Kind Young Master [Progression Fantasy - Cultivation]

As their laughter faded, so did the flames. The hollow ringed by cracked and half-melted boulders was carpeted with ash, a layer of which coated Fushuai as well. Rising with the burlap sack in his arms, he saw that the forest beyond still burned. The light of its flaming canopy was ever shifting, and the smoke that rose there concealed the stars that had begun to appear in the sky.

He had mistaken a greeting for a battle, a test of strength and affection so great that it could tear the earth apart. The power had been real. The fire, the blades, the shockwaves. How could men such as these walk the world without breaking it simply by breathing? Why did the heavens allow them to?

"Master…?" He said, unsure of how to complete the question.

Xiao Sheng turned to him, wearing a good-humored expression. "You may speak freely."

"What…How…" His words failed him. Whatever foolish excitement had overcome him at the first sight of the demon-wolf was long gone, and he felt as if his insides had been scraped out with the same spatula he had used for the rice.

"You will have to build the fire again," his master said. "It appears to have faltered."

The horned man caused a pile of rocks to order themselves into a pair of seats, one for him and one for the elder cultivator. "Your boy looks lost," he said. "Have you told him nothing?"

Xiao Sheng took the seat that had been made for him. "I prefer to let my disciples absorb their lessons, rather than be spoon-fed."

"I can't remember noticing you ever taking a disciple, not since you were worth noticing."

"Ah, now that you say it, you must be correct. I never have taken a disciple before. Still, it is something I have considered in the past, what kind of master I would be." Despite the battle, he looked no different than he had when entering the Gao estate. Across from the hulking devil sat a man who appeared as a moderately successful merchant, physically past his prime. That soft, placid face shifted to take in Fushuai.

"Did you lose your hearing in the scuffle?"

Fushuai snapped a bow so deep his forehead cracked against his knees.

"A thousand apologies, Master. I will do as you say." He deposited the singed sack beside the old cultivator and went in search of sticks. Though there was no fuel left in the clearing, there was plenty beneath the nearby tree line, much of it already alight.

Returning with an armful of burning brands, he swept the firepit clear with his foot and stacked them squarely.

"When you said you were looking for a pupil," the devil said, "I thought you would find one in a few months."

Xiao Sheng hummed thoughtfully. "Has it not been a few months?"

"It has, and years besides. If you had delayed any longer, you would have run out of time."

As his elders conversed, Fushuai set about recovering what he could of dinner. The tripod had melted out of shape, and while the wok had survived, the congee had not. His spatula, when he found it, had been reshaped into a long, thin blade, and the jug of water had shattered, its contents evaporated.

The devil shifted, one of his hooves digging into the hard earth beneath the layer of ash.

"Your boy looks confused."

"He does, doesn't he. I wonder if he will ask for help."

Fushuai took a deep breath. "A thousand apologies, master, but I have failed you."

"Oh?" A bushy gray eyebrow raised. "How so?"

"You asked me to have dinner ready when you returned. What I made is ruined, and I failed to protect the food and your tools. I cannot make it again."

"I asked you to rebuild the fire, and you have. Now, sit."

Fushuai complied, falling onto his heels and feeling like a child as the pair loomed over him. Xiao Sheng wasn't physically large, but he was on a stone stool, and regardless of his actual height, he seemed to be looming wherever he was.

"Good. Whatever you prepared, I'm sure we are better off without. In my experience, the children of cultivators rarely know their way around a wok, but that will be remedied with time. Tell me, Fushuai, why did you risk your life to protect a sack of dry grass and a bit of rice and pork?"

"I…thought it was important." Was it really just grass, and not a spirit herb? "Preparing a meal was the only command you've given me since we departed. And these," he gestured to the distorted tripod and the reshaped spatula, "they are not mine to abandon. As your servant, I had to save them."

Xiao Sheng frowned. "You are not my servant; you are my disciple, and you are more valuable to me than an old set of cookware. When our little game began, you should have fled as far and as fast as you could."

Fushuai ducked his head, unsure of whether he should be overflowing with shame at his mistake or pride at the confirmation of his status. Gao Fushuai, disciple of Xiao Sheng, the Living Blade. It was knowledge more tremendous than the battle he had witnessed.

Little game.

That display had not been their full power. They hadn't even been trying to hurt each other.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. "I will remember, Master."

"Enough of that. I am your master, but I have no need of being reminded of it with every sentence you utter."

He ducked his head again, unsure of how to respond.

"Are you going to introduce me or not?" The devil said.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Very well," Xiao Sheng put his hands on his knees to help himself stand, his joints popping. He cleared his throat. "Behold Mah Goshung, Molten Lord of Ten Thousand Arms, the Wolf of Soul Furnace Valley, ranked one hundred and seventh among the Deadly Asura."

"Ninety-ninth."

"Oh? Did eight names transcend the Wheel while I wasn't watching the heavens?"

Fushuai's heart beat faster. Not just a devil or a demon beast, this horned man was an Asura. Cultivators who attempted to ascend did not always reach the heavens, and those who failed were not always destroyed in their judgment.

Some ruled in hell.

Mah Goshung bared his fangs. "I defeated them in righteous combat, something you know little about."

"Then I truly have been wandering longer than I thought. You are not the pup that I remember."

Fushuai looked between them. Despite the Asura's words, there was no real sense of threat. It was the teasing of two old friends.

"In any case," Xiao Sheng gestured at his disciple, "this is Gao Fushuai, of Ash Town, or some such place. We shall all be traveling together for a time, so it is best you be acquainted."

Fushuai tapped his head to the ground in a sign of respect before speaking again. "Am I permitted to ask questions?" He caught himself just short of saying "master," again. It felt wrong to leave off the honorific, but his master had given him an instruction, and he would follow it.

"Of course," the old cultivator sat with apparent relief. "Though you may not enjoy the answer, if you receive one."

"Are you an immortal?" Cultivators of the earthly realms often styled themselves as immortals, though they had not and might never reach that stage in their Path. Usually, mortal and immortal were terms used merely to differentiate between practitioners of the sacred arts and regular people. True immortals lived in the heavens, or the Asura Realm, if they were not welcome in the Jade Court. The fact that his master was well acquainted with an Asura, and that they could trade blows as equals, suggested that he was above the nascent soul stage, as difficult as that was to believe.

Xiao Sheng smiled. "Nothing is immortal."

Fushuai glanced at the sky, briefly wondering if that statement would be enough for heaven's judgment to be rained down on them all. Smoke still drifted above, but stars pricked through the shifting veil, and the moon had begun to rise.

"How did you become friends?"

"Friends?" Mah Goshung straightened, a sudden heat radiating from his obsidian skin. "We have only just met, and already you curse me."

"Forgive my error, Great Asura." He bowed, then froze as a huge, burning hand grasped his shoulder and pulled him back up. Mah Goshung's eyes, two dead coals rimmed with molten orange, held his own.

"Do not expose your neck to me again, pretty boy."

Fushuai's mouth went dry, and his tongue felt too thick to speak, but he forced out a response. "A thousand apologies, Great Asura. I am an ignorant fool."

The hand did not leave his shoulder. "And stop apologizing. Apologies are for prey animals."

"Yes, I'm s—" he bit his tongue. "I understand."

Mah Goshung let him go. "You don't, yet. But you will."

"We met a long time ago," Xiao Sheng said, speaking as if nothing had occurred. "And if I am to tell you the tale, I will first have some of that silverleaf." His hand twitched toward the burlap sack, and though it was closer to his master than him, Fushuai practically leapt to lift it to within the elder's reach.

Xiao Sheng took a hefty handful for himself and nodded toward the Asura, who accepted a similar amount.

"Take a few blades for yourself," Xiao Sheng said, and his disciple complied, watching them for cues as to what he should do with it. Mah Goshung balled up some of his portion and popped it into his too-wide mouth, chewing slowly.

"One at a time, for you," Xiao Sheng said, and Fushuai nodded. He rolled up a single gray blade and followed their example. It tasted as sweet as sticky rice cake, though it was so fibrous he wasn't sure that he could break it up with his teeth alone.

His master watched him for a moment and then nodded.

"Now then, I will tell you the story." He spat the wadded grass from his mouth into the fire and rolled another ball. "It was in the eastern wilds, at the mouth of Coughing Valley. That's what we called it, because the wind there was thick with sulfur and grief, and even cultivators found it hard to breathe."

I had gone to study the Beast Pack Path. It is the Way of Go Er Tsoon, a barbarian tribe in the Empire's eyes, but a proper cultivation lineage if you look beneath the blood and fur. They model themselves after wolves. Fighting in packs, breathing in rhythm, and striking at weakness with perfect coordination. Not elegant. But effective."

Mah Goshung gave a low snort, neither pleased nor insulted. "Better than dancing around in silk dresses and pretending to be burbling springs."

"I never wore dresses," Xiao Sheng replied mildly.

"You wore a white gown."

"They were the robes of my station and sect."

"You looked like a woman."

"My hair was longer then." Xiao Sheng waved off the Asura and turned back to Fushuai. "I dueled every elder they would allow me to touch steel with. Some were skilled. One was swift enough to be worth mentioning. All of them fell. I thought their Path lacked refinement, and was preparing to leave when they brought out a boy with too many teeth and too much pride."

Mah Goshung chuckled. "I thought you were a sissy."

"I thought you'd be housebroken." The old man paused, then offered a thin smile. "We fought all the way down Coughing Valley. The first nine exchanges were courteous. The next ninety were not."

"I shattered his sword," Mah Goshung said.

"I stabbed him through the lungs."

"Only one of them."

"After that," Xiao Sheng said, "we washed in the sulfur river and argued about Paths until the moon came up. He called me soft. I called him stupid. He shared his wine, fermented goat sweat, I believe."

"Best batch I ever made," Mah Goshung agreed.

Fushuai watched them both, reminding himself to close his mouth. The sweetness of the grass was fading, but it had made his throat and the back of his palate go numb. It had to be some kind of medicinal herb, though he did not know enough of the medicinal arts to guess what kind, or what its purpose was. It was still too unbelievable to think that it was spirit grass.

Xiao Sheng chewed silently for a moment before continuing. "Go Er Tsoon did not contain the revelation I was looking for. I gained no insight in my Path. Still, I did not leave empty-handed. I met a wolf too stubborn to die, and on the road we walk, such a companion is a rare thing indeed."

The story was finished, and Fushuai could no longer stand the numbness spreading to his gums. He spat remains of the grass into the fire as his master had done, and it sputtered steam.

"Take another," his master said, "and I will allow you one more question tonight."

With great reluctance, Fushuai placed a second tiny gray ball of grass onto his tongue. If he did not chew, whatever medicine it contained would take longer to absorb. Though it would be natural to ask what it was he was eating and why, that was not the most important question on his mind. He trusted that whatever it was, it would not kill him.

"If you have never taken a disciple before, why are you taking one now, and…why me?"

Xiao Sheng regarded him sternly. "That was two questions, and I offered you only one."

He bowed his head. "The first, then."

"Because my time in this realm is coming to an end. The heavens beckon, and they do not take refusal lightly. I have walked alone for too long. If I go now, there will be none to carry on my legacy." His face shone with gentleness. "You will carry my legacy, or you will break beneath it."

Perhaps he was simply in shock. But when those words fell on Fushuai's shoulders, they were not heavy. He felt lightheaded, and the silverleaf had something to do with that. More though, he was awed. Awed by the man and the devil, and by the tremendous trial ahead of him.

"It will be my honor to follow you," he said. "Or even to break, as long as I have tried."