Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

For long minutes, the Spine of the World continued to grumble its complaints as a new order settled. A peak had lost its peak, and a swath of pine trees was swept away by the ensuing avalanche. In the moment the judgement of heaven had appeared, the stars had closed their eyes out of respect, and even the moon had dimmed. Now the vault of night was restored to its former silent majesty. The heavens had struck at the earthly realm, and as there was no answering rebuke, decided that all was as it should be.

"Should we go to him?" Fushuai asked. If Goshung had been the target of that calamity, then surely he had perished. Still, he had developed a fondness for his martial tutor, and it was hard to imagine anything truly killing him. He was, after all, an immortal Asura. Immortals could die, though that was a truth hardly anyone below the nascent soul stage would willingly utter aloud, but they did not die easy.

It would take nothing short of, well, judgment from heaven.

"Go to him?" Xiao Sheng was amused. "If he survived, then he would likely be gone before you arrived. If he was not gone, and instead wounded into immobility, what could you do to help him?"

Fushuai hung his head. "A thousand apologies. It was a foolish instinct."

"I'm sure the Wolf of Furnace Valley, mighty Asura, would be touched to know you thought of him." His master glanced at him sidelong. "Regardless, he will move out of the eye of the Jade Court as swiftly as the Way will take him. You may be without his instruction for a time."

It seemed that his survival was expected, and so was the judgment. Neither elder had ever explained what an Asura was doing in the earthly realm aside from performing a "favor" for the Living Blade. In stories, the immortal devils occasionally returned from the Battle Realm where they resided, either because they were summoned by arrogant cultivators or on designs of their own. Cities fell, entire sects went to war, and either the Emperor or the heavens intervened to banish them.

What Asura did not do was appear to low-stage cultivators and teach them how to hold a sword, at least not in stories. The question was less why this had happened and more why now.

"Did you know this was coming?"

"Come, sit." Xiao Sheng made his way to the steps, one hand massaging his back, and dropped onto a step. He often made a show of his aches and pains, and it had at first seemed that a show was all it was. While he was fending off Fushuai's blades with a single finger, there had been no such signs of infirmity. But why the performance, when there was no one here to witness it but the student who knew it could not be real? Unless it was.

Fushuai took his place beside the elder, cycling unconsciously. His stomach had not pained him while they fought. It was healed enough that he did not think he was in danger of having his guts spill out on the grass from exertion, but now his injury saw fit to remind him that he was not entirely whole.

Perhaps Xiao Sheng labored under a similar condition. What kind of wound could his master have received that would never heal?

"You are distracted."

"Apologies," he said again. "My thoughts have strayed."

"Strayed from the subject of the judgement of heaven? An act that most, mortal and cultivator alike, will go their whole lives without witnessing?"

He nodded.

"How interesting. You have already asked me one question. I will allow you to choose. Would you know more about what happened to Goshung, or shall I illuminate whatever new fascination is playing through your mind?"

"Please, tell me of the judgment." If he asked Xiao Sheng about himself, he was more likely to receive an indecipherable parable than any true answer. Besides, whatever ailed the elder, if something did ail him, was his business.

"Very well." With a heavy breath, his master leaned back, resting on his hands, and shifted his gaze to the sky. "Did you ever notice that there are fewer clouds at night?"

Were there? Certainly that was true of these mountains, and he had taken it to be a quirk of the winds. He could not remember noticing the phenomenon while living in Ashen City. Shaking his head, he followed his master's example and looked above.

The moon was already falling, and the silence was total. The stars could shine as gently as they pleased, and the forest held its breath in fear of another unwanted gift from above.

"They hide themselves," Xiao Sheng said. "In the light of day."

"Who?"

"The lowermost realm of the ascended. The upper realms cannot be seen from the middle kingdoms. Here, on the Spine of the World, one can sometimes catch glimpses of the outermost territories of the Jade Court."

Fushuai squinted. The sky looked no different than it had on any other night. There were no palaces floating in the blackness he could see, or resting on the drifting clouds. The stars were just stars. Still, he was in no position to contradict the statement, and his master soon continued.

"A fish, no matter how old or overgrown, will never understand life upon the soil. It is too alien to them. Mortals and cultivators alike are ignorant of the ways of heaven, not only because they shield themselves from our eyes. They are too different. One cannot view the earthly realm from above the same way one does traveling amid the dust." He paused. "I have not answered your question, have I?"

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It was pointless to reply. Xiao Sheng would say whatever he chose to say, and conceal whatever he chose to conceal. Fushuai continued to watch the night above, and that proved to be the correct response. The words continued.

"I did know they would strike him, though not when. I expected we would have more time. Goshung received a dispensation to return to this realm under certain conditions. He may have violated one of them, or this may be the result of a circumstance I could have never predicted. When he returns, I will ask how it came about."

"But he will return?"

"He will. The wolf is too stubborn to die from something so simple as the fall of one of heaven's fists."

It was a statement so impossible that Fushuai simply had to let it pass. "What are the conditions? How long was he meant to remain with us?"

"That is two more questions than you have been allotted, my good pupil."

So the time for answers was at an end.

"Thank you for easing my mind. I am grateful for the guidance of the Asura."

"As you should be." He grimaced. "His services did not come cheaply. Until he can continue your training, you will have to content yourself with mine."

"I am unworthy of seeing your sword."

"Hah!" Xiao Sheng grinned at him, and then frowned at his confused expression. "Oh. Of course. I thought you were making a joke. There is an old drinking song….ah. It hasn't been sung since the fall of Silver Kingdom. You wouldn't have heard it."

His eyes grew distant, and Fushuai wondered what in the three worlds the joke could have been. His master's smile remained, but it was hollow now.

"In any case, we have more than enough to keep you occupied. Your spiritual energy should be dense enough to begin practicing the second technique of the Black Lotus Sutra. You can do that in your own time. We will begin forging your gu-en."

"What can I do?" Controlling the cores with will alone was well beyond his capabilities, and he had a feeling that grinding them with a pestle wouldn't bring the result he wanted. The dao seed had been fibrous, with the consistency of a vegetable. The cores were like crystals, and their power seemed to be as bound in their physical structure as surely as a formation was bound in an array.

"For now, you watch." Xiao Sheng, legendary cultivator, put his hands on his knees to help lever himself up with a grandfather's groan.

The Ghost Water had been simmering while they fought, and the orbiting cores had been sinking, inch by inch, until they were nearly touching the water. The shimmering liquid was reacting to the cores, reaching for them as tides reached for the moon.

Five bars of metal appeared over the cauldron: gold and silver, copper, tin, and iron. Each was as long as a forearm, though not as thick.

"Use your spiritual sense as best you can," Xiao Sheng said. "You won't be able to use a cauldron to forge anything for some time yet. Observe the method, and commit as much to memory as your memory will accept."

Fushuai activated Moon Step. It took him a moment to master the additional sensations, and then to reduce the blurring effect it had on his appearance. His perception sharpened to a razor's edge. This was a privilege he only rarely received.

His master lifted a veil from his aura, one of many veils, so that he could better watch the flow of energy he was projecting to control the metals and the cores.

The threads of qi were a network that made his dantian appear simple and plain, already multiplying into layers and embellishments. Seven different kinds of energy. All five elements, as well as pure Yang and Yin.

"How is this possible?"

"Hm?" Xiao Sheng's focus was less that of a dueling swordsman than a man sketching for enjoyment. "You mean the formation? It follows my intent, that is all."

"You are using seven kinds of qi."

"Are you disappointed? Twelve is a more fortunate number, I admit. Greedy for a first weapon, though."

Fushuai's mouth dropped open. Twelve?

"Pay attention, child."

He did. It was impossible to follow completely. There were too many threads, and the methods were too unfamiliar. This wasn't introductory formation theory; it was high-grade forging performed by a divine master. Still, he thought he could understand some of what was happening. Enough to grasp the fundamentals.

Xiao Sheng liquefied the metal bars, making them molten without heat, as the cores sank beneath the Ghost Water. The metal poured into the water and spun up a vortex.

"There are many methods to weapon forging," Xiao said. "And countless possible variations. Commonly, the maker will focus on one or two elements. Incorporate cores. Add other beast components. Powdered fangs and beaks and the like. That will not be necessary here. I prefer a cleaner cast, and there is complexity enough in this already. If you were anyone else's pupil, the process would involve an anvil, a furnace, and any number of other tools. I favor a more straightforward means to the end."

The mixture stirred itself, and the cores were growing smaller, their energies absorbed in the infusion of metal and Ghost Water. Fushuai lost track of the spring and coil of the qi threads and asked a question.

"If forging can be accomplished with will alone, why doesn't every cultivator do so?"

The supernatural stew stirred faster.

"Lack of skill, lack of will, lack of imagination. Any number of reasons. Under normal circumstances, I would have shown you a more practical method to begin with. However, I have reason to believe that your mind is suited to this work. Look closer. Really look."

Fushuai concentrated on the web of energy twisting, spinning, and interweaving before him, and he saw.

The threads were being laced into a cord, and with them went the materials. It wasn't exactly the same, an entirely different order of complexity, but in the foundations, what Xiao Sheng was doing resembled what he had done to the spiritual energy within his own body.

The metallic soup was thickening by the minute, and the stirring slowed by imperceptible degrees as the process continued. It was almost dawn when his master declared they were ready for the next step.

Ghost Water, metal, and beast cores had become one indivisible slate gray mass with the consistency of clay and an aura too complex for him to name properly.

"Now," Xiao Sheng said, "it is your turn."

"What can I do?"

"Roll it into a cylinder. You don't have long before it hardens. Whatever you manage to make will be your gu-en."

Fushuai pushed aside his alarm and thrust his hand into the substance. It was as cool as mud and came away in clumps that he could then roll between his palms. He made a cylinder a little less than two fingers thick, and continued snatching handfuls from the cauldron until he had a line of them longer than he was tall.

His master quirked his mouth. "I imagine you'll want to put those together."

The substance was already hardening, and he didn't know the best way to seal them into one piece. He partially flattened the ends he wanted to bind, and abraded them with a stone from beside the steps as if he were working with true clay. It was far from a perfectly smooth or polished result, and by the last piece, the metal was near enough to being itself again that he could barely work it with his hands.

When he finished, there was no eruption of spiritual energy, no sounding of celestial bells, only a long, ugly cylinder marked by his fingerprints, radiating an irregular aura.

Xiao Sheng patted his shoulder.

"Perfect."