Chapter 108 - Listening and Speaking (2/2)
”I can only try to listen to the Speakers for a few days at a time after which I need to rest and do something else,” she thought. ”Should I go spend time in the library or cultivate?”
Shin Sumi would usually cultivate at night, especially when the moon was full and its Shinsoo was at the highest concentration. When night hadn't fallen yet, she would usually work on her movement skills and techniques in the calm of her room but these days she could feel her cultivation level reach a bottle-neck.
The Liquid Realm was divided into nine steps, one to three being considered the Lower Liquid Realm. As such, the bottle-neck before the fourth step and the seventh step were the hardest to overcome, to enter the Mid Liquid Realm and the Late Liquid Realm respectively.
Now that Shin Sumi had reached the end of the third step, she could feel the difficulty of cultivating increasing.
”The Moon Stone can help me break through but it would be more efficient to use Enhancing Pills in combination with it.”
And so Shin Sumi decided to go to one of the Blue Fire Sect's markets.
Because unlike the others, Lead Peak focused on Speaking, a form of cultivation that didn't require the use of Shinsoo, at least in its first steps, the market of Lead Peak was disappointing. It almost looked like a mortal town market and was almost entirely devoid of cultivation resources as well as weapons.
”Stop there for a second, fellow disciple,” a voice called out to Shin Sumi as she was leaving Lead Peak and entering the valley known as the Common Area.
”Can I see your identification?”
Nodding respectfully, Shin Sumi produced the piece of jade that had been given to her by Master Lead when he accepted her as a disciple of Lead Peak.
”Do you mind telling me what business you have in the Common Area?”
”I am looking for cultivation resources in the sect's markets. Do you know where I could find low prices for Shinsoo Absorption Pills or Cultivation Enhancers?”
The disciple in charge of controlling the gate between Lead Peak and the rest of the sect shook his head slightly, a pitiful smile on his lips.
”Aaah, you wouldn't believe how many people ask me that question every day. I don't know why people don't start selling that stuff in Lead Peak. Whoever does it would be rich by the end of the week!
Try Hon She's stall in the south-west market, I heard he buys his pills from the alchemists and sells them with only a small margin.”
Shin Sumi thanked the disciple and left, after watching him inscribe her name with Shinsoo onto a piece of jade.
Such were the rules in the Blue Fire Sect, or at least in Lead Peak. The movement of each disciple was monitored at the gate and they were not allowed out of Lead Peak past night time. As curious as Shin Sumi was about why the rules were in place, she didn't mind them very much.
As long as she could roam freely in the common area and find what she was looking for, she was fine.
Walking around in the Common Area, it was very easy to forget that she was still inside a cultivation sect. To her, the valley was more reminiscent of a large city.
The Common Area alone was bigger than the two valleys of the Dark Sky Starry Sect and was much more cluttered too. Disciples' residential areas were mixed with all sorts of other buildings. Arenas, training areas, eating and drinking establishments, shops and markets were everywhere.
It took a while for Shin Sumi to find the market that the guard at Lead Peak's gate had told her about.
Buying a few pills to aid her in breaking through the bottle-neck of her cultivation, night was already about halfway there when she found her way back to the gate.
”Can I see your identification again, please?” asked the same guard as before, ”this is procedure, I need it to erase your name from the list.”
”Did you find what you were looking for?”
Shin Sumi and the guard chatted amicably for a few minutes, exchanging their thoughts on different places of the Common Area.
She was about to leave when the disciple suddenly froze, his eyes looking in the distance with a strange gleam in his pupils. Fear, Shin Sumi thought.
She made a motion to turn around to see what he was looking at when the guard suddenly grabbed the fabric of her sleeve to stop her. In silence, his eyes told her not to do anything.
It was her divine sense that informed her about a small ground of people walking slowly towards them. They were walking at a mortal pace, almost unbearably slowly, and there were seven of them.
When the guard dropped to one knee and bowed to the group, Shin Sumi followed along, not willing to offend whoever the disciple had been scared of.
As she lowered her head, she couldn't help but steal a glance at the group before them.
The seven were all dressed similarly. They each wore long purple robes with hoods covering most of their faces. From where she knelt, Shin Sumi might have been able to see their faces under the hoods from the side were it not for a band of purple fabric that wrapped around their mouth and nose.
Instantaneously, Shin Sumi knew who they were. She had heard Master Lead talk about them to Chao Wu.
”This Silent Seven!”
The sheer power they exuded felt reminiscent of that of the Night Twelve, the elite troops of Bronze Peak but at the same time it was different. The pressure from the Night Twelve came from their power and the strength they had as a group whereas the Silent Seven had a formless presence that was hard to put into words.
Shin Sumi's cultivation base couldn't quite decipher that of the group, meaning they were on another level from her but yet her divine sense wasn't thrown in a disarray like when observing an expert. More than the group of cultivators themselves, it was the atmosphere surrounding them that felt off and dangerous.
By the time Shin Sumi and the guards rose from the ground, the group had walked a long way. They had walked slowly, almost leisurely, which added to their eerie presence.
”They were the Silent Seven, weren't they?”
”The strongest of Lead Peak under Master Lead and the sect Elders. Whatever you do, do not cross them. They each have the level of a Master Speaker on their own and when they're together...,” the guard shuddered strongly, ”nobody knows who they really are but no one attempts to find out.”
”Why are they 'silent'?”
”As the rumors go, whoever heard them Speak never lived old enough to tell the sound of their voice. As Master Speakers, the words they Speak are sharp like an expert's sword and also as deadly.”
Shin Sumi looked in the distance, where the group had disappeared. From their pace, she calculated that they couldn't have gone far.
She turned one last time towards the disciple guarding the gate, ”Do you know where they are going? Do they live atop the mountain?”
Seeing the alarm in the guard's eyes, Shin Sumi coughed lightly and clarified, ”It is simply that I need to go somewhere tonight and I don't want to cross their path again.”
She could tell that she had asked enough questions regarding the Silent Seven. Any more question and it could become dangerous as there was a difference between a new disciple enquiring about the powerful elite troops and someone curious or foolish enough to try to find who they were.
The guard answered to the best of his ability, which meant basically no useful information except advising Shin Sumi to wait for a while before walking around Lead Peak.
She departed from the gate, quickly leaving the guard's field of view.
”If there is something strange going on around Lead Peak, the best way to find out would be to investigate Master Lead himself. Why did he lie before choosing new disciples? Where are the newcomers who were not accepted into the Speaker's way? Maybe only he has the answer to that.”
Shin Sumi's thoughts clicked together, formulating a plan of action that could very well lead to understanding more things about the Blue Fire Sect.
”However I can't investigate an expert like Master Lead. It is way too dangerous, he would see through me in a heartbeat. The Silent Seven on the other hand, none of them seem to have an earth-shattering cultivation base. Would they be able to see through me?”
By now, if the Silent Seven had kept the same pace, Shin Sumi knew there were only three paths they could be walking. She only needed to find which to put her plan to action.
”Invisible Crane of Oblivion!”