Data-Driven Daoist

So this was what had been nagging at the back of Yu Han’s mind. Usually, the crab would show him the parchment. But the entire morning had gone by, and it hadn’t.

The crab gargled and hopped down from Yu Han’s shoulder. After hopping from one set of legs to another, it raised its claws halfway, as if starting a gesture, but then let them fall limply to the side with a dramatic clack. It furrowed its eyestalks, then shook them left and right.

“The hell’s wrong with it?” Li Yao asked.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Yu Han said. “It’s the opposite.”

The taller boy raised a brow.

“Its memories! It remembers?” Huang Niuniu said.

Yu Han nodded. “Probably.”

“You did it!”

The girl tackled him into a hug. “Oof!” It felt good. She pushed him away, then crouched to the crab’s level. It shrank further—literally. Now it was the size of her palm. She picked it up.

The crab rotated its pincers, jumped down from her palm, and flipped a mug before scuttling underneath it like a hermit crab.

“It remembers,” Huang Niuniu said for the third time. “Why aren’t you happy?” She glared at Yu Han.

It was a strange feeling. The memory pearls could have been a stats factory. Maybe in a year, he would have more Memory stats than any Body Tempering Cultivator had the right to have. Who knew how his Echoing Dreamscape would have evolved because of it?

Permanent objects in Deep Sleep? Could he echo computers from his past life? Kit-Kats? Movies? There was no entertainment in this world. Could he explore vast business ideas?

But now, that had all gone up in smoke. The crab would remember—hopefully—to create the pearls in the crabscape, initializing the “blueification” process there, then dumping them in the pond. From now on, it wouldn’t repeat the same figurative day over and over. It would collect memories. Learn from them. Devise plans.

It would think.

To Yu Han’s own detriment.

He’d convinced himself it was the right thing to do. It was what Dad would have done, would have wanted Johan to do. He’d lived up to Huang Niuniu’s expectations.

So why did it leave a bitter taste in his mouth?

The crab got out from under the mug. It grew larger, now dog-sized, and brought out the parchment, which it placed on the floor. It stared at it with its stalk-like eyes, the flame-like irises growing larger and smaller.

Huang Niuniu cupped Yu Han’s cheeks, forcing him to meet her gaze.

“Why aren’t you happy?” she asked again.

“Li Yao got to Level 2 before me.”

“At this rate, I’ll pass you too, smelly idea-man.”

“Why? Did you figure something out?”

She pointed at the crab. “What do we do with him?”

What an expert way to change the topic. Yu Han rolled his eyes. “It.”

“He’s a male crab. I checked,” Huang Niuniu said. “What do we do?”

“I have no idea. It broke inside my hut this morning.” Yu Han scratched his head. “It’s a Spirit Beast. A member of the Sect, right? Does it have a clan of its own or something?” Yu Han remembered what Tan Ruoxuan had said. “It’s apparently called a Collector Crab.”

“Really? That’s a surprise,” Fang Zhao, who had been trying to get the crab to pincer-cut his finger off, said. “Collector Crabs are just normal animals.”

“What do you know about them?” Yu Han asked.

“They’re common near coastlines,” Fang Zhao said. “They’re a type of Ghost Crab, usually no bigger than a palm. They dig large holes and collect shiny rocks, metal pieces, and coral. Sometimes you can find gold and silver coins too.” He removed his finger, now covered by the white light, from the crab’s pincers. “I’ve never heard of one becoming a Spirit Beast.”

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“Normal animals can become Spirit Beasts, right?” Li Yao asked.

Fang Zhao nodded. “I… guess so. Maybe it’s a special species of Collector Crab? No, it definitely is. Although animals and Primals that become Spirit Beasts usually aren’t as powerful as those from Spirit Beast clans, they become spirits from nothing. No wonder it has so many abilities.”

Fang Zhao counted on his fingers. “Changing its shape. Dream visiting. Memory Pearl creation. Oh, and it can change its shell colour, too. I wonder what level it is. Usually, a Spirit Beast at the late Qi Gathering or early Foundation Building Realm would only have so many ‘Arts,’ so to say.”

Yu Han considered this. The Creature Compendium explained a lot of things Fang Zhao had mentioned. Monsters, Spirits, Demons, and Primals all had levels and their own unique line of Arts. These were facts confirmed by powerful Spirit Beasts who could communicate with Human Cultivators.

“We can talk about this later.” Huang Niuniu scrunched up her nose. “It smells here.”

Li Yao laughed.

Huang Niuniu took out a glass vial. “We’ll leave this here and close the door and windows. It’ll drive away the smelly man-smell.” It was the same concoction she had used after “reserving” Yu Han’s hut with dead animals.

The group followed her out, the crab scuttling behind them. It tugged at Yu Han’s pants.

“Let’s build him a house in the yard!” Huang Niuniu suggested. “Or a hole. Do you think it wants special sand?”

“We’re going to plan our Hidden Realm excursion,” Yu Han said. “We don’t have time for that. Maybe it’ll go back to the isthmus now that its memory problem is solved? It isn’t originally from here, and—” Yu Han fell silent.

He’d noticed an important question. If the crab always lost its memory, why did it come all the way here from the Wisping Serpent Isthmus to vandalize Yu Han’s Dreamscape?

Is it because I have an ability to be lucid in my dreams? Yu Han guessed. Is it my Existential Anchor?

The first night after they’d seen the crab, it had appeared in his dreams. It had physically shown up much later. Could it intrude in his dreams all the way from the isthmus? That distance was no joke. That would mean the crab had some overpowered Arts. Or did physical distance not matter in the dream?

“And it might want to go somewhere else,” Yu Han continued, “even if not to the isthmus. To find more people to ask about the parchment.” He looked down at the crab.

It shook its eyestalks left and right.

“It says no,” Huang Niuniu said. “It wants to stay.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Yu Han said, exasperated.

“There might be a way to find out,” Li Yao added. He’d been keeping quiet for the most part. The movements of his eyes suggested that he was fiddling with his Dao Records.

“How?”

Li Yao looked at the crab, then at him. “The Heavenly Friendship Palace.”

The crab lost it.

***

They walked out of the other end of the marketplace, past the Stairs of Trial, and arrived at the docks. This was where the Drizzles had last dropped them off.

“We can make it back before midnight, right?” Huang Niuniu asked. “We have to meet Worm Daoist Feral Spot.”

“It shouldn’t take that long,” Li Yao said. “Let’s get on that boat; it should be full soon.”

He gestured to a long boat. It could likely fit twenty people, with half already present.

“A Sect transport. We shouldn’t have to pay for it, since the disciple manning it is doing his internal Sect mission,” Li Yao said. Then he passed a few round rocks to the boatsman. Monster cores.

“What gives?” Yu Han asked.

“We shouldn’t have to,” Li Yao said, laughing, “but this is just the way things are.”

The crab jumped from Yu Han’s shoulder to the water. It sank. A second later, its eyestalks surfaced like periscopes. It swam ahead.

“Oi!” Yu Han said.

“It can’t wait to be your friend!” Huang Niuniu squealed. “Look at how excited it is.”

“I don’t think that’s how the Heavenly Friendship Palace works,” Yu Han said. “Despite the name.”

He turned to Fang Zhao, who had plopped down next to him. The teen was still injured, arm in a crutch. But his skin tone looked a lot rosier.

“Surprisingly, it might be so,” Fang Zhao said. “They have a method to establish a special connection between your soul and the Spirit Beast’s. Unlike taming, the relationship here is equal. But from what I hear, it has a lot of downsides.”

“Such as?”

“These are only rumours. Things like the Spirit Beast being able to sever the connection at will. You can’t force commands on it. Not sure about the rest.”

“How are those downsides?”

“In many other Traditional Sects, Spirit Beast taming gives the contractors much more power over the beasts. In Orthodox Sects, although the relationship between Spirit Beast and Cultivator can be considered equal, their methods—by virtue of being so fantastic—can even grant special abilities. Like a soul world.”

“A what now?” Yu Han asked. A "soul world” sounded awesome.

“They can store Spirit Beasts in their souls,” Fang Zhao said. “The Stormy Reef Sect—” he breathed out “—perhaps does not have such legendary techniques.”

The boat was soon full, and the boatsman pushed off with the oar. The waters were calm, the sky sunny, although clouds were gathering on the horizon. The group was by the boat’s edge, so water splashed up at them in small quantities from time to time.

Yu Han gazed at the crab-periscope. At the very mention of the Heavenly Friendship Palace, it had morphed into its mini-truck size, grabbed Yu Han, and ran off. After some shouting and screaming, followed by threats, it had let go.

It was eager to form a connection. A contract, as Fang Zhao had said.

Was it because Yu Han helped it solve its memory issue? That could be a reason. But the crab had denied it when Yu Han asked. It had pointed at Yu Han’s head, then retracted its eyes, claws, legs, and spikes, falling like a boulder. It repeated this action a few times, but Yu Han had no idea what it meant.

Huang Niuniu scooted closer. She hugged the oil-skin umbrella, looking down. She’s been quiet for a while.

“What’s wrong?” Yu Han asked.

“Shush.” It was Li Yao who whispered. The voice was so quiet that Yu Han almost missed it.

Li Yao and Huang Niuniu shared a glance, then Li Yao nodded. He took out a small paper and a charcoal pen. After writing something, he passed it to Yu Han. “This is how much you owe me, tubs. Those monster cores ain’t cheap, and there’s no way in hell I’m gonna be paying for all our fees.”

Yu Han took the paper. It read, “We’re being followed.”

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