First fiction, feedback is appreciated!
Thanks for reading.
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White clouds of winter cold appeared in the sky over night. In the morning they hung, barely moving in the once bright sky, now turned a dull, moody grey. The sun had given up on its halfhearted effort to shine through the thick layer of dark grey and muted white. Air was thick; the cloud so low that it brushed with the tallest branches of the buildings; trees stood as they towered up into the spiralling mesh of soft white, angry greys, and calm blues, blended together by the winds which gathered, meeting in a swirl of chaos and confusion.
White, was the color insight as long as the eye could grasp. Yunkai a city of already overbearing beauty was completely covered as the white continued to fall. Houses of magnificent stature and buildings with charming appearances all covered in white. In an relative elevated area of the city an handsome white haired youth sat, above him a mighty roof held up by a mere four pillars, no walls to hindered the cold. As he sipped on a cup of tea a young maiden humbly made a comment
“Yunkai in the bream of winter is, hauntingly beautiful”
The youth nodded in approval while still continuing to drink from a beautiful tea cup.
“The snow almost makes one forget of all the bloodshed hidden beneath”
The youth’s expression was sullen as he reminisced about the struggles of being someone of influence.
“Young master”
The young maiden said with a hint of sadness in her eyes. Her young master was the successor of a rather special family in this enormous city. Influential families always fought, they had to in order to keep on being powerful. It was an endless struggle of survival, pride and power and those caught in the middle would not leave unharmed.
“But once again you came out victorious”
The young maiden said as clear pride spread across her face. Her young master had without a doubt out smarted the opponent in a battle for power, which was the cause for him already being named the successor even though their existed tens of other candidates.
Once they first met a hot summer eve, the genius hidden in his eyes sparkled as shining diamonds and she decided that from then on she would lay down her life for him. She knew that if she were to follow this man, it would bring great fortune to her in the future. Almost like a dream come true all here wishes bore fruit, the young man claimed the role of family successor with ease even though the other heirs material power far surpassed him. When they were busy flaunting their wealth in an attempt to gather supporters the young man would bind influential connections in an elegant yet direct way.
“The heir of the Taik Family downfall was his arrogance. Making moves clearly in the open makes for a dull exchange” The white haired youth said frowning slightly.
“Our Bai family should not be underestimated!” The young maiden said with clear confidence.
His insight was actually by all means correct. Taik Family was a larger and more influential faction in Yunkai, the contest was a piece of land located in the north which was recently discovered to contain a spirit crystal vein in one of its secluded mountain.
The young lord was the first to receive information of its findings and therefore sent troops to secure the land. The Taik Family caught on to things and tried to lay claims of the land. Their approach was simple, by publicly stating that the vein was better in their hand for a number of reasons and privately pressuring them with power far surpassing their adversary, they could gain both a hefty sum of money and still keep their reputation intact. The young lord’s response was simple, by going into a binding with the royal court in exchange for a small sample of the profit; the Taik Family instantly got suppressed both publicly and privately, which in consequence shamed their reputation. Now when royalty was actually backing the Bai’s families claim to the vein, wasn’t the previous flaunting also a direct insult to the royal court? The arrogance of the Taik Family was unfathomable, not setting up any counter measures to such an simple move was the epitome of stupidity in the eyes of the youth. Even if they lost a portion of the profit to the royal court, they entered into a binding alliance with the most powerful faction in the entire empire, one could only imagine the benefits it would bear in the future.
“Yunkai city has a hundred million citizens alone; among them are tens of families with equal or exceedingly more influence than us. Yunkai city is one among ten equally big cities in the Jin Long Empire which in turn is just one among many empires.” The youth said with a solemn look as he gazed across the falling snow.
“The world is infinite in the perspective of one man; the struggles will last many eons to come, long after I have returned to the dust”
“The game of political struggles does not even make my blood boil anymore, it’s pointless and infinite, and what meaning does it hold?” The white haired young man thought to himself as he continued to gaze upon the mesmerizing scene playing out before his very eyes.
As the youth was deep in thought a man and several people among his entourage came walking up the small slope. For unknown reasons the snow had no way of reaching the middle aged man as he continued to transverse upwards. It was as the snow simply did not have the authority to enter his domain, as he was the ruler and the snow his servant. Before the man came in vision for the youth sitting cross-legged sipping tea he stood up.
“Shui, the family master is approaching.” As the words left the youths mouth he stood up straight and faced the direction the Family Master would appear from. Shui the young maiden didn’t doubt the young man’s words as she also stood straight and looked in the same direction. As long as she could remember her young master had an uncanny ability to notice when someone was approaching, the little doubt she had in the beginning of the accuracy of each prediction had long been thrown away.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
As promised the middle aged man which was known by many as the Bai’s families master came into vision. He carried an unbreakable and serious aura, something not seen in many. The snow parting way for his every step made people of low status believe he was a monarch overlooking all men, but to the people of the upper society this just meant that the man had an unfathomable insight into martial Dao’s. His entourage consisted of fifteen people with fine attires, all lower ranked members of the mighty Bai clan.
“The hill terrace is indeed an magnificent place to witness the birth of winter” The Family Master said with a small smile across his face.
“Bai Jian, greets Family Master Yun!” The young man said as he bowed.
“Leave us!” Family Master Yun said with an overbearing tone.
“Yes!” Everyone said in unison as they quietly left the hill terrace. Alone stood Bai Jian the successor of the Bai family and the current Family Master, Bai Yun.
“I heard about the ordeal with the Tiak Family. Impressive!” Bai Yung had been in closed door cultivation for the later part of a year so any matters regarding the family clan were left in the hand of the second in command, the family master’s successor. Learning about the ordeal and other impressive feats that had benefited the Bai family in the last year made Bai Yun obliged to pay a visit.
“It was nothing. The Tiak Family showed complete arrogance since they heard you were in closed door cultivation. Otherwise they would without a doubt played with greater precaution” Jian tone showed complete humbleness, not because he was in the presence of the Family Master but because the matter had been too trivial to be proud of.
The small yet warm smile continued to broom across Family Master Bai Yun’s face as he spoke up
“That may be the case, but the matters regarding Tiu Ye Family were ingenious!” The family master spoke with complete confidence. Jian had pulled of a move that even he never would have been able to pull off. By predicting that Tiu Ye Family would act against them he had planted and influenced an impressive amount of people under their own banner and in the critical juncture used those pieces to claim an overbearing victory.
“The key to victory will and has always been information. Since they acted under false pretenses, I was assured of victory.” Jian smiled slightly as he had complete confidence in these words. They have proved to be right time and time again.
“Under normal circumstances I would agree with you, but bearing witness to the unfathomable strength some individual possess, I can’t.”
Jian could only nod, agreeing. A good example was the sole Sage realm cultivator in Yunkai, he decided to settle in the city and in mere months the faction he represented were towering over families which had eons of history. The reason was simple; he held absolute strength and even the royal court had to be respectful in his presence. Tactics and schemes only worked if both parts played on the same level, would an ant be able to out scheme a giant? The answer was under most circumstances simply, no.
“By the way when we are on the topic, how is your cultivation coming along?”
“I should be able to enter the Ki realm any day now”
Bai Yun’s face could only twist in response. This news which one year ago had shocked him to the extreme once again came back to bite him. The first step of cultivation was actually called the mortality realm and consisted of the cultivator absorbing Ki into his veins. The problem was that the veins would not accept the Ki, deeming it an unnatural inhabitant of the body and therefore resisting it. But by continuously forcing the Ki inside your body, it would slowly get used to it and once it was completely assimilated as a part of your body a region called the Ki Lake would naturally form. The forming of the Ki Lake was the starting point in any martial artist life; it was not until this moment that any cultivator could practice different cultivation and martial arts techniques. The Ki gathered before this stage had to be the natural Ki of the world, utilizing Ki techniques would not work during this stage since the body would not have any means to store it.
“To reach the Ki Realm at the age of twelve, admirable!” Family Master Bai Yun could only frown; it took him two years longer to reach this stage of cultivation which brought along both jealousy and happiness. This meant that the Family would definitely prosper in the future, a successor both politically and martially talented was a great fortune. As the Family Master obviously his highest priority was to pass on and prosper the legacy left behind by his ancestors.
“Thank you, Family Master!” Jian was actually rather surprised by the causality of the conversation. In all other exchanges he had with the Family Master he had remained stern and distant. Jian knew that this turn of tides was mostly because he had shown great promise; it should be known that successor could be changed under many circumstances but by displaying might in wide arrays of areas Jian believed he had firmly situated his position. As it was now clear that the successor to Bai family would most likely be Jian, the Family Master had turned friendlier in response. After all Jian was the man who in the future would receive his legacy.