Chương 166: A Trade?

I made my way toward Madame Butterfly while she was speaking with another guild member, her expression made it clear she found the exchange about as interesting as watching paint dry, so my timing was actually rather good. I approached carefully, stopped at a respectful distance, and waited for her to notice me. It took less time than I expected. Whatever else could be said about Madame Butterfly, her awareness of her surroundings was impressive; she turned to face me before I had even properly begun my bow.

"Ah, Chen Yong's new project," she said, and her smile had edges to it.

"Come to give up already?"

"Actually," I said, completing the bow, "this junior was hoping to seek some guidance about inner world theory." Her eyebrows moved up slightly.

"And what makes you think I would spend my time on something so basic?" I hesitated. I had not wanted to step into whatever complicated situation existed between her and Elder Chen Yong, but I was running out of options, and desperate situations required using whatever tools were available.

"Because," I said, "I could put in a good word with Elder Chen Yong on your behalf." Her expression went cold immediately.

"And why exactly would I care about that foolish drunk's opinion of anything?"

"Well," I continued, doing my best to ignore every instinct I had that was currently screaming at me to stop talking, "I've noticed how friendly you tend to be with him..." I let the sentence trail off since I knew she would understand what I meant. Her eyes narrowed dangerously, and the temperature around us dropped. I suddenly understood that while butterflies were beautiful, when the situation called for it, they could also be predators.

Though, even accounting for how unpredictable high-level cultivators could be, it would be bizarre for a Life Realm cultivator from another sect to do anything drastic to a Qi Condensation cultivator, especially given her complicated relationship with my master." Friendly," she repeated.

"You are either very brave or very foolish." Then her expression shifted into something almost amused.

"Perhaps I'll humour you for a while, little observer. If nothing else, you've made what was becoming a very dull afternoon somewhat more interesting. So what do you actually want to know?" I held back the sigh of relief that wanted to come out. So far so good.

"I was hoping to learn about the development of inner worlds beyond the Stellar Realm," I said.

"My, my." She regarded me with greater interest.

"Ambitious for someone at your level, aren't we? Though I suppose that's not surprising from one of Chen Yong's strays. He does have a habit of collecting interesting cases." I waited because in my experience the best way to get information out of powerful cultivators was to let them arrive at the decision to share it themselves rather than trying to pull it out of them.

"Tell me," she continued, "why does a Qi Condensation cultivator need knowledge this advanced?"

"I wouldn't say need, exactly," I said, choosing my words carefully. I wanted her to see me as an overly enthusiastic student, not someone with an urgent reason for asking.

"But understanding higher realms helps build stronger foundations. How can you properly lay the groundwork for something without knowing what the structure above it will require?"

"Hmm." She tapped one finger against her chin slowly.

"A reasonable argument, almost convincing even, but you're not the first junior cultivator to try this approach." I stayed quiet and waited because there was something in her tone that felt like she was building toward something.

"Most don't even make it past the library's restrictions," she continued.

"Fewer still think to try the Formation Guild, and only a very small number would actually come and ask me directly."

"This junior apologizes if…" She waved that off before I could finish.

"Spare me the formalities. We both know you're not actually sorry. What interests me is why you're willing to take these risks for this information." I thought about how to handle that question because lying to someone at her level would be a waste of time and effort, she'd see through it before I finished the sentence, so a partial truth seemed like the better route.

"I've noticed inconsistencies in how inner world theory gets taught," I said.

"Information that's conspicuously absent, topics that seem to be deliberately obscured, and it makes me want to understand what's being left out and why."

"Clever," she said with a sharp smile.

"Though perhaps not quite as clever as you think you are. Did it occur to you that some knowledge gets restricted for good reasons?"

"Of course. But usually the restriction itself is acknowledged. The fact that something is being withheld is at least mentioned, even if the content isn't shared. With this topic, it feels as though someone removed any sign it ever existed." Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"And if that's exactly what happened?" Her left eyebrow raised.

"If that information was removed because every single cultivator below the Life Realm who learned it went insane? If their inner worlds twisted into something that had to be destroyed?" I went quiet for a moment. That was not the direction I had expected this conversation to go.

"I see that got your attention," she said, her smile cold now.

"Knowledge is not always power, little cultivator. Sometimes it's poison. Sometimes it cuts the person holding it as badly as anyone else. And sometimes a truth burns away everything you thought was solid and leaves nothing worth keeping." There was a pause while I absorbed that, and then her tone switched back to something almost light.

"But since you're clearly determined about this, perhaps we can come to an arrangement." In my experience, when cultivators at this level used the word arrangement, it was usually a good sign that you should start looking for the nearest exit. Still, I had expected something like this. No one at her level gave anything away without receiving something in return, and that kind of trade only became more common higher up the cultivation ranks.

"What kind of arrangement?" I asked.

"Nothing too demanding," she said, her smile turning innocent, which somehow made it more unsettling than her previous expressions.

"A small retrieval task, well within what a Qi Condensation cultivator can handle." I had a strong feeling this small retrieval task was going to involve fighting through large numbers of spiritual beasts while also avoiding some kind of ancient formation trap and probably weather that was trying to kill me specifically.

"What does the task involve?"

"The Moonlit Dew Flower," she said, as though that explained everything. When I showed neither recognition nor visible fear, she continued, "A rare herb. It blooms only under very specific conditions. I need one for research purposes." The pause before research purposes was not suspicious at all.

"Where would I find it?"

"I've already submitted the details to your sect's mission board." She gestured toward the large board on the far wall.

"Including the competitive nature of the task." Competitive. That word was doing a lot of work in that sentence.

"The threats won't exceed the Qi Condensation realm," she added, which answered my unspoken question at least partially.

"Though I should mention the flower is extremely delicate and harvesting it requires a certain amount of care and precision."

"And if I bring it back successfully?"

"Then I tell you what you came here to learn, and I promise it will be worth far more than anything you'd find in that library or get from your master." Her eyes sharpened.

"Though I'll say it again: some knowledge cannot be undone once you have it. Some truths change the shape of everything around them. Are you prepared for that possibility?" Honestly? No, I wasn't, not with any real certainty, but my inner world was becoming more complex every single day and continuing to operate without understanding what was happening inside it wasn't something I could keep doing indefinitely.

"I'll do it," I said.

"Excellent." She brought her hands together once.

"Do try not to die in some horrible way, it would be an enormous waste, and Chen Yong would be completely unbearable about it afterward." She glided away after that. I stood there for a moment thinking about the series of decisions that had led me to this point in my life.

"Master," Azure said, sounding displeased with what I was doing, "I believe this qualifies as reckless."

"Probably," I agreed.

"But with Elder Chen Yong unavailable and the Genesis Seed busy with the annexation, I was already planning to go outside the sect for contribution points anyway, this just gives us a destination and more motivation." And we did actually need those points because the Genesis Seed was getting stronger every day but without proper resources to support its development, we were going to hit a hard wall the moment I pushed through to Qi Condensation Stage 7.

One of the clearest things I'd taken away from the Life Realm Comprehension Crystal was that trying to cultivate life in an environment that couldn't support it was just wasted effort, the inner world needed to be developed enough to actually sustain life before anything else was worth attempting, and only after that would it make sense to slow the annexation process down and turn attention toward the Blue Sun Academy.

The walk to the mission hall gave me time to settle my thoughts, and the mission system itself was one of the few parts of sect life that actually made straightforward sense to me, any cultivator or mortal or outside organization could submit a request for help as long as they could cover the required fees and offer a reasonable reward. The sect would evaluate it and assign a difficulty rating and post it, and that was more or less the whole thing, no complicated politics involved, just work and payment.

The hall was large and open with multiple boards arranged by difficulty level and junior disciples clustered around the easier end while the boards for higher difficulty missions were noticeably emptier, probably because anyone capable of completing those could get better paying private work without going through the sect at all. I found the retrieval section and started scanning through it. It was extensive but after a minute of looking, I found what I was after. Moonlit Dew Flower Retrieval, Competitive Mission.

The details were interesting. The flower only bloomed during a full moon and even then, only when the ambient spiritual energy levels and temperature were both within specific ranges. It grew in a valley that was known for unstable spatial fluctuations which explained neatly why anyone above Qi Condensation couldn't just go retrieve it themselves since their cultivation level alone would probably trigger the instabilities.

The reward was a thousand contribution points plus whatever else I could gather along the way, probably not enough on its own for the next phase of inner world development but a solid beginning. I was reaching for the mission tablet when I caught pieces of a conversation happening nearby.

"... beast wave moving directly toward Three Rivers Town, they're putting out a call for anyone available to help with evacuation and defense..."

"Third one this month, something must be disturbing them at the source..."

"... decent pay but probably not worth what you'd be walking into..." I stopped moving. Three Rivers Town meant the wave would pass directly through the area surrounding which meant it would pass... Floating Reed Village. The original Ke Yin's home, his parents still there going about their lives, probably wondering at this point why their son had gone quiet since joining the sect, probably telling themselves he was busy, that he was doing well, that he'd write when he had time.

"Master?" Azure's voice came in quietly.

"Your heart rate has sped up, are you alright?" That was a complicated question with a complicated answer, and I didn't try to give it one, I just looked down at the mission tablet in my hand and then back across at the group still debating the beast wave posting and made the decision before I'd fully finished thinking it through.

"Change of plans," I said.

"We're taking two missions."