The next day, students Fai Deng and Kai Thai of the Waiting Tiger Sect noticed something strange as they walked the grand courtyard before Master Longhua's chambers.

"That statue over there," Fai Deng inquired. "Is it new?"

His companion wondered over the inspect the thing – for it was indeed an intricate, if rather crude, replica of a monk in the common meditation pose of the Eternal Dragon: leg's crossed, hands together allowing the thumbs to touch, the tips of the toes to press themselves gently together to allow Qi to flow through the body's channels organically. In truth, the statue seemed the very picture of peace.

But when he made to touch the thing, it's eyes flew open to bathe him in an otherworldly sapphire light.

Kai Thai stumbled back as he realized his mistake.

"That's no statue, Fai," he told his friend. "It's a Cog."

"Ah!" Fai replied. "So, this is where the blundering bag of bolts has been hiding. Why are you sitting here in the rain, man of stone? Doesn't your kind rust and die when the heavens weep?"

The Cog said nothing. It simply closed its eyes and returned to its silent meditation, its limbs repositioning themselves so that they resembled an exact replica of Master Longhua's style.

"You should have the decency to speak when spoken to, machi-"

Kai Thai pulled at his friend's sleeve to calm his growing anger.

"Let's leave him be," he said. "Remember the teachings of Master Chun: the lion's claw does not strike at the wounded doe. In doing so, he expends energy that would better be served in feeding his family. Let us attend to our stomachs my brother, and let the machine man be a statue!"

"I doubt this man of stone even knows the concept of hunger," Deng replied, but he followed his friend towards the communal canteen for some food while the rains continued to pelt down upon the dry earth of the monastery, and the silent form of XJ-V who sat there, motionless.

Ironically, the Cog agreed with the sentiments of the young man who had quoted his Master. He too was a patient creature. In his memory banks he recalled some meagre droppings of his creator's words of advice – one of them being that the old Masters of Cultivation Sects often wished to see their Disciples show initiative to prove themselves worthy of being taught. XJ-V recognized this when Longhua threw him out in the rain. He had not wanted a pupil who seemed so brash and arrogant as to presume he could simply be taught by demanding an answer to a persistent, frustrating question. Instead, XJ-V would make the Master take him on by exercising one of the Eternal Dragon Sect's greatest virtues: patience and endurance.

You have no patience. No control. And no idea of what it is to suffer in this world as we mortals do. Until you understand such things, the world of the spirit will always be closed to you.

That is what the old Master had said. XJ-V's memory was crystal clear on that. At first he had grit his mechanized teeth in consternation when Longhua had so cruelly discarded him. How could the Master upon this high mountain know the suffering of those people who languished out there in the wasteland, in the ruins of the old Dynasties, where marauders, bandits, evil spirits and rival armies made constant war upon each other and the innocents who were caught in between? Had he ever been out there himself? Had he ever been to Shala-Tor where the rain is the color of blood? Or to Xi'Maan where the marketplaces were gilded with gold for only the rich and wealthy? Had he heard of the Divine Order that had made it its mission to banish all technology from the world?

XJ-V shuddered at that last thought, and spared a moment to look at the wiring visible on his skeletal hand.

No, he thought. This was not the right attitude. The ways of the Master's Sect had to be obeyed. If he showed that he could obey them without question, the Master would surely take him on as a Disciple.

And so he sat before the chamber of Longhua in the rain, feeling his metallic skin crisp and rust with each passing minute as the heavens cried harder. If the Master wanted to see patience and suffering, he would see it every time he opened his doors to this dying world.

…

On the fifth day since the Cog had begun his vigil, Feng Lung was busy gardening in the monastery rice paddies when he was suddenly seized by a spirit of mischief.

He looked from his toils to the meditating machine still sitting before Master Longhua's chamber.

I must understand what it is he thinks he is doing, the young Disciple said to himself.

He wandered over to the robot and looked down at the creature's rusting form, seeing the patches of copper that had begun to gnaw away at his grey skin.

When the robot opened his eyes, he regarded Feng Lung silently.

"Cog," the Disciple said. "What is it you are doing here?"

The Cog answered calmly, again closing his eyes and reassuming his meditating posture.

"I am meditating," he said.

Feng Lung stifled a laugh. Meditating? How could this machine's mind take in the mysteries of the universe? How could he balance his core, or strengthen his Ego. How could Qi flow through one who did not have a spirit?"

Not wishing to appear rude, Feng Lung simply coughed and asked, "Cog, my name is Feng Lung."

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The machine did not stir.

"I – it is customary to respond to a name being given with a name in return," Feng Lung stuttered, trying to sound as much like his Master as possible.

The Cog responded without opening his eyes. "This unit is designated XJ-V."

Designated… Feng-Lung mused. It even talks like a machine.

"You should say 'My name is XJ-V'."

One neon eyeball shot open.

"This is how humans speak," Feng Lung explained.

The robot's eye flickered. "I am not human."

"And yet you come here where there are only humans and expect to be treated like one," Feng Lung said with a little mischievous laugh. "Is it any wonder the Disciples are afraid of you?"

The Cog, for the first time in five days, began to look around and notice his surroundings, seeing the colorful Sakura blossoms that lined the courtyard and the apprehensive forms of the Disciples of each Sect who moved from place to place through the monastery, most of them casting bewildered or bemused looks his way.

"The lion does not heed the opinions of the fleas," XJ-V replied cooly.

Feng-Lung was taken aback. The words were taken from the teachings of Ming'Bao. His was a dangerous philosophy to follow - one of pushing against the world, not living with it, and one the heretical leaders of the so-called Divine Order of the Wastes had popularized in recent years. How the Cog knew these words, much less their meaning, was anyone's guess. But one thing was certain: he clearly did not know that they were words born of arrogance. Words that would buy him no respect, here.

Feng-Lung decided to change the subject.

"What do you know of Cultivation, XJ-V?"

The Cog straightened his back and fixed both his eyes on Feng Lung, now.

"In this realm," he began. "There are six known stages of Cultivation.

Corporeal Tempering

Mental Mastery

Core Regulation

Anima Banishment

Ego Integration

Soul Actualization

Each stage is subdivided into nine sub-stages or 'ranks' which focus on building the flow of Qi within the body, channeling this source of Divine energy and harnessing it in battle or in contemplation of the Universal Dao. It is believed that the most potent of all Cultivators can even break through the Sixth Stage of Soul Actualization and achieve immortality, or ascend to the realm of the spirits themselves, thereby adding their own essence and knowledge cultivated in life to the Universal Dao."

Feng-Lung listened to the Cog rattle-off these words with unblinking eyes. When he finished, the young Disciple rocked back on his sandals, and whistled.

"You speak like you have already trained in the arts for decades," he said. "Why come here at all?"

The Cog's shoulder shifted. "I do not know the ways these things are learned."

In the face of Feng Lung's blinking eyes, XJ-V elaborated, "My creator installed much knowledge into my memory banks, but not the ways to unlock these secrets. It is like being shown many doors but being given no keys to open them."

Feng-Lung nodded. "You know the words of the art and the names of its stages, but you do not understand them."

XJ-V winced at the statement. But he could not correct the young Disciple.

"I see now why Master Longua rejected you," he said. "In a sense, you are like a blind man. You must be guided down the right path."

The young Disciple sat across from XJ-V, who at first interpreted the movement of the man as an attack. Slowly he relaxed as the Disciple sighed.

"But perhaps the path of the Cultivator is not for you?"

XJ-V bristled. Why was this young man sitting with him? He was distracting him from his mission, and now the other Disciples were beginning to point and laugh at them both.

"This is the path I must take," he replied. "I must know the answer to my question."

"Which is what?"

"Does this chest contain a soul?"

Feng-Lung rocked back again, sucking in air through his mouth and stroking his chiseled, thin jaw.

"…I have often asked myself the same question."

The way the Disciple muttered this to the sky instead of to XJ-V made the latter stutter abruptly.

"But you are a human," he said confusedly.

Feng Lung smiled and crossed his legs, slowly assuming the meditation pose of the Eternal Dragon.

"Well," he said, ignoring the question implicit in the Cog's statement. "If you are going to be as stubborn as a rock, you should at least learn to meditate like one. Look here," he reached for the Cog's hands and rearranged them so the metal fingers locked perfectly together. Then he quickly moved XJ-V's claw-like feet so that his long nails intertwined so it was difficult to see where one leg began and another ended. He sat back after this, shone a smile of satisfaction at the Cog, then stood up and dusted his robe off.

"Now you look like a true Disciple of the Eternal Dragon, XJ-V," he said. "Even if the Master will never accept you, you can at least look good when you fail."

The young man chuckled as he walked away, waving goodbye to the machine-man who stared after him. The rain continued to pelt down on his head, and as XJ-V watched Feng dry himself off from the entrance to one of the monastery communes, he felt surprised to find a smile forming on his lips.

"I will prove you wrong, Feng-Lung," he said, bowing his head and closing his eyes again. "Just wait and see."