I didn't suffer for long. I still had plenty of questions—questions so fundamental that it was impossible not to pay attention to them and simply take the local heresy on faith.
Here's an example. From canon, we know that the concept of cold is directly connected to water. Not ice, but cold itself. After accepting the water seed, Yun Che became immune to cold attacks.
Writing all the locals off as idiots wasn't an option. I mean, it absolutely was an option, but there were rare exceptions, like my future wife. Which meant the locals couldn't be equating cold with water solely because ice is cold—that would've been far too obvious an example.
Water can be heated. Metal can freeze too. Why are cold and water the same thing? And the knowledge Feng Qianhui passed to me contained the exact same heresy.
You can't use a technique if you don't understand it. Another basic thing in this world that I don't understand. I mean, I understand that everything there depends on the proper mindset, and without understanding you can't tune yourself properly. But...
I was saved. Literally saved. Nobody had forgotten that I knew the future and still had to tell them about two more versions of the calamity.
And so I was back in Qianhui's room, sitting in front of her and trying to clear my head.
"Having some problems?"
"Very, very many questions in my head."
"After this conversation, I'll try to help you."
"All right. Let me tell you about the second calamity. Recently, one of the fairies found an incredibly talented girl from a small city—Xia Qingyue."
"What's wrong with her?"
"A lot. But the most important thing is her special constitution. During the Blue Wind Tournament, an invited elder from the Heavenly Sword Region will notice her and sell the information to a young master from the Sun Moon Divine Palace. Do you know who that is?"
"Unfortunately."
"Then you understand what will happen to you if they seriously decide to take one of you for themselves?"
"I do. That truly is a calamity. What should we do? Not send the girl to the tournament? Kill her?"
"Don't even think about killing her. Her situation is the opposite of mine. You think she's the daughter of an ordinary merchant, but the forces standing behind her could wipe out the entire planet."
"I see. Just keep her in the palace. But she insisted that she has to get married."
"I'll handle that issue. It's directly connected to the price for this information."
"What price?"
"Only if she herself agrees, I want your permission to take her as my wife."
"Because of her special constitution?"
"Not only that. My visions may be unclear here, but I saw this girl suffer greatly and then destroy our entire world. Maybe—just maybe—it was some kind of trick. But betting on that would be stupid."
"Are you sure? She'll become that powerful?"
"Yes."
"And her fiancé?"
"Can't touch him. But on the day of the wedding, we can stage her death. Then he won't have any grievances against us. But we can't allow the wedding itself to happen. It will bring a lot of trouble."
"This looks as though you want to steal a poor man's wife. I believe you, but are you sure this is the only way?"
"I think we're misunderstanding each other. The fact that someone will take an interest in her is certain. You've already confirmed that the swordsmen are tightening their connections with the Sacred Grounds, haven't you? And that an elder from the region will be present there?"
"Yes, that's true. The danger is real. But do we really need to marry the girl to you to avoid the calamity?"
"Jealous, darling?"
"Stop clowning around."
"To answer your question: no, we don't. It isn't the solution, it's the price. I said from the beginning that I wanted this as payment. More precisely, don't think you're selling me the girl. Only if she agrees—only then will I take her as my wife. No other way. All I need from the Palace leadership is permission."
"For now, I'll accept that. But you'll tell me everything in more detail."
"Deal. Who else would I share everything with if not my wife?"
"You just asked permission to take a disciple as your wife, and one second later you're saying that nonsense again?"
"That one's out of necessity. You, I love, darling."
"I'm simply going to stop paying attention to you. If you can convince the girl, I don't object."
"I can. Don't worry. Shall we move on to the third point?"
"Talk."
"The Divine Phoenix Empire will attack our empire in a few years. It'll be a one-sided massacre, naturally. Then one of their princes will learn about your palace. Need I continue? I'll only say that the shield left behind by the Founder won't hold for long. And the transfer formation will save only one disciple."
"Why would they attack us?"
"Because of a purple crystal mine."
"And you know where it is?"
"More importantly, I don't know whether they've already learned about it or not. If they have, there'll be spies there. Very strong spies. So approaching that place would be a bad idea."
"I understand. But still, tell me where it is."
"Near Floating Cloud City."
"I need time to think all of this over. Ask the fairies or the senior disciples for guidance."
"Of course."
"Don't worry. We'll discuss the price for this information later."
"One kiss would've been enough."
"Can't you address me as your master?"
"What kind of master can a wife be? Don't be naive."
"Just leave. My head already hurts."
"We're not even married yet and you're already telling me about headaches? Ooooooh!"
It was fun, but the absurd theses of local cultivation hadn't gone anywhere, so I went off to pester the fairies, and then their disciples. They gave me sidelong looks, thought I was a psycho, thought I was trash—though nobody said anything to my face.
Turns out what I couldn't understand was obvious as daylight to ten-year-old children. Nobody else had ever had this kind of problem simply "entering" a manual. My questions were considered stupid and meaningless. But I was persistent and kept pestering everyone exactly the same way for an entire month.
I heated water in front of the fairies, proving that water did not equal cold. Cold is a state. Metal can be colder than ice. Stone can be colder than ice.
The only upside? I met almost every member of the Palace, and now everyone knew me by sight.
And then there were the twins. What a pity I was completely focused on my work, though we still became friends. You can't accuse me of getting just a little distracted.
Twins, and that beautiful and cheerful on top of it—that isn't even a dream. That's a top search query on black-and-yellow YouTube. Who in my place wouldn't get distracted?
Add the fact that the Ice Heart technique simply gave up in the face of their cheerfulness, plus the D-cups, of course. That was it. Fatality. The only downside? I only had two hands. The gods were unfair when they created men, or else they simply didn't know about Feng Hanyue and Feng Hanxue.
It was the sisters who pushed me toward understanding.
"What difference does it make that metal can be cold too? It's metal, and we're talking about profound energy."
And it hit me.
"Girls, I'm going to kiss you both right now."
"Brother Lun wants to defile innocent fairies?" the little villains said in chorus.
"What? What nonsense is that? You're the ones trying to seduce someone as pure and naive as me. But I won't give in that easily."
"And how exactly are we seducing you, Brother?"
"You simply exist. Isn't that enough, demonesses?"
Their shared laughter was music to me and torture to my body, pumped full of teenage hormones.
"All right, all right. Laugh at me, but know this: one day I'll give you a proper spanking for all your antics."
"Grow up first, little brother. For now, we're the ones who could spank you."
"I agree, let's— Ahem. I mean, absolutely not. You won't be able to defile my body. My body is every bit as pure as my soul."
My flirting that day was pretty weak, if I'm being honest, because all my thoughts were occupied with the realization. The sisters had opened my eyes with one simple sentence. Naturally, I hadn't expected a solution this simple. So profound energy doesn't equal the world? What about the "everything around us is qi" from a million novels? Turns out that isn't true at all?
Why not? And I accepted on faith the theory that this profound energy was an absurd superstructure layered over the world, a separate system with its own laws. The important thing was to remember that the system had been built by some half-educated freelancers, because it was riddled with logical holes and bugs.
And it worked.
I accepted, and then understood, the concept of Frozen Cloud in one go, and, sitting down in the lotus position—kidding, of course; why would I abuse my knees like that?—I sat in the armchair I'd pulled from my spatial ring and began practicing the art.
Of course I brought furniture with me. Canon states very clearly that everything here is made of ice. And I'm not such a fanatic for healthy living and a healthy back that I'd sleep on hard ice and freeze my ass on ice chairs. Fuck that.
The rate at which energy was processed was astonishing. I simply skipped through the first three stages of the Frozen Cloud technique, because all you needed there was to memorize the energy pattern—in other words, raise compatibility with cold/ice profound energy. That was easy. I had plenty of it.
More precisely, if you think about it, it hadn't been easy at all. I'd simply done the work earlier while cleansing the high-ranking members of the Palace and healing the wounds left by my future wife. It hurt just remembering the time when I was suppressing my breakthrough.
Bad news. I didn't jump straight into the Sky Profound Realm. After several days, I hadn't even reached the second level of the Nascent Profound Realm. Just as Qianhui had warned me, my cultivation was crawling forward painfully slowly.
The solution? First, learn all eight stages of Heavenly Cloud. With each stage, the cultivation speed only increases. With veins like mine, I should've been standing still completely, but because all my points were open, I was moving almost normally.
And no, I didn't turn into a pretty girl. There was enough phoenix energy inside me—fire phoenix energy—to balance that shit out and keep me from ending up under the rainbow flag.
The next stage was Ice Lotuses.
I tried using the move once. I even managed to produce something, and that's where we'll close the topic. As far as I'm concerned, the only guys who throw little flowers around are the ones with a beloved boyfriend waiting at home, if you know what I mean. Give me swords, spears, or at worst an axe—not all this stuff.
Maybe refusing a powerful attack that could help me in the early stages of my path was stupid, but my own strategy suited me better. Speed and a katana strike—that was my recipe for victory. All this ice-themed stuff existed only so I could progress quickly with the help of a divine manual. Otherwise, I'm more of a Scorpion fan. Fuck the Lin Kuei.