Fighting to be Kind in a Cultivation World

The effects of my scooping Xing Xun up in an eager hug play over Ai and Lin’s face. Clearly, they also want to experience that.

Well. There will be plenty of time for that later.

Ignoring their silent, yet obvious wishes, I direct my attention over to the five other people approaching us from the nearby arena.

Xing Hu and Lan, as well as He Wen, Jin Chin, and Yalei. Three members of my team are already carrying their weapons of choice.

He Wen is holding a spear. In some ways, I’m surprised, but also not. The spear is the weapon of the common man. Simple, and easy to use. Difficult to master.

It has a small shimmer around it, allowing for easier synchronization with qi.

For Yalei, her choice was a ghostly dagger. She catches my eye and sees me glancing at it. With a slight smile, she waves her hand through the air and an apparition of it extends out to match a sword’s length. Which would be a lethal surprise in a battle.

Almost competitively, Jin Chin swaggers forward with a short sword and a dagger at her side. Though I can’t see anything special about them, I can only assume there must be something about them that would cause her to choose them.

I give her an approving nod, to which she responds with the same.

I believe that she’s always been a dual wielder when she fought for her city, before being stolen away.

A glance over at the women behind me shows they are already perusing the long length of weapons for one they can choose. Xing Xun, for her part, looks amused at the entire process.

It’s quite interesting that she’s willing to give away precious items to them just because they have a connection with me. Unless…

Ah. It’s obvious.

These are the people that will essentially safeguard me during this trip. By helping them to grow and providing them with equipment, she is trying to assist me.

With everyone being cultivators, it doesn’t take everyone else long to decide on the weapons that fit them best.

Shi has a baton that she does some light practice swings with. However, there doesn’t seem to be anything special about it. At my curious glance, she just tells me.

“It should help with… coercing some people if needed. It’ll match well with some of the techniques I learned back with the Yellow Sashes.”

Ah, so it’s that sort of tool.

It should probably pack quite a wallop if she hits someone with it.

Lin takes some blurred punches with a pair of circular blade knuckle dusters, that make the air shudder. I’m surprised to realize that the air shuddered from the force of her punches, rather than the weapon itself.

A reminder not to piss her off, as she also has a high level of innate strength.

Unlike Lin’s choice, Ai and Mei Lin’s are a bit shocking.

Mei Lin is practically glowing as she lifts a massive sword into the air with one arm. A Zweihänder.

I soon realize that my choice to put a bit more healing toward her, just to make sure she survives anything, has worked wonders on her personal training.

She practically skips to the arena section, where there are some test dummies set up. With a carefree swipe, the hardened dummies are cleaved from head to stump. Considering that these dummies take strikes from qi condensation experts… that’s a terrifyingly casual strike.

She beams a smile over to me, to which I hid my shock and give her one back.

There’s no reason to make her feel like it’s wrong. As long as she can protect herself, so that a situation like what happened when I met her can’t happen, then I’ll be happy.

Lastly, I look over at Ai, who absentmindedly moves a black orb from hand to hand.

A strand of qi extends from her into the orb, to which it gives a pulse around her. Her hand ripples in a way that would normally crush a person’s hand. Even if they were a foundation establishment one.

However, her special constitution comes back to mind.

The Myriad Slime Body Constitution.

A constitution comprising three stages, each bring her closer to the abilities of a humanoid slime. On top of that, the constitution brings overall cultivation benefits.

Her cultivation increases when using amorphous body cultivation techniques by 100 times. When using void cultivation methods, it’s a further 100 times. There are other cultivation methods she could use like water or earth, that have lower benefits, but she seems to have decided to focus on a void cultivation method and techniques, alongside amorphous ones.

With her currently being in the first stage, her bones can liquefy and solidify at will, with the body moving to accommodate the change safely. Not only that, but she has partial immunity to blunt force trauma.

It seems that the orb allows her to better control her void techniques.

Hmm… I’ll have to work with her more on this trip to explore some of the deeper qualities of her method. While I gave her a lot of coaching on ways to improve the method she received from the library, I haven’t given her ideas based on my earthly knowledge.

With how smart she is, she’ll definitely come up with something.

I find myself satisfied with all of this and cough, attracting everyone's attention, orienting my body towards the three Xing family members before us. My team grasps my intention.

All of us, gives a deep bow to them, to express our gratitude, while I speak for the group.

“I truly thank you all for these wonderful gifts. While I know our status as allies leads us to be open with our resources and abilities, I do not take what you’ve done for us for granted.

“With that said, I’m certainly looking forward to our continued growth together!”

They all seem quite pleased by our words, as even with the great number of things we’ve given to each other, it can still be painful to lose precious items.

Even I internally flinched at giving out a ton of superior stones, though I’m happy to do so.

It isn’t long before we finish up the final pleasantries and are led out of the estate and through the winding streets, this time with a different foundation establishment expert leading us out.

Just as we get close to leaving their territory, I receive a familiar buzz, like what I would feel from a cellphone.

As I look down at the slip, it has words showing dimly on it.

“Stay safe! With Love, Xun.”

…

…

She definitely knows what a cellphone is. Or at the very least, experienced it enough to use it this way.

It seems I’m not the only one that received something like that and soon enough; I see qi being regularly sent into the jade slips. Luckily, there shouldn’t be any issues that come up from this, only benefits.

As we finally return to the main road, I look ahead… to the journey into Monchon City.

And the growingly bad feeling I have about it.