The Shock of Foundation Establishment Cultivators
The Great Solar Python.
The name alone conjured images of a serpent blazing with radiant light — but the reality was the opposite. Possessed of a nature that swallowed every scrap of light around it, the creature left a pitch-black void in the shape of a snake hanging in midair, an alien silhouette visible day or night.
At night, with the sun gone, the effect grew worse still. It drew in light beyond the bounds of its own body and draped the darkness about itself like a cloak of shadow.
Ssssss… ssshhh…
Beneath the withered tree where Nain stood, a five-meter Great Solar Python lay coiled in sleep, its mantle of shadow wrapped around it like a cape.
She held her breath and moved with deliberate care.
She had no intention of dragging this out. When facing a beast as tenaciously vital as a demonic creature, you killed it in a single stroke. That was the lesson her combat-cultivator grandfather had beaten into her like a dog when she was small.
She drew every talisman she could use at once. One attack talisman for each of the Five Elements, plus a Sword Strike Talisman and an Advance-Retreat Talisman — one of each.
Finish it in one blow.
In the demonic beast forest where the sun had vanished and darkness settled thick, faint points of light bloomed at her fingertips — tap, tap — then winked out. Five talismans rose from her hands and dissolved.
Shaaa—
Flame Heat Talisman. Water Pressure Talisman. Azure Wood Talisman. Metal Edge Talisman. Heavy Earth Talisman.
Talismans carrying the Five Elements rose into the air and crumbled to ash. Ordinarily they would have shot toward the enemy the instant they were spent — but under Nain's control they did not scatter. They began to intertwine into one.
Pseudo-Talisman Record. They never taught this at school. Did I miss it because I dropped out halfway?
Who would have guessed a low-grade talisman craft worth less than a few tens of thousands of credits held a method like this?
The power fell a touch short of a single mid-grade talisman, but the fact that a low-grade technique could deliver an attack of this caliber was impressive enough. Talisman masters had always been famous for raw firepower, after all.
Now I get why a cost-effective method like this ranked so high.
The Five Elements bit and clung to one another — generating and repelling in turn. Water quenched fire; fire melted metal; metal felled wood; wood split earth; earth dammed water once more. Yet fire nurtured earth and made it fertile; earth cradled metal and hardened it; metal set water flowing; water raised wood; and wood burned itself to feed the fire again.
So it was with the union of the talismans.
Bound by the principle of Five-Element generation, the five energies fed one another and entered an endless cycle of ascent. Spiritual power amplified by mutual catalysis vaulted past the limits of early Qi Condensation in a heartbeat.
Five elemental forces bound as one — a single azure flame
In the end, all that remained in the air was a single thread of blue fire. Complex waves of spiritual power — carrying every elemental force within them — radiated outward. That breathlessly still, shimmering thing then lanced toward the Great Solar Python like a flash of lightning.
"Sss…?"
A sniper shot from over a hundred meters. A fraction of a second. The Great Solar Python's survival instinct — unique to demonic beasts — sensed the danger and lifted its sharp triangular head, but it was already too late.
A snake demonic beast sleeping out in the open on the ground instead of in a burrow… even if it hadn't been me, something would have killed it soon enough.
The serpent's folly — granting a talisman master not merely ample preparation time, but far too much of it — had summoned its death.
"Kyaaaargh!!"
The shadow-mantle tore apart without the slightest resistance. Nain had aimed for the head. The Great Solar Python twisted desperately to evade, but the azure flame, launched at maximum velocity, could not be dodged.
BOOM!
The blue fire slammed into the Great Solar Python head-on and punched straight through its massive body in a merciless line. No matter how durable a demonic beast's exterior, an explosion from within was something no flesh could endure. The multi-meter serpent came apart as if dismantled, scattering in every direction.
"Hoo…"
Just in case, Nain tucked the Sword Strike Talisman and Advance-Retreat Talisman she had been gripping tightly in both hands back into her pocket.
Boing!
Then she leapt down from the tree, unable to hide her excitement, practically bouncing with delight. It was time for the joyous harvest of an inner core!
"Hmm, hmm."
This area was near a Rift Management Bureau base, so no truly powerful demonic beasts would be around. The remaining distance was a mere ten kilometers. Moving at her leisure, Nain picked through the scattered remains of the Great Solar Python.
How long did she search?
She found the serpent's head snagged high in a tree — lodged just below where the Great Solar Python's head had been. She closed the creature's wide, staring eyes, now stripped of their darkness, offered a quiet prayer for its rest, and then unceremoniously extracted the inner core.
The core was a smooth, round thing that glowed with a soft orange light. Sleek as a marble, yet not hard — press it and it bounced back with a springy boing. A gentle warmth filled her palm when she squeezed it tight.
She liked the look of it immensely. Nain carefully slipped it into the pocket over her chest. She planned to set it up later as a mood light in her cultivation chamber.
"Hmm, hmhmm…"
No demonic beasts left to bar her path, and only ten kilometers remaining. The journey here had taken roughly two days in total. Arriving faster than she had originally expected, Nain hummed under her breath as she sprang back up into the trees.
"I'll be there in a few minutes. At this rate, I should make True Disciple, right?"
A small flicker of unease rose, but she shook it off. She had given everything her talent allowed. The standards demanded of her had never been absurdly high to begin with — now all she could do was hope she had caught her prospective master's eye.
Humming her little tune, she moved without hesitation. And soon enough, Nain reached the perimeter of the base.
Fingering the tip of her ruined folding fan, Shiori muttered in sheer disbelief.
"…Just how much talent has that mad old man been hiding?"
"Hmmm…. This goes well past 'hiding,' doesn't it?"
Seo Seong-rak stroked his chin, equally flabbergasted alongside Kuzunoha Shiori. The two of them had watched Nain's entire run through the demonic beast forest from the sidelines, and their expressions had grown stranger by the minute.
A second-star Qi Condensation cultivator cranking out fifty talismans in twelve hours. Well — that much could be chalked up to a hidden gift for talismans finally blooming. A talent level one could more or less accept.
What came after was the problem.
"A Pseudo-Talisman Record? That's an art you can only use at late Qi Condensation…"
"She designed the talismans with the Pseudo-Talisman Record in mind from the start. That was no luck and no fluke."
"I figured it'd take a week, and she arrives in two days."
"And it wasn't even 'arriving' — the original estimate of a week was for her to crawl in half-dead, was it not? What we meant to test was the potential of her Dao Heart, surely?"
Seo Seong-rak's face twisted.
Right. Nain's talent had been abysmal, so what the two of them had set out to examine was her Dao Heart.
Mental fortitude and recovery elasticity far beyond the ordinary. A proper cultivator's mindset and a genuine drive toward the immortal path — that was Nain. They had intended to evaluate the heart itself: crisis response, quick thinking, danger sense, the whole package.
Even if she never reached the base, so long as she showed the iron will and potential to keep pushing toward it, they had planned to accept her as a True Disciple. And yet…
"We'll need to retest her talent. Looks like she stumbled into some kind of fortuitous encounter when she broke through to Qi Condensation."
"A fortuitous encounter, you say?"
Tak.
Shiori drew a fresh folding fan from a massive talisman and tapped it against her fingertips.
"The Nain I know could never pull off something like that. Being born with a Spiritual Root at all was already close to a miracle."
Talent scraping the absolute bottom even among Five Elements Spiritual Roots. If an ordinary Five Elements root trained at an efficiency of one, Nain managed a meager 0.3. Seo Seong-rak had honestly found it remarkable that she had even succeeded in advancing to Qi Condensation.
That was part of why he had agreed to his daughter Eun Seol-hwa's request.
BOOM!
The moment Nain dropped the Great Solar Python with Pseudo-Talisman Record — Five Elements Unification, suspicion hardened into certainty. Watching Nain cheerfully pocket the inner core, Seo Seong-rak spoke to Shiori.
"Well then. The True Disciple matter is settled."
"Yes. I, too, find myself… somewhat intrigued by that child. I shall take her as my disciple and drag her into graduate school."
"Heh. Lucky little Nain. She's gotten herself a master far above her station."
Unaware of whatever might come next, Nain strolled into the base humming under her breath. The two watching that carefree figure smiled with meanings all their own.
"…Huh?"
Geumhae's expressionless face went blank and vacant. Seo Seong-rak looked down at her and hooked up one corner of his mouth.
"So, Nain — where exactly did you pick up something good enough to give you talent like that?"
A cold space of endless white walls stretching away in every direction. Kuzunoha Shiori's personal subspace and private laboratory. Arms and legs bound tight and hoisted up, Nain could only make dazed little sounds, unable to keep up with the situation.
"H-Huh?"
She clearly remembered cheerfully securing the Great Solar Python's inner core and walking into the base. Everything after that was a blank. She had opened her eyes to find herself lying on a cold examination table, wrists and ankles restrained.
"First off — congratulations. You passed the test. From now on, you'll be calling Shiori 'Master.'"
Nain brightened at Seo Seong-rak's words, the thrill of success and a rush of accomplishment flooding through her. Separately from that, though, her questions only grew fiercer.
"…Th-Then where is this? Why am I tied up?"
"Ahh, about that—"
"I shall explain that from this point forward."
Click. Click.
A voice cut across Seo Seong-rak's from beyond the door. The white wall slid open with a soft hiss, and Kuzunoha Shiori stepped inside.