SCC Chapter 06 (Patreon)

At this moment it didn’t make sense for me to look for women to sleep with. Having sex will slow down the progression of the cultivator, especially if they do it before they even start cultivating. But I could prepare my future lovers for dual cultivating, and finding another neutral was required in my opinion. She also couldn’t be over thirty, if she was still in the later stages of qi condensation that would be for the best as well. Possibly fresh to the brothel business and hoping for only a handful of clients before I made the deal.

Last but not least, she had to be pretty. It took five brothels to find someone who fit my criteria as I paid for an hour and sat down to explain my plan to her. “My master… Has it in his head that I need a cultivation partner to progress later on and he’s willing to supply a neutral cultivator with pills to help their growth along. May I ask what your cultivation level and spirit roots are at?”

This was a fairly innocuous question but many people get tied up in thinking those things are valuable to an enemy… Sure, the surprise would be for the first time you fought. But after fighting a single time everyone who was watching would be able to gauge your rank and work backwards from how long you’ve been cultivating what your roots were at.

“Qi level… Five and… Low rank with an… Estimated 25% in my affinities.” It was hard not to wince at the thought of this poor girl trying to cultivate with that terrible set-up. She looked to be about twenty-five, which isn’t very bad but considering she was now prostituting herself I think she may have burnt out or given up altogether. Some could get through the qi condensation realm in a year or two and she was only halfway through after ten years of hard work. I couldn't help but think of how fast she would be cultivating after having her cultivation sped up an entire rank and her affinities adjusted up to around 40%.

It would speed up her cultivation by fourfold most likely, possibly even more if she got a better cultivation method as well. Getting her to rank eight or nine was my goal in the next two years because I was going to piggyback on her rank to rapidly rise myself. When dual cultivating, it almost always benefits the weaker person until they are on the same level as the stronger one. 

Here came the big question. “Do you have a debt to pay to take yourself out of the brothel or?” She gave me a soft smile before answering. “No… I’m pretty enough to make spirit stones and that was the only way I could keep up the pace of my cultivation.” She explained her process and… While it was unfortunate that her partner's tally was high, it wasn’t a deal breaker. I would have to make her a body-cleansing pill before I did anything with her but those weren’t that difficult to make.

She was using an inferior cultivation method, just improving that would speed up her cultivation by 50% at least but she didn’t have the currency to purchase one that suited her. Thankfully I had a hidden ‘master’ who could gift a better cultivation method to her after I made the rank 2 and 3 spiritual root nourishing pills. That would get her to mid-rank 40% most likely, altogether the difference in cultivation meant she would be reaching rank nine, possibly breaking through in the next two years, which was perfect for me.

I thought that the person who brought cultivators in at fifteen was trying to cripple the growth potential of anyone who started that early. Every rank of qi condensation you went up would make it that much harder to make changes to your body. My weak sickly body had only been improved to a slim, slightly muscular but shorter than average body. It’s because reaching rank three or four in qi condensation will halt your puberty growth.

That’s why many of the old sect masters were baby-faced behind their long beards. Making alterations to my body before I started cultivating was a must because of that reason. I wanted to be a bigger, stronger man before I even thought about cultivating and that’s where the nutrient pills came into play. I was going to train my body over the next two years and then spend the last year before my first rival arrived cultivating.

I bought a set of weighted clothing, purchased some extra weights, and had them delivered to my house. Before I started strengthening my body, I needed to refresh my spirit stone supplies. I began to make both pills and seals to sell. This time I was focused on not producing things outside of the estimated skill of the entire sect. Just some rank 1, and rank 2 pills and some low-grade storage seals, evil purifying talismans, and weapon-strengthening stamps.

The stamp would wear off after a few uses but that might be the difference between winning or losing a fight. Selling everything to multiple shops, I made a thousand spirit stones and bought more supplies. I was going to make the next spiritual root nourishing pill for myself and my future cultivation partner but… I also think I needed a bodyguard.

At this rate, if I was attacked I might die even if they didn’t mean to because I would be too weak. I needed someone to protect me until I outgrew them, someone who had a bad deal in life that I could possibly take advantage of like the neutral cultivator I was helping already… I needed to ask my neighbors who the most pathetic one of them was.

As I went to do so, a person caught my eye and I remembered him. The fatty got into a fight with a cultivator of a higher rank than himself and used his family's secret fat-burning art to win the fight but afterward, the man's brother showed up and crippled him. He left the sect after that and his clan wiped out the two brothers before crushing their clan to paste because he was the sect master’s favorite son’s, son. 

Getting on his good side might get me some advantages in the future as well. I was thinking about reaching my previous life’s cultivation level but I wasn’t really thinking about righting any of the wrongs along the way. If I was going to be doing things that some might consider borderline demonic then I had to do some righteous things as well. The first would be making friends with my pavilion neighbors.

“Hello there! My name is Sun Wu, my master gave me some pills to give away to my neighbors. The greener one is a cultivation rate pill while the lighter shade is a pure cultivation pill. You take the pure cultivation to get a sudden burst of qi and the cultivation rate pill when you want to buckle down and cultivate for a long time. I also have nutrient pills, and food pills here to help you continue to cultivate for longer without eating.”

The easiest way to make friends was to bribe them with gifts and I was giving away many valuable pills for this. Striking up a conversation with the other alchemist he began to kowtow and ask for my master to take him under his wing. It was hard not to laugh as I asked him if he even made a pill yet and he hadn’t. Moving on to not make it obvious I talked to a few others. I hadn’t focused on this group in my first life but… No, they do not seem remarkable at all, it would be a colossal waste of resources to help these layabouts.

With just a glance I could tell that none of them had the stomach for high-level cultivation. The fatty was the only one with the family that would help him get there in the long run, at least if he wasn’t crippled beforehand. I made my way over to him before asking. “Hello, I am Sun Wu, what is your name?” He was chipper and full of spirit at the free pills. He was the only one who knew their value, the meticulous care put into every pill minutes if not hours a high-ranking alchemist could have been doing something else.

With a big smile on his face, he said. “My name is Fatty Wei, it’s nice to meet you, brother Wu.”