5: Travel

The fact that my current teacher is the one who wanted me dead has not escaped my notice. However, I’m not skilled enough for my tricks to evade detection against someone as capable and paranoid as him. If he doesn’t let his guard down, I can’t kill him. The difference in experience and power is just too great. 

If I fill the air in my room with my ki, he carefully avoids entering and just speaks from outside when he needs my attention. He keeps his distance from anything with my ki in it. At least I don’t have to deal with any harassment from him. Perhaps I gave away too much information about how I do things when all my harassers got diarrhea, and I gained the reputation of being cursed. 

As for my cultivation… I’m almost ready to form my foundation, it’s just… I feel like something’s missing. I’m not sure what. If I form my foundation now, it’ll just be an ocean of dirty water, and I feel like that’s not doing it right. I need a better concept than that. A better foundation. I also want to see the ocean. There is one. Perhaps I can gain insight by seeing it for myself. By seeing what this world’s ocean really is like.

Thankfully, when I asked for permission to go outside, my teacher seemed relieved to have me go. They are probably hoping I won’t return. Considering the number of people I’ve killed, there will probably be a lot of assassins after me once word is out that I’m outside the sect. Good thing I’ve practiced my detection skills heavily. No living thing will be able to approach me without my noticing. All living things have water in them, and the air has water as well. Water makes an even better element for detecting living things than air does. Yet air is famous for it, and water isn’t.

…

*thud*

“Ah, another one fell. Why are you assassins all so weak to my tactics?”

“H-how. How did you do it? Why am I so weak?”

“I’m not about to tell you. I know there’s more of you listening in after all. Too bad that old man who tried to have me killed is smarter than you all. Since you’re powerless now though, I’ll finish you off myself.”

Once again, I left the dried out husk of a man behind. Another would-be assassin fallen to my schemes… that’s really embellishing there. I just slowly weaken anyone I notice tailing me. Slowly filling their bodies and ki with impurities they don’t even notice, until they are too weak to properly defend themselves. At which point more direct efforts are simple enough. 

Only explanation for why this works so well I can think of is, that it’s not a poison or disease, so their training against such things doesn’t apply. Really what I’m doing is comparable to killing with water poisoning. It sounds ridiculous, but drinking too much water can kill a person. This is similar. I get their bodies to take in something it thinks isn’t dangerous, but enough of it will ruin them. I suppose this isn’t something that can be done by a normal cultivator. Only by pure water root. Or I suppose impure water root as that name might suit my cultivation better.

…

Assassin’s view

I wanted to observe my target for a while before making a move. It’s standard practice as an assassin. Observe the target, learn their habits, exploit their weaknesses. Except something wasn’t right. Within a day I found myself feeling a little bit ill. Not enough to really bother me, but when I saw another assassin fall - one skilled enough that I’d not realized they were there until they did - I realized I was in over my head. I thought I was just a little under the weather. Sure, it’s a rare thing for one who is as trained as I, but not impossible. However, if it’s her doing, then I’m walking into a trap. 

She must already know I’m here, which ruins surprise. If I wait longer for a better opportunity, I’ll get more sick. If I strike now, I risk an open fight with someone known to have slain foes much stronger than her, and risk fighting on her terms, not mine. This is no longer an assassination. I’m not confident enough to fight her fairly, especially when I know she doesn’t fight fair.

Oh good, someone else is confronting her, I’ll watch and see if she’s as deadly as… it was an illusion. She was an illusion! I was tracking an illusion! All that remains is her horrid laughter and a very angry man who’d just wasted a powerful move on empty air. This job needs someone better than me, I’ll just die if I keep on.