Chương 84: Chapter 83 – Meeting a Fan

Some things were easy for Ren to decide on. For one, with how intricately tied many of his resources were to the mountain, he could only leave them behind. The formation of Wuxing elements would continue to be fed and nurtured by the arrays he had set up. Beasts would be hunted and killed at a reduced pace to replenish the earth, water, and fire nodes with flesh, blood, and bone. Those were the nodes Ren harvested from the most often.

While Ren did harvest from the Resin Willow Tree, he would support it with the two sutras. The metal node was fine with just the ores that had been buried around the metal staff. Without Ren around to draw from the treasures, they would maintain a form of stasis while awaiting his return. Then came the issue of the Mutating Bamboo Sword plants. Carefully raising them at all five nodes, Ren had seen them slowly get influenced by the qi surrounding them.

The fast-growing spirit plants had grown into decently large clusters, which continuously multiplied as fast as he could refine them into swords. The latest batches of plants had even seen a qualitative change in the amount of qi present in them. Just as he had hoped for, the swords he would refine from them would have an easier time channeling qi of their respective attributes.

Ren's current plan for them was to let the Mutating Bamboo Sword plants grow until his departure was imminent and then harvest almost all of them. Then he would refine and add them to his sword array while traveling to the Golden Light Monastery. That journey was expected to take nearly 3 months, and this would be a useful way to spend that time. According to the current estimate, they would even exceed the 108 swords needed for the Turning Seasons Sword Array.

He would have plenty of spares if they were to get damaged. To store all those swords, Ren had searched for a scabbard treasure artifact, and through some acquaintances, he found a disciple willing to trade with him. These artifacts were spatial treasures exclusively for swords. They were designed to store large numbers of swords and prevent any degradation over time. The one Ren had bought could even be fed natural treasures, which it would then refine to slowly nourish the swords within it.

Despite it being the Heavenly Sword Sect, a sect that promoted the sword above all, Ren had been surprised by how difficult it was to find a good scabbard artifact. The sect had found ways around many things, such as growing swords to suit cultivators that didn't favor fire or metal qi, but spatial treasures were a separate matter. Ren had even tasked his friend Hu Yan to find out why, but his information circle in the inner sect was still too new to find satisfactory answers.

But the information broker didn't let him down entirely. With the help of his connections and some new ones introduced to him by Ren, who was himself quite popular, Hu Yan had ferreted out the one thing Ren needed desperately. A beast storage pouch! A spatial storage that could support living creatures inside it. They were as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns, and had cost Ren nearly all his savings to gather enough spirit stones to buy it.

Such opportunities were too rare, and the only reason he could buy this one was that the disciple selling it urgently needed money. During the sale Ren tried to find out more to ensure there was no ill will tied to the treasure. It so happened that it was being sold under orders of their clan, so, feeling reassured, Ren had bought it. Once he bound it to himself, he extended his senses inside.

It was far smaller than other spatial treasures, but in compensation, he could place living spirit plants within it as well. The tortoises also weren't averse to it even though it wasn't nearly as rich an environment as Ren's abode. But for each living creature within, Ren would have to power it with more spirit stones. Ren would have to balance the time the tortoises spent inside, or he would run out of spirit stones on the journey.

The Corpse Silk Moths were weak individually, but if their numbers were great, Ren couldn't sustain them in the pouch either. He decided to take only a few adults and instead triggered their reproductive cycle using the Intermediate Insect Control manual. When they laid eggs, he could seal them and render them dormant. In this manner, he would be able to trade them with relative ease without spending too much on their upkeep. Then there was Yu Ran.

The very instant the little snake entered the beast storage pouch, the draw of qi had risen rapidly until the pouch started shaking. Ren had to act quickly to withdraw the snake. Young though it was, Yu Ran was still a core formation spirit beast and beyond the means of the artifact to handle. Yu Ran would have to accompany Ren without the security of the pouch. This had worried Ren greatly.

Although the young core formation beast had much improved its natural concealing ability, he doubted it was enough to deceive the senses of the elders that would accompany them. If anyone detected the extremely valuable spirit beast, greed would inevitably follow. Treasuring a jade ring was a crime, and if someone sought to take his bonded beast from Ren, he would be helpless. Nor could he consider leaving the snake alone on his mountain for such an extended time.

The Harmonious Bond he shared with Yu Ran was a tenuous one that would lose effectiveness without him being around to reinforce it. And while he didn't doubt its ability to fend for itself, its chances for survival would also drop drastically without his protection. So Yu Ran had to accompany him. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. With such a quandary, Ren could only come up with one solution that would be effective.

While he would do his best with arrays and such to conceal Yu Ran, the best protection would be to find a thick thigh to hug. He needed to find a senior with a strong background and follow them for protection. That way if anyone tried to steal Ren's bond, it would be an affront to the senior he followed. They would lose all face if they allowed their followers to be robbed.

It was a tactic that had worked for Ren in the past, and though his new sense of independence struggled with the idea, for Yu Ran, Zhao Ren wouldn't back down. Ren had tasked Hu Yan with investigating a few prospective seniors and elders to make sure they were honorable. Someone who would defend Ren but afterwards wouldn't demand Yu Ran themselves, but he hadn't approached anyone yet. Finally, Ren decided to also bring all he could sell or trade along with him.

The yang qi attribute spirit herbs he grew under the mountain, the heavy yin fruits that were developing on the Ghost Face tree, and the Seven Sparks Orchids that he grew from all the lightning that struck his mountain. All these treasures would be harvested and brought along. Even the spirit herbs from his gardens would be harvested. Those that weren't being grown for other disciples would have to be sold.

He was no merchant to know which herbs would sell well in the Golden Light Monastery, so he would have to make a few guesses and gamble. He needed as many spirit stones as possible to sustain the beast pouch and for trade. Fortunately for Ren, he did know what would sell well in the Heavenly Sword Sect so that side of the transaction would definitely be profitable. Ren also added to his new spatial ring the many spools of silk he collected from the cocoons.

Along with those, large swathes of Flesh eating moss to feed his pets, many drums of refined liquid from the blood pools, 15 Purifying Life Lotuses, the barrels of resin and branches from the willow tree, and finally an ember of the Ossiferous Yin Flame also entered the ring. As for the still mutating astral yin flame, Ren couldn't afford to split it and possibly interrupt the transformation it was currently undergoing.

After his body cultivation breakthrough, Ren had noticed that the fire had undergone a marked change. Now the pale white flame had sparkles resembling stars erupt occasionally, but it still hadn't settled. When he recalled the events of his breakthrough, Ren remembered that when he was half mad from the pain of all that astral qi he had drawn in, he had actually used an ember of the mutating flame to complete the breakthrough.

When the half-mutated ember fed on the concentrated astral qi and returned to the flame, it had begun its transformation. Ren would just have to wait and see what it became. In the meantime, the flame still fed on the bones of spirit beasts, so he wasn't concerned about nurturing it. Ren didn't just chase profits and resources the entire time either. To ensure his studies would keep progressing, Ren had copied a vast number of books and records from the library.

It included information on spirit herbs, ores, natural treasures, refining, forging, alchemy, and more. It had cost Ren no small amount to copy the information, but to go without progressing for almost a year was even more unimaginable. All these decisions and preparations had taken Ren the course of a month and a half, leaving him less than 2 months before he needed to depart. The class he was teaching in the outer sect was almost over.

Only two classes remained, and then he could claim Elder Yun Peng's 4th reward. Ren was eagerly awaiting that day!

"Teacher Zhao, may I have a moment of your time?" Ren had just finished teaching a class on formations. It had been an entertaining one where he introduced to his eager students the numerous variations of illusion arrays. The looks on their faces when he changed a few nodes to introduce a weak confusion array that they all fell victim to had been most amusing. Once the lecture was done, Ren was stopped by a young girl.

"Yes, disciple Zhao. What is troubling you?" Ren asked his younger cousin sister, Zhao Wen. The surprise had faded from the first class when it took all of Ren's social training to not act awkward while teaching his own cousin. Thankfully, the quiet girl respected boundaries and never sought special favors. Ren would have been very disappointed if she had. She had instead listened well and practiced hard at using arrays. Ren had a complicated relationship with his cousins.

The elders of the family had handled matters poorly, leading to much resentment. The older cousins had lacked talent and clearly detested being compared with Ren, the youngest of his generation. When the oldest of his cousins married and bore children, Ren was only a few years old. It further exacerbated matters when the elders continued to focus on Ren.

The older cousins who were already resentful of the brat siphoning the last of the entire clan's resources found out; they felt their children were being unfairly treated. Tensions had flared, and the clan had nearly collapsed under the weight of schemes and infighting. Ren had even survived a few attempts on his life! It was only for the watchful care of his family elders that he survived. The children of his older cousins being so close to his age, Ren had always considered them his cousins.

The few attempts at friendship had also been quashed by others, so he didn't really know them well. Ultimately the entire affair had soured all of Ren's familial relations. Ren was only truly close to his parents and his grandfather, the clan patriarch. It was out of the familial piety he felt toward them that Ren continued to care for his cousins. He just didn't know them very well.

That fact hadn't changed after a mere month of one-sided lectures, so he was a little surprised that Zhao Wen had decided to approach. After making sure that she and her brother weren't in any trouble, Ren inquired about how he could help.

"Teacher Zhao, I was in the Hall of Learning, looking through the library for books on arrays, when I found one that was extremely useful. I was hoping to ask for your guidance in clarifying some matters." Ren felt a growing suspicion, but he assented anyway. A small smile emerged on her face as she looked up with an intense gaze that had just a trace of worship. Zhao Wen then retrieved a plain-bound book and showed it to Ren.

"A Comprehensive Compendium on Arrays by Zhao Ren. Vol. 2."

'Well, that's definitely a bit awkward!' thought Ren.