XJ-V stared into the pale face of Ori’un, struck by the light of the low-hanging moon that threw its shadow across him.
“I am the one who killed Feng-Lung’s mother”, he said.
XJ-V searched his memory banks, recalling how Feng had always spoken of his mother in past tense, avoiding when the Cog had probed him further. He could remember, plain as the pale light of the moon tonight, that the boy’s features had often turned from fond nostalgia to an expression of pain when his life before Ramor-Tai was brought up.
“I did not think Master Longhua would train a murderer,” the Cog said.
The Planewalker’s dry smile did not drop. He kept his powerful hand outstretched to the Cog, offering him his gift of ‘sight’ – whatever that meant.
Was it similar, perhaps, to Arha’s power?
“You think highly of the old man,” Ori’un said. “Every Cultivator that walks these grounds could dispatch whole squads of Wasteland bandits – perhaps even more – without much thought.”
“But we do not,” XJ-V pointed out. “The Path of the Cultivator is one of balance – one of peace.”
“And therein lies the problem,” the Planeswalker replied.
He leaned close to the Cog and whispered his next words as the moon rose high above the monastery.
“’There can be no tranquility without destruction. There can be no peace without the death of the ignorant. Only from the ashes of a ruined world can a beauty grow anew.’”
XJ-V cocked his eyes at the Planeswalker, wondering at the quote.
“Think, XJ-V,” Ori’un said. “Does you Cog mind know who said these words?”
XJ-V pondered the words, felt the ring of familiarity about them, and then shook his head.
“The Prophet Ai-Lee,” Ori’un then told him. “The first Master of the Eternal Dragon.”
XJ-V stood now, looking at the darkness overcoming the pale Planewalker’s crescent moon tattoo. He knew each and every sermon and scripture attributed to the Prophet – his Creator had drilled them into his mind. He did not remember much of his old home – what a human might describe as his ‘childhood’ - but he knew that his Creator had drilled the sacred words of the Eternal Dragon into his memory banks even if he didn’t understand them. He had done this, XJ-V was sure, to give the Cog an edge when he came before Master Longhua.
But the words that the Planeswalker had quoted to him were nowhere in his banks, search as he might.
“I can see the confusion even in your metal features,” Ori’un said. “You wonder why such words have been kept from you, as have a great many things.”
He dropped his hand and walked towards the edge of the library roof, letting the chill winds flutter the frayed edges of his overcoat.
“Every Disciple here is stuck in a routine that they know not how to break from,” he said, staring at the dim lights flickering within the communes, and the Brothers bidding eachother good night, or patrolling the streets with the blazing crimson lanterns of the nights watchmen.
“They follow one path they believe is set for them – the path of the Cultivator belonging to only a single Sect. Dragon or Tiger here, Bending Reed in the West, Twintailed Snake in the East, Waning Moon of the North…all men wearing the label of Cultivator believe they have the right of it – that their Sect is the best ‘fit’ due to the predisposition of their Animus.
But have you never pondered the truth of this, XJ-V?” the Planeswalker continued, still staring out at the bundle of dwindling souls meandering around the courtyard below. “I suppose not – for all the Masters say the job is the Cultivator is never to dispute. They are to walk the Dao, to train, to grow in strength. But why? Why take the untold power of the infinite and simply hold it within you? It is like taking the power of fire and keeping it from those who shiver themselves to death outside the walls of your home.”
He heaved another sigh that forced XJ-V to stand beside him and look down on the colored Gis of the Disciples as they moved around, being struck by how Ori’un really saw them: as aimless. And as blind.
“The truth of a Cultivator is this,” he said. “We know only as much, or as little, as our Masters wish us to know. Then, in time, we become as they are – attached to the stones beneath their waiting feet, shackled to the Earth to guide other, fresh novices to do the same. Fonts for power that shall never be employed. Candles burning, burning, but providing no warmth for anyone.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“You are saying it would be better if we were all like you,” XJ-V said. “Walkers of this earth. Wanderers who go from Sect to Sect, taking what they can and using it for their own desires.”
“Is destroying evil a selfish desire, XJ-V?” Ori’un asked. “Is banishing the wicked to spare the lives of the many the will of a despot, or a tyrant?”
“It will keep you from ever finding your way to the final Rank of Soul Actualization,” the Cog said, remembering that the end result of all Cultivation was to join oneself with the infinite cosmos of the Dao. To give freely ones knowledge to those who would come after, and to live forever in the peaceful realm that was once the heavens.
And so the Planeswalker’s answer, delivered with absolute seriousness, was that much more difficult for the Cog to understand.
“I do not want immortality,” he said. “My world is here. It is the place where I live and breathe. It is the space I share with all men and women of flesh, blood, and steel like you. In seeing it, I have come to love it. Even with all its faults. Even seeing the worst that waits for us out there, still…I love it, XJ-V. I really do.”
The Planeswalker gave a stretch, as though trying to reach out to grasp at the moon itself, like a young dreamer seeking the heavens and yet knowing, in truth, that he could never truly get there.
“But I shall not force you to understand my words,” he said. “I am not like Master Longhua. The old man may be a slave to his precious Dao, but he has made his peace with his lot in life. He will live here, and he will die here. The same need not be said for you.”
XJ-V felt a chill run through his systems that had nothing at all to do with the winds sailing through the night sky.
“I make my offer to you,” he said. “As an Anima Banisher, I have the ability to let you see into the depths of my own Ego – to allow you to peer into my past and gaze deep at sights I once saw and actions I once committed – so you can judge for yourself which path you would like to follow: The path of your Masters here, one of certainty, one where you might manage to taste of immortality after eons of meditation in the dying sun of the Wastes, or the path that awaits you at the end of the tournament that is to come in two weeks. My path.”
He waited for the Cog to answer without turning once. When no answer was forthcoming, he decided to hedge his bets on a final gambit:
“I know you are afraid,” he said gravely. “Of yourself, of what you believe you must become, and of what I wish to show you. I cannot promise what you will see will be a pretty sight. But it will show you a Cultivator committing an act of murder. This, you must see, before you can judge if you would do the same. Maybe your answer will give you the guidance you want right now. Then again, maybe it-“
Ori’un stopped as he felt a hand colder than any he had ever touched before fly to grab his arm – exactly at the place where a blade of the Order had cleaved him.
He looked down to see the Cog’s hand practically shaking as it lay upon his skin.
“Show me,” XJ-V said.
The Planeswalker smiled as casually as a youth might who is about to welcome his mate into a secret treehouse far from the prying eyes of adults.
“Hold on,” he told XJ-V. “This may cause a slight stinging sensation…”
…
A cold winter tundra stretched before XJ-V. He looked around him, seeing Mount Ramor in the distance high above him, and feeling his body surge with such powerful reserves of Qi that for a moment his mind went completely blank.
He wiped his eyes and then felt his body move without his input, turning back to shout at a young boy – couldn’t be more than fifteen years old – trudging behind him in the snow-capped mountain pass that led to the monastery.
“Don’t tarry, Feng!” he heard himself say. “Or there won’t be any good meat left for us!”
“That – that is not a funny joke, Ori’un!” the boy squeaked back, slipping and skidding across the thin sheet of ice that lined the base of the mountain.
XJ-V felt his soul lurch as he recognized the boy – his shaven head, mousy face, and freckled cheeks betraying him to be his old friend true enough.
And then he remembered where he was, and what he was doing here.
Comfy, XJ-V? he heard a voice inside his mind chuckle. How’s my old body feel? I swear I’ve lost weight since.
He felt his hands move with the grace of a dancer and direct a flow of Qi towards Feng-Lung’s slipping body, breaking apart the ice and sending small wave of water to catch the Disciple and bring him to a stop just before his feet.
“That’s your one freebie, kid!” his voice – the voice of what he now knew to be Ori’un’s past self – laughed.
“I do not need any help!” Feng-Lung replied brashly. “I even told Longhua that I could do this by myself!”
The boy walked off, trudging through the snow, looking like he was about ready to die of frostbite already.
What is this? XJ-V asked the future Ori’un within his mind. Where are we?
What’s it look like? He responded. We’re at the base of Mt Ramor, ready to administer Feng-Lung’s combat trial so he can enter the 4th stage of Corporeal Tempering.
XJ-V’s souls stiffened as the body he was attached to in the past began to move, keeping a watchful eye on young Feng as they made their way towards the snowcapped roofs of a village in the distance.
Combat trial…He recalled Mah-Jung’s previous points about how each Disciple had to be taken outside the monastery to face some challenge to prove their worth – to prove that they could both control their earthly desires and act appropriately in the face of grave peril.
So, what is he hunting? XJ-V asked
He felt pity on the boy as he watched him trudge through the snow, and knew this pity was shared by the body of Ori’un he was now inhabiting as the Planeswalker of the future gave him his answer:
What most of the newbloods fight to test their mettle, he said gravely. Aoyin. The Flesh-Eaters.
###
If you are enjoying Cog Cultivator, consider supporting the story on Patreon to read + 10 advanced chapters