Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

The man was a peasant, with rough-spun clothes and hands darkened by years of working in the soil. He had a square face, currently creased with a fear so terrible that tears were running down his cheeks. The formation flag prevented him from taking one step further, or even from crawling. Still, he did not retreat. He kow-towed, crying out for the aid of a master who was not there.

Did Xiao Sheng spend his summers around this shrine? It was hard to imagine how else the man would have known a cultivator frequented this place. Fushuai took pity on him, crossing the clearing to place one hand on his trembling shoulder.

"Good stranger, go back. This will break you."

"I…cannot." The man forced out the words, fighting for breath even as he pressed his face into the grass. Denying the word of someone he clearly thought was an immortal was nothing short of courting death. Fushuai was impressed.

"I meant only a few paces. The pain will ease."

Panting, the man hesitated long enough that he might have been debating whether this was some kind of trick. Without raising his head, he scrabbled backward, pushing himself with his hands as much as moving with his knees. The sun was only just beginning to rise. He must have walked all night to come here.

"Thank you," the man said. "Thank you for hearing my plea."

"Who do you think I am?" Perhaps there were other cultivators who paused here on their journeys. The Lonely Mountain was a sacred place, the nearest to heaven one could come while still standing on two feet.

"Great master, it is known in my village that an immortal watches over this shrine. I could not know you were here. I prayed to the heavens that you would be."

"Raise your head. You don't need to grovel."

The man froze, no doubt once again wondering at the motivations of the mysterious mountain cultivator he thought Fushuai to be. An invitation to look at him could easily have lead to a punishment for meeting his eyes. After a moment of indecision, the peasant sat back on his heels, careful to keep his gaze lowered. He was just beyond the boundary of the formation, leaving Fushuai at its border. The killing intent behind him made the hair on his neck stand on end.

His instincts screamed that there was a beast waiting to pounce. The intuition was so intense that he had to fight the urge to turn around. Knowing that it was the formation's doing did not change what he felt. Cycling to restore his calm, he addressed the man again.

"Tell me your name, and tell me why you have come here."

No longer panting, the stranger was taking long, deep breaths, as if he too were practicing a meditation method.

"Mao Feng, great master. I am nothing and no one to you. A weaver and tailor. I live in the village two days from this shrine, down and to the east."

"If you come from so far away, why do you know about this place at all? Do you bring offerings here?"

He nodded vigorously. "Twice a year. That is the tradition in my family. I know it is not much. It is the best that we can do. It is not my time to come, but I brought what I have."

A small pack dropped from his shoulder, and he presented it reverently. Inside, there was wrapped rice, wine, and incense. Fushuai set it aside.

"You still haven't told me what happened."

The man gasped, bowing three times in apology. Every dip of his head exposed the nape of his neck, and Fushuai finally understood what Goshung had said about the behavior of prey animals. He still thought it was proper to bow, but he wasn't sure how he would handle such niceties when he was away from his masters. Surely, there would be times when propriety demanded such things, but now he could never do the same without remembering the feeling of the Asura's clawed hand on his neck.

"There is a beast cursing our village. Unnatural. It took only livestock at first." His hands clenched, balling the fabric of his ragged trousers. "Then people. My daughter. My only child." Though there were still tears on his face, he was no longer crying. His voice caught on the last word, and he gathered himself. "She was taken, along with others. The beast has been spotted more than once. It is an abomination."

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"A chimera?" There could be no other answer. The rogue was at work again, collecting more victims. Whatever reason he had for killing commoners was something only a demonic cultivator could understand.

The bodies piled like cordwood. Bloodless, dissected. Fushuai could still smell that room in the ruins, fetid and sickly sweet, decay slowed by the chill of the heights. It was happening again. Anger rose in him like a fist.

"It had the head of a wasp," Mao Feng said. "But its body was more like a goat. Arrows did nothing. When we tried to catch it, there were only more dead."

"How many times has it come?"

"Great master, I cannot say. Since it started taking people, it has appeared five times, once every three days. Before that, the animals, I don't know. It could have been stalking us longer."

Fushuai wasn't sure exactly how long it had been since he killed the stone hound, or since he last saw Zhang Sha. Enough time to make such a beast? For it to have harassed a village down the mountain for nearly a month?

"How long ago was the last killing?"

"Two days, great master. I came as quickly as I could."

Fushuai turned to look at the shrine. In his understanding, formation flags usually worked in sets that marked a boundary. His master, however, had left only one, which seemed capable of doing the work by itself. As laboring under the burden of an oppressive aura was now central to his training. Leaving the vale would be tantamount to disobedience.

Still, he had done as he was asked. All three techniques contained in the Black Lotus Sutra were now written in the fabric of his dantian. There had been no moment of insight, no sudden change in his capabilities. He did not think he had achieved the full stabilization step that would allow him to move on to qi manifestation. Still, until his master returned, there was nothing left for him to do but practice the skills and methods he had already learned.

Silently, he asked the heavens for guidance. The rogue cultivator was defying their will, practicing forbidden arts. Fushuai knew he could not be favored by the powers above either. An Asura was his mentor, and he had not been ready to kill the rogue for his crimes against the sacred law alone. It was what the rogue had done to mortals that moved him. Still, he felt something.

Light crept around the flanks of Lonely Mountain, highlighting the cliffs that overlooked the vale of the shrine. A heron cried in the heights, its voice ringing as clear as sister Lin when she sang for their father.

Was this a sign?

His gaze was still on the flag when he spoke again. "You will have to tell me how to find the village."

If he traveled at the speed of a mortal, the next attack would be over well before he arrived. Remaining true to the spirit of his master's instructions would be difficult, and if there was too much complexity to the formation flag, impossible.

"Great master?" The man seemed unwilling to believe his prayers could be answered.

"Tell me."

Mao Feng described the route, and much of it was familiar wilderness. Fushuai had come close to discovering the village by accident on some of his longer forages. It would be no trouble to find, especially if there were traces of corrupted qi in the surroundings.

"Stay where you are, Mao Feng. When I pass you carrying the flag, go to the shrine and remain there until I return. If someone else arrives instead of me, tell them where I have gone."

The man's reply was lost to the roaring in his ears as he focused on the formation and its dreadful aura. Knowing what he was about to attempt somehow made ignoring its oppression more difficult. His vision narrowed to that crimson cloth and the black slash across it, a gash bleeding darkness.

Leaping to the roof of the shrine, he felt the spiritual pressure increase until it was like the talons of a flock of birds tearing at his skin. His staff was in his hand, solid as the earth and twice as heavy. He shifted his awareness to the weapon, using it as a mental shield that allowed him to take a single step closer to the flag.

The battering of waves and wind. The anger of a storm. The promise of a blade's kiss. Everything in him screamed danger. This close, anything but retreat seemed like madness.

A coward's heart. That was what his father had said. Not because he had shown fear, but compassion. Perhaps Goshung was right. The cultivators of Ashen City knew nothing of the way of the warrior.

One more step, and his dantian quavered. The coiled energy in his meridians threatened to fray just as his knees began to buckle. Even as he dropped, he lunged forward, his free hand grasping the flagstaff. His heart slammed against his chest with the force of a striking hammer as a roof tile cracked beneath him. The coil coursing through his meridians slowed, his focus slipping.

Extending his senses to perceive the nature of the formation was like listening for birdsong in the midst of a hurricane. Still, he persisted, refusing to let go. The flag was drawing qi from the shrine, it would falter if he removed it.

He extended a Thread of Still Night, attempting to make a connection with something he could have never crafted himself. After long minutes of struggle, he felt it, the sudden tug on his own energy. Anchoring himself with the gu-en, he rose, pulling the flag up with him.

The sense of panic, the dread, the sheer weight of the oppressive aura did not lessen. Worse, it was now drawing on his reserves to sustain itself. He leapt from the shrine and stumbled in the grass.

His master wanted him to learn to resist killing intent, and he would do just that.

What was he missing? The tumult within his mind and spirit was making it hard to think. But he could feel how quickly supporting the formation with his internal energy would drain him. He needed more than he could reliably draw from ambient aura. The Bursting Star Lotus pill.

He was only permitted to take it while at the shrine. It went down like a stone and set a fire in his belly.

Mao Feng wept again as he passed him carrying what must have seemed like an icon of death. No thought could be spared for the mortal. A flag, a pill, and a destination were all that was left in the world.