For the next five days straight, XJ-V remained locked in training with his Master.
Those Disciples who saw him emerge from the Dragonpyre Hearth whispered of how the Cog was possessed by a very new fire in these days. Many put it down to his determination to win the tournament – gawking and murmuring that a taste of the outside world had made him long for the Wastelands again now that he held the powers of the Dao in his steel hands. Some of the novice Temperers gossiped that he would return to the wastes to lead a new army of Cogs, or shepherd those of his kind who remained towards the great monasteries at the four corners of Qingua’s old empire.
There were only three cultivators who balked at such stories, telling the tale-spinners to spend less time gossiping like schoolgirls and more time training for the tournament that was to come the very next week.
One of them was Feng-Lung, explaining how he and his friend had successfully repelled a leader of the Divine Order with their own hands. Their battle was the first in recorded history where a man of steel fought beside one of flesh as one, and Feng, despite his reservations, unwittingly entered into the realm of myth with his friend. To the Cultivators of Ramor-Tai, young Feng was simply enamored with XJ-V. Stranger things happened in the mists of the Dao.
Of course, their whispers stopped whenever Feng-Lung entered the courtyards where they peddled their tales. The boy was a Rank 4 now, after all, and clearly had Longhua’s favored pupil in his pocket. The monks knew when not to risk a battle.
Yet another warrior who defended against XJ-V’s unjust entry into the annals of legend was the Waiting Tiger Fai-Deng. Now completely restored in the eyes of his Sect, Fai had risen to the heights of Rank 7 almost overnight. Master Yoma-Dur even allowed him to train the newest Disciples that came to the doors of the monastery and showed the correct alignment of Anima. But his characteristic wrath was not altogether stilled. It was, after all, a staple of his own Animus. To his students whispering tales of the metal Brother that walked among them, he reserved most of his fury nowadays.
“You look at a machine that has soared through our ranks and waver in your Gi’s!” he yelled at them one day within the sacred training halls of Symmachus. “Look at yourselves in the mirrors of this great hall! You will see pitiful children shaking back at you. If a Cog of the Dragon can push through the mists of the Dao and come out unscathed, then why do you stop and stumble on your path like pups? This is the only place XJ-V should hold in your mind. Let him be your motivation, not your childish, wishful fancy!”
Such students, thus rebuked, tended not to share rumors of the Cog-man again.
The last Disciple that rejected XJ-V’s passage into the annals of history was Mah-Jung of the Eternal-Dragon. Almost serene in his calm meditations these days, Mah-Jung would often listen to the tales spun by his fellow Disciples with unhindered silence. He would listen to them talk of the Cog’s skills in battle, and his defeat of the evil one called ‘Sheloth’ who had been blessed by the old dead God of humankind himself and yet still failed to destroy the machine made by man. He would listen with the patience of an old, forgotten saint, and only when the heads of such chatty Disciples turned towards him in the monastery courtyards or spots of seclusion would he smile at them.
Something in his smile stopped the Disciples from saying any more. It was not fear that influenced them, but a sense of respect. Mah-Jung had remained at Rank 9 in Corporeal Tempering for at least six months now, biding his time in the tournament that had the capacity to change his destiny forever.
Every Brother in the walls of Ramor-Tai knew how much he wanted to walk with Ori’un – to be a hero that could set the wasteland right. They knew, but only the bravest Temperers dared to venture to ask what Mah-Jung thought about his chances when he came, as all knew he would, to blows with the Cog in the tourney of Aun’El.
At such questions, Mah-Jung would only smile.
“There can be only one victor written in the threads of the Dao,” he would say. “In its judgment shall I trust. Always.”
When he returned to his meditations, his smile never slipped.
And then there was one ‘member’ of the monastery that threw herself so deeply behind the legend of XJ-V that the Disciples could swear she had become the Cog’s personal propagandizer these days.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“XJ-V is a God, don’t you know?” she would often say as she scurried around the training Disciples’ feet. “And Arha is his chosen spirit. You all oughta be nicer to Arha from now on, boys. There’s gonna be reeeeeal big trouble if you do her wrong.”
…
“Good. Again!”
XJ-V channeled another Dragon’s Tooth, feeling the flame travel through his newly restored arm and fly from his mailed fist.
Master Longhua sidestepped the strike and redirected it right back at the Cog, the machine-man watching unblinkingly as his own power arced right back toward him.
He plunged his fist into the ground and focused, seeing lines of power appear in the stone floor of the Hearth, feeling the power at his chest pulse with life that he now knew he had to keep controlled, contained.
Except for in those moments when he fed off that power, and used it to funnel the energies of the Dao.
It was with such energies that he looked up to behold a pillar of flame shooting up around him, bathing him in a protective infernal coating that completely nullified the returning Dragon’s Tooth.
He kept his stance up, fists raised, feet slowly moving with Longhua as the old man smiled to see his student keep up his track record of learning quickly.
“A decent employment of the Infernal Pillar,” he said. “An intermediate defensive Earth-Level technique, but one that shall serve you far better than the rudimentary Dragontail Strike. Know that your opponents – spirits and humans both – could employ the harnessed energies of the Dao against you in waves to try and wear you down. When they do, use this to show them that you are no base novice, now.”
XJ-V smiled back at his Master, admitting that Longhua’s constant pushing in these last few days in the lead up to the tournament were both a great motivator to improve his skills and keep his mind off the revelations his Dao-visions had shown him.
But even as he delved deeper into the more powerful Earth-Level techniques of the Dragon, his mind could not help but wonder in the wake of the knowledge he, for now, was keeping to himself.
“Soul Actualization would mean adding Yuwa’s essence to the Dao,” XJ-V said as he paced, keeping in-step with his Master. “Is it certain that this would kill him?”
“Certain?” Longhua scoffed. “Nothing is certain in the Dao. But it is where the felled Brothers of Yuwa lay. It is the graveyard of the old Gods, and it is our best chance at ensuring Yuwa does not return to this mortal realm.”
“Is that even possible, Master? The Divine Order’s purpose is to accomplish Yuwa’s restoration. Could the High Eagle have found a way to resurrect a God?”
“There are things whispered on the winds about that man,” Longhua said as he redirected another strike, and then sent two more of his own powerful fireballs hurtling towards his student. “Things that defy the very concept of truth. I am not so old and feeble as to believe something I have not seen with my own eyes. What I can see is a student that must be taught. These eyes have always had a particular skill in finding those.
“What matters is that the fool believes he can bring a God back to this world,” Longhua continued as he stepped back and watched XJ-V repel all his attacks with another well-timed Pillar. “Such belief is more dangerous than the object of its veneration.”
“It is such belief that has given him an army,” XJ-V said warily. “An army that shall seek me out wherever I go.”
“That is why you must be ready,” Longhua agreed. “You will never reach Soul Actualization by sequestering yourself in one monastery alone. You must travel beyond our borders, seek out my Brothers, and add their knowledge to your arsenal. That is why Aun’El’s tournament was truly called. That is why you must be the one to prevail.”
XJ-V faced his Master’s next spinning Dervish strikes with shaky, but firm, hands. Through the fires of the great warrior’s attacks, he could see the vigor in the old man’s face. It was accompanied by wrinkles of uncertainty.
“You could not simply let me go?” XJ-V asked. “Does my presence here not put you all in danger?”
“Every student’s presence here is a danger,” Longhua replied as he cut through the Cog’s defenses and surged forward. “Every day we cultivate, gathering strength, those of the Order skulk about in the barren fields of the wastes, turning brother against brother, whispering lies that feed the people’s hatred for our order. But the Dragon does not concern himself with the opinions of sheep.”
XJ-V managed to catch his Master’s sleeve after tanking blow after blow in his torso, the light within him burning again but receding as he focused his energy on his hands. He could do it – he could control that light. Every drop of power he gained from the Dao was helping him.
“Regardless,” the Master continued as he slipped effortlessly out of his student’s grip. “You have yet to even land a blow against me. Until such time, I shall not be convinced that you could survive out there as you are. I shall not risk throwing a promising warrior into the dirt of the wastes and risk being called a careless teacher. Already we risked losing you to that fiend in Tenak. We shall not risk this again.”
XJ-V smiled at that, seeing his Master come at him again, knowing Longhua was using not even a quarter of the power contained in his deceptively aged frame.
But then again, no one knew better than XJ-V just how much power could be concealed from one’s eyes.
***
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