There are many principles to being a cultivator.
Honour, to their name or to their family. It isn’t something so noble as the need to maintain a moral code. Perhaps for idealist’s that is the case, but Tantra understands marketing, and the first rule is to maintain an image.
Discipline, to walk the journey. To train constantly for the nebulous goal of immortality takes either a fool or a prodigy, but in either case it needs something to maintain the dedication to the pain and suffering required to advance.
A voracity for violence, to leave their mark on the world. This one Tantra finds…distasteful. To exclusively search for challenge amongst the spirit beasts is one thing, but most cultivators are simply expensive mercenaries, hoping to carve their name into the world through the wars between kingdoms and sometimes empires, and indeed many have done so.
The one quality Tantra wasn’t prepared for was their proclivity for tomfoolery.
Tantra is chasing Ranya down the field with a furious expression while the girl skips away. “Get back here!” Tantra yells
“No!” Ranya yells back, “Ranya will not take responsibility for your fears!”
Tantra actually growls as she pushes through the pain in her legs, slowly getting closer. She doesn’t remember the last time she acted so undignified, but frankly, that’s for future Tantra to be embarrassed about. Current Tantra is riding a wave of indignation that must be put to restitution. Tantra pushes Qi into her legs unconsciously and jumps for the girl.
Ranya panics as Tantra comes flying towards her but it's too late, she is tackled to the ground and Tantra pins her down. “Vengeance!” she yells out, then she starts tickling the Daemon possessed cultivator in the middle of the training field.
She doesn’t stop, even when the girl is reduced to a begging mess.
Finally, only after Tantra is satisfied, does she relent.
“Let this be a lesson to you Ranya.” Tantra huffs, “no ducks in the house, especially not on my bed”
“It was a gift! How was Ranya supposed to know you are scared of birds?”
“I’m not scared of birds.” Tantra says, crossing her arms, “I simply find them unpleasant.”
Ranya tilts her head, “Ranya is pretty sure she heard you screaming”
“That was my warcry.” Tantra nods to herself
“Sure Tantan, Ranya totally believes you,” Ranya giggles, “you are lucky Karaz wasn’t home, if she knew the place would become a haven for ducks and chickens.”
Tantra shivers, “If you tell her, I won’t stop with a tickling.” She warns.
Ranya smiles and pantomimes shutting her mouth.
-
Tantra had to wait outside while Ranya got rid of the demon bird and set it free to the skies or wherever else ducks go, she doesn’t know, she doesn’t care to know. All she wants is for it to be gone.
“Ranya has secured the house!” Ranya says proudly.
Tantra lets out a sigh of relief and goes into the living room.
She screams and runs as she finds the duck sitting on the table.
Ranya got a head start this time.
-
“We are keeping the duck” Sola nods, and the council of devils nod along.
“We are not keeping the duck.” Tantra protests as she refuses to look at the thing.
“Too bad junior, law of the house, we voted, it stays.” Karaz smiles with a hand on her chin.
“Dok,” Ranya says to the confusion of everyone, “he is Dok, not ‘it’”
Karaz shrugs, “Dok it is I guess”
“Dok it is,” Sola nods.
Tantra groans.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
-
Tantra is panting through another exercise, that’s her life now, exercise, gather, circulate, exercise, gather, circulate. She can’t say she’s a fan. She misses Aunt Temi’s lectures, the counting of coins, and the haggling. She excelled at those, not this. Tantra sighs as she jogs, she really needs to stop feeling sorry for herself. This is her life now, whether she likes it or not, can’t do anything to fight it, can’t do anything to change it. So it’s better to accept it for what it is and move forward. She can still be the merchant she dreams of being, she just needs to complete her foundations and she can travel the roads of Yamor without worry. Optimistically that’ll take a decade, realistically? At least two, considering her state. If she can just get the Qi stone, then she’ll be able to catch up to all the others.
Just another month of hunting flowers and fruits and she’ll be set.
She goes through the regular process of exhausting herself to collapse then circulating her Qi, opening her eyes to reveal Yorin meditating at the dead of night. He’s taken to exercising more to make up for the time lost waiting for her, although that does require him to actually gather Qi himself rather than relying on his soul. She’d prefer he be studying, but she can respect dedication when she sees it.
She looks up to the sky and is surprised to find the moon further along than it should be. She scrunches her brow and stares, is she taking longer? That shouldn’t be happening, Cultivators only become better, not worse. No matter how much they languish, the arrow is always pointing up. So what could explain this then?
She sighs and shakes Yorins shoulder, breaking him out of his meditation, or circulation, whichever he was doing, and prepares to head back home.
-
There a two ways to block a punch, first is the direct method. Tantra tucks her chin and brings her arm up, covering the left side of her face as Kisrin throws a right hook. The block doesn’t deter him though and he follows up with a jab and cross combo that Tantra fails to see coming. The jab dazes her, and the cross snaps her head back.
Kisrin gives her time to reorient herself before going for an uppercut. Tantra backs out of his range and responds with a jab. What she’s learned from her spars is that the jab is the king of unarmed combat, and she suspects the same of armed combat as well. Kisrin is too far out of her range so the jab whiffs, she takes a step forward and jabs again.
Then comes the second method as Kisrin deflects her jab and pushes the offending arm away before launching an absolute haymaker, Tantra sees stars and stumbles before falling to the ground.
Kisrin's smile is a wide thing, “better!” he says excitedly “slow on the defence, and you misjudged your distance, but overall it’s an improvement.”
“Thanks,” Tantra says blandly as she grabs her throbbing head, “but I’d prefer you didn’t break my face in the process of our bouts.”
Kisrin seems confused as he offers an arm, “but then you could heal it stronger with Qi, isn’t that a good thing?”
Tantra grabs the proffered hand and pulls herself off the ground, “I’m saving my Qi for tomorrow’s training.”
This seems to confuse him further but Tantra doesn’t elaborate, she’d prefer if she didn’t admit she’s a spiritual cripple, and what she just said already toes the line. Damn brain damage, it’s making her tongue loose.
-
“Renewing your books again girl?” The librarian asks.
Tantra nods and bows, “Indeed master, your wisdom proves beyond compare.”
He waves her off, “none of that, I can appreciate flattery, but my taste for it only goes so far.”
“Apologies master”
He grunts and checks his ledger, “So, A Guide To Martial Forms, Basic Linguistic, Diadem Of The Soul, Erik’s Journey To Foundation, Eclipse, Freeform Circulation, and Jamik’s Core Theory. That about everything?”
Tantra bows, “Indeed master.”
“Another two weeks then,” The librarian grunts, “don’t know why we even have these rules, you're practically the only one who reads.”
“I am not one to question the wisdom of the Elders.”
“You should,” he says “It’s healthy to question the actions of those above you, at least when it is safe to do so. I can assure you the Elders won’t take offence if you manage an audience with one.”
Tantra smiles, “If only one could be so lucky”
The librarian chuckles, and Tantra goes to leave.
“Another thing girl,” the librarian says, appearing in front of her. He shoves a book into her arms and looks away. “This should help you with your control.” Then he disappears.
Tantra looks confused at the book before reading the title, Kakars Guide To Advanced Qi Manipulation.
-
Reading through the book the Librarian gave her is…confusing. There’s a lot of lingo and jargon that she doesn’t understand, flow output she can piece together, but what is flow input? At first she had assumed it had something to do with the soul, but no, apparently it's a process of re-integrating Qi into your core before taking it out again. She doesn’t know how that would even work, and she’s only looking at the second exercise. She thought to read in advance to glean any insights she can, but now she’s starting to think that was a mistake. She focuses on the first exercise and worries about the rest later.
She’s not even sure if this’ll work, what it’s recommending is the opposite of conventional practice.
She takes a deep breath and enters the trance.
She grabs a thread, thin and brittle, and holds it outside her core, just next to her heart. Then she pulls out a second and she has a total of three seconds before she loses control on both and they dissipate away. She opens her eyes to find herself sweating profusely, breathing as though she just ran a marathon.
She looks at the book in awe.
She managed it, if only for a few seconds, she held two threads of Qi outside her core.
If she can master this then she could cut her circulation time in half, maybe even further with more threads.
Now she just has to weave them together.