Unintended Cultivator

Auntie Caihong kept teaching Sen for a few weeks after the new year, but he could tell that would soon change. She stopped introducing new things she wanted him to learn. Instead, she revisited everything that she had taught him. In some cases, it was brief enough that he could tell she was just checking that he remembered. She asked him some general questions about identifying medicinal plants and alchemical materials. She only got specific about a few of the rarer ones for which he could find buyers wherever he went. In other cases, she asked him in-depth questions about what to mix to treat a variety of injuries and illnesses. Throughout it all, he updated his notes. Mostly, he added to them, but he twice found places where he had to correct something that was simply wrong. They weren’t catastrophic mistakes that would have injured him or anyone else, but those mistakes drove home just how important it was to make sure he got the details right.

“Well,” said Auntie Caihong, “no one will mistake you for a spirit doctor, but you know enough now that you should be able to patch yourself or someone else up in an emergency.”

“I don’t think I’d dare try to treat anyone else,” Sen said, shuddering at the very idea.

“Sometimes, it’s that or let them die.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Oh, I know so. The world has a way of making you do things you don’t really want to do. Of course, I’ve found that people tend to find their nerve in those situations, more often than not. I did.”

“How so?”

“The first time I was in that situation, I knew a lot less than you do about medicine and medicinal plants. Looking back now, it’s a little horrifying how little I knew. When it was a choice between doing nothing and letting my friend die or trying to do something, though, I tried to do something.”

“Did it work?”

“It did. I got a little bit lucky and found a few plants that helped a lot. After that, though, I decided that I wouldn’t need to get lucky that way again. I really could have killed her with the plants I used.”

“Like I said, I don’t think I’d want to do that.”

“You have one advantage that I didn’t.”

“What’s that?” Sen asked, his curiosity piqued.

“You actually have some idea about what you don’t know.”

Sen laughed a little. “I don’t know anything. That seems strange to say because my brain feels stuffed full. But there’s so much I don’t understand about qi interactions, injuries, and even selecting between plants and minerals to get the best effect.”

“Some of it you’ll learn through experience. Some of you can learn by studying. If you look hard enough, you can usually find someone to teach you some new things about medicine.”

“I can always come back and learn from you.”

Auntie Caihong’s eyes glowed with affection. “I hope you do. In the meantime, though, poor Jaw-Long is ready to explode. He wants his turn.”

“As you say, teacher.”

***

“With the possible exception of a rock held in the hand, the spear may well be the oldest weapon in existence,” said Uncle Kho.

Sen listened attentively as he tried to find the right way to hold the blunted spear in his hands. He’d spent so much time wielding a jian that he’d assumed that learning the spear would come, well, not easy, but a little more naturally. As soon as he’d picked up the weapon, though, that idea vanished from his mind. It was painfully clear to him that he was starting from scratch. The jian felt natural and balanced in his hands. Of course

, he reminded himself, it didn’t start out that way. Sen had worked hard at mastering that weapon. He’d made countless mistakes and been corrected hundreds, if not thousands, of times. He had to resign himself to the idea that this would be the same. Uncle Kho held his own blunted spear in his hand, but Sen was surprised to see the man looking at the weapon like it held every secret in the world. That was true reverence on the man’s face.

Uncle Kho continued, “It’s a surprisingly versatile weapon. You can use it up close, as many a fool learns the hard way. Yet, it provides you with enough reach that you can keep all but the most talented and determined sword wielders out of range, all while you inflict lethal damage. Your attacks can be swift and fierce.”

Uncle Kho snapped the spearhead down in a strike that was so hard and fast it could have split a man in two without losing a bit of momentum.

“Your defense can be languid and graceful.”

The spear moved around Uncle Kho in clean, fluid arcs.

“You can attack from above, below, or the sides.”

The cultivator moved the spear through a series of strikes that flew at an imaginary target from a dozen different angles.

“As with all things, though, true mastery of the spear doesn’t come through overbearing strength or impossible speed. Too much strength, too much speed, and the spear will break. The true heart of the spear, the true heart of mastery for any weapon, is balance. It is knowing when to strike and when to hold back. It is knowing when you must be as hard as steel, and when you must be as flexible as the wind. The way of the spear is the way of balance. If your heart is open, I will show you the way.”

Sen gave Uncle Kho a deep bow. “I will strive to keep my heart open.”

The old cultivator, who looked like he could be one of Sen’s not much older relatives, smiled at him. “I know that Ming treats the jian as if it’s just a weapon, which is strange in someone who uses their blade more as an extension of their cultivation than a martial form. Yet, that is how he sees it.

“I do not separate the two. To me, the spear and cultivation are inextricably, inevitably entwined. I owe most of my advancements to insights I gleaned while wielding this weapon. The good news for you is that I do not expect you to follow that path.”

Sen tried to not let his relief show on his face, but some leaked through. Uncle Kho chuckled to himself. While Sen had experienced the occasional insight while wielding the jian, he didn’t see himself as someone who could drive his advancement that way. At least, he couldn’t as a regular practice. He didn’t expect that the spear would prove any different. Of course, just because the spear wasn’t a direct cultivation aid, it didn’t mean there was no value in the weapon. Sen very much liked the idea of keeping his future opponents at a distance.

Equally important to his mind was finding balance. The desperate need for it was everywhere in cultivation. The constant intake of qi wasn’t just grabbing whatever he could find. He needed to keep the attributed qi in the proper balance for him. If he ever let those bits of attributed qi grow imbalanced, he felt as though everything inside of him was out of step with the world around him. His timing was off. His decisions were off. His very techniques would fail. It went deeper than that, though. He had seen how important balance was with the medicines he learned to make. It wasn’t that things had to be in equal measures. That was a simplistic notion of balance. No, it was that components needed to harmonize with each other and with the injury. They had to balance for a purpose, or nothing would heal. Sen believed that his advancement would come through finding the right set of components and letting them harmonize throughout his existence. If he could do that, he hoped, he could push forward.

Sen bowed again. “If you will lead me to balance, Uncle Kho, I will follow you into the way of the spear.”