It was still hard to accept all of… well, everything. Three days might have passed since she had first seen Song Ming cultivate, and in the time since, she had seen a few more glowing lights appear along the mountains, and she even glimpsed something moving in the distance, seemingly along the air, but none of this could settle in her head.

She had grown up with anything magical being treated as a joke, as something that only kids would ever believe in. Everything that wasn’t a simple and logical science had not yet been understood, that’s all.

Of course, there seemed to be some reason behind the behaviour of cultivation – or consistency, at least – but Bianca was no scientist or scholar. She had no clue how to investigate or research this, so all she could do was listen to those that knew something about cultivation and then pretend like she understood it, and that it made some logical sense. This was the only way to soothe the endless headache that seemed to come with the concepts of cultivation, planar energy and-

‘No, it’s all bullshit, but I just can’t handle it otherwise,’ Bianca sighed, though her discomfort was mitigated by the sight of Song Ming exercising in front of her.

After a few more days spent together, although there was nothing close to the kiss that could have happened on the sixteenth (when Bianca first confirmed that cultivation wasn’t just a mythical concept from long ago), they had gotten a little more comfortable with one another. Song Ming blushed a little less often, and she was a bit more open.

Unfortunately, the young woman had not yet asked whether she’s permitted to look at her body through spiritual perception, and her description suggested that there was no way to know if someone was spying on you with it, at least without one’s own cultivation. In other words, even while Song Ming was exercising her body prior to a session of cultivation, she could have been looking at Bianca’s boobs and simply pretending not to do so. Then again, the young woman’s cheeks would be burning up if she did that, so it didn’t seem to be the case.

“Bianca, are you sure you don’t want to join in next time?”

“Next time, maybe. For now, though, I’m getting tired just from looking at you. How do you manage to do dozens of push-ups without breaking a sweat?”

Song Ming responded with a shy smile, “It’s mostly my cultivation, actually… The first realm made me almost twice as strong as I had been before, though my endurance is a lot greater thanks to being able to use planar energy to supplement what I eat.”

She wiped the little sweat there was from her forehead, manifesting a small amount of mist that gathered around her hand and cleaned it. Apparently, this was a simple application of planar energy of the water element, but it might as well have been something on the level of a perpetual motion machine, since Bianca couldn’t figure out how it worked.

“Besides, I did sweat a bit.”

‘I… I noticed. She smells nice, even from here… even with the sweat… especially with it,’ Bianca wasn’t sure whether to thank or curse her genetics for giving her such a sensitive nose, so she instead focused on something else, “Do the other realms not affect the body? You’re still circulating the energy throughout your meridians and whatever else, right?”

“Well, the enhancement comes from the stages themselves. Beyond that, you would need to practise a body cultivation technique, though I’ve heard that it can be called a physique cultivation technique as well.”

“… Remind me about the types of techniques?”

“Again, when the Calm Skies Sect, they will do a better job than I can, but the basic types are cultivation techniques, various skills, and then great arts methods. Techniques are for the cultivation of planar energy, the body and the mind, so that’s simple enough,” Song Ming said, returning to the cross-legged cultivation position as she spoke, “Skills are the broadest category. Combat skills, movement skills, healing skills and so on. If you need to do something active, it’s probably a skill.”

“And there are five great arts, right?”

“Yes. Talismans, alchemy, blacksmithing, inscription and arrays. Each of those will have a particular crafting method associated with it, whether for specific items or the great art as a whole.”

“… This is all common knowledge around here?”

“According to the Sacred River Sect’s disciples, every cultivator will either learn this right away, or will have to learn it quickly in order to ensure survival. The world can be harsh, and if someone doesn’t realise what they’re doing or what they’re up against just once, they could die.”

‘Sounds serious, though… It’s hard to take anything like that seriously when it’s about magic- I mean, cultivation. What are people going to fight over, anyway?’

It was hard for Bianca to imagine how the people of this world would think, as Orbis was a very different land. There had been no major conflicts in just over a hundred years, since the Greatest War shook the world, and in Antania especially, most things were plentiful and cheap. Even with her limited funds, she could easily obtain everything necessary for survival and then plenty of things that weren’t necessary at all, so scarcity was almost as fantastical as magic.

“Anyway, I had only learn one combat skill, and I know my own cultivation technique, but that’s it. That’s not very good by the standards of sect disciples, but there’s apparently a reason not to cultivate too many techniques at the same time – the three categories are often called techniques as a whole, by the way.”

“Right… Yeah, I think I will wait for those sect disciples of the Calm Skies Sect. What are they planning to do here?”

“They’re here to find more disciples to accept into the sect. Our village, Xi Village, is near three sects, and every ten years, one of them will come to search for young talents, usually between ten and twenty, though they’re not too specific if you’re capable. Those that are capable but not impressive will be left in the village, the talented ones will be taken to the sect for anywhere from a lifetime to a few years, depending on what they accomplish and choose to do…”

That helped Bianca understand why she was disappointed not to be taken in by the Sacred Rivers Sect. It also went a long way to explaining why there were so few people in the village, when her limited knowledge from Orbis would have suggested that people in older times – or a world reminiscent of them – would have far more children to make up for the lack of modern medicine and high infant mortality rates, though the absence of contraception and sexual education certainly helped to grow families quite a bit.

Somehow, she knew more about that than physics, which was odd considering how little she liked the concept of a guy getting close enough to her to ever have a chance at getting kids.

‘I must have studied it to avoid getting pregnant by accident or something. Who knows what young me had thought…’ she waved those unnecessary thoughts away and glanced at Song Ming’s boobs to focus again. Bianca would have preferred to see her ass, but it was a little difficult given her current position.

“I’ll begin my cultivation now. If Lin Shuming comes over, tell him that and he should leave.”

“Wait, was he planning to see you? I don’t think I heard anything about that,” Bianca looked behind herself just in case.

“He’s been speaking with dad, me and some others, like Min Yu. He thinks you’re suspicious, still.”

“Seriously? I’ve essentially done nothing since waking up in the village, and he’s still managed to find a problem with me? Did I accidentally do something to piss him off, or is this just normal behaviour for that guy?”

“I… I think that the impending arrival of the sects might be making him more agitated than usual,” Song Ming suggested, “He’s fond of cultivation and he’s always wanted to get into one of the sects, so he’s been hoping that something will come up that will earn the favour of the sects… I think. Lin Shuming is fond of being obtuse, and I don’t like getting too close to him.”

“Guess I’ll follow your example in this regard. Anyway, I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

“Thank you, Bianca,” Song Ming gave her a shy smile, then shut her eyes and began the typical lightshow.

Apparently, the light was planar energy being made visible by her cultivation technique, though it was a mere side effect of the absorption process. It manifested when she selected specific particles within the air and pulled them into her body.

She just had to accept that it worked that way, and her only method of confirming such a thing would be to get her hands on a cultivation technique of her own. Song Ming refused to provide her manual to her, which was probably for the best if it was necessary to choose an appropriate technique for herself, and not just pick up some random one from the road. Lin Shuming would never share with her even if his technique fit – and even if he got over his desires for greater success than he already had – and there was nobody else to look to.

Hence, Bianca instead got back to doing what she knew Song Ming had to have done at least once – fantasising about the young woman before her.

They had used the same spot for training in the last few days, and despite the winds constantly passing through the mountainous area, it felt as if her scent had been building up within the open field. There was little to use as perfume in the village, and Song Ming tended to spend most of her time exercising, so whatever she did use was worn away long before she finished working out.

Bianca never considered herself to be a pervert – and she’d certainly not admit it to anyone, whether stranger or close friend, albeit for different reasons – but she did have certain weaknesses and fetishes, as did anyone.

Her nose, sensitive as it was, led to many smells being highly prominent to her. The moment she went through puberty and began to have… deeper feelings and desires for other girls her age, she also found that the usually stuffy changing rooms suddenly became a little less uncomfortable. It was still stuffy, sweaty and unpleasant, and she hardly considered the smell of a woman’s sweat to be particularly divine even now, but there was a hint of something that she couldn’t help but enjoy.

It didn’t help that Song Ming had the mysterious power of cultivation on her side, combining with her natural traits to make everything about her significantly more attractive than Bianca was used to.

Even her sweat lacked most of the unpleasant elements that Bianca could easily recognise from some of the other women in Xi Village, as if she was some fantastical being. Slowly but surely, Song Ming crept into her thoughts and dreams, and with her inability to take care of the accumulating lusts and urges due to her residence being that open shack in which she initially awoke, it meant that her presence in Bianca’s mind grew larger.

She hoped that Song Ming truly had some interest in her as well, and that she wasn’t misinterpreting their earlier interactions, or else she wouldn’t be able to hold on for very long and would need to seek out a place and time to sate herself in one manner or another.

‘Luckily, I’ve only got kleptomania to worry about, not nymphomania… I can’t even imagine how bad that would have been,’ Bianca shuddered at the thought, ‘Speaking of which, there’s one good thing to appearing in another world – my kleptomania has yet to flare up at all. If I get back to Orbis, I should report this to a psychologist as a revolutionary new treatment.’

It wouldn’t be a very good one even if she did figure out a consistent way of travelling back and forth somehow, but that was another problem entirely.

Even with that mental tangent, she couldn’t entirely eliminate her lust, so she quietly rubbed her thighs together and looked away, actually trying to search for Lin Shuming or anyone else that might interrupt Song Ming’s cultivation. If something showed up, it would easily distract her and let her ignore the feeling of moisture at her nether regions.

 

‘Dull… so fucking dull… how does she keep doing this for an hour at a time? Why does she do it for so long? Why doesn’t she go for longer if she has the patience of… um… the guy at the corner shop, who keeps getting robbed by me…’ Bianca suddenly felt a lot worse about him, ‘Now I don’t even remember his name, and I haven’t ever gotten to apologise in full for my misdeeds. How did I manage to forget him, though…’

“Bianca, how was it? Did I miss anything?”

Song Ming’s cute voice woke her up, pulling her attention away from her desperate attempts to remember. She looked up and found herself face to face with Song Ming, who stood above her, bending down to bring their faces absurdly close to one another. One additional movement by Bianca would have brought them into a kiss, and it was really – really – hard to resist doing exactly that.

“I… I didn’t spot anything. If Lin Shuming was here, he chose not to disturb you,” Bianca replied, looking away to help restrain herself, “Did you make any progress with the cultivation?”

“It’s not that fast, I’m afraid,” Song Ming sighed, taking a seat by her side, “It took me two years to get to the third stage from the second one, and it will probably take even longer to get to the fourth stage – and I reached the third stage a little over a year ago, by the way. Your enthusiasm, though… thank you very much for that, even if I know that it’s only because you don’t fully understand this yet… Thank you.”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that at all. While it’s true that I understand… well, little is an understatement, but let’s use that word for now – I think that you should be able to accomplish wonders as long as you figure out the right way to do it,” she said, though she couldn’t quite meet the young woman’s gaze as she continued, “I recall you telling me that some people reach the third realm before they reach thirty, and that some even get there before twenty. Surely there can’t be that big of a difference between you and them, right?”

“… Maybe. Apart from their cultivation techniques, my body isn’t too different, I suppose…” Song Ming didn’t sound especially certain, but Bianca could only let her continue, “I know of three dantian types, those being impure, common and cleansed, and if mine was impure, I shouldn’t even be able to cultivate… So, in terms of dantian alone, I shouldn’t be much worse than a genius.”

“That… seems like sound logic. What’s the difference between cultivation techniques?”

“It’s-”

“A basic thing like that, and you can’t even learn it after wasting Song Ming’s time for several days,” Lin Shuming suddenly emerged into the clearing, “The efficacy of a technique is graded by the realm that it is able to bring one to, and the degree of impurity within the energy it results in, though that depends in part on the cultivator’s own aptitude. Simply learning a technique – regardless of the type – will not ensure that you are able to use it to its fullest potential.”

“Hello to you as well,” Bianca only spared him a single glance, shuffling closer to Song Ming to prevent the guy from occupying the space between them, “My apologies for losing my memories from something I still cannot recall.”

He snorted, walking past them and into the space where Song Ming had been cultivating, completely ruining the sight, “Do you think that is a reasonable excuse for your behaviour?”

“Which behaviour?”

“You’re blatantly investigating our situation and preparing for something. I had paid attention to your activities so far, and it seems obvious that you will be planning something and using your supposed amnesia as a cover to let the people of my Xi Village open up to-”

“This is not your village, Lin Shuming,” Song Ming interrupted him, her usual soft tone being mixed with more than a slight hint of anger, “Could you stop accusing people of things you have no evidence for? I still remember when you stalked my dad when you suddenly felt like he was a ‘troublemaker’, despite knowing him your entire life.”

“No evidence? Just look at her!”

“I have! Plenty of times… I don’t see anything but a young woman like me who experienced some type of tragedy and is now attempting to return to some semblance of normalcy!”

“You… She has clearly charmed you with some-”

“Oh please, I know my limits. If I charm someone entirely with my own skills, then there must have been some kind of miracle…” Bianca shook her head, “Really, we were having a nice, relaxing time together. Could you not intrude at times like this? There are several hours in most of my days that you could have used instead.”

“Watch how you speak to me. The sects will recognise my authority, and if I present my suspicions, they will gladly-”

“Lin Shuming. Are you really threatening to kill her?” Song Ming stood up, her eyes narrowing as a strange glow appeared around her hands, “I may be in a lower stage than you, but I will not allow you to do things like that!”

“And are you saying you will defend this… this intruder?”

“I’m saying I will protect a friend! I’m not afraid of you!” she stepped in front of Bianca, guarding her with her own body.

Bianca didn’t oppose the offer of protection, but at the same time, she was incredibly curious to see how a fight between the two of them might look like. So, she backed away, climbing over the log she had been using as her seat, and then moved over to the side, where she would have a chance to see some of the action with her own eyes – not like she had any other ways to witness or record the incident, given that she didn’t carry anything from Orbis into this new world.

‘I don’t really want them to fight – Lin Shuming, for all of his personality flaws, is taller and seems stronger even by the metric of cultivation – but I have no idea who could calm this lot down,’ she realised her heart was beating quickly, and not in a pleasant manner at all, causing her to bring her hand to her chest as if she could somehow calm it, and the whole situation, down in that manner.

Meanwhile, Lin Shuming focused his attention on Song Ming and sighed, removing a sword from his side, scabbard and all. He held it in one hand, not bothering to unsheathe it.

Raising it to point in Song Ming’s direction, he said, “You are simply being deceived by her. As such, I don’t want to kill you, but if you are intent on fighting me, then hurting you is going to be inevitable. I hope the fog of deceit is lifted from your mind quickly.”

She offered no reply, and Bianca certainly didn’t want to risk angering a man with a sword in his hand, so she also remained quiet. Thus, the two stood together, facing one another with their chosen weapons at the ready, breathing evenly and clearly circulating that planar energy of theirs, as faint light shone from within the both of them.

For a few moments, even the wind went quiet, making the entire scene still.

Then, as Bianca began to reconsider her position and moved her foot a little, she stepped on a branch that broke so loudly it could have rivalled the bombs of the Greatest War. She heard it clearly, and since the two cultivators enhanced their bodies, they couldn’t miss it either.

Lin Shuming dashed forward, raising his sword before bringing it down in a quick motion, aiming right for Song Ming’s head. The young woman reacted a moment later, dodging aside before lunging at his side, the glow around her right hand seeming to transform, to change shape into an open set of jaws that rushed ahead of her limb. Naturally, Lin Shuming didn’t just stand still, and the moment his attack failed, he took a moment to assess his options and then responded.

He met the incoming jaws of some unknown thing, composed – constructed, even – of planar energy with his weapon, from which a great volume of light exploded, seemingly in two steps. The first occurred immediately upon the collision, then a second burst that shone with enough brightness to rival the sun.

The pure white light forced Bianca to raise her hand and block out at least some of it, but she was at the periphery of this horror. It was clear that Song Ming would have suffered even more.

Hence, Bianca was afraid that the moment her eyes recovered from that flash, she would see Song Ming injured, or perhaps even incapacitated or killed by the lunatic she was opposing. It was a terrifying prospect for many reasons, so the moment that her eyes stopped hurting quite as much as they did at first, she forced them open and tried to interpret the blurry mess that they brought to her mind. All she knew for sure was that there was no large sea of red within her vision.

It took her a few moments to remember that she still had the sense of hearing, and that light couldn’t take it out as easily as it could her sight. She focused on it and combined it with her blurry sight to produce a vague image of the circumstances before her.

Song Ming had been affected by the light, but she must have known of it already, as she managed to block yet another sword strike with something – most likely that magical attack of hers. Lin Shuming seemed to retreat, given that his footsteps became quieter with each step, and Song Ming advanced with the same technique- no, skill.

‘Can she not attack with just her fists, or does that not work as well? Does she have a weapon, or is this seriously sword – sword scabbard, I guess – against hand?’

She wasn’t sure if there were any rules or traditions against such things in this place, but it was blatantly unfair, especially when the gap in cultivation was considered. As her sight recovered, she saw evidence of exactly that, as Song Ming was already appearing to exhaust herself while Lin Shuming was fighting with ease. While sheathed blade clashed with the phantasmal jaws, Bianca attempted to figure out why this would be.

Oddly enough for a complete novice like her, she spotted something immediately. When Lin Shuming blocked Song Ming’s strikes, the glowing within and around his hand and sheathed blade was rather subdued, rarely lighting up like it did the first time.

Song Ming had to meet his slashes with her full strength, her energy brightening and almost forming into a flowing river that assisted her movements. Assuming that the two of them had a similar pool of energy to use, then this would mean that Song Ming was going to expend it far more quickly than her foe.

It didn’t help that Lin Shuming’s primary skill seemed to be a simple flashbang of some kind, whereas Song Ming had to materialise some kind of monster to strike with. The former couldn’t cost as much energy.

‘Is there even anything I can do? I’m not even sure I can throw a rock accurately enough…’

With a final blink, she finally regained some semblance of her usual vision, just in time to see Lin Shuming suddenly accelerate, the energy within his body becoming brighter for a moment as he crossed the gap between them and slashed from the side. His scabbard slammed right into Song Ming’s arm, striking her elbow, the sound of the strike being overwhelmed by the involuntary dry of pain bursting out of Song Ming’s mouth.

“Shit, you’re actually-” Bianca exclaimed, but her words were interrupted by a far louder cry, originating behind her alongside a familiar and unpleasant stench.

“SHUMIIING!” a tall man, nearly reaching two metres, burst onto the scene, his bald head shining in the sunlight. He held a simple spear in his hand, about as long as he was tall, and forced Bianca to cover her nose before she had to endure it any longer than she already had.

With Kong Xi’s entrance, the battle between Song Ming and Lin Shuming halted, as the latter had to back away and prepare to face a far more dangerous foe.

“What do you think you’re doing, Kong Xi?”

“If you would beat someone, find someone closer to your size!” the hunter exclaimed in reply, grabbing the spear with both hands and aiming it at Lin Shuming, “Come at me, you skinny bastard! COME AT ME!”

Their battle couldn’t even begin before more people from the village showed up, Old Man Song appearing at the front of the group, “What is happening here? Explain yourselves!”

“Song Ling, I was-”

“You are fighting my daughter for no reason! Are you mad?”

“I-”

“Get away from her right now! Don’t you dare come near her or Bianca in the future, either! Get away, now!”

Although Old Man Song didn’t seem to be a cultivator, he still brought many people with him, while Lin Shuming was alone and at a great disadvantage. He backed off quickly, and before anything else could occur, Bianca ran up to Song Ming and brought her away, with the young woman following along after a moment of stunned hesitation.