Unintended Cultivator

V13 Chapter 51 – It’s As Simple As That?

“Were you successful?” asked Falling Leaf.

Sen shrugged with one shoulder and said, “I succeeded in replenishing some of my qi reserves. As for anything else, only time will tell.”

She gave him a quizzical look.

“I may have made some progress in understanding the first technique in the Shadow Gate manual,” he hedged.

It was true, as far as it went. When it became clear that stillness would keep eluding him, he’d summoned the manual as a way to pass the time. While his understanding of the technique was still primitive, Sen thought he understood how it was supposed to work. He even had some thoughts about how to make it work. At first, he’d thought that the technique somehow bypassed the in-between space that he used to shadow walk. There was no mention of it in the manual, so it had been a natural assumption. Now, though, he was pretty sure it had been a wrong assumption. Or, rather, it had been a partially wrong assumption.

Sen was increasingly certain that the person who wrote the Shadow Gate manual had been a cultivation genius. That meant that what they had written was complete to their knowledge. The reality was that they had created a technique that they didn’t fully understand. They had intuitively done something and never recognized what it was. In this case, they had figured out a way to skip the intermediate step of physically moving through the in-between space that Sen thought of as shadow walking. To them, it had no doubt seemed like they simply moved from one shadow to another. What they were actually doing was connecting the shadows through that in-between space.

Their own qi functioned as a bridge between the two shadows. Of course, if the technique had always worked that way for them, they’d never have experienced that truly unnerving in-between space. It truly would have felt like they simply stepped into one shadow and out of the other. They were still using that other place, though. They just hadn’t ever known they were doing it. What Sen was less certain about was why the transition felt instant to them. He knew it had to be something about the connection, but he doubted he’d understand until he experienced it. And maybe not even then.

There was also the challenge of connecting the shadows. The creator of the technique had done it intuitively. Sen would have to work out a method to consciously replicate that intuitive process. He just wasn’t in a rush to experiment with it because it would mean spending time in that in-between space. Something he was never in a rush to do because it was so unnerving to be there. The fear he’d experienced after his first trip was long gone, but it was never going to be a comfortable place to visit. He also didn’t feel like he could take the time to experiment. Not after secluding himself for days. Restoring some of his qi reserves had been a necessity for the war. Experimenting with a new technique would just be for his own satisfaction.

Falling Leaf asked, “Is that good? You don’t seem happy about it.”

“I am happy about the progress. It will probably be very useful someday. I was just hoping for different insights,” he said.

“I see,” said Falling Leaf, apparently content to accept that answer.

“Do you know where Xu Xiao Dan is?” asked Sen. “I’m sure the army is ready to move now. But I need to ask him a few things before I give the final order.”

“The throne room,” said the ghost panther. “At least, that’s where he usually is.”

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“I wonder why,” muttered Sen.

No sooner had he said it than he realized his original question was the answer to why. So people can find him, thought Sen. With me in seclusion, a lot of people would have taken their questions to him. It wasn’t like the kingdom came to a halt just because Sen wasn’t available. That meant that there would be questions that would need answers, or problems that needed tentative solutions. Even with Gao Kangrui serving as the nominal governor, it wasn’t like the young man knew Sen well enough to guess what his choices would be. That would leave Xu Xiao Dan with the thankless task of providing answers or, minimally, best guesses about what Sen would expect from everyone.

“I guess that’s where we’re going,” said Sen, setting off in that direction.

He watched Falling Leaf from the corner of his eye for a short while before he broke the silence.

“What do you think of all of this? The war? The empire?” he asked.

It wasn’t the first time they’d talked about parts of what they were doing, but he couldn’t remember ever asking what she thought of it in general. She appeared to think it over before she shrugged.

“It’s necessary.”

“That’s it? I always worried that you might have misgivings or feel some guilt about all of this.”

“No,” she answered, looking more confused than anything.

“I see,” said Sen.

She studied him for a few moments before she spoke again.

“Spirit beasts are different than human beings. You all think of yourselves as human beings. That means something to you. I don’t understand it, but I don’t really need to understand it. It means that, when pushed hard enough, you act together. Spirit beasts don’t think of ourselves as spirit beasts. I think of myself only as a ghost panther. I’m not loyal to the rest. They would never be loyal to me in normal circumstances. We might tolerate each other or ignore each other, but we wouldn’t act together. They aren’t loyal to each other, even if it might look like they are. All of them acting as a group isn’t natural. The Beast King has forced peace and cooperation on them. They didn’t choose it. If not for him, some of them would be making war on each other. Instead, he pushes them to make war on you. As long as they choose that path, I will fight them.”

“It’s as simple as that?” he asked.

“Are things with humans simple?” she asked.

“No. They are not simple.”

He got her point, though. She had many reasons for the things she was doing, but he’d talked in generalities. The war. The empire. She might well have misgivings in a specific situation with a specific spirit beast, but she wasn’t conflicted about the war as a whole. Nor did she have any particular reason to be conflicted. No more than any human confronted with soldiers from a different country. Sen wasn’t making war on ghost panthers, after all. At least, he wasn’t outside of Boulder’s Shadow. He supposed he should be grateful that she was of a steady heart about all of it. He would still have done it even if she’d expressed doubt. That being said, the entire war would have been profoundly more difficult if she’d been opposed to it.

It was also entirely possible that she didn’t approve of the empire because of what it was costing him, personally. But that didn’t mean she had any particular feelings about the empire itself. Why would she? He could give her titles, authority, and money, but she didn’t care about those things. So, for her, the empire was just one more inexplicable human thing that only affected her insofar as it affected the people she cared about. If anything, she probably believed he was putting too much effort and concern into it. She might even be right in some ways, he thought. His fixation on it was a distraction. Unfortunately, he understood the very real consequences of not giving it sufficient thought and attention.

“Knowledge is a shackle sometimes,” he complained to no one in particular.

Falling Leaf might have asked him what he meant, but that was when they arrived at the throne room. Sen smoothed his expression to better fit what people expected from Emperor Lu. The guards offered him deep bows and opened the doors. Sen very nearly lost that neutral expression when he saw the ghost panther pull an entire roasted duck out of a storage ring. She saw him looking at her.

“You’ll be busy talking. So, I’ll eat,” she said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

He wondered if maybe she had the right of it.