28. Debt

Pi Phon dashed along the road, wondering for the fifth time who had built such a thing this far south. Wide enough for five carts to pass by each other, the stone passage was ancient and worn, yet the formations in the stone continued to push the edges of the rain forest back and prevent nature from overtaking it.

The history of the distant south was lost to time, he knew, but such a working required significant expenditure of resources. Even if cultivators did the brunt of the grunt work, with earth cultivators quarrying the stone and such, the road spanned hundreds of miles. Pi Phon couldn’t imagine so many cultivators cooperating on a single project for so long for anything less than an emperor.

He frowned, reflecting on his current situation. Okay, so perhaps a dire need could have driven them to build. Even as he left, more and more had been consistently drawn to the banner of Di Ram and the southern hegira. Thousands of mortals, and dozens of cultivators. The baggage train was miles long when he had left, which had not been so long ago.

He couldn’t fly over the wastes. The same desolation which prevented the rise of undead, or so they believed, also prevented the cultivators from properly resupplying their reserves when engaged in such actions. But he could run almost as fast as he could fly, which was why he had been selected for this measure.

As an Earth cultivator of the late bronze path, he could appreciate the road on a deeper level than most, sensing its deep foundation and the wards that ran its length. But as he began to see the signs of the city, he turned his thoughts to the task at hand.

He stepped over a hill and came upon a sight which defied his comprehension. He scratched his head, watching as dozens of earth cultivators and thousands of mortals worked together on a construction project the size of which boggled his mind.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t just walk up and ask what was going on, since while he had many important and impressive talents, speaking the southern tongue was not one of them. So he began looking around for a guide.

And that was how Tonilla’s spies found him, having been paid good coin to find anyone who spoke the northern tongue and bring them forward as soon as possible.

~~~~~~~

Pi Phon sighed in the bath. His mysterious host had yet to show themselves except through mortal servants who spoke the northern tongue in broken bits, but they had insisted on making him comfortable, and after two weeks on the road he was eager to wash the dust of the wastes off his skin. The mortal servant appeared with bathing supplies including scented soaps and washrags, politely asked if he required any further assistance, then vanished to allow the cultivator to luxuriate in the hot water.

Pi Phon was content to simply soak for twenty minutes, but after he had relaxed a while he knew that he had to get to business. He had a duty to those still in the north to gather intelligence and secure supplies. Whoever his host was, they had been extremely interested in him when he’d said that he was from the Six Mountain Sect, so at least the prestige and honor of his Sect proceeded him.

Pi Phon frowned. The word of Ko Ren’s re-branding of those who had remained behind as the “Sovereign Summit Sect” was troubling, but at the same time it allowed those who remained true to the past to maintain their ties to the way things had been when Di Phon had been patriarch. Before the troubling rumors of corruption and worse had begun making their way south on the lips of survivors and victims.

He finished bathing and dressed himself, allowing his long hair time to dry. He would tie it back into a ponytail eventually, but although this look made him look like a woman, he preferred to let his hair dry naturally than to use Qi to speed the process.

He knocked on the door and instructed the mortal servants to take away the tub now that he had finished with it, then sat at the desk and began writing in his journal. He had been occupied so for perhaps ten minutes when another knock at the door came, and two women entered. One was older than the other, but looked younger due to cultivation. The mortal spoke.

“Welcome esteemed cultivator of the Six Mountain Sect. This one is the honored servant of the Raging River Sect. I am but a mortal and serve as a translator, but I have the esteemed honor introducing the venerable elder of the Raging River Sect, Lady Tonilla,” the mortal woman said.

Pi Phon rose and gave a polite bow, the depth one would expect to give to an elder of an outside sect in the north. “Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Tonilla,” he said. “Although I am uncertain what it was that earned it. The bath and the time to reflect on my journey has been most welcome.”

The words were translated, and the local elder spoke. “We have extended you courtesy because we wish to be courteous with the Six Mountain Sect,” the mortal servant translated. “We have recently come into the acquaintance with another member of your sect, one Po Guah, and he has been most kind in his dealings with us. Extending courtesy to one of his brothers from the north is the least we can do.”

“You know Little Bug?” Pi Phon said, his eyebrows rising in surprise. “He’s alive? Is he doing well? Di Ram will be eager to hear anything you have to say on the matter, the entire reason we left the sect in the first place was to track him down.”

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“Track him down? Is there a bounty upon him?”

“No, no, nothing like that. Little Bug left quite honorably and gave us more than he took. Before his death, or his ascension, depending on which version of the story you believe, Di Phon, the former patriarch of my sect, had a vision that Little Bug would lead a revival of our sect. Things have taken a turn for the worst since then and we haven’t had much chance to look for him since the undead began rising in the north.”

There was a hitch in the translation at the end of his words, and Tonilla’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps it is best if we exchange news about what is going on in our respective lands before we proceed any further. Tell me, have you heard of the tournament?”

~~~~~

I stood in the center of the bonfires, the light and the heat washing over me. It was uncomfortably hot, and were I not a cultivator I would have been cooking myself. But just as I had attuned myself to ice by standing in frigid temperatures, so to must I expose myself to the fire element in order to attune my Qi to that element.

Once I had completed that, I would have managed to attain all of the common elements. Only esoteric ones remained, ones which I could not realistically hope to attain in this lifetime. I would eventually master the techniques employed elements even without an attunement, but my mastery over space and time would forever lack the potency as if I had achieved an attunement to it before the bronze path.

I stuck my hand into the roaring fire before me and felt the flame swirling around it. I exerted a bit of control and felt it bend to my will.

Just as I’d expected, attuning fire was easy. My Qi seemed eager to have this last piece snap into place, and compared to the agony I’d gone through attuning ice and lightning, I made rapid progress.

Still it was six days of standing in the center of bonfires as the others fed them ever higher.

Hien Ro joined me, having ascended into the purification realm and having chosen fire as his primary element. The first attunement is easy to obtain, however, and he achieved his in only a few hours. He then began working on achieving an earth element, which would be his final attunement. He was out searching for the proper rocks to proceed with when I felt that final completion snap into place and knew that I had finished.

With an effort of will, I extinguished the bonfires. Dressing quickly, for while I was immune to fire my clothes were not, I returned to the compound to let the others know that I had finished.

We sat around the table discussing my success, Yara, Adan and I. The topic of the future came up, and when I informed them that we would be heading back to the city where we had met, the father and daughter turned solemn.

“You know, there are some things that I never told you about before,” he admitted nervously.

“I was always curious as to the nature of your debts,” I said. “But it’s not my business to ask. I shall help you settle them of course. How much do you owe?”

He blinked. “That’s it? You’ll just buy my debt like that? I mean, I’m happy to serve you instead of the family of gangsters that I owe, but—”

“If you wish to continue journeying with me, it will not be because of a debt. I am resolving your issues because you and Yara are my friends and that’s what friends do to help each other,” I said. “Besides, I doubt that anyone would allow a fellow like you to borrow too much in principle.”

“Yes, well, do you understand the term ‘compound interest?’” Adan asked.

“Just tell me. What do you owe?”

He nervously worked up his courage to tell me, and I should not have been drinking when he did, as my drink ended up all across the wall.

~~~~~~

Jumper sat on my shoulder as I climbed the goliath tree where the Tunrida resided. I did not reach the summit before the beautiful divine beast appeared on the horizon, responding to the calls of its kin at the intruder to their home. I sat on the branch I’d reached and waited patiently for the majesting red and green bird to arrive. It perched on a nearby branch, and the entire goliath tree shifted under its weight.

“You have returned so soon,” he said.

“I have, majestic one,” I admitted. “I wished to display the status of my efforts. I no longer require the mountain that I bargained for, but I will continue to raise this one, whom I call Jumper, for as long as she continues to follow me. In time, she will seek out a mate of her own, and if she grows like I am expecting her to then she will swiftly face the same problem that you are presently faced with. There shall be only one in the world worthy of her, and that shall be you.”

“You needn’t have come. The birds near your home have kept watch over you for me. I know that you have kept the faith,” the Tunrida said.

“Even so,” I said. “I wished to thank you for your forbearance. I sort of used the bargain we made as leverage against several human cultivators to get what I wanted. They assumed that since I had your permission—”

“I care not. You have attained the elements of fire, wind and thunder since we spoke last. I would share with you, and with Jumper, my insights on the matter,” the Tunrida said.

And the sky lit up with lights as the Divine Beast displayed a magical light show, conjuring a storm of fire, lightning and wind that lasted for six hours. I watched with rapt attention, as did Jumper.

She was so engrossed in the display that she forgot to nip at my earlobe the entire time.

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