It took two days for the evacuation order to be rescinded. It only cost Zhao Gang a donation of $2.5 million. The next day they spent moving and settling the children. The students were surprisingly excited to get home. With how lavishly the disciples had spent on their rooms, Zhao Gang had expected them to want to linger.
Once he was certain everything was settled on campus, Zhao Gang headed directly to the school’s main office. Waiting would only invite further issues. As he entered, the secretary greeted him warmly before letting the principal know he was there. In a moment the man came out to greet him personally.
“Headmaster, good to see you. Something I can help you with?” The man wasn’t obsequious, which Zhao Gang quite liked, but rather displayed natural confidence that inspired trust. Rather than accept his invitation to join him in his office, Zhao Gang led the man outside.
“Come, Principal Cartwright. Let's go for a walk. There are some things that you and I need to discuss.” The principal was not a stupid man. He understood that the school wasn’t normal, though beyond the morning martial arts lessons and the afternoon meditations, he’d been able to find nothing that stuck out as either bizarre or sinister. It should be noted that he had quite a bit of confidence in Zhao Gang. The two had spent a fair amount of time getting to know each other before the school opened. He didn’t suspect the Headmaster of doing anything untoward, which was why he hadn’t reported the health issues the students had been having.
They walked for quite a ways, ending up in a field far from the school, before Zhao Gang turned to him, his expression serious. “John, we’ve known each other for a couple of years now. You helped me put this school together. Yet these first months hadn’t gone quite as I’d imagined.”
The principal let out a laugh. “I don’t imagine they have. You know, I know you’ve always held something back regarding this school’s true purpose, but I can’t for the life of me imagine why. Are one of these kids your bastard and you’re using all of this as a ruse to take care of them? Are you trying to expiate some guilt?”
“If only it were so simple,” said Zhao Gang. “I hope it wouldn’t be overstepping the bounds to admit I view you as a friend.”
“Not at all,” said John. “Despite your rather weird customs at times, we aren’t that different. I even admire what you’re doing here, trying to teach these kids about your culture without removing them from their own. I just wish I understood why.”
“That’s why we’ve come out here. I’m going to explain it to you. We’re having this discussion out here because if things go poorly there will be less damage control to do.” Zhao Gang looked John in the eye seriously.
“Is that a threat, Zhao? Are you seriously saying if I don’t go along I won’t be returning from this little walk of ours? And here I thought we were friends.” A flash of fear passed over the Cartwright’s face, but it disappeared quickly into a mask of resolve. He wouldn’t back down, of that Zhao Gang was certain. That was good. If he could convince him of the righteousness of his cause then he would have a staunch ally.
“Not a threat my friend. I simply fear your reaction will be… dramatic. It would be embarrassing for us to make such a scene and, worse, we would have to try to explain it afterward.” Zhao Gang paused a moment before continuing. “I need you to trust me for a few moments. I’m going to tell you the story of why I’m here. While I do, I ask that you hold on to your questions. Once I finish I’ll provide you some proof. Once that’s done I’ll answer any questions you may have. Can I ask at least that much?”
The suspicion on John’s face eased, relaxing into a tense wariness. He looked at Zhao Gang for a long time before he finally nodded. “If all you’re going to do is talk for the time being I don’t mind listening.”
“Sit down. This is going to be a long discussion.” Zhao Gang waved his hand and summoned two chairs from his inter-spatial storage ring. While John stared dumbfounded, Zhao Gang took a seat and waited. Eventually, John got control of himself enough that he reached out and touched the seat as if to verify it was real.
“Where did this come from?” asked John. His whole body was tense as if he was ready to bolt at the slightest sign of danger.
“Patience. I’ll answer all your questions after I finish my story. Just relax and listen. You’ll find it quite interesting, I’m sure.” Zhao Gang offered him an honest smile with those words. “I don’t often indulge in such long-winded stories, so you’ll have to forgive me if it’s not as compelling as it should be.” John didn’t respond to the joke, simply staring at Zhao while sitting gingerly in his seat as if he expected it to disappear at any moment. Zhao Gang sighed then conjured a table, two glasses, and a bottle of whiskey from his storage ring. John started, coming to his feet and knocking his chair over in his haste to distance himself from the spectacle.
“Ok, I dunno how you’re doing that but would you please stop? It’s freaking me out.” John’s voice was shaky now as if he was on the edge of losing it. In response, Zhao Gang poured the two of them a generous helping of whiskey and pushed the glass toward him.
“I have a feeling you’ll need that,” said Zhao Gang. “Please sit. This truly won’t be easy. I’d rather not have to pick you up off the ground.” The last words were said with a chuckle but John nodded and righted his seat as if there was a serious possibility that Zhao Gang’s prediction might come true. They sat in silence for a while, the two of them sipping whiskey as if they weren’t sitting in the middle of the woods on chairs that Zhao Gang had summoned from thin air. The Principal’s eyes wandered wildly, focusing in turns on Zhao Gang, the table, the whiskey, and finally the world around them. Zhao Gang, for his part, put on a tranquil mask, moving in small, slow movements to keep from startling John.
More than ten minutes passed before the Principal finally spoke up. “Alright,” Cartwright said finally, “I’m ready.”
Zhao Gang nodded and took another sip. “It starts a very long time ago. Longer than you would believe at the moment. I was a young boy from a poor family once, a peasant. In truth, I was a slave in everything but name. You would call the society I come from medieval, though the label wouldn’t be accurate, not really. Still, there are some similarities.”
“You,” said John softly, “Are a peasant from a medieval society?” The incredulity made Zhao Gang laugh.
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“I know, it sounds impossible, right? But please, just listen. I’ll get there.” Zhao Gang waited for John to consent before he continued. “There are very few ways to improve your station in such societies and many, many ways to end up worse off. Somehow I managed to find one of the former while avoiding the later. I became what is known as a cultivator. Think of it like… magic. I can do magic. Except it isn’t magic like you might imagine. It's based on the soul, the spirit, and connecting with the universe.” Zhao Gang paused for a moment before continuing, letting his words sink in.
“So… you're a wizard?” The words almost came out as a joke, but something about them felt flat and harsh.
“Wizard isn’t a term we use and it conjures all sorts of things that aren’t true. I’m a cultivator. I translate the title in English deliberately, John. To follow my path you have to cultivate the spirit the way a gardener cultivates his garden. You plant it, you water it, you prune it. Making meaningful progress takes more effort than you can imagine. I put forward that effort as a child and made progress.”
“But cultivation in my society is a brutal path. Resources are scarce and cultivators are common. They fight and kill each other over the stupidest things. They build grudges that destroy empires and kill thousands, all based on things like who went first through a doorway. It’s all done deliberately. They know what they’re doing. But engaging in such ‘tempering’ is expected for a cultivator, required even. If you are going to build up your spirit, truly strengthen it, then at some point, you have to face death. You have to have the strength to look death in the eye and fight anyways.” The words sent a chill down John’s spine, summoning up images of worlds drowning in blood and war. Zhao Gang didn’t wait for him to find his tongue, however.
“I was a peasant allowed to raise myself to heights I couldn’t even imagine. There was no hesitation in me. I fought. I killed. I conquered. I won out because I was a peasant. They underestimated me and they underestimated just how driven someone who came from nothing could be to succeed. But the path of the cultivator is endless. You don’t ever reach some peak and look up to see blue sky and realize you’ve made it. There is always another step to take. And with each step you take your enemies are more powerful, your grudges are deadlier. Those who truly succeed, those who climb high enough that they have very few peers, they do so over an unimaginably large pile of corpses.”
Zhao Gang paused before continuing, his voice grave. “I did so over a vast pile of corpses.”
The confession, rather than push John away, seemed to draw him in. The admission of guilt seemed to alleviate some hesitation in him. Zhao Gang paused while holding John’s gaze. Eventually, they both looked away to settle their gaze on the darkening sky. “It was the only way I knew. It was the only way any of us knew. The strong make the rules. The weak obey. Cultivators are the absolute authority because, at the end of the day, nobody can tell us no except for another, stronger, cultivator. The power we have is… unimaginable. Yet it is ultimately a selfish power, a greedy power. It consumes our lives because if we are not sufficiently devoted to it our growth slows. If that happens our enemies overtake us and we die.”
Zhao Gang paused to sip his whiskey only to realize his glass was empty. He refilled both their glasses before taking a sip. “With enough power, it is possible to pierce the veil between planes and step across the void. That’s how I got here along with all my disciples. Originally I was looking for a place to hide so I could cultivate in peace. I was on the verge of breaking into the realms of true power. I knew my enemies would hunt me if I dared to attempt my next step on the path where they could find me. Getting interrupted would kill me just as surely as if they’d cut off my head. I spent a very long time searching out a place nobody would look. I ended up here.” Zhao Gang paused again to look at John but he seemed to just be listening now, his face calm as he watched the day turn slowly towards night.
“Making that next step, breaking through, required tremendous amounts of energy. This world didn’t have it, not like other places I might have gone. Of course, if I went to those places my enemies would find me there and it was likely I would not have survived. Instead, I came here with a plan. This world didn’t have the energy I needed so I made it. I built a formation… a ritual, if you will, that took in what little energy there was on this world and used it to make more, over and over again.”
“I used that energy to make my breakthrough. By doing so, I robbed this world of the chance to have cultivators of its own. All that energy that might have nurtured them went to me instead. I kept it all bottled up. Eventually, the idea of cultivators was lost to time. It got twisted around and turned into wizards and fairy tales. The people here forgot. Instead, you built a beautiful world, one that cherishes things other than the blind pursuit of power. All because I stole what little power you did possess.” Zhao Gang paused and took a drink from his whiskey, watching as the stars started peeking out of the darkness.
“I made my breakthrough, John. I’m now what is called a True Immortal. The title isn’t an empty boast, either. This body is optional now. Though I can’t do much as a pure being of spirit yet, I can survive the destruction of my body and, more importantly, can build a new one without a problem. It takes a few minutes but that’s all.” Now John was looking at him like he was crazy. “I’ll prove that in a bit, don’t worry. But let me finish my story first.”
He took another sip, then continued. “My breakthrough was violent. It’s why I’m here in the Seattle area. The release of energy killed… a lot of people. I regret that. My best interpretation of how my culture views such things is to borrow a bit of philosophy. To put it simply, I’ve sown Karma here. I’ve incurred a debt that requires payment, even though the damage my breakthrough did can’t be undone.”
“What do you mean your breakthrough killed people? How? Why?” asked John. His question was incoherent, but Zhao Gang understood what he was getting at.
“The formation, the ritual, I was using to contain all that energy, it broke when I made my breakthrough. It spilled out into the world and it did so violently. I was holed up deep in the Rocky Mountains to the northeast of here, near Calgary. When the formation broke the energy lost its restraints. Since I was deep, deep underground, it couldn’t just release into the air, though that might have been just as bad. Instead, it turned into a tidal wave around me, causing massive tsunamis of magma, pushing at the rock above me and crushing it. It caused massive volcanic eruptions and an earthquake the likes of which this world has not seen since before humanity arrived.”
“The Calgary Disaster?” John asked, stupefied. “That was you? That was your fault?”
“It was,” Zhao Gang said simply. “I failed to prepare properly. I thought that nobody would be around to witness it anyways. How could I know when I started that people without access to natural energy would flourish so brilliantly? I was short-sighted. The result was as you say.”
“So what, you’ve sown Karma and now you're opening a school? How does this make sense?” John’s voice was harsh now, his face a mask of anger. “Do you think that will somehow balance out the scales? Over a million people died, Zhao. A million. Just how do you make amends for that?”
“You don’t,” Zhao Gang said simply. “It isn’t possible. Not even for an immortal. But what I can do is what I am doing. The formation, the ritual, the one that created all that energy? Once I was done I didn’t destroy it. When I came here the natural energy was weak, so weak that nobody would come looking for me here. But the formation I made is changing that. It’s making natural energy, the energy of the spirit. Soon there will be enough that it will cover this world. Revive it. That’s why the school, John. These children are a seed. I teach them, they teach others. A tradition is established. A heritage. But there is a time limit. This world will get noticed, eventually. When that happens, they’ll need to be prepared.”