Chin and I sat around a table in his house, a small platter of food spread out between us. The food contained some crab and fish, but mainly it was bread, noodles, and fruits. Chin ate across from me, silently munching on a piece of flatbread and an apple, and I helped myself to the noodles and crab. Chin’s wife always made the best noodles and crab; hell half of the reason I helped Chin was to eat his wife’s cooking.
A small butterfly-sized phoenix flew before me, flirting around the air before disappearing out of the window and into the woods. All of the beasts had taken my offer, and a lot of them had applied the body-shrinking technique I had given them. It had no real consequences to their abilities and could be undone at any minute, but it did make this valley larger for them.
Though a few of them had taken to hanging out near the villagers. I even saw some miniature lions chasing some rats around like a house cats. I didn't know what that was about, but it was interesting to watch them meld with the common folks.
"Hey, Chin, what do you guys know about that cultivator coming in?"
"We don’t know much. The other village only said that he was quiet and well-mannered for the most part, but he might not be coming in at all with the rainy season coming through. Probably better for him to wait a couple of weeks and just cross the desert then."
I reached over the table and grabbed half a loaf of bread.
Lightmasters were the people in charge of communicating from one village to another, and with the threat that cultivators could bring to the common man, they had to warn other villages of approaching cultivators and their temperament.
"He won’t do that," I said, munching down on the piece of bread. "No scion is going to waste two weeks of their time just to avoid crossing the desert. In fact, he’s already crossing the desert right now."
Chin frowned.
"Well, hopefully, he won’t want to stay here for too long, we already have enough cultivators sitting around as it is."
“You made me till five thousand acres yesterday,” I replied.
“Could’ve done six thousand if you were quicker.”
"Isn’t five thousand enough?"
“For now," Chin replied as he grabbed some bread himself. “But I hope the man leaves soon.”
"Why’s that?" I asked him.
“I’m going to have to watch the children when he comes by. Medin says that I’m just as much of a problem as the kids are and that I really shouldn’t be there to meet him."
"Sounds like a sound decision," I replied.
Chin just frowned and turned his attention to his food.
Medin was Chin’s wife, and probably the only person who could strong-arm the bastard into any decision. Chin Chin was the type to run his mouth, even in the most dangerous of times. His whole bloodline had been like that but he had been the worst of them all.
And sect cultivators were utterly different from those wandering merchant clans that came by every rainy season. Most of those guys were lucky mortals who had found a cultivation manual or were blessed enough to be taught a cultivation method at some point by a wandering cultivator. And out of those that were lucky enough to be given such a gift, most of them didn’t have the talent to push past the second rank.
So they wandered from village to village, crossing vast distances and selling unique goods in different regions, or fighting spirit beasts that troubled mortals for a certain price. They were a little prideful, but they were nothing like sect cultivators. Sect cultivators were egotistical beyond reason, and insulting them meant death more often than not. They weren’t born of the common folk, they were born with the pride of cultivators and because of that, they were feared.
"Ah well, the cultivator will be here by sundown," I said as I finished up my meal. "So you should probably go and gather the children and hold steady for a couple of days.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Chin grumbled like an old man with an upset stomach, and then he went out and into the village to gather the kids before that cultivator came along. The sects didn't care to find out what the mortals thought of them. They knew they were feared and respected, and to most of them, that was enough. But that fear and ‘respect’ had been born out of a rather dark place.
Children had been killed before, slaughtered right in front of their mother’s eyes. It was usually because the child might have said something somewhat disrespectful, or the parent refused the cultivator’s advances. It was horrible but it was true, and on some of the worse occasions, the child would simply be taken. It wasn’t just the children either, right now, as Chin was gathering the children, the good-looking men and women would be busy getting themselves dirty or hiding out in their houses until the cultivators left. It was overkill. I hadn’t let a cultivator like that ever enter the village. Even when I left the realm, I put Gauntlet in charge of watching over the villagers, just in case. But these practices were more traditional than logical at this point. They had been done for so long that their practical benefits were hidden by their symbolic ones.
If you asked the villagers why they did it, they would say it was because growing children ate up ambient qi, and the cultivator would starve if there were children close to them. They would tell you they hid their good-looking men and women because their beauty would shake a cultivator’s Dao and drag them from the path of righteousness.
As the sun started to touch the horizon, I escorted myself to the inn, the place where the cultivator would most likely end up spending the night, and then I waited.
The cultivator’s entrance wasn’t grand, but it was a little attention-grabbing. The boy walked up to the village wearing his simple robe, with his sword by his side. He looked like a cultivator, but I doubt he knew that. I used to walk around looking like him, thinking I looked just like any other mortal, but it was obvious from the other side.
The poise, the walk, the sword, the clothes. The man walked in like he owned the place and his posture was regal, king-like even. And no one wore a sword at their waist, not in this village. And the clothes, no commoner had clothes that clean. Everyone worked every day, either in the fields or in their trade. Only the light masters had clean clothes and even then their hands would be stained with ink from all the writing they had to do.
I watched the man strut over to the inn, avoiding any eye contact with the villagers before he sat himself down and asked for a drink. The inn was another thing every single village needed, even a village like this one, which was months away from any actual roads or other villages. This building was useless every single day of the year, except for the one day you might have to put a sect cultivator in there, then it was clean and occupied, with a full-time innkeeper there and ready to help.
The boy walked through the front door and took a seat at one of the nicer tables. My whole need for creating a sect had nothing to do with resources or wanting something from the locals. I needed to declare myself a sect so that these random cultivators wouldn’t just pass through my territory unannounced. This was the most delicate time for the array, I couldn’t risk anyone finding out about it right now, so I would flex my cosmic muscles a little and these kids would go off and play somewhere else.
That was the plan anyway. I could also just brute force it and block any cultivators from entering the land. But again, that would draw attention to me, and while no one here was an active threat, I knew that at least half of the major sects and clans on this planet had their tie-ins to the higher realms, and the celestial sects weren’t above sending one of their more powerful down here to reap whatever benefits they could, I knew that for certain.
"Hey there!" I said, yelling across the room. The cultivator either didn’t hear me or didn’t think I was talking to him because he didn’t respond.
"Hello, you with the sword, can I talk to you for a moment?"
The cultivator turned, his body stiff with anger.
"I will not give you my table, I was here first. If you want a table, go get your own table, now leave me be."
Ah, I see. It was a misunderstanding and a completely reasonable one too. Lone cultivators and restaurants didn’t mix well for the most part. They were a dangerous place for these guys.
"Oh no, I wanted to talk to you for a moment, is all. See I was thinking about heading out to the sects to tell them this but, I figured it’d be much easier to pass the message on to you. I’d like to create a sect.”
The kid looked at me as if I was looney.
"Oh, right. Payment. I can’t just tell you to do something without recompense," I said, reaching into my robes and pulling out a small pouch.
"Here, twenty-third-grade spirit stones. This oughta cover your trip back."
The kid moved his gaze from me to the bag, and then back to me. He looked deep into my eyes and spoke.
"Old man, I do not know what other cultivators might have put your village through, but this is not the way to resolve it."
"What?"
"It's no use," the kid replied shaking his head.
"I know that this world can be cruel to mortals, and truly, for that you have my sympathy. But cultivators can sense one another, I know when one walks near me and I can tell that you are not that."
"Look, kid-"
"You cannot declare yourself a Sect without having the strength to do so, and even if these were real third-grade spirit stones? Would you be able to fight off the mounds of demonic path cultivators that would come to steal your fortune? Would you be able to prove yourself to the sects that would push on the edge of your territory to test your power? No, old man, in a million different worlds you would have been killed for your insolence, but you are lucky in this one. Take your pebbles and go."