As Felix walked down the mountain in the direction of the Medicine Hall, he had to admit he began to feel better.
The day is beautiful, there are all these magical things happening around me.
He took note of the weird rock formations that decorated the surroundings as he descended the stone steps. Filled with wonder he took a big breath.
And the air just feels so GREAT! I suppose the spiritual Qi or something must be causing it. The weather is also idyllic.
He looked at the fluffy clouds and tranquil atmosphere of the mountain slope and then compared it to the extremes of the surrounding lowlands four season zones.
Huh, weird.
After a bit under half an hour, Felix finally made it back down to the medicine pavilion. He descended the last few stone steps, looking around to see the tiled space pretty much deserted. A few disciples appeared here and there but quickly rushed off down another path. The Pavilion itself was occupied by one figure. Felix stopped and stared.
Is that a Buddhist monk?
The figure was adorned in an orange Kaseya. However, what struck Felix was how corpulent the fellow was. Though peaceful, his face bulged with barely contained fat. As the man sat on the floor of the building, Felix could see rather large fingers slowly combing through several strains of Prayer beads. With his eyes closed, the man mumbled a continuous stream of words that though unintelligible, strangely put Felix at peace.
After a moment of hesitation, Felix marched over to the garish figure. Stopping a few paces before the man, Felix couldn’t help but feel some incongruity in the man’s appearance in comparison to the other figures of the sect.
"Um, excuse me, sir." Said Felix hesitantly.
The man stopped in his muttering and slowly opened one eye. He looked Felix up and down and Felix was startled to see that the man’s iris was golden. It almost gave off its own light.
"Mmm, it is good to see you are up and about disciple Felix. The journey to enlightenment is long and it is good not to tarry too long."
While the words seemed appropriately mystical, Felix was unsure of what the hell the fat monk meant.
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"Um, I am sorry, but are you an elder?"
Both Fat monk's eyes opened wide in surprise. Felix was taken aback to find that the monk's other eye's iris was so brown it almost seemed black. After a moment the monk laughed.
"My apologies young one. The other elders said you had forgotten your memories, so I hadn't really considered... but no matter. My name is Elder Shen. I act as a diviner and a bit of a counselor for the people of the Sect."
Felix was grateful for how nice the elder seemed to be. He was worried he would get furious at not being recognized. Though he noticed that the elder’s darker eye seemed to wander. Felix wasn’t sure what it was looking at though.
"You do counseling?" said Felix quizzically. He was surprised to hear of a sect having a counselor.
That just seems so un-Sect like.
The monk's face split in a wide smile. Felix tried to find what the dark eye was looking at but it moved before he could find its target.
"I can hear your hesitance young one. It isn't a required thing and is more unofficial than not. Think of it more as assisted self-reflection. I am not sure if you remember, but there is a phenomenon called heart devils that will occur many times in a cultivator’s journey. These are a knot in a person’s heart that gain a life of their own. Since they are a part of the cultivator themselves, they become stronger the higher the level of the cultivator. However, these heart devils lose much of their strength when the cultivator is made aware of them. I act more as a sounding board to people to help them learn to think through their issues and find their own heart devil. What they do after they are aware of the problem is up to them of course. I cannot walk the path for them, I simply help illuminate the way.”
Felix paused to think about that. He was a little terrified by the idea of what seemed to be psychological issues manifesting magically. Suddenly he was distracted when he finally was able to find what the monk's dark eye was focusing on. He followed it to the retreating figure of a female disciple as she walked across the tiled floor. In fact, the eye seems to focus lower on her beh-. Felix paused in his line of thought right there.
His eyes centered back on the monk to make contact with his single golden eye. After a moment the monk coughed awkwardly and closed his dark eye.
"Well, as you can see, people's heart devils manifest in different ways and present different trials and tribulations." said the monk, clasping his hands together.
Felix didn't want to pressure the monk as from what he understood, a cultivator at an elder's level could flatten him with a twitch. But he felt he had to at least say something on the issue.
"I do not mean to be rude Elder Shen, but doesn't your eye seem like a more serious issue?" said Felix.
The monk laughed again.
"Do not worry disciple Felix. Though I respect the honesty for you to point it out. I am in very much control of the situation. In fact, my wandering eye is more related to my cultivation technique and is a part of myself I accept." Said the monk. "You don't have to worry, I am not going to ravage the female disciple population. Besides, that is against my Dao, I am pretty sure fear of what Elder Ja would do to me is enough to stay my hand."
Felix was honestly unsure of how to respond to the shameless Monk. After a moment he remembered his quest to find out the names of the Elders.