*Click* *Click* *Clack*
I heard him turn and saunter away, his footsteps getting lighter behind me.
Then after a while, nothing. As if he was baiting me.
For a few heart-wrenching seconds, I didn't dare breathe. Not till I heard the steps start again.
'What? Just like that?' I wanted to let out a sigh of relief, but I couldn't. 'What if he knew?' I pulled at my hair, 'I'm a fool.' Was he supposed to ignore me growing three inches taller? My hand twitched, and my expression turned into one of resolve.
If he really knew, wouldn't he still be at the door? Waiting for me to make a mistake and completely show myself?
The fear went away as I thought about it. There was only one way to find out.
*Clack* I started walking towards the door, dagger in hand, taking care to step as softly as possible. If he was still there, then he knew, and I would have to do what I had to do. My heart sped up as I got close to the door, and so did I, aiming to catch him running away.
When I reached there was nothing.
Only a footprint.
It was pressed into the floorboards as if someone had done it intentionally. A cold gust of wind circled me as I stood there, watching.
Waiting.
Whatever had caused it did not come out, and I fled towards the library. If there was nothing there, then I wouldn't have wasted my two hours. And if there was something there, then, I would have to put my newfound strength to good use.
The shelves and tomes of old, dry books watched me as I rushed back through the library, making sure not to look back. 'Eight days, and then I'll have to hunt the spirit beast.' I almost cursed out loud at the butler. The back and forth between him and me had taken at least thirty minutes of my time.
But I turned the anger into motion as I went further into the library than before. I'd been through the earlier parts and had already found everything I thought useful.
It was only the wax of the candles and the sweet scent of aging paper that greeted me, but I had no time for manners. I'd come for the White Lunar Lilith previously and had gotten the threefold grass, it was helpful, but I still wanted the White Lunar Lilith. If I was going to hunt a spirit beast, I wanted all the strength I could get.
Somewhere in here was what I was looking for, information on the White Lunar Lillith and the Celestial Mirror Leopard. I brushed my fingers against the spines of the tomes I passed, as if I could detect the right book by touch.
The action, which would have comforted me on any other day, only twisted my stomach with nerves. I wasn't finding anything!
If it kept going on like this, I would have to use Healer Yao Po's potion again.
The thought alone sent jolts of pain raking through my body.
I hunched over a new book I'd chosen, hood forward, and started to read it, flipping for more knowledge. It was less a search and more a frantic skimming of every book I touched.
Without any delay, I shoved the book back. Useless.
But my shoulders loosened the more I looked through the racks of books, and I lay back on a bookshelf behind me, letting out a creak as if groaning in protest. Even through all the nervousness and tension, this was starting to feel better than hunting or interacting with nobles and warlords.
A small cloud of dust puffed up as I closed the book I was holding. It had come to an end, and still, nothing useful, my chest tightened. If I hadn't made that promise to my father, maybe this is what I would have done with my life.
I picked up another book.
Here, I could just pretend to be a scholar. Each breath felt like a weight was being removed from my chest, but with every inhale, I was reminded of my own condition. Of my ethereal bridges.
I clenched my fists. The comfort I was starting to feel disappeared into a black void of fear and stubbornness. To surrender because of my condition?
'Bah!' I forced the notion away. The sect had told me no. My own body and talent had told me no. To then tell myself no? I refused. My goal was to claw my way to cultivation through a trade empire. I wouldn't be the one to tell myself no. Not unless death took me itself.
I looked at my hands, reminding myself that I would have to be gentle. Last time, the page of the tome I was reading was torn off. I couldn't afford to accidentally destroy something precious from the noble lady's library.
It was at that exact moment that I hit my head against a scroll at the top of the shelves. I rubbed my head in pain and let out a bitter laugh. Maybe being shorter would've saved me that. Maybe it would've saved me from all this pressure, too.
This was in a part of the library I had yet to search.
The scroll was covered in purple colored trimmings that reflected the candlelight, out of place among the dull browns and aged whites of the shelves.
I turned my head upwards just enough to see what was written, it said: "On the Qi Deficient."
'What?' My breath caught halfway up my throat, choking the hope that came with it. Out of nowhere—
*Duunn, Thump*
'What was that?' A hair's breadth away from the scroll, I stopped. My cloaked face was uncovered. Had the butler come back? I glanced at the door quickly.
No one.
It was just a book that had fallen off the shelf a few rows away. Though I couldn't remember having knocked it out of place earlier.
Fear left little mounds atop my skin, yet I grabbed the scroll.
The Qi deficient? Did that mean what I thought it meant? The hope I had already started to cultivate welled within me.
'It can't be.'
But in my heart, I disagreed, maybe, just maybe, it had something about me in there. When I unfurled the scroll, the first thing I saw was…
—
"...To the great sect master of the Unrelenting Mantis Sect…these bloodborne are a blight on our culture as a sect and hegemony to the whole of the plains…"
—
'Huh?' A letter? I was surprised, most of the books in the library were purely to relay information or to recite poems. Was I even allowed to be reading it?
I looked around. Maybe it was addressed to someone who was tied to Lady Vespara? I wanted to put it down, but my curiosity got the better of me. Everything else I'd read so far had nothing in it. If this could help me out with anything, then…I wouldn't miss it just for the privacy of a noble lady.
—
"...Those without the ability to cultivate Qi may sometimes desire to attain the power of cultivators through unnatural means…"
—
My heart clenched, and I had to force myself to keep my eyes latched to the writing. Was this a book on cultivation for mortals?
But deeper than that, somewhere in my heart, I held one fear;
What if it said it wasn't possible? What if the strength I had already achieved was the limit?
—
"…Sect master, Gasrar, you know that for those who wish to do such a thing, it is a simple matter…"
—
My heart started beating like a bird flapping its wings. Was this a coincidence? Had I found it? Just like that? 'A way to cultivate?'
I continued to read…
—
"...In fact, it is so simple that bloodsplitters are a common sight down in the plains of the sect. If the grandmaster were to hear of this, then we would both be implicated.
You have been away for a long time, so I have written to alert you, those despicable scum—talentless, qi-deficient rats, who desire to gnaw at the bones of our high tables— are being hired by our own disciples who wish to effect deeds on the mortal arenas…"
—
Rats? That's how they thought of us? Of mortals? My hands turned slick with sweat, and a shiver ran down my spine. The letter wasn't even for me, and the words still cut through like a knife.
—
"...The cowards are unwilling to get involved for fear of the sect's rules, and knowing that, as toads lust after swan meat, mortals lust after cultivation, they share their blood with mortals.
In return, they become master and servant—no master and slave.
The only reason they are not yet a bigger problem is how easy they are to spot…"
—
'Easy to spot?' I pulled my cloak tighter, feeling exposed. Was this common knowledge? I shook my head. It couldn't be, even Big Randy and Igor were shocked at my transformation. 'What about cultivators?'
At that, I squeezed the edges of the scroll tighter, as if I could force it to reveal its secrets faster.
—
"...Their bodies warp under the gift of the Dao. They grow unnaturally wide shoulders, completely lose their hair, and their bodies swell with musculature, almost like they were made of meat and not flesh and bone…They are plagues in mortal skin…"
—
I let out a hot breath. Tearing up at the reveal. Blessed Skies, it wasn't talking about me. My symptoms were nothing like that.
My knees nearly buckled, but I didn't stop squeezing the scroll. If it had anything about allowing mortals to cultivate…I looked around to make sure I was alone, and kept reading.
—
"...In fact, one of them passed by me on the way to Paopei. His shoulders were so wide, I don't know how I fought the urge to strike him down with my sword, but I was in Rendi Pan, and the Emperor's laws are unforgiving…"
—
I scrunched my eyebrows, unnaturally broad musculature, the reference to looking as if they were made of meat and not flesh and bone…
Plays of one of the first times I had met him echoed through my mind. Winter had barely started. He had worn a thick fur coat. It was uncanny. The kind that made me question whether or not it was made of spirit beast fur.
And his head. All over his head, I could see no hair.
Someone who had been holding me on a leash ever since I'd first approached him.
My stomach turned to stone.
A fake cultivator.
'Wan Cheng!'
Leverage. At last.