River of Fate: Emerald Alchemist, page 42
Eventually, she looked at Verse and nodded, and then she turned to Vesana.
“We’ll help,” she said clearly, “but it will be expensive, at least in terms of Boreas’s prices. If you were someone else, I would ask whether you could afford it, but I doubt the price will mean much to the Alchemists’ Guild.
“Destroying a sect is difficult, even a small one like this, but I can’t say they don’t deserve it. Just the kidnapping of your guild members and the attack on the Imperial Knight here is enough to justify it, not to mention the assassination and everything you’ve said about the Desolate Mind Pill. If that ends up being true, I might even give you a discount. The guard subsidizes some missions that benefit the public like that.
“Either way, I’ll need to teleport in some standby forces. We don’t have enough here currently. Given the sect’s strength, it would be best to take at least three Inspired Aura cultivators with us, and five would be better.
“It’s not just a matter of fighting the sect master. We also have to break the sect’s protective formation and make sure he doesn’t escape. I’m not going to leave a loose end like that behind.” She tapped her fist against the table as she thought, and then she nodded decisively.
“I’ll issue the command for the standby forces to come here,” she said. “That will take a couple hours. As for the fee, it will be 5,000 high-grade spirit stones. That’s the discounted price, by the way. If there’s no evidence of these things when we get there, it will be twice that. Some of that will also go to cover the teleportation costs to bring in the standby forces.”
Verse had to hold back his shock as he heard the price.
At the guild’s conversion rate, it was 7,500 low-grade spirit stones for a single high grade one. That was 37.5 million spirit stones. It was enough to buy his house more than a thousand times.
Vesana, however, just nodded, as if she’d expected it.
“That’s acceptable,” she said with barely a frown. “Thank you for agreeing to help us. The guild’s reputation is at stake, not to mention the lives of the kidnapped alchemists. If we find evidence of the Desolate Mind Pill here, I’m sure the higher branches of the guild will contact you as well, to assist in making sure everything is destroyed.”
“I’ll look forward to that,” Imriz said with a chuckle. “The guild’s enforcement branch is well known to us. Now, if you want to wait here at our headquarters, you’re welcome to, but I’m going to be busy for the next bit until everyone is gathered together. There are a few free rooms you can use if you’d like to meditate or plan more. I’ll be in touch.”
As she finished, she pulled out two bright azure communication plates and set them on the table in front of each of them.
“Take these,” she said. “They’ll let you keep in contact with me and with anyone else assigned to this mission. Besides myself, there is one other Inspired Aura guard in the city, but I’ll need to summon a few more. I’ll also gather up the Primal Spirit guards who are available, and there should be half a dozen or so of those.”
Then she turned to Verse, her expression considering.
“Will you be participating as an Azurewind Guard or as an Imperial Knight for this?” she asked. “You are qualified to be one of our Primal Spirit-level cultivators and to join in on the mission, but your role is different depending on which one you choose. As a guard on this level of mission, you’d be part of the regular team, but as a Knight, you would have your own command and I’ll assign some people to work with you for the mission.”
“As a Knight this time,” Verse said as he nodded in recognition of the offer. “Vesana is a friend of mine and I might as well lead the team that stays with her.”
If he went as an Azurewind Guard, he would need to follow their battle plan and arrangements, and he didn’t want to be constrained by that. It would be better to stay with Vesana and take care of his own affairs.
“Very well then.” She turned to look at Vesana. “As the client, you can decide the mission objectives. It sounds like there’s both the main sect location and the area where they’re holding the kidnapped alchemists. How do you want to approach this? I’ll advise as necessary, but you should tell me your intentions first.”
“As long as we do our best to rescue the alchemists, and the sect is punished, you can follow his instructions.” Without hesitating, Vesana pointed at Verse.
Imriz just nodded, almost as if she’d expected that, and then she turned to Verse for his answer.
“I don’t want to get in your team’s way,” Verse said as he considered the matter. “Since there are two locations, however, why don’t you take the stronger team and pin down the main sect, and hopefully the sect master, and Vesana and I can focus on rescuing the kidnapped alchemists with a smaller team. It should be the weaker area, but also more important to the guild.”
“That’s similar to what I was going to recommend,” Imriz said with a nod. “I’ll assign your team once I see who’s available, but I’ll put at least one Inspired Aura cultivator with you. We can figure out the rest once everyone is here. Alright, please excuse me while I get things started.”
With that, she showed them to a room next to her office, and then she disappeared to gather the forces.
Chapter twenty-nine
Jade Magic
The speed and efficiency with which Imriz moved showed how well-trained the Azurewind Guard was. The entire plan to destroy a sect had barely made her blink, and it made Verse wonder just how many times she had been part of something similar.
It was a small inkling into the issues that he might deal with if he ever reached the gold rank himself.
Before long, a packet of information arrived for them that described the layout of the sect and the area where the alchemists were being kept, at least based on what Renzer had said.
The details of that area were limited, since there was nothing there except an old ruin, but apparently there had been some recent movement near it, which now looked like a confirmation.
There were only a couple of people moving around in the ruins, but they visited at regular intervals.
Even as they spoke, Imriz was sending out high-level scouts who specialized in movement and concealment techniques to gather more intelligence.
The Azurewind Guard’s abilities were well polished, and what they had here was already enough to let them plan their approach.
Bit by bit, the planning continued as they went over the maps in front of them.
Once they had a solid concept, Verse began to consider the best way to strengthen himself in the time available.
Ideally, he would make some more Amethyst Harrow Pills, but they took a while and time was limited. Since they were Rank 1, they might not be that much help here anyway. He would have to rely on the reinforcements instead.
What he could do, however, was choose a path for his jade magic.
There was enough elemental energy left from his breakthrough to the Aligned realm to carve one mystical symbol into his jade foundation. He tapped his fingers on the table as he thought about it.
Jade magic was called that because it was carved into a cultivator’s Jade Foundation. It was based on mystical symbols formed from jade essence. When the resonance of the dao and the elements mixed with a cultivator’s soul, it gave rise to unique abilities.
Right now, there was enough space in his foundation to carve five symbols, one on each elemental pillar. Later on, as his foundation improved, he would be able to carve more, including key anchor symbols on the central foundation, but that would have to wait until he advanced.
Jade magic was one of the most powerful abilities of the Jade Scripture.
There were several paths in it, some that were well known and others that were rare. It was even possible to make your own path and to carve symbols based on other laws of the dao, but it was risky without a guide.
Some of the most common paths were summoning, golem formation, healing, soul magic, divination, inscription, formations, and talismans. Some of them overlapped with fields that didn’t require jade magic, but the result was a specialized version that relied specifically on jade essence to function.
Summoning required binding the souls of fallen enemies and monsters. When the Jade Scripture Sect used it, it came with a number of warnings about what enemies could be captured.
Summoning was a long process to master, and it was difficult at first to get the full combat potential of a captured enemy, so he dismissed it. It would take too long to build up his forces, and even if he had a full army of summons at his disposal, they still wouldn’t be as strong as him.
Summoning was useful for overseeing a sect, since you could establish all sorts of guards and defenses that wouldn’t complain if they were assigned to wait around, and they could also protect weaker members of the sect easily, but in the sort of one-on-one battles against higher-realm cultivators that he was facing, it wasn’t immediately useful.
A single upper-realm cultivator could blast away an entire army of beings two realms or more below them without even breaking a sweat.
Right now, he needed something that would augment his own strength and improve his odds, and also that matched his dao and combat style. Summoning didn’t really appeal to him.
He also dismissed golems almost immediately. They were incredibly expensive to construct and maintain. He didn’t have the time or patience to deal with that.
Healing was next on his list of things to cross off. He had his innate regeneration from his dao, the Jade Slow Healing chant, and also the Vitality of Light technique that he’d spent so long working on back in Whitestone, which had finally come together once he infused it with the Endless Dawn.
He didn’t use that technique much, but it would work for healing if he ran out of pills.
As for soul magic, he considered it for a moment, since it was rare in the empire, but then he shook his head. He didn’t plan to be a soul cultivator, which was the path that would push him toward. He preferred fighting with his hands, not illusions and mental attacks.
It was enough that his own soul was sturdy and mostly protected against attacks.
Divination was likewise out of the question. Those fellows usually went half insane trying to predict the future and ran around like headless chickens with messy hair, twigs stuck to their clothes, and tongues full of nonsense that no one could understand.
Fate was fickle and didn’t like people trying to predict it.
He would forge his own path, regardless of what fortune tellers might say.
The other three common areas were inscriptions, formations, and talismans, and they were tempting. Taking the talisman branch of jade magic would let him create his soul talismans much faster, since part of the formation would be innate to his jade foundation.
Instead of having to do it individually and with precise care every time, he could carve a base sigil into his foundation and then create it with just a bit of energy. If he used the right one, it would let him throw out soul talismans left and right with barely a thought.
There were actually two options with that. He could carve a complete talisman that he could summon at will, or he could use a base for something like an attack talisman, to which he could then add a new sigil or draconic word by hand.
The first option was instant, while the second would be more flexible.
He thought about the idea for a moment, and then he saved it for more consideration as he continued to plan.
Inscriptions were a long-term crafting ability. While it was tempting, he probably wouldn’t follow that path either. The best jade inscription masters carved a new inscription symbol into their jade foundation every time they had an open space.
Each symbol acted as part of an artifact inscription, and when they were joined together, a jade inscription master could create one artifact after another, with many fewer materials than most had to use.
It resulted in an ability to quickly imbue wonderful properties into weapons and other artifacts, but it was incredibly limiting in other ways. They were mostly locked into the specific inscriptions they specialized in.
Inscription also wasn’t very good for direct battle. It required time in advance to prepare weapons. While it was tempting to create a weapon that could channel his strength without breaking, it was more satisfying to just use his hands.
A dragon’s claw was one of its strongest weapons. He didn’t want to dedicate himself to something that would get in the way of that.
The jade magic for formations was a little different. It would allow him to create a formation in the air without any materials except his own cultivation and his jade foundation as the base.
Basically, his jade foundation would be the ground on which the formation was carved.
Formation masters who took that route were very careful to choose a specific formation that was most useful to them, and also one that could be built upon in the future, since it couldn’t be changed.
Their jade foundations ended up turning into an evolving formation platform, one that allowed them to summon an immensely sturdy formation at will, but similar to the inscriptionists, it was limited to that one form.
It also took a long time to create something decent.
With only five spaces open on his foundation right now, even if he had the essence to do them all, it wasn’t enough for a proper formation. He shook his head as he dismissed the idea and moved on.
There were also jade magics for controlling the weather, creating shields, and more. Almost any art could be carved into the jade foundation. He turned his attention back to the talisman path, tapping his fingers on the table.
It was a difficult choice.
Of those that he’d considered so far, the talisman path was probably the best, but it felt a little disappointing to take something that he already had with soul talismans, even if it would improve it.
He ransacked his memories as he considered other ideas, looking for something more specialized that would be useful. There were dozens if not hundreds of rarer paths and, one by one, he went through them all.
After a little while, an idea appeared in his mind, one that made a smile quirk at the edge of his lips. He’d been looking at the most common options, but there was one he’d forgotten that was more famous than them all.
Once upon a time, this particular art had been extremely well known, but it had fallen by the wayside after other options were developed. In fact, it was the foundation that had turned into the inscription, talisman, and formation branches of jade magic.
It was called the Jade Sealing Art.
Ages before, it had been the signature magic of the sect’s founding ancestor. It was similar to the three branch paths of inscriptions, talismans, and formations in some ways, but it was much more limited. At the same time, it was much more powerful where it applied.
It created something called a “jade seal.”
The more he thought about it, the wider his smile became until he finally let out a laugh, which made Vesana send him a curious look.
“It’s fine,” he said with a grin. “I’m just thinking about something that might help. I’ll tell you later once I figure it out.”
“Okay.” She nodded at him and then went back to staring at her guild badge, which was on the table and surrounded by another communication formation. The dust of dozens of high-grade spirit stones covered the table around her.
“The guild council in the capital approves of our plan,” she added. “They also like that an Imperial Knight is assisting. It adds legitimacy, just in case anyone was doubtful. They’ve promised to send you a separate gift as a thank you if things are successful, but they aren’t going so far as to call it a payment.”
She had been busy over the last bit speaking with the higher ups in the guild to arrange payment and to make sure they were aware of the Azurewind Guard’s involvement, as well as the goal to eliminate the sect.
Now, it sounded like she had their full approval.
“No payment or gift is necessary,” Verse said as he waved away the idea. “The sect attacked me directly. That makes us allies.”
If they wanted to send one, he wouldn’t stop them, since they had a lot more treasure on hand than he did, but he wasn’t helping Vesana for a payment.
Vesana nodded in response, but then she went back to her communication and he returned to thinking about the Jade Sealing Art.
With a twist of his hand, he began inscribing a small seal in the air, using only jade essence. It took longer than it did to make a soul talisman, since every line of it had to resonate with dense spiritual energy, but eventually a small jade symbol floated in front of him.
This was the most basic of jade seals.
It was also the foundation of the art. The script used to draw it was simple and austere, but the lines resonated with force. The air around the symbol seemed to congeal, like it was frozen in place.
If he applied this symbol to a talisman, it would become a sealing talisman. If he put it in a formation, the same thing would happen. The trick would be balancing the rest of the design around it.
But that wasn’t how you used the Jade Sealing Art.
The art was based on creating these seals on their own, from this basic form to much more complex ones. Once you gained some skill in it, a single seal could be as powerful as an entire formation.
When you layered multiple seals on top of one another, you could also create unique sealing formations, ones that were a lock on top of an object or a location. Other seals could slowly enhance the properties of a pill or artifact over time, letting the energy build up until the item underwent a holistic transformation.
He rubbed his chin as he considered all the details.
A jade seal was like a talisman in that it could be applied almost anywhere, but it was primarily designed to lock down an opponent or to reinforce something. It could be applied to walls, artifacts, random objects like a rock, or even enemies who had been captured.
