Jessica

I stand at the door to the hunter's guild. Blocked by a fearsome adversary.

"May I pass, oh fearsome guardian of the door" I ask with the dignity this opponent deserves.

"Pay the tax or else suffer the consequences" he says with no remorse.

"I would pay but I have nothing to give" I sincerely apologize, giving a deep bow.

"Then pay with your blood foul immortal!" He says pulling his blade, slicing at me with all the ferocity of the earth dragons. I deflect with my hand, his movements far too fast for me to draw my own blade. I hurriedly retreat but he presses the attack. I am only barely able to deflect him each time. Every strike aiming at a weak point, I cannot let a single slice through or else I will surely die. This mighty warrior has me on my toes. I must stay vigilant, this fearsome foe must tire eventually.

The moment the mortal warrior shows signs of exhaustion I strike. Speedily stepping past him with my hand brought down upon his head.

“I hope you will find this defeat sufficient enough payment" I say as I let my cape flutter in the wind. Stepping past, towards my destination.

Robby picks up the bag of candy I set on his head. "Thanks Jessica!" before running off to share it with his friends.

Stoic in my victory I step into the guild proper to find the person I seek already aware of my presence.

"Kasey" I greet the guild mistress with a wide smile. "a pleasure to see you"

"Oh! Jessica, I wasn't expecting to see you so soon." she returns the smile and stands from her desk. I glance at the book she had been reading before I interrupted her.

"I see you're reading the book I recommended." I note.

"Oh? this book?" She asks. A somewhat perplexed look on her face. "You know you recommended it to me nearly twenty years ago, yes? If you weren't an immortal I would wonder how you could remember a detail like that, and honestly shame on you for only recommending it once in passing. This is far too fascinating a read to let me just forget it," she playfully chastises. Wagging her finger like she would at one of her progeny.

"I assumed if it sounded even remotely interesting, you would put it on the list of things Clover talks to you about."

Kasey lets out a little bashful chuckle,like a girl several decades her junior. "Well - ahm - the life of a man where one of his nicknames is ‘the man with ten thousand sons and daughters’ I had to at least keep an eye out for it to see if I would enjoy it. There's always a new corner of history to explore, after all. Though I didn't expect it to be in the same part of history as the Talbrea."

"Tan Ze Ai was an extremely unique figure in history, he simply got overwritten by the more powerful figures of the era. Have you gotten to the land acquisition part of his tale yet?"

She gave a soft chuckle. "Yes, though calling himself ruler over a massive unliveable region is new. I'm hardly surprised the neighboring regions gave it up. All there was to claim was unforgiving mountains and gaseous swamps"

"That was until he did a little unconventional redecorating." I point out. I took a seat next to her and gesture to her making my little joke.

"Ah yes, ‘redecorating’" she adjusts her glasses at the heavily sarcasm in the word and sits across from me. "the mountains into flat land and using them to fill in the swamps. Those regions apparently became some of the most fertile farmland in the region once he was done. I've heard that region is still extremely fertile to this day so I've no reason to disbelieve the assertion."

I chuckle. "I do find the academic debate around him to be half the fun of studying the man, though, despite the overall lack of content on him. Those that choose to study him are rare but everyone who takes part in the study have been known to be very divisive on their positions. Each has their own pet theory and insists everyone else is wrong, an idiot, or both."

"Truly? I never would have figured. What's all the gossip about?"

"It relates to his title, the man with over ten thousand children. Truthfully, for an immortal of that age it’s not exactly unheard of. The reason why it became a name rather than a side-note in Tan Ze Ai’s case is because of how much he based his life around it. He had a harem of thousands of women who were all of a similar to him. Either in appearance or region of origin. This is where the neat part of his discourse comes from- in that book, the author never questions whether he is an immortal… but is he?"

"You don’t think so?" She asks, surprised.

"He might be, he might not be- and that's where the question is, because It’s believed by some that he may have actually been great con-men rather than a great immortal-king.

The argument in favor of him being a mortal focuses on some peculiarities in the contemporary accounts that don’t line up- such as no obvious source to his supposed power. A cultivator has a master to ignite their soul to grow a core. A celestial maintains a hoard. Each immortal has an originand Tan Ze Ai doesn’t easily match up with any of them.

The signs that say he was an immortal don't align. He could have a hoard of wives and children- but he also disappears for decades like a cultivator. Not to forget that celestials *don't* procreate like mortals races, knowing even one step of the celestial reproduction cycle disproves that idea. Even Syl aren't like that, and no writings ever describe him as floral or leafy. However, the achievements attributed to him are not something any normal mortal can just do. Unless he was a Hero, but that would have different tells."

Kasey nodded hard at that last statement. "Yes, no sign of animalistic features or time in the wilds."

I nod and smile at her comment "Exactly, the argument for him being mortal posits that he had so many wives to breed identical sons that would take over for him each generation. The periods of disappearance to return still youthful were meant to present the illusion that he was still the same person. In this he would be a lineage of men and the name an inheritance of power at the cost of individuality. In addition to that if he was truly an immortal of that power he should have been more prevalent. Immortals are rarely so quiet as to sit in their homeland and have children for a thousand years. That part I'm hesitant of, though, considering my own experiences so far with immortality have been fairly quiet comparatively."

"So this book was written by someone of the opinion that he was an immortal of some kind and that it doesn't matter if a few details don’t align. The simplest solution being the most likely in their eyes?"

"Exactly, the primary reason why I gave this book the recommendation is because aside from neglecting to mention the controversy until the last part, it contains the most complete accounting I know of."

"I see, I see. I will need to ask for more recommendations after I am done with this one then, though I suppose you didn't come to simply talk about books, did you?"

"Ah, yes. As it happens I’m actually here to get the mail. I forgot to ask for it with all that duel business during my last visit."

"Oh, right. The mail has not arrived yet. It's been delayed. Likely due to bandits. I heard word that somewhere between here and Centertown they set up camp. A team has been sent out to them with no word as of yet."

"Truly? I wish I knew sooner. I would have removed them myself. Having some foolhardy bandits stopping travelers near our sect is a stain on our honor. Clover ought to be near that region now, I'll send a message her way so she knows they need dealing with."

Kasey tries to protest but I hush her. "I know the guild has their own methods for taking care of bandits but I'm right here. Where are they camped?"

She sighs and jerks a thumb to the south. "Over on the farther side of the half-wood forest I'm told."

"It's been about a decade since the last group set up base there from what I remember. Roughly on time for a reminder that they will not be tolerated here. Besides, Clover should be excited to do something for her mortal paramour" I stick my tongue out and give the guild marm a bow before taking my leave.

I am about to start the run back to the sect with my cargo when I see a fluffy catkin prowling around the village. He does not see me, so I sneak up to him and ruffle the fur between his perky ears.

He meows in surprise and looks up at me. "Ah! Mom!" and gives me a hug. Fluffy and warm and full of love. I would kill for this precious boy.

"What are you doing here? I do not remember you getting a visit approved." I say, scrutinizing the small cat while returning the hug

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

He attempts to shrink away but is thoroughly trapped by my return hug. "Well I um, I didn't expect you to be here and it was just a quick trip for a few supplies so I thought it would be okay and-"

I let go of him to cross my arms and look down. "You left the sect without permission because you did not want to fill out a proper form, you mean?"

"I… um…"

"Cooking duty for a month."

"Nooooo" he cries "I don't wanna be on cooking duty again"

"Should have thought of that before breaking the rules" I pinch one of his fluffy ears and pull him along. He mewls dejectedly but doesn’t resist. "And no slipping in random herbs like you did last time. not even if it’s ‘just a little experiment to see what will happen’. Not this time. to which he slumps further.

"Pleaseeee nooooo"

I shake my head down at the boy as he plays up his sadness, eyes brimming.

"Come on, did you at least finish what you needed in town?"

He collects himself and nods "m'yah" as he lifts up the several bags loaded with various medicinal odds and ends to show me.

I nod ane the lead on the jaunt back to the sect.

"Unfortunately no mail yet. There's been a delay on it"

His ears twitch at the news. "Oh, I nearly forgot about the mail, what what yiffin around"

"Yi Fen you mean"

"That's what I said. He's a funny guy. He has bad opinions on healing arts, but I like him. I wanna touch his beard sometimes. It kinda looks like silk and it smells nice. I wonder if he uses oils on it."

"He was going on about unbalanced chi or something of the sort? I must admit I checked out of that conversation rather early. Your interest in the healing arts is admirable, but the depth of information involved is more than I'm prepared to absorb in most settings."

"M'yeah, healing arts are a touchy matter, as it's more art than science in some ways. Mortal doctors get the luxury of only needing to deal with the flesh, healing magics and abilities get to deal with the soul coming in to bite you in the ass. Sometimes literally or I suppose more accurately it could soul-literally bite you in the soul-ass but that’s neither here nor there!

Point is sometimes he’s wrong, but other times he’s half right and its frustrating. Believing in your methods really does help but its not everything and I have stuff I think I could teach him but he doesn’t listen. Yi Fen's way claims to be backed by a thousand generations of cultivator wisdom and that makes getting him to listen to other approaches rough ya’know?"

"So um. Backtracking a little, how did you say the soul causes problems?"

"Hmm, well the soul in a mortal isn't that strong, but with immortals it's powerful enough to cause an effect outside itself. You kinda need to finesse the soul into letting you work on it basically. An unwilling soul is impossible to heal.

Yi fen's way of thinking, in one way, is great since most people think it works and so it helps them better and gets through that finessing no problem. But whoever taught it built in some frankly bizarre maladies too! Yi fen is so convinced he can cough the wrong way and damage his fucking meridians, that I’ve seen his soul tie itself up in knots till the effect he expects manifests!" Tommy says, punctuating his tirade by punching an innocent and law abiding tree. Splintering it without mercy.

"You don't normally explain it like this Tommy. usually it’s more tirades of excessively nuanced jargon and incomprehensible diagrams that I trust you have the right of."

"Oh! That's just one of the ways I finesse the soul. Nothing’s more likely to cause issues than just telling a patient straight out that they need to believe or their medicine won’t work well. Don’t get me wrong It’ll still have some effect but a lack of belief or worse active resistance can tank its efficacy and ruin your ability to heal them in future.. There are nearly as many healing ways as there are practitioners but the one universal necessity is trust. A healer you don’t trust can’t do much to help you and its hard to change that once its gone. Aside from there there are some actual limits to keep in mind for different arts though nothing super relevant to a non-specialized healer like yourself. Oh! That reminds me actually. You know Ludi right?"

"In an academic capacity, yes? mostly as a supplement to my historical fascination."

"Okay, so could you help me make sense of something he said during our debate? It was something about how ‘the snake can still catch the cicada’, but It was so out of nowhere that I didn't get it at all. He tried to explain it as something like "diseases are not impossible to avoid, even for immortals" but it was really weird."

"Ah, I believe he was referring to a theme phrase. Those are phrases used in Ludi notation. A game of Ludi is much more than a simple logic competition. In longer form Ludi ideas are cross referenced and then sometimes left to the side for a long stretch of play only to come back suddenly. These phrases indicate the web of relations between those ideas in the game.

In this one he is probably using more traditional cultivator notation. So the snake is a symbol for evil or death. The cicada is a symbol for immortality. I believe the loose idea he was trying to express with that is that while a snake (death) doesn't go out of its way to strike at cicadas (immortals), it isn't incapable of doing so. I would need to know the specific debate in question to guess at what nuance he is trying to express there though"

Tommy makes a frown. A cute squint of the eyes and puffing out of his tail fur. "So he was trying to talk philosophy in a discussion on medicine. It's not wrong I guess but he coulda taken the time to explain it better rather than acting all cool and mysterious. I mean we were talking about cultivation diseases. Which do exist but they don't need to be built into the philosophy of ones healing arts-"

The trip then diverged rapidly into Tommy elaborating on the differences between both medical disciplines. I took mental notes this time, though occasionally his jargon got too thick for even me to parse out. At some points it just feels like he took a couple handfuls of cultivation terms and mixed them with a generous spice of medical terminology for flavor. The topic of conversation and tommy’s absolute focus upon it is, as always, rather endearing to me. I am as such the first of us to notice Tommy's be-bearded rival waiting for us by the sect’s gates.

"Yi Fen, we were just talking about you" I shout to him as we approach, alerting tommy.

"Were you? Nothing too scathing I should hope."

"Nothing of the sort, it was actually about that discussion you had with Tommy the other week. He had asked me to elaborate on some Ludi jargon you threw his way since he was unfamiliar with the game "

"Oh, and you are D'eon?" He asked with an eyebrow raised. "I would love to engage in a round or two with you, I haven't found any fellow minds to prod here."

I give a noncommittal shrug "I don't really play the game so much as study it alongside my other academic interests"

"A shame, though perhaps at least something could be done to show tommy here? If he understood the basics of the game in motion it might facilitate further discussions."

I look to the cat boy and see his eyes sparkling with interest, his tail swaying gently.

"Sure, I don't see why I couldn't help give him some pointers. Do you have your own set? Mine is in the storage so it may take a minute for me to procure"

"I have a set with me, I didn't expect to play with another person but I do enjoy a game against myself on occasion. I doubt I'll get the same challenge as I'd expect from a member of the (Yi's sect) though. You've only had yourself for practice after all. Regardless, I look forward to our match with great anticipation."

I hold back an irritated twitch of the eyebrow. I thought I left this sort of petty egging on behind when I left the court. Where in the world is this coming from? This is hardly a matter to get competitive about. It's not overt but for someone like yi fen it's practically throwing down a glove. How, childish. . . It's so sudden that I must collect myself for a second despite my outward calm.

"A match sometime this next week should be acceptable. I do have a rather tight schedule set for myself, you must understand. As an acting sect leader I don't have much time set aside for games. Some personal cultivation time to show you a few things shouldn't take long, though. I hope you understand." For the first time in a while, with disgust, I feel my face trying to twitch into that insincere smiling mask I haven't had cause to use in so long. I wouldn't be the first disciple of a sect if I couldn't walk the walk. All the same, I'll have to peruse some past matches, really give him a showing he won't forget.

"Of course, whenever is most convenient for you. My spare time is yours." Yi says.

I bow to the group and dismiss myself, off to my chambers, putting the conversation out of mind. I can worry about that exchange later, the message for clover is far more important than my desire to rub Yi's face in it. The placement of my quarters being nearly equidistant to everywhere else in the sect so I am never far from it/ Though I do wish my chambers were just a little closer to Clover's. If nothing else than ease of access while doing my own work, not to mention how I enjoy her company even after all these years.

The office itself is an ideal one for my uses. Enough room to pace in large circles when in contemplation. Plenty of storage for my eclectic collection of books and unfinished projects. A few in progress, a few shelved due to time and shifting priorities, ready to pick back up and continue should the interest take me once more. A new project in an attempt at making my own magic cards on one desk, my enchanting table with its delicate quartz well full of crystal ink. Neatly sorted piles of paperwork kept out for easy reference.

The communication stones I am seeking are in the top drawer of my desk, in their cubby on the bottom left, exactly where I left them. I could go to clover myself, or perhaps just remove the bandits myself. Perhaps a day or two if I run. They were supposed to take this trip slow … but no, Clover can handle a simple bandit camp. This one thing I will entrust to her, and better that I not disturb her time away, surely after a century spent together she would appreciate some space. Perhaps I should reconsider that thought of wanting housing next to hers. The distance may be of some help.

Something about the thought is painful. When I attempt to understand her she pushes me away. We train together but the connection is never perfect. Perhaps distrust? Perhaps some part of her that she simply hasn’t seen fit to show me?.

Of course she would remain guarded, expect this all to fail, how could she not. Not when I'm like this beneath it all. She knows it. She gives me support but how far does it go really. She clearly knows I've reached my limits. All the stories say that a cultivators path is never easy. Who am i to say she is not in some way… tired of me. That she will surpass me one day not too far off and move on. I see no way forward and I can't bear the strain upon my soul.

Why does my chest clench so at this thought? She is a dear companion whom I have shared my life with but I did not feel the same sadness when Ten parted ways. Curse the dragons for making me this way.

I clench my chest tight, forcing the thoughts back down where they like to hide and opening the drawer to grab a rounded shard of communication jade. I feed my qi into it and begin to form the mental image of a map, familiar landmarks spread before me I place a note within it, a location and a mission with my well wishes, before giving the jade Clover's qi signature to follow. A wild and untamed will. A spicy smoky scent. Playful and teasing. With… something else beneath it all. I shake my head and let the jade go, hovering in place unsupported. The coin sized fragment lights up, then shoots out the open window like an arrow in search of its target.

I stop and take a deep breath. Next is… to deliver mail, yes. Clover will take care of things, and I have a sect to run in the mean time. I am the master of my emotions, not their slave.