Waterstrider

Canvas Town, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fifthmonth, 1634 PTS

I had failed in my refinement attempt, but it was unable to impact my mental state. I had been a practitioner of the martial path for decades, and a slight hindrance so early in my efforts would not impact my efforts whatsoever. In fact, it was to be expected. I was not such a genius that progression came so easily to me.

I couldn’t help but be driven to introspection at the thought. My people loved to tell stories about prodigies and geniuses. Those for whom everything came naturally, who learned three things after being taught only one.

There were several types of prodigy. Those who are the greatest in their class, those who are greatest in their city. One could expand the type of genius until one found a legendary genius, greatest in the universe.

My martial sister and I were both geniuses, but while I would normally have been the greatest genius of an entire sect, she was something greater. One would expect me to have grown up with some sort of inferiority complex, but that was not the case.

In my experience, I had found that geniuses like her would rarely ever even reach the spirit refiner level. They were simply too prone to attracting fear and envy over their monstrous potential. This I knew all too well. After all, I was the one who killed her.

The memories cast a dour shadow over my mood. I couldn’t help but wonder if my disciples would turn out the way my master’s had. I hoped not. I had no intention to let my little empire fall apart. If matters put me in that situation, I would have the resolve that he had lacked.

As I finally left the meditation room and made my way through the sect, Rachel appeared before me, a worried look on her face. I frowned.

“Has something happened?” I asked.

“I’ve just had a conversation with the Celan Shade.”

My frown deepened. We had been waiting for news on this matter, and it happened now, at what was likely the very start of a war? It was like this Shade only appeared when times were fraught.

“Did you learn anything?”

“Some. She claims her name is Janottka, which according to my records is indeed the name of one of the Celan Shades. She also implied herself to be the one at fault for the conditions that led to the riots.”

My pace slowed, and I met Rachel’s gaze.

“...I see. That would explain matters. Do you know what her motive was?”

Rachel shook her head.

“All she would talk about is stories and how she was ‘setting the stage’. The details recorded on her are sparse, so I’m not quite sure what her ‘purpose’ is. But whatever it is, she seems to have a lot of interest in the two of us specifically.”

“Doesn’t she just want to kidnap you?” I asked.

“I don’t think so. Or, at least, the way she’s going about it is very strange. Wouldn’t it make far more sense to try and disguise her presence until the moment she strikes? She’s actively revealed herself numerous times already.”

I shrugged. I had insufficient experience to understand most aliens, much less an alien machine.

“I don’t know if we know enough about her to guess. It might be better to just continue to treat her as an enemy. Right now, though, I intend to focus on gaining benefits from the war and continuing to train the disciples.”

“Doesn’t this change anything, though?” she asked.

I gave her a curious look.

“About what?”

There was still a hint of something unsaid, hidden in her eyes.

“The war, Cyrus.”

I gave a noncommittal shrug.

“It hasn’t become a real war, yet. You know the plan. If we’re going to fish in murky waters, it’s best to know where to cast our line. I don’t intend to involve us until one of the forces reaches out to us. I suspect it won’t take too long.”

She paused, and then nodded, a trace of hesitation still on her face.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“...I’m just wondering why you’re still so certain that we should plan to work with the Celans?”

“Why shouldn’t we?”

“We don’t know how much they’re working with Janottka.”

I shrugged.

“If they are, I can’t imagine they’re happy about it. They destroyed the ship bearing their patron’s representative, and now a powerful member of that patron force has arrived, and what’s more, is causing a war that is highly disadvantageous to them. In fact, I find it plausible that her goal is to punish them for their betrayal.”

“I suppose,” she said. “I’ll try to hunt down her traces again, see where her processor is located. There’s little chance she distributed herself around the station so quickly after her arrival.”

I nodded. It wasn’t that I was unworried about the Shade, but more that I felt there was nothing I could do about the matter. This was Rachel’s domain. For once, she would be the one doing the fighting. My job was simply to handle matters within the physical world.

“By the way, how has the training of the other groups of disciples gone?” I asked.

“Fine, overall,” she said. “Orion is a poor teacher, so the manifest disciples are a bit behind, but everyone should be taking in miasma within the next week. The flickering students were the furthest behind, because…” An awkward look filled her face, perhaps embarrassed at her inability to properly teach martial artists. “...But after Jihan brought Mung Seo in, their training speed rapidly increased. It turns out, he’s quite the teacher. Almost as good as Cinto.”

My brow twitched at the name. Cinto had struck me as such a well-reasoned and stable individual, but the longer I knew her, the worse her mental state seemed to me. I couldn’t help but wonder whether she had simply been good at hiding it, or if the fighting had brought back old wounds of some kind.

“Speaking of Cinto, is she alright? She’s been avoiding me.”

“That would be because she doesn’t like you very much, Cyrus,” replied Rachel dryly. It seemed she had rapidly recovered from her earlier anxious mood.

“I don’t particularly care whether she likes me or not. Is her mental state alright, is she doing her job well?”

Rachel shrugged.

“I can’t speak for her mental state. I’ve yet to master your people’s psychology, though she does seem to be more anxious than she used to. Also, she sometimes cries in her room.”

I frowned.

“Did she do that before?”

Rachel pursed her lips.

“Not often, no. I suspect she might be shell-shocked from what happened in the retirement facility.”

“Hmm.”

I pondered the matter, trying to decide what to do. I had seen people with such conditions before, but until now it had never been my problem.

“But she’s doing a good job of training the disciples?”

“She’s thrown herself into it more than ever, in all honesty.”

“It’ll be fine, then. I won’t throw her into battle again in the near future unless I have to.”

“Probably for the best,” agreed Rachel.

We continued walking down the hall before I thought of another question to ask.

“How are the Lee group and the Reth?”

“With my assistance they managed to get up the synthesizer to generate the nutrients the Reth need, so they’re no longer at risk of starving. Jihan and his squad are remaining on standby because they expect you to be giving them another task soon. The Reth also asked if there was anything we needed from them. This war might be a good opportunity to put them to use, though if any of them are injured Jihan might get upset at us.”

I nodded approvingly. This was good news. Jihan’s squad and the Reth were the two most powerful squads under my command. Orion and Ran were still quite useful, but since Kein had been crippled and Cinto was not in a healthy mental state, I couldn’t currently use the palace leaders as a squad. Still, the two of them would almost certainly see battle at some point in the war. I expected our resources to be stretched fairly soon as we tried to use this opportunity as a springboard for our power.

We finally reached the entrance to the training room, and I turned to Rachel, wishing to see if there were any other important matters to discuss. Rather than continue the conversation, Rachel gave me a slight hand wave as her body vanished in an instant. I then turned and entered the room, forcing my mind to switch its focus.

As I entered the training room, I found that my disciples had yet to burn off their excess energy from before. They were talking excitedly to one another, and even Blake appeared more vibrant and responsive than usual. The first to notice my entrance was Lin, who immediately elbowed the laughing Shadowblade and shifted to a more disciplined pose. The rest of the disciples rapidly followed, quelling their emotions to watch me expectantly. I nodded to them as I raised my sword from its sheath, moving into the first stance of the Downpour Sword Art.

“Though not all of you will be learning this art, I will begin by showing you this move again now that you have acquired miasma. You should be able to notice a difference in your perception, able to sense what you could not before.”

I slowly shifted the position of my feet, making sure they could see every small movement as my sword slashed upwards into the second stance. I had allowed miasma to course through the simplest standard pattern of this art, even though the version I actually used was far more powerful, complex, and swift. They would need to learn basics to form a foundation before they could even begin to approach such a level.

“Did you see it?” I asked.

They all had awkward expressions, and I knew they had failed. This was my expectation. Training one’s senses was a process that took time, and it was extremely rare for one to get a grasp on theirs so quickly.

But I felt it was always best to check to see how much of a genius one’s disciples were. Only with a grasp on their talent could a master hope to teach them as best as possible. My own master had taught me that.

Seiyal and Talent: [The martial arts subculture of the Seiyal has an extreme focus on a practitioner’s abilities and talent. Some are born with innate talent that allows them to awaken miasma and soul sense without even being taught, or to instinctively understand certain vital aspects of bodily movement that greatly speed up one’s martial progression. Such geniuses are often heralded as the future of the sect or clan, and their potential exerts pressure on their force’s opponents. After all, the more talented an individual is, the easier it is to reach the high stages of martial arts, past each of the bottlenecks. However, at each successive level, prodigies become rarer and rarer. After all, many reach the limit of their talent and fail to pass a bottleneck, become overconfident in their abilities and accidentally cripple themselves, or, mostly commonly, are slain by both allies and enemies due to how they create jealousy and intimidation in others.]