When Immortal Ascension Fails Time Travel to Try Again

Story 5 - A Sharp Inheritance (1/3)

Everything ached. My head. My hands. My back. Was that a rock digging into my kidney?

I should get up, but I didn't want to move. Invisible weights pressed my body down into the cold stone floor.

But worse than my immobility was the weight that crushed down on my mind, whispering dark thoughts.

They called in sweet voices, ‘Hey, you, why don’t you just go back to sleep? Wouldn’t that be fun?’ or the more insidious, ‘Starting the day is just too hard, lying still is easier and more fun!’

Why even try to do anything? That was so much work! Especially when I could do nothing.

But there was a thought tickling the back of my mind.

Fairy Lin. Was she okay?

I had experienced that new sensation of sword Qi extending out from my blade. This time it felt right. What I’d been missing all those other times... I finally understood. And then Senior Justice Reaching Divine Blade’s attack landed too hard. I flew backward. Everything blurred.

Everything except the concern on Fairy Lin’s face...

My martial sister didn't always show it, but she worried about me.

Me and everything.

When I first saw her before she remembered her past life, she’d been the village's girl who wasn’t all there. But the people there didn't pay her antics any mind. And there were plenty of worse-looking children who did far stranger things.

Then, at my darkest moment, she walked into my dreary life like a storm of crazy. And she needed me just as much as I needed her.

Not in the big ways. But — as I later realized — the little important ways. The ways that mattered but nobody thought about or if they did, they didn't think much of them.

Those little things made life worth living.

Just this morning, I’d snuck out early — again — to move the formation flags back to their original positions. This was to hide her impressive skills from those cultivators. I had a bad feeling about them.

There was also the time just after we’d woken up and changed to fresh clothes, I’d noticed that her belt was askew.

She had been mumbling something about beating someone up and hadn't been paying attention. With a sigh and a quick tug, I fixed it for her.

I’d thought that she hadn’t noticed, but she soon looked me right in the eye and — with a smile — said I did a good job.

That was the thing with Fairy Lin. She always had something out of place.

It wasn't that she didn't care about her appearance. Because she did. It was more that her mind worked differently.

She was often focused on concepts I couldn't even comprehend given a hundred years. And then, she’d move on to something else entirely before going back to the original topic. And if that wasn’t strange enough, she’d connect the two in impossible ways.

Or at least that was what it sounded like when I asked her about what she was thinking one day. I quickly learned not to do that.

But this also explained why she was always so... distracted. And her being distracted led to her not seeing things. Often those things were obvious to me. Like a leaf in her hair, or a droopy hairpin.

She was very attentive, but when she became focused on her thoughts and zoned out — or became hyper focused on one thing — she could miss things.

For instance, when we’d gone shopping in Golden Aspect City...

***

I trudged along behind her, waving a fan to keep myself cool in the hot midday sun.

Her eyes focused on an inkstone and brush set resting on a merchant’s cloth. She told me she absolutely had to have those. At any cost.

There had been a team of pickpockets working the nearby streets, stealing small bags and spatial rings.

Because she’d taught me to look out for unusual happenings, I’d become aware of them when they moved onto our street.

But she hadn’t.

Not because she couldn’t, but because she was too focused on something else at the time. Something important. And if it was this important then it probably had to do with our survival.

So I had to step up.

A thin man walked towards us. I’d noticed him earlier as he grabbed a thick spatial bag off an unsuspecting victim. He was about to fake a trip right next to Fairy Lin who was focused on bartering with the merchant.

I formed a seal and used a technique to create a spiritual hand. It steadied the man, stopping his fake fall, and moved him along.

He didn’t bother looking back and ran away as if I’d chased after him.

***

I wanted to keep helping her like that... because it made me happy.

The weight pressing down on my mind vanished.

But pressure still forced my body to stay still. Since that was the case...

I tried to access my space, but not take anything from it. Good. I could! I could step into it if I wanted to. But I currently wasn’t in danger and Rule Two was: Keep the Space Hidden. Keep Myself Safe.

It was an important rule.

Once I asked her why we couldn’t just pretend to take the items in my space out from my bag.

***

“Most cultivators wouldn’t notice. But we’re not hiding from most cultivators.” She grinned at me, a hint of viciousness showed in the way she lifted her lips to show teeth. “We’re hiding from monsters in the Immortal Bone Creation or higher. They could rip out our souls, crush our bodies then take your space before we even knew what hit us. Then they would kill everyone in the area just to hide their tracks. People like that wouldn’t even bother asking us ants to give your space to them first.”

She leaned in as if telling me a dark secret.

“And what’s even scarier... cultivators of that level would divine it from thousands of li away. We would have no way of knowing that we’d stepped into their divine sense range... So we have to take proper precautions. And since all it takes is a little obfuscation array, why not be safe rather than dead?”

***

After that, I did as she recommended.

I didn’t know if I was alone here, but I couldn’t take the chance that I wasn’t.

Wait a second. I wasn’t alone here!

I used the telepathy technique to send a message to the soul inside my necklace. He was in the middle of practicing an adjusted technique my sister had given him to increase his strength faster.

::Senior Ghosty?::

::Here, kid.::

::Where is this place?::

::Hehehehe. You want to know?::

I sighed. He was probably going to ask for something ridiculous again. While he wouldn’t order my sister to do anything, that didn’t mean he didn’t try it with me.

All the time.

::If you’re not going to cooperate then forget it.::

::No! I’ll tell you. You’re in an inheritance space. You’re one lucky kid! I’ll tell you that. These places always have good stuff.::

::Not interested.::

::Don’t say that. You might find something that changes your whole life in here!::

::More than Fairy Lin?::

::...::

::...::

::Look, kid, mosquito meat is still meat.::

::How do I stop this thing that’s pressing on me?::

::Will power. You just have to power through it.::

I grimaced. Ever so slowly — while my muscles throbbed with each small move — I rolled onto my side and pushed myself up. I groaned with the effort it took. My body that had been getting lighter and lighter with each day, now had invisible hundred pound weights strapped to each limb. And this was after I used spiritual energy to strengthen my body.

I huffed out breath after breath, gathering my energy. It was barely helping.

::Come on, kid! You got this. Go! Go! Go!::

If I had the stamina, I’d yell at him to shut up.

With a sigh, I leaned forward and used my arms to stand on my knees. I opened my eyes to see a dimly lit cavern. The floor was a cold blue stone. The walls that surrounded me were either blue or gray with lines of brown here and there. A light flickered in the distance. That was where I needed to go to escape.

I also noticed that very close by lay the sword I’d held when I fought Senior Justice Reaching Divine Blade. My entire body shook with the effort of just moving my arm a few handspans to touch the blade. But from there, I was able to place it in my spatial bag.

Slowly and painfully, I stood on my hands and feet.

I had to keep going. I had to. I was only partway up.

But sweat poured down my face. My arms trembled. I could barely keep myself in this awkward position, let alone attempt to stand. The world started to dim.

A trickle of something familiar began to flow through my body. It was the energy from my bloodline special constitution that Fairy Lin kept telling me I had. Well, if there was ever a time to use it, it was now. Using the pathways I’d carved by cultivating my technique, I forced that energy to spread through my body and improve my strength.

The heaviness still weighed me down, but it had eased significantly. Or maybe it was just that I was stronger so I could take it now.

I used my arms to throw my upper body up. And I stood.

It took near everything I had to stop myself from falling back over.

::Good work, kid! Now you just have to take a step forward.::

I nearly growled at Senior Ghosty. ::Do you want to come out here and try it?!::

::Calm down. Take your time.::

Sweat stung my eyes. I wasn’t able to wipe it from my forehead in my weighed down state.

But I just needed to move. That was all.

I didn’t bother lifting my foot off the ground and just slid it forward. Then I shifted my weight and moved my back foot up.

My goal was that light in the distance. If I could reach it then — maybe — I could uncover some answers.

I took a step, then another to reach the wall. With one hand touching stone I propelled myself onward. Moving seemed to get easier the closer I made it.

When I was halfway to the light I noticed that it was actually a bright room filled with murals. Ones I couldn't make out from this distance. Maybe they could tell me more about this place and give me some hints to help me through it.

Fairy Lin was always telling me to be aware of my surroundings and question everything. And to think. Always telling me to think. Which was easier than questioning. I wasn’t quite sure how to question everything, but I tried to question the things I was curious about at least.

Why was there a mural? Why a cavern? Was there some significance to the number of lines in the wall? And why did the world suddenly turn into the night sky?!

I stopped.

“Hohohohoho! So. A little brat is here to try for my inheritance.” A deep masculine voice echoed through the room. I could practically feel it inside my bones.

Ah. I realized immediately that stopping was a mistake. That’s what this voice wanted me to do. And my hand still felt the cold stone beneath it. With it as my guide, I took another step.

“What if I told you that you were going the wrong way? Would you listen or ignore me?”

I ignored him and kept going. The stars moved dizzyingly. I closed my eyes, but I could still see them. The only thing I could rely on was my sense of gravity and the touch of rock beneath my hand.

I inched myself forward.

I had to be most of the way there by now.

“Ah. A man who trusts his own gut is indeed a worthy student for my techniques.”

If I were an idiot, I might believe that he was agreeing to give me his inheritance. But I was not an idiot. Just young. But I’d grow up. And I would learn.

I opened my eyes and took one last step. The world solidified into the mural room. I saw bodies in strange positions just before a semi-translucent hand blocked my eyes.

“Hey!”

::You’re too young for this, kid.::

I frowned. “Let me look. There might be information hidden in the murals!”

::No. Not yet anyway. Give me some paper.::

I grabbed the stacks of homework I’d written over the past few months and handed them up. I didn’t know if Ghosty could do anything with it since he was just a soul.

::Close your eyes. And don’t even try to peek. If I let you see this, Fairy Lin might actually kill me.::

I did so. The sound of a hundred papers tearing echoed through the small room. They crinkled and swished through the air before they slid onto something.

::Okay. Open them.::

I opened my eyes to see scraps of my homework acting as clothes for the women depicted in the murals.A few squares were almost entirely covered with paper!

I turned to Ghosty and raised a questioning brow.

::I’ll tell you about it when you’re an adult, kid.::

::I don’t think I’ll want to know.::

::Oh, you’ll want to know.::

Ah. Was he planning on using this to get me to do stuff again? I folded my arms.

Not happening.

It turned out that not all the figures in the mural had my homework scraps covering them. But every image featured the same man. He had a topknot and a white jade crown. A crimson sword was always either sheathed at his waist or pointing towards large spirit beasts out of legend.

That must be the creator of this space. Wait, was he using this mural to brag? That couldn’t be the entirety of it, right?

I looked around for an exit to this place but only saw the opening where I’d come into the room.

“Why would you do that to my beautiful murals?!”

The voice reappeared again. He sounded genuinely upset.

“You covered the glorious twin peaks of my favorite conquest!”

I looked around the mural to try and find which mountains he was talking about. There really wasn’t much in the way of background to this artwork, but what was there didn’t show any mountain peaks. There were, however, obvious boxes around each individual image.

I glanced at Ghosty, hoping he would illuminate the answer for me. His translucent cheeks turned red. He turned his head and cleared his throat, obviously not willing to answer my question.

I sighed.

“And what did you do to Fairy Dry Almond? She was one of my favorites. And let me tell you, when I was done with her, she wasn’t dry at all.” The voice chuckled.

I... really didn’t understand. I once again turned to Ghosty. His face turned redder than a hawthorn berry.

::Do me a favor, kid. Tell this guy that you’re just a kid and to be more appropriate::

::Can’t you do it?::

::He could just be a piece of will left by the creator of this dimension. If that’s the case then, it’s fine. But if he’s a soul like me, then I’d make a nice snack for him. Right now, only you can hear and see me.::

I repeated what Senior Ghosty told me to say.

“Ah! So you’re talking to me, finally!” He chuckled. “Tell me. What did you think to pass my test of the mind? Was it revenge?”

I ignored him. My eyes caught on something at the bottom right on each of the mural walls. There appeared to be a square missing.

“Okay, so it’s not revenge.”

If it wasn’t for Fairy Lin, I probably would have been obsessed with finding out the truth of what happened to my mother. I wouldn’t have stopped until I found out the truth and punished those who were responsible. While I still planned to find out and get strong enough to exact revenge, it wasn’t my whole world. I still had a martial sister who cared about me. And if I tried to find out the truth now, while we were both still weak, then we would be in danger.

I’d also already learned a lesson in revenge from my sister.

***

I watched her pay more for a spiritual plant than it was worth. I did, try to get him to lower the cost but he treated us both as if we were dumb rich kids.

It infuriated me.

But Fairy Lin didn’t seem to care.

As I wallowed in my need to get back at that seller, she grinned. “Do you think I don’t know what he did?” She ruffled my hair.

I hated when she did that and scowled in displeasure. Her laughter sounded pleasant and somewhat soothed me.

“Let’s say, a fly decided to land on my arm. If I killed it there, I’d be getting its guts all over myself. It would be pointless and gross. It’s just a fly.”

“But, he has a higher cultivation. That’s someone who isn’t a mere fly,” I pointed out smartly.

“Oh yeah? Let’s say I did want revenge against him. Like, really desperately wanted revenge. At my current level, it would be pointless. He would smack me down. But, I am an immortal cultivator who knows that I can cultivate faster than him. I will live for thousands of years, maybe even millions if I reach immortality. For this one single man who slighted me... I could cultivate until I was much higher than him, and then crush him like a bug. Because this world only appreciates strength.”

She flicked her sleeve and strode off, head held high and smiling.

“When you cultivate faster than everyone else alive, revenge can always wait. And may not even be necessary at all.”

***

“Then, it must be a woman. Or family? A woman who is also your family?”

I clenched my jaw to stop myself from telling him to shut up.

“So it is! Hah!”

After staring at the mural. I finally figured it out.

“Why don’t you tell me about her? Is she pretty? Is it your mother perhaps? No. Then sister? Not blood-related then? Your master? No.”

I pushed one of the mural squares toward the empty slot. It moved!

Just to try it out, I started moving another.

“Your little fiancée?”

My hand slipped.

First of all, I was only eight!