Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

As Ashen City disappeared into the horizon, Fushuai wondered if he would ever see it again. Silent Mountain was only a broad shadow against the sky, behind where his home had been, and soon it too would vanish.

He hurried after Xiao Sheng's retreating figure, who always seemed to be getting farther ahead, no matter what speed he was walking. The road had narrowed to a goat path, winding upward into barren foothills where dusk gathered thick and chill.

They had traveled without rest since the night before. Though Fushuai had not trained seriously with his siblings in years, he was still a cultivator near the peak of the body refinement stage. He would not collapse from the rigors of a forced march. Not on the first day.

Xiao Sheng stopped in a shallow hollow enclosed by jagged stones. Without a word, he gathered branches from the sparse bushes, snapping them into tinder with his hands. Fushuai followed as best he could, clumsy with cold and nerves, wondering why his master went about such simple tasks as if he were a mortal. Together, they scraped a pit into the earth and set a fire that crackled and spat as it caught, lit by flint.

The flames threw shifting shadows across the hollow. Xiao Sheng's shadow, in particular, seemed impossibly large and only vaguely human.

When the fire was steady, the ancient cultivator straightened, brushing dust from his sleeves.

"We will camp here tonight," he said, tilting his head slightly toward the darkening trail. "I will leave you for an hour. I expect a meal to be ready when I return."

Fushuai bowed his head. So it was true: he was meant to be a cook.

With a wave of his hand, the elder cultivator summoned an iron tripod, a tarnished wok, and a spatula. They were quickly followed by a few small sacks, a varnished chest, and a jug of water. With that, he stepped into the deepening twilight, vanishing between the stones along with his monstrous shadow.

Gao Ligang possessed a storage ring. It was the only one in the entire Gao clan, and yet his master wore three on his right hand.

The chest held spices, dozens of stoppered bottles without a single label between them. Rice, raw pork, and what seemed to be dried, fragrant grass filled the sacks.

Lincao?

The grass blades were a gray that verged on silver. Though his subtler senses were not strong enough to be certain, he thought it might be spirit grass. That could not be right. Such a quantity of even a low-grade herb would have been worth a fortune.

Was he meant to cook it with the rice? Use it as a garnish? Make tea?

Fushuai carefully retied the mouth of the sack. At least the rice and pork were things he understood. Even if he was meant to be a servant rather than a disciple, serving Xiao Sheng was a more honorable fate than anything he might have found at home. And even a duty as small as this had to be approached with due seriousness.

He bent his head and applied his full focus to the task at hand.

He had seen the servants prepare this sort of dish a thousand times in the Gao kitchens, but they had stoves, pots aplenty, and proper knives. If this was a test, it was one that placed him at a disadvantage, both in experience and in tools.

He rinsed the rice in the wok, then added more water to boil. Having no knife to slice the pork, he cleaned his hands and tore it with his fingers, praying it would not cause offense to do so. Together, they would make a simple traveler's congee, a rice porridge. He smelled the spices, and unable to identify most of the bottles, settled on what he hoped was simple salt.

As the meat and rice cooked, he pondered the dried grass. Surely his master would not have left it with him if it were not meant to be used. Refusing to add it would be tantamount to ignoring a command. With great hesitancy, he added a handful of the silver herb to the porridge and stirred.

What were his brothers and sisters doing now?

Chen was likely sulking. Lei might have thrown such a tantrum that their father sent him to crackle and spark alone in his rooms. Gao Ligang himself must be struggling, torn between pride and resentment.

To have a son chosen by a Grand Elder was no small thing. To have that son be the one he had forbidden from pursuing cultivation…

The ground shivered beneath him.

He continued to monitor the porridge, and the tremor came again, stronger. A branch shifted out of the fire pit, and pebbles rattled on the ground.

Fushuai straightened. There was no sign of his master. If there were to be an earthquake, then the best he could do was keep the porridge from spilling.

The fire popped loudly, making him flinch.

Then came the howl.

He felt it in his breastbone, and the stones of the hollow vibrated in the same manner. The sound filled the mist, the air, the sky, until there was nothing else in the world.

Out of the mist, a shape hurtled forward. Black and burning, larger than any beast Fushuai had ever seen. It landed mere paces from the camp, a wolf crowned with fire. The spatula fell from his nerveless hand, and Fushuai froze on the spot.

The wolf's eyes were twin furnaces, its jaws trailing ribbons of flame that licked at its midnight fur. This was no animal born of the mortal world; it was a spirit of fire and death, and its gaze was upon him.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He knew, with perfect clarity, that he was to die.

He had not even taken the first step on the path of discipleship, and already it was ending. Here, in a nameless hollow, with a half-cooked pot of porridge at his side.

The wolf's paw struck the earth with a quake, scattering molten sparks. Its jaws opened wide, and Fushuai saw the fire inside its throat, a crucible waiting to consume him.

"Forgive me," he said. "The meal is not quite ready."

The words felt as if they came from someone else. He had never been one for jokes. Lin had teased him endlessly for his serious manner, and yet, something about seeing the end of his life approaching in the blazing throat of a demon beast made him feel something he hadn't in a long time. Excitement?

Its sudden appearance had shocked him, but why wasn't he more afraid?

Laughter echoed among the stones, and the mists retreated before it. Xiao Sheng had returned.

A single calloused hand rose calmly, without haste, as the pudgy old cultivator approached from the other end of the camp. The wolf forgot Fushuai's existence, turning its hellish gaze toward the serenely smiling threat.

The earth shifted under Xiao Sheng's feet. Pebbles and dust rose into the air, sharpening into glittering needles, and the rim of the mist shaped itself into the teeth of a saw blade.

The black wolf charged.

Xiao made a small, careless gesture, no more than the flick of a hand brushing dust from a sleeve, and the earth answered. Stone and soil sprang up in a field of swords, filling the space between him and the demon beast.

The wolf met them head-on. Flames burst from its mouth and splashed from its claws, crashing against the rising storm of blades. The collision sent shockwaves pulsing through the hollow, and the campfire exploded. Fushuai found himself ducking away with a wok in one hand and a sack of dry herbs in the other.

His master has told him to prepare dinner, and the least he could do was protect it.

A demon beast and a cultivator rose above an arena of blades and flame, as weightless as feathers on the wind. They regarded each other for a long moment, measuring, and Fushuai withdrew until he felt rock against his back.

When they acted again, it was as if two bolts of lightning had decided to play a game of tag. They moved in flashes, impossible to follow, and every time they came together, the meeting was accompanied by thunder.

Fushuai sidled along the stone he had pressed his back against, searching for a way out of the hollow, unable to take his eyes away from the spectacle. Pressure was growing in the air around him, as if he was sinking into deep water, and he found it hard to breathe. The earth shook beneath his slippers, and an invisible hand pressed him down.

His knees hit the ground, a rock digging sharply into his shin, and the spiritual pressure only increased. The wok was suddenly too heavy for him to lift, but he managed to set it down without spilling more than a few spoonfuls of porridge. He clutched the sack of grass to his chest as the sheer weight of their clashing souls forced him onto his side, struggling to suck in air.

Though the pressure prevented him from taking any physical action, he found a resolve hardening within his spirit. Defiance. One day, he would grow so strong that no man could press him down. Not his brother, not his father, not even monsters such as these. Only then could he change anything.

Unable to move further, he watched two gods wrestle in the sky.

The wolf spun, twisting its massive body in a furious arc. From its paws snapped red-gold serpents, slicing through the air with shrill, searing screams. The heat hit with the force of a hammer, prickling Fushuai's skin, and he could do nothing but endure.

Xiao Sheng dwelt within a tempest of blades. Stone, dust, vapor, the air itself would become a sword if he so willed. A thousand edges danced around the wolf, though if any of them cut him, Fushuai could not see.

Another howl flattened the grass and sent embers swirling into the maelstrom above. The great stones that ringed the hollow cracked like glass, and a chunk of rock landed perilously close to Fushuai's immobile head.

Dust twisted into superheated coils, blinding him, and the shifting of the ground made him fear he would soon be swallowed by the earth. The power of these two combatants was the stuff of legends, the kind of strength that leveled mountains, and he only knew that they had risen higher because the rumble of their conflict grew distant.

Perhaps they would rise until they reached the heavens and the Jade Emperor saw fit either to accept them into the ranks of the immortals or to cast them down for the disturbance.

Fushuai's heart pounded in his throat as he cradled the grass, and sparks rained down from above, hissing where they struck. The pressure had lessened. Though it was still too great for him to stand, he could at least breathe.

In the face of such power, bare survival was a borrowed gift.

With a roar that should have stopped Fushuai's heart, the demon beast slammed down. The ground shuddered, and from the impact, a ring of pure fire exploded outward. Bushes caught at once, flaring into skeletal shadows, and the hillside beyond flared an instant later as if not to be left out.

The sparse grass charred to black ash in the blink of an eye, and Fushuai's nostrils filled with the acrid scent of his own burning hair as the heat passed over him in a suffocating wave.

Through watering eyes, he glimpsed Xiao Sheng standing calmly over him, facing the wolf. His presence was a balm, making the temperature survivable, if still intolerable. His robes, if anything, looked to be in better condition than they had been an hour before.

Xiao lifted his hand, and the flames parted.

"Enough," he said gently, "we are frightening the child."

The wolf reared onto its hind legs, its frame twisting as it rose, becoming something that was not quite a man. The beast's burning body folded inward, the fur withdrawing into its skin, the fire sinking beneath thick flesh. Bones cracked and realigned with wet, grinding snaps, and the long tail curled inward, shrinking. Horns twisted and reshaped, growing more defined, curling back in a sweeping arc.

A man towered over the field of broken stones. His obsidian skin was veined with faint, molten lines that pulsed with the slow rhythm of an infernal heart. Every muscle was cut and heavy, his hands clawed, and he walked on hooves instead of feet.

"Oh," the devil said. "Did you not tell him I was coming?"

"I thought a surprise would be more instructive."

Fushuai could not see his master's expression, but the devil grinned wide enough to split his face in half and began to laugh like a madman. Xiao Sheng joined him a moment later, bending double in amusement.

Though no longer crushed by an invisible weight, Fushuai remained on the ground, shivering. The laughter of immortals echoed through the hollow, wild and unfathomable.

He pressed his forehead to the earth. If these were to be his teachers, then his path would be longer, and darker, than he had ever imagined.

Slowly, he pushed himself up. He could not afford to remain so weak.