural, good even. But Dane was smart, if he cared for something, then he would do so with his whole being. If he had to be good, he would be so with his whole being. 

What use was a life lived in half decits? What use was a heart that chose when it felt? If he wanted the world to be better, then he would have to make it so with all of his being. If he cared for one man he would care for all, that was the nature of Dane. 

This was an illness, a heart so big it would devour all the other organs and let itself die. Dane did not seek the burdens of the righteous path nor was he one of the demonic. He wanted to live tempering his knowledge and caring for his art. 

At least he wanted that now. Dao knew what would happen if Dane took off the ring. He might hate it, he might throw it away. 

Dane couldn’t allow that. He had to stop this mindset. He had to fix his soul. 

He looked and turned to the mountains in the distance. 

Soul arts, something of the demonic sects. He would find them and he would take their cold nature. Bit by bit, he would temper his heart.