Unintended Cultivator

Sen wasn’t sure if it was some kind of bad luck or weird karma, but he managed to scare the same maid. He’d found the kitchen and made tea. Then, he’d sat down at the small table in the kitchen to enjoy his tea. Not too long after, the maid came into the kitchen and saw him sitting there. She let out a brief shriek before clamping a hand over her own mouth. Given that he’d just been sitting there with a cup of tea in his hand, Sen couldn’t quite find it in himself to feel bad about startling her. If he’d jumped out at her or been waving a sword around, okay, but he felt it was difficult to be less threatening than sitting calmly with tea. Still, he wasn’t heartless. He gave her a nod and gestured at the table.

“Tea?” He asked.

The girl stared at the teapot like it might launch itself across the room and attack her. She shook her head abruptly and then stared down at the floor. Sen waited for a moment to see what she’d do. She kept just standing there, her cheeks slowly getting redder and redder. When the silence started to annoy Sen, he gave up on waiting.

“Am I in the way here? I can leave if you have work to do,” said Sen.

The girl peeked up at him for a second or two before looking down again. “The young master is not in the way.”

Sen waited again. The girl continued to not move.

“Is there some way I can help?” Sen asked, hoping she’d just tell him what she needed to do.

The girl looked at him again, looked at the tea set, and then looked back down. “Forgiveness, young master. I am to make the mistress’s tea in the morning.”

Sen looked down at the tea set – the only tea set that he’d been able to find – and understanding dawned. Sen wasn’t in the way, but his tea was in the way. He sighed. He hated to waste good tea, but there was just no getting around the problem. The girl had a job to do. Sen looked back over at the girl to tell her to take the tea set, when Grandmother Lu appeared right behind her.

“No, Mistress, I-,” she started before Sen cut her off.

“It’s my fault, grandmother. I got to the tea set before she did.”

Grandmother Lu’s eyes shot to Sen. Sen felt like she was trying to see his bones the way she was staring at him. Her gaze softened as she turned to the maid.

“It’s fine, Lin. You carry on with your other duties. I’m sure that Sen will share his tea with his old grandmother.”

“Yes, mistress. Of course, mistress.”

The maid, Lin, shot Sen a grateful look before she vanished out of the kitchen. Grandmother Lu sat down across from Sen. He prepared her a cup of tea. She sipped at it and then gave the cup an appreciative look.

“Lin must be getting better at this,” said Grandmother Lu, mostly to herself.

Sen hesitated. Correcting her might cost the maid a tiny bit of goodwill from her employer, but it would probably save her trouble when she couldn’t make the tea the same way.

“I made the tea,” Sen admitted.

“Oh, that explains it. Lin is a good girl, but she can’t brew tea to save her life. Did Cultivator Feng teach you to brew tea?”

“No. It was Uncle Kho.”

“Uncle who?”

“Oh, right, we didn’t get to talk. How long was I out for?”

Grandmother Lu raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know?”

“Time gets strange during breakthroughs. At least for me.”

“I supposed it does, now that I think back. Just the one night.”

Sen let out a relieved breath. “That’s good. I lost most of a week once.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Remind me about it, and I’ll tell you the story. As for Uncle Kho…”

Sen launched into a very lean explanation of where and with whom he’d spent most of the last six years. Grandmother Lu listened intently, her eyes occasionally going wide with wonder or narrowing with anger. After Sen finished, the older woman just sat there quietly for a few minutes with her eyes closed. She hummed to herself a few times. Sen remembered her doing the same thing years before when she was thinking deeply about something.

“So,” said Grandmother Lu, opening her eyes, “you made friends with a spirit beast panther?”

Sen laughed. “Out of all of that, it’s Falling Leaf you’re curious about?”

Grandmother Lu shrugged. “I can make sense of the rest of it. I just can’t imagine how you befriended a spirit beast.”

“You know, there wasn’t much befriending going on. It was mostly that she was curious, and I had food.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep. Pretty much. I think she also thought I was kind of funny. I fell down a lot in the early days.”

“It’s a strange life you’ve led, Sen. Strange enough for two people and then some. Still, you seem to have come out of it hale and whole enough. After that display yesterday in the market, I’m guessing you’re in one of the late qi condensing stages? Peak, maybe? It’s hard to get a clear sense of your cultivation.”

Sen found himself oddly embarrassed that he needed to correct her about his cultivation level. It felt almost like he was insulting her. Still, she had asked. It would be rude not to answer.

“Middle foundation formation,” he offered. “About the same in body cultivation, as well. At least, I think so.”

“In six years? I don’t even understand how that’s possible unless you’re some kind of cultivation genius,” she said, then got a speculative look on her face. “Are you some kind of cultivation genius?”

Sen snorted. “I doubt it. I don’t think I’ll be able to explain it to you either. Not exactly, anyway. My training wasn’t exactly traditional. They didn’t want to, well, it’s a long story. One I’m happy to tell you at some point, but I’m sure you have things to do today.”

Grandmother Lu sighed. “I do. The shop can run itself without me, but people expect me to be there. The kids I hired are dedicated enough, but they’re easily distracted. You saw that for yourself, yesterday.”

“I did wonder about why those girls were just hanging around outside that room and bringing me food.”

Grandmother Lu frowned at Sen. It was a very serious look.

“Oh, that’s not good,” she finally said.

“What’s not good?”

“I just realized that there are probably some of those practicalities that we need to discuss. Tonight, though, when I’m done at the shop.”

Sen shrugged. “Fair enough. Speaking of the shop, there’s something I need to discuss with you. I hope it won’t take too long.”

“Go on,” said Grandmother Lu.

Sen briefly described his interaction with the big man in the market, as well as his promise to help.

“Sen, a thousand silver taels is a lot. I can probably get it for you, but it’ll take some time to free it up from the business.”

“Oh, no. I don’t need you to give him your money. I’d never ask you to do that. I have a storage ring full of spirit beast cores. I planned on giving him some of those. Or maybe selling you a couple and giving him the balance in cores.”

“You have beast cores?”

Sen nodded. “I do.”

“How many?”

Sen had never done a proper count of them, but he had a rough idea. “Fifty, give or take a few.”

Grandmother Lu’s face went as pale as a sheet of paper. “Sen, you’re walking around with a fortune on your hand. People would kill you for that ring.”

“I know, which is why I haven’t told anyone but you.”

A little of the color came back to Grandmother Lu’s face, and she looked touched by his display of trust. “Well, I think I can probably muster enough funds to buy two or three of them. But, I have to ask. Why would you help him?”

Sen shook his head. “It’s just a feeling. I can’t explain it any better than that. Something, maybe the heavens, maybe the winds, told me that I was supposed to take some kind of action. It had to do with that man. I can’t even be sure that it’s a good thing that I’m doing. I think it is. I hope it is. If it isn’t, well, he’ll become my responsibility down the road.”

“You’ll kill him if it turns out he wasn’t worth helping?”

Sen thought hard about that. “No. If he turns out to just be useless, I’ll let life sort that out for him. This life, or the next life. If he turns out to be evil, though, I’ll kill him. I’ll have to, or I’ll have a share of guilt in every terrible thing he does. For now, I’m just making good on my word. Let’s hope he appreciates that enough to become someone worth knowing."

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