The Magistrate: Chapter 55

Chapter 55

Techniques, Spells, and Cultivation Methods

Tobias looked into cultivation techniques and spells for growing food, like Lingling asked, but quickly reached a dead end. There were techniques that would cause the roots of trees to burst from the ground and wrap around your enemy. These roots grew in size until the person was crushed to death. This made it seem like growing food would be a simple matter, but the tree always died within a few days. Much of its nutrition was lost, and its biology was scrambled by the accelerated growth, making the plant extremely toxic. This trait appeared with all techniques and spells which showed immediate results.

When Tobias looked deeper, he found ways to accelerate plant growth to produce food safely, but they were chi-intensive methods, and nothing Tobias found could get around this limitation, not in a way that would save the nation from the famine that had gripped it. If all the core realm cultivators were willing to help, it would have been a simple matter, but they were too busy with the war.

Near the end of Summer, Tobias sat in his dojo examining his sixty-two disciples. The trial period was still ongoing, but the ones that sat before him had already passed every test he'd given them. Tobias had been curious to see whether further education could play a role in talent, so he had retested the guards who had failed to demonstrate the talent necessary to become disciples during their original one hundred days. To his surprise, six showed an increase in their talent, held back because their education was so poor that they did not understand even simplified concepts.

Tobia summoned teachers from all over the state to correct this mistake, and now all of his guards and disciples were receiving a thorough education on every topic he could imagine. These classes were already showing him that turning his people into guards was a waste of their potential.

Tobias finished examining his disciples and made a note in his ledger. His original disciples now had six open and cleansed greater body meridians and were showing vast improvements in their overall health. There were no traces of their former weakness, and they had begun to develop the thin cultivator physique. The new disciples had each been given golden pills to fully open and cleanse their stomach meridians and were no longer sickly.

Unlike Tobias, the rate at which his original disciples recovered from opening and cleansing a meridian had drastically increased with each opened and cleansed meridian. They did not have to go through the physical trauma of transformations like he had with his divine pills, so as their bodies grew stronger, the length of their recovery shortened. They would always be physically inferior to cultivators or those with higher divinity who awoke their cultivation through pills, but they would likely be able to perform the roles he needed them to and much sooner than he'd expected.

Tobias looked up from his ledger. "Each of you has shown significant talent when it comes to cultivation. This talent is greatly limited by your divinity. Until you reach the initiate realm, you will not be able to sense and manipulate chi within your bodies. Until you reach the foundation realm, you will not be able to manipulate chi outside your body. For this reason and this reason alone, I have purchased the golden pills you require to reach the initiate realm."

The disciples awkwardly cupped their hands before them and bowed at the waist. They were clearly grateful but did not understand how they should react.

"Despite my generosity, this academy will be a meritocracy. Your progress in cultivation beyond reaching the initiate realm will be determined by your understanding of cultivation and your ability to show and teach this understanding to others. For this reason, each of you will begin your journey as a disciple of the Cultivation Academy. The title of disciple holds no respect or honour. This is because a disciple has no purpose other than learning. A disciple cannot pay back the resources they consume. They are like babies, only capable of draining time for all those around them but bringing joy with each new success."

Tobias let them contemplate his words for a moment.

All cultivators were respected individuals, so Tobias was spitting in the face of tens of thousands of years of tradition by telling them that them being cultivators meant nothing in his academy. His comparison to babies was not wrong. They were nothing but a drain on his time and resources. That wouldn't change until they were ready to contribute.

"Your time as disciples will not end until you master my teachings, but your journey to mastering my teachings will earn you the many pills you need to reach the foundation realm. Once you have mastered my teachings and reached the foundation realm, you will become a professor. A professor is one worthy of professing what I have shared with you in my place. It is an honourable position and one worthy of great respect."

Tobias was intentionally setting the bar low for reaching the foundation realm because all of his disciples were utterly useless as cultivation instructors without being able to manipulate chi outside their bodies. Tobias didn't need professors who could regurgitate his knowledge. He needed a professor who could practice it, show it to others, and correct any mistakes they made. Only then would they have the bare minimum to begin easing his workload and studying to help him research core realm cultivation.

"If a professor is the end of your journey, I will be disappointed in you, because each of you has the talent to join me as a scholar. A scholar is not only capable of understanding my teachings but also of using them to expand the cultivation world's understanding of cultivation. I expect that many among the faces I see here will one day have names as renowned and respected as my own. And that you will all do your best to bring honour to this academy."

The disciples all cupped their hands before them and bowed.

***

Majordomo Wo slid open the door to Tobias's study and entered, stopping before his desk to bow respectfully, because a servant was sitting quietly in the corner of the room. Majordomo Wo carried a ledger under one arm and a tired expression on his face. "Patriarch, I have the accounts you asked for."

Tobias finished his notes on statistical analysis and set down his brush. The cultivation world lacked understanding of the scientific method and statistical analysis, so if he wanted his disciples to learn these skills, he needed to write them down. This had been an ongoing project since he'd confirmed that making a cultivation academy was possible, and it would continue for years to come. There were so many ideas and concepts that needed to be explained for people to do what he could do, and teaching them in person would be far too time-consuming.

Tobias looked up. "How much did the pills cost me?"

Sourcing enough golden pills to have almost six hundred disciples to reach the foundation realm was always going to be insanely expensive, but Tobias had a treasure trove of core and nascent soul realm items to sell. Due to the fact that they were in the middle of a war, these items were far more valuable.

Majordomo Wo placed the ledger in front of him. "Nothing. The Great Clans needed those talismans, weapons, and arrays even more than we thought. They also had a much larger stockpile of golden pills than we suspected."

Tobias frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Elder Xi ran the numbers for me. With their failure rates, there is no way they could have produced so many golden pills since the war began. He suggested they may have been stockpiling them for rapid expansion at a future date."

"That seems horrendously expensive and impossible unless they have a way to store pills indefinitely."

"Powering your vault artifact is only expensive because you don't have a core realm cultivator to supply it with chi, Patriarch. The Great Clans do not suffer this limitation. As for storing pills indefinitely, it doesn't require me to stretch my imagination to believe they could do so or that they would prefer to keep it secret."

Tobias agreed. "Do you know why they haven't deployed these resources?"

"Who said they haven't deployed them?"

"The fact that my disciples and guards can reach the foundation realm would suggest otherwise."

"Higher realm pills are always scarce. These are better used to enhance promising soldiers rather than creating them from scratch."

"A foundation realm soldier isn't anything to scoff at."

"I agree, but there is also a much larger pool of candidates for the foundation realm, which takes longer for you to decide who is worthy of receiving them."

"They've had more than a year."

"Who knows how many of these pills they had in storage."

"True." Tobias flipped the page to the accounts receivable section. "What are these entries?"

"Those are the outstanding pills you are owed. The bidding on your nascent soul realm items was quite fierce, and the Great Clans began offering higher realm pills. The fact these pills haven't arrived is what makes me believe that the Great Clans have been deploying their stockpiles."

"The number of pills I see here is significantly more than we needed."

"You did tell me to sell all the equipment. I believe your exact words were they are doing no one any good sitting in my vault."

Tobias flipped through the rest of the ledger before looking up. "With my disciples cultivating, there is no immediate need to decide what we should do with the excess pills. We'll leave them in storage for now."

"Elder Xi has expressed an interest in some of your relations who show promise as gatherers. I believe he would appreciate having a few more cultivators in the foundation realm to help with their more delicate spirit herbs."

"You mean that he has noticed how many rare herbs have found their way into my family's garden and is growing concerned by how profitable his deal has become for us."

"I would not be so bold, Patriarch."

The vast majority of Cloud Sect's gatherers had once been peasants or farmers, so it wasn't a surprise that his family had shown similar levels of skill. What was a surprise was that a few of them stood out, showing actual talent for the work.

"Our agreement was for dealing with mortal and initiate realm spirit herbs. If Cloud Sect want us to work with foundation realm spirit herbs, they will have to negotiate."

"It seems like a good opportunity for your family to develop further skills."

"Copying what someone else does without understanding why you are doing so is not learning. My family can tend to initiate realm herbs, but they do not understand why they do what they do yet. Pushing them to work with foundation realm spirit herbs will cause their studies to stagnate."

Majordomo Wo frowned. "I didn't realise you were so aware of what was going on in the spirit gardens."

Tobias chuckled. "Farmers like to complain about their crops, so every meal I share with my relations revolves around little else. Believe me, they aren't ready to move on."

"Many of them would disagree."

Tobias frowned. "Have they said something?"

"The servants have informed me that many of them feel that they are ready for more difficult challenges."

Tobias sighed. "Speak with Elder Xi. Have him work with the gatherers to prepare a comprehensive test of their skills. If some of them pass, I'll reevaluate the situation."

"To my knowledge, gatherers are not tested on their skills, only their knowledge of spirit herbs."

Tobias thought that was ridiculous. "How do they progress their craft then?"

"Those with more knowledge usually teach them more, from what I understand."

Tobias groaned. "That's a foolish way to teach."

"The cultivation world does not share your feelings on this matter."

"Are there techniques used by gatherers?"

"Many."

"Are they written down?"

"No. They are not considered true techniques."

Tobias was about to groan again, but then he had an idea. He'd been looking for a better way to test Xu Ling's comprehension of his methods. Having her study spirit herb gathering and its techniques to build exercises and tests would let him know how well she understood what he'd taught her. She could easily digest the information in cultivation manuals, but this was something quite different.

Tobias began to smile. "Inform Xu Ling that her master has a task for her."

***

Tobias walked through Cloud Sect's industrial spirit gardens with his hands clasped behind his back, trying not to smile. Encouraging Cloud Sect's gatherers to produce spirit herbs for pills so they could purchase property or pills for their family had led to an explosion in the sect's productivity. Elder Xi walked beside him, nodding to the different disciples tending the garden. Xu Ling worked among them, chatting to those she liked, trying to piece together how gatherers operated so she could build a framework to test their comprehension.

"I'm sure you didn't invite me here to check on my family," Tobias eventually said as they began their second lap.

Elder Xi nodded. "Are you aware of the chi transformation that occurred upon the 2nd Emperor's death?"

"I'm aware that chi saturation initially doubled in most high chi areas throughout The Three Kingdoms and that this chi has slowly been leaking into the areas devoid of chi."

"Spirit herbs have been appearing in the Cloud Mountains that have not been seen since before the Great Plague. The sect plans to send expeditions to collect them, so we can rebuild our capabilities. These expeditions will cause our disciples to have to split their focus between tending their existing gardens and learning to care for their new ones."

"Cloud Sect wishes my family to assist in easing this burden."

Elder Xi nodded.

Even without this new expedition, it was clear that Cloud Sect needed help. Tobias knew these gardens and these spirit herbs. While they were still being adequately cared for, they were not being cared for as well as they had been in the past. Enlightenment was at fault. Too many disciples had gained new insights and returned to cultivation, finding their path no longer blocked. Some had been repositioned to join the war effort, leaving far too few behind to care for everything. The rest had been practising their exercises to improve their skills in order to open and cleanse more meridians once they could afford the general pills.

"I must apologise, but in this matter, my family is not ready to help you."

Elder Xi frowned. "Majordomo Wo suggested you were open to the idea."

"Xu Ling has informed me of the delicate chi manipulations that must be performed upon foundation realm spirit herbs. This is usually learned through trial and error with the oversight of an elder. There will be no elders overseeing my family, so they will cause too much harm as they try to assist. Such actions would reflect poorly on my family."

Elder Xi manipulated his aura, enclosing them in a soundproof bubble. "These gardens are the lifeblood of those at the end of their path. Cloud Sect does not care about them, but I do. I would consider it a favour if you assisted me in this matter."

Tobias looked at his old assistant. "You know I consider you a friend."

"I know this."

"As your friend, I am telling you that my family will do more harm than good in this matter. My grandfather and cousin Lu are the only members of my family with sufficient gathering skills to assist you within a year, but that year will require them to devote themselves to study and training. They do not have the skills to control the chi that will flow within them once they reach the foundation realm. And I'm not willing to endanger those around them to save some spirit herbs."

"Then give me those two."

Tobias froze. "You're that desperate?"

"Look around you."

Tobias paused, sensing the purity of the chi in the air around him. It was very close to becoming toxic for the spirit herbs, but the sect didn't have enough disciples to keep the purity at a safer level. The gatherers were doing everything they could, but there weren't enough cultivators to maintain this garden and the others. They were all off fighting in the war.

"I'll speak with them."

***

Later that night, Tobias sat in his grandfather's glass house, sipping freshly grown tea. The once-sickly little plants now thrived in the high-altitude environment, reinforced each day by his grandfather's chi. Thanks to Tobias's looking into growing food, the old man could now produce a small supply of fresh tea whenever he wished and was constantly manipulating his plants to change the flavour.

His grandfather's hesitation to pursue cultivation vanished once he understood its practical uses. He'd then voluntarily chosen to work with the family gatherers to further his understanding of these techniques and had rapidly become the most skilled among them. He had no interest in spirit herbs, only in learning the techniques that would help him care for his tea plants.

Grandpa Finch lowered his cup, sighing contentedly. "If I were to help Elder Xi on your behalf, would you be willing to create a cultivation method for me?"

Tobias frowned, wondering what sort of notions the old man had gotten in his head. "That's not a small request. It's also not necessary for the work you'll be doing."

"I know that. The cultivation method would be based around enhancing my ability to grow tea."

Tobias forced himself to take a calming breath. "A true cultivation path is not something to pursue lightly, and it's certainly not something you should pursue to grow tea."

"I'm not a fool, Tobias," Grandpa Finch snapped. "I've studied your manuscripts. I understand that our family practices a neutral form of cultivation. I also understand that pursuing a proper cultivation method, one which requires resources, enhances you in specific ways, like growing tea."

Tobias could see the fire burning in the old man. It wasn't the fiery passion of a cultivator who was seeking immortality, but the passion of a man in pursuit of his purpose. "What did you have in mind?" 

Grandpa Finch climbed off his stool and went to a shelf in the corner. He came back and handed Tobias the Holy Gatherer Cultivation Manual. "This manual intrigues me."

Tobias had read the manual years ago. A gatherer had tried to cobble together a method for cultivating chi directly from spirit herbs through her body meridians. Her intent was to enhance her ability to work with them. This had worked to some degree before ending disastrously.

Tobias sighed. "Her method is fundamentally flawed."

"In what way?"

"When she changed her body meridians to absorb the chi directly from spirit herbs, she began a process that caused them to become toxic."

"How so?"

"There are impurities in all chi, and some of these impurities can become toxic when combined with others. The stomach meridian is unique among the body meridians as an entry point into the body meridian network because it breaks down these impurities like energy meridians and does not allow them to pass into your body's meridian network. Over time, her method makes your body meridians contaminated, unstable, and then toxic, eventually resulting in chi deviation."

"She claims to have been a peerless gatherer, and all plants answered her call."

"She was for a time. Absorbing chi through all meridians drastically increased how much chi you have access to and how spirit herbs respond to you, but then your meridians became toxically contaminated. Before she died, she killed every spirit herb she came into contact with."

"That's unfortunate. I was hoping to breed a version of Three Town's Tea that would generate chi."

Tobias didn't have a clue why the old man would want to do something like that. "Just because something absorbs and releases chi doesn't make it useful."

"It does when you can cultivate that plant's chi and use it to enhance more plants like it."

Tobias groaned, realising his grandfather must have only skimmed his manuscripts. "That's not how it works."

"It did for her."

"She was working with spirit herbs, and she poisoned herself."

"Are you saying it's impossible?"

"It's possible, but entirely unnecessary. Three Towns Tea is a mortal plant. You don't need to be intrinsically linked to mortal plants to help them grow better. What you need to do is practice a cultivation method that harnesses wood chi. Wood chi resonates with all plants, increasing the effectiveness of the chi you channel to them. This is why all the best gatherers are wood chi cultivators."

"I want to grow tea, not spirit herbs."

Tobias tried not to groan again. "Spirit herbs are plants. They are a lot more complex than mortal plants, so a cultivation method that makes it easier for you to care for and grow spirit herbs will make it easier for you to care for and grow tea plants."

"Why would it do that?"

Tobias lowered his assumption about how much his grandpa had read of his work and decided to assume it was only the titles. "When you were practising lifting weights, did it make you better at lifting those weights or all heavy objects?"

"All heavy objects, but more so for whatever muscles you were targeting. Which would suggest a cultivation method for mortal plants would be better?"

"Mortal plants are not something a cultivator struggles to grow."

His grandfather folded his arms. "I find keeping the contents of my glass house up to my standards quite difficult."

"That's because you don't practice a wood chi cultivation method or one that drastically boosts the chi you have access to."

"You said I needed to practice something which attunes me to spirit herbs."

"Spirit herbs are more complex than mortal plants, so the more attuned you are to them, the more attuned to mortal plants you will be."

"But not as attuned as I would be if I practised a method that attuned me to mortal plants."

"Practising a cultivation method requires cultivation materials to strengthen your body and meridians. You can't do that with mortal plants. So yes, you will initially be more attuned to mortal plants by practising such a method, but eventually you will not be as attuned as someone who practised a method which attuned them to spirit herbs, because you will not be able to grow your cultivation."

Grandpa Finch's mouth dropped open, signalling that he finally understood. A second later, it snapped closed. "I still like her method."

"I do too. Her theory was mostly right. She just didn't understand that while you can attune a meridian to some spirit herbs to enhance your ability to work with them, you can't attune that meridian to all of them."

Tobias reached out his hand.

His grandpa scowled. "You're a little old for handholding."

"I want my manual back. It's the only copy I have, which is why you're not supposed to remove it from the library. How did you get it anyway?"

"I told your servants you said I could borrow it."

Tobias groaned. "Now I need to go and talk to my servants."

"Are you going to make me a cultivation method?"

"I'm going to look into it."