Chapter 13 - Inheritance

There was a sensation distorting his mind as though he had been torn away from that strange world, the reality crackling like a glass, before finally twisting and settling into the familiar sight of the Outer Sect Library.

As he was about to breathe, to try and understand what just happened, his legs dragged him through the bookcases, head foggy with confusion as he stared at the hovering screen before his eyes. He blinked to clear his vision, but the call beckoned him all the same, pulling him toward the edges of the Outer Sect Library.

[Interference detected…]

[Eliminating—]

[Error!]

The mechanical voice buzzed inside his ears as his steps took him to an old bookcase where he found three manuals, their covers made with a different sort of leather, tattered and torn by what seemed like thousands of nails. Their edges were twisted, and curled in hard use, breaking the bloody line of characters written upon their faces.

Lei pulled the one that stood by the right side, pulled it closer, and opened it wide, blood thumping in his head. He gave a quick look at the writing as the world went spinning, his feet sliding across the dust-choked tiles, wobbling near the bookcases before he slammed the back of his head to a hard wall, heard a strange buzzing, choked out words to get someone round to help him.

But the words came out as an intangible mess as he wheezed weakly, blood trickling down his nose and warm on his face. Some whispers, some faraway calling, and the voices were trying to tear him down, near his chest, as though wanting to run him through the heart and leave him breathless.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Fatty Lou dash round the corner, blurry face pale with worry. Once near, he kneeled beside him, taking him by the shoulders, and he shook him hard, snapped his head back as he called out for the others, someone, anyone.

I'm fine…

Lei wished to say, but the buzzing wouldn't stop. The fingers holding the manual burned painfully hot, as though he clutched within his hand a molten rock. He tried flinging the damn thing away, but something stopped him at the last second. It felt wrong to get rid of it, rather he pressed it tight to his side, and tighter still until his whole side went alive with excruciating agony.

"I-I'm fine…" Lei said. He breathed and forced himself to relax, but felt as if the ground slipped slowly away from under his feet, away from under his feet, away from under his…

…..

[Only by gazing upon the inner heart, one can hope to find the true core of one's being. Within that core lies the gift of the Great Mother, the inner flame waiting for a single spark to blaze alive once again.]

Lei woke up to an ancient voice that echoed all around him.

There was a cauldron. Smoke puffed out beautifully from its half-opened lid, curling around a thousand blinking stars, up through the figure of a faceless man. He stood behind the cauldron. A black cape spilled down his back, its edges dancing lazily in outer space. Ladle in his hand, he stirred the mixture, shoulders towering high over a big ball of molten rock, its surface barely seen under the giant cauldron exploding with bright flames.

Is that a cauldron placed on top of a sun?

Then he stopped. Stars lost their glint, burning flames wavering as though they were afraid as the man reached with one hand to a distant star, smoke coiling around his arm. His fingers clutched the trembling celestial body as though a pebble, plucked it from its roots, tossed it into the cauldron, and the mixture hissed at the touch of it.

[Dao is the path that can't be spoken of with mere words. It lies within one's heart, belonging only to one's inner core. It is the foundation of one's being, the true purpose of one's existence.]

That ethereal voice dinned inside Lei's mind, soothing like a spring breeze. He felt it close in his arms and heard it beating inside his chest, but his body was nowhere in sight. Yet it was speaking to him, this voice.

[It is a calling one can't refuse, for refusing to adhere to this call is to revolt against one's own heart. But it can be changed, just as one's heart can be changed through the waves one experiences within many lives.]

He stirred the cauldron, leaving the skies with one less star. They wouldn't miss it, Lei thought, there were thousands of them dotting the endless space.

[To embark upon this path is to defy the heavens, to adhere to the rules of one's own being, to stay true to one's self.]

It was beyond understanding. Unrealistic. He felt like a dream, a blink away from existing, but then he felt he was everywhere at once, flowing with the smoke, dripping down the edge of the cauldron's lid, shivering senseless like those stars that lost their glint.

[No path is simple. No path is unimportant. Even a glimmer of light can cleave apart the darkness, even a candle's flame can light the path for eyes to see. To walk upon this path one must take the first step.]

A fire blazed, this one burning white. Within the chest of the towering man it roared, spreading warmth about the cosmos -- felt like a mother's touch. So welcoming, yet brimmed with a power mighty enough to make the molten rock's flames seem like they were nothing more than tiny sparks.

[From darkness rises a light, through death begins one's mind to unravel, thus the path beckons the core back to one's inner heart, back to where it belongs, to unite once again as a whole.]

The scene changed, and Lei found himself perched over on the man's right shoulder, staring down at the cauldron, to the boiling mixture of a thousand colors. It was a mess, the mixture was, but then it did seem to have an order of its own, as though twisting colors were all splashed out with purpose. Grains sparkled amongst them, and one of them flashed blue like a sapphire.

Earth? Is this our galaxy?

A long sigh escaped through the lips of the giant man, turning into a gale that sent the stars hurtling about the space and made the burning suns shake like leaves. Before long he was holding the lid, fingers trembling as he closed it shut over the mixture, cutting short the curling waves of the smoke.

But then, his fingers stopped, leaving a sliver of opening at the edge of the cauldron. A tiny ball broke free from the fire burning within his chest, dancing across the lid, hopping like a little child until it found the opening, and jumped straight into it.
….

[The interference has been eliminated.]

[System stabilizing…]

[Divine energy detected.]

[System stabilized.]

[Inheritance: Yellow Maiden's Teachings, unlocked.]

Lei wheezed out a breath, heart pounding in his chest. He searched blindly around him as he opened his eyes, sharp sunlight poking holes into his brain. Raising a quick hand over them, he peered about him, and saw Fatty Lou right there, leaning onto a wooden door, face red with thrill.

Just as their eyes crossed a blinding pain shot up into Lei's brain, making stars swim in his vision. He clenched his teeth as a warmth slowly spread from within his chest, down his legs, up his head, easing the pain like it'd been a lie.

Shit. What the hell is happening?

"Thank the Heavens," Fatty Lou said as he closed the guidebook in his hands, stepped near him, and kneeled by his side. "How are you feeling?"

How? Like a man who saw the whole universe's been cooked in a fucking cauldron.

"I'm fine," Lei said with a strained smile. "Mind's a little heavy, that's all. What happened?"

"You passed out holding that manual," Fatty Lou said, pointing with his eyes to the booklet clutched tight in Lei's right hand.

I didn't even feel the damn thing.

"We tried to take it away, but you wouldn't let go. And that Library Elder came all of a sudden, said 'Let the kid embrace his good fortune', something like that. In short, Elder Brother Bai and Elder Sister Mei decided you to keep it."

"This?" Lei raised the booklet doubtfully, scowling as he tried to read the ancient letters on its cover. "Yellow Maiden's… Heart Flame?"

"They don't know what it is," Fatty Lou said with a frown. "Even Elder Sister Mei and Elder Brother Bai said they had never seen anything like this before."

Heart Flame?

Lei raised a hand over his chest. It was warm. And there did seem to be something different about his body, as though he gulped down a miraculous drug that somehow made his chest swell with energy.

"You sure you're good?" Fatty Lou said, brows creased as he stared deeply at him.

Lei shook his head. It was… not easy to make sense of the scene he had just witnessed. A faceless man cooking the Milky Way inside a cauldron? Plucking stars like they are onions, adding them to the mix without peeling their skin? And what about that stove? Sun, was it?

Are you trying to say that the Dao of Cooking means that you can cook everything, even the universe with your hands… like soup? How?

He leaned back to his bed, having decided there wouldn't be any stopping to these questions of which none he had the answers for. He was a simple cook, but it started to seem like this system was slowly forcing him to become anything but.

Well, when you think about it, cooking soup isn't much different. The man was a towering giant, after all.

He chuckled at the thought. That was helpful. Another helpful thing was the wide grin creasing the face of Fatty Lou who, after making sure he was alright, started trembling like an excited kid.

"Look what I've got," he said, pulling another booklet, its cover looking bright as though somebody licked it clean.

Lei's eyes widened when he read the manual's name, "Calamity Demon's Indestructible Body? What the—"

"Sounds good, right?" Fatty Lou's smile was almost too bright to look at. "I knew from the first time I laid my eyes on this manual, and Elder Brother Bai too thinks this is the best one for me. Can't say the same thing with Elder Sister Mei, though. She wasn't too… enthusiastic about my choice, saying that I should've picked the Soaring Hawk Manual."

Lei glanced over the contents after he took the booklet from Fatty Lou's hand. There were all sorts of strange diagrams drawn inside of it, but the part that got his attention was the 'Indestructible Body' part. Supposedly, once trained to the Adept Stage, two stages above the Foundation Realm, the body would become as hard as jade, allowing the practitioner to be unrivaled amongst the same stage opponents.

But then, Lei came across another crucial fact, this one making him a little nervous. "Are you sure you can endure a bolt of lightning? It says here that you'll have to absorb lightning energy, sitting bare-chested under a heavy storm, waiting for lightning to strike your…" He pointed at a page that depicted the heavenly seal nodes in a human's body. There was one node hanging dangerously close near the crotch. "Nodes."

Fatty Lou stared at him oddly.

"What?" Lei asked.

"What do you mean 'what?' Didn't you check your own manual?" Fatty Lou leaned closer, tapping with one finger on the other booklet which was still clutched in Lei's hand. "I don't know what's gotten into you, but read the first page. It's… a lot worse than my manual."

Lei frowned as he gave the Calamity Demon's Indestructible Body Manual back to Fatty Lou, once more sighing at the grand name, before he opened his own manual's first page. Then he blinked. For a second he thought he'd seen the words glistening with a golden hue.

Something's wrong with my brain.

He trailed a finger as he read one sentence after another, his mouth slowly opening in response. He stared back at Fatty Lou to check if he'd read it right.

The man nodded sadly.

"A volcano…" Lei mumbled, dazed, and light-headed. "I'll have to soak myself fully into magma to break every third seal, absorbing True Flame essence to strengthen my inner flame. And the only way to absorb spiritual energy is through burning… spiritual beasts?"

"With your inner flame," Fatty Lou said. "You'll have to burn spiritual animals, wood, herbs, anything with a whiff of spiritual energy. You'll suck the ashes through your pores in deep meditation. According to Elder Brother Bai, this manual can break even a rich Young Master of some noble clan."

"B-But why? I don't remember I've accepted anything—" Lei stopped when Fatty Lou gave him an uncertain look.

Right. He doesn't know. But how can you explain something so bizarre to a man? He won't believe me. Even I'm not sure if I'm supposed to believe it or not.

"Uh," Lei grunted, clearing his throat. "You have to make the best of it, right?" he said after he took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

Thankfully, Fatty Lou was too caught up with his own manual to think much about Lei's strange mode.

"Don't worry," he said instead. "Elder Brother Bai said that every manual has its own rhythm, a sort of… system that once you get the hang of it, everything becomes a lot easier."

"System, you've said?" Lei knitted his brows in thought. Felt as though he was missing something.

Shit. The system!

"I think I'll sleep a bit more," he said hastily, intending to check the system after sending Fatty Lou to his room. "I'm still tired."

"Mm." Fatty Lou gave him a little nod. "I'll leave you alone. I was planning to check the manual, anyway."

As Fatty Lou made his way toward the room, Lei called the system with a thought, blue lights bursting alive from seemingly nowhere.

[Dao of Cooking]

Inner Flame: Spiritual

Name: Lei Liang

Age: 20

Cultivation Level: Half-Step into the 1st Seal.

Cooking Skills: Skill Choice Available.

Tools: None

Inheritance: Yellow Maiden's Teachings (Incomplete)

Wait, what?

He paused when he saw the additional information that appeared on the screen. The Inner Flame part reminded him of that tiny ball of white-hot blaze hopping over onto the lid of the galaxy-cooking cauldron.

Can't be that flame, right?

Though he thought as such, a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach told him otherwise. There was no other explanation, considering the Yellow Maiden's Manual somehow stuck itself to his hands as though they were once a complete whole.

Shaking his head, Lei sent another thought at the system, this time focusing on the skill choice.

Ding!

Skill Choice Available!

……..