Cultivation Nerd-Chapter 348: Future Diaries

Jiang Yeming felt the calm rhythm of her heartbeat as the half moon draped its pale light across the trees.

She sat by the campfire, the wet ground soaking through her robes.

Why was the ground so wet again? Ah, right, marshlands.

Nobody had told her exactly why they were traveling through the swamps, but she knew it had something to do with the approaching war between the four great sects.

To be honest, she didn’t know much about that war. There were books about it of course, but to her, someone from four hundred years in the future, it was a distant event and a historical footnote. She had never lived it, and even the written records glossed over many details. All she knew was that this war would eventually lead to the founding of Wisdom Hall around the time it came to an end.

Her gaze drifted toward her teacher, who was currently pressing down on the formation lines of a crimson array, trying to make it softer essentially creating a glowing, warm pillow for himself. Meanwhile, she and Tingfeng were left huddled around the fire, sitting on the damp ground like beggars.

If it were anyone else, she’d assume they were oblivious to how bad this looked. But Liu Feng? He knew. He always knew.

She turned toward Tingfeng, who was already lying on his side, shifting to find a comfortable position on the soaked earth.

She frowned. How could he just… sleep like that?

Then again, he was a sword-obsessed idiot.

Her gaze shifted back to Liu Feng, who looked utterly unconcerned.

“Couldn’t you use arrays to make things a little more comfortable for us too?” she asked.

Liu Feng yawned. “Suffering builds character.”

“Really? Then what about you?” she pressed.

“I’ve already gone through my suffering arc,” he replied lazily, eyes half-closed. “If the teacher also needs to suffer with the students, then what’s the point of being a teacher? If even the rich man struggles to buy food, what’s the point of being rich?”

Sometimes, she really missed the no-nonsense Liu Feng from the future. That man would never act like this.

It still felt strange seeing him so… normal.

“You do realize how condescending that sounds, right?” she muttered.

Liu Feng nodded once and cracked an eye open to glance at Tingfeng, who was already asleep, breathing softly.

How could anyone fall asleep that easily, from silk sheets to swamp muck without complaint?

Liu Feng smiled at the sight, then turned his smirk toward her.

“He is slowly becoming my favorite student,” he said, shaking his head at her. “Sadly, you're still in third place.”

Jiang Yeming sighed and lay back on the wet ground, hands behind her head, staring up at the sky.

Her teacher was strange. The Liu Feng she knew would never let his students march into a senseless war.

“There will come a day when I won't be around to cuddle you guys anymore,” Liu Feng said, as if reading her mood. “My job isn't to make you all grow soft; it is to teach you, and that is something I'm still growing and learning at.”

She glanced at him and nodded.

“You're not a bad person,” she said, the only thing she felt certain of. “Sorry if asking you too many questions makes me annoying.”

“That's what I like most about you,” Liu Feng smiled. “Only you question your teacher; my other two students rarely do. I wish they would, since I can make mistakes. I'm human, after all.”

Huh. The great and wise Liu Feng liked being questioned?

For some reason, Jiang Yeming found that funny and let out a soft chuckle.

He would be annoyed once Wisdom Hall took off, his followers would treat his words like scripture.

She felt she was gaining a deeper understanding of the once enigmatic man. Deep down, Liu Feng was human.

Not an unbeatable political titan, not some infallible legend. Just a man who made mistakes, suffered, and kept going.

She remembered stories about his child and how they said their father was incomprehensible. Jiang Yeming didn’t think that was fair.

She felt a flicker of pity for him, something she never expected.

His wife had died; his child struggled to see his humanity; a man who'd done so much likely died alone somewhere on the Central Continent.

Jiang Yeming had planned to ride his coattails, get close to Wisdom Hall, and exploit any connection to Black Chapter or similar. Well, she still planned to do that. She'd take whatever value she could from him.

But maybe, along the way, she could help Liu Feng find some semblance of happiness.

“Why are you looking at me like that, like you're feeling sorry for me?” Liu Feng asked. “If you want some more struggle, I could always conjure an array that could make it rain, too. Really add some more of a miserable atmosphere.”

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Jiang Yeming chuckled, ignoring his comments. “Teacher, when I become a powerful immortal, I will make sure you have a happy ending.”

“What the hell are you even talking about? Immortal? You're jumping too many steps ahead, girl. You need to be more grounded in the present,” Liu Feng grumbled, then lay down on the cushioned floor of his array and went to sleep.

…

For a whole month during summer, they wandered through the safer territories without incident, no battles, no enemies, not even a corpse on the road.

The sect was deep in open conflict by now, with countless deaths across the provinces, yet somehow, Liu Feng’s team never crossed paths with a single skirmish. Jiang Yeming was certain her teacher had arranged it that way, using insider information to steer them clear of danger.

Sleeping on the muddy ground, getting dirtied and exhausted before returning to the sect, it all added another layer to the illusion.

And who knew what Liu Feng was writing in his reports? If she had to guess, he was probably describing battles that never happened.

He’d clearly thought this all out. They’d been gone for weeks, yet hadn’t encountered anyone, not even wild beasts.

Jiang Yeming sighed as she crouched to gather dry wood for the campfire and the small shelter she planned to build. Her teacher had banned tents, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t improvise.

Of course, she also knew she needed to look a bit dirty to sell the story like a mud-streaked, weary, and convincing forest hobo. That way, Liu Feng’s fabricated reports would have visual proof to back them up.

But today, things were different. She could sense someone, a Foundation Establishment cultivator, watching her.

Since they hadn’t approached, that could only mean one thing: an enemy.

At that level, they were likely an elder from another sect. Which didn’t make sense. Foundation Establishment cultivators were rare in this era; most average sect leaders were around that stage.

Her mind sifted through possibilities. As someone from Wisdom Hall, she was familiar with this pattern. It reeked of a leak, someone from their side must’ve betrayed Liu Feng’s travel route. If that were true, there were likely several Foundation Establishment cultivators observing them right now.

Had Liu Feng sensed them?

If this were the Liu Feng of the future, the man who developed countless techniques, who even breached the concept of a fake Sky Grade Technique before disappearing into the Central Continent, this situation would’ve been under control.

A fake Sky Grade Technique: a powerful technique type that didn’t weaken as more people learned it. By now, the secret behind how to make an actual Sky Grade Technique was not widely spread.

That was why some people in Wisdom Hall disliked Liu Feng. If he hadn’t shared that knowledge, if he had kept it within their faction, the Wisdom Hall could have ruled the entire continent.

Then again, even with that knowledge going around, they could have ruled it. But Liu Feng’s lack of ambition kept them in check.

And maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, after all, the great sects were each backed by their own immortal founders.

She walked a little farther ahead, wondering how to warn Liu Feng that they were being watched without alerting the watchers themselves.

Her thoughts froze when she noticed something etched into the trunk of a tree ahead. It was a palm-sized carving, faint but calculated.

A rune.

Specifically, a branch of Array Conjuring and a primitive form of rune trap. From what she remembered, this type of formation was meant to trigger an explosion… though the design was hopelessly outdated.

She had once read about a lunatic in Wisdom Hall who specialized in these. The man could plant an explosive array into someone’s body just by touching them. He was insane but brilliant and later went on to found a small sect entirely devoted to studying explosive formations.

She studied the rune more closely.

How would this one activate? Proximity, maybe, or an ignition triggered when it detected body heat or movement. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Could this be one of Liu Feng’s tests?

The thought came and went just as quickly. No, Liu Feng wouldn’t waste Qi in the middle of a war, and an explosion here would only draw unwanted attention.

This wasn’t a safe region, not truly. Even if they weren’t close to the border, there was no telling how many enemies had slipped through.

So… what to do now?

Despite the danger, Jiang Yeming felt calm. The enemy might be a Foundation Establishment cultivator. Still, she possessed more Sky Grade Techniques than that man had total techniques.

Decision made, she tucked the firewood into her storage ring and darted forward.

Her fingers flashed through three handseals, and as she neared the rune, it dulled, its glow fading under the pressure of her pulse of Qi.

Then she felt it, a surge of intent. Someone was approaching.

Foundation Establishment, four stars.

The moment the hidden cultivator realized he’d been discovered, he dropped all pretense and lunged toward her.

Jiang Yeming had only recently reached the peak of Qi Gathering and had been delaying her breakthrough, preparing carefully to choose a new element, different from her past life. The first time, she had chosen darkness, one of the more unstable paths, and had later learned that many who cultivated it eventually went mad.

Back then, people mistook the Shadow element for Darkness, and few understood the difference.

As the man closed in, his robes shifting like waves of ink, she slowed her pace and glanced over her shoulder.

His hand lifted slightly, fingers cutting through the air in a subtle motion, like the beginning of a technique.

At once, the ground stirred. Roots burst from the soil looking thick, gnarled, and alive, twisting like serpents as they spread in four directions. They carved glowing lines across the dirt, meeting at precise angles to form a perfect square.

The array came alive with a low hum. Emerald sigils flared along the roots, pulsing in rhythmic patterns as the air inside the formation thickened, heavy with suppressive Qi.

Jiang Yeming’s expression didn’t change.

She wasn’t talented in arrays, she knew that much, but Wisdom Hall was the very heart of array study across the continent, and she had spent decades there in her first life. More importantly, Liu Feng himself had written countless countermeasures for situations like this.

The formation was primitive, a restriction-type array that had long been considered obsolete. She remembered her future lover, an eighth-level Array Conjurer, who had mastered altering time within an array, slowing or accelerating it at will. Many credited Liu Feng with inventing the method, but he’d always claimed he merely rediscovered it.

Compared to that, this was child’s play.

She met the attacker’s gaze and struck back, not with Qi, but with a focused pulse of spiritual intent. A mental shock.

As she expected, the old-fashioned formation faltered until it shattered like thin, weak glass. It had to be maintained manually, and the instant the user’s concentration wavered, it collapsed like wet parchment.

Weak, she thought.

Still, one Foundation Establishment cultivator usually meant more. And if several of them had grouped up, they might have elements troublesome enough to land a hit on her.

No point lingering.

Without hesitation, she turned and sprinted back toward where Liu Feng and Tingfeng were stationed, wind whipping around her robes as the dying glow of the shattered array faded behind her.