Unintended Cultivator

Sen considered everything that had just happened, nodded to the patriarch, and turned to walk away.

“Is that it?” asked the patriarch. “No questions? No demands?”

“You don’t have what I need, no way to give it to me, or no intention of giving it to me. Regardless of the reason, my business here is done,” said Sen. “I don’t have the interest or the time to waste on figuring out which reason it is.”

“You’re a core cultivator. You have nothing but time. Besides, simply because we don’t have what you came for, it doesn’t mean there is nothing here that you need.”

Sen hesitated at that, his eyes flickering to the spring. The longer he’d been there, the more certain he’d become that the spring was alive. Not merely in the sense that life pervaded all nature, but in the singular, self-aware sense. He was deeply, terribly curious about that spring, but he’d already wasted days learning about the water illusion. It had been a self-indulgence, although one with some practical applications, but he couldn’t afford those kinds of distractions anymore. Sen shook his head.

“Other core cultivators may have nothing but time, but I do not.”

The patriarch gave Sen a searching look then. Then, the older cultivator’s eyes went wide. “Oh, I see. You don’t just want the manual. You literally need the manual. I don’t understand, though. How did you end up on the path of the Five-Fold Body Transformation without the manual in the first place? It’s not the kind of thing that people stumble onto by accident.”

“I had an encounter with a divine turtle. He,” Sen considered how best to describe the encounter, “nudged me in that direction with some very specific advice about an elixir I was making. He gave me the name of the method, and not much else. I don’t suppose you read the manual or know of anyone else in the sect that did?”

“I did not. Body cultivation wasn’t an interest of mine when I was young enough for it to matter. By the time I really understood the advantages, well, it was too late to glean much benefit from it. Qi reinforcement helps me achieve some of the same results, if only temporarily. As for anyone else, it’s a body cultivation method with a very specific reputation for killing people. Not the sort of thing that piques most people’s interest.”

Sen sighed, nodded, and cast one last look at the spring. He so badly wanted to stay and examine that spring. I wonder if I could talk to it, thought Sen. The patriarch’s eyes tracked Sen’s gaze.

“You can feel it, can’t you?”

“Patriarch?”

“You can tell that the spring is alive and sentient. I can see it on your face. Take a day, just one day, and spend it here. You may discover something else that you need. Something to help with that anger I can see inside of you.”

Sen jerked at that. “Is it so obvious?”

“I’m a very old man who has spent most of his life dealing with younger cultivators. You’re clearly working very, very hard to contain it. Still, it’s hard to keep things like that hidden from someone like me. After you’ve seen a few hundred angry young cultivators, the signs aren’t difficult to pick out.”

The part of Sen that was deeply mistrustful of sects narrowed his eyes at the patriarch. “Why? Why encourage me to stay? You don’t really want me here.”

“An angry, sect-hating, core cultivator that very clearly punches above his cultivation level? Why in the world wouldn’t I want someone like that hanging around in our most sacred place?”

Sen blinked a few times. “I think you just made my point for me.”

“No. All of that is, believe it or not, besides the point. I’ve seen angry young cultivators before. More importantly, I’ve seen what angry young cultivators turn into when they don’t find ways to cope with that anger. You possess a frankly frightening amount of power already. If you do succeed in finding a copy of that manual, and I strongly suspect you’ll find a way to make it happen, you’ll become even more powerful. That kind of anger and that kind of power are a recipe for terrible things.”

Sen hadn’t thought about it in quite those terms before, but the patriarch had given voice to Sen’s own deepest fears about his anger. Yet, that perceptiveness alone didn’t account for the patriarch encouraging Sen to stay. Sure, he might become a danger someday, but it wasn’t even close to a foregone conclusion that he’d come back to the Clear Spring sect looking for some long-delayed and nebulous payback. In fact, the odds were against it. With the way he accumulated problems and enemies, he'd likely have far more pressing problems down the road than making an example of a sect that had, in the end, not done anything to him.

“It still doesn’t explain why. I’m not a disciple here. You’ll probably never even see me again.”

“Is it really so hard to imagine that I just see a young man who is struggling and wish to help? It’s not as though it’s the first time that happened to you, is it?”

Sen opened his mouth to say something he’d probably regret, then forcibly made himself shut up and just think for a second. It wouldn’t be the first time a nascent soul cultivator went out of their way to help him. He just didn’t expect it from a sect patriarch. The patriarch clearly read the wariness on Sen’s face, so he continued.

“The other thing that being very old and very experienced teaches you is how to spot the people who will make it. While ascension is always a gamble, I can usually tell who will make it to core formation and who will break into the nascent soul stage. Assuming that you don’t get yourself killed or your body cultivation method doesn’t do you in, you will become a nascent soul cultivator. If you’re looking for a self-interested reason from me, perhaps I’d prefer it if you had some reason to think kindly of us when you reach that threshold.”

That was exactly the kind of pragmatic thinking that Sen expected from a sect, but he had the distinct impression that the patriarch had made it up on the spot. He’s giving me a reason I’ll accept, thought Sen. Sen found himself once again staring at the spring. It’s just a day, Sen justified to himself. I’m in a hurry, but I can spare one day. Especially if it will help me get this anger even a little more under control. Sen decided that the patriarch’s motives didn’t matter. Maybe he was just someone trying to do something kind for Sen. Maybe he felt like the sect owed Sen something stopping the fighting or helping out after. Maybe it was just some kind of consolation prize since the manual Sen wanted was out of reach. Sen nodded.

“All right. I suppose one day won’t hurt.”

The patriarch looked both pleased and a little relieved at Sen’s words. The older cultivator gestured that Sen should join him. The two men walked along the edge of the spring in silence for a time. The patriarch looked over Sen and, after a moment of thought, he asked a question.

“You cultivate more than one kind of qi?”

“I do.”

“What do you do with them? What kind of techniques do you use?”

Sen frowned at the question. He wasn’t sure he even understood what the patriarch was getting at.

“I defend myself,” said Sen.

“So, combat techniques?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing else?”

“Well, there’s the alchemy. I use qi for that.”

“Ah, of course. I meant techniques that you control directly.”

Sen thought it over. “I made a house once.”

The patriarch stumbled at that. “I’m sorry. Did you say you made a house?”

Sen nodded. “Yeah, it took a lot of earth qi, but I made a house. It had rooms and furniture, even a well.”

“Anything else?”

Sen shook his head. “Not really.”

“So, you never try to use your qi to create?”

“Create what?”

“Beauty,” said the patriarch. “We all learn to fight. We must, but there’s more to life than violence. Qi has more than one use.”

With that, the patriarch gestured at the spring, and Sen felt the surge of water qi from the man. Sen braced himself for the attack, but it never came. Instead, water flowed out of the spring and floated over the patriarch’s hand. As Sen watched, the water swiftly reshaped itself into the shape of a blooming rose. Then, it changed into a tiny, translucent horse that appeared to gallop on the patriarch’s hand. Then, it was a falcon that swooped and dove around the patriarch. Sen was amazed that he could pick out individual feathers on the falcon’s watery body. The patriarch made a gentle gesture and the water returned to the spring. Sen was stunned at the patriarch’s casual mastery over water, but equally stunned that it had never occurred to him to try to make anything other than that house with qi. Sen knew he wasn’t particularly artistic, but it could have been a hobby, a way to give his mind a break. And he’d never thought of it. Sen offered the patriarch a bow.

“Your mastery is extraordinary,” said Sen, not knowing what else to say.

“You can get good at anything if you practice it for a thousand years,” said the patriarch with a smile. “Although, that wasn’t really the point.”

Sen nodded. “I think I understood.”

“Good. Here we are,” said the patriarch.

Sen looked around, but it was just a patch of ground more or less identical to all of the other ground they’d walked over to get to the spot. He lifted an eyebrow at the patriarch, who just gave Sen an amused, benign smile.

“I’ve found that contemplation in this spot has the best results,” offered the patriarch.

Sen sighed a little inside at the cryptic words, but he doubted the older cultivator had brought him to that exact spot as a joke. Sen settled on the ground. The patriarch looked out over the spring. The patriarch looked conflicted for a moment before he shook his head and turned his attention back to Sen.

“I hope your time here will be as beneficial for you as it has been for me over the years.”

With that, the patriarch walked away, leaving Sen alone with the crystal-clear water of the spring and his own thoughts. As eager as Sen had been to examine the spring, he found himself hesitating now that he was on the cusp of it. It was one thing to believe that the spring was sentient and capable of communicating. It was something else to actually try to do it. Rather than jump right in, Sen let his mind drift back to his time on the mountain. He recalled the days when he'd been trying to understand why different kinds of qi appeared in different places. There had been a moment when Sen had felt something, something just beyond his reach, a kind of active force at work in the world. Sen let himself breathe, slow, controlled breaths. He didn’t look for the life in the water. Instead, he looked for that force he’d so briefly brushed against on the mountain. He couldn’t even explain to himself why he was doing that, except that he had an intuition that he should, that he’d learn something if he did it in this place.

At first, he struggled to remember how he’d done it that first time. He tried to remember what he’d been thinking and how it had felt. He’d come so far since then, learned so much, but all of that accumulated experience was of limited value. After all, he hadn’t really been trying to do anything back then. He’d just been looking and exploring. He’d had a sense of wonder about the world then that had slowly been eaten away by killing, death, and fear. He searched inside himself, questing for that sense of wonder that he’d once had in such abundance. It was still there, still inside him, but buried deep, so much deeper than he would have expected. It was a miracle that it hadn’t been snuffed out completely.

He let that sense of wonder breathe, let it draw strength from him, let it fill him as it once had. And then, as it had done once before, the world revealed itself to him.

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