The courtyard of the sect seemed small as people gathered, all watching from the outskirts, as those who were going to enter the Mid-Summer cave were waiting.
Dozens of people came out of seclusion, a hide-tide for their cultivation to enter. Others ran back to their caves, with the best excuse they could come up with to wait a “Few more years to enter the Secret Realm” when they were “Fully Prepared”. At the end of all the posturing, only twenty to twenty-five people were gathered to enter. More than one group was still undecided, walking into the crowd, then back out.
Hao waited at the back of the group with his eyes closed. He didn’t dare to open them. He wasn’t sure he would be able to contain himself. Not at the moment. It was better to think deeply and breathe slowly until he was in the Secret Realm, where the Sect could not exercise its influence and rules.
The crowd gathered just after the morning wind blew over the sect. Hao was not among the first but had been there for close to an hour before the disciple’s escorts arrived. There was a greeting from those around, “Greetings, Seventh Elder. Greetings Mission Hall Leader.”
They came floating down from the sky, it was the style of those with the power too. It instilled an awe and respect beyond what you could give a normal person, even a king. Even Hao, in his current mood, felt obliged to, at the very least, look up at them.
He knew the face of the one but not the name, the other he had never seen before, but based on the words of his fellow disciples; He was the leader of the mission hall, like Taoyi was of the servants halls, and Tuzai of the food halls.
It would be better if he didn’t recognize me. Hao turned his head to the side as the Seventh Elder lowered. He didn’t want unnecessary attention. His plate was already full of the things he needed to do in the cave world. A second plate was stacked up when he thought of dealing with Mo Bangcai and his hunting group. If he was recognized by fellow disciples too, as the hateful islander who snuck into the sect with unjust means, he would have a third plate to carry and only two hands to carry them.
“Mm, it’s not a bad number. Most disciples speak of their intentions to enter the Mid-summer cave, then never go in. You were like that one Mission Hall leader.” The Seventh Elder chuckled. He had no intention of hiding his contempt for the weaker Cultivator and his direct subordinate.
The Mission Hall leader smiles as he looks over the Seventh Elder, the two of them getting closer to the ground. “Haha, indeed, that was a long time ago. But I must hear the Seventh Elder’s great feats in the Secret Realms of the South if he has a chance to tell them. There is a reason the Seventh Elder is in charge of all the few Upper-Peak missions while I handle the larger Lower-Peak portion of disciples.” He said, hiding all the ill intentions of his words. His words nearly sounded like praise.
Hao turned his head in curiosity, able to hear their words in the sky. The Mission Hall elder was younger, yet not as smug as the grayed man next to him. Both wore their blue robes, the color of the Sect, both decorated in regality compared to the robes of those below them. And just for a second, the two smiled at each other.
The face of the Seventh Elder sunk, his white beard seemed to shrink and back lean forward, but before the words could settle into the rest of the group below he made a large gesture with his hands. There was a torrent of wind, a second one that morning, as light flew out in a streak from his sleeve. A small boat which the Seventh Elder threw began to grow before the disciple’s eyes. Hao’s eyes were torn between the boat and the fluctuations of energy from the old man. Then the boat lifted to float higher and stay in the air.
A flying boat? Who knew a flying boat could look so shabby…
The boat floated three people high in the air. It was large, and still expanding, enough to carry fifty people on its planks of long rotten wood. Dust covered the entire thing. It threw off clouds in puffs and drifted to one side.
“All…” The seventh elder was interrupted. The boats started to shake under its own weight, the last of the dust coming off fast. A few runes of writing were revealed beneath. Scrawled along the strange symbols, letters Hao could not recognize at all. A mix of swirling and angled lettering fixed in dozens of patterns, from the railing to the bottom of the hull.
“Well. All of you board, the day is passing as you stand there.” The Seventh Elder spoke fast. His fingers reaching up under his mustache to pull down on his own face. “Go help them…” he began rubbing his eyes.
The Mission Hall leader showed people who could not fly how to board, while the Seventh Elder found the two of them a seat.
The entire experience was boggling, Hao felt some wonder in what seemed like another moment that took no time at all, seeming to last an hour. His sense of wonder was already dulled by his mood, which took further damage after boarding the ship.
When everyone was on the vessel, it shot straight up. The weight of the upward travel started pulling nearly everyone to the deck face-to-plank. Hao felt his brain rock, and his stomach turn, growing even more dizzy when forced himself back up. The sudden launch forward was the same, not as bad as the lift up, but more than one person found their backs flat and the sky above them.
Hao managed to stay on his feet by grabbing onto the side, but that was not all. He felt the urge to satisfy his curiosity and reached outside the range of the hull. If immortals are secret, how do they keep a flying ship from the eyes of the Mortals? It was a valid thought, no mortals, not even the martial artist that dragged him from the Islander knew of the Immortals on the mountain, just the legends of them. There were exceptions, of course, but it seemed like a general rule.
He stretched his head out, beyond the railing scope to peek at the sights below, he could see even from the height the etched lettering glowing below like the essence of the blue moons was used for ink. Then the wind struck him. Outside the railing, the wind moved as the ship traveled against it, the air nearly peeling his hair off his head, the mud on his face from digging a grave ripping off in flakes.
He had to pull his head, finding himself on his back like the others were before. Inside the hull, he found the place as windless as before. The Elders? Or the ship itself, the engravings on its hull? He thought, wondering the power of the Old men and the Runes, there was too much to the world he had yet to know, and no one to teach him.
Safe from the wind never meant you were safe from the people, as people can be as harsh as the world, as they are part of it. He got a few points and laughs from those who fell themselves far before him.
“Look, there is one of the sect’s beggars over there…”
“Grasping at straws in the Secret Realm is better than waiting to die. He is better than most of the rest that hides when the opportunity arrives.”
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Beggar?
“Is it fair to call him a beggar? He is just one of the poor people in the sect, everyone knows that the mid-summer cave is a turning point for many. Think about the fortune we may leave with,” they laughed.
Hao flipped his legs around as they talked, getting into a lotus position. He did not mind the laughs, instead, he found himself relieved, he worried that he would be recognized by his hair, but that was not a concern any longer. He was not sure why; Then he looked down at himself, his hands and robes and hair, seeing the mud and was covered in. He wanted to chuckle himself, thank the ground for giving him a disguise.
So, he forgot their words, and them, as they forgot him, and in his posture, he sunk deep into his mind. He did not find the place where the emptiness lay, as he needed to adjust to the boat in its movements before he could find a decent state for practice. His practice did not last long when he got there as the boat was too fast for any trip to be considered ‘long’ relative to the mortal meaning, which was all Hao knew.
And as the boat slowed, he had to look one last time beyond the edge of the hull. With the boat lowering, he stood with haste, stretching his neck to peer at the world beyond his Island, cave, or firepit.
He looked down from on high as they lowered the boat, and could see far beyond what he imagined was possible, an unthinkable sight when the ocean surrounded him on all sides. Trees spread far and tall, but that was bland to the question of the gully directly below. As if a giant spade, the size of the heavens itself, came down to rip up a chunk of land, and threw it far beyond the influence of human eyes. A valley made by a severing swipe cast in colors and layers of stone, red and brown. A tear in the mountains and the landscapes stretching far off, until it fell off the world into the salt of oceans below. But the Ocean was not shy and claimed what it could, and climbed. Crystalline salt built higher spires far below that glowed under the sun just enough to be shown to the sky where Hao was looking from.
But he did not look long as he saw something more. Even more than the decimation on the world beyond his mind. Two more boats flying high in the sky. Far more regal than the one which rode with its dusty broken rune cover boards. And a blue flag that seemed weak in the wind.
There were similarities: each had runes on their keel to stem, along each side and edge, with the same blue glow. But that did not matter as much as the stark differences. Larger, cleaner one had a sail of white fur with their sect’s name—Blue Moons Mountain—and an image of three moons painted on. Another of a similar shape followed just behind the largest one. It had a similar shape, but was markedly smaller, coated in yellows and letters that read out ‘Two Rivers Fortress’.
Once the boat lowered, floating just an incense length from the ground, a bridge was lowered, “All of get down, remember you are representing the Drifting Stream Sect, not just yourselves.” The Seventh Elder whispered while floating overhead, landing at the front of the first to get on land.
As the groups gathered on the ground, disciples greeted opposing disciples, making contemptuous faces for people in different colored robes. The Elders leading the groups on the other side floated high side by side. There was a leader among them, with influence outside of her own group of disciples. An older woman, in light blue robes and silver robes like the disciples that walk below her. The only difference between her and her disciple is she was not holding anyone’s hand or embracing the person next to her.
“Is it just the three of our Sects this time?” She said, floating down to the Seventh Elder. Other Elders followed her, one young man running up to her back. Two wrinkled men in yellow robes made clear they were behind her while keeping a distance.
“You had quite the year, Drifting Stream, and right before this opening of the Cave. I would say you’re fortunate, but… Perhaps it was just rumors.” She said, flipping her hair and hand in the air, a big smile as she glanced to the side.
The Seventh Elder stepped forward, knocking dust off his shoulder and scratching his brow. “Yan Hua Liao, it hasn’t been that long. I can see you’re doing well, You have chosen another young man to raise up. The Disciples of the Blue Moons Mountain are fortunate they have such a generous Elder willing to take in boys with five percent of her lived experience, he is twenty-five… then… thirty?”
Hao turned his head away, ignoring most of their words as their conversation turned to a squabble of jokes from sour faces. He was more interested in the area around still. It would have been entirely desolate, an empty valley if the boats were not in the sky. There was a sapling or two trying to grow and trees beyond the ridgeline.
He wanted to go forward and look down the cliff drop, where the land had collapsed into the water. Where is this cave? Hao thought. But his thoughts were dashed when he heard a boom, a loud voice from one of the older men behind this Yan Hua Liao.
“Well Now! The Famed Elder of the Blue Moons Mountain has me curious, what fortunes have happened in the Drifting Stream all at once?” He said, letting the oversized saber on his back drag along the ground as he walked forward, his voice reaching a new height with each word. Every turn of his hairless head showed how spotless he was, not a single scar, just a gruff voice to bark with.
“Do you really not know?” Hau Liao exaggerated her expression as much as she could, showing she had more wrinkles than the skin she wore could hide.
She raised her hands high, “From what I hear, the Bone-Shaking bell rang for the first time in the sect for at least a generation. And on that very same day, Guo… Ah, I forget his name. The First Elder of the Drifting Stream took a disciple on the same day. A different person. Two great talents joining the Sect on the same day. Momentous.”
“Indeed, a great fortune, but…” A second man from Two Rivers Fort stepped forward, their eyes scanning over the disciples of the Drifting Stream. “I am sorry to say, Lady Elder, I cannot see such a rumor being true.”
They were not a great group of actors, but they were having fun with their act all the same. The one least entrained was the Seventh Elder. His head was lifted more and more as his face sank into his beard, staring down at the three in the act from the bridge of his nose. Their show continued.
“Two fair Elders, Two Rivers Fort is a close ally, you do not need to be so formal out here. But… I can see what you mean. I cannot see these two great talents, so I have to believe it is just a rumor. All I can see is the bastard child of that boy named Mo. They even brought a beggar along.” She said, rubbing her hands together.
Hao wondered if she was targeting him because he was going after easy targets or if she knew that she landed two nails on the head. Right now, I’m just a beggar, after all. He thanks the dirt in his hair again.
“Enough! Jests aside, we are your allies as well, instead of courtesy, you throw dirt and insults in our faces?” The Seventh Elder shouted, he grew red, remembering his position but he was rightful in his anger and he knew it.
“Indeed, we are allies, and I would show nothing but respect if Meng Naixu was still at the head of your Sect. But know this ‘Seventh Elder of the Drifting Stream Sect’ and share it with those two that sit in your hall’s largest chairs. Your Sect has a bad record weighting on it due to events under one hundred years ago, poor rumors linger, but if they are false, they turn to dust in time. Poor truths last forever. I will never trust anyone on your Elder’s council with your Sect’s leader position.” Hau Liao said, managing to deliver her lines with grace, even if they were a little stiff.
The Seventh Elder leaned forward towards her, “You do not decide. A good thing, as not even your Sect Master would heed your council, as your words are dirt, something even the rats that crawl beneath your bed now,” he said, readjusting his robe as he turned, walking away from her.
The Drifting Stream Sect got further away from the other Sects groups. Any conversations left to be had were shouted and far from friendly. Most of the time was sat in silence.
For the first time since the morning winds blew, Hao looked up, truly, at the surrounding people. The only reason he was able to bear looking at Mo Bangcai was thanks to the face he was making. A ghost, swallowed by his own fear.
“Let’s Begin!” Yan Hua Liao shouted, her overreaching over the entire valley.