The rightmost cultivator, a woman in yellow robes with an ascending spiral pattern of cobalt blue, raised her hand and motioned at the group. “Is this the last of the leftovers?”
“Yes, he is.” A man in dark grey robes made to look like billowing smoke said in a voice so raspy it sounded like it belonged to the dead. He slowly lifted his hand to point at Kasri with a movement so fluid it was uncomfortable to look at. “This one is Kasri. His clan name was stripped from him when he was brought here, but he once belonged to the Basalith.”
“Ah, a failure. How… quaint.” A man in sparkling white robes said coldly with a voice like a knife in the back; sharp, quick, and full of vicious intent. When he turned ever so slightly, Kasri caught a glimmer of silver woven into the white. “I, for one, will not be taking on damaged goods. But please, my esteemed fellows…”
The man smiled wickedly and bowed sarcastically. “Go ahead and weaken your clans.”
Kasri wanted to quip something about how horribly sad he would be from not getting the white-robed cultivator’s favor, but he kept his mouth shut. One second of smug satisfaction was not worth his life.
Much to Kasri’s surprise, none of the cultivators said anything either. They all simply looked away in annoyance, or shame, or some other emotion Kasri couldn’t make out. Only an overwhelming difference in power could make cultivators act like that. The man in white sneered at his fellow cultivators, then stepped forward and put his hand on a young boy’s head.
“You. How old are you?”
The boy looked like he was about to faint. “U-um, fifteen, esteemed elder.”
“Young enough to be capable.” The cultivator swept through the group, placing his hand on each and every person’s head in turn. He repeated the same question, and regardless of the person’s gender, height, or even health, he replied in the same set of ways.
Between fourteen and sixteen, they were young enough to be capable. Younger than fourteen were for someone else who preferred playing nanny, and older than sixteen had one foot in the grave. Kasri stayed stone still as the man reached up to gently place a hand on his forehead, his skin as soft as silk and his chi as solid as a mountain.
“How old are you, failure?” The man asked coldly.
Kasri gulped at the pressure the man’s chi put on him. All it would take was an errant thought to end Kasri’s life. “Eighteen, esteemed elder.”
“Too old as well as a failure. You are less than worthless.” The man snapped, removing his hand and strutting back to the lineup of cultivators. “I will purchase any of the children between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. Have then fitted with our clan’s signet for the show of force.”
Not a sect, but a clan. There was a distinction there that Kasri couldn’t make, but as the other three went through asking their own questions, they too proved to be from clans. Were they being given first choice for the sect’s not-quite-disciples?
In the end, ninety percent of the group had been divided. Eight to the man in silver-white robes, twelve to the woman in blue-yellow robes, three to a woman in purple robes with a pattern of ruby-red spheres, and twenty-one to a muscular man in flowery pink and green robes with his sash hanging untied over his shoulder. Leaving Kasri and five literal children, four of which had pushed him into the river a few weeks ago. They all shot him nervous glances, but Kasri didn’t care. They were kids distracting themselves from the sect’s wilds.
He frowned and finally asked himself a question he should've asked more than a few months ago.
“Hey.” He said to the one kid who’d actually pushed him. They looked like they were going to faint. “Don’t worry, I’m not angry at you. How’d you survive in the wilderness for so long?”
The kid stammered out a response, but Kasri couldn’t make it out. “Deep breaths. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to know how you survived out there.”
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“We go back to the town.” Another of the kids–a boy with curly yellow hair and a chipped front tooth–answered for his friend. “You’re the only one who can’t go back. Because of your disease that’ll infect everyone if they get too close.”
Kasri stared blankly at the kid, who seemed to realize what he’d said as he said it. It didn’t look like Kasri was getting any more information out of the kids who pressed themselves up against the wall to be as far away from Kasri as possible.
“Children, you were explicitly told not to touch the walls. They are filled with far too much chi for your young bodies to handle.” The smoky-robed man tutted as all the kids fell unconscious at once. “Oh dear. Mellia, bring them to the infirmary. A sect still may wish to take them in.”
A woman appeared next to Kasri and bowed deeply with her hands barely pressed together. “Yes, honored elder. Do you have any requests for their treatment?”
The smoky-robed man waved his hand. “No, no. The standard regimen will be more than enough. They must learn to heed warnings some way, even if it is only halving the time they could be presenting themselves to the sects.” He turned to Kasri with false pity in his eyes. “And for you, young man; I wish you nothing but luck. Two years may seem long to you, but time goes by blazingly fast if you let it.”
Kasri frowned at the elder wishing him luck. “Um, Than–” Kasri started, but before he could finish, he found himself standing outside of the stone door. “-ks?” He finished and looked around in confusion. “Did… did I just imagine all of that?”
He looked down at his hands, which were still scarred, but definitely cleaner than before. And his robe went down both arms, not just one. “Okay, so everything definitely happened.” He turned to look out into the festival grounds and watched cultivators go by with barely even a glance at him. “What am I supposed to do now?”
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Kasri sat on a stone bench inlaid with golden filigree, licking the sugary residue off his fingers from some candied fruit he’d just finished. Chi sparked through him, though nowhere near the demonfish’s level, and he sighed in confusion as a couple sat down next to him.
And completely ignored him. They started talking in words that were so obscured with chi to the point that Kasri couldn’t even recognize them as sounds. Though he still heard the breaths taken and the smack of lips, which were enough to make him shudder in discomfort.
Then, in a stark contrast to the wordless conversation, Kasri heard a cacophony of spoken words so quick that they sounded like gibberish. He bit down on the wooden stick that had come with the candied fruit and looked up to see another specter circling around his head, except this one was orange-red and gold. It had two black dots at one end of the long, flowing form that Kasri expected were its eyes, completely fixated on him no matter how the specter twisted and turned.
“Hello to you, too.” Kasri said with a nod. The specter glowed just a little brighter, then spilled out words once again. It moved down Kasri’s head until it was just a little below eye-level, then began circling the stick in his mouth whenever it did a full rotation.
He pulled the stick out of his mouth and held it out. “Do you want this?” He asked, and got another burst of words in return that almost felt excited. The stick grew ever so lighter in his hand. “It’s yours, then.”
The specter gasped as the stick pulled it down, but it managed to keep hold of it like a child would drag a heavy branch. It brightened even further and vocalized what Kasri thought was a thank-you, then started floating away awkwardly with its prize in tow. Kasri couldn’t help but smile as he watched, pointedly ignoring the couple that had started staring at him when he talked to the specter.
Their eyes were filled with annoyance, even though they’d chosen to sit next to him. Kasri pushed himself off the bench instead of risking annoying two possibly powerful cultivators any further, and began walking the festival once more. This time, he could feel the stares. Some of them were with interest, but it was a… clinical interest. Like a researcher with a brand new subject.
Most of them were passing. They lingered on him for a second, took in his grey robes, and moved on. The sect had both permanent elders and temporary disciples, but the only difference between the robes was a slight smoky texture on the cloth. Once they saw he was temporary, they lost absolutely all interest in him.
Then there were the dangerous ones. The looks that lasted a split second, but that contained a hunger Kasri recognized all too well. It was the hunger he saw in his cousins’ eyes when they got a little too drunk, or a little too filled with adrenaline. Those looks led to pain. Sometimes even worse. Kasri held back a shudder and vowed not to step out of the main streets, in the hope that someone would step in if one of those looks turned into action.
“Not much of a hope, though.” Kasri sighed. The self-centered lifestyle of a cultivator led to a sense of disconnection that his father had regularly struggled with. And that his mother had completely succumbed to. They still tried–and sometimes succeeded–at being good parents, but they were never there to help Kasri with the hard things.
They reveled in his successes and completely ignored his struggles. Compared to his aunts and uncles, though? Kasri shivered at the thought of being raised by the horrible, uncaring people who had produced his cousins.
He chuckled and stepped to the side to avoid a cultivator walking down the middle of the road with their arms outstretched for no reason. “It could always be worse.”
“It could always be better, too.” A woman said from just in front of Kasri. She turned her head and smiled amicably, slowing ever so slightly to walk at his side. “What are we talking about?”
Kasri didn’t know how to react. But he didn’t want to accidentally offend the woman, especially not if her supposed friendliness was just a veil to justify hurting him. “Nothing, honored elder. I was musing on a past experience.”
“Were you? Do tell.” The woman gently grabbed Kasri by the shoulder as if to make sure she wasn’t hurting him. He stared at her hand as his body tensed, ready for the pain or technique she was about to inflict. Instead, she just frowned. “I’m not going to hurt you. I guess that’s a foreign concept to you, though, isn’t it? Well, then, I’ll get straight to the point; are you a full-time or temporary disciple?”
“Part time, honored elder.” Kasri said quickly.
The woman nodded. “That’s what I thought, but your robes are so hard to tell apart in this light. Two more questions before I let you go your way; how old are you? And have you even begun to cultivate?”
Kasri didn’t know where this was going. But it couldn’t be anywhere good. “Eighteen, and no.”
“Once again, that’s what I thought. Come with me.” The woman insisted, but didn’t order. “There’s someone I think you need to meet.”