NOVEL NEXT 25: The Black Lotus Sutra
Fushuai was pretending to rest. His knees were tucked to his chest, back pressed against the shrine's leaning column. His breath came in shallow pulls, slower than it should have, and there was a line of dried blood beneath his nose he hadn't bothered to wipe away.
Xiao Sheng's shadow fell over him, and he braced for another parable about burning one's hands by reaching for a lost grain of rice, or whatever it would be today. Instead, something soft landed in his lap.
It was a scroll. Tattered, black-edged, sealed with a waxy lotus emblem that might once have been red. The parchment felt as soft as silk in his hand.
"What is this?"
"The beginning of something foolish," Xiao Sheng said. "You have not yet achieved proper qi compression, and I got it in my head to give you something else to focus on before you kill yourself from the effort. What you have in your hand is the entirety of the Black Lotus Sutra, at least all that survived the fall of Emerald City."
Fushuai dearly wished he knew what that meant, but his master could very well be referencing something that happened a thousand years ago, ten thousand li away. It sounded important, whatever it was, and he dared to hope.
"A technique manual?"
"Yes, I forget they are rarely called sutras anymore. An unfortunate loss of character, in my opinion. This scroll contains the necessary methods and formations for three techniques only, the beginning of a Path long abandoned."
"I thought I wasn't ready to select a Path."
"You are not. This Path, when it is remembered by anyone, is now called the Legacy of the Void. Have you heard of it?"
He shook his head.
"Truly? Not a word? What are they teaching noble youths these days?" A large fly buzzed by, and his master slapped at it, missing. "In any case," he said, glaring at the unrepentant insect, "learning these techniques will not force you to follow this Path; it will, however, influence your development going forward. I will not order you to learn what is contained within that sutra, but consider it a strong suggestion."
Fushuai changed position, sitting forward on his knees, and examined the seal. It was far from fresh, and he wondered if it had ever been broken. His master could likely tell what was inside without having to unroll it, but he did not have that advantage.
"I trust your wisdom," he said. It could have been any manual, let alone one that was supposed to be famous, and he would have tried to learn. Short of techniques that would hinder his later advancement, he wanted to learn everything he could. This was his first chance at something more than the basic manipulations of spiritual energy that any cultivator could accomplish, reinforcing their bodies, learning to walk on leaves or water, he hadn't quite succeeded in the latter yet, and unleashing raw intent as a warning or a weapon.
"Why was the Path never completed?"
"Ah, well. In one sense, most Paths are never followed to their end. You simply don't hear of them. The major Paths, the top one hundred or so, are well-trodden ground. Even I was not the first to reach the ninth insight of the Spiritual Sword Path. Countless more fall by the wayside, never to be taken up again. This might have been one of them, but I recovered it from a ruin three centuries ago and have been lugging it about ever since for just such an occasion as this."
"Did you learn the techniques?"
"I know them, but never chose to inscribe the formations in my core. There are better alternatives to all they offer for me. However, I do not have a Yin root. This sutra was written for someone like you, or rather, it was written by someone who was like you for his own use."
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With the limitations on his advancement and the limits of the Gao library, Fushuai knew only the basics of formation theory as it related to qi techniques. Simply put, a cultivator's spirit and core were not infinitely spacious, and if they pursued the Way for long enough, there would come a point where they were forced to unlearn old qi techniques to make way for something new. That was why his master had not added this scroll to his internal archive; what it contained was not valuable enough to replace what he already possessed.
Did he know hundreds of techniques? Thousands?
His siblings had all learned one or more techniques at around the state of advancement Fushuai was in now. Chen, he thought, knew at least three. Martial techniques, similar to the fundamental uses of qi but vastly more specialized and dangerous. Whereas Gao Lei had learned a spell that allowed him to make lightning dance between his hands.
"May I open it?" He asked.
His master nodded.
The script inside was jagged yet fluid, strokes etched as if the calligrapher had written with an experienced but palsied hand. There was something in the letters, or perhaps the ink itself, that reminded him of the root he saw inside himself.
—
Moon Step Perfection
First Recitation
He who walks by sunlight walks to be seen.
He who walks by moonlight walks to know.
When breath lies still and all the world turns pale,
Step lightly.
Second Recitation
The moon does not shine; instead observing.
Be as the moon. Breathe soft, or not at all.
Still now the heart. This world is but shimmers,
And dust.
Third Recitation
The frost does not recoil from winter's bite.
The serpent drinks of poison and survives.
And drink.
On the Limits of the Method
This path was born where sunlight cannot touch.
It withers when the roaring fires arise.
Yang will break what only Yin can fill.
These verses mark the first of the Void Legacy, composed along the Mirkwood on a night of pale mist and no stars. Let none mistake quietude for weakness. Let none mistake motion for strength
—Set down by Xie Gui, en route to the Emerald City
—
He read no further. His master was watching him without a hint of impatience, a slight smile tugging on the edge of his mouth.
"Yes?" Xiao Sheng said. "I can see the question in your eyes."
"What happened to Xie Gui? The man who wrote this?"
"His studies triggered a deviation, and he went mad. The battle to contain him destroyed much of the city, and was the crux of its fall."
"And…you want me to learn his Path?"
"Just the tip of the spear," Xiao Sheng said, "it will help you find your own way."
Fushuai looked back at the scroll. "I'm not sure what to do with this. Meditate, recite the lines. Parts of it are almost instructions, but most are not. These stanzas seem to be describing the effect of the technique, not explaining how to use it."
His master nodded as if he had just stated something profound instead of confessing ignorance.
"Just so. This is a puzzle for you, my disciple. When you are not breaking your body with Goshung or breaking your spirit with the Void Hammer's Ring, spend a few hours in contemplation of this sutra." He raised one hand, palm out. "A warning. If you do manage to master the first technique, go no further. It is a bodily perfection technique, whereas the second is a domain, and the third is a binding. Both of those will require you to walk further in the Way before you should even attempt to use them."
Fushuai stood to give half a martial bow. Though his master preferred he didn't follow the respectful patterns prescribed for someone of his station, he had to do something.
"I will do my best."
He didn't have much time to study the sutra that day. It was already well past dawn, and he liked to see himself as someone who learned from his mistakes. He'd earned a stinging chastisement after he recovered from the overexertion of his three-day session with Void Hammer's Ring. "I am not your nursemaid," Xiao had said when he finally woke. "I will not tell you when to drink, or eat, or relieve yourself. If you cannot recognize the difference between an obstacle to be overcome and a limit which cannot be crossed, you will never grow strong enough to carry my legacy in this realm."
Fushuai needed rest before he made a serious attempt at deciphering the formation, the qi patterns he would need to perform the actual technique, hidden in the sutra. And before he could do that, there would be training atop the parasol tree, foraging, cooking, and more of the Void Hammer method. His days were already full, and they had just gotten fuller. His master may well have given him the sutra as a means of forcing him to spend less time working toward qi compression.
Logically, he understood that there was nothing unusual about advancement through steps taking weeks or months. At his current rate, he would reach peak qi refinement well before the end of the year. It was only Snake Month, he was almost sure. They couldn't be deep into summer yet, and nothing was standing in his way other than his too-vaporous qi and the too-few number of hours in a day.
Throughout the decan after trespassing on the lair of the rogue cultivator, he had been worried about retaliation. So far, there had been no hint of a stranger watching him while he was practicing woodcraft, nor had he heard the twisted voices of another chimera in the wilds. It might be that the man had left the mountain as soon as he realized his laboratory had been discovered. Perhaps he had intended to punish Fushuai, and then wisely disappeared when he saw the Asura or Xiao Sheng around the shrine.
Whatever the reason for the rogue's absence, it appeared that he was free to pursue cultivation as far and as fast as his body and spirit allowed. Though it could be painful, and it was always difficult, he had never been happier in his life.