James came back to his senses in a dark room, his face uncovered but the rest of his body still stuck in the cocoon Nadia had called a Lingelbach Web. He wiggled, trying to get some feeling back into his arms. Somewhere along the journey James’s limbs had fallen asleep.
Once he had some vigor, James took a look around the room. The man’s eyes were accustomed to the dim streetlights of Tower Ten, meaning he could just make out the room’s walls. A door, large enough for two people, sat on the far wall away from James. He turned his head, trying to see if there was another but he wasn’t quite able to turn his neck far enough. His peripheral vision did catch something that looked like a boarded window, however.
James gave up on looking at the walls and tried studying his restraints. The illusory white and black dots no longer accosted James’s vision, but that was likely because James couldn’t look down past his chest. There was something new on him, however. A series of needles that were placed across his body.
The needles didn’t hurt, in fact James couldn’t feel them at all, even when he tried to wiggle. The sight did creep him out, however. He remembered one of the old shows on the viewscreen at Greasers. The story had a villain who used needles in gruesome ways. At the time, James had found it interesting. Not so much anymore.
“Hello?” James called out, deciding that doing something was his best course of action. He was likely in the Blue Mountain Sect. Nadia, Seok, and those two others did say they were bringing him here. Rude of them to leave him alone like this, though.
Unless of course they were planning to eliminate James. The man blanched at the thought that leaped unbidden to the forefront of his mind. It was likely they already knew about the demonic cultivator’s implanted memories, and were just holding him until they could safely dispose of him.
James tried to shake the panic away, doing his best to rationalize. If he truly was possessed, then he would already be dead. After all, why not kill a dangerous threat while they were asleep?
It still didn’t answer why he was still tied up.
“Anybody?” James called in the darkness.
Maybe he had been captured by other cultivators, ones that wanted to experiment on him. Maybe that was why there were needles. They were prepping his body for testing.
James ran through a number of reasonings as he waited, calling out for someone every time he remembered to. After what felt like an eternity, the double doors opened, bright light washing over James.
“Gah!” he groaned, temporary blinded as his eyes adjusted.
“You’re certain he’s stable?” an unknown voice asked. It was imperious, a voice used to getting its way.
“Oh, most certainly,” a wheedling voice answered. “It must be something in his constitution resisting the virulent infection. I’ve never seen anything like it. Somehow, his body has separated the malicious code and compartmentalized it.”
James’s eyes finally adjusted, revealing two men. The first James pegged as the one with the imperious voice. He certainly looked the part with his austere face and long white beard. He stroked the beard as he looked at James, stone-gray eyes trying to pierce through him.
The one beside him looked much less like an authority figure, and more like one of the researchers on viewscreen entertainment. His eyes shone with curiousity, the dark blue irises darting across James’s frame. A white coat rested on his shoulders, somehow matching the man’s messy hair and unshaven face.
“Are we able to replicate the effects?” the austere man asked.
The wheedling man hummed, walking over to James and plucking out the needles. “I wouldn’t be able to say without more testing. If I can get ahold of the reasoning in his mind it would be a simple matter of implanting it into animals for testing.”
“And why can’t you?” the man asked.
“Doing so would likely turn this one into a vegetable,” the wheedling man said. “And risk us losing his valuable ability.”
“Wait wait wait,” James started. “You’re going to dissect me?”
He had been staring before, mostly because he wasn’t sure what was happening. But now all his fears seemed to be true. Someone else had taken him. He wasn’t at the Blue Mountain Sect at all but somewhere else. Somewhere where men were going to take him apart for reasons he didn’t understand.
“What is the probability of success?” the austere man asked, ignoring James.
The researcher placed a hand on James’s chin and twisted him back and forth. James felt like a piece of fruit getting examined by a merchant at one of the stalls.
“I’d say sixty percent at the minimum,” the researcher said.
“Acceptable,” the austere man said.
“Not acceptable! Not acceptable!” James shouted.
They couldn’t just do this to him! He was a person!
“Where’s Nadia!” he shouted. “She promised I would go home!”
“You may proceed at your leisure,” the man said.
“No, you may not,” a soft voice said.
James caught a scowl on the man’s face before he turned.
“You are not allowed to enter this space,” he spat.
“I am if you are about to cause harm to my disciple,” Nadia said, stepping into the room.
The austere man scowled. “Disciple? This trash from a wayward farming tower?”
The sides of Nadia’s mouth turned upward. “Oh, were you not about to dissect him for his ability? If he’s trash, then you have no reason to perform your experiments, and if he isn’t trash, then there is no reason I shouldn’t take him as a disciple.”
“He’s too old to learn,” the man growled. “He won’t be able to cultivate at his age. He won’t be able to unlock his powers and teach us the secrets of his ability. Better for him to contribute his code so we may understand it.”
Nadia stepped past the man. A flick of her wrist sent a blade of water scraping across James’s bindings. The cocoon unraveled at once, sending him falling into the woman’s arms.
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“I need you to address me as master,” she said in a whisper so quiet James was unsure he heard it. However, on looking up he saw the seriousness in her eyes.
“Master?” he asked.
“You cannot!” the stern man shouted. “I forbid it!”
Nadia turned, her voice cold as a glacier. “You forbid it? He has already taken the oath, declared me master. You heard him call me, did you not? That means he is my responsibility. You have no say over what is done to him.”
She pushed past the man.
“I will take this up with the council,” he snarled.
“See that you do,” Nadia said. “I’ll also be sure to tell them of how you stole my disciple out from under my supervision because of your greed.”
“You accuse me of vice,” the man spat.
“If I must,” Nadia answered coldly. “For even if he hadn’t been my disciple and had only been a guest, you would have been overstepping your authority in this sect.”
At those words, she walked off, James in her arms.
James stayed silent as they passed through a carved tunnel that eventually opened to the outdoors. They were in some kind of verdant landscape, that much James could make out. But it was all so… natural. The plants were placed in aesthetic patterns, not industrial rows. Many plants looked to be decoration only, nothing like the utilitarian designs of Tower Ten.
Nadia eventually let James out of her arms, motioning for him to walk beside her. They traversed through the strange farmland and into an elevator. James only recognized it because of the buttons, or else he would never have expected the glass box to be transportation.
“Wha—“ James started.
Nadia held up a hand. “I will explain once we have privacy.”
James nodded. The glass elevator brought them up more floors, each one a different design than the last. James caught glimpses of desert, jungle, and even a frozen tundra before they stopped at a floor of lakes.
“Welcome to the Mirror Lake Valley, disciple,” Nadia said, stepping off the elevator.
James’s mouth hung open as he followed Nadia through winding wooden bridges that curved serenely over the lakes. Plants James had never seen before grew in droves at the edges and even on top of the water. One kept catching his eye, a pink and white flower blooming directly atop the lake.
Insects buzzed about the area, bees, hoverflies, and other pollinators flitting across the room, giving the floor an indescribable feeling. Their presence brought a life to the area that James had never experienced.
“It’s beautiful,” James whispered.
“Yes,” Nadia answered with a smile. “It is.”
The woman eventually brought James to a gazebo that hovered over the lake through some form of propulsion that James was unfamiliar with. She motioned for him to sit, pointing out a set of plush cushions on the ground. James obliged, splaying out awkwardly on the pillows.
James opened his mouth to speak, but choked as Nadia knelt on the ground in a bow.
“Forgive me,” she said solemnly.
“Wait, no! Hold on, what are you doing?” James asked quickly. He knew what this was, the viewscreens loved to show people kneeling like this when they asked for atonement.
“I am afraid I have brought you into more danger than if I had let you alone,” Nadia explained, refusing to lift her head. “I had promised to keep you safe, and I have failed.”
“What? No,” James stated. “You saved me from that wackjob. He was going to take me apart!”
“Yes,” Nadia said. “And he will still try. Osman runs the medicine hall with an iron grip and stops at nothing to procure what he wants.”
James was speechless. Eventually, he found something to say. “That guy’s a cultivator? And please, stop bowing to me it’s weird.”
Nadia did as he asked and moved to sit across from him. “Yes, Osman is one of the more influential cultivators, despite only possessing a single node. His contributions to medicine in the sect have saved countless cultivators.”
“So he’s just allowed to dissect people?” James asked incredulously. “He was going to murder me!”
Nadia darkened. “No, he was going to extract vital code from your essence, code that would, when perfected, save countless cultivator lives from the dangerous threat of parasitization. He would argue that his action would have done more good than evil. His act would be righteous, for a cultivator lives a longer life and as such is offered more chances to help those in need.”
James was flabbergasted. He didn’t have the words to describe the sophistry of the argument placed in front of him, but he knew it was wrong. He knew because of the thousands of small actions from his companions in Tower Ten.
“How can he get away with that?” James asked quietly.
“That, James, would take a long time to explain,” Nadia said. “And at the moment we are pressed for time. You shall have to make a decision, though I confess it isn’t much of one.”
James waited expectantly as Nadia collected herself. “Again, forgive me, but I must ask you to either swear an oath of discipleship or choose to be taken again by Osman.”
James sat speechless.
“The circumstances that led to this are coincidental enough for me to believe in the legends of higher powers,” Nadia continued. “Though at the moment it must seem a cruel joke. James, you were in fact struck by the possession attack from the demonic cultivator. In the usual circumstance, the malicious code from the assailant would replicate inside your brain, slowly replacing you with a copy of the attacker.”
“But I don’t feel possessed,” James said.
“Hence the incredible coincidence,” Nadia said. “Something in your genetic makeup was able to detect the malicious attack and isolate it. It is currently housed in a separate compartment inside of you, unable to escape and replicate. This is miraculous to say the least. It is not impossible for cultivators to develop skills that resist mental assault, but there has never been a mortal with this innate ability.
“This is why Osman is interested in you. He believes that if he can examine your mind he can uncover the secret to your resistance and disseminate the information for the ‘good of the sect’ despite my oath and your status as a guest. As he holds more sway in the sect than I, it is likely he will succeed. The only recourse left for you now is to try and run, which will not get you far, submit yourself to Osman, which will certainly lead to your death, or for you to take the oath of discipleship and join the Blue Mountain Sect in full.”
James had to sit back and take deep breaths as he tried to parse through everything Nadia had just explained. Eventually he was able to understand despite Nadia’s complex way of speaking. “You want me to be a cultivator.”
“That is the gist of it, yes,” Nadia said. “I had promised to see you safe, and circumstances have left you with I believe little choice.”
“Considering its join or die, why wouldn’t I join?” James snorted.
Nadia’s sorrowful frown somehow grew more somber. “This is a dangerous life, James. The goal of a cultivator is to become one with the righteous authority of heaven. In doing so, a cultivator will attain a state of enlightenment and understand all things. However, not all are capable of understanding, or have differing views on what the state of enlightenment entails. Many see it as a way to attain immortality without the need for expensive elixirs. They do not hesitate in cutthroat practices, all because they believe their eventual ascension will exonerate them. There is every chance you will experience pain worse than death. I would not blame you if you chose not to take this road.”
James never expected cultivators to have such dangerous lives. Sure, the few viewscreen videos in Tower Ten showed cultivators facing danger, but most often it was from obvious evil threats. The good guys united as one against evil, where in this case Nadia made it sound as if everyone was out to get each other.
“It sounds lonely,” James said.
Nadia only nodded. She then tilted her head. “Unfortunately, James, we are out of time. You must choose now.”
“I accept your offer of discipleship,” James said.
No matter how dangerous being a cultivator sounded, it was better than giving up and accepting death. Tsukiko would revive him, then kill him again if he did that. Though, she still might kill him after hearing about all of this.
“Then, James.” Nadia moved into a formal sitting position. She motioned for him to come closer. “Kneel in front of me, cup your hands, and bow.”
James obeyed.
“Bring your hands forward,” Nadia continued.
James did so and felt something pour into his waiting palms.
“Today, I name you my disciple,” Nadia said. “Your destiny is now my destiny, my teachings your teachings. We are now bound by a bond that none can break, be it mortal or immortal, king or divinity. In this I swear.”
James felt the material in his palms swirl in his hands. He almost looked up, but stopped when he heard Nadia continue.
“Now, disciple, you must swear to listen to me always. My teachings are now your teachings. You will pour out your cup, filled with misconceptions, to accept the truth of this world and learn of your place in it. In, this, do you swear?”
“I swear,” James said solemnly.
He felt the swirling pool of water flow down his arms, then up to his shoulders before sweeping across to his back. The liquid flowed through the five nodes on James’s back. He felt the liquid clean each node, removing dirt and silt that he never noticed. Once the task was complete, James felt Nadia pull him upward.
He felt like a new man.