35. Rising Star

I sat as they explained their position to me. I was not accused of any malfeasance, of course, for I had done nothing wrong. My presence, they said, created an unfair environment which was destabilizing the rest of the participants and causing unrest in the mortal audience.

I volunteered to forsake my claim on the victory prizes, but such a promise was not enough. In order for the tournament to appear legitimate for the rest of the participants, my participation and advantages would need to be explained, and even then it would cause unrest among those I fought.

I listened patiently, and in the end I agreed with them.

But with conditions of my own.

Thirty minutes later, I found myself stepping one more time onto the coliseum floor. The crowd roared at seeing me emerge, and they booed, and they jeered and they cheered and they threw fruit and some of the women bared their breasts.

“I ask for silence while I explain what happened yesterday,” I said, and my quiet voice echoed through the entire structure. “My name is Little Bug, and I am an awakened soul. I recall my past lives, and it is with that wisdom that I bring my cultivation techniques to this world. I am the mind which created the Peach Blossom Dream and I am the one who printed the pamphlets of the body purification techniques which have been circulating through the participants of the tournament.”

I paused for a second. The room was silent. I was speaking in the common pidgin, so presumably the majority of the room understood me.

“Despite this, I truly am simply in the purification realm. I have not broken any of the rules of the tournament. However, my participation in the tournament is now seen as a destabilizing force, and I wish only to bring harmony. As such, effective immediately, I am withdrawing my participation,” I said.

The crowd erupted into boos and cries.

“In exchange, the tournament organizers have agreed to several conditions of my own,” I explained over the din, confident that those who wanted to listen would hear. “First of all, any of the remaining participants may challenge me, and I may accept. Any points that they score against me in the resulting fight shall count towards their final score. Additionally, all participants, including those who have withdrawn, will receive a copy of the Peach Blossom Dream and the body purification manual.

“The prizes remain the same, except that I have tripled my own reward. Instead of only gifting one technique, three of the ranking finalists may choose the privilege of having a personalized technique designed by me.” I paused as the news was allowed to sink in. “This means that there are effectively seven grand prizes in addition to the monetary rewards for placing in the top ten. And for those who do not think that having a technique designed by a twelve year old is worth anything, I show you this. I call it ‘Rising Star.’”

I raised my hand and my Qi roiled as I called it forth. It was a rather simple technique. Fire and lightning Qi were called forth and accelerated around each other in concentric and opposite directions. This created a friction, and the entire system was then compressed in on itself until it was ready to explode.

Then a pinprick, and the energy was released, causing a streak of energy hot enough to melt sand to glass, leaving a hole in the sands of the arena five feet wide.

That hole is still there.

The crowd roared as I stepped off of the sands, but not for the last time.

I would fight in the coliseum yet again.

~~~~~~

“Awakened soul, huh?” Farun said, munching on the kernels of the flavored corn that he was sharing with Lahri. “That’s neat. Did you know?”

“Not exactly,” Yara said, chewing on the gourd seeds she’d purchased for herself. “But I’m not exactly surprised. It makes sense, he must have come from a world where they are far more advanced than us to know the secrets that he knows.”

“Perhaps the Peach Blossom Dream is taught to commoners there, and that is why he values it so little,” Farun commented.

“Perhaps,” Arjun said.

Then the tournament officials came and announced that any ‘challenge fights’ would take place at the end of the day, after the regular bouts, and then they began announcing the order of the fights to follow. Cheers erupted as favorites were called out, and Yara yelled as loud as anyone when Hien Ro’s name was called.

~~~~~~

I realized, perhaps too late, that I was surrounded by vipers. Sitting in the box seat between Pi Phon and Tonilla, I watched the proceedings as the tournament got underway. But we were far from alone. While the immediate space around us was rather roomy, that was only in comparison to the elders and tournament organizers attempting to cram into every cubic centimeter of the rest of the box.

I sighed.

Perhaps it was not too late to change my name and vanish.

“So,” Pi Phon said eventually, coughing nervously at the audience to our conversation. “When did you know who you really were, Little Bug? Or should we call you by another name?”

“Little Bug is fine,” I said. “I’ve always had dreams of my mayfly lives, but it wasn’t until Ko Ren and Ko Si and I’m not certain who else attempted to exorcise me that the wards on my soul were broken and I recalled my purpose.”

“Is that so?” he asked. “So Ko Ren targeted you even before he began plotting against the patriarch. I am sorry that the elders of the Six Mountain Sect could not better protect you while you were vulnerable, grand elder.”

“Call me Little Bug,” I insisted. “It helps me remember who I am.”

He paused, then nodded. “As you wish. Little Bug, I apologize that your early life was not—”

“It was wonderful in a way,” I said. “I had a loving mother, and a father who tried so hard to provide for us that I never went hungry even in the hard times after the battle in the sky. My sister and the other children thought I was strange, but I thought they were shallow. I have enough wisdom to know better to ask for more than that in any life.”

Pi Phon was silent as he contemplated his next words. “May I ask what it’s like?”

“What?”

“Dying.”

“Like being born, I don’t remember,” I admitted. “It’s the bits between birth and death that are important.”

“I see,” he said. “I believe I shall write that down.”

“Please don’t. Just remember it.”

“As you say.”

I sighed, and I hoped that I wasn’t founding a religion. That would be most inconvenient.

The fights began, and gradually the adults in the box seats around me grew accustomed to my presence and began discussing the matches rather than sitting in silence and watching in case I sprouted wings.

Thinking of wings, I reflected that I needed more meal-worms for Hopper.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

~~~~~~

The list of challengers came in after lunch.

It was everyone.

Including Hien Ro.

I sighed. I understood what he meant by his challenge. We had fought countless times, but he wished to face me as I’d faced Polkluk. Where I wasn’t fighting to his level, but forcing him to fight on mine. Or at least closer to it.

I accepted ten of the challenges at random.

As I’d known would happen that morning, I stepped onto the coliseum floor once more.

~~~~~

Lukal Lukal grinned as his name was called. The one who had supplanted him and then withdrawn, who claimed to be an awakened soul, had accepted his honorable challenge. While he understood the necessity of keeping the masses happy, he’d been most upset that Po Guah had withdrawn before their scheduled match.

He had tracked down the boy who had miraculously drawn the sleeper into wakefulness and taken notes on the battle that had followed. He thought that he had a strategy which would counter the use of duplicates that Po Guah used, be they Qi technique of Dao Avatar. But he’d never gotten to employ it.

He followed the tunnel out into the sands of the coliseum, frowning when he saw nine others stepping forth from their waiting areas. “What is this? Is it not—”

“It grows late,” Po Guah said, appearing in the center of the coliseum. “Come at me all at once, and let us send these fine people home with something to talk about.”

Lukal Lukal balked, unwilling to gang up on an outnumbered foe, but his concern was quickly shown to be misplaced. One of the others, a woman who was lower in the ranking, charged forward, leaping into the air with a “Hyah!” to launch a flying kick at the boy. And the boy blurred and split into ten forms.

And after that Lukal Lukal didn’t see much of the other battles as he was forced to focus on the attacks that the younger boy was launching upon him.

“Are you the true body?” he asked as he exchanged breathless blows with the apparition before him.

“We are all true,” all of the apparitions said in unison. “And we are all false. We are all one, and we are many parts of a whole.”

“If you are real, then I shall prove it by beating you to the ground and making the others vanish!” Lukal Lukal declared, and he launched himself forward with everything he had. Using the technique that he had suppressed due to concerns that it would be disallowed under the ‘no weapons’ policy, Lukal Lukal stomped his feet and the sand coalesced into a trident in his right hand.

The apparition – unless this was the real one – did not even hesitate as it reached out and ice coalesced into a spear of its own.

Blade met haft and haft met blade as they exchanged thrust and counter thrust.

“If I stab you will you bleed?” Lukal Lukal demanded. “I shall endeavor to find out!”

“Please do!” Po Guah said, and the battle intensified.

Grinning like a madman, Lukal Lukal brought everything he had to bear. Every hour of practice with his older brothers, who now walked the path ahead of him. Every solitary moment of exercise with the spear. Every waking dream as he contemplated his kata.

Po Guah’s eyes opened, and then he grinned. “A dreamer?” he asked. “Excellent. Let us see what you can do, fellow traveler!”

And the apparition split in twain, and Lukal Lukal went from being on the offensive to the defensive as the twin avatars pressed him back.

Under the pressure, he slowly felt his stance begin to deteriorate. His focus waver. Openings in his guard, and the ice of the spear’s blade scratching against his skin as they reached him, doing no damage but only because their wielder held the injury back somehow.

He approached the limit, and he grudgingly accepted it. He had been beaten.

“I submit,” he whispered, and the fight stopped at once.

“I acknowledge you, mighty warrior. What is your name?” Po Guah asked.

“I am Lukal Lukal.”

The apparition turned and shouted “I declare that Lukal Lukal’s spear did break my defense three times!”

The coliseum roared in applause. It took Lukal Lukal a moment to realize that the other combatants that he had started the fight with all lay defeated on the ground. Only he remained standing.

“I won?” he asked.

“No,” Po Guah said more quietly. “But you have pushed me further than the others, and I thank you for the privilege of crossing spears with you. I would ask for another opportunity once the tournament has finished.”

“It would be a pleasure and an honor,” Lukal Lukal said as the crowd continued to cheer.

~~~~~

“You are Hien Ro?” the stranger asked. Ro’s cackles raised in suspicion, but under his senses it was no more than a mortal woman who spoke with a heavy accent. It was the evening after the first challenge round, and Ro was walking home, reflecting on the days events. He had not seen his master since the morning, and he was growing concerned.

“I am,” he admitted.

“Your master bade me give you this,” she said, handing over an envelope. Hien Ro quickly broke the seal and read the contents, relaxing slightly.

“Take me to see him,” Ro said, and he was brought into a hotel which had been emptied for the use of the guests of the Raging River Sect prior to the tournament. He climbed the stairs and found Little Bug sitting with a book in one hand, a pen in the other.

“Ah, good. There you are,” Little Bug said. Abruptly he split in two. Hien Ro was surprised to find that he could tell the difference between the real one and the false.

“How might I help, oh ancient one?” Hien Ro said, a bit of mockery in his voice.

“Oh shut up. Technically we’re all the same age,” Little Bug said. “It just depends on how long ago your memories start. As for what I need from you, I’m going to hide for a while.”

Ro’s eyebrows rose. “And here I thought that you were becoming a celebrity.”

“I am, and that’s the problem,” Little Bug said. “I’m going to hide out in the ring. I’ll come out for the challenge rounds, but the rest of the time I’ll be hiding there. I’m leaving behind this avatar to carry out public appearances and such until I’m ready to emerge and ascend to the next realm.”

“When you say ascend—”

“I mean the bronze path. I’m not done with this world yet,” Little Bug said. “Come, give me your hand—”

“Wait,” Ro said. He paused, looking at his friend. “Tell me how to win the tournament before you go.”

“You don’t win that, Ro,” Little Bug said. “But you already have a prize worth a thousand times what you would have gotten for doing so. Tell Yara that I said hello, and congratulations. You should find a priest before long to make it official.”

“Wha—”

Hien Ro was blushing and sputtering as Little Bug vanished into the spatial ring. He shook his head as the Dao Avatar pretended to read leisurely.

“Does he hear what I tell you?” Ro asked.

“If he wants to. In this case he made the cut quite clean. I am a disposable edifice, to contain memories that nobody wants or cares about. No authority, no agency. Only one purpose, to present a false face to the world. That’s all I am.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Yes. Goodbye, Hien Ro,” the avatar said.

Hien Ro retreated from the room, explaining to the spies who met him on the base floor of the hotel that no, what was discussed was none of their business and leave him alone. He retreated from the hotel, then vanished across the rooftops to avoid mortal pursuit.

The receptionist sent someone to the Awakened Soul’s room to check on him once his ‘friend’ had departed, but was relieved to find him still reading leisurely.

They discussed a few matters briefly, and the Awakened Soul requested to eat at a local restaurant.

He ordered the entire menu, and dancers, and musicians.

Nothing was decided, but a smiling young Po Guah was seen by many people being pliable and easily distracted.

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