The dry, dusty air of Neshaa clawed its way down Okan’s throat and into his lungs. Each breath felt like inhaling sand, gritty and oppressive, coating his mouth with a sharp, metallic aftertaste. He sputtered, coughing violently, his chest seizing with the harsh, hot air that wrapped around him like a suffocating blanket. His throat burned, and the effort of drawing in each ragged breath made his vision swim for a moment, his eyes stinging as tears welled. The locals—silent, grim-faced people whose faces were carved from stone—watched him with an eerie, quiet curiosity. He was an outsider, a fragile, delicate thing in the midst of their relentless, unyielding desert.

Okan wiped his mouth, his hands gritty with dust, trying to hold back the coughing fit that surged through him. The city stretched before him in every direction, a labyrinth of sun-bleached buildings and winding streets that seemed to spiral in on themselves like the desolate winds that swept through the place. The ground beneath his boots was cracked and fissured, parched and brittle. Occasionally, a stray gust of wind would send a cloud of dust swarming through the narrow alleys, making him stagger back to shield his face.

Truth be told, Okan—whose lack of any real talent had relegated him to the role of messenger—knew of a million places, no, a trillion places he’d rather be than stuck in Neshaa.

The bitter thought lingered in his mind. He wasn’t a fighter, not like the other cultivators he had grown up hearing about. He wasn’t like the inner sect disciples who made their way through the world with the elegance of mastered techniques and the pride of a thousand accomplishments.

It was his right to be out exploring, perhaps even joining the sects his parents had urged him to "try out" the last time they'd spoken.

But instead, here he was, trudging through the desert, fighting the ache in his legs and the gnawing discomfort in his chest as the heat pressed in on him from every direction. The feeling of being trapped was suffocating, worse than any confined space.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, one of the town's less decrepit souls directed him to where Tempka could be found.

Okan’s eyes scanned the streets with growing frustration. His throat burned, his muscles ached, and his mind screamed at him to turn around and leave this miserable place behind. He couldn’t help but notice how everyone around him seemed to move with a certain weight in their step, their bodies slow and deliberate, as if the desert air had drained them of their vitality. A mother ushered her child inside a dilapidated building, her face as sun-weathered as the stone walls behind her. An elderly man hunched over a rickety cart, his hands steady and sure as he sorted through sparse vegetables. And yet, there was no escape from the dust, no escaping the sense of quiet despair that seemed to hang in the air.

Twenty minutes later, Okan knocked.

There was a rustling behind the door, followed by heavy, shuffling footsteps. The door hinges creaked, and a hard, war-worn face appeared before him.

“…Tempka?”

The man responded with a low, guttural hum, one that Okan took as a confirmation.

Okan felt a sense of pride for managing to speak with a clear and unwavering voice, despite the towering figure before him. The man had to be at least six and a half feet tall. The man had a sharp, set jaw, a mustache splitting the divot beneath his nose, and eyes—a clashing mix of green and blue—that seemed to pulverize Okan’s very soul.

He was a warrior through and through, and everything about him radiated that. It was impossible to ignore how deeply intimidating he was, even though Okan knew, with absolute certainty, that there was no way the man could hurt him.

Okan blinked, realizing he’d been staring at Tempka for nearly twenty seconds. To make matters worse, a coughing fit overtook him, punctuating the silence as the airborne dust and debris of Neshaa's dry air clogged his lungs once again.

Tempka made a move to close the door.

"W-wait! Sir! You—uh, you have a package…" Okan stammered, fumbling the words as he awkwardly held out the parcel.

The box, wrapped in a strip of white paper that looked hastily torn from a scroll, was the kind of thing Okan normally would pay attention to—he hated when someone disrespected literature. Despite that, his mind was far too preoccupied with the daunting figure before him to worry about the sorry state of the wrapping.

I don’t even call my own father ‘sir.’ What’s wrong with me? he thought in frustration.

He’s just some uneducated man in the middle of nowhere.

Tempka, with one hand still on the door, unwrapped the package and examined its contents. The torn scrap of paper fluttered to the ground at his feet, forgotten.

For a fleeting moment, Tempka's hard exterior seemed to harden further, as though he were about to dismiss Okan without a second thought. But instead, the man raised his eyes. Okan, now walking past a group of young women in the street, heard the words reach him.

“Thank you, cultivator.”

The tone was both kind and unsettling. Okan hesitated, then turned back, his voice more unsure this time.

“It’s… you’re welcome.”

With that, he continued on, off toward yet another soul-crushing adventure.

Tempka sighed, shutting the door behind him. Inside, the rest of the day awaited—another round of taking care of his two-year-old son, Miran.

Miran was in the midst of throwing a handful of cut-up onions at the beige, multi-textured stone wall. Tempka exhaled in exasperation. The boy had already done this exact thing four times today, and it was only noon.

This time, Tempka caught the stray onion in mid-air and set it down on the tray next to Miran’s makeshift highchair. Things were much easier with Chima around, Tempka thought, though the thought was unwelcome. Dwelling on such matters never led anywhere good.

In truth, Chima had been far better at caring for Miran than Tempka ever could be. Tempka had been trained for battle, for surviving the harsh streets, and for fighting the enemies to the east—not for taking care of children.

Tempka’s eyes fell back on the package still in his hand.

Inside was a small, amber-colored pill—spheroidal and smooth. The pill was meant to help control his disease, a combination of antibiotics and anti-perspirants that would keep it at bay. For the next week, he wouldn’t be able to swallow anything else without first taking a sip of water.

Tempka tossed the pill into his mouth, feeling its smooth surface slide down his throat. He swallowed reflexively. The taste was overwhelmingly bitter, clinging to his tongue long after it had passed. A dry, chalky residue lingered, leaving his mouth parched and sore. Beneath it all, there was a faint chemical aftertaste, sharp and hard to shake. A brief wave of discomfort passed through him, but he quickly pushed it aside.

His eyes flicked over to Miran, who was still sitting in his highchair, surrounded by the scattered remnants of onions and the mess of his midday tantrum. Tempka frowned.

"Don't ever do what I just did, Miran. Always take water first." He paused for a moment, hoping the advice would sink in, but Miran simply stared back at him, his large, blank eyes unblinking. The words had not registered at all.

Tempka sighed, rubbing a hand over his face in exasperation. It wasn’t the first time he’d tried to impart wisdom to the boy, but Miran's youthful indifference made every lesson feel like it was falling on deaf ears.

Tempka needed to get out of the house, he decided. As soon as he beat the Drift.

***

Six Years Later

Sunlight filtered through the canopy of stone buildings and logs arranged side by side around the edges of the building’s rooftops. Despite this, the sun still beat down heavily on the bustling market, where packed stalls omitted the congregating aromas of dried meats and fragrant herbs. Merchants, sporting colorful deel, shouted out prices, their voices mixing with the sounds of laughing children, rustling goods being exchanged, and bartering folks trying to nickel-and-dime the occasional yuppie. Shade provided respite under awnings, while lanterns hung from interconnected wooden beams, waiting to illuminate the market as the barren desert darkened, and the sun gave way to freezing temperatures. Vendors attempted to peddle intricately crafted pottery, textiles, and heavily oxidized antiques. The arid, dry air was hell on the lungs, if you breathed in too much of it at once.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Miran Kresh walked closely beside his father, Tempka, crossing through the bustling marketplace of Neshaa.

“Stay close, Miran,” Tempka said, tossing a basket of fresh dates from one hand to the other. Miran nodded, eyes darting around in excitement.

Tempka’s face had a sunken-in quality. A ring of red-tinted skin snaked its way around the edges of his eyes, as small, tubular veins revealed themselves in select portions of the shallow depression.

At a small section of the marketplace—a gap between a row of stalls set up by vendors to sort goods into different categories, he spotted a group of cultivators. The mixed group of men and women dressed in flowing robes, their presence drawing attention. Miran’s heart raced at the sight. Cultivators were revered, known for their powers and their natural affinity with qi manipulation.

For the last four years of his life, he’d imagined what it would be like to wield the power that they possessed. Of course, the same could be said for every kid his age, stuck daydreaming about saving the city from an easily defeated foe, before being snapped to attention by an annoyed-looking instructor.

They crossed over paths of smashed plants and poor soil, before making way into the main square of the market, a place that was always lined with commoners and merchants alike. Suddenly, a commotion caught Miran’s attention. He turned just in time to see two young cultivators facing off, anger etched on their faces. Their voices rose above the market’s patrons.

“I will call that elder over there if you don’t back off!” the taller of the two shouted, his fist clenched while another hand pointed off in the distance.

“I back off? I back off!? I don’t owe you anything! My girlfriend isn’t some prize you get just because you’re friends with her! You think you can throw your weight around because you have an elemental affinity?You're nothing but a worthless parasite!” the other yelled back.

“Yo, Naranbai!” The taller cultivator shouted, his voice croaking with the sound of gargling blood, the byproduct of all-encumbering rage.

“What is he going to do!? Nobody likes you, Otongo; that’s why she’s my girlfriend and not yours!”

Miran's eyes widened. He had only seen such displays from afar, and now, right in front of him, a full-on brawl was going to happen. The crowd began to gather.

“Enough!” shouted a nearby, elderly cultivator—presumably Naranbai, stepping forward. But the two young men were too consumed by anger to listen to Naranbai now. In an instant, fire sparked in the taller cultivator’s right hand, illuminating the faces of onlookers with a saturated glow.

Miran’s heart raced. He could feel the heat of the technique warming his face. This was the power that young men and women all over dreamed of possessing—the ability to command qi, to assert control over the world around them. He watched, spellbound, as the second cultivator pulled a long, sharp spear from his back.

Wait, were they really going to fight in the middle of the market!?

Then there was a torrent of heat as the first cultivator shot a parabolic arc of fire at the other man’s form, and chaos erupted.

The fire bolt was about to hit, and then there was a translucent afterimage left as the second man appeared suddenly at the fire elemental’s side. The fire elemental reached towards the man’s abdomen, and there was a sizzling sound as the man was forced to back away. The burned man backhanded him, and the fire elemental lost focus, looking suddenly drained. The slap seemed to have a non-enhanced effect on the cultivator—other than what usually happens when you are stricken across the face by an angry, yelling, spitting, and now screaming man with a third-degree burn slammed against their midsection. That was odd to Miran—of course, the most peculiar aspect was the fight itself, but he had always imagined cultivators possessing great strength, along with their ability to cast techniques and the like.

Suddenly, an intense wave of dizziness and fatigue washed over Miran as he tried and failed to keep himself from falling to the ground. He caught a glimpse of the fight—which appeared to be over. The two cultivators were as pale as clouds, tending to their foreheads with the backs of their hands in an attempt to retain some semblance of coolness.

Miran finally found the source of the nausea: the elder cultivator had his eyes closed and was muttering a muted incantation as a green orb of light floated out of his chest.

As Miran watched, the orb slowly warped in on itself, collapsing into a speck of rapidly fading, blinding white light. The cultivators lay on the ground, knocked out but still breathing. The crowd clapped for the elder, and as the two men were taken into custody by their respective noble houses, he waved to them with a stoic, proud expression.

As they continued through the market, Miran’s mind raced. He envisioned himself mastering the elements, standing proudly among the cultivators. Theoretically, that could be him one day.

After finishing their shopping, Miran decided to take a chance. He glanced around, spotting a few cultivators discussing the fight. “Dad, can I talk to them?” he asked.

Tempka raised a shuddering eyebrow. “You can try…” he said, his voice as authoritative and comforting as always.

Miran approached a small group of cultivators standing to the side. Gathering his courage, he cleared his throat. “Excuse me!” he called out, his voice slightly shaky.

“I always said, those two are complete idiots, the both of them.” Said one cultivator as the other two nodded.

“Hey!”

The group turned, curiosity mixed with amusement in their eyes. “What do you want?” one asked, bored out of his mind.

Miran swallowed hard but pressed on. “I want to become a cultivator. Can you teach me?”

Laughter erupted from the group. “An immaterial’s brat, wanting to be a cultivator!?” another said, shaking his head.

Miran felt his cheeks flush, but he held his ground. “I’m serious! I want to learn!”

The cultivators exchanged glances, their disbelief and annoyance palpable. “Listen, kid, cultivation isn’t for everyone. You need discipline, focus—”

“I can do that!” Miran interrupted, higher pitch creeping into his voice. “I just need someone to help me.”

“But, you need to be centered, and-“

“How?”

Eventually, the cultivators shrugged, finally running out of stereotypical nonsense to throw at him. He was forced to leave by his father, who claimed it was getting dark out, and there’d be a long walk back home. He left reluctantly amid the darkening sky, and the watchful gazes of the cultivators.

***

Four Years Later

He often returned to the marketplace, hoping for another glimpse of the cultivators. He watched them from a distance, taking in their movements and the confidence with which they carried themselves. But whenever he approached them, he received the same dismissive responses.

“Go away, boy,” they would say, shaking their heads. Their usual reaction was to hang their heads down, or they would look up to the sky in despair. Or they would conjure an illusion of themselves standing there while they left. That last one happened only once, but it still stung.

It had been four entire years, and he was yet to make any progress. He knew it was wrong, what he was about to do; he’d seen what was done to thieves who were caught stealing from cultivators.

Miran leaped from the flat stone rooftop he'd scaled earlier, landing on the balcony of the university building. The window opened with a sharp creak and snagged midway, but he squeezed through the narrow opening. He tumbled onto the rough carpet of what appeared to be an empty room.

Perfect—he wouldn’t be caught off guard by a random stranger who happened to be in the room he’d chosen to infiltrate the university through.

He maneuvered through the hallways, ducking behind obstacles several times to avoid groups of teachers and students. Finally, he found it: a class labeled “Foundations of Cultivation — 1210.”

This wasn’t the first time he’d done this, and it’d become something of an art. He silently opened the door to the class and stepped inside. So far, nobody had caught the twelve-year-old boy stealing college textbooks from kids; it was always a prank by their classmates, or they had simply been too stupid to hold onto them. Not a soul suspected that a person had been stealing them from under their noses.

As he entered into the classroom, he was greeted with a familiar sight: a cascading, semi-circular set of wooden desks, each with two lines of stairs traversing up and down the length of the ever-raising floors of the lecture hall. It was always dark in this room, save for the two large windows situated at the back of the room that allowed light to flow through the hall, while revealing small, slowly descending strings of dust.

The door he entered through was beside a staircase on the far right of the lecture hall, leaving him surrounded by walls on both his left and right. He quickly reached through a narrow gap in the bars of the staircase’s railing and into the bag of a random college student, filled with the books and papers they were required to carry around campus. He pulled out a textbook, then another.

One was on geography—it was whatever; it wasn’t like he was any good at the subject anyway, and the other was “A History of Cultivation, by Sudiala Vimku.”

Both weren’t the topics he was looking for specifically, but they would do fine. Now, as he sat in his living room, he looked over the geography textbook with renewed interest.

As Miran read through the geography textbook, his mind wandered beyond Neshaa, to the distant lands of Essk. He envisioned the grand Luanoa Empire, made up of sprawling archipelagos and giant, floating cities in the ocean. To the south, the country of Aln'kouth, the powerhouse of all countries, while Menexol, with its unmatched cultivators, sat on the eastern side of the divide. Far to the north, the towering mountains of Reingger separated Volareo—land of giants—from the rest of the continent. And Scaa, the smallest kingdom, a place to call home.

His preadolescent mind was racing with ideas of adventure and conquest, plagiarizing bedtime stories, when his father’s voice suddenly interrupted his thoughts. A loud cough echoed through the room. Miran looked up, his attention snapping back to reality.

"How long do you plan to steal from the university, Miran?" his father asked from the doorway, leaning heavily on a wooden cane.

Miran’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t put the books down. "I’m not stealing, just borrowing. I’m learning."

Tempka chuckled softly before lowering himself slowly onto his bed. Miran opened his mouth to offer help, but Tempka raised a hand, signaling him to stop. Miran hesitated, then stepped back, knowing it wasn’t worth pushing further.

“You know,” Miran’s father began, his tone calm, “in Menexol, they’d have your head for even thinking of stealing a cultivator’s property.”

Miran suppressed a sigh. His father always found a way to bring that up. And, as usual, it was true. Tempka Kresh had spent time in the southern jungles of Menexol, among people who saw themselves as superior to the so-called "normal" folk—and who despised everything associated with them.

Miran was never told the parts about the war, or the specifics of the whole “cultivator supremacy” thing, but thank goodness there was somebody there to remind him that it had happened.

“How was school today?”

“It was fine. The teacher spoke to us today about the branding ceremony. Just the usual stuff, though. Oh, and there was a new girl at school today.”

Tempka smirked at the last part.

“No! Dad, please-“

“What’s her name.”

“Umm… Yigisa.”

“My boy! You know better than to not introduce me to your new girlfriend!”

“Dad! That isn’t funny!“

“I know! It isn’t funny! Why’d you wait so long to tell me about… what was her name again?”

“Yigisa!”

“Wow, and you remembered her name too. This sounds serious!”

“Dad!”

Tempka burst into laughter. It was a rich, deep sound that could easily be mistaken for a war cry, had there not been a certain rhythm to it.

Miran looked around, sweat dripping from his face; he wasn’t ready to face a mob of people hell bent on coming to complain about the noise. Thankfully, the crowd never came. Tempka’s laughter slowly died out as his body began to shake violently, back and forth, up and down. He convulsed, but all that came out was a small choking noise. The pill was still working on keeping his throat dry and his stomach clenched, but his body took the hit. Miran’s father put on a brave face as unsuccessful coughs began to emit from his mouth.

Miran couldn’t help but feel guilty; if it wasn’t for him, his father wouldn’t have to take these pills anyway. Of course, he’d still need medication for the pain and to enrich his white blood cells with specialized qi. But, this pain he was feeling right now was because of him.

The convulsive tremors finally ceased, and Tempka went still, his eyes fixed on his knees. Instinctively, he wiped his face with the sleeve of his robe, only to find it dry. His gaze shifted to Miran, meeting the younger man’s sharp, intelligent eyes in return.

“Promise me, Miran,” Tempka said, his voice strained. “Promise me you’ll never go to Menexol. The disease, the corruption—it’s not just a threat. It’ll tear you apart, even as a cultivator. It’s already taken everything from me. Don’t let it take you too.”

Miran hesitated, then nodded. “Okay, I promise. I swear on Kabuya.”

“…Good,” Tempka whispered, a weight lifting from his chest. “Now, tell me about this new girl of yours.”

Miran groaned, rolling his eyes.