Between Beast And Buddha: A Drunken Monkey's Journey to Immortality

The cultivators of the Azure Mountain sect had a thousand theories about what lay beneath their home.

Even the initiates knew that there were caves and tunnels. It was not a great leap of logic to uncover that much. Once one was introduced to sites like the Fathomless Well or Godsgrave Peak, it became quite obvious that the mountain held hidden depths.

Most full disciples had found at least one or two caves they could call their own. Perhaps another disciple had discovered them independently a century past, but for now, these small spiritual wellsprings belonged to them alone.

Cultivators lived for a long time, but the least of immortal caves were quickly outgrown. No matter how one might wish to linger, the Heavenly Dao would push them onward and upward. Whether they fell by the hand of a foe, rose to higher stature, or met the limit of their longevity, no cultivator would care for such a cave for more than a century. A rare few might pass knowledge of such a location on to their own disciple, but most surrendered them back to nature, when their fated time with such places ended.

For most who entered the gates of the sect, this was where their knowledge of what lay beneath the earth ended. They would spent a lifetime pursuing the mysteries of the earth, and never think to step fully beneath it.

It was an open secret that most immortal caves connected to a deeper network of tunnels. It was also an open secret that very few outer disciples who ventured into those tunnels came back alive. Disciples liked to debate percentages. Half of all caves were connected, or only a third of those who tried to explore the tunnels perished. It didn't really matter what the number was. Whether it was one chance in three, or one chance in six, few outer disciples wished to roll those dice.

Exploring the true underground was largely the province of true daoists and well prepared inner disciples. Them, and a rare foolhardy few whose innate bravery destined them to either rise to such rank, or find themselves a forgotten grave beneath the earth.

Whether through skill, fortune, preparation, or some combination thereof, small secrets were sometimes won from the earth.

Gardens of stalactites where time itself moved in unison with falling droplets of water. Glossy lingzhi painted with unearthly pigments that might be made into heaven defying pills, or rise up from the earth to hunt their gatherers. Deep caverns that abutted upon the very dragon vein that supported such wonders.

Such secrets were jealously guarded, each capable of being the foundation of a daoist's career.

The elders of the sect traded them amongst each other like jade tokens. It was not for mere personal power that they were granted that title, after all. Few of them were truly beyond the strength of the mightiest of the sect's daoists, but all of them were untouchable. The knowledge each of them had gleaned over the course of hundreds of years upon the Azure Mountain made them pillars of the sect. A man who could raise a disciple to foundation establishment with a few whispered secrets would never be without willing servants.

And when secrets bought with hundreds of cultivator lives might follow such a man to his grave, his survival became a matter of the very security of the sect. Even the most heinous of crimes might see him merely sent to permanent seclusion. Only truly unforgiveable treasons would see him instead soul-searched by a grand elder. Any other end was beyond unacceptable, and would cost the sect generations of hard-won learning.

Yet, if there was one thing the elders of the Azure Mountain Sect collectively knew about their home, it was that they knew precious little of the true extent of its depths. Even Ren Yuhan, sect master and prodigy among prodigies, knew only a few true roads through the deeps. Safe paths to where the various grand elders rested in seclusion.

One man alone had explored the extent of the deep world beneath the Azure Mountain. The sole member of the sect who had stepped beyond the bounds of the nascent soul realm.

In a different world, that man had been borne to the name Jin Qingyi.

Once, that name had resounded across the lands men now knew as the Empire of Xiao. Now, only the erudite would be likely to recognize it unaccompanied by his most well known title.

He'd borne so very many titles, across a dozen centuries. Like his name, many of them had passed from living memory, recalled only on dusty parchment. The Wrecker of Palaces. Phoenix-Tamer. Old Man Qingyi. Martial Brother of Xiao Longwei. Slayer of the Eternal Serpent. Immortal Blacksmith Jin. The Emperor's Fist. Daoist Quicksilver Wind.

And yet, even the most earthshaking of deeds could so easily be swallowed up into the depths of history. One did not get to choose, which parts of their legacy endured the ravages of time. So many of his finer moments were lost to misty memory, while one of the most prosaic things he'd ever done defined him for all time.

In these days, men only remembered him as the Founder and Patriarch of the Azure Mountain Sect.

Jin Qingyi supposed that was why so many powerful cultivators founded sects. Forge a dozen peerless weapons, and a thousand years on six would probably be broken, two would be locked up in somebody else's inheritance, and three would end up in the hands of coddled young masters. The sole blade that made a name for itself would probably be famous for half a dozen massacres or inheritance disputes turned kin-slayings.

You just couldn't keep good weapons in the hands of the righteous. It was a fool's errand. Best not to even sign your work and wipe your hands of the matter as soon as the blade left your forge.

A sect, though. A sect had staying power. Found a sect, and so long as it lives, the common folk will never forget you.

Jin Qingyi released his cycling method. The cinnabar lotus beneath his feet melted away, jagged crystal petals falling into the pool of quicksilver beneath him. A thousand raised characters written in liquid silver joined them, a qi gathering formation anchored only in will and memory. For a moment the pool rippled, stains like blood spreading across it. Then true nature reasserted itself, and the patriarch once again sat upon a pool of liquid metal as calm as a lake before a storm.

Jin Qingyi sighed, releasing the deep breath he'd been holding.

The storm arrived.

His unbound hair, a long mane the same color and sheen as his soul-bound weapon, whipped about wildly. Shutters clattered and stones screamed as the furious winds tore out through the three entrances to his mansion-cavern, desperately seeking egress.

In the distance the patriarch felt a thousand creatures great and small scurry for cover. When he stirred from his cultivation, it was the closest thing to a storm the deep places of the earth ever saw.

Jin Qingyi rose, crossing the dozen yards of the pool with a single step. The pool of steel followed him, ten thousand liquid hands reaching out for its master. Steely tendrils clutched at his hair, and the hem of his robes, climbing as desperately as a carp seeking draconic ascension. A moment later the great pool, deep and wide enough to drown a hundred men, had vanished. The dragon's share of it rested in his hand, shifting between a dozen shapes. An axe one moment, a sword the next, a gauntlet of a dozen steely bands in the third. The rest of the lake found space enough between the strands of his hair, or in the folds of his travelworn robes.

The problem with founding a sect, the patriarch mused, is that then one had to run a sect. And that was a largely thankless task. Disciples tended to kill themselves. Daoists tended to kill each other. And if nobody was paying attention, an elder could kill an entire sect before you left seclusion. They were profoundly troublesome organizations that rushed headlong toward death. Only empires were worse in that regard.

The greatest trick Jin Qingyi had ever pulled was foisting their nascent empire off on his martial brother. But his second greatest was certainly somehow finding a succession of seven honest and virtuous men to run his sect for him.

Stolen novel; please report.

Unfortunately, his latest choice had been a prodigy.

He'd known it would be a problem when Ren Yuhan took the seat. But none of the other candidates had been promising enough for Jin Qingyi to put his thumb on the scales. He'd just hoped for longer. A century at least. Thirty years, and Ren Yuhan was already making noises about retiring. That was the first half of the problem with prodigies. So impatient, unwilling to beat their face against a problem for a century. If they didn't feel they were moving heavenward, they began to chafe at their circumstances. The other problem with prodigies of course, was that they were usually right about that. It made non-violently dissuading them rather difficult. Ren Yuhan's chances of stepping into the true nascent soul realm in the next century would certainly improve if he did not spend that time running Jin Qingyi's sect.

Which left the patriarch in an awful pickle. The sect was a nuisance. But it was a nuisance he'd kept alive for almost a thousand years. Even after he ascended to immortality, Jin Qingyi had no interest in founding another one. One could have all the time in the world, and there would still be better ways to spend it than running a sect. But he could hardly leave this one alone with just the grand elders for protection. Those shriveled husks had about as much longevity left between the three of them as the average mortal. They wouldn't interrupt their cultivation for anything short of an invading army, or a demon bearing a nascent soul.

He needed a stopgap, until a proper replacement for the late Xiang Ru arose. His own longevity was far from spent. But he did not know how much remained to him. There was precious little information beneath the heavens about how long a cultivator of his attainments might live. He was certain he had half a millennia left to him. But he doubted he had a full one. After so long, one developed a sense for these things. There was a bone-deep exhaustion that came with the expiration of one's lifespan, a weariness with the world that flowed deeper than mere physical pain or earned cynicism. It had faded after his last advancement, but he could feel it slowly returning. Each time a little slower, each time a little more undeniable. As if the call of the underworld grew ever more furious at being denied, and sought to set the stage for a final conflict.

And after so long, Qin Jingyi still wasn't done with life. He didn't know where he would find the next step, the missing piece in the long road to immortality. But he was as certain as he was of anything he would not find it here, in his mansion beneath the Azure Mountain. He had risen as far as the treasures he'd found here could take him. He approached a precipice.

That was often the essence of cultivation. Not the interminable years of effort, but the moments those centuries turned upon. What separated him from so many of his long buried peers was his sense for the way the ages turned, and what he chose to do in those moments where nations and eternities hung in the balance.

Jin Qingyi blinked. That was a thought he frequently returned to. A thought that always seemed to be close at hand, when his name appeared on Heaven's tablets.

How curious, nigh unremarkable, a time for such things. What could be moving within the heavens to leave the air so rarified?

Jin Qingyi directed his awareness inward, and through it saw the world unfurl above him. A tapestry of life and death and struggle that never ceased to make his heart soar. How beautiful a world, how vast and terrible, that even his earth-shaking prowess could only bear witness to a single mountain? Even a single mountain was too much, in truth. He saw everything. An orphaned bear greeting the morning sun. A disciple discovering for the first time what it truly meant, to forswear one's limitations. A pair of birds welcoming new life. Without direction, his vision was blinding in its totality.

The eyes of his soul unfocused. A higher application of a mortal hunter's craft, to see motion in the ties that bound together destinies. He felt it, more than saw it. Tremors upon a web of silver that stretched beyond space and time. A portion of his qi forever bound to another.

The mountain god.

His heart had soared and fallen a dozen times that day. Discovering he'd bested and captured a true immortal. But that his prize was a meaner existence than many daoists, little more than a ghost, bound to earth by loyalty and hunger. A ghost that was a deity in truth. A deity in the service of a proud and vengeful heaven. A loyal servant long forgotten, nigh ignored by its superiors. One so incapable of learning or growth that he could firmly bind it, ensure it never reported his transgressions. A treasure, tarnished. But only through that stain had Jin Qingyi been able to grasp it.

He wasn't sure if the little god even truly understood its circumstances. It had lived so long in service to one master he wasn't sure it could comprehend that it now had another.

And now it was writing. A report, for some celestial censor's eyes. The first the old ghost had authored in a hundred and forty seven years. It finished quickly, signing its name with an arthritic tremble. Jin Qingyi had stolen its official seal, when he'd first subdued it.

With the final strokes complete, the little god made a profound gesture. A simple motion that somehow encapsulated a loyalty heavier than life. The slip of paper transformed into a gleam of moonlight, soaring heavenward.

Jin Qingyi flexed his will, and to the little god's qi, heavenward became down. The silver tendrils of his web easily caught the moonbeam, and delivered it to his hand.

A writing desk poured itself out before him, complete with shimmering inkwells and a delicate brush of living metal. The patriarch sat down, cool quicksilver rising up to meet him.

The report was not long. Only a single page of well spaced characters. One brow of wispy steel rose, as he read the title.

*Violation of the Proscription Against the Existence of Stone Monkeys - The Azure Mountain*

The four columns of characters that followed painted for him a picture truer than words. The old ghost was truly an excellent calligrapher, imbuing every brush stroke with a astounding depth of meaning. The monkey seemed like a promising disciple to him. Hungry, irreverent, and just a little foolish. Truly, the very model of what Jin Qingyi had wanted in the many who sought shelter in his shadow. He made a note to look in on this Li Hou in a few decades, if he was still around. And it was good to see they were taking spirit beast disciples again. Perhaps the Bai clan had thrown off the lingering shame of their close brushes with demonic cultivation. It would be good to have more of their scions on the rolls of experts. They'd thrown some truly remarkable parties, before their fall from grace.

But the title of the report. Over a thousand years he'd walked the earth, and he could name perhaps a dozen existences that Heaven proscribed. The thinning bloodlines of those dragons that had traded pride for hunger. The methods of demons who had extinguished whole stars, leaving heaven forever darker for their existence. The inheritances of those gloriously mad immortals who had tried to overturn the very Heavenly Dao itself. And of course, a few species of spirit beasts that had so grievously offended a high official that they'd earned their whole race an extermination order.

There were almost certainly more species on the list, but a few centuries of Heaven's ire usually left the targets thereof functionally extinct. And Jin Qingyi wasn't exactly in a place to be perusing the Heavenly Archives.

The patriarch wondered just what some foolish stone monkey had done, to get their kind placed on that most terrible of lists. Ten thousand mysteries he'd chased down, and yet there were always more. Alas, he didn't think this one would reveal the secrets he was searching for. There would be plenty of time to look into ancient history after his own immortality was achieved.

With an elegant flick of his wrist, he inked his brush.

This whole mess seemed like it would be better if it were someone else's problem.

A stroke of liquid metal stole away the three characters that implicated his home. His brush hung in the air like an executioner's sword, as he pondered who to damn in his place.

He could just burn the memo. But Heaven had other ways of tracking events like this. If some astrologer was watching for portents, a report that later turned out to be inaccurate would be far less suspicious than never receiving one at all. The gears of divine bureaucracy ran slowly, and monkeys moved between mountains. The seal wouldn't match whoever was stationed on that mountain, but he doubted anyone would check that. Typically, the very fact that a missive had reached Heaven was proof enough of it's authenticity. That combined with an authentic seal would be more than enough to ensure there would be no further validation.

"Hmm... Sister Xiulan stole that Celestial Tribute Lotus out from under my nose a few centuries years ago... I'm sure she wouldn't mind hosting a few immortals at her Reaping Wind Sect."

On second thought, perhaps not a location within the Empire of Xiao. The Qianlong Emperor wasn't very pious. It would be unfortunate if he were to overstep his bounds and offend someone who mattered. Even Jin Qingyi stepped quietly in the presence of celestial officials, but prodigies weren't known for their good sense and cool heads. And the Qianlong had risen almost as fast as Ren Yuhan.

"Who do we hate these days." He muttered. "Why is there never a sect of demons on the rise when you need one? They always seem to know when to keep their heads down. Ah! That new dynasty in the south. We scuffled with them a few years ago, didn't we? The Wu, or Wang or whatever. They swallowed up the White Raven Sect. What mountain did those fools live on again..."

There. That was perfect. Not even an immortal would enjoy spending time in the Thousand Poison Vale, they'd conclude their business quickly and get out of there, if they even descended to investigate at all. He withdrew the Ghost Immortal's seal, and added the official mark.

Let none say Jin Qingyi was a negligent senior. He didn't need his juniors petitioning him for salvation, he removed calamities from their path before they could ever see them on the horizon.

Ren Yuhan would hold on for another decade or two. He wasn't anywhere near desperate enough for freedom to abdicate without even speaking to Jin Qingyi in person. And it would be rather hard for him to do that, if the Patriarch was out wandering the empire. It was time to ascend to the mortal world again. Find inspiration, or at least another sect master.

"Lianhuo!" The Patriarch shouted. "Get yourself together, we're going for a walk."

This time, the gale that roared through the deep places of the world churned with ever-burning ash.

Half a dozen li above, Daoist Enduring Oath shivered in his drunken slumber. A few feet away, orange-crest slept like a rock, one foot tangled up in his snoring master's hair.