Lovers’ Spurt (lvl.0 -upgradaeble: 5 Ripple Points)

Effect: A lover is like a magnet in a way. They can attract, but also repel.

Practice the skill to entry level to upgrade.

Simply learning the skill, even after all the practice he'd put in, required three ripple points. And now he needed five for the first upgrade. He had the sinking feeling he was going to be heamoraging points.

This one was a different technique from anything he'd learned before. It stated its effects simply and directly, and no matter how much he upgraded it, it was not going to change the description. It would probably just make the effects stronger.

The first level cost five points, the second fifteen points. The third level cost thirty ripple points. He could feel the amount of qi he had in him vaguely rise. He knew his cultivation was improving, even if only slightly.

There were only about three days to the trial by combat. He needed to at least be at that girl's level to stand a chance.

There was a problem of lack of experience, and of course this technique was considered a low-tier technique, but he had his healing ability. Technically, he should stand no chance of losing. The ability didn't even depend on his qi.

The fourth level cost him a prohibiting fifty ripple points. He had already used more than a hundred ripple points, and was now left with about only ninety. But the next upgrade demanded eighty points. Level four was the technique's level cap. The next upgrade would exceed that.

But so far, Lin Yang hadn't yet improved his cultivation. Four levels in the skill and not a single layer of cultivation gained. It was an ominous sign.

Lovers' Spurt (lvl. 5- level cap exceeded)

He waited for his roiling qi to settle. And after almost a minute, it finally did. 

He felt stronger. He felt his body was lighter as he got to his feet, but there was no improvement. He was still a first layer cultivator. 

And he had less than ten ripple points.

“Damn it!”

He fell back on his ass. He just sat there for almost a full hour. 

He had a new technique, but even testing it was out the window. He had used up almost all his ripple points, and now he had less than three days.

Sure, ripple points were still trickling in from afar, but it would take at least a week to get back the ripple points he'd just wasted. It was a low-tier technique, he'd been told. 

Most people didn't learn the kind of techniques Lin Yang had learned from desperation, like the fight and flight technique. For most people, this technique he had just learned was their introduction to martial arts. It was better than his first technique, but only just.

But as time ticked by, Lin Yang realised maybe he wasn't done for. Ever since returning from the minor realm, he'd been cooped up in this complex. 

If he wanted to harvest ripple points, proximity was better than distance. Besides, he once told himself he was going to use the outer sect as his stomping ground. 

And learning the lovers’ spurt hadn't been a waste of time, exactly. Now he had experience circulating his energy. With proper guidance, couldn't he learn the joyful steps in a single day. He would just need ripple points in advance. 

He stayed up all night thinking of ways to get more ripple points. 

As he helped the matriarch with her treatment the next day, Lin Yang made sure to keep sighing every few moments. The matriarch was lost to the pleasure of healing though, and she kept ignoring him. At least that was how Lin Yang chose to interpret it.

“Xiao Lin, what is wrong?” the matriarch said eventually.

Ripple Points Obtained (suspicion): 0.1 (Ye Lingjun)

Suspicion?! And strong enough it materialised as ripple points.

But right then, his fragile relationship with the matriarch didn't matter to him as much as his life. He needed her help if his scheme was to succeed.

“Matriarch, for most of three weeks, I've been cooped up here like some criminal. I think it makes me look guilty of something,” he complained.

The matriarch had a hint of amusement as she studied him. “But you are guilty, you see…”

Lin Yang fought the urge to grimace. This did not start the way he wanted it to.

“Matriarch, I'm your humble follower. You appointed me steward of the matriarch's residence—”

“You gave yourself the title,” Ye Lingjun interrupted.

This time he decided not to let her phase him. “And yet I've been unable to fulfill my duties due to being locked up here.”

The matriarch seemed speechless for a long time. Lin Yang did not let his resolve waver though.

“And what duties might these be?”

“Functioning as the matriarch's arm in the inner and outer sect.”

“What do you intend to do?” she asked.

“I told you I'd find a way to deal with elder Hao Feng discreetly for you. And I'll also exert your power and presence, which has not graced them for a long time, on the people of the outer sect.”

“...you want to bully people in the outer sect?”

“You wrong me, matriarch. I intend to lead the lost back to the path.”

“There were rumours of you doing such things before. We protected you from them.” Then she sighed. “It seems you found out?”

“You are too serious,” Lin Yang assured her. Then he thought of something. “Besides, there is also the matter of that one poet.”

The matriarch first frowned, then widened her eyes in realisation. Her amusement this time seemed more genuine. “Oh, so you intend to help your grand master find this talented rogue?”

“I will find this rogue, I pledge to you. Otherwise this disciple is not the matriarch's steward.”

“...”

He rubbed his hands together. “What does the matriarch think? Will you offer this humble one a token of your authority? So I may wreak havo… I mean bring your light to the outer sect.”

The matriarch shook her head in disbelief. Lin Yang kept his face straight, his expression that of a virtuous paragon waiting for instruction.

Ye Lingjun gestured. Lin Yang felt a familiar qi in the motion. And then a drawer opened on the left book shelf.

A wooden badge floated out of the drawer.

At high levels, levitating items with aura was no more than a paltry trick. Or so Lin Yang assumed. He'd once seen the matriarch project her presence into the elder's tower from her residence.

The matriarch had also used the attracting ability of the lovers' spurt technique, although Lin Yang knew she didn't have to. Now she used the repulsion ability to push the drawer closed. The finesse with which she wielded the abilities was phenomenal, but he was sure that wasn't what she was trying to prove. 

There was a message in there somewhere. A whole lot of messages. But Lin Yang wasn't good at reading people or their intentions.

That was why he had chosen the ripple system to help him in discerning other people's strong emotions. And now he knew the matriarch was suspicious of something.

It shouldn't be about him being the lad that peeks, should it? He had never peeked on her without her explicit permission, and he only focused on her back in those occasions.

Lin Yang was not attracted to the matriarch despite her otherworldly beauty. Maybe that was why she was suspicious. But she was his grandmaster, so that didn't make sense.

There could be a lot of reasons why she was suspicious. He tried to convince himself of that as he left her private chamber. 

He didn't see the frown that followed him out of the chamber.

“He really is different from the boy I remember. Oh, Pingxin…”

There was something strange about Lin Yang, and both the matriarch and elder Bai Qingling knew as much. But currently, he was the only thing they'd found that could maybe help Ye Lingjun recover from her many injuries, self-inflicted and otherwise.

And he had also received the founder's legacy. Hundreds of generations of Hehuan sect masters had been trying to get it, but only Lin Yang had succeeded.

Meanwhile, with a big smile on his face, Lin Yang walked up to the disciplinary hall. 

He was still a first layer cultivator after all. He wasn't going to go against the outer sect with only a piece of wood as insurance.

“Oh, it's our would be brother-in-law,” one of the disciples on guard duty at the hall said with a mocking grin.

The disciplinary hall was also home to the second prodigy of the Hehuan sect, the girl the original Lin Yang lost his life over. 

In response to the low-level hazing, Lin Yang raised his badge to the grinning boy.

“Care to say that again? The matriarch’s residence has been quiet so many years, even disciples of the inner sect no longer put us in their eyes, huh?”

“...the matriarch's hall!” the boy said in horror.

Such a hall had never existed, but that didn't matter to Lin Yang. Only results did.

Ripple Points Obtained (fear)...