Unintended Cultivator

After spending what felt like years in a place where his will and imagination made almost anything possible, waking up into the real world again was a bit of a disappointment for Sen. He immediately missed the godlike ability to alter his environment to suit his whims. Instead, he was still stuck in his cell, although it wasn’t exactly as he remembered it. Unlike when he’d let himself drop into that cultivation trance, there was now a fine layer of dust covering everything, including him. They couldn’t even dust me off, he thought. If ever there was proof that he was a captive, that was it. Still, that wasn’t his most immediate concern. If he’d been there long enough for dust to accumulate on him, how long had he been in that trance? Had it been weeks? Longer? It had been long enough that the old man was clearly no longer visiting daily to say things that Sen wasn’t hearing and wouldn’t have cared about if he had heard. That wasn’t a bad thing, though. It likely meant that Sen had a bit of breathing room before the aggravations started piling up.

Still, he wondered what Lifen and Lo Meifeng thought had become of him. What had become of them? Sen didn’t think they’d been killed. He doubted either of them had done something more obnoxious than kicking a door non-stop for weeks. If that hadn’t been enough to provoke a violent response, he wasn’t sure what would. The old man, whoever, whatever he was, seemed more intent on converting them to his way of thinking. It was difficult to make converts of the dead. Sen let those ideas soothe his concerns. He had more immediate concerns to manage. First things first, he needed to make sure that he hadn’t done some kind of damage to his body with his extended nap. He had continued to feed his body using qi, but that had been an experiment at best. Sen pushed himself up into a sitting position, first, and then made himself stand.

That turned out to be more uncomfortable than he’d expected. It seemed that even his core equivalent body cultivation wasn’t up to the challenge of preventing his muscles from getting stiff after…however long he’d been sprawled out on that pallet. He twisted, bent, and stretched for a while. It seemed his diet of pure qi had been sufficient to keep him alive and physically stable. He didn’t notice any particular loss of muscle mass and the bout of stretching soon revealed that he remained as flexible as he had been before. If anything, he felt physically stronger than before. He paced back and forth as much as the cell would allow for, just to enjoy the sensation of moving his physical body again. While he did that, he cultivated using his new approach. It was a bit more demanding than the old method he’d used, but it was working.

More importantly, he could tell that he had more than enough mental energy and focus to manage qi techniques. That had been an open question to him while he occupied his inner world. That interior space was so responsive to him that he couldn’t trust that things would translate the way he expected in the exterior world. He did nothing to draw attention to himself for several days, using that time to top up his qi reserves. When he finally felt ready to face whatever would come next, Sen grinned to himself. He knew the perfect way to announce himself. He walked over to the door and started kicking it. He could tell that giving his core what it needed had been a boon for his body cultivation. It wasn’t an advancement, not really. The higher density qi had simply boosted the baseline for everything he did a bit. The door still resisted his blows, but it wasn’t shrugging them off anymore. The entire room shuddered with each blow, and he could see strain marks in the door itself at his repeated assaults.

It didn’t take long for Lan Zi Rui to show up. Sen once more found himself pushed back from the door by that wall of force. Yet, while it had been invisible to him before, it seemed he’d refined his skills in some way while occupying his inner world. Instead of being a mysterious wall of force, Sen could see the wall form. It was still indistinct, little more than a flat gray haze, but he could see it. He couldn’t be sure that it would help, but information always had the potential to create an advantage. He let himself be forced back from the door and leaned against the back wall of his cell. The old man entered the room. He offered Sen a friendly smile that died on the man’s face almost instantly when he saw that Sen was, if anything, even more hostile and disinterested than he had been before his long sleep.

“It’s time to let me go,” said Sen.

“That isn’t how things work here.”

“No, I think that’s exactly how things work here. You brought us here, against our wills, and I think that you’re the one keeping us here. It’s obvious you mean to brainwash us to your cause,” Sen lifted a hand before the old man could speak. “Whatever that cause is, don’t bother telling me about it. I will never join your cult, or temple, or whatever you call this place. I will never be anything but a disruption and problem for you, so you may as well just let me go.”

“I could simply kill you,” said the old man, all friendliness vanishing from his expression.

“You,” said the old man sounding weary. “You and that woman. You would both rather end your lives than even listen to my words.”

“What in the hells did you expect? You shattered my rib cage and dragged me into this prison. You stole from me. You kept me apart from my friends. The time for discussion was over before it started.”

“Who made the two of you, I wonder, to have no compromise in your souls?”

“I can’t speak for anyone else. But I was trained by Feng Ming, Kho Jaw-Long, and Ma Caihong. As for compromise, what insanity could possibly drive me to compromise with you?”

The old man didn’t say anything for nearly a minute after that revelation. Sen hadn’t planned on dropping their names, but if there was ever a moment to invoke the implied wrath of three nascent soul cultivators, this was that moment. Sen wanted out of this place. If those names would do it for him, he’d take the win. The old man seemed to shrink into himself a little as he turned and gestured to the door.

“Then, if you can go, I will take no actions to stop you.”

“The things you stole?” asked Sen his voice as cold as deepest winter.

Sighing, Lan Zi Rui gestured and a neat pile of robes, storage rings, and Sen’s jian appeared.

“I didn’t steal-,” said the old man.

“When you take something and refuse to return it when asked, that’s stealing,” said Sen.

He took his things and examined them in detail. He found no evidence of tampering, and they had at least had the courtesy to clean his robes. He put them on and belted his jian around his waist. The familiar weight at his hip left Sen with a deep and profound sense of comfort. Next, he turned his attention to his storage rings. He sank his awareness into each ring, comparing what he found against his mental inventory of what had been there before. He glared at the old man when he realized what was missing.

“The rest of it,” he demanded.

“You mean the beast cores you somehow filled with heavenly qi. That is a resource far too precious to be left in the hands of one so young, regardless of talent. I will not return them.”

No sooner had the words left the old man’s mouth than a blast of thunder exploded into life. It was so loud and so close it threatened to shake the building apart. Lan Zi Rui stared upward in mute disbelief at the overwhelming warning from the heavens. There was no mistaking their fierce displeasure at what the old man planned to do. Sen never took his eyes off the man.

“It seems the heavens don’t approve when you try to steal the fruits of another man’s enlightenment. The beast cores if you please.”

“Enlightenment? You saved that qi from enlightenments? How many?”

“One,” said Sen, and extended his hand.

“One,” whispered Lan Zi Rui. “All of that from one enlightenment? Who are you?”

“I am impatient to have my property returned.”

Clearly frustrated, Lan Zi Rui plucked a storage ring from his finger and handed it to Sen. Sen had worked with so many storage rings at this point that it was a matter of a second or two to access the storage space inside and examine its content. He thought the number looked right, so he slipped the ring onto one of his own fingers. Another cataclysmically loud thunderclap hit the building, and Sen saw cracks appear in the cell wall. The old man glared skyward before, after considering for a moment, he plucked another storage ring from a finger and held it out to Sen. Sen simply took the ring and glanced upward, waiting to see what would happen. When no additional chastisements were forthcoming, he just put the ring on. He could see what was inside of it later.

“Now, take me to the others.”

Lan Zi Rui led Sen to another part of the building and opened a door. Sen saw Lo Meifeng sitting on the floor, legs crossed, and clearly cultivating. She’d always been slender, but now she looked almost gaunt. Sen spared a look for the old man before he spoke.

“Hey! Wake up! It’s time to go,” shouted Sen.

Lo Meifeng’s eyes snapped open. She stared at Sen for what felt like an uncomfortably long time to him before she shook herself a little. Sen turned to Lan Zi Rui.

“Her things,” he demanded.

Once more, the old man produced a neat pile of robes, rings, and weapons. Lo Meifeng stalked over and snatched the pile from the man’s hand. The look she gave the old man was an absolute vow to the heavens that, as far as she was concerned, this incident wouldn’t be over until she stood over his corpse. Sen and the old man stepped back into the hall before Sen called into the room.

“Check your storage rings. It seems the old man here likes to keep things that don’t belong to him.”

With a glance up, Lan Zi Rui produced another ring from a pocket and tossed it to Lo Meifeng. If she’d been angry before, the revelation that the man had planned to keep things of hers was enough that a halo of fire burst into existence around her. Sen held up a hand to stop her from doing something stupid or just useless.

“I know,” he said in commiserating tones. “I get it. Let’s just get out of here.”

Lo Meifeng clenched her jaw and her fists, but she nodded. “Fine.”

Sen closed the door to give her some privacy and then shook his head at Lan Zi Rui. “You made an enemy until the end of time with that stunt.”

The old man seemed disinterested and almost pouty when he answered. “I don’t fear her.”

“Then you are a fool. You said there is no compromise in us. Well, there is also no forgiveness in her. Consider that.”

A heavy silence fell over the two after that pronouncement. The door swung open and Lo Meifeng stormed into the hall, her eyes lit with anger that Sen didn’t believe for a second she had under control. He decided that he needed to direct where this went before Lo Meifeng took it somewhere he didn’t want to go.

“Now, take us to Lifen.”

The old man opened his mouth to say something but closed it again at the twin glares from Sen and Lo Meifeng. Shrugging, he took them out of the building and into the temple compound. There were more people than Sen expected if far fewer than the temple appeared ready to accommodate. They followed Lan Zi Rui to a field where monks, sect members, cultists…Sen struggled to find the right term for them…were tending to a massive vegetable garden. Does that old man have Lifen doing forced labor, Sen wondered.

“Sun Lifen, come here, please,” shouted Lan Zi Rui.

A head popped up and looked their way. A huge smile broke over Lifen’s face when she saw Sen and Lo Meifeng. She ran over to them, seemingly oblivious to the rage that burned inside of Sen when he saw her wearing robes that were identical to the other temple members. Before she could get a word out, before she could reveal the truth that Sen saw in her eyes, he spoke.

“Get your things,” he told her. “We’re leaving.”

Lifen shot a nervous look at Lan Zi Rui and said, “But I want to stay.”

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