Outworld Liberators-Chapter 213: The First Disciple to Choose a Method

The young disciples from the various schools were so used to training in isolation, seeing little beyond the faces of their own seniors, that this gathering ought to have bred pride, rivalry, or contempt.

Yet for all their differences, whether small or great, none of them looked down on the others.

One name kept that impulse in check.

Ossuary Necropolis.

It was not fear that restrained them, but respect.

To them, the sect was an old monster in the truest sense, one that had risen again and again whenever the world turned violent and the tides of chaos swelled too high.

Their ancestors had passed that lesson down carefully.

Proper respect was owed to that sect, for more than one force, more than one family, more than one city would have been reduced to rubble and skulls long ago if not for its hand.

That was why no young master dared stir up trouble here.

That, too, was why Radeon had gone so far north and gambled as boldly as he had.

Now he was merely reaping the harvest.

After the meal, the guests were taken on a tour.

The sects and schools that had come were, almost without exception, traditional in nature and deeply reverent toward ancestry.

The Fighting Temple offered blessings and slight enlightenment to those walking combative paths.

Disciples who prayed with proper devotion found their thoughts sharpening, and not a few gained sudden clarity regarding minor roadblocks that had troubled them before.

The Fortune Seeking Temple was said to absorb misfortune from those marked by poor luck.

Its effects were not dramatic, at least not outwardly, but after seeing what the first temple could do, most of the visitors thought the same thing.

If fortune could be improved at all, then it was worth trying.

The Ailment and Misfortune Purging Temple left many of them feeling unexpectedly light, as though something stale had been lifted from within their bodies.

The truth of it lay in the secret incense threaded through the place, its invisible smoke carrying the real work.

In such things, Radeon had been meticulous. He had put real effort into making sure this place would be remembered.

Then came the Will and Integrity Temple, and there the effect was quieter, but no less unsettling.

More than one disciple found old flaws rising in the mind unbidden, not to shame them, but to force reflection.

All of it was made possible through Radeon’s faith tendrils, which stretched through the entirety of the Radeon Terraces.

By the time the tour ended, the disciples no longer felt they had come on a wasted trip.

Even the most skeptical among them had begun to understand that Radeon Terraces was not merely putting on a grand face.

There was substance here.

They were brought next to the Prescriptions and Recovery District.

No one scoffed at it, not even the elders.

Among people who had spent their lives brushing against death, a single diagnosis could change the course of a man’s future.

Many of the visiting elders, for all their strength, carried old problems in silence.

Hidden injuries. Meridian damage born of poor nourishment.

Imbalances in qi that had gone unchecked for decades.

One after another, they were examined and told of ailments so precise that several could only stand there in stunned silence, wondering how such flaws had been seen so clearly.

Yet that was not what shocked them most. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

What truly shook them was seeing old companions from the days of their youth cultivating again.

A former comrade who had once lost limbs in some long-forgotten expedition now ran like the wind.

Men and women who had been thought crippled for life now stood whole.

Reunions came quickly after that.

Voices broke. Eyes reddened. More than one elder found tears gathering before he could stop them.

Old debts of friendship, buried under time and pride, were suddenly remembered.

Some began paying medical costs on the spot, as if settling favors long overdue.

The last stop was the Social and Gaming District.

The elders who had come with savings to spare were already itching to try their luck.

They opened bank accounts and deposited funds without hesitation.

Some of the younger disciples, however, were not allowed to join.

They were simply too young.

Still, Calyx had prepared for that well before anyone arrived.

If an elder vouched for them, they could at least play on the fishing lake or watch from the side.

Calyx had gone so far as to pester Ewan and Maeron into altering the games so they could detect bone age properly before allowing participation.

He had traded ghost techniques stored in his own mind just to get the two of them to make the change.

And so the amusement continued. Sectarians mingled with scholars.

Elders forgot themselves at the tables.

Visitors laughed more freely than they had upon arrival.

Deep beneath all that, in the library below, the disciples had begun asking better questions.

That, more than anything, was why Radeon had not bothered to hold a fighting tournament.

He did not need brute strength alone.

He needed people who could think.

Ropefist, in particular, had shown a keen instinct for searching out what truly suited him.

He had already fallen for Strings that Stirred Fate Cultivation Manual, and the more he examined it, the more it seemed almost inevitable.

He had always loved using ropes and strings as weapons.

Now here was a path that matched both his taste and his aptitude so neatly it felt less like choice and more like destiny.

Radeon came to stand beside him.

"If you were a god, how would you want your rope to work?" he asked.

Ropefist took a moment before answering. The young man before him was the very source of all these techniques, an ancient monster from antiquity wearing the face of youth.

Even thinking too carelessly in front of him felt improper.

"I’d want it to be versatile, Boss," Ropefist said, borrowing the way Almsgiver addressed Radeon.

"I want it to defend as well as attack. But I don’t want something that needs too much setup."

"I know myself well enough. Maybe I’ll grow more patient later, but right now I’m more of a confrontational person."

Radeon nodded and closed his eyes for a brief moment.

"Flowing Tears from Beyond," he said.

A Path Preview drifted forward.

At first glance, it looked almost laughably plain, little more than a crude, slime-like mass.

Even Ropefist felt, for one uneasy heartbeat, that the ancestor might be mocking him.

"Take a look," Radeon said.

So Ropefist did.

The watery substance first wrapped itself around a clenched fist.

Then it flowed outward, forming armor.

In the next moment it thinned into strings, thickened into rope, then shifted again into swords, lances, and halberds with seamless ease.

After that, it became a great orb that enclosed its user completely.

When a cultivator of higher realm struck it, the sphere rebounded across the ground while the person inside remained unharmed.

The preview did not stop there.

At later stages, the orb expanded enough to carry others within it, protecting allies just as easily as imprisoning enemies.

Then, in the next breath, it unraveled into strings so fine and fast that the trapped figure was cut down into bloody fragments.

When the Path Preview ended, Ropefist stood stunned.

He had not expected such an art to exist.

"Do you like it?" Radeon asked.

"I love it, Boss Radeon," Ropefist said at once.

"It’s incredible. But that sphere... it grows stronger with the user, doesn’t it? Where does it come from?"

"That is called a natal weapon," Radeon explained.

"It means a part of your soul has been forged into an object. Some are born with one."

"And yes, I am saying that you already carry a small natal weapon within you. That is why I showed you this technique."

Ropefist’s eyes lit with something almost childlike.

"So you’re saying I was destined for this?"

Radeon shook his head.

"Destiny should never be written by external things or passing circumstance," he said.

"You are destined for it because you chose it. The moment you decided to enter the tournament, you had already begun walking toward it."

"Boss Radeon, one more question," Ropefist said.

"This cultivation technique doesn’t have much in the way of long-range attacks. Sure, I can throw the natal weapon, but other than that, won’t I be left defenseless?"

"You can still cast elemental spells," Radeon said.

As if to prove the point, he began mimicking the motions described in the manual, shaping ghost fog with easy control.

Even while keeping the protection of the natal weapon around himself, he formed an icicle lance in his free hand and sent it flying outward in one sharp burst.

Ropefist’s eyes lit up.

"I see. Can I take this now?"

"You may," Radeon said. "But are you certain? Once you choose, you may never return here."

Ropefist looked around at the shimmering Path Previews, then down at the one in his hands.

Compared to the others, it looked almost plain. Too plain, perhaps.

But that was the thing. Appearances could deceive, and this was the one he wanted.

"I’ll take it," Ropefist said.

Radeon gave a small nod.

"Then remember this. You are attuned to water, with frost as your secondary affinity. Choose along those lines."

"Picking anything else would be a waste. Those options are available in the schools, and you will not be able to use them fully until Cornerstone Setting Stages, so there is no need to rush."

Ropefist clenched his fist. This was it for him.

The true beginning of his cultivation journey.

Though he had only been here for around three hours, he was already done.

Not because he was rash, and certainly not because he was careless.

Ropefist was not a hasty man in the slightest.

He simply knew what he wanted, what he wished to become, and where he meant to go.

His mind was that clear.

In Ropefist’s mind, he had come here for tools, not revelations, and this was the best tool he could have asked for.

A weapon he could never truly lose, even if age one day hollowed out his wits.

Armor and clothing when the situation demanded it.

A prison, a shield, and a means of movement all in one, able to turn an enemy’s own strike into his escape.

What more was there to ask for?

"Any disciples who wish to watch your brother begin cultivating may come as well," Radeon said. "Just keep your silence. Once he starts, there is to be no whispering."

The disciples nodded at once. Curiosity shone plain on their faces.

To them, cultivation had always sounded like something difficult, distant, almost sacred in its complexity.

Yet here it was being treated as something that might begin in a single afternoon.

More than one of them had already begun to wonder whether at least one among them might not be able to cultivate at all.

Radeon soon led them beneath a pulsing blue vein that throbbed across the library’s white marble ceiling.

It resembled a blood vessel turned inside out, thick and luminous, each slow thrum sending waves of qi through its length.

Light moved through it in soft currents, rising and fading like breath.

This was one of Radeon’s creations for spreading cultivation through his cosmos before.

A Meridian Tree.

The wraiths had harvested the prisoners bit by bit, and now their meridian clippings hung above as that upside down growth.

But no one needed to know it except those who had to.

"Sit beneath it," Radeon said.

Ropefist obeyed.

The hanging vein stretched downward until its tip touched the nape of Ropefist’s neck.

He felt a small prick, no worse than a thorn, and then a cool calm spread through him so quickly it almost made his knees weaken.

Above him, the lights within the tree flickered faster.

It began drawing in the energy of heaven and earth, linking itself to the dormant pathways within his body.

Then Radeon thrust the cultivation method Ropefist had chosen toward the Meridian Tree.

A small crystal embedded in the tree took it in and began to glow.

The tree carried a fragment of Radeon’s soul. Its task was so simple it had cost almost nothing to fashion.

It only had to cultivate on its own, read the manuals, and help restore broken meridians, drawing a small measure from each while yielding a piece of itself in return.