“No matter your element, or style of fighting, it can all be boiled down to one thing: Train yourself,”
- Silas Zhao, teacher at the School of the Jade Mountains, in an address to his first class.
The pair sat on the edge of the town by the water. Aki and Liam both sat in a lotus position, facing the water. They sat, sensing the surrounding aura, absorbing it into their bodies. Aki brought it into his core, letting it fill, compress, and widen it. He could feel he was almost ready to advance once more. All the meditation and practice had been doing wonders for him as well.
Liam, on the other hand, while he meditated, didn't work to enlarge his core. Instead, he used it to develop his channels, burning them throughout his body to gain full control. Then, he needed to work on strengthening and deepening the channels. He'd be growing his core soon, though. Aki could feel he was almost ready.
Months had passed, and Aki had taken both Endra and Liam under his wing, teaching them the ways of cultivation. He taught them to meditate and how to draw the aura of the world into their bodies. Neither of them had formed their cores yet; they were still working on forging channels through their bodies.
Endra had lagged behind Liam, but she had the inn to take care of. Aki sat with Liam in the morning while Endra tended to the customers waking up, serving them breakfast and seeing them off. Aki and Liam meditated and worked on his martial forms. At night, he sat with both of them.
Endra had a good grasp of the techniques and was learning quickly. She just didn't have the same time to devote. Aki hadn't even been able to teach her any of the martial arts he knew. She also didn't seem too impressed with the Drunken Imp style he practiced. However, she seemed very interested in his pressure point attacks. The same attack he used when the animal cultivators raided the village, making their warrior throw up on himself.
Aki was still in the beginning stages of learning those moves himself. He had a manual, not a full one, just a bunch of sheets of paper rolled up and kept in his robes. It explained the basic concepts and included some pictures, but Aki still needed to find a more in-depth text so he could teach more to her. A master, back in the capital of the Sasaki Empire, taught him his ability with the needles verbally.
He still needed to work on translating his acupuncture knowledge to further his understanding of the Dim Make manual he had.
The two, on the surface, seemed to go hand in hand and would naturally complement each other. Aki just needed to work on bringing the two together so he could show Endra and progress his own technique. It would be interesting to learn and teach himself at the same time. Maybe she could fit some things together better than he could, and she would enlighten him just as much as he would her.
Aki opened his eyes and looked out into the ocean, smiling. He looked over and reached out with his spiritual sense. The new teacher didn't want to interrupt Liam's cycling, so he sensed the boy's spirit as gently as he could, like the gentlest of winds trickling through his spirit. He was indeed close to forming his core. They would have to discuss and see what sort of core the boy would like.
Aki stood and brushed off the robes. They were clean and new. He could get the local seamstress to make him some new ones once he had tracked down some suitable fabric from the traders that came into the village. They were still plain-looking, but they were made from slightly softer and easier-to-clean fabric than the robes he had first come here with. They were the same black and gray as his original set, however. The colors suited him and his position.
He looked down at Liam and set a hand on the boy's shoulder when he could feel he was done with his current cycle. Liam opened his eyes and looked up at Aki with a soft smile. The boy still talked little, but he stood and brushed off the denim slacks he wore. Aki had gotten a set of robes for Liam to wear as well, but he didn't find them that comfortable. He was used to wearing what he wore, and as long as the tighter fit of clothing didn't interrupt his forms, Aki couldn't care less what the boy wore.
He nodded his head back to the town and the inn. Liam nodded, and they walked alongside. They stayed silent until they were almost at the inn. Aki looked down at Liam and asked if he had given any thought to what sort of element the boy would like.
"Are there any that are better than the others?" Liam looked up and asked, unsure of himself. When he spoke, he spoke and always sounded a little uncomfortable.
"No, of course not. If you pick one of the five or the others from the kami, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. You, as a cultivator, will learn to adapt to the weaknesses in time and make up for them," Aki explained to him.
Liam nodded his head, and they approached the inn and walked in. Endra was standing behind the front counter and looked at the door, smiling. She looked a little frazzled from the morning business she had to do, but seemed to brighten when she saw it was them. It was a busy night at the inn. She had every room booked, and they all had left in the morning. She was looking forward to an easy night.
Liam stood by the door, and Aki walked behind the counter with Endra, and they shared a small kiss on the cheek. They exchanged good mornings, and Aki followed up by asking how her morning went. He then informed her they were discussing what sort of core Liam might grow.
"I think he's about ready to grow it. We just need to decide what element," Aki explained, looking over at Liam. He had come around and given his mother a small hug as a hello but let the two of them talk, which was usually his way.
"Do you have any recommendations, Master?" Liam asked him once Aki looked over at him. "Or Mom?" he continued.
Aki folded his arms and looked at Liam, narrowing his eyes. Truth be told, he did not know. "It really depends on you. Let us take a couple of days to think about it," Aki told the boy.
Liam nodded his head, and Endra went over to him and brought his head to her chest, kissing the top of his head. She rubbed his back and whispered something to him, something Aki couldn't hear, and he didn't try to. It was between them. She lifted her head away and told him there was some oatmeal on the stove for him to have for breakfast. Liam nodded his head and thanked her before heading through the open door into their little living area.
Just as Liam left into the room, a small folded paper crane came flying in through one of the open windows of the inn. Aki and Endra both stared at it for a moment as it flew right to Aki. Aki reached out and grabbed the crane out of the air. He knew the technique and knew who it was from. It was like his own paper lantern message technique. He opened the piece of paper and read the note inside.
“You deserve your little break. Train and work hard.
Do not forget why you are there, however.” - Old Man
Those two lines of text made Aki frown. He examined them with his gray eyes and gave a slight sigh, shaking his head. He and his master had exchanged a few notes like this. Aki told him he was training two people. One was progressing nicely, and the other was a little more slowly, but they were progressing.
The whole reason for him coming here was to do that. Well, that and spread the word of the Kami. Here in the town, people weren't very open to throwing away their deity for a pantheon of deities who all controlled the planet they lived on. The funny thing was, though, as Aki looked at their religion more thoroughly, he realized they weren't far wrong.
Their chief deity was Rei. Their artwork of him even matched the father of the Kami. Then, instead of their multiple other deities, they had angels. Though, their angels matched up with the other Kami too. Aki just needed to figure out a way to convince everyone they were all believing in the same things.
When Aki used to sit on the corner and try to spread his message, they labeled him a heretic and said he was going to hell. Some of them tried to beat on him, like the Old Ginger Gang. He could never understand why the gangsters who broke all of their rules were so devout, but it took all kinds, Aki supposed.
Aki shook all those thoughts away and crumpled the note in his hand. Did his master know he was slacking off on part of his mission? The beggar frowned. Of course he did. The Old Man knew everything. Dammit.
Endra looked at him and raised her brow. "What is it?" She asked him.
Aki shook his head and threw the crumpled paper into a small trash can next to her front desk. "It's nothing. I'm just going to get to the capital soon, I think. Go back to doing what I was supposed to be doing," he told her.
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Endra frowned and nodded her head. She turned her back to Aki and went through the partition in the wall into their living area. This just made Aki sigh again. They had discussed this before, him leaving, going to the capital. She had brought up that he could just ditch the sect, live his life as one of the wandering cultivators. He could become a monkey. That way, he'd be able to stay and train them and just be with her and Liam.
Truth be told, he had thought about it. Being a beggar wasn't exactly a glorious spot to be in. Could he betray his master, though? Turn his back on the man who had given him his life? He'd still be in an alley somewhere, a simple mortal who couldn't defend himself and relied on running away from his bullies.
Aki reflected. He supposed even after he became a cultivator. He had still stayed in the back alleys. Or crept around palaces and manors trying to find information on sect elders. When he was younger, he'd even join different sects to dig for information. That was how they initially found out that other cultivation elements were being forcefully withheld from people. Did he really have that much better of a life?
He was better off now than he ever had been. That much he knew. He had a little family, a roof over his head. He had free time and a comfortable place to sleep every night. Still, his master. Aki pulled at his beard and looked outside. Autumn had come and winter was ending. If he was going to go to the capital, he'd have to do it before summer was in full swing. Then he'd be stuck here like he was before the attack from the raiding tribe.
Trying to push everything from his mind, he went inside to join Endra and Liam for breakfast. He took a seat at the small table and helped himself to some of the oatmeal. Aki didn't particularly like the food, but it was there, and it was what Endra had made. He had eaten much worse things in the morning for breakfast. The three ate in silence, neither Endra nor Aki bringing up the capital anymore that morning.
After breakfast, Endra and Liam set about cleaning the rooms in the inn, and Liam went to help the doctor next door. He was helping him learn acupuncture so he could try to help some of his customers with the chronic pain that came from farming. He had also helped the doctor text elixirs and pills made from local ingredients. Aki knew some alchemy, but he was a fledgling apothecarist at best. There were a lot of failed experiments that even gave him a cultivator, an upset stomach, or had other adverse effects.
In the afternoon, it was time for more training with Liam. They would meditate a little more, but mostly work on his martial forms. He'd let the boy use his sword, which was still kept in the scabbard designed as a cane. He'd take him through different sword stances and forms, and they'd spar a little. Aki used the Ice Fang dagger he had been given. They moved slowly, striking with precision, and Aki was pleased with Liam's progress in this field as well. The boy was studious and a quick learner.
After an exchange of blades, Liam took a step back, breathing heavily and looked up at Aki. "Do you have any ideas on what I should do about my core?"
He stood with his hands at his sides, the tip of the sword in the dirt. Liam looked defeated, searching for answers and help with a problem that no one could ever help him with. He was still panting, brow sweaty, and his brown hair matted down.
Aki took a step forward and brought his dagger to the sword, lifting it from the dirt. "We don't stand like that with our blades out. Sheath it." Aki scolded the boy, but then took a step backward.
"Sorry, Master," Liam nodded his head and walked over to where the scabbard was lying on the ground. He picked it up and sheathed the sword before turning back around and looked back up at Aki, waiting for an answer to his question.
Aki sheathed the dagger on the sheath at the small of his back and looked down at Liam. Smiling, he said. "You know, I think we will give you an ice element."
Liam tilted his head a little and looked up at Aki questioningly. "Won't that be hard for me to cultivate?"
Aki nodded his head a bit. "Yes, it'll take you longer to cultivate because you'll have to convert other elements into your own. If you stay here during the winter, it will be easier. It gets colder at night. As a cultivator, you'll want to explore the world, though. Or you'll be able to trade for things to help. You're small, agile, but while we fight, you hold your own. You show mountain, instead of water. I wonder if we could get some spirit stones for you…” Aki trailed off then and kind of shrugged. “
"It doesn't have to be ice. We can pick something else. You can have wind like I have if you'd like. It's easier to cultivate," Aki continued a moment later.
Liam nodded his head. "Wind then. If you'll teach me," he said with a definitive nod.
Aki grinned and looked him over. He didn't know why he didn't think of it sooner. It would mean Liam would truly be his apprentice, in every sense of the word. Even Aki's own master didn't teach him the same thing he practiced. It was still to this day that Aki didn't even know what element the old man cultivated, or his path.
"Get in a lotus position. Now," Aki commanded.
Liam didn't hesitate. He sat down in his meditating position and closed his eyes. Aki cycled his mana, calling the wind. He brought it around the pair, surrounding them with it. The water picked up in waves off the coast. Waves crashing away from the beach in the outward push of the wind. The master pulled his few wind stones from the pockets in his robes and set them around Liam. He didn’t need to worry about accidentally grabbing that blood spirit stone. He had put that in a drawer at home, and carved some runes into it to try to keep the spiritual pressure it gave off closed off.
"Concentrate on the wind, on the aura of the world," Aki instructed him. "Now separate the aura, before it didn't matter what you brought into your body. Only work on bringing in the wind. Let it breeze through your channels, cycle it through your body. Bring it to your middle, behind your belly button. Let it swirl there. Your channels can be formed, molded. You're going to take what's there and make your core."
Liam sat there and nodded his head. He listened to Aki, and Aki could feel the boy doing as he said. The boy saw the wind flowing into the boy, felt the aura get converted to mana and run through his channels. He then felt the swirling in the middle of Liam's body and moved and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. This was the hard part.
Liam gritted his teeth. His brow, which was still damp from the training, grew wet once more with sweat. He grunted out. This was a powerful process, and Aki supposed he should have warned the boy. This was part of cultivation, though, pain. He might as well get used to unexpected pain, rather than let it be a new thing to him later on.
Then it hit. Liam let out a loud, primal scream of pain, and Aki tightened his grip on the boy's shoulder. His body shuddered, and he grunted, doubling over. It only lasted a few moments before Jake fell, passed out. Aki made sure the boy was still breathing, but there was nothing else for him to do for the boy. He would be free from pain when he woke up, just a dull ache in his stomach.
Aki released the winds and let them die down. He stood and waited, his hands at his sides, looking out over the water. A small smile grew on his face as he realized Liam wasn't just sort of his apprentice; he was truly his apprentice. He had, of course, known this already. The fact the boy wanted to take the same element as Aki, though, made him feel good.
Aki ended up having to take a few small steps away from the boy when the goo began. The toxins in his body were flushed from his pores. His clothes, ruined. He would need a bath. It was a black ooze that soaked everything and stunk to high heaven.
Looking out on the skyline over the water, he now looked to the right, towards the town docks. Aki couldn't believe what he saw. A medium-sized ship with one mainsail and a smaller one behind it. The symbol was a symbol Aki knew all too well. It was an enormous snake, its body coiled up around a pillar that held the markings for the name of the sect. It rose proudly over some pagodas, staring off to the side. The markings? It was the Akutamori Temple.
The head of the Zhao clan ran the Akutamori Temple, who also happened to be the advisor to the emperor. It's not that they were an evil sect; those didn't really exist. Their place in power, though, was always questioned, even by non-cultivators. Then, of course, Aki had the same problem that he had with most of the major sects. They kept knowledge away from cultivators.
Why would they be coming to the western shores? And in such a large showing of force? Flying that sail meant they had to be here in some sort of official capacity. Aki looked down at the boy when Liam started to groan and show some small signs of life. Aki walked back to the boy and looked down at him, scanning his spirit.
Aki's mind raced, but he kneeled down on a single knee beside Liam. "You're okay," he told him. He didn't ask him; he told him.
"It hurts, it always hurts, but it's your first big step on the path of cultivation. Congratulations. You are now a cultivator, and you really need a bath," Aki smirked and reached. He helped Liam to his feet, and the pair walked back to the inn.
"What is all this stuff?" Liam asked Aki as they walked. He pulled at the shirt he wore that was now stuck to his body with the ooze.
Aki explained how it was the toxins in his body. This first expulsion of toxins was always the worst, and as he progressed, until he hit the spiritual realm, he would keep expelling toxins with every breakthrough. Liam gave a disgruntled grunt to this.
"Don't worry, you have that fancy bathtub at the inn you can use to wash up, and we can get you more clothing," Aki told him.
They walked inside the inn and found Endra standing behind the front desk. She had smiled when she saw them, but instantly frowned and took a step back towards the wall. "What is that smell?!"
Aki laughed and explained that Liam had broken through and grown his core. Instead of saying anything, Liam chose to go upstairs immediately and head to the room with the bathtub in it. Endra just stared, horrified, and watched him leave. Aki still laughed a little but walked to Endra, his hands raised passively.
"It'll be alright; we just need to get him some fresh clothes, and I need some paper. I need to write to my master," Endra nodded and reached into her desk, pulling a few pieces of paper from her desk and handing them to him.
Aki could tell she wanted to ask what it all meant and what was going on. She left the room, however, and went to get some clothes for Liam and took them up to him. She walked up the stairs shaking her head and holding her nose, looking put out by the whole affair.
Aki scribbled a note on the piece of paper.
“The Akutamori Temple is arriving at this very moment on the western shores.
Have you heard anything? Do you know why they’re coming?”
Aki took the piece of paper and one extra sheet, folded the papers into a small paper lantern. It was square and had a steepled rooftop. He folded quickly but precisely, making sure he creased the folds well so it would hold the shape. When it was finished, he went outside and, with a small pulse of mana and a whisper to the wind, threw the lantern up into the sky. Then he watched it fly away in the wind.
The lantern would fly, much like the small paper crane had, and find the Old Man. It worked without fail, barring it being shot down or intercepted by someone. Aki didn't expect this to happen. Once it reached a certain height, you couldn't really even tell there was anything in the air against the bright sky.