Unintended Cultivator

Sen listened with a mixture of amusement and concern to the report of all of the newly cooperative sects that were reaching out to him through a variety of means. Some were coordinating with the sects that had the communication cores while others had sent messengers. He wasn’t sure how he felt about anyone below the nascent soul stage being ordered to travel alone through such dangerous territory, but he also wasn’t sure that he could or should try to put a stop to it. He needed to know who was on-board, at least in theory, for future planning purposes. Not that he was quite ready to act on any of that yet. He was still enacting his smaller plans for the town and sect.

He had shepherded the borderline mortals into the ranks of cultivators, and done something similar for the qi-condensing cultivators. Only some of the latter had made it to foundation formation. Around a third had fallen short for reasons that remained more than a little opaque to him, although Auntie Caihong assured him that those results were actually good. There was no easy way to tell if the ones who didn’t make it were at a true bottleneck or just needed more time. Less surprising to him were the foundation formation cultivators. Sen had gone into that process expecting that many, if not most of them, would reach the peak of foundation formation and fail to break into the core formation stage. That was exactly what happened.

There was a barrier between those two stages that the basic accumulation of power couldn’t breach. Forming a core required a disciplined mind to compress the qi in the dantian until it solidified into a core. While all cultivators were disciplined to one degree or another, that level of mental discipline was out of reach for many. No master could provide it for a student. It had to be built by the individual, hour after grueling hour, day after grueling day, until the moment to form the core came. Given just how hard and unnaturally he was pushing their advancements, he’d been surprised that the handful who did break through achieved it. They had drawn more than a little envy. Still, even having six new core cultivators to work with would make life easier in so many ways moving forward.

Advancing the core cultivators at his sect was a different problem altogether. He had managed to give most of them a boost, but there had never been a chance of getting any of them to the nascent soul stage. He hadn’t needed anyone to explain that to him either. None of them were ready. Fu Ruolan had told him that breaking through into that stage required a kind of self-knowledge and insight. They didn’t have it. He couldn’t be sure how he had drawn that conclusion, but it felt right. So, he had spared them and himself the pain of failure. Instead, he focused on pushing them closer to that peak. Even those incremental steps forward meant substantial leaps in power for most of them. That was power he was quite certain that he would need. That left two people he needed to address. One of them was looking at him at that very moment.

“Why am I last?” demanded Falling Leaf.

He’d been expecting this question for a while. It’s the question he would have asked in her place. Fortunately, he hadn’t been waiting to help her advance for a foolish reason.

“I haven’t been doing a lot of alchemy in the last couple of years,” said Sen. “If I was going to practice, I wanted to practice on people that mean less to me than you. I wanted to be as ready as I could be when your turn came. Besides, you aren’t last.”

Falling Leaf tilted her head to one side and blinked at him in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

The ghost panther’s green eyes narrowed and then widened.

“You mean to become a nascent soul cultivator?” she asked.

Sen nodded and said, “I was waiting before for a lot of reasons. I thought that there was a good chance I’d fail, and failure can come with some nasty side effects. I wouldn’t be much good to anyone if I shatter my core and kill my nascent soul. Even if it doesn’t shatter, failure can crack the core and leave the nascent soul exposed. I guess there are ways to fix it but none of them are fast.”

Sen walked over to the edge of the building they’d randomly chosen to stand on and looked down on the sect. It seemed like there were more and more people he didn’t know bustling back and forth every single day. That’s probably accurate with all the refugees that are still finding their way here

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“Mostly, though, I didn’t want more power. I know that’s not a very cultivator thing to say, but it’s true.”

Falling Leaf joined at the edge of the room with a casual lack of concern. She briefly eyed the people below before looking at him.”

“It’s very you,” she said. “You never wanted power for its own sake. At first, you chased it to please the Feng. Then, you chased it to protect yourself. I don’t know that they did you a kindness by making you a cultivator.”

“Cultivation is not a kind thing,” said Sen with a huff of amusement. “It’s some strange combination of pain, cruelty, and self-indulgence. But, just because cultivation is cruel, it doesn’t prevent me from being kind. When the world lets me.”

They stood in a companionable silence and watched the activity below that they were both a part of and separated from courtesy of who they were. Sen by virtue of his position as Patriarch and Falling Leaf by her nature as a transformed spirit beast. He wondered which of those things was more isolating. He suspected that his friend had it worse. Falling Leaf finally broke the silence. ŗἈ𝐍𝖔ʙÈṨ

“What were the other reasons?”

It took Sen a moment to remember what they’d been talking about.

“I’m only just starting to get a grip on what I can really do as a core cultivator, and it’s terrifying. I expect that you understand better than most that power is only useful if you can apply it properly. If I’d rushed into the nascent soul stage, assuming I could successfully rush into it, I wouldn’t have been able to fully control that power. Suppress it, maybe, but not control it. By waiting, I’ve at least given myself a fighting chance of being able to use it in the war ahead.”

Sen could feel Falling Leaf’s eyes on him and her patient expectation. She was waiting to see if there was anything else. He continued.

“The other reason is that every time I advance my cultivation, it’s a step closer to ascension. A step closer to leaving everything here behind. Leaving little Ai behind. Maybe even leaving you behind,” said Sen before finally giving voice to something he didn’t let himself think about very often. “I resent it. I should have had countless mortal lifetimes here like Master Feng, Uncle Kho, and Auntie Caihong did. You shouldn’t have to rush to try to keep up with me. Ai shouldn’t have to lose her father to something as stupid as ascension. I don’t want that future, but something out there won’t let me deny it.”

“There’s no other way? No escape?” asked Falling Leaf.

“Oh, there’s an escape, but it’s no more palatable,” said Sen.

It was a conclusion he’d reached years before, but it was another thing he rarely dwelled on. Falling Leaf frowned at him as she thought it through. He saw it in her eyes the moment she understood.

“Death,” she said. “You could escape by dying.”

“That’s the only path I see that has any certainty to it.”

“Another path that doesn’t lead to what you want.”@@novelbin@@

“Just so. That means I’ll do the only things left to me. I’ll love Ai as much as I can, while I can. I’ll build a fortress of cultivators to protect her, and a noble house to enrich her. I’ll help you push forward as much as I can, until you tell me to stop.”

“And the spirit beasts?”

Sen fixed his gaze on the wilds that lay beyond the borders of the town and the sect. What would he do? They were a threat to everything and everyone he knew and loved. For that matter, they were a threat to everything and everyone he didn’t know or love. They were just a threat and as bad as any plague. They were indiscriminate in their slaughter, with genocide as their aim. This was another problem with very few paths forward.

“I’ll make them beg for peace,” said Sen.

“I don’t think they want peace. Some will never accept it,” said Falling Leaf in a voice that sounded weary and more than a little sad. “What will you do if their voices hold sway?”

“If they make me, I will scour them from the world.”

Falling Leaf nodded as though this was the answer she expected. He supposed that it probably was the answer she’d expected from him. After all, she’d been there when he’d obliterated a beast tide and left a scar on the face of the earth to protect her. He’d do no less and, in all likelihood, much worse things to protect her and Ai in the future.

“You’ll save the mortals,” she whispered.

“Don’t you mean the humans?” he asked.

“No. You don’t care about other cultivators, except maybe those,” she answered and gestured at the milling throng below. “You’ll save the mortals because they’re weak, and no one else cares. You’ll save them because they remind you of yourself.”

Sen considered that and was forced to admit that she was right. Sometimes, it was difficult to hide things from someone who knew you as well as she knew him.

“I guess I will.”

Falling Leaf stepped closer and slipped a hand into his. The gesture startled Sen, but he supposed she must have seen enough people do that to understand that it was a means of offering comfort. He squeezed her hand.

“Many more will die before it’s done,” she said gently. “It will hurt you.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s not what I want but some pain can’t be avoided.”

“No,” she agreed. “It can’t.”