The Heavenly School of the Azai employed a regular tattooist from the Starfox Guild. Now that Sunwhisper had bonded with a sacred beast, it was necessary for his advancement to be made official. He could not pay for the service, as Yuyu had not provided funds to do so, but Furui was more than happy to negotiate. As a young sage, Sunwhisper would be expected to share his wisdom with the initiates. After being marked with a fourth star, he was granted the title of instructor, and the required payment to the Starfox Guild would be deducted from his future earnings for the school.
Part of this agreement was that, apart from his jaunts into the Hylian mountains, he was not permitted to go on long journeys outside of the grounds. Sunwhisper agreed to this, knowing full well that when it came time to return to Fringe Village to face the Spiral Dragon he would do so whether he had Furui’s permission or not. For the time being, however, he was satisfied to be able to do something for the Yosei.
The Path of the Kingdom of Wild Hearts was not attainable by every cultivator. The students who came to the heavenly school already had paths, and most were not interested in developing a second or third specialization. Furui assured Sunwhisper that in the years to come, students would arrive from all over the Middle Kingdom solely for the sake of learning from a new sage, but it would take time for word to spread, and longer for it to be believed.
Initiates did not have to join him on his path to benefit from it. In the year he had spent with Hanayumi, they had developed a method of transferring Yosei essence through the bonds he created with the Gentle Sage techniques. This method had allowed him to strengthen his own spirit to the point of being able to bond with a sacred beast, and he could use his techniques to act as a conduit between the Yosei and the initiates.
The process was slower than simply drinking an essence and channeling it through one’s core, but the argument that partnering with the Yosei rather than hunting them would be beneficial to the school in the long term was enough to win Furui’s support. Janna had been released from the dungeons at his request, though her debts now belonged to the academy and her marks had been adjusted accordingly, and she was included among the first crop of students to travel with Sunwhisper to the Hylian peaks.
“It has only been a year,” she said, the only initiate to walk at his side. “And you have leapt ahead of me again. How will I ever compete with you now, Sunwhisper?” They no longer bothered with calling him Jin Sunwa, though they still pretended to share a family relationship. As a would-be sage, no one questioned Sunwhisper choosing a new name.
“You shouldn’t consider us to be in competition,” he replied. “The cooperative model is superior.”
“How kind of you to suggest I should not even try to compete,” Janna teased. “How gracious you have become in your ascendancy. What do you say to every master who has gone before you? Isn’t competition what drives cultivation? Why would anyone become strong, if we did not have to fight each other for strength?”
Sunwhisper took her question seriously, as something he had been considering since he came into his partnership with the Yosei. “It isn’t that competition doesn’t work. As a motivating force, it is self-evidently effective. What I mean is that in the long term, within societies, a cooperative model for development would be even more effective. The Snow Flowers all rely on the same territory, the same resources, but they do not compete with each other for them. Their society can thrive without competing.”
Janna gave him a strange look, as if she could not tell whether he was being thoughtful or facetious. “The Snow Flowers? Sunwhisper, we made them our prey. Their peace exists only because you, someone strong, have made it your mission to deliver peace to them. How can you say they have thrived?”
“I said competition within societies,” Sunwhisper clarified, “not between them. In a competition with humans, the Yosei have obviously lost. It is not in their nature to go to war. But if humans could be taught to cooperate within their society as well as the Yosei do, they would be even stronger as a whole.”
“I disagree. It is understood that cultivators advance as individuals, and that the strength of those individuals is what supports larger communities. A clan is only as strong as its patriarch. I have been in a dungeon for a year, but even I have heard some of Elder Raibu’s lectures on this subject. Competition between cultivators is what drives their development. Without that drive, many of us would be no better than the starless laborers who fill the cities and will never know the joys of communing with the soul of the world.”
Sunwhisper waved his hand as if he was shooing a fly. “Again, I do not argue that competition is ineffective, only that it is suboptimal. The Azai could promote their initiates well enough with essences stolen from the Yosei, but cooperation will yield even greater rewards for both sides.”
“I hope you are right,” Janna said, her doubt evident in her tone.
Hanayumi met them in a field of ice, surrounded by more Snow Flowers than had ever been seen together on a single hunt. She floated above the initiates, suspended by wings of glowing green and blue, choosing to allow Sunwhisper to speak for her. Most of the initiates had never seen a non-human being as advanced as she was, and some of them bowed to show their respect, while others eyed her with open greed.
“Join me in a circle,” Sunwhisper said. “I am going to forge a temporary link with each of you, acting as a conduit for the essence of the Yosei. As this has never been attempted before, I can’t tell you how long it will take to make you ready to summon a spirit weapon. If you do not consent to this process, then you may leave now.”
“No one will leave,” Janna said. “As long as Furui supports you, this is the only method of advancement available.”
“Even so, it needs to be of their own choice,”
No one left, and a dozen initiates, mostly those who had seen Sunwhisper in conflict with Shishio, joined him in a circle along with Janna. Karasu and Ogumo were nearby, and they silently warned him of the approach of another cultivator.
It was Ken, no longer a bearer of seven swords. He wore his brown branch robes, but since he had learned to call a shining soul weapon, he had given up carrying mortal blades. Inu was with him, the wild haired girl with a small white dog at her heels. They approached the group at a leisurely pace, and they bowed to Sunwhisper, who did not rise to greet him.
“How may I help you, Ken. Inu?”
“We wish to join this exercise.” Most of the other initiates from the previous year had volunteered to accompany the Azai force tasked with resettling Fringe Town. Students had been offered additional elixirs to accelerate their development if they agreed to be a part of the damage control, and for young cultivators, there could have hardly been better bait. For whatever reason, Inu and Ken had both elected to remain.
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“You have already benefited from Yosei elixirs,” Sunwhisper said. The Snow Flowers remembered both of the cultivators, and were growing agitated by their presence. They had been flowing through the air like particles of dust caught in water, but now some of them broke away from the current, only to return seconds later. Their instinct to flee was tempered by their connection to Hanayumi, who was not afraid, and Sunwhisper, who was using Aura of the Bleeding Heart to project his own calm.
“We have,” Ken said, “but I still wish to learn. There are many things about you that I do not understand. Even before you challenged Master Makoto, I knew there was something different, something that set you apart from the rest of us.”
“You have two animals,” Inu said, her gaze traveling from the giant spider behind Sunwhisper to the six winged raven peering down at them from above. “And we joined the academy together. I want to do what you do. One day, I want to run with a pack.” Her dog yipped in agreement.
“Then join us.” Sunwhisper extended links to the initiates first. They felt nothing, because he was not taking their pain. He had a limited sense of their current emotional states, but it wasn’t the same as the kind of links he shared with the Yosei, because it was only one way, and they were not actively communicating with him. When Ken and Inu joined the circle, he did the same with them.
“Clear your minds,” he said. “All of you have practiced meditation for many years, and it does not matter so much which path you have chosen for yourselves, so much that you can open your mind to the flow of mana around you. I have extended my spirit to each of you, and I would like each of you to attempt to recognize the link I have made. Use your cultivation sense, and speak when you are able to feel the connection.”
The entire process took three days, during which time, none of the participants left the mountain, and scarcely left their meditative states. The yosei fed fractions of their essences through the spirit links into Sunwhisper, who partially refined them before sending what resulted through the links he had made with the initiates.
It was an entirely new technique, Gift of the Gentle Sage, that functioned similarly to River of Agony, except that he could transfer more than mere pain. The amount of energy he could send through the link was a trickle, and not all of the participants were initially capable of working with what they received. The task called for a highly sensitive cultivation sense. Ken and Inu were able to grasp it immediately, but only about half of the initiates could do so.
Sunwhisper, along with Hanayumi, guided the young artists through a series of exercises designed to heighten their sensitivity, and were largely met with success. At the end of the three days, only one initiate was left without the benefits of having channeled yosei essence, which was no worse than the expected failure rate for the normal advancement method.
As a proof of concept, the trip was a success, and the students paid their respects to Hanayumi before departing back down the mountain. Only those who wished to learn Sunwhisper’s path remained behind.
Ken and Inu had both expressed a desire to become his disciples, and Janna agreed with them.
“If it is your path that has allowed you to come so far so fast, then chasing your wake is the obvious choice,” she said.
Ken’s position was more complicated, and he requested a private audience with the new sage. Sunwhisper brought him to the cave where he had imbued Vel, his spear, with enough of his spirit to make it a part of him. The ritual scripts he had carved in the stone remained, and he intended to use them again when he chose a material to make his armor. Ideally, he intended to travel back to Jigoku and retrieve more titanosteel scraps so he could use them to forge something entirely new.
He had already learned to use his Shining Soul technique to summon a treasure from the Path of the Honing Spear to aid in his defense. It was a tower shield, four feet tall and half as wide, formed entirely of golden mana. Its name was Svallin.
“What did you wish to ask me?” Sunwhisper had not dismissed his link with Ken after the ritual, and he could feel the man’s unease.
“When we first met, your existence offended me,” Ken said conversationally. “Then, you did something, and I did not understand what it was then, but having learned a little of your path, I think I now do.” He looked at the scripts on the floor, searching for the right words to describe his experience, and Sunwhisper did not interrupt him.
“You took a shadow from my heart that I had not realized was there. It confused me, and I was not sure that you had done anything until I saw you die. When Master Makoto beat you, I felt that shadow come flying back. It was not as strong as it had been, but I knew it as I would know my own father. There was no mistaking it.”
Sunwhisper nodded. “When did you first recognize the shadow for what it was?”
“I still don’t know.” Ken shook his head. “It was a part of me that I did not know was a part until it was taken away and returned. Before that, it had been with me all my life.”
“What does it feel like?”
Ken reddened slightly. “It feels like I have failed, and I have been seen to fail, and I know that I will fail again.”
“Does it speak to you?”
“You know?” He glanced sharply at Sunwhisper. “Can you hear it with your techniques?”
“Not exactly. My technique allows me to take on the pain of another, and so for a time, I carried your shadow with me as my own. A thing like that is not as strong, however, when you know it for what it is.”
“I thought it was my own voice for my whole life,” one of Ken’s hands clenched at his side. “When it was returned to me, it seemed like it was someone else’s voice, and its influence was not as strong. But for the year that you were gone, I struggled with this thing, and it was as if it was crawling deeper inside of me all the time.”
“Do you want me to take it away again?”
Ken said nothing, shame coloring his expression.
“I hoped that taking it from you the first time would be enough to allow you to heal in a way that would cause it to wither on its own. I’m not sure now that such a thing is possible for a shadow like this.”
“What is it, really?” There is a desperate light in Ken’s eyes. “A spirit? A blood curse? Now that I see it more clearly, I think I am not the only one in my family who has had to carry this burden. Can it be destroyed?”
“Shadow is as good a name as any,” Sunwhisper said. “And I cannot destroy it. My technique is a salve, not a cure. So though I can remove the pain of a wound, I cannot close the wound itself. That is something you will have to learn to do on your own, and recognizing that the shadow is separate from you is the first step.”
“Can you teach me?”
Sunwhisper smiled. “I think that I can.”
If Ken wanted to defeat his shadow, what Sunwhisper recognized as self-esteem issues and intrusive thoughts stemming from what was almost certainly a genetic predisposition to depression, he would need to develop his own emotional intelligence. Unlike Sunwhisper, he could not simply choose to raise his statistics as a side effect of channeling mana and training his core. He was going to need to embark on a regime of cognitive behavioral therapy in addition to the other requirements of the path. It was something that would require much time and consideration, but neither would be wasted. Cultivators in general could benefit from behavioral therapy once Sunwhisper found a way to package it in a manner that would make developing one's feelings attractive to a hardened heart.
After further conversation, Ken and Sunwhisper returned to find Janna and Inu meditating on the mountaintop. There was work to be done, and no urgency to return to the academy that night, but Karasu fluttered down and landed on his shoulder to deliver a warning.
“Cultivators on the road,” she croaked. “Many strange auras.”
“Is it the students returning from Fringe Town?” Sunwhisper asked. “Do you think they were successful?” He didn’t really believe that he would be fortunate enough to have the problem of the Spiral Dragon corrected without him, but if the Azai had squashed this first advance, that was certainly good news.
“Yes,” she said, and then with more emphasis. “No.’
It was the students returning, and they had not been successful.
Janna was on her feet in an instant. “I’m going down,” she said. “I want to know what happened to my home.”
“Agreed.” Sunwhisper took Lead Grasshopper stance and proceeded to jump down the mountain. His new disciples followed him at their own pace.