Hotui Mata spent only two days in his deliberation before he found me at my state-requested house.
The house itself was simple and out of the way because the looks of confoundment from visitors are worth far more to me than any amount of luxury, so it clashed beautifully with his robes as he planted his face on the ground and begged me to take him as my apprentice.
“You’ve taken all the time you feel you need, then?”
“Your two questions unfolded more secrets from your fourty pages and my father’s teachings than my studies have allowed me, great Immortal. I am certain in my choice.”
“Excellent!” I smiled. “I have a spare shovel for the day’s project. We can talk while we dig.”
I could hear his blinking.
“Come on then, pupil of mine.” I clarified my acceptance and started walking. “The barren fields won’t repair themselves.”
He recovered abruptly and matched my pace deferentially. “May I ask what the day’s project... is, Master?”
“We’ll be digging holes with resonance to the waxing moon. Natural energy interplay will allow them to partially resist the Sun’s flames, meanwhile the wind can use them as an excuse to leave more material water in the land.”
“You’ve devised an Array to repair the land so quickly? That’s amazing, Master!”
I chuckled. “No array, no. My specialty at this scale is working with the natural world, not imposing upon it. Every local spirit I’ve spoken with is eager to repair the ki interplay so that they can stop starving, and it’s not like anyone among the mortals wishes this land to remain inhospitable.”
He turned his thoughts on each other for a while as we reached the gate and I tossed them the trivial fee to look out for our return.
“Your path is to ally with the Earth in your defiance of Heaven?” he made me laugh again.
“I’ve never wasted my time defying Heaven. We bickered for a while about a few details of my path, but that was resolved a few short years before the mountain incident.”
He stared again, so I continued. “Heaven doesn’t oppose the lust for power. If it did, there would be no sects or cultivator families. For that matter, the Bureaucracy doesn’t mind it much either, though they do fear when that power is then turned against them.”
“But cultivation is defiance of Heaven. Every ancient master’s teachings agree.” he voiced the cognitive dissonance I was provoking.
“That they do. Tell me, who knows a Lord’s will best? His servants, his peasants, or himself?”
“Himself, obviously.”
“How many peasants must agree against his word to make him wrong?”
The lad’s shen, mortal and faint as anyone else’s before cultivation, shuddered like I’d turned his soul into a gong and struck it with all my might.
Good. Introducing him to disregarding the ancient masters early would be important if he wanted to cultivate in the nearly-stagnant ki of the barrens.
I’d spoken at small length with a cartographer who’d become intrigued when Lung admitted that I left the matter of negotiation distance to them, and the man was almost worryingly eager to have me as an escort to fill in the maps of the monster territories of the barrens, so he was busy preparing for a long trek, giving me time to start littering the crusty land around the city with moisture traps.
So that’s really all Mata and I did. Several dozen divots, fifteen feet across, three feet deep at the outer edge, sloping up gently toward the west so that what reached here of the ocean breeze would be drawn in to settle.
Mata was a quick study, finding the most efficient way of performing the tedious manual labor in only half an hour as he pondered the worldview devastation I’d started him off with. That efficiency didn’t save him from being an exhausted wreck when I called off for the day.
“The Hotui arts are heavy on stamina, then?” I handed him another waterskin.
“Extensively.” he nodded.
“A useful foundation if done correctly. Couldn’t force yourself into the bulwark mindset?”
He blinked in shock for a second. “No. I keep crumbling like a failure instead.”
“We just spent all day forcing the earth to crumble. Is it any less a bulwark for it?”
A long moment of thought finally refused to reveal my point, and he shook his head in defeat.
“Is a shield any less a shield because your father can punch through it? Or is it simply not a sufficient shield against him?”
Mata stared at me as the rebuke about calling himself a failure sank in, and I decided that the ‘gong’ shudder of his thoughts was a good sign.
---
A full decade of meditation and pondering had given Sect Master Ho Yin very little insight about why she was given the lofty position that ill suited her. The Senior Elders who, by rights should have received it admitted their discontent, but chose to abide the fallen Master Kong’s decree on the matter.
Then an emissary from the Shan Taiyan Empire presented themself to discuss matters of mutual interest, and it was abundantly clear to her why, in Guang’s absence, the position had been left to her.
“Do you believe our patron capable of stepping to the left, but not to the right, Elder Lung?” she shot down the clamoring to send their own emissary to meet with the young god. “If Guang deigns to be informed of the results of his efforts here, he has means well beyond ours. For now, he has chosen to leave us to our own devices, lest we fall into dependency on him.”
Even as she spoke the rebuke, she understood how well at least one of the men responsible had planned the matter. Which one, she couldn’t be certain of.
The Elders who were still benefiting from “her husband’s” teachings accepted the rebuke and settled themselves as the empress’ emissary evaluated them.
“Ah, so you suggest that your Guang has no designs against the Imperial Family, then?” he asked evenly.
Yin allowed herself to heave a sigh at the task of conveying what Guang was to the man. “If every indication is that Guang is simply visiting and enjoying the scenery, then yes, absolutely. He fancies himself a man of the land and of labor before he calls himself a cultivator or a god.”
She looked at the man who was nodding in acknowledgement and let a sliver of steel Intent hold his attention. “However, when - not if - some family or sect takes offense at him, it will appear that he has been carefully arranging for their defeat for at least as long as he has been aware of them. And this too will have been fact. I have watched his past actions change their weight right before my eyes.”
“When he gives offense? Not when he takes it?”
Elder Yang chuckled at the man. “Guang does not take offense. You could hurl it at him with all the tact of a demon and he’d leave it alone.”
Elder Nin nodded. “It is also not a matter of giving offense, beyond angering a corpse in battle. Instead, he leaves the offense on the ground behind him as bait for any who wish to take it. A most insidious trap, as our reduced number attests.”
The man bristled on reflex, but kept his composure. “Your Guang denies responsibility for giving offense?”
Yin let herself smile and chuckle. “Not at all. If anything, he revels in the responsibility and the ‘opportunity’ to set things ‘right’. But if you observe from the side, it will become evident that his interaction with offense is alien to you. I, personally, studied it in great detail as the war started, and I can only describe it as a disregard for offense itself, except when it will enrage a foe. At which point you could be forgiven for believing him to walk the Dao of Offense.”
Elder Lee nodded sagely. He’d taken to acting with more composure after it was revealed how deeply Guang had used him, personally. “It is not wrong, though not right, to say simply that Guang gifts offense in normal interaction. Thinking of insults leveled by him as oblique advice on how to proceed is among the wisest courses available.”
“I see...” the emissary admitted further confusion. “So if a boor were to accost him, he would care nothing for it?”
“He would even treat the boor as a newfound friend for the trouble.” Lee confirmed.
“And he can cultivate like this?”
Chuckles of self recrimination rolled out of most of the Elders. It was Yin herself who nodded. “More smoothly and faster than anyone else I’ve seen. Yes. He once said that the concern over what others think of him never helped his progress, so he threw it away.”
A flash of fear across the man’s face failed to elude her eye, but she let it go without comment. Instead, she simply noted that he was the first to fear Guang’s disregard for face instead of being confounded.
Was this a matter that the Shan Taiyan Empress was already familiar with? It would explain her power and dominion if she were of a kind to Guang, even in part.
---
Zheng Lao seethed as he drew in ki through his family’s array to replenish his reserves.
It wasn’t enough that the wretch calling itself a god had stabbed his son and called the entire Zheng family failures. The whelp hadn’t looked at him once during their fight. No attack, no trap, nothing.
It was like Guang - the name burned to even think - didn’t care that he was being attacked. That having all of Lao’s might crashing down upon him was as unremarkable as the rain. The false god would pay dearly for that offense before he even began extracting satisfaction for his son’s neck wound.
It was slow enough work, recovering from nigh complete exhaustion. Enough so that he was almost happy to feel his brother’s qi returning to the manor. The fool had run off on one of his insipid ‘contact agreements’ instead of coming with him to destroy the upstart and now Lao could demand answers from him.
“Nima!” he barked as he stepped into the main hall. “What took you so long!”
“My friend, Kalandre, was difficult to find.” the younger man bowed at his brother’s rage. “It was a fruitful effort, however.”
“The demon? Why would you need to talk to him?”
“I first had to confirm a rumor about our quarry, regarding his claim to divinity. As you know, Immortal Spirits are nigh-impossible to slay. Having confirmed that this Guang is among their number, I sought out an expert on the matter.”
Lao blinked as an explanation for his failure presented itself. “The rumors were right?”
“Indeed. Guang acts with such impunity because he cannot be slain by mortal means.” Nima smiled. “However, for a small price, my friend was willing to grant me this artifact.”
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The energy of the jagged dagger the younger produced made the elder scowl with disgust, and neither deigned to notice the servants wilting in the malicious aura.
The blade vanished after Lao had time to inspect it as far as he dared, and Nima continued. “Demonic artifice, specialized for hunting gods and spirits. With this, the god called Guang will die as surely as any mortal.”
Lao smiled in relief. “I doubted you, brother. I see now I ought not to have.”
Nima shook his head with his own smile. “You were justly enraged by young Hurin’s wound. It is my duty and pleasure to take a more distanced approach, as it is yours to take the direct one. Speaking of which, how did first contact with the god go?”
“Aggravatingly.” Lao snarled as he gestured for his brother to join him for tea. “He has a technique much like the Flowing Dragon Realm, but different enough I could not pin him myself.”
“Irksome. Did he ever simply vanish from your sight?”
“No. It was always that infuriating spatial fold. And he never used it to move further than the range of my attacks, so I suspect the maneuverability advantage comes at a cost of range.”
“That is enheartening!” Nima laughed. “According to Kalandre, even the most audacious of natural spirits use some innate ability to leave our perception directly when they dodge. If Guang is anchored by some other curse, that improves our chances greatly!”
“I see. That must be why the god kept his insults running. To prevent me from noticing the difference myself.”
“A mouthy brat, then?”
“Exceedingly.” Lao’s tone turned to a snarl at the memory. “Beginning with inviting me to kneel to him by pretending not to recognize me.”
Nima boggled at the mere idea of the audacity required for that insult.
“I chased him for four days, and his mouth never closed in that time. He may well be a god of insults for all I know of the matter.”
“And how strong were his attacks?”
“He didn’t use one.” Lao snarled. “Only laughed at my demand that he engage properly.”
Nima blinked. “You chased him for four days and he didn’t strike at you even once?”
“He even tried to get me to strike myself instead, offering to give me a matching wound to Hurin.”
Nima’s brow furrowed. None of the rumors he’d checked on indicated that the god would hesitate to strike a man, and the gnawing feeling that he was missing something returned.
“I will stay close, for when you are ready for another assault on the god. But when you return to recovery, I’m going to gather more information to account for that.”
“Please do, brother. Your information habit proves a valuable tool here.” Lao gave an exceedingly rare compliment to the comparatively flighty methods of the younger. “A foreign god is a wonderful edge case to validate you.”
Nima let himself grin in vindication. They butted heads often, as befitting brothers, and it was always a good day when his leading detractor acknowledged his points. Edge case or not.
---
“Master, I know it’s not my place to question you. But may I ask an impertinent question?”
I smiled over at Mata. He was coming along nicely, and I estimated he’d have his foundation sorted out before the summer solstice.
“Please do. Those tend to be the best questions!”
“When do you cultivate?”
“Almost always.” I chuckled as I kept digging. “My own Dao is ‘clear’ enough that I no longer need to sit and meditate on my identity to have it at the fore of my mind. Between that and my working relationship with the forces of Heaven and Earth, I rarely need the trappings of proper form.”
“So the time you spend digging is also spent in cultivation?”
“Usually, yes. Even I must do so sparingly here though. The overbearing stoppage in the cycle is not so easily overcome with one soul’s reserves. Even the Earthly spirits strengthened by the Fire and Earth ki suffer imbalance if they cycle it through themselves too often.”
He nodded and returned to his contemplation as we continued ringing the city with crescent divots. After our first day, we’d taken a largely uneventful two week long trip with Lo Pao, a wonderfully enthusiastic cartographer who’d been talked down from a full season-long excursion by his guildmaster with the point that if we died partway through, the guild wouldn’t have the work we did accomplish.
I’d already laid out the next path that would benefit from the Zheng’s rage, and even spoken at length with the spirits of the land so they can capitalize on what I was doing. It would do them infinitely more good than just cycling a tiny stream of energy during the night or the rare rain.
The source of the issue being the alloyed qi meant that what the spirits could do was severely limited without dedicated growth and study. Which most local spirits couldn’t manage more than a little of on account of how quickly the Salt qi had settled in and the way that the sun reinforced it daily.
In some ways, demonic qi would have been kinder. There were protocols in place for the evacuation of any spirits that shut down their cycles and didn’t have the option to hibernate like Shanshen could.
But for a simple, if catastrophic, phase imbalance, the Bureaucracy just shrugged and left the rebalancing to the individual courts.
Said courts were limited in what they could orchestrate by the simple fact that there were two full phases out of the 5 that were critically deficient. Said courts were also eager, almost desperate, to please me in the name of finally getting back to a functioning ecosystem.
It was actually a bit concerning. The Shegong made a comment while we spoke that sounded like he’d have handed me one of the lesser spirits as a concubine if I asked. The Wind Governor was less desperate sounding, but made a similar comment.
I understood, of course. At least in part. Having been stagnant for a long while, they lacked most forms of wealth, and they hadn’t been able to develop techniques due to the lack of available energy. So feeling indebted to me for even being willing to try, that left one form of repayment on the top of their attention.
Fortunately, I had the alternate option of simply supporting the formation of a new court under me, which eased their concerns of repaying my efforts without treating spirits as a form of currency.
And if they had been offering out of a kindness to the spirits themselves, well. Transfer requests were already piling up in several of their neighboring courts.
Among the discussions at each level of the local hierarchy, the single thing that stood out was that for all they’d failed at every step, the spirits had, in fact, been trying to account for their situation. From the soil sprites trying to cling to moisture and refusing to file it until it slipped from their grasp, to the rare plant spirit trying their damndest to find a more efficient way of chipping the Salt qi, to the heavenly administrators themselves shamelessly turning a blind eye to fairly egregious breaks of protocol that resulted in the barely-habitable regions that mortals had settled.
Wuhen, even more than myself, was awed at the levels of cooperation that desperation had fostered and was having a wonderful time coordinating the finer strokes of my plan. He even reported that in the process of establishing his baseline understanding, he’d found a few avenues of attempt that had been overlooked on account of the sheer number of lesser steps involved. And with my meddling being the stuff of exaggerated court rumors, he was quickly becoming something of a celebrity himself by organizing them in the regions of the southern barrens.
Overall, things seemed to be going suspiciously well. I’d gotten used to not having literally everything go wrong, but it still felt a bit odd to have a completely normal project without anyone crawling out of the woodwork to try to kill me. But I was sure that’d change sooner or later.
After seeing Mata off for the day, I returned to my house to find the two housekeepers I’d hired outside waiting for me and raised an eyebrow.
“An unnatural darkness came over the house, honored immortal.” the elder explained. “We do not know what manner of spirit it could be, but we felt it appropriate to leave refreshments and let it make itself comfortable as you suggested.”
“Well reasoned.” I smiled easily. “I’ll send a runner when the business is concluded, but you may take the evening off anyway.”
“Your graciousness abounds, honored immortal.” they bowed together before politely fleeing. Not that I blamed them. Dealing with a cultivator was bad enough. Add in spirits that announced themselves by playing with the light and I’d call any mortal who didn’t want to flee a horror junkie.
Stepping inside, I checked that my perception blocking arrays were intact, thus allowing whoever my guest was to manifest for ease of interaction, and moved to the sitting room where a lovely ebon-skinned woman was waiting with a hint of sheepish anxiety.
“Ah, Heian!” I greeted the Shadow spirit warmly. “It’s a pleasure to see you again! How have you been?”
Some of the stress melted off of her with a shuddering sigh. “I have been well. I do apologize for startling your house servants.”
“It is quite alright. They’ve had to get used to me hosting dinners for the spirits of the area, so I selected them for their steady nerves. Would you like some tea?”
“I would, yes.” A small smile graced her features. As I set the pot to warming, she continued “I’ve heard a bit about your project here. Truly magnanimous of you to move to repair the land yourself.”
“So I’ve heard. I just thought it was a fine project to deepen my understanding of the world while improving its health.” I chuckled. “What are folks assuming of my motives?”
“Many things.” she smirked. “I have even been sent to determine which of them are accurate.”
I blinked. “Nobody is jumping to the assumption that I’m angling for their head? I knew I liked the politics of the spirits more than that of cultivators.”
A giggle escaped her lips, to my own amusement. “Rather, the ones who worry about that are eager to avoid the fate they see you bringing upon them. I’ve heard that some of the Fire court had to be reminded of your... enthusiasm for having people assault you.”
I let my incredulity show as I added the leaves. “Did they not notice that the stagnation is harming them too?”
“I did not get details on their reasoning, but after speaking with them, General Anying decided it would benefit the Shadow court to know your motives from your own mouth.”
“And with you having handled much of my work with the Shadow before the war, you were the natural choice to come ask.” I nodded.
“Especially after I volunteered.” she confirmed. “The fact that the general thinks I’m interested in the treasure he’s certain you’re looking for just made it easier for him to justify it to himself.”
I grinned. “And if I happen to stumble upon it, he can tell himself about how clever he is to have given you the opportunity! Would it assist you, if it’s around?”
“I believe it would, yes. But I have no reason to believe it’s buried here. The rumors that suggest it is conveniently neglect that the Heixin Zhi Yan vanished long before the barrens had been created. Much less before they became saturated enough with the sun’s Yang that it could hide the Flame.”
“Hexin Zhi Yan...” I mused through my memory for a moment. “The Yin flame that fell from the ancient shadow monarch’s own heart when her husband was slain before her?”
“So the tale goes, yes.” she nodded as I poured the tea. “Some seekers have surmised that, as no cultivator has been seen wielding it, it must be hidden by a natural or orchestrated phenomena of excessive Yang energy. Ignoring the timeline, the rise of the Shan Taiyan Empress makes a convincing anecdote for there being some manner of dominion granting artifact here and feeding into her power.”
“And if it is the Heixin Zhi Yan, then correcting the stagnation of the barrens would allow its location to become apparent, and she would likely swoop in, claim it directly, and rule as a Shadow Empress for a long era.” I mused at the possibility. “Did Anying mention why he thought I would be interested in it?”
“He convinced himself that you’re trying to court the Empress.” she sighed, causing me to seize in laughter. “In fairness to him, the rumor is that your taste in women is one of extreme power and measured violence. Especially after you left your smith in charge of the Fang.”
I blinked. “Yin was promoted to Sect Master? That wasn’t my ploy.”
Heian returned the blink. “She was, yes. And by all reports, she’s leading them well. Though the sentiment throughout the sect is that you are somehow still running everything yourself.”
I sighed. “I suppose I have only been absent for a decade. That’s hardly long enough for a normal cultivator to notice something missing.”
Heian’s eyes narrowed. “You never thought to catch up on the news from there?”
“Everything I’ve heard lately is so overblown that I have to suspect rampant embellishment. They’re even saying the Fang worships me as a patron and that I’ve delivered the entirety of Maori’s domain to them to rule.”
“They do. And deliberately or not, you did.” Heian stated flatly. “General Anying’s assumption of you courting the Shan Taiyan Empress is built on the assumption that you meant to, and that you mean to unify the two continents, one under each wife.”
I stared at her, blinking slowly. Then I dropped my head with a groan. “Of course that’s what it looks like. And taking most of the decade travelling through the islands looked like I was waiting for the Fang to stabilize before starting in on the second continent. Let me guess, ‘my’ master plan is to strengthen both cultivator populations in preparation for a full assault on the demon continent?”
“That is the leading theory, yes.” Heian nodded with only a faint hint of mirth at my exasperation. “Followed by the theory that you’re aiming to defeat the Salt-Scale Serpent first.”
I had to chuckle. “Of course they’d suspect I want that fight. But nah, I’ll check that one out when I can survive the serpent’s desiccation aura. Around Jade core, maybe.”
Then I sighed and breathed in the tea as I mused over the situation. “I suppose it’s not a horrible idea to end the infighting before I go investigate the blighting of the passage to the rest of the world. It’d be rather stupid to just open it up and have demonic spirits flood in while everyone is still stabbing each other.”
Heian blinked. “You do intend to repair the world passage?”
“Yes and no. It’s not something I’ve put a proper thought to, but it is a scar from the ancient war, and I am Qu Mo Shi. My attention was bound to turn on it eventually.”
“So, now that you know what you are suspected of doing, you are turning your thoughts to doing it?”
“Ish. I still have no interest in wooing women whose strength will be crippled by intimately knowing me, so unless the Empress is as much an outlier as I am, the most she’ll factor into the plan I wind up making is an alliance for peace’s sake.” I let my thoughts catch up to me for a second before continuing. “No, I’ll stick with my goal of enjoying my travels and side projects for now. I’ll keep an eye out for heavy yin fluctuations in addition to the natural yang Metal phases I expect to have solidified into an ore by now. But there aren’t any avenues to actively push for the health of the empire’s forces other than tending to things as I naturally do.”
The faintest blush graced her cheek and I withheld my smirk as she asked “You have no objection to me shadowing you for a time, then?”
“I would be grateful for the company, even.” I smiled. “My eyes will never complain at the addition of more beauty to my life.”
The quiet smile matching the blush was a particularly lovely shade of honest on her.
Heian (Darkness) - Emissary for the Shadow General
General Anying (Shadow) - General of the Shadow Court
Heixin Zhi Yan (Ebon Heart’s Flame) - Fallen piece of the Shadow Queen's love, lost in the ancient Demon War.
