She smirked at that, poking him. “Who are you calling your precious fox girl?”
“Certainly not the beautiful girl glaring down at me.”
“Careful, Ruidian boy. There are enough lonely women who would fall for that line, and if you break any Kitsune girl’s heart and I hear about it...”
She shook her head at his grin, turning back to the plants, and Alex was relieved the earlier tension was gone, Liu Li accepting him and his odd knowledge just as before, even if she wasn’t quite sure how he had gotten it.
She sighed sadly. “It’s a shame we can’t fit all of these plants into Father’s storage just as they are.”
Alex blinked. “Why not?”
She frowned. “You mean besides the obvious drawbacks if half of those toxic plants smear their essences into even a magical bag of holding? I would think it obvious, Alex. You own a storage device yourself. Assuming you weren’t pulling our leg with your wild tales about the ring… and if you were, best you apologize to father right now, or I don’t know how long it will take for him to forgive you, after raising his hopes so high.”
Alex blinked. “He’s excited about it? He comes off so brooding, just advising I not tell a soul.”
The beautiful girl beside him grinned. “That’s just his way, Alex. Believe me. I know my father. He couldn’t be more ecstatic, thinking about all the possibilities your ring makes available to us. But that doesn’t change the fact that once an item is stored, it’s dead. Perfectly preserved, forever free from decay, the Qi perfectly stable as one would hope, the oils, both toxic and beneficial, as potent as the moment you store them.
“It’s one of the reasons why even apprentice grade bags of holding that have little more space than the vessel enchanted are still valuable. They keep whatever you store inside it in perfect condition. In fact, most well-to-do lords and ladies have chest-sized storage containers, with an internal space exactly matching the external one, that they use to keep whatever cuts of meat or sheep and goat milk they purchase perfectly fresh for as long as they want.”
Beautiful jade green eyes looked forlornly at the miniature forest of blossoming green hidden underneath the vast conifer. "But they will never bloom again. The seeds, though potent, will never quicken with life, only the Qi distilled into father's potions."
Alex frowned in thought. “I have an idea. I can’t promise it will work, but well, I’d like to try something.”
Liu Li quirked a smile. “Are you going to say your magical ring fit for a faerie tale can actually store these plants alive?”
Alex shrugged. “I’m honestly not sure. But it’s worth giving a shot, right?”
She chuckled softly. “Sure, Alex, why not.”
Alex swallowed, suddenly nervous but riding a sudden wave of intuition, used his finger and slowly scratched a line through the soft loam, including all the herbs, mushrooms and flowers hidden under the tree. Then he drew a second circle around the massive trunk itself, as if demarcating that which he wished to transport, and that which he did not. Questing fingers sensed about six inches of dried quills and loam that were root free, so that was the amount of depth he visualized taking out, envisioning with his mind’s eye a greenhouse adjoining the library within his ring, with dozens of massive planters of ivory and jade that he would use to hold his floral treasures.
“Here goes nothing,” he whispered, closing his eye as he clamped down on his will.
He sensed a sudden fierce tug as he flipped into his ring. Opening his eyes, he gave a triumphant laugh, finding everything just as he had visualized it, the greenhouse attached to his library mirroring the one his mother had so loved to putter around in, adjoining their family home. For all that it had no doubt been a thousand years since his mother had planted her chrysanthemums, or a living soul had thought about him or anyone else in his family at all.
Perception check made! Biochemical Mastery skill check made!
He shook away the suddenly depressing thoughts, making note of several vital observations.
One, the flow of Qi was, save for two glaring exceptions, utterly absent.
Though the light was comforting and the air fresh and warm, he sensed that there was no energy which the plants could use to flourish and grow. Fortunately, he sensed with his Biochemical Mastery affinity that the plants were very much alive, and he had no doubt that once they were transplanted, they would be as fecund and fertile as ever.
He then turned his gaze to the Silverbell blossom, sensing the life-giving energies it was radiating to the plants surrounding it, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before its soft light faded completely. Thanks to his Basic Cultivation Pill comprehension, he knew Silverbell was a key ingredient, and that the potency would be preserved. But if there was a way he could keep it shining, nurturing what might one day evolve into an entire garden of cuttings blossoming within the infinite storage space of his ring…
He dashed back to the library, past the polished hardwood bookcases and the two Divine Cultivation tomes it held, making a beeline to what was now a massive orb of spinning, crackling Dark Qi.
He held up his finger, smiling as a second smaller orb of pristine Dark Qi was formed.
He then brought it to the garden, visualizing it hanging in the air like a miniature dark sun, knowing his visualization would last indefinitely, whether or not he concentrated on it.
He grinned with satisfaction when the Silverbell blossom visibly brightened, its stalk straightening before his very eyes.
Silverbell potency increased 200%. Wood, Water, and Earth Qi generated is sufficient to sustain 200 cubic feet of vegetation at maximum potency.
Alex’s eyes widened at that announcement. Even if he never became a master cultivator, Silver Fox had still given him a priceless gift beyond compare.
A chill raced down his spine. He had popped inside his ring without even thinking about what it would look like to Liu Li, or how vulnerable he might be to some predacious spirit beast nearby.
Wasting no time, he quickly envisioned entering his ring once more.
“Alex!”
Liu Li was gazing at him with a look equal parts wonder, relief, and horror. Alex noted the donut-like strip of bare earth, roots exposed, around the perfectly intact trunk, that his magic had left behind.
“What happened to you? What strange magic did you just use? What the hell did you just do?”
Alex winced, quickly getting to his feet, only then noting Liu Jian right behind her.
He swallowed under their combined gazes, determined to get an unbiased answer to a crucial question first.
“First, tell me what it looked like to you,” Alex said.
“You will answer my daughter’s questions immediately, insolent boy!” Liu Jian snapped.
“Please, Master Liu, this is important,” Alex soothed. “I know what it looked like from my perspective, but not yours. I’d like to know exactly what you saw, so my own answer doesn’t influence your memory of what you saw.”
The master alchemist glared before giving an infinitesimal nod of his head. “Your excuse is acceptable. Daughter? Please explain what you saw in your own words.”
She swallowed and nodded. “It was the strangest thing! Alex looked like he had suddenly flipped inside out. Which makes no sense, I know, but there you are, and then he seemed to, well, shrink.”
“Shrink?”
She nodded. “But I’m not sure if he was shrinking like a grape under the sun, or the way a man does when he’s marching for the horizon. Somehow, it was both. And then he was gone.”
“Was it a slow process?”
Liu Li shrugged. “It felt like it took forever, but it was less than an eyeblink. I swear it.”
"Fascinating. How long was he gone? How did he reappear?"
She frowned thoughtfully, squeezing her nose. “Maybe five minutes? And then he reappeared just as he had disappeared. The whole odd sight of him popping into being was the exact reverse of his disappearing.”
Liu Jian gave a considering nod, turning to Alex. “We have my daughter’s account. Now it’s your turn.”
“Of course, Master Liu. I merely wanted to see if I could store the herbs we had found alive within my ring. In order to keep my focus and not mess up my intentions, I sort of popped in with them. I then made sure everything was stable, and popped back out.”
Liu Jian’s eyes widened in incredulity. “You are actually able to appear within your artifact?”
Alex slowly nodded, sensing the sudden tension once more.
“And the plants… they are actually alive?”
Alex nodded again. “They’re perfectly content in the greenhouse I visualized for them.”
Father and daughter exchanged odd looks.
“There is no way...”
“Unless he actually does possess a Divine Class artifact, Father.”
“But you’ve seen that ring! It looks like trash, not like...”
“An utterly priceless relic that any cultivating bully like Lai Wei would happily cut Alex’s throat to claim for themselves?”
Her father frowned. “Point to you, daughter, but there are very few gods who would waste so much potential on something so...”
"Plain? Cheap-looking? Not screaming ‘look at me, I am a relic of the divine and glorious gods!'"
Her father’s lips curled into a wry smirk. “Precisely. And I can think of only one god that would stoop to such… nay, would delight in such a prank.”
Both turned to stare at Alex.
“So, look at all these other massive evergreens! I wonder how many others hold mystic blossoms of cultivating awesomeness? Let’s get checking before that cockatrice comes home from his courtship or whatever the hell he’s doing, shall we?”
Alex pointedly ignored Liu Li’s soft chuckle, soon captivated by the sight of yet another hidden bed of Silverbell blossoms and exotic herbs, preparing to take the entire collection in storage when he felt the iron-hard grip of Master Jian upon his shoulder. “I care not how you do it, Alex, but let’s pay our respects, even as we reap our harvest. Can you focus your ring to claim only one of the Silverbell blossoms, and only half of the exotics flourishing beside it?”
Alex winced. Of course. His goal was to harvest precious herbs they could come back for years later. Not wipe them out entirely. “I’m sorry I didn’t think of that earlier,” he said, before transporting careful sections of the ring of fecund life blossoming around the massive trunk, as if it were a pizza, and he was taking out every other slice, leaving plenty of opportunities for nearby sprouts to fill the bare patches left in short order. Instead of completely robbing the sheltered plants of all their soil, he supplemented his own with tracts of rich loamy earth he collected a short distance from the precious evergreens themselves.
Liu Jian and Liu Li, far from growing used to the sight, were gazing at Alex with increasingly incredulous expressions by the time they had harvested from a full half dozen of the magnificent evergreens.
“An incredible sight, lad. Now, show old Liu Jian that you weren’t pulling his leg. Bring one of the Silverbell Blossoms forth, still shining brightly with Qi,” he demanded.
Alex smiled, doing just that, the older man’s eyes widening with no small amount of awe when the tiny plant could be seen glowing even in the afternoon’s waning light.
“Incredible. It still lives, daughter. It still lives!”
Liu Li grinned. “I know, Father. I’m as amazed as you are.”
“This is no mere artifact. Not even a priceless Jade artifact would allow it.” Liu Jian’s dark gaze peered intently into Alex’s own. “You must never tell a soul what your ring is capable of. Do you understand, boy? No one! Any noble who found out would kill you in a heartbeat. The revered and honorable lord of our entire city would demand its instant surrender. As would the king himself! And they would, in turn, surrender it to the emperor for prizes grand and wondrous, I’m sure.”
Alex grinned. “So, you’re saying hold this secret close until I can make a gift of it to the emperor himself, whereupon he might grant me a fantastic boon, or kill me on the spot for being a presumptuous Ruidian no pureblood wants to sully his hands acknowledging.”
Liu Li burst out in incredulous laughter. “Oh Alex, the thought of you or even Father ever being granted an audience with the king, let alone the emperor who serves as the king of kings, is beyond absurd! Even for the revered duke who controls this principality with its numerous city states, each over a thousand miles from one another, an area it would take years to cross without the glorious system of High Roads, would be the honor of a lifetime!
"And even he would wait patiently for an audience with his king, in the glorious city of silver and gold and countless magical marvels that serves as the capital of our entire kingdom with its numerous principalities and hundreds of city-states, each the size of our own! And the emperor, Alex. Without the grandest of magic at your fingertips, it would be difficult if not impossible to cross the empire, let alone glimpse just the tiniest fraction of its marvels, in a single lifetime! Even with the High Roads, it might take months! Can you even conceive, truly conceive of the distances involved, let alone how vast and wondrous and magnificent the crown jewel of the empire would be? A city full of cultivators, most of Silver Rank or better, I have no doubt! Whereas our home city might have five score Silver Nagas or Giants at most, in a city of ten million!”
Alex blinked. “Silver Nagas? Giants?”
Liu Li nodded. “First there are the ranks of Basic Cultivation, where you first open up your meridian gates. As you have opened three, you are a Rank 3 Basic Cultivator. Not even one in forty people can achieve what you have already, and maybe that number is closer to one in a hundred. Once you have opened all seven gates and begin to forge divine channels between them, after studying the sacred cycling texts most aligned to your elemental affinities, only then do you walk the Bronze Path as an Ogre Body Cultivator, or Ogremagi, which is one who specializes in powerful elemental attacks and spells using the powers of Qi. And that’s an accomplishment less than one in a thousand people can claim.”
Alex nodded. “So, after Basic Cultivation, you’re either a Bronze Ogre warrior type, or a Bronze Ogremagi spell-casting type. Got it.”
Liu Li smirked at his oversimplification, but didn’t bother correcting him. “And once you have formed your meridian channels, should you have made them strong enough, resilient enough, true enough to your soul and all your affinities and potentials, only then might you be worthy of ascending to the next step on the path to cultivation mastery, forging channels to the very core of your essence. Only then can you ascend to the ranks of Silver as either a Giant or a Naga.”
Alex nodded. “And I’m guessing Silver Giants are about as fearsome and mighty a warrior as you can imagine on the battlefield.”
Liu Jian nodded. “For anyone not born of the most noble blood, Silver is the most one could ever hope to reach. And no matter how humble one's origins, any cultivator who manages to achieve even the lowest Silver rank will be leagues beyond even the most powerful Bronze, and shall be revered and valued by the city as a whole, ancient edicts assuring your automatic tenure with stipend at Dragon Academy, provided you are amenable to teaching at least one class of students for the equivalent of two hours per day, or, should you favor limiting your instruction to a handful of select disciples, teaching for a total of twenty hours per week."
Alex nodded. The hours didn't precisely add up, but it made sense, since it encouraged training many students over a few, yet still acknowledged the supreme value of one-on-one training, even if far fewer students would end up benefiting.
“Is there anything beyond Silver?”
Liu Li grinned. “Yes. Gold Titans and Golden Dragons. Every king and duke is a Gold, and some, but not all, city lords have achieved the first rank of this revered status. Ours has not. But the odds of achieving this is about one in ten million.” She furrowed her pretty brows. “Perhaps it's
actually closer to one in a hundred million.”
Liu Jian nodded. “Unless one was sired by a truly prestigious clan, no more than one cultivator per city-state might ever achieve this. And unless they are already in a position of rulership, they will be immediately summoned to the king’s own palace to serve, earning incalculable wealth and glory with the boons bestowed upon those lucky few, if not selected as the property of the emperor himself.”
Alex grinned. “Wow.”
Liu Jian chuckled softly. “Basic truths we should have instructed you in, months ago, but it wasn’t until you could cultivate that it could possibly be of any use to you.”
Alex nodded. “Is there anything higher than Gold?”
Liu Jian’s eyes crackled with sudden unexpected wrath.
Alex, heart racing, quickly bowed his head. "This one apologizes for any offense he has given."
“He’s a total innocent, Father. In some ways, at least,” said Liu Li.
The alchemist snorted. “Like a child asking how he could become a god.” Alex could sense the man’s prickly ire dissipating to wry bemusement.
“Yes, boy. To answer your question, there is Jade. To ascend any higher than that is to walk the path of the gods. I know not if Jade is the rank of the Imperial family. To even inquire is death. So, it is a rank best not even spoken of aloud.”
Alex winced. “Alright. Pretty hardcore topic. I’m glad I’m only asking you two in the middle of nowhere, where no one can see or hear us.”
Liu Li suddenly paled as a roaring could be heard, off in the distance.
And even from here, Alex could feel a sudden terrible pressure upon his soul.
“You just had to poke the fox, didn’t you, Alex?”
Alex gulped. “What did I do?”
“Never mind. The cockatrice. It’s coming back! Get that priceless Silverbell back in storage, and let’s go!”
Suddenly so nervous he could barely focus, Alex managed to put his plants away before stumbling to his feet, all three of them racing to the far side of the island whereupon Liu Jian pulled his Sampan, grabbing the yuloh and rowing them to shore at breakneck speed, Alex’s eyes widening at the coiled power in the man’s slender frame that he normally kept so well hidden.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior Reborn: A LitRPG/Wuxia Novel - Book 1 Page 26