Chapter 63 A Practical Guide to Not Becoming a Xianxia Protagonist
“It is said the strongest Cultivator was some truant prince who took up the sword with no prior training in it or martial arts in general after he starved himself under a peach tree for nine weeks straight and left ranting about solving suffering. Disciple, you must aim to achieve the same foolishness as this man who we name the First Sage.”
The docks had a character to it. It was a part of the city Aiden had never visited, yet was instantly recognisable. Closest to the sea, and thus the Pacific Threat, it was a place abnormally sterile, yet littered with the scratchings of the Wanderer’s Code. Each symbol imbued with Hume and the vast number of symbols deafened Aiden’s senses, Oros slithered off his scarf and back onto his neck as a tattoo. Both felt pressed like when Isaac had used Simple Domain on him.
They warned of many things, and in their repetition, suppressed them.
It was in an old fish and chips shop where Aiden found Rain. Sat beside a window overlooking the barnacle infested wooden docks, she regarded a greasy plate of fish and chips, a tower of deep fried chocolate bars, and a jug of soda with something bordering disgust and morbid curiosity.
“How can you serve this thing?” she asked the tight lipped chef and proprietor of the store. “Ignoring that, how do people eat this? Poison is in the dosage, and I fear you have accidentally killed all your customers.”
The chef answered by adding a plate of calamari rings.
Rain regarded her fork with similar curiosity, but still speared a single chip. She nodded as she sampled it, “Yes, you are definitely trying to poison me. My gratitude to you. What are these curious devices you use in place of chopsticks?”
“How do you not know about forks?” Aiden asked as he sat down. “Is this the first time you’ve tried eating in this world?”
“Nobody offered until now,” she shrugged as she spun a butter knife. “I sat down and the Chef began placing plates in front of me.”
“Ya paid,” said chef bluntly told them before going back into the kitchen.
Rain used the fork and knife like chopsticks, threading them in her fingers to hold up the fried fish, “I’d offer you some but I’m afraid this will kill you.”
They both noticed the new person down the street heading towards them, both continued their conversation even as Aiden began to memorise their gait. “People are not that fragile.”
“That could be true,” Rain mused as she tried the fish. “I have heard people of this realm recreationally drink disinfectant. It’s a misuse of medicine but I can’t blame stupidity.”
It took Aiden a moment to recognise what she meant as he took from the box holding napkins and utensils. “Alcohol? I guess some people do that, but nobody I know drinks.”
As he said that, Ranpo chugged a beer bottle the length of his wingspan then jumped off a pile of golden coins into a fountain of wine.
The door bell rang as Ya stepped in. “Am I late?”
Aiden regarded the man. There were details that simply could not have been conveyed via a screen. Ya must’ve been a very fit man in the past, but seemed to have lost himself recently. His gait was very familiar, and Aiden realised with no surprise that it seemed like a… worse version of Rain’s gait. Both were of a practised fighters, but his lacked a quality that Rain’s had. A career soldier against a born martial artist. He clad himself in a simple and practical business suit, a type unique to this world in that it did not overly hinder movement and acted much like body armour, but along with such practicalities as his red ring he also wore a luxury brand watch and shoes. Slight touches of make up tried and failed to hide wrinkles and greying hairs. Aiden’s tattooed nose also caught a hint of cologne. It wasn’t strong enough for someone without an enhanced smell, so Ya wore it exclusively for their benefit.
“I just arrived as well,” Aiden answered.
No doubt the man wanted to make sure the path was clear. Despite his many advantages. Here within the ports, surrounded by the Wanderer’s Code, it was neither the otherworldly magics of Rain nor Aiden’s meta ability Colorful that reigned.
It was him, the regular man.
Ya pulled a chair, noting that a set of cutlery had been prepared for him. “Rain, you eat?”
Rain took a sip of the soda, her face warping in disgust for a moment. “You never asked.”
“You told me forty years ago you sustained yourself purely off violence and meditation. The years have not proven to me anything else.” Ya sighed as she went back to her food.
The older man did not touch his cutlery, but set down his suitcase on the table. “How’s the view? I hope I didn’t call you too late, we can work out better scheduling in the future but this was the closest time I had available.”
Aiden shrugged. “There’s no problem, I wasn’t busy tonight. You must be parched.” A rope shot out and grabbed a glass cup, which Aiden quickly filled and offered him. Ya didn’t react, seamlessly taking the cup and thanking him.
It had been a while since Aiden played this game. Of inane lies, pointless subtlety, and half remembered social cues. Ya pretended he didn’t call him at this time to keep Aiden off kilter, in a place where metas were weaker, and pretended to be late to confirm the way was safe. Aiden pretended he didn’t notice and wrapped a knife and fork nicely in a napkin for the man, as well as showed his ability could still work. Aiden wondered briefly how many bribes he missed out on early in life simply because he didn’t know the game. His coworkers must’ve thought him incorruptible before that one particularly blunt trust fund kid handed him keys to a lambo and told him to delay the wages of a particular person long enough for her to get evicted.
Ya opened his suitcase and laid down pen and paper, “Let us discuss the terms of your contract, we can draw up a draft here. Of course for people like us it’s mostly symbolic.”
‘It doesn’t have to be.’ Aiden thought briefly. They were citizens of Ozzstraya, with a Notary empowered by Law, making a contract binding would be simple. But given Aiden’s plans a legally binding contract would only make things difficult. ‘Should I bring it up just to muddy my intentions?’ He dismissed the notion quickly, it could also just have been a trap by Ya to make Aiden agree to it, all the while looking like it was his own idea. Aiden shrugged, “That’s fine.”
Rain set down her fork, wiped her mouth, “Excuse me,” and burped loudly enough to reverberate through the street. “I believe according to the script I am supposed to bring up your realms’ bureaucratic legal magicians in a ‘very natural way’.” She even said that last part in accented English, making it clear she was told to say that.
Ya and Aiden stared at her as she nonchalantly started picking her teeth with a tooth pick.
“Rain…” Ya began.
The woman shrugged, “I told you further negotiations were unnecessary, we fought, what more needs to be said? Neither of you are foolish enough to believe the other either way, you’re just insulting each other.”
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“Perhaps you should keep watch outside?” Ya decided he would rather be left alone with someone who could kill him in several dozen very creative ways than stand Rain any longer. For that, he held Aiden’s deepest sympathies.
That sympathy however quickly evaporated when Rain stepped out and Ya turned to him. “Six figures, hourly wages, sick leave, three months paid holidays, insurance,” Aiden pushed up his glasses, “oh, and dental and optometry.”
Little did Aiden expect that the other man would actually be invigorated by his rapid fire of demands. “We’re hiring you on a casual and contractual basis, paid holidays are for consistent employment.”
Aiden raised an eyebrow, “Oh? And you don’t expect me to stay for the long term nine to five?”
“You have your military conscription, I’m not going to pay you to be a spy. We can however renegotiate when you return, we’ll treat right now as a trial period.”
“A trial period longer than twelve months? Then pay me seven figures.”
“Now that’s ridiculous.”
“Well if you can’t bear seven figures I can accept nine hundred thousand…”
“Were you born without shame or was it a learned skilled? Five hundred, I have this insurance plan that covers extended family…”
As they bargained like old aunts at a fish market, Aiden had to stop the grin from forming on his lips. ‘Ah this is bad. I think I actually like this guy. That’s gonna make killing him so much harder.’
It had started snowing some time during their bargaining. By the time they had haggled out their agreement and left the store, it had become thick enough to reach their ankles. Neither were surprised to find the vaguely cross legged snow mound that dusted herself off and silently stepped to follow beside them.
They reached the docks proper, feet crunching down snow, sea warred with a different scent, and Aiden paused as he saw the barnacles crusting every available surface. They reminded him of common acorn barnacles but… off somehow. The details were not quite right and a part of him was wary against it. He recognised it quickly, now that he knew what he was experiencing. It was the instinctual repulsion of sensing Bleed, but lesser, instead of an invader in your home it was more in the way of an invited stranger.
Ya glanced towards him, “You noticed?”
Aiden knelt down, examining the curious growth. “This is a living concept. The entire thing is.”
“Barnacles. No one can get rid of them, no one can make use of them.” Ya stepped away to hail a nearby ship.
Rain sat down beside him, legs dangling off the docks. With a pinch she pried a single barnacle free, tearing off a thin layer of the salt rotten wood underneath with it. “Your realm suppresses me, but does not for these things.”
“I believe the difference is that your reality isn’t actively infecting ours,” Aiden answered. He glanced towards the sea, lingering on the dark waves unilluminated by civilisation.
“What drives you, tea brewer?”
Aiden frowned, “Why are you asking me this?”
“Reciprocity,” she answered, toying with the living concept within her fingers. “I have told you what I am, so that you understand what kind of creature I am.”
“I have only come to understand that you are a monstrous thing,” Aiden scoffed. “And yet, I pity you more honestly.”
Rain snorted, an undignified laugh that felt so out of place it was like she had done it at a funeral. “Indeed! To have fallen so far to deserve pity. You must think me old and decrepit with one foot in the grave. But you are trying to change the subject. Answer.”
Aiden drummed his fingers on his knee. He considered lying, but he knew there was no point. She wouldn’t do anything with the truth, Rain was more likely to keep it to her grave if anything.
“There is nothing interesting to it, I merely wish to be kind.”
And the Rain that Beholds the Morning Grass grinned deeply. “Then I am glad. You choose the most difficult path of them all.”
“There is nothing difficult about being good,” Aiden answered. “Everyone else seems to get it, but I don’t. I’m lacking something.”
“You misunderstand Son of Fire, though goodness comes naturally to people of this realm, it is the most difficult step of them all for us,” her eyes looked far, but unseeing. Reminiscing of a place Aiden had never seen. “There is a tale from my realm of an extremely foolish Empress. She walked the path of the Eight Shattered Mountains, knew the secrets of the First Sage and the truth of the Heavens, she ruled the Nine Peach Phoenix Empire, master of countless Cultivators including the Eight Divine Generals. Yet still we remember her only as the greatest fool of them all. Do you know why?”
Aiden shook his head.
“Because she declared her empire will be good,” Rain said. “We will no longer keep the mortals as chattel, we will have honour, we will value the communal over the individual, and we will remake the Eight Shattered Mountains so that they’ll be whole again. She wanted to become better, so that Cultivators are not just animals with an esteemed title,” she practically spat the word, like hateful bile that stuck to the back of the throat.
“The moment she weakened in power, her Eight Divine Generals betrayed her,” Rain crushed the living concept inside her hand. “Showing that for all the peace and prosperity she achieved, it was all dependant on her having the largest fist. And so the people of my realm learned a very valuable lesson. That is why I am glad, you wish to be kind, so you wish to be strong.”
Aiden watched the crushed shell dust of the living concept fall and fade away into nothing. “I can confidently say the people of your realm learned the wrong lesson.”
“Perhaps we have,” she didn’t refute him. “Knowledge and perspective of this world has been valuable in that regard.”
On Aiden’s cheek, a tattoo of a brown mouse scurried about, before it entangled itself within a bramble of thorns, trapped and bleeding, it was another white mice that came and chewed it free. In another section of his face, an ant carried another wounded ant away a battlefield. On his shoulder a memory of a crow flew by. As those memories appeared then returned to him, Aiden spoke, “Mice will free another from bondage with no prompting, ants heal their wounded even if there are hundreds to replace them, strength has never been a requirement. So it must be a quite simple thing to achieve.”
“Then win, and prove me wrong.”
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Jun hung upside down, her legs sprawled over the top of a couch. She had already finished cleaning up after everyone had left, and was now alone with her thoughts.
Evidently, her thoughts didn’t give much, since she let herself go and collapsed onto the floor, coming eye to leg with Puppet Rain. “I thought with the blood rushing to my head I might think of a better idea.”
She collected herself, coming to a cross legged sit next to Puppet Rain. “But I can’t figure it out, how do I get both strong enough to hurt you and fast enough to hit you? Can you tell me?”
Puppet Rain suddenly stood up, knocking Jun onto her back. “Hey!”
The silent puppet ignored her as she stepped outside into the snow. Jun followed out soon after, breath fogging in the night cold. She found her roommate rolling snowballs. “Making a snow man?”
She shrugged and joined in, rolling her own snow balls. Two snow men soon stood in the field, Puppet Rain’s was bare, but Jun had taken the time to poke some eyes and draw a mouth.
A tap from Puppet caught Jun’s attention, making sure she was watching, the Puppet raised a baseball bat and swung it at the snow man’s head.
Jun watched it in slow motion as she made contact with the snow and begin to carve through the snow man. “Huh?”
Puppet Rain withdrew the bat, leaving a straight line thick as her wrists splitting the snow ball in two, only a tiny flap of snow connected the ball where the Puppet had stopped and not gone all the way.
Jun took the bat, and swung at her own snow man, but she only bashed the head off. She tried again with the decapitated body, going at a slower pace, but she only succeeded in rolling the snow ball slightly to the side.
Jun examined the two snow men, one with a perfectly straight cut made with a bat as thick as a person’s wrist, the other a headless misshapen ball. The tools were the same, the material too. Puppet Rain reached out, and Jun passed her back the bat.
She demonstrated another cut on her snow man, and spoke, “Anyone can smash something with a large stick, but to attain mastery, you must cut.”
Jun sat down, staring at the two cuts Puppet Rain made on her snowman. Brow frowning deeper and deeper even as she took back the bat. Moments passed, but a subjective eternity for Jun as she sped herself up to think. Examining and prodding every part of the snow man for a trick.
But there was none, only the absurd reality of what had just happened.
After a moment, Jun’s eyes lit up with realisation. “IGOTIT!”
It was as if the heavens opened up at that moment as Jun grasped martial enlightenment.
“I just need to use a real weapon!” she rushed back to her kitchen and returned with a knife. This time easily making a cut in the snow. “There!”
She proudly showed Puppet Rain the cut.
Puppet Rain stared at her, then stared at the sky, and for some odd reason Jun couldn’t help but think she was disappointed.
“Achoo!” It was then Jun remembered she was out in the snow in her pyjamas.