Heretical Fishing

Book 4: Chapter 17: Secrets

Beneath the midday sun, I rolled my shoulders, delighting in the wall of sensation that came from stretching my muscle fibers. Tension I hadn’t known was there fell away from my upper back. In retrospect, though, it wasn’t really surprising considering the unconscious hunk I’d just caught and teleported back to Tropica.

“Yoohoo.” I set Barry down and slapped him on the cheek. “You with us, mate?”

He sat bolt upright with wide eyes, touching his torso all over to ensure it was still whole. When he was satisfied, he released a sigh. “How long was I out?”

“Seconds, mate. I brought you back before you landed.”

“Was… was I in danger if I’d landed?”

“Nah, not even a little. I knew you’d live, but I worried about you getting lodged somewhere underground, then freaking out and destroying a mountain or something when you tried to escape.”

He blinked at me. “I appreciate the assistance, but are you saying that you care more about a mountain’s well being than my own?”

“Well, that’s one way of saying it. You could also say that I worry about the mountain because it can’t hurt you. Or, if you prefer, we could get into a philosophical debate about the worth of a life. If you destroyed a whole-ass mountain, just how many insects, worms, and other invertebrates would you wipe out? And that’s not even mentioning the birds and mammals that also—”

“I surrender,” Barry interrupted. “I just had another man used against me as a blunt weapon. I’m in no mood for debate, philosophical or otherwise.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Dom agreed. “She really got one over on us...”

Cinnamon preened and nodded, not at all humble in victory.

I noticed movement from the north, so I glanced that way, curious as to its cause. When my eyes landed on the dozens of faces there, all peeking over the low wall that separated the village from the surrounding crops, I sensed them.

“No way...” I said, not believing it.

“You just realized?” Barry asked, standing and brushing sand from his ridiculously chiseled, er, everything. “I thought you’d know the moment we got close to Tropica.”

“I was focused on everyone that’s meditating. Because of our connection, their cores are way brighter in my awareness. I’ve also been practicing not sensing everything all the time…” I trailed off, arching a brow his way. “How did you feel them? I thought the village was a single source of chi to your senses—did you have another breakthrough?”@@novelbin@@

Barry laughed way too jovially for someone who’d been involuntarily catapulted into low orbit like two minutes ago. “I didn’t feel them. Sue told us.”

“Sue…?”

“That’s right. She came to meet us as soon as she noticed our return. She felt obligated to be the one to tell us.”

“What? Why should she be the one to—” I whirled on Barry the moment I realized. “The coffee?”

“Just so.” He nodded toward the village, and the faces still watching us, with a slight smile. “While the original members of the church have been growing in strength, the congregation has been increasing in number. The passiona coffee is to blame. Sue estimates that almost half of the regular villagers are now cultivators.”

I knew exactly how many people we had living in Tropica, so I logically understood that half of them ascending meant that there were now hundreds of new cultivators. Extending my senses toward them, I used tendrils of power to feel their cumulative strength, and was immediately humbled. Though less than a quarter had come to watch our return, so many of them existing close together made them feel like a cluster of sibling stars. They were entities that, given time and investment, could grow to become the human version of supergiants.

Though their cores were all unique, the familiar note of Tropica’s essence ran through them. I’d at first suspected it was my imagination, but I’d come to accept it as fact that the village was becoming a part of everyone. Particularly in those that had ascended after the village’s transformation.

Just as notable, and even more encouraging, were the emotions and thoughts pouring from them.

Some were hesitant, more were filled with awe, and most were excited. But it wasn’t the present emotions that encouraged me; it was those that weren’t. Over fifty people watched, and not one of them showed fear.

That response from people was something I’d grown accustomed to. I had learned to accept that it was natural for people to be terrified when confronted with someone wielding so much more power than themselves. Those watching, though. They’d only learned about the existence of cultivators a week ago… and they weren’t scared. Some already trusted me, which made my heart sing like a bird greeting the dawn.

And there was more. Just as validating, they all sought power. Some more than others, of course, but that wasn’t what had me so excited—it was that their reasons for advancing weren't purely selfish. To a one, altruism at least partially motivated them. They sought power for themselves, but also for each other and the village.

They could have tried to hide it from me. Could have attempted to conceal the selfish parts of themselves. But none of them did. They’d come to have a peek, but they’d also come as a show of faith.

“Remarkable...” I whispered, wondering what I’d done to deserve such confidence.

A torrent of overwhelming emotions washed over me, and given its strength, I was presented with a choice. Either hide my internal state, or return their show of faith by letting it be known.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I didn’t even have to think about it. I cupped my hands to my mouth and took a deep breath, channeled my emotions toward my lungs, and released it all at once.

“Keep up the good work, everyone!”

The moment the sound flew out into the world, an old nemesis I’d almost forgotten made itself known, declaring war on my very being.

New milestone! You have learned leadership!

You have advanced to leadership 3!

You have advanced to leadership 4!

You have advanced to leadership 5!

The wall dragged on, printing a series of advancements so numerous they felt like they’d never end. Finally, the last arrived.

You have advanced to leadership 67!

I shook my head, my brain feeling a little fuzzy.

After power had returned to the world, I’d been worried that the System would send me a notification each time something happened to me or my followers. A dread-inducing prospect if ever there was one.

And I had good reason to avoid them. Back on Earth, the societal benefits caused by technological advancement were unfathomable. But so were the detriments.

I’d argue that the constant buzzing from smartphones, pagers, watches, and even appliances was one of the worst offenders. It had been one of humanity’s greatest sources of anxiety on Earth, yet we’d willingly subjected ourselves to it. I wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes here.

In the same vein, I’d encouraged the rest of Tropica to keep their advancements between them and their immediate peers. I wanted to foster friendly rivalries, and this was a controlled way of doing so. Something deep within my core told me‌ that using negative motivation on a village-wide scale was a good way to create the morally corrupt, if not outright insane, cultivators of old.

I had feared that chi returning to the world would rob me of those plans, but the opposite was true; it bolstered my mental fortitude and diminished the System’s ability to bother me. I was still forced to see quest updates, information about Tropica’s transformation, and, apparently, anything to do with the leadership skill. Or was it an ability?

Realizing I was getting lost in semantics, I took a metaphorical step back.

It had all occurred to me in less than a second, my enhanced brain easily sorting through the previously considered facts and assumptions. As I returned my attention to the outside world, I witness the wondrous effect my words had on the recently awakened humans. Though it hit them with almost physical force, it seemed to entice them toward me rather than push them away. Each leaned forward slightly as my appreciation joined with their cores and the feelings coursing through them.

Our mutual trust and thankfulness built atop each other, becoming something tangible as the tendrils of essence I sensed them with were sucked into their abdomens. It wasn’t permanent like the way Tropica’s chi would always be a part of them, but my essence definitely wove through their cores, doing… something.

“What did you just do to them…?” Barry asked.

“I have no idea. You can feel it.”

“I can. If you can’t answer that, what did you get?”

“Huh?”

“From the System. What did you advance in?”

“Oh,” I replied, not really paying attention. “I unlocked the leadership skill and got it to level 67.”

Most of my focus was on the dozens of cultivators across the sands, but no matter how much I watched them and their abdomens, I couldn’t work out what my chi was doing.

They cycled between staring back at me and looking down at their cores. My essence swirled within them, and though it dissipated with each passing second, it would take hours to leave completely. It was an intimate moment, as platonic as it was profound, and Barry immediately ruined it.

He blew air through his lips with all the subtlety of one Corporal Claws left alone with a stack of juicy oysters. “Level 67?” he demanded. “And you were worried about being a bad leader?” he turned to Cinnamon, who was now perched on his shoulder. “Can you believe this guy? Unbelievable.”

She leaned back on her haunches, crossed her forepaws in front of her chest and looked down her nose at me with an expression that all but screamed pathetic.

“You know,” I said, “I’m glad you two have put your differences aside to give me shit, but I think I liked it better when you were fighting to the death.”

“Fighting…? To the death…? We would never do something so vulgar, would we, Cinnamon?”

Never, she agreed with a soft peep, her expression basically screaming that I was pathetic.

Her acting had seriously improved, but she couldn’t keep the facade up for long. With a single leap from Barry’s muscular shoulders, she arrived in my arms, rolling onto her back to expose her fluffy stomach.

“I know you were joking, you goose. There’s no need to reassure me.”

She wiggled further into the crook of my arm, completely disregarding my words. I stroked her stomach in response, scratching the spot near her sternum that was hard for her to reach.

“So we’ve had a bunny breakthrough, Barry had his butt kicked, and I’ve learned leadership or whatever. Talk about a productive afternoon. Should we—”

Barry interrupted me by raising a finger. “Don’t forget that we teased you for your previous claims that you’d make a bad leader of your own church.”

“Sure. I was teased. So, with all that done, I feel like we’ve completed today’s—”

“Viciously,” Barry amended. “You were teased viciously.”

“Fine. I was teased within an inch of my life. Can we start building now? I thought you’d be keen to learn what it was that we gathered all those supplies for.”

“Oh, I already know what you want to build, but I need to go get something first. I have a surprise for you.”

“You do not know what I’m going to build.”

“I do,” he replied. “It’s obvious. We can worry about that later, though.”

I opened my mouth to respond with something that would have doubtlessly been as witty as it was devastating, but Barry was already gone, his bulging thighs chewing through the distance between us and Tropica. Sensing the anticipation coming from the twins, I spun their way. “You guys know his surprise, don’t you?”

“We do,” Dom replied easily. “We saw him on the way past Trop—”

Deklan elbowed his twin in the side, cutting him off. “We saw it on the way past.”

“Oh, uhhhh, yeah. We saw it.”

“The surprise is a him, huh?” I rubbed my chin. “I wonder who could have arrived that would surprise me...? Someone else from the capital? How did they get by us without being seen?”

Deklan shook his head. “Sorry. This is Barry’s secret to share.”

“I won’t force the issue, then.” I stretched and took a deep breath, delighting in the scent of salt in the air. I’d missed it terribly while we were gone. “Shall we unpack while we wait? Borks hasn’t seen your breakthrough yet, Cinnamon…”

With a violent gleam in her eyes, she leaped up to my shoulder and pointed toward the ocean, ordering me to march.

“Yes, ma’am!” I called, jogging east with a smile on my face.