Cultivating Plants

"Your preparations are insufficient," the old man stomped on the grass with his cane.

"Considering my actives are in the hundreds of thousands whilst yours are in the thousands, I do not think you are qualified to speak those words," the mature and gorgeous woman spoke from the gazebo, her back facing the man.

"You should be aware of the danger that implies prolonging this affair, Naila-al-Ydaz."

"And you should become aware of your own hypocrisy, Zayn Gerges," the cultivator spoke softly as she rummaged through some papers. "Do not tell me that you have come here just to protest. If that is the case, do me a favor and remove yourself from my senses."

"Alas, I have something to inform you," the assassin pressed his back against the wooden walls of the gazebo. "Many Tecolatans are gathering at the World Tree, and one of my agents has gone rogue and is supporting Ayad. They are gathering forces, Naila-al-Ydaz."

The Calipha let out a chuckle. "I can assure you they are not."

"How can you be so sure?" The Grandmaster frowned.

"Aloe does not consider us as enemies."

"Considering her actions, I'm led to disagree."

"First, I doubt those actions are hers," the cultivator's voice was smooth, yet filled with contempt. "Second, she does not see us as enemies not because we are of an opposite side or are planning to kill her, but because we are so overwhelmingly inferior that she cannot consider us as a menace."

"Even Aaliyah-al-Ydaz fell, did she not?"

"Oh, Gerges, you should know better than to mention her. Besides me, you are the only one who accurately knows what happened that day, and if my mother died it was because of overconfidence."

"Didn't you just mention that Ayad was doing the same?"

"Far from it," she chuckled grimly. "Aaliyah-al-Ydaz was powerful, but not insurmountable. And even then it took the lives of two thousand assassins and twenty-two cultivators to kill her. Aloe Ayad is an order of magnitude more powerful than her," the ruler of the world stated as a matter of fact without letting herself be blinded by pride.

Zayn's expression soured as he became aware of that information. Perhaps he hadn't been trained in martial or strategic fields, but as the Grandmaster of the Order, he had his share of knowledge and experience of tactics. When a force was ten times as powerful – but not as massive – than another, that didn't mean it took ten times the forces to take it down. A force – whether martial or military – had a certain engagement limit. Maybe one assailant, maybe two, but there was a limit before they became overwhelmed.

That was how Aaliyah-al-Ydaz had fallen, through sheer numbers. But she had had somewhat equal forces to keep her at bay like Grandmasters and the oldest of her children, but Aloe Ayad… An order of magnitude is just too much. There was no possibility for thousands of cultivators to engage her at the same time.

"So how do you intend to close that gap?" Gerges asked dryly, trying his best to hide his dread.

"Doing my best, of course," Naila-al-Ydaz laughed.

The Grandmaster didn't.

"Oh well, it seems my jest has been ignored," the woman shrugged as she kept her attention on the papers. "Truth be told, we are at a severe disadvantage. Even if we ignore any additional forces Aloe has at her disposal, and from intelligence it is something we cannot afford to do as dryads are their own type of menace, we lack heavy hitters. I may be able to hold my ground, but I would never get close to landing a hit whilst doing so. We require more people that can hold their ground. That… or you can tell me how many Grandmasters are in operation," she added with a smile.

Gerges growled and he slammed the garden's grass with his cane again. "I don't exactly trust you, Calipha."

"That is the crux of the question, is it not? Trust," the cultivator slightly turned her head to face him. "This is one of the greatest exercises in trust Khaffat has seen. If no one cedes their playing hand, then we will inevitably fail. I can tolerate not antagonizing Aloe. She is dangerous, yes, but I am still not fully convinced that putting her down is the way forward. Neutrality still seems like the best alternative. I have known her for a long time, and she is a reactive woman, not a proactive one."

"Trust, huh?" The assassin ignored her latter words. It was a fact that the woman had messed up his niece's mind, enough so to have to bring her to a mental hospital and also killed his operative. Ayad needed to pay manyfold. "Did assassins trust in cultivators beforehand?"

"They did trust a single one," Naila-al-Ydaz smiled softly. Even without looking at her, he knew it. There was that much tobacco in his body, he could just feel her reactions through the world of ideas.

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"Are you implying that you want to learn Enlightenment?" The old man scoffed.

"No," the mature woman blew. "It is true that both vital arts synergize, but there is a greater truth, and that is that Enlightenment predates on the mind. And maybe it is not the case with yours, but I need mine."

"I wouldn't like to see you wielding both vital arts either way."

"I may not do it, but that does not mean I am not leading cultivator-assassins, Gerges."

"The school of pill-makers?" He guessed and she nodded. "It's a fact that they are the most advanced institution in Enlightenment-Nurture synergy…"

"Nurture-Enlightenment," she interjected.

"What?" Zayn Gerges finally turned to face her just out of sheer bewilderment.

"Nurture-Enlightenment, you said it incorrectly," the Calipha corrected smugly.

"Are we really doing this?" The old assassin responded tiredly with both hands on his cane.

"I am just correcting the mistake of a youngster," the older cultivator smirked.

"I know you are no Aaliyah-al-Ydaz, but how has no one killed you when you bolster that much sauciness?"

"Oh, Gerges, people love an old woman's sauciness even more than her cookies," Naila-al-Ydaz's eyes glistered as ambers as she spoke. "But we are getting too derailed here. I have ordered the school to open its gates and impart their knowledge to the military. I have gathered the best cultivators of the country behind curtains as I doubt declaring martial law will do any good at the moment."

"Ah, how sneaky. Not even my agents found out about that."

"You would have found out sooner if you were willing to share~" She added melodiously.

"Trust?" The assassin exhaled.

"Trust," the cultivator nodded.

"There are currently one hundred Grandmasters in Khaffat that I am aware of."

The Calipha whistled at the number. "Dunes, those could have taken down Aaliyah-al-Ydaz alone. And that is without taking into account these know of Nurture too."

"Aren't you worried about yourself knowing that there are this many Grandmasters if they could defeat the former Heavenly Descendant as you have stated?"

"Not really," her smile held as if it was carved in her visage like a marble statue. "It is true that they could have stood their ground and defeated my mother, but I am stronger than she was. And besides… unlike her, I do have allies. Do not forget that, Gerges."

"Fret not, I'm painfully aware," the old man's shoulders slumped. "But you are still not confident that our forces are enough to take down Ayad?"

"It is an overwhelming power that you plan to fight."

"I?" The Grandmaster emphasized.

"I intend to have a bit of a… reactive stance in this situation. Unless Aloe attacks Ydaz, I have no reason to attack her."

Zayn frowned. "She is a menace, Naila-al-Ydaz."

"Yes, yes, you have made that quite clear," the Calipha dismissed his words with a sway of her hand. "You may be old, Gerges, but you lack the subtleties of the court. Even Aloe could have understood the hidden meaning."

"The hidden mean… Oh," the assassin gasped in realization. "Are you genuinely going to play the faultless victim here?"

"I am a faultless victim," she kept boasting with her smile. "If Aloe were to respond aggressively to whatever… you plan to do, and it affects my nation, I am obliged to defend it as its ruler. But I will not bear the brunt of revenge. Both intervention and non-intervention are outcomes that I am more than satisfied with."

The old assassin squinted at her words, the wrinkles in his visage becoming more apparent by the gesture.

"You are an awful woman, Naila-al-Ydaz."

"I am a woman with a mission," she responded solemnly. "I will defend this nation, and this world once it is mine, from any menace."

Naila-al-Ydaz had scolded him for being unable to pick up contextual clues, but this one was hard to miss. Threats were painfully obvious regardless of the language spoken.

"One hundred Grandmaster assassin-cultivators," he continued undaunted. "Two thousand Masters, ten thousand Shadows, and more than one hundred thousand Initiates."

It was the Calipha's time to squint. "Those are bigger numbers than any report I have heard."

"Well, you should know the old saying considering your age. Anyone and everyone can be an assassin. Your neighbor, your father, and your son."

"They cannot be all yours."

"They are not," Gerges responded truthfully with a nod. "There are several orders and cells out there. Tecolatans have their own… thing too. What I have told you are approximations of the active assassins all over Khaffat."

"You will not be able to recruit them all?"

"Nor do we want that. Initiates are useless. A novice cultivator with a handful of Haya can do way more than an Initiate. They are dispensable operatives, not warriors. The real manpower starts from the Shadows."

"So those one hundred Grandmasters have been an exaggeration?"

"When did I promise that I would bring you one hundred Grandmasters? I only mentioned that they existed," Gerges smiled at her and she smiled back. "Maybe I won't be able to bring those ten thousand Shadows to our plight, perhaps only a tenth of them, same with the Masters, but the Grandmasters… You should know one thing about us, the assassins that have reached the apex. We are old."

"I would say you are rather young," the bicentennial woman jested, and the emaciated man snickered.

"Perhaps so for Her Majesty, but still, those who reach this level do not have that much time remaining. Even if modern medicine has helped us live way longer by virtue of needing to use less hard drugs."

"There was nothing better for the assassins than the advent of the painkiller, huh?" She muttered to herself.

"This means that we are rather open to… opportunities," he continued without paying her attention. "Much like the battle that marked the Fall of the Sultanah, any Grandmaster that I summon is almost guaranteed to attend. They don't have much to lose, but everything to win."

"Apotheosis," Naila-al-Ydaz mouthed. A word sacred to the assassins that she shouldn't know if it wasn't because this wasn't the first Grandmaster she had interacted with over the centuries.

"Quite," the Grandmaster nodded. "Grandmasters on their death's door will not hesitate to take their weight in saffron, hashish, painkillers, and more."

The Calipha hesitated herself a second as many questions flew through her mind. Apotheosis and Enlightenment were secretive by definition, so doubts were justified, but one question prevailed above all.

"Has someone managed to achieve Apotheosis?" The cultivator's eyes shone like amber.

Zayn Gerges blew from his nose and took a handful of steps away from the gazebo as he strolled into their gardens.

"Maybe a single one…" He responded crestfallen yet with a smile on his lips before he puffed into shadows.