Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

With the suspicion that had surfaced, I decided to dig into Senior Sister’s circumstances in more detail for now.

If what I’d just heard was true, then there was a very high chance that the reason Senior Sister’s body was so frail wasn’t congenital, but acquired later.

Senior Sister herself seemed to believe she’d been sickly since birth, but I had my own grounds for thinking otherwise.

Earlier, I’d let it go in one ear and out the other and hadn’t felt anything strange at all, but when I thought it through carefully, the fact that Senior Sister’s mother had also been sickly—and then Senior Sister, too—was truly a bizarre thing.

Because an ascended one, by the standards of the martial world, was someone who had reached at least the Life-and-Death realm, and even for a Qi Condensation cultivator who ascended from somewhere else, they possessed at minimum Transcendent-level strength.

So how could someone who had reached that realm possibly fall ill?

If you asked me, a Golden Core cultivator who had entered the Life-and-Death realm, it was only natural that there was no room for something like illness-suffering to intrude, since I had already escaped the wheel of reincarnation.

It was something I naturally realized as I left reincarnation behind: things like disease, aging, and death were hardships that came only while you were inside the wheel of reincarnation.

The pain that descended upon sentient beings bound to reincarnation was called “suffering,” and one of those was illness-suffering—the torment of falling ill.

So for a cultivator who had risen in realm and escaped reincarnation, it was only natural that they would not get sick.

Because they had escaped the shackles of suffering along with it.

And even Qi Condensation cultivators, though they might only be Transcendent-level, once they reached Transcendent, trivial chronic ailments disappeared.

On top of that, this was a body that had left the lower realm and come up to the cultivation world, so there was almost no gap for disease to invade.

Other kinds of suffering—death-suffering, the pain of dying; birth-suffering, the pain of being born; aging-suffering, the torment of growing old—still existed even in this cultivation world, but illness-suffering alone operated only in the lower realm.

Wearing a very serious expression for the first time in a while, I carefully opened my mouth.

“Senior Sister, there’s something strange, so... could you answer what I ask in a bit more detail?”

“Strange? What is it?”

Senior Sister tensed slightly at my serious expression.

Senior Sister’s blue eyes trembled subtly.

“It might be something that’s hard to talk about comfortably. Is that okay?”

“What is it?”

“I want to ask about your mother in more detail.”

“My mother?”

At the mention of bringing up her already-deceased mother again, Senior Sister hesitated for a moment and looked at me.

It was a look that said, why ask about that again?

It was the natural reaction.

I quickly explained why.

“First, don’t be shocked and just listen. It’s nothing else. Your body being like that— I thought it might be something we can fix.”

“Yes!? Th-that’s really possible?”

“Of course, I can’t be completely sure. That’s why I’m saying we need to confirm more.”

At the words that it could be fixed, Senior Sister’s face brightened in an instant, then turned into an expression like she couldn’t believe it.

Her hands trembled as she covered her mouth.

She must have thought of the long years she’d suffered, unable to follow Father, enduring pain alone.

And now someone was saying she might be able to escape that pain.

“Even cultivators who were excellent at healing couldn’t do anything. How?”

“First, calm down, and please tell me the details of what I ask.”

“O-okay, Junior Brother. Wh-what are you curious about?”

Maybe my word choice had been a bit harsh, because Senior Sister looked full of expectation.

But I was about to pry into every little detail about her dead mother, and without bait of this size, it would’ve been hard.

Inside, I prayed that what I was thinking would be right.

If I was wrong for no reason, it felt like Senior Sister would be disappointed, and I didn’t want to see a cute Senior Sister disappointed.

Though I was curious what a disappointed blue dragon sea slug would look like.

“That would be a rare scene.”

Forcing down the mischievous feeling that kept bubbling up, I got to the point.

“First, your mother. You said she was born here, right?”

“Yes. Yes. Right now, in the Nine Heavens of Sacheon, humans, spirit creatures, and demons each hold their own spheres of influence and face off, but when Father was here, it wasn’t like that.

It wasn’t divided into factions like races. Everyone thought of themselves as cultivators of equal realm.

So Mother lived in the sea of the spirit-creature region, a place you can’t go now.

She was one of the children born to Grandmother who ascended up there.”

Maybe she was feeling hopeful, because Senior Sister’s explanation became far more detailed.

As if she still had more to say, she took a breath and continued.

“Grandmother came up from the lower realm while pregnant, and back then she laid many eggs, but she said the only one that hatched was Mother. But after Mother hatched, she just abandoned her and ascended to the Eight Heavens.”

Senior Sister’s grandmother seemed like a cold person—no, like a poison creature—but if the habits from before gaining intelligence remained, it was something that could happen.

Because for a sea slug, if it lays eggs and leaves them floating on the sea, they hatch and survive on their own.

Even the fact that Grandmother watched the hatching at all was impressive devotion.

Nodding to myself, I thought there was a high chance what I was thinking was right.

“Then your mother couldn’t learn anything from your grandmother, could she?”

“You mean Law Arts and things like that? No. Thankfully, Mother left Law Arts behind. But that was all.”

Senior Sister shook her head at my saying she couldn’t learn anything from Grandmother, but what I was curious about wasn’t Law Arts.

For spirit creatures, there was something far more important than that.

“No. Not Law Arts. I mean how a Blue Sea Swallow like you is supposed to live.”

“How I’m supposed to live? I never heard anything like that. Is that a problem?”

At my words, Senior Sister tilted her head. It must have been something she’d never heard once, so it was only natural.

I nodded and continued explaining calmly.

“Yes. Most living creatures in the world are born and learn many things from their mothers. How to hunt, what to eat, how to raise their young. They learn by watching their mothers.

Of course, there are creatures that aren’t like that.

A Blue Sea Swallow like you falls into that category. Most Blue Sea Swallows are left as eggs, but that isn’t because there’s no affection—it’s because that’s how the creature lives.

Then how do creatures like that learn the knowledge a mother would pass to her child? It’s already left inside their heads the moment they’re born.

That’s what we call instinct.”

“Instinct...”

“Yes. Instinct. From the moment they’re born, they already know how to raise young, how to eat. They know it all.”

“Ah...”

A small exclamation leaked from Senior Sister’s mouth.

She looked off into the distance as if she’d sunk into thought, then suddenly raised her head and asked,

“Then even if Mother couldn’t learn anything from Grandmother, wouldn’t that not be a big problem?”

At that question, I nodded slowly and said,

“From here on it’s a guess, but my guess is this. First, I think your grandmother became a spirit creature from an ordinary creature.”

“Yes, that’s right. That’s what Mother told me.”

“Yes, I thought so. In the lower realm, she gained intelligence and accumulated spiritual power and became a spirit creature.”

“Yes, yes.”

“And the one she gave birth to after ascending was your mother, who already had intelligence and spiritual power from the moment she was born.”

“Right.”

Maybe the story was getting more interesting, because Senior Sister was completely absorbed in my words.

At this point, I put on an even more serious expression and continued.

“Now, this is where a bit of a problem arises.”

“A problem?”

Senior Sister’s eyes went round.

It was a slightly startled expression, like she couldn’t believe there was a problem.

“First, if your mother had been born in the lower realm, there would’ve been no problem at all. If she lived as instinct guided her, there wouldn’t have been any problem.”

“But this is the cultivation world. It isn’t the world your mother was originally supposed to live in. If I’m not mistaken, there probably aren’t many creatures in the seas here in the Nine Heavens. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right. I heard there aren’t as many as in the lower realm. We deal in information, so it’s something we know.”

“Yes. Then even if instinct guided her to look for prey, there wouldn’t have been any, so it’s obvious she couldn’t have grown properly.”

“Then... me too?”

“Yes.”

“So it’s not that I’m sick—just that I couldn’t grow?”

“That’s right.”

Senior Sister looked down at her own body.

A height too small to be called an adult.

And a small frame.

As if she also thought my idea was right, Senior Sister soon swallowed and asked,

“Th-then how... how can I grow?”

After asking, she stared at my mouth with trembling hands.

Smiling, I continued.

“I know your grandmother—her species before she ascended, the Blue Sea Swallow—very well, and the species you belong to is a venomous creature.”

“A venomous creature?”

“Yes. And a venomous creature with extremely lethal venom.”

The blue dragon sea slug (Glaucus atlanticus) is a venomous creature.

It’s the most beautiful mollusk in the world, but it’s a venomous creature with deadly poison.

That blue color on its body isn’t just camouflage to deceive the sky and sea—it’s also a warning not to approach. If you carelessly touch it, it can leave you with extreme pain, vomiting, dermatitis, and in severe cases even long-term aftereffects.

Even after it dies, the poison doesn’t disappear, so it’s a frightening existence to the point that you have to be careful even of its corpse washed up on the shore.

“But I can’t produce venom.”

“Of course. You can’t produce venom.”

“?”

At my words, Senior Sister made a strange expression.

Even for someone as good-natured as Senior Sister, it seemed like she was thinking, is this a joke, when the words contradicted each other.

But just because something is a venomous creature doesn’t mean everyone produces venom, does it?

There were ones that used someone else’s venom, too.

Like Hongbi, a poison-dart-frog spirit creature.

Hongbi, who had greeted us earlier and was listening beside us, cut into our conversation.

-Kwaaa. [”So you mean you’re the same as me.”]

“That’s right.”

Smiling, I nodded, but Senior Sister still looked like she didn’t understand, so Hongbi helped explain.

-Kwaaaa. [”It means you have to eat another venomous creature’s venom. As you were growing up, was there ever a time you wanted to eat something, or something like that? Did you ever feel thirst, or craving, or something like that?”]

“Uh... now that you mention it. When I was little, I used to suck on my fingers a lot.”

“No—no, not that.”

For a moment, Senior Sister’s adorable airheadedness almost made my mind go fuzzy, but then Senior Sister said as if she’d remembered something,

“Ah, this is e-embarrassing, but I—I still have a habit of sucking on my blanket in my sleep. This isn’t it, right?”

Senior Sister thought it was definitely something weird, and that it couldn’t be the real thing.

I quickly nodded at her words.

“I think that’s exactly it.”

“That’s it?”

I nodded again.

The blue dragon sea slug—this species called Blue Sea Swallow—is a being that drifts through the seas of the lower realm.

Its appearance truly boasts the greatest beauty under heaven.

A body where blue light and faint silver blend together, cerata—feelers—shining like a dragon’s scales, swaying as if in the wind. It’s a figure that makes anyone who sees it lose their mind.

With an appearance worthy of being called the most beautiful mollusk in the world, it hides a deadly lethal venom beneath the surface.

Then how do these ones, who can’t produce venom themselves, acquire venom?

Just like Hongbi.

They don’t produce venom on their own. They steal nematocysts—stinging cells—from the tentacles of venomous creatures they eat as prey, especially deadly jellyfish-like species such as the Portuguese man o’ war (Physalia physalis).

They concentrate and store those stinging cells at the tips of their cerata, and because of that, they end up possessing venom even stronger and more lethal than the original owner, the man o’ war.

So the fact that she sucked on her blanket even in her sleep was clearly an instinct that came from sucking on jellyfish tentacles.

“Then how do I treat it?”

Senior Sister asked, full of anticipation.

Originally, a blue dragon sea slug has to eat the tentacles of strongly venomous jellyfish and store that inside its body.

It doesn’t become nutrition, but it’s a powerful means of protecting itself.

But because she couldn’t do that, something went wrong in her body, and my conclusion was that Senior Sister couldn’t grow.

If so, the right thing was to try feeding her jellyfish tentacles.

Originally, I’d have to feed her the main prey of a strongly venomous blue dragon sea slug, but how could I find such a jellyfish spirit creature in the Nine Heavens?

So I decided to test it for now.

“Cheonhae, could you let your older sister suck on your finger for a bit?”

Jellyfish tentacles break off easily and regenerate well, so I meant to try feeding it.