Regressor Sect Master

The minister didn’t stay that long, and left after what appeared to be a fairly dense discussion. Still, everyone looked at them, because everyone wanted to eavesdrop or catch a lucky break. If they got lucky, maybe the minister would give them a task for a reward from the Palace’s treasury. 

Once he left, Tundra and Celestia’s eyes remained on the group of Crimson Lotus members. An elder, the Core Disciple, and two Inner disciples. 

Tundra looked back at Celestia, and said. “That elder’s most likely going to win this competition.” 

“Oh?” This made Celestia look at Zuri Blackpetals seriously, because it was rare to see an alchemist that beat her husband. “She’s that good?”

Once again he felt an unusual feeling in his mind. Something was not right.

“As far as I could tell, yes.” Tundra didn’t see her at work. The actual alchemy period was about two weeks. Each of the Imperial Summons’ participants were given three days to fine tune their response to the case, and they could request for the materials from the Imperial Treasury one day before the two week alchemical workshop period. 

Each of the alchemists worked independently, in small assigned makeshift rooms made specifically for these events. The end result was then submitted to them to see. “I see. Do they get a chance to talk to the Princess, if they win?”

Tundra nodded. 

“Then could you win?”

Tundra shook his head. It was a matter of resources, not skill. He had confidence in his skill that he should be on par. Their sect just didn’t have that unique type of materials the Crimson Lotus Spire possessed. 

Celestia actually looked surprised. “Really?”

The regressor nodded, and continued to watch the minister leave. Tundra didn’t feel the presence of the Zuja’s corruption in the minister, but it might be because the minister’s artifacts shroud his spiritual energies. 

Tundra noticed the Core Disciple looked significantly more relaxed once the minister left, and concluded that it is likely because that was it. They were all drinking, and Tundra went back to his brown rice wine, and took a big sip. He decided to focus more on his partner for the night, and wrapped his hand around her waist. “I don’t recall ever taking you to a place like this ever since we got married.” 

“You didn’t.” Celestia said with certainty. They remembered such things. 

The dancers twirled about as the instruments played. The dancers changed their props, sometimes they twirled about with colorful ribbons, the others, they wore rattling bangles and accessories that made various sounds as they danced. 

“Do you find them pretty?” Celestia asked.

“Yes.” Tundra admitted. “But they can’t compare to you.”

Celestia wriggled in embarrassment, and picked up her drink to hide it. It really was no contest, cultivators with their purified, perfected states can be exceptionally good looking. Even Tundra’s appearance is that of a dignified, mature but still attractive patriarch. 

Tundra’s glances went about the room, most folks were busy with their own thing, and for once, he decided to ignore them. His eyes looked into his wife’s eyes, and for a moment, time froze. 

“-this- this is a little too much.” Celestia stammered. 

The regressor grinned. “Perhaps. Can I tell you a story?”

“Of course.” 

Tundra sat, and recounted the tale of the dancer he recruited to be his personal disciple, and how she later died and what he learned. 

Celestia paused and looked at him. “And all this time you didn’t notice?”

Tundra shook his head. “I don’t notice many things, especially about the emotions of others.” He wondered what he knew now, was because he had ten thousand years of lived experience, and that allowed him to know what was what. His ability to observe such things today was entirely due to all the mistakes he made in his first life.

“There is no teacher more bitter than experience.” Celestia lamented an old saying.

“Indeed.” 

“Where is she now?”

“I- I don’t know. I don’t even know if she is even born yet. She was a mortal dancer when I found her.” 

And given how he had changed the path of the world, it is likely some births would never happen. Celestia only nodded. “I see.”

After what seemed like a long time, Celestia continued.

“If she’s going to win, might as well tell her. Do you think she’s part of the plot?”

Tundra did consider that but thought it was unlikely. It was hard to be sure until he really spoke to her, and Zuri Blackpetals, as a peer, could hide her cultivation and any Zuja influence fairly easily. “I’ll have to talk to her.”

He doubted that would help, and not only that, he had to do it in a way that didn’t draw the Core Disciple’s attention. 

Celestia looked at Tundra, and back at the woman, her eyes filled with judgment of another. “I suspect she’s not as clueless as you think she is.”

Tundra paused as he digested a woman’s assessment. “What do you mean?”

“She feels like an intelligent, observant woman. I think she knows more than she says. Talking to her would be helpful.” His wife answered as if she had a read of the other. 

People are not so easily read, especially cultivators. Tundra shut his eyes briefly, realizing that Celestia had a point. He should talk to his fellow competitor and see for himself, whether she knew. As the winner, Zuri would be able to speak to the princess, and that would solve problems. “You are right.”

“I hope I am.” Celestia laughed, and went back to pick up her half finished drink. “We should leave. They look like they are here frequently.”

The treasury will be open for a few days, and then it’s time to actually do alchemy. He should catch her before that, but wondered whether he could speak to her without the Crimson Lotus’s core disciple noticing. 

Celestia wrapped her hands around Tundra’s arm as they left as a pair existing only in their own world, oblivious to the glances of the other cultivators. 

***

“Nothing happened yesterday.” Julia said as she accompanied the Sect Master to the treasury hall. 

“I thought so.” Tundra came home late last night to find both his son and the core disciple resting in their own room. The protections of their guest mansion were untouched. Celestia decided it was appropriate to stay back instead, and spend some time meditating and cultivating, since their guest rooms had such wonderful cultivation devices, and Edison agreed to go along with it. 

At about that time, Lord Baljuk reappeared. 

“Sect Master Fox, a moment of your time?” 

Tundra nodded and the two alchemists stepped aside and faced each other along a narrow inner corridor. He felt Baljuk’s anti-spying formation activated. 

“I’m afraid we won’t be able to speak to the Princess through my channels. The ministers claim the Princess is in secluded cultivation and preparing for her breakthrough once the pills are ready. You’ll have to place in the top three of this competition to get a chance to speak to her.”

At that point, Tundra wondered how much he could trust Lord Baljuk, and whether he could reveal his own findings. Would he have trusted him in his first life? Tundra wasn’t sure he would.

But things must change, and he decided to go for a different angle. “I won’t be able to place in the top 3. Not with my current materials.”

In his first life, he was placed in the top 50, but with any competition, those in the top 5 were a league above those below, in the quality of their materials. 

“Hmm.” Lord Baljuk looked at him. “What would you need to place in the top 3?”

“But I think it is not necessary. I believe that Zuri Blackpetals will win this competition, and the top five will be Lowen Pureglass, Gurdra Black, and Dorith Vulner.” Tundra Fox said. “They will have a chance to speak to the Princess.”

Lord Baljuk wore a frown so heavy it seemed as if the years passed in a moment. “I would’ve expected Laurian Frostmold to be one of the top five, but I am not familiar with these others.” 

Laurian Frostmold was one of the old alchemists in the high seventh realm, and a member of another pretender sect, the Quiet Mushroom Gardens.  Tundra did remember that old woman to be a fairly capable alchemist, but she wasn’t really giving her best in this competition.

The two just stood quietly, before Lord Baljuk abruptly turned to look at Tundra.

“Do you have a suspect?”

“Possibly. A minister. I believe there may be accomplices in the sects, but I’m not certain.” Tundra said. “If we can speak to Lady Blackpetals discreetly...”

“I see. As I suspected.” Lord Baljuk glanced back at the hall as some other alchemists walked into the hall to claim their supplies. Some of the alchemists would only do the bare minimum, and take the supplies provided by the palace back home. “But let’s do this. I will try to invite all the participating alchemists for a drink tonight at the winehouses, and see whether any of them participate. Call it a mingling session for alchemists. I will invite you along, and use this chance to figure out where their loyalties lie.”

“They won’t participate if you don’t have a senior alchemist participate.” Tundra countered. 

“Not all are so uptight, and I will call on some favors.” Lord Baljuk laughed. “See you there tonight. I’ll need to make some visits and invitations, and have the venue ready.”

***

“Pleased to meet the famous lady Frostmold.” Tundra said, a little impressed at how quickly Lord Baljuk got to work.

An alchemical mixers for fellow alchemists to mingle. The venue was held in a corner restaurant that was far too ostentatious for his tastes, but it was not polite to criticize the host. The old woman Laurian Frostmold was in the high seventh realm, and yet as Tundra stood in front of the woman that he was once impressed with, somehow, she felt lesser. 

A cultivator of her level of power could choose whatever appearance they desired, but Laurian took the appearance of an old, scrawny woman whose hair had turned mostly white. There were stripes of dark hair, in little patches throughout her tied up hair. 

Was it his experience that made her seem less? “Oooh. I heard of you, you’re the rising star.” It hurt a little to be referred to as a rising star, it reminded him of how much he had to start from scratch. 

Tundra wondered why she didn’t win in his first life, and decided to ask as part of his conversation. “It is an honor to be known by you, but are you well, Lady Frostmold?”

She seemed to pause at the question. “Am I well?” 

“Yes.” Tundra decided to just risk it. The sensation he felt. Of being ‘less’. “I don’t know how to describe it, but, it’s a sense as if-”

A finger was on his lips. “Don’t have to continue, Lord Fox. Some things are best left unsaid. But whatever you are suspecting, would you know a cure?”

Tundra paused. The woman suffered from something, and yet he didn’t know. Perhaps it had to do with the soul. “I- I am afraid not.”

The woman sighed. “I heard from the Minister of the Princess that there may be a way, but consorting with bugs isn’t my thing.”

That made the regressor pause, and wondered whether Lord Baljuk’s leverage on her was related to the Zuja. Still, he had to be a little more vague on his knowledge. “I’m generally skeptical of such solutions. There certainly are better ways than to rely on such unpredictable power.”

The old woman looked at him, as if judging him. She was fairly old, perhaps four or five thousand years old, and yet, the way they looked at each other was one peer to another. Her eyes searched, and then she sighed. “It is so tempting to just take the easy way out.”

Now that was something Tundra could relate to. “It is. I feel the same most of the time.”

“Did you invite your children?” 

Tundra looked around. “I had the impression this was an alchemist-only event.”

“I would presume your children to be alchemists.”

“No. They are not.”

“A waste of your skills and knowledge.” The old Laurian Frostmold looked distant, and Tundra felt it then. The vague emptiness in her eyes. The hollowing of her soul from some kind of spiritual rot. Perhaps, the mark of a failed tribulation. She lives, but with each passing day, she becomes more of a shadow of her old self. 

Those who seek the powers of cultivation must face the risks of the spirit realm’s resistance. As one grows one’s spirit, the spirit of self pushes back against the spiritual realm, creating space. But if this wasn’t done properly, or if one’s sense of self and identity was attacked, the spiritual realm is ever eager to reclaim the space it once ceded to the soul. 

At that point, Lord Baljuk came over with another alchemist, one in the high fifth realm and introduced him to Laurian Frostmold. Tundra took that as an opportunity to slip away and talk to the other alchemists.

He looked around the opulent drinking halls, and was fairly surprised that Zuri Blackpetals, Gurdra Black and Dorith Vulner were also in attendance, and the three were already talking. 

Tundra Fox gulped, grabbed a cup of spirit wine from a passing waiter, and walked to join in with the three. The three were talking politics.

“Has the Crimson Lotus decided who it’ll back?” The elder of the White Striped Tiger Temple asked. He had a cup of stronger, darker colored spirit wine. It was likely mixed with some fried fruits durings the fermentation process. 

“As of now, the Spire remains undecided.” Lady Zuri said.

“Such indecisiveness.” Gurdra Black said as he sipped his drink. “Prince Yaorl is supported by the Patriarch Whitedragon and the Snow Dragon Temple. Naturally he will win this contest.”

“And Prince Gomerl has the Flaming Phoenix behind him.” Dorith Vulner, was in the high sixth realm, and is the sect master of a mid tier sect, the Storm Peaks. The Storm Peaks was once a bigger sect, but it had fallen on hard times. But Dorith Vulner was a rising star, and with him, the Storm Peaks’ stock rose with him. 

“His Majesty Prince Yaorl exceeds him in competence and intellect.”

“But he is ruthless.” Dorith countered.

“In the game of Emperors, it is to be expected.” Lord Black stated, and then he turned to notice Tundra sipping his rice wine. “Who do you plan to ally yourself with, Tundra?”

Dorith Vulner flashed a diplomatic smile. “Greetings, a pleasure to finally meet the Sect Master of the Verdant Snow.”

Tundra clasped his hand to greet his peers. “Greetings, Lady Blackpetals, Lord Black and Lord Vulner. A pleasure to meet all the esteemed alchemists today.”

Gurdra Black smiled. “Now, now. Lord Fox broke through to the seventh realm recently. A rising star and a future master alchemist of the continent!”

Tundra wished he could sneer, and just smiled. “Ah. Seventh realms are a dime a dozen in the Crimson Lotus and White Striped Tiger.”

Lord Black grinned at the backhanded compliment. “Indeed. I’m glad you are a man that knows where they stand between heaven and earth. Now, onto my earlier question, who will the Verdant Snow back for the throne?”

Tundra thought he wanted to put his back behind Prince Kaorl again. He was approached by Prince Kaorl personally, and back then, he felt Prince Kaorl was actually a good man. Good head on his shoulders, but sadly, murdered by his competitors. 

“I have a prince in mind, but it is not set in stone.” Tundra decided to be vague. “I’d like to meet Prince Yaorl and Prince Gomerl before the Verdant Snow decides.”

This made Gurdra Black pounce. “Sounds like you need some ‘encouragement’, Lord Fox.”

Tundra chuckled. “You could put it that way.”

“Then I will put a word in. Perhaps they can make an offer.”

The lady of the Crimson Lotus interjected. “It is quite a shame that things are this way. The Emperor still lives, and yet, those behind him are already positioning themselves for conflict.” 

“Would you prefer to have your choice made for you?” The White Striped Tiger’s elder countered.

“It just feels as if the sects are vultures, waiting to scavenge on the corpses of those who chose wrongly.” 

Dorith Vulner of the Storm Peaks sighed. “It may seem so for the Greater sects, but for a middle tier sect like the Storm Peaks, this choice is a matter of survival. We would be crushed if we chose wrongly.”

Lady Blackpetals shook her head. “I don’t see the princes as being so unnecessarily cruel, why punish mid tier sects?”

“Worry not, Lord Vulner. I will ask our sect master to whisper some pleasant words to the future Emperor Yaorl.” 

That made Tundra churn a little, and Dorith Vulner merely kept silent. It was a threat, one way or another. And he folded.

“Lord Black, maybe we can discuss this in greater detail. Perhaps, in private?” 

The White Striped Tiger was pleased, and led the way. “Come, Lord Vulner.”

Tundra Fox and Zuri Blackpetals watched the two step aside for a chat of their own. So, Tundra continued the conversation. “A pleasure to meet you, Lady Blackpetals. Your talents with the cauldron are well known even in our part of the world.”

“Your words are pleasant, Tundra Fox, but it certainly isn’t true.” Zuri Blackpetals watched him, and in return, he matched her judging gaze. At this distance, Tundra noticed her seemingly reddish hair was more of a maroon shade, and seemed to change its color if looked at a different angle. She had the air and gait of a refined woman familiar with the imperial court, someone who was a meticulous artist. 

“Some pleasantries often help with the conversation.” Tundra Fox smiled and answered without flinching. “I believe this competition is yours to lose.”

“Oh?” That made the woman stare at Tundra. “Why do you think so?”

“I will tell you, but first, let’s speak of Princess Luharl’s condition. What are your opinions on the inherent conflict between her Golden Dragon’s gift and her spirit roots?” 

“Force them to work together, what else is there?” Zuri answered bluntly. “Her spirit roots’ contradiction will have to be mediated by a powerful unity elixir, and would bring them all to harmony.” 

Tundra nodded. There are many ways to solve the princess’s problem. His own methods would be to go for separation, a kind of coexistence of powers. It is based on the principle of the human body that each limb and organ has a different function, and so, a cultivator’s spirit can also be in that way. But there are some alchemists who believe that all powers should be united, and it is the cultivator’s role to unite the powers in their soul. This is also based on the principle that even though a human body consists of separate organs and limbs, they must ultimately function as one. The contradiction is where a cultivator draws the line of separation and unity. Each cultivator differs in that line. When is it separate, and when should it be united? 

“The Deeprooted Flame Unity Elixir produced by someone of your quality will certainly win this competition.”

That made Zuri Blackpetals glare at him with utmost suspicion. His next statement would be a risk, because he wasn’t sure what was communicated between the Core Disciple and the Princess’s minister. 

“It will be a fantastic pill, but ultimately, so much can happen after it is made, and before the Princess takes the pill.” 

Zuri Blackpetals stepped uncomfortably close, and Tundra felt a finger poke his chest. Or attempted to. The finger of condensed heat met a barrier of steel over his chest. “Speak carefully, Lord Fox.”

Tundra’s eyes met the maroon eyes of the woman, and for a brief moment he saw a glimmer of doubt. It was swiftly replaced by certainty. It was enough of a clue, so he seized it. “Your people are strange, isn’t it? You don’t trust them.” 

“Do not talk garbage, Tundra Fox.”  She said, her voice stern.

“You are an intelligent, capable alchemist, Lady Blackpetals. Surely you are not blind to the schemes of those around you.” Every sect was filled with internal politics. Conflicts between elders in their quest for power. Different ideals. 

“Specifics.” 

“I’ve told you where your prey lies, do I have to hunt it for you too? Surely, you’d rather not have another sect meddle in your internal affairs.”

Their eyes met, both didn’t flinch or fold. It felt like a moment. It felt like an eternity. Tundra took a step back. He sowed enough doubt. Intelligent people like Zuri Blackpetals were usually predictable. 

Just to be sure, she would do a check on her disciples and her entourage. And that will unearth enough clues that she would be extra careful with her pills. “Take it what you will, Lady Blackpetals. I would hope that you serve the pill to the princess personally, and not trust it to those around you. I’ll see you later.”