novelraw Book 12: Chapter 52: Carrying A Continent On Your Back
Book 12: Chapter 52: Carrying A Continent On Your Back
Book 12: Chapter 52: Carrying A Continent On Your BackThe next week was a trial of tedium for Sen. When he wasn’t training Chou Dai Lu, he was checking on the progress toward the feeding, housing, and education of the homeless children of Emperor’s Bay. That was generally followed by a visit to the local nobles to explain that their most recent attempts to undermine or profit from that effort had just taken them one step closer to a mass summary execution. When he got done with that, he usually found himself trapped in meetings with the mortal generals or representatives from the army’s cultivators. The generals, at least, had legitimate questions about their next steps. A few even made useful suggestions for how to maintain a presence in and retain some control of Emperor’s Bay.
The cultivators were a different story. They just wanted to air their complaints directly to him. Sen’s recent cultivator conscripts needed to be managed, but none of them could be recruited since they were sworn to his service. That forced the cultivators who had come with him from the capital to actually put in some work. Their complaints generally boiled down to them not wanting to do that. He found himself less-than-sympathetic to their plight. He was doing a bunch of things he didn’t want to be doing. They could suffer with him, as far as he was concerned.
He kept trying to foist those meetings off onto other people. It didn’t seem to help. No matter how much work he delegated, he was never able to escape it completely. Not that it was entirely terrible. Yue Shui’s endless, innocent curiosity and often bombastic retelling of prosaic events were something of a balm to him. It wasn’t the same as seeing AI, but it served as a reminder of better things. Yet, even that was bittersweet. She’d made it clear that she wanted to come with him and the army wherever they were going. He got the feeling that the soldiers would like that too for reasons beyond understanding.
But he couldn’t allow that. For better or worse, he was her guardian now. Letting a child come with the army went so far beyond irresponsibility that he wasn’t sure that was an actual word for it. He would need to find her a home behind sturdy city walls. It wasn’t exactly safety in the world they all found themselves in, but it was safer than traveling with the army. As much as he told himself that he would protect her, he knew that was impossible. One moment of inattention was all it would take. Of course, leaving her behind came with its own risks. She was vulnerable. She could be kidnapped in an attempt to extort him. She could be killed to try to distract him. It would work, too. However, he very much doubted those killers would enjoy the form that distraction took.
He also managed to carve out enough free time to finally make good on his promise to Xu Xiao Dan. Sen had kept putting it off because other things seemed like a higher priority. With everyone taking a brief pause in the city, though, he felt like it was time. It actually took less time than he’d thought it would. The pendant, or rather the stone in the pendant, was a potent wind treasure. It wasn’t pure enough that it could be absorbed directly, even by a nascent soul cultivator. But it could be broken down, purified, and used as the main component in an elixir. It took Sen the better part of a night to actually do the work, but he was waiting when Xu Xiao Dan turned up in the morning to inform him about the day’s waiting irritations.
“Lord Lu—” started the former patriarch.
“I have something for you,” said Sen. “But you and I should exit the city before you attempt to use it.”
Xu Xiao Dan’s eyes locked onto the stone vial sitting on the table by Sen’s hand.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“It is. You’ve been patient about this matter. Far more patient than I’ve come to expect from cultivators,” said Sen, frowning as he stared into the middle distance.Stolen novel; please report.
“We’re not all young masters. Although, I suppose that doesn’t always make a difference.”
Sen refocused on the other man.
“It doesn’t. Still, I’m grateful that you didn’t add to my frustrations. This city has proven more troublesome than I first expected.”
“I expected the sects here to be the problem,” said Xu Xiao Dan. “I didn’t realize that so many of them were well disposed toward you. It hadn’t occurred to me that the mortal government would be the source of so many irritations.”
“I had the same problem in the capital. Cultivators generally stay out of mortal politics, so the nobles seem to think they can keep playing the same games. I expect I’ll be forced to execute a few more of them before we leave. But that’s not a problem for today. Today,” said Sen, grabbing the vial and rising from his chair, “we see if the heavens favor you more than they seem to favor me.”
The pair left the tent, formed qi platforms, and started to fly away from the army camp just outside the walls. Sen noticed Xu Xiao Dan giving him curious looks as they went.
“Yes?”
“You don’t believe the heavens favor you?”
Sen rolled his eyes and said, “Favor is fickle. Too much favor can be even more problematic than not enough favor. It creates problems that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. Or, at the very least, problems you wouldn’t have had for a long time.” ȑâ𝐍Ő𝐛ƐS̩
“I’d never thought about it in quite that way.”
“There’s no reason you should have. It’s not as though it happens all the time,” offered Sen before gesturing down at the ground. “This should be far enough.”
Sen cleared away the snow on the ground with a quick application of wind qi. The men landed on the clear patch of ground. The brown plants beneath them crunched softly as their weight settled. Sen had picked a spot well clear of the city. Far enough that no innocent bystander should be harmed by tribulation lighting if it came. Xu Xiao Dan swiftly divested himself of storage rings and other small treasures he clearly preferred not to be destroyed if the heavens objected to his advancement. Sen deposited those in a pocket before he handed the other nascent soul cultivator the vial.
“I never imagined this day would actually arrive,” whispered Xu Xiao Dan. “I thought my advancement had come to an end. That’s far more bitter as a nascent soul cultivator. You’re so much closer to the peak. Yet, every step forward feels as if you must take it carrying a continent on your back. Then again, that idea must seem strange to you.”
“Not as strange as you might think. I carry my own burdens. Not the same as yours, but I suspect the weight is similar.”
“Perhaps so.”
“Good luck,” said Sen before retreating to what he hoped was a safe distance.
He’d come along to make sure that no stray spirit beasts interfered or took advantage of finding a weakened Xu Xiao Dan. Of course, even after the other man drank the elixir, there was no telling how long it might take or what the results would be. Sen took advancement for granted, but he knew that wasn’t the case for everyone else. Xu Xiao Dan could fail to advance. He might very well die. Even if everything went perfectly, he could still draw a tribulation. So, Sen did the only reasonable thing he could. He summoned a chair from a storage ring, sat down, and took out something he’d been meaning to read for some time. The Shadow Gate manual.
That manual had been sitting in one of his storage rings for years. It had always been just far enough down the list of priorities that he never quite seemed to get to it. After all, Sen knew better than anyone that he was far from true mastery of most of the techniques he knew. There was some benefit to learning new techniques. They could enhance or even evolve one’s understanding of related techniques. However, there was always the distinct possibility of being distracted by something new that offered negligible benefits. That would be time wasted that would have been better spent on mastering techniques he already knew.
Sen suspected that direct experience had already taught him most of what the manual had to offer, but it never hurt to be certain. As he began reading, though, he started to pay more attention. What the manual was suggesting was radically different from what he’d learned. He could see some similar concepts that underpinned the ideas. After all, shadow qi or darkness qi was still the foundation, but he got the sense that this was an entirely different school from what Fu Ruolan and her teacher had been taught. Before he was able to truly grasp any of the deeper truths, the sky darkened overhead.
Glaring upwards, Sen said, “You’re just screwing with me now, aren’t you?”