Unintended Cultivator

“Again,” said Sen doing his very best to keep the boredom out of his voice.

Of all the things Sen had thought might happen when he agreed to teach the townspeople how to use spears all those months ago, he hadn’t really considered tedium as a possibility. Of course, he’d only ever come at the process from the side of the student. As a student, everything was about mastering something new or solidifying a technique you’d already learned. It was a race to keep pace. For the teacher, it consisted of watching people carry out actions that you’d carried out thousands of times. That was a lot less fun. Oh, there were high spots, no doubt about that. He’d seen more than one person bursting with pride when they’d mastered some move that they had thought beyond them or bested someone in the very tightly controlled sparring sessions that Sen oversaw.

There had also been moments of fun in changing the building as the warm summer weather gave way to the intense chill of a northern autumn. At first, it had simply been putting a roof on the place to keep out the rain and the loose leaves that the autumn windstorms like to deposit everywhere. That took several failures, multiple experiments, and finally bringing in Glimmer of Night to help him work out a support system that could hold up the roof. The spider’s keen understanding of webs had become invaluable in that process, even if looking straight up toward the roof from inside was a bit unsettling. It looked like stone webbing. It also didn’t take much imagination to picture a massive stone spider waiting up there to pounce on unwary students. However, Sen had learned quite a bit about supporting roofs in a large, open structures that might prove useful someday. Not that Glimmer of Night seemed inclined to part company any time soon. The spider had actually seemed a little sad when the roof adventure had been successfully completed.

Of course, installing the roof had necessitated reshaping the walls to include windows for light. Otherwise, Sen just had a very big, very dark cave. That might have the occasional use in training, but he didn’t see it as ideal for daily use. Putting in windows had required him to first figure out how to make glass, and then figure out how to make glass strong enough to withstand said windstorms. That had been really interesting and finally healed the rift of silence that had persisted between him and Fu Ruolan. He’d gone to her and explained the fragility problem with the glass. He knew it wasn’t an alchemy problem, at least not exactly, but it was close enough to get the pair talking. The issue had intrigued the nascent soul cultivator so much that she’d actually left her domain for nearly two weeks to go and talk with someone she knew about it.

She’d come back with a storage ring full of books, scrolls, and materials that Sen hadn’t recognized. It had taken a lot more experimentation, but they had finally cracked the problem with a combination of borrowed wisdom, Fu Ruolan’s massive experience with alchemy, and a bit of help from Sen’s intuitive improvements to things under pressure and heat. Fu Ruolan had even deigned to come and watch as Sen installed the glass in the building. As the weather grew colder, he’d needed to add doors to the main entrance. Then, he’d had to work out a way to heat the place that wouldn’t require turning the forest into fields of stumps for miles in every direction. Not that the townspeople would have objected, at first, but Sen knew that would turn into a catastrophe for the land in a hurry. Falling Leaf solved part of that problem for him.

“Just warm the stone of the floor,” she said.

“What?” asked Sen.

“Why do you think I always used to nap on those big rocks? The sun would warm them up, and they’d stay warm for hours and hours. Often, they’d stay warm well into the night.”

It worked, as far as it went. If Sen warmed the stone of the floor in the morning, it would radiate heat all day. Of course, he wasn’t there every day, so it wasn’t a complete solution. A couple of large fireplaces also helped, but they worked best to keep the place warm rather than make it warm. In the end, it took several trips even deeper into the wilds to find natural treasures that were strongly fire-attributed. He placed several of them into the stone of the floor, which served to keep the interior of the building warm all of the time. Of course, he’d have to take them back out in the spring, and the solution would only work as long as he was around to manipulate the stone of the floor. That was a problem that he could deal with down the road. For the moment, it was a functional solution that drastically reduced the amount of wood they needed to burn.

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Sen looked down at the fifty townspeople working their way through a spear form. Long gone were their days of spreading out in the space. Now, they assembled themselves into orderly rows. He had Dai Bao to thank for that particular improvement. The man had eventually shared that he was, indeed, a soldier in a long-ago time. Like many, he had chosen to join the army rather than follow his father into a trade. When he’d discovered that war was little more than brutal violence and the constant threat of death, rather than some pathway to glory, he had gotten out at the very first opportunity. Even so, he had remembered some things, like how having people form up into lines could boost efficiency. Sen had never trained in a group with other people, let alone with a group of mortals. He’d let Dai Bao’s wisdom guide him in that. It had mostly been successful. Sen had been forced to step in and decree who could stand at the front of the lines to put a stop to petty squabbling.

For all the tedium of playing instructor, Sen wasn’t wasting his time. He was sitting directly above the townspeople on a platform of hardened shadow that was supported by half a dozen lines of hardened shadow that he’d anchored to the walls. He was also controlling a shadow construct that was about the size and shape of a very large dog that Ai and Zhi were, in turns, riding, petting, or chasing around at a safe distance from the practicing townspeople. It was a compromise he’d made with Fu Ruolan, who said he still hadn’t learned what he needed to learn about shadow qi yet. He could come to town and instruct the mortals, but he had to practice and experiment with shadow qi while he did it.

“Can’t you just tell me what I’m missing?” Sen had asked.

“I could, but I won’t,” said Fu Ruolan.

“Dare I ask why?”

“Because there are benefits to discovering the answers for yourself. I told you before, the transition into the nascent soul stage depends on understanding. If I give you the answer, what understanding will you gain about shadow qi or yourself?”

“None,” Sen grudgingly admitted.

“Just as importantly, the higher you climb as a cultivator, the fewer people there will be who can guide you. Even the advice of your other teachers, to say nothing of my advice, will become less and less valuable the closer you get to ascension. Our paths intersect with yours in some ways but they are not the same. As time goes by, you’ll need to rely on yourself more and more for the insights that will push you forward. You might as well start now while the stakes are lower.”

Sen had reluctantly accepted that for the wisdom it was and gone back to work. He didn’t feel any closer to a new insight about shadow qi, but he had to admit that he’d become increasingly adept at manipulating it. He took that as a small victory, even if it wasn’t the victory he was looking for. He had found himself going back to Glimmer of Night to discuss webs. He felt sure that the key to understanding what he was missing could be found there. He just hadn’t managed to find the right question to expose the information that could turn his mental flailing into comprehension. Or, if the right information had been provided, Sen simply lacked the necessary foundation to see it for what it was. Recognizing that rehashing that problem in his head wouldn’t get him anywhere, he stood and jumped down to the floor. The platform and supporting lines dispersed at his will. The townspeople didn’t stop their practice. They had grown used to his odd behavior by now.

He walked a slow circle around them, noting which people needed a little more direct attention. Sen was about to call a few people over to him when one of the heavy main doors swung open and let in a burst of wind and snowflakes. He stared at the open door for a moment before he let his spiritual sense sweep outward. Sen had discovered that while the mortal townspeople didn’t know what it was, they could feel that spiritual sense when he had it active. It was a distraction that they didn’t need and there was little use for it inside the building where he could simply see everything that was happening. What he felt were two cultivators. One was in core formation if just barely, while the other was still in early or maybe early-middle foundation formation. No threat to Sen, but a lethal threat to the townspeople. The pair stepped through the door, and Sen was standing between them and the children in a furious burst of qinggong speed. He almost let his killing intent loose but caught himself at the last moment. His fine control of it was world’s better than it had been when he first set off into the world, but he didn’t want the girls to feel so much as a drop of it if his control slipped.

He did let his hand drop to his jian, though, as he fixed the pair with a look that wasn’t quite hostile. Between the wind, snow, and the hoods pulled far forward, he couldn’t get a clear look at them. One looked around, pausing briefly at the assembled mortals who were openly staring at the intruders. The other turned and closed the door. The one in front raised a hand and pulled back her hood before giving Sen something that was almost a smile, but marred with a substantial amount of uncertainty. Sen just stared at her. Of all the people he’d thought might try to track him down one day, she hadn’t even been on the list. She’d seemed very keen to sever any relationship with him the last time they’d seen each other.

“You’re not an easy man to find, Judgment’s Gale,” said Wu Meng Yao.

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