Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

Xiao Sheng climbed the Endless Stair knowing he would be denied. He had waited too long, and the law would not bend for a late petition. Still, if his disciple was to become what he meant him to become, this was a necessary diversion.

Each step formed beneath his sandal with a faint chime, pale silver unfolding from the void. Only the silent sky and the distant shape of the Beseechers' Hall waited far above, anchored in the clouds. It did not drift. It did not gleam. It simply was, as it had always been, upheld by twelve pillars of jade that rose arrow-straight from the wide white billows. Each pillar was a sacred animal in stone.

He did not look down or back.

The clouds below and above were alive, rising and falling with the tides of spiritual energy that infused this realm. They shifted in silence, coiling like ink across old parchment, leaving faint traces and trails behind them.

He reached the landing as the last note of his final step dissolved into the stillness.

The Hall opened before him. It had no walls or gates, only those twelve pillars, evenly spaced, holding up a roof of lacquered pine beneath which scrolls flapped and flocked. The floor, if one could call it that, was made of overlapping astrological charts, circles within circles of brass and glass, each one whispering to itself in the most sacred and precise of languages.

A polite cough echoed behind him.

He turned just enough to glance over his shoulder. The stairs had not vanished. They remained, formed now from marble instead of light, and on them stood a long procession of immortals.

Not warriors. Not sages. Not star-born kings in radiant armor. These were the lesser kind: threadbare, dignified, and patient.

A narrow god with a basket of silkworms slung over one shoulder stood just behind him, eyes closed in serenity, pretending he had not coughed. Next came a shrine spirit, her brow stained with candle soot, holding a bundle of old prayer slips pressed flat and neat. Behind her, a short, proud man dressed in moss and cracked bark—the spirit of a tree that no longer grew.

There were more. Dozens. Gods of ancestral vegetables. Spirits of seasonal creeks. Forgotten patrons of dialects no longer spoken, temples no longer swept. Each one waited without complaint, their eyes lowered, their presence a quiet pressure in the air.

Perhaps he had walked too slowly, for such an assembly to have gathered behind him like carts at a city gate. But one did not approach the heavens with a request at a run. In his experience, lesser gods did not jostle. They were unfailingly polite.

The clerk looked up the moment Xiao Sheng's shadow reached the edge of the floor. His desk hovered a pace above the celestial machinery.

If he had a true face, it was difficult to say. His features resembled long brushstrokes and negative space, more suggestion than substance, like a figure in an unfinished painting. His robe lacked color altogether, neither absorbing nor reflecting light. Mortal eyes would have found it incomprehensible.

Around his head, six ink brushes orbited in slow procession, each trailing faint lines of blue-black calligraphy that faded as they formed. Case numbers.

A blank scroll rolled out of the ether and floated before him. He adjusted it slightly. It had been off-center.

When he spoke, his voice was as dry and flat as parchment sliding over parchment.
"Xiao Sheng. No appointment. Does this mean you have arrived early for your ascension?" A pause. "Speak your final business."

Xiao inclined his head. "If the heavens still accept petitions, I have come to offer one."

The outermost brush hesitated, then resumed its orbit.

"There are no petitions left for you," the clerk said.

He raised a colorless sleeve and gestured, not to the scroll but to the sky beyond the pillars.

The clouds parted.

High in the cerulean blue, a quadrant of the Celestial Wheel turned. Massive, deliberate, and slow, it moved with the elegance of stars and the inevitability of a millstone. Only the current segment was visible, its bronze-rimmed face etched with constellations and marked in heavenly stems and branches.

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A single click echoed through the air as the alignment fell into place. In the Earthly Realm, another day had passed.

"The Sixtieth Mortal Wheel," the clerk intoned, "in the Eye of the White Tiger. Bright Wet Dog Year, Dragon Month, First Decan Jia. Less than two years remain before the cycle completes. When the shell of the Black Turtle rises, you will be summoned."

He lifted his gaze, not to meet Xiao Sheng's eyes, but to observe the line behind him.

"Why do you waste our time? The Way has not changed. Ascend to the heavens or disgrace yourself in the Asura Realm. The only other path is a judgment you would not survive."

Another brush dipped in unseen ink. A note was recorded. The clouds rolled back into place.

Xiao Sheng always enjoyed the clerk's performances. The heavens were a fascinating place to visit, if excruciating to reside in.

He lowered himself into a bow, deep and unhurried, until his spine aligned with the floor. The astrological machines beneath him turned on, indifferent to his presence.

"I do not come to dispute the law," he said. "Only to ask a mercy."

"Mercy is not the business of this hall."

He straightened.

"I have found a disciple."

A mote of interest crossed the faceless face. Brief, but perceptible. One of the orbiting brushes stalled mid-arc and bled a droplet of ink onto empty air before resuming its circuit. He went on.

"Not a beggar who sought me, nor a clever hand for borrowed phrases. A disciple in truth. One who may inherit what I could never give to peers or rivals. The work of my life has at last found soil to take root.

"I ask, not as a son of the Earthly Realm, nor as the Living Blade which has cut when it was called, but as a humble servant whose final duty has revealed itself only now. Grant me a single wheel more. Let me see the work through."

The scroll trembled faintly. The clerk did not.

"Legacy is not guaranteed," he said, but there was no malice in it.

"You mistake clarity for favor. You believe that because a bell has finally rung, it must be heard. But Heaven is not a hall for echoes."

One of the brushes drew a sigil in the air: a flower with no root.

"You were already granted a stay of one Mortal Wheel. The Jade Court looked favorably on that request, as it aligned with the turning of the age. For you to rise just as the Eye of the Tiger closes and the Turtle ascends, that is an auspicious thing indeed. The symmetry would be ruined by another delay."

Xiao stifled a sigh.

"When a suitable candidate did not appear, I made arrangements that took decades to bear fruit. The flower did not bloom in its season, but it will bloom. Surely, you who watch the turning wheels so closely, will understand that all things arrive in their due time."

Another cough from behind him. His petition had been denied outright, and it was inexcusable etiquette to argue with the clerk of the Beseechers' Hall. There were murmurs of complaint rising. Still, the little gods would not do more than shuffle their feet and look away when faced with the Living Blade.

"Your mistakes are not ours," the clerk said.

"Nor will the heavens abide dismissal."

Xiao rose to his full height, which merely put his face at level with the rim of the desk, and straightened his robes. Dust-marked traveler garb, out of place in such august company.

"I erred. I thought I had time. I let dust gather on the blade when I should have kept it bright with blood. Never will I ignore the edict of the Jade Court, or move against its will. If there is no charity to be found, no consideration of past contributions, what can I do but obey? If only there were an offering I could make, some scroll left waiting too long in the Hall of Obligations. But you would have said already if it were so. I see that I must take my leave."

He shifted his foot as if to go, and a brush halted mid-stroke. The clerk sighed.

"Very well, Xiao Sheng. It seems you know of this already, so I can only wonder why you did not begin with your proposal. There is a service left unclaimed for the last five wheels. One too low for gods and too high for mortals, making you an ideal candidate. Perhaps the only candidate still walking the Earthly Realms—"

"I accept." He interrupted the clerk with an upraised hand. A brush descended to inscribe the mark of obligation on his skin. No thunder or fire, only ink. It struggled against his aura for a moment before he allowed it to bind him, and then it faded into invisibility.

"One additional mortal wheel," the clerk said, "and your obligation must be fulfilled before it elapses."

Xiao smiled.

"I do not require a receipt."

Behind him, the line had gone utterly still, and he waved at the god of a dead tree on his way out. Once he descended the stairs, he would be forced to traverse the Golden Road once again. It was the only route in or out of the heavens that did not entail a declaration of war, lovely enough to look at, but monotonous. The Jade Emperor had crafted it himself several thousand years ago under the auspices of the Vermillion Bird, long before his time. The wide lane snaked through the clouds, carved in the likeness of the dragon the current monarch of heaven had usurped, and its innate spiritual pressure denied the use of most movement techniques.

He could have cut through the limit if he chose, of course, but such an act would not be looked upon kindly by the Court. He lifted the hem of his robes, cracked his back, and ran. The clack of sandals on the yellow stones was as quick and numerous as raindrops.

Behind him, the heavens turned.

All they had asked of him was to kill the Emperor of the Golden Empire.