Unintended Cultivator

V13 Chapter 29 – I Wish I Knew

Nodding his agreement, Sen left the forge and went outside into the courtyard. He cleared his mind as well as he could, assumed a stance, and began working through the sword forms he knew. There was something reassuring about going through those familiar motions and routines. Knowing them so well made it easier for Sen to adjust to the new swords. He wasn’t sure how Master Feng had done it, but the length of the swords was virtually identical to the last pair. That also made it easier to adjust. By the time he’d worked through the last form he knew, he felt like he understood the blades a little better. There was just one problem.

“I can see that you haven’t been lazy about practicing,” observed Master Feng. “You’re still missing some of the nuance, but it’s not like you’ve had centuries to really digest all of those lessons.”

Sen bowed and said, “Thank you, Master.”

“So, what’s wrong? You’ve had that look on your face for hours.”

“What look?”

“The look that says that something you can’t figure out is bothering you. I’ve seen it often enough to recognize it.”

Sen sighed and said, “I have an intuition that I’m supposed to do something that will, for lack of a better word, complete these swords.”

Master Feng frowned at that. He studied Sen. Then, he studied the swords in Sen’s hands.

“Complete them?” muttered the elder cultivator. “I wonder what that’s supposed to mean. Those blades should be perfect, or as close as I can come. I didn’t take any shortcuts with them.”

Sen shook his head.

“I don’t think that it’s a problem with what you did. I get the impression that this is something that I have to do because only

I can do it. I just don’t know what that could be.”“Well, while you’re figuring it out, why don’t you try out that technique of yours?”

A moment later, black lightning with a purple hue burst into life around the swords. Sen could instantly feel the difference. The way his qi and killing intent suffused the swords and combined was as smooth as flowing water. The resistance he’d always assumed was just part of the process was gone. Moving forward, channeling Heavens’ Rebuke through the swords would not only be deadlier, but it would be faster. That would be a potentially life-saving advantage on the battlefield. He couldn’t be happier about that. Even so, the nagging sensation was even more insistent now. Sen tried to imagine what he could provide that would change anything.

A few memories surfaced then. There had been a few times when something strange had happened when he’d used the technique. It seemed almost too obvious, and also potentially catastrophic. Yet, that nagging sensation seemed to amplify with the idea. I really hope that I don’t destroy Master Feng’s hard work, thought Sen. He turned his attention inward, to where those oddly helix-shaped ribbons of energy floated inside of him. Once, they’d orbited his dantian. Later, they’d orbited his core, condensing qi to help fill it. Now, they were almost like his core, at least in position. He studied the one that was made up of lots of different kinds of qi.

Before he could second-guess his decision, he plucked two incredibly fine threads of that ribbon. He directed one thread into each sword. Sen held his breath as the threads seemed to race around inside the blades, moving faster and faster. The swords started to glow.

“What are you doing?” asked an alarmed Master Feng.

“I wish I knew,” said Sen.

The glow of the swords intensified more and more until even Sen had to look away. He had to resist the urge to throw the blades away from him. The prospect of having them explode in his hands was chilling. A sudden boom of thunder drew Sen’s eyes skyward. Thick, black clouds were forming faster than even Sen could track. It was just like a tribulation, except it wasn’t directed at him. Certain that something terrible was about to occur, Sen tried to drop the swords. His hands refused to follow that mental command. Instead, Sen felt like something else pushed aside everything that made him him. Rather than discard the weapons, Sen could only watch as his arms lifted those blinding blades skyward.

This story originates from NovelBin. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He felt, rather than saw, the lightning crash down. He expected that divine wrath to pass directly through the swords and into him. He was overjoyed but baffled when that didn’t happen. It was as if the swords had simply absorbed that force. That the weapons had survived at all was shocking. More lightning descended, filled with both divine qi and divine fury. Again, he was spared any damage, but he could have sworn he felt the very metal of the swords shudder in pain. There was a brief reprieve, but Sen could sense the gathering force overhead. He tried to claw back control of his own body. If nothing else, he could probably divert some of that divine lightning. It was useless. Whatever had stepped in to control him, Sen felt like a child trying to wrest candy from the grip of an adult.

The reprieve came to an end. A final expression of the heavens’ displeasure descended toward the swords. The lightning connected, and Sen was certain the blades couldn’t survive it. There was a sound, a kind of muted shrieking that came from both swords. It rose in pitch until Sen concluded that the metal would truly shatter. He mentally braced himself for it since there was nothing else that he could do. The sound seemed to reach some peak. Sen could feel the swords shaking in his hands, as if they were trying to both break and not break at the same time. Almost too slowly to be recognizable at first, the shaking lessened, and the shriek of the metal diminished. The process sped up. When it was clear that the swords weren’t going to destroy themselves and take him with them, the force that had pushed Sen aside vanished.

With the danger apparently gone, Sen waited as the swords calmed and the blinding glow vanished. He studied what had been made from the combination of Master Feng’s work, Sen’s strange threads of qi, and the inexplicable tribulation for, of all things, swords. While the shape and weight of the blades remained the same, the rest of their appearance didn’t. That deep, dark blue was still there, but the blades looked wet, and there was an iridescent sheen to them that hadn’t been there before.

That wasn’t the only change. The blades were consuming environmental qi much faster now. Fast enough that any nascent soul cultivator and most core cultivators would probably notice if they were paying attention. Most importantly, Sen could see the blades in his spiritual sense. They didn’t appear the way a person or spirit beast would. They were more muted than that. But that they appeared at all was troubling. Yes, the shadow constructs he made were visible in his spiritual sense, but they all had cores. It made sense that something with a core would show up there. These were swords. They didn’t have cores. Sen finally did what he’d been avoiding up until now. He looked over at Master Feng. The man was glaring at him.

“Let me guess,” said the elder cultivator. “That didn’t go quite the way you expected.”

Sen offered his teacher an embarrassed smile and said, “No. I guess it didn’t.”

Master Feng looked at him hard before throwing his hands into the air.

“You didn’t even have an expectation, did you? You just did something because you thought it felt right?”

“No?” asked Sen, averting his gaze.

The elder cultivator covered his eyes with a hand. Sen couldn’t be certain, but he got the impression that his teacher was deciding how angry to be.

“Sen,” said Master Feng in a tightly controlled voice. “One of these times, you’re going to do something like that, and the universe isn’t going to smile on you. Given the level of power you work with now, that isn’t going to be bad. It will be fatal. If you’re lucky, it will only be fatal for you.”

That chastisement drained the sheepishness right out of Sen and replaced it with shame. He had done something foolish and dangerous. Worse, he’d done it with Master Feng mere feet away, and a city of fragile mortals right outside the walls. If things had gone badly, he could have accidentally injured or killed a gut-wrenching number of people. While he knew that he was powerful now, he didn’t feel that much different from when he’d been a foundation formation cultivator. Back then, if he tried something unorthodox, the only person likely to be hurt was him. That wasn’t true anymore, but he frequently acted like it was still true. Sen did something he hadn’t done in a while and offered Master Feng a deep bow.

“I wasn’t thinking about the potential consequences,” admitted Sen. “I will be more mindful in the future.”

Master Feng was quiet for several moments before he sighed.

“I can only be so angry about it. We all treat you like you’re a cultivator with centuries of experience because you’re a nascent soul now. Unfortunately, power isn’t the same as experience. It isn’t fair for me to expect you to evaluate your actions as though you’ve done everything most nascent soul cultivators have done. It also makes things more dangerous for you. We’re all likely to forget to warn you about things we should warn you about. It means you need to be especially vigilant about considering outcomes.”

It was a sobering warning. One that Sen vowed to keep fresh in his mind. While he often thought badly of sect cultivators for behaving in ways he found irresponsible, what he’d done today was no better. In fact, it was worse because he should have known better. He would do his best not to repeat that mistake. Master Feng must have seen the resolve on Sen’s face, because he waved a hand dismissively.

“That’s enough about that. I think there’s a more pressing conversation we need to have about what just happened.”

“I hope that means that you know what just happened, because I don’t,” said Sen.